Christina Applegate on life with multiple sclerosis: ‘I won’t lie and say any of this is a blessing’

When the Emmy-winning comedy star was diagnosed, her body started giving up on her. She writes about losing control, gaining weight – and refusing to be a ‘good girl’

In 2021 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. MS attacks your nervous system and slows down your functions – your respiratory system, your organs, everything. The disease eats away at all the things we take for granted. Some of us with MS have a raft of pain; some don’t. I have a lot of it. When I wake up, I often can’t get my arm to move far enough to grab the cup of water by my bed or my phone from its charger. I have infusions every six months to slow the disease’s progress, but those infusions kill all my B cells [a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies], making me prone to infection. My stomach frequently slows to a halt, leaving me to rush to the emergency room in agony. Most days, simply walking across the room feels like scaling a mountain.

One of the worst side-effects of the illness is the exhaustion. It feels as though I’ve been on a three‑day sleepless bender – and that’s how I feel after a good night’s sleep. Hence all the time I spend on and in bed, snuggled up against my heating pad. On the back of that diagnosis and the symptoms I face, I no longer care what I say or how I come across or how it makes anyone feel. I don’t have patience for bullshit any more, for things that are meaningless or merely “extra”. And it’s not just because I’m no longer working. Sure, there’s no one breathing down my neck to represent their business or movie or TV show, things I’ve had to represent, usually willingly and passionately, for almost 50 years. It goes deeper. I’ve become an honesty missile. When your physical situation deteriorates, and your life shrinks to the size of a king-sized bed, suddenly all the things you thought were important shift, too. The truth clarifies, like a camera lens slowly focusing.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump promised no wars. Now he’s a Bush-style regime change president | Mohamad Bazzi

The America First president who built his political brand on opposing foreign military adventures has unleashed a war of choice aimed at regime change

It turns out that Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “candidate of peace”, is just as eager to start new wars. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pitched himself as the antithesis of his Democratic opponents Joe Biden, and later, Kamala Harris. Trump insisted he would use his deal-making skills to end multiple global conflicts that started under the Biden administration, including Israel’s war on Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In his election night victory speech in November 2024, Trump told his supporters: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” Two months later, in his inaugural address, he went even further in trying to establish himself as a global peacemaker. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” he said.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

Published: March 1, 2026, 8:00 am

The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream?

With the rise of influencer Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxers’, sexist language from niche memes has infiltrated official government accounts and NYT headlines

A recent tweet from the US Department of Defense boasts about the killing capabilities of the US military as follows: “Low cortisol. Locked in. Lethalitymaxxing”. To many, that will sound as indecipherable as the teenagers that discuss “high-tier Beckys” or the New York Times warning of “Tate-pilled” boys.

Many will have now seen the 6 February tweet that went globally viral, viewed more than 24m times and since discussed in endless analyses and explainers:

Clavicular was mid jestergooning when a group of Foids came and spiked his Cortisol levels. Is Ignoring the Foids while munting and mogging Moids more useful then SMV chadfishing in the club?

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

An ugly year for the Louvre: where does the world’s biggest museum go from here?

After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation

Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.

Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Savannah Guthrie may never know what happened to her loved one. In the US, she’s not alone

Thousands go missing every year, including more than 5,000 Native American and Alaska Native women and girls

Savannah Guthrie is moving back to New York to resume anchoring NBC’s Today show and acknowledging that her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, may not be found a month after she disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the middle of the night.

“We still believe in a miracle,” Guthrie said in a video last week announcing a $1m reward for her mother’s return in an enduring mystery that has gripped the US for four weeks. “We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

From Heated Rivalry to the White House, hockey is having a strange American moment | Dave Schilling

Kash Patel’s partying went viral and the US men’s team came to Washington. Now it’s all part of the culture war

Ah, hockey. The most impish of sports. A bunch of blissfully beefy individuals wearing colorful sweaters zoom around in skates chasing a wee little object called, of all things, a “puck”. It’s adorable. It’s like A Midsummer Night’s Dream for people missing teeth. These days, if you’re talking about hockey, you probably are thinking about HBO Max’s gay sex-capade romance, Heated Rivalry. In the TV series, two hockey players on opposing teams fall in love, engaging in various erotic scenarios in between smashing each other into plexiglass. Actually, maybe that second part is connected to the first part.

Heated Rivalry has become an absolute phenomenon, enthralling American audiences despite all the factors that might prevent someone less than tolerant from connecting with the show – it’s gay, it’s about one of our least popular major team sports, and most damning of all, it’s Canadian. It might as well be about talking beavers. And yet, it’s a major hit that’s done a lot of good for healthy representation of the LGBTQ+ community.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

US-Israel war on Iran live: death tolls rise in Israel, UAE and across region as Iran attacks continue and IDF strikes ‘heart of Tehran’

Israeli rescuers respond to missile strike in Beit Shemesh; interim successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named

• How have you been affected by events in the Middle East?

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran

• How the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP reported. Thick black smoke was rising from the airport area.

On Saturday, US-led coalition forces downed several missiles and explosive-laden drones over Erbil.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:50 pm

Trump appears to link Iran attack to his 2020 election loss

President says in social media post that Iran tried to ‘stop Trump’ and now ‘faces renewed war with United States’

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

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Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss to former president Joe Biden, in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US president elections.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump,” his Truth Social post said, “and now faces renewed war with United States”.

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:00 pm

US military reportedly used Claude in Iran strikes despite Trump’s ban

Trump calls Anthropic a ‘Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about’

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Donald Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools.

The use of Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday was reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. It underlines the complexity of the US military withdrawing powerful AI tools from its missions when the technology is already intricately embedded in operations.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:00 pm

Celebration or grief? Khamenei’s death brings contrasting emotions in Iran

Some publicly mourn leader’s demise but videos also show jubilant response after violent crackdown in January

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

Celebration and mourning broke out across Iran in response to the death of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an extraordinary public response to the end of nearly four decades of the top cleric’s rule.

In the squares of Tehran, crowds gathered to mourn the leader, chanting and holding placards with his image. But videos shared widely on social media also showed people celebrating, dancing, honking car horns and setting off fireworks as news of the leader’s death broke.

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:07 pm

‘It’s not an invasion, it’s a liberation’: LA’s Iranian community speaks out after US strikes Tehran

The desire to see an increasingly ruthless Iranian regime collapse has intensified in Iranian expat communities

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

A decade ago, when Iran signed an agreement with the Obama administration and five other countries to give up its ambitions for a nuclear weapon, Alaleh Kamran was staunchly on the political left and welcomed the prospect of peace in the country of her birth.

