Letter signed by 25 rebel MPs claims approach from the top is ‘increasingly unpopular’ with public
Union leaders and 25 Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to end a “narrow, factional agenda” within the Labour party.
A letter signed by the MPs, by the leaders of several Labour-affiliated trade unions and by campaign groupings within the party, claimed the approach from the top was “increasingly unpopular with the public”.
There was rancour and recrimination when Mohamed Salah last faced Brighton, at Anfield in December, along with doubt over whether he would be seen in a Liverpool shirt again. Fast forward two months and the Egyptian great is starting, scoring and shaping games for Arne Slot again. Appeasement between the pair is for the greater good.
Salah produced a sublime assist, his fourth since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, and scored from the penalty spot as Liverpool moved into round five with a commanding victory over Fabian Hürzeler’s struggling team. There was no evidence of Brighton not performing for their under-pressure manager but their lack of cutting edge was glaring, as was the case when visiting here in the Premier League.
Brewer last month said it was closing its distilling brands, prompting concerns for jobs at its Scottish facility
The beer-maker BrewDog could be broken up after consultants were called in to help find new investors.
The Scotland-based brewer, which makes craft beer such as Punk IPA and Elvis Juice, has appointed consultants AlixPartners to oversee the sale process.
ISS now fully crewed after a medical issue forced the evacuation of four astronauts in January
The International Space Station (ISS) returned to full strength with Saturday’s arrival of four new astronauts to replace colleagues who bailed early because of health concerns.
SpaceX delivered the US, French and Russian astronauts a day after launching them from Cape Canaveral.
Concern grows over Narges Mohammadi’s health, family says, after reports of ‘life-threatening mistreatment’
Iranian authorities have without prior warning transferred Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to a prison in the north of the country as concern grows over her health, her family said on Saturday.
Mohammadi, who won the peace prize in 2023 in recognition for more than two decades of campaigning, was arrested on 12 December in the eastern city of Mashhad after speaking out against Iran’s clerical authorities at a funeral ceremony.
Their best players and managers may move on, but this thoroughly modern club keep punching above their weight
When the news cycle spins so fast, it’s worth remembering where Brentford were in the summer. They had lost their popular manager of seven years, Thomas Frank. They had lost their two best forwards, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. They had lost their goalkeeper Mark Flekken. And they had lost two stalwarts in Christian Nørgaard and Ben Mee (even if the latter’s involvement the previous season had been limited as he turned 35). Departure and replacement is an unavoidable part of life for a club such as Brentford, but this seemed a like a lot to deal with.
Their summer signings were hard to judge. As a rule of thumb, if Brentford are signing someone about whom you already have considered opinions, it’s likely something has gone awry. That said, Caoimhín Kelleher’s gifts are clear, and a fee of just under £13m seemed good value for a goalkeeper with Premier League experience, while Dango Ouattara had demonstrated at Bournemouth how effective he could be either through the middle or out wide. But Antoni Milambo, Michael Kayode and Kaye Furo were unknown quantities.
Football’s interminable video assistant refereeing debate has its latest chapter after a bizarre evening and officiating performance at Villa Park. With the FA Cup not allowing the video protocol until the fifth round, this was an occasion to make the abolitionists think twice. Is elite football already too far gone to officiate without a bank of screens in a faraway business park? Or were Chris Kavanagh, a referee promoted to the Uefa elite list in December, and his assistants just having a nightmare day at the office?
Sandro Tonali’s two goals and Nick Woltemade’s clincher booked Newcastle’s fifth-round place, completing a comeback in the face of officiating mistakes weighing against Eddie Howe’s team. It was Aston Villa who lost their discipline. They should have been down to 10 men earlier than they eventually were.
Given the doldrums British female sprinting was in before her emergence, it was perhaps little surprise that Dina Asher-Smith stood largely unchallenged on the national stage for the best part of her 20s. So, it was to some raised eyebrows that the country’s sprint queen was usurped by Amy Hunt last summer – the young upstart claiming world championships 200m silver, while Asher-Smith faded to fifth.
The former world 200m champion could – but notably chose not to – point to the mitigating circumstances of a turbulent mid-season return to England after a training move to America gone wrong. But the changing of the guard felt significant: one athlete on the up and the other on the decline. Or was she?
Family pay tribute to Demi Edmunds, from Caldicot, saying she ‘loved her friends, and she was loved by all’
A 17-year-old girl who died in a collision involving three cars in Wales was “funny, kind and caring”, her brother said.
