Morocco advanced to the Africa Cup of Nations final on penalties, beating Nigeria 4-2 in the final shootout after their semi-final ended goalless after extra time.
Yassine Bounou saved two spot kicks for the tournament hosts, keeping out Samuel Chukwueze and Bruno Onyemaechi’s efforts. Nigeria keeper Stanley Nwabali denied Hamza Igamane with the first save of the shootout, but it proved to be in vain.
Ynyshir’s Gareth Ward ‘not embarrassed’ by score and says it was due to concerns about the use of raw ingredients
The chef behind a Welsh restaurant with two Michelin stars says it has “the highest standards in the world”, despite being given a one-star hygiene rating in a recent inspection.
Ynyshir, a restaurant with rooms near Machynlleth on the southern edge of the Eryri national park, has been praised as one of the best in the world.
Francesco Pio Esposito was the hero for Inter, the substitute’s 78th-minute goal earning a 1-0 home win over lowly Lecce to boost their title hopes.
The Serie A leaders laboured against stubborn opposition before Esposito scored from a rebound with 12 minutes remaining. Inter move six points clear of Milan and Napoli with victory in what could be a major turning point in this season’s title race.
It was the latest display of Arsenal’s power and aggression, their remorselessness. And when it was over, this Carabao Cup semi-final felt firmly within their grip. But for a late goal from the Chelsea substitute Alejandro Garnacho, his second of an eventful cameo, it would surely have been over.
Even so, it was difficult on this evidence to predict anything other than Arsenal progressing into the final; moving closer to a rare piece of silverware under Mikel Arteta – one to pave the way for others this season?
Sheriff’s deputies are investigating an alleged break-in and theft last week at the North Carolina home of retired Nascar driver Greg Biffle, one of seven people who died in a plane crash last month.
The alleged burglary and forcible entry into the Biffle home in Mooresville was reported on 8 January, according to an incident report from the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office.
The state department cites welfare use as it pauses visa processing for Brazil, Iran, Russia, Somalia and others
The Donald Trump administration has indefinitely suspended immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries, marking one of its most expansive efforts yet to restrict legal pathways to the United States.
The freeze, which takes effect on 21 January, targets applicants officials deem likely to become a “public charge” – who they describe as people who may rely on government benefits for basic needs.
AI tool made by Elon Musk’s xAI makes it easy to harass women with deepfake images, says state’s top attorney
California authorities have announced an investigation into the output of Elon Musk’s Grok.
The state’s top attorney said Grok, an AI tool and image generator made by Musk’s company xAI, appears to be making it easy to harass women and girls with deepfake images on X and elsewhere online.
Some day, perhaps, Mohamed Salah will get the better of Sadio Mané in a major game, but not on Wednesday, not in the Africa Cup of Nations semi-final.
When Senegal beat Egypt in a shootout in the 2021 Afcon final, Mané scored the winning penalty before Salah had the chance to take his. In the shootout in the qualifying playoff for the 2022 World Cup, Salah missed his effort and Mané scored the winning penalty.
Musk attempts to recast AI tool’s misuse. Plus, tech billionaires plot against a proposed California tax on their fortunes
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. Today, we discuss Elon Musk’s rosy depiction of Grok’s image generation controversy; the seven-figure panic among Silicon Valley billionaires over a proposed wealth tax in California, though with one notable exception; and how AI and robotics have revitalized the Consumer Electronics Showcase.
Under a tax proposal that could be put to voters this November, any California resident worth more than $1bn would have to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.
Several Silicon Valley figures have already threatened to leave California and take their business elsewhere. But Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose net worth is nearly $159bn, told Bloomberg Television this week that he is “perfectly fine with it”.
No details given of committee members who will run territory but they are expected be technocrats, not politicians
The US has announced the start of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including the creation of a committee of Palestinian technocrats who are supposed to take over the day-to-day running of the territory for a transition period.
The announcement was made on social media by Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, but it lacked any detail or names of potential members of the proposed “national committee for the administration of Gaza”. The committee is not expected to begin work until mandated by a “peace board” chaired by Trump, which has yet to be created.
Funding to end immediately for up to 2,800 grantees of US agency that serves thousands seeking help and in recovery
The Trump administration on Tuesday evening unexpectedly canceled up to $1.9bn in funding for substance use and mental health care, which providers say will immediately affect thousands of patients.
“It feels like Armageddon for everyone who’s on the frontlines of the addiction and mental health space,” said Ryan Hampton, founder of Mobilize Recovery, a national advocacy organization for people in and seeking recovery.
Loan will be repaid only if Moscow pays reparations and plan to use Russia’s frozen assets still on table
Ukraine will be able to buy military equipment from non-European suppliers when it is given access to a €90bn (£78bn) EU loan later this year under a proposal outlined by the EU executive.
The European Commission on Wednesday published detailed proposals to lend Kyiv €90bn, but said an alternative plan based on using Russia’s frozen assets remained on the table.
I’ve been lucky enough to be with the lads for six days now. We’ve been very strong on what expect as a staff, what we expect as a group, and I hope to see that come out.
[On the various injuries] Reece James took a knock on his hip and he’s not quite ready. Cole [Palmer] should he available for Saturday, Liam [Delap] and Jamie Gittens are ill, Malo [Gusto] will hopefully be fit for Saturday.
