• Buildup to the weekend’s football action

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Paris St Germain’s Ligue 1 title hopes suffered a blow with a 3-1 defeat by managerless Rennes at Roazhon Park. Luis Enrique’s side moved back into top spot ahead of Lens last weekend with a 5-0 hammering of Marseille, their seventh success in a row in the league, but they were swiftly brought back down to earth in Brittany.

Mousa Al-Tamari gave Rennes a half-time lead and, although Ousmane Dembele pulled one back straight after Esteban Lepaul had made it two midway through the second half, it was the home side who found another goal through Breel Embolo. It was a dream first outing as interim head coach for Sebastien Tambouret, who was given the reins after Habib Beye was sacked on Monday following a run of four defeats in a row.

US secretary of state warns against idea that everyone is ‘a citizen of the world’

Rubio insists that the US “do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship.”

He says “we do not want allies to rationalise the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.”

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.

We want allies who can defend themselves, so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.

Members warn NFWI decision has opened up toxic culture that deters younger women from joining

At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership.

Members say more groups are likely to close, and that the federation’s decision has opened up a toxic, traditionalist culture that will deter younger women from joining.

They’re all over blurbs and social media, but do these bite-size labels lead to formulaic fiction? Plus the classics reimagined for a modern reader

Opposites attract. He falls first. Coffee shop. Forced proximity. Sports romance. University sports romance. Ivy League university sports romance! Best friend’s brother. Brother’s best friend. Slow burn. Age gap. Amnesia. Wounded hero. Single father. Single mother. Language barrier. The bodyguard. Fake dating. Marriage of convenience.

If this list means nothing to you, you’re not a romance reader. Tropes, as these bullet-point ideas have come to be known, have taken over romance. Those who write, market and read romantic fiction use them to pinpoint exactly what to expect before the first page is turned. On Instagram, Amazon and bookshop posters you’ll find covers annotated with arrows and faux-handwritten labels reading “slow-burn” or “home-town boy/new girl in town”. Turn over any romance title and they’ll be there listed in the blurb.

• Group C game at Eden Gardens, 9.30am (GMT) start

• Follow us over on Bluesky | And get in touch: email Tim

Morning everyone and Happy Valentine’s! What could be more romantic than England and Scotland, that old pair of exes, bumping into each other in a World Cup? Well, one thing that would be even more romantic is if they were to meet in Kolkata on the very same day that they are also meeting in the Calcutta Cup. And lo, it is coming to pass. It’s so improbable, it’s practically a rom-com already.

For Scotland’s cricketers, who only got their invitation to this party at the last minute, there is, as always, a burning desire to beat the Sassenachs. For the England team, as in all walks of life at all times, there’s a burning desire not to be embarrassed.

Partners on and off the ice talk about the tensions and joys of competing alongside the ones they love at the Winter Olympics

Every Olympics has its love stories. Usually, they’re all about the quantities of free prophylactics being handed out in the athletes’ village (this year’s edition has an image of the Olympic mascots, the friendly stoats Milo and Tina, on the box). But you have to look a little harder to find the great romances of these Games, which have been on the ice rink in Cortina, where, for the large part of the past week, a trio of married couples were competing against each other in the mixed doubles curling. It is essentially a competitive lovers’ stress test held in front of a live audience.

It’s a peculiarity of the Winter Olympics that there are so many partners partnering with each other in different events. There were two in the ice dancing: the US pair of Madison Chock and Evan Bates won silver and the Italians Marco Fabbri and Charlène Guignard came fourth. Which is all very well. But if you want to see a relationship you can actually relate to, curling was the sport to watch. It’s as if they made an Olympic event out of sharing the front of the car with your partner on a road trip with a map and no satnav.

This year-round churn profits shops and content creators, but not the rest of us. Nobody needs ‘autumn oven gloves’

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means you should have spent the last few weeks swapping all of the lamps in your house. If not, you still have a few hours: box up your beige lampshades (or better yet, throw them in the bin) and replace them with ones of red and pink hues. Then – if you want to feel mentally well – you must also change your lightbulbs, because “warm white lighting” is the best way to ensure your crimson decor doesn’t look “too harsh”.

This is according to online lighting company Pooky, which is selling 43 “lust-worthy lamps” (and shades) for Valentine’s Day. A press release the brand sent on behalf of the brand in late January proudly declared that Google searches for “seasonal decor” have increased 70% year-on-year globally, while queries about “Valentine’s decor” have soared 2,584% since the start of 2026. “The beauty of seasonal lighting,” said Pooky’s chief creative officer, “is that it’s easy to rotate. Store one or two Valentine lampshades, a set of rose-tinted bulbs and a handful of candles in a labelled box, and you can transform your home every February in minutes.”

