Holi celebrations in the north Indian town of Mathura filled the air with music, dance, and clouds of colored powder.

Hundreds of men and women gathered at a temple in the north Indian town of Mathura, believed to be the birthplace of Lord Krishna, one of the most revered Hindu gods with whom this festival is closely associated, to celebrate the festival marking the arrival of spring.

Their faces smeared with colored powder and their wet clothes hanging to their bodies, they swayed to the rhythm of beating music. Holi colors represent spring’s bounty and the festival is seen as a time to forget old grudges and renew friendships.

On a large stage behind the revelers, folk actors recreated scenes from Krishna’s life and his playful flirting with his consort Radha.

The dark-skinned god is believed to have smeared color on Radha’s fair cheeks to make her look more like him, setting off a tradition in which people smear colors on each other’s cheeks to mark the festival of colors. The divine couple is a favorite subject of the traditional Indian miniature paintings.

Actors then gear up to play another Radha-Krishna episode to the delight of the merry crowd.

In Mathura and other places linked to Krishna’s life, the celebrations last for several days, but March 4 marks the main day of Holi and festivities spread across the country.

When South Korean doctors launched a nationwide thyroid cancer screening programme, diagnoses shot up 15 fold. Yet the death rate from thyroid cancer didn’t budge. More patients were being created than lives were being saved.

It is a clear illustration of a problem that is quietly reshaping how doctors think about cancer: overdiagnosis. Not misdiagnosis but the accurate detection of tumours that would not actually harm the patient.

Modern cancer screening is rightly celebrated as one of medicine’s great achievements. Finding cancer early saves lives. But as technology has become ever more sensitive, are we sometimes doing more harm than good?

Better detection

A cancer doesn’t spring from a single rogue cell flicking a switch. It develops through multiple steps, and many clusters of abnormal cells never complete that journey.

Some sit quietly in the body for decades. Only a fraction ever become life threatening. The problem is that once an abnormality is detected and labelled as cancer, it triggers a chain reaction – anxiety, aggressive treatment, serious side-effects – for a condition that might never have caused the patient any trouble at all.

Twenty years ago, many of these abnormalities would have been impossible to find. Today, state-of-the-art imaging and highly sensitive detection tests can identify tiny clusters of abnormal cells, faint genetic changes, and the smallest growths. As that technology improves, the boundary between a dangerous cancer and a harmless biological quirk becomes increasingly blurred.

This raises an uncomfortable question about rising cancer rates, particularly the well documented increase in diagnoses among the under-50s. Is this a genuine biological shift – cancers becoming more aggressive and appearing earlier in life – or is it partly a reflection of the fact that today’s younger adults are being screened, scanned and monitored far more intensively than previous generations?

Thyroid cancer is the starkest example. In South Korea in 2011, that 15-fold surge in diagnoses came almost entirely from screening, not from any real increase in disease. Researchers and clinical bodies eventually revised their guidelines in 2013, moving away from screening slow-growing lesions and towards monitoring rather than immediate surgery.

Prostate cancer tells a similar story. The introduction of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test produced a large jump in diagnoses, but death rates stayed flat – suggesting many men were being treated for cancers that grow so slowly, they never would have become life-threatening.

The consequences were serious. Surgery left many men incontinent or impotent, with no improvement in survival. Guidelines now favour active surveillance for many prostate growths.

For these two types of cancers, also those of the colon, the evidence increasingly points in the same direction: “watchful waiting” is often safer than immediate intervention. Surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy all carry significant risks and long-term side effects. Exposing a patient to those risks for a tumour that was never going to threaten their life is difficult to justify.

None of this means early detection should be abandoned. For fast-moving cancers – pancreatic, lung, some breast cancers – finding the disease early remains critical. The challenge is learning to distinguish between the cancers that demand urgent action and those that can safely be watched. That requires not just better technology, but better judgement about when to use it.

