Satellite images provide view inside Iran at war

Satellite images from commercial companies show the extent of U.S. and Israeli strikes, and how Iran is responding.

Texas gunman wore "Property of Allah" hoodie during attack, sources say

The man who killed two and wounded 14 also had photos of Iranian leaders in his home, a source said.

US-Israel war on Iran live: Oil price soars by 13% in early trading; Trump says attack will continue until ‘objectives are achieved’

US president says ‘an Iranian regime armed with long range missiles would be a dire threat to every American’ in video released on Truth Social Sunday evening

• Podcast: The assassination of Iran’s ayatollah – and fears for a wider conflict

• How have you been affected by events in the Middle East?

Loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP reported. Thick black smoke was rising from the airport area.

On Saturday, US-led coalition forces downed several missiles and explosive-laden drones over Erbil.

3 U.S. service members killed in military operation against Iran, CENTCOM says

CBS News has learned that the casualties occurred among American personnel based in Kuwait.

Three in four women unaware menopause can trigger new mental illness, poll finds

Royal College of Psychiatrists says impact on mental health often overlooked and calls for improvements in care

Nearly three-quarters of UK women do not know menopause can trigger a new mental illness, polling shows.

This lack of understanding is so acute that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has launched its first targeted “position statement” to raise awareness about menopause and mental health.

Trump says operations will "continue until all of our objectives are achieved"

"Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is. Likely be more," President Trump said after mentioning the three U.S. service members killed in the operation.

Hundreds of UK teenagers to pilot social media bans and restrictions

Trials to form part of three-month consultation on Keir Starmer’s plans to tackle negative effects of smartphone use

Hundreds of teenagers will be enlisted to trial social media bans in the coming months with overnight digital curfews and daily screen time limits also tested as part of Keir Starmer’s plan to crack down on the negative effects of smartphone use.

The trials will be part of a three-month consultation launched this week that could lead to an outright ban on social media for under-16s similar to that introduced in Australia. Ministers have said they are ready to toughen laws just six months after the introduction of child protection measures in the Online Safety Act.

European football: Late fightback at Roma keeps Juventus in hunt for top-four spot

• Visitors score twice in last 12 minutes to draw 3-3 in Rome

• Sevilla come from 2-0 down to draw derby at Real Betis

Juventus maintained their hopes of reaching next season’s Champions League after bouncing back from two goals down to draw 3-3 at their top-four rivals Roma with nearly the last kick of the game. Federico Gatti lashed in Juve’s leveller in the third minute of stoppage time to give the visitors a point in Rome that keeps them four points behind their opponents in fourth.

Juve were trailing 3-1 with 12 minutes remaining after goals from Wesley França, Evan Ndicka and Donyell Malen gave the hosts a commanding lead in front of more than 65,000 delighted fans. But Jérémie Boga volleyed Juventus back into the game and just as Roma looked as if they would hold out for the win Gatti pounced on a poorly defended free-kick to snatch an unlikely point.

UK to allow US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iran

Keir Starmer says decision was taken amid increasingly reckless Iranian actions, as Liberal Democrats demand parliamentary vote

The UK has agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, Keir Starmer has said.

The UK has so far not been involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but in a recorded statement on Sunday evening, the prime minister said that Iran’s approach was becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk, leading to the decision to allow the US to use two of its military bases.

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum

Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

• ‘That resentment is real’: Mahmood’s Denmark visit aims to hammer home tough line on immigration

Shabana Mahmood has ripped up the government’s asylum rules so that from Monday every refugee will be told that their status is temporary and will last just 30 months.

In a move that has concerned a refugee charity, the home secretary said that claimants whose countries are deemed to be safe by the UK government will from now on be expected to return.

Is this really the beautiful game? Well yes, and no … but the panic is fun to watch | Barney Ronay

If every win is going to be painful from here, you may as well just take the painful wins – welcome to Arsenal’s late title stagger

On Thursday night at a swanky London hotel so luxuriously risk‑averse the toilets are equipped with wireless thermostats to control to within half a degree the heat of the seat, the Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters, spoke in detail for the first time about the prospect of “Premflix”, the direct‑to‑consumer model of the future, an app that will sluice this irresistible footballing opiate directly into the eyeballs of 8 billion rapt humans.

In doing so Masters was echoing the words of Todd Boehly on the same stage 12 months earlier, who had talked about the Premier League as a kind of fire stolen from the gods, source of the next great tech platform, an engine of empire, tool of world domination, of lassoing the moon out of the sky.

Infantino suggests players covering mouths when addressing opponents could be sent off

• Fifa president wants more intervention in battle against racism

• Mouth covering in focus after Vinícius Júnior’s allegation of abuse

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has suggested players who cover their mouths while addressing opponents could be sent off as part of the governing body’s battle against racism.

The practice, which has long been deployed to prevent cameras picking up conversations between teammates and opposition, has been put in focus after Vinícius Júnior’s allegations of discriminatory abuse by Gianluca Prestianni. The Benfica player denies doing so but was suspended for his side’s Champions League playoff second leg against Vinícius’s Real Madrid pending the outcome of a formal investigation.

Trump open to talks with Iran as conflict deepens in Middle East

US president signals willingness to engage with Tehran’s surviving leadership as strikes and retaliatory attacks intensify across region

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

Donald Trump said on Sunday he was prepared to talk to what was left of the Iranian leadership in the wake of the killing of the country’s supreme leader by US-Israeli air strikes aimed at overthrowing the regime.

Trump was speaking as a second day of intense bombing of Iranian cities and Tehran’s missile counter-attacks sent tremors across the region and through the global economy.

Photos: U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran and reactions from around the world

Here's a look at Iran, Israel and reactions from around the world after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran.

Austin bar shooting leaves three dead, including suspect, and 14 wounded

FBI official says evidence found on the suspect and in his car indicated a ‘potential nexus to terrorism’

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The FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce has been called in to help investigate a deadly mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, on Sunday morning in which a gunman opened fire in front of a bar popular with university students, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being fatally shot by police.

An FBI official, Alex Doran, told reporters at a press conference that it was too early to determine the shooter’s motivation. But he added that evidence found on the suspect and in his car indicated a “potential nexus to terrorism”.

