• Manager stresses squad harmony crucial at tournament

• Two friendlies in March to come before naming squad

Thomas Tuchel stressed talent alone is not enough to make his World Cup squad as the right “social skills” and personality will be needed for England to stand a chance of glory this summer.

It is just five months until the back-to-back Euros runners-up kick-off their quest for success in North America with their Group L opener against Croatia in Dallas. Tuchel only has two March friendlies before naming his squad for the tournament, having qualified impressively during an autumn when he spoke of building a “brotherhood” capable of beating the best.

There is still time before 2027 World Cup to rescue the drooping silver fern but rebuilding an international team is hard and New Zealand’s aura has faded

As a keen surfer Scott Robertson is well aware how abruptly situations can change. One minute you are riding the perfect wave, the next you’re being dumped from a great height and having your world tipped upside down. Which is essentially how “Razor” will now be feeling after being ousted as All Blacks head coach barely two years into his tenure.

On the surface he was everything New Zealand rugby could have wished for. The serial domestic winner who had guided the Crusaders to seven successive Super rugby titles, the empathetic everyman with the break-dancing skills to match. If anyone could connect with younger generations and encourage everyone to fall in love with the ABs again, surely he was da man?

The Renaissance composer wrote hauntingly sublime music – and committed a grisly double murder before descending even further into psychosis. As a new stage work revisits his life, its director asks if art can be separated from artist

Carlo Gesualdo wrote some of the most darkly sublime music of the late Renaissance. He also savagely murdered his wife and her lover in their bed. Now be honest: which would you like to discuss first?

The art will always be secondary to the atrocity, however magnificent the madrigals and sacred music. Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, had been cuckolded by the Duke of Andria in a long-running tryst that had become the scuttlebutt at court. The premeditated double murder of 1590 was a truly grisly affair, concluding in the public display of their mutilated bodies on the steps of the palazzo for several days.

UK users will no longer be able to create sexualised images of real people using @Grok X account, with Grok app also expected to be restricted

Elon Musk’s X has announced it will stop the Grok AI tool from allowing users to manipulate images of people to show them in revealing clothing such as bikinis.

The furore over Grok, which is integrated with the X platform, has sparked a public and political backlash as well as a formal investigation by Ofcom, the UK’s communications watchdog.

Record 3.5 million visited in 2025 and plans are afoot to ensure gallery does not become overburdened like Louvre

The head of the Prado has said the Madrid art museum does not need “a single visitor more” after it welcomed a record 3.5 million people last year, adding that plans are being drawn up to ensure it does not become a victim of its own success like the Louvre in Paris.

In 2025 the Prado, which is home to such masterpieces as Velázquez’s Las Meninas and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, was visited by 3,513,402 people, an increase of more than 56,000 from the previous year. Visitor numbers have risen by more than 816,000 over the past decade.

Three House members claim they’re being targeted for saying that troops don’t need to comply with illegal orders

Three House Democrats confirmed on Wednesday they have been approached by federal prosecutors investigating their participation in a November video about military duty, widening the circle of legislators being targeted by the Trump administration.

Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania disclosed that the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, led by Jeanine Pirro, had requested interviews about the 90-second video in which they said troops don’t need to comply with illegal orders.

Robert Jenrick has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, after being sensationally sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative party.

Kemi Badenoch said she made the decision to sack her shadow justice secretary after she was presented with ‘irrefutable evidence’ that he was planning to defect.

Jenrick was Badenoch’s leadership rival and had long been said to have been prepared to do a deal with Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s head of national news, Archie Bland – watch on YouTube

Ruling delivers victory to Trump administration in its efforts to deport the pro-Palestinian activist

A federal appeals court on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that ordered the release of the former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention, delivering Donald Trump’s administration a victory in its efforts to deport the pro-Palestinian activist.

A 2-1 panel of the Philadelphia-based third US circuit court of appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit Khalil filed challenging his detention after finding that federal immigration law stripped the lower court of jurisdiction over his claims.

$1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease

The controversial US-funded study on hepatitis B vaccines among newborns in Guinea-Bissau has been halted, according to Yap Boum, a senior official at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The study has been cancelled,” Boum told journalists at a press conference on Thursday morning.

Newly-appointed Malcolm Offord, who became a Tory life peer in 2021, plans to stand for Holyrood in May

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The multimillionaire financier who has been made leader of Reform UK in Scotland has refused to say how wealthy he is, claiming that is a private matter.

