Bravery on display has been inspirational, but behind the glamour and the glory it’s the humanity that captivates us Milano Cortina has been the first Games where I’ve been around town, not just being whisked from the sliding centre to the athletes’ village. It has given me the chance to really be present and feel the excitement and anticipation that sport brings, not to mention the importance it has in giving us something else to focus on in difficult times. As a TV pundit, it was hard to keep my emotions in check watching Great Britain’s skeleton success because I knew what it meant to Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker to become Olympic champions – Matt twice, of course. Their achievements are not only historic but the day-to-day impact will be so meaningful to both of them. I remember seeing kids’ drawings of me and people dressing up as “Lizzy” and now I’m seeing it from a different perspective. I’m incredibly proud of them. Continue reading...

Administrator Jared Isaacman cites ‘major progress’ since earlier discovery of liquid hydrogen leaking from rocket Nasa said on Friday it was planning to launch its delayed Artemis II moon mission on 6 March after successfully completing a fueling test that had caused it to stand down earlier this month. Jared Isaacman, the space agency’s newly confirmed administrator, cited “major progress” since the original so-called wet dress rehearsal in which engineers discovered liquid hydrogen leaking from the space launch system (SLS) rocket on its Florida launchpad at Cape Canaveral. Continue reading...

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Ramadan in Gaza, Russian airstrikes in Odesa and flooding in France – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Continue reading...

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports Continue reading...

Exclusive: David Blunkett and Estelle Morris among those calling plans a ‘once in a generation chance’ to fix system Five former education secretaries have made a joint appeal to Labour MPs to back the overhaul of special education provision in English schools, calling it “a once in a generation chance” to fix a failing system. The open letter is signed by David Blunkett, Estelle Morris, Charles Clarke, Ruth Kelly and Alan Johnson, who between them held the post for a decade from 1997. Continue reading...

Cherish Bean, 15, and Ethan Slater, 17, were discovered at a rental property in Little Eden Holiday Lodge Park on Wednesday A teenage couple who died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning at an East Yorkshire holiday park have been named by police. Cherish Bean, 15, and Ethan Slater, 17, were discovered at a rental property at Little Eden Holiday Lodge Park on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Manchester United co-owner reminded of his responsibilities in media interviews as Carrick backs club’s culture of respect Continue reading...

New head faces decisions crucial to movement’s future, such as how far to cooperate with Trump’s Gaza peace plan Hamas has reportedly begun holding leadership elections among its members at a time when the militant Palestinian movement faces imminent decisions which will be critical to its own continued existence and the potential for peace in Gaza. According to the BBC and press reports in the Gulf, Hamas members in Gaza have already voted. Those in the West Bank, in Israeli prisons and the diaspora are also expected to cast ballots for delegates to the movement’s 50-member general Shura council, which ultimately chooses its politburo and a new interim leader. The process could last weeks. Continue reading...

Club’s relegation could be sealed at Bramall Lane on Sunday but long-term future is of most concern to supporters When crisis intrudes into everyday lives, personal worlds shrink and important events are reduced to near irrelevance. Sheffield Wednesday supporters understand that better than most. They have endured so much misery for so long that even Sunday’s potential relegation-sealing Steel City derby has lost some of its old significance. “If you win it’ll be like kicking a cat,” Dan Fudge, host of the Wednesday Week podcast and YouTube channel says to Nick Wylie from the Sheffield United Way in this week’s broadcast. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than bragging rights.” Continue reading...