Trump signals willingness to talk to new Iranian leadership as strikes continue

President Trump said Sunday that he is willing to speak with the new leadership in Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Lawmakers stress new urgency around war powers votes after Iran strikes

Efforts in Congress to block President Trump from using further military force against Iran without support from lawmakers have intensified after the U.S. and Israel launched a massive military operation.

Netanyahu’s latest war has few critics in an Israel embracing militarism

Attack on Iran has widespread support, with little questioning of whether it is best option for lasting security

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

In June, Benjamin Netanyahu declared “a historic victory, which will stand for generations” after the 12-day war on Iran.

His decision to attack Iran again, less than a year later, was greeted with broad and enthusiastic support from Israeli politicians, including the prime minister’s bitter rivals, and a public willing to endure death and massive disruption to their lives.

OBR a backseat driver with out-of-date maps, thinktanks tell Rachel Reeves

Chancellor urged to reform Office for Budget Responsibility to open way to more public investment

Rachel Reeves must reform the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to open the way to more public investment, an alliance of thinktanks has argued ahead of the chancellor’s spring forecast on Tuesday.

With Keir Starmer’s government under intense pressure after Labour’s defeat by the Greens in Thursday’s Gorton and Denton byelection, the thinktanks called on Reeves to review the watchdog’s remit.

Iranian football association unsure if national team will play at World Cup in US

• ‘We cannot look forward with hope,’ says FFIRI president

• England Lions match in Abu Dhabi cancelled due to war

The president of Iran’s football federation says he does not know if the national team can play World Cup matches in the US after the US and Israeli bombardment of the country.

“What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” Mehdi Taj said to the sports portal Varzesh3 as Iran traded strikes with Israel as part of a widening war prompted by the bombardment.

Wife of Rep. Jim Baird dies following complications from car crash injuries

Danise Baird, the wife of Indiana Rep. Jim Baird, has died following complications from her car crash injuries with her husband in January.

It's peak days for the 'overlay everything' trade as demand for income rises in volatile market

Retail investors have run to options-based ETFs that offer income and downside protection, or as one investing expert put it, the 'overlay everything' trade.

The assassination of Iran’s ayatollah – and fears for a wider conflict – podcast

Iran’s supreme leader was killed in a military strike on his compound as Israel and the US launched attacks on the country. Patrick Wintour reports

He survived imprisonment, assassination attempts, decades of protests and exerted a brutal iron grip on Iran’s 90 million people. Now, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead. He was killed by US and Israeli air strikes that levelled the compound where he and some of the most senior regime leaders were sheltering.

As news of the ayatollah’s death emerged, there was public mourning on the streets of Iran. There were also ecstatic celebrations, inside Iran and around the world, explains Patrick Wintour. Iran has launched retaliatory strikes and vows vengeance, and it is still unclear whether his assassination will bring about the regime change that Donald Trump so clearly desires. It is also unclear what will happen next for Iran, where the air strikes continue and the death toll is spiralling.

How Israeli sleight and US might led to the assassination of Ali Khamenei

An operation decades in the making took just 60 seconds to carry out, but some question its wisdom

The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence gathering by Israeli secret services, with crucial technological resources and manpower provided over the last six months by the CIA and other US intelligence services, which culminated in a single concentrated burst of lethal violence to decapitate the Iranian regime, according to experts, veteran spies and officials in Israel and the US.

Khamenei was killed along with seven “members of the top Iranian security leadership who had gathered at several locations in Tehran” and about a dozen members of his family and close entourage in near-simultaneous strikes within 60 seconds, military officials in Israel said. Forty other senior Iranian leaders also died in the attack.

Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," March 1, 2026

On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, Sens. Tom Cotton and Chris Murphy join Margaret Brennan.

US allies and foes left scrambling as Trump catches them off-guard on Iran

War highlights strained alliances, unfettered militaries and a Washington with renewed appetite for regime change

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

A joint US-Israeli operation that appeared to use nuclear negotiations as cover. Gulf leaders courting Donald Trump as he decided to launch a major Middle Eastern intervention. Europe boxed out and a G7 defence minister caught so off-guard that he was grounded in Dubai as the bombs fell. And from Moscow, a strongly worded condemnation of the missile strikes against a fellow member of the anti-US “axis of upheaval” – and little else.

The war unleashed by the US and Israel on Saturday has exposed the new rules of geopolitics in Trump’s second presidency, with strained alliances, unfettered militaries and a Washington that has regained its appetite for regime change.

Tottenham lacking in attack, midfield, defence and ‘brain’, says Igor Tudor

• 2-1 defeat at Fulham was Spurs’ fourth league loss in a row

• ‘We are always late on everything. That’s the problem’

Igor Tudor described the situation Tottenham find themselves in as “amazing” and suggested they have just three major problems as they fight relegation: the attack, the midfield and the defence. Spurs’ 2-1 defeat at Fulham was their fourth in a row in the league and leaves them four points above the relegation zone.

“I cannot tell you anything new,” said a downbeat Tudor. “We need to find the forces inside each of us. I said to the players: ‘It’s always what you’re going to do, what you want to do with yourself,’ you know? More personality, more wish to do before reacting, plenty of things … We are lacking when we attack, we lack the quality to score the goal. We are lacking in the middle to run and we are lacking behind to stay there to suffer and not concede the goal. So, an amazing situation. Amazing.”

Strongman Samson takes India past West Indies to set up England semi-final

• Samson guides India to five-wicket win to reach last four

• T20 World Cup co-hosts play England in Mumbai on Thursday

For the third time in three T20 World Cups, England will meet India in the semi-finals, after the co‑hosts beat West Indies in what was in effect a quarter-final on Sunday night to seal their place in the final four and eliminate their opponents.

Sanju Samson, who lost his place in the side on the eve of the tournament but who was recalled after India’s humbling Super 8s defeat by South Africa, dramatically rediscovered his touch, batting through the innings to finish unbeaten on 97. Chasing 196, the co-hosts looked in control with the 31-year-old at the crease and fittingly it was Samson who struck the winning runs, lifting his 50th delivery over mid-on to seal victory by five wickets, with four balls remaining.