Demi Edmunds was the sole pedestrian in the incident on the A4042 in Cwmbran, Torfaen, Wales, which occurred at about 12.25pm on Thursday afternoon, Gwent police said.
Love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young, but this narrative lags behind reality
As Valentine’s Day approached this week, we were once again flooded with the usual suspects: roses, chocolates, sophisticated dinners and glossy ads featuring young heterosexual couples staring earnestly into each other’s eyes. The problem isn’t just that this version of romance is exclusionary – though it is – it’s that it’s profoundly out of step with how love is actuallybeinglived, negotiated and reimagined in contemporary Australia.
Culturally, love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young. From Romeo and Juliet to Normal People, from Bridget Jones to When Harry Met Sally, romantic fulfilment is depicted as something you secure early; ideally before your knees give out or your mortgage locks in. The message is consistent: find love in your twenties or thirties, settle down, and then coast (emotionally paired and narratively complete) until death do you part.
Lisa Portolan is an academic. Her latest book is 10 Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep it. She will appear in ‘Heterofatalism’ at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on 8 March
There was a language barrier, a mother who burned their letters and a record label manager who disapproved. But Kerry Cox and Hitomi were madly in love
In my early 20s, I quit my job in New Zealand and moved to Sydney to study martial arts. In 1982, after competing in the World Pugilist championships in Hong Kong, I hitchhiked around Japan for a month or so, then headed for Korea via ferry in January of 1983. I’d heard air fares were cheap from Korea. No internet back then!
While boarding, I was approached by a very attractive Japanese woman, with limited English, who told me that if I bought one box of bananas and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label, I could pay for most of my trip in Korea. These items were very much in demand back then.
Institutional menace and an idealistic take on redemption sit side-by-side in Top Boy actor Ashley Walters’ empathic and occasionally over-earnest film
The lawless brutality of a young offender institution is the setting for this British movie written by Marching Powder’s Nick Love and directed by Ashley Walters. It’s a place where terrified newbies realise they can survive only by abandoning their innocence and decency, and submitting to the gang authority of a psycho top G, naturally involving a horrible loyalty test.
This is a place where drugs arrive by drone, where facially tattooed men meet each other’s gaze with a cool opaque challenge in the canteen, and where the cues and balls on the recreation area’s pool table have only one purpose: to give someone a three-month stay in the hospital wing while underpaid guards in lanyards and ill-fitting v-neck jumpers look the other way.
Speaking in Munich, Volodymyr Zelenskyy also called for a clear date for his country to be allowed to join the EU
Ukraine wants security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it can sign a peace deal with dignity, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of talks with Russia and the US scheduled for next week.
Speaking in Munich on Saturday, he also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Some EU officials have put the date as early as 2027.
US speed skating star’s four-gold pursuit continues
500m considered toughest of Stolz’s individual events
Entire podium finishes below previous Olympic record
The men’s 500m is speed skating distilled to its most unforgiving form: one and a quarter laps of the oval, no pacing, no recovery window, no margin for technical compromise. On Saturday afternoon in Milan’s western suburbs, Jordan Stolz mastered the sport’s fastest and most unpredictable race and pushed his Olympic campaign toward historic territory.
The 21-year-old American won the 500m in an Olympic-record 33.77 seconds, securing his second gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics and adding pace behind what is rapidly becoming one of the defining individual campaigns of these Winter Games.
Wall Street Journal says Claude used in operation via Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir Technologies
Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Saturday, a high-profile example of how the US defence department is using artificial intelligence in its operations.
The US raid on Venezuela involved bombing across the capital, Caracas, and the killing of 83 people, according to Venezuela’s defence ministry. Anthropic’s terms of use prohibit the use of Claude for violent ends, for the development of weapons or for conducting surveillance.
Rampant Scotland bounce back from Six Nations defeat by Italy to blow England away in a bonus-point win in a pulsating Calcutta Cup at a riotous Murrayfield.
Rampant Scotland bounce back from Six Nations defeat by Italy to blow England away in a bonus-point win in a pulsating Calcutta Cup at a riotous Murrayfield.
England got back to winning ways against Scotland but their T20 World Cup hopes look slim unless there are significant improvements, writes Matthew Henry.
Ireland survive a major scare from Italy to claim their first win in this year's Six Nations and deny the Azzurri a first championship victory in Dublin.