[On the relevance of last year’s semi-final defeats to Newcastle and PSG] There are a lot of learnings from that journey. Every competition is different. Today we are in a different place to where we were a year ago. We are away from home; last year we started at home. We’re very excited, very motivated and willing to start again.
[On coming up against Liam Rosenior] Every manager has his fingerprints. The players remain the same and they will have certain habits and qualities that they want to exploit on the pitch. They are a very strong team who we respect.
Morocco in their red and green, Nigeria in all white. Captains Hakimi and Osimhen exchange pennants and handshakes. It’s go time. The noise is something else.
Nigeria’s national anthem is well observed. Morocco’s is raucous – the stakes are huge. Kick-off is upon us.
Tests showed horses that smelled body odour from people watching scary films startled more easily
Horses can smell fear, or at least whether you have scared yourself witless watching a horror movie, according to researchers who say the effect has consequences for riders, trainers and others who work with the animals.
In a series of tests, horses that smelled body odour from people watching scary films startled more easily, had higher heart rates and approached their handlers less often than when the odour came from people watching more joyful scenes.
New polling suggests 58% of Britons think X should be banned in the UK if the social network fails to crack down on nonconsensual images
Elon Musk’s X is understood to have told the government it is acting to comply with UK law, after nearly a fortnight of public outcry at the use of its AI tool Grok to manipulate images of women and children by removing their clothes.
Keir Starmer told the House of Commons on Wednesday that photographs generated by Grok were “disgusting” and “shameful”, but said he had been informed that X was “acting to ensure full compliance with UK law”.
Exclusive: Artist reminisces about his life in film using interviews recorded in last four years of his life
Fifteen years ago, Sir Ian McKellen was among the leading arts figures who criticised the Tate for not showing its collection of paintings by LS Lowry in its London galleries and questioned whether the “matchstick men painter” had been sidelined as too northern and provincial.
Now, 50 years after Lowry’s death, McKellen is to star in a BBC documentary that will reveal a trove of previously unheard audio tapes recorded with Lowry in the 1970s during his final four years of life.
The singer will reunite with her Wicked co-star in a revival of the musical inspired by artist Georges Seurat in summer 2027
Wicked co-stars Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey are to reunite on stage in Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park With George. The production, hotly rumoured and finally announced on Wednesday, will run at the Barbican Centre, London, in summer 2027.
Sunday in the Park With George, which has a book by Sondheim’s long-term collaborator James Lapine, is a tale of two artists. One is inspired by the pointillist Georges Seurat and the other is the character’s great-grandson. On Wednesday, Bailey and Grande shared a photo on Instagram of them sitting in front of the Seurat painting that inspired the production, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which is on display in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Human Rights Watch says attorney general has power to facilitate immediate bail, one of activists’ key demands
Human Rights Watch has written to the attorney general saying ministers’ claims that they cannot intervene in the hunger strike by Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners is “not fully true”.
One of the demands by those refusing food is for immediate bail and the NGO says Richard Hermer, the government’s most senior law officer, could facilitate this by instructing prosecutors not to oppose their bail applications, although the government denied this.
Protesters face execution as the Iranian regime continues its violent crackdown, defying the US president, Donald Trump, who has threatened ‘very strong action’ if demonstrators are killed. Erfan Soltani, 26, is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but it is unclear whether or not his execution has taken place. Lucy Hough speaks to journalist Deepa Parent about what she is hearing from those inside Iran – watch on YouTube
There was a time when nobody picked up after their dogs – and it would have been considered disgusting to do so. What caused the change in attitude?
A PE teacher from Cardiff called Tony is frozen solid after being caught in an avalanche in 1979. There he remains until global heating sees to his thawing and he pops up in the present day, exactly as he was back then. Comedy ensues. This is make-believe, by the way; it’s the premise of Mike Bubbins’ BBC series Mammoth. In the masterful opening scenes, to the sound of Gerry Rafferty’s Get It Right Next Time, we see Tony being scornful, angry, frightened and disgusted by four things that didn’t happen before his big freeze.
He scoffs at a bloke carrying a baby in a sling, gives a charity chugger very short shrift, and jumps out of his skin when a youth on a hoverboard zips past him. But it was Tony’s disgust at a woman picking up her German shepherd’s poo that got me thinking. When did picking up dog poo become the thing to do? Or, put another way, when did just leaving it there become the thing not to do? When did we start becoming disgusted at those who didn’t pick it up rather than those who did? This is a pretty seismic cultural shift, I’m sure you’ll agree.
A line has been crossed, and it’s vital to understand that. A system that sends paramilitaries on to the streets will observe no limits
A few years ago, towards the end of the second Obama administration, a friend and her wife flew back to New York from a holiday in Mexico, landing for a connecting flight in South Carolina. At immigration, the officer looked from one to the other, asked their relation to one another and on receiving the reply, made a noise of disgust – “ugh”. On the pretext that American citizens can’t go through the same lane as a spouse on a green card (not true), he sent them to the back of the line, causing them to miss their connection. But that’s not the point of the story.
My friend is a white Australian who is generally conflict-averse; her wife is a Japanese-American who can stop traffic with a single, hard stare, and who teaches in the South Bronx, where many of her students have been harassed by law enforcement since the day they were born. As trouble got under way, my friend kicked off like a good’un, swearing and muttering sarcastically in the Australian style, while her wife shot her desperate, angry looks. Shut up. Shut Up. SHUT UP.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
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