Chuck Schumer and other Democrats express concern over latest jobs report showing US economy shed about 92,000 jobs in February

• US lost 92,000 jobs in February just before Trump joined Iran conflict

Military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion, two US officials tell Reuters.

Reuters was unable to determine further details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible or why the US might have struck the school.

Platforms include YouTube, TikTok and Instagram as communication minister says ‘our children face real threats’

Indonesia will ban social media for children under 16, its communication and digital affairs minister said on Friday.

Meutya Hafid said in a statement to media said that she signed a government regulation that will mean children under the age of 16 can no longer have accounts on high-risk digital platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Roblox and Bigo Live, a popular livestreaming site. With a population of about 285 million, the fourth-highest in the world, the south-east Asian nation represents a significant market for social networks.

• Top flight directors discuss holding in penalty area

• Set pieces account for 27.1% of Premier League goals

The Premier League’s sporting directors have held talks about the ubiquity of set-piece goals and holding in the penalty area, amid concerns these trends are damaging the spectacle.

Liverpool’s head coach, Arne Slot, said this week that his “football heart doesn’t like it”, when asked about the growing importance of set pieces, which have been responsible for 27.1% of Premier League goals this season, excluding penalties.

• Unbeaten rivals collide at Tokyo Dome on 2 May

• Inoue defends undisputed super-bantamweight crown

• Nakatani says he must be ‘at my best’ to win

Japan’s Naoya Inoue said Friday that he will need to be at his destructive best when he faces unbeaten countryman Junto Nakatani in their highly anticipated showdown at Tokyo Dome in May.

The two fighters met in Tokyo to formally confirm their 2 May clash, with Inoue set to defend his undisputed super bantamweight world championship against Nakatani, who is moving up in weight in pursuit of a fourth divisional title.

Murrayfield as underdogs is a scenario Scotland like, and a third successive win would set up perfect Six Nations finale

The mischievous will have eyes on Rome on Saturday in case of a historic win but the game of the weekend is in Edinburgh. Second versus first, Scotland versus France, entertainers versus entertainers. The title on the line. We could even have a champion by the end of it.

If France win with a bonus point, that is it. The 2026 Six Nations will be theirs with a round to spare. One feels there will be tries in this game, so the prospect is real. Which would reduce the championship’s beloved set piece of Super Saturday to an exercise in ordering the also-rans and seeing if France can move ahead of Wales as the Six Nations’ most prolific purveyor of grand slams, with a fifth.

Donor who has given £12m to Reform UK had previously wanted Nigel Farage to keep open mind about deal with Conservatives

Christopher Harborne, the ultra-wealthy political donor who has given £12m to Reform UK, has told the Guardian he is “no longer” interested in a Reform-Conservative pact before the next general election.

A possible collaboration between Reform and the Conservative party had been an important aspect of discussions about donations between Harborne and senior figures including Nigel Farage, sources familiar with the conversations said.

Actor penned scathing essay for the New York Times, criticising show’s portrayal of her and sharing she’s received ‘threatening’ messages since it aired

Daryl Hannah has attacked Ryan Murphy’s smash hit TV series Love Story in an essay for the New York Times.

The much-watched drama, which tells of the romance between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, features Hannah as a character, played by Dree Hemingway. Hannah and JFK Jr were in a relationship in the early 1990s.

Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest

An increasingly acrimonious spat between Hungary and Ukraine has escalated further, as Budapest impounded two Ukrainian armoured bank vehicles carrying millions of euros of hard cash as well as bars of gold.

Seven Ukrainian citizens accompanying the convoy were also arrested. Hungarian officials said the detained Ukrainians had intelligence links and suggested the money could be of dubious origin, while Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, accused Budapest of “taking hostages and stealing money”.

(Sire)
Dodgy conspiracy theories are thankfully kept to one track, but the rest is not much better, lacking insight even when Morrissey returns to his specialist subjects

Pretend that you don’t know a single thing about Steven Morrissey. Then play his recent single Notre-Dame. First you’ll hear a stutter of the kind of noirish, poptimised disco that might herald a new Harry Styles number, then a tremulous, faintly glitchy voice singing about the Paris cathedral.

You will probably be aware that Notre-Dame was partly destroyed in a fire in 2019. You will quickly glean that Morrissey and anonymous others believe it was no accident. “We know who tried to kill you,” he coos. “We will not be silent.” You may need to do some research to realise he is referring to the baseless claim that the fire was a deliberate act of arson covered up by the French government. You will soon be reading about conspiracy theories fuelled by rightwing commentators who suggested Islamist terrorism as a possible cause.

