Bezalel Zini accused of role in taking goods into the occupied Palestinian territory during an Israeli blockade The brother of Israel’s internal security chief has been charged with “assisting the enemy in wartime” for his alleged role in a smuggling network taking cigarettes and other goods into Gaza during an Israeli blockade of the occupied Palestinian territory. Bezalel Zini was one of more than 10 people charged in relation to the alleged network. His brother, David Zini, is the head of the Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency. He was appointed by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last May and began the job in October. Continue reading...

Eve Muirhead confident Britain ‘can disrupt the norm’ Medal chances in snowboarding, skiing and skeleton Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics. Which makes the prediction of Eve Muirhead, Britain’s chef de mission at these Milano Cortina Games, rather extraordinary. “I believe that we are taking one of the most potent teams of athletes that we have taken to a Winter Olympic Games,” she says. “We have the capability to disrupt the norm.” Continue reading...

Wing unable to complete training session on Thursday Daly the leading alternative if Exeter player ruled out Immanuel Feyi-Waboso has given England a late injury scare before they launch their Six Nations campaign against Wales on Saturday after pulling up in training. The Exeter winger was unable to complete England’s session at Pennyhill Park due to a leg injury with Steve Borthwick’s medical staff investigating its extent on Thursday night. Continue reading...

New report also suggests renovations may take up to 61 years, as critics say project lacks accountability Plans to restore the crumbling Palace of Westminster could cost £40bn and take up to 61 years, a report by the body set up to investigate how the project should be handled has found. Critics labelled the cost as “eye-watering” and said the project lacked accountability. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an article by Marina Hyde on the powerful men who were complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s exploitation of women and girls Marina Hyde asks why wealthy, powerful men still associated with Jeffrey Epstein despite knowing about his crimes (Never forget Epstein’s little helpers – the powerful men who knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway, 3 February). As a church minister who has been involved in dealing with a small number of historical allegations of abuse, may I make the following observations. The Methodist church has a robust safeguarding policy, with mandatory training for everyone who works or volunteers in the church, and there is much work being done to help us hear the voices of those abused. Despite all this, when an allegation of historical abuse is made, congregations find it almost impossible to believe that the elderly man they have known, loved and respected for decades could be guilty of such a crime. The accuser is often younger, female and had left the church decades before, so is a stranger. I have also observed families of the accused, especially wives, absolutely deny that their loved one could be capable of such things, despite evidence, court cases and convictions. Continue reading...

Readers on the merits of making class a protected characteristic, and improving working-class representation across a range of professions Re the proposal that class should become a protected characteristic (Editorial, 30 January), my son is 21. He is studying biochemistry and is in the final year of a four-year course. He is job-seeking. In that endeavour, he has had the misfortune to have been born to professional parents. His mother (me) is a solicitor and his father an accountant. He went to a selective state grammar school – the very type of school designed to create social mobility. He lives in a “good” postcode and never had free school meals. As a result, his job opportunities seem to be limited. The eligibility requirements of many job advertisements in biosciences exclude him because of his selective school. For some applications, he must give his parents’ postcode, their job titles and level of education. It seems designed to exclude him from the first sift. Continue reading...

The government must prioritise research into new drugs, rather than relying on interventions first made available 60 years ago, writes Marjorie Wallace of Sane It is not only veterans and emergency workers living with post-traumatic stress disorder who could benefit if ministers heed the call from Sir Nick Carter (Ex-British army chief calls on ministers to back MDMA-assisted therapy for veterans, 1 February). Thousands of people who have major mental illness, and those dealing with bereavement and trauma, could be helped too. The shocking lack of progress in developing transformative psychiatric medicines, and a dearth of innovation has left clinicians with few weapons in their armoury to relieve mental pain. Families and people scarred by long-term distress tell us they are desperate for new treatments and therapies. Continue reading...

Jessica Pandian of Inquest says homicides within prisons are not individual acts but reveal how violence operates at an institutional level Alex South’s article (Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence, 13 January) limits the scope of prison violence to individual acts by focusing on prisoner-on-prisoner homicides. But violence is part and parcel of how prisons function. Hundreds of people die in prison each year, the majority by suicide, medical neglect or drugs. Even if we focus on homicides, they reveal how violence operates at an institutional level. Last year, the inquest of Sundeep Ghuman exposed how it was multiple failures by the prison, not just the actions of his cellmate, that led to his unlawful killing. The jury concluded that by forcing Sundeep to share a cell with a known racist, the prison contributed to his death. The inquest also found that placing three men in a nine-square-metre cell designed for two increased tensions. Continue reading...

