The five new gadgets I tried and loved at CES 2026 (that you can buy right now)

From smartglasses to nano phone chargers, these futuristic products from the Consumer Electronics Show are available right away

• I’m a digital nomad who works on the road. These seven travel gadgets go with me everywhere

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) gives us a glimpse of what’s around the corner in tech: creepy humanoid robots, robovacs that climb stairs, AI baked into everything.

Some of these products will never come to fruition. Some will arrive months later. And some – the rarities we picked out below – are available to order right now. I had a chance to try each one in person on the show floor in Las Vegas. So if you’re looking for a taste of the future today, here’s your fix.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:15 pm

Women are feral for Heated Rivalry. What does that say about men?

The explosive popularity of the gay hockey TV drama reveals women’s desire for sex and romance without violence or hierarchy

The first time gay hockey romance crossed Mary’s radar, she was warned off it. A 64-year-old non-profit executive from Toronto, Mary recalled mentioning the Canadian author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series to her son, a twentysomething queer writer and fellow hockey obsessive, a few years ago.

“I said: ‘Have you heard of these books?’ and he said: ‘Yeah.’ I said: ‘Should I read these books?’ And he said: ‘No. They’re not for you.’”

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Stephen Miller wants us to fear him | Arwa Mahdawi

Some of Trump’s aides refer to his deputy chief of staff as ‘the prime minister’, with many of the most shocking policies leading back to him. Worrying about his actions isn’t enough

If you want to understand what’s happening in the US right now, and what is likely to happen next, don’t just focus on Donald Trump. Rather, pay close attention to Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller. It’s increasingly clear that Miller, a man who has said that “America is for Americans and Americans only” and who is on a mission to “save the west” is the driving force behind the Trump administration’s most extreme policies. Per a recent Bloomberg profile, some of Trump’s aides even privately call Miller “the prime minister”.

Miller’s influence stretches across both foreign and domestic policy. Those masked immigration agents pulling people off the street, and occasionally shooting unarmed citizens in the face? You can trace their aggressive tactics back to Miller. The plot to get rid of birthright citizenship? Miller’s hands are all over it. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro? He helped plan it. The campaign to Maga-fy universities? Miller again! All right-leaning roads seem to lead back to Miller.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:59 pm

From 24 to Danger Mouse: it’s TV’s all-time top spies!

A spy with a superhumanly good bladder, a crime-fighting rodent who lives in a postbox, and piles of dodgy 80s wigs … we rate the best small-screen spooks. Who comes out on top?

With Tom Hiddleston up to his old racy tricks in The Night Manager – not to be confused with Netflix hit The Night Agent, which also returns in February – espionage thrillers are all over our TVs. Anyone would think we lived in unstable times with growing public distrust of governments.

So who is the all-time top small-screen spook? We’ve rated the Top 20. Just make sure you destroy this list after reading …

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:54 pm

Meet the merpeople: ‘Once I put the tail on, my life was changed forever’

Professional mermaids risk hypothermia, seasickness and the cling of skin-tight silicone, but the reward is becoming an ‘ocean ambassador’ – and a bit more colour in the world

Propelled by a shimmering silicon tail, Katrin Gray spins underwater, blowing kisses to the audience as her long, copper hair floats around her face. Her seemingly effortless movement is anything but – a professional mermaid’s free diving and performance skills require training, practice and total concentration.

Mermaiding has become a global cottage industry, with pageants, conventions, retreats and meet-ups, where people gather in “pods” to practise their dolphin kicks. Makers create bespoke tail flukes, bejewelled bras, mermaid hair and even prosthetic gills for professional and hobbyist “seasters”. There is even a Netflix reality series called MerPeople, which documents the occasionally perilous journey of several aspiring professional merfolk. “No dead mermaids” is the motto of one business featured.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

Can X be banned under UK law and what are the other options?

UK media regulator is investigating whether X has breached the Online Safety Act – what could happen next?

The UK government is threatening Elon Musk’s X with the nuclear option under the country’s online safety laws: a ban. The social media platform is under pressure from ministers after it allowed the Grok AI tool, which is integrated within the app, to generate indecent images of unsuspecting women and children.

The government has said it will support the media regulator Ofcom, which has launched an investigation into X, if it decides to push ahead with a ban. But is such a move likely?

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:39 am

Iran protests live updates: death toll passes 2,500 as Trump warns Tehran against executions

US president says ‘help is on its way’, as reported death toll rises into the thousands and concerns Tehran may carry out first protest-related execution, that of Erfan Soltani

• Trump promises ‘help is on its way’ and tells Iranians to ‘keep protesting’

• Hundreds of gunshot eye injuries found in one Iranian hospital amid brutal crackdown on protests

• Iran protests: what we know so far about the spiralling anti-government demonstrations

For the first time in days, Iranians were able to make calls abroad from their mobiles on Tuesday, according to reporting by Associated Press. Texting services have not been restored, however, and nor has the internet.

Although Iranians were able to call abroad, they could not receive calls from outside the country, several people in the capital told Associated Press. The internet remained blocked, they said, though it is possible to access some government-approved websites.

Cloudfare - an internet infrastructure provider, and one of several companies and monitors tracking the status of internet traffic in Iran – said traffic volumes have remained “at a fraction of a percent of previous levels”. Its latest update as of 01:00 UTC (which is about three hours and 30 minutes ago), shows a continued widespread blackout. Iran has been under an internet shutdown since Thursday night.

Brief windows of connectivity were observed on Friday, but these did not last, according to Cloudfare.

Netblocks, an independent global internet monitor, also notes that while some phone calls from Iran are connecting, there is “no secure way to communicate” and the general public remain cut off from the outside world.

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:58 am

Saks Global files for bankruptcy after takeover leads to financial collapse

Debt-riddled retail giant’s demise has cast uncertainty over the future of US luxury fashion

The high-end department store conglomerate Saks Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in one of the largest retail collapses since the pandemic, barely a year after a deal that brought Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus under the same roof.

The move cast uncertainty over the future of US luxury fashion, though the retailer said early on Wednesday its stores would remain open for now after it finalised a $1.75bn financing package and appointed a new CEO.

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:53 am

Trump gives heckler the middle finger during Michigan Ford plant visit

US president’s flustered response to shouts calling him a ‘pedophile protector’ was to issue rude hand gesture

Donald Trump gave someone the middle finger on Tuesday, reportedly responding to shouts admonishing him as a “pedophile protector” as he toured a Michigan Ford plant. The celebrity news and gossip site TMZ shared a short video featuring the US president’s flustered response to someone heckling off-screen, during which he appears to issue the hand gesture.