Now, though, as Israel and the United States launched punishing airstrikes on Iran, she finds herself in a dramatically different headspace.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:00 pm

Supreme leader killed as US and Israel wage war on Iran: what we know so far on day two

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death confirmed by state media in Tehran; Iran and Israel launch new strikes against each other

• Latest updates – follow live

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran

• How the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:13 pm

Trump’s current war on Iran picks up where a longstanding enmity left off

The mutual resentments that have fueled tensions between the US and Iran have simmered for nearly half a century

For millions of younger Americans, the sudden explosion of Iran onto the national political stage and consciousness may seem like a bolt from the blue.

Yet for older generations and those with deeper historical awareness, Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday of strikes against a distant foe is more like the outcome of a collision long foretold.

Published: March 1, 2026, 10:00 am

Trump’s Iran strike tests the Maga vow of ‘no more wars’

News of Ali Khamenei’s killing sparks backlash from Marjorie Taylor Greene and other America First loyalists

Donald Trump had come to Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, with a promise. “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” the then US president-elect said in December 2016.

Trump has pushed his isolationist message in the decade since, repeatedly assuring his “America first” base that there would be no repeat of the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

US contractors in Kuwait decry meager bunkers and pay cuts amid Iran war: ‘We’re treated as expendable’

Employees say they have heard little from major defense contractor V2X Inc about safety and evacuation protocols

Employees of major defense contractor V2X Inc on US military bases in Kuwait say they lack adequate bunker facilities and have had their pay reduced amid Iranian missile attacks across the Persian Gulf region, while receiving limited communication from their employer about safety and evacuation procedures.

The Guardian interviewed three V2X employees on the US bases Camp Arifjan and Camp Buehring in Kuwait, following Iranian missile strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan on Saturday.

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

Austin bar shooting leaves three dead, including suspect, and 14 wounded

Officers confronted a male gunman pointing a weapon at them, they returned fire and killed the suspect

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The FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce has been called in to help investigate a deadly mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, on Sunday morning in which a gunman opened fire in front of a bar popular with university students, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being fatally shot by police.

An FBI official, Alex Doran, told reporters at a press conference that it was too early to determine the shooter’s motivation. But he added that evidence found on the suspect and in his car indicated a “potential nexus to terrorism”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:47 pm

US moving pregnant immigrant girls to Texas to avoid providing abortions, critics say

Ex-official calls transfer of unaccompanied girls as young as 13, many pregnant due to rape, a human rights violation

All unaccompanied immigrant children who are pregnant, many by rape, are being moved to a single facility in Texas in order to avoid providing abortion services in a significant human rights violation, critics say.

As detainees are frequently moved across state lines quickly, often to red states like Texas, pregnant people are facing challenges accessing reproductive health care in detention centers.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Suspected Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker seized in North Sea

Belgian special forces boarded the Ethera, which was sailing under the flag of Guinea, on Saturday night

Belgium has seized an oil tanker believed to form part of the so-called “shadow fleet” used by Russia to circumvent western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Special forces assisted by French helicopters boarded the ship in a clandestine operation in the North Sea on Saturday night, Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, said on Sunday.

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:02 pm

Hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded or diverted by airspace closures in Middle East

UK plans evacuation of more than 76,000 Brits as key transit hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha close

• Iran confirms killing of Ayatollah Khamenei

• US-Israel war on Iran: latest updates

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes

• How the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

The US and Israeli attack on Iran continued to cause severe disruption to flights throughout the Middle East and beyond on Sunday, creating uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of travellers.

Countries across the region closed their airspace, and three of the key airports that connect Europe, Africa and the west to Asia halted operations.

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:03 pm

Canada’s Carney to meet Modi in India amid trade uncertainty with US

Canada’s prime minister and Indian prime minister will meet Monday in visit that marks diplomatic shift

It’s not often that the leaders of two countries which have traded accusations of murder, extortion and terrorism meet only months later on friendly terms.

But amid what he had described as a “rupture in the world order”, Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, will on Monday meet Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to repair strained ties between their nations.

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

Shia LaBeouf blames ‘small man complex’ for alleged assaults and homophobic slurs

Transformers film franchise star says ‘big gay people are scary’ to him in interview and he doesn’t want to go to rehab

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The actor Shia LaBeouf has said he believes he needs to sort out his “small man complex” rather than undergo another round of substance abuse treatment after his recent arrest on allegations that he battered three men at a New Orleans bar while hurling homophobic slurs at them.

In an interview posted Saturday on YouTube by the online outlet Channel 5, the Transformers film franchise star also acknowledged “big gay people are scary” to him. Yet, perhaps providing a glimpse at a potential court defense, he also argued that the violence at the center of his arrest erupted only after his alleged victims touched him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:43 pm

US hockey star Hilary Knight hits back at Trump’s joke about women’s team during SNL skit

• Trump quipped about inviting US women to White House

• Knight appears on SNL with Hughes brothers

US ice hockey star Hilary Knight aimed a barb at Donald Trump during an appearance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live.

Knight led the US women to gold at last month’s Olympics, scoring the Americans’ first goal as they beat Canada in overtime. But after the US men’s team won gold Trump joked that he would have to invite the women’s team to the White House too or risk being impeached. Many of the men’s players laughed at Trump’s comments, and Knight later called them “distasteful and unfortunate.” While the US men visited the White House last week, Knight and her teammates said they were too busy to attend and will instead celebrate at an event in July organized by rapper Flavor Flav.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:15 pm

ICE has detained this high schooler for 10 months. Here’s what he and his classmates want you to know

Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May. The Guardian invited him and five of his classmates to share their lives and dreams

The students at Ellis Prep academy – like most high schoolers – have a lot on their mind right now.

Essay deadlines, college applications, younger siblings and dance rehearsals. But also, the immigration operations across the US and the president’s goal of “mass deportations”.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

He broke the story of the US Catholic clergy abuse scandal. Now he reflects on struggling to keep his faith

A reporter ponders on how to repair a religious structure long thought of as good but supported by an evil underside

In 1965, just shy of my junior year at the Jesuit high school of New Orleans, with good potential as an offensive end, I had an epiphany in the muddy slog of August football practice: Why are you doing something you don’t like?