The Guardian view on Trump’s Iranian campaign: an illegal war that risks becoming the new normal | Editorial

The US-Israeli military action will test the fragile rules governing the use of force

The killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by a US-Israeli strike is a targeted assassination of a head of state. It also marks a grave escalation in a region already burdened with smouldering wars and fragile states. The consequences of the deliberate strike will reverberate across a Middle East marked by the aftershocks of foreign intervention. Revulsion against the hardline regime in Tehran, or the desire for a better future for the Iranian people, does not confer a legal justification.

Force is lawful, under the UN charter, only in self-defence against an imminent attack or with security council approval. Neither condition has been met. There was no evidence of an “instant, overwhelming” Iranian attack being prepared. What Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury looks like is not pre-emption but prevention: a decision to eliminate a future risk while an enemy appeared weak. It is a war of choice. Mr Trump’s call to overthrow a sovereign government was extraordinary.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The Guardian view on an explosion of solo exhibitions by women: move over old masters | Editorial

From a landmark Tracey Emin show at Tate Modern to the first female painter in the Royal Academy’s main space, the art world is finally catching up

“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?” the feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls asked in their famous 1989 poster. It pointed out that fewer than 5% of the artists in the modern art sections were women, but 85% of the nudes were female. They could have asked the same question of any major art gallery in the world. Four decades later, this year’s biggest UK exhibitions finally show a different picture.

Dame Tracey Emin might be naked in many of her self-portraits, but that isn’t what got her into Tate Modern for a landmark retrospective. Rose Wylie, 91, is the first female painter to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy. The Colombian artist Beatriz González (who died, aged 93, in January) is at the Barbican. And that is just this week’s openings.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Delta Goodrem to represent Australia at Eurovision 2026

One of the country’s bestselling singers is heading to a contest mired in geopolitical controversy – but, she says, ‘I believe in the healing powers and hope of music’

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Delta Goodrem will represent Australia at Eurovision in May, the 70th anniversary of the annual song contest.

The 41-year-old singer – one of the country’s best-loved and bestselling pop stars – heralds a shift in Australia’s Eurovision selections, which have been smaller breakout acts and genre pioneers. She is the 11th entrant since Australia joined the competition in 2015 and will represent the country in Vienna, Austria.

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Saturday Night Live: Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie makes debut to squealing fans

The star of the gay hockey superhit shows a penchant for physical comedy in an episode scrambling to cover the events in Iran

Saturday Night Live returns from a short hiatus to find the US newly at war with Iran. From behind the presidential podium, Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) wishes “happy world war three to all who celebrate.” After claiming that “Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon [for, like, the last 15 years]”, he weaves into the Temptations’ War: “What is it good for? Distracting from the Epstein files!”

As to why the US should attack now, Trump explains: “We had to strike in the early hours of Saturday, which has two advantages militarily. One, it’s after the stock market closes for the weekend. And two, it’s to cause immeasurable fear, rage and chaos in the SNL writers’ room.”

This week on "Sunday Morning" (March 1)

A look at the features for this week's broadcast of the Emmy-winning program, hosted by Jane Pauley.

What travelers need to know after the U.S., Israeli strikes on Iran

What travelers need to know after the strikes in the Middle East.

USA hockey stars joke about "Heated Rivalry" and Trump invite on "SNL"

Hillary Knight, Megan Keller and Jack and Quinn Hughes made a surprise appearance during "Heated Rivalry" star Connor Storrie's opening monologue on "SNL."

Jason White on US-Israeli strikes on Iran – cartoon

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The Democrat who schools Republicans – ‘I would say do more of that’

Isaiah Martin’s videos have gone viral – he thinks his party should follow his lead and stand up to Republican excess

Dynamism, courage, and wit are words that few are likely to associate with the mainstream Democratic party, particularly after its capitulation to Republicans’ budget demands last year.

Polls show that majorities of Democratic voters think their party is weak and ineffective. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is even more unpopular than Donald Trump. People are crying out for a bold voice, someone to take the fight to an increasingly authoritarian Republican party.

Neil Sedaka obituary

Singer and songwriter of such pop canon hits as Oh! Carol, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do and (Is This the Way to) Amarillo

“Prolific” hardly does justice to Neil Sedaka’s songwriting output, which ran to more than 1,000 compositions over seven decades.

If he had been willing to stay behind the scenes, turning out tunes for other singers, he would have still merited a place in pop history thanks to the number of those songs that became part of the pop canon, including Where the Boys Are, Love Will Keep Us Together and (Is This the Way to) Amarillo. However, Sedaka, who has died aged 86, had a constitutional need to see his own name in lights.

Welbeck lifts Brighton to pile pressure on Nottingham Forest and Vítor Pereira

These are concerning times for Vítor Pereira. Nottingham Forest’s fourth permanent manager of this crazy season may be only four matches into his spell in charge but – given the record of the owner, Evangelos Marinakis – his position is already looking most precarious.

A second Premier League defeat in succession since he was appointed to replace Sean Dyche a fortnight ago leaves Forest only two points clear of the drop zone and facing a daunting trip to Manchester City on Wednesday.

Celebration or grief? Khamenei’s death brings contrasting emotions in Iran

Some publicly mourn leader’s demise but videos also show jubilant response after violent crackdown in January

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

Celebration and mourning broke out across Iran in response to the death of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an extraordinary public response to the end of nearly four decades of the top cleric’s rule.

In the squares of Tehran, crowds gathered to mourn the leader, chanting and holding placards with his image. But videos shared widely on social media also showed people celebrating, dancing, honking car horns and setting off fireworks as news of the leader’s death broke.

Silvana Armani emphasises softness and wearability in Milan solo debut

Late designer’s niece opts for natural womenswear look after Bottega Veneta features swishy yeti coats in faux fur

Does it matter who designs women’s clothes? Silvana Armani – niece of the late Giorgio, creative director of womenswear and one of the few women in charge of a fashion house – thinks so.

“The way women and men relate to their bodies is different, which affects the design process. Dressing a woman is more complex than dressing a man,” she said before her first solo show on the last day of Milan fashion week. “Yet, as a woman, you know your body. You try things on and notice if a jacket’s length is off, adjusting it as necessary.”

Hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded or diverted by airspace closures in Middle East

UK plans evacuation of more than 76,000 Brits as key transit hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha close

• Iran confirms killing of Ayatollah Khamenei

• US-Israel war on Iran: latest updates

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes

• How the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

The US and Israeli attack on Iran continued to cause severe disruption to flights throughout the Middle East and beyond on Sunday, creating uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of travellers.

