After his death aged 73, we look back at a selection of the hundreds of tracks the Sly and Robbie drummer had a hand in making It isn’t Sly Dunbar’s most spectacular performance as a drummer – although his playing is right in the pocket: listen to the lightness of his touch on the cymbals and the tightness of his occasional fills – but as recording debuts go, appearing on an early 70s reggae classic in your teens, a single that furthermore went to No 1 in the UK and sold 300,000 copies despite British radio’s disinclination to play it, is quite the impressive way to open your account. Continue reading...

Top seed secures 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 win on Rod Laver Arena Player two wins away from first Australian Open title Top seed Carlos Alcaraz is within two victories of a career grand slam after piling more major pain on home hope Alex de Minaur in a largely straightforward Australian Open quarter-final victory, secured 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 in 136 minutes on Rod Laver Arena. The heavily anticipated clash delivered a sensational first set in which De Minaur looked a peer of the world No 1. However, Alcaraz took control beyond the one-hour mark, leaving the last Australian in the singles draw helpless, exasperated and pacing behind the baseline between points. Continue reading...

Experts are watching for how other countries will react as the ‘real economy’ shifts to cheaper, cleaner energy The United States has officially exited the Paris climate agreement for the second time, cementing Donald Trump’s renewed break with the primary global venue to address global heating. The move leaves the US as the only country to have withdrawn from the pact, placing it alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries not party to the agreement. While it will not halt global climate efforts, experts say it could significantly complicate them. Continue reading...

Paul Thomas Anderson’s gonzo caper takes slight nominations lead over the Ryan Coogler horror, with surprise five noms for British Tourettes movie I Swear • Full list of nominations Sinners may have made history last week, when it became the first film ever to secure 16 Oscar nominations, but it was its awards season rival, One Battle After Another, that proved narrowly victorious at Tuesday’s Bafta nominations. Paul Thomas Anderson’s counterculture comedy heads into the competition with 14 nominations, while Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller has 13. Meanwhile Marty Supreme and Hamnet are close on their heels with 11 nominations each, and Frankenstein and Sentimental Value have eight nods apiece. Continue reading...

1,500 people evacuated from Niscemi after battering by Cyclone Harry triggers 4km-long chasm in hillside The mayor of a hilltop town on Sicily said “the situation is dire” after a powerful storm brought down a long section of hillside, leaving houses perched perilously on a cliff edge. About 1,500 people have so far been evacuated from their homes because of the landslide, which began to show signs of movement on Sunday before developing a 4km-long front. The chasm continues to widen, raising fears it could swallow the town’s historic centre. Continue reading...

Now the US is vying regional dominance, experts point to War Plan Red as proof its Canadian allyship has always been flimsy First, American forces would strike with poison gas munitions, seizing a strategically valuable port city. Soldiers would sever undersea cables, destroy bridges and rail lines to paralyze infrastructure. Major cities on the shores of lakes and rivers would be captured in order to blunt any civilian resistance. The multipronged invasion would rely on ground forces, amphibious landing and then mass internments. According to the architects of the plan, the attack would be short-lived and the besieged country would fall within days. Continue reading...

Folk duo Pound & Stevens have transformed, and added to, Holst’s The Planets Suite and tour the new work this week with Britten Sinfonia. Will Pound explains why playing by ear is his greatest strength I’m a harmonica and accordion player and one half of folk-classical duo Stevens & Pound. As a multi-instrumentalist I am rooted in a folk tradition that is oral, aural and communal. Music and song are passed down by ear, either through recordings or – more fun – traditional music sessions. Here, players and singers get together to share, swap and play tunes, drawing from a repertoire that is always evolving. While collections of tunes are certainly notated, their scores act as a skeleton – providing the basic architecture of pitch and rhythm but rarely offering explicit guidance on how the music should be played. Delia Stevens and I are about to head out on tour, performing with the Britten Sinfonia and Robert Macfarlane in a new work called The Silent Planet, a recomposition of Holst’s Planets suite. It’s the culmination of 18 months of rehearsals and revisions, and the score for this 60-minute work, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner, totals 165 pages and includes Earth, an entirely new composition. Continue reading...

Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations have seen January’s forest fires tear through Chubut in southern Argentina Lucas Chiappe had known for a long time that the fire was coming. For decades, the environmentalist had warned that replacing native trees in the Andes mountain range with highly flammable foreign pine was a recipe for disaster. In early January, flames raced down the Pirque hill and edged closer to his home in the Patagonian town of Epuyén, Argentina, where he had lived since the 1970s. Thirty people with six motor pumps fought for hours, hoses stretched for kilometres, but “there was no way”. Continue reading...

This week’s newsletter looks at Fifa’s new competition, which takes place in London this week and has a $2.3m prize fund This week London will take centre stage as the inaugural Women’s Champions Cup, the brand-new club competition in women’s football, comes to its conclusion. Four continental champions – Arsenal, Gotham FC, Corinthians and AS Far – will meet in Brentford on Wednesday for a place in the final, which will be held at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. With $2.3m (£1.68m) in prize money and a shiny new trophy on the line, it is far from insignificant for the teams involved. For the wider public, however, there remains a lack of understanding about what it really is and how it came to be introduced into an already crowded football space. Continue reading...

Burnham was responding to a post on social media that reported claims from ‘sources close to PM’ As Dave Burke reports for the Daily Mirror, the Reform UK MP Lee Anderson posted a picture on social media of himself and activists campaigning in the Gorton and Denton byelection – standing outside a hotel that is actually in Angela Rayner’s neigbouring Ashton-under-Lyne constituency. Rayner told the paper: “Farage’s Reform can’t even find the Gorton and Denton constituency on a map. Perhaps it’s because they’re too busy filling their party full of former Tories who failed the country.” The British Property Federation has said that the government’s plan to cap ground rents could discourage investment into the UK. It is also saying that landlords should get compensation. In a response to the announcement this morning (see 8.57am), Danny Pinder, director of policy at the BPF, said: While we agree that rapidly escalating ground rents should be addressed, the proposed cap will interfere with investments made by pension funds and institutional investors over many years and undermine the government’s pursuit of investment in this country. The various documents published by the government today make clear that these changes will have an impact on freeholders – the value of their assets and their ability to match index-linked pension liabilities – but that they intend to proceed, nonetheless. We have long been clear that adequate compensation must be provided to these entities as they have invested in good faith in order to meet their liabilities and continue to fund everyone’s pensions – today’s announcements is silent on that point … There are billions of pounds invested in large-scale residential and mixed-use developments, and it is essential that reform is mindful of the rights of property owners as well as leaseholders. In our legal system contract is sacrosanct and legislative changes that cut across and undermine existing commercial agreements will raise the risk premium that investors attach to the UK at a time when the government is seeking to attract domestic and private capital for its growth agenda. Continue reading...

Accused, isolated and constantly under scrutiny, The Traitors contestant drew on years of social deduction gaming to stay calm under pressure The latest series of The Traitors, which ended last week on a nail-biting finale, featured some of the usual characters – from guileless extroverts to wannabe Columbos endlessly observing fellow contestants for the slightest flicker of treachery. But one faithful stood out for her quiet determination, despite a ceaseless onslaught of suspicion and accusation. That person was Jade Scott, and I wasn’t at all surprised when, quite early on in the series, she revealed she was a keen gamer. “Minecraft was my way in, when I was 15,” she says. “I made loads of friends at school playing that.” From this innocent introduction, however, she moved on to darker titles: the first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the multiplayer battle-arena game Dota. “That’s where my interest in strategy gaming really kicked in,” she says. Continue reading...

We may know the sport’s future is bright when trendsetters worldwide are wearing Fabien Galthié-style shades On the surface it was business at usual at this year’s Six Nations launch in a chilly Edinburgh. Had the city’s most famous literary sleuth poked his nose into the venue at the top of the Royal Mile, Inspector Rebus would have clocked the usual suspects: head coaches trying not to divulge any secrets, captains quietly studying their opposite numbers and content creators seeking to “jazz up” their tournament previews. This year’s booby prize went to the “influencer” who asked Caelan Doris, Ireland’s captain, whether or not he liked Fabien Galthié’s thick-rimmed glasses. It was almost on a par with the Breakdown’s all-time classic: the day someone asked Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, to pick his favourite motorway service station. “Taunton Deane,” came the instant reply. “Because it means we’re almost home.” Brilliant. Continue reading...