Soon after, I quit, and was trailed by guilt for a dereliction of duty. Jesuit vaunted student achievements of all kinds. I played on the golf team and did some pieces for the school paper. Jesuit fostered a fraternal culture, molding friendships I carry to this day.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Outcry grows over ‘clown car’ cabinet but no sign Trump ready for shakeup

Antics of RFK Jr, Kristi Noem and others prompt derision – could their erratic behaviour prove president’s undoing?

Heads bowed, linked by arms across their backs, they gathered in a solemn prayer circle. “The quiet moments are often the most important,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, reflected later on social media. Then Team Trump entered the chamber to cheers and applause for Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Democrats gathered on Capitol Hill, however, regarded the people appointed by Donald Trump to his cabinet and other senior positions rather differently. In the past two weeks alone, they saw a health secretary who boasted about snorting cocaine off toilet seats; a homeland security secretary who allegedly fired a pilot for leaving her blanket on a plane; and an FBI director who chugged beer with Olympic hockey players in Italy at taxpayers’ expense.

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

Populist crusade and anti-Maga outrage as Texas Democrats do battle in Senate primary

James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett adopt contrasting strategies as party hopes to tap into Trump backlash in reliably red state

At a packed town hall meeting last month in Laredo for James Talarico, the 36-year-old Democrat vying for a US Senate seat in Texas, Cristina Rodriguez took the microphone. Rodriguez, a 16-year Marine Corps veteran, said she had never cast a ballot. She didn’t identify as either a Democrat nor a Republican, and to her it didn’t matter. Regardless of what party the president belonged to, she had to obey orders.

Her attitude changed after the re-election of Donald Trump, whom she viewed as spiteful and divisive. In Talarico, a state representative from the Austin suburb of Round Rock, she found the exact opposite – a former middle school teacher and current seminary student who speaks in measured tones and preaches mutual respect.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

The Democrat who schools Republicans – ‘I would say do more of that’

Isaiah Martin’s videos have gone viral – he thinks his party should follow his lead and stand up to Republican excess

Dynamism, courage, and wit are words that few are likely to associate with the mainstream Democratic party, particularly after its capitulation to Republicans’ budget demands last year.

Polls show that majorities of Democratic voters think their party is weak and ineffective. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is even more unpopular than Donald Trump. People are crying out for a bold voice, someone to take the fight to an increasingly authoritarian Republican party.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:00 pm

A non-toxic cooking pan and a $7 hand cream: 11 things you loved in February

From a fluffy bath towel to a hot pot routine at home – these are the products you fell head over heels for last month

• The seven best non-toxic cooking pans in the US

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Everyone has a different love language. And here at the Filter, ours comes in the form of really good product recommendations. Forget roses and Hershey’s chocolate; we adore nothing more than helping you purchase fewer and better things.

Last month, we played matchmaker for the most romantic time of year, introducing you to products we hoped you’d fall head over heels for – including a face mask for achieving the coveted glass skin look and a fluffy bath towel to elevate your post-shower routine.

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:15 pm

£12m for a Pokémon card? If you’re not in the game you’re missing a trick

The record sum paid at auction for a rare example is part of a boom in trading cards – and the prices can be staggering

For £12m, you could buy a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north London, or a Bugatti La Voiture Noire, one of the world’s most coveted sports cars, with a few hundred thousand quid to spare. Alternatively, you could blow it all on a Pokémon card.

This is what AJ Scaramucci, son of financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, did earlier this month when he bought the world’s only Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator card, one of the rarest and most coveted Pokémon cards ever, at auction. The seller, YouTuber, wrestler and occasional boxer Logan Paul, made a mighty profit after flipping the card for about £8m more than the £3.9m he originally paid for it in 2021.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

This is how we do it: ‘We schedule sex ahead – being organised has reaped massive dividends’

Being spontaneous is overrated, say Mia and Elijah, who find timetabling sex means it never gets forgotten

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

OK, you’re volunteering on Tuesday, and I’m going fishing on Thursday, so we’re going to have sex on Monday and Friday

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

Should you overshare more?

We may cringe at influencers and friends who let it all hang out, but research shows that keeping quiet might be worse

Do you recoil at oversharers on social media, or joke among your friends about “TMI”? I know I do. But while mocking public confession comes easy, it’s harder to appreciate the risks of normalising silence: withheld anxieties, unspoken family histories, and the little omissions that make workplaces and relationships brittle. The instinct to pour scorn on “attention seekers” may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment.

For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don’t put your passwords in a document, don’t take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don’t broadcast things you can’t take back. I was a walking contradiction, though. Privately, I did online quizzes for fun. I kept a notepad of passwords on my desktop. I knew the rules and, like many of us, I broke them.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression | Kenneth Roth

Their actions are no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo

We shouldn’t beat around the bush: Donald Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances – with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:00 pm

Florida wants its own CIA. That could lead to unchecked domestic surveillance | Seth Stern, Lauren Harper and Bobby Block

A bill to create a state intelligence operation would allow scrutiny based on ‘opinions’ – and could prompt other states to follow

“Florida man seeks to create a state counterintelligence unit and claim sweeping surveillance powers over people whose ‘views’ or ‘opinions’ he dislikes.” It’s not nearly as amusing as the usual “Florida man” headline, and it may lead to a blueprint for lawmakers far beyond Florida.

If Florida enacts House Bill 945, it will create a national first – CIA-style structure at the state level that blurs the traditional line between state law enforcement and intelligence work. It likely wouldn’t remain a local experiment. Red states often borrow aggressively from one another’s policy playbooks, on everything from gerrymandering to anti-abortion laws to transporting immigrants to Democratic-led states. A state-level intelligence office empowered to scrutinize residents based on ideology is precisely the kind of proposal likely to spread once normalized.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

Jason White on US-Israeli strikes on Iran – cartoon

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Published: March 1, 2026, 5:06 pm

Waiting on a tariff refund after Trump’s duties were struck down? Don’t bother | Gene Marks

Though the supreme court ruled against the levies, businesses hit hard by the tariffs shouldn’t hold their breath for any rebates

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Now that the supreme court has found that the Donald Trump exceeded his authority to levy tariffs, the big question for many businesses – particularly small businesses who were so hard hit by these tariffs – is are they able to get their money back?

Don’t hold your breath. When it comes to tariffs, Trump still has many more tricks up his sleeve.

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:00 pm

Why does admitting you’re ambitious feel so wrong for gen Xers like me?

