From the frontline to underground shelters to children’s funerals, Kochetova has captured the war in Ukraine with power and humanity for the Guardian. ‘I have the same scars as the people I photograph,’ she says ahead of a major show
Julia Kochetova is unlike most of the people who cover Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the Guardian. The photographer lives in Kyiv; she is Ukrainian. It is her country that is being invaded, her friends who are being killed.
The war that began in 2014 and brutally escalated on 24 February in 2022 has infused every part of her existence. It is fundamental to her life choices, her relationships, her friendships, her career (when she was younger she had planned to go to art school in Germany, but photojournalism beckoned). She is at home on the frontline, and could give you battlefield first aid if you needed it. She is also a vegetarian who makes an exception for meat-based borsch; reads poetry when we’re on the road together; and can wash and brush out her waist-length hair in unusual locations and at surprising speed. Her driving style lies somewhere on the spectrum between chaotic and shrewd, and she can recommend you a good place for a manicure in Kyiv. She is 32 years old. She has organised more funerals than anyone should have to do in a lifetime.
Famous Last Words is a series of interviews conducted with notable names and only released after their death and it offers an incredible opportunity
Exactly one day after the death of actor Eric Dane, a new show appeared on Netflix. Entitled Famous Last Words, it consisted of an interview with none other than Eric Dane himself. While at first the timing of the release might have seemed coincidental at best and exploitative at worst, the reality of the interview was something else entirely.
Dane, it transpired, had recorded the interview in full knowledge that he was dying. What’s more, he conducted it on the understanding that it would only be released in the event of his death. Because this is the conceit behind Famous Last Words. It exists as a living obituary, as an opportunity to go on the record for the very last time to contextualise their life in a manner of their choosing.
OpenAI CEO also downplayed concerns about how much water datacenters require at AI summit in India
The OpenAI boss, Sam Altman, has tried to ease concerns about how much power is used by artificial intelligence models by comparing it to the amount of energy required by human development.
“People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model – but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman told the Indian Express recently while in India for the AI Impact summit. “It takes about 20 years of life – and all the food you consume during that time – before you become smart.”
Ex-president, accused of crimes against humanity, selected targets and promised immunity for death squad members, prosecutor says
Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was “at the very heart” of brutal anti-drugs campaigns that led to the killing of thousands of people, prosecutors at the International criminal court (ICC) have argued, as they called for charges against him to proceed to trial.
Duterte, 80, who was arrested in Manila last year and flown to The Hague, is facing three counts of crimes against humanity over campaigns against drug users and dealers during his presidency, and his earlier tenure as mayor of the city of Davao.
The original show might have ended on a whimper and the first spin-off might have disappointed but this lighter, shorter series has been a genuine joy
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I first entered into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms extremely gingerly. Game of Thrones (as we all know) all but cratered during its final season, to the point that watching it almost felt like a punishment. House of the Dragon was somehow even worse, for reasons we’ll come to shortly.
And so, presented with an opportunity to dip my toes back into Westeros, I hesitated. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me repeatedly due to a capitalist desire to permanently entrench all existing IP in order to minimise subscriber churn, shame on me.
Solidarity campaign mobilizes as thousands of children like Liam Ramos taken amid Trump’s immigration crackdown
On 28 January, hundreds of protesters gathered near the Dilley immigration processing center in south Texas, where hundreds of children are being held. Days earlier, immigration lawyer Eric Lee filmed a video of detainees screaming and chanting “libertad,” or “freedom.”
Soon after, solidarity events arose in the state. “Community members saw the children and families crying out [and] having their own protests from within and said to everybody: we need to show up there too,” said Rev Erin Walter, executive director of the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry.
A constant feature of this season has been the background grumble of dissatisfaction. You don’t have to spend long on social media to see moans about the quality of play, the sense that everything has somehow gone backwards since the tactical focus began to shift away from the pure possession and positional football of the peak Pep Guardiola years to something more direct and focused on set plays.