The singer-songwriter has donated access to his music archive to ‘ease the unwarranted stress and threats’ Greenlanders have experienced from the US government Neil Young has donated a year’s worth of access to his music and documentary archive to the people of Greenland after the territory’s future became the subject of a fraught dispute with the US. “I hope my music and music films will ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government,” Young wrote in a statement on his website, Neil Young Archives, which offers comprehensive access to the 80-year-old songwriter’s recorded and live catalogues and other output. Continue reading...

Leaders and voters who formerly applauded US president’s aims have been growing increasingly uneasy Donald Trump’s attempted Greenland grab has driven a wedge between the US president and some of his ideological allies in Europe, as previously unstinting enthusiasm and admiration collides with one of the far right’s key tenets: national sovereignty. Trump’s subsequent disparaging remark that Nato allies’ troops “stayed a little off the frontlines” while fighting with US forces in Afghanistan has only deepened the divide, piquing far-right patriotic sentiments and prompting an avalanche of criticism. Continue reading...

Our cartoonist on anxiety at the Emirates as Michael Carrick oversees another thrilling win Buy a cartoon | David’s favourite work of 2025 And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now Continue reading...

Their faces may not have been given any airtime, but they remain some of the most beloved characters in television history – in shows like Friends, Frasier and This Country. Take a bow, Ugly Naked Guy … When you think of television characters, chances are you remember the ones you can actually see. But this is a wildly unfair slight on a small but powerful minority: the characters who remain staunchly offscreen. For decades – mostly in comedies, with a handful of dramatic exceptions – these invisible workhorses have more than earned their keep, and they deserve their props. Here are the 10 best characters whose faces you have never actually clapped eyes on. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Band hit out at party’s ‘poisonous rhetoric’ after Malcolm Offord makes reference to Dignity during speech UK politics live – latest updates One of Scotland’s most celebrated rock bands, Deacon Blue, say they are “appalled” that one of their greatest hits is being used by Reform UK’s new Scottish leader to bolster his party’s “poisonous rhetoric”. Malcolm Offord quoted at length on Monday from the group’s song Dignity at his first major speech since he was announced as Reform UK’s first Scottish leader, three months before a crucial Holyrood election in which the party is expected to win up to 18 seats. Continue reading...

A chance encounter reminded me: there are two ways to look at what’s happened in Minneapolis One of the few advantages of being as conspicuous as I am is that many people come up to me whom I don’t know, to talk about what’s happening in America. It’s like a free-floating focus group. On Monday morning, I was at a restaurant counter finishing my breakfast when a middle-aged man sat down next to me and said he didn’t want to intrude. (He just had, so I put down my knife and fork, wiped my mouth with my napkin, and turned toward him.) He wanted me to know that although he’d been a life-long Republican, the events of the past weeks had caused him to leave the Republican party. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now Continue reading...

My pup Romeo and daughter Harper share names with the Beckham offspring. Could VB not just have laid claim to ‘Posh’ instead? As a sidebar to the civil war in the House of Beckham, it emerged at the weekend that Victoria has trademarked all her children’s names. A lot of people think this is a peculiar parenting move, and a lot of other people think this a perfectly natural thing to do, for someone who has built a global brand from just their name and raw talent – but I thought, wait a second: my daughter is also called Harper and my dog is called Romeo, and even though neither of them has imminent plans to launch a perfume, I still should have been consulted on this. My Harper was born two years before the Beckhams’, and therefore by any reasonable metric, Posh copied me. But – see brand-building, above – by the time my Harper was four, even her own father couldn’t remember which one had come first. No such excuse for Romeo the dog, who started out 14 years younger than Romeo BeckhamTM, but is now 46 years older, thanks to dog years. The name clash couldn’t be helped: he came from a themed litter (featuring Rogue, Rebel, Ricky, Ross and Raoul) and he was the most loving. You can’t mess with that kind of nominative determinism. 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. Continue reading...