In the 90s, we internalised an ideal of cool that appeared nonchalant and effortless. Now, young people are unafraid to say they want something and are going to work hard to get it

Oh no, striving is cool now. “Never stop grinding and listen … Stop doing anything else but working,” as Pharrell Williams told the Grammys audience last month. The Times recently announced that “trying really hard and talking about it” was in, typified by Timothée Chalamet’s continued commitment to the “pursuit of greatness”, which he announced last year, along with being “so fucking locked in” to cinema. We’re all supposed to be paying for our big dreams in sweat again, it seems.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing, really – but an open admission that you’re ambitious, you want something specific and hard to attain from your life, and intend to work single-mindedly for it doesn’t come naturally to me and my gen X brethren (apart from Williams, apparently, aged 52). We internalised an idea of cool that involved the appearance of, if not actual, effortlessness that’s hard to shake.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

As a psychologist, I’ve seen that polyamory doesn’t fix relationships – it reveals them | Carly Dober

The success of any relationship hinges on the same pillars of trust, respect, honesty and shared values. Polyamory simply tests their integrity daily

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

Emilio* and Jessica* sat in front of me, disconnected and barely looking at each other. They had been together for seven years and had recently opened up their relationship and tried polyamory, upon Emilio’s suggestion. Jessica agreed to this, but it was not her first choice for how she wanted the relationship to be. They were now in a crisis, as betrayals and secrets had occurred before and during the attempts at this new relationship configuration.

In my practice as a psychologist, a helpful question I often ask my clients is: “Is the configuration of this relationship working for you?”

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

Arsenal v Chelsea: Premier League – live

⚽ Premier League updates from the 4.30pm GMT kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Tables | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Scott

4 min: A fairly shapeless start, actually. “The best pints are Thursday night.” Hello Ian McCourt, formerly of this parish. “Or about 1.30pm on a Friday.”

2 min: A mid-octane start to the game. No real shape yet, though it’s obvious that Palmer is prowling the left wing today, opposite to his usual beat.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:53 pm

The ultimate breakdown: everything you need to know about F1’s new regulations for 2026

Get to grips with active aero, boost mode and super-clipping as the adoption of new hybrid engines shakes up the sport before the new season begins next weekend

In a week’s time, a new era will begin in Formula One as a major shift in regulations brings with it an air of unpredictability when the Australian Grand Prix gets under way in Melbourne.

The cars have been made smaller and lighter with the intent of making them more nimble and better to drive, and to facilitate improved racing. The wheelbase has been reduced by 20cm to 340cm and the width by 10cm to 190cm. Across changes in the chassis and to the engine, the overall weight has been reduced by 30kg. Drivers such as Lewis Hamilton have declared themselves generally pleased with the improved handling characteristics of their more sprightly rides, which will operate with approximately 40% less drag, but they will not enjoy the same downforce or pace as with last year’s models and are expected to open the season a second or two slower per lap than last year.

Published: March 1, 2026, 8:00 am

Pep Guardiola condemns fans who booed as Muslim players broke Ramadan fast at Leeds

• Section of fans reacted as play paused at Elland Road

• Guardiola: ‘Respect the religion, respect the diversity’

• Leeds coach calls it ‘disappointing … we need to do better’

Pep Guardiola has called on football supporters to “respect religion and diversity” after fans booed a brief stoppage in play at Elland Road to allow Muslim players to break their Ramadan fast.

Play was halted in the 13th minute of Manchester City’s 1-0 win against Leeds after the sun had set to allow the Muslim players to eat. At this point, despite a clear message on the big screen, fans audibly jeered the situation.

Published: February 28, 2026, 8:42 pm

Mighty Mathieu van der Poel powers to victory in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

• Dutch rider triumphs on debut in Belgian spring classic

• Demi Vollering beats Niewiadoma to win women’s race

Mathieu van der Poel broke away 16km from the finish line and soloed to victory at the season-opening cobbled classic Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday.

The former road race world champion entered the classic on the back of a record eighth cyclo-cross world title where he was unbeaten all winter. The 31-year-old Alpecin rider finished in 4hr 53min 55sec, more than 20 seconds ahead of fellow Dutchman Tim van Dijke and the Belgian Florian Vermeersch.

Published: February 28, 2026, 4:27 pm

Formula One to revise controversial rule at centre of Mercedes engine row

• Amendments to 2026 regulations approved unanimously

• Mercedes had been suspected of exploiting a loophole

Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, and rival engine manufacturers have reached a compromise solution to tackle the controversy surrounding Mercedes that had threatened to overshadow next week’s start of the season in Australia.

The sport is entering a new era with the biggest changes in decades to the engine and chassis regulations. Engine compression ratios have been a major talking point, with Mercedes suspected of exploiting a loophole to gain performance through the thermal expansion of components and there is talk of possible protests after the Melbourne race. Mercedes have said any change will make no difference to them.

Published: February 28, 2026, 11:41 am

Oleksandr Usyk to defend title against kickboxer at Pyramids of Giza in Egypt

• Champion will face Rico Verhoeven for WBC belt in May

• ‘I respect people who reach the very top in their sport’

Oleksandr Usyk, who has not fought since a fifth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois at Wembley in July, will defend his WBC heavyweight title against a kickboxer at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

The bout with Rico Verhoeven on 23 May, dubbed “Glory in Giza”, will be the first title fight held in Egypt, according to The Ring magazine, and will be streamed live on Dazn.

Published: February 28, 2026, 11:14 am

Parker rues ‘injustice’ as VAR denies epic Burnley comeback in seven-goal thriller with Brentford

Scott Parker was left sad and disappointed by more video assistant referee controversy after Burnley’s spirited comeback came to nothing. The home side were 3-0 down in 34 minutes and facing hostility from their own fans, but fought back to level before having a fourth goal ruled out after Jaidon Anthony was adjudged to be a shoulder-width offside.

Mikkel Damsgaard then put Brentford back in front three minutes into injury time only for Ashley Barnes to net and spark scenes of jubilation, but his apparent equaliser was also chalked off, for handball, after a long delay.

Published: February 28, 2026, 5:27 pm

European football: Kane double helps Bayern Munich sink Borussia Dortmund

• England captain scores twice in 3-2 win in Der Klassiker

• Lamine Yamal fires hat-trick in Barça win over Villarreal

Harry Kane scored twice again and Bayern Munich opened an 11-point lead in the Bundesliga with a 3-2 win at Borussia Dortmund in Der Klassiker on Saturday.