As aid trickles into Gaza, Washington channels $10bn into a body chaired by the president. Peace in the region rests on law and sovereignty, not ego and brinkmanship In Gaza, aid still trickles in at levels relief agencies say are far below what is required. Temporary shelters are scarce. Reconstruction materials are restricted by Israel’s controls on goods entering the territory. Conditions, say the UN, remain “dire”. The violence has not stopped: Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed about 600 people since the ceasefire began. The announcement that the US would transfer $10bn to President Donald Trump’s newly convened Board of Peace is hard to reconcile with the reality on the ground. Even worse is that Washington has paid only a fraction of its UN arrears – $160m against more than $4bn owed. This raises the obvious question: why is a private initiative being capitalised so heavily while existing UN mechanisms remain severely cash-strapped? Funnelling state funds into a body chaired by Mr Trump suggests foreign policy is serving private interests, not the public good. The board has ambitious plans. Rafah is to be rebuilt within three years with skyscrapers. Gaza is to become self-governing within a decade. An International Stabilisation Force is expected to begin deployment, eventually numbering 20,000 troops. These are dramatic claims. But their delivery is largely notional. 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...

The decision to grant listed-building status to the brutalist arts complex was bold. Now artists need support to match it The granting of Grade II-listed building status to the brutalist concrete Southbank Centre, comprising the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Hayward Gallery and Purcell Room, is a bold embrace by the government of this London landmark. It is also timely. Seventy-five years ago, the 1951 Festival of Britain transformed the South Bank. Of its buildings, only the Royal Festival Hall remains. From its postwar beginnings, the South Bank has grown into a cultural landmark recognised far beyond London. The section of the Thames Path taking in the Southbank Centre, BFI cinemas, Royal National Theatre, Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe is the flourishing successor to the Victorian precinct of the Kensington museums and the Royal Albert Hall. The festival was designed to help the nation to recover from the traumatic years of the second world war, and to look forward to a better future. This month’s decision to protect the 1960s component of the Southbank Centre is a vindication of that vision of hope. 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...

Former prince remains eighth in line to the throne despite having been stripped of his royal titles MPs have called for parliament to consider whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should lose his potential right to inherit the throne in the after his arrest. Andrew was arrested and questioned by detectives on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, in connection with allegations that the former prince shared confidential material with Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...

Actor who set pulses racing as Mark Sloan – nicknamed McSteamy – in the TV medical drama Grey’s Anatomy The American actor Eric Dane, who has died of motor neurone disease aged 53, found fame and sex-symbol status as the brilliant plastic surgeon Mark Sloan in the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, which went to the top of the TV ratings in the US and attracted big audiences worldwide. The character first appeared in 2006, in the second series of the show, as a one-off visitor to the fictional Seattle Grace hospital, to which his former best friend, the neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey), had moved following Mark’s affair with his wife. Mark’s flirting with Derek’s new girlfriend, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), leads his old pal to punch him in the face. Continue reading...

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been released under investigation after police questioned the former prince in relation to allegations he shared confidential material with Jeffrey Epstein. Officers searched Mountbatten-Windsor’s Sandringham residence as well as his former home at the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park after arresting him on Thursday. The former prince has denied any wrongdoing. But what were the police searching for and what could happen next? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s police and crime correspondent, Vikram Dodd Continue reading...

Readers respond to an article by Lucy Pasha-Robinson about being shoved in the street by an angry man Re Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s article (A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now?, 17 February), I noticed many years ago how almost all women move aside, unconsciously, out of the path of oncoming men. Sit at a cafe watching – it’s shocking once you realise that this happens all day every day. I decided to challenge myself to hold my line when walking, and the results are amazing. Men simply presume I am going to move away, and look shocked at me when I don’t. Luckily for me, I am almost 6ft tall and in my 60s, so perhaps I am less vulnerable to the usual aggression. I look like I might verbally “hit back”. Continue reading...

