Uber is expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its ride-hailing platform

Uber launched a feature on Monday to allow both female riders and drivers across the US to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its ride-hailing platform.

The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it is discriminatory against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is also facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.

The master of the everyman gifts us some hard-won parenting insights in this blissfully awkward show about a father and daughter relationship

Humankind, as TS Eliot’s bird said in Burnt Norton , cannot bear too much reality. That feels especially salient now, when we have more reality arriving in a day than we used to have to process in a year.

At the same time, unless you go the whole high-fantasy hog and offer 100% escapism via immersion in a completely alternative world, it is becoming trickier for your audiences to believe in you at all. Programmes set in the real world have to acknowledge the new way of it. Pure, frothy comedy just became that much harder to pull off – and it was never easy. But walking the line between too much reality and not enough is almost as difficult.

Given their inability to win a knockout tie in normal time, there can be little doubt of the physical impediment that West Ham’s continued prolonged endeavours in this season’s FA Cup must make to their efforts of remaining in the Premier League. But, with an eminently winnable home quarter-final against Leeds United now upcoming, the chance of a rare trip to Wembley is the type of happy distraction any relegation-threatened side can embrace.

For the third time in three FA Cup ties, the conventional 90 minutes were insufficient for Nuno Espírito Santo’s team to find a winner, with two goals apiece for Jarrod Bowen and Igor Thiago cancelling each other out.

Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander convicted in New York after being accused of raping dozens of women

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Three brothers, including two of the nation’s most successful luxury real estate brokers, were convicted of sex trafficking charges on Monday after a five-week trial over accusations that they used drugs and force to rape scores of women they had dazzled with their wealth and opulent lifestyle.

The verdict came after 11 women testified they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers: twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 38, and Tal Alexander, 39.

Communities secretary tells MPs that government has to act against record levels of hate crimes

A new definition of anti-Muslim hate will not restrict freedom of speech, the communities secretary has pledged, as he said that “clear expectations” will still be set for new arrivals and existing communities in Britain to learn English.

MPs were told by Steve Reed that the government had a duty to act against record levels of hate crime against Muslims, but that “you can’t tackle a problem if you can’t describe it”.

Anglers describe harrowing phone calls to loved ones once ice detached from shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario

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Kevin Fox thought the spring-like temperatures that had temporarily pushed the cold away from south-eastern Ontario meant a good day on for ice fishing, a popular winter pastime in the region.

After shifting location because the wind and ice “didn’t feel right” and the fish weren’t biting close to shore, he and a friend joined nearly two dozen others far out on a sheet of ice in Lake Huron. They followed the familiar routine of anyone who spends a day on the ice: they drilled holes, dropped their lines and waited.

French president says attack on island is ‘an attack on Europe’ as EU states send military support

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Emmanuel Macron has vowed that Europe will do whatever it takes to stand by Cyprus, the continent’s first state to be directly affected by the Iran war, after coming under what he described as “attack from multiple drones and missiles.”

In the strongest show yet of solidarity towards the EU member closest to the Middle East, Macron likened the attacks, which included a drone strike against a British base on the eastern Mediterranean island, to an attack on Europe.

West coast state’s average cost per gallon has climbed $0.55 since the conflict in Middle East began over a week ago

• Middle East crisis – live updates

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The war in Iran has caused a spike in gas prices that is hitting California consumers especially hard, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

AAA reports that in California, the most expensive US market for gas, the average price per gallon on Monday was $5.20, compared with $3.47 nationally. The national average climbed nearly $0.50 since the conflict began more than a week ago, while in the Golden state it rose by $0.55.

Sgt Benjamin N Pennington, 26, died from injuries sustained during Iranian strike on airbase in Saudi Arabia

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The Pentagon has identified the seventh US service member killed in the war with Iran as 26-year-old army Sgt Benjamin N Pennington, who is a resident of Glendale, Kentucky.

