Six Nations updates from Rome; kick-off 4.40pm GMT
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Does regular contributor Guy Hornsby speak for all England fans?

“I am not full of confidence today, Daniel. We are coming to this in semi-disarray, falling apart off the back of our 12 match run, now a distant memory. Against a team on the up full of excellent players, there are so many big battles, no more so than their centre partnership. You feel Brex and Menoncello v Atkinson and Freeman could decide it. Atkinson is a huge talent but what a way to come back into the team. Freeman is arguably one of our best players, but a work in progress at 13. If their defence falters, we could get torn open. You feel the battle up front will go a long way to deciding it, but make no mistake: on form, Italy winning will be no shock. England have a mountain to climb. A gritty win today will be just fine with many England fans.”

Report indicates that US intelligence officials question effectiveness of strikes to produce regime change in Iran

US government reviews of the war in Iran show that the Trump administration may be ill-equipped for a regime-change war, according to reports.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday morning that a classified intelligence review found that the war in Iran is unlikely to oust the Iranian establishment, despite the Trump administration’s desire to continue its attacks.

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In some ways, history is repeating itself. In 1982, Chelsea and Wrexham met in the FA Cup after they had beaten Hull and Nottingham Forest respectively in previous rounds. The same has happened in 2026; but this is where the similarities end.

When the clubs met 44 years ago they were in the second tier and had huge debts. With Chelsea reportedly £1.6m in the red, the future of Stamford Bridge was in doubt as property developers hovered. Relegation-threatened Wrexham spent most of the 1980s merely trying to survive.

Exclusive: Guardian study finds UK museums hold more than 260,000 items of remains, often in sacrilegious ways

The vast number of overseas human remains held by UK museums is a shameful legacy of colonialism, with many items kept in ways that are sacrilegious, according to MPs and archaeologists.

An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair.

• Teenage French sensation Paul Seixas finishes second

• Swiss wins women’s race in a thrilling finish

Tadej Pogacar won a record fourth Strade Bianche title as he made a triumphant start to his 2026 season, with the teenage French sensation Paul Seixas second. The world champion made a typically devastating long-range break around 80km from the finish, after which it was a procession to the line in Siena for his third win in a row.

In doing so, the four-time Tour de France winner proved once again that his appetite to triumph – and dominantly – has not diminished despite his myriad successes. One of the 27-year-old Slovenian’s main targets for this season comes in a week’s time at the Milan-San Remo one-day classic, one of only two of the five Monument races he is yet to win.

• Scotland 50-40 France

• Teams share 13 tries and go into final weekend level at top

So maybe France are not as good as we thought. Maybe England not as bad. But Scotland. Bloody hell.

This was a rout of the Six Nations favourites, an absolute rout. The scoreline, outlandish though it may seem from the championship’s serial underachievers, in no way flatters Scotland. Indeed, it might be said to underestimate how comprehensive this win was. Scotland’s regret will be to have conceded four tries in the last 15 minutes. That denies Scotland top-of-the-table status going into the final round. France remain on course, just about. Their bonus point, ending up with six tries out of the game’s 13, keeps them ahead of Scotland on points difference. Such is that margin, the title remains France’s to lose.

As the US waives its ban on India buying Putin’s oil for 30 days, Europe must bolster its own measures, such as stopping the flow of luxury cars

Donald Trump handed Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline last week when he waived a ban on India buying Russian oil for 30 days.

Trump found himself in a furious row last year with Narendra Modi over his country’s oil deals with Moscow, only for fences to be partly mended when India’s biggest importer later capitulated.

Commandos started digging up grave thought to be of famous IDF pilot, leading to gunfight followed by airstrikes

• Middle East crisis – live updates

An Israeli operation in eastern Lebanon to locate the remains of a famous IDF pilot ended in failure overnight, when the commandos were caught in a gunfight with Hezbollah and local residents, leading Israeli jets to pummel the area with airstrikes that killed dozens of people.

The fighting left three Lebanese soldiers and 41 residents of the Bekaa valley dead, according to the Lebanese army and ministry of health. No injuries were reported among the Israeli soldiers.

