• Canada claim heated victory at Winter Olympics

• Both teams accuse each other of violations

Tensions boiled over as Brad Jacobs’ Canada beat Sweden 8-6 in an intense round-robin curling game on Friday, with Niklas Edin’s team alleging that their opponents were double touching the stone during the contest.

Trouble began early when the game was halted after Sweden claimed Canada’s curlers were touching the stone following release and asked officials to keep an eye out for further incidents. In response, Canada asked for the officials to do the same on Sweden’s delivery, leading to a frosty atmosphere between the teams.

NAACP alleges artificial intelligence firm is violating Clean Air Act and polluting Black communities in Mississippi

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is facing a second lawsuit alleging it is illegally emitting toxic pollutants from its enormous datacenters, which house its supercomputers and run the chatbot Grok.

The new pending suit alleges xAI is violating the Clean Air Act and was filed Friday by the storied civil rights group the NAACP. The group’s 40-page notice of intent to sue alleges xAI has been polluting Black communities near its facility in Southaven, Mississippi. The pollution comes from more than a dozen portable methane gas generators that xAI set up without permits, the notice alleges.

British PM to tell Munich Security Conference that Europe together is ‘sleeping giant’ and will say UK won’t turn away from its allies

Keir Starmer will say the UK and Europe need to step up their commitments to Nato and avoid the risk of overdependence on the US for defence, as he sets out one of the main planks of his foreign policy vision on Saturday.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the prime minister will warn against the idea of the UK turning inwards on security, instead calling for a focus on what he will call the “sleeping giant” of shared European defence capabilities.

President insists he will also restrict mail-in voting, even if Congress fails to pass the Save America Act

Donald Trump threatened on Friday to impose a requirement that US voters present photo identification before being allowed to cast ballots in the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump insisted he will push for the change even if Congress fails to pass the Save America Act, which cleared the House earlier this week but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. The bill would impose a national photo identification requirement to vote, in addition to requiring proof of citizenship to register and drastically limiting mail-in voting.

• Defender’s current contract expires at end of the season

• ‘We wouldn’t be in talks if we didn’t want him to stay’

Arne Slot has described Ibrahima Konaté as “vital” to Liverpool and the club have not given up hope of convincing the defender to sign a new contract.

Konaté has endured a tough time on and off the pitch this season but has impressed since returning from compassionate leave against Newcastle following the death of his father. Liverpool’s central-defensive rebuild is under way with the signings of Giovanni Leoni and Jérémy Jacquet, for an initial £26m and £55m respectively, but Slot insists Konaté remains an essential part of his plans.

• Briton triumphs by nearly a second in Milano Cortina

• First British man to win individual winter gold since 1980

And on the seventh day, Great Britain finally won their first medal of these Olympics. At nine o’clock on Friday night Matt Weston, the man his teammates call “Captain 110%”, became the first British man ever to win the gold in the men’s skeleton, after four faultless races across the two days of competition.

The 28-year-old broke the track record at the Cortina Sliding Centre four times in succession, and won in a combined time of 3min 43.33sec, which was almost a full second ahead of the runner-up, Germany’s Axel Jungk. “I’ve been fortunate enough to win world championships, and European championships and other things, and this blows them all out the water,” Weston said. “I almost feel numb. I keep touching this medal to make sure it is real.”

Congressperson says US president and Marco Rubio are tearing apart transatlantic alliance

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”, as she condemned his administration’s foreign policy in front of its allies’ top policymakers at the Munich Security Conference.

Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, challenging the Trump administration’s shift to the right in front an audience of US allies who have grown increasingly wary of the US’s increasingly nationalist – and militaristic – global posture.

• Heavy US favorite falls twice in the free skate

• Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov claims shock title

For nearly two years, Ilia Malinin has made men’s figure skating feel predictable in the most spectacular of ways. On Friday night on the southern outskirts of Milan, the Olympic Games reminded the sport, and perhaps Malinin himself, that predictability is never guaranteed on its biggest stage.

The overwhelming favorite entering the free skate, the 21-year-old American instead saw the Olympic title slip away to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov after an error-strewn performance that will go down among the biggest shocks in figure skating history.

