All across the continent, teams line up to hear Zadok the Priest get his usual Uefa-sanctioned kicking. Poor Zadok’s a-cold! All of which is a roundabout way to say that we’ll be off in a minute. Big night coming up.
TNT have a quick word with Thomas Frank before kick-off. “There is one game in front of us, that’s PSG … if you look too much in the past you forget to look forward and do everything you can to perform now … that is all about performing tonight … make sure we compete … are brave … we are playing against a very mobile team … we have to match that … be aggressive … we need mobile, front-footed midfielders … a big night for us … we need to put a fight in.”
Two US national guard soldiers were shot on Wednesday near the White House and their conditions aren’t immediately known.
“Please join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen who were just shot moments ago in Washington DC” Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted on X, adding that the agency is working with local law enforcement to gather more information.
Mike Arteta, Arsenal manager, speaks to TNT about his selection choices:
The headaches are going to be a little bit harder. Cristhian Mosquera and Myles Lewis-Skelly deserve to play. We have to manage the squad and the load that we have. We have a game every three games.
Mark Damazer says over-assertive board and executives feeling ‘embattled’ played into departures of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness
A “toxic mix” of over-assertive BBC board members and executives feeling under siege contributed to the resignations of its two most senior editorial leaders, an influential former BBC figure has warned.
A bitter row is still raging over the events that led up to the resignations of the director general, Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News.
Rachel Reeves has declared her budget will slash living costs for millions including ending the two-child benefit limit and cutting energy bills, but taxes are set to soar by £26bn to plug a gaping shortfall in the public finances.
Major measures in the budget leaked early in a shock accidental release by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), triggering an instant bond market reaction an hour before the chancellor was on her feet in the House of Commons. After months of speculation, Reeves said her measures would put the public finances on a sustainable path while building “a fairer, a stronger, a more secure Britain” by tackling inflation and investing in large infrastructure projects.
Current chief Andy Cowell to become strategy officer
Adrian Newey, regarded as one of the best engineers in Formula One history, will become Aston Martin team principal next season,
Newey committed his long-term future to Aston Martin in September 2024 after his departure from Red Bull sparked a bidding war for the Brtion’s services.
Palmer is training with squad despite toe fracture
Forward out since September with groin injury
Chelsea are hopeful that Cole Palmer can give them a major boost by declaring himself fit to face Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. The forward has been out with a groin injury since September and his return to action was delayed when he fractured a toe in a freak domestic accident last week.
That forced Palmer to sit out Chelsea’s 3-0 win over Barcelona in the Champions League on Tuesday but there is optimism that his fitness issues are close to an end. The 23-year-old has trained with the squad this week and may be ready to play some part against Arsenal.
It gets into its twentysomething characters’heads in a way that’s fresh and real.Youeither get it, or you don’t
It’s been a while since a TV show came along that people leaned into losing their minds about, but finally, and after a year of otherwise mediocre programming, we have one. I Love LA, the HBO comedy set among wannabe gen Z influencers, is only halfway through its eight-episode run, but it is already comfortably the best show of the year. And more importantly, it has triggered all the signifiers of event TV: obsessive repeat viewings, line-by-line coverage, big platform profiles of its stars and weekly recaps on Vulture, New York magazine’s website. Within days of each episode airing, people have transcribed and uploaded the entire script, which – with the best will in the world – no one’s doing for Riot Women.
The surprising thing about this is not the fact that it’s the first show by Rachel Sennott, the show’s 30-year-old creator and star, or that the action takes place in a tiny world in east LA, but that content about influencers can be watchable at all. To date, millennial and older writers have tended to use social media as a lumbering plot device – oh my God, something’s gone “viral!” – or as a stand-in for the collapse of all known standards. You probably haven’t watched these because nobody did, but take your pick from: HBO’s one-season disaster The Girls on the Bus, in which an old-media reporter covers a US election race only to find that influencers – those pesky kids! – have stolen her patch. Or the equally horrific Netflix flop Girlboss, loosely based on the memoirs of Sophia Amoruso, the early influencer, and which not even a cameo by Cole Escola could save. Or Flack, the deathly Anna Paquin-fronted show about publicists trying to manage their clients’ social media, and an early red flag for which was the use of the word “maven” in the show’s publicity.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
If you aren’t getting the quality time or intimacy you need, try these connection experiments to shake up interactions
Lately, life has felt like Groundhog Day: work, gym, sleep, repeat. Between a punishing work schedule, the grim weather and my desire to hibernate, my social life has suffered. I feel dissatisfied, restless and isolated. But I have plenty of friends and active group chats – I can’t be lonely, surely?