Aidan Romain, 18, says he endured sexual, physical and racist abuse at famed California private school

An 18-year-old Black water polo player filed a lawsuit against one of Los Angeles’s most elite private schools last week, alleging he was sexually assaulted and racially harassed by teammates for years while school staff failed to intervene.

Aidan Romain is accusing Harvard-Westlake school in Studio City; its president, Richard Commons; the head of the boys’ water polo program, Jack Grover; and former teammate Lucca van der Woude of allowing a “culture of harassment” within the elite program. The lawsuit was filed on 27 February in Los Angeles superior court.

• Masters wins 10th Paralympic gold in biathlon sprint

• Gretsch silver completes US one-two in sitting race

• Victory marks Masters’ 20th Paralympic medal

Oksana Masters led a United States one-two finish in the women’s 7.5km sitting sprint on Saturday, winning gold to deliver the United States’ first medals of the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics. Masters crossed the line in 21:21.3 at Val di Fiemme, coming in 16 seconds ahead of teammate Kendall Gretsch, who took silver.

Both Americans shot a perfect 10-for-10 on the range, leaving the race to be decided on the snow. Masters proved fastest over the course, pulling away from Gretsch on the final lap to secure the 10th Paralympic gold medal of her career. Germany’s Anja Wicker claimed bronze.

California state superintendent says mother and sons arrested during ICE check-in and deported to Colombia

California’s superintendent is calling for the return of a hearing-impaired six-year-old after he, his mother and his five-year-old sibling were detained on Tuesday while reporting for their check-in at an ICE office in San Francisco and deported to Colombia.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (Isap), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has a cochlear implant.

How the desperate search for two missing girls in 2002 and their now-dead killer claimed its place in the country’s museum of appalling crimes

• Soham murderer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack

The death of Ian Huntley is, perhaps, a moment to pause and remember, and not to dwell on the manner and circumstances of his killing.

August 2002 is the time to return to, and the place is Soham: a pretty Cambridgeshire village that few outside the county, and possibly many within it too, knew much about before that summer. Before it happened.

Six Nations updates from the 2.10pm (GMT) kick-off
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4 mins. It’s advantage Scotland as Ramos fumbles a Russell kick forward off his chest. He was under no pressure at all, but the sun is fierce on that side of the pitch and hindered him. Scotland scrum coming in the France half.

2 mins. Some textbook take, recycle, kick periods from both sides; each probing for an opening via the boot and kick chasers. So far nothing doing for either.

• England 2-0 Iceland

• Wiegman happy to keep clean sheet in routine win

Goals from Lucy Bronze and Georgia Stanway made it two wins from two in England’s bid to qualify for the 2027 World Cup, with attention now turning to a hugely important game against Spain at Wembley in April.

England’s aim of avoiding the playoffs by securing top spot in their World Cup qualifying group was never going to be derailed by Ukraine and Iceland. Ukraine was a straightforward affair, once they had found their rhythm in the second half to earn a 6-1 win, and at the City Ground in Nottingham, while Iceland are higher ranked than Ukraine, the Lionesses were still overwhelmingly comfortable.

The main stand at the oldest professional football ground in the world shook. It was the moment to ignite Mansfield Town dreams, a goal from the substitute Will Evans early in the second half to hint at something extraordinary.

It ought to have been a mismatch. Quadruple-chasing Arsenal, the top team in England and Europe so far this season, against the one that sits 16th in League One. It was anything but and now Evans had cancelled out Noni Madueke’s first-half opener.

Air strikes have shaken the Middle East after the US and Israel launched an attack against Iran, killing the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guardian looks back at the seven days that ignited a war, which has already claimed the lives of more than 1,500

• Seven days on, seven questions about the US-Israeli war on Iran

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Tech policy professor who served in US air force explains how a feud between an AI startup and the US military illuminates ethical fault lines

Anthropic’s ongoing fight with the Department of Defense over what safety restrictions it can put on its artificial intelligence models has captivated the tech industry, acting as a test of how AI may be used in war and the government’s power to coerce companies to meet its demands.

