Leicester 36-28 Saracens Tigers close gap on top four The temperature was zero at kick-off but when the pluses and minuses were totted up, Leicester were comfortably in credit and Saracens were out in the cold. A clinical and cohesive performance by Geoff Parling’s side has them looking upwards, contemplating the playoffs, while the Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, must reflect on his team’s inconsistency. As the regular season reaches halfway this was a highly significant mid-table encounter: Leicester in fifth, and sixth-placed Saracens still have ground to make up on the top four, but the home side narrowed the gap with an accomplished win. There were plenty of illustrious names on the teamsheet but it was Billy Searle, the Leicester fly-half, whose headline-grabbing performance won him player of the match. At 29, Searle has already played for five different professional clubs in England and three in France. On this sparkling form you wonder why any of them let him ...
One person was killed and at least nine others injured in Kharkiv; a 14-storey apartment building in Kyiv was set on fire after Russia strikes. What we know on day 859 See all our Ukraine war coverage One person was killed and nine others including a baby were injured in a Russian strike on a post office in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv , local authorities said. “A man, a post office employee, was killed,” the head of Kharkiv’s regional administration, Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram. The city of Kharkiv has been regularly targeted by Russian troops in recent months, but military analysts say the frequency has dipped since the US authorised Ukrainian use of its weapons on certain Russian targets. In Kyiv’s Obolon suburb, the local military administration said falling fragments from a Russian missile started a fire and damaged balconies on a 14-storey apartment building. Emergency services, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said five female residents were treated for stress, ...