20-year-old claims victory in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne ‘I’m always there in these kind of races’ The 20-year-old British sprinter Matthew Brennan rocketed out of an accelerating pack to win the Flemish classic Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne for team Visma-Lease-a-bike on Sunday. Brennan, from Darlington, is the first Briton to win the race since Mark Cavendish in 2012 and 2015, whose finishing sprint was similar to the burgeoning star. Brennan avoided the Cavendish comparison after the race. Continue reading...

About 76,000 nationals thought to be in the region as tensions rise after US-Israeli attacks on Iranian regime US-Israeli war on Iran: latest updates The Foreign Office is drawing up plans to evacuate tens of thousands of British citizens if war in the Middle East escalates, with many travellers currently stranded in Dubai. The government does not know how many British nationals are resident, on holiday or otherwise travelling across the Gulf, but it said 76,000 have so far registered their presence in affected areas of the region. Continue reading...

Retaliatory strikes have so far been high in volume but mostly not very effective and are likely to become less so US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates In the grim calculus of war, Iran now has to hope it gets lucky. The first hours of the joint US-Israeli assault were catastrophic for the Iranian regime: the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, killed alongside, it is believed, the minister of defence, the head of the armed forces and the head of the powerful Revolutionary Guards. Iran knew its security apparatus had been compromised during the 12-day war of June 2025 when Israel killed a string of senior military commanders. During January’s street protests, Khamenei was moved away to a secure location for his own safety, yet on Saturday he felt safe enough to hold a security meeting in his compound in Tehran. Continue reading...

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, that 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 around 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. Continue reading...

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 massive 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. Continue reading...

US government buildings in Karachi and Baghdad targeted by crowds after killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei At least 22 people are dead following pro-Iran demonstrations in Pakistan that have seen hundreds of people march on the US consulate in Karachi. Security forces in Iraq have also fired teargas at protesters who tried to storm the US embassy in Baghdad. As anger boiled over after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a crowd of demonstrators in Karachi chanted against the offensive before entering the reception hall of the consulate building and lighting a small fire. Continue reading...

There were 63 minutes on the Emirates Stadium clock and the Arsenal crowd were in a state of extreme agitation. William Saliba had the ball at the back and he was taking his time – largely because there was nothing on for him. The fans screamed at him to hurry up. To do something. Anything. It was all going wrong because Chelsea were not just level at 1-1, they had dominated the second half up to this point. Out on the right flank, Jurriën Timber held his arms out and gestured for everybody to calm down. There was still time. Arsenal would be fine if they could keep their focus and do their stuff. It took Timber precisely three minutes to practise what he preached. When Declan Rice arched over a corner, it was Timber who wriggled free to head home what would prove to be a priceless winning goal. Continue reading...

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 just 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.” Continue reading...

‘They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,’ says Trump but he doesn’t say when talks would take place US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates Sign up for the Breaking News US email Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s political leadership have agreed to talks, a day after the US and Israel began to target the country’s military and political infrastructure, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top officials. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told a reporter for the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.” Reuters contributed reporting Continue reading...

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 knock out their opponents. Sanju Samson, who lost his place in the side on the eve of the tournament before being 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. Continue reading...

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. Continue reading...

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. Continue reading...

Hostility to the US is high even among reformists, which may set the surviving leadership on a destructive path Two Irans are in view now. By night, there is the Iran that danced, celebrated and cried tears of joy at the death of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hoping it marks the end of clerical rule and isolation from the west. By day, there are the mourning crowds gathering in the squares in Tehran and Isfahan demanding retribution and bewailing the loss of their sacred leader. There is no need to guess which force has the greater domestic military power and retains the upper hand, but discerning whether the regime realises that the continued, inflexible pursuit of its current path will probably end in the regime’s chaotic collapse is harder to know. Continue reading...

The diaspora hope the death of Ali Khamenei will bring change – and peace – even as fears remain over Iran’s future On Saturday night, with bombs falling across the Middle East and rumours of the death of Ali Khamenei, the longtime ayatollah of Iran, spreading, the streets of north London resembled a party. Thousands of revellers filled Finchley Road, a part of London often called Little Tehran because of the large Iranian community, waving a sea of flags, many with the Lion and Sun, the flag of the Iranian state before the 1979 Islamic revolution. Continue reading...

Continue reading...

Trump calls Anthropic a ‘Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about’ US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Donald Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools. The use of Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday was reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. It underlines the complexity of the US military withdrawing powerful AI tools from its missions when the technology is already intricately embedded in operations. Continue reading...

