Say goodbye to the sex drought! What the Danes can teach us about making more love

While other countries are deep in a sex recession, the Danish drive shows no signs of stalling. How do they stay so frisky?

Copenhagen on the Thursday before Valentine’s Day is intoxicatingly romantic. That’s not hyperbole – you could breathe in and be drunk on it. The canals have frozen over, which only happens about once every 13 years, and couples are skating on them. You can see cosy bars from miles away because they’re strung with fairy lights – apparently not just a Christmas thing here. Everyone is beautiful.

But none of that comes close to explaining why young Danes in Denmark, unlike gen Z across the developed world, are still having sex. Winter isn’t even their frisky season. “You feel the atmosphere in the springtime,” says Ben, 35, half-British, half Danish. His friend Anna, also 35, originally Hungarian, says: “Post-hibernation fever, you can feel the sexual energy. Everyone is on. Everyone swims in the canals, a lot of the women will be topless – they’re like herrings.” (Which is to say: they are typically Danish, they love the water and they don’t wear clothes … I think.) Ben and Anna are millennials, of course, rather than gen Z: they provide the outsiders’ perspective.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Inside voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness?

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences

What was I thinking? This is not as easy or straightforward a question as I would have thought. As soon as you try to record and categorise the contents of your consciousness – the sense impressions, feelings, words, images, daydreams, mind-​wanderings, ruminations, deliberations, observations, opinions, intuitions and occasional insights – you encounter far more questions than answers, and more than a few surprises. I’d always assumed that my stream of consciousness consisted mainly of an interior monologue, maybe sometimes a dialogue, but was surely composed of words; I’m a writer, after all. But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts – a flattering term for these gossamer traces of mental activity – are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable.

I discovered this because I’ve been going around with a beeper wired to an earpiece that sends a sudden sharp note into my left ear at random times of the day. This is my cue to recall and jot down whatever was going on in my head immediately before I registered the beep. The idea is to capture a snapshot of the contents of consciousness at a specific moment in time by dipping a ladle into the onrushing stream.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Authoritarians, strongmen and dictators: who is on Trump’s Board of Peace?

Representatives of repressive regimes from around the world are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of the body

A grouping of largely oppressive and authoritarian world leaders and their envoys are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s newly established Board of Peace.

The body was created to implement his vision for Gaza’s future after it was destroyed by Israel, but Trump has widened its scope, calling it “the most consequential international body in history”.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

The US is dragging Europe back to the days of white supremacism. Our leaders are playing along | Shada Islam

People like me were targets of the Islamophobia that gripped the west after the US-led ‘war on terror’. Now I fear a chilling sequel is on the way

Twenty-five years ago, George W Bush persuaded European leaders to back his “war on terror”. That disastrous project cost millions of lives and caused mass displacement of people from across the Middle East. It normalised racism and hatred for Muslims, refugees and racialised minorities in the US and Europe. I fear Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, with its calls to defend white, western, Christian civilisation against supposedly contaminating racialised migrants – and the standing ovation he received from European elites – may mark a chilling sequel.

Rubio’s language of a shared and superior American and European civilisation differs from that of his bosses, Donald Trump and JD Vance. His tone is more emollient but his outreach is conspiratorial. Rubio talks of migration and identity and civilisational anxiety, rather than terrorism and hard security threats as Bush once did. In his Munich speech, Rubio flattered Europeans about the continent’s colonial past. He denied preaching a message of xenophobia or hate, and instead framed his call to defend national borders as entirely respectable, dutiful and a “fundamental act of sovereignty”.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Year of the fire horse - explained: the Chinese zodiac sign that’s all about intensity

Lunar new year has ushered in a rare zodiac symbol with a reputation for energy and independence

As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.

Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:48 am

Sardinia’s ancient masked rite of mamuthones and issohadores – in pictures

From mid-January until the end of carnival, mamuthones and issohadores take to the streets of Mamoiada, in the mountainous heartland of Sardinia. This is a time when herders and farmers across the Mediterranean turn to the power of masks to cast off winter and foster the coming of spring

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Trump officials plan to build 5,000-person military base in Gaza, files show

Exclusive: approximately 350-acre compound planned as base for multinational force, according to records reviewed by the Guardian

The Trump administration is planning to build a 5,000-person military base in Gaza, sprawling more than 350 acres, according to Board of Peace contracting records reviewed by the Guardian.

The site is envisioned as a military operating base for a future International Stabilization Force (ISF), planned as a multinational military force composed of pledged troops. The ISF is part of the newly created Board of Peace which is meant to govern Gaza. The Board of Peace is chaired by Donald Trump and led in part by his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:00 am

South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

Ex-leader sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour over failed martial law declaration in 2024

A South Korean court has sentenced the former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment with labour over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, finding him guilty of leading an insurrection and making him the first elected head of state in the country’s democratic era to receive the maximum custodial sentence.

The Seoul central district court found that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024 constituted insurrection, carried out with the intent to disrupt the constitutional order.

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:02 am

Gaza death toll in early part of war far higher than reported, says Lancet study

Research suggests more than 75,000 killed in the first 16 months of conflict, 25,000 more than announced at the time

More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal.

The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:30 pm

Bernie Sanders rails against billionaire ‘greed’ amid California tax battle

In a fiery speech in Los Angeles, the Vermont senator criticizes ‘grotesque’ levels of economic inequality

Billionaires are “treading on very, very thin ice,” Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday during a fiery speech in Los Angeles, imploring California voters to fight “grotesque” levels of economic inequality by approving a proposed tax on the state’s richest residents.

The Vermont senator railed against the “greed”, “arrogance” and “moral turpitude” of the nation’s “ruling class”, calling it “fairly disgusting” that some ultra-wealthy tech leaders have fled California – or are threatening to do so, if the proposed wealth tax becomes law.

Published: February 19, 2026, 6:17 am

Zuckerberg grilled in landmark social media trial over teen mental health

Meta chief says it has improved identifying underage users but adds ‘I always wish we could have gotten there sooner’

The Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testified at a landmark trial of social media companies on Wednesday. Plaintiffs’ lawyers grilled Zuckerberg about internal complaints that not enough was being done to verify whether children under 13 were using the platform.

Zuckerberg claimed Meta had improved in identifying underage users but also said: “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:37 pm

US military ready for possible Iran strikes but Trump yet to make decision, reports say

Reports say move could come this weekend as White House urges Iran to ‘make a deal’ with Trump on nuclear program

The US military is ready for possible strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday citing unnamed sources.

However, the reports said, Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision on whether to carry out an attack. Trump has repeatedly demanded Iran cease its nuclear program, and has warned he intends to use force if no deal is reached.

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:53 am

Zelenskyy accuses Putin of ‘delay tactics’ to stall Ukraine-Russia peace talks - Europe live

Ukrainian president expresses growing frustration with Russia and the US over lack of progress on a deal

The Kremlin said that it had nothing to add about this week’s peace talks on Ukraine in Geneva beyond what its chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky already said.

Medinsky said on Wednesday that the U.S.-mediated talks had been difficult but businesslike, and that a new round would be held soon, Reuters reported.

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:52 am

US funding for global internet freedom ‘effectively gutted’

Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

For nearly two decades, the US quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened and a large part of it is already gone, putting into jeopardy internet freedoms around the world.

Managed by the US state department and the US Agency for Global Media, the programme – broadly called Internet Freedom – funds small groups all over the world, from Iran to China to the Philippines, who built grassroots technologies to evade internet controls imposed by governments. It has dispensed well over $500m (£370m) in the past decade, according to an analysis by the Guardian, including $94m in 2024.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Bill Gates cancels keynote speech in India amid questions over Epstein ties

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder pulls out of India’s AI Impact Summit to ‘ensure the focus’ remains on event’s ‘key priorities’

Bill Gates has pulled out of a keynote address at the AI Impact Summit in India as he continues to face questions over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The billionaire Microsoft co-founder travelled to India, where his foundation works with the government on delivering AI for social good, earlier this week and was advertised as speaking at the international summit shortly after the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:27 am

Trump news at a glance: president’s ‘board of peace’ set to meet, minus some key US allies

Some European leaders have criticised the organisation’s murky funding and political mandate – key US politics stories from Wednesday 18 February at a glance

Dozens of world leaders and national delegations will meet in Washington DC on Thursday for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, as major European allies declined to join the group and criticised the organisation’s murky funding and political mandate.

