5 h. ago US politics live: Donald Trump addresses Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland

US president’s appearance comes after chaotic week with mass layoffs and ire directed at Ukraine leaderDonald Trump launched into his speech by assailing “the fraudsters, liars globalists and deep-state bureaucrats” that he said “are being sent back”.“We’re draining the swamp and restoring government by the people for the people,” he said before going on to his oft-repeated claims of Washington DC being controlled by a “sinister group of radical-left Marxist warmongers”. Continue reading...

Politics

9 h. ago Dancing On Ice's Torvill and Dean make rare comment about retirement as they film final skate

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean will take to the ice for the final time as they perform on the Dancing on Ice rink, after confirming they will retire after 50 years

Culture

13 h. ago Salvage Hunters star forced to flog antiques after burning through £200k on house restoration

Drew Pritchard had to flog antiques to save his house restoration

Economics

14 h. ago ‘It’s blackmail’: Ukrainians react to Trump demand for $500bn share of minerals

Ukraine’s lithium deposits are among biggest in Europe and the US is looking for ‘payback’ for previous military assistanceDrawing in the snow with his finger, Mykola Hrechukha sketched out how Ukraine’s new lithium mine might look. It would have a deep central shaft, with a series of side tunnels, he said. “The lithium is good everywhere. The biggest concentration is at a depth of 200-500 metres,” he said. “We should be able to extract 4,300 tonnes a day. The potential is terrific.”For now, though, there is little sign of activity. The deposit is buried under a large sloping field, used in communist times to grow beetroot and wheat. The mine’s proposed entrance is in an abandoned former-Soviet village, Liodiane, today a scruffy grove of acacia and maple trees. The only inhabitant is a security guard, who lives on the 150-hectare site in an ancient Gaz-53 truck. Wild boar and even a wolf sometimes wander past. Continue reading...

Politics

14 h. ago Liverpool must conquer profligacy if they are to lay down a title marker

Arne Slot’s side have spurned chances and need to restore scoring touch in time for Manchester City on Sunday The path to Munich suddenly looks more complicated for Liverpool, with Paris Saint-Germain and potentially Real Madrid standing in the way of a Champions League final appearance. Scant reward for finishing top of the 36-team group stage. Sunday is an opportunity to make the road to a record-equalling 20th league title run smooth in comparison, as perhaps it already should be.Liverpool encounters with Manchester City have been often decisive in Premier League title races and the latest could be no different, although only where Arne Slot’s team are concerned. There is an end-of-an-era feel to Pep Guardiola’s side, wounded by an early exit from the Champions League on Wednesday and desperate to react against adversaries intent on taking their Premier League crown. Deepening City’s malaise, however, would be secondary to rediscovering title-winning form for Slot and deflating A...

Politics

14 h. ago Wales v Ireland referee Christophe Ridley in controversy that changed Six Nations history

The French-born referee is the man in the middle for today's clash at the Principality Stadium

Politics

17 h. ago ‘It allowed us to survive, to not go mad’: the CIA book smuggling operation that helped bring down communism

From George Orwell to Hannah Arendt and John le Carré, thousands of blacklisted books flooded into Poland during the cold war, as publishers and printers risked their lives for literatureThe volume’s glossy dust jacket shows a 1970s computer room, where high priests of the information age, dressed in kipper ties and flares, tap instructions into the terminals of some ancient mainframe. The only words on the front read “Master Operating Station”, “Subsidiary Operating Station” and “Free Standing Display”. Is any publication less appetising than an out-of-date technical manual?Turn inside, however, and the book reveals a secret. It isn’t a computer manual at all, but a Polish language edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s famous anti-totalitarian novel, which was banned for decades by communist censors in the eastern bloc. Continue reading...

Events

18 h. ago Salvage Hunters star forced to sell antiques after running out of cash for home

Salvage Hunters star Drew Pritchard has been feeling the financial pressure of his Georgian house restoration project in Bath, with the renovation almost grinding to a halt

Politics

19 h. ago Discover hidden Morocco – from forgotten beaches to ancient citadels and soaring desert dunes

The writers of the new Wild Guide: Morocco share the best locations for hiking, surfing, swimming and sleeping under the starsExtending from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the Sahara and with a huge variety of terrain – from lush oases and valleys peppered with thyme, rosemary, argan trees and date palms to rocky gorges and arid plains – the Anti-Atlas mountains cater for even the most indecisive traveller. Continue reading...

