• Updates from 8pm kickoff (GMT) at Anfield

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Fabian Hürzeler speaks to TNT. “Every game is an opportunity to make it better than the last game … a good opportunity to get back on track … to keep focussing on our performance … enforcing our habits … stick to our principles … to go to a big stadium against a big opponent and try to have the belief to win this game … it’s important to keep focusing on the small margins … defensive stability … the belief that we can go to every stadium in the world and play our style of play … courage in possession and out of possession … we have quality … we are capable of beating everyone … confidence … key principles … our players have to trust in ourselves … it is do or die so we have to go all-in … a great opportunity to go to the next round.”

He also stresses his belief in 17-year-old Harry Howell, who only made his full Premier League debut last week against Crystal Palace, and is making his first FA Cup appearance tonight. “We all have trust and belief in him … he showed a good performance against Palace and Villa so deserves to be on the pitch … we all see a guy who is really looking forward to this game … a lot of courage and belief in his own quality … I hope he plays a good game tonight.”

Love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young, but this narrative lags behind reality

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we are once again flooded with the usual suspects: roses, chocolates, sophisticated dinners and glossy ads featuring young heterosexual couples staring earnestly into each other’s eyes. The problem isn’t just that this version of romance is exclusionary – though it is – it’s that it’s profoundly out of step with how love is actually being lived, negotiated and reimagined in contemporary Australia.

Culturally, love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young. From Romeo and Juliet to Normal People, from Bridget Jones to When Harry Met Sally, romantic fulfilment is depicted as something you secure early; ideally before your knees give out or your mortgage locks in. The message is consistent: find love in your twenties or thirties, settle down, and then coast (emotionally paired and narratively complete) until death do you part.

Lisa Portolan is an academic. Her latest book is 10 Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep it. She will appear in ‘Heterofatalism’ at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on 8 March

There was a language barrier, a mother who burned their letters and a record label manager who disapproved. But Kerry Cox and Hitomi were madly in love

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In my early 20s, I quit my job in New Zealand and moved to Sydney to study martial arts. In 1982, after competing in the World Pugilist championships in Hong Kong, I hitchhiked around Japan for a month or so, then headed for Korea via ferry in January of 1983. I’d heard air fares were cheap from Korea. No internet back then!

While boarding, I was approached by a very attractive Japanese woman, with limited English, who told me that if I bought one box of bananas and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label, I could pay for most of my trip in Korea. These items were very much in demand back then.

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Institutional menace and an idealistic take on redemption sit side-by-side in Top Boy actor Ashley Walters’ empathic and occasionally over-earnest film

The lawless brutality of a young offender institution is the setting for this British movie written by Marching Powder’s Nick Love and directed by Ashley Walters. It’s a place where terrified newbies realise they can survive only by abandoning their innocence and decency, and submitting to the gang authority of a psycho top G, naturally involving a horrible loyalty test.

This is a place where drugs arrive by drone, where facially tattooed men meet each other’s gaze with a cool opaque challenge in the canteen, and where the cues and balls on the recreation area’s pool table have only one purpose: to give someone a three-month stay in the hospital wing while underpaid guards in lanyards and ill-fitting v-neck jumpers look the other way.

Residents who escaped violence tell of bandits riding in on motorbikes and shooting indiscriminately

Armed assailants on motorbikes killed at least 30 people and burned houses and shops during raids on three villages in north-west Nigeria’s Niger state early on Saturday, residents who escaped the violence told Reuters.

The attacks on villages in the Borgu local government area, near the border with Benin Republic, are part of a surge in attacks blamed on “bandits” who have carried out deadly assaults, abductions for ransom, and displaced communities across northern Nigeria.

Pep Guardiola spoke of the slog of the schedule and Manchester City performed as if dog-tired when knocking out Salford in a tie the manager pithily described as “boring”.

City were abject and half-paced and in danger of being forced into extra time, at least, until Marc Guéhi’s 80th-minute close-range strike doubled the lead. It was the defender’s first goal for the club he joined last month.