The White House has indicated that the summit for his new ad hoc council at the renamed Donald J Trump Institute of Peace will heavily function as a fundraising round, with Trump announcing on social media that countries have pledged more than $5bn toward rebuilding Gaza, which has been devastated in the war with Israel and remains in a humanitarian crisis.

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:00 am

Trump tells Starmer handing Chagos Islands to Mauritius is a ‘big mistake’

US president had recently said the plan was the best deal Starmer could make

Donald Trump has urged Keir Starmer not to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, warning he was “making a big mistake”.

Under the deal agreed last year, Britain would cede control over the British Indian Ocean Territory but lease the largest island, Diego Garcia, for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there.

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:44 pm

Good news for Trump before midterms: he’s still more popular than cockroaches

Trump’s disapproval rating indicates he’s less popular with Americans than some insects like ants. Will it mean anything in November?

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

A couple of years ago, the polling company YouGov asked people about insects. The resulting survey found that butterflies are America’s favorite insect, with eight in 10 people having a “very or somewhat positive” reaction to them.

Many journalists will tell you to never trust the polling, and they’ve been proven right many times over. Still, aren’t you curious how a random group of 1,148 adults feels about bugs?

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:00 pm

Billionaire Les Wexner testifies before Congress about ties to Epstein

Wexner, who has denied misconduct related to Epstein, is one of several subpoenaed by House oversight panel

The former boss of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand, Les Wexner, said he has “done nothing wrong” and has “nothing to hide”, as he testifies on Wednesday before a congressional committee in relation to his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Wexner is one of several Epstein associates subpoenaed to testify before the House oversight committee in their continued investigation of the late financier’s crimes.

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:29 pm

‘It’s a catastrophe’: Wellington rages as millions of litres of raw sewage pour into ocean

Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand

A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, as the city’s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

Published: February 19, 2026, 3:42 am

‘They pushed so many lies about recycling’: the fight to stop big oil pumping billions more into plastics

Plastic production has doubled over the last 20 years – and will likely double again. For author Beth Gardiner, metal water bottles and canvas tote bags are not the solution. So what is?

Like many of us who are mindful of our plastic consumption, Beth Gardiner would take her own bags to the supermarket and be annoyed whenever she forgot to do so. Out without her refillable bottle, she would avoid buying bottled water. “Here I am, in my own little life, worrying about that and trying to use less plastic,” she says. Then she read an article in this newspaper, just over eight years ago, and discovered that fossil fuel companies had ploughed more than $180bn (£130bn) into plastic plants in the US since 2010. “It was a kick in the teeth,” says Gardiner. “You’re telling me that while I am beating myself up because I forgot to bring my water bottle, all these huge oil companies are pouring billions …” She looks appalled. “It was just such a shock.”

Two months before that piece was published, a photograph of a seahorse clinging to a plastic cotton bud had gone viral; two years before that England followed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and introduced a charge for carrier bags. “I was one of so many people who were trying to use less plastic – and it just felt like such a moment of revelation: these companies are, on the contrary, increasing production and wanting to push [plastic use] up and up.” Then, says Gardiner, as she started researching her book Plastic Inc: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future, “it only becomes more shocking.”

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:00 am

The secret Afghan women’s book club defying the Taliban to read Orwell

Banned from education, a clandestine reading circle meets every week to pour over novels by Abbas Maroufi, Zoya Pirzad and Ernest Hemingway

Four young women sit together, waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally comes, their friend’s voice is crackly and hard to make out, but they wait patiently for the signal to improve so they can start discussing their chosen book.

Every Thursday, the five friends come together away from the disapproving gaze of the Taliban for a reading circle. They read not for entertainment but, as they put it, to understand life and the world around them. They call their group “women with books and imagination”.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Sinners star Miles Caton: ‘I didn’t know how much I would be in the film … it might have scared me’

The actor and musician’s first film role was the musical prodigy in the surprise hit horror. Now he’s up for a Bafta and about to perform live at the Oscars – and it’s all still sinking in

It’s lunchtime in New York City, and Miles Caton is still in bed. That morning, the 20-year-old star of Sinners set his alarm for 8.30am so he could watch the Oscar nominations live. “As soon as I woke up, I went straight to YouTube,” he says, where he learned Sinners had been nominated for 16 Academy Awards, more than any other film in Oscars history. Unsurprisingly, his phone has been blowing up: he’s been so busy responding to messages, he’s yet to get out of bed.

A southern gothic horror musical set in the 1930s, about the bloodsucking of Black culture, Sinners was the unexpected box office smash of 2025, earning $368m in ticket sales globally. The film co-stars Michael B Jordan and comes from the imagination of Ryan Coogler, the writer-director behind Marvel’s Black Panther franchise and the Rocky reboot, Creed. “I watched Black Panther for the first time when I was 12 years old,” says Caton, who remembers going to the cinema to see the director’s Afrofuturist superhero movie with his whole family. “It was ‘Wakanda Forever!’ We was putting our fist up!” he says, motioning a Black power fist at the screen. “To me, a Ryan Coogler film was culture,” he says.

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:00 am

You be the judge: should my best friend stop wearing the same perfume as me?

Marta wants her scent to be unique, but Elsa thinks copying her friend is just sharing the joy. Do you smell a rat?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

My individuality is very important to me and I like to keep my style and my scent unique

I’m not trying to copy her whole identity. Friends having similar tastes is just sharing the joy

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:00 am

Thursday news quiz: catchphrases, crowds, coups and catastrophes

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

It is time for the Thursday news quiz. The scorpion of knowledge, delightfully illustrated by Anaïs Mims, has 15 questions for you. They are designed to lull you into a false sense of security before delivering a very small but memorable sting. Or an in-joke punchline you’ve seen 1,057 times already. One or the other. There are no prizes, but we enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 235

Published: February 19, 2026, 6:30 am

The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara review – into Tibet’s ‘Forbidden Kingdom’

The follow-up to Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line explores the history of colonial exploration through a perilous 19th-century odyssey

With her peripatetic and philosophical second novel, Deepa Anappara travels into uncharted territory. Her dazzling 2020 debut, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was part caper and part social satire, set in an Indian shantytown. In The Last of Earth, she points her writerly compass towards the mountains of mid-19th-century Tibet – a region then closed off to European imperialists – to meditate on the chequered history of colonial exploration, cartography and the impermanence of human existence.

“It’s in the nature of white men to believe they own the world, that no door should be shut to them.” For years, the British train, coax and bribe Indians to cross over, conducting surveying expeditions on their behalf; they also venture into the “Forbidden Kingdom of Tibet” in thinly veiled disguises. Intricately researched and meticulously plotted, this immersive novel is told through the alternating perspectives of two protagonists. Balram is an Indian schoolteacher and surveyor-spy who plays guide to an English captain, clumsily dressed as a monk and intent on being the first man to personally chart the route of the revered river Tsangpo and discover where it meets the sea. Meanwhile Katherine, of part Indian heritage, is on a mission to become the first European woman to reach Lhasa and set eyes on the Potala Palace after being denied membership of the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London.

The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara is published by Oneworld (£14.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Trump has done more than harm the government’s ability to fight global heating | Jamil Smith

By repealing the EPA’s determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health, the president is denying reality itself

The climate crisis is killing people. These deaths are measurable, documented and ongoing. Concluding otherwise is just playing pretend. Studies explain the mechanics, but lived experience supplies the truth. The people who suffer the consequences see the fire rising and water closing in. They need their government’s help.

Despite that, the president of the United States stood at a microphone last Thursday and abdicated his duty to them. “It has nothing to do with public health,” he claimed about the climate crisis while announcing that the federal government would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding”, a determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. “This is all a scam, a giant scam.”