Politics

19 h. ago The island hailed the ‘Hawaii of Europe’ that’s only a £20 flight from Manchester Airport

It's a place of towering mountains, deep valleys, ancient cloud forests and gorgeous black-sand beaches

Economics

20 h. ago Rangers noise doesn't matter because Celtic are looking UP rather than down at their 'irrelevant' rivals – Chris Sutton

Brendan Rodgers has been true to his word on restoring pride on the continent - now the club must ensure progress isn't wasted

Politics

24 h. ago Instagram boss slammed by users as new feature to address 'mean' culture rolls out

After Zuckerberg’s announced Meta will focus on “restoring free expression”, many are unconvinced by Instagram’s latest update to promote a “more friendly” environment.

Culture

26 h. ago Trump administration restores legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children

A stop-work order had been issued to government-funded attorneys to cease counsel for about 26,000 minorsThe Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children, just three days after it ordered government-funded attorneys across the country to immediately stop their work.The Acacia Center for Justice and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) confirmed that the stop-work order affecting non-profits that provide legal counsel for about 26,000 unaccompanied minors had been lifted. Continue reading...

Events

27 h. ago National Park Service restores some jobs of fired employees, pledges to hire 7,700 seasonal workers

The Trump administration is restoring jobs for dozens of fired National Park Service employees and hiring nearly 3,000 additional seasonal workers, following an uproar over an aggressive plan to downsize the agency

Society

28 h. ago Salvage Hunter Drew Pritchard forced to sell off his most valuable antiques

Drew Pritchard has been battling to restore a Grade I-listed Georgian townhouse in Bath, Somerset, but was forced to sell off his most valuable antiques to fund the project

Politics

33 h. ago Slow Horses actor Christopher Chung to star in next series of Doctor Who

Showrunner Russell T Davies said the actor stars in ‘one of the darkest, toughest episodes we’ve ever made’.

Culture

33 h. ago Who was Thutmose II? The mystery of the missing pharaoh has been solved

Despite being totally empty, the tomb is a crucial element in understanding a transformative period in ancient Egyptian history

Events

36 h. ago Famed for Himalayan peaks and pristine lakes, Kashmir faces a water crisis amid dry weather

For days, people in the Himalayan region of Kashmir watched in agony as a famed ancient spring ran dry amid extreme dry weather conditions

Events

36 h. ago Missing Australian member of Islamic State found alive in Syrian prison

Exclusive: Mustafa Hajj-Obeid, who left Australia in 2015, is being held in Panorama prison, a detention centre for accused IS members run by the SDFAn Australian member of Islamic State who was wounded in the extremist group’s final battle and whose fate was not publicly known has been discovered alive and in custody in a prison in north-eastern Syria.Mustafa Hajj-Obeid, 41, who is one of a cohort of accused IS members whose Australian citizenship was stripped and then restored in 2022 after a legal challenge, has been reported as missing for the past six years since the military defeat of IS. Continue reading...

Events

38 h. ago Sandalheimer: can Christopher Nolan restore the grandeur of ancient

Once a prestige genre with lavish spectacle and global stars, it’s since grown pretty dusty and drear. But Nolan’s Odyssey may yet revive its bronzed vigourBack in the 1950s and 60s in the twilight of Hollywood’s golden era, the sword-and-sandals movie stood as tall as the Colossus of Rhodes. It was a time when burly men in togas and gleaming bronze breastplates fought existential battles with fate. When Ben-Hur had its chariot race, Spartacus roused cries of defiance and the odd moment of splendid anachronism, and Cleopatra had Elizabeth Taylor burning through costume changes like a pharaoh with an Amex card.And then, it all collapsed. By the 1970s, audiences weren’t interested in ancient glories any more; they wanted Vietnam war movies, paranoid political thrillers and antiheroes who didn’t spend half their films glistening in olive oil. By the time Star Wars arrived in the late 70s and early 80s, the genre had been survived only through low-rent Italian productions, where togas w...

Politics