Military says it targeted the jihadist group throughout Syria in response to attack on US and Syrian troops in Palmyra

US and allied forces carried out “large-scale” strikes against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria on Saturday, the US military said, in the latest response to an attack last month that left three Americans dead.

Washington said a lone gunman from the militant group carried out the 13 December attack in Palmyra, which killed two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter. The area is home to Unesco-listed ancient ruins and was once controlled by jihadist fighters.

It sums up the uneasy state of affairs at Chelsea that the new head coach winning his first match in charge was not enough to stop the mutiny. This was a controlled, clinical performance from Liam Rosenior’s second string, who strolled into the fourth round of the FA Cup after a 5-1 win over a game but limited Charlton Athletic, but once again the big talking point was the travelling support spewing venom in the direction of their unpopular owners.

Dissatisfaction with the project is not going away. It did not even matter when Rosenior looked at his bench with Chelsea 3-1 up in the second half and decided to give Estevão Willian a runout against tired, lowly Championship opposition. The Brazilian winger is one of the best young players in the world and his runs were soon making Charlton’s defenders dizzy, but even signings like Estevão have done little to sway the view of a fanbase united in opposition to an ownership almost four years in and still to convince naysayers that their unique project is going to work.

Jacques Moretti, who is in custody, told Swiss prosecutor’s office he forced door open and found people lying behind it

The French owner of the Swiss bar where 40 people died in a fire during new year celebrations has told investigators a service door had been locked from the inside.

Jacques Moretti, co-owner of the Constellation bar in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana, was taken into custody on Friday, as prosecutors investigated the tragedy.

The romance of the FA Cup in Cleethorpes, ultimately, was limited to a good old-fashioned away following of 571 hardy yet boisterous souls from Weston-super-Mare.

The Seagull Army twice wildly celebrated second-half equalisers through Luke Coulson and their predatory striker Louis Britton before Grimsby substitute Kieran Green’s looping header settled the match and ended Weston’s stirring six-game run in the competition.

Why is the film of Ireland’s 2002 World Cup falling-out not a documentary but a drama that takes liberties with events?

All history is to some extent narrative. You cannot tell a story without in some way editing it, reducing it, compressing it. Which means that anybody telling a story about a historical event, particularly one from the relatively recent past, risks outraging those who have studied it or who remember it. Often those complaints are pedantic, trivial, but sometimes they are not. It’s one thing to elide two minor characters or to tweak the timeline to simplify a story, quite another to imply misleading motivations.

Saipan, Glenn Leyburn’s and Lisa Barros D’Sa’s film about the cataclysmic row between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy shortly before the 2002 World Cup, came out in Ireland on Boxing Day and will be released in the UK on 23 January. It is obsessed by detail: the tracksuits, the sweatshirts, the kits are all right. It’s startling when the film cuts between reproductions of interviews and press conferences and actual footage to realise just how accurately these scenes have been recreated. Which raises two questions. What is the point? And how can such care have been taken over the look of the film when there are such grotesque inventions and inaccuracies in the plotting and motivation?

⚽ Updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off at The Valley
⚽ Latest scores | Read Football Daily | Mail Rob

5 min Badiashile gets an early yellow card for pulling down Leaburn, who was in the Chelsea academy until the age of 16.

4 min Campbell’s low cross from the left is put behind for a corner by Andrey Santos. Bree takes, Jorgensen punches a little unconvincingly but gets away with it.

This was Tottenham’s second defeat to Aston Villa this season and it is becoming increasingly hard to imagine Thomas Frank being in charge when the teams come together a third time in May. A performance that put an end to any realistic chance of a trophy fell well below the expectations of a furious crowd. That their opponents currently offer the diametric opposite of Tottenham’s dysfunction can only have heightened the sting.

Goals from Emi Buendía and Morgan Rogers put this tie to bed for Villa in the first half, Wilson Odobert’s strike after half-time bringing a closeness to the scoreline that was not reflected in the general play. A scuffle on the field at the final whistle involving Rogers, João Palhinha and a host of Tottenham players only added further sourness to the occasion.

• Celtic win 4-0, equalling biggest victory of the season

• Bowie scores equaliser as Hibs and Motherwell draw 1-1

Martin O’Neill warned Celtic could be in trouble if they do not strengthen their squad despite resuming his supervision of the team with a 4-0 victory over Dundee United. A dominant display seemingly banished concerns there might be lasting damage from Wilfried Nancy’s brief but torrid tenure, when Celtic lost six out of eight games.

