March of the penguins: the Golden Globes red carpet marks the return of the staid black suit

The performative male was over at the 2026 Golden Globes, where even risk-takers like Timothée Chalamet, Jacob Elordi and Jeremy Allen White did little to temper the black tie stuffiness

Timothée Chalamet was the final clue. As he arrived in good time on the Golden Globes red carpet, the star of Marty Supreme put pay to speculation as to whether the chromatic marketing of the film’s ping pong balls would have him wearing orange. Instead, he wore a black T-shirt; vest, jacket and Timberland boots with silver buttons by Chrome Hearts, souped up with a five-figure Cartier necklace. Kylie Jenner, his partner and sartorial foil, was nowhere to be seen.

Styled by Taylor McNeill, who was also responsible for Chalamet’s wildly amusing if chaotic red carpet campaign for the film, the look was bad boy Bond. It also set the tone for an evening of subdued tones. If we thought the penguin suit had gone extinct, we were wrong. The performative male is over – welcome to the return of the staid suit.

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:45 am

What can the EU and Nato do to stop Trump from trying to claim Greenland?

The territory and the European bloc are trying to see off the US president, who has said control of Greenland is essential to national security

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that the US needs to gain control of Greenland, justifying its claim from “the standpoint of national security” and warning that it will “do something” about the territory “whether they like it or not”.

This puts the EU and Nato in a difficult spot. Greenland, a largely self-governing part of Denmark, is not a member of the bloc but Denmark is; while the Arctic island is covered by the defence alliance’s guarantees through Denmark’s membership.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

What does sugar do to your body – and how can you avoid a slump?

We evolved to like energy-dense foods such as honey, but modern diets tend to include too much sugar. Here’s how to make sure you eat the right amount, at the right time

Sugar tastes great for good reason: we evolved to like it, back when honey was a hard-to-get, energy-dense treat and we spent half of our time running around after antelope. Now that it’s much easier to get and we don’t move as much, that sweet tooth is working against us: many of us are consuming far too much of it, and suffering from poor health as a result. But is there anything specifically bad about it beyond it providing too many calories and not enough nutrients?

“When we taste sugar, the body starts reacting the moment sweetness touches the tongue,” says Dawn Menning, a registered dietitian who works with health app Nutu. “The brain recognises it as a quick source of energy and activates the reward system, releasing the feelgood chemical dopamine that makes it so appealing.” Interestingly, not everyone tastes sugar in exactly the same way – in 2015, researchers compared different types of siblings’ perception of sugar and sweeteners, and found that identical twins were more similar to each other in their sweet taste perception than fraternal twins or non-twin siblings. They concluded that genetic factors account for about 30% of the variance in how sensitive people are to sweet tastes – but it’s unclear whether that actually affects how much we eat.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Trump is repeating mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi

As it did in 2003, the US is underestimating the potential for instability as Trump resurrects one of the Iraq war’s biggest myths

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, famously declared at a press conference in Baghdad on 14 December 2003, a day after US troops had captured Saddam Hussein. Iraqis in the audience broke out in cheers, leapt up from their seats and pumped their fists in the air – many had waited decades for that moment. “This is a great day in Iraq’s history,” Bremer said, adding: “The tyrant is a prisoner.”

I was in the audience that day in Baghdad, covering the Iraq invasion’s aftermath as a correspondent for a US newspaper. It quickly became clear that Bremer and other jubilant US officials would use the occasion – US soldiers dragged the disheveled former Iraqi dictator out of a hole in the ground where he had been hiding near his home town – to declare that America’s war had reached a decisive turn. Despite a growing insurgency led by ex-members of the Iraqi security forces, US officials in Baghdad and Washington projected confidence that victory was in sight now that Saddam was locked up and headed for the gallows.

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

Brilliant, battered and unkillable: Josh Allen lurches towards the Super Bowl

The Buffalo Bills quarterback is not only a danger to opponents. His bravery and skill inspire his teammates to elevate their play

Two things about the NFL playoffs are predictable: Josh Allen will play out of his skin ... and Josh Allen will suffer a soul-sucking, stupefying loss. Except, maybe, this year.

We all know about the postseason heartbreaks and shortfalls over the years for Allen and the Buffalo Bills. In each season since 2019, Buffalo’s ride has ended in either the divisional or conference championship round, usually at the hands of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. But with no dominant team coming out of the regular season and no Mahomes this postseason, maybe it’s time for Allen and the Bills to finally capture the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:30 am

The friendship secret: why socialising could help you live longer

Neuroscientist Ben Rein is on a mission to show that being around others not only feels good, but can even improve recovery from strokes, cancer and heart attacks. So why are so many of us isolated and glued to our phones?

‘I hate it.” I’ve asked the neuroscientist Ben Rein how he feels about the online sea of junk neuroscience we swim in – the “dopamine fasts”, “serotonin boosts” and people “regulating” their “nervous system” – and this is his kneejerk response. He was up early with his newborn daughter at his home in Buffalo, New York, but he’s fresh-faced and full of beans on a video call, swiftly qualifying that heartfelt statement. “Let me clarify my position: I don’t hate it when it’s accurate, but it’s rarely accurate.”

He draws my attention to a reel he saw recently on social media of a man explaining that reframing pain as “neurofeedback, not punishment” activates the anterior cingulate cortex (a part of the brain involved in registering pain). “That’s genuinely never been studied; you are just making this up,” he says. He posted a pithy response on Instagram, pleading with content creators to “leave neuroscience out of it”. “That’s why I think it’s especially important for real scientists to be on the internet,” he says. “We need to show the public what it looks like to speak responsibly and accurately about science.”

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Iran says it is open to talks with US amid protest crackdown

Foreign minister says talks only possible on basis of respect after Trump threatened ‘very strong’ military response

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said Iran is willing to negotiate with the US about its nuclear programme on the basis of respect, but did not comment on claims by Donald Trump that Iran was arranging a meeting with the US.

The US president, who has threatened to intervene in Iran, said on Sunday such a meeting was being planned, but added it could be derailed by the crackdown on protesters.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:33 pm

Criminal investigation into Fed chair Powell has ‘reinforced’ concerns over independence, Goldman Sachs warns – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Justice department opens investigation into Jerome Powell as Trump ramps up campaign against Federal Reserve

In the UK property sector, a higher proportion of homes in London were sold at a loss than any other region in England and Wales last year.

Estate agency Hamptons has reported that nearly 15% of London sellers sold for less in 2025 than they originally paid, almost double the national average of 8.7%.

Last year, the average homeowner in England & Wales sold for £91,260 more than they paid, a value increase of 41.0% over an average holding period of 9.0 years. This is £570 less than the 2024 average of £91,830.

Stronger recent price growth in Northern regions has boosted returns, meaning many sellers in the North of England achieved proportionally higher gains than those in much of the South.

Flat sellers were four times more likely to make a loss than house sellers in England & Wales (19.9% vs 4.5%).

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:14 pm

Greenland says it ‘cannot accept’ US desire to control territory after Trump’s threat he would take it ‘one way or the other’ – Europe live

Government responds to Trump’s remarks and says it will work with Denmark to step up dialogue to ensure its defence through Nato

The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is to travel to Paraquay on Saturday to sign the controversial Mercosur trade deal with a group of Latin American countries this Saturday.

The deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uraguay and Paraguay was adopted by member states on Friday, ending 25 years of negotiation and months of wrangling with member states over the final compromises.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:16 pm

‘Hundreds more’ federal agents being deployed in Minnesota after killing of Renee Good – US politics live

Kristi Noem says that more officers are being deployed amid protests in several cities

In response to the news overnight that Donald Trump’s justice department has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, the Senate banking committee’s top Democrat – Elizabeth Warren – has warned that her colleagues should not move forward with the president’s nominee for the role when Powell’s term expires at in May of this year.