Player ingested a banned stimulant from rubber crumb
She has been exonerated but talks of ‘terrible moment’
The Norwegian club Vålerenga have called for anti-doping regulations to be strengthened after an extraordinary case in which a player from their women’s team was found to have ingested a banned stimulant from rubber crumb in an artificial pitch.
A seven-month saga concluded on Wednesday when the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) chose not to appeal against the decision of Anti-Doping Norway (Adno) that the player was faultless. But the landmark case has highlighted the risks to footballers of environmental exposure to banned substances and opened up the possibility of further controversies emerging around the thousands of synthetic pitches across Europe.
Officers say they are closing borders and suspending poll as president and main rival both claim victory
Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau have announced they are taking “total control” of the west African country, three days after elections that both the two main presidential contenders claim to have won.
Military officers said they were suspending Guinea-Bissau’s electoral process and closing its borders, in a statement read out at the army’s headquarters in the capital Bissau and broadcast on state TV. They said they had formed “the high military command for the restoration of order”, which would rule the country until further notice.
Commission president says undermining of sovereign European nation would ‘open the doors for more wars’
The European Commission president has warned against “the unilateral carving up of a sovereign European nation” as Europe scrambles to assert influence over the US’s attempt to end the war in Ukraine.
Speaking to European lawmakers in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen said Russia showed “no signs of true willingness to end the conflict” and continued to operate in a mindset unchanged since the days of Yalta – the much-criticised and misunderstood 1945 summit to settle the postwar order.
When the great artist saw a shocking play by Martin McDonagh about the torture of children, she asked him for more dark stories. As the vivid, extraordinary works they triggered go on show, the playwright looks back
In the summer of 2004, Paula Rego wrote to Martin McDonagh asking for permission to name some pictures after his play The Pillowman. His shocking investigation into the relationship between art and life featured two brothers under interrogation for the torture and murder of children. One is a writer whose stories are summarised by an investigator as: “A hundred and one ways to skewer a fucking five-year-old.”
Rego, then a 69-year-old grandmother as well as a world famous artist, had been taken to see the play at the National Theatre in London by one of her daughters, who knew it would resonate with her. “The brutality and beauty and humour rang very true and like something I had known all my life,” she wrote to McDonagh. “I am actually Portuguese, although I have lived in London for 50 years, and our stories are brusque and cruel like yours.”
MEPs pass resolution to help parents tackle growing dangers of addictive internet platforms
Children under 16 should be banned from using social media unless their parents decide otherwise, the European parliament says.
MEPs passed a resolution on age restrictions on Wednesday by a large majority. Although not legally binding, it raises pressure for European legislation amid growing alarm about the mental health risks to children of unfettered internet access.
It is measure of just how much more shameless and obsequious Fifa has become under the presidency of Gianni Infantino that news of its decision to unsuspend Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal’s first two group games at next year’s Geopolitics World Cup has been greeted with little more than an amused, weary eye-roll at the brass neckery of it all. Issued with a straight red card for violent conduct during a defeat at the hands of the Republic of Ireland, the preening Portuguese showpony was issued with a standard three-match ban, the first game of which he spent on the Naughty Step during his side’s subsequent 9-1 demolition of Armenia. His was an absence that didn’t so much make the heart grow fonder, as the team grow in stature and confidence.
Surely the benchmark for ‘lamping’ your teammate (yesterday’s Football Daily) was set in January 1979 by ‘Killer Hales’ and Mike ‘Flash’ Flanagan at the Valley. Without the benefit of today’s array of camera angles and pundits to know-it-all, it was difficult to judge who started it, but the football reasoning was that Killer thought Flash had delayed a pass and prevented him scoring. However, there were some mutterings about off-field tensions and they went their separate ways. Five years later, amazingly, they were both back in the Addicks’ front line” – Geoff Williams.