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:00 pm

I’m putting tech firms on notice: deal with the appalling abuse of women online – or we will deal with you | Keir Starmer

I see violence against women as a national emergency. The posting of non-consensual intimate images is part of that crisis, and it must stop

Tackling violence against women and girls is not just a priority for my government. It is central to who I am.

Before entering politics, when I led the Crown Prosecution Service as director of public prosecutions, I worked with victims of rape, domestic abuse and sexual violence, and I saw, up close, the lifelong damage these crimes cause. And I learned that when systems fail victims, the harm does not end, it deepens.

Keir Starmer is UK prime minister

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: February 19, 2026, 6:00 am

‘A cry of pain from every player’: the new reality of Ukraine’s musicians

As the war enters its fifth terrible year, Ukrainian musicians continue to fight for freedom with music-making that is urgent and vital

It starts with a literal scream, a cry of pain from every player in the orchestra. The Ukrainian composer Anna Korsun’s piece Terricone is one of the most shattering creative acts of the war that began four years ago this month. Korsun was born in Donbas, where terricones, the slag heaps of the mining industry, bear witness to the way humankind has always reshaped the landscape. Her composition was premiered by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its then chief conductor, the Ukrainian Kirill Karabits, at the start of 2023 – when news of the invasion brought worldwide shock and horror.

I’ll never forget being in Poole for that performance, as the vividness of it brought the fear and desolation of the emotional landscapes of the war to the audience. The Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski – a vocal critic of Putin’s regime – brought the powerful piece to London last month, as part of a bold Ukrainian/Russian programme with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:19 pm

It’s said that Tony Blair thought he was Jesus. At least Jesus never thought he was Tony Blair | Emma Brockes

The idea of the former PM being driven by delusions of grandeur runs through Channel 4’s new documentary. Still, there is fun in seeing the world as it was

There’s a funny moment towards the end of The Tony Blair Story, Channel 4’s three-part documentary about the former prime minister, in which Blair is asked to introspect about his own personality. For the previous three hours or so we have enjoyed a series of talking heads picking over his premiership. Now he breaks the fourth wall and, with something like incredulity, says what’s the point of asking him to identify his own weaknesses when all he’ll give is a “politician’s answer”. Reminded he’s no longer a politician, Blair replies as honestly as at any point in the encounter: “You’re always a politician.”

It is one of the more satisfying exchanges in Michael Waldman’s series, which, depending on your view, is either a futile exercise in confirming one’s existing prejudices about Blair, or more than three hours of great telly. I’m inclined towards the latter, partly for the enjoyment it offers of being yanked back to the memory of all those old horribles. Nothing dates quicker than an out of office politician and it’s a particular nostalgia that’s triggered by footage of Robin Cook at John Smith’s funeral, or Max Hastings describing Blair’s henchmen as “absolutely ruthless bastards”, or Jack Straw being interviewed in a black velvet jacket like something from Death on the Nile.

Published: February 18, 2026, 4:05 pm

I tried the latest sleep trick – and my husband and I were up all night | Polly Hudson

Cognitive shuffling is apparently the remedy for a spinning mind at 3am. But it made me question all my choices

A doctor has gone viral – which sounds like the beginning of a dad joke, but isn’t – with a hack for getting back to sleep if you wake at 3am. Cognitive shuffling is apparently the remedy for a spinning mind in the middle of the night. “Work, money, kids, planning, scheduling, problem solving. Your brain is too active to let you sleep – in fact the stress of all these thoughts tells the brain that it’s not safe to sleep, you have to stay on high alert,” says Bradford GP Amir Khan.

Cognitive shuffling interrupts this process, and invites your brain to go into sleep mode. Khan says to do it, choose a random word – like “bed”, or “dream” – then think of objects starting with each letter of it, while picturing them in your head. “Bed begins with b, so maybe bat, binoculars, baseball, banana,” he adds, helpfully, “Once I’ve exhausted the letter b I move on to e – emu, elephant, eyes. And so on.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:00 am

Winter Olympics 2026: curling, ski mountaineering, ice hockey and more on day 13 – live

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing

• Follow us over on Bluesky | And you can email Daniel

The cross-country bit gets going at 1pm, and I’m looking forward to that. It’s a scientific fact that here’s no kind of race a human can devise that is uncompelling.

In the Nordic, teams of two both have a go at ski jumping, and Germany have just leapt into the lead; they’ll start the cross-country portion with no time penalty, because Austria have just completed this part of things, and only landed far enough for fifth. Norway are second, Japan third and Finland fourth.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:07 am

Mikaela Shiffrin overcame grief, crashes and her own self-doubt to win slalom gold again

The greatest American skier of all time won her first Olympic medal in 2014. The 12 years in between have been marked by brutal ups and downs

A lot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.

You can also lose your dad.

Published: February 18, 2026, 9:18 pm

Winter Olympics: USA and Canada narrowly avoid shocks in men’s ice-hockey quarter-finals

• Americans rely on Quinn Hughes’s OT winner

• Mitch Marner seals Canada’s 4-3 overtime win

• Canadians lose star Sidney Crosby to injury

With NHL players returning to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, these Games were expected to be a relative stroll for Canada and USA. However, both star-packed teams struggled in Wednesday’s men’s ice hockey quarter-finals.

Quinn Hughes scored in overtime to put the US past Sweden 2-1 after giving up the tying goal to Mika Zibanejad with 91 seconds left in the third period. Dylan Larkin deflected Jack Hughes’ shot in for the only US goal in regulation.

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:51 pm

Australia's Danielle Scott lands aerials silver as family sacrifice pays off at Winter Olympics

• Australian finishes second behind China gold medallist Xu Mengtao

• Skier makes ‘heartbreaking’ call for loved ones not to join her in Livigno

Australian freestyle skier Danielle Scott told her family and friends last month to cancel their plans to watch her compete at the Olympics because she was feeling so low about her form.

That meant the aerials veteran’s loved ones, husband Clark aside, weren’t in Livigno to watch the four-time Olympian achieve a lifelong dream when she finally clinched a medal on Wednesday.

Published: February 18, 2026, 9:37 pm

Very good dog invades course but falls short of medal glory at Winter Olympics

• Nazgul makes unexpected entry in team sprint

• Owner says two-year old looking for company

A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics despite a lung-bursting surge in the homestretch.

Nazgul, who according to NPR lives at a nearby hotel in Tesero, broke on to the course on Wednesday morning and sprinted for the line behind Croatia’s Tena Hadzic as she came to the end of the qualifying race for the women’s team cross-country sprint. Even if he had completed the entire race, Nazgul’s time would not have counted as he is male. And a dog.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:02 pm

Arsenal suffer new blow in title race after Edozie’s equaliser boosts Wolves

Whichever way you look at it, Arsenal did not produce a performance worthy of champions. No one in red and white will want to remember this freezing cold night at Molineux – but it will live long in the memory of Wolves’ Tom Edozie, whose debut goal was a just punishment for the Premier League leaders’ ineptitude.

Arsenal are five points clear of Manchester City, having played a game more, and will feel their icy breath on their shoulders after winning twice in their past seven matches.

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:15 pm

Mikaela Shiffrin storms to stunning slalom gold to make Winter Olympic history

• American wins third gold overall and first since 2018

• Shiffrin more than a second ahead of Rast in silver

With one last chance to break her ­barren Olympic run stretching back eight years, Mikaela ­Shiffrin ­delivered in style. The 30-year-old American surged to victory in the women’s slalom on a sun-splashed Wednesday in the Dolomites with a two-run time of 1min 39.10sec, becoming the first US skier to win three Olympic gold medals.

Switzerland’s Camille Rast, the reigning world champion and only woman to have beaten Shiffrin in her signature discipline this season, came in a yawning 1.50sec behind for the silver – the largest winning margin in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998 – while Anna Swenn-Larsson of Sweden took the bronze. After fourth-placed Wendy Holdener, of Switzerland, the rest of the field trailed by at least two seconds in the final race of the alpine skiing.

