Donald Trump is under pressure to spell out his vision for Iran amid the ongoing attacks on the country and reports of the first American casualties since the launch of unprovoked US and Israeli military strikes.
Trump’s critics are demanding that the White House provide greater clarity about what comes next. Opponents and analysts say the lack of a clear plan outlined so far has created a danger of the US being sucked into a long-lasting conflict of the sort that Trump repeatedly vowed to avoid.
For once we can celebrate a British custom: grabbing lunch away from your colleagues to do whatever you like
It’s often striking to me – as a British person and a Francophile – what prompts bewilderment among the French. Most recently, an article in Le Monde describes a concerning trend: younger adults are choosing to dine alone during their lunch breaks, flying in the face of longstanding workplace tradition. Almost one-third of employees under 25 regularly lunch alone, according to a survey by Openeat, compared with 22% of 25- to 34-year-olds, 16% of 35- to 49-year-olds and 12% of over-49s.
These statistics were shocking to me too, but in entirely the opposite way: so few? I forgot that when I was a waitress in Paris, I would serve groups of colleagues all the time. Whenever I visit, I am always struck by tables of people in workwear eating a prix fixe lunch menu of several courses, normally traditional French fare and often with a glass of wine. It always seems so very civilised. This culture may well be shifting, but it remains far more the norm there than in this country.
Arsenal won the battle of set pieces, beating Chelsea 2-1 to keep Manchester City at bay. In a game that offered few clearcut chances from open play, it was a familiar story of Arsenal overpowering their opponents from corner kicks. Gabriel bullied Reece James to set up William Saliba for their first goal and Jurriën Timber punished a flailing Robert Sánchez for their second. Mikel Arteta’s side have equalled the record for the most goals scored from corners in a Premier League season (16) with nine games still to go. Meanwhile, Chelsea have conceded seven goals from set pieces in Liam Rosenior’s first 13 games in all competitions. Despite posing a threat offensively through Reece James’s delivery for Piero Hincapié’s own goal, they repeatedly failed to match Arsenal’s physicality when defending. Xaymaca Awoyungbo
Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be discovered
Once Art Borkent starts speaking about biting midges, he rarely pauses for breath. Holding up a picture of a gnat trapped in amber from the time of the dinosaurs, the 72-year-old taxonomist explains that there are more than 6,000 ceratopogonidae species known to science. He has described and named more than 300 midges, mostly from his favourite family of flies. Some specialise in sucking blood from mammals, reptiles, other insects and even fish, often using the CO2 from their host’s breath to locate their target, he says. Tens of thousands remain a mystery to science, waiting to be discovered.
But to Borkent’s knowledge, nobody will continue his life’s work of identifying and studying this group of flies once he has gone.
I swerved the tourist traps and went on a bar crawl of the city’s bruine kroegen, the cosy, dimly lit pubs that are the Netherlands’ ‘surrogate living rooms’
Is there anything better than a good old British pub? Well, a Dutch person may prefer a bruine kroeg(brown bar).Often nondescript from the outside and thus easy to miss, these cosy, homely, rustic cafe-style bars typically have plain dark-wood furniture, candles on the tables, aged knick-knacks and faded pictures. There will be dim lighting, usually from antique-style lamps, and they make ideal hubs – they are often referred to as a “surrogate living room”.
The name comes from the venues’ tobacco-stained walls and ceilings, which since the smoking ban started in 2008 have been topped up by dark brown paint. Beers and jenevers (Dutch gins) are the most popular drinks, and snacks such as bitterballen (meat ragout croquettes), boiled eggs and borrelnootjes (nuts with a crispy coating) are often available too. The choice of background music is a vital component; soft vintage jazz is ideal, so when I visited Cafe ’t Hooischip the Michael Jackson and Culture Club soundtrack jarred somewhat with the cosy, historic setting.
Joanna Page and her Gavin & Stacey on-screen husband Mathew Horne host a foodie podcast for celebs. Plus, Love Islanders Molly Smith and Tom Clare take over the reins from Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo
One for the Gavin & Stacey fans, as Joanna Page and her on-screen husband Mathew Horne are reunited for a foodie podcast. It’s a familiar format: they invite two celebrity friends for lunch (courtesy of Good Food) and a light natter about things such as the Jaffa Cakes biscuit/cake debate. Page is on top form with first guests, wine lovers Gary Barlow and Olly Smith: “I know nothing about wine; I’m from Swansea, I was brought up with White Lightning.” Hollie Richardson Widely available, episodes weekly
Portraying the breakdown of the couple’s marriage through the eyes of the people around them, this deeply researched and utterly convincing debut is an astonishing achievement
Set in the early 1960s, The Daffodil Days tells the story of a couple who move from London to the countryside, have a second child and attempt to settle there, but then, their marriage in tatters, move away again. Instead of describing the couple directly we glimpse them through the eyes of the people around them, from the village doctor, their charlady and various neighbours, to friends, colleagues and visitors, offering the reader vignettes drawn from varying distances and perspectives. Although it is not mentioned in the book’s jacket copy, the couple in question are Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; eight weeks after the period described in the novel, Plath, having returned to London, would take her own life.
