The annual Academy Award nominees luncheon is my favourite part of an otherwise excruciatingly dull affair – and the group picture reveals more than any winners list could

As you will all be aware, the Oscars aren’t particularly fun. They are an overlong celebration of underwatched films that take place in a room where, by the end of the evening, the bulk of those present have been told that they aren’t good enough to win anything. The whole thing is excruciating.

But you know what’s much better than the Oscars? The annual Oscars nominees luncheon. This is when everyone who has been nominated gathers for a nice lunch. It isn’t televised, so nobody has to be on their best behaviour. No awards are handed out, so technically everyone invited is an equal. And, best of all, they take a class photo of everyone at the end.

Head of Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales says he is working with Thames Valley and Met forces

Prosecutors are “in close contact” with police over investigations into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein, England and Wales’s most senior criminal prosecutor has said.

Thames Valley police has said it is reviewing allegations that the child sex offender Epstein provided Mountbatten-Windsor with a woman to have sex with at Royal Lodge in 2010, as well as that the former prince shared confidential reports from his role as a government trade envoy with the disgraced financier.

‘In Florida, people were told to keep the length of a baby alligator apart. So I included a character wearing an alligator mask in my pandemic-themed masked ball’

When Covid started, everybody was talking about masks. I thought about the face coverings we all had to wear, and I thought about masks more widely. I researched masked balls and carnival masks and read a lot about the many outbreaks of plague in Venice starting in the 14th century, and about pandemics in general.

This photograph, Danse Macabre, was inspired by Covid. If you take a close look at the paper lamps hanging from the ceiling, you’ll see some Covid-19 viruses smuggled in among them. In the middle of the scene, a doctor in a plague mask – the type still sold at carnival in Venice – is dancing with the rat that caused the plague. The couple on the left reference the fact that the Bolsonaro-led Brazilian government at the time of the pandemic was accused of allowing many Indigenous people to die unnecessarily [he denied any wrongdoing]. So those two deal with colonialism – the woman in the yellow hat represents an Indigenous person, the guy she’s dancing with is wearing a mask with the face of Pedro de Alvarado, a Spanish conquistador responsible for massacring Indigenous populations in Guatemala in the 16th century.

• Madrid were sole surviving proponents of breakaway

• Uefa statement suggests club’s legal case will be closed

The Super League project has finally died out after Uefa announced it had reached “an agreement of principles for the wellbeing of European club football” with Real Madrid and the European Football Clubs group.

In a surprise statement released the day before Uefa stages its annual congress in Brussels, the governing body said all parties had agreed a way forward “respecting the principle of sporting merit with emphasis on long-term club sustainability and the enhancement of fan experience through the use of technology”.

Facing existential challenges on trade and security, the bloc has finally realised it has to grow up and go it alone – but the path ahead is a rocky one

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Emmanuel Macron put it simply – and starkly. Confronted with “a world in disarray” and a double, potentially existential challenge from the US and China, he said: “Europe must become a power.”

The bloc is facing “a Chinese tsunami” on trade, Macron told several European newspapers, as the country most Europeans had for decades seen principally as an infinite export market transforms itself instead into a ferocious, low-price, hi-tech competitor.

Lucy Harrison died after being shot in chest by alcoholic Kris Harrison while staying at his home in US last year

A Cheshire woman who was shot dead by her “reckless” father while visiting him in the US after a row about Donald Trump was unlawfully killed, a coroner has ruled.

Lucy Harrison, 23, who lived in Warrington and worked as a fashion buyer for Boohoo, was shot in the chest with a semi-automatic handgun by Kris Harrison while staying at his home in Prosper, Texas, on 10 January last year.

Collection is unabashedly grand while reflecting an awareness of fashion as it looks in the real world right now

Ralph Lauren is the US’s poet laureate of style. His brand came of age in a gilded era of American charm, when Bill Clinton was president, the economy was booming and the twin towers glittered on the Manhattan skyline. His clothes speak to an America of sportsmanship and vigour, where everyone has a firm handshake and perfect teeth.

The US could use some poetry right now, and at 86, Lauren is still the man. To open New York fashion week, he transformed a grand marble palazzo in the city’s financial district – a showpiece of the young city’s financial muscle when it opened in 1894 – in the style of his own country estate upstate.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

The archdiocese agreed to pay 600 abuse survivors a $305m settlement before the Vatican confirmed Aymond’s exit

Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, on Wednesday – one day after the archbishop concluded a series of meetings with survivors of a clergy molestation scandal that has embroiled the city’s church leadership for years.