Malcolm Offord, formerly a Conservative party life peer, was unveiled by Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage, as the party’s first Scottish leader, 10 weeks before a Scottish parliament election in which Reform is expected to win up to 18 seats.

Letters sent using campaign group’s template as Keir Starmer indicates Australia-style move being considered

MPs’ inboxes have been flooded with letters calling for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s, as the prime minister indicated such a move was being considered.

More than 100,000 people have contacted their local MP since the grassroots organisation Smartphone Free Childhood launched an email campaign on Tuesday evening with a template calling for “reasonable, age-appropriate boundaries”.

US marines boarded foreign-flagged crude carrier Veronica in a pre-dawn operation backing Trump’s sanctions push

The US military has seized another oil tanker at sea in support of Donald Trump’s sanctions against Venezuela, military officials announced on Thursday.

Veronica, a crude oil tanker that marine records suggest is sailing under a Guyanese flag, was boarded in a pre-dawn action by US marines and sailors, the US Southern Command said in a post on social media.

Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive!, one of the bestselling live albums of all time, is turning 50. You won’t find that on this list, however: instead there’s metal, soul, and an ‘indecently exciting’ No 1 …

Already stars in Black America, Maze became the ultimate if-you-know-you-know band among British fans of underground soul thanks to Live in New Orleans. It perfectly encapsulated their appeal: smooth but not slick, an awesomely tight band making breezily relaxed music, one fantastic song after another.

The author brings introspection and humour to their inspiring account of how a young goshawk helped them cope after the loss of their father

It is coming up to 12 years since the publication of H Is for Hawk, about the historian, writer and naturalist Helen Macdonald’s time spent training a Eurasian goshawk after an intense period of grief. Showered with awards, the book was a runaway hit and sparked a literary trend for shared transformative encounters with animals including cats, dogs, magpies and hares.

This month, H Is for Hawk comes to the big screen in a new adaptation starring Claire Foy. But there is still time to get to know the source material, which tells of the sudden death of the author’s father and how Macdonald, an experienced falconer who had previously trained kestrels and peregrines, took delivery of a temperamental young goshawk named Mabel with the aim of taming her and teaching her to hunt. Macdonald, who is non-binary, is the audiobook’s narrator. Their reading is characterised by introspection, curiosity and flashes of humour as they observe this “spooky, pale-eyed psychopath” who, as well as feeding and flying, likes to play ball with scrunched-up bits of paper.

Available via Penguin Audio, 11hr 5min

Daniel Reuss/Noord Nederlands Orkest/Cappella Amsterdam
(Pentatone)
Noord Nederlands Orkest and Cappella Amsterdam breathe colour and light into work from the composer’s most austere period

In his later years, Igor Stravinsky became fascinated by serialism, both as a means of distilling musical thought and as an intellectual and stylistic challenge for a composer entering his 70s and 80s. The results struck some contemporary listeners as austere, but there’s a self-effacing purity and beauty about this complex, intellectually probing music that deserves a wider audience than hitherto. Kudos, then, to conductor Daniel Reuss, whose precise yet vital interpretations teem with colour and light.

There are four main works here. In Memoriam Dylan Thomas from 1954 is an extended, impassioned setting for solo tenor of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Threni, a spiny, multifaceted jewel from 1958, sets words from the Book of Lamentations. The haunting Introitus and bristling Requiem Canticles, from 1965 and 1966 respectively, complete the set, interspersed with briefer pieces including an unpretentious Lord’s Prayer and the severely cerebral two-minute Elegy for JFK.

Officers with riot shields, dogs and teargas called in to quell action at Harmondsworth and Brook House facilities

More than 100 asylum seekers held at two immigration detention centres have staged overnight protests against the UK’s controversial “one in, one out” scheme with France.

Officers with riot shields, dogs and teargas arrived to quell the protests.

The previous actors to take the lead in Stieg Larsson’s franchise were excellent. So the successor to Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy is bound to be brilliant – whoever they are …

This week Sky announced that it will be remaking Stieg Larsson’s 2005 novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as an eight-part television series. So far, all we know is that it will be set in the present day and will be written by Steve Lightfoot and Angela LaManna.