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:59 pm

Chiefs' Rashee Rice accused of assault in civil lawsuit by mother of his children

• Woman says she was pregnant during alleged assaults

• Lawsuit seeks monetary damages of more than $1m

• Rice was suspended to start 2025 for role in car crash

A former girlfriend of Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice filed a civil lawsuit this week in Texas alleging he assaulted her during a span from December 2023 to July 2025.

Dacoda Jones, with whom Rice has two children, said she was pregnant during many of the alleged assaults. She filed the suit on Monday in Dallas County, Texas, and is seeking damages of more than $1m, according to attorney Ron Estefan.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:12 pm

Vinícius, Mourinho and treating racism as reputational risk rather than a lived reality | Jonathan Liew

The Brazilian has seen this before, football has seen this before, and yet why does it feel like nothing ever changes?

José Mourinho: against provoking opposition fans. José Mourinho: in favour of restrained celebrations. José Mourinho, once of the poke‑in‑the‑eye, sprint‑down‑the‑touchline, accost‑the‑referee-in-the-car-park school of footballing expression: now apparently very big on showing respect to the game. Well, it seems like we’ve all been on a journey here.

“I told him the biggest person in the history of this club was Black,” Mourinho recounted when asked about his conversation with Vinícius Júnior on Tuesday night. “This club, the last thing that it is, is racist.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 6:38 pm

Japan replace draws with shootouts and hope to avoid paying World Cup penalty

Move is a temporary measure as J.League transitions to European schedule but could benefit national team in US, Canada and Merxico this summer

Cynics may say it is no coincidence the J.League has introduced penalty shootouts to replace draws just before the World Cup. Japan have identified the quarter-finals as the target this summer after failing to progress past the last 16 on three of the past four occasions, with two of those disappointments coming after failures from the spot.

The 2022 tournament was the worst, with the Samurai Blue, who should have seen off Croatia during normal time, losing the shootout 3-1 in dismal fashion.

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:00 am

‘My DNA is in this car’: Lewis Hamilton revved up for Ferrari in new F1 season

• Seven-time world champion upbeat for 2026

• ‘I’m more connected to this car for sure,’ he says

Lewis Hamilton believes he is in the “best place” he has been at Ferrari, with a new car that carries his “DNA”.

The seven-time champion failed to take a podium place for the first time and finished sixth in the drivers’ championship, behind his teammate Charles Leclerc in fifth in his debut season. By the end, he was clearly disenchanted, describing his first year at Ferrari as a “nightmare”.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:11 pm

Japanese teenager Ami Nakai overshadows USA’s Blade Angels in women’s figure skating opener

Japan’s skaters stole the spotlight as the Americans largely struggled in their attempts to end a two-decade medal drought

Japanese teenager Ami Nakai was the surprise leader after the short program of the Olympic women’s figure skating competition on a night when her country’s skaters largely stole the spotlight from Team USA’s Blade Angels in their bid to end America’s two-decade medal drought.

Nakai delivered a clean, commanding skate on Tuesday, highlighted by a soaring triple axel for a personal-best score of 78.71, edging three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto (77.23) into second. Only Alysa Liu of the United States was able to break the Japanese hold on the top spots, scoring 76.59 to come in ahead of fourth-placed Mone Choba (74.00).

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:01 am

MLS’s calendar flip is coming. Clubs are already planning how to exploit it

Starting next year, MLS will align itself with big European leagues and become a summer-to-spring operation. Executives see the change as an opportunity

Few constants have endured from MLS’s 1996 debut to now. It’s still an operational soccer league, for one thing. There’s the name itself, although its initial logo was shelved in 2015 for its current shield-and-kickstand. Eight of the 10 teams that launched the league remain involved, though each one has changed their name, crest, or both over time.

Another rare constant will soon fade into the rearview: the league’s schedule. MLS has run spring-to-fall/winter since its launch, more specifically from late February to early December in recent years. Preseason kicks off at the start of each new year, three weeks or so after the previous season’s championship bout. It’s a pretty well-ironed routine, even as ancillary competitions like the Leagues Cup and Club World Cup shuffle the middle bits each year.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:00 pm

Anthony Gordon grabs four as Newcastle hit Qarabag for six in playoff

When the Qarabag manager, Gurban Gurbanov, declared before kick-off that Newcastle possess “a style of play that does not suit us”, there were suggestions that he was playing mind games. Long before half-time it was fully apparent that he had rather understated things.

Had this been a boxing match it would surely have been stopped by the 20th minute. Qarabag were utterly overwhelmed by the pace of their guests, and that of Anthony Gordon in particular. Gordon scored four times, boosting his tally in the Champions League this season to 10 goals.

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:06 pm

Macron defends EU AI rules and vows crackdown on child ‘digital abuse’

French president rejects US criticism as António Guterres and Narendra Modi warn on child safety and AI monopolies

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Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI, vowing to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s presidency of the G7.

Speaking at the AI Impact summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher safeguards after global outrage over Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot being used to generate tens of thousands of sexualised images of children, and amid mounting concern about the concentration of AI power in a handful of companies.

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:26 am

Environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion says FBI is investigating it for terrorism

Extinction Rebellion says some members have been visited by agents claiming to be FBI amid Trump’s threats toward liberal groups

Environmental group Extinction Rebellion said on Wednesday it was under federal US investigation and that some of its members had been visited by FBI agents, including from the agency’s taskforce on extremism, in the last year.

Asked for comment, the FBI said it could neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations, citing justice department policy.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:58 pm

Conservative Georgia town pushes back against ICE detention center: ‘We are Americans after all’

Social Circle, a mostly Maga town, builds strange bedfellow coalition against plans to convert warehouse

On a recent morning Eric Taylor, city manager for a small Georgia town of about 5,000 residents called Social Circle, was contacted by a staffer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They asked me to turn on the water,” he said of a 1m sq ft warehouse nearby that the federal government recently purchased for $128m, with plans to use it for locking up as many as 10,000 detainees as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan.

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:00 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Trump sees conflict as ‘very unfair’ for war dead and US taxpayers, says White House

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt highlights US cancellation of military aid to Ukraine last year, saying situation was unfair on those killed but also Americans ‘who were footing the bill for this war effort’. What we know on day 1,457

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:08 am

Women in California prison accuse staff cook of rape and urge criminal charges

Exclusive: After investigators concluded an abuse incident occurred, women speak out for first time – ‘I was so scared to tell anybody’

Two women incarcerated in a California prison are calling for the prosecution of a staff cook who they say sexually assaulted them.

The women say Marcus Johnson, a former supervisory cook at the California Institution for Women (CIW), raped them in 2020 while they were working for him in kitchen jobs. The women, who were making under 40 cents an hour, said in federal civil complaints he threatened disciplinary action if they reported him.

Published: February 18, 2026, 6:12 pm

FCC chair Brendan Carr says media were ‘lied to’ over Stephen Colbert controversy

Carr says the Federal Communications Commission has also opened an enforcement action into ABC’s the View

The chair of the US’s top media regulator claimed on Wednesday that journalists had been tricked into covering claims by the late-night host Stephen Colbert that he had been blocked by his network from interviewing a Texas Senate candidate.

Brendan Carr, the avowedly pro-Trump chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), made his comments after Colbert accused the Trump administration and CBS of censorship.

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:36 pm

Ebay buys Depop for $1.2bn in effort to lure younger shoppers

Deal agreed to acquire British secondhand fashion resale app from Etsy as interest in such marketplaces soars

The online retailer eBay has agreed to buy the British secondhand fashion resale app Depop from Etsy for about $1.2bn (£890m) in cash, as eBay targets younger fashion-loving consumers.

The deal comes at a time when secondhand marketplaces continue to soar in popularity, especially among gen Z shoppers – born between 1997 and 2012 – amid a squeeze on household incomes and concerns about sustainability in fashion.

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:35 am

Environmental groups sue Trump’s EPA over repeal of landmark climate finding

Lawsuit from health and environmental justice groups challenges the EPA’s rollback of the ‘endangerment finding’

More than a dozen health and environmental justice non-profits have sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its revocation of the legal determination that underpins US federal climate regulations.

