6 mins. The ball is won by Ireland and they work up to the 11 phases, moving left with some big McCloskey carries, before returning to the shadow of the posts. The ball is moved short to Stockdale off his wing to go over close to the posts.
2 min: Liverpool appear to be employing a one-man press. Jones. That’s it. Wolves play through it, and Mane dallies over a shot from the edge of the D. He can’t get one away, but then Gravenberch clips Toti and it’s a free kick for Wolves in a dangerous position, just left of centre, 30 yards out.
Liverpool get the ball rolling. “It’s 1-0 Falkirk,” writes Simon McMahon. “Hic!”
Crisis in the Middle East, Ramadan in Gaza, a blackout in Havana and Stella McCartney at Paris fashion week – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Semi-finalists have shown progress under new captain after avoiding basic errors of previous tournaments
If the first months of Harry Brook’s captaincy of England’s white-ball teams have taught us anything, it is that Joe Root knows him well. Looking back now at the teams’ progress since he took over, the run to the T20 World Cup semi-finals, and also at the scandal caused by his notorious drunken escapade in Wellington, the words of Brook’s Yorkshire teammate soon after his appointment seem more astute than ever.
“He’s still an idiot, that’s not changed,” Root said. “But as much as he’s an idiot, and I can say that because I’ve known him for ever, he’s very cricket intelligent. He might not always be the most intelligent away from cricket, but he understands the game exceptionally well and that’s why he’s so consistent as a batter, and I think that’s what will make him a really good leader.”
PM justifies position on US-Israel war on Iran in social media post using the Dire Straits song Money for Nothing
Keir Starmer has been accused of trying to mimic Donald Trump’s social media output after posting a TikTok video about the crisis in the Middle East overlaid with the prime minister’s voice and the Dire Straits song Money for Nothing.
The video opens with footage showing Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters flying over his head before cutting to British military jets in action and a drone being destroyed, as Starmer’s voice states the position he has taken on the conflict.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said he would open a perjury investigation into the ousted homeland security secretary Kristi Noem after alleging she lied to Congress about the hidden influence her senior adviser Corey Lewandowski had over the agency’s contracts.
Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member on the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, said Thursday he would push the panel to look into whether Noem committed perjury at a hearing this week, when she flatly denied Lewandowski had played any role in approving Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending. Blumenthal said Democrats had evidence to prove otherwise.
In a chilling social media video that is beyond irony, clips from Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun are crassly interspersed with real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran
Could anything be more embarrassing yet more chilling than the White House’s giggling new teen-YouTuber-type supercut of badass moments of imagined American or quasi-American machismo from film and television, crassly interspersed with real infrared kill-shot footage, boosting the new military attacks in Iran. We get flashes of, among others, Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and that well known legend Pete Hegseth, a moment that gives us a clue as to whose idea this all was.
Here is an administration pre-celebrating the real victory – over its own “whiny libs”. The video is of course designed to troll the Dems and the “wokesters”. Why didn’t Franklin D Roosevelt think of this before D-day? Of course, some of that creative energy and political acumen might have gone into imagining who they want to take over in Iran. But that isn’t as exciting – and not as much of a sure thing – as baiting the Hollywood progressives and the lamestream media. The zone can once again consider itself well and truly flooded.
Late-night hosts addressed Trump firing the DHS secretary, rising US gas prices and Robert F Kennedy Jr’s crackdown on Dunkin’
On Thursday night, late night-hosts celebrated Kristi Noem’s firing, criticized Maga’s handling of the war in Iran and raised an eyebrow to Robert F Kennedy Jr taking issue with sugary Starbucks drinks.
The US lost 92,000 jobs in February, an unexpected major slackening in the labor market that came just before Donald Trump threw the global economy into upheaval with his conflict in Iran.
The unemployment rate edged up to 4.4% in February. In comparison, the US added a revised 126,000 jobs in January, far surpassing expectations of 70,000 jobs but still less than January 2025. Economists predicted an increase of 60,000 jobs added in February and a steady unemployment rate of 4.3%.