Joshua Kimmich let fly with his left boot to score the winner with a volley in the 87th minute, just four minutes after Daniel Svensson equalised for Dortmund with a brilliant volley inside the left post. Nico Schlotterbeck put Dortmund 1-0 up at the break, but Serge Gnabry set up Kane’s response and the England captain got his second from the penalty spot – after a foul by Schlotterbeck on Josip Stanisic – to take his league tally to 30 goals this season.

Published: February 28, 2026, 11:00 pm

Oil price expected to surge after Iran strikes and strait of Hormuz closure

Stock markets around the world could tumble on Monday and motorists are likely to pay more at the pump

• What the strikes on Iran mean for oil prices

• US–Israeli war on Iran – latest updates

The price of oil is expected to soar on Monday as the US-Israel war on Iran and the effective closure of the crucial strait of Hormuz rattles investors despite major producers’ pledges to increase their output.

US crude is on track to rise by 11% when trading resumes, according to data from the broker IG. The jump comes as Opec+, the cartel of oil producers, agreed on Sunday to step up their output by more than expected as they assessed the impact of the conflict.

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:48 am

‘He had a radiating aura’: Chicagoans say goodbye to hometown civil rights hero Jesse Jackson

Jackson’s body lay in repose at his Rainbow/Push Coalition headquarters as thousands visited to pay their respects

Some were older, some were younger and some were strangers, but many more were friends – they had lined up down the blocks of Chicago in mercifully mild weather for a chance to say goodbye to the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

Friday was the last day of public visitation as Jackson lay in repose at the headquarters of his Rainbow/Push political activism coalition in the city he called home.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:00 pm

UK personnel just 200 metres away from Iranian missile strike

British forces in Bahrain and Iraq being drawn into Iran conflict in defence of civilian sites and military assets

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

Three hundred British personnel were within 200 metres (650ft) of an Iranian missile and drone strike on the US naval base in Bahrain on Saturday, one of several incidents where UK forces have been drawn into the war in the Middle East.

No casualties were reported. The strike was one of more than 25 waves of retaliatory attacks in response to the massive US-Israeli joint bombing campaign launched against Iran on Saturday.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:10 pm

Datacentre developers face calls to disclose effect on UK’s net emissions

Campaign groups write to technology secretary amid concerns that sites could double overall electricity demand

Datacentre developers are facing pressure to reveal whether their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns the sites could double national electricity demand.

Campaign groups have written to the UK technology secretary, Liz Kendall, warning that the energy required by new AI infrastructure poses a “serious threat to efforts to decarbonise the electricity grid”.

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:00 pm

Sicily revokes century-old Mondello beach concession over mafia links

Regional authorities withdraw permit after citing risk of organised crime infiltration linked to a subcontractor

It is one of Europe’s most celebrated shorelines, framed by mountains and 19th-century villas and famed for its Caribbean-blue water and white sand.

But Mondello beach in Palermo, Sicily, has also been mired in controversy, the subject of complaints stretching back a century from residents and tourists who say its private lidos, cabins and deckchairs have left scant room for public access.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:00 am

‘Who’d guess they’re the same species?’ What Italy’s wall lizards reveal about genetic diversity and why it matters

Understanding biodiversity within species is key to our understanding of why nature works the way it does, say researchers

• Words and photographs by Roberto García-Roa

Twelve miles from the heart of Rome, Dr Javier Ábalos pauses his walk, lifts his sunglasses and points. To his right, perched on a rocky wall, sits a beautiful lizard. Its body is coated in charcoal-black tones speckled with striking yellow across a green dorsum, and its head, with a prominent jaw, is splashed with fluorescent blue spots. The reptile basks in the sun, unconcerned by our presence.

About 80 miles (130km) drive farther along the road that connects the capital with the small village of Poggio di Roio, the researcher from the University of Valencia has barely stepped out of the car when he spots another lizard. This one is smaller, with a brownish body and a narrower head crisscrossed by a network of dark stripes.

Researchers fear the common wall lizard of the white morph could be driven to extinction by the arrival of a new variation

Published: February 28, 2026, 7:00 am

North Dakota judge finalizes $345m judgment against Greenpeace in pipeline case

Judge slashed a $667m damages award to Energy Transfer over Greenpeace’s role in Dakota Access Pipeline protests

A North Dakota judge on Friday finalized a $345m judgment against Greenpeace in a lawsuit pursued by pipeline company Energy Transfer (ET.N) over the environmental group’s role in protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The final judgment by judge James Gion was in line with a decision he issued in October, in which he slashed by almost half a damages award of about $667m that a jury had awarded Energy Transfer in March.

Published: February 28, 2026, 2:09 am

Son of rapper Lil Jon drowned after ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms

Body of Nathan Smith, known professionally as DJ Young Slade, was found in pond north of Atlanta in February

The son of the rapper Lil Jon drowned after ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms, officials in the US state of Georgia said.

The body of Nathan Smith, known professionally as DJ Young Slade, was found in a pond north of Atlanta in early February.

Published: February 28, 2026, 7:02 pm

The Russian honeytrap: alleged spy for Moscow faces five years in US prison

Nomma Zarubina, convicted of lying to the FBI, is the latest Russian woman accused of using her sexual wiles for spying

Nomma Zarubina, 35, now sits in a New York jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last week to charges that she lied to the FBI about her contacts with the FSB, Russia’s biggest domestic intelligence service.

But, in a playbook that comes straight from the cold war, the striking-looking Zarubina – known as “Alyssa” to her Russian handlers – was tasked with meeting prominent Americans in order to lure them into the orbit of Moscow intelligence.

Published: February 28, 2026, 4:00 pm

Man arrested after shots fired at prominent Muslim leader in Utah

Imam Shuaib Din was not hit by multiple shots fired by Abdul Raouf Afridi, who ambushed him outside his home

A man has been arrested for recently shooting a gun at prominent Muslim leader Imam Shuaib Din in Utah, the police department in the city of Sandy said Saturday.

Din’s suspected attacker was identified as Abdul Raouf Afridi. Police said the man was arrested on 12 counts of aggravated assault, including felony discharge of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance, dangerous discharge of a weapon from a vehicle and possession of a dangerous weapon as a prohibited person.

Published: February 28, 2026, 6:51 pm

Joe Biden warns that Donald Trump will try to ‘steal’ midterm elections

In a rare public address, former president said US is experiencing ‘dark days’ and urged Americans to vote

• Sign up for This week in Trumpland, a free newsletter on the latest from the Trump administration

Joe Biden has warned that his presidential successor, Donald Trump, will attempt to “steal” the midterm elections, in a rare public address.