What we don’t know is who will play Lisbeth Salander, the aforementioned girl with the dragon tattoo. And this will be a big deal, because previous screen adaptations of Larsson’s books have made stars of whoever was cast as Salander. In 2009’s Swedish adaptation, she was played by Noomi Rapace, who was nominated for a Bafta. In David Fincher’s 2011 remake, she was played by Rooney Mara, who was nominated for an Oscar. And in 2018’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web adaptation, she was played by Claire Foy, who wasn’t nominated for a Bafta or an Oscar, but was still very good.

US transportation safety board releases initial report on November 2025 crash that killed 15 people in Louisville

An engine part suspected of causing the crash of a UPS cargo plane and loss of 15 lives in Louisville in November was the subject of at least four previous failures on three separate aircraft, investigators have found.

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released on Wednesday determined that Boeing warned plane owners about the defect, but did not believe it was a flight safety issue and did not require immediate repairs.

The Oscar winner intends to combat misuse of the famous line from Dazed and Confused by creating ‘a clear perimeter around ownership’

Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey has trademarked his image and voice – including his famous catchphrase: “All right, all right, all right” from the movie Dazed and Confused in an attempt to forestall unauthorised use by artificial intelligence.

The Wall Street Journal reported that McConaughey has had eight separate applications approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office in recent weeks, including film clips of the actor standing on a porch and sitting in front of a tree, and an audio clip of him saying: “All right, all right, all right”.

Following the anniversary of the actor’s death, fans recall his joy at a train platform mishap, enthusing about experimental theatre and an embarrassed double-take

• ‘I fell in love with him on the spot’: friends remember Alan Rickman, 10 years after his death

One of the highlights of my late wife’s life involved Alan Rickman. Returning to university in Manchester in the mid-90s for a new term, she was attempting to put on an enormous rucksack full of books (she did English). As she managed to get the thing on, she experienced an error in balance, fell backwards and laid on the platform, wiggling her arms and legs like an inverted tortoise, unable to move.

The order follows a nine-month investigation and includes broad exemptions for datacenters and consumers

Donald Trump on Wednesday imposed a 25% tariff on certain AI chips, such as the Nvidia H200 AI processor ​and a similar semiconductor from AMD called the MI325X, under a new national security order released by the White House.

The proclamation follows a nine-month investigation under ‌section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and targets a number of high-end semiconductors meeting certain performance benchmarks and devices containing them for import duties. The action is part of a broader effort to create incentives for chipmakers to produce more semiconductors in the US and decrease reliance on chip manufacturers in places such as Taiwan.

More than 180,000 people follow the Bush Legend’s accounts across Meta platforms, but its Aboriginal host is a work of digital fiction

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With a mop of dark curls and brown eyes, Jarren stands in the thick of the Australian outback, red dirt at his feet, a snake unfurling in front of him.

In a series of online videos, the social media star, known online as the Bush Legend, walks through dense forests or drives along deserted roads on the hunt for wedge-tailed eagles. Many of the videos are set to pulsating percussion instruments and yidakis (didgeridoo).

There would be no Australian Open were it not for the work undertaken in an unassuming underground room at Melbourne Park

Underneath Rod Laver Arena, a group of tennis specialists cut and twist and weave – intently focused on their preparation for the action on the blue court a few metres above their heads. In the lead-up to the Australian Open, these experts maintain a consistent workload, training their muscles and technique, ready to peak as if they were the athletes taking to the courts themselves. But they won’t step on the court – their unique domain is tennis rackets. Racket stringing, specifically, and as the Yonex string team leader, Jim Downes, has learned over his 30-year stringing career, “it’s a high demand job”.

The world’s top tennis players are, unsurprisingly, “very particular” about how their rackets are strung, Downes says, referring to how tight or loose the strings that crisscross the frames are pulled. A highly strung racket generally offers its user more control but less power, while the opposite is true for a racket with lower tension. “A lot of people know how to string,” he says. “You have your shop stringers, but they might not be quick enough to do this job and maybe not consistent enough for the players’ needs at this level.”

Influencer, who promotes conspiracy theories and anti-immigration rhetoric, posts notification that her ETA has been cancelled

A Dutch anti-immigration influencer who has promoted conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement” appears to have had her authorisation for visa-free travel to the UK revoked.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek posted an image online of what appeared to be a notification from the British government that her UK electronic travel authorisation (ETA) had been cancelled on Tuesday.