Trump spent Tuesday afternoon touring Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn before giving a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.

Published: January 14, 2026, 1:05 am

UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’

Groups say EEOC demand for names and personal details echoes dark history and threatens safety and civil rights

Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:12 pm

Eight arrested in Minneapolis as Trump officials issue threats to protesters

Federal agents use teargas against protesters as homeland security officials tell of ‘largest operation in DHS history’

Eight people were arrested outside a federal building in Minneapolis on Tuesday, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as the Trump administration doubled down on threats to protesters and city and state officials who might try to impede their mass deportation agenda.

Throughout the afternoon, crowds of people who gathered in protest against the continued presence and violent tactics of federal immigration officers in the city were hit with teargas, pepper balls and flash bangs. Demonstrators have amassed in the city and across the country after the Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good was killed by a federal immigration agent.

Published: January 14, 2026, 3:25 am

Claudette Colvin, US civil rights pioneer arrested for not giving up bus seat, dies aged 86

Colvin refused to give up seat to white woman in Alabama in 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks’ act of defiance

US civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin, arrested at age 15 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before Rosa Parks’ similar but more famous act of defiance, died on Tuesday at age 86.

Although she remained a largely unsung figure in the civil rights movement for decades, Colvin’s 1955 act of rebellion inspired Parks and others and helped form the basis for the federal lawsuit that outlawed racial segregation in US public transportation.

Published: January 14, 2026, 2:26 am

Royal Society president reignites Elon Musk row by defending lack of action

Society should only eject fellows for fraud or other defects in their research, says Paul Nurse

The president of the Royal Society has reignited a row over Elon Musk’s association with the body by arguing that fellows should only be ejected for fraud or other defects in their research.

In an interview with the Guardian, Paul Nurse defended the academy’s decision not to take action against Musk – who was elected a fellow in 2008 – despite claims the tech billionaire had violated its code of conduct, including by his role in slashing US research funding as part of the US “department of government efficiency”.

Published: January 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Human activity helped make 2025 third-hottest year on record, experts say

Data leads scientists to declare 2015 Paris agreement to keep global heating below 1.5C ‘dead in the water’

Last year was the third-hottest on record, scientists have said, with mounting fossil fuel pollution behind “exceptional” temperatures.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said 2025 had continued a three-year streak of “extraordinary global temperatures” during which surface air temperatures averaged 1.48C above preindustrial levels.

Published: January 14, 2026, 3:00 am

Cymbal of unity? South Korea and Japan leaders bash out K-pop hits after summit talks

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung had his work cut out, picking up his drumsticks alongside Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi, a former heavy metal drummer

If international diplomacy is as much about tone as substance, the leaders of South Korea and Japan seem to have nailed it.

In a scene few anticipated, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung and Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi spent the last moments of a crucial summit seated behind matching drum kits in matching blue uniforms as they bashed out hit song Golden from Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters and BTS’s Dynamite.

Published: January 14, 2026, 3:59 am

Trump news at a glance: president vows to help ‘Iranian Patriots’ in latest signal of military action against Tehran

Administration issues warning to US citizens: ‘Leave Iran now’ – key US politics stories from 13 January at a glance

Donald Trump has told Iranians to keep protesting and said help was on the way, in the clearest sign yet that the US president may be preparing for military action against Tehran.

“Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday. He added that he had cancelled all meetings with Iranian officials until the “senseless killing” of protesters stopped.

Published: January 14, 2026, 2:00 am

Federal prosecutors quit in protest over lack of investigation into ICE shooting

Six lawyers from US attorney’s office in Minnesota quit along with four leaders of DoJ’s civil rights division

A wave of federal prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington DC have resigned in protest over the justice department’s decision not to hold a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed US citizen by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis.

Six lawyers from the US attorney’s office in Minnesota quit on Tuesday over the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter of Renee Nicole Good, the New York Times reported.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:53 pm

Trump administration ends temporary protected status for Somalis in US

Critics condemn ‘bigoted attack’ as Trump bids to revoke citizenship of naturalized immigrants convicted of fraud

The Trump administration is terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Somalis living in the United States, giving hundreds of people two months to leave the country or face deportation.

The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said in a statement that conditions in the east African country had improved sufficiently and that Somalis no longer qualified for the designation under federal law.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:59 pm

Trump says Microsoft will pay more for its datacenters’ electricity

Microsoft’s president said firm won’t accept tax breaks in towns for its datacenters as backlash against facilities grow

Donald Trump said he is partnering with tech companies to ensure the large energy-hungry datacenters vital for AI do not drive up electricity bills in the US. On Tuesday, the US president announced that Microsoft was “first up”.

“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you, and congratulations to Microsoft.”

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:09 pm

‘The settlers brought the violence’: the ethnic cleansing of a West Bank village

Ras ‘Ein al ‘Auja is a small community of about 135 families – and the only one remaining in this part of the Jordan valley

Five decades in the south Jordan valley were ending in a day, and Mahmoud Eshaq struggled to hold back his tears. The 55-year-old had not cried since he was a boy, but as he dismantled the family home and prepared to flee the village where his whole life had played out, he was overwhelmed by grief.

While Eshaq’s children loaded mattresses, a fridge, sacks of flour and suitcases of clothes into a truck, masked soldiers escorted a teenage Israeli shepherd down the main village road, where he posed for photos on his donkey, flashing a V sign.

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:00 am

Justice for Jeyasre: how a brutal murder led to a better deal for garment workers in India

After a 21-year-old employee was raped and killed by her supervisor in 2021, campaigners ensured conditions at the factory were overhauled. But its order book never recovered

Ask the women working at Natchi Apparels in the historic city of Dindigul in Tamil Nadu and many will describe the turnaround in their working conditions in the garment factory over the past five years as extraordinary.

On 5 January 2021 the decomposing body of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 21-year-old Dalit woman who was an employee of Natchi, then an H&M Group supplier, was found on a strip of farmland a few miles from her village after she failed to return home following a shift on New Year’s Day.

Published: January 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Anti-regime protests in Iran and around the world – in pictures

Demonstrations have spread from the streets of Tehran to the rest of the country and Iranian diplomatic missions overseas. The deadly response of regime forces has left at least 2,500 people dead, according to estimates, with journalists and activists battling throughout a brutal crackdown and communications blackouts to get the story out

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

• Trump warns US will ‘take very strong action’ if Iran starts executing arrested protesters

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:33 am

‘They want to break us’: Russian energy grid strikes give freezing Kyiv some of its darkest days

Impact of raid on infrastructure rivals early weeks of war when tanks tried to force their way into Ukrainian capital

On the night of 9 January, amid warnings from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of massive and imminent Russian airstrikes, Tetiana Shkred began cooking for her children at midnight.