Olly Alexander and Glyn Fussell’s starry, Live Aid-inspired shindig – featuring Christine and the Queens, Kae Tempest and Munroe Bergdorf – is a show of unity in a dark time for trans people

‘We wanted to put on something as big as possible,” says the musician and actor Olly Alexander. He’s talking about Trans Mission, a night of solidarity with the transgender community that he’s put together with Mighty Hoopla director Glyn Fussell in aid of the Good Law Project and the charity Not a Phase. The jam-packed Wembley Arena bill includes Christine and the Queens, Sugababes, Romy and Wolf Alice.

For Alexander, Trans Mission is about “celebration, joy, unity”. For Christine and the Queens, it will be “a place of collective empathy”. For Not a Phase founder Dani St James, “it’s basically a super sped-up Royal Variety Performance, but with me and Olly double-kissing them and not Charles shaking their hands”.

The early intel from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels paints the Targaryens as tyrants – so making them the heroes is going to require some hefty literary PR

There must be a few Game of Thrones fans out there who have rather mixed feelings about the news that Warner Bros is to bring George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire “universe” to the big screen. On the one hand, the prospect of a properly enormous fantasy epic featuring dragons the size of commuter trains is undeniably appealing; on the other, have they really thought this thing through?

Reports suggest that the feature film will take as its source material Aegon Targaryen’s conquest, which brought the purple-eyed, dragon-riding clan to continental Westeros (and united six of its seven kingdoms) about 300 years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones itself. There’s also a TV series happening, which will presumably cover much of the same ground in greater detail. At first glance, this ought to make even the most reluctant fantasy acolyte want to punch the air. After all, Aegon’s conquest is the sort of story cinema was invented for: dragons blotting out the sky, castles melting like cheese toasties under a blowtorch; an entire continent being thrillingly upended by a bunch of platinum-haired dragonlords.

Police say Masood Masjoody was most likely murdered; Iranian expats suspect he was killed for his criticism of the theocratic regime

Police in Canada have concluded that a missing Iranian activist was most likely the victim of murder, prompting fears that his disappearance has the hallmarks of a transnational repression campaign targeting critics of Tehran.

Masood Masjoody, a mathematician critical of both Iran’s theocratic regime and the exiled family of the former shah, went missing in early February in the city of Burnaby, British Columbia.

Author of more than 30 novels, including Fado Alexandrino and The Inquisitors’ Manual, was widely seen as one of the most important voices in modern Portuguese literature

António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese novelist whose dark, polyphonic fiction confronted the traumas of dictatorship, war and Portuguese society, has died aged 83.

Widely regarded as one of the most important Portuguese writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, he produced more than 30 novels that reshaped Portuguese writing and made him a perennial contender for the Nobel prize for literature. He received numerous honours, including the Camões prize, the most prestigious award in the Portuguese language, and several major European literary prizes. His death was confirmed by the publisher Dom Quixote.

Forget sombrero lids and student nights, the agave-derived Mexican spirit has become the sophisticated drink choice. Here’s why – plus five of the best tequila cocktails

Cracking open the tequila at the end of a long night rarely leads to good decisions. But for Tom Bishop, reaching for a bottle that had been gathering dust on his shelf proved life-changing. Having run out of beers while drinking with friends in 2017, Bishop dug out a bottle of premium Añejo tequila that his brother had given him after a business trip to Mexico. His expectations were low, informed by the throat-burning experiences of his youth. “But it completely blew me away,” Bishop remembers. “I just hadn’t associated tequila with that level of quality or flavour.”

Having stumbled upon the spirit as it was meant to be enjoyed “by accident”, Bishop saw an opportunity. Two years later, he and Jack Vereker, a friend with whom he had been drinking in south-east London that night, sold their first bottle of their brand El Rayo, now stocked across the UK and part of tequila’s new wave.

Transparent specs often associated with hygienist appointments have conquered catwalks and high streets

Despite some people in the UK experiencing 40 consecutive days of rain this year, sales of sunglasses have not been dampened.

Instead, the dark skies have ushered in a new era of eyewear: the non-sun sunglasses.

Announcing the InterPositive deal, the actor says he was moved from being scared of the technology to embracing it

Ben Affleck has sold his artificial intelligence company to Netflix in a surprise deal, saying he had been driven to embrace a technology that had initially “really scared” him.

Netflix has acquired the postproduction startup InterPositive from the Oscar-winning actor, director, producer and screenwriter for an undisclosed sum.

• McCullum to hold further talks with governing body

• Rob Key also expected to continue as managing director

Brendon McCullum retains the support of the England and Wales Cricket Board management and is poised to stay on as head coach after the conclusion of a review triggered by England’s Ashes defeat.

