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Women’s dual moguls: It’s all very civilised out on the snow, the athletes have a hug when they reach the bottom. I was thinking the snow looked a bit grubby but it turns out the authorities put out pine needles – I think to help skiers find their way.

Anyway, they’ve zipped through very quickly and have already sorted the quarter finals, with four Americans in the final eight.

Environmental groups say ‘cynical and devastating’ reversal of endangerment finding has grave implications

The Trump administration has dismantled the basis for all US climate regulations, in its most confrontational anti-environment move yet.

The 2009 endangerment finding determined that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare and should therefore be controlled by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). By revoking it on Thursday, officials eliminated the legal foundation enabling the government to control planet-heating pollution.

Capturing things that mix the strange with the beautiful helped the Spanish graphic designer recover from a blue period

Iñigo Jerez Quintana uses the French term objet trouvé to describe this abandoned bear. Quintana, a Spanish graphic designer, was walking from his studio to a work meeting in Poblenou, a district of Barcelona, when he spotted it.

“I take photos based on visual impulses; anything that catches my eye,” he says. “The colour match of the bear’s fur and wall paint anchors a childish stereotype in a place where it doesn’t really belong.”

Antoine Massey was convicted on charges of rape and kidnapping before New Orleans jailbreak

A man who joined nine others in fleeing a New Orleans jail – then publicly pleaded for help from Donald Trump; a rapper whom the president pardoned and reality TV star Kim Kardashian while on the run – recently got a 60-year prison sentence for kidnapping and raping his ex-girlfriend.

Antoine Massey, 32, received his punishment on Thursday at a suburban New Orleans state courthouse, months after his jailbreak-related capture and subsequent conviction at trial of prior charges.

Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana contributed

Universities, builders and health trusts are feeling the squeeze, as thinktank says effect of zero net migration could be similar to Brexit

• ‘It’s been life-changing’: young Britons on why they left the UK

When Greenwich and Kent universities said this month they would merge to save money, the heart of their financial difficulties could be found in the UK government’s crackdown on immigration.

Tough restrictions on foreign students have sent the number of university applications from abroad plummeting, cutting lucrative tuition fees and leaving all universities facing the same squeeze.

Skilled workers facing a tough jobs market and high rents at home reveal how they have built new lives elsewhere, from Vancouver to Dubai

• UK migration could be negative this year – how will that hit the economy?

As young people bear the brunt of a downturn in the jobs market, figures show a significant number are leaving the UK.

Although statisticians caution against comparing annual figures after a recent change in methodology and stress younger people are traditionally more drawn to emigration, a net 111,000 people aged 16 to 34 emigrated from the UK in the year to March 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The disappearance in Arizona of the Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother has captivated the nation

Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home two weeks ago, setting off a potent chain reaction of federal and local criminal investigation, amateur sleuthing and public obsession that – so far – has resulted in neither the 84-year-old grandmother being located or anyone named as a suspect or, indeed, arrested.

It is a case that is both enthralling and baffling the American public, casting doubts on the ability of investigators to get to the bottom of the mystery that each day generates a fresh 24-hour news cycle – but seemingly little in the way of solid fresh leads likely to solve the case.

Secretary of state calls the US ‘a child of Europe’ and urges continent to back a new world order

• Munich security conference live: Europe must be ready to fight Russia as ‘warning signs are there’, says Starmer

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has described America as “a child of Europe” and made an emotional but highly conditional offer of a new partnership, insisting the two continents belong together.

In a much-anticipated speech at the annual Munich Security Conference, he said the US was intent on building a new world order, adding “while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe”. The US and Europe, he said “belong together”.

The brilliant American was expected to glide to a gold medal on Friday. It was tough to watch such a gifted athlete discover the ruthlessness of his sport

By the time Ilia Malinin reached the closing stretch of his Olympic free skate, the outcome was no longer really the story. The story was the expression on his face – not panic, not shock, but the dawning realization that a destiny he had controlled for nearly three years had slipped beyond his reach in the blinding span of four and a half catastrophic minutes.