During their time in Devon, from 1961–2, Plath completed The Bell Jar, gave birth to a son, Nicholas, at home, and wrote the poems that would be posthumously published as Ariel; Hughes began his affair with Assia Wevill, which Plath quickly discovered. Given that the couple’s lives provide the source material for an entire cottage industry, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was little left to say about their time in Devon that has not already been said; but by coming at its subject from the viewpoints of others, this virtuoso, deeply researched and utterly convincing debut achieves something quite extraordinary. At points, the experience of reading it feels very close to time travel: Yes, you think, as you watch Plath sitting with her daughter Frieda on her lap in the garden, or having her thumb stitched up by the local GP, or glimpse her getting up to write at 4am: that is just how it must have been.
At London fashion week models wore headscarves adorned with jewellery, and brands like Vela are leading the change online. For gen Z Muslim women, bolder designs are making a break from darker colours
There’s a common sentiment among my hijab-wearing friends: a plain black headscarf is the equivalent of putting your hair in a slickback bun. A slickback bun is classic, timeless and polished – it can go with almost anything.
But, it can also look a little tired. I love bold prints, and it isn’t just me. A friend of mine gravitates toward leopard prints and pashmina-style scarves, a nod to her Kashmiri heritage. And it’s not only an aesthetic choice – for many hijab-wearing women, patterned scarves feel like a push against the idea that Muslim women should blend in.
Two Irans are in view now. By night, there is the Iran that danced, celebrated and cried tears of joy at the death of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hoping it marks the end of clerical rule and isolation from the west. By day, there are the mourning crowds gathering in the squares in Tehran and Isfahan demanding retribution and bewailing the loss of their sacred leader.
There is no need to guess which force has the greater domestic military power and retains the upper hand, but discerning whether the regime realises that the continued, inflexible pursuit of its current path will probably end in the regime’s chaotic collapse is harder to know.
Hundreds more flights were cancelled on Monday, extending the turmoil in global air travel caused by the US-Israel war on Iran, with hundreds of thousands of passengers already stranded.
Emirates Airlines, the world’s largest international carrier, which suspended all planned services to and from Dubai until 3pm UAE time (10pm AEDT, 11am GMT and 6am EST) on Monday.
Etihad Airways, which suspended all flights to and from Abu Dhabi until 2pm UAE time (9pm AEDT, 10am GMT and 5am EST) on Monday.
Qatar Airways, which suspended flight operations because of the closure of Qatari airspace.
Age-verification systems require collecting sensitive data to support the biometric information. In no time, the internet will become a fully surveilled digital panopticon
Over the past year, more than two dozen countries around the world have proposed bans on social media use for vast swathes of their public. These laws, often proposed under the guise of “child safety”, are ushering in an era of mass surveillance and widespread censorship, contributing to what scholars have called a “global free speech recession”.
Taylor Lorenz is a technology journalist who writes the newsletter User Mag and is the author of the bestselling book Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet
A wholesome, one-pot chicken-and-rice dish that’s rammed with flavour thanks to a zingy marinade
Welcome to your new favourite one-pot rice dish! I have been looking at ways to introduce more fibre to my rice dishes, to make them more balanced, and what I’ve ended up with is a recipe that has extra flavour, texture and fibre from the lentils and sweetcorn. Serve with a vibrant, zingy green salad topped with toasted sesame seeds.
This recipe is an edited extract from Rice: Make Rice the Heart of Your Table with Recipes from Malaysia and Beyond, by Ping Coombes, published by Murdoch Books at £26. To order a copy for 23.40, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework. Pavel Talankin’s undercover film about his school’s indoctrination drive won a Bafta and is tipped for an Oscar, but has left him in exile
In order to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary in which many of them have starring roles, pupils at Karabash School No 1 have had to source bootlegged copies, viewing the film in private, on their phones or their laptops.
Last week’s Bafta best documentary win for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been studiously ignored by Russian state media, and the prize the film won at Sundance last year was also met with silence. Staff at the school and government officials in the Kremlin seem united in their desire to pretend that they know nothing about the film.
Attack on RAF Akrotiri takes place hours after UK agrees to let US use British military bases to attack Iran’s missile sites
The UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus has been hit by a drone strike, causing limited damage and no casualties, Cypriot authorities and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have said.
A security alert put out to residents in the vicinity of Akrotiri by the British base’s administration advised residents to shelter in place until further notice “following a suspected drone impact”. Non-essential personnel have been asked leave to leave the base.