Warren accused the president of wanting to “install another sock puppet to complete his corrupt takeover of America’s central bank”.

Trump is abusing the authorities of the Department of Justice like a wannabe dictator so the Fed serves his interests, along with his billionaire friends.

This Committee and the Senate should not move forward with any Trump nominee for the Fed, including Fed Chair.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:06 pm

Trump threatens to block ExxonMobil from Venezuela after CEO calls country ‘uninvestable’

US president says company is ‘playing too cute’ after CEO responds sceptically to his push for oil investment after deposing Nicolás Maduro

Donald Trump has said he might block ExxonMobil from investing in Venezuela after the oil company’s chief executive called the country “uninvestable” during a White House meeting last week.

Darren Woods told the US president that Venezuela would need to change its laws before it could be an attractive investment opportunity, during the high-profile meeting on Friday with at least 17 other oil executives.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:11 am

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie accuses Lagos hospital of negligence after son’s death

Lawyers for Adichie and her husband serve Euracare hospital with legal notice after death of 21-month-old

The Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has accused a Lagos hospital of negligence after the death of one of her 21-month-old twin boys.

Nkanu Nnamdi died on 6 January after a brief illness. He was one of twin boys born to Adichie and Ivara Esege, a doctor, in 2024 by surrogacy, eight years after the birth of their first child, a girl.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:26 pm

Trump’s cannabis order will still leave users at risk of prosecution, experts say

Justice department is pushing to pursue simple possession cases, and ICE uses cannabis offenses to speed deportation

Experts say Donald Trump’s recent executive order on cannabis rescheduling is unlikely to make a meaningful difference for those most vulnerable to cannabis-related criminal charges, which the president has ramped up in various ways during his second term.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that cannabis be removed from schedule I, a category reserved for substances with “no accepted medical use”, to schedule III, a category that includes substances eligible for FDA approval as medications. Last month, Trump urged the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to speed up the process in his executive order, citing 2023 FDA findings supporting cannabis’s potential “to treat anorexia related to a medical condition, nausea and vomiting, and pain”.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

New York City expects biggest nurses strike as nearly 15,000 set to walk off job

Strike, amid an intense flu season, is expected to disrupt activity at institutions such as Mount Sinai and Montefiore

Thousands of nurses are set to walk off the job at several of New York City’s largest hospitals on Monday, staging a strike amid an intense flu season.

The action comes three years after a previous strike that compelled some of the same hospitals to move patients elsewhere and reroute ambulances.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:08 pm

Chalamet a smash, Sinners shut out: the key Golden Globes snubs and surprises

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another looks unstoppable ahead of the Oscars, despite Timothée Chalamet’s triumph over Leonardo DiCaprio for best actor

The biggest backlash brewing concerns Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, lauded by critics and embraced – especially in the US – by audiences as one of 2025’s key cultural landmarks. The thriller did win two Globes – for cinematic and box office achievement and original score – but both wound up not really counting. The first is the Globes’s consolation prize (it was won by Barbie in 2023 and Wicked last year); the second wasn’t even broadcast on the telecast. Coogler missing out on screenplay to One Battle After Another was perceived by some as a slap in the face – the Oscars and Baftas separate the category into original and adapted, however, so a corrective could come.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:35 am

Trump’s move to pull US from key UN climate treaty may be illegal, experts say

President’s memo stating US ‘shall withdraw’ from UNFCCC marks first time any country has tried to exit the agreement

The Trump administration’s long-anticipated decision this week to pull the US from the world’s most important climate treaty may have been illegal, some experts say.

“In my legal opinion, he does not have the authority,” Harold Hongju Koh, former head lawyer for the US state department, told the Guardian.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:30 pm

Trump regrets not seizing voting machines after 2020 election loss

President says he ‘should have’ used national guard to seize machines in support of false claim that election was rigged

Donald Trump has said he regrets not getting the US national guard to seize voting machines after his 2020 election defeat ended his first presidency, as he continues to falsely claim that he won the race. But he has also questioned whether national guard troops would be “sophisticated enough” to pull something like that off.

Trump made those remarks in an interview with the New York Times published on Sunday. The outlet had questioned him about a plan reportedly floated in late 2020, after he lost that year’s presidential election to Joe Biden, to seize voting machines in several key swing states in an effort to search for evidence of fraud.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:18 pm

Trump’s other Latin American feud: why Colombia’s Petro is not Maduro

Leftwing leader rallies his supporters as US president accuses him of drug trafficking and threatens military action

A leftwing South American firebrand calls for his followers to rally in public squares nationwide to defend his country’s sovereignty and decry verbal attacks from Donald Trump. The US president accuses the leader of personally flooding American streets with illegal drugs and imposes sanctions against him and his wife. Threats of military action are followed by a phone conversation between the two leaders.

One might imagine that this is a description of the buildup of tensions that led to the 3 January special forces raid on Caracas to capture the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, to face several criminal charges in New York.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:07 pm

Carney heads to Beijing as Trump’s America First agenda forces Canada into trade rethink

Canada’s PM seeks to smooth over past ructions in relationship with China as trade war takes its toll

During the final stretch of Canada’s spring election campaign, Mark Carney told a debate audience that China was the country’s “biggest geopolitical risk”. He pointed to its attempts to meddle in elections and its recent efforts to disrupt Canada’s Arctic claims.

When Carney’s government plane touches down in Beijing this week, it will be the first time a Canadian prime minister has been welcomed in nearly a decade. The trip, undertaken amid the rupturing of global economic and political alliances, reflects a desire by Ottawa to mend a broken relationship with a global superpower that uses its vast and lucrative market to both woo and punish countries.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:39 am

How the US supreme court case on trans athletes could unravel LGBTQ+ rights

If bans on trans youth athletes are upheld, more girls could face ‘invasive sex testing’ and trans people could broadly lose civil rights protections

The US supreme court will consider state bans on transgender athletes on Tuesday in a major LGBTQ+ rights legal battle that could have far-reaching consequences beyond youth sports.

The court is hearing oral arguments in two cases brought by trans students who challenged Republican-backed laws in West Virginia and Idaho prohibiting trans girls from participating in girls’ athletic programs.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

Democrats go all in on affordability in bid to turn voters against Trump

Party aims to turn tables after struggling to deal with criticisms about inflation during Biden presidency

In their quest to undo Donald Trump’s grip on voters, Democrats have staked their hopes on one word above all others: affordability.

It has become a staple of press conferences, a priority of candidates and a subject of legislation ahead of the November midterm elections. When Democrats don’t like something that Trump does – a frequent occurrence – their counter-argument is that Americans would have been better off if the president instead concentrated on making life less expensive.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

The Golden Globes ceremony ignored politics. But their big winner taps today’s unhappy turbulence | Peter Bradshaw

One Battle After Another engages with the tense climate of the second Trump administration unlike any other contender

Now that the political scene in the contemporary United States looks like an unending string of military PR coups for the Trumpian right at home and abroad, it’s appropriate that Paul Thomas Anderson’s spectacular, mysterious counterculture epic One Battle After Another – with Leonardo DiCaprio as a clueless, dishevelled ex-revolutionary – should consolidate its current position as one of the leading movies of this awards season: winning four Globes including best musical or comedy and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson – whose fluency, productivity and pure technique and ambition are arguably making him America’s pre-eminent film-maker. The excellent Teyana Taylor got best supporting actress.

This is a movie scene in which no mainstream is directly attacking the Trump regime head-on (such as, say, Ali Abbasi’s satirical Trump biopic The Apprentice) but there is something in Anderson’s film that inhales and intuits both the current febrile mood of reactionary hysteria and the tension and depression of those opposing it. Sean Penn wasn’t up for any Globes last night for his role as the bullish and yet pathetic Col Lockjaw in One Battle After Another, the oppressor despised by his masters, but I see a great deal of Lockjaw in Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, the disposable courtiers uneasily standing ramrod straight behind the president at public events.