Politics has recklessly downplayed the significance of the local inn, but the hard right has cottoned on – and its opponents better follow suit Nigel Farage thinks poor families should be denied benefits and the cash go to their local pub. When he runs the country, he says, he will cut child benefit for those with more than two children and switch the £3bn saved to keep down the price of beer. The art of populism lies in headlines. It is about the way you tell it. Farage also says he would still give benefits to “British working families”, meaning about 3,700 households with two British-born parents who both work full-time. It seems a gratuitous discrimination. As for cutting VAT on pubs to 10%, it would apply not just to pubs but to the entire hospitality sector. It was for effect that he decided to make the announcement in a pub rather than McDonald’s. Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump Continue reading...

Investigation exposes ‘corrosive’ reach of organized crime in Canada, with links to bribes, drug trade and a murder plot At least eight current and former Toronto police officers have been arrested following a sweeping investigation that officials say exposed the “corrosive” reach of organized crime into Canada’s largest municipal police service. Police allege fellow officers accepted bribes, aided drug traffickers, leaked personal information to criminals who then carried out shootings and helped members of organized crime in a plot to murder a corrections officer. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Luxury aircraft owned by property tycoon close to US president’s family has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv On the morning of 21 January, Israeli authorities left eight Palestinian men at a West Bank checkpoint. Disoriented and cold, they were dressed in prison-issued tracksuits and carried their few belongings in plastic bags. Hours earlier, they had been sitting with their wrists and ankles shackled on the plush leather seats of a private jet owned by the Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer, a longtime business partner of Donald Trump. Continue reading...

As Starmer apologises for believing Mandelson’s ‘lies’, just how damaging will the latter’s links to Jeffrey Epstein be for the PM’s own reputation? John Harris and Kiran Stacey discuss the latest. Plus, the mood on the ground from the Gorton and Denton by-election Please send your questions and messages for Pippa Crerar, Kiran Stacey and John Harris to politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com Continue reading...

The hosts managed to just about get the Santagiulia arena ready for Italy’s win over France – and the locals responded “Ladies and gentlemen! The women’s preliminary Group B match between Italy and France will get under way in five minutes! And the question is: Are! You! Ready! For! Hockey?!” Well, quite. That had been the question for the last five months, as it happens, ever since it first became obvious that construction of Milan’s new Santagiulia arena was running massively behind schedule. At the test event last month the ice was grey because there was so much building dust in it, and midway through the match a man had to come on to the rink to repair a melted patch with a watering can. Continue reading...

Furnish says he and his husband felt ‘violated’ by the Daily Mail, who allegedly used information gained unlawfully David Furnish has said it is “an abomination” that the publisher of the Daily Mail was able to write “narrow-minded” stories about him and his husband, Elton John, using information allegedly secured by unlawful means. In evidence submitted to the high court, Furnish said he and John had been “violated” by the Mail, after being told that it had worked with private detectives to intercept their phone calls and personal details. Continue reading...

Artists from Bernini to Louise Bourgeois are brought together in a new exhibition exploring the uncomfortable erotic parables of the ancient Roman poet On three massive screens in a darkened room, snakes glide over the face of artist Juul Kraijer – covering her eyes, caressing her lips. She is the silent but terrifying snake-headed Medusa, and one of the surprises in an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam revolving around Greek and Roman myths. While the show features rarely lent works from masters such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Rodin and Brâncuși, it marries them with modern artists who reinterpret the legends where male gods do all they can to get their wicked way and the powerless are punished. Transgender bodies, bare breasts and even a volcanic vulva appear in artworks inspired by Roman poet Ovid’s masterpiece, Metamorphoses. Continue reading...

A new retrospective celebrates the work of the cat credited with roles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Comedy of Terrors and Rhubarb In the midst of Oscar season, it becomes evident just how much work it takes to win an Academy Award, both in on-screen work and off-screen campaigning. Consider, however, that multiple actors have won more than one Oscar. (Emma Stone, one of this year’s best actress nominees, won twice in the past decade.) Only a single cat, meanwhile, has twice won the Patsy – the Picture Animal Top Star of the Year. (The award, given by the American Humane Association, not to be confused with the Humane Society, was discontinued in 1986.) That cat is Orangey, the subject of a small retrospective at New York City’s Metrograph cinema. Plenty of rep houses will play a movie like Breakfast at Tiffany’s around Valentine’s Day; the Metrograph is going deeper into the Orangey catalogue for a wider variety of titles and genres. Breakfast at Tiffany’s does offer Orangey his most famous role: the rather less colorfully named Cat, pet of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), who calls him a “poor slob without a name”. Orangey features heavily in the film’s climax, when Holly releases her pet into an alley as she prepares to leave town, only to have Paul (George Peppard) rush to retrieve him. It completes a running thread that Cat is a part of Holly’s wildness as well as her potential domestication. What better animal, of course, than one equally prone to draping himself over his makeshift mistress and making yowling leaps around her apartment? Continue reading...