Fairness and transparency

Shifting towards a risk-based approach to screening also raises difficult questions about fairness and transparency. Who gets screened, how often and on what grounds? Those decisions carry real consequences, and they deserve a more open public debate than they currently receive.

What is becoming clearer, though, is that the old logic of cancer screening – find it, remove it – is no longer sufficient on its own. Overdiagnosis is a genuine harm, even if it is a less visible one than a missed diagnosis. For some patients, learning to live carefully with a monitored cancer may turn out to be safer than trying to eliminate it entirely.

Overall shop inflation fell slightly to 1.1% from January’s 1.5%, in line with the three-month average of 1.1%, as fierce competition between retailers kept price rises in check and customers benefited from promotions across health, beauty and fashion, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and NIQ.

A United Airlines flight was forced to evacuate following an engine fire and an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport

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A United Airlines flight was forced to evacuate and perform an emergency landing after a fire broke out mid-air.

The aircraft was flying from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Newark, New Jersey, when air traffic control received reports of a fire in its left engine.

The plane turned back and landed safely at LAX at around 11.20am local time. Smoke could be seen billowing from the engine around 40 minutes later as the aircraft was parked on the runway, ABC7 reports.

All 256 passengers and 12 crew members evacuated the jet using emergency slides and air stairs before being taken by bus to the terminal, United said in a statement, The Mirror reports.

The airline added that it was working to ensure passengers reached their final destinations as soon as possible. One person suffered a cut to their finger, but no other injuries were reported.

The Federal Aviation Agency said in a statement: “United Airlines Flight 2127 returned safely to Los Angeles International Airport around 11:20 a.m. local time on Monday, March 2, due to a left engine issue. Passengers deplaned on a taxiway.

“The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was heading to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The FAA will investigate. Please contact the airline and airport for additional information.”

The school previously said investigations into Pepys uncovered “actions that were harmful, abusive and exploitative, especially in his relations with women”

A new house name has been chosen at the Cambridgeshire school where students previously voted to drop the name of Samuel Pepys. Students at Hinchingbrooke School in Huntingdon were asked to vote on whether to choose a new name for Samuel Pepys House.

The majority of students voted in favour of finding a new namesake for the house. It came after the school informed parents that investigations into Pepys uncovered “actions that were harmful, abusive and exploitative, especially in his relations with women”.

Staff and students at the school, which is part of CAM Academy Trust, have chosen Olivia Bernard Sparrow to replace Pepys as the figurehead for one of the school’s pastoral houses. Sparrow was a local philanthropist committed to improving education.

Sparrow (1775 to 1863) was committed to improving education, investing her own resources into village schools and widening access to learning. Her philanthropic work reached across the Hinchingbrooke estate and surrounding areas, including Brampton, Godmanchester, Huntingdon, and Buckden.

The school council chose three local figures for the school’s vote. The shortlist also included Mary Stuart and former headteacher at Huntingdon Grammar School, John Wakelin.

The school said both were key figures in transforming Hinchingbrooke from a small grammar school to the largest comprehensive school in Cambridgeshire, as it is today. It said “local connection was key”, meaning the candidates needed to have a link to the school, Huntingdon Grammar School, or the Hinchingbrooke House site.

Andy Hunter, Principal of Hinchingbrooke School, said: “Olivia Bernard Sparrow was a remarkable and influential figure in Huntingdonshire’s history and the school community has enjoyed finding out more about her important work. Her belief in education as a force for opportunity and fairness, combined with her strong local ties, makes her an inspiring and relevant figurehead for our students today and we are very pleased to be naming one of our houses after her.

“Throughout this process, what has stood out most to me as Principal has been the level of thoughtful discussion and genuine engagement from the students in this matter. They have approached the responsibility of choosing a new figurehead with maturity, curiosity and respect and it has been wonderful to see them debating ideas, weighing up the criteria and taking ownership of the final decision.