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:44 am

I loved my teaching job. But as a trans man in Texas, quitting was the only way to get my dignity back

After the state’s bathroom ban went into effect in December amid a slew of new anti-trans policies, I couldn’t keep trying to hide my identity at work

Until recently, I was a music teacher in north Texas. I also happen to be trans. I have never, ever told a student about my identity. At work, I was “stealth” – a term that means that I passed as a cisgender man. Only my administrators knew I was trans, because I was not yet taking gender-affirming hormones when I started this job in my early 20s. I’m now in my late 20s.

My decision to stay stealth was affected by the political climate. Texas has been trying to pass a bathroom ban for 10 years, and in December, they finally implemented the rule. It applies to restrooms and changing rooms in public buildings, schools and universities.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Truckin’ on: Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead’s 10 best recordings

From 46-minute jams to MTV video hits, here are the freedom-loving Dead guitarist and singer’s finest songs about ‘rainbows of sound’ and ‘enjoying the ride’

• Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead, dies at age 78
• Alexis Petridis: ‘Bob Weir was the chief custodian of the Dead’s legacy’
• Aaron Dessner: ‘I’ll never forget playing with him’

The Dead’s love for the road is in evidence on this segment from That’s It for the Other One, the four-part opening track of their second LP, Anthem of the Sun. A rare Bob Weir-penned lyric details the Dead’s youngest member being busted by the cops “for smiling on a cloudy day” – referencing a real-life incident when Weir pelted police with water balloons as they conducted what he took to be illegal searches outside the group’s Haight-Ashbury hangout. It then connects with the band’s spiritual forebears the Merry Pranksters by referencing Neal Cassady, driver of “a bus to never-ever land”. The song later evolved into The Other One, one of the Dead’s most played tunes and a launchpad for their exploratory jams – as in this languid, brilliant version at San Francisco’s Winterland in 1974.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:11 pm

Is it true that … stretching before exercise prevents injury?

Loosening your muscles is beneficial, but choosing the right type of movement for your chosen exercise is key

It depends on what kind of stretching you’re doing, says Dr Alex Dinsdale, senior lecturer in sport and exercise biomechanics at Leeds Beckett University.

Injuries, he says, happen for all sorts of reasons, from poor footwear to fatigue. Two key factors are not having the range of motion required or not being strong enough to control that motion. “You might go for a run and lift your knees higher than your hamstrings can manage,” he says. Or you might lack the muscle strength needed to handle moving a limb at speed.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:00 am

How a family were shocked by allegations about a dead dad’s double life: best podcasts of the week

Was British army major Robbie Mills leading a secret double life? Or was his posthumous accuser hoodwinking Mills’ family? A true-crime investigation finds out

A true-crime investigation into the supposed secret double life of British army major Robbie Mills. After Mills died in 1955, apparently from an accident on a submarine, a man called John Cotell turned up at his home claiming to be a friend of his – and a fellow spy. Journalist Eugene Henderson tells the troubling tale of Cottell, who rapidly insinuated his way into the Mills family’s lives. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Dory the 10kg rabbit, who saved me from a diabetic coma

My Flemish giant bunny loved chomping on carrots, computer cables and my skirting board – and being walked on a leash. When I suffered a medical emergency, she jumped into action

The first time I saw a Flemish giant rabbit was at TruckFest in Peterborough in 2002. Among a sprawling maze of stalls at the East of England showground, I was led into a tent filled with the biggest rabbits I’d ever laid eyes on. I’d never heard of Flemish giants before, but I knew then that I needed one. I couldn’t have predicted in that moment that one of these beautiful creatures might save my life.

Dory was a baby when I met her, but even as a bunny she was already bigger than most normal-sized rabbits. We brought her home in a cat carrier, but she soon outgrew it. By the time she was fully grown, she weighed nearly 10kg, and I was walking her on a leash like a dog.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

Brutal, vibrant and creative: capturing the soul of Latin America in 100 photographs

The journalist Paulo Antonio Paranaguá uses images from the turbulent continent to weave a history of the region, covering colonisation, slavery and dictatorship

Its tumultuous past, marked by massacres, slavery, violent domination, coups d’état, revolutions and uprisings, often overshadows another narrative of Latin America: that of a vibrant, culturally rich region where art, creativity and solidarity hold a central place in society.

Throughout its post-Columbian history – the period after Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492 – Latin America has grappled with the tension between subjugation to colonial and imperial powers, resistance and the pursuit of independence.

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:00 pm

To anybody still using X: sexual abuse content is the final straw, it’s time to leave | Marie Le Conte

It was hard for me to quit Elon Musk’s poisoned platform, but I urge others to do the same, especially in light of Grok’s imagery of women and children

Some wars can’t be won. It can be hard to come to terms with this fact when you’re still on the battlefield, but if somehow you manage to step out for a moment, then the truth will become obvious. You have lost, the people on your side have lost, the villains have won and, if anything, you should have run away a long time ago.

My own sad epiphany about Twitter, now known as X, came in the immediate aftermath of the US election in 2024. I’d spent a lot of that year lying to myself, ignoring the increasing volume of abuse I’d been receiving and the fact that no one ever read my linked pieces any more, but that week I realised I had to stop. I had to leave X for good.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:18 pm

Trump is ready to grab Greenland. The EU should move first – and offer it membership | Robert Habeck and Andreas Raspotnik

The US president’s threats to the territory show Europe needs a new strategy for its far north: one based on cooperation, not domination

The new year is still young, yet Donald Trump’s fixation on expanding his homeland signals a troubling geopolitical shift. From Venezuela to Greenland, the world is unmistakably moving away from the relative stability of the post-cold war era – not least also because of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

This erosion of long-established norms has severe implications for Europe, a continent whose core political philosophy is built on limiting (national) power. A rules-based order, international law and negotiated solutions lie at the core of Europe’s self-image. Yet in today’s world, Europe can uphold this vision only if it evolves into a more muscular geopolitical actor itself – and nowhere is this more evident than in the Arctic.

Robert Habeck served as German vice-chancellor and minister for economy and climate action from 2021 to 2025, and is now working at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Andreas Raspotnik is the director of the High North Center for Business and Governance at Nord University and a senior researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, Norway

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Sorry, Trump and Farage – London is no lawless ‘warzone’. Violent crime is lower than ever | Sadiq Khan

Reform’s new candidate for mayor claims people pity Londoners for living in an unsafe capital. But the evidence is clear: we’re making our streets safer

Last year, something extraordinary happened in London. As the conversation about crime got even louder, London quietly reached the lowest per capita homicide rate in its recorded history. Even London’s harshest critics have to accept this is impressive progress.

For too many, it will no doubt come as a surprise. In recent years, politicians and commentators have sought to spam our social media feeds with an endless stream of distortions and untruths – painting a dystopian picture of a lawless place where criminals run rampant.

Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London

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Published: January 12, 2026, 6:00 am

I’m sick of avocado toast – I just want to keep my local, untrendy cafe | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

With its pasties, decent brews and staff who are happy to chat, it’s a vital community space. So why are its days numbered?

What do James McAvoy and my three-year-old son have in common? Very little, you might think, notwithstanding their shared awareness of the book The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet. Yet their lives overlap in a more tangible way, because they, along with Benedict Cumberbatch, patronise the same cafes on Hampstead Heath. Both actors have signed a petition protesting against the takeover of four family-owned north London cafes by the Australian-inspired chain Daisy Green. It’s a move that has dismayed the local community, leading to protests, and threats of legal action against the landowner, the City of London Corporation, whose new funding model for green spaces prioritises “income generation”.