Berlin film festival: Shahrbanoo Sadat is a charming presence in front of the camera and a skilled film-maker behind in this shrewd and contemporary tale

The Afghan film-maker Shahrbanoo Sadat is a warm and approachable presence as writer, director and star of No Good Men – a tale of Afghanistan’s women in 2021 as they are about to be surrendered to the Taliban with the withdrawal of US troops.

It’s an urgent tale, which incidentally closes with a fervent finale reminiscent of Casablanca – although the central turnaround in the male lead’s heart, gallantly disproving the title, is maybe a bit smooth.

No Good Men is screening at the Berlin film festival and will be released at a later date

With sleet, snow, swirling wind from the banks of the Humber and most importantly, a Hull City side pushing hard for promotion to the Premier League this season, it was hard not to believe pre-match that this had all the makings of a difficult evening’s work for Chelsea.

Liam Rosenior holds this city close to his heart, given how some of his family hail from Hull and he had an enjoyable spell in charge of the Tigers: well, until he was unceremoniously sacked nearly two years ago, that is. But his happy association with Hull continued with a magnificent display from his Chelsea side, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the FA Cup.

Men appeared in photo lineup assembled in New York and had no apparent connection to late sex offender

Ro Khanna, a California Democratic representative, read a list of six names on the House floor earlier this week and said they were “wealthy, powerful men that the DoJ hid” in the recently released files related to Jeffrey Epstein. After questions from the Guardian, the Department of Justice said that four of the men Khanna named have no apparent connection to Epstein whatsoever, but rather appeared in a photo lineup assembled by the southern district of New York (SDNY).

Khanna, along with Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican representative, pushed the justice department to unredact names in the files, arguing that some names were being unlawfully redacted. Massie claimed credit on X earlier this week for forcing the justice department to remove redactions on a file that listed 20 names, birthdays and photos, including those of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Khanna then read some of those names on the House floor.

Johnny Flynn and John C Reilly offer casting heft, but this moody, technically sound tale of an unfolding epidemic in 1870s Wisconsin lacks emotional substance

There is some very concerted image-making and mood-making in this technically accomplished yet unsatisfying drama from first-time, Norway-based director Dara Van Dusen. It is a sombre tale of the American old west, adapted by Dusen from the novel by Stewart O’Nan, and somehow has the feel of a short film indulgently taken to feature length. Its visual gestures and set pieces, although striking and often shocking, felt for me disconnected from any emotional truth – a truth that sustained, developed storytelling may have provided.

The setting is a frontier town in Wisconsin in 1870, and Jacob (Johnny Flynn) is both sheriff and pastor – although he wears neither badge nor religious garment. He has seen traumatising service in the civil war, in which he appears to have achieved high rank, although some in the town are suspicious of his Norwegian background. He is married to Marta (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and they have a young child.

Scotland have lost only two of the last eight clashes with England but Borthwick’s squad are unscarred by failure

In one of sport’s weirder coincidences, England are about to play must-win games against Scotland in both rugby and cricket on the same day. The forecast 3C temperatures for the Calcutta Cup encounter may be cooler than in Kolkata – appropriately the venue for the T20 World Cup group fixture – but a white-hot contest inside a chilly Murrayfield can be absolutely guaranteed.

Because this particular collision, the 144th since the sides first met at Raeburn Place in 1871, looks set to shape the Six Nations prospects of all involved. To say Scotland are under additional pressure following their defeat by Italy in round one is to state the obvious. And England, too, will take the field knowing the time has come to demonstrate whether or not they are the real deal.

• Skier hopes to return to US after latest procedure

• American crashed out of Olympic downhill run

• Bryan Graham: Crash a violent but honest ending

Lindsey Vonn will have another surgery on her broken left leg Saturday at the Italian hospital where she is being treated “and then I can potentially leave and go back home.”

Vonn posted a video message on Instagram on Friday after her horrific crash in the Olympic downhill race at the Milan Cortina Games.

A skier from France is also killed with manslaughter investigation to be carried out by mountain rescue police

Two Britons are among three skiers to have been killed in an avalanche in the French Alps.

The pair were part of a group of five people, accompanied by an instructor, off-piste skiing in Val d’Isère, in south-east France. A French national, who was skiing alone, was also killed.