Concerned that the power was once again about to be knocked out in her apartment block on Kyiv’s left bank – the side of the city that has been most affected by Moscow’s attacks on energy infrastructure – she cooked until 3am, when her flat was plunged into freezing darkness.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:24 pm

‘I fell in love with him on the spot’: Alan Rickman remembered, 10 years after his death

On the anniversary of his death aged 69, stars from Sigourney Weaver to Sharleen Spiteri, Tom Felton to Harriet Walter, remember the wit, charm and endless generosity of one of Britain’s best-loved actors

Ruby Wax

Published: January 14, 2026, 5:00 am

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple review – Ralph Fiennes is phenomenal in best chapter yet of zombie horror

A murderous Clockwork-Orangey gang take on the zombies in this gruesome and energised fourquel. It’s the finest of the 28 franchise by a blood-curdling mile

It’s very rare for a fourquel to be the best film in a franchise, but that’s how things stand with the chequered 28 Days Later series. In this one, which follows immediately on from the previous episode, 28 Years Later, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell bring pure death-metal craziness. There is real energy and drama in this latest iteration of the post-apocalyptic zombie horror-thriller saga, created by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland back in 2003, with Nia DaCosta taking over directing duties for this film. Fiennes’s dance to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is basically one of the most extraordinary moments of his career. At the screening I attended, we were on our feet, looking for a speaker bin to headbang into. The band surely has to rerelease this track with Fiennes’s performance as a new official video. His Voldemort was never so freaky.

It is just so exhilarating to see this intergenerational face-off between such superb actors as Fiennes and O’Connell. That brings us to the point of my agnosticism about this whole franchise; Bone Temple is the best for an interesting reason – because the zombies are almost entirely irrelevant and are at a minimum. The always slightly dull business of zombieism is de-emphasised, and what counts is the conflict between sentient human beings. Even the one important zombie here is interesting because he is being transformed into something else.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:00 pm

Tired of the wellness industrial complex? Six rules to ditch – and what to do instead

Dr Ezekiel J Emanuel, a former Obamacare adviser, has deceptively simple advice for living a healthy life

Being healthy shouldn’t feel this complicated. Yet every week brings a new wellness fixation, from “fibermaxxing” to “zone 2 training”, creatine and cortisol-hacking.

Between prescriptive plans, complex science and often contradictory advice, it can seem like being healthy is a full-time job – or a hopeless cause.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 pm

Mark Ruffalo’s howl of frustration was the Golden Globes’ finest hour

The actor’s sober note of sanity on Sunday night was the latest courageous move from a man who seems more invested in activism than acting

At times like these, when the world teeters on the brink of several terrifying calamities at once, awards seasons can be something of a tightrope.

This weekend’s Golden Globe awards were a perfect case in point. The main criticism levelled at the ceremony so far seems to be that it didn’t adequately reflect the moment. It was all a bit 1920s Berlin, with a shimmering array of beautiful millionaires busy congratulating themselves, oblivious to the fear and exhaustion of the rest of the world.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:22 pm

Jon Stewart on the Minneapolis ICE shooting: ‘We are in a confusing, dark place’

Late-night hosts discussed national outrage over the killing of Renee Nicole Good as the Trump administration ramps up ICE operations in Minneapolis

Late-night hosts recapped a weekend of nationwide protests over the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer as Donald Trump made a social media post referring to himself as the “acting president” of Venezuela.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:30 pm

Europe must now tell Trump that enough is enough – and cut all ties with the US | Alexander Hurst

How do you retain a space of democracy in a world that is reverting to violent conquest? By building a protective moat of federalism around it

‘He keeps encouraging me … to choose between Europe and the US. That would be a strategic mistake for our country,” Keir Starmer said in response to Ed Davey’s question in the House of Commons last week, about whether a US move against Greenland would mean the end of Nato.

What about Europe, though? As Danish and Greenlandic ministers prepared to face JD Vance in the White House, the question was would Europe finally choose between Europe and the US? Will its leaders have the courage to tell the full truth – that the US isn’t simply abandoning its allies and destroying the international order but is now in the position of active and hostile predation by force – and more importantly, to act on it? To offer Denmark moral and material backing, and Greenland a future of self-determination and membership, rather than subservience to US resource plunder?

Donald Trump has already set the tone by saying the US will seize Greenland “one way or the other”, and no part of the triumvirate around him is trying to hide their imperial intentions any more. Not the nepotists and grifters amassing ever greater private fortunes. Not the white supremacist ideologues drawing inspiration from Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer! to post “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage”, via official US government social media accounts. Not the techno-nihilists salivating to mine every bit of Greenland’s mineral resources and rule their own neofeudal city states on its coast.

When Trump says that the only constraint on his exercise of power is “my own morality”, that means there is no constraint. Like Vladimir Putin, he will keep grabbing until someone imposes a limit on him.

Alexander Hurst writes for Guardian Europe from Paris. His memoir, Generation Desperation, is published this month

Published: January 14, 2026, 5:00 am

With thousands dead, the Iranian regime may survive these protests – but not in its current form | Sanam Vakil

With fear, surveillance and brute force only set to increase, there are disturbing parallels with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq

• Sanam Vakil is director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

Iran is once again convulsed by protests that are threatening the Islamic Republic’s stability and future. What began as demonstrations over a collapsing currency and rising inflation has rapidly evolved into one of the most destabilising episodes of unrest the regime has faced in years. The protests have exposed both the resilience of Iranian society and the growing brittleness of a political system stubbornly unwilling to reform.

It’s the scale, spread and momentum of the demonstrations that have been most alarming to the authorities. Protests have erupted across all provinces in the country, reaching more than 180 towns and cities, cutting across class, ethnic and regional lines. This time, the turn to openly anti-regime slogans has been rapid and widespread. Protesters are no longer demanding relief from within the system. They are rejecting it outright, directly challenging the authority of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei – and the wider establishment.

Sanam Vakil is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:00 pm

2026 is already pure chaos. Is that Trump’s electoral strategy? | Moustafa Bayoumi

Less than two weeks into the year, the US is stoking mayhem at home and abroad – with midterms coming in the autumn

Have we ever seen a year in recent memory begin with as much deliberate turmoil as 2026 has? Less than two weeks into 2026, we have witnessed Donald Trump deploy US forces to depose and abduct the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, along with Cilia Flores, his wife and close political adviser. The US president then informed the world that the United States would “run” Venezuela for the time being, which he later explained could potentially last for several years.