To a backdrop of inflatable kangaroos, 23-year-old ensured a two-gold haul for her country for first time in 16 years

The kangaroos were bouncing and the sun beamed down. If she squinted a little (a lot) then Josie Baff may have just thought she was in her birthplace of Cooma, New South Wales, when she struck gold at Milano Cortina.

Never mind that the sun was reflecting off the pearly white snow in Livigno and the kangaroos were inflatable, held aloft by fans. The 23-year-old looked right at home as she stormed to victory in the women’s snowboard cross, claiming her first Olympic medal and marking the first time since Vancouver 2010 that Australia had celebrated two gold medals at a single Winter Games.

• Dutchman joins Lewis Hamilton in criticism of new cars

• Champion Lando Norris says changes are a ‘lot of fun’

Driver disquiet over the new Formula One regulations marked the second pre-season test which concluded in Bahrain this week, with world champions Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen delivering damning verdicts on driving the new cars, while in competitive terms leading contenders Mercedes and Red Bull were entertainingly vehement in each declaring the other as favourite.

Times in testing must be taken with a liberal amount of salt, more so this year as so much time is being put into understanding the new cars and how best to drive them, without yet really pushing toward real performance limits. Nonetheless, across the three days in Bahrain it was Mercedes who finished on top with Kimi Antonelli and George Russell setting the quickest times, from the two Ferraris of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in fifth and sixth for McLaren and Verstappen in seventh for Red Bull.

Line handily sums up people’s bewilderment at state of world, but it isn’t quite what the Marxist thinker wrote

At a time when geopolitical certainties of old are crumbling away, it has become the go-to quote to make sense of the current moment in all its seeming senselessness. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” is a line attributed to the former Italian Communist party leader Antonio Gramsci.

Over the last two months alone, it has been quoted – and often mangled – by a rightwing Belgian prime minister, a leftwing British political leader, an Irish central banker and in the title of the most recent BBC Reith lecture, given by the author Rutger Bregman.

Ritualistic Spurs manager sacking is a marker in the year, but the failing lies with executives responsible for some really vague recruitment

Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t keep returning to Spurs, bloodshot and shivering. Don’t end up twitching on a Manhattan street corner, nodding at Jean-Michel Basquiat as he drifts past, waiting for your Spurs man to appear out of a fire escape, uncork his Spurs pouch, and say what do you need, while you chatter about just wanting to return to the club DNA, whatever that is, nobody knows, but it’s Spurs, and Spurs is your wife and it’s your life and, you know, sources close to sources say a swoop for German wunder-coach Helmut von Wangerburg may actually be at an advanced …

So, Spurs then. It’s true that the media are addicted to this club. But it is also an understandable response to an entity that has become a content machine, perfectly structured to meet the requirements of any moreishly successful streaming drama.

In this week’s newsletter: Everyone has to start somewhere … and in front of someone. Thankfully, these soon-to-be-huge artists left the mime act and dodgy covers (mostly) in the past

From the Beatles slogging through mammoth sets for jeering sailors in Hamburg basement bars, to Ed Sheeran playing just about every open mic night in the south of England, even the biggest acts had to start small. So when we asked Guide readers to share their memories of seeing now-massive bands and artists before they were famous, it was inevitable we’d get some great tales. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to devote the main chunk of this week’s Guide to your pre-fame gig recollections. We’ve also asked Guardian music writers – seasoned veterans of seeking out the next big thing – to share a few of their memories. Read on for tales of Kurt Cobain in Yorkshire, Playboi Carti’s set in an east London snooker club and an ill-advised David Bowie mime performance …

***

My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing down

At 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”

Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest. The reckless rebellion the two best friends portrayed was seductive to me, and within weeks of watching the film, I’d met some girls from the co-ed school opposite who were having sex, going to parties and taking drugs. Soon, I was doing it all too.

A family struggled to rebuild their lives after an abusive marriage ended in tragedy and financial ruin

Family life ended for Francesca Onody on a late summer evening in 2022 when her abusive husband doused their cottage with petrol as police arrived to arrest him. She and her children escaped seconds before the building exploded. Her husband Malcolm Baker died in the blaze.

That night, Onody lost her husband, her home, her pets and her possessions.

