Gathering of world leaders in Germany has disbanded for another year, but many of the issues remain unresolved

The Munich Security Conference has been a news-making forum for decades – a place where world leaders meet other politicians, as well as journalists and civil society groups, to discuss the biggest issues facing the planet.

In recent years, it has been the site of seismic speeches that redefine the shape of global politics. From a public spat between Nato allies over Iraq in 2003, to Vladimir Putin’s 2007 address that signalled the start of a new cold war, to JD Vance’s blistering attack on European nations in 2025, each moment had an impact that echoed long after the weekend came to a close.

Year of the horse signals optimism and opportunity, with authorities keen that the extra day of holiday this year provides an economic boost

Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead.

The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their only trip home to see their families for the Chinese new year celebrations.

Baghsarian was alone in his North Ryde home on Friday when he was taken and bundled into an SUV allegedly by underworld figures

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

CCTV footage has provided police with clues in their search for an 85-year-old Sydney man who investigators say was abducted by mistake in a botched underworld kidnapping.

Chris Baghsarian was alone in his North Ryde home when he was taken and bundled into a dark-coloured SUV on Friday morning.

Akram, 24, appears via video link from prison, saying ‘yeah’ and ‘yep’ when asked questions by the magistrate after Bondi shooting

Accused Bondi beach terrorist Naveed Akram has spoken briefly during his first court appearance in Sydney.

The 24-year-old appeared via video link in Downing Centre local court on Monday morning on 59 charges, including murder and terrorism offences over the Bondi beach shooting in December.

Category describes people who have little or no language, an IQ of less than 50 and require 24-hour supervision

When it comes to autism, few questions spark as much debate as how best to support autistic people with the greatest needs.

This prompted the Lancet medical journal to commission a group of international experts to propose a new category of “profound autism”.

How many children met the criteria for profound autism?

Were there behavioural features that set this group apart?

• Australian produces some fine tennis to win Rotterdam Open

• First indoor title comes after 6-3, 6-2 win over Felix Auger-Aliassime

Alex de Minaur sealed a landmark week by delivering a masterful performance to defeat the red-hot Felix Auger-Aliassime and finally land one of the biggest titles of his career at the Rotterdam Open.

The Australian produced some of his finest tennis on Sunday (Monday AEDT) to crush the Canadian world No 6, who had won the Montpellier Open just a week earlier and whose service had been seemingly unbreakable.

Shipwreck hunter found Lac La Belle steamer, one of ‘most sought-after missing ships’, after nearly 60-year search

Searchers recently discovered the wreck of one of the “most sought-after missing ships” in Lake Michigan, that had sunk to the bottom of the lake over 150 years ago.

A shipwreck hunter and scuba diver named Paul Ehorn made the discovery after having searched for the Lac La Belle passenger steamer for nearly 60 years. Shipwreck World, a group that works to locate shipwrecks around the globe, announced on Friday that the team led by Ehorn found the wreck about 20 miles (32km) offshore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Starmer to announce ‘crackdown on vile illegal content created by AI’ after scandal involving Elon Musk’s Grok tool

Makers of AI chatbots that put children at risk will face massive fines or even see their services blocked in the UK under law changes to be announced by Keir Starmer on Monday.

Emboldened by Elon Musk’s X stopping its Grok AI tool from creating sexualised images of real people in the UK after public outrage last month, ministers are planning a “crackdown on vile illegal content created by AI”.

• Keeper did not think Guardiola would sign Italian

• ‘It’s football, you’ve got to keep grafting every day’

James Trafford has admitted he did not expect Manchester City to sign Gianluigi Donnarumma after his transfer from Burnley last summer, with the deputy goalkeeper potentially leaving this summer.

Trafford returned to City after two years at Turf Moor on 31 July in a deal worth £31m before Pep Guardiola informed the club executive that the manager also wanted Donnarumma. The Italian joined on 2 September from Paris Saint-Germain for £26m and became Guardiola’s first choice.

• Wilson and Pierre Crinon ejected after brawl

• Fighting is rare at Winter Games

Canada’s Tom Wilson shunned tradition on Sunday, deciding to fight during his team’s victory over France in their Olympic ice hockey game.

While fighting is a regular – and tacitly accepted – part of professional ice hockey, it rarely occurs on the Olympic stage. But Wilson dropped the gloves late in Canada’s 10-2 rout of France on Sunday, tangling with Pierre Crinon, who had delivered a forearm to the head of teammate Nathan MacKinnon minutes earlier.

• Britain win mixed snowboard cross then mixed skeleton

• Eve Muirhead lauds ‘just incredible’ performance

Team GB chiefs have hailed Britain’s greatest day at a Winter Olympics after celebrating two gold medals, in the mixed snowboard cross and mixed team skeleton in Milano Cortina.

Super Sunday started with Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale storming to a surprise victory in Livigno, with Bankes dramatically overtaking the French team with four turns remaining to take mixed snowboard cross gold.

Exclusive: Research suggests official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases

• Katie’s story: her abusive ex-partner said ‘kill yourself’. When she did, police dropped domestic violence inquiry

The number of women who are driven to suicide by domestic abusers is being under-reported, and their cases overlooked by police, in what has been described by experts as a “national scandal”.

Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.

Unclear how encounter between Britain’s shortest-serving PM and US president was initiated and how long it lasted

After spending time and resources crisscrossing the Atlantic to cultivate the support of the Maga faithful, Liz Truss has finally got the prize she apparently craved: a photo with Donald Trump.

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister tweeted a photo on Sunday showing her in the company of the US president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

UK Health Security Agency urges parents in Enfield to get their children vaccinated as Easter holiday travels approach

A big measles outbreak in north-east London is affecting unvaccinated children under the age of 10, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed.