Dr Dave Dawson and Paul Roberts advise on how to combat pigeon invasions – but Nicholas Milton says we should celebrate these remarkable birds and David Jobbins suggests letting nature takes its course Your feature reminds us that debates over feral pigeons are not new (The Norwich pigeon wars: how birds are dividing a UK city, 17 February). They are the archetypical pest. I studied them as an introduced pest on crops of garden peas in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, in the 1960s, and again for Ken Livingstone, who misguidedly ignored pigeon friends in Trafalgar Square in the 2000s. As an animal population ecologist, I asked why the pigeons’ repertoire made them so successful. They’re smart and mobile, flocking to each distant source of food and moving just far enough away to avoid harm when scared. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an editorial on the funding threats to a vital source of information and comfort provided by the BBC Your editorial on the predicament facing the BBC World Service (The Guardian view on the BBC World Service: this is London calling, 13 February) rightly stresses the strategic importance of this national asset at a time when the global order is under unprecedented attack, not least from an erstwhile ally. But some home truths need to be stated. It was the Conservative-Liberal coalition government that set in train the withdrawal of the bulk of government funding, previously provided through a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Is it too cynical to see this as not simply a desire for cost savings, but also as an attempt to saddle the domestic BBC with the burden of financing the World Service? Continue reading...

Prof Murray Gray on the origin of the boulders used in the sport of stone lifting, and Mo Heard on her great-great-great-grandfather’s work as a ‘ballast-getter’ Your article on the ancient sport of stone lifting in Ireland (14 February) didn’t explain the historic origin of the rocks. Most of these boulders are glacial erratics, eroded and transported by Irish ice sheets during which the rocks have their edges worn down as they grind against other rocks. This explains their rounded appearance. Prof Murray Gray Queen Mary University of London • My great-great-great-grandfather, born in Ireland in 1824, was living in Wapping in 1861, working as a “ballast-getter”. Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1851) said these were “men employed in raising ballast from the river by bodily labour … they are all very powerful men … mostly very tall, big-boned and muscular.” Mo Heard Bexhill, East Sussex Continue reading...

Record public finances accompany stronger retail sales and business activity but some analysts express caution The economic backdrop to Rachel Reeves’s upcoming spring statement appeared to brighten on Friday after a trio of reports painted a better-than-expected picture of the UK economy. Record monthly public finances, a surge in retail spending and accelerating business activity offered the most coherent picture of recovery since last autumn, economists said, and provided the chancellor with a more positive narrative ahead of her 3 March statement. Continue reading...

Lando Norris second fastest; Max Verstappen third Aston Martin completed just six laps after problems Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the bragging rights with the quickest time at the final Formula One pre-season test before the season proper begins in Australia in just two weeks, while Aston Martin endured a horror show. At the end of the final day of the third test some of the cars were let off the leash to put in some runs on soft tyres with lower fuel loads and Leclerc looked very much at home as he hurled his Ferrari around the circuit in Bahrain. He set a time of 1min 31.992sec, eight-tenths clear of the second-placed McLaren of Lando Norris and a second up on Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’s George Russell. Continue reading...

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Dozens of the animals in Chiang Mai region first began to show signs of illness earlier this month A highly contagious virus is believed to have caused the deaths of 72 captive tigers in northern Thailand this month, with officials racing to contain the outbreak. Teams are urgently disinfecting enclosures and preparing to vaccinate surviving animals. Continue reading...

Environmental groups warn that weakening air toxics and mercury standards will lead to higher health-related costs The Trump administration announced on Friday it will roll back air regulations for power plants limiting mercury and hazardous air toxics at an event in Kentucky, a move it says will boost baseload energy but that public health groups say will harm public health for the most vulnerable groups in the US. Donald Trump’s EPA has said that easing the pollution standards for coal plants would alleviate costs for utilities that run older coal plants at a time when demand for power is soaring amid the expansion of datacenters used for artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Fans celebrate unmatched talent on screen, while those who met the actor in person remember his kindness Another one of the greats has passed. What a career. I sincerely believe Duvall was the best actor in a generation of best actors: De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Nicholson and more. What made Robert stand above these other figures was how he disappeared into a part. There was no Duvall persona. He was invisible. There were just the characters he played. He could do loud and angry – see his sublime turns in The Great Santini or his seminal Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. Yet I loved his quieter performances more, which would slowly sneak up on you, pull you close and then blow you away with the brilliance of his choices and the risks he took. Continue reading...

Our pick of the best images from day 14 of the Games, from biathlon to freestyle skiing Continue reading...