In a statement on Monday the department said Pennington died on Sunday from injuries sustained during an Iranian strike on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia on 1 March. The incident is under investigation, the statement said.

• Murashkovskyi benefits from artificial intelligence support

• ‘I used it as a psychologist, coach and sometimes as a doctor’

Team Ukraine have hit the ground running at the Winter Paralympics, standing second in the medal table after three days of competition. Their resolve and determination has been inspirational to many, but one athlete has revealed a secret weapon in their search for a competitive edge.

Maksym Murashkovskyi, who won ­silver in the men’s visually impaired biathlon on Sunday and did not miss a shot, has been ­working with ­OpenAI’s large language model. “For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,” he said. “It was not only ­tactics. It was half of my ­training plan, ­motivation, etc. So it was a huge ­volume of all of my training. I used it as a psychologist, coach and, sometimes, as a doctor.”

With new supreme leader’s strong connections to the IRGC, critics fear worse is to come – if he survives

• Middle East crisis – live updates

At around midday, even as airstrikes hit several parts of the capital, large crowds gathered in Tehran’s famous Enghelab Square to chant their allegiance to Iran’s new supreme leader.

Carrying banners showing the face of the country’s slain leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, people on Monday held a new portrait – that of his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.

Social media company tells MPs of continual fight against state-backed efforts, with Russia being most prolific

Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform.

The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda on its network, with Russia the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China.

Mallorca’s Vedat Muriqi and Osasuna’s Ante Budimir have 31 league goals between them this season, with three coming in a dramatic draw on Saturday

This is the story of the Pirate and the Swan. When Vedat Muriqi was little, which he never really was, he couldn’t always find boots to play in. An adult and a giant before his time, working and shaving at 14, a striker starting out for KF Liria in Prizren, Kosovo, he was 6ft 4in, his feet were size 15, and back home back then you couldn’t get anything that big. Fortunately, one day an aunt in Finland came across a pair of European 48.5s and, pleased as could be, sent them his way. As he opened the box, Vedat realised they were made for rugby but he didn’t have the heart to tell her and, anyway, at least they fit.

They also fit. The man whose former coach had described him as “a strange, ugly beast” you would “cross the street to avoid” and who couldn’t help but agree, admitting: “If I saw me I’d cross over too,” wasn’t much good, or so he said. For a time they called him the Cannibal – a name he identified with, albeit “one that doesn’t eat children” – and soon they called him the Pirate, which he liked more, placing a patch over his left eye when he scored, but a player? That was something else. Someone else too: “I look at Sergi Darder and Dani Rodríguez: if they’re footballers … what am I?” he asked. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t play football; I play a different sport.”

Researchers have found evidence of what many of us always suspected: ‘hasslers’ shorten your lifespan. And they know by exactly how long

Name: Hasslers.

Age: More like ageing.

US president claimed he wanted to eradicate cartels and made comments about Mexico’s president that were deemed sexist in summit speech

• ‘Iron river’: Mexico’s cartel violence fuelled by trafficked firearms from US

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Claudia Sheinbaum has responded to Donald Trump’s description of Mexico as the “epicenter of violence,” by calling on the US government to step up efforts to combat gun trafficking.

“There is something that the US can help us a lot with: stop the trafficking of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico,” the president of Mexico said. “If they stopped the entry of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico, then these groups wouldn’t have access to this type of high-powered weaponry to carry out their criminal activities.”

European Commission head says rules-based system can no longer be relied upon to protect the continent’s interests

Europe can “no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and needs “a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”, the head of the European Commission has said.

Speaking to an audience of EU ambassadors on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen said the union “will always defend and uphold the rules-based system” but could no longer rely on it to defend European interests and shelter the continent from threats.

Kowtowing to US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan had disastrous consequences. Why are leaders making the same mistake all over again?