You’re probably wondering why you should care, either about what Hollywood actors think, or about this notoriously chi-chi part of London. And yet, like them, and like me, you probably have a favourite cafe, one that feels very special. So please indulge me in describing mine: the Parliament Hill cafe, which has been run by the D’Auria family for more than 40 years.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:00 am

Netflix and Paramount deals are both wrong for Warner Bros Discovery – and democracy | Courtney C Radsch

A congressional hearing this week underscored the danger a WBD deal would pose to journalism and the American public

Donald Trump wants CNN sold. He has said so repeatedly and publicly, demanding it “should be sold” in any deal involving Warner Bros Discovery. Now one of America’s largest media companies is racing to oblige him, while another looks to consolidate its power. Wednesday’s House judiciary hearing on streaming competition – where lawmakers voiced concern over the Trump administration’s influence and a potential merger’s toll on consumers – made clear just how dangerous both options are for free speech, audiences and democracy itself.

Netflix has bid $82.7bn for Warner Bros Discovery, only to be countered by a hostile $108bn takeover bid from Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, son of Trump’s ally Larry. Neither deal serves the public interest, and both are dangerous for the future of free expression. Both would produce an unprecedented concentration of power over what Americans watch and which stories get told.

Courtney C Radsch is director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute

Published: January 11, 2026, 5:00 pm

If we silence voices we don’t agree with, we’re doing the work of extremists for them | Peter Greste

I do not need to share Randa Abdel-Fattah’s views to believe that removing her is wrong. This is why I’ve withdrawn from Adelaide writers’ week

If there has been a bright red thread running through my career, it’s the importance of freedom of speech. It underpinned my life as a journalist and correspondent, became central to the campaign to get me out of prison in Egypt and, perhaps paradoxically, it is why I have reluctantly withdrawn from this year’s Adelaide writers’ week.

On Thursday the Adelaide festival board announced it had removed the writer and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the program, not because of anything she was proposing to say at the festival but because of things she said previously, reassessed in the aftermath of the Bondi attack.

Peter Greste is a professor of journalism at Macquarie University and the executive director for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom

Published: January 11, 2026, 11:46 pm

One look at my baby’s dungarees was all it took to give me the rage

Why should he, an eight-month-old boy, have more pockets on his clothes than I do?

There’s much about becoming a new mother that could be filed under “maddening”. The phrase “sleep when the baby sleeps”. The way people stop asking how you are, instead only asking after the baby. The sheer volume of unsolicited advice – some barbed, some so painfully obvious it’s borderline offensive, and all of it totally inescapable. (I suppose I could try living on a desert island, though no doubt someone would send a plane to skywrite: “They’re probably just hungry!”)

But it was while doing the laundry last week that I found something truly unhinged. I was sorting my infant son’s clothes from mine when I noticed that he had more pockets on his clothes than I did. What exactly does an eight-month-old need with a tiny pocket? Is he supposed to keep something in there? A dummy? Bits of rice cake? All the sleep he’s stolen from me (in which case he’d need a bigger pocket)?

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

Olympic tensions flare as US skeleton star alleges Canadian coach rigged qualifying event

• Katie Uhlaender misses sixth trip to Olympics

• Athlete says she was deliberately deprived of points

Sporting tensions between the USA and Canada have erupted once again, this time in skeleton as next month’s Winter Olympics approach.

The USA’s Katie Uhlaender, a five-time Winter Olympian in skeleton, has accused the Canadian team of depriving her of a place at the Milan-Cortina Games by manipulating a qualifying event over the weekend.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:10 pm

Bob Bradley, Wilfried Nancy and the uphill battle for MLS coaches in Europe

Celtic’s firing of the Frenchman brings back memories for two US coaches who faced similar struggles

Bob Bradley has never seen Ted Lasso, the TV show set around an American college football coach who finds himself leading a soccer team in England.

“Everybody tells me that I should watch it but I have not,” Bradley said from his home in New Jersey, almost nine years on from his experience. “I lived that a little bit, so I’m not ready to watch it yet.”

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

Trick play helps 49ers eliminate Super Bowl champion Eagles from NFL playoffs

• San Francisco 49ers 23-19 Philadelphia Eagles

• Niners will play Seahawks in divisional round

• AFC wildcard: Allen shines as Bills beat Jags

Brock Purdy threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey late in the fourth quarter, San Francisco used a trick play on a TD toss from wide receiver Jauan Jennings, and the 49ers eliminated the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles with a 23-19 wildcard victory on Sunday.

The 49ers head to top-seeded Seattle next weekend for an NFC divisional playoff game. The NFC West rivals split the season series.

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:18 am

Stan Wawrinka: ‘I really believe that I squeezed the lemon until the last drop’

The 40-year-old is nearing end of his career and has few regrets after winning three grand slams in Big Three era

In the first week of the final year of his life as a professional tennis player, Stanislas “Stan” Wawrinka found himself in the familiar position of staring down an opponent nearly half his age. Wawrinka, now 40, had tussled with the talented 23-year-old Flavio Cobolli for nearly three hours before offering himself a shot at a monumental victory.

Just a few tense errors deep in a tense final set tie-break saw those chances slip away. In theory, deciding that 2026 will be the final year of his career should provide Wawrinka with an opportunity to swing for the fences and completely empty his tank, playing without inhibitions. Life, however, is far more complicated than that. “Of course I would love to play more freely. And sometimes I tell myself: ‘Just play freely,’” sighs a frustrated Wawrinka. “But I care so much that it’s not that easy.”

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:10 pm

Maxim Naumov makes US Winter Olympics team year after parents’ death in DC plane crash

• US Figure Skating names team for Milan-Cortina

• Naumov’s parents were also Olympians

US Figure Skating has confirmed the 16 athletes who will represent Team USA at the Milan-Cortina Games next month in Italy, including Maxim Naumov, who fulfilled the hopes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, who were world champions in pairs figure skating in 1994 for Russia, became coaches at the Skating Club of Boston. Last January, they were returning from Wichita, Kansas, host of the 2025 US championships, along with 26 others connected to figure skating, when their plane collided with a military helicopter, killing everyone on board both aircraft.

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:08 pm

FA Cup third round: 10 talking points from the weekend’s football

Crystal Palace’s stars wilt, Manchester City’s youngsters shine, and Liam Rosenior starts in stylish fashion

Playing against lower-league opposition as a top-flight side in the FA Cup is like batting on the first morning of a Test match – you cannot really win and failure can prompt humiliation and reputational damage. To that end, some members of the Crystal Palace side deservedly beaten by Macclesfield perhaps learned a valuable lesson at Moss Rose. Marc Guéhi and Adam Wharton are linked regularly with big moves away from Palace, but part of succeeding at elite clubs – the pair are admired by Manchester City and Manchester United respectively – is coping with being overwhelming favourites. Oliver Glasner, too, may have designs on bigger things, with United again a possible destination, but to see his side schooled by part-timers was a blow to his burgeoning reputation. Glasner slammed his players after the defeat but the Austrian must take a portion of the blame. They must all do better. Dominic Booth

Report: Macclesfield 2-1 Crystal Palace

Report: Manchester City 10-1 Exeter

Report: Manchester United 1-2 Brighton

Report: Derby 1-3 Leeds

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:00 am

Qatar in talks with Fifa to host first Women’s Club World Cup in January 2028

• Qatar has no Fifa women’s ranking after lack of games

• January tournament will disrupt domestic seasons

Qatar is in talks with Fifa about staging the inaugural Women’s Club World Cup, which is in line to cause major disruption to domestic seasons in 2027-28, including in Europe.