Countries across the region closed their airspace, and three of the key airports that connect Europe, Africa and the west to Asia halted operations.

Suspected Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker seized in North Sea

Belgian special forces boarded the Ethera, which was sailing under the flag of Guinea, on Saturday night

Belgium has seized an oil tanker believed to form part of the so-called “shadow fleet” used by Russia to circumvent western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Special forces assisted by French helicopters boarded the ship in a clandestine operation in the North Sea on Saturday night, Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, said on Sunday.

Datacentre developers face calls to disclose effect on UK’s net emissions

Campaign groups write to technology secretary amid concerns that sites could double overall electricity demand

Datacentre developers are facing pressure to reveal whether their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns the sites could double national electricity demand.

Campaign groups have written to the UK technology secretary, Liz Kendall, warning that the energy required by new AI infrastructure poses a “serious threat to efforts to decarbonise the electricity grid”.

Trump appears to link Iran attack to his 2020 election loss

President says in social media post that Iran tried to ‘stop Trump’ and now ‘faces renewed war with United States’

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

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Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss to former president Joe Biden, in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US president elections.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump,” his Truth Social post said, “and now faces renewed war with United States”.

AI executive Dario Amodei on the red lines Anthropic would not cross

The CEO of Anthropic says his company refused to allow its technology to be used by the Trump Administration without certain guidelines (such as not using its AI to power fully-autonomous weapons without any human involvement).

How Courtney Barnett made her new album by retreating to the desert: ‘It nearly drove me mad’

After closing her scene-making record label and moving to the US, Barnett decamped to Joshua Tree – where she learned to slow down and make noise again

In the early months of 2024, Courtney Barnett was living in the kind of limbo that usually precedes a major psychic shift. The Grammy-nominated Australian musician was bouncing between sublets as a transplant to Los Angeles – a city she still navigates via a mental map of Melbourne, the place that made her: “Silver Lake is kind of like Collingwood,” she says, laughing. She was simultaneously winding down Milk! Records, the independent label she co-founded more than a decade earlier, and writing her fourth record. Her head was spinning.

“It felt like the end of a chapter, and then the next chapter kind of began without me totally realising.”

Farewell to producer Mary Walsh

For nearly five decades, CBS News producer Mary Walsh has reported from all over the world – from war zones to presidential campaigns – for hundreds of stories, large and small, that had excellence in common. Jane Pauley says so long to a cherished member of the "Sunday Morning" family.

AI company Anthropic's Dario Amodei: "We are patriots"

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, says his company refused to allow its AI product, Claude, to be used by the Trump Administration without certain guidelines (such as not using its AI to power fully-autonomous weapons without any human involvement). That prompted President Trump to announce Friday that he is banning Anthropic's technology from all federal use, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth labeled the company "a supply chain risk to national security." Amodei talks with correspondent Jo Ling Kent about why he calls the administration's actions "retaliatory and punitive."

UFC's Dana White on taking MMA to the next level

As CEO and president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White has taken the hard-hitting sport of mixed martial arts to its highest-profile moment this summer: a UFC match on the South Lawn of the White House.

UK health official recuses himself from puberty blockers trial after bias claims

MHRA says Prof Jacob George will no longer be involved after gender-critical social media posts from last year

A health official who reportedly intervened to pause a clinical trial on the use of puberty blockers has been removed from any further involvement due to accusations of bias.

Prof Jacob George, who was appointed chief medical and scientific officer at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in January, raised concerns that led to the Pathways trial being put on hold by the government, according to the Sunday Times.

UFC's Dana White on taking MMA to the next level

As CEO and president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White has done more than anyone to grow the hard-hitting sport of mixed martial arts, taking his league from obscurity to what will be its highest-profile moment this summer: a UFC match on the South Lawn of the White House. Luke Burbank talks with White about his UFC empire — and how his relationship with Donald Trump, begun in 2001 at Trump's Atlantic City casino, helped advance both their careers.

Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression | Kenneth Roth

Their actions are no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo

We shouldn’t beat around the bush: Donald Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances – with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

Passage: In memoriam

"Sunday Morning" remembers some of the notable figures who left us this week, including journalist and peace advocate Colman McCarthy.

Morrissey review – classic Smiths songs meet GB News-style talking points

O2 Arena, London
Morrissey is in impressive voice and the old songs still retain their power, but the conspiracy theorising and nationalist rhetoric are miserable in all the worst ways

It could almost be the 90s: at a sold out O2 Arena, a pink-shirted Morrissey and his five-piece band rally the crowd with Suedehead, each oscillating “why” roared en masse. It is as if his past two decades of inflammatory political activism hasn’t hurt his reputation. What’s more, things will soon pick up, he assures us, because his morphine has just kicked in. A smatter of laughter. Probably joking?

Opiate allusions aside, the between-songs narrative is a classic tour-de-Moz. He stumbles from self-hype to castigating “jealous bitches” and his customary bete noire, the cancel culture that has so thoroughly deplatformed him that he has no choice but to stand on a big platform and tell 20,000 fans all about it. Though its insinuations appear lost on the crowd, his alignment with far-right talking points comes to the fore on recent single Notre-Dame, a repugnant synth-pop lament seemingly based on debunked (and broadly Islamophobic) conspiracies that arsonists started the 2019 fire at the Paris cathedral. “We know who tried to kill you,” he sings, addressing the cathedral itself. “Before investigations they said: there’s nothing to see here.”

War in the Middle East and lunar new year celebrations: photos of the weekend

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

Honoring Operation Desert Storm: Waging a battle to build a war memorial

In 1991 more than half a million Americans served in Operation Desert Storm; 148 were killed in action, to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Yet, when Marine veteran Scott Stump set out to build a memorial on the National Mall, he faced "grueling" resistance.

A new memorial honoring Operation Desert Storm

In 1991 more than half a million Americans served in Operation Desert Storm, an allied campaign that freed Kuwait from the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Today, that campaign is all but forgotten. Marine veteran Scott Stump set out to build a memorial to Desert Storm, and the 148 Americans killed in action, on the National Mall, now scheduled to open in October. He talks with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin about his obsession to memorialize a moment in time, and the opposition he had to overcome before succeeding in his quest.

What is the strait of Hormuz and why is it crucial for oil supplies?