Filed in Washington DC circuit court, the lawsuit challenges the EPA’s rollback of the “endangerment finding”, which states that the buildup of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare and has allowed the EPA to limit those emissions from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources since 2009. The rollback was widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

Published: February 18, 2026, 5:27 pm

US sanctions, power cuts, climate crisis: why Cuba is betting on renewables

With Trump blocking Venezuelan oil imports and old power plants breaking down, the island – with Chinese help – is turning to solar and wind to bolster its fragile energy system

Intense heat hangs over the sugarcane fields near Cuba’s eastern coast. In the village of Herradura, a blond-maned horse rests under a palm tree after spending all Saturday in the fields with its owner, Roberto, who cultivates maize and beans.

Roberto was among those worst affected by Hurricane Melissa, which hit eastern Cuba – the country’s poorest region – late last year. The storm affected 3.5 million people, damaging or destroying 90,000 homes and 100,000 hectares of crops.

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:00 pm

Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds

While most hybrids are said to use one to two litres of fuel per 100km, a study claims they need six litres on average

Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about a million vehicles of this type has shown.

The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, using the data transmitted wirelessly by PHEVs from a variety of manufacturers while they were on the road.

Published: February 18, 2026, 6:41 pm

Coffee-growing countries becoming too hot to cultivate beans, analysis finds

Five countries responsible for 75% of world’s coffee supply record average of 57 extra days of coffee-harming heat a year

In Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, more than 4m households rely on coffee as their primary source of income. It contributes almost a third of the country’s export earnings, but for how much longer is uncertain.

“Coffee farmers in Ethiopia are already seeing the impact of extreme heat,” said Dejene Dadi, the general manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (OCFCU), a smallholder cooperative.

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:00 am

US civil rights agency sues Coca-Cola bottler over event that excluded men

Lawsuit is first by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over workplace DEI in Trump’s second term

A US civil rights agency has sued a bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola products it accuses of sex discrimination over an employee networking event that excluded men, its first lawsuit over workplace diversity programs since Donald Trump took office. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast violated federal law when it hosted the event for about 250 female employees at a casino in Connecticut in September 2024.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is owned by Kirin Holdings, a Japanese company. Coca-Cola is not a defendant in the case.

Published: February 19, 2026, 12:46 am

Shia LaBeouf allegedly called queer man homophobic slurs before New Orleans arrest

Actor allegedly also made remarks to man who dresses in drag, and was seen dancing on Bourbon Street after arrest

The actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly aimed homophobic slurs at two men – one who identifies as queer and the other who dresses in drag – as the Transformers star was arrested for purportedly battering them at a bar early on Tuesday morning in New Orleans, the victims said.

Jeffrey Damnit – who was born with the last name Klein and was listed as one of the victims by New Orleans police – said in an interview on Wednesday that he was wearing mascara, eye shadow and lipstick when LaBeouf tried to beat him up “while screaming, ‘You’re a fucking faggot’”. He also shared a cellphone video showing LaBeouf in the back of a vehicle being examined by first responders, glancing over at Damnit and saying: “Faggot.”

Published: February 19, 2026, 12:49 am

New York hospital ends transgender treatment program for minors

NYU Langone’s decision comes amid Trump administration threats to cut funding to providers who treat trans youth

NYU Langone Health, one of New York City’s major hospital networks, announced this week that it will shut down its gender‑affirming care program for minors, as the Trump administration escalates threats to strip federal funding from providers that treat trans youth.

In a statement to the Guardian, spokesperson Steve Ritea said that “given the recent departure of our medical director, coupled with the current regulatory environment, we made the difficult decision to discontinue our Transgender Youth Health Program.” He added that the hospital’s pediatric mental health services will continue.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:51 pm

The sambusa underground: how Minneapolis’s Somalis feed community and resistance

A fried snack sustained protesters, and the aid continues amid fear and promises that ICE will leave the city

The images coming out of Minneapolis over the past two months have looked like something from a Hollywood dystopian horror film: masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents armed with guns, pepper spray, and teargas coming to blows with everyday citizens bearing phones, whistles, signs and, perhaps most surprisingly, food to feed their fellow protesters.

For Fatoun Ali and other Somali community members, sambusa was the weapon of choice. Last December, before prejudiced threats turned to bloodshed in the streets, they deployed this tasty east African staple – a fried, flaky, triangular-shaped pastry typically filled with ground meat, vegetables and spices (similar to south Asian samosas) – to combat the xenophobic rhetoric rapidly spreading across the Twin Cities. She estimates they bought and handed out hundreds of the simple snacks near community hubs, all in hopes of introducing others to the largest Somali diaspora community outside Africa.

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:00 pm

Police seize art posters depicting Trump, Putin and Netanyahu in Nazi uniforms from Canberra bar

Owner calls it ‘ludicrous’ Dissent Cafe and Bar was shut down after complaint, the first in Australia’s capital since new federal hate symbol laws

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Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wearing Nazi uniforms, and are investigating whether new federal hate symbol laws were broken.

David Howe, the owner of Dissent Cafe and Bar in Canberra’s CBD, said his venue was shut down for about two hours on Wednesday night as police investigated a complaint about hate imagery relating to five posters in the window.

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:02 am

Labor MP warns Liberals against chasing One Nation down ‘racist rabbit hole’

Anthony Albanese links Pauline Hanson’s comments on Muslims to heightened risk of violence as the holy month of Ramadan begins

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Anthony Albanese has linked comments by Pauline Hanson about Muslims to a heightened risk of violence as one of his cabinet ministers warned Liberals against chasing One Nation on immigration, saying “you can’t out-racist Pauline Hanson”.

Police are investigating a series of threats received by Lakemba Mosque in Sydney as the holy month of Ramadan begins – including a call to kill worshippers – which came days after Hanson said there were no “good Muslims”.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:04 am

Climber faces manslaughter charge after leaving girlfriend on Austria’s tallest peak

Kerstin G froze to death on Großglockner when Thomas P descended mountain to fetch help

An Austrian mountaineer is to appear in court accused of gross negligent manslaughter after his girlfriend died of hypothermia when he left her close to the summit on a climb that went dramatically wrong.

The 33-year-old woman, identified only as Kerstin G, froze to death on 19 January 2025, about 50 metres below the summit of the Großglockner, Austria’s tallest mountain, after an ascent of more than 17 hours with her boyfriend, Thomas P, 36.

Published: February 18, 2026, 5:35 pm

Beef and lamb get 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, study finds

Report says common agricultural policy provides ‘unfair’ levels of support to unhealthy, meat-heavy diets

Beef and lamb receive 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, a report has found, despite scientists urging people to get more of their protein from less harmful sources.

Analysis by the charity Foodrise found the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) provides “unfair” levels of support to meat-heavy diets that doctors consider unhealthy and climate scientists consider environmentally destructive.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

‘Can I come over and take your picture?’: a decade-long archive captures cross-cultural womanhood

Through more than 300 photos, the New York City artist Clémence Polès Farhang captures the immigrant story and unconventional womanhood

Clémence Polès Farhang started Passerby magazine around the time she immigrated to New York City. She says she wanted to explore womanhood as she navigated her own, and used publishing as a way to “deconstruct the internalized misogyny” from her own education. Polès Farhang’s mother, who left Iran during the revolution, believed women should have the right to choose what to do with their bodies, “yet would dismiss any woman who didn’t conform to conventional expectations”, says Polès Farhang, such as those didn’t dress “in a way she considered put together, or didn’t marry into heteronormative relationships within the right social class”.

“I remember being scolded in my early 20s for embarrassing her by leaving the house barefaced,” she says.

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:07 pm

Peaky Blinders – The Real Story review – how a pop crime sensation became a network-hopping brand

This patchwork tribute to a cultural phenomenon that sent Cillian Murphy’s undercut hairstyle global is a rather unambitious affair

Given the global reach of the Peaky Blinders, next month’s Netflix-backed movie threatens to be as momentous as a new Downton or Bridgerton, only with razor blades concealed about its person. This week, that anticipation secures a pay-per-view release for this hour-long meat-and-potatoes primer, fashioned by Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s dad, Robin Bextor, out of much the same combo of talking heads, drone shots and fair-use clips you would normally encounter on free-to-air Channel 5.