For the rising generation of men’s skaters, the 21-year-old Malinin has existed less as a rival than as a moving technical horizon. The Quad God. The skater who built programs around jumps others still treated as theory, who pushed the sport into something closer to applied physics. Much like Simone Biles, who took in Friday’s contest from the arena’s VIP seats, his only competition was himself.

The US flag bearer and first Black woman to win Winter Olympic individual gold carries the lessons of Special Forces into Sunday’s 500m speed skating final

On the ice, Erin Jackson is the picture of control – metronomic in her balance, rhythmic in her stride, a woman whose margins for error are blade thin. But all that control melted away when the speed skater glided on to Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test reality TV series in fall 2023 for a taste of the grueling training that elite US troops endure.

She was part of a motley cast that included former Dallas Cowboys star Dez Bryant, NBA clutch shooter Robert Horry and skier Bode Miller, a fellow Winter Olympic champion. But Jackson was less concerned with outshining her athletic peers than with confronting her own fears. To test her anxiety around swimming, Jackson was strapped into a mock helicopter, submerged in icy water and told to hold her breath for at least 15 seconds before freeing herself, grabbing a lifejacket, and paddling to safety.

The actor on a massive scam, the guilty pleasure of Judge Judy and why he’s never done a day’s work in his life

Born in Lancashire, Matthew Kelly, 75, studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic and acted at the Liverpool Everyman. He moved into TV, presenting Game for a Laugh in the 80s, You Bet! in the 90s and Stars in their Eyes from 1993 to 2004. Having returned to the stage, he received an Olivier award in 2004 for his role in Of Mice and Men in London’s West End. He stars in Waiting for Godot at Glasgow’s Citizens theatre from 20 February to 14 March, then takes the play to Liverpool and Bolton. He has two children and lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
Not being able to work.

Mayor of Brendola in Vicenza says he has received complaints from residents who live near industrial zones

An Italian town is seeking a crew of sniffers to identify bad smells in its quest to improve air quality.

Bruno Beltrame, the mayor of Brendola, a small town in the northern province of Vicenza, said he began the recruitment campaign for six “odour evaluators” after complaints about “unpleasant smells” from people living in neighbourhoods close to industrial zones.

Annual remembrance in Neauphle-le-Château revives memories of short exile that reshaped Iran, but which locals would rather forget

Every February, members of the Iranian diaspora descend on an abandoned plot of land in an unremarkable street in the French town of Neauphle-le-Château, a 90-minute drive west of Paris.

On the nominated Sunday, a marquee is hastily thrown up and framed photographs of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini hung on the canvas. Green baize is laid on the muddy garden path between posts painted with equal bands of green, white and red, the colours of the Islamic republic’s flag.

His shameful stewardship of a once great title highlights how much we lose when private interest eclipses the public good

Not long after being made Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999, Jeff Bezos told me: “They were not choosing me as much as they were choosing the internet, and me as a symbol.” A quarter of an increasingly dark century later, the Amazon founder is now a symbol of something else: how the ultra-rich can kill the news.

Job cuts in an industry that has struggled financially since the internet came into existence and killed its business model is hardly new, but last week’s brutal cull of hundreds of journalists at the Bezos-owned Washington Post marks a new low. The redundancies that were announced to staff on a video call, the axing of half its foreign bureau (including the war reporter in Ukraine) – not since P&O Ferries have layoffs been handled so badly. Former Post stalwart Paul Farhi described a decision that affected nearly half of the 790-strong workforce as “the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation”.