Here is the sort of analysis you’re being served up by our esteemed commentariat. Keir Starmer’s positioning on the Iran war, we are told, reveals a prime minister with no political compass. True, but talk about burying the lede. The story here is not Starmer’s lack of political acumen. British involvement in the Iran war is not a policy question on which reasonable people might disagree, like raising a tax here or spending a bit more money there. This is a grave crime.

Yet all the pressure on Starmer seems to arrive from one direction. He “should have backed America from the very beginning”, declares Tony Blair, apparently eager for a successor to emulate his own record of dragging Britain into US-led catastrophes widely condemned as illegal. Donald Trump’s sidekick Nigel Farage, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and the rightwing press make much the same complaint.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Mojtaba Khamenei has been chosen to replace his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, while the country continues to be heavily bombarded by US and Israeli forces. There are concerns the move could lead to a further escalation of war in the Middle East, after Donald Trump warned that Khamenei was an ‘unacceptable’ choice. But as oil prices soar, could the US president be looking for a way out of this war? Lucy Hough speaks to diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour.

• Fifa can take disciplinary action against exiting nations

• ‘Sanctions include exclusion from future competition’

Iran could face disciplinary action from Fifa, including a possible ban from future tournaments, if they unilaterally withdraw from the World Cup.

Donald Trump told Politico last week that he “really doesn’t care” if Iran fail to take part in this summer’s tournament, but Fifa remains committed to the World Cup going ahead with all qualified teams participating.

I should probably be fuming about the way that companies try to cash in on IWD. But there are so many vile opinions to worry about instead

Sunday was International Women’s Day, which you’ll know because every company you’ve ever shopped with will have emailed you, taking this fine opportunity to suggest things women might like to buy. Plants, clothes, spices … all are particularly female-friendly at this time of year, or maybe I’m revealing nothing but my algorithms. Is any of it emancipating? Would you have to balance the freedom of the woman wearing the midi-dress against the servitude of the woman who had to sew it? I don’t really want to set myself up as the arbiter of the spirit of IWD, being unable to remember a time before it meant mass-marketing mail-out.

On Women’s Day Eve, though – yes, that is a thing – I was attending evensong at a university college, maybe for the first time ever, and it was definitely the first time I’d heard an IWD sermon. The Rev Marcus Green had set himself the challenge of feministly reading a book, the Bible, in which almost none of the women have a name. There are a bunch called Mary, but so few other names that “Mary” was basically Bible-speak for “Karen”. There’s one who is the mother of the sons of Zebedee, but even though she has actual lines and he has none, he still gets this cracking name, while you have to piece her identity together by triangulating other accounts, like an investigator at a crime scene.

Lawsuits come after Pentagon labeled Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’, a decision the company says is unlawful

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Anthropic filed two lawsuits against the Department of Defense on Monday, alleging that the government’s decision to label the artificial intelligence firm a “supply chain risk” was unlawful and violated its first amendment rights. The two sides have been locked in a monthslong heated feud over the company’s attempt to implement safeguards against the military’s potential use of its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

The lawsuits, which Anthropic filed in the northern district court of California and the US court of appeals for the Washington DC Circuit, come after the Pentagon formally issued the supply chain risk designation last Thursday, the first time the blacklisting tool has been used against a US company. The AI firm previously vowed to challenge the designation and its demand that any company that does business with the government cut all ties with Anthropic, a serious threat to its business model.

Former intelligence officer charged with murder and torture in first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales

A former Syrian intelligence officer who fled to the UK has been charged with murder and torture as crimes against humanity, in the first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales.

The 58-year-old man, who has not been named for legal reasons, is alleged to have played a leading role in the violent crackdown on protesters in Syria at the start of uprising against the regime of former leader Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

Researchers working to unpick whether daily multivitamin results in people staying healthier as they age

Taking a multivitamin every day for two years appears to slow some markers of biological ageing – albeit to a small degree, research suggests.

While chronological age is based on how long a person has lived, biological age reflects the state of the body. Estimates of the latter are often based on changes in patterns of DNA methylation – modifications to DNA that accumulate with age and affect how genes function.