“I have been incredibly proud of the real sense of student agency I have witnessed across the school. I would also like to thank all parents and carers for their support throughout this process. Their encouragement has helped our students take pride in their school community and engage meaningfully in decisions that shape it.”

GameCentral examines the current state of the extraction shooter genre and what sort of impact Arc Raiders’ success could have on it.

The games industry loves to chase trends. That’s always been the case, but it’s never been more obvious than since so many of them started pumping out live service games, with Sony and Ubisoft in particular trying (and failing) to release a mega multiplayer hit.

Any time a new video game manages to prove even marginally successful, you can count on other publishers eventually releasing their own alternative, just as Fortnite helped spark a surplus of battle royale games.

As such, the recent success of Arc Raiders has made it, and extraction shooters in general, the hot new genre to copy, but whether Arc Raiders will become a trendsetter or a one hit wonder remains to be seen.

What is an extraction shooter?

Since there aren’t that many of them, and they’ve only recently come into the spotlight, there’s no strict definition of what an extraction shooter is, but put simply it’s a game where you have to escape a map rather than shoot anything, or anyone, in particular.

Typically, the games are shooters (often first person) with PvPvE gameplay, which means player versus player versus environment. Or to put it in actual English, you have to combat, or avoid, both human-controlled opponents and computer-controlled enemies.

There’s typically resources and/or loot involved too, which you can take back to your extraction point with you. If you’re playing in a team, and depending on the game, this can sometimes be used to determine who won a match. Although often merely escaping is the only achievement you need.

When did the extraction shooter genre start?

Despite feeling like a new concept, extraction shooters are much older than you might think. One of the most famous examples, Escape From Tarkov, has been around since early 2017 but it was by no means the first.

It is the one that helped to popularise the genre, though, resulting in similar military themed extraction shooters, like 2024’s Gray Zone Warfare and 2025’s Delta Force.

Curiously, there doesn’t seem to be a common consensus on what the first extraction shooter actually was. There’s arguments in favour of Ubisoft’s The Division from 2016 (which has an extraction shooter style post-game in its Dark Zone mode), elements of 2012’s famous DayZ, and even 2008 zombie shooter Left 4 Dead.

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None of these games explicitly advertise themselves as extraction shooters, but then this list of extraction games available on Steam includes many other titles that don’t either.

We wouldn’t call Helldivers 2 a dedicated extraction shooter, but it does involve reaching an extraction point once you clear a mission in order to reap any rewards, which is apparently enough for it to count.

Similarly, Dark & Darker is billed as a fantasy dungeon crawler, but despite the lack of guns, it too is counted as an extraction shooter since you form a squad with other players to gather loot, and you don’t get to keep it unless you successfully escape from the dungeon.

What are the best extraction shooters?

Although there have been a lot of extraction shooters over the years very few examples have come from any of the big name publishers, with most being indie titles.

There was Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Extraction from 2022, but that wasn’t much more than a professionally made mod and didn’t have much impact.

Instead, publishers have tended to include extraction modes in already existing games. EA had something like that in Battlefield 2042, with its Hazard Zone mode, and its current Battlefield Redsec battle royale spin-off has extraction missions as part of its Gauntlet mode.

Activision, meanwhile, added its own extraction shooter mode, titled DMZ, to 2022’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It was only ever labelled as a beta and effectively abandoned just a year later, but DMZ’s influence can be felt in Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7’s PvE Endgame mode (one of the few enjoyable things about the game). Plus, insider TheGhostOfHope previously claimed DMZ will be brought back for this year’s instalment.

2019’s Borderlands 3 received a battle royale mode as DLC, where you need to use a loot extractor to keep any loot you obtain, while 2024’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has a squad-based Operations mode that requires you to reach an escape ship upon completing missions.

How popular can extraction shooters get?

It seems many publishers feel there’s merit to the extraction shooter genre, but not necessarily enough to warrant full games.