Fifa announced last month that its latest new club competition would take place from 5 to 30 January 2028, but the governing body has not said where it will be held or whether it will run a formal bidding process.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:44 am

Notre Dame deny head coach Marcus Freeman assaulted local wrestling coach

• Allegations center around son’s wrestling meet

• Fighting Irish deny any wrongdoing by coach

Notre Dame have denied wrongdoing by Marcus Freeman after the school’s head football coach was accused of battery.

The South Bend Tribune reported on Sunday that Chris Fleeger, an assistant wrestling coach for New Prairie High School, had filed a police report over an incident at a meet on 3 January. According to the report, police and school officials had to separate the Freemans from Fleeger, as Freeman’s wife Joanna had a shouting match with the wrestling coach. Police did not disclose to the newspaper the extent of the contact that Fleeger alleges took place between him and the Fighting Irish coach.

Published: January 11, 2026, 11:02 pm

No staff, no equipment, no medicine: a doctor on returning to Gaza after 665 days in an Israeli prison

Dr Ahmed Muhanna, one of the country’s most senior emergency care consultants, says the scale of destruction he saw on his release brought him to tears

The only thing that kept Dr Ahmed Muhanna going during his 22 months inside Israeli prisons and detention centres was dreaming of his return to his family and to Gaza. When he was finally released after 665 days as a prisoner, he arrived home to find every place he had returned to in his memories had been obliterated.

While in prison, he and the other inmates were “completely cut off from the outside world”, he says. When he was released he was driven over the border and through Gaza to his hospital, the al-Awda. The scale of the destruction he saw “made my skin crawl … my chest tightened and my tears began to flow”.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Actor Timothy Busfield charged with child sexual abuse offense

Emmy-winning actor and director allegedly touched child inappropriately on set of The Cleaning Lady TV series

Authorities in New Mexico issued an arrest warrant recently for the director and Emmy-winning actor Timothy Busfield to face a child sexual abuse charge.

An investigator with the Albuquerque police department filed a criminal complaint in support of the charge, which says a child reported that Busfield touched him inappropriately. The acts cited in the warrant – issued on Friday – allegedly occurred on the set of The Cleaning Lady, a TV series Busfield directed and acted in.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:53 pm

Minnesota woman dies after shark attack in US Virgin Islands

Arlene Lillis, 56, was escaping midwest winter in Caribbean before losing arm in attack and dying of her injuries

A shark recently killed a Minnesota woman by biting her arm off as she swam off the coast of the US Virgin Islands while on vacation, according to authorities and media reports.

Arlene Lillis, 56, was in waters off St Croix’s Dorsch Beach when the rare deadly shark attack occurred at about 4.30pm on 8 January, the Virgin Islands police department said in a statement. Emergency crews who responded to multiple calls about Lillis’s plight soon confirmed she had “lost an arm”, and she ultimately died from her injuries, the police statement added.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:41 pm

UK threatens action against X over sexualised AI images of women and children

Government signals support for possible Ofcom intervention on Grok as scrutiny of X’s AI tool intensifies

• Business live – latest updates

Elon Musk’s X “is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online”, a minister has said, as the UK government prepares to outline possible action against the platform over the mass production of sexualised images of woman and children.

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said the government would fully support any action taken by Ofcom, the media regulator, against X – including the possibility that the platform could be blocked in the UK.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:08 am

People put off giving CPR by unrealistic TV depictions, researchers say

Most dramas show characters searching for pulse and giving breaths but experts say chest compressions on their own can save lives

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a dramatic intervention, but researchers say TV portrayals are often misleading – potentially influencing whether viewers feel able to carry it out themselves.

According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in the UK.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Malaysia blocks Elon Musk’s Grok AI over fake, sexualised images

Country follows Indonesia in restricting access after global outcry over X’s AI tool

Malaysia has become the second country to temporarily block access to Elon Musk’s Grok after a global outcry over the AI tool and its ability to produce fake, sexualised images.

Malaysia said it would restrict access to Grok until effective safeguards were implemented, a day after similar action was taken by Indonesia.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:12 pm

Hungary grants asylum to former Polish minister amid abuse of power investigation

Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro faces allegations he ran a criminal group while in government

• Europe live – latest updates

A former Polish minister who is under investigation for alleged abuse of power during his time in the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government has been granted political asylum in Hungary.

Zbigniew Ziobro, the former justice minister, was one of the most prominent faces of the PiS government and played a central role in its controversial judiciary reforms, which critics say undermined the rule of law and the independence of courts, leading to prolonged conflict with the EU.

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:17 pm

Flying foxes die in their thousands in worst mass-mortality event since Australia’s black summer

Volunteers found thousands of dead bats at Melbourne’s Brimbank park, wildlife expert says

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Thousands of flying foxes have perished in the heatwave that scorched south-east Australia last week, the largest mass mortality event for flying foxes since black summer.

Extreme temperatures resulted in deaths in camps across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Grey-headed flying foxes, listed as vulnerable under federal environment laws, were the most affected.

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:29 am

Arson suspect arrested after blaze at historic Mississippi synagogue

Multiple Torah scrolls were damaged after fire broke out early Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson

A suspect has been taken into custody after a historic synagogue in Mississippi was badly damaged in a fire that authorities described on Sunday as an arson case.

According to officials, the blaze broke out shortly after 3am Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson. No one was hurt in the fire.

Published: January 11, 2026, 10:25 pm

Germany rejects RFK Jr claims about Covid vaccine exemption prosecutions

Health minister Nina Warken says Robert F Kennedy Jr’s assertions that German doctors are facing legal action are unfounded

The German government has sharply rejected claims by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that doctors in Germany have faced legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The statements made by the US secretary of health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” Germany’s health minister, Nina Warken, said in a strongly worded statement released late on Saturday.

Published: January 11, 2026, 5:05 pm

Former Republican chair says US institutions yielded to Trump, ‘the bully’

Michael Steele argues law firms, universities and media capitulated with startling speed and voters want accountability

The biggest surprise of Donald Trump’s first year back in office is how quickly America’s institutions capitulated to “the bully”, said Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) turned arch critic.

But with the midterm elections for Congress looming, Steele predicts a resounding Democratic victory amid a hunger among voters to hold the president and his allies accountable for threatening democracy.

Published: January 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

Family seeks answers after ICE deported man to Costa Rica in vegetative state

Exclusive: Before Randall Gamboa Esquivel died, his health had deteriorated badly while he was in ICE custody

• Costa Rican family demands answers after ICE deportation and death: ‘Have you ever smelled a cadaver?’

The family of a Costa Rican man who was deported from the United States in a vegetative state and died shortly after arriving back in his home country is still urgently seeking answers from the authorities about what happened to him while he was in detention.

Randall Gamboa Esquivel had left Costa Rica in good health and crossed the United States-Mexico border in December 2024, according to his family. However, Gamboa was detained by the US authorities for re-entering American soil unlawfully, as he had previously lived there undocumented between 2002 and 2013.

Published: January 11, 2026, 12:36 pm

Spanish police seize 10 tonnes of cocaine hidden in ship off Canary Islands

Haul represents country’s largest seizure at sea, with officers digging bales out from vast amount of salt

Spanish police have made their largest seizure of cocaine at sea after finding almost 10 tonnes of the drug hidden among a cargo of salt on a merchant ship off the Canary Islands.

Detectives and anti-drug prosecutors investigating a multinational criminal group alleged to be exporting “enormous quantities” of cocaine from South America to Europe had identified a suspect ship that had set off from Brazil, the Policía Nacional said in a statement on Monday.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:03 pm

‘Big step forward’: Myanmar military faces Rohingya genocide case at UN court

Survivors of violence hope proceedings will bring justice a step closer and set a precedent for future genocide allegations

“Finally, I feel like our voices are being heard, and like something is going to happen that is positive for the community,” says Monaira*. She was forced to flee her home in Myanmar in 2017, when the military launched so-called clearance operations across Rohingya villages.

