Not unexpectedly, both Gueye and Ndiaye come straight back into the Everton XI. Rohl can count himself a little unlucky to find himself back on the bench after his Villa heroics, while Barry and McNeil are preferred to Beto and Dibling. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is available again for the first time since 13 December, but is among the subs. As mentioned in the preamble, Grealish is injured. The home side will line up in a 4-2-3-1.
Experts suggest Xi Jinping is asserting his authority by sidelining an officer who has significantly betrayed his trust
Standing inches from Xi Jinping at a military ceremony in late December, China’s highest ranking general, Zhang Youxia, may have had little inkling about the fate that was to befall him just a few weeks later when he was put under investigation.
The 75-year-old’s physical proximity to China’s leader, who stands to his right, reflects the position he holds in China’s hierarchy. As vice-chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the ruling body of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), he is the second-most powerful person in China’s military, after Xi, the commander-in-chief.
The shooting of Alex Pretti was carried out by a federal agent licensed to act with impunity. The US must be rescued from Trump’s authoritarianism
Following the fatal shooting earlier this month of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, his colleagues received reassurance that they continued to enjoy “federal immunity” for their actions. “Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony,” the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, had previously stated. “No city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”
Words have consequences. Ms Good, a US citizen and mother of three children, had in fact been attempting to drive away from a protest in Minneapolis, where ICE’s deportation snatch squads have terrorised migrants and those who have attempted to defend their rights. On Saturday, in the same city, the same quasi-paramilitary force was responsible for a second shocking death. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot multiple times in the back after being wrestled to the ground and pepper-sprayed.
American forces, aided by Israel, could have enough firepower to mount attack designed to topple regime
The Iranian government is bracing itself for a fresh US and Israeli missile assault after it was announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has now deployed key assets to the region, observers have said.
It is thought that Washington has the firepower in conjunction with Israeli aircraft to mount an attack designed to topple the government accused of brutally suppressing protests and killing thousands of Iranians.
It condemns killings, arrests and threats against athletes
A group of prominent Iranians with links to football have called on Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, to condemn the killing and arrest of footballers in Iran and the threats made against players in the country.
The demand was made in open letter also addressed to the presidents of Fifa’s more than 200 national associations. Among its 20 signatories are Ali Karimi, who played 127 times for Iran, and three other former full internationals. The list also includes a football coach, a referee and sports journalists.
England will kick off their Six Nations training camp in Spain this week without their captain, Maro Itoje, who has travelled to Nigeria for his mother’s funeral. Itoje was conspicuously absent from the official Six Nations championship launch in Edinburgh on Monday and is not expected to join up with his squad until Wednesday evening.
With the tournament commencing on Thursday week every team is scrambling to be ready for their opening games but Steve Borthwick, England’s head coach, has given the Saracens lock permission to miss the start of this week’s training block in Girona. “He is in Nigeria for the funeral of his mother and we are all deeply saddened for him,” said Borthwick, whose side open their campaign at home to Wales on Saturday week.
Scientists expect 41% of the projected global population to face the extremes, with ‘no part of the world’ immune
The number of people living with extreme heat will more than double by 2050 if global heating reaches 2C, according to a new study that shows how the energy demands for air conditioners and heating systems are expected to change across the world.
No region will escape the impact, say the authors. Although the tropics and southern hemisphere will be worst affected by rising heat, the countries in the north will also find it difficult to adapt because their built environments are primarily designed to deal with a cooler climate.
Azruddin Mohamed, 38, was confirmed as Guyana’s opposition leader after 16 lawmakers from the We Invest in Nationhood party (Win) and another from a single-seat outfit voted in his favor. The tally made Win the second-largest party in parliament, securing Mohamed’s election even as a magistrate’s court hears state arguments for his extradition to the US.
Williams unable to take to the track at all in Spain
The Aston Martin team have admitted they are to miss at least one day of their allotted three at Formula One’s first pre-season test in Barcelona and will not run their car before Thursday at the earliest. They are the second team to fail to take full advantage of the opening test after Williams also announced they would be unable to take to the track at all in Spain.