Trump has also threatened – and then seemingly made peace with – the president of Colombia; seized at least five oil tankers in the Caribbean (actions that UN experts label illegal armed aggression); promised US military strikes targeting cartels in Mexico against the wishes of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum; and frightened the people of Cuba with the prospect that Marco Rubio could be their next president.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Drugs and gangs exist in Venezuela, but don’t be fooled. Trump arrested Nicolás Maduro to plunder our wealth | Andrés Antillano

The US president invokes the usual suspects – drugs, organised crime, illegal migration – but this is simply a grab for resources and power

In the early hours of 3 January, Caracas and other cities in Venezuela were bombed and the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, was kidnapped along with his wife by US military personnel. In addition to the 100 deaths recorded so far as a result of the attack, approximately 100 more were caused by US attacks on small boats in the previous months, under the pretext of combatting drug trafficking. Although it seems clear that the real intention of Donald Trump’s administration was to seize Venezuela’s wealth, the initial argument to justify the military deployment in the Caribbean was that it was to fight the illegal drugs trade and stop the flow of migrants that the Venezuelan government was allegedly causing by emptying prisons of criminals and sending them to the US.

As a criminology professor who has studied Venezuelan drug trafficking for 20 years, I find this far-fetched. To understand this, we have to consider Venezuela’s historical role in drug trafficking. As a typical Andean country neighbouring the world’s main coca producers, Venezuela has always played a significant role as a cocaine corridor. Since the turn of the century, its involvement in international drug trafficking has increased significantly as a result of growing European demand for cocaine, the effects of 2000’s Plan Colombia, which displaced illegal operations to border regions and neighbouring countries, and the breakdown of technical cooperation with Washington.

Andrés Antillano is a social psychologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:04 pm

My new year resolution comes late but it can't be more important | Ranjana Srivastava

At the funeral of a family friend, the intensity of my sorrow surprises me. I think it’s because he made me feel seen

On the last day of 2025, an old friend and I lament that the usual resolutions like exercise more, work smarter and be a better parent are beginning to sound tired. After all, in this second phase of our lives, if we haven’t found a way forward it might pay to examine the goals rather than their pursuit.

For entertainment, I tell her that a US news network had called me that morning to schedule an “urgent” interview. I’d moved things around only to have the producer cancel without explanation. I didn’t mind the cancellation but hated the possibility that my patients could have been inconvenienced.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

I am moving house – and being a lifelong hoarder has finally caught up with me | Zoe Williams

As I pack up for pastures new, I’m wondering why I still can’t tell the difference between a knick-knack and a mess

I’m trying to move house; so are more than one pair of friends. We spend a lot of time trying to get on the insurance for each others’ cars, because some can fit a sideboard, and others can’t fit a handbag. We swap recommendations for things like secondhand book exchangers, and avoid talking about fond memories of the home about to be departed, concentrating on all the brilliant things there are to be said about new pastures. The main thing we don’t talk about is that none of us know how to do anything and that all of us are hoarders.

There’s a reason not to know the big stuff – how to paint a skirting board, how to mend a bannister spindle – never doing a thing without landing in a place of pure ignorance. Probably if any of us were 25, we’d be no worse at painting than any other 25-year-old.

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Iran’s protesters need our support – not another western-intervention disaster | Owen Jones

Previous meddling has damaged the region, and once again the the US and Israel don’t have Iranians’ best interests at heart

What does it take to shake illusions in western intervention? This is not a question designed to deflect from the barbarism being unleashed by Iran’s theocratic regime. Because it severed the country’s internet connection, facts are difficult to establish, but the respected Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 544 have been killed and well over 10,000 arrested – those numbers are probably significant underestimates.

Here is a regime that consolidated its power in the 1980s by butchering leftists – helped, it should be noted, by both MI6 and the CIA, who supplied them with lists of alleged Soviet agents. Today, trade union activists are arrested and tortured, while women’s activists languish in jails. The economic disaster resulting from sanctions may have helped spark these latest protests, but millions of Iranians are fed up with living under fundamentalist rule – underlined by surveys confirming growing religious non-observance and opposition to the compulsory hijab.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 am

The Guardian view on Trump’s assault on the Fed: it is part of an affordability blame game | Editorial

Attacking Jerome Powell distracts from Republicans’ thin legislative record and policies that continue to squeeze American household incomes

The US government’s authoritarian and vexatious attack on Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, should be seen in the light of America’s affordability crisis, which Donald Trump once dismissed, but is now scrambling to claim as his cause. The cost of living is eroding his support ahead of the congressional midterms. By launching a legal assault on the Fed, Mr Trump is trying to shift blame for borrowing costs.

Yet despite controlling the presidency, Senate and the House, Republicans have passed little beyond a large tax-cutting bill that benefits the rich. They have not legislated on housing supply, childcare, healthcare costs or wages. Indeed most of their actions are worsening affordability, notably deferring action even though millions face a sharp rise in their health insurance bills. Mr Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for credit card caps and housing interventions is pure opportunism.

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: January 13, 2026, 6:34 pm

Pittsburgh Steelers part ways with head coach Mike Tomlin after 19 seasons

• Tomlin never recorded losing season with team

• Steelers had endured long run of playoff losses

Head coach Mike Tomlin is leaving the Pittsburgh Steelers after 19 seasons, the team confirmed on Tuesday.

“Obviously, I am extremely grateful to Mike for all the hard work, dedication and success we have shared over the last 19 years. It is hard for me to put into words the level of respect and appreciation I have for Coach Tomlin,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “He guided the franchise to our sixth Super Bowl championship and made the playoffs 13 times during his tenure, including winning the AFC North eight times in his career.”

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:29 pm

Semenyo and Cherki give Manchester City edge over Newcastle after VAR storm

Eddie Howe was not exactly overjoyed to learn that, rather than being cup-tied, Antoine Semenyo was free to play for Manchester City here.

Sure enough the Newcastle manager’s worst fears were realised as the winger – who played in the competition this season for Bournemouth – scored City’s opener and had another “goal” disallowed before Rayan Cherki’s stoppage-time second put the smile back on Pep Guardiola’s face.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:14 pm

Shiffrin extends slalom stranglehold as Moltzan seals US one-two in Flachau

• Shiffrin wins sixth slalom of season at Flachau

• Moltzan finishes second in American one-two

• Shiffrin nears slalom crystal globe before Olympics

Mikaela Shiffrin completed another dominant night in Flachau, Austria, on Tuesday, winning a World Cup slalom to extend her season-long stranglehold on the discipline while leading an American one-two finish with teammate Paula Moltzan.

