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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 60 overnight as ceasefire looks increasingly fragile

Netanyahu ordered strikes on Tuesday evening after firefight between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza overnight killed at least 60 Palestinians, including 22 children, in what appeared to be the gravest challenge yet to the increasingly fragile US-brokered ceasefire and the deadliest day since the truce began.

The strikes, which according to Gaza’s civil defence agency killed many children and injured 200 people, took place hours after the US president, Donald Trump, said “nothing” would jeopardise the ceasefire agreement he helped broker.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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Do we really expect five-year-olds to sit at desks? I want a school that understands play is learning | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

In England, young children go from glitter clay and building dens to classrooms a Victorian would recognise – and that system is failing many of them

“Childhood doesn’t end the day you turn five,” Ruth Lue-Quee said to me on the phone as she shepherded her son to the playground this half term. “Playing is what children are born to do. It’s innate in them. It is how they learn.” The former deputy headteacher’s petition to make play-based pedagogy a core part of the key stage 1 (KS1) national curriculum in England has garnered almost the required 100,000 signatures for debate in parliament.

Observe any nursery or reception class and you’ll see what she means: kids roaming freely, modelling wet clay encrusted in glitter, playing pretend kitchen, banging on drums in the music cupboard. They’re interacting in an organic, self-guided way, moving around, using their imagination and following their own initiative. This is how the vast majority of early years pupils spend their time learning. Yet the moment a child finishes reception and begins year one, the English education system essentially dictates that playtime is over.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Malte Mueller/Getty Images/fStop

© Photograph: Malte Mueller/Getty Images/fStop

© Photograph: Malte Mueller/Getty Images/fStop

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Eve Muirhead: ‘People think I’m a steely-eyed competitor but we’re all human’

With 100 days to go until Milan Cortina, Team GB’s chef de mission for the next Winter Games hopes speaking out about her own experiences can help other athletes succeed

When Eve Muirhead led the Great Britain women’s curlers to Winter Olympic gold in 2022, the Guardian hailed her as the “Iron Lady” because she appeared indestructible.

It didn’t matter that she had failed initially to qualify for the Games. Or that she had Covid before the last-ditch tournament that finally secured their place. Or that Team GB’s women lost four of their opening eight matches in Beijing – and were 4-0 down against Sweden in the semi-finals. Somehow she always found a way.

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© Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

© Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

© Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

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The most eye-catching English football fixtures that are yet to be played | The Knowledge

Plus: more early English managerial exits, the player hitting the woodwork four times in a game and P45 structures

  • Mail us with your questions and answers

“My beleaguered Tranmere played Barnet a couple of weeks ago,” begins James. “I was amazed that this was the first ever meeting between two clubs who have spent so much time in the Football League. It made me wonder: what is the most surprising or eye-catching fixture in English club football that has never been played?”

We were surprised to hear that Middlesbrough’s 1-1 draw with Wrexham on Saturday was the first ever league match between those two sides, though they have met in both domestic cup competitions.

222 seasons Everton (127) v Rochdale (95), West Brom (127) v Rochdale (95)

218 Everton (127) v Hartlepool United (91)

217 Manchester United (123) v Gillingham (94), Manchester City (123) v Exeter City (94)

216 Arsenal (122) v Southend United (94), Arsenal (122) v Exeter (94)

213 Liverpool (122) v Hartlepool (91)

206 Manchester United (123) v Mansfield Town (83)

205 Everton (127) v Torquay United (78)

204 Manchester United (123) v Darlington (81)

203 Newcastle United (122) v Darlington (81), Sunderland (125) v Torquay(7 8)

201 Manchester United (123) v Torquay (78)

200 Arsenal (122) v Torquay (78), Aston Villa (127) v Newport (73), Liverpool (122) v Torquay

3 days: Bill Lambton, Scunthorpe, April 1959

4 days: Dave Bassett, Crystal Palace, May 1984

7 days: Tim Ward, Exeter City, March 1953
Kevin Cullis, Swansea City, February 1996

8 days: Billy McKinlay, Watford, Sept-Oct 2014

9 days: Martin Ling, Cambridge, Jul-Aug 2009

The board of directors of Raith Rovers FC announces that we have parted company with manager Gary Locke and assistant manager Darren Jackson, with immediate effect.