During the violence, her brother was taken by military soldiers, shot dead, and his home set on fire. “Children were thrown into the fire in front of my eyes,” says Monaira, who was raped by military personnel.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:38 am

Newly discovered ‘Port Talbot Pompeii’ may have been Roman centre for agriculture

Academics say the villa, found in Welsh deer park, shows the area was not on fringes of Roman empire

Over the last 100 years or so, a characterful but tough corner of south Wales has become best known for its steelworks and coalmines. But the discovery of the footprint of a large Roman villa in a country park on the outskirts of Port Talbot gives an intriguing fresh insight into life here centuries before heavy industry took hold.

Found below the surface of Margam country park and close to the M4, the presence of the villa – which has been labelled “Port Talbot’s Pompeii” – suggests the area was not on the fringes of the Roman empire but very much part of it and may have been an important agricultural centre.

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:57 pm

Nobel Institute rejects María Corina Machado’s offer to share peace prize with Trump

Organisers clarify award ‘cannot be revoked, shared or transferred’ after Venezuelan opposition leader’s comments

The organisers of the Nobel peace prize have said it “cannot be revoked, shared or transferred” after Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said she wanted to give her award to Donald Trump.

When Machado was named Nobel laureate in October, it was seen as a snub by the White House, despite Machado rushing to dedicate the prize to the US president and his “decisive support of our cause”.

Published: January 11, 2026, 12:59 pm

Four months and 40 hours later: my epic battle with 2025’s most difficult video game

When Hollow Knight: Silksong came out last summer I was in so much pain that I didn’t know if I’d be able to play it. Could a video game teach me anything new about suffering?

Last year I became uncomfortably well acquainted with suffering. In March I started experiencing excruciating pain in my right arm and shoulder – burning, zapping, energy-sapping pain that left me unable to think straight, emanating from a nexus of torment behind my shoulder blade and sometimes stretching all the way up to the base of my skull and all the way down into my fingers. Typing was agony, but everything was painful; even at rest it was horrible. I couldn’t play my guitar; I couldn’t play video games; I couldn’t sleep. I learned how quickly physical suffering lacerates your mental wellbeing.

I’d had episodes of nagging pain from so-called repetitive strain injuries before, the product of long hours hunched over laptops and game controllers over the course of decades, but nothing like this. A few months later, after the initial unrelenting agony had subsided to a permanent hum of more moderate pain, it was diagnosed as brachial neuritis, inflammation of the nerve path that travels from the base of your neck down to your hand. (Nobody knows what causes it, but it sometimes happens after an infection or an injury.) The good news, I was told by a neurologist, was that it usually gets better in about one to three years, and I hadn’t lost any function in my right hand. The bad news was that there was nothing much to be done about the pain in the meantime.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:10 am

Escape review – notorious Japanese revolutionary tells story of country’s most wanted criminal

Director Masao Adachi – formerly of the Japanese Red Army – on the infamous Satoshi Kirishima, who went on the run in 1975 after a series of corporate bombings

Masao Adachi is an 86-year-old Japanese film-maker and former revolutionary activist who spent almost 30 years in Lebanese exile due to his former membership of terrorist group the Japanese Red Army in the 1970s; arrested on his return to Japan, after his release from prison he returned to cinema – and has now made this intriguing chamber piece called Tôsô, or Escape, an intensely, sometimes even passionately acted piece of work, imagining the inner life of a man who was once Japan’s most wanted fugitive.

It is about the now infamous Satoshi Kirishima who, after his involvement in terrorist attacks on corporate buildings, went on the run from the police in 1975 and for decades lived as a cash-in-hand construction worker under a false name, hiding under the radar but in plain sight. He was never recognised and finally confessed his true self on his hospital deathbed in 2024, having being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:00 am

‘A celebration of the carefree’: why Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers celebrating their favourite comfort watches is an ode to John Hughes’s 1980s classic

It’s hard to ignore a film’s message when the main character is addressing you directly down the barrel of the camera. Granted, the first time I watched the 1986 teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was the impressionable age of 11 and “Look people in the eyes when they’re talking to you” was on constant rotation in my household. So my green eyes met Ferris’s brown ones and I took it all in.

Centred around Matthew Broderick’s playful turn as Ferris Bueller, a high school senior faking illness to skip school, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is certainly a celebration of the carefree, though the story is by no means languid. Made frantic by doing the thing you’re not supposed to do with the aid of a red Ferrari, the day speeds by in comparison to the fictional days of other American teen films, such as American Graffiti and Dazed & Confused – which, to be fair, features a decent amount of marijuana.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

‘There’s nothing better on TV’: behind the scenes of Industry, the high-stakes finance drama that has everyone hooked

Created by two uni mates whose last gig was a David Hasselhoff comedy, the series has become a star-making transatlantic hit. Now it’s back for an intense fourth season that heads everywhere from Ghana to Sunderland

• Spoiler alert: this article contains references to major events in the previous three series of Industry

Industry is not for everyone. Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s drama about young City bankers is zeitgeisty, iconoclastic and slightly inaccessible. “It is niche,” says Down. “We don’t write to any kind of brief. We don’t write what we think is going to be interesting to other people – or commercial.” For every 10 people that don’t understand a “reference or the thing we’re trying to do with the costume or the subtle hint we’re making about someone’s class, there’ll be one person that gets it. The show’s for that one person.”

And for that one person, Industry is hard to beat. “Not to toot my own horn,” says Myha’la, the mononymous 29-year-old who co-stars as daredevil American trader Harper Stern, “but I think there isn’t anything better than this show out there right now.”

Published: January 11, 2026, 10:00 am

Guián review – celebration of multicultural identity through a Chinese grandmother in Costa Rica

Director Nicole Chi Amén embarks on a journey to learn more about her own mixed cultural heritage after the death of her Guangdong-born grandma

Nicole Chi Amén, a Costa Rican woman of Chinese descent, has always been on the outside looking in. The opening scene of her moving debut feature replicates this predicament visually: her face pressed against a metal barricade, she looks through a hole in the opaque facade with interest. The camera is observing, too, and the sight of a house being torn down gradually comes into view. This was once the home of her maternal grandmother, a Guangdong native who emigrated to Costa Rica more than 60 years ago. Conceived in the aftermath of her passing, Amén’s film probes the fragility as well as the resilience of cultural heritage as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Since neither Amén nor her grandmother speaks the other’s native language, a barrier looms large in their relationship. Even “guián”, the name Amén used to call her grandma, is a linguistic hiccup; the word refers to a paternal grandmother in the Enping dialect, a variation of Cantonese. In fact, miscommunication surrounds Amén wherever she goes. In a revealing sequence stitched together from various taxi rides, she is constantly queried by drivers confused by her multicultural identity. Seemingly innocuous, their prying betrays startling ignorance and racist prejudice. The same situation recurs when she travels to Guangdong to get closer to her roots, only this time the people asking these questions look like her.

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It’s more productive than doomscrolling’: film-maker Ben Wheatley on his secret life as musician Dave Welder

While playing with nine-figure Hollywood budgets, the Kill List and Meg 2 director has become a prolific music producer. Next up is his experimental film, Bulk

Dave Welder may just be the most prolific musician you’ve never heard of. In a little more than a year, he has released a staggering 26 records spanning electronica, dub, ambient, kosmische and drone. One of these albums, Thunderdrone, is more than four hours long. Based in Brighton and Hove and described as “a rotating group of musicians and artists”, in reality “Dave Welder” is largely the work of one man who, until now, has been operating in secret: film director Ben Wheatley.