Shiffrin followed up her fastest opening run with a composed second run to finish 0.41sec clear of Moltzan, claiming her sixth victory in seven slalom races this season. It was also Shiffrin’s record-extending 107th career World Cup win, her 70th in slalom and her sixth slalom victory on the demanding Flachau course.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:59 pm

Xabi Alonso failed to control Real Madrid’s egos in brief and bitter reign

Hired as a systems coach, the manager was undermined at a club where players – and Florentino Pérez – call the shots

Pep Guardiola sat in the press room at the Santiago Bernabéu and told Xabi Alonso to do it his way but around here, he knows, it tends not to work out like that, which is precisely why he said so. Saying it is one thing, doing it another, doing it successfully something else entirely and a month and day after being offered that advice, handed that defence, Alonso was gone. On Monday afternoon, not long after landing from Saudi Arabia, a meeting was held at Valdebebas and then came the statement, short and unsentimental. He was a “legend” as a player, but no longer coach at Real Madrid.

Alonso is the 11th manager to last less than a year in two decades under the president, Florentino Pérez. He had begun work only seven months before, and that was earlier than he intended. It had started with the Club World Cup in the US, his first big decision to accept the demand to take over sooner than he wanted, and it ended with the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah, where it was an open secret that final judgment awaited. For a month it had been impossible to avoid the feeling of a manager on borrowed time, especially for the manager himself, exposed and undermined, and you cannot go on like that. There will be hurt pride, regret, but release too.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:27 pm

The hidden hierarchy of tennis practice courts: ‘I was back in the park, smelling the weed’

The unwritten rule in professional tournaments? Do not hog the practice court. But as leading players testify – the reality is very different

On a cool Wednesday afternoon before the US Open last year, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev were busy fine-tuning their games in an intense practice set at Louis Armstrong Stadium. Danielle Collins and Christian Harrison, semi-finalists in the mixed doubles tournament, were scheduled to take their place at the hour and the American pair duly arrived a couple of minutes before their allotted slot.

An amusing scene soon unfolded. Medvedev and Zverev were clearly desperate to continue playing for a little longer, but their court time had run out. The pair began to sheepishly deliberate over whether to attempt to play another game, even lining up on the baseline again, and they still occupied the court past the hour. Finally, they admitted defeat, allowing Collins and Harrison, who had been standing quietly on the sidelines, to begin.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 pm

Emma Raducanu recovers in Hobart to post first win in over three months

• Briton wins tight encounter with Camila Osorio 6-3, 7-6

• Match with Colombian was delayed overnight by rain

Emma Raducanu offered an impressive demonstration of her resilience at the Hobart International as she rallied from an overnight second-set deficit in her rain-delayed first-round match to defeat Camila Osorio of Colombia 6-3, 7-6 (2).

The victory marks Raducanu’s first win since September after struggling with a foot injury in the final weeks of the 2025 season. She had contested just one match this season after being sidelined for much of the off-season, losing in three sets to Maria Sakkari in the United Cup. Considering those recent challenges, this is a positive start for Raducanu, who will next face Magdalena Frech, the WTA No 57.

Published: January 14, 2026, 4:50 am

Jim Hartung, Olympic champion with historic 1984 US gymnastics team, dies aged 65

• Olympic champion on historic 1984 US team

• Nebraska legend with seven NCAA titles

• Longtime coach and international judge

Jim Hartung, a two-time Olympian who helped lead the 1984 US team to its first and only gold medal in men’s gymnastics, has died. He was 65.

The University of Nebraska announced Hartung died Saturday night. He had been a Cornhuskers assistant coach for 19 years. No cause of death was given.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:34 pm

40 years on, did Proposition 48 protect US college sports – or punish Black athletes?

When the NCAA tied eligibility to standardized test scores in 1986, hundreds of recruits were barred from competition. But its legacy is still a subject of debate

Tony Rice noticed the looks and smirks during his first week of freshman classes in the fall of 1986 at Notre Dame.

He had accepted his fate a few months earlier when standardized test results led to the decision that he would not be eligible to participate in collegiate sports his freshman year. But nothing prepared him for this.

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Watching James Bond play my great uncle Brendan in Giant was surreal and spooky | Sean Ingle

Biopic charting Naseem Hamed’s rise has reopened old wounds but is also a reminder of what was and what might have been

The first time I watched Prince Naseem Hamed train, my jaw couldn’t have dropped any faster if he had hit me with one of his lassoing uppercuts. I had followed all his fights on TV, of course. But to see him in the flesh in September 1994, a year before he became world champion, was an altogether more visceral and mesmeric experience.

Hamed’s punches sounded like firecrackers welcoming in the new year as they smashed into the pads. He was almost impossible to hit. And, most staggering of all, despite standing 5ft 4in tall and weighing only nine stone, he would bully far bigger men in sparring – including fighters such as John Keeton, who went on to become the British cruiserweight champion – until my great uncle, Brendan Ingle, called time.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 am

US supreme court appears poised to uphold laws banning trans athletes

A ruling against two athletes in West Virginia and Idaho could have far-reaching implications for civil rights

The US supreme court on Tuesday appeared poised to uphold laws banning transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in two conservative states, in a landmark legal battle that could carry profound implications for trans rights across US society.

During oral arguments on two cases of trans students who sued over Republican-supported laws in West Virginia and Idaho that barred them from girls sports, one member of the court’s conservative majority after another voiced skepticism about the students’ cases.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:51 pm

Musk’s AI tool Grok will be integrated into Pentagon networks, Hegseth says

Defense secretary says AI tool will join military systems later this month as it comes under fire for sexual imagery

Pete Hegseth announced on Monday that the US military will begin integrating Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok, into Pentagon networks.

Speaking at the SpaceX headquarters in Texas on Monday evening, the US defense secretary said that the integration of Grok into military systems would go live later this month. “Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” Hegseth said.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:13 pm

Kiefer Sutherland arrested for allegedly assaulting ride-share driver

The 24 actor was taken into custody after officers responded to a call in Hollywood shortly after midnight

Kiefer Sutherland, who starred in the television series 24 and vampire flick The Lost Boys, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of assaulting a ride-share driver, according to Los Angeles police.

The Canadian-British actor was taken into custody after officers responded to a call in Hollywood shortly after midnight.

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:22 am

Bill and Hillary Clinton refuse to testify in House Epstein investigation

James Comer said he would move to hold former US president in contempt for not appearing for testimony

Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their relationships to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, while launching an extraordinary attack on Republicans and Donald Trump.