Raith Rovers FC announces that we have this evening parted company with manager John Hughes and assistant manager Kevin McBride

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© Photograph: Steve Welsh/PA

© Photograph: Steve Welsh/PA

© Photograph: Steve Welsh/PA

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England batting woes continue as New Zealand seal ODI series victory

  • 2nd ODI: New Zealand, 177-5, bt England, 175, by five wkts

  • Daryl Mitchell hits 56no while Jofra Archer fires on return

Half-centuries from Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell carried New Zealand to a second one-sided victory against an England side still searching for a winning formula in the 50-over format. This loss added another track to their rotten recent record: a ninth consecutive away defeat in ODIs and a 10th in 11 games on their travels in the last 12 months, while also ensuring a sixth series defeat in their last seven attempts.

Against a New Zealand side without their premium fast bowler, Matt Henry, who was diagnosed with a calf injury on the morning of the match, England were dismissed for just 175, leaving 14 overs unused and presenting their opponents with not so much a challenge as a stroll. After again losing the toss the tourists’ top-order again misfired, with Jamie Overton coming in at No 8 to top-score with 42.

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© Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

© Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

© Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

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Shark feeding frenzy off popular Australian surf beach captured in chilling footage

‘Wonderful’ for people to see the predators so close and feasting on bait fish at the Gold Coast’s Rainbow Bay, near Snapper Rocks, expert says

A shiver of sharks has been spotted feeding close to shore near a popular surfing spot on the Gold Coast on Australia’s east coast.

The large group of predators surprised spectators on the southern end of Rainbow Bay on Tuesday, near the renowned Snapper Rocks surf break.

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© Composite: @carterzmith | Instagram

© Composite: @carterzmith | Instagram

© Composite: @carterzmith | Instagram

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Donegal to Dakar: the Irish play about British rule hitting home in post-colonial Senegal

An African staging of Brian Friel’s Translations resonates deeply as the country distances itself from France

On a humid evening in Dakar, an Irish jig echoes through the country’s air-conditioned national theatre. The breathy, woody sound of the west African Fula flute brings a different cadence to the traditional tune. Actors dance across the stage, their peasant costumes stitched from African fabrics.

The dialogue is in French, the playwright is Irish and the players are Senegalese. Set in 1833, Brian Friel’s Translations one of Ireland’s most celebrated modern plays – follows British soldiers sent to rural Donegal to translate Gaelic placenames into English.

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© Photograph: Caitlin Kelly

© Photograph: Caitlin Kelly

© Photograph: Caitlin Kelly

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Down Cemetery Road review – Emma Thompson is magnificent in this thriller from Slow Horses’ creator

The Oscar winner’s turn as a no-nonsense private investigator is a role model for women everywhere. She really shines alongside Ruth Wilson in this pacy, twisty thriller based on Mick Herron’s debut novel

I always forget how good Emma Thompson is. That is partly because she tends to work in film rather than television and I last made it to the cinema in the mid-90s. It is also partly because she is always so … how can I put this? … so Emma Thompson in all her interviews and award speeches that I can’t envisage her putting herself away enough for Proper Acting.

But of course she can – and does as the private investigator Zoë Boehm, a woman of flint and diamond, in the new eight-part thriller Down Cemetery Road, Morwenna Banks’ adaptation of Mick Herron’s debut novel of the same name. Herron has since become known for Slow Horses, the series about the busted spies in Slough House pushing paper under the world-wearied eye of Jackson Lamb, ever hoping to get back in the game. Gary Oldman, who plays Lamb, has become a sort of niche national treasure for his portrayal of the beleaguered antihero whom we like to think lives in all of us. I hope the same happens with Thompson/Boehm, because both are magnificent. Boehm is a role model for ladies everywhere, but especially those hampered by a lack of innate cynicism or by a people-pleasing nature (or early training). Look at Boehm and learn. Observe the barren wasteland in which she stands, the field of fucks she has left to give. “I don’t drink prosecco and I don’t bond emotionally,” she tells a new client and one of the show’s many delights is that this remains almost entirely true.

Down Cemetery Road is on Apple TV

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© Photograph: Matt Towers/PA

© Photograph: Matt Towers/PA

© Photograph: Matt Towers/PA

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