Eddie Howe says Newcastle may appeal Anthony Gordon’s ‘harsh’ red card

  • FA Cup red card set to deny Gordon Carabao Cup final
  • Brighton manager praises striker Danny Welbeck

Eddie Howe hinted that Newcastle might appeal against Anthony Gordon’s “harsh” straight red card in their home FA Cup defeat by Brighton but seemed virtually resigned to being without the England winger in the Carabao Cup final.

Gordon was sent off for raising two hands and shoving the Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke in the head in the 83rd minute of the 2-1 defeat and is set for an automatic three-game ban. It would rule out one of Newcastle’s leading players for the Wembley showpiece against Liverpool in two weeks’ time.

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Continue ReadingEddie Howe says Newcastle may appeal Anthony Gordon’s ‘harsh’ red card

Bernd Leno is Fulham’s shootout hero as Manchester United exit FA Cup

In the squeaky posterior time of this FA Cup fifth-round penalty shootout, Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee were the unfortunate ones whose kicks were saved, ending Manchester United’s trophy defence and sending Fulham through.

The final shootout score was 4-3 to the visitors who, marginally, deserved their passage, though this was a slog through 120 minutes of meagre fare that was no advertisement for the world’s oldest knockout competition.

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Continue ReadingBernd Leno is Fulham’s shootout hero as Manchester United exit FA Cup

Europe has a lot to do before it can exert real influence on a Ukraine peace deal

The continent’s role in any ceasefire will be limited unless countries commit more to Kiev and the Zelenskyy-Trump relationship is repaired

Europe and the UK are hoping they are on the brink of assembling a credible military coalition that Donald Trump can only refuse to support at risk of appearing openly to ally with Vladimir Putin – an alliance many grassroots Republicans reject.

The plan is a long shot since it requires enough countries inside Nato to offer practical support to such a coalition of the willing, and also needs Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, to patch up his relations with Donald Trump following Friday’s Oval Office meeting.

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Continue ReadingEurope has a lot to do before it can exert real influence on a Ukraine peace deal

The Americas review – Tom Hanks’ beautiful new nature series pretends the climate crisis doesn’t exist

This look at the wildlife of the American continent is vast, grandiose and awe-inspiring. But its approach to nature is so cosy it’s the eco equivalent of wearing blinkers and sticking your fingers in your ears

It does seem a little spoiled to be critical of a documentary as gorgeous as The Americas, a vast, grandiose Tom Hanks-narrated nature series which explores territory from New England to the tip of Patagonia. But we are living through an extraordinary glut of nature television, and the pool of previously unfilmed and unfilmable natural world scenes must surely be getting smaller. This 10-parter talks up its credentials as something new and different: five years in the making, gathered over 180 separate expeditions, capturing discoveries which have never been on camera before, the most expensive unscripted project ever made by NBC (via BBC Studios). Why, then, does it feel so familiar, and occasionally even tepid?

This is nature television that is best enjoyed with your brain closed off. Much like Apple TV+’s recent The Secret Lives of Animals, it favours cutesy anthropomorphism and spectacular visuals over any honest assessment of nature and the environment as a whole. There is little brutality, barely any peril – a red-tailed hawk hovers near some adorable racoon babies, but that’s about it – and an almost offensive unwillingness to even consider the impact humanity has had, and continues to have, on species and their habitats.

The Americas aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.

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Continue ReadingThe Americas review – Tom Hanks’ beautiful new nature series pretends the climate crisis doesn’t exist

Starmer leads with pragmatism and personal touch as Europe steps up

PM takes centre stage amid calls for new era of diplomacy but declines to point finger at chaos in the White House

After Friday’s calamitous scenes in the Oval Office there were immediate calls for quick answers, new eras and pages of history being turned. Keir Starmer, it seems, is the person now forced to say: hang on, it is a bit more complicated than that.

The hastily arranged gathering of leaders at London’s Lancaster House on Sunday was undeniably dramatic, with the UK prime minister at its centre – including in the group photo, where he stood between Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Continue ReadingStarmer leads with pragmatism and personal touch as Europe steps up