Speaking in South Carolina, where he was being honored for his lifetime achievement in politics, Biden also asserted that the US is experiencing “dark days”, in a speech made hours before the Trump administration launched attacks on Iran.

Published: February 28, 2026, 3:11 pm

Caribbean countries pledge humanitarian support for Cuba amid rising tensions with US

Disagreement among Caricom members hampers unified response on Cuban sovereignty and US intervention in the region

Caribbean countries have pledged to support Cuba through a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by a US fuel embargo, after a leaders summit defined by regional divisions over Washington’s policies.

The decision to send humanitarian assistance to Cuba was announced during a press conference on Friday to mark the end of the four-day Caribbean Community (Caricom) meeting in St Kitts and Nevis, which secretary of state Marco Rubio attended to discuss US relations with Caribbean governments.

Published: February 28, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Iron river’: Mexico’s cartel violence fuelled by trafficked firearms from US

Lax American gun laws mean weapons are readily available to buy and smuggle south of the border

Mexico was rocked this week by a wave of brutal violence after the capture of the drug lord Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, AKA “El Mencho”, as members of his powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel blew up trucks, fired on police stations and engaged in gun battles with Mexican security forces.

The chaos eventually calmed but not before 62 people had been killed, including a pregnant woman caught in the cross fire. The scale of the carnage, as well as the arsenal involved, has underscored a key element of Mexico’s struggle against organised crime: cartels are armed to the teeth, and most of their weapons are trafficked from the US.

Published: February 28, 2026, 1:00 pm

US backs Pakistan’s ‘right to defend itself’ against Taliban after strikes on Afghanistan

Taliban offer to resolve dispute via dialogue after Pakistan bombed cities in Afghanistan in latest escalation with its neighbour

Washington endorsed Pakistan’s “right to defend itself” after it bombed major cities across Afghanistan amid heightened tensions between the two hostile neighbours.

The Taliban government in Kabul stressed it was ready to negotiate on Friday as violence intensified between the two countries.

Published: February 28, 2026, 4:13 am

Islamic State emerges from rubble of north-east Syria to exploit discontent with al-Sharaa

‘Rebranded’ terror group seeks to recruit those alienated by Damascus government’s western pivot

On the surface, all that remains of Islamic State in the Syrian town of Baghuz are discarded tubs of whitening cream, spent RPG motors and children’s backpacks, with an old grenade nestled in the frayed pink nylon.

It was here nearly seven years ago that IS made its last stand. Its most zealous followers were obliterated along with the blood-soaked caliphate they fought to defend. Their bodies were collected and buried next to the town graveyard, while bulldozers came and sealed the entire area under a layer of heavy yellow earth.

Published: February 28, 2026, 11:00 am

How Courtney Barnett made her new album by retreating to the desert: ‘It nearly drove me mad’

After closing her scene-making record label and moving to the US, Barnett decamped to Joshua Tree – where she learned to slow down and make noise again

In the early months of 2024, Courtney Barnett was living in the kind of limbo that usually precedes a major psychic shift. The Grammy-nominated Australian musician was bouncing between sublets as a transplant to Los Angeles – a city she still navigates via a mental map of Melbourne, the place that made her: “Silver Lake is kind of like Collingwood,” she says, laughing. She was simultaneously winding down Milk! Records, the independent label she co-founded more than a decade earlier, and writing her fourth record. Her head was spinning.

“It felt like the end of a chapter, and then the next chapter kind of began without me totally realising.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:52 pm

Brave, visionary and queer: the Bohemian brilliance of author George Sand

With her radical politics and flamboyant affairs, Sand was no stranger to controversy, but it’s time to debunk the myths surrounding a writer ahead of her time

It would be hard to find a more courageous and perverse, iconic yet controversial figure in European literary history than George Sand. One of the great romantics, she helped transform culture, and her writing shifted social attitudes in ways we still benefit from. Victor Hugo called her “an immortal”; Gustave Flaubert, “one of the great figures of France”. Matthew Arnold said she was “the greatest spirit in our European world [since] Goethe”.

The 150th anniversary of her death this year is a chance to revisit her extraordinary achievements and legacy. But to do that we need to debunk some of the myths that surround this pioneering ecological, feminist and republican writer.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:08 pm

DTF St Louis: this David Harbour whodunnit about dating apps and infidelity is close to the bone

Steve Conrad’s dark comedy is full of twists and sad laughs. As for the fate of Harbour’s character, does Lily Allen have an alibi?

Last October, Lily Allen released a jaw-dropping album about the sexual politics of her marriage to actor David Harbour. It was a musical assassination – reportedly written in the wake of her personal sleuthing into his long-term infidelities via the dating app Raya. Therefore the timing of DTF St Louis (Monday 2 March, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), in which Harbour plays a man in a stagnant marriage who downloads a hook-up app to enjoy some extramarital boom boom, is juicy. For everyone except his publicist.

From the trailer, this was a hard-to-read show. Was it a dark comedy, a bedroom farce, a police procedural? The answer turns out to be yes, to all of those things. I also wondered whether it might be a televisual return to the erotic thrillers of the 90s. The answer to that one is no, although it’s a show with sex on the brain.

Published: February 28, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I never had those deep chats in the smoking area’: Arlo Parks on embracing late night life with her hedonistic new album

In her teens, the Mercury prize-winning musician was stuck on tour buses when she should have been on the dancefloor. Now she is throwing herself into club culture – and living on her own terms

Until only a few years ago, Arlo Parks had never been clubbing. The lack of a party phase makes sense when you consider that while most of her friends were decamping to university at 18, Parks was busy bagging a record deal, releasing her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, a few months after her 20th birthday. “It’s something that I almost didn’t have time to think about,” she says, speaking from LA, where she has lived since 2022, and where she feels very much at home. (This morning has already consisted of gymming and a walk in 28-degree sunshine that’s as bright as her neon-red hair.) “But I definitely did come to the conclusion that I had missed out – I hadn’t really had the time to be silly and have crazy, deep conversations in the smoking area. To be in an anonymous space and feel like you’re part of this whole.”