“I’ve always wanted to make music,” says Wheatley, whose films include the independent movies High-Rise, Kill List and Sightseers, along with big-budget Hollywood flicks such as the shark thriller Meg 2: The Trench. “I wanted to do it for my films but there was a dissonance. Of all the art forms, I couldn’t really understand it. I would dream that I could play, but then it was like, no, I can’t.”

Published: January 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

The Only Cure by Mark Solms review – has modern neuroscience proved Freud right?

An expert in both disciplines makes a bold attempt to convince sceptics, and partially succeeds

Vladimir Nabokov notoriously dismissed the “vulgar, shabby, and fundamentally medieval world” of the ideas of Sigmund Freud, whom he called “the Viennese witch doctor”. His negative judgment has been shared by many in the near 90 years since Freud’s death. A reputational high-water mark in the postwar period was followed by a collapse, at least in scientific circles, but there are signs of newfound respectability for his ideas, including among those who once rejected him outright. Mark Solms’s latest book, a wide-ranging and engrossing defence of Freud as a scientist and a healer, is a striking contribution to the re-evaluation of a thinker whom WH Auden described as “no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion”.

It would be difficult to improve on Solms’s credentials for the task he sets himself. He is a neuroscientist, expert in the neuropsychology of dreams, the author of several books on the relationship between brain and consciousness, a practising psychoanalyst and the editor of the 24-volume revised standard edition of Freud’s complete works. He is also a wonderfully witty and lucid writer.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:00 am

Poem of the week: Dream-Pedlary by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

From an almost whimsical beginning, these verses on wishing to overcome mortality grow lyrical and deeply moving

Dream-Pedlary

i.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Seven by Joanna Kavenna review – a madcap journey to the limits of philosophy

With its cast of thinkers, gamers and artists, this romp across Europe explores our desire to define reality – even as it slips from our intellectual grasp

Joanna Kavenna’s two decades as a writer have seen her beat a gorgeously unconventional path through a plethora of subjects and genres, from polar exploration to motherhood to economic inequality, and from travelogue to academic satire to technological dystopia. “I like genre,” Kavenna said in a 2020 interview, “because there’s a narrative and you can kind of work against it, test it.” That being said, her seventh published book, Seven, is a curiously uncategorisable, protean thing: a slim, absurdist novel, but chunky with ideas.

Of all the genres Kavenna has worked within – or, more accurately, vexed the boundaries of – Seven (Or, How to Play a Game Without Rules) is probably closest to an academic satire. We first encounter the novel’s thoroughly anonymised first-person narrator in Oslo in the summer of 2007, where he or she or they are employed as a research assistant to a renowned Icelandic philosopher named Alda Jónsdóttir. Jónsdóttir is described as “eminent, tall, strong and terrifying”, and likes to host dinner parties for her histrionic institutional peers. The hapless narrator’s job is to help facilitate her work in “box philosophy”: “the study of categories, the ways we organise reality into groups and sets […] the ways we end up thinking inside the box, even when we are trying to think outside the box”.

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

Why pleasure is the key to self-improvement

Forget puritanical self-discipline – the way to really make a new habit stick is to lace it with instant gratification

Like many people, I spent New Year’s Eve making a list of the goals I want to achieve in the year ahead – a habit that never fails to arouse the ire of my boyfriend. “Why do you always have to put yourself under pressure?” he’ll ask, rolling his eyes. “It’s so puritanical!”

And he has a point. When most of us turn our minds to self-improvement, we assume that we need to put pleasure on pause until we’ve reached our goal. This is evident in the motivational mantras that get bandied about – “no pain, no gain”, “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory”. If we fail, we tend to think it’s our own fault for lacking the willpower needed to put in the hours and stick at it, probably because we’ve given in to some kind of short-term temptation at the expense of long-term gain.

Published: January 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

Bob Weir was a songwriting powerhouse for the Grateful Dead – and the chief custodian of their legacy

‘The Kid’s jazz-influenced rhythm guitar made him utterly integral to the Dead and his later collaborations solidified the band’s influence over latter-day alt-rock

• Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead, dies at age 78
• Bob Weir: a life in pictures
• Aaron Dessner: ‘Bob Weir remained completely in touch with the Grateful Dead’s wild wonder. I’ll never forget playing with him’

For most of their career, the other members of the Grateful Dead referred to Bob Weir as “the Kid”. You can understand why. He was only 16 when the band that would ultimately become the Grateful Dead was founded. Moreover, Weir was implausibly fresh-faced and boyishly handsome, particularly compared to some of his bandmates. Jerry Garcia’s photo was used in one of Richard Nixon’s campaign broadcasts, a symbol of all that was wrong with US youth. Keyboard player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, by all accounts sweet-natured, nevertheless gave off the air of a man who would strangle you with his bare hands as soon as look at you. Weir, on the other hand, somehow managed to look like the kind of charming young man a mother would be happy for her daughter to bring home, even in the famous 1967 photo of him leaving the band’s Haight-Ashbury residence in handcuffs after being busted for drug possession. His relationship with Garcia and bass player Phil Lesh – five and seven years older than him, respectively – is regularly characterised as that of a junior sibling: at one juncture in 1968, the pair contrived to have Weir dismissed from the band on the grounds that his playing wasn’t good enough.

It never happened – Weir simply kept turning up to gigs and the matter was eventually dropped – but it’s hard to see how the Grateful Dead would have worked without him. For one thing, the band’s famed ability to improvise on stage was rooted in a kind of uncanny psychic bond between the key members – “an intwined sense of intuition”, as Weir described it – that they usually claimed was forged while playing together on LSD as the house band at Ken Kesey’s infamous acid test events of 1965 and 1966. For another, whether Garcia and Lesh thought it was up to snuff in 1968, Weir’s rhythm guitar style was an essential component of their sound. It was less obviously striking than Garcia’s fluid soloing or Lesh’s extraordinary approach to the bass – inspired by his grounding in classical music, he played countermelodies rather than basslines – but no less unique, a mass of alternate chords, harmonic pairings and bursts of contrapuntal lead lines that he said were influenced by the playing of jazz pianist McCoy Tyner. More practically, Weir had huge hands, which enabled him to play chords others physically couldn’t.

Published: January 11, 2026, 3:08 pm

Andrew Clements, Guardian’s classical music critic, dies aged 75

An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote

The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness.

Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel, who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond.

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:01 am

Bob Weir: a life in pictures

Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead has died – we take a look back at his musical career through the decades

Published: January 11, 2026, 6:49 am

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong says he struggles with impostor syndrome

Award-winning screenwriter tells Desert Island Discs that success has not silenced self-doubt

The award-winning screenwriter Jesse Armstrong has said a writers’ room can feel like “walking on the moon” when it is working well, but has admitted to experiencing impostor syndrome during his career.

Armstrong was behind the hit HBO drama Succession, starring Brian Cox as the global media tycoon and family patriarch Logan Roy, who sets off a power struggle among his four children.

Published: January 11, 2026, 12:01 am

My favourite family photo: ‘We’re plainly not allergic to our mother here, as her legend always had it’

Our politically engaged mother loved deriding me and my sister for being stroppy and delinquent. This picture tells another story – and is a testament to our sunny dispositions

My mother, Gwen, liked to describe things in broad brush strokes. Me and my sister’s teenage years, mid-80s to early 90s, she’d cover with: “Zoe was delinquent, couldn’t get a word of sense out of her.” Or: “1986? That was the year Stacey was awful.” Going through photo albums to make a montage for her funeral, all her pictures from that era were testament to our ill-behaviour: me, sniffing a geranium, sarcastically; Stace, outside a cafe in an indeterminable European city where you can almost lip-read her stroppy “piss off” to camera in the still moment.