Famed for having a child’s drawing of a family carved into her back, the photographer has devoted her life to queer America, from endurance swimmers to drag artists to her son in a tutu. Now she’s finally getting a major UK show
There is no direct reference to Trump’s America in Catherine Opie’s To Be Seen, the US photographer’s first large museum exhibition in Britain, featuring key works going back to the 1990s. Mythic and personal, the images depict the American landscape and American family. Above all, they are concerned with the 64-year-old’s career-long interest in the representation of gay, lesbian and queer Americans missing from mainstream art history. Most of the photos were taken long before the Trump presidencies and yet, browsing the show, it feels like a powerful rebuke to the current administration – so much so that it brings on a mood of almost hysterical relief.
For 27 years, Opie taught photography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and would tell her students that it was part of the mission of the serious artist to show “an example in a public space of what it is to be brave”. So it is with To Be Seen, which features some of Opie’s most famous and bravest works, from her portraits of friends to denizens of LA’s 1990s leather dyke scene: the iconic, androgynous Pig Pen, a friend who appears in a series of shots, looking coolly at the camera, daring the viewer to define them; her Being and Having series, an early challenge to gender norms featuring 13 butch lesbians posing in stick-on, Halloween-grade facial hair, in an absurdist performance of masculinity; and Dyke, in which Opie’s friend Steakhouse – speaking of brave – poses with her back to the camera, the word “dyke” tattooed in large ornate script across the back of her neck.
He helped bring dance music to the mainstream, was a staple of the 90s Ibiza scene and at 65 still DJs on Radio 1. But all those hours in the club have come at a cost. Here, he talks survival, selling out and why he’s secretly quite shy
‘I’m of an era, really, where nobody ever got old,” says Pete Tong with a smile. Certainly not in the rave scene. “When you start, you never think you’re going to be doing it for that long. But then, equally, you don’t think it’s going to only be for, like, two years or 10 years. You just don’t think about it.” The dawn of dance music in the 80s was far too exciting to worry about when the party might end – and there is no sign it is about to. Tong is still presenting his BBC Radio 1 dance music show 35 years later, as well as running a record label. Last year, he says, he had more gigs than he has for ages.
Tong, who is 65, was talking to fellow DJ and longtime friend Carl Cox (63) about it the other day. “We’re just so blessed and lucky to still be doing it – being able to play music to people and doing what we loved as kids.”
Sporadic clashes reported in several provinces in Afghanistan as both sides give conflicting death tolls
Afghanistan has said it had thwarted Pakistan’s attempted airstrikes on Bagram airbase, the former US military base north of Kabul, as cross-border fighting between the two countries stretched into a fourth day.
Authorities say capture of bull and tiger sharks necessary to protect lives as environmentalists launch urgent legal challenge
Some beaches in areas of New Caledonia are closed to swimming and the authorities have begun shark culling off the capital, Nouméa, after a fatal attack in the popular tourist spot – prompting a legal challenge to stop the operation and reigniting debate over public safety and marine conservation.
The culling operation began on 23 February, after a man from New Caledonia riding a wing foil in a recreational area was attacked and killed. Preliminary investigations indicate the victim was attacked by a tiger shark that measured at least three metres.
The previously named Screen Actors Guild (Sag) awards also saw wins for the ensemble casts of Sinners and The Studio, while Harrison Ford took home lifetime achievement
Michael B Jordan, Jessie Buckley and the late Catherine O’Hara were among the big winners at this year’s newly titled Actor awards.
Previously known as the Screen Actors Guild awards, the Actors are voted on by a membership of more than 160,000 actors. The name change was to provide “clearer recognition in terms of what the show is about”.
Award-winning science fiction and horror writer died in Colorado on 21 February with family at his side
Dan Simmons, the author of more than 30 novels and short story collections spanning horror, political thrillers and science fiction such as Hyperion and The Terror, has died at age 77.
Simmons died in Longmont, Colorado on 21 February, with his wife and daughter at his side, his obituary announced.
Flight disruptions force F1 teams into new travel arrangements
But all drivers expected to make it to Melbourne for season opener
As many as one thousand members of the Formula One circus have been forced into last-minute travel changes to get to Melbourne’s opening round in the wake of the escalating crisis in the Middle East, and some are set to miss the start of the season entirely.
However, a larger logistical headache has been narrowly avoided, after the cars and supporting equipment were already shipped from last month’s testing in Bahrain – one of the countries drawn into the conflict – prior to this week’s widespread aviation disruptions.
Israel carried out heavy airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, after the Iran-backed group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Residents of Beirut were awoken by the sounds of about a dozen blasts at 3am on Monday, as Israel struck three different locations in the southern suburbs of the capital.
Bahrain has said that one person was killed by shrapnel from an intercepted missile. The death of a foreign worker at Salman Industrial City, working on a boat there, marks the kingdom’s first reported fatality in the war.
Bahrain, home to the US navy’s 5th fleet, said it intercepted 61 missiles and 34 attack drones launched against it. It said some shrapnel had gotten through, striking buildings and the naval base.
Connexion