The only noteworthy exceptions are Arc Raiders (developer and publisher Embark Studios is a subsidiary of South Korean company Nexon), Arena Breakout (which comes from Chinese conglomerate Tencent), and Bungie’s upcoming Marathon reboot.

Sony and Bungie obviously settled on turning Marathon (an otherwise single-player series of shooters) into a multiplayer extraction shooter long before Arc Raiders dropped, but after years of only half-attempts, perhaps the tides have shifted and made publishers less hesitant to commit to the genre.

A success like Arc Raiders is undeniably going to have turned heads. As a reminder, it has sold at least 14 million copies since its October launch (proof that such games don’t need to be free-to-play) and has remained consistently popular, currently sitting among the top 10 most played games on Steam at sixth place.

Most importantly, Nexon is happy with Arc Raiders’ performance, bragging that it has maintained six million active players weekly across all platforms. What’s more, Embark’s CEO Patrick Söderlund was recently given the new role of executive chairman so he can help spearhead Nexon’s entire games business.

‘Patrick and I are fully aligned on transforming Nexon,’ said Nexon CEO and president Junghun Lee, ‘He’s built studios, attracted the industry’s best people to work with him, and shipped massive global hits. That’s exactly what Nexon needs right now.’

Arc Raiders’ success could also be to the benefit of Marathon since it has helped introduce the extraction shooter genre to a wider audience. Few have seemed confident in Marathon’s chances, given Sony’s track record with live service games, the troubles within Bungie, and Marathon being a niche IP, but it looks like it might start off strong after all.

Not only was its free open beta popular, but the game shot up Steam’s best sellers chart in the US to the number three spot, ahead of its full launch this week (Thursday, March 5), overtaking Arc Raiders and only losing to Valve’s dominant multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike 2 and the recently released Resident Evil Requiem.

If Marathon manages to at least rival Arc Raiders in popularity, that’s not only a win for Sony but a sign to the rest of the industry that a lot of people enjoy extraction shooters. And if they remain popular over a long period of time, publishers will be encouraged to not just make extraction-lite modes in their shooters, but whole games.

The 9 best extraction shooters you can play right now

Arc Raiders

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC

The obvious first choice, Arc Raiders’ current popularity means there’s no shortage of people to play with, but you are free to scavenge the ruined future Earth and fight giant robots solo.

The PvP can be annoying if you’re not looking to fight other players but developer Embark has made efforts to downplay that aspect, with no plans for competitive leaderboards and the like. The AI generated voicework may be a dealbreaker for some though.

Escape From Tarkov

PC

Although it’s technically been around for almost a decade, Escape From Tarkov has spent most of that time in beta and only saw a full launch last November, when it became more widely available via Steam.

Aside from the core multiplayer, it has a story campaign, but its more realistic military sim style approach to combat means the whole game is considered brutally difficult by even ardent fans and thus hard to get into for newcomers.

Arena: Breakout Infinite

PC, iOS, and Android

Another one for the military sim sickos, Arena: Breakout Infinite’s high learning curve makes it a hard sell, but it’s one of the more technically impressive examples of the genre, boasting strong visuals and good performance.

It was previously decried for being pay-to-win, since you could obtain better weapons with a premium currency you could buy for real money, but that currency has since been removed.

Delta Force

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, iOS, and Android

Like Marathon, Delta Force was a series of single-player shooters that vanished for years until suddenly coming back as a multiplayer game. It only launched last year and is a solid, if uninspired shooter, but it must be doing something right to be the seventh most played Steam game at the moment. Being free-to-play probably helps.

Hunt: Showdown 1896

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC

A personal favourite of ours, even if we haven’t played it much lately. This one’s unique not only for its supernatural setting, but for its premise of gathering clues to locate and hunt one of six ferocious bosses.

Even if you fail to hunt the boss, you can kill the player who did and steal their bounty, making for a more novel and oftentimes unpredictable experience compared to other extraction shooters.