The Republican-led House oversight committee in August subpoenaed the former president and first lady after its chair, James Comer, announced the panel would review the government’s handling of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by what was determined to be suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:48 pm

Greenland and Denmark unite against US advances before White House talks

Island’s PM tells media event with Danish counterpart ‘we choose Denmark’ and will not be owned or governed by US

Greenland’s prime minister has said “we choose Denmark” before high-stakes talks at the White House as Donald Trump seeks to take control of the Arctic territory.

Amid rising tensions over the US president’s push, Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Tuesday told a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:19 pm

Winter storms kill five in Gaza amid desperate conditions in makeshift camps

At least four displaced Palestinians killed when strong winds caused walls to collapse onto their tents and a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia

Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, as dangerous living conditions persist after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls.

A ceasefire has been in effect since October, but aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Published: January 14, 2026, 1:41 am

Crypto coin firm touted by Eric Adams denies allegations of ‘rug pull’ scam

NYC Token, which hit market on Monday, surged to $580m and then rapidly plummeted as firm denies wrongdoing

The cryptocurrency launched by New York City’s former mayor Eric Adams is already in hot water, and now the company behind it is being forced to defend itself from accusations that it scammed people.

Investors and cryptocurrency watchers say the asset, dubbed NYC Token, surged to about $580m shortly after it hit the market on Monday and then rapidly plummeted in value. Observers speculated that someone behind the scene may have carried out what’s known in the crypto world as a “rug pull” – when the creators of the asset quickly sell their investments.

Published: January 14, 2026, 1:18 am

Scott Adams, Dilbert creator and conservative commentator, dies aged 68

Cartoonist – who was dropped from US papers in 2023 after calling Black people a ‘hate group’ – had prostate cancer

Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the satirical comic strip Dilbert and conservative commentator, has died aged 68 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

On Tuesday, Adams’s ex-wife Shelly Miles revealed his death in a tearful livestream of his YouTube channel Real Coffee with Scott Adams.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:29 pm

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body

Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’

High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns “a bombshell”.

Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:20 pm

Mapped: how the world is losing its forests to wildfires

Wildfires now destroy twice as much tree cover per year as two decades ago – a crisis fuelled by climate change

The world is losing forests to fire at an unsustainable rate, experts have warned.

Wildfires have always been part of nature’s cycle, but in recent decades their scale, frequency and intensity in carbon-rich forests have surged.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

US carbon pollution rose in 2025 in reversal of previous years’ reductions

Study from research firm finds that US greenhouse gas emissions grew faster than economic activity last year

In a reversal from previous years’ pollution reductions, the United States spewed 2.4% more heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels in 2025 than in the year before, researchers calculated in a study released on Tuesday.

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of datacenters and cryptocurrency mining, and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by Donald Trump’s administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said. Heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the major cause of worsening global warming, scientists say.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:09 pm

Red-state Republicans seek climate ‘liability shield’ for fossil fuel industry

If enacted, Utah and Oklahoma measures would restrict litigation against oil companies over role in climate crisis

US lawmakers in two red states are attempting to shield the fossil fuel industry from climate liability.

In Oklahoma, a newly introduced bill would bar most civil lawsuits against oil companies over their role in the climate crisis, unless plaintiffs allege violations of specific environmental or labor laws. A similar proposal in Utah would block lawsuits over climate-warming emissions, unless a court finds the defendant violated a statute or permit.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Actor Timothy Busfield surrenders to face child sexual abuse charges in New Mexico

Actor denies allegations of abuse centering on two preteen boys in video statement: ‘I’m going to confront these lies’

The actor and director Timothy Busfield surrendered on Tuesday to New Mexico authorities, four days after they obtained a warrant to arrest him on child sexual abuse allegations, according to officials.

The Albuquerque police department spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos confirmed Busfield turned himself over to officers after it was widely reported that the agency was working with US marshals to search for the Emmy winner.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:13 pm

US aircraft that attacked suspected drug boat reportedly disguised as civilian plane

Experts say obscuring plane’s military identity would constitute a war crime

The US aircraft that carried out the first airstrike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean was reportedly disguised as a civilian plane – a possible war crime.

The New York Times reported that the aircraft had been painted to obscure its military identity, and its munitions were hidden inside its fuselage rather than visible under its wings.

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:56 pm

California county accused of profiling Asian Americans agrees to police reforms

Agreement in Siskiyou county comes after lawsuit from Hmong residents alleging harassment by law enforcement

A northern California county accused of pervasive and systematic racial discrimination against Asian Americans has agreed to policing reforms and independent oversight.

Siskiyou, a sprawling rural county in the state’s far north, has for years been the site of conflict over water rights, marijuana and policing practices.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:00 pm

Judge blocks White House bid to revoke whistleblower lawyer’s security clearance

Mark Zaid, a national security attorney, regains access to classified material after accusing White House of retaliation

After the Donald Trump administration revoked his security clearance in March, attorney Mark Zaid reported learning on Monday that the memorandum revoking his clearance is “no longer in effect” – and that his “access to classified info is restored”.

The development comes after Zaid sued the president’s administration in May over the revocation of his security clearance.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:41 pm

At least 22 killed as crane collapses on train in Thailand

Crane was working on a high-speed rail project when it collapsed and hit the passing train, causing it to derail and briefly catch fire

At least 22 people in Thailand have been killed and scores injured after a crane collapsed onto a passenger train, derailing it on Wednesday, officials said.

Footage from the scene verified by Agence France-Presse showed the crane’s broken structure resting on giant concrete pillars, with smoke rising from the wreckage of the train below.

Published: January 14, 2026, 6:24 am

Trump may have to disclose details about assets as part of BBC lawsuit

US president is suing for defamation over documentary that joined two parts of speech he made on 6 January 2021

President Trump is expected to come under pressure to make rare disclosures about his properties and business interests as part of his $10bn lawsuit against the BBC, the Guardian understands.

Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary that spliced together two parts of the president’s address to a rally on 6 January 2021. The BBC has already apologised and said the edit was misleading, but has denied it defamed Trump.

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:00 pm

UK announces ‘full and further sanctions’ amid Iran killings and arrests

Sanctions to target finance, energy, transport, software and other significant industries, Yvette Cooper tells MPs

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

The UK has announced “full and further sanctions” against Iran amid widespread protests that have resulted in hundreds of deaths and arrests.

The sanctions will target finance, energy, transport, software and other significant industries, Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, told MPs.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:45 pm

South Korean prosecutors demand death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol

Yoon is on trial for insurrection charges, after trying to declare martial law in late 2024

South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, in the first insurrection trial of a Korean head of state in three decades.