In refusing to sing the national anthem these athletes have placed themselves in grave danger while Gianni Infantino sides with the American war machine
A small but telling detail from a vast and baffling chain of events. You probably saw the footage of Donald Trump’s declaration of war on Iran two weeks ago, a piece of history played out in real time, a moment where the inevitable violent deaths of thousands of people were in effect announced.
In the video Trump is shown propped up at his plinth, using that sing-song intonation he employs to appear cod-statesmanlike, faux-grave, but sounding instead like a semi-sentient robot vacuum cleaner in the seconds before it runs out of battery life. To the great people of Iran. America is backing you. Don’t go outside. It’s very dangerous out there. We will for the foreseeable future be bombing you to freedom.
Dramatising Onjali Q Raúf’s refugee tale The Boy at the Back of the Class brought cheers and boos from a young audience – showing they can handle the truth
I’d never heard of The Boy at the Back of the Class before I was asked to adapt it in 2023. My son had just turned one when Onjali Q Raúf’s novel came into my life. While I could have recited every Julia Donaldson book in my sleep at the time, thiswould have been a little advanced for his reading age.
Since then, I have of course read the book and its impact is extraordinary. It follows a young Syrian boy, Ahmet, who arrives in the UK without his parents. He joins a school and befriends a group of kids who hear that the government is going to “close the gates”. They don’t fully understand what it means other than that Ahmet’s parents, who must be looking for him, won’t be able to get into the country. So they decide, in a beautifully innocent way, to go to the most powerful person they can think of – the queen! – and ask for help to find Ahmet’s parents and keep the gates open. There is a wonderful simplicity to the whole thing.
Three women in their 40s, 50s and 60s interviewed under caution in relation to alleged abuse by late Harrods owner
Three women have been interviewed under caution on suspicion of facilitating one of Britain’s worst sexual abuse scandals, involving the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed and his alleged attacks over four decades.
Scotland Yard said 154 women may have been raped or sexually assaulted by Fayed, or been subject to human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Donald Trump has fired his controversial US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, after weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership. As the public face of an aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted lawsuits and nationwide anti-ICE protests, Noem’s year-long tenure was plagued by multiple controversies, including accusing two US citizens killed by immigration agents of ‘domestic terrorism’. What exactly led to Noem’s firing and what do we know about her replacement? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael
Styles will perform new album in full at Co-op Live arena show, with tickets being traded for well above £20 face value
More than 20,000 fans from all over the world flocked towards the Co-op Live arena in Manchester on Friday to watch Harry Styles perform his first concert in two and a half years – some waiting 48 hours for a place down the front.
Styles will perform his new album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally in full, after its release earlier today. Anticipation for the show had been high since tickets went on sale for £20 in early February, which, barring a performance of the album’s lead single Aperture at the Brit awards – which took place at the same arena a week earlier – will be Styles’ first time on stage since closing out a tour in Italy in July 2023. It has been marketed as a homecoming show for the pop star, who was raised outside the city in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.
Rule changes will affect driver style and car performance with world champion Lando Norris already under scrutiny
With the long and increasingly febrile buildup almost at an end, Formula One is finally ready to go racing into the sport’s new era. Whether it will prove a success is one of many questions that will be answered at the season-opener in Melbourne this weekend, as will the most pressing concern: which team and driver enter this brave new world on top of the pile?
In the paddock at Albert Park this week, teams and drivers increasingly had an air of the stony-faced stare-down of a cold war summit amid caginess about their prospects. No one wanted to give anything away nor make predictions.
Syndicat de la Librairie Française accused online retailer of trying to ‘flood the market with fake AI-generated books’
Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris book festival after a boycott by France’s booksellers’ association prompted a row over the company’s sponsorship of the event.
The festival, due to take place from 17 to 19 April, will now go ahead without the backing of the US retail company, after a mutual decision by organisers and Amazon to end their partnership.
Woods says he has PGA commitments but knows he would be up against a detail-obsessed Luke Donald in 2027
Chatter on the Bay Hill range this week has suggested the prospect of Tiger Woods making a return to competitive action at next month’s Masters may actually be more than a tale of fantasy. There is even the suggestion Woods could test his competitive ability at a stop on the senior Champions Tour between now and Augusta National. If nothing else, the mere discussion keeps sponsors happy.