A wave of violence has left transgender people afraid to go out, as experts say the global rise of far-right ideology is fuelling transphobia It was past midnight but Zehrish Khanzadi and Bindiya Rana were still up, drinking tea, when the doorbell rang. Within seconds of Rana unlocking the door remotely from the kitchen, three shots rang out. “The men fled and she narrowly escaped all three bullets,” Khanzadi says of her colleague and housemate. Both trans women work for the Gender Alliance Interactive (GIA), an organisation that advocates for transgender rights, Rapa as its head and Khanzadi as a rights activist. Continue reading...

Sally Lane fears son Jack Letts, who left UK aged 18, may face death penalty if airlifted to Iraq under US operation The mother of a British-born man detained for nearly nine years in Syria without trial has called for his repatriation to the UK or Canada as the US plans to airlift 7,000 Islamic State-linked prisoners from Syria to Iraq. Sally Lane, the mother of Jack Letts, 30, said she was “frantically trying to find out as much as possible”, and that it was unclear if he would face the death penalty in Iraq or remain in Syria – or be sent to Canada or the UK in line with US demands. Continue reading...

Delivery firm aims to overcome ‘choice overload’ using voice assistant in its UK app, with global rollout planned Business live – latest updates In the beginning, collecting a takeaway was the epitome of a lazy night in. Then delivery apps saved some more energy. Now, consumers can skip even bothering to read the menu as AI takes over the job of choosing the perfect evening meal. Just Eat is rolling out an AI voice assistant that lets customers discuss what they might be interested in eating, and then offers personalised recommendations. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people about the impact of the stormy weather conditions in the UK Flood and weather warnings from both Environment Agency and the Met Office are in place across much of the UK as Storm Chandra brought heavy rain and strong winds to many areas of the UK. As day broke on Tuesday, there were almost 100 flood warnings in England and nearly 200 alerts – meaning flooding is possible – in place, with heavy rain falling on already saturated ground. There 24 flood alerts in Wales at the time of writing. A red flood warning – meaning danger to life – has been issued for a river in south-west England. Continue reading...

A country where safety is under threat from federal violence on the streets is not fit to stage soccer’s showpiece event Removing the United States as co-host of the 2026 World Cup would hurt for pretty much everyone. Fans would miss out on seeing the sport’s pinnacle in their home towns (or somewhere nearby). Cities and businesses small and large would lose the financial benefits they had banked on. It would be a logistical and political nightmare on an international scale, the likes of which have never been seen before in sports. It would be eminently sad. And it would be entirely justified. It brings me no pleasure to say this. The United States has been eager to host a men’s World Cup for more than a decade and a half. The desire survived and even grew after 2010’s failure to out-bid Russia and Qatar (in public and behind closed doors) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With hosting rights for 2026 later secured alongside Canada and Mexico, the US soccer scene prepared to show off that the sport is now part of the nation’s fabric, 32 years after hosting the tournament for the first time in 1994. Soccer’s growing popularity in America has helped inspire other US sports to try new formats, encouraged us to engage more fully with the world in a sporting context, and has been at the center of conversations about our society and culture. The 2026 World Cup was seen as the best chance for the world to fully experience not just how much the US has improved at soccer, but how much soccer has improved the US. Continue reading...

Meta, YouTube and TikTok accused of making products intentionally addictive and harmful to young people For the first time, a massive group of parents, teens and school districts is taking on the world’s most powerful social media companies in open court, accusing the tech giants of intentionally designing their products to be addictive. The blockbuster legal proceedings may see multiple CEOs, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, face harsh questioning. A long-awaited series of trials kicks off in Los Angeles superior court on Tuesday, in which hundreds of US families will allege that Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube’s platforms harm children. Once young people are hooked, the plaintiffs allege, they fall prey to depression, eating disorders, self-harm and other mental health issues. Approximately 1,600 plaintiffs are included in the proceedings, involving more than 350 families and 250 school districts. Continue reading...