Now 25, she has very much made up for lost time with her third album, Ambiguous Desire – a paean to the night-time, which fuses elements of house, techno, UK garage and more with Parks’s celestial, feather-light vocals. While she hasn’t ditched the guitars altogether, it’s a long way from where we were when we first met Parks, born Anaïs Marinho, back in 2018. Fresh out of sixth form, where she had honed her craft via GarageBand, hers was a confessional, clear-eyed strain of alt-pop, with influences that ranged from Nick Cave to Erykah Badu. Before long, she had signed with an agent and nabbed that aforementioned record deal with Transgressive, fuelled by youthful chutzpah rather than any nepo connections. While her songs were often laced with perfectly curated cultural callbacks (“You do your eyes like Robert Smith,” she cooed on Black Dog), she didn’t shy away from singing about mental health, romantic rejection or drug abuse. One of the top comments on the YouTube video for her early single Eugene reads: “It’s so undignified for a 51-year-old bloke to be crying on a train about a song but here I am.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 10:00 am

‘By 18 I was having sex to the music of Brian Eno’: Tim Booth’s honest playlist

The James frontman fell for Leonard Cohen as a child and would do Val Doonican at karaoke. But which singer taught him that ‘music could be medicine’?

The first song I fell in love with
My older sister, Penny, played me So Long, Marianne by Leonard Cohen when I was eight, like some kind of initiation, to say: “Now this is a real poet.” It felt like contraband and so different to all the pop flotsam I had heard in my otherwise white, suburban upbringing, and gave me a taste of adult romantic relationships that a child could not possibly understand. I love my sister and I wanted to impress her.

The first single I bought
I was given WH Smith tokens as a child, so I must have used the bloody things. When I was 15, I ordered Hey Joe/Radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith through the post and would play it like it was the word of God.

Published: March 1, 2026, 9:00 am

‘She isn’t sorry’: is anyone rooting for Tyra Banks now? Eight things you need to know

Ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the supermodel has been under fire. But is there another motive behind all the controversy?

“I was rooting for you,” Tyra Banks famously berated a contestant on America’s Next Top Model some 20 years ago. But who, now, is rooting for Tyra Banks?

The supermodel and reality-TV mogul has been under fire from all sides ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Long-circling scrutiny of the show’s tasteless extremes, frequent body-shaming and blatant failures of duty of care have come to rest on Banks herself, with viewers, Top Model contestants and even her former friends all expressing outrage at her apparent lack of repentance.

Published: February 28, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘The kinetic energy is palpable’: Manchester embraces its first Brit awards

Event’s first venture outside London aims to recognise geographical diversity of UK’s music talent

Visitors to Manchester this week have been visibly amused to be arriving into Olivia Deansgate station, with many posing for selfies in front of the temporary sign. The tribute to the chart-busting musician is just one indication of how Manchester is embracing the arrival of the Brit awards on Saturday, the event’s first venture outside London in its five-decade history.

Stacey Tang, theBrit awards chair, said the move to the Co-op Live arena was about recognising the geographical diversity of the country’s music talent. “Creativity doesn’t happen in one postcode in the UK … so the idea that the biggest night in music should always be in London, I think, is ageing out,” she said.

Published: February 28, 2026, 6:00 am

My cultural awakening: Leonardo da Vinci made me rethink surgery – I’ve since mended more than 3,000 hearts

For one heart surgeon, seeing the Renaissance artist’s anatomical drawings gave him a natural understanding of the body that was often overlooked in modern medical science

If you’d asked my teenage self, growing up in a small village in Shropshire, what I wanted to do with my life, I would have talked about art and music long before I spoke of scalpel blades and operating theatres. As an 18-year-old, I intended to go to art school, until my mother sat me down and told me rather bluntly that being an artist wouldn’t earn me much money. As she spoke, a surgical documentary flickered across the screen of the black-and-white television in our living room. I told her, half joking, that that was what I’d do instead. Which is how I ended up repeating my A-levels and fighting my way into medical school, where I qualified in 1975.

By 1986, I was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, repairing failing hearts in a nascent field of medicine. Since then I’ve repaired more than 3,000 mitral valves – more than any surgeon in the UK – but the work that truly reshaped me came not from a textbook but from an encounter with centuries-old drawings.

Published: February 28, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I’d hoped to capture the graphic chaos in the window. What I found was an even more tangled scene’: Michael Krupka’s best phone picture

He may not be a cyclist, but the photographer was drawn by this bike shop’s jumble of frames and parts

Michael Krupka had passed Philadelphia’s Via Bicycle repair shop for years before he ventured inside. As a photographer rather than a cyclist, he was drawn by the jumble of frames and parts in the front window. “My father was a machinist and when I was a child we had a workshop at home where he could repair pretty much anything mechanical he encountered,” Krupka recalls. “As an artsy kid, I didn’t inherit those skills, but I do have an aesthetic attraction to machines and mechanical things.”

Krupka was out that day on what he describes as an “intentional photo hunt”. He asked a guy repairing a bike near the entrance for permission. “He just shrugged and carried on,” Krupka says. “I’d hoped to capture the graphic chaos against the backlit window. What I found was an even more tangled scene, with even more bikes in the foreground, which I used for the bottom third of the composition,” he says. “The shot has something of a maze or jigsaw element, too, a kind of puzzle that might have interesting things to find within it.”

Published: February 28, 2026, 11:00 am

Canine carer: how guide dog school dropout Marcus came to comfort cancer patients for a living

Once assessed as ‘a sloth with a low drive to work’, the polite and affectionate black labrador enjoys a successful new career as a therapy dog

Marcus is a very good boy.

He’s a four-year-old, 32kg labrador with lustrous black hair, soulful brown eyes and a bodacious bottom.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

My best friend’s ex is turning my partner against her. How can we heal our friendship group? | Annalisa Barbieri

Things will get better in time, but it’s not your responsibility to resolve this

I’ve been best friends with Ellie [all names have been changed] for more than half my life. She’s truly one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I started dating Will three years ago, and we have a good relationship. Ellie was in a long-term relationship with Tim for five years, and for two of those years the four of us were a little friendship group. Six months ago, Ellie and Tim broke up, which really shook our group dynamic. Our larger, mixed-gender friendship circle has now split a bit into “boys v girls”. I still see Tim as he and Will are good friends, but it’s awkward.

The issue is that Tim has been confiding in Will about the breakup. Tim has a lot of anger towards Ellie and it’s causing Will to dislike her too. Ellie and Tim weren’t right for each other and probably should have broken up sooner. Ellie wasn’t a great girlfriend to Tim, but there was no cheating or abuse, just two people who didn’t work well together.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Blind date: ‘I was hoping for a lovely time, a fancy dinner and to meet the love of my life. I got two out of three’

Brigitte, 27, an admissions officer for a nursery group, meets Jack, 30, a teacher

What were you hoping for?
Great food, great company and hopefully an evening that could be the beginning of something.