For Valentine’s Day, writers picked their favourite lesser-known film love stories – from a dom-sub chamberpiece to a magical teen comedy

• ‘It launched a million fantasies’: the greatest ever TV romances

It’s the first rule of romcoms that opposites attract, and you can’t imagine two more different lovers than Poinsettia (Lynn Redgrave), a spark plug of a dame convinced that she is in a relationship with the 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini, and Fish (James Earl Jones), a gentle giant who spends his spare time wrestling a demon that only he can see. That makes for some of the film’s funniest moments, like when Poinsettia ruins a Madama Butterfly opera performance by loudly singing along to the aria. Charles Burnett’s touching film is about how Fish and Poinsettia find refuge with each other that lets them emerge from the fantasies protecting them from the real world’s cruelty, and they find a kind of late-in-life puppy love over dinner dates, cozy sleepovers and card games at their Barbary Lane-like boarding house. When I saw the restoration last 14 February, the theater was filled with couples who, like my boyfriend and I, seemed cozied up just a little closer than usual. Owen Myers

The Annihilation of Fish is available on the Criterion Channel in the US

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

German chancellor rebuts idea of American unilateralism and says ‘democracies have partners and allies’

The US acting alone has reached the limits of its power and may already have lost its role as global leader, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, warned Donald Trump at the opening of the Munich Security Conference.

Merz also disclosed he had held initial talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, over the possibility of joining France’s nuclear umbrella, underlining his call for Europe to develop a stronger self-standing security strategy.

• Buildup to the weekend’s football action

• Things to look out for | Follow us | Mail us here

From Arsenal’s midfield conundrum to Newcastle’s misfiring attack, here are 10 things to look out for in the FA Cup this weekend.

Paris St Germain’s Ligue 1 title hopes suffered a blow with a 3-1 defeat by managerless Rennes at Roazhon Park. Luis Enrique’s side moved back into top spot ahead of Lens last weekend with a 5-0 hammering of Marseille, their seventh success in a row in the league, but they were swiftly brought back down to earth in Brittany.

US secretary of state warns against idea that everyone is ‘a citizen of the world’

Rubio insists that the US “do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship.”

He says “we do not want allies to rationalise the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.”

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.

We want allies who can defend themselves, so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.

Members warn NFWI decision has opened up toxic culture that deters younger women from joining

At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership.

Members say more groups are likely to close, and that the federation’s decision has opened up a toxic, traditionalist culture that will deter younger women from joining.

They’re all over blurbs and social media, but do these bite-size labels lead to formulaic fiction? Plus the classics reimagined for a modern reader

Opposites attract. He falls first. Coffee shop. Forced proximity. Sports romance. University sports romance. Ivy League university sports romance! Best friend’s brother. Brother’s best friend. Slow burn. Age gap. Amnesia. Wounded hero. Single father. Single mother. Language barrier. The bodyguard. Fake dating. Marriage of convenience.

If this list means nothing to you, you’re not a romance reader. Tropes, as these bullet-point ideas have come to be known, have taken over romance. Those who write, market and read romantic fiction use them to pinpoint exactly what to expect before the first page is turned. On Instagram, Amazon and bookshop posters you’ll find covers annotated with arrows and faux-handwritten labels reading “slow-burn” or “home-town boy/new girl in town”. Turn over any romance title and they’ll be there listed in the blurb.

• Group C game at Eden Gardens, 9.30am (GMT) start

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One brings two! Another lifter, another skyer, this time looping straight to deep square, where Phil Salt barely has to move.

Jofra strikes! He drops short and Munsey can only get a top edge, safely pouched by Banton running in from midwicket.

Partners on and off the ice talk about the tensions and joys of competing alongside the ones they love at the Winter Olympics

Every Olympics has its love stories. Usually, they’re all about the quantities of free prophylactics being handed out in the athletes’ village (this year’s edition has an image of the Olympic mascots, the friendly stoats Milo and Tina, on the box). But you have to look a little harder to find the great romances of these Games, which have been on the ice rink in Cortina, where, for the large part of the past week, a trio of married couples were competing against each other in the mixed doubles curling. It is essentially a competitive lovers’ stress test held in front of a live audience.

It’s a peculiarity of the Winter Olympics that there are so many partners partnering with each other in different events. There were two in the ice dancing: the US pair of Madison Chock and Evan Bates won silver and the Italians Marco Fabbri and Charlène Guignard came fourth. Which is all very well. But if you want to see a relationship you can actually relate to, curling was the sport to watch. It’s as if they made an Olympic event out of sharing the front of the car with your partner on a road trip with a map and no satnav.