Nikhil Gupta faces up to 40 years over alleged India-backed attempt to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun

The Indian man who US prosecutors accused of plotting to kill a prominent US-based activist after being recruited by an agent of the Indian government has pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, according to a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Nikhil Gupta faces a maximum 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money-laundering charges in connection to the failed attempt to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US resident who is an advocate for a sovereign Sikh state in
northern India.

Lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving an impasse over much-criticized agency’s funding

• US politics live – latest updates

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is on course for an official shutdown at midnight after lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving an impasse over the much-criticized agency’s funding.

A range of services, including domestic flights and the US Coastguard, could be vulnerable to disruption after the Senate failed on Thursday to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the DHS appropriations bill. Democrats blocked the funding in protest over violent tactics used in the Trump administration’s recent immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

EU’s head of foreign policy claims ‘Board of Peace’ is vehicle for Trump with no accountability to Palestinians or UN

A bitter dispute between Europe and the US over the future of Gaza has broken out into the open, with the EU’s head of foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, warning that Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” was a personal vehicle for the US president that removed any accountability to Palestinians or the United Nations.

Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, also accused Trump of trying to bypass the original UN mandate for the board, and said Europe, one of the chief funders of the Palestinian Authority, had been excluded from the process.

Chris Nanos was accused of bypassing federal analysts as search for Today show host’s mother nears two weeks

The Arizona sheriff investigating the abduction of NBC Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother pushed back Friday on an accusation he had withheld crucial forensic evidence from the FBI, as the search for the missing 84-year-old reached close to two weeks.

Chris Nanos, the Pima county sheriff leading the investigation in Tucson, has been accused of bypassing federal analysts, according to an unnamed source at the FBI who spoke to Reuters.

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Hull have been a considerable talent school in recent years: Harry Maguire, Jarrod Bowen, Andy Robertson and lately Keane Lewis-Potter have all carved decent careers in the Premier League. Tom Cairney, too.

Liam Rosenior has FA Cup heritage, and played in this Wembley final classic in 2014. City were unlucky in this game, very unlucky.

Wuthering Heights is the latest film to turn heads over anachronistic costumes, but it’s not by any means the first

Emerald Fennell’s retelling of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights finally hits cinema screens this weekend. Ever since the first set of photos were released, the anachronisms of the costumes have been central to the conversation.

As fashion industry watchdog Diet Prada put it: “The costume design for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights scandalised audiences with its freaky mix of Oktoberfest corseting meets 1950’s ballgowns meets futuristic liquid organza meets … Barbie?”

Protests in Buenos Aires, Lindsey Vonn crashes at the Winter Olympics and Bad Bunny performs at Super Bowl LX – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

At a moment of stagnation and political drift, Andy Burnham’s push for a new plan suggests the centre-left debate has moved beyond Downing Street

Once a political leader’s net favourability sinks deep into negative territory, recovery is the exception, not the rule. It usually takes an economic rebound, a dramatic political reset or an opposition implosion to reverse the slide. Sir Keir Starmer’s personal ratings are in a danger zone from which few escape.

Yet the prime minister, like the Bourbons, has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. He made a speech this week after coming close to being ousted suggesting he would “fight” on. He doubled down in parliament despite glaring errors in judgment. He forced out his cabinet secretary while his own failures remain unaddressed. He seemed to blame everyone but himself. When support slips and a leader answers with defiance, voters don’t see strength – they see denial.

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With just seven weeks before its funding runs out, the UK’s greatest cultural asset and most trusted international news organisation must be supported

“The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good,” said the then BBC director general John Reith, when he launched its Empire Service in December 1932. Nearly a century later, the BBC World Service, as it is now known, broadcasts in 43 languages, reaches 313 million people a week and is one of the UK’s most influential cultural assets. It is also a lifeline for millions. “Perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world” in the 20th century, as Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, once put it.

But this week Tim Davie, the corporation’s director general, announced that the World Service will run out of funding in just seven weeks. Most of its £400m budget comes from the licence fee, although the Foreign Office – which funded it entirely until 2014 – contributed £137m in the last year. The funding arrangement with the Foreign Office finishes at the end of March. There is no plan for what happens next.

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