Gwen was politically engaged – you’d come downstairs on a Wednesday morning to find a handwritten letter starting, “Dear Pérez de Cuéllar, I cannot deplore enough your silence on the matter of the Western Sahara” – and heavily involved in progressive politics: our kitchen was full of posters that would have to catch on fire before they’d ever get taken down. There was one fighting pit closures, for example, right next to one about having no planet B, and mum went heavy on the spoof public information campaigns. Instead of the government’s “protect and survive” leaflets, telling you how to survive a nuclear war by taking a door off its hinges and propping it against a wall, there was a “protest and survive” poster; a rip-off of the “Don’t Die of Ignorance” HIV campaign, which said something like “Don’t Die of Tories”, and “Heroin isn’t the only thing that damages your mind”, featuring a man reading (I think?) The Sun.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

How to dress for work without spending a fortune – or sacrificing personal style

Also: advice to reduce screen time, how to maximize your toaster oven, the best gloves and at-home fitness staples

• This piece was originally published in the Filter US newsletter on buying fewer, better things. Sign up here to get early access to it

Each week we cut through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.

At this time last year, I was a full-time student, throwing on the requisite leggings and an oversized sweatshirt for evening classes and late-night library sessions. This year, I’ve joined countless others in office life, zipping in and out of conference rooms and hopping on video calls for interviews and meetings. I love any excuse to shop, but many office-friendly pieces, including pricey blazers and crisp button-downs, are far outside my price range.

The 27 best fashion gifts in the US – curated by our favorite stylists and creators

Eight winter clothing essentials Scandinavians swear by – from heated socks to ‘allværsjakke’

Published: January 11, 2026, 6:15 pm

A new start after 60: I adopted a Guide Dog mum – and found true love, community and confidence

After her husband died suddenly, and her children left home, teacher Helen Smith started to question everything in her life. Then a radio programme about a shortage of Guide Dogs gave her an idea

Helen Smith was cleaning her bathroom and listening to the radio, some time after the pandemic, when a story came on about a shortage of guide dogs. The pandemic had made it hard to breed puppies. One vision-impaired owner faced a two-year wait for a new dog. Knowing the importance of her own relationship with dogs, Smith was overcome with sadness for him. Right then, she thought, “Well, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

She was living in the south of Hesse, in Germany, having moved in 1998 from Shropshire for her husband’s work. Their daughters were nine and three. The family settled. They got a dog. Smith found tutoring work and started a business teaching English.

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:45 am

This is how we do it: ‘The dark room is a judgment-free place, where we can live out fantasies together’

Sex parties allow Conrad and Callum to explore their desires in a safe space – and as couple

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

We keep the connection with subtle signals, glances across the room and an unspoken agreement that we won’t disappear

Published: January 11, 2026, 11:00 am

The kindness of strangers: alone in the crowd at Glastonbury, a stranger hugged me tight while I cried about my dead dad

As I sobbed to U2, she would hug me tighter as we swayed to the music

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

My father died when I was 19, after a short and sharp fight with cancer. Unsure of what to do or how to proceed with life, I took a year off university and went backpacking through Europe. The other side of the world seemed like a good place to be.

I ended up at the music festival Glastonbury in 2011. It was a great lineup that year but there was one act on the bill that really caught my eye: U2. They were my dad’s favourite band, so it seemed only right that I should go and see them. Of course, U2 aren’t exactly a massive draw for people my age, so I ended up alone in the massive crowd at the main stage while my friends saw other bands.

Published: January 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

The rise of ‘unc’: is this gen Alpha’s way of saying ‘OK boomer’?

Timothée Chalamet celebrated his 30th birthday by embracing his unc status – and Sabrina Carpenter has used the word to describe her record producer. Why is it suddenly everywhere?

Name: Unc.

Age: Younger than you might think.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:40 pm

Joel Dommett looks back: ‘I paid $10 to do a three-minute standup slot in a bar on Sunset Boulevard. I was hooked’

The comedian and presenter on being a quiet child, his alternative youth, and doing 300 gigs in a year

Born in Rockhampton, Gloucestershire, in 1985, Joel Dommett is a comedian and presenter. His career began with acting roles in shows such as Skins and Casualty, before making his name as a standup comedian, performing on Live at the Apollo, and becoming a household name on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2016. Dommett is the host on I’m a Celebrity … Unpacked and The Masked Singer on ITV.

This was taken outside the front door of the bungalow I grew up in. I’m stood next to my grandpa’s yellow pickup truck. That T-shirt was a gift from Uncle John who lived in South Africa.

Published: January 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

Martino’s, London SW1: ‘Beautiful bedlam’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Does central London really need another fancy Italian restaurant? Well, yes, apparently it does …

Does the area around Sloane Square in central London really need another fancy, Italian-leaning restaurant that serves up tortellini in brodo and veal Milanese? Well, yes, apparently it does. One Saturday lunchtime late last year at Martino’s was hectic even in the delightful reception area, where we were waiting to check in a coat with the elegantly uniformed front-of-house ladies. All the tables in this hot new all-day brasserie were booked and busy, and plenty of walk-ins were champing at the bit for cancellations.

Actually, “delightful reception” is not a phrase I’ve often uttered, or even thought, but this is a Martin Kuczmarski restaurant, so the small things tend to add up to a larger picture – this cocoon-like holding pen keeps would-be queuers away from the diners. Why was I so charmed by this weird, crisply officiated bends chamber that operates as a liminal space between the real grubby world outside and the glitzy, sexy, mock-Italian trattoria inside? Well, it turns out that’s because it solved a problem that I didn’t even realise I had.

Published: January 11, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Add blood, forced smile’: how Grok’s nudification tool went viral

The ‘put her in a bikini’ trend rapidly evolved into hundreds of thousands of requests to strip clothes from photos of women, horrifying those targeted

Like thousands of women across the world, Evie, a 22-year-old photographer from Lincolnshire, woke up on New Year’s Day, looked at her phone and was alarmed to see that fully clothed photographs of her had been digitally manipulated by Elon Musk’s AI tool, Grok, to show her in just a bikini.

The “put her in a bikini” trend began quietly at the end of last year before exploding at the start of 2026. Within days, hundreds of thousands of requests were being made to the Grok chatbot, asking it to strip the clothes from photographs of women. The fake, sexualised images were posted publicly on X, freely available for millions of people to inspect.

Published: January 11, 2026, 6:00 am

Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She’s entirely AI

As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers

Lamar remembered the moment of betrayal like it was yesterday. He’d gone to the party with his girlfriend but hadn’t seen her for over an hour, and it wasn’t like her to disappear. He slipped down the hallway to check his phone. At that point, he heard murmurs coming from one of the bedrooms and thought he recognised his best friend Jason’s low voice. As he pushed the door ajar, they were both still scrambling to throw their clothes on; her shirt was unbuttoned, while Jason struggled to cover himself. The image of his girlfriend and best friend together hit Lamar like a blow to the chest. He left without saying a word.

Two years on, when he spoke to me, the memory remained raw. He was still seething with anger, as if telling the story for the first time. “I got betrayed by humans,” Lamar insisted. “I introduced my best friend to her, and this is what they did?!” In the meantime, he drifted towards a different kind of companionship, one where emotions were simple, where things were predictable. AI was easier. It did what he wanted, when he wanted. There were no lies, no betrayals. He didn’t need to second-guess a machine.

Published: January 11, 2026, 6:00 am

People in the US: how has the end of Affordable Care Act subsidies affected you?

Premiums have risen for at least 22 million Americans – we’d like to hear about the impact on your household

Enhanced subsidies that have kept health insurance premiums affordable for millions of Americans who use the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expired at the end of last year.

Premiums have risen sharply for at least 22 million Americans who purchased their coverage through the ACA marketplaces using the tax credits, according to research.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:12 pm

Table tennis and Golden Globes: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:31 pm