Helldivers 2

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC

Helldivers 2 is the one live service game success Sony has and it didn’t even make it, only publish it. While it’s long past its honeymoon period, Helldivers 2’s consistent content updates have kept things fresh and interesting, and the extremely chaotic nature of its harder missions, combined with friendly fire, lend themselves well to unintentional comedy.

It’s also an extremely rare instance of a Sony published game being ported to Xbox, with strong word of mouth leading to it selling new copies faster than it did on PlayStation 5.

The Division 2

PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC

It may not necessarily be billed as an extraction shooter, but The Division 2 is one of the best examples thanks to its very well thought out Dark Zone mode and endgame content.

You do need to beat the main campaign to access it, but it’s arguably the best part of the whole game and worth reaching. It’s seen years of updates since launchand will likely be keeping fans occupied until The Division 3 eventually comes out.

Escape From Duckov and Zero Sievert

PC

While the extraction shooter genre is tailor made for multiplayer games, there have been some attempts at catering to those who like the formula but don’t want to deal with other players.

Escape From Duckov, despite its status as an Escape From Tarkov parody, is one such example, being a top-down shooter where you play as a cartoon duck trying to build a spaceship and escape a hostile planet.

Alternatively, there’s Zero Sievert, which offers pixel art graphics and some roguelike DNA in its randomly generated maps. Its numerous weapons and items help keep each playthrough fresh, although it may be too challenging for some.

Marathon

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC

Technically this isn’t out until March 5 but the beta (or *Server Slam* as developer Bungie call it) has made a strong first impression, with Marathon fans on Reddit praising the gunplay and visuals.

The one downside is that the game won’t be free-to-play and is being sold for £34.99, but it’s already charting well on Steam, purely on pre-orders, so it looks like Sony doesn’t need to worry about another Concord level disaster.

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The former Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Museum at Aykley Heads, Durham, has been renamed The Light as part of a major redevelopment project. 

It previously housed the collection of historic DLI artefacts but closed in 2016 as part of cost-cutting measures after falling into a state of disrepair. 

Durham County Council said the new site will be a multi-purpose cultural space and serve as a hub for creativity and innovation.

Cllr Karen Allison, cabinet member for leisure, tourism, regeneration and high street, and Cllr Joe Quinn, cabinet member for planning, investments and assets, at The Light. (Image: Durham County Council)

A new café and retail space will open alongside exhibition areas, galleries, studios and teaching spaces. 

Between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors are expected to visit each year. 

During the extensive renovation work, the building was stripped down to its basic structure and almost completely rebuilt. 

Ben Kelsey, the council’s senior manager for projects and performance, told an economy and enterprise scrutiny committee that the project has faced challenges but is on track to open later this year.

He said: “Supply chain pressures and challenges in the construction sector have affected the construction in key stages of its delivery. 

“The existing building, when it was stripped back, had a number of challenges and issues which added pressures in terms of cost and time. 

“The Light is due to open this Summer; it’s down for practical completion in March.”

The new venue will be a sister site to The Story at Mount Oswald, which provides the permanent home to the DLI collection. 

The local authority said: “We want to shake up the traditional view of a museum and gallery, by listening and collaborating, utilising technology and developing innovative partnerships across cities and sectors, ensuring we are on people’s ‘must visit’ bucket list. 

“Artists and scientists will be encouraged to create, experiment and collaborate. Communities will gather for events, learning and participation.”

Celeriac doesn’t normally fall into my top five vegetables, but it works brilliantly as a mash, and with buttery leeks and fish completes a fantastically tasty trio. Any leftover mash mixed with extra cheddar or feta and the Syrian-style spice mix makes for a delicious sort of potato cake/fritter! I like the eggs in this, but if you’d rather not include them, up the quantities of fish from 250g to 300g.

Police believe the crash happened the night before the van and its driver were found

A man has been seriously injured after a crash that saw a van crash into a tree. Emergency services were called to a crash on Huntingdon Road, near Fenstanton, on Sunday (March 1) at around 9am.