Published: February 28, 2026, 6:00 am

Silvana Armani emphasises softness and wearability in Milan solo debut

Late designer’s niece opts for natural womenswear look after Bottega Veneta features swishy yeti coats in faux fur

Does it matter who designs women’s clothes? Silvana Armani – niece of the late Giorgio, creative director of womenswear and one of the few women in charge of a fashion house – thinks so.

“The way women and men relate to their bodies is different, which affects the design process. Dressing a woman is more complex than dressing a man,” she said before her first solo show on the last day of Milan fashion week. “Yet, as a woman, you know your body. You try things on and notice if a jacket’s length is off, adjusting it as necessary.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:05 pm

Touch, sound and style: how London fashion week is opening up to visually impaired guests – photo essay

From live audio descriptions to fabric swatch booklets, designers including Chet Lo are rethinking the catwalk experience for blind and low-vision clothes-lovers

‘If you put your hands out and run your fingers along this skirt, you’ll feel that there are soft feathers appliquéd on to it,” says the fashion designer Chet Lo. “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.

Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no …

This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London?

After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini – are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I’ve noticed that, well, it’s as if they’re trying to please, with statements such as, “You’re absolutely right, Jeff,” and “That’s pretty much right.” Often, when I ask, “Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?”, I then get another response saying: “Jeff, you’re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply …”

If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

The kindness of strangers: at San José airport, I couldn’t pay my departure tax – then a woman handed me the cash

There was no ATM at the airport and banks were closed. If I missed this flight, all my subsequent flights would have been cancelled

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I was 19 and travelling by myself for the first time. It was 1994 and departure tax wasn’t always part of a plane ticket, so it sometimes had to be paid before flying out of a country. And if you didn’t have it, you didn’t leave – something I was about to learn the hard way.

I was on a five-week trip around South America that I’d spent years saving for, visiting the pen pals I’d written to as a teenager. At the airport in San José, Costa Rica, I was waiting in line for customs when I realised the border guard was asking those ahead of me to pay US$5 in departure tax – money I didn’t have. It doesn’t seem like a lot now but it was back then. I’d flown in from New York’s JFK airport two days previously and the only ATM had been out of order, so I hadn’t been able to get cash out there, and I’d spent my remaining few dollars on an overnight stay in the city.

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

How to make the perfect bara brith – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

This Welsh fruit loaf is tricky to get right, and even trickier to perfect, but it’s squidgy heaven if you do

Bara brith, the traditional Welsh fruit loaf whose name means speckled bread, is, as Ben Mervis notes, not dissimilar to Yorkshire brack, Irish barmbrack and Scottish “kerrie loaf” – the last is a new one on me, though, of course, I’m more than familiar with how well they all pair with strong tea and cold salty butter. According to food writers Laura Mason and Catherine Brown, they were originally known as teisen dorth in south Wales, and they date the recipe to no earlier than the beginning of the 20th century. However, the digitising of records since their book Food of Britain was published in 1999 allowed me to find a reference to it being eaten before school examinations in Bala, Gwynedd, in Seren Cymru from 1857. (Pen Vogler notes that “anything made with flour, however, is likely to be relatively modern, as wheat was too unreliable to be a staple in wet, upland Wales.”) There’s no reason to doubt the pair’s claim that bara brith was originally made from excess bread dough, but I think it’s good enough to need no such excuse.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:00 pm

Tim Dowling: Do I look like a man who would buy stolen wine?

As I attempt garden repairs between downpours, I wonder why I was targeted as a likely purchaser of shoplifted goods

I’m walking to the station in driving rain, under the protection of a £12 umbrella I bought at a newsagent the day before – during a previous rainstorm – which is already turning up on one side. My head is down, and I do not immediately see the young man approaching from the other direction, arms full, who stops in my path.

“D’ya wanna buy one?” he says, holding out one of three bottles of white wine he has clearly just shoplifted.

Published: February 28, 2026, 6:00 am

Inside Trump’s decision to attack Iran: ‘A window of opportunity’

The US joined an Israeli assault after intel suggested Iran’s top clerics and commanders could be hit at once

• Full report: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed

• What we know so far: US and Israel wage war on Iran

• War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Donald Trump launched attacks against Iran on Saturday alongside Israel after they developed intelligence that they could simultaneously target the country’s leaders and mullahs at a compound in Tehran, according to two people familiar with deliberations.

The Israelis had been tracking the movements of Iran’s top leaders and determined, in conjunction with the United States, that there was a window of opportunity to kill them and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as they convened, the people said.

Published: March 1, 2026, 5:25 pm

The rise and fall of Iran’s ruthless and pragmatic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

The radical cleric took over as supreme leader in 1989 and is likely to be replaced by hardline figures

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• What we know so far: US and Israel wage war on Iran

• War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

When he appeared in public for the first time in five years in October 2024, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had an uncompromising message: Israel “won’t last long”, he told tens of thousands of supporters at a mosque in Tehran in a Friday sermon.

“We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,” the then-84-year-old told the gathering.

Published: February 28, 2026, 8:20 pm

The real winners of Trump’s global tariff war: law firms, hedge funds and AI

Businesses are vying for a refund, with nearly $175bn on the line, but customers are unlikely to benefit from reversal

At 8am, two hours before the US supreme court officially slapped down Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs on 20 February, Joseph Spraragen’s phone was already ringing off the hook.

The seasoned New York-based attorney and his 40-strong specialised trade team at Grunfeld, Desiderio, Lebowitz, Silverman & Klestadt (GDLSK) had spent months filing hundreds of lawsuits for heavy-hitter clients, including luxury brands Prada and Dolce & Gabbana, in protest of the US president’s decision to impose sweeping import taxes last April.

Published: February 28, 2026, 12:00 pm

Tell us: how have you been affected by the latest events in the Middle East?

If you’re living or working in the region and have been impacted by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, we would like to hear from you

• US-Israel war on Iran: latest updates

In a statement posted to social media, the Israel Defense Forces says it is now striking “targets” of the Iranian “regime in the heart of Tehran”.

Iran has launched a new round of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and several Gulf cities, after vowing retaliation for the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled the country since 1989.

Published: March 1, 2026, 10:14 am

War in the Middle East and lunar new year celebrations: photos of the weekend

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

Published: March 1, 2026, 2:32 pm