Trump calls Anthropic a ‘Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about’ US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Donald Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools. The use of Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday was reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. It underlines the complexity of the US military withdrawing powerful AI tools from its missions when the technology is already intricately embedded in operations. Continue reading...

Readers respond to the Green party’s victory in Gorton and Denton Gorton is the place where my great-grandmother was born into a railway family in 1875. At that time, it was world-famous for making locomotives, and was one of the most industrialised and polluted places in the country. When I first knew it in the 1960s, the great engineering works were closing, putting thousands of skilled men on the dole. The close-knit terraced streets were being torn down, leaving just abandoned pubs on the street corners for a while. It was one of many northern towns that seemed to have died. To me, it is inspiring that the locals have not, in the main, voted to elect someone who would blame the area’s misfortunes on migrants (Report, 27 February). I am still a supporter of Keir Starmer’s government, but Labour needs to learn from this result and reclaim some of the fire and enthusiasm for a better world that have given momentum to the Greens and their highly motivated candidate, Hannah Spencer. Robert Hartley Elston, Nottinghamshire Continue reading...

Pete Dorey and Pat Stevenson respond to a letter that made the argument for employers funding universities What a depressingly narrow, economistic view of university education your correspondent advances (Employers should contribute to universities, Letters, 22 February). He complains that “the courses that universities offer … aren’t what the economy needs and so aren’t maximising returns”, but instead, are “the courses students want to study, not what society and employers value most”. Why does he assume that, instead of being institutions of advanced education and academic study, universities should only supply degrees in subjects that employers or big business want? If fee-paying students want to study geography, English literature or history, why shouldn’t they? Would a Soviet-style education system be preferable, in which the state dictates what can and cannot be studied, based solely on what the economy is deemed to need at any given moment? To me, education is inherently worthwhile – but I am probably a deluded old dinosaur. Continue reading...

Alan Walker and Ian Garner respond to the news that healthy life expectancy of both women and men has fallen The decline in healthy life expectancy (HLE) is so momentous it should have ejected the former prince from the front page (Female healthy life expectancy falls three years, print edition, 20 February). The shocking fall of three years for women and two years for men, in just three years, reveals the cumulative impact of the Tory/Liberal Democrat austerity programme and the gross mismanagement of the pandemic. In contrast to the lowest HLE since these figures were first estimated (2011-13), Swedish HLE has continued to rise and is an average of five years higher than the UK’s. It is blindingly obvious that unless the government urgently prioritises extending HLE, it cannot hope to stem the flow of older workers out of the labour market. Alan Walker Emeritus professor of social policy and social gerontology, University of Sheffield Continue reading...

Guardian policing | Going commando | Underwear shrinkage | Talking to strangers | Leg stoma bags Some years ago, my sons travelled with Aston Villa supporters going to Wolves. A young policeman picked them out at the railway station along with others to be shepherded to the ground. But an older sergeant advised the constable: “Not those two – that one’s got a Guardian under his arm.” How’s that for peacenik recognition? Non-bearded, they weren’t even wearing sandals. David Drew Birmingham • There’s a simple solution for those concerned with running their washing machine at 60C to wash underwear or risking contamination (Letters, 24 February) – take the military option and go commando. Dr Bob Aron Ilkley, West Yorkshire Continue reading...

Thinktank’s board distances itself from Josh Simons’ decision in 2023 to hire lobbying firm to investigate journalists A Labour thinkthank that helped Keir Starmer win No 10 has said it is making a “clean break” from the past after its former director, Josh Simons, resigned as a minister over a report falsely linking journalists to a “pro-Kremlin” network. The board of Labour Together distanced itself from Simons’ decision in 2023 to hire a lobbying firm to investigate Sunday Times, Guardian and independent reporters who were looking into its failure to declare more than £700,000 in donations. Continue reading...

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. Continue reading...

Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham defend attack, Democrats say administration must answer vital questions US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates Donald Trump administration allies reinforced on Sunday the administration’s messaging on the Israel-US strikes on Iran, while Democratsdecried it as a “war of choice” that required congressional approval. On Sunday talk shows, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham defended the strikes, while Virginia senator Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the Committee on Intelligence, and other Democrats welcomed the elimination of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but said the administration must now answer vital questions. Continue reading...

Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham defend attack, Democrats say administration must answer vital questions US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates Donald Trump administration allies reinforced on Sunday the administration’s messaging on the Israel-US strikes on Iran, while Democratsdecried it as a “war of choice” that required congressional approval. On Sunday talk shows, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham defended the strikes, while Virginia senator Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the Committee on Intelligence, and other Democrats welcomed the elimination of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but said the administration must now answer vital questions. Continue reading...