A Vauxhall Vivaro van had crashed into a tree. Police believe the crash happened the night before on Saturday, February 28.

A man in his 30s from Sawtry, the driver of the van, was taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital with serious injuries. He remains in hospital.

A police spokesperson said: “Officers are appealing for information and dashcam footage from anyone who was travelling along Huntingdon Road, near Fenstanton, in either direction on the evening of Saturday, who may have witnessed the van in the moments leading up to the collision.”

Anyone with information should call police on 101 and quote incident 126 of February 28. Alternatively, they can report it online.

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Major employment fears have been raised with claims that 70% of vessels in NI have overseas crews that now face a visa barrier to working in local fishing waters

A Northern Ireland council is to urge the Isle of Man to reverse its new visa rules on fishermen as concerns a “centuries” old Co Down industry has been put on “life support”.

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council has now also called for the British-Irish Council, an institution of the Good Friday Agreement to weigh in on the Irish Sea fishing crisis.

Major employment fears have been raised with claims that 70% of vessels in NI have overseas crews that now face a visa barrier to working in local fishing waters.

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Bringing forward a motion, Mournes DUP councillor Glyn Hanna said: “This council is deeply concerned that the changes by the Isle of Man government to legislation where fishing vessels from NI operating with crews using a transit visa, or a UK Skilled Worker Visa cannot fish commercially in Manx waters.

“The new legislation requires that an Isle of Man work visa is obtained and to use these visas the business must be an Isle of Man business.This will be difficult.

“This legislation will damage a large number of Northern Irish fishing boats who fish within the Isle of Man 12 mile limit.

“NI fish processors will also suffer, along with the fishing industry throughout Co Down.

“This council should write to the Manx government highlighting the damage to the NI fishing industry, and asking the Isle of Man government to reverse the legislation or delay it for more consultation.”

The new Manx rules, which came about on 10 Feb, mean vessels’ crews now need an Isle of Man visa, which are only available to Island businesses.

It could mean long-established fishing vessels will be shut out of Isle of Man waters because of the new visa rules.

Killkeel Harbour in south Down considered the biggest fishing fleet in NI, has previously been linked to a potential £73m investment that would see it become an Irish Sea Hub.

However, further visa regulations on crews has caused concerns for the future of the fleet

Councillor Hanna added:”This Manx law will be extremely damaging to the North of Ireland fishing fleet particularly.

“For many years fishing fleets have found it difficult to recruit local crews resulting in 70% of the working vessels in NI with overseas workers from the likes of the Philippines and African nations.

“There are thousands of jobs and a large amount of money involved in all of this.

“Nobody can understand how this was missed, whether the DAERA Minister was asleep at the wheel, I just don’t know.

“This motion is so important to the people of Co Down with a tradition of fishing going back centuries and we do not want to lose it.”

Mournes Sinn Fein councillor Michael Rice said:”These legislative changes by the Isle of Man will have real socio-economic consequences on fishing operators in Co Down.

“It is about livelihoods, families and sustainability of our coastal economies.

“A significant amount of vessels from Killkeel and Portavogie rely on Manx waters.

“The new requirements will create a barriers to local family run boats that they simply cannot over come.

“This a potentially business ending policy. There has been no consultation or prior warning about this and has put the local fishing industry on life support.”

An amendment by Crotlive SDLP councillor Declan McAteer was approved to write to the secretariat of the British-Irish Council in Edinburgh to address the matter.

Rowallane Alliance councillor Tierna Howie added:”We have been in touch with Minister Muir and he shares the concerns other councillors have expressed.

“He has been particularly disappointed by the lack of prior engagement on these matters given its potential to have such a significant and detrimental impact on the Northern Irish fishing fleet.

“The Minister has asked to meet with the Manx ministers for fisheries and immigration on the Isle of Man to act quickly and explore practical solutions.”

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