O’Neill returned to oversee a first clean sheet since his final game in caretaker charge and equal the two biggest wins of the Premiership season, which also came under his watch. Two first-half goals in five minutes, from Yang Hyun-jun and Arne Engels, sent Celtic on their way, with substitute Benjamin Nygren and Daizen Maeda scoring after the break. “We played really well,” said the 73-year-old. “It was nice to see players performing well, playing with confidence, and it was just nice to win.”

The comedian and actor on her favourite Bond film, revisiting the Death Star canteen and escaping the red carpet with Brad Pitt

When you started performing your one-woman Hamlet, how much did you labour over your delivery of the play’s most iconic lines, such as “To be or not to be”?

The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt very at home. I thought, “That’s unusual – I should be quaking in my boots!” I just felt very at ease and happy to be there. But the first time I performed “to be or not to be” on stage, there was a sense of – aren’t bells supposed to ring here? Isn’t there supposed to be a klaxon?

Making a star of Murphy the labrador seemed like a harmless and plausible quest. But I hadn’t reckoned with all kinds of costs

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Eddie sits at a cafe dressed in a turtleneck and blue beret. “On a scale of 10-10, rate how good I look,” the caption to his post reads.

The socialite’s page is full of candid content: enjoying a doughnut at a popular Melbourne brunch spot, relaxing in a chic robe and celebrating a paid “staycation” at the Hyatt House in Melbourne, adorned in a leopard print outfit.

At first, Alyssa Moore and Jacob Randell kept their romance a secret from their circus troupe; but as the world shut down, they took a leap together

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The first time Jake and I crossed paths was at a circus festival in Bathurst. It was 2010 and I was in my last year of high school. Aspiring circus troupes from across the country had gathered to showcase their acts. It felt like all eyes were on Jake’s group from Adelaide, they were incredibly talented. I definitely remember him – I even took one of his workshops – but didn’t think much more of it.

I left my home town, Ulladulla, not long after, trained at the National Institute of Circus Arts and launched a freelance acrobatic career in Melbourne. Meanwhile Jake’s troupe had become a company. Gravity & Other Myths was on the ascent, touring internationally, so when a position came up for a flyer I didn’t hesitate to apply.

Kiran was left with her in-laws in a Indian village thousands of kilometres from her husband in Brisbane – but the CCTV was always watching her

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Kiran’s* husband was more than 10,000km away from the home she shared with her in-laws in a village in northern India. But despite the vast distance, he watched her constantly through cameras which beamed into a screen in his Brisbane home.

“He would say: ‘I can always see what you do’,” she recalls through an interpreter.

From the best exercise moves to how many steps you really need to aim for a day, experts weigh in on how to maintain hip health throughout your life

When Elvis the pelvis gyrated and thrust his way across national television screens, audiences were delighted and censors were scandalised. But physiotherapists were probably standing up in their seats cheering at the display of such healthy and limber hip movements.

Hips are a key weight-bearing joint, yet we rarely give them the amount of love and attention they deserve.

Rob Smethurst’s resurrection of a troubled but proud club is timely reminder that football can still be the people’s game

From extinction to the impossible dream of becoming the greatest FA Cup giantkillers of all, Macclesfield’s story reminds that community will forever be football’s greatest asset. As fans celebrated victory over the holders, Crystal Palace, many took their time to peel away from the stadium. Not too long ago, many feared they may never return to Moss Rose.

Macclesfield Town FC, 1874-2020 was the etching on the gravestone of the club that died, mourned quietly by a town that had slowly lost touch with events at the shambling football ground on its southern tip, pretty much the last stop before the long drive to London begins.

Aaron Ramsdale was Newcastle’s hero as they edged past Bournemouth into the FA Cup fourth round on penalties. The on-loan Southampton goalkeeper saved from Evanilson, Álex Jiménez and Bafodé Diakité to seal a 7-6 shootout win after a pulsating encounter had ended 3-3 after 120 minutes. However, Eddie Howe was counting the cost, with Tuesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at home to Manchester City in mind.

Marcus Tavernier had taken the tie to penalties with an equaliser in the second minute of stoppage time at the end of extra time seconds after Harvey Barnes thought he had won it for Newcastle. The hosts had led through a Barnes goal, but trailed 2-1 after Alex Scott and David Brooks scored in quick succession before Anthony Gordon’s late spot-kick.

