Champion will face Rico Verhoeven for WBC belt in May
‘I respect people who reach the very top in their sport’
Oleksandr Usyk, who has not fought since a fifth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois at Wembley in July, will defend his WBC heavyweight title against a kickboxer at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The bout with Rico Verhoeven, dubbed “Glory in Giza”, will be the first title fight held in Egypt, according to The Ring magazine, on 23 May and will be streamed live on Dazn.
The singular director has made a second film about the King of Rock, and Roll and this time audiences will get to see a side of him they’ve never seen before
In the spring of 1972, a film crew trailed Elvis Presley everywhere he went to capture a pivotal moment in his career – his first tour in nearly a decade. Ironically, one of the most crucial things that happened during that project occurred way off camera. “We really wanted to get an interview with Elvis on film,” said Jerry Schilling, a confidant and employee of the King who at that time was working for the company behind the movie. “But he was tired when we were going to do it and for whatever reason we never wound up getting anything on camera.”
They did, however, get Presley to talk casually on tape for about 40 minutes, during which he said things he never put on record before. That was enough to raise concerns for his notoriously censorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who insured that little of that talk saw the light of day during his lifetime.
‘Rebranded’ terror group seeks to recruit those alienated by Damascus government’s western pivot
On the surface, all that remains of Islamic State in the Syrian town of Baghuz are discarded tubs of whitening cream, spent RPG motors and children’s backpacks, with an old grenade nestled in the frayed pink nylon.
It was here nearly seven years ago that IS made its last stand. Its most zealous followers were obliterated along with the blood-soaked caliphate they fought to defend. Their bodies were collected and buried next to the town graveyard, while bulldozers came and sealed the entire area under a layer of heavy yellow earth.
He may not be a cyclist, but the photographer was drawn by this bike shop’s jumble of frames and parts
Michael Krupka had passed Philadelphia’s Via Bicycle repair shop for years before he ventured inside. As a photographer rather than a cyclist, he was drawn by the jumble of frames and parts in the front window. “My father was a machinist and when I was a child we had a workshop at home where he could repair pretty much anything mechanical he encountered,” Krupka recalls. “As an artsy kid, I didn’t inherit those skills, but I do have an aesthetic attraction to machines and mechanical things.”
Krupka was out that day on what he describes as an “intentional photo hunt”. He asked a guy repairing a bike near the entrance for permission. “He just shrugged and carried on,” Krupka says. “I’d hoped to capture the graphic chaos against the backlit window. What I found was an even more tangled scene, with even more bikes in the foreground, which I used for the bottom third of the composition,” he says. “The shot has something of a maze or jigsaw element, too, a kind of puzzle that might have interesting things to find within it.”
We cannot know where this foolish, reckless attack will end – but new hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown and, ultimately, little will be achieved
They never learn. Once again, a bellicose US president has unleashed overwhelming military firepower to force a sovereign nation to its knees. Once again, blatant lies and exaggerated claims are being propagated to justify the attack. Duplicitous American diplomacy became a fig leaf for premeditated aggression. The cautionary advice of allies was spurned. The UN, international law and public opinion were ignored. Democratic consent is lacking. And once again, there are few defined goals by which to gauge success, and no long-term plan.
Now, as in the past, the predictable result of today’s renewed, expanded and apparently open-ended US-Israeli aggression against Iran will be instant, spreading chaos. Civilians will be killed, children orphaned, families torn apart. Regional turmoil and international oil-price panic will follow the Iranian retaliation that has already begun, and which may be backed by Tehran’s Hezbollah and Houthi allies. New hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown. The west’s foes will rejoice. And nothing of enduring value will be achieved. That was the bitter outcome of the failed US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, it’s Tehran’s turn to reap the whirlwind.
The attack mounted jointly by Israel and the US on Iran had been planned for months, but the timing, in the midst of negotiations between Iran and the US, will again raise questions about whether Washington was ever serious about striking a deal with Tehran.
In June last year, Israel, with the US later in tow, launched a 10-day attack on Iran just three days before Iran and the US were due to meet for a sixth set of talks.
Steve Borthwick started the Six Nations with a settled group but the journey to Australia 2027 has suddenly become a lot more complicated
Not so long ago, Steve Borthwick’s squad for the 2027 World Cup was taking shape nicely. He picked a largely predictable 36-man group for the Six Nations and the same can be said of his matchday 23 to face Wales in England’s championship opener. Borthwick is a loyal coach who relies heavily on depth charts and the exodus of so many players to France after the last World Cup made a number of difficult decisions for him much easier. Just how tailored his squad is to the 2027 tournament is demonstrated by his refusal to pick the Bordeaux-bound Tom Willis on the basis he will not be available despite being awarded an enhanced contract last summer.