Testing is taking place from Monday to Friday this week at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with teams able to use three of the five days to assess their cars. They have been designed to entirely new regulations and with new engines this season and consequently three full pre-season tests are being held. But as the track running began, Aston Martin conceded they would not be there at the off and issued a statement.
Drummer helped to define the sound of roots reggae and dancehall, and worked with stars including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Grace Jones
Sly Dunbar, the Jamaican musician and producer who created generations of global hits as one half of production duo Sly and Robbie, has died aged 73.
His wife, Thelma, told Jamaican newspaper the Gleaner that she found him unresponsive on Monday morning, with doctors later pronouncing him dead. Other sources close to Dunbar confirmed the news to the Guardian, adding that Dunbar had been unwell for some months.
Move comes as the SEC has taken a series of friendly stances towards the cryptocurrency industry under Trump
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday agreed to dismiss its enforcement case against a cryptocurrency exchange founded by billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, after investors in its lending program recovered their assets in full.
The SEC has taken a series of industry-friendly actions in recent years, a shift in its approach to crypto enforcement under Donald Trump, who promised to be the “crypto president”. He brought in more favorable rules and pledged to popularize mainstream use of digital currencies.
European retailers urge traders to adhere to commitments after Brazilian lawmakers wreck forest protection pact
Leading British and European retailers are trying to salvage the core elements of the Amazon soy moratorium after the world’s most successful forest protection agreement was wrecked by Brazilian lawmakers and abandoned by international traders.
In an open letter, high street brands including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda say the breakdown this month of the 20-year-old agreement will damage consumer confidence unless new arrangements are put in place to ensure grain production is not linked to deforestation.
Suella Braverman has defected to Reform UK, the third sitting Conservative MP to join Nigel Farage’s party in little more than a week.
The former cabinet minister, who has been an MP since 2015 and served as home secretary under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, was a surprise speaker at a Reform event in London where she announced she was joining the party.
Elijah Wood joined protest in Utah’s Park City in memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, while Natalie Portman said what is happening is ‘absolutely horrific’
The Sundance film festival, which is currently under way in Park City, Utah, saw a mass protest against the two fatal shootings in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Sunday, along with high-profile interventions from major film industry figures.
The ligament that connects your foot bones can cause severe heel pain when inflamed. Here’s how to avoid that
Recently, I decided to go for a jog after not running at all for more than [redacted] years. I did a half-marathon a couple of presidential administrations ago, so surely it would be fine? It was! Until the next morning, when I rolled out of bed, put my feet on the floor and felt a sharp pain in my heel.
Plantar fasciitis, my old nemesis.
Strengthen the muscles of the feet. Silverman suggests doing toe curls (with your feet flat on a towel, grip the towel with your toes and scrunch it towards your body) or marble pickups (using your toes to pick up marbles or similar objects from the floor).
Stretching. Specifically, stretching the calf muscles and the achilles tendon. Regularly stretching and massaging these areas “can help to not only assuage the inflammation, but prevent it from coming back”, says Aiyer.
Increase activity levels gradually. Allow your body to get acclimated to increases in activity levels rather than suddenly ramping up. Basically, don’t do what I did.
Wear the right shoes. Choose a shoe that’s too supportive, and your foot muscles can weaken over time, says Silverman. But choose a shoe that’s not supportive enough, and you may expose your plantar fascia to more direct trauma. Rather than sweating this Goldilocks challenge, Silverman says you should “choose footwear that matches the environment and activity”.
The document also demonizes immigrants. In one widely cited passage, it even claims that “unchecked migration” has gotten so out of control that Europe is facing imminent “civilizational erasure”. On these grounds, the plan makes ending “The Era of Mass Migration” a top priority for the US.
Starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, this gets off to a promising start, but the plot twists are derivative and the tacked-on violence descends into exasperating silliness
Sam Raimi is back with this violent black comedy scripted by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, set on a desert island where two plane-wreck survivors are facing off. It’s a movie whose entertaining initial premise and shrewd satire are finally damaged by Raimi’s need to juice everything up with spurious “horror” flourishes for the fanbase, on-brand gore eruptions that aren’t really scary and undermine the film’s believability, turning everything into silliness. The poster and promotional materials promise a “horror” film, but that isn’t really what this is. But what is it? Well, it’s a desert island parable that owes something to JM Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton and to … how to say it? … other dramas. No spoilers, but Raimi appearing to borrow from a recent Cannes Palme d’Or winner was not, as they say, on my bingo card.
Rachel McAdams plays nerdy Linda Liddle, a single woman living alone with a caged bird. She’s devoted to her job. She is an extremely smart researcher in a corporation, but is passed over for promotion by the charmless misogynists running the firm: useless, untalented males in Patrick Bateman suits who depend on her work. Chief among these odious sexists is new CEO Bradley Preston, played by Dylan O’Brien, a vacuous smoothie and nepo princeling whose late father, the company founder, valued Linda enough to promise her a VP position – a promise on which the hateful Bradley now smugly reneges.
Israel plans to start work next month on a bypass that will close off the heart of the occupied West Bank to Palestinians and cement the de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state. The road is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank. The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the plans were intended to ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’
Members of foreign staff send letter to billionaire owner Jeff Bezos urging him to change course
The Washington Post has consistently produced high-quality, news cycle-leading reporting over the first year of Donald Trump’s chaotic and unpredictable second administration. But that work has been produced under a cloud of uncertainty and rumors of widespread job cuts.
Those long-rumored cuts now appear to be close, with staffers expecting the ax to drop in early February – though nothing is certain. Inside the Post, staffers have tossed around estimates of potential cuts, with most exceeding 100, which would represent more than 10% of the newsroom – but no one really knows how widespread the cuts will be – or in fact if they will happen at all. The sections most likely to be affected by the cuts include sports, metro and foreign, according to staffers who spoke with the Guardian.
Another weekend, another few days of soul-searching for Liverpool and Tottenham. Liverpool had been on a 13-game unbeaten run before Saturday’s defeat to Bournemouth, but nobody could claim a string of results that included home draws with all three promoted clubs was convincing. Spurs had won just two of their 13 league games before Saturday’s away draw at Burnley, which was salvaged only thanks to an injury-time goal from Cristian Romero.
For both, European competition had offered some relief – Liverpool looked very good in a 3-0 win away to Marseille while Spurs, at least in the first half, produced probably their best performance since August in beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 – but the sad truth is that the vast majority of European sides these days simply cannot live with the physicality of the Premier League. That’s not to say that Bournemouth or Burnley are better than Marseille or Dortmund, but it is to say that the challenge they pose a Premier League side is less.
As a war correspondent I’ve seen this strategy used before. Putin is weaponising the savage eastern European winter
In the winter of 1993, during the siege of Sarajevo, people burned books and furniture to keep warm. Water froze in pipes. Electricity vanished for the duration of the war. Children slept in coats and hats, their breath visible in dark rooms. Cold itself became a weapon of war.
I remember, when I was reporting from the Bosnian capital, seeingdoctors operating by candlelight or wearing camping headlamps. I remember old people chopping wood in the park in the centre of the city until there were no trees left, then dragging it home on sledges. I remember the ground being too frozen to bury the many dead on the football pitch, which later became a cemetery. I remember a terrible, frozen day when I went to an old people’s home near a frontline and counted dead body after dead body, all frozen in their sleep.
Rapper, now known as Ye, apologises to his family and to the Black community and says he loves Jews, blaming his bipolar disorder for his ‘poor judgment and reckless behaviour’
Kanye West has taken out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal apologising for his antisemitic behaviour. “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote. “I love Jewish people.”
In a letter titled “To Those I’ve Hurt”, he attributed his inflammatory actions, including making profoundly offensive statements and selling T-shirts bearing swastikas, to his bipolar-1 disorder, which he said he developed as a result of medical oversight failing to diagnose a frontal-lobe injury sustained in a car crash in 2002.
To Those I’ve Hurt:
Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the right frontal lobe of my brain. At the time, the focus was on the visible damage – the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed.
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