Tony Burke says one player and one support member reunited with five players given Australian visas after offers of asylum accepted

A total of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team have now been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, home affairs minister Tony Burke has confirmed.

An additional two women had sought asylum before the rest of the Iranian team departed Sydney on a flight to Malaysia on Tuesday night, one player and one support member, Burke told a press conference on Wednesday mornig. He said the pair were offered humanitarian visas, and both took up the offer. The visas were processed overnight.

Upper chamber accepts final draft of bill, which offers life peerages to some of those who would otherwise be removed

Hereditary peerages will be abolished before the next king’s speech after a deal was struck granting life peerages to some Conservatives and cross-benchers losing their seats.

On Tuesday evening the upper chamber accepted a final draft of the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill, marking the end of its passage through parliament and clearing the way for it to be added to the statute book.

• Court filing claims project leader took money days before collapse

• Grand Slam Track filed for bankruptcy owing up to $50m

Michael Johnson has been accused of paying himself $500,000 (£372,000) eight days before his Grand Slam Track project collapsed before the final event in Los Angeles, leaving athletes and creditors owed millions. The claim is made by vendors in a legal filing in which they have also sought permission to sue individual leaders of GST, including Johnson and the main investor, Winners Alliance.

When GST was launched Johnson promised it would “bring fantasy to life” and transform athletics – with track’s biggest stars facing off regularly against each other for huge prize money. But the writing was on the wall after the first event in Jamaica last April was sparsely attended, and it collapsed shortly after its third event in Philadelphia on 1 June.

First tranche expected to include Cabinet Office report warning of ‘reputational risk’ over ex-minister’s links to Epstein

Hundreds of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US are expected to be released by Downing Street on Wednesday.

The first tranche of files will include a two-page due diligence report by the Cabinet Office, which is likely to raise questions about Keir Starmer’s judgment, the Guardian understands.

‘Eye strokes’ that reduce blood flow to optic nerve likely to be side-effect of active ingredient semaglutide, says author

Patients taking Wegovy have nearly five times the risk of sudden sight loss of those on Ozempic, a large-scale study has found.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) medicines such as semaglutide (sold as Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus) and tirzepetide (sold as Mounjaro) help reduce blood sugar levels, slow digestion and reduce appetite, and have been linked to reduced risks of heart attack, fewer drug overdoses and other health benefits.

It was a night when the Tyneside passions pulsed; the nervous energy, too, because this was something unprecedented – a first Champions League knockout tie in Newcastle’s history. It was not just the gilded level of the opposition that fired the excitement, the imagination. Eddie Howe was in little doubt that it was the biggest game Newcastle had ever played.

Newcastle had to do more than subdue Barcelona, the top team in Spain last season and so far this time out. They had to manage the occasion because it was one that came to rest on the edge of a knife. As the minutes ticked down, the chances so scarce, they knew that one moment was always likely to be decisive. At either end.

Things can aways get worse. Much, much worse. If there is a place below rock bottom, Tottenham seem determined to go there. The Champions League may not be a priority, Igor Tudor publicly declaring survival their concern, but that didn’t make it any less painful, nor easier to forget. Instead, this will linger. It wasn’t even the 5-2 defeat that hurt, not really, and it certainly wasn’t their now inevitable exit from Europe: it was how it happened, the opening period here quite possibly the stupidest, most absurd, most astonishing minutes of football you have ever seen.

If, that is, you can really call it football; this was a dramatic act of self-destruction that ‘Spursy’ doesn’t get anywhere near, the final ridiculous scene of a tragedy, the ultimate humiliation. Only, terrifyingly, that may still be to come, because if the Metropolitano was a testing ground for the fight against relegation, as the manager said, the conclusion can only be that they are horribly ill-equipped to escape the abyss. This was both deeply comic and also desperately sad, especially when poor Antonin Kinsky departed down the tunnel, broken, substituted on 17 minutes having gifted two of the three goals Atlético Madrid had already scored.

The blaze happened in Kerzers in Fribourg canton, which is about 12 miles west of Berne

A bus caught fire in western Switzerland on Tuesday killing at least six people and injuring five others, in what police said may have been a deliberate act.

The fire broke out on a bus in the main street of the small town of Kerzers, about 20 km (12 miles) west of the Swiss capital Berne, at about 6.25pm (5.25pm GMT).

Andy Ogles said Muslims do not belong in the US and Randy Fine made a comparison of Muslims to dogs

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Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, on Tuesday declined to condemn Republican lawmakers who recently made Islamophobic comments, saying only that he had spoken to them about their “tone”.

Democrats and groups advocating religious tolerance have decried the statements from congressmen Andy Ogles of Tennessee and Randy Fine of Florida, with the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, calling on Johnson to discipline the latter.

Tehran has enough material to make at least 10 nuclear warheads but extracting it would be very risky, say experts

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.

Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.

Billionaire’s artificial intelligence company gets approval to run 41 methane gas turbines at its ‘Colossus 2’ in Mississippi

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI won approval on Tuesday to run 41 methane gas turbines at its “Colossus 2” datacenter in northern Mississippi. That’s nearly double the amount it has been operating.

The turbines will help power xAI’s massive datacenters, which house the company’s “AI supercomputers”, or giant arrays of advanced chips, which in turn power the controversial AI tool Grok, the company’s most recognizable product.

• ‘You have to be who you are,’ manager says

• Madrid will be without the injured Mbappé

Pep Guardiola has urged Manchester City to face Real Madrid with their true identity in the Champions League last 16 and “earn the tickets” for the next round.