1 min: Tammy Abraham gets the ball rolling, playing it a few yards backwards to Amadou Onana. Within seconds it finds its way to the feet of Villa goalkeeper Marco Bizot.
Not long now: Kieran Trippier and Lucas Digne skipper the sides, which are led out on to the Villa Park pitch by referee Chris Kavanagh and his team of match officials soundtracked by Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. Kick-off is just a couple of minutes away.
Jones (2), Ritchie and White with tries; Arundell sees red
Certain wins feel bigger than others and, for Scotland, this result will reverberate for ages. Reclaiming the Calcutta Cup is always sweet but convincingly ending England’s 12-Test unbeaten record was a glorious bonus. For Gregor Townsend and his side, under pressure after their opening round defeat in Rome, this was some riposte to their critics
Ultimately, it was not even close. Two tries by Huw Jones, a hard-nosed collective effort from the Scottish pack and a typically artful display from Finn Russell were simply too much for an England team who had dared to believe this week that their previous tartan traumas were behind them. Instead, they were outplayed and tactically out-thought by Townsend and his coaching staff. England have now won just two of the past nine meetings between the nations.
Residents who escaped violence tell of bandits riding in on motorbikes and shooting indiscriminately
Armed assailants on motorbikes killed at least 30 people and burned houses and shops during raids on three villages in north-west Nigeria’s Niger state early on Saturday, residents who escaped the violence told Reuters.
The attacks on villages in the Borgu local government area, near the border with Benin Republic, are part of a surge in attacks blamed on “bandits” who have carried out deadly assaults, abductions for ransom, and displaced communities across northern Nigeria.
World Curling says officials will clamp down on violations
The Canadian curler at the centre of a cheating row at the Winter Olympics has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the Swedish team of deliberately trying to “catch us in the act”.
On Saturday, World Curling confirmed that Canada had escaped punishment despite being accused of breaking the rules in the 8-6 victory over Sweden on Friday night. However, the sport’s governing body did warn Canada about their abusive langugage and introduced emergency spot checks on Saturday afternoon to make sure teams were not cheating when releasing the stone.
At his official installation, Archbishop Richard Moth recognised the Catholic church’s failures but insists it’s a time of ‘opportunity’
The new leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales has said the church has failed vulnerable people, urging more work to be done to address the struggle of refugees and learn from victims of abuse.
At a ceremony where he was officially installed in his new role as archbishop of Westminster, Richard Moth said: “Here, I am most aware of every occasion on which members of the church, or the church as a whole, have failed – most especially when the vulnerable have been abused.
Pep Guardiola spoke of the slog of the schedule and Manchester City performed as if dog-tired when knocking out Salford in a tie the manager pithily described as “boring”.
City were abject and half-paced and in danger of being forced into extra time, at least, until Marc Guéhi’s 80th-minute close-range strike doubled the lead. It was the defender’s first goal for the club he joined last month.
Speaking with progressive YouTuber, former US president stressed ‘unprecedented nature’ of agency’s actions
Barack Obama publicly gave his support to demonstrators in Minneapolis for standing up to the “unprecedented nature” of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Minnesota.
Speaking in an interview with progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen on Saturday, the former president discussed the power that US citizens hold when standing up for the values they believe in and his hopes for the next generation of American leaders.
Mansfield gave blood and sweat to reach the FA Cup fifth round for the first time in more than 50 years and reduced a desperate Burnley to tears. A stunning Louis Reed free-kick completed a hard-fought turnaround for the League One side against their labouring Premier League opponents.
There is little doubt that Burnley are getting relegated, leaving the Cup as their only hope of salvaging a desperate season, but they lacked quality from start to finish on another dispiriting day for Scott Parker. Mansfield were not necessarily the better side but Nigel Clough’s men worked harder, leaving the fans and players celebrating long after the game was over.
After what felt like 40 days and 40 nights of darkness and rain, the sun came out in Dublin. Cold, yes, and a grey day by kick-off, but bright enough to throw light on an Ireland side scrambling for their footing, and a bullish Italy one looking to break new ground.
Neither quite worked out. Never having won a Six Nations game in Dublin might be the sort of statistic to weigh you down but the Azzurri carried it here like a backpack with only a couple of bits and bobs. What they achieved was to give the Championship a highly competitive performance that was heartening, but not worthy of a note in history.