The negotiations have revolved around Anthropic’s refusal to allow the federal government to use its Claude AI for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems, but the dispute also reflects the messy nature of what happens when tech companies have their products integrated into conflict. The Pentagon this week declared Anthropic a supply chain risk for its refusal to agree to the government’s terms, while Anthropic has vowed to challenge the designation in court.

The attorney general faces a subpoena over the Epstein files. She won’t say much – but Democrats are calling for her ouster

After spending $220m of taxpayer money on an advertising campaign in which she demanded migrants self-deport, Kristi Noem is now being forced to make a hasty exit of her own. On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that his luxury-jet-loving homeland security secretary was being shipped off to become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a new “security” summit that Trump has dreamed up. Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed-martial artist and Republican senator, will replace her.

Noem’s ouster was a long time coming. But it’s worth stressing that she doesn’t seem to have lost her job because of the many controversies that have plagued her tenure, including the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents. Rather, she committed the cardinal sin of making Trump look stupid. Which, to be fair, isn’t hard.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Defence minister urges ‘serious politics’ after Tory leader criticises prime minister’s stance at spring conference

• Middle East crisis live: latest news updates

Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch of scoring “cheap political points” after the Conservative party leader said Keir Starmer was “too scared” to join strikes on Iran.

Al Carns, the defence minister, said “serious politics” was required in response to Badenoch’s speech at the party’s spring conference where she criticised the prime minister’s stance on the US-Israel strikes on Iran a week ago.

• Medals are Russia’s first at winter paras in 12 years

• Taras Rad leads Ukraine’s table-topping first-day haul

Russian athletes have seized the chance afforded them by these Winter Paralympic Games, claiming two medals on their return from suspension. But as the action came to a close on the opening day, it was Ukraine who led the medal table.

The return of Russia to international competition under their own colours has dominated headlines at Milano-Cortina. Bronze medals for two world champion Alpine skiers - Varavara Vorinchikhina and Aleksei Bugaev - in events that are not their strongest, will only increase the scrutiny. However, a dominant day in the Nordic events, including a clean sweep in the men’s biathlon sprint, means Ukraine’s pledge to “be strong” at these Games has begun in convincing fashion.

Takeshi Ebisawa, sentenced to 20 years in prison last week, believed he was selling weapons-grade plutonium to Iran

A plot to supply Iran’s nuclear weapons program, heroin from the Golden Triangle, Burmese ethnic insurgents and rocket launchers were the subject in courtroom 24A in New York’s federal courthouse last week when a man described as a leader in Japan’s Yakuza organized crime syndicate was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The transnational plot, which the US Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating since 2019, involved Japanese organised crime leader Takeshi Ebisawa, who along with three Thai men, had been arrested in New York in 2022.

Masoud Pezeshkian issues rare apology to neighbouring Gulf states for Iranian strikes as war enters eighth day

• Middle East crisis live: latest news updates

The president of Iran has rejected Donald Trump’s call for the country’s unconditional surrender as a “dream”, while issuing a rare apology for Iranian attacks that hit neighbouring states, even as missiles and drones continued to strike Gulf countries.

In a prerecorded address broadcast on state television on Saturday, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the country would never capitulate, responding to remarks by the US president, who said on Friday that only Iran’s total submission could bring the war to an end.

• Briton is one of three champions scathing of new regulations

• Overhaul had made the cars go from ‘best to worst’ in a season

Three world champions – Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris – have delivered a damning verdict on Formula One’s regulations overhaul after qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Norris, McLaren’s defending champion, was scathing of the changes, saying that driving the car “sucks” and they were probably the “worst” ever made, while Hamilton criticised the new engine and chassis rules as “completely against” F1’s principles.

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4 min: Big chance for Arsenal! They win it high up in the Mansfield half and Dowman is denied by Roberts’ legs.

2 min: McLaughlin runs down Madueke on the byline. Welcome to Mansfield, Noni. Tyler Roberts then does the same to Marli Salmon.