The opening leg at the Bernabéu on Wednesday will be the 12th occasion the teams have played in Guardiola’s decade in charge and the 16th in total; each side has won five times, with five draws. Guardiola said his team must be true to who they are if they are to progress to the quarter-finals.

The good news for Liverpool is that the situation is salvageable, when it really might not have been. The bad news is that they were ­distinctly ­second best for the first ­three-quarters of the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

Nobody who saw their second‑half collapse away against Juventus in the playoff round could be confident that Galatasaray are a team ­capable of squeezing the life out of the ­second leg. There is a nervousness about them at the back, a persistent sense of misfortune about to strike, but going forward they are breezy, quick and fun. Their only regret will be that, having taken an early lead through the former Wolves midfielder Mario Lemina, they did not add a second goal to give them more to defend at Anfield.

Republican Kay Ivey called execution unfair since Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton, who will serve life in prison, didn’t fire fatal shot

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The governor of Alabama commuted the death sentence of a 75-year-old inmate who was set to be executed this week, even though he was not in the building when the victim of the murder he was sentenced for was killed.

Kay Ivey, the Republican governor of the state, reduced Charles “Sonny” Burton’s sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole this week. The move marks the second time the governor has granted clemency of a death row inmate since she took office in 2017.

Opening statements begin in Miami trial of four men accused in the 2021 killing of Jovenel Moïse

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Greed, arrogance and power were the driving forces behind four men charged in the US for the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse , prosecutors told a court on Tuesday during opening statements.

Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys began presenting opening statements in the trial in Miami for Arcangel Pretel Ortíz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages. They are charged with conspiring in south Florida to kidnap or kill Haiti’s former leader. Moïse’s assassination led to unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation, where gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

American Express and Blackbird cut ties with restaurant after René Redzepi accused of abusing his staff

After allegations emerged this week that René Redzepi had abused his staff at Noma, once considered the world’s best restaurant, sponsors on Tuesday announced they would end their support for the chef’s upcoming events in Los Angeles.

The New York Times reported that American Express and the hospitality company Blackbird have cut ties with Noma ahead of the Copenhagen restaurant’s four-month pop-up in LA, which was set to kick off this week.

⚽ Champions League news from the 8pm GMT kick-offs
⚽ Galatasaray v Liverpool – live | Today’s Football Daily

An early goal from Mario Lemina gave Galatasaray a first-leg victory in Turkey. Scott Murray was watching.

Galatasaray still lead Liverpool 1-0 in Turkey. You can follow the last five minutes (plus stoppage time) with Scott Murray.

Pioneering artist returns to Australia for first time in 15 years, with poet Kae Tempest and Afrobeat musician Seun Kuti also on lineups of winter festivals

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The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim will headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s Rising this year, as each festival revealed its programs on Wednesday.

The performances at Sydney’s Carriageworks and Melbourne’s Festival Hall will be Lil’ Kim’s first Australian shows in 15 years, celebrating her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.

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The US-Israeli bombardment has once again underlined Donald Trump’s indifference to international law. A stronger EU can be a vital counterweight

When European leaders were blindsided in January by Donald Trump’s unilateral abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, their immediate response was to hedge their bets. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, affirmed that the principles of international law must always be respected, but also asserted that Mr Maduro lacked legitimacy. As a new Trump-compliant leadership emerged in Caracas, Europe’s attention drifted to crises closer to home.

The dilemmas and dangers posed by Mr Trump’s war of choice in Iran – again initiated with no attempt to consult allies or gain US congressional approval – are not so easily swerved. The US president has berated and mocked Sir Keir Starmer over a lack of full-throated support for his latest military adventure. He has threatened Spain with a trade embargo, after its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described the joint US-Israeli assault on Tehran as “unjustified and dangerous”, and refused to sanction the use of military bases. Even Mr Trump’s close ideological ally, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is under pressure from an electorate deeply hostile to involvement in another open-ended Middle East conflict with unpredictable consequences.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Bad actors have treated equality as a zero sum game, with women falsely portrayed as ‘winning’. Feeling they have to compete, young men are lashing out

Last week, results from a global survey signalled a rise in worrying attitudes towards women among young men. A team from the pollsters Ipsos and King’s College London found that nearly a third (31%) of gen Z men believe that a woman should always obey her husband, a fifth (21%) believe that she should never initiate sex, and 33% believe that women should let their husbands have the final word on important decisions.

There’s a limit to how much can be drawn from a worldwide survey that draws averages from vastly different cultures and economies. We cannot ask respondents what they meant by their answers, nor how they reconcile apparently contradictory views: younger men are more likely than older generations to call themselves feminists and to find successful women attractive, yet some also say women should be subordinate. Nor does the data tell us whether the same men hold these views.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Former Sinn Féin leader being sued by three men injured in IRA bombings in 1976 and 1996

A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary.

Adams, 77, is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996.

Widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk replaces husband on 16-member panel of military training facility

Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, to a key advisory board of the US Air Force Academy.

The 37-year-old joins a number of other loyalists to the president on the 16-member panel of the academy’s board of visitors, which according to its website “inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters” of the Colorado Springs military training facility.

Exclusive: Report suggests only 1% of annual spend on food and drink adverts will be affected after industry lobbying

The junk food ad ban intended to curb childhood obesity will affect only 1% of the £2.4bn spent annually on advertising food and drink, and may prove a “paper tiger”, ministers have been told.

The government has hailed the ban on advertising foods high in fat, salt and sugar before 9pm on TV and completely online, which came into force on 5 January, as a decisive and world-leading move that will remove 7.2bn calories from UK children’s diets every year.