Aymond had submitted his resignation to global Catholic church leaders at the Vatican as he was required when he turned 75 in November 2024. But the Vatican didn’t immediately accept it, plotting for Aymond to remain in position until the New Orleans archdiocese settled a federal bankruptcy protection case that it filed in the spring of 2020 amid the continuing fallout of the decades-old worldwide clerical abuse crisis.

Classical music’s blessing is also its curse: you’ve simply got to pay it attention. Plus: No wonder Rossini was an Olympics hit – he invented disco

If you’re reading this, you too may know the essential power of the music we call classical to chart and change your life. That power of connection and empathy is among the miracles of human creativity, and it’s something that everyone has a right to. That is despite decades of underfunding of music education and the whole sector in this country; despite generations of the astounding innovation of its practitioners being ignored by government after government; despite the ravages of technology companies who would replace human-created music with rights-free AI given half a chance. With all of those pressures, and more, it’s no wonder that classical music is in a psychological state of defensiveness and a perennial struggle for relevance, and ends up trying to do things on terms that are set by the streaming companies and social media, not by the art form or the artists themselves.

Classical’s blessing and curse is that it demands our unmediated attention and our time, making it unfit for purpose in the second quarter of the 21st century. What to do with hour-long symphonies and evening-length operas in a cultural feedback loop of ever-shorter attention spans and a media landscape in thrall to the playlist, the reel, the image, the moment? Who has time for time?

Pelicot writes of ‘brain stopping working’ when police told her of crimes of man she shared her life with for 50 years

Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global symbol of courage during the trial of her ex-husband and the dozens of men who raped her while she was unconscious, has described her shock when police first showed her images of the crimes, likening herself to a “rag doll”.

In extracts from her forthcoming memoir, A Hymn to Life, Pelicot, 73, describes her shock when police told her of the actions of her ex-husband Dominique, whom she considered “a great guy” and had shared her life with for 50 years.

The best images from day four of the Games, including ski jumping, Super-G skiing, speed skating and more

As a teenager I wondered what I would have in common with this Nordic island. Then my teacher gave me a book of poetry

Lying in my bed, I listened to what sounded like a woman screaming outside in the dark. I picked up my pen. A month of living in this Icelandic village and I was still unaccustomed to the impenetrable January gloom and the ferocity of the wind; its propensity to sound sentient. I had started to feel like the island was trying to tell me something, had a story it wanted me to write.

Sauðárkrókur, a fishing town in the northern fjord of Skagafjörður, was all mountain, sea and valley. There were no trees to slow the Arctic winds, and I had already been blown sideways into a snowbank while walking home from Fjölbrautaskóli Norðurlands vestra, my new high school whose name I could not yet pronounce. At night, my dreams were filled with a soundscape of weeping women. When I woke, their wailing continued in the gusts outside. That was when I wrote. I wrote to understand myself in this new place. I wrote to understand Iceland, its brutality and its beauty.

Australia’s club sides can drive each other to greater heights in a year that will prove crucial ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup

The 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season kicks off this weekend and Australia needs its four provinces to make a stirring statement ahead of the 2027 home World Cup. No local side has won the men’s competition, or even made the final, since Michael Cheika’s NSW Waratahs upset now 13-time champions the Crusaders in 2014. If the Wallabies want to conquer the world, it has got to start with beating the neighbours.

The year after his Super triumph, Cheika took the Wallabies to the Rugby World Cup final (losing to New Zealand 34-17) and Rugby Australia will be praying for a repeat act in 2026. Ideally it’s the Cinderella story of Les Kiss leading the Queensland Reds to glory before he takes the reins from Joe Schmidt as Wallabies coach this July, a feat that would supercharge the Kiss era and ignite home fans before next October’s tournament.

The combination of denim with heels is more than a trend – it elevates both you and your look

On the Notes app on my phone, among the to-do lists and the half-drafted email replies, I have a random list called Things That Are Just Always Chic. Wearing a watch that only tells the time. Having a signature scent. Black Ray-Ban sunglasses. All-white flowers in a vase. Also: wearing jeans with high heels.