I found it interesting that a slap to the head did not cause Michael Keane to fall to the pitch and roll around in apparent agony. Surely Keane should have been booked for his embarrassingly flagrant act of simulated stoicism?” – Ian Potter.
Idrissa Gueye’s straight red might turn out to be the least of his worries. Apparently his reward for winning this eliminator is a crack at the title against local favourite, Duncan Ferguson” – Allastair McGillivray.
The Mohana of Pakistan’s Sindh province once thrived on the lake but pollution and drought have caused the fragile ecosystem to collapse, along with their way of life
At the mouth of Lake Manchar, gentle lapping disturbs the silence. A small boat cuts through the water, propelled by a bamboo pole scraping the muddy bottom of the canal.
Bashir Ahmed manoeuvres his frail craft with agility. His slender boat is more than just a means of transport. It is the legacy of a people who live to the rhythm of water: the Mohana. They have lived for generations on the waters of Lake Manchar in Sindh province, a vast freshwater mirror covering nearly 250 sq km. The lake, once the largest in Pakistan, was long an oasis of life. Now, it is dying.
Bashir Ahmed in his boat on the lake, next to simple huts built on top of the right bank outfall drain
European nations are rushing to bolster their defences amid Russia threat and uncertainty of US support
France will this week become the latest EU country to set out plans to expand its army, with Emmanuel Macron expected to announce on Thursday that military service will be restored – albeit on a voluntary basis – nearly 30 years after the end of conscription.
In the face of Russia’s military threat and uncertainty over the US’s commitment to defending its transatlantic allies, Europe is rushing to bolster its defence industry and its deployment capability after radically cutting them back since the cold war.
Karoline Leavitt’s nephew’s mother has been detained by US immigration agents in Revere, Massachusetts, as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Bruna Ferreira, a Boston-area resident who migrated with her family to the US from Brazil as a child, is now in custody at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana, according to the Boston radio station WBUR, which first reported the arrest.
EPA had previously said rule reducing fine particle matter from vehicles and industrial sources could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year
The Trump administration is seeking to abandon a rule that sets tough standards for deadly soot pollution, arguing that the Biden administration did not have authority to set the tighter standard on pollution from tailpipes, smokestacks and other industrial sources.
Share a tip on your favourite route at this time of year – the best entry wins £200 towards a Coolstays break
The crunch of frost underfoot, lungfuls of crisp fresh air, landscapes sparkling in shafts of sunlight; a good winter walk is one of life’s simple pleasures. We want to hear about where you love to walk at this time of year in the UK. Perhaps it’s a bracing coastal path, a meandering woodland hike or a riverside trail. If there’s a lovely pub or cafe on the route so much the better!
The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planetwins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.
OpenAI responds to lawsuit claiming its chatbot encouraged California teenager to kill himself
The maker of ChatGPT has said the suicide of a 16-year-old was down to his “misuse” of its system and was “not caused” by the chatbot.
The comments came in OpenAI’s response to a lawsuit filed against the San Francisco company and its chief executive, Sam Altman, by the family of California teenager Adam Raine.
Emotions ran high at the UN climate summit in Brazil, which was hit by its first major protest in four years
It was a tense moment. A group of about 50 people from the Munduruku, an Indigenous people in the Amazon basin, had blocked the entrance to the Cop30 venue in protest, causing long lines of delegates to snake down access roads, simmering in the morning heat.
Indian city’s organisers promise: ‘We are well prepared’
Number of sports will increase from 10 to 15-17
Ahmedabad has vowed not to make the same mistakes as Delhi in 2010 and to “lay the foundations for the next 100 years” after being confirmed as the host of the 2030 Commonwealth Games.
Organisers said that 15 to 17 sports would feature in 2030 – up from the 10 that will feature in Glasgow next summer – including athletics, swimming, table tennis, bowls and netball. Twenty20 cricket and triathlon are on a provisional list, with the process to determine the final list of sports starting next month.
Connexion