Effective closure of the narrow waterway could spell trouble for many developed economies

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

The US-Israeli war on Iran has ignited fears that escalating military aggression in the Middle East could send oil prices soaring, push up prices at the pump and drive a global economic downturn.

The US began “major combat operations” in Iran on Saturday morning, shortly after Israel launched a strike against Tehran. Within hours of the US-Israeli strikes, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reportedly warned tankers in the strait of Hormuz that no ship would be allowed to pass through the world’s most critical oil trade route.

Trump says strikes on Iran will continue "as long as necessary"

On Saturday the Trump Administration launched military strikes on Iran, in the midst of negotiations with Iranian leaders over their nuclear program. President Trump (who campaigned on avoiding foreign conflicts) said the bombing will continue "as long as necessary" to achieve peace. Democrats say the strikes aren't worth the risk to American lives, and could cause chaos in the region. Nancy Cordes reports.

Reo Hatate grabs Celtic a draw at Rangers to leave Hearts as real winners

A penny for the thoughts of the Hearts manager, Derek McInnes, as John Beaton was diverted by the video assistant referee towards the pitchside screen. Only seconds of regulation time remained. An afternoon that for so long looked to belong to Rangers was about to take a significant twist. As Beaton awarded Celtic a penalty, from which Reo Hatate eventually scored, idle Hearts emerged the real winners.

The Edinburgh club’s aspirations of winning the Scottish title for the first time since 1960 have been enhanced over back-to-back weekends. Hearts lead Rangers by six and Celtic, who play their game in hand at Aberdeen on Wednesday, by eight. McInnes has the making of history within his grasp. No wonder Sir Alex Ferguson, the last non‑Old Firm manager to win the top league, thought it appropriate to take in the weekend fixtures at Tynecastle and Ibrox.

Populist crusade and anti-Maga outrage as Texas Democrats do battle in Senate primary

James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett adopt contrasting strategies as party hopes to tap into Trump backlash in reliably red state

At a packed town hall meeting last month in Laredo for James Talarico, the 36-year-old Democrat vying for a US Senate seat in Texas, Cristina Rodriguez took the microphone. Rodriguez, a 16-year Marine Corps veteran, said she had never cast a ballot. She didn’t identify as either a Democrat nor a Republican, and to her it didn’t matter. Regardless of what party the president belonged to, she had to obey orders.

Her attitude changed after the re-election of Donald Trump, whom she viewed as spiteful and divisive. In Talarico, a state representative from the Austin suburb of Round Rock, she found the exact opposite – a former middle school teacher and current seminary student who speaks in measured tones and preaches mutual respect.

Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no …

This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London?

After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini – are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I’ve noticed that, well, it’s as if they’re trying to please, with statements such as, “You’re absolutely right, Jeff,” and “That’s pretty much right.” Often, when I ask, “Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?”, I then get another response saying: “Jeff, you’re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply …”

If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh

Rufus Hound looks back: ‘By the time I started to do standup, I realised I’d been training for it my entire life’

The actor and comedian on using humour as his cheat code, his internal monologue and the teacher to whom he owes everything

Born in Essex in 1979, Rufus Hound is a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He left his job in PR in 2000 to work full-time as a comedian, first in standup and then on TV. A panel show regular, including Mock the Week and Celebrity Juice, he has also built a substantial stage career, with roles in West End productions such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Wind in the Willows and One Man, Two Guvnors. He stars in The Mesmerist at Watford Palace theatre from 2-21 March.

I was six, and on holiday. My dad was an accountant who benefited, briefly, from the jobs boom of the 1970s. Suddenly, getting on a plane was an option for our family. We spent our summers in Corsica, going on boat trips. A few years ago, I would have said that boy was wide-eyed and innocent. Now I’ve done a bit of therapy, I know he was consumed by anxiety and desperate for attention.

UK teachers and parents urged to talk to children about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes

Experts say trusted adults must be brave and discuss issue or risk children looking for answers from unsafe sources

Teachers and parents in the UK need to be brave and discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes with children and young people or risk them looking for answers from dubious or dangerous sources, according to experts who will host the first public seminar for schools on the issue.

Thrive, the education consultancy hosting the online seminar on the convicted child sex offender, said: “Many children and young people are encountering this material often without context, warnings or adult support, leaving educators to manage the emotional and safeguarding impact in real time.”

Shia LaBeouf blames ‘small man complex’ for alleged assaults and homophobic slurs

Transformers film franchise star says ‘big gay people are scary’ to him in interview and he doesn’t want to go to rehab

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The actor Shia LaBeouf has said he believes he needs to sort out his “small man complex” rather than undergo another round of substance abuse treatment after his recent arrest on allegations that he battered three men at a New Orleans bar while hurling homophobic slurs at them.

In an interview posted Saturday on YouTube by the online outlet Channel 5, the Transformers film franchise star also acknowledged “big gay people are scary” to him. Yet, perhaps providing a glimpse at a potential court defense, he also implied that the violence at the center of his arrest erupted only after his alleged victims touched him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

Mideast clashes breach Olympic truce as athletes gather for Winter Paralympic Games

Fighting intensified in the Middle East during the Olympic truce, in effect through March 15. Flights are being disrupted as athletes and families converge on Italy for the Winter Paralympics.

A U.S. scholarship thrills a teacher in India. Then came the soul-crushing questions

She was thrilled to become the first teacher from a government-sponsored school in India to get a Fulbright exchange award to learn from U.S. schools. People asked two questions that clouded her joy.

US hockey star Hilary Knight hits back at Trump’s joke about women’s team during SNL skit

• Trump quipped about inviting US women to White House

• Knight appears on SNL with Hughes brothers

US ice hockey star Hilary Knight aimed a barb at Donald Trump during an appearance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live.

Knight led the US women to gold at last month’s Olympics, scoring the Americans’ first goal as they beat Canada in overtime. But after the US men’s team won gold Trump joked that he would have to invite the women’s team to the White House too or risk being impeached. Many of the men’s players laughed at Trump’s comments, and Knight later called them “distasteful and unfortunate.” While the US men visited the White House last week, Knight and her teammates said they were too busy to attend and will instead celebrate at an event in July organized by rapper Flavor Flav.

