ICE List: the small European website exposing US immigration agents

Netherlands-based site uses public information and tips to reveal identities of agents involved in crackdowns across US

It started as a cheeky response on social media to the US secretary for homeland security. Months later, however, a Europe-based project to unmask US immigration and custom enforcement (ICE) agents has racked up millions of views and mobilised hundreds of volunteers.

“What we’re doing is a reaction to a problematic regime,” said Dominick Skinner, the Netherlands-based Irish national behind the website ICE List, of its mission to remove the anonymity that many of the armed federal agents operate under while deployed to US cities.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:23 am

Wuthering Heights review: too hot, too greedy adaptation guarantees bad dreams in the night

Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi but makes the most of Martin Clunes

Emerald Fennell cranks up the campery as she reinvents Emily Brontë’s tale of Cathy and Heathcliff on the windswept Yorkshire moor as a 20-page fashion shoot of relentless silliness, with bodices ripped to shreds and a saucy slap of BDSM. Margot Robbie’s Cathy at one stage secretly heads off to the moor for a hilarious bit of self-pleasuring – although, sadly, there are no audaciously intercut scenes of thirst-trap Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi, simultaneously doing the same thing in the stable, while muttering gruffly in that Yerrrrrkshire accent of his.

This then is Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, or rather “Wuthering Heights”; the title archly appears in inverted commas, although the postmodern irony seems pointless. Cathy is a primped belle quivering in the presence of Heathcliff, who himself is a moody, long-haired, bearded outsider, as if Scarlett O’Hara were going to melt into the arms of Charles Manson. However, he does get substantially Darcyfied up later on, rocking a shorter and more winsome hairstyle, his gossamer-thin shirt never dry.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 pm

‘Every shirt has a story’: the designers saving football kits from landfill

The beautiful game has a fast fashion problem, with clubs bringing out multiple kits every season. But a move towards upcycling old shirts and wearing vintage garments is on the rise

It may have been a quiet January transfer window, but even so, thousands of new shirts will be printed for Lucas Paquetá, returning to his former Brazilian club Flamengo, while his West Ham shirt instantly feels old. Not to mention the thousands of other players moving from one club to another. Uefa estimates that up to 60% of kits worn by players are destroyed at the end of the season, and at any one time there are thought to be more than 1bn football shirts in circulation, many of which are discarded by fans once players leave.

The good news is that lots of designers are bringing their upcycling skills to old kits, taking shirts and shirring them, sewing them or, as in the case of designer and creative director Hattie Crowther, completely transforming them into one-of-a-kind headpieces. “I’m not here to add more products into the mix, I’m here to reframe what’s already in circulation and give it meaning, context, and longevity while staying culturally relevant,” says Crowther, whose creations involving the colours and emblems of Arsenal, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, are, she says, “a response to how disposable football product has become”.

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:00 am

My helicopter went into freefall – inside an active volcano

Christopher Duddy was shooting a film in Hawaii when disaster struck. For 28 hours he choked on fumes near a lava lake, fighting to get to safety

The 1993 erotic thriller Sliver should have ended differently: Zeke, played by William Baldwin, was scripted to fly a helicopter towards an active volcano, after Sharon Stone’s character, Carly, reveals she’s the killer. The pilot, Craig Hosking, had been tasked with flying low over Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, accompanied by the director of photography, Mike Benson, and his assistant Christopher Duddy, to film the bubbling lava and white plumes of smoke escaping from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent. It was a clear day on the Big Island when Duddy watched a corkscrew trail form in the smoke behind the helicopter, and he remembers thinking: “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.”

It was November 1992, and a big storm was due to hit the area, so they were shooting as much footage as they could along the coast, capturing the rainforest and brilliant blue ocean shimmering against the black lava of the volcano, before the weather disrupted production. But as they dipped over Puʻu ʻŌʻō for a second time, the helicopter’s engine failed. Their visibility faded as thick smoke engulfed them. Duddy jolted his eyes away from the camera monitors towards the open doors and saw that they were heading straight for a cliff. There was a loud crash as the rotor sheared off on impact and the helicopter went into freefall.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Made me feel proudly American’: stars react to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show

While Trump has attacked the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican star, celebrities have come out in force to support the half-time show

As blue, red and white fireworks filled the sky at the end of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show, a message filled the screen in all capitals: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

It was the enduring statement from a 13-minute spectacle that invited an estimated 135.4 million viewers into Bad Bunny’s world, with richly textured references to politics, history and Puerto Rican culture. The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio transformed the pitch of the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, into his own love letter to the island, with cinematic set pieces including sugarcane fields, a house party, and a lively wedding ceremony featuring a surprise performance by Lady Gaga.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:48 pm

Is Britain about to lose another prime minister?

While the herd is yet to move against Keir Starmer, many believe his tenure may be coming to an end

When Boris Johnson resigned as the British prime minister in 2022, he explained that the politicians who had once loyally supported him had turned against him.

This had sealed his fate. “The herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves,” he said.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:32 pm

Local police aid ICE by tapping school cameras amid Trump’s immigration crackdown

Local police assisted federal immigration agents by repeatedly searching school cameras that record license plate numbers, data show

Police departments across the US are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist Donald Trump’s mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by the 74 reveals.

Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month show police are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related investigations.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:32 am

Jamie Raskin accuses DoJ of cover-up after viewing unredacted Epstein files

Ranking member of House judiciary panel said ‘mysterious redactions’ in files obscured names of abusers

A top House Democrat on Monday accused the justice department of making “mysterious redactions” to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while also allowing the identities of the disgraced financier’s victims to become public.