Prosecutors characterised the case as the “serious destruction of constitutional order by anti-state forces”, telling Seoul central district court that Yoon had “directly and fundamentally infringed upon the safety of the state and the survival and freedom of the people”.

Published: January 14, 2026, 12:43 am

‘We’re a hot button topic’: is intimacy coordinator the most misunderstood job in film-making?

Specialists in choreographing sex scenes have come under fire from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Mikey Madison – is there any weight to their complaints?

When intimacy coordinator Adelaide Waldrop gets asked about her job at parties, she contemplates lying. “I’ve considered saying I’m an accountant,” she says. When she reveals the truth, the response is almost always seedy. There are questions about erections, merkins, and inappropriate celebrities. “Or it’s a lot of, ‘Oh we could use one of you at home with me and the missus’, and questions about my sex life,” Waldrop adds. “We’re a hot button topic.”

Lately, the heat has been on high. To some, intimacy coordinators are an auspicious part of a post-#MeToo industry, one that protects cast and crew while providing crucial creative input – Michelle Williams, Alexander Skarsgård, and Emma Stone are among those to have gushed about their experiences. To others, they’re the sex police, impeding artistry for the sake of avoiding an HR headache. Mikey Madison didn’t want an intimacy coordinator for her Oscar-winning sex worker film Anora. Gwyneth Paltrow asked hers to “step back a little bit” while making Marty Supreme. Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t even remember if she had one while filming Die My Love (she did), but said it wouldn’t have been necessary because her co-star, Robert Pattinson, “is not pervy”.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Joseph Beuys review – the grotesque bathtub containing all the horrors of modern history

Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London
There’s no escape from the torments of the past in this show, which celebrates the German artist at his most Wagnerian, enchanting and sickening you simultaneously

Born in 1921, Joseph Beuys was the “perfect” age to fight for Hitler and he did, with the wounds to prove it. The Andy Warhol portraits that complement this exhibition, without actually being part of it, brutally catch his gaunt, ravaged face in the glare of a photo flash under the hat he wore to hide burns sustained in a plane crash while serving in the Luftwaffe. The most haunting portrait turns Beuys into a spectral negative image, all darkness and shadow, his eyes wounded, guilty, lost. This was in the 1970s when Beuys was a charismatic one-man artistic revolution, inspiring young Germans to plant trees, lecturing about flows of ecological and human energy – and, in breathtaking performances, speaking to a dead hare or spending a week locked in a cage with a coyote.

All that remains today of those actions, protests and performances are posters, preserved scrawls on blackboards and mesmerising videos. Yet the moment Beuys disappeared – he died in 1986 – his solid, material sculptures took over. He believed passionately in flow and flux, promoting an animist vision of humanity and the cosmos. When he stopped talking and acting, entropy gripped his art, making it a static, slumped set of dead objects. And all the greater for it.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:00 pm

Sex giggles! Nail clippings on the sofa! The new TV romance so realistic it’s close to perfect

Fans of Normal People and One Day will adore The New Years, which follows a relatable on-off couple in Madrid. It is the best relationship drama you haven’t seen yet

It is rare to watch a fictional romance and feel genuinely invested in the question of will-they-won’t-they – and even rarer for it to reflect familiar relationship turbulence. Many love stories on TV skip straight to wish-fulfilment, delivering instant chemistry, no challenges that can’t be overcome within the runtime and glib reassurance that Love Conquers All.

Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, for instance – based on a real couple, and ostensibly exploring whether a relationship can survive differences of faith – didn’t wait to resolve that question before bringing its leads together. In real life, promising connections fall at much lower hurdles, for such banal reasons as incompatible schedules.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:59 pm

The Knife review – audaciously taut film about police encounter is intense drama of mutual suspicion

A crime committed in the home of a regular black American family results in paranoia on all sides in this 81-minute film from Nnamdi Asomugha

Here is a compact drama that twists itself like a tourniquet over 81 minutes, as a bad situation turns into a catastrophe for an ordinary American family.

Late one night in an unnamed city, construction worker Chris (Nnamdi Asomugha, also the film’s director and co-writer) finishes a DIY project in his own home and sinks a beer or two. He takes a couple of pills before checking on his two young daughters Kendra (Amari Alexis Price) and Ryley (Aiden Gabrielle Price), who have been sneakily pretending to be asleep. Then he gets into bed with wife Alex (Aja Naomi King) for a chat and a soon-abandoned attempt to have exhausted marital sex while their infant baby sleeps next door.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:00 am

State of Statelessness review – Dalai Lama presides over intimate dramas about Tibetans’ life of exile

Tibetan directors, who all live outside Tibet, deliver a quartet of films that explore the pain of separation and migration

The wrench of exile is the theme of this quartet of short films from Tibetan directors, who themselves all live outside Tibet. Their intimate, emotional family dramas tell stories of separation and migration. In two of them, the 90-year-old Dalai Lama smiles out from photographs on shrines, a reminder of the precariousness of Tibet’s future. As a character in one of the films puts it bluntly: will there be anything to stop China erasing Tibetan identity when its rock-star spiritual leader is no longer around?

In the first film a Tibetan man lives in a kind of complicated happiness in Vietnam. He loves his wife, and they both adore their sunny-natured little daughter, but he has mournful eyes. Home is a town on the banks of the Mekong River, which has its source in Tibet. The river is a constant reminder of the region – and of Chinese might too, since Chinese hydropower dams are the cause of drought downstream in Vietnam.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:00 am

Love Machines by James Muldoon review – inside the uncanny world of AI relationships

A sociologist talks to the people putting their faith – and their hearts – in the hands of robots

If much of the discussion of AI risk conjures doomsday scenarios of hyper-intelligent bots brandishing nuclear codes, perhaps we should be thinking closer to home. In his urgent, humane book, sociologist James Muldoon urges us to pay more attention to our deepening emotional entanglements with AI, and how profit-hungry tech companies might exploit them. A research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute who has previously written about the exploited workers whose labour makes AI possible, Muldoon now takes us into the uncanny terrain of human-AI relationships, meeting the people for whom chatbots aren’t merely assistants, but friends, romantic partners, therapists, even avatars of the dead.

To some, the idea of falling in love with an AI chatbot, or confiding your deepest secrets to one, might seem mystifying and more than a little creepy. But Muldoon refuses to belittle those seeking intimacy in “synthetic personas”.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:00 am

BTS announces return with new world tour in 2026 and 2027

K-pop band to start tour in April after nearly four-year hiatus due to all seven members needing to complete South Korea’s mandatory military service

The BTS comeback is upon us: the K-pop septet has announced a 2026-2027 world tour, kicking off in South Korea in April and running through to March 2027 with more than 70 dates across Asia, North America, South America, Australia and Europe.