From Boy, Baby, Reason and Diary to stubbin and rumpy, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 The world’s largest ocean current circles which continent?
2 Who was both the 8th US president and the 8th vice-president?
3 Where did Britain’s first nudist beach open in 1980?
4 What term did Liz Hurley coin for non-celebrities?
5 Stubbin and rumpy are local names for what felines?
6 Who was introduced on The Porter Wagoner Show in September 1967?
7 Which country’s postal service stopped delivering letters in December 2025?
8 What was the only spin-off series from Friends?
What links:
9 Royal Ascot; Open golf; Laver Cup; Olympic heptathlon; Cricket World Cup final (in descending order)?
10 Fleet; Holloway; Marshalsea; Millbank; Newgate?
11 Hirundine bird; Idris Elba DCI; male monarch; Mama Used to Say singer?
12 Boy; Baby; Reason; Diary?
13 1981 and 2005; 1973 and 1992; 1986; 1999?
14 Gulf of Mexico; Denali; US Department of Defense?
15 Septimius Severus; Constantius Chlorus; Dick Turpin; Joseph Rowntree?

Ukraine-Russia war high on the agenda at Munich Security Council; France’s Macron says world must not accept Ukraine defeated. What we know on day 1,452

As calls for the former prince to cooperate with police become deafening, this may be the reckoning Andrew cannot outrun

Gordon Brown is a man who gets into the detail.

In office, and since then, he has applied his forensic mind to the matters that concern him. Lately, he has been focused on the Epstein files.

With so many platforms rife with racism, misogyny and far-right rhetoric, there must be a point where decent people walk away

In a week during which Keir Starmer has been under pressure to resign, cabinet ministers took to X to show their support. “We’ve all been made to tweet,” one Labour figure told a political journalist. The irony is hard to escape: as the prime minister is embroiled in the scandal of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and now his former aide’s links to a sex offender, MPs are defending him on a platform that has in the past month allowed users to create sexualised images of women and girls.

This says something about the unprecedented way in which X has been tied to modern politics since it was still known as Twitter, as well as how widespread the culture of indifference is to the violation of female bodies, both online and off. But it also points to a growing dilemma facing not just politicians, but all of us: is it possible to post ethically on social media any more? And when is it time to log off?

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

Sabah, 38, a publicity director, meets David, 36, a PHD candidate

What were you hoping for?
In an ideal world, my last first date. Failing that, an entertaining voice note for my pals.

For centuries in Ireland lifting huge boulders was a way to test strength and bond communities, says Instagram sensation Indiana Stones

David Keohan surveyed the County Waterford beach and spotted a familiar mound half-buried in sand: an oval-shaped limestone boulder. It weighed about 115kg.

He wedged it loose with a crowbar, wiped it dry with a cloth, dusted his hands with chalk and paused to gaze at the Irish Sea, as if summoning strength from the waves pounding ashore.

A thrifty and flavourful mashed potato dish beloved of most Indians – careful with that pav bhaji masala though!

Pav bhaji, or Indian spiced mash, is a home cook’s friend. It’s not fussy, and it will take most leftover vegetables and transform them into something delicious. Add a squeeze of lemon, chopped onion and fresh herbs, and mop up with a butter-fried roll, just as the people of Mumbai do. The odd potato? No problem. A bit of cauliflower? Sure. Some peas from the freezer? Ideal! What you do need, however, is a secret weapon in the form of pav bhaji masala, a little box of spice perfectly blended to add the appropriate magic (and available in most places where you’d find a hungry Indian).

Communal central heating means Moscow can plunge entire neighbourhoods into cold with a single strike

Many Ukrainians are without heating in sub-zero temperatures as a result of relentless Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, while the country suffers through its coldest winter of the war so far.

Ukraine is especially vulnerable to such attacks, as Moscow can exploit a widespread Soviet-era heat system in which multiple apartment blocks rely on communal central heating.

She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now she’s as frank as ever

There is a long buildup before I get to see Tracey Emin – her two cats, Teacup and Pancake, preceding her like a pair of slinky sentries as she walks into the white-painted basement kitchen of her huge Georgian house in Margate. The lengthy overture is because – though I’ve been invited for noon – Emin is a magnificently late riser. Her average working day, her studio manager Harry tells me, runs from about 6pm to 3am. And so, while the artist is gradually sorting herself out, Harry takes me on a tour through her home town in the January drizzle, the sea a sulky grey blur beyond the sands.

At last, Harry is ringing the doorbell, and Emin’s lovely housekeeper, Sam, is sitting me down in the kitchen, then finally here she is, dressed in loose dark trousers and top, with those faithful cats. Emin is recognisably the same as she’s ever been – the artist who scandalised and entranced the nation in the 1990s with her tent embroidered with the names of everyone she’d ever slept with; with her unmade bed and its rumpled sheets and detritus. She still has that sardonic lip, those arched brows, those flashing eyes. But these days she is surprisingly calm, slow moving, her greying hair swept back into a loose bun. This is the Emin who has worked hard, survived a great deal and, somewhat unpredictably, ended up a national treasure.