One never really knows with Woods, whose schedule was always mysterious by design, but his addition to the Masters field would naturally turn heads. Having not played a mainstream tournament since the Open of 2024 – and with an injury record as long as the Trans-Siberian railway – Woods will presumably at some point have to prove he can either remain a relevant part of majors or succumb to the kind of sad, hard-to-watch existence that has befallen scores of sportspeople before him. It is at least fair to say he does not have many Masters left.
The intensified use of artificial intelligence, and rows over its control, demonstrate the need for democratic oversight and multilateral controls
“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of technological development – as well as geopolitical turbulence – is collapsing the distinction between theoretical arguments and real world events. A political rowover the US military’s AI capabilities coincides with its unprecedented use in the Iran crisis.
The AI company Anthropic insisted that it could not remove safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon said it had no interest in such uses – but that such decisions should not be made by companies. Outrageously, the administration has not just fired Anthropic but blacklisted it as a supply-chain risk. OpenAI stepped in, while insisting that it had maintained the red lines declared by Anthropic. Yet in an internal response to the user and employee backlash, its CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that it does not control the Pentagon’s use of its products and that the deal’s handling made OpenAI look “opportunistic and sloppy”.
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Publishing has failed to deliver on its promises after Black Lives Matter. True diversity requires a lasting shift
A World Book Day question: which children’s author is name-checked in Stormzy’s song Superheroes (and appears in the video for Mel Made Me Do It) and Tinie Tempah’s Written in the Stars? The answer, as a generation of readers will know, is former children’s laureate Malorie Blackman. Her groundbreaking novel, Noughts & Crosses, turns 25 this year.
Set in a dystopian Britain (Albion), in which racial hierarchies are reversed, this story of star-crossed lovers was one of the first young adult novels to tackle racism and class directly in the UK. It was written in response to the death of Stephen Lawrence; 20 years later, Endgame, the last in the series, was finished as the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd. Noughts & Crosses was voted one of the UK’s all-time favourite books, and has been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company and for TV by the BBC, with a cameo from Stormzy.
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Sleeplessness, fear and exhaustion gripped residents of Tehran as successive waves of strikes struck the Iranian capital, judging from messages sent by people in the city after the latest overnight onslaught, which several described as the worst bombardment in six days of war.
With Iran imposing a near-total internet blackout, information emerging from inside the country is fragmentary and difficult to verify. But in a series of accounts sent through proxy connections, and calls with friends abroad, Tehranis described a night of intense explosions.
Landmark ruling in Celia Ramos case finds 310,000 women, most Indigenous, were targeted in brutal 1990s campaign
The highest human rights court in Latin America condemned Peru on Thursday over the death of its citizen Celia Ramos, who died at the age of 34 in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation “under coercion”.
The landmark ruling by the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) is the first on Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and was directed against poor, rural and Indigenous women.
Exclusive: Senior party figures share data suggesting Green surge could put Labour in fourth place in capital in May
Senior Labour politicians across London have warned the government not to take progressive voters for granted, with concerns the party faces a “political earthquake” in the capital in May after a surge in support for the Greens.
They have been privately circulating new data that suggests Labour could drop from first to fourth place in London in the May elections – losing control of all but two of their councils – with the Greens soaring into first place to take nine.
Relegation fears are sharpening while interim head coach grasps for solutions at a club hampered by inhibition, rage and injuries
Igor Tudor’s messaging was always going to be key. All eyes and ears were on the interim Tottenham head coach on Thursday night and how he would react; the tone he would look to set. Would there be another blast for the players? Goodness knows, the material was there.
It had been another impossibly awful occasion at the club’s home stadium, another defeat – this one by Crystal Palace. Spurs cannot buy a Premier League win at the Temple of Gloom; they have two all season, the basis for the worst home record in the division. As relegation fears sharpen to an incredibly uncomfortable point, the emotions in the stands ranged from apathy to anger. A lot of anger.
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