Senators said repeal was ‘particularly troubling’ and was counter to EPA’s mandate to protect human health
More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.
In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.
HMRC figures show 11% rise in young million-pound earners, with influencers and tech pay cited as key
Their generation is often derided for being work-shy, self-centred and overly sensitive. But when it comes to making money, people under 30 are proving they are something else entirely: successful.
A record 1,000 taxpayers under 30 earned more than £1m last year, an 11% increase on the year before, HMRC records show.
Militant group’s infrastructure and weapons storage facilities were hit, as Washington praised Damascus for fresh coalition role
The US military conducted 10 strikes on more than 30 Islamic State targets in Syria between 3 and 12 February as part of a campaign against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.
US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement on Saturday that the US had struck IS infrastructure and weapons storage targets.
Norwegian-born skier storms to historic slalom gold
‘Your difference is your superpower,’ says 25-year-old
As the snow fell in Bormio, and the fog settled in, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen made history by becoming the first South American to win a Winter Olympic medal. Then, as the realisation that he had won gold for Brazil in the men’s giant slalom, he collapsed to the floor and allowed the tears to flow.
“I just hope that Brazilians look at this and truly understand that your difference is your superpower,” he said, still sobbing away. “It may show up in your skin or in the way you dress. But I hope this inspires every kid out there who feels a bit different to trust who you are.”
Group C: England, 155-5, bt Scotland 152 all out, by 5 wkts
Banton hits seven boundaries in unbeaten 63
In the city where a few handfuls of rupees were melted down to make the original Calcutta Cup, it was Scotland who lost their shape when the heat started to rise and the pressure to build. England won by five wickets and, though it was ultimately emphatic, it was not exactly a rediscovery of peak form, even if Tom Banton located his with the 41-ball 63 that powered his team to victory.
“We haven’t made it as easy as we would have liked so far but hopefully we can have a slightly easier run starting with Italy on Monday,” the captain Harry Brook said. “We haven’t played our best cricket yet but we’re in a strong position. World Cups aren’t always smooth sailing. We’d rather not start amazing and finish amazing than start amazing and finish bad.”
Cases among younger people are rising – such as with actor James Van Der Beek, who died on 11 February at age 48
Actor James Van Der Beek died on 11 February, aged 48; he had been diagnosed in 2023 with colorectal cancer.
According to the World Health Organization, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. While rates are declining overall, cases among younger people are rising.
Bouquets imported to Europe found to be heavily contaminated, often with chemicals banned in EU and UK
Stay away from roses this Valentine’s Day, environmental campaigners have warned after testing revealed them to be heavily contaminated with pesticides.
Laboratory testing on bouquets in the Netherlands, Europe’s flower import hub, found roses had the highest residues of neurological and reproductive toxins compared with other flowers.
Museum’s revitalised galleries bring together 250 objects to show how design shapes modern life
What do the first ever baby monitor, Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup kit, an 80s boombox, the smashed parts of Edward Snowden’s computer, a “Please offer me a seat” badge and a Labubu have in common? They are all included in the V&A’s Design 1990-Now galleries, which reopen to the public this week.
The galleries, which run across two rooms on the upper floors of the museum, also house a collection of antique books. The displays cover six different themes including housing and living, crisis and conflict, and consumption and identity, rather than in a strict chronological order.
Co-author George Cottrell is close aide to party leader Nigel Farage and served several months in US prison
As a choice for a book title, How to Launder Money certainly caught the eye. But then again, its co-author George Cottrell claims to know what he’s talking about.
A close aide to Nigel Farage, Cottrell served several months in a US prison after being convicted there in 2017 for wire fraud – a chapter in his life he referred to at his book launch party on Thursday night.
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was killed by dart frog poison administered by the Russian state two years ago, a multi-intelligence agency inquiry has found, according to a statement released by five countries, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The US was not one of the intelligence agencies making the claim.
British sledder has high hopes for new mixed team event
‘We’re going to be one of the strongest sets of teams’
Matt Weston celebrated becoming the first British athlete to win a gold medal at these Olympics by having three slices of margherita pizza and then going straight to bed. “Some people might find it surprising,” Weston said on Saturday morning, “but I’ve got to keep my head together for the team race on Sunday.”
The mixed team skeleton is a new event at these Olympics, and it means Weston has a shot at becoming the first British athlete to win two medals at the same Winter Olympics.
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