Brave, visionary and queer: the Bohemian brilliance of author George Sand

With her radical politics and flamboyant affairs, Sand was no stranger to controversy, but it’s time to debunk the myths surrounding a writer ahead of her time

It would be hard to find a more courageous and perverse, iconic yet controversial figure in European literary history than George Sand. One of the great romantics, she helped transform culture, and her writing shifted social attitudes in ways we still benefit from. Victor Hugo called her “an immortal”; Gustave Flaubert, “one of the great figures of France”. Matthew Arnold said she was “the greatest spirit in our European world [since] Goethe”.

The 150th anniversary of her death this year is a chance to revisit her extraordinary achievements and legacy. But to do that we need to debunk some of the myths that surround this pioneering ecological, feminist and republican writer.

Keir Starmer was advised to ditch net zero. He needs to re-embrace it

After byelection defeat and with right-leaning advisers gone, will PM return to his instincts and embrace Labour ‘DNA’ on climate?

Less than a year ago, Keir Starmer stood in front of an audience of senior officials and business leaders from 60 countries in London to declare climate action was “in the DNA of my government”.

Vowing to go “all out” for net zero and to “accelerate” while others were slowing down, the Lancaster House speech was his strongest intervention yet on the issue. “We’re paying the price for our overexposure to the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets,” he said. “Homegrown clean energy is the only way to take back control of our energy system.”

How to make the perfect bara brith – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

This Welsh fruit loaf is tricky to get right, and even trickier to perfect, but it’s squidgy heaven if you do

Bara brith, the traditional Welsh fruit loaf whose name means speckled bread, is, as Ben Mervis notes, not dissimilar to Yorkshire brack, Irish barmbrack and Scottish “kerrie loaf” – the last is a new one on me, though, of course, I’m more than familiar with how well they all pair with strong tea and cold salty butter. According to food writers Laura Mason and Catherine Brown, they were originally known as teisen dorth in south Wales, and they date the recipe to no earlier than the beginning of the 20th century. However, the digitising of records since their book Food of Britain was published in 1999 allowed me to find a reference to it being eaten before school examinations in Bala, Gwynedd, in Seren Cymru from 1857. (Pen Vogler notes that “anything made with flour, however, is likely to be relatively modern, as wheat was too unreliable to be a staple in wet, upland Wales.”) There’s no reason to doubt the pair’s claim that bara brith was originally made from excess bread dough, but I think it’s good enough to need no such excuse.

‘He had a radiating aura’: Chicagoans say goodbye to hometown civil rights hero Jesse Jackson

Jackson’s body lay in repose at his Rainbow/Push Coalition headquarters as thousands visited to pay their respects

Some were older, some were younger and some were strangers, but many more were friends – they had lined up down the blocks of Chicago in mercifully mild weather for a chance to say goodbye to the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

Friday was the last day of public visitation as Jackson lay in repose at the headquarters of his Rainbow/Push political activism coalition in the city he called home.

Trump says diplomatic solution in Iran remains possible: "Much easier now"

The president said the strikes have put immense pressure on Iran, and he believes the U.S.-Israeli military action can lead to an eventual diplomatic solution.

Labour is stubborn in defeat because it knows this: we face the belated end of the political 20th century | John Harris

In Gorton and Denton, I heard again and again that people wanted seismic political change – Labour and the Tories are no longer part of that conversation

In the wake of Labour’s third-place showing at last Thursday’s Gorton and Denton byelection, Keir Starmer could have responded with a mixture of magnanimity, grit, and a clear appreciation of what had just happened.

He might have congratulated the Green party’s new MP Hannah Spencer, and insisted that the themes of inequality and everyday struggle she had so loudly emphasised throughout the campaign were at the top of his government’s priorities. He could also have combined that message with a show of determination to learn from the defeat and win back the voters his party lost, and an acknowledgment that Labour’s recent calamities and internal bickering had sent those people completely the wrong signals.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

He broke the story of the US Catholic clergy abuse scandal. Now he reflects on struggling to keep his faith

A reporter ponders on how to repair a religious structure long thought of as good but supported by an evil underside

In 1965, just shy of my junior year at the Jesuit high school of New Orleans, with good potential as an offensive end, I had an epiphany in the muddy slog of August football practice: Why are you doing something you don’t like?

Soon after, I quit, and was trailed by guilt for a dereliction of duty. Jesuit vaunted student achievements of all kinds. I played on the golf team and did some pieces for the school paper. Jesuit fostered a fraternal culture, molding friendships I carry to this day.

Dining across the divide: ‘Saying everyone who wants to reduce illegal migration is racist doesn’t get us very far’

One says illegal immigration is unfair, the other thinks more legal routes are needed – can they agree over the danger of a Tory/Reform alliance?

Louise, 52, Bristol

Occupation Audio producer

Should you overshare more?

We may cringe at influencers and friends who let it all hang out, but research shows that keeping quiet might be worse

Do you recoil at oversharers on social media, or joke among your friends about “TMI”? I know I do. But while mocking public confession comes easy, it’s harder to appreciate the risks of normalising silence: withheld anxieties, unspoken family histories, and the little omissions that make workplaces and relationships brittle. The instinct to pour scorn on “attention seekers” may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment.

For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don’t put your passwords in a document, don’t take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don’t broadcast things you can’t take back. I was a walking contradiction, though. Privately, I did online quizzes for fun. I kept a notepad of passwords on my desktop. I knew the rules and, like many of us, I broke them.

Touch, sound and style: how London fashion week is opening up to visually impaired guests – photo essay

From live audio descriptions to fabric swatch booklets, designers including Chet Lo are rethinking the catwalk experience for blind and low-vision clothes-lovers

‘If you put your hands out and run your fingers along this skirt, you’ll feel that there are soft feathers appliquéd on to it,” says the fashion designer Chet Lo. “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.

Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week

Supreme Court to weigh legal battle over federal gun ban for drug users

The Supreme Court is set to convene Monday to hear a Second Amendment dispute over a federal law that bars unlawful drug users from having firearms.

2/28: CBS Weekend News

Trump says Iran’s supreme leader killed in joint strikes by U.S., Israel; What we know after U.S., Israel attacks in Iran 

3 American troops killed, and Trump says more 'likely,' in war against Iran

The deaths of three U.S. service members mark the first American casualties since the start of operation "Epic Fury" on Saturday. President Trump said "there will likely be more" Americans killed.