• Egypt to take on Senegal after beating Ivory Coast

• Nigeria progress to face hosts Morocco in last four

Mohamed Salah scored the decisive goal to give Egypt a narrow 3-2 Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final victory against Ivory Coast, while strikes from Victor Osimhen and Akor Adams delivered Nigeria a deserved 2-0 victory over Algeria.

Omar Marmoush struck Egypt’s opener and Salah scored the decisive goal as they ended Ivory Coast’s reign, with defender Rami Rabia also on the scoresheet. The Egyptians had little possession at the Grande Stade Agadir but took their chances with clinical precision and held on to book a semi-final with Senegal on Wednesday.

⚽ Updates from the FA Cup tie kicking off at 5.45pm GMT
⚽ Scores | Read Football Daily | Mail John

Peep! Off we go then. Spurs get things under way.

Before we kick-off the players, fans and a throng of Spurs legends on the touchline observe a minute’s applause for Martin Chivers and Terry Yorath.

St Louis zoo identified the stray simians as vervet monkeys, but it’s not known where they came from

Some residents in St Louis, Missouri, spotted monkeys roaming their streets this week in a situation that feels like the movie Jumanji come to life.

A handful of monkeys were spotted in north St Louis by residents on Friday.

After 52 minutes, joy for Antoine Semenyo on his Manchester City debut. Rayan Cherki’s pirouette presaged him threading the ball in behind Exeter’s defence for the wideman to run in and beat Joe Whitworth to cap a memorable display. A little later Semenyo was replaced to an ovation and, from his seat in the stands, the suspended Pep Guardiola, in a flat cap and winter coat, approved, too.

Tijjani Reijnders’ curled finish, Nico O’Reilly’s flicked header, an 18-yard shot by another debutant, Ryan McAidoo, and Rico Lewis’s second completed City’s goal-plunder, while the substitute George Birch, 19, smashed home a memorable first Exeter goal for their consolation.

USDA notified state’s governor of decision, citing inquiries into alleged fraud by local non-profits and businesses

The Trump administration announced it is suspending $129m in federal benefit payments to Minnesota amid allegations of widespread fraud in the state.

The secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins, shared a letter on Friday on social media that was addressed to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, notifying them of the administration’s decision and citing investigations into alleged fraud conducted by local non-profits and businesses.

Exclusive: US vice-president ‘sympathetic’ to concerns over Grok-generated pornography, says deputy PM

JD Vance, the US vice-president, has agreed that it is “entirely unacceptable” for platforms such as X to allow the proliferation of AI-generated sexualised images of women and children, David Lammy has told the Guardian.

The deputy prime minister said Vance, usually known as an AI enthusiast, expressed concern about how the technology was being used to fuel “hyper-pornographied slop” online when they met in Washington on Thursday.

⚽ Updates from the last-eight tie; kick-off 4pm GMT
⚽ Live scores | Read Football Daily | Mail Xaymaca

12 min: Algeria are getting a foothold in the game now. The midfield four string together a few passes neatly before the Nigeria defence cut it out.

9 min: There’s more early pressure from Nigeria. Frank Onyeka meets a cross on the volley but he struggles to hit it with any conviction. Algeria clear the ball off the line.

Hopes that tougher sanctions and lower oil prices could derail Putin’s war effort underestimate how far the Kremlin has rewired its economy

Pacing inside the Kremlin last weekend, as news feeds churned out minute-by-minute reports of Donald’s Trump’s Venezuelan coup, Vladimir Putin may have been wondering what it would mean for the price of oil.

Crude oil has lubricated the Russian economy for decades – far more than gas exports to Europe – and so the threat of falling oil prices, prompted by US plans for control of Venezuela’s rigs, will have been a source of concern.

Disillusioned with the revolution after 68 years of US sanctions and a shattered economy, one in four Cubans have left in four years. Can the regime, and country, survive the engulfing ‘polycrisis’?

Hatri Echazabal Orta lives in Madrid, Spain. Maykel Fernández is in Charlotte, in the US, while Cristian Cuadra remains in Havana, Cuba – for now. All Cubans, all raised on revolutionary ideals and educated in good state-run schools, they have become disillusioned with the cherished national narrative that Cuba is a country of revolution and resistance. Facing a lack of political openness and poor economic prospects, each of them made the same decision: to leave.

They are not alone. After 68 years of partial sanctions and nearly 64 years of total economic embargo by the US, independent demographic studies suggest that Cuba is going through the world’s fastest population decline and is probably already below 8 million – a 25% drop in just four years, suggesting its population has shrunk by an average of about 820,000 people a year.