Keir Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered, Labour MPs have warned, after a week of fury over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. While several MPs have said the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, should take responsibility and resign, the mood surrounding No 10 has seemed ‘terminal’, said an MP from the 2024 intake. Lucy Hough talks to political correspondent Alexandra Topping Continue reading...

SNP’s lawyer argues the ‘mental health and rehabilitation’ of prisoners is more important than their biological sex A blanket rule to house transgender women in men’s prisons, even when they pose no risk to others, would be a “fundamental denial” of their identity, the Scottish government has argued. Placing a trans inmate in a prison that does not align with their lived gender runs counter to the aims of rehabilitation, Gerry Moynihan KC said on Thursday as he set out Scottish ministers’ position that a blanket rule on where prisoners are housed could contravene obligations under the European convention on human rights. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Campaigners say proposed cut from £11.9bn over past five years to £9bn over next five years will cost lives and livelihoods The UK plans to slash its aid to poor countries stricken by the climate crisis by more than a fifth, the Guardian has learned, despite promises to increase assistance and warnings from campaigners that the move will cost lives and livelihoods. Ministers plan to cut climate finance for the developing world from £11.6bn over the past five years to £9bn in the next five. In real terms, accounting for inflation, this would represent a cut of about 40% in spending power since 2021, when the £11.6bn budget was agreed. Continue reading...

Though lab-made peptides are touted as a cure-all, they are not FDA-regulated and pose serious risks, experts warn Here’s a new trend that sounds unwise: buying unregulated substances from dealers in foreign countries and injecting them into your body. And yet, grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names like BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimizers. Continue reading...

National Museum, Cardiff In a superb, mystical retrospective, the painter sheds social trappings – and her clothes – as she uses her enormous intelligence to paint purely This is Gwen John straight, no chaser. Cardiff’s National Museum has put together a superb, daunting retrospective of the woman who is now, perhaps, the most famous Welsh artist. It is not a blow-by-blow biographical story of how she was born in Haverfordwest in 1876, how she and her brother Augustus both loved art as children, how she insisted on going to the Slade School of Fine Art like him then made her life in bohemian France. Instead, the moment you enter the show, you are plunged into her spiritual, austere existence. We meet her in the glory of her solitude, painting cats and the sparse rooms she rented in Paris and women alone in moments of calm thought. There is a row of variants of a young woman in a blue dress with long dark hair sitting weakly in an armchair, a table at her elbow, all painted in about 1920. In most there’s a cup and teapot on the table, in one it’s a bowl of soup. She looks down as she reads a letter, occasionally a book. Their titles vary too – The Letter, The Seated Woman, The Convalescent. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered, Labour MPs have warned, after a week of fury over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. While several MPs have said the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, should take responsibility and resign, the mood surrounding No 10 has seemed ‘terminal’, said an MP from the 2024 intake. Lucy Hough talks to political correspondent Alexandra Topping Continue reading...

‘I shouldn’t have to prove I am innocent,’ said man misidentified by Sainsbury’s staff using Facewatch system A man was ordered to leave a supermarket in London after staff misidentified him using controversial new facial recognition technology. Warren Rajah was told to abandon his shopping and leave the local store he has been using for 15 years after an “Orwellian” error in a Sainsbury’s in Elephant and Castle. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! In any other season, Antoine Semenyo would not have been allowed to feature for Manchester City in the semi-final of Fizzy Cup due to being “cup-tied” after playing for Bournemouth in their August defeat to Brentford. Luckily for Semenyo, a change to the rules meant that Manchester City’s shiny new £65m winger is allowed to have a second crack at Fizzy Cup, because he was signed before the first leg of the semi-final, in which he played a starring role to help obliterate holders Newcastle United (a first leg in which Max Alleyne also excelled for City, despite having already represented Watford in the competition earlier this season). Having seen his team clearly benefit from this revolutionary tweak of Fizzy Cup rule 6.4.2, you’d expect Pep Guardiola to be delighted, eh? Oh. This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...

Leicester breached PSR rules for 2023-24 season Club outside relegation zone on goal difference Leicester City have been deducted six points after being found in breach of the Premier League’s financial rules. The punishment, determined by an independent disciplinary commission, leaves them outside the Championship relegation zone on goal difference. A hearing took place in November after Leicester were alleged to have breached profitability and sustainability regulations for the three-season period ending with 2023-24. There were also two further charges against the club for failing to cooperate and failing to submit their financial accounts on time. Continue reading...