Suddenly, on the back of two heavy defeats and shocking performances, things are not nearly as settled. Comparisons have been made with the 2018 Six Nations in which England also bombed. Eddie Jones reacted by deciding that a clutch of senior players such as Chris Robshaw, James Haskell, Mike Brown and Dylan Hartley would not keep going to the 2019 World Cup. There are also similarities with the 2023 World Cup warm-up matches when a number of players played their way out of Borthwick’s thinking. Here we take a look at which stalwarts are now under pressure, those in the maybe pile, who has advanced their case and who may emerge from left field.
Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the ‘most hopeful person’ before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbot
On 7 August, Kate Fox received a phone call that upended her life. A medical examiner said that her husband, Joe Ceccanti – who had been missing for several hours – had jumped from a railway overpass and died. He was 48.
Fox couldn’t believe it. Ceccanti had no history of depression, she said, nor was he suicidal – he was the “most hopeful person” she had ever known. In fact, according to the witness accounts shared with Fox later, just before Ceccanti jumped, he smiled and yelled: “I’m great!” to the rail yard attendants below when they asked him if he was OK.
Few clues as to how 10 heavily armed men intercepted on stolen speedboat came together from across Florida or what they hoped to achieve
Foot traffic was slow outside the Bay of Pigs Museum on Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood. A few tourists in T-shirts and shorts bypassed the gallery dedicated to one of the most fateful days in Cuba’s history and headed instead to nearby Máximo Gómez Park to take photographs of Cuban exiles playing dominoes.
This is the street at the heart of the Cuban expat community of more than 1 million people where tens of thousands partied through the night in November 2016 to celebrate the death of Fidel Castro, and where they gathered in sorrow almost exactly 30 years ago to mourn four Cuban-Americans shot down by the communist country’s air force as they conducted a mission for the humanitarian exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
Forget snake yoga. All it takes to increase your life expectancy is factoring a set of simple exercises into your weekly routine
Are you still keeping up with your 2026 resolution to exercise more? Or perhaps you’re just trying to survive the winter doldrums, with exercise the last thing on your mind. Whatever it is, social media is alight with fitness influencers showing off all kinds of bizarre and viral exercise trends.
Take squats, a core exercise move. Those don’t seem good enough any more, so now we have Zercher squats (holding a barbell in your elbow crease like a metal baby), squats on vibration plates, squats while throwing a heavy ball and on and on. Some of these exercises may in fact be good, some useless, but because influencers can’t be seen to be doing the same thing every day, the key thing is that they’re novel and can be sold as “the little-known secret exercise that everyone should be doing”.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Donald Trump said the US had begun 'major combat operations' in Iran, warning that there may be US casualties. The strikes, which the US president said were aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and annihilating its navy, follow repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike Iran again if it pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Trump told members of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's armed forces, to lay down their weapons, promising they would be granted immunity. The other option, according to Trump, was 'certain death'
Blasts have been heard in several cities, including the capital, Tehran, and Isfahan in central Iran.
Reuters reports there are long queues at petrol stations in the capital, as many people try to leave. An unnamed Iranian official who spoke to the news agency said several ministries in southern Tehran had been targeted.
And what about this chat with the Premier League’s all-time top appearance-maker, Mr James Milner?
It turns out to keep playing as long Milner has, it helps to do yoga, be teetotal and have a direct line to Gareth Barry.
When I was growing up my biggest idol was probably Neuer. I take pride in being an all-around goalkeeper and that’s why I was such a big fan because he didn’t really have a weak point. But I try to learn something from everyone because everyone has strong points.
Butter, her novel about a female serial killer, was a global hit. As Asako Yuzuki’s second book is published in English, she talksabout criticism at home – and why she’ll be writing darker stories in the future
The next time Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki comes to the UK, she would like to bake some traditional Japanese muffins for Paul Hollywood on The Great British Bake Off, she says when we meet over video call. It is evening in Tokyo, where she lives with her partner and eight-year-old son. “I’ve had my bath and am ready for bed,” she explains, via translator Bethan Jones, apologising for being in her pyjamas. She thinks the Bake Off judge would be particularly impressed by “marubouro” muffins, from Nagasaki. “Kazuo Ishiguro also comes from Nagasaki and British people love Ishiguro, so they are bound to love these muffins,” she continues. “They go very well with tea.”
As anyone who has read Yuzuki’s international bestseller Butter will know, Yuzuki is all about food. Based on the 2009 real-life “Konkatsu Killer” case (konkatsu means marriage hunting), in which 35-year-old Kanae Kijima was convicted of poisoning three men, Butter follows the relationship between journalist Rika Machida and Manako Kajii, a serial killer and gourmet cook, through a succession of interviews in Tokyo Detention Centre. Yuzuki even signed up for the high-class cookery school in Tokyo that Kijima attended as research. The result is an irresistible mix of social satire and feminist thriller, dripping with descriptions of buttery rice and soy sauce.
Legendary nightclub Le Palace, where Serge Gainsbourg and Prince also performed, to rise again
In the late 1970s, Le Palace in Paris’s busy theatre district was one of continental Europe’s most famous nightclubs.