Jeans with heels gets me every time. The woman who walks into the room in jeans and heels looks as if she owns the place, in a good way. It is a style language that speaks to everyone, confident and direct, a woman who is on top of her brief but also fun. The impact is stronger than a casual outfit, more compelling than a formal one.

Google now allows you to pick your preferred sources in Top Stories. Here’s how to do it in two clicks

You may have noticed some changes in how news appears in Google search. The company recently rolled out a “Preferred Sources” feature that allows people to choose which outlets they’d like to see stories from, customised to their interests.

By selecting the Guardian as a preferred source you’ll have more control over what shows up in your search results without having to rely on the algorithm alone. Here’s how to do it.

Carlos Palazuelos told reporters he was held at a traffic stop Tuesday and claimed to not have heard about the case

A man detained by authorities in Arizona investigating the disappearance of Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother was released early on Wednesday after several hours of questioning, according to reports.

An individual who identified himself to reporters as Carlos Palazuelos said he was the person held after a traffic stop on Tuesday in Rio Rico, about an hour’s drive from the Tucson area home from where Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing on 1 February.

Church launches marriage-themed computer game for Valentine’s Day aimed at enticing more couples to the altar

Faced with a steeply declining number of church weddings, Spanish bishops have turned their eye to the virtual realm in the hope that a new video game will help entice more couples to the altar.

According to the most recent figures, less than 18% of all weddings in Spain in 2024 – 31,462 out of 175,364 – took place in church. The numbers are dramatically down from 2007 when more than 55% of weddings happened in a Roman Catholic church.

• Heraskevych faces potential disqualification

• Athlete calls situation ‘theater of the absurd’

The Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych has been warned that he faces disqualification from the Winter Olympics if he wears a “helmet of memory” for his country’s war dead when the men’s competition starts on Thursday.

Heraskevych has continued to practise in the helmet, which shows 20 images of athletes and children killed since Russia’s invasion, despite the IOC banning it on Monday. In a post on X, published on Wednesday, Heraskevych indicated that he has no intention of backing down and called on the IOC to approve his helmet for the competition.

• England due to play in South Africa in January 2027

• ODI and T20 dates clash with SA20 tournament

England’s two white-ball series in South Africa next year are currently in doubt amid the latest scheduling clash that pits franchise cricket against the international game.

As it stands, England’s men are due to play three Tests, three one-day internationals and three Twenty20s in South Africa next winter. The white-ball leg of this rare “full tour” to the country represents an important scouting mission for the World Cup that South Africa are co-hosting in late 2027.

Supposedly a pragmatic upgrade on Postecoglou, the Dane’s relationship with fans unravelled after early cup exits and league defeats in which they showed negligible attacking threat

When Tottenham have made managerial changes in the 21st century, they have seemingly been guided by a specific principle. The new man must represent a fresh start and so it would surely help if he were radically different to his predecessor; often the complete counterpoint.

It began when Glenn Hoddle came in for George Graham in 2001 and over the ensuing years the club have bounced, for example, from Juande Ramos to Harry Redknapp to André Villas-Boas. From Mauricio Pochettino to José Mourinho. From Antonio Conte to Ange Postecoglou.

The wait for a first medal goes on but the camp believe they have several aces to play, especially in the skeleton

Still the wait goes on. When Britain arrived in Milano Cortina there was heady talk of the country having one of its “most potent ever teams” for a Winter Olympics. So far, though, Team GB is still firing blanks.

It is not for the want of trying. Kirsty Muir missed out on a freeski slopestyle bronze by 0.41 points. Mia Brookes came impossibly close to making the biggest trick in Olympic big air snowboard history. While Britain’s mixed curlers, having coasted regally through the group stages, their mojo went awol when it mattered most.

Matthew Doyle, who stepped down as No 10 head of communications last March, had the whip removed on Monday

Families of nurses and carers have said they fear being torn apart under an immigration crackdown condemned as “an act of economic vandalism”, Josh Halliday reports.

Q: You are here being hosted by UK Finance. But the financial services sector does not like your plans for a windfall tax on banks. Have you dropped your support for that?

Over-by-over coverage as England’s latest pool match
The Spin on the slower ball in cricket | Email Daniel

England, of course, sneaked by Nepal on Sunday; West Indies whacked Scotland on Saturday.

If there’s heavy dew, batting first is a big advantage because it makes the ball hard to grip. Both sides have serious batting firepower, but unreliable attacks, so we can expect runs.