Uppermost in the edit is a recognition that Steven Knight’s creation was one of those peak TV shows that blurred the televisual and cinematic. Heaven’s Gate, The Godfather and Rio Bravo provide contextualising material; critic Michael Hogan positions the show as Knight’s answer to Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, the 2002 Shane Meadows comedy.

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Man on the Run review – archival delve into Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles era is a welcome revisit

After the Fab Four fell and Wings took flight, McCartney embodied a strange, stylised sense of uncool, which would become bestselling success. A new documentary of old material memorialises his second coming

Another hefty legacy project for Paul McCartney, who acts as off-camera interviewee and executive producer in this documentary by Morgan Neville. Man on the Run is comprised of archive film, photos and audio recordings of McCartney and his late wife, Linda, his children and others. Some of McCartney’s overlaid commentary seems to be new, and some pre-existing.

The film tracks his tense, complicated, fruitful career from the endgame of the Beatles in 1969 to the definitive demise of his next band Wings in 1981, a few months after John Lennon’s death – although what exact psychological role Lennon’s life and death played in Wings’ beginning and end is not explicitly discussed. (The film does, once again, show us that startlingly strange and casual-seeming interview McCartney gave after Lennon’s shooting, his shock resulting in an apparently cold attitude – but what he may really have been thinking is something else not explored here in detail.)

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:00 am

Being Gordon Ramsay review – did we really need six hours of him setting up restaurants?

This six-part extended brand advert follows the TV chef’s attempt to launch numerous eateries under one roof. It’s a lot of restaurant drama to have in your life

Six hours of advertising yourself on Netflix and – presumably – getting paid for providing streamer content at the same time? Nice work if you can get it, and Gordon Ramsay has got it. Being Gordon Ramsay, a six part – six part – documentary, follows the chef ’n’ TV personality as he embarks on his most ambitious venture yet. It’s “A huge undertaking”, “high risk, high reward”, a “once in a lifetime opportunity” and “one of my final stakes in the ground … If it fails, I’m fucked.” It is opening seven billion (five, but it feels like seven billion) restaurants on the top floors of 22 Bishopsgate at once. There is going to be a 60-seat rooftop garden place with retractable roof, a 250-seater Asian-inflected restaurant called Lucky Cat, a Bread Street Kitchen brasserie and a culinary school.

But we begin with a family scene. The youngest of Ramsay’s six children with wife of 30 years, Tana, are having pancakes. Gordon thinks they are too thick. They’re American-style, not the crepes he thinks they should have. “Darling,” says Tana, not for the first time even that morning, you suspect, “Could you just give it a rest?”

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:01 am

Queen at Sea review – crushingly sad dementia drama offers a startling portrait of intimacy

Driven by fine performances from Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall, Lance Hammer’s comeback is unbearable in its tragic candour and essential in its moral questioning

This inexpressibly painful and sad story – featuring angry, complex, brilliant late-career performances from Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall – is about dementia, the endgame of care and the decisions that need to be made when the spouse-carer is as vulnerable as the patient (and whose right it is to take those decisions). It is about the nature of intimacy between the two; and about the moment this becomes a problem for the grownup children with a conflicting sense of their own responsibilities.

Queen at Sea is directed by indie US film-maker Lance Hammer, absent since his 2008 Sundance winner, Ballast. This is an almighty comeback, a lacerating movie bearing comparison with Michael Haneke’s Amour or Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. It concludes with a heartbreakingly ironic and enigmatic final sequence refusing the traditional final cadence; a diptych of love, contrasting the pleasures and expectations of intimacy across the generations.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:29 pm

How to Make a Killing review – how to make a pointless remake

Kind Hearts and Coronets gets a slick, Glen Powell-led remix that’s stylishly made but entirely redundant

There’s solid, if soulless, on-paper thinking behind the existence of How to Make a Killing, decisions one can imagine getting some enthused whoops inside an LA conference room. We have IP (beloved Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets), a Black List script (originally titled Rothchild back in 2014), a man-of-the-moment lead (the ubiquitous Glen Powell), a woman-of-the-moment co-star (the equally ubiquitous Margaret Qualley), an of-the-moment trend (eat the rich), an indie company turned merch-able brand (A24) and a film-maker who recently broke out with a buzzed-about debut (Emily the Criminal’s John Patton Ford). If ChatGPT were to create an AI service for studio execs, this would be an obvious green light.

But when dragged into the real world, of discernment and taste, it’s a package that brings up a string of concerning questions. Can Powell pull off burgeoning murderous psychopath? Is it time to stop relying on the Black List as a taste test for quality? Has eat the rich fatigue set in? And, most importantly, why on earth would one try to remake a close-to-perfect classic?

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:03 pm

U2: Days of Ash review – six new tracks reaffirm the band as a vital political voice

(Island)
On their first collection of new songs since 2017, the quartet have a crispness that has been lacking in their 21st-century material, as they nimbly react to shocking news stories

• News: Bono lambasts ICE, Putin, Netanyahu and more as U2 release first collection of new songs since 2017

It’s nearly nine years since U2 released a collection of original material, 2017’s Songs of Experience. They’ve hardly been idle since: two tours, two films, a 40-date residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, nearly three hours of stripped-down re-recordings of old material on Songs of Surrender, plus Bono’s autobiography, which spawned a solo tour, a stint on Broadway and another film. An impressive workload by any standards.

Still, you could take the gap between original albums – the longest in U2’s history – as evidence of a problem that’s bedevilled the band for nearly 20 years: where do U2 fit into the current musical landscape?

Published: February 18, 2026, 5:00 pm

Trip to the Moon by John Yorke review – a storytelling handbook in dire need of an edit

A producer shares his tips for tight storylines, but they’re marred by verbal incontinence and hyperbole

Creative writing handbooks are almost an industry in themselves: the fledgling author, dramatist or screenwriter can choose from hundreds of titles, all offering to unlock the secrets of storytelling. These books are of limited utility for literary fiction, where plot is secondary, but if you’re writing for the screen or stage, or working on genre fiction, they can be helpful. Commercial, plot-driven storytelling is, this is an inherently formulaic business, and a working knowledge of narrative structure is a crucial foundation for an aspiring writer.

In his bestselling 2014 treatise on the mechanics of narrative, Into the Woods, John Yorke demonstrated the uncanny prevalence of five-act structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement) in many popular movies, plays and television dramas. He reprises this theme in his new book, which starts with a lengthy disquisition on plot architecture. The five-act framework, Yorke explains, is elegantly conducive to an emotionally compelling journey, with the protagonist typically undergoing a transformative revelation at the story’s mid-point. He illustrates this with reference to hit TV programmes such as I May Destroy You, and films including Star Wars and Terminator 2.

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:00 am

The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova review – a poetic exploration of Russian guilt

Written from exile after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this autofictional blend of memory and fable tracks a changing sense of self

M, a 50-year-old novelist living in an idyllic place by a lake, is travelling to a literary festival to give a talk. A sequence of events, mostly beyond her control, leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar town. It’s dead quiet, except for a travelling circus camped on the outskirts. M checks into a hotel, ignores her phone and wanders around, reminiscing about books read, films watched, museums visited. Some of these recollections are grounded in fable; others are vividly realistic. Among the latter are memories of her childhood and youth, spent in a “country that no longer exists apart from on old maps and in history books”.

M describes the country she comes from as a “beast” waging war against its neighbour. We can guess her meaning without turning to the author’s biographical note. Maria Stepanova – whose masterly In Memory of Memory combined family memoir, essay and fiction – left her native Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. We might also wonder how closely The Disappearing Act tracks her own life. But the novelist M is not here to discuss autofiction – she has more important things to reflect on.