The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream?

With the rise of influencer Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxers’, sexist language from niche memes has infiltrated official government accounts and NYT headlines

A recent tweet from the US Department of Defense boasts about the killing capabilities of the US military as follows: “Low cortisol. Locked in. Lethalitymaxxing”. To many, that will sound as indecipherable as the teenagers that discuss “high-tier Beckys” or the New York Times warning of “Tate-pilled” boys.

Many will have now seen the 6 February tweet that went globally viral, viewed more than 24m times and since discussed in endless analyses and explainers:

Clavicular was mid jestergooning when a group of Foids came and spiked his Cortisol levels. Is Ignoring the Foids while munting and mogging Moids more useful then SMV chadfishing in the club?

Canada’s Carney to meet Modi in India amid trade uncertainty with US

Canada’s prime minister and Indian prime minister will meet Monday in visit that marks diplomatic shift

It’s not often that the leaders of two countries which have traded accusations of murder, extortion and terrorism meet only months later on friendly terms.

But amid what he had described as a “rupture in the world order”, Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, will on Monday meet Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to repair strained ties between their nations.

Savannah Guthrie may never know what happened to her loved one. In the US, she’s not alone

Thousands go missing every year, including more than 5,000 Native American and Alaska Native women and girls

Savannah Guthrie could be moving back to New York to resume anchoring NBC’s Today show and acknowledging that her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, may not be found a month after she disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the middle of the night.

“We still believe in a miracle,” Guthrie said in a video last week announcing a $1m reward for her mother’s return in an enduring mystery that has gripped the US for four weeks. “We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone.”

This is how we do it: ‘We schedule sex ahead – being organised has reaped massive dividends’

Being spontaneous is overrated, say Mia and Elijah, who find timetabling sex means it never gets forgotten

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

OK, you’re volunteering on Tuesday, and I’m going fishing on Thursday, so we’re going to have sex on Monday and Friday

Trump’s Iran strikes accelerate the world’s drift from dollar dominance | Heather Stewart

Aggression feeds a sense that the US is operating outside global norms and helps to fuel a more complex currency outlook

• What the US-Israeli attacks on Iran mean for oil prices

Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, with its puerile Pentagon nametag Operation Epic Fury, is another show of violent force from a bullish administration.

Aside from unleashing fresh instability across the Middle East, the strikes add to the sense of a US operating with little regard for international law or global norms – as with Trump’s on-off tariff regime, and the attack on Venezuela.

Tell us: how have you been affected by the latest events in the Middle East?

If you’re living or working in the region and have been impacted by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, we would like to hear from you

• US-Israel war on Iran: latest updates

In a statement posted to social media, the Israel Defense Forces says it is now striking “targets” of the Iranian “regime in the heart of Tehran”.

Iran has launched a new round of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and several Gulf cities, after vowing retaliation for the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled the country since 1989.

‘I never had those deep chats in the smoking area’: Arlo Parks on embracing late night life with her hedonistic new album

In her teens, the Mercury prize-winning musician was stuck on tour buses when she should have been on the dancefloor. Now she is throwing herself into club culture – and living on her own terms

Until only a few years ago, Arlo Parks had never been clubbing. The lack of a party phase makes sense when you consider that while most of her friends were decamping to university at 18, Parks was busy bagging a record deal, releasing her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, a few months after her 20th birthday. “It’s something that I almost didn’t have time to think about,” she says, speaking from LA, where she has lived since 2022, and where she feels very much at home. (This morning has already consisted of gymming and a walk in 28-degree sunshine that’s as bright as her neon-red hair.) “But I definitely did come to the conclusion that I had missed out – I hadn’t really had the time to be silly and have crazy, deep conversations in the smoking area. To be in an anonymous space and feel like you’re part of this whole.”

Now 25, she has very much made up for lost time with her third album, Ambiguous Desire – a paean to the night-time, which fuses elements of house, techno, UK garage and more with Parks’s celestial, feather-light vocals. While she hasn’t ditched the guitars altogether, it’s a long way from where we were when we first met Parks, born Anaïs Marinho, back in 2018. Fresh out of sixth form, where she had honed her craft via GarageBand, hers was a confessional, clear-eyed strain of alt-pop, with influences that ranged from Nick Cave to Erykah Badu. Before long, she had signed with an agent and nabbed that aforementioned record deal with Transgressive, fuelled by youthful chutzpah rather than any nepo connections. While her songs were often laced with perfectly curated cultural callbacks (“You do your eyes like Robert Smith,” she cooed on Black Dog), she didn’t shy away from singing about mental health, romantic rejection or drug abuse. One of the top comments on the YouTube video for her early single Eugene reads: “It’s so undignified for a 51-year-old bloke to be crying on a train about a song but here I am.”

Trump warns Iran not to retaliate after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed

The Iranian government has announced 40 days of mourning. The country's supreme leader was killed following an attack launched by the U.S. and Israel on Saturday against Iran.

‘By 18 I was having sex to the music of Brian Eno’: Tim Booth’s honest playlist

The James frontman fell for Leonard Cohen as a child and would do Val Doonican at karaoke. But which singer taught him that ‘music could be medicine’?

The first song I fell in love with
My older sister, Penny, played me So Long, Marianne by Leonard Cohen when I was eight, like some kind of initiation, to say: “Now this is a real poet.” It felt like contraband and so different to all the pop flotsam I had heard in my otherwise white, suburban upbringing, and gave me a taste of adult romantic relationships that a child could not possibly understand. I love my sister and I wanted to impress her.

The first single I bought
I was given WH Smith tokens as a child, so I must have used the bloody things. When I was 15, I ordered Hey Joe/Radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith through the post and would play it like it was the word of God.

Undercover officer allegedly used public money for romantic break in Venice

Woman deceived into relationship tells spycops inquiry the trip was not to meet Italian socialists, as Carlo Soracchi claims

An undercover police officer is facing allegations that he used taxpayers’ money to pay for a romantic break in Venice with a woman he was deceiving into a long-term relationship, the spycops public inquiry has heard.

Carlo Soracchi pretended to be an activist for six years while he infiltrated socialist and anti-fascist campaign groups.

Explosion rocks Iran's capital as Israel says it is targeting the city

Iran fired missiles at targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states Sunday after vowing massive retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel.