McCullum is returning to his native New Zealand after Thursday’s narrow seven-run defeat by India in a thrilling T20 World Cup semi-final in Mumbai, but will hold further talks with the ECB over the next few weeks before an announcement on his future.

AI ‘twins’, Mar-a-Lago lookalikes, Melania impersonator conspiracies … doubles proliferate in today’s culture – and nowhere more so than in a series of unsettling new novels that draw on a rich gothic tradition to tap into our paranoid times

‘He was after me. Always had been. Why else would he target me months ago? Infiltrate my flat, my supposed safe space? Question was, what did he want from me. Who, for that matter, did I mean by me?” Isabel Waidner’s fifth novel, As If, opens with the meeting of two bedraggled strangers, Aubrey and Lindsey. Lindsey has materialised on Aubrey’s doorstep and Aubrey has asked him in, noting with pained curiosity how alike they look. “He had dark brown hair not unlike mine,” Aubrey tells us. “My unremarkable eyes they were looking back at me.” With this unsettling opener, the tone is set for a disquieting read, one that I found all the more uncanny as it overlaps so unnervingly with my own new book, Lean Cat, Savage Cat.

Both books draw their protagonists from the lower rungs of showbiz, both utilise the language of fashion in deliberately off-putting ways, both bring the sybaritic myths of artistic life into direct conflict with the realities of housing insecurity and wage instability. Both novels look at how unprocessed grief can fracture the psyche, and – crucially – they both centre on a mysterious pair of doubles. They were also published on the same day. All of which prompts me to ask: does my book have its own doppelganger?

With voting now closed, the months-long campaign for Oscar glory is over – but industry insiders are still dissecting every award-season clue in a tight best picture race

Voting for the Oscars closed at 5pm PT on Thursday, meaning that the months-long campaigns of the favoured films have hung up their spurs: the red carpets have been rolled up, hospitality pavilions shut down, the PR minders putting their feet up until the Oscars ceremony itself takes place. The prefatory campaign – on-stage Q&As, special-screening paparazzi shoots, the string of lesser awards ceremonies – is over, and there is now nothing for the nominees to do but kick back and count the days.

Over the long haul of awards campaigning, which can reasonably be said to start with the near-simultaneous late summer film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto and hits its peak in mid-February as Oscar voting opens, reading the runes has become a full-time activity across the entire film industry, and an absolute obsession for Hollywood insider publications such as Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline. Every ebb and flow of the process – a critics-awards nomination here, a trade-guild snub there – is endlessly picked over for what it might mean for the end result.

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

No algorithm, no endless playlists, no podcasts on demand. Just a handful of albums, wired headphones and a lot of silence

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

I stared at the thing sitting atop my dresser with dread. For an entire week, I was going to use an MP3 player to listen to music. I’d never tried one before. In elementary school, I used various iterations of iPods, and since my Bieber-obsessed tween years, I’ve almost exclusively relied on streaming services for music and podcasts. Thanks to my Spotify Premium subscription, I’ve listened to 64,186 minutes of music in recent years.

Since the company’s debut in the US 15 years ago, Spotify has made listening to music frictionless. The streaming platform possesses roughly 31% of the world’s music subscribers, making it practically interchangeable with the music streaming industry itself. Its powerful algorithm defines how so many of us listen to music (and podcasts and audiobooks), thanks to features like Smart Shuffle, the AI DJ X and the mood-based Daylist all recommending creepily accurate songs based on your listening history. You can also sort playlists by mood (sad boy anthems), micro-genre (indie twang) and most recently, even by BPM.

‘The first thing is: Where are we? And how much fuel have we got and where do we need to go?’, Australian veteran pilot says

Keith Tonkin has flown a Boeing 747 towards airspace where missiles were being fired, and knows the pressure pilots have been under this week.

“You’re stuck in that airplane until you land safely,” the veteran Australian pilot says.

Amy Wallace spent years helping Giuffre write her life story. Now she reflects on what the survivor would have thought of the release of the Epstein files

There are many reasons why Amy Wallace wishes Virginia Roberts Giuffre was still alive. Some are personal. Some are practical. But at its heart pulse the reverberations of a child sex trafficking scandal that reaches into palaces and courtrooms across the globe.

Wallace is the now very visible ghostwriter behind the posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl, by Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accuser.

Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

Humanity is heating the planet faster than ever before, a study has found.

Climate breakdown is occurring more rapidly with the heating rate almost doubling, according to research that excludes the effect of natural factors behind the latest scorching temperatures.