Published: February 18, 2026, 9:00 am

On Morrison by Namwali Serpell review – a landmark appraisal of the great novelist’s work

Serpell leaves no stone unturned in her deep and enriching portrait of the Nobel laureate’s oeuvre

I have waited years for this book. But before I tell you what it is, I had better tell you what it is not. On Morrison is not a biography. Except for scattered references, there is little here about Chloe Anthony Wofford’s birth and early life in Lorain, Ohio; her education at Howard and Cornell universities; her editorial work at Random House; or her phenomenal success as a novelist. Nor is this book for fans who turn to Toni Morrison for inspirational quotes or to score political points.

Instead, On Morrison offers readers who can tell their Soaphead Church from their Schoolteacher something they have long hoped for: a rigorous appraisal of the work. Despite her enormous contribution to American letters, Morrison’s novels are still too often read for what they have to say about black life, rather than how they say it. Song of Solomon and Jazz are more likely to be found on African American studies syllabi than creative writing ones. In her introduction to On Morrison, Namwali Serpell identifies the reason: “She is difficult to read. She is difficult to teach.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:00 am

Mario Tennis Fever review – serving up banana peel-laced multiplayer chaos

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo
This ruthlessly competitive game will have everyone from your granny to semi-pros trying to set fire to their opponent’s side of the court with powered-up ‘fever rackets’

Tennis has been a regular hobby of Mario’s for the past 30 years, beginning with the headache-inducing Mario’s Tennis on the Virtual Boy and most recently resurfacing as the surprisingly complex Mario Tennis Aces on the Switch. Now he’s back in his whites (and reds) with a charming new take on the sport that dials back the difficulty level and adds lots of fun modes and features, aiming to appease complete newcomers and Djokovic-esque veterans.

At first, the range of options is almost bewildering. You can opt to play in one-off matches with up to three other players or NPCs, or enter a more structured tournament of singles or doubles play. Then there’s the extremely fun Mix It Up, which offers a range of fun tennis derivatives. These include Forest Court where piranha plants appear and gobble any balls that get close, and Pinball where bumpers and barriers pop up as you play. Trial Towers, meanwhile, presents a tower of increasingly tough tennis challenges which all have to be completed to open the next two buildings; fail more than three times and you’re sent back to the beginning – yes, it’s Mario Tennis: The Roguelike.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:00 am

​T​he ​Winter Olympics ​feel like a 90s ​snowboarding ​game​, and I’m here for it

Milano Cortina​ has cutting‑edge replays, chase‑cam drones and exuberant commentary ​bringing a wave of unexpected nostalgia for anyone who grew up on 90s extreme‑sports games

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As someone whose childhood holidays consisted of narrowboating along the Grand Union canal or wandering the harbour-side at Whitby looking for vampires, I have never been on a skiing break. The idea of plummeting down a hill on anything but a plastic sledge is totally alien to me. And yet, my wife and I have been gripped by the Winter Olympics, especially the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. And I think I know why. Those events are really channelling the look and feel of the wintery sports sims I’ve always loved – especially those that arrived during a golden period in the mid-1990s.

This was the era in which snowboarding was exploding in popularity, especially among twentysomethings with disposable incomes and no responsibilities – which coincidentally was the games industry’s target market at the time. Perhaps the first title to take advantage of this trend was Namco’s 1996 arcade game Alpine Surfer, which challenged players to stand on a snowboard-shaped controller and swoop as quickly as possible down a mountainside – it was one of the most physically exhausting coin-ops I ever played. Later that year came the self-consciously hip PlayStation sim Cool Boarders, and then in 1998, my absolute favourite, 1080° Snowboarding on the N64, with it’s intuitive analog controls and incredibly authentic sound effects of boards cutting through deep, crisp snow.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:40 pm

‘Bored by all the sex and violins’: readers on Wuthering Heights film

Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi

My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:03 pm

‘I don’t wish anyone to fall down a sewer. Except sometimes’: TikTok sensation and Oscar-nominated star of Weapons Amy Madigan

As her nightmarish turn as orange-wigged child-catcher Aunt Gladys takes her to Oscars night, the actor talks about surviving ‘brutal’ Hollywood, the fury that almost drove her from the US – and still being homeless after the wildfires

It’s a full-time gig being an Oscar nominee, what with the luncheons and fittings, the interviews and photocalls. It’s a wonder anyone ever gets any actual work done. “I’m tired,” says Amy Madigan, grinning crookedly on a video call. It’s noon in Los Angeles but the living room curtains behind her are shut tight. I worry she may have just pulled an all-nighter.

The last time Madigan was nominated was in 1985. She played Gene Hackman’s brittle daughter in a blue-collar drama called Twice in a Lifetime (the title now feels apt). Awards season, she points out, was shorter and sweeter back then. “Now it’s a big unruly beast. ‘We want to speak to Amy!’ I’ve been doing this since November. Do you not think people are sick of talking about us and seeing our faces? Haven’t you people seen enough?”

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:59 pm

‘His friendship changed my life’: 25 years of camaraderie with Robert Duvall

Film-maker Scott Cooper describes how his small role in a civil war drama starring Duvall led to a happy, lifelong friendship with the great actor, who died earlier this week

I first met Robert Duvall in a muddy field in Maryland in 2001, on the set of Gods and Generals. It was a Warner Bros civil war epic, the kind of production where the scale alone made you feel small. I was playing a low-ranking Confederate aide-de-camp to General Stonewall Jackson. I was young, unsure of myself, and painfully aware of exactly where I stood in the hierarchy of things.

That morning, they placed him on the horse.

Published: February 18, 2026, 2:32 pm

‘He couldn’t be happier’: celebrating William Eggleston’s incredible photography

A new exhibition brings together new dye-transfer prints of the classically American photographer’s work

As a small child, Winston Eggleston was only vaguely aware that his father, William Eggleston, was a famous photographer. For all he knew, other children also had parents who were friends with Dennis Hopper, or who spent hours tinkering on a piano between occasional, fevered photography sprees, or who had taken the world’s most iconic picture of a red ceiling.

“It’s all normal to you, because you don’t know anything different,” Winston recently recalled. “Looking back, I was lucky.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:03 am

Dry, tight, itchy? We asked three dermatologists for their winter skincare routines

The essential cleansers, moisturizers and serums that dermatologists use to stay hydrated in dry indoor air and the windy outdoors

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The word “moist” is one of the most reviled in the English language. Some researchers even found that up to 20% of people squirm at the sound of it. The New Yorker once voted it its readers’ “least favorite word.” People magazine once called it the “most cringe-worthy word” and even rounded up a passel of Sexiest Men Alive to try – and fail – to rehabilitate it.

According to our dermatologist experts, however, moist is one of the most important words, especially in winter. Dry, heated indoor air and the whipping winds outdoors tend to slurp all the moisture out of your skin. The result: chapped lips, ashy or itchy skin, rough hands and cracked feet.

For facial cleanser:
La Roche-Posay Toleriane Moisturizing Milky Facial Cleanser

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:15 pm

The brutal hunt for low-paid work: ‘It’s like The Hunger Games – but for a job folding clothes’

It used to be fairly easy to get work that paid at or around the minimum wage. But with a shrinking number of positions come ever more hoops to jump through, from personality tests, to trial shifts, to towers constructed of marshmallows

It is 10.30am, and Zahra is sitting in a business centre in Preston, attaching marshmallows to sticks of uncooked spaghetti. There are 30 interview candidates in the grey-carpeted room, split into groups of five, competing to build food towers. Already today they have had to solve anagrams, complete quizzes and rank the importance of various kitchen items. Just to be shortlisted for this two-hour interview round, Zahra had to write an online application consisting of 10 paragraphs about her work experience. As she builds her spaghetti and marshmallow tower, she thinks: “What am I actually doing here? This doesn’t relate to the job at all.”

The job in question is not what Zahra, 20, plans to do for ever. It is as a crew member for Wingstop, a chicken shop chain, with a salary of £10.80 an hour – 80p an hour above minimum wage for her age range. During the interview, she says, “a woman with a notepad was staring at us, and all the shift managers were watching. It was so awkward.” A week or so later, Zahra received a short rejection email. “It felt like a waste of time,” she says. “What a joke.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:00 am

Long Covid is still here. I know – my life came to a stop because of it

With more than 200 possible symptoms, long Covid isn’t easy to treat and diagnose. Rolled-back federal funding has led longhaulers to ask: is this all in my head?