AI-resistant ‘halo’ stocks drive UK and EU markets to record highs

Investors shifting to ‘heavy-asset, low-obsolescence’ companies insulated from disruption, says Goldman Sachs

Investors have a new mantra as they prepare for AI to shake up the global economy – the Halo trade.

Interest in Halo – short for “heavy assets, low obsolescence” - has risen as investors seek out companies with tangible, productive assets, which might be insulated from AI disruption, such as energy and transport infrastructure companies.

Stunning views, honesty shops and community pubs: people power on the Llŷn peninsula in Wales

This rugged promontory is thriving thanks to community-run cafes, restaurants and inns, which can all be visited on a spectacular coastal walk

Cliff is sitting in his farm truck scanning the hillsides with powerful binoculars. “It’s the rams,” he says. “They can stray at this time of year.” I follow his direction of gaze, down a golden hillside covered in bracken and boulders to a dark patch in the valley bottom. “Hopefully not down there,” he adds. “That’s the quaking bog.”

Sometimes a chance encounter can transform your appreciation of an area, and that is about to happen for me. I’m heading up Craig y Garn mountain to catch the sunrise over the Llŷn peninsula and the first rays are already stealing over the tops of distant Cadair Idris, rousing giant shadows from under the trees. Cliff, who also happens to be my landlord for the week, points to the house on a hill above the bog: “Where you’re staying was my great-grandmother’s house – or at least what is now the living room. She kept one pig, one sheep and one cow, and made buttermilk where the conservatory is.”

Iran may yet endure this war, but the Islamic Republic as we have known it cannot survive unchanged | Sanam Vakil

The regime may now have to meet Trump’s demands merely to save itself. And he needs a coherent plan to deal with what he has unleashed

The coordinated strikes on Iran launched by the United States and Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning formally reignited a conflict that had been simmering since last summer’s 12-day war. They targeted key command structures and killed senior figures, most notably Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had been in power since 1989. Donald Trump marked his demise with a post saying “one of the most evil people in history” was dead, adding: “This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans.”

Israel has published reports claiming that Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the defence council, have also been killed. In response, Iranian forces have fired missiles and drones at Israel, at US bases in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan, and at some civilian targets across the Gulf. Events are moving quickly, but far from predictably.

Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House

Breakfast at Pavyllon, London W1: ‘Does fine dining strictly have to wait until lunchtime?’ - restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Now that gen Z is eschewing booze and all-night raves, are we moving into a hospitality era when the big posh breakfast might well be the main event?

For 5am Club people such as myself, who love to be up, caffeinated and scribbling on Post-it notes pre-dawn, the Four Seasons’ recent launch of London’s first Michelin-starred breakfast is perfect. Now we can do all that over a £70, five-course tasting menu served at a counter in a genteel, pastel-shaded dining room. If, that is, you can get a booking, in which case well done; otherwise, you could simply sit a little farther from the counter and order almost the same food off the normal breakfast menu, only without all the explanations.

Regardless, chef Yannick Alléno is clearly doing the world a favour by luring all of us early risers to one room and distracting us with lobster flatbread and a bespoke “amuse juice”, because we are clearly some of the most annoying people on Earth. Have you ever heard one of my bumptious 5.46am WhatsApp admin voice notes? Or woken, blearily, to the sound of me rearranging furniture or stomping at a walking desk? People like me are a menace. We need to be contained so the polite world can sleep. Not only that, but, from a business point of view, the idea of offering snooze-averse diners pricey, Michelin-starred chia puddings is rather genius. We can now all meet and entertain equally up-and-at-’em colleagues over salted maple pancakes and fancy french toast. After all, does fine dining strictly have to wait until lunchtime? Perhaps now that gen Z is eschewing booze and all-night raves, we’re moving into a hospitality era when the big, posh breakfast may well be the main event.

An ugly year for the Louvre: where does the world’s biggest museum go from here?

After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation

Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.

Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.

Christina Applegate on life with multiple sclerosis: ‘I won’t lie and say any of this is a blessing’

When the Emmy-winning comedy star was diagnosed, her body started giving up on her. She writes about losing control, gaining weight – and refusing to be a ‘good girl’

In 2021 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. MS attacks your nervous system and slows down your functions – your respiratory system, your organs, everything. The disease eats away at all the things we take for granted. Some of us with MS have a raft of pain; some don’t. I have a lot of it. When I wake up, I often can’t get my arm to move far enough to grab the cup of water by my bed or my phone from its charger. I have infusions every six months to slow the disease’s progress, but those infusions kill all my B cells [a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies], making me prone to infection. My stomach frequently slows to a halt, leaving me to rush to the emergency room in agony. Most days, simply walking across the room feels like scaling a mountain.

One of the worst side-effects of the illness is the exhaustion. It feels as though I’ve been on a three‑day sleepless bender – and that’s how I feel after a good night’s sleep. Hence all the time I spend on and in bed, snuggled up against my heating pad. On the back of that diagnosis and the symptoms I face, I no longer care what I say or how I come across or how it makes anyone feel. I don’t have patience for bullshit any more, for things that are meaningless or merely “extra”. And it’s not just because I’m no longer working. Sure, there’s no one breathing down my neck to represent their business or movie or TV show, things I’ve had to represent, usually willingly and passionately, for almost 50 years. It goes deeper. I’ve become an honesty missile. When your physical situation deteriorates, and your life shrinks to the size of a king-sized bed, suddenly all the things you thought were important shift, too. The truth clarifies, like a camera lens slowly focusing.

‘All you need is a chair and a view’: could daily ‘dusking’ make us healthier and happier?

An old Dutch ritual of going outside to watch the coming of night – or dusking – is having a revival across Europe. Fans of the practice say it’s a great way to disconnect from screens and find peace

I’m wandering around a walled garden on the edge of the North York Moors at dusk. The darkening sky is faintly illuminated by a sharp sliver of crescent moon and the first stars. Bats are swooping in search of supper, an owl is softly hooting and the dark outline of a ruined castle looms beyond the walls.

But what is really striking about the scene is what’s missing: artificial light. There are no solar lamps or electric bulbs; no torches or phone screens. As parts of the garden recede into the gloom, others are thrown into sharp relief: the bare branches of winter trees; a russet-coloured hedge; clumps of snowdrops, glowing bright in the moonlight.