And yet, as we enter the run-in, there appears to be a proper Premier League title race. There is an extremely competitive battle to finish in the top five and qualify for next season’s Champions League and, although Wolves and Burnley are probably doomed, there are four teams scrapping to avoid that last relegation slot with another three glancing a little nervously over their shoulders.
I was disturbed, but I wasn’t shocked. It’s a bigger problem that in these toxic times, so many of us endure this and other slurs in our daily lives
At the outset of the Baftas, the gilded crowd anticipated historic wins, emotional speeches and enjoying the familiar glow of a cultural institution congratulating itself on progress – whether fully warranted or not.
Then, as proceedings began and as Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, two of the leading actors of our time, stood on stage, there was the N-word – shouted from the audience by John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner who also lives with TS and is the inspiration for the Bafta-winning film I Swear.
The 41-year-old suffered a complex tibia fracture to her left leg in the crash and underwent multiple surgeries in Italy before being flown back to the US for further treatment last week. But in an Instagram post on Monday, the American said the crash also led to compartment syndrome in her leg. The condition occurs after traumatic injuries such as falls from heights and car crashes. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “compartment syndrome happens when there’s too much pressure around your muscles. The pressure restricts the flow of blood, fresh oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and nerves. Compartment syndrome is extremely painful.” The lack of blood flow can lead to permanent damage to patients.
It used to be accepted fact that nothing political or controversial would be mentioned within spitting distance of a podium. In the last few weeks that silent agreement has ended
The rule on a red carpet or a parti-coloured podium is that none of the victors say anything about politics. None of the surrounding players – the losers, the judges, the spouses, the hangers-on – should say anything either, because it draws attention to the vast lacuna where normal opinions should be. Some people, such as the Olympic committee, have explicit strictures, while other bodies merely create the expectation that nothing will be said, and can I just remind everyone that many years passed when this was no big deal. Politics was 9-to-5 work, and sports and showbiz were weekend-casual work, and nobody expected the two to intersect.
It’s 2026, however, and the outside world intrudes on everything. Prince William said at Sunday night’s Bafta ceremony that he hadn’t seen the winning film, Hamnet, explaining: “I need to be in quite a calm state and I am not at the moment. I will save it.” Look, you could get on your high horse and say: “Mate, you’re the president of Bafta, could you not have found a moment of peace in which to watch the film that was likely to win everything?” Or you could speculate on what, between the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the rising swell of voices wanting to know who knew what, when, could have caused William’s disquiet. Or you could say: “Actually, Hamnet would be the perfect film for your troubled mind, being immensely soporific and yet quite forgiving; you can sleep through a large chunk of it and still know exactly what’s about to happen”.
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Reform UK’s plan to create an ICE-style deportation agency has been condemned as “sadistic”, after the party’s home affairs spokesperson vowed to face down “progressive outrage”.
Zia Yusuf, introduced as “the shadow home secretary” at a press conference in Dover, said mass deportations carried out by a planned UK Deportation Command would not trigger the same kind of violent showdowns seen in the US because “policing is done by consent” in the UK. He also described the number of migrants arriving in the country as an “invasion”.
Forget nightcaps – an afternoon tipple is the new way to squeeze socialising into your evening, while still getting to bed on time. A great idea or a recipe for disaster?
Authorities mounted rescue operation after group of five lost control of ice sheet in Stockholm archipelago
Five people have been rescued from an ice floe carrying a sauna tent, a motorised saw and an onboard motor after they lost control of their DIY vessel in the Stockholm archipelago.
Swedish authorities believe the passengers, who were German tourists, had been attempting to create their own motor-powered floating sauna when the swell from a passing passenger ferry broke the piece of ice and stranded them near Värmdö, an island near Stockholm.
Reiner, 32, charged with two counts of first-degree murder after parents were stabbed to death in December
Nick Reiner was expected to return to court on Monday for arraignment on two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.