The tour marks the group’s first headline performances since their 2021–22 Permission to Dance on Stage tour.

9 April and 11-12 April – Goyang, South Korea

17-18 April – Tokyo

25-26 April – Tampa, Florida

2-3 May – El Paso, Texas

7 May and 9-10 May – Mexico City

16-17 May – Stanford, California

23-24 and 27 May – Las Vegas

12-13 June – Busan, South Korea

26-27 June – Madrid

1-2 July – Brussels

6-7 July – London

11-12 July – Munich

17-18 July – Paris

1-2 Aug – East Rutherford, New Jersey

5-6 Aug – Foxborough, Massachusetts

10-11 Aug – Baltimore

15-16 Aug – Arlington, Texas

22-23 Aug – Toronto

27-28 Aug – Chicago

1-2 Sept and 5-6 Sept – Los Angeles

2-3 Oct – Bogotá, Colombia

9-10 Oct – Lima, Peru

16-17 Oct – Santiago, Chile

23-24 Oct – Buenos Aires, Argentina

28 Oct and 30-31 Oct – São Paulo

19 Nov and 21-22 Nov – Kaohsiung, Taiwan

3 Dec and 5-6 Dec – Bangkok

12-13 Dec – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

17 Dec, 19-20 Dec and 22 Dec – Singapore

26-27 Dec – Jakarta

12-13 Feb – Melbourne, Australia

20-21 Feb – Sydney

4 March and 6-7 March – Hong Kong

13-14 March – Manila, Philippines

Published: January 14, 2026, 12:40 am

‘A very tough moment’: how Trump has put museums in jeopardy

A study has shown the devastating impact of arts funding cuts on institutions across America and many within the industry are concerned for what’s next

From Times Square to the Washington Monument, America saw in the new year with a bigger bang than usual, celebrating the fact that 2026 marks the nation’s 250th birthday. Yet as the US looks back, precious repositories of the nation’s history are facing an uncertain future.

Museum attendances are down. Budgets are precarious. Cuts in federal funding are taking their toll. And Donald Trump’s culture wars are spreading fear, intimidation and self-censorship among some directors and donors.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:12 pm

Zoe Saldaña becomes highest-grossing actor of all time

Star overtook Scarlett Johansson after success of third Avatar – her films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide

Zoe Saldaña has become the highest-grossing actor of all time.

The 47-year-old Oscar winner has overtaken Scarlett Johansson after the success of Avatar: Fire and Ash added more than $1.2bn to her total. Saldaña’s films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide, according to the Numbers.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:27 pm

‘Uncomfortably relatable’: writers on their favourite unlikable movie characters

With debate still swirling over the unlikable nature of Marty Supreme’s careless protagonist, Guardian writers have picked their all-time love-to-hate leads

Spoilers ahead

I can remember seeing As Good As It Gets in the theater as a teenager and being pleasantly startled by the sight of Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall, romcom super-grouch. Here’s a bestselling romance author who disdains love, an OCD sufferer who weaponizes his affliction, a New Yorker who hates crowds (who can’t relate?). In one scene, an adoring fan asks Melvin his secret to writing women. “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability,” he says, an epic burn forever seared in my brain. Of course Melvin’s anti-charm offensive only goes so far in a James L Brooks project. Before long, the rudeness erodes as Melvin is forced on to a journey of self-discovery with the nextdoor neighbor he can’t abide (Greg Kinnear) and the diner waitress he can’t live without (Helen Hunt). Melvin comes out a changed man in the end, but retains the essence of his super-grouch-dom. That was the moment I fell in love with the writer’s life. Andrew Lawrence

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:01 am

An icy swim and luscious lupins– readers’ best photographs

Click here to submit a picture for publication in these online galleries and/or on the Guardian letters page

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:00 pm

January tips if you’re cooking for one | Kitchen aide

From one-pot meals to versatile dishes that last all week, our panel of experts serves up ideas for solo chefs

I really struggle with cooking for one, so what can I make in January that’s interesting but easy and, most importantly, warming?
Jane, via email
“There’s an art to the perfect solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, author of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence with ease.” For Chung, that means good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a dish that can be cooked in one pan (“a night alone must be maximised with minimal washing-up”) and eaten with a single piece of cutlery, “preferably in front of the telly and out of a bowl nestling in your lap”. Happily, she says, all of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has all the rich and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but with a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying.” Not only that, but you can knock it up in less than 10 minutes. “Melt cheese, milk and miso in a pan to make the sauce base, then add frozen udon that have been soaked in hot water.” Coat the noodles in the sauce, then serve with crisp bacon or perhaps a few anchovies for “pops of salty fat”. Crown with a golden egg yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should then be broken: “Add a crack of black pepper, and your cosy night in has begun.”

“January feels like a time for fresh, bright flavours,” says the Guardian’s own Felicity Cloake, which for her often means pasta con le sarde made with tinned fish, fennel seeds and lots of lemon juice; “or with purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of garlic and chilli”. A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, with harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings the possibility of a quick stew, Cloake adds, while it’s always a good shout to braise some beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – so long as they’re versatile, that is.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Competency porn: is there any greater escapism than watching a capable person on TV?

In 2026, when it feels as though the world is moments away from any number of disasters, there is nothing hotter than watching someone do their job really, really well

Name: Competency porn.

Age: Relatively new.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:05 pm

Houseplant hacks: do moisture meters prevent overwatering?

Given how easy it is to kill plants by overwatering, these devices are tempting – but can they beat simply sticking your finger in the soil?

The problem
Houseplants often die from too much water, not neglect. Might a moisture meter help?

The hack
For around £10, a probe promises to tell you exactly when to water.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 am

‘A perfect, wild storm’: widely loathed datacenters see little US political opposition

Issue dubbed ‘great unifier’ but Republicans and Democrats are instead jockeying for big tech’s financial favor

In late October, an unlikely coalition formed to fiercely oppose controversial plans for more than a dozen Michigan datacenters – rightwing “Stop the Steal” activists joined forces with groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, and people of all political stripes in between.

Polling showed just 28% of residents supported new datacenters, and, amid the furor, Dylan Wegela, a Michigan state congressman, introduced a bill to repeal datacenter tax credits. Despite an opportunity for what looked like an easy political win, the bill has few co-sponsors, is unlikely to move in the state house, and most datacenter plans are poised to be built.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Orthodox new year, fallen fighters and Larry the cat: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:31 pm