On the opening night on 1 March 1978, Grace Jones stunned VIP guests with her rendition of Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie en Rose. Later, Serge Gainsbourg and Prince came to perform, Bob Marley was photographed there and Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and Karl Lagerfeld were part of a glittering cast of international celebrities, politicians, designers and models who came to drink and dance.
On Saturday morning, the US and Israel launched a series of strikes on Iran.
In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it fired missiles against US military bases in the Gulf.
Explosions were reported in Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar. One person was killed by shrapnel from an Iranian missile in the UAE, officials said.
Explosions shook the Iranian capital Tehran, where people reported seeing smoke rising from the district that includes the presidential palace.
Iran also launched multiple waves of missiles at Israel, with blasts reported in the skies over Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said air defence systems were working to shoot down the “barrage of missiles” launched from Iran.
Israeli officials told the media that top Iranian regime and military leaders, including Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Masoud Pezeshkian, were targeted in the attacks.
It is believed that Khamenei is not in Tehran and has been taken to a secure location, while Iranian media is reporting that Pezeshkian is safe.
The US president, Donald Trump, vowed that the “massive and ongoing” campaign against Iran would crush its military, eliminate its nuclear programme and bring about a change in government. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” he said.
TheIsraeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.
Talks between the US and Iran on Tehran’s nuclear programme ended inconclusively on Friday, with a suggestion that further discussions would be held next week. Trump had said he was “not happy” with the progress of discussions.
In the past he has been urged to follow strategies that don’t really match his core beliefs. That’s changing, as it must, because he knows the clock is ticking
Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer, The Biography
In a crowded and overheated bar towards the end of the evening a few months ago, I received some strange parenting advice from one of those “Labour strategist” types.
We were discussing – maybe arguing – over the government’s position on Gaza. Eventually I asked if he could provide me with a decent explanation to give my son who had shown me stuff on his phone a couple of days earlier about how Israeli army officers were still being trained by Britain’s military. “Here’s what you say to your son,” began his reply, followed by a portentous pause that made me lean in closer. “You should tell him to fuck off.”
As the director general prepares to stand down, potential candidates have fallen away amid a series of crises
There is an impressive shortlist circulating in Britain’s media circles, comprising some of the most talented executives in the business. Unfortunately for the BBC, it contains the names of figures no longer in the running to become its next director general.
Those closely observing the corporation’s search for a successor to Tim Davie have been quick to note how the events of the past week help explain the alarming attrition rate.
A “Pastafarian” in rural Queensland has vowed to fight to keep his driver’s licence featuring a photo of him wearing a colander on his head, arguing it’s a matter of freedom of religion.
But the state government has told him he must hand it in and get a new one, as it was issued “in error”.
‘The professional game must evolve if it is to thrive’
English rugby has adopted a franchise system for the first time with promotion and relegation from the Prem scrapped from the end of this season.
In the biggest change to the club game since the introduction of a formal league in 1987, the Rugby Football Union’s council voted overwhelmingly in favour of proposals to ringfence the existing 10-team Prem on Friday, with a view to expanding to 12 clubs in 2029-30.
For one heart surgeon, seeing the Renaissance artist’s anatomical drawings gave him a natural understanding of the body that was often overlooked in modern medical science
If you’d asked my teenage self, growing up in a small village in Shropshire, what I wanted to do with my life, I would have talked about art and music long before I spoke of scalpel blades and operating theatres. As an 18-year-old, I intended to go to art school, until my mother sat me down and told me rather bluntly that being an artist wouldn’t earn me much money. As she spoke, a surgical documentary flickered across the screen of the black-and-white television in our living room. I told her, half joking, that that was what I’d do instead. Which is how I ended up repeating my A-levels and fighting my way into medical school, where I qualified in 1975.
By 1986, I was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, repairing failing hearts in a nascent field of medicine. Since then I’ve repaired more than 3,000 mitral valves – more than any surgeon in the UK – but the work that truly reshaped me came not from a textbook but from an encounter with centuries-old drawings.
From Curthose, Rufus and Beauclerc to ‘the Somme with Santana’, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which country is named after the creator god Ptah? 2 What did music writer David Hepworth call “the Somme with Santana”? 3 Which wildlife census attracts more than half a million participants each January? 4 What is the largest blood vessel in the body? 5 China’s Hou Yifan is the women’s world no 1 in what game? 6 Which fabric’s name comes from the Persian for “milk and sugar”? 7 Which philosopher designed the Panopticon prison? 8 Who was infamously acquitted of an 1892 axe murder in Massachusetts? What links:
9 Yates, white; Cavendish, green; Millar (now York), polka dot; Wiggins, yellow? 10 Curthose; Rufus; Beauclerc? 11 Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden; New York, London; port out, starboard home? 12 Taurus-Littrow (17); Descartes Highlands (16); Hadley-Apennine (15); Fra Mauro (14)? 13 Jonathan Anderson; Matthieu Blazy; Sarah Burton; Demna; Alessandro Michele? 14 Georgie Fame; Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot; Beyoncé and Jay-Z? 15 Mississippi v Loire; East, Harlem and Hudson v Foss and Ouse?
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