• England captain has 41 goals in all competitions

• Quansah on target as Leverkusen thrash St Pauli

Harry Kane scored twice in the first half as Bayern Munich cruised to a 3-0 win at Werder Bremen, restoring their six-point lead in the Bundesliga. Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 win over Mainz on Friday put them within three points of the league leaders but Bayern responded.

Bayern were in control from start to finish in Bremen, with Leon Goretzka joining the England captain on the scoresheet in the 70th minute. Kane now has 26 goals in 22 Bundesliga games this season and 41 in all competitions, 13 of those from the penalty spot.

Speaking with progressive YouTuber, former US president stressed ‘unprecedented nature’ of agency’s actions

Barack Obama publicly gave his support to demonstrators in Minneapolis for standing up to the “unprecedented nature” of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Minnesota.

Speaking in an interview with progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen on Saturday, the former president discussed the power that US citizens hold when standing up for the values they believe in and his hopes for the next generation of American leaders.

Wall Street Journal says Claude used in operation via Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir Technologies

Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Saturday, a high-profile example of how the US defence department is using artificial intelligence in its operations.

The US raid on Venezuela involved bombing across the capital, Caracas, and the killing of 83 people, according to Venezuela’s defence ministry. Anthropic’s terms of use prohibit the use of Claude for violent ends, for the development of weapons or for conducting surveillance.

With 2026 being the year of the fire horse, this spicy number has a suitable kick to mark the occasion

Here’s a spicy little number that will help you see in the lunar new year in style on 17 February.

Rron Rakoci, mixologist, Huŏ, London

• Updates from 5.45pm (GMT) game at Villa Park

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1 min: Tammy Abraham gets the ball rolling, playing it a few yards backwards to Amadou Onana. Within seconds it finds its way to the feet of Villa goalkeeper Marco Bizot.

Not long now: Kieran Trippier and Lucas Digne skipper the sides, which are led out on to the Villa Park pitch by referee Chris Kavanagh and his team of match officials soundtracked by Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. Kick-off is just a couple of minutes away.

Mansfield gave blood and sweat to reach the FA Cup fifth round for the first time in more than 50 years and reduced a desperate Burnley to tears. A stunning Louis Reed free-kick completed a hard-fought turnaround for the League One side against their labouring Premier League opponents.

There is little doubt that Burnley are getting relegated, leaving the Cup as their only hope of salvaging a desperate season, but they lacked quality from start to finish on another dispiriting day for Scott Parker. Mansfield were not necessarily the better side but Nigel Clough’s men worked harder, leaving the fans and players celebrating long after the game was over.

• Ireland 20-13 Italy

• Azzurri led at half-time for first time in Dublin

After what felt like 40 days and 40 nights of darkness and rain, the sun came out in Dublin. Cold, yes, and a grey day by kick-off, but bright enough to throw light on an Ireland side scrambling for their footing, and a bullish Italy one looking to break new ground.

Neither quite worked out. Never having won a Six Nations game in Dublin might be the sort of statistic to weigh you down but the Azzurri carried it here like a backpack with only a couple of bits and bobs. What they achieved was to give the Championship a highly competitive performance that was heartening, but not worthy of a note in history.

Senators said repeal was ‘particularly troubling’ and was counter to EPA’s mandate to protect human health

More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.

Ilia Malinin entered the Olympic free skate as the runaway favorite. Early mistakes triggered a meltdown that laid bare the brutal math of modern figure skating

What made Ilia Malinin’s Olympic defeat so shocking was not simply his years-long dominance entering Friday night. It was how completely the competition had tilted in his favor before he even stepped on the ice.

For nearly three years, Malinin had been men’s skating’s guiding light: unbeaten since late 2023, winner of back-to-back world titles, the skater who recalibrated the sport’s technical ceiling and then made winning look procedural. He arrived at the Milano Ice Skating Arena leading by more than five points after the short program and carrying the most difficult planned program in the field. Under almost any normal competitive logic, that combination should have been decisive.

HMRC figures show 11% rise in young million-pound earners, with influencers and tech pay cited as key

Their generation is often derided for being work-shy, self-centred and overly sensitive. But when it comes to making money, people under 30 are proving they are something else entirely: successful.

A record 1,000 taxpayers under 30 earned more than £1m last year, an 11% increase on the year before, HMRC records show.