I am 30ft below the surface of the Blue Grotto, a crystalline diving hole in central Florida. Between the water’s embrace and the restriction of my wetsuit, my blood pressure finally stabilizes. The long, deep breaths I pull from my respirator keep my heart rate nice and low.

I feel lighter than I have since April 2022, when I first contracted long Covid. I feel childlike at the fact that I can do this at all – get scuba certified – when on land I’m often confined to a wheelchair or a walker.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:00 pm

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: brighten the winter gloom with accessories that add personality

This is the season when dressing is dictated by logistics – safety first and function-led. But don’t let that put you off adding the odd flourish

My very first girlcrush is still my ultimate winter style icon. Miss Bianca, star of the 1977 film The Rescuers, is Disney’s most underrated princess. As the Hungarian delegate to the Rescue Aid Society, an international humanitarian organisation run by mice with a secret headquarters in the walls of the UN building in New York City, Miss Bianca travels the world rescuing children in peril, and never allows being a mouse to stop her either from feats of bravery – commanding meetings of international delegates, rescuing children from flooded caves – or from rocking a look. She has a nice line in shawl-collar trapeze-line coats (think mid-century Balenciaga), but her real style signature is her glamorous scarves and hats. In a violet pillbox hat with a matching scarf tied in a bow, or dashing shades of mustard, Bianca makes cosy winter dressing look delicious. She might be a mouse, but she is never, ever mousey.

A cartoon mouse is an unusual place to begin an article about winter accessories. It is also an unusual point from which to draw a line to a former first lady of the US, but while pairing a tiny animated rodent with Michelle Obama as co-style icons is a mismatch on paper, it is not so in spirit. At the 2009 inauguration, Obama wore a lemongrass coat and dress by Isabel Toledo, offset by olive-green leather gloves. Her daughters, Malia and Sasha, were chicly bundled in scarf-and-glove sets chosen to contrast with their coats. Their clothes were elegant, but it was the accessories that made the look memorable. The family looked comfortable, relatable, and quietly joyful: no small feat on a freezing day dense with symbolism and expectation.

Published: February 18, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I don’t want to micromanage my body’: how the adjustable waistband became a way to regain control

Given the average British woman may change dress size more than 30 times in adult life, flexibility is one route to feeling at home in a fluctuating body. But that’s not all it’s good for

I always think that the most stylish woman in a room is the one who looks the most comfortable. She might be nonchalant in a pair of wide trousers and a loose white shirt, or stroll in casually wearing the butter-soft leather loafers she’s had for years. It was a longing to be more like one of those women, as opposed to one who fell over regularly in public because I couldn’t balance in platforms, which made me give up wearing heels for good in 2012. So it was a natural progression, a decade later, to shunning another wardrobe constraint that was making me fidget in social situations: the waistband.

I’m about to turn 49 and in the past eight years I’ve been fluctuating between sizes 10 and 14, which is hardly surprising when you consider that the average British woman may change dress size a whopping 31 times in her adult life. I attribute my own yo-yo-ing partly to the hormonal changes that a body in its 40s inevitably goes through, but I should also acknowledge that during lockdown, I developed a taste for the elasticated tracksuit bottoms that working from home allowed, as well as a macaroni cheese, or two, each week.

Published: February 18, 2026, 8:00 am

‘A mission of mine’: during Ramadan, Sudanese food is a reminder of what is at stake in a time of war

The loss of sacred spaces during the period of observance and the ongoing conflict reminds us of the importance of cherishing food

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Today starts the first week of Ramadan, and I have the great pleasure of digging into The Sudanese Kitchen by Omer Al Tijani. The war in Sudan has been going on for almost three years now, and Ramadan is a month that arrives with heightened feelings for those fasting in the middle of conflict and displacement. The cookbook, a first-of-its-kind collection of Sudanese recipes, is both a celebration of Sudan and a reminder of all that is at stake.

Al Tijani first realised he needed to learn how to make his own Sudanese food while he was a student at the University of Manchester in the early 2010s. The packages of treats his mother prepared never lasted long enough; he grew sick of student food and began looking for recipes, but there were few resources. Over 15 years, his passion for tracing and documenting Sudanese recipes took him all over Sudan, and his work became, as he told me, “bound” in Sudan’s political story. He gathered recipes and food culture on the ground during the revolution that overthrew president Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s dictator of 30 years.

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:34 pm

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for chocolate and rosemary panna cotta | A kitchen in Rome

A decadent, velvety and chocolatey set cream dessert infused with aromatic rosemary

The pungent and lingering aromas of familiar kitchen herbs – oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, bay, lavender, mint – seem purposely made to donate their landmark volatiles to our everyday lives and food. In fact, their design is not for domestic calm and onion basket or fridge drawer neglect, but for uncultivated wilds. In particular the limestone terrain of the Mediterranean, where their defining smells are hardcore chemical defences, with every small, tough leaf or needle loaded with enough volatiles to deter both predators and competitors.

Rosemary is particularly kick-arse in this respect, with those volatiles (mostly organic compounds called terpenoids) synthesised and stored in minuscule glands that project from the surface of each dark green needle, which breaks when brushed against or bitten, releasing an intense, hot, bitter shot. It’s the evergreen equivalent of carrying personal defence spray. The needles also mark territory. By leaking their volatiles into the nearby soil, they inhibit the seeds of other plants (maybe even their own) from taking root and, in turn, taking space, water and precious minerals in a challenging environment.

Published: February 19, 2026, 6:00 am

A moment that changed me: my parents sold my childhood home – and my creeping panic came to an end

It felt scary not to have ‘home’ to go back to. But it was also the start of something new: an experiment in multigenerational living and building a house with zero experience

Weekend breakfasts have always been big in our house. Usually a cereal course followed by a full English. It’s the execution that makes it special for me – the colourful tablecloth, the mix of bread and toast (so you can fold over a slice of your choice to make a mini bacon sandwich), the teapot, the ginger biscuits you dunk into your tea for “afters”.

When I’d visit home in Yorkshire from London, where I lived for 20 years, I treasured these breakfast moments, sitting around the table with Mum and Dad and enjoying the well-oiled ritual in the suburban three-bed semi where I’d grown up.

Published: February 18, 2026, 6:45 am

‘I am somebody’: the cultural magnitude of Jesse Jackson’s Sesame Street episode

His 1972 appearance showed Americans what a beloved community could look like, integrated and full of promise

In a 1972 episode of Sesame Street, Jesse Jackson, then 31, is standing against a stoop on the soundstage modelled after an urban neighborhood block. He’s wearing a purple, white and black striped shirt, accented with a gold medallion featuring Martin Luther King Jr’s profile. The camera cuts to reveal a group of kids, the embodiment of Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition – children under the age of 10 from every ethnicity and racial group. He leads them in a call-and-response of his famous liberatory chant: “I am somebody.”

The adorable, cherub-cheeked kids light up the camera with their enthusiasm as they repeat the same words back to him. They are fidgety, giggly and powerful when they respond to Jackson in a cacophonous and slightly out-of-sync roar: I am somebody. The call-and-response is a wall of activating, energetic sound.

Published: February 18, 2026, 2:23 pm

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’

Business leaders tout AI as a path to shorter weeks and better balance. But without power, workers are unlikely to share the gains

The front-page headline in a recent Washington Post was breathless: “These companies say AI is key to their four-day workweeks.” The subhead was euphoric: “Some companies are giving workers back more time as artificial intelligence takes over more tasks.”

As the Post explained: “more companies may move toward a shortened workweek, several executives and researchers predict, as workers, especially those in younger generations, continue to push for better work-life balance.”

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:00 pm

Ramadan around the world – in pictures

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, featuring celebrations, prayers, pre-dawn breakfasts and post-sundown meals, began at sunrise in the Middle East and a day later in much of Asia. In the Muslim lunar calendar, months begin only when the new moon is sighted, which can lead to variations of a day or two

Published: February 19, 2026, 9:00 am