A judge postponed the legal proceedings last month after his attorney withdrew from the case, and was replaced by a public defender. Reiner’s former attorney, Alan Jackson, said at the time that he could not share why he was stepping down, but that his client was not guilty.
Sahibzada Farhan ‘very hopeful’ of securing a deal
Pakistan players make up 63 of 710-man auction longlist
Pakistan’s Sahibzada Farhan has said he remains hopeful of securing a contract to play in the Hundred this year, despite reports that the tournament’s four Indian-owned teams will not consider signing players from the country, but he admitted that selection decisions are “not in our hands”.
Farhan, who is the leading run-scorer at the T20 World Cup, is one of 63 Pakistani players on the 710-name longlist put forward for the men’s auction on 12 March. Despite the rumours, more Pakistani players have made themselves available than those from any other foreign country with all but two of the country’s 15-man World Cup squad hoping for a deal.
Curling cursing, podium camaraderie and stunning speed on skis linger for our writers after an astonishing Games
Best momentMatt Weston winning double gold. It was so well deserved. He fought hard for the victories and the emotions afterwards showed how much it meant to him.
Biggest disappointment Seeing the second GB skeleton relay team, Freya Tarbit and Marcus Wyatt, take fourth place. The sense of almost getting that medal, the sadness was so visible. I was so impressed by their performance, I wanted to hug them both.
‘I was playing all day and night in a kind of fever, throwing in pop, jazz, violin, guitars and polyrhythms, while wrestling with some demons’
We had a family farm three hours west of Chicago, and when I was scoping out potential studio spaces I remembered some barns where my brother and I used to make forts out of hay bales when we were little. One was in rough shape and had racoons living in it, but I got a local carpenter to do the skilled jobs and I did the mundane stuff such as boards for the ceiling. Then I just moved in, but I hadn’t realised how isolating it would be. It was February and snowing and none of my friends had cars. I’d go for two weeks at a time without speaking to anyone. So I started experimenting with a loop pedal, messing around with songs.
If anyone can empathise with Stéphane Gilli, it is probably Antoine Kombouaré, the man who now replaces him as Paris FC manager. Gilli had felt like a lame duck since the Arnault family took over the club midway through last season, but earningpromotion to Ligue 1 at the first time of asking bought him a stay of execution. It didn’t last long. With fears of relegation growing, Kombouaré – a former lame duck turned firefighter – has taken his place.
Just like Gilli, Kombouaré too failed to fulfil the lofty ambitions of new owners; his face didn’t fit. QSI were merciless when they dispatched Kombouaré within just months of their purchase of Paris Saint-Germain in 2011; they were top of the league when he was replaced by Carlo Ancelotti. The self-proclaimed “bling bling” era had begun at PSG and, despite its flaws, there was at least a direction – which is more than can be said for Paris FC now.
Benfica appeal against ban from Real Madrid second leg
Vinícius alleged he was racially abused by Argentinian
Uefa has provisionally suspended Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni for Wednesday’s Champions League playoff match against Real Madrid after allegations that he racially abused Vinícius Júnior during last week’s first leg.
The ban has been imposed pending the completion of a Uefa investigation and Benfica said they would appeal against the decision. The Portuguese club said they regretted being “deprived” of the player while the process was continuing but acknowledged their appeal was unlikely to prevent Prestianni from being suspended for the return in Madrid.
The 21-year-old man who was shot and killed after having entered Donald Trump’s Florida resort on Sunday – while carrying a shotgun – came from a North Carolina family of the president’s supporters and had reportedly become increasingly fixated on the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files.
The focus of the FBI’s investigation into the intrusion attributed to Austin Tucker Martin is tightening on his movements and motives. Martin was confronted by Secret Service agents and a local sheriff’s deputy inside the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago and killed after he had raised a shotgun into the shooting position at about 1.30am on Sunday, law enforcement said.