• Norwegian-born skier storms to historic slalom gold

• ‘Your difference is your superpower,’ says 25-year-old

As the snow fell in Bormio, and the fog settled in, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen made history by becoming the first South American to win a Winter Olympic medal. Then, as the realisation that he had won gold for Brazil in the men’s giant slalom, he collapsed to the floor and allowed the tears to flow.

“I just hope that Brazilians look at this and truly understand that your difference is your superpower,” he said, still sobbing away. “It may show up in your skin or in the way you dress. But I hope this inspires every kid out there who feels a bit different to trust who you are.”

Partners on and off the ice talk about the tensions and joys of competing alongside the ones they love at the Winter Olympics

Every Olympics has its love stories. Usually, they’re all about the quantities of free prophylactics being handed out in the athletes’ village (this year’s edition has an image of the Olympic mascots, the friendly stoats Milo and Tina, on the box). But you have to look a little harder to find the great romances of these Games, which have been on the ice rink in Cortina, where, for the large part of the past week, a trio of married couples were competing against each other in the mixed doubles curling. It is essentially a competitive lovers’ stress test held in front of a live audience.

It’s a peculiarity of the Winter Olympics that there are so many partners partnering with each other in different events. There were two in the ice dancing: the US pair of Madison Chock and Evan Bates won silver and the Italians Marco Fabbri and Charlène Guignard came fourth. Which is all very well. But if you want to see a relationship you can actually relate to, curling was the sport to watch. It’s as if they made an Olympic event out of sharing the front of the car with your partner on a road trip with a map and no satnav.

Epstein files release shows David Stern advised against mentioning ‘being denied previously or criminal charges’

An aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor advised Jeffrey Epstein to illegally hide his child sexual abuse conviction to obtain a visa to China, according to the latest Epstein files release.

David Stern, who was a close associate of both Epstein and the then prince, was asked for his help after the disgraced financier’s initial application for a visa was rejected.

• Group C: England, 155-5, bt Scotland 152 all out, by 5 wkts

• Banton hits seven boundaries in unbeaten 63

In the city where a few handfuls of rupees were melted down to make the original Calcutta Cup, it was Scotland who lost their shape when the heat started to rise and the pressure to build. England won by five wickets and, though it was ultimately emphatic, it was not exactly a rediscovery of peak form, even if Tom Banton located his with the 41-ball 63 that powered his team to victory.

“We haven’t made it as easy as we would have liked so far but hopefully we can have a slightly easier run starting with Italy on Monday,” the captain Harry Brook said. “We haven’t played our best cricket yet but we’re in a strong position. World Cups aren’t always smooth sailing. We’d rather not start amazing and finish amazing than start amazing and finish bad.”

Social media account for Palmerston, who retired in 2020, announces death of ‘Diplocat extraordinaire’

Palmerston, a rescue cat who became the chief mouser of the Foreign Office, has died in Bermuda.

The cat, adopted from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, retired in 2020 after four years of service in Whitehall.

Cases among younger people are rising – such as with actor James Van Der Beek, who died on 11 February at age 48

Actor James Van Der Beek died on 11 February, aged 48; he had been diagnosed in 2023 with colorectal cancer.

According to the World Health Organization, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. While rates are declining overall, cases among younger people are rising.

Museum’s revitalised galleries bring together 250 objects to show how design shapes modern life

What do the first ever baby monitor, Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup kit, an 80s boombox, the smashed parts of Edward Snowden’s computer, a “Please offer me a seat” badge and a Labubu have in common? They are all included in the V&A’s Design 1990-Now galleries, which reopen to the public this week.

The galleries, which run across two rooms on the upper floors of the museum, also house a collection of antique books. The displays cover six different themes including housing and living, crisis and conflict, and consumption and identity, rather than in a strict chronological order.

Bouquets imported to Europe found to be heavily contaminated, often with chemicals banned in EU and UK

Stay away from roses this Valentine’s Day, environmental campaigners have warned after testing revealed them to be heavily contaminated with pesticides.

Laboratory testing on bouquets in the Netherlands, Europe’s flower import hub, found roses had the highest residues of neurological and reproductive toxins compared with other flowers.