UKHSA previously reported 34 laboratory-confirmed measles cases among children who attend schools and nurseries in Enfield from 1 January to 9 February, with some requiring hospital treatment.

Director of public prosecutions says he is confident police would examine any evidence of potential misconduct

The UK’s top prosecutor has said “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein.

Thames Valley police said earlier this week they were in discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations of misconduct in public office against the former prince.

• British pair triumph in mixed team skeleton event

• Bankes and Nightingale win mixed snowboard cross

Great Britain had their greatest day at a Winter Olympics, after Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker won gold in the mixed team skeleton in a combined time of 1min 59.35sec. It was the British team’s second gold medal in the space of just a few hours, following the victory by Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale in the mixed team snowboard cross earlier in the afternoon.

Weston has now become the first British athlete to win two medals at the same Winter Olympic Games, and only the second Team GB athlete, after Lizzy Yarnold, to win two winter gold medals in a career.

• Group A: India, 175-7, bt Pakistan, 114, by 61 runs

• Opener’s 77 proves decisive on tricky pitch

A day of no handshakes, and for Pakistan many head shakes. India coasted to victory in what became global cricket’s most lucrative mismatch after a superlative innings from the opener Ishan Kishan skewed it definitively in their favour.

In its second half a game that was dramatically off and then on again became one where a parade of Pakistan batters were dramatically in and then out again. Chasing a target of 176 they were seven down before they even got halfway, and were eventually skittled for 114 to lose by 61 runs.

Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning lead a starry cast in this clumsy satire that provides little fascination in a wealthy family’s suffocating lives

Since Jesse Armstrong’s Succession and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, wealthy, spoilt, dysfunctional siblings are the new rock’n’roll, and now here is a film from Greek screenwriter Efthimis Filippou (co-author of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps and Dogtooth) and directed by Karim Aïnouz. It is a weird-wave contrivance concerning a messed-up US plutocrat clan living in Spain, freely remade from Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 film Fists in the Pocket. Their bizarre and cartoony secrets, involving sex abuse, manipulation and self-harm, are satirically symptomatic of capitalism and the patriarchy, and how the rich, however entrepreneurial and smart, create a next-gen class of useless drones, on whose behalf all this wealth has supposedly been accumulated. I have to admit to finding it heavy-handed and clumsy more often than not, although there are some good performances, notably from Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning.

A strange extended family lives in a luxurious modernist house; the father (Tracy Letts) is a blind widower haunted by the memories of his late wife (Pamela Anderson) who was savaged by wolves in a nearby forest. His grownup children, infantilised by wealth, all live there: highly strung Robert (Lukas Gage) has epilepsy, and is entrusted with supervising his father’s horse riding; Anna (Riley Keough) is a talentless singer-songwriter; and Ed (Callum Turner) is a would-be fashionista. First among equals is Jack (Jamie Bell), who has the intimate honour of helping his father with his nightly teeth-cleaning; their mother’s teeth were always dazzlingly white.

It has been a testing few months for the man who scored the winner for Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final last season. But after being substituted at half-time during the disappointing draw with Brentford on Thursday, perhaps this competition could help to breathe new life into Eberechi Eze’s Arsenal career.

As well as providing assists for Noni Madueke’s and Gabriel Martinelli’s goals – albeit against a poor Wigan side languishing in the League One relegation zone – the England midfielder’s swagger was back for the first time since he scored a hat‑trick in the north London derby in November.

• Dutch star’s years of dominance culminates in gold

• Jutta Leerdam wins silver in Dutch one-two

• USA’s Erin Jackson misses out on retaining title

Speed skater Femke Kok had admitted that anything but gold in her signature 500m race would be a disappointment after opening her Olympic account last Monday with silver in a Dutch one-two alongside Jutta Leerdam in the 1000m. On Sunday evening, she performed like an athlete insistent on leaving no room for doubt.

Kok leveraged two years of total sprint dominance into the first Olympic gold medal of her career. She blew away the field in the women’s 500m in an Olympic-record time of 36.49sec with the kind of controlled, furious circuit that has made her a three-time world champion at the distance at 25 years old.

Hearts will take no consolation whatsoever from the fact their progress to the status of serious entity in a Scottish title race was demonstrated by the atmosphere at Ibrox. The scale of celebration that met Rangers’ victory decreed they had not defeated also-rans. Danny Röhl, the Rangers manager, went cavorting down the touchline as his team scored a fourth.

This proved the game of the season in Scotland. A genuine thriller. It was also one Rangers dare not lose; that they took three points properly fuels hopes of snatching the league from Celtic’s grasp. An inspired second half from Rangers was sufficient as their visitors wilted.

Ofelia Torres, 16, spotlighted her dad Ruben’s illegal detention last fall during Trump’s crackdown in Chicago

A Chicago teenager, whose father was detained by immigration authorities while she navigated cancer, died on Friday, a family spokesperson said.

Ofelia Torres, a 16-year-old in Chicago, had been undergoing treatment for an aggressive and rare form of cancer since late 2024. As she and her family struggled with the medical procedures, her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was detained by immigration authorities while at a Home Depot in October, leading to a contentious and public case that highlighted the human effects of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Defence leaders write joint appeal urging public on need to be prepared for war with Russia and resulting costs

• As defence chiefs, we must warn you about Russia and say this: rearmament is not warmongering | Richard Knighton and Carsten Breuer

Britain and Germany’s highest ranking military leaders have made an unprecedented joint appeal to the public to accept the “moral” case for rearmament and prepare for the threat of war with Russia.

The pair said they were making the plea not just as the military leaders of two of Europe’s largest military spenders, but “as voices for a Europe that must now confront uncomfortable truths about its security”.