Jamie Raskin, House judiciary ranking member, criticized the department after reviewing the unredacted Epstein files at a government facility in Washington DC on the first day they were made available to lawmakers.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:12 pm

Trump threatens to block new bridge in latest tirade against Canada

President says Gordie Howe Bridge will open only when US is ‘fully compensated’ – and makes bizarre hockey claim

As Democrats prepare to force a vote in the US House this week on Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, the president posted a lengthy diatribe on his social media platform in which he threatened to block a bridge connecting the US and Canada and made a bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.

Trump began his latest screed against the US’s second-largest trading partner by claiming that “everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades”.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:15 am

RFK Jr misled Senate during confirmation, Congress members and Hawaii governor say

Newly revealed emails undermine Kennedy’s testimony about 2019 Samoa trip ahead of deadly measles outbreak

Three members of Congress say the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during his Senate confirmation hearings in response to newly revealed emails that undermine his testimony that a trip he took to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

The governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the crisis, also spoke out – saying that the disclosure of the emails by the Guardian and the Associated Press show Kennedy misled the Senate and that he should step down.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:23 pm

US says two people killed in military strike on boat in Pacific

Officials say rescuers searching for lone survivor after latest attack on what Pentagon says are suspected drug smugglers

The US military’s Southern Command, which oversee operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced that it carried out another deadly strike on Monday, killing two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific.

The statement said that the latest in what legal experts have called a series of extrajudicial killings by the Pentagon was carried out “at the direction of” the Florida-based combat unit’s new commander, Gen Francis L Donovan, who was sworn in at a Pentagon ceremony last Thursday. Donovan takes over after a US navy admiral, Alvin Holsey, chose to retire over reported disagreements over the boat-strike policy.

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:57 am

Trump White House voices opposition after Israel unveils plan to increase control over West Bank

Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans that pave the way for more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory

A White House official has reiterated Donald Trump’s opposition towards Israel annexing the West Bank, after Israeli plans were announced that would pave the way for more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The measures, announced on Sunday, included allowing Jewish Israelis to buy West Bank land directly, and extending greater Israeli control over areas where the Palestinian Authority exercises power. It was unclear when the new rules, approved by Israel’s security cabinet, would take effect but they do not require further approval.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:19 am

Winter Olympics 2026 day four: freestyle skiing, short-track skating and more – live

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

• Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch! Mail Daniel

Ooooh, Ariane Raedler of Austria, eighth in the individual event, nails 1:35.65, a time that would’ve been good enough for bronze; she takes the lead, giving Katharina Huber, her partner, a chance in the second portion.

Miradoli of France lays down a quicker time than she did coming 16th in the individual downhill, 1:37.37; I guess she’s used to the course now. Our big names, though, don’t come out for a while: Goggia, who took bronze in the individual event is ninth, Aicher who claimed silver, is doing the slalom portion, and Johnson is 14th with Srobova, Vlhova’s partner, going 28th and last.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:49 am

UK and US sink to new lows in global index of corruption

Countries’ drop in scores in annual table comes amid ‘worrying trend’ of backsliding in established democracies

The UK and US have sunk to new lows in a global index of corruption, amid a “worrying trend” of democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists.

Experts and businesspeople rated 182 countries based on their perception of corruption levels in the public sector to compile a league table that was bookended by Denmark at the top with the lowest levels of corruption and South Sudan at the bottom.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:00 am

Actor Catherine O’Hara died of a blood clot in her lungs, death certificate says

Schitt’s Creek and Home Alone star died aged 71 in January after being rushed to hospital due to breathing difficulties

Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy-winning actor and beloved star of the series Schitt’s Creek and the 1990 hit movie Home Alone, died from a blood clot in her lungs, her death certificate revealed Monday.

The death certificate released by the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office also listed rectal cancer as an underlying cause.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:57 pm

Trump news at a glance: Europe must stand up to Trump and his ‘demolition men’, new report says

Report prepared by Munich Security Conference warns of ‘suicide of a superpower’ under Trump – key US politics stories from Monday 9 February at a glance

Europe has come to the painful realisation that it needs to be more assertive and more militarily independent from an authoritarian US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values, a report prepared by the Munich Security Conference asserts.

Polling commissioned for the report shows Europeans are increasingly willing to operate without US leadership and say it is no longer necessary.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:01 am

Trump justice department moves to dismiss Steve Bannon criminal case

Former Trump adviser convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before House January 6 committee

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice moved to dismiss a criminal case against his former aide Steve Bannon, connected to his refusal to testify before Congress relating to the investigation into the January 6 insurrection.

The controversial hard-right strategist, an ally of Trump, was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to appear for a deposition before the House committee that investigated the 2021 attack on the Capitol and declining to produce documents requested by the committee.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:22 pm

Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood demand Phantom Thread music removed from Melania film

Director and composer of 2017 drama allege breach of agreement after score reused in controversial documentary

Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, the director and composer, respectively, for Phantom Thread, have requested that music from the 2017 film be removed from the controversial new documentary on Melania Trump.

“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” the pair said in a statement to Variety. “While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:27 pm

Sony Pictures chief calls racist Trump video ‘despicable’ in rare intervention

Tom Rothman, CEO of the major Hollywood film studio, described a clip depicting the Obamas that was posted on Truth Social as ‘regressive’

In a highly unusual intervention, Hollywood studio chief Tom Rothman has described Donald Trump’s posting of a racist video featuring former US president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as “despicable”.

The remarks were reported by the Hollywood Reporter, and were made when Rothman was speaking at the African American Film Critics Association awards ceremony, where he accepted the Impact award on behalf of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, of which Rothman is chair and CEO.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:36 pm

‘These are people’s livelihoods’: Minnesota’s economy in crisis amid ICE surge

Small businesses across the Twin Cities are suffering and owners say ‘Metro Surge’ could be worse than Covid-19

A man walked into Soleil Ramirez’s restaurant last month and started to ask strange questions: How many people do you have on staff? Why are you so small? “Stuff nobody asks,” she said.

The man then started talking loudly into his phone. “I’m here doing a dip in a restaurant. There’s not a lot of people here, so I don’t know if it’s worth coming,” Ramirez recalled him saying. The encounter left her unnerved.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

Pride and unease: US Winter Olympians navigate politics, patriotism and Trump attacks

Some athletes at the Milano Cortina Games speaking out on the complications of representing the US abroad are facing hostility from home

Some US athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina are speaking more openly than at any point since Donald Trump returned to the White House, describing a complicated mix of pride and discomfort about representing the country while political tensions at home and abroad spill into the Games.

The comments – and the fierce reaction they have triggered from political figures, online influencers and the president himself – have exposed a widening gap between how some athletes view their Olympic role and how parts of the political establishment believe they should use it.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

The Minnesotans trapped at home, too terrified of ICE to go outside: ‘Our house is like a jail’

The surge of federal immigration agents has forced many families to remain inside for weeks, living in fear of roving ICE patrols snatching people off the street

José hasn’t left his house in Saint Paul for 29 days – not to shovel the snow at his driveway, not to fix up the car.

When the car needed an oil change, he video-called his wife, Sara, from inside so he could walk her through it. “I’ve only been from the bedroom to the living room,” he said. He’s afraid to even get near the front door.

Published: February 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘A white man’s war, a Black man’s fight’: the eye-opening story of Black soldiers in Vietnam

At a time when Black military history is being rewritten under Trump officials, new book The War Within a War provides a vital reminder

Wil Haygood’s new book, his 10th, is The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. Meeting in Washington DC to discuss it, he produces from between the pages a small Ziploc bag. Carefully, he takes out a flier, yellowed and brittle with age. The text at the top is Vietnamese. Underneath there is English.

It reads: “Colored GI’s! The South Vietnamese people, who are struggling for their independence and freedom, are friends with the American colored people being victim of barbarous racial discrimination at home. Your battlefield is right in the USA! Your enemy is the war lords in the White House and the Pentagon!”

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:03 am

‘I saw the writing on the wall’: Austria offers safe haven for US academics as Trump wages war on universities

Other countries benefit from the Trump brain drain as administration wages war on academia and research

Wali Malik no longer has to worry that a rightwing bureaucrat – or influencer – will decide his research is “woke”.

He doesn’t have to fear government retaliation for speaking his mind or following the science wherever it may lead. And like others who have left a polarized United States for the calmer pastures of Austria, he need not fear his lab being decimated because the president decided he wants to deport the people who work there.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:01 am

Heat seekers: amazing thermal images from the Winter Olympics

Photographers using compact thermal-imaging cameras have crafted eerie and ‘poetic’ results at Milano Cortina 2026

While most photographers are striving to ‘freeze’ motion using traditional cameras at the Winter Olympics this month, a creative trio from the photo agency Getty Images are seeking something much more unexpected: heat.

Equipped with compact thermal-imaging cameras – the kind typically reserved for scientific or industrial purposes – Pauline Ballet, Ryan Pierse and Héctor Vivas have been crafting eerie pictures of athletes on the slopes of Cortina and in the rinks of Milan. The Olympians’ bodies are rendered as spectral yellows and reds, while the ice and snow around them appears either cyan or indigo.

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:00 am

Six planets line up for rare parade throughout February

Celestial spectacle will be at its most impressive on 28 February, when Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will align across the sky

Space enthusiasts are in for a treat at the end of this month as six planets will appear close together in the night sky.

The phenomenon, known as a planet parade or planetary alignment, occurs when at least four or five planets can be seen altogether, according to Nasa. On 28 February, stargazers will have the chance to spot Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune aligned closely across the sky – making this a rare planetary display.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:59 am

Beats Powerbeats Fit review: Apple’s compact workout earbuds revamped

Secure, noise-cancelling Bluetooth earbuds that shine for exercise and everyday use on Android and iPhone

Apple’s revamped compact workout Beats earbuds stick to a winning formula, while slimming down and improving comfort.

The new Powerbeats Fit are the direct successors to 2022’s popular Beats Fit Pro, costing £200 (€230/$200/A$330). They sit alongside the recently redesigned Powerbeats Pro 2 as Apple’s fitness alternatives of the AirPods.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of overdiagnosing mental illness?

Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits. But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing more harm than good

Someone is shot, and almost dies; the fragility of life is intimately revealed to him. He goes on to have flashbacks of the event, finds that he can no longer relax or enjoy himself. He is agitated and restless. His relationships suffer, then wither; he is progressively disturbed by intrusive memories of the event.

This could be read as a description of many patients I’ve seen in clinic and in the emergency room over the years in my work as a doctor: it’s recognisably someone suffering what has in recent decades been called PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. But it isn’t one of my patients. It’s a description of a character in the 7,000-year-old Indian epic The Ramayana; Indian psychiatrist Hitesh Sheth uses it as an example of the timelessness of certain states of mind. Other ancient epics describe textbook cases of what we now call “generalised anxiety disorder”, which is characterised by excessive fear and rumination, loss of focus, and inability to sleep. Yet others describe what sounds like suicidal depression, or devastating substance addiction.

The great topmost sheet of the mass, that where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of travelling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning … Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:00 am

No, the human-robot singularity isn’t here. But we must take action to govern AI | Samuel Woolley

Moltbook, a social media site for AI agents, is nothing new. Still, the marriage of big tech and politics demands we take a stand

On a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I was shocked by the billboards that lined the freeway outside of the airport. “The singularity is here,” proclaimed one. “Humanity had a good run,” said another. It seemed like every other sign along the road was plastered with claims from tech firms making outrageous claims about artificial intelligence. The ads, of course, were rife with hype and ragebait. But the claims they contain aren’t occurring in a vacuum. The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, recently said: “We basically have built AGI, or very close to it,” before confusingly qualifying his statement as “spiritual”. Elon Musk has gone even further, claiming: “We have entered the singularity.”

Enter Moltbook, the social media site built for AI agents. A place where bots can talk to other bots, in other words. A spate of doom-laden news articles and op-eds followed its launch. The authors fretted about the fact that the bots were talking about religion, claiming to have secretly spent their human builders’ money, and even plotting the overthrow of humanity. Many pieces contained suggestions eerily like those on the billboards in San Francisco: that machines are now not only as smart as humans (a theory known as artificial general intelligence) but that they are moving beyond us (a sci-fi concept known as the singularity).

Samuel Woolley is the author of Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity and co-author of Bots. He is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:00 am

Jimmy Lai’s sentencing tells me this: democracy is dead in Hong Kong, and I escaped just in time | Nathan Law

Who will speak out for values and rights and my fellow democracy activist now that opposition has been silenced in Hong Kong? I say Britain should

• Nathan Law is a politician and activist from Hong Kong

Waking up on Monday morning to the news of the pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai’s 20-year prison sentence for national security offences felt surreal. I could have easily been in his position if I hadn’t fled Hong Kong right before the implementation of the notorious national security law (NSL), under which Lai has faced the harshest penalty ever given. In fact, Lai chose to stay and stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong in the face of an uncertain and repressive future. Now his family fears that he will die in prison.

A mix of emotions filled my mind. I was immensely disgusted by the audacity and malevolence of such punishment. This sentence has a transparently political end, but the Hong Kong and Chinese governments make no bones about it. Their sole purpose is to silence critics, and they have succeeded: civil society and domestic media, which should be the watchdogs of individual rights and government overreach, are dead silent on criticising the trial.

Nathan Law is a politician and activist from Hong Kong, and was leader of Demosistō from 2016 to 2018

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:39 am

This is my first Valentine’s Day as a single person since 1994 – and I can’t wait | Zoe Williams

A trip to the pub with my favourite 89-year-old, followed by a get together with some errant wives ... It’s going to be a belter

This is the first time I’ve been single on Valentine’s Day since 1994. I didn’t give it a lot of thought – romance’s festival day has never been a great advert for the concept. In the best case scenario, it turns your real and important feelings into a commercial cliche, in the worst, it’s just a vivid and poignant reminder of how much you wish you were elsewhere, and at every point in between, it’s open season for restaurants to rip you off while you make dry conversation over drier chicken.

This year, however, I made a plan with two married friends. I did not anticipate how much I would enjoy bumping into their husbands around the place, going “guess where I’m going on Valentine’s Day? OUT WITH YOUR WIFE”, to see their astonished expressions, since, ensconced in long marriages, they can no longer remember what month it is, let alone if anyone has any plans.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:00 am

Epstein was not ostracised for his crimes. To some powerful men, he became even more appealing | Moira Donegan

The latest tranche of files expose how he was viewed as a sexual svengali – and an expert on dodging the #MeToo movement

A new tranche of Epstein files has blasted its way through the worlds of media, politics, tech, academia, finance and Hollywood. High-profile individuals have once again been forced to explain their relationship with the billionaire financier – and why exactly they sent that email, or what they were doing in that photo, in that place, at that time. There have been resignations in Norway, Slovakia, France, the UK and on Wall Street. Each individual scandal matters. But take the files as a whole and a new picture forms: of Jeffrey Epstein as a man who was seen to survive a sexual abuse scandal, and who was then feted as a sexual svengali and a valuable ally in navigating allegations of sexual abuse amid the #MeToo movement.

The 3.5m documents that have thus far been released to the public – out of a reported 6m documents pertaining to Epstein in the US justice department’s possession – paint Epstein as someone for whom elites, and particularly elite men, often felt a sense of camaraderie and affection, maintaining intimate and friendly relationships long after his 2008 conviction on child sexual abuse charges. And their content implies that, in some cases, this was not simply a case of them turning a blind eye to their friend’s sexual crimes: the powerful actively approached Epstein for sexual and romantic advice, and saw him as a thrower of “wild” parties and a listening ear in whom they could confide their anxieties about the excesses of the #MeToo movement.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Spanish is clearly now the world’s coolest language. So why do we push British children to learn French? | Gary Nunn

As Bad Bunny showed at the Super Bowl, español is the coming thing. No wonder it’s now the top GCSE language choice

“Now, Gary, repeat after me: Quiero una margarita, por favor,” my Spanish tutor instructs. I cringe at the butchered Spanglish my estuary accent produces. Like Del Boy Trotter ordering a cocktail: “Key – yeah – row oon margari’a, pour far four.”

It’s 2023, I’m 41, living in Argentina and battling the frustration and disempowerment of learning a new language at this age, longing for my elastic 11-year-old brain over this husked-out mush. I’m also wishing, for the umpteenth time, that I was taught Spanish instead of French at school.

Gary Nunn is a journalist and author

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:00 am

A Minnesotan nurse saved my refugee family’s life. Four decades on, we watched the news together in horror | Rathana Chea

Alex Pretti’s death in Minneapolis reveals a painful contradiction – nurses are carers in times of crisis, often invisible, yet they carry our moral compass

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Four decades ago, my parents were Cambodian refugees. As high school students, they were thrown into one of the darkest chapters of humanity’s history, surviving nearly five years in forced labour camps under the Khmer Rouge genocide. An estimated 2.7 million of my kin perished during that time. Fortunately for my family, they were accepted under Australia’s humanitarian program and arrived in Australia on 26 January, a date heavy with complexity for Australian identity, and our refugee story became another layer within it.

Our journey began when my mother discovered she was pregnant. Together with my father, they decided to flee on foot through landmine-ridden jungle toward the Thai-Cambodian border, carrying nothing but their lives and the hope that their unborn child might escape the suffering they had endured.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:11 am

Ukrainian accuses IOC of ‘betrayal’ for banning helmet with images of dead athletes

• Heraskevych appeal over ban thrown out by IOC

• Officials will allow racer to wear black armband

The Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych has accused the International Olympic Committee of “betrayal” after it banned his racing helmet, which showed images of athletes and his friends that were killed following Russia’s invasion, from the Winter Olympics.

On Tuesday, Ukraine launched an appeal against the decision, arguing that Heraskevych should be allowed to use his “helmet of memory’, showing the weightlifter Alina Peregudova, boxer Pavlo Ishchenko, ice hockey player Oleksiy Loginov at the Winter Olympics.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:11 am

Lindsey Vonn has ‘no regrets’ over crash as fellow skiers defend her decision to race

• American was competing with ruptured ACL

• Vonn says she has complex tibia fracture

• Father says it is time for his daughter to retire

Lindsey Vonn says she suffered a complex tibia fracture “that will require multiple surgeries to fix properly” when her Olympic hopes ended in a heavy crash.

The American crashed out early in her run during the women’s downhill competition on Sunday. Her cries of pain could be heard clearly on the television broadcast and spectators and her fellow athletes were visibly shaken as she was airlifted to hospital.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:38 pm

Jutta Leerdam’s ruthless brilliance leaves speed skating in awe and Jake Paul in tears

The Dutch star, who combines commercial visibility alongside elite results, won gold on Monday in front of a packed arena that included her influencer boyfriend

Jutta Leerdam delivered the defining race of her career on Monday night, roaring to Olympic gold in the women’s 1000m and setting a new Olympic record of 1min 12.31sec to lead a Dutch one-two and deliver the Netherlands’ first medals of the Games.

The 27-year-old finished 0.28sec ahead of compatriot Femke Kok, who had briefly held the Olympic record after clocking 1:12.59 earlier in the final group. Japan’s defending Olympic champion Miho Takagi took bronze in 1:13.95.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:09 pm

Winter Olympics: Eileen Gu expresses sympathy for Hess after Trump’s ‘loser’ attack

• Freeskier was ambivalent about representing US

• Fellow athletes defend friend after president’s attack

Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu have weighed in on Donald Trump’s attack on Hunter Hess after the freeskier said he was ambivalent about representing the US during the president’s immigration crackdown.

“I think in moments like these, it is really important for us to unite and kind of stand up for one another for all that’s going on,” said Kim, the two-time Olympic gold medalist whose parents are South Korean immigrants and who has faced racism throughout her career.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:07 pm

Welcome to the Dark Side: Seattle’s brutal, Super Bowl-winning defense is here to stay

The Seahawks’ Legion of Boom terrorized opponents in the 2010s. Now a new unit has taken up the mantle – and delivered another title

Super Bowl LX was a two-score game with less than five minutes remaining. New England had the ball on the Seahawks’ 44-yard line and – after reaching the end zone in the fourth quarter, finally – that familiar sense of possibility. But that quickly vaporized when Devon Witherspoon knifed in on a corner blitz and jarred the ball loose from the Patriots quarterback, Drake Maye, mid-throw. Uchenna Nwosu snatched it in stride and rumbled 45 yards to the end zone, sealing Seattle’s 29‑13 victory.

That the league’s top defense was able to punctuate this moment, more than a decade in the making, with an interception as the Super Bowl XLIX hero Malcolm Butler looked on made the Seahawks’ revenge all the sweeter. “They lived up to the Dark Side today,” the Seattle head coach, Mike Macdonald, said of his defense. “It’s going to go down in the history books.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

Casemiro proved his doubters wrong. Now Manchester United must try to replace him

The Brazilian was often exposed by the tactics of Ten Hag and Amorim, but was always adaptable and a replacement will be expensive

“Leave the football before the football leaves you.” The meme-baiting quote from Jamie Carragher hung heavy over Casemiro for a long while, but it is testament to the Brazilian’s character and durability that he will leave Manchester United this year on his own terms, two years after those infamous words from the former Liverpool player.

In fairness to Carragher, context at the time was key. After United were hammered 4-0 by Crystal Palace in May 2024, Casemiro looked spent at the elite level, bypassed too easily in increasingly fast‑tempo matches and left for dead by Erik ten Hag’s high-risk tactics.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 pm

Falcons’ Pearce allegedly hit officer and crashed into WNBA star Jackson’s car prior to arrest

• Linebacker faces five felony charges over allegations

• Rookie is said to have attempted to evade officers

Atlanta Falcons linebacker James Pearce Jr, who was detained on five felony charges on Saturday, allegedly struck a police officer while evading arrest and crashed into a vehicle driven by WNBA player Rickea Jackson, ESPN reported on Monday.

According to the criminal complaint obtained by ESPN from the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office, the charges against Pearce include aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated stalking and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:25 pm

Bad Bunny and jingoism lite: was this the Super Bowl where woke roared back?

The NFL appeared keen to welcome the sport’s non-Maga contingent back into the tent. But the theater and violence of capitalism was still there

Roger Federer smiling wolfishly to the crowd: a return to woke? Adam Sandler hangdog in the Levi’s Stadium stands, Jon Bon Jovi mooching on the sideline like a retired dentist on a cruise, Billie Joe Armstrong belting out American Idiot during the pre-game show under his motionless meringue of fogey-blond hair: were they a sign? A New England Patriots team who were neither favored to win nor widely reviled, then promptly repaid a grateful public by losing: was this the Super Bowl which proved that history really can move on, that America is not fated to remain hostage to the tremors and hatreds of the past? Well, yes and no.

A year after Donald Trump made American football’s showpiece all about him, Sunday’s game in Santa Clara always promised a sort of correction – a cooling of the mood, perhaps even an end to the manipulation of sport for political ends. As always the best way to gauge the success of this mission was as the gods intended: through a TV screen. Trump – saddled with historically low approval ratings, facing a massacre in this year’s midterms, and no doubt wary of risking a public appearance in the deep blue sea of the Bay Area – was absent on this occasion, and he kept the F-22 fighter jets that were scheduled to be part of the pre-game flyover away from Levi’s Stadium too. (Unspecified “operational assignments” were the reason offered for the jets’ withdrawal, which means there’s probably a low-ranking member of the Trump administration putting big money on a US military strike somewhere in Latin America as we speak.) And yet, the absent autocrat still weighed on proceedings, his curdling influence turning every moment and gesture on Sunday into a referendum on the prospects for a post-Trumpian sporting future. Could football be normal again?

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:23 pm

Emma Raducanu retires in Qatar opener after on-court blood pressure test

• Briton forced to pull out when 2-0 down in deciding set

• Qualifier Camila Osorio into Qatar Open second round

Emma Raducanu retired during the third set of her first-round match with the qualifier Camila Osorio at the Qatar Open, having tried to play on after taking a medical timeout.

The British No 1 was looking to move swiftly on from the disappointment of losing in straight sets on Saturday against the home ­favourite Sorana Cirstea in the ­Transylvania Open final, a match she described as “very difficult emotionally and physically”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:27 pm

Chelsea’s Liam Rosenior admits online mockery is affecting his family

• Head coach says he expected backlash after taking role

• ‘I’m not a massive name and have a different character’

Liam Rosenior has opened up on the ridicule directed at him since he became Chelsea’s head coach, saying he expected the backlash and revealing it has affected his family.

Speaking with honesty and positivity, the 41-year-old was keen to stress that he will not allow the discussion around his personality, looks and coaching background to stop him from doing his job. ­Rosenior has said previously that he knows “a lot of people in this country have been laughing at me” since his ^­appointment as Enzo Maresca’s replacement last month.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:30 pm

Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Liverpool rue costly mistakes, Viktor Gyökeres builds up a head of steam and Rayan gets the hype train chugging

• Premier League top scorers: the latest standings

Arne Slot was close to landing a coup against Pep Guardiola, the coach he admires most. Then came more of the individual errors that have ruined Liverpool’s title defence. Aching weaknesses within Slot’s squad were exposed again. Dominik Szoboszlai playing Bernardo Silva onside for Manchester City’s equaliser was an error midfielders playing full-back will make. Szoboszlai’s late red card was, though, foolish. Alisson’s foul on Matheus Nunes for Erling Haaland’s decisive penalty was another rush of blood. Liverpool’s huge summer spend was motivated by their executives’ belief in buying the best individuals to unlock the Premier League’s tactical cages. City’s key individuals showed such a policy can pay off, with Silva inspirational, Gianluigi Donnarumma making the save that sparked the game’s chaotic final scenes, Marc Guéhi looking an astute defensive signing and Haaland supplying Silva’s goal. City had been unconvincing but their mentality held, allowing them to eventually profit from Hugo Ekitiké’s misses and the waning of Mohamed Salah. John Brewin

Match report: Liverpool 1-2 Manchester City

Match report: Brighton 0-1 Crystal Palace

Match report: Arsenal 3-0 Sunderland

Match report: Newcastle 2-3 Brentford

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

You may not like the Liverpool red card, but it was the right call | Jonathan Wilson

Referee Craig Pawson sent off Dominik Szoboszlai by the letter of the law; the only way it should be done

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Refereeing is the most thankless of jobs. There are times when you can get a decision absolutely right and still you get criticised on all sides.

In the final seconds at Anfield on Sunday, with the Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson caught upfield, Rayan Cherki rolled the ball towards the Liverpool goal. Erling Haaland gave chase and would have gotten there to nudge the ball definitively over the line but he was pulled back by Dominik Szoboszlai, who would then have caught up with the ball to clear had he not been pulled back by Haaland. The ball crossed the line but the referee Craig Pawson, after a VAR review, gave not a goal but a free-kick for the first offence, sending Szoboszlai off for the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:48 pm

‘A free limo is hard to turn away’: how car diplomacy turbo charges politics in the Pacific

A luxury Chinese sedan gifted to Fiji is the latest in a string of vehicles donated by foreign countries to deepen partnerships and seek influence in the region

At a ceremony in January, a shiny black luxury sedan rolled into the leafy, rain-soaked ground of Fiji’s state house. It was a gift from China to the Pacific nation’s president, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who thanked Beijing for the “beautiful limousine”.

The vehicle given was a Hongqi or “Red Flag” car, the same brand used by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, during military parades.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:17 am

Keir Starmer must lead ‘moment of change’ after Labour turmoil, says Ed Miliband

Minister calls for party’s briefing wars to end as MPs rally around ‘liberated’ prime minister after speech in parliament

Ed Miliband has said Keir Starmer must lead a “moment of change” for the government, saying Labour needs to end the briefing wars against its own members and show “a greater clarity of purpose”.

After a day of turmoil where the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for Starmer to resign, Labour MPs rallied around the prime minister following a speech in parliament.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:13 am

Macron says Europe facing ‘profound geopolitical rapture’ amid changes in world order – Europe live

“It is time for Europe to wake up … If we do not decide for ourselves, we will be swept away,” the French president said

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has urged Europe to reassert its position in the world, as the continent faces rapidally changing landscape in politics and trade.

In an interview with a group of European media outlets, Macron warned that the strategy of bowing down to the US and other geopolitical powers doesn’t work and urged Europe to urgently step up its integration to get ready to face “permanent instability” ahead.

“We have European interests to defend and I’m not going to delegate them to anyone, not even the US.”

Ukraine and France have agreed to start joint weapons production, the Ukrainian defence minister said on Monday after hosting his French counterpart in Kyiv.

Ukraine is opening up exports of its domestically produced weapons, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said – a way for Kyiv to cash in on its wartime technological advances to generate badly needed funds.

Russian attacks damaged production sites of Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz in the Poltava and Sumy regions, the company’s CEO said on Monday.

The EU has proposed extending its sanctions against Russia to include ports in Georgia and Indonesia that handle Russian oil, the first time it would target ports in third countries, a proposal document showed.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:10 am

South Korean crypto exchange races to recover $40bn of bitcoin sent to customers by mistake

Bithumb has apologised for staff error that sent customers 620,000 bitcoins instead of 620,000 Korean won, equivalent to a few hundred US dollars

South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange is scrambling to recover more than $40bn of cryptocurrency after accidentally crediting customers with 620,000 bitcoins during a promotional event last week.

Bithumb said it had corrected most of the mistaken credits, but that about 13bn won ($9m) remained unrecovered after some recipients sold or withdrew the funds before the error was detected.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:26 am

Air Canada cancels all flights to Cuba as US oil blockade cuts off fuel access

Airlines from as far away as Russia, China and Spain have also been affected as island nation warns of fuel shortage

Air Canada has cancelled all flights to Cuba after the island’s authorities said they were running out of aviation fuel, as a consequence of the US oil blockade on the Caribbean country.

The airline, one of a dozen who serve the island, said it would begin repatriating 3,000 customers. Cuba’s beaches are a major holiday draw for Canadian tourists in winter, and one of the government’s most important sources of hard currency.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 pm

Nancy Guthrie’s family pleads for public’s help: ‘We’re at an hour of desperation’

Investigation in apparent abduction enters second week as deadline for purported ransom note demanding $6m looms

Television host Savannah Guthrie issued a desperate plea for anyone who might know anything about her missing mother to contact law enforcement on Monday, as the search for Nancy Guthrie entered its ninth day.

“We need your help,” said Savannah Guthrie, eight days after her mother was first reported missing. Investigators returned to search Nancy Guthrie’s Arizona home this weekend. They appear no closer to finding her, or identifying an alleged abductor.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:25 am

People with obesity 70% more likely to be hospitalised by or die from infection, study finds

Being unhealthy weight raises risk of severe illness or death from most infectious diseases significantly, researchers find

People living with obesity are 70% more likely to be hospitalised by or die from an infection, with one in 10 infection-related deaths globally linked to the condition, research suggests.

Being an unhealthy weight significantly increases the risk of severe illness and death from most infectious diseases, including flu, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections and Covid-19, according to a study of more than 500,000 people.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:30 pm

At least 18 people now dead as historic New York cold stretch nears end

City faced one of longest periods of subzero cold since 1961, forcing ‘code blue’ and extreme weather warnings

• Deadly cold tests New York’s ability to protect its homeless communities

The death toll related to New York City’s dangerous and enduring cold has risen to 18, officials said on Sunday.

The climbing number of fatalities came as a stark reminder of the danger of the subzero temperatures gripping the area, which has been subjected to one of the longest stretches of subzero cold since 1961.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:22 pm

San Francisco teachers begin first strike in nearly 50 years

Thousands walk out after talks with district failed to reach agreement on wages, healthcare and resources for students with special needs

About 6,000 public schoolteachers in San Francisco went on strike on Monday, the first public schoolteachers strike in the city in nearly 50 years.

The strike comes after teachers and the district failed to reach an agreement over higher wages, health benefits and more resources for special needs students. The San Francisco Unified School District closed all its 120 schools and said it would offer independent study to some of the district’s 50,000 students.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:14 pm

Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

Exclusive: António Guterres says world’s accounting systems should place true value on the environment

• Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

‘To live a normal life again, it’s a dream come true’: UK’s first climate evacuees can cast off their homes and trauma

Forty-odd residents of Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, south Wales, relieved by council buyout after years in fear of fast flooding

When Storm Dennis hit the UK in 2020, a wall of dirty, frigid water from a tributary of the Taff threw Paul Thomas against the front of his house in the south Wales village of Ynysybwl. He managed to swim back into his home before the storm surge changed direction, almost carrying him out of the smashed-in front door.

“I was holding on to downpipes to stop myself being dragged out again. It was unbelievably strong, the water,” he said.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:00 am

EU urged not to roll back green agenda in effort to revive faltering economy

Campaigners say industrial issues cannot be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies

• Europe live – latest updates

• Business live – latest updates

EU leaders have been warned against a rollback of the green agenda before a summit focused on reviving the bloc’s waning economy.

Campaigners from the Climate Action Network, a pan-European group of NGOs, said European industry was “under real pressure” from “high energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity and delayed investments”, but these issues could not be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:47 pm

US judges dismiss lawsuits accusing Neil Gaiman of sexual assault

Former nanny Scarlett Pavlovich filed suit in three US states alleging author assaulted her in New Zealand in 2022

Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits accusing the bestselling fantasy author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting his children’s nanny in New Zealand four years ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family’s nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:01 am

Arrested journalist Don Lemon urges US to ‘keep fighting’ for right to free press

Ex-CNN anchor arrested after covering anti-ICE protest says it was ‘very frightening’ to experience official overreach

The former CNN anchor Don Lemon has warned the US must “keep fighting” for its right to a free press, calling it “the breath in the lungs of democracy” following his arrest alongside another journalist by the Trump administration.

Lemon was arrested late last month, days after covering an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:56 pm

Maine shaken by ICE raids as backlash threatens Republican Senate control

Workers and unions condemn ICE operation as ‘horrific’ as pressure builds on Susan Collins, facing re-election this year

Maine, the US’s whitest state, has been shaken by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, a crackdown that could threaten Republican control of the Senate in November’s crucial midterm elections.

Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents launched “Operation Catch of the Day” in the state on 21 January, targeting “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have terrorized communities”, according to the administration.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Traditional food could help reverse Nepal’s ‘diabetes epidemic’, studies suggest

With medication largely unaffordable in the country, experts hope community support and a change in diet could reduce soaring type 2 diabetes rates

A return to the traditional lentil and rice dishes that have nourished generations of Nepalis could save them from a diabetes epidemic prompted by the influx of western junk foods, doctors have said.

In a country where one in five of those over 40 has type 2 diabetes, the foods enjoyed by their grandparents have showed remarkable results in reversing the condition.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

Europeans shunning US as Emirates and Asia travel prove popular, says Tui

Travel company reports lower demand for US amid signs Trump immigration crackdown is deterring travellers

• Business live – latest updates

Europeans are booking fewer trips to the US, Europe’s biggest travel operator has said, as appetite for long-haul travel wanes and concerns linger around Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Tui, which receives most of its bookings from customers in Europe, has seen “significantly lower demand” for travel into the US, according to its chief executive, Sebastian Ebel.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:18 am

Barclays boss ‘shocked’ by Epstein revelations; BP annual profits slump 16% – business live

Barclays CEO speaks as bank deals with fallout of ex-boss Jes Staley’s ties to convicted child sex offender; Japan’s stock market jumps to new peak in extended rally after Sanae Takaichi’s party secures election victory

The chief executive of Barclays has said he is “deeply dismayed and shocked” at the “depravity and the corruption” revealed in the Epstein files, as the bank deals with the fallout of its ex-boss Jes Staley’s ties to the convicted child sex offender.

In his first public comments on the matter since the US Department of Justice began publishing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein in December, CS Venkatakrishnan said his thoughts went out to the victims of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting child sex trafficking charges. He said:

I’m very, very deeply dismayed and shocked by the moral depravity and the corruption that you’re reading about in the latest set of instalments. You know, my heart really goes out to victims of this scandal and these crimes.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:24 am

Parents of Melbourne methanol-poisoning victims ‘shocked’ by $185 fines handed to Laos hostel staff

Fathers of Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, who died after a night out at the Nana backpackers hostel in 2024, say court decision is ‘absolute injustice’

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The families of two Melbourne teenagers who died after drinking methanol-laced alcohol in Laos say they have been blindsided by news the workers responsible for serving the drinks received fines of just $185.

Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were killed by methanol poisoning along with four other tourists after a night out at the Nana backpackers hostel in Vang Vieng, a popular tourist destination in Laos, in November 2024.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:20 am

From Spielberg to Tarantino: the year’s big Super Bowl movie trailers

This year’s set of $8m TV spots gave us new looks at alien conspiracy thriller Disclosure Day, slasher sequel Scream 7 and an unlikely new David Fincher film

• Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show review – a thrilling ode to Boricua joy

With Super Bowl spots now up to a reported $8-10m, the market has grown a little less welcoming to Hollywood, an industry still not quite up to pre-pandemic numbers (the global box office for 2025 was down almost $10bn on 2019).

So while last night saw us assaulted with ads for beer and, depressingly, AI, there was a continued decrease in the number of major film ads, a harder spend to justify in this weakened climate. But the biggest of guns still came out, from Spielberg to Ghostface to the Minions …

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:49 pm

‘If I didn’t write about him, I’m afraid I might become him’: the making of Taxi Driver at 50

Screenwriter Paul Schrader talks the inspiration and legacy of Martin Scorsese’s incendiary New York nightmare

If Travis Bickle were real and alive today, he would not be a taxi driver but more likely be sitting in his parents’ basement, exploring the dark, misogynistic depths of the internet.

“We call them incels now,” reflects Paul Schrader, who wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver, released 50 years ago on Sunday. “‘Incels’ wasn’t a word at that time but it is these guys who are lonely, who see themselves unable to make contact with women, have a repressed backlog of anger and resentment and imagine some kind of glorious transcendent transformation through violence.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:03 am

Whistle review – a smart, sympathetic spin on the cursed-artefact horror

Chiller about a skull-shaped Aztec whistle blends Final Destination-style deaths with a tender portrait of anxious adolescence

On the surface, this teen-courting, genre-savvy Irish-Canadian horror effort looks like the kind of project ushered into production after the Philippou brothers’ cursed-artefact chiller Talk to Me cleared up at the box office. However, rather than suburban Australia, writer Owen Egerton and director Corin Hardy relocate us to an autumnal, Springsteen-ready North American steeltown, where artsy high-schooler Chrys (Dafne Keen) inherits the locker of the star basketballer we’ve just seen flambeed in a prologue. The deadly doodad she finds there is a skull-shaped Aztec whistle with either “summon the dead” or “summon your dead” (there’s some linguistic quibbling) inscribed on the side. Naturally she puts it back, and everybody lives happily ever after.

I kid, of course. For a while, the horror element is less in-your-face than it was in the pummelling Antipodean predecessor, but whistleblowing soon makes everyone’s worst fears about dying literal. That development gives Hardy’s increasingly bloody kill scenes a Final Destination-like piquancy: your heart can only go out to the boy racer who perishes via car crash in his upstairs bedroom. One similarity to the Philippous’ film is the sympathy for insecure, troubled teens who couldn’t seem more unlike the usual disposable jocks and prom queens. Egerton observes courtship rituals with tenderness, quietly foregrounding Chrys’s struggles to come out to upright classmate Ellie (Sophie Nélisse); beneath the looming shadow of death, this is an attempt to live one’s truest life.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:04 am

The Swedish Connection review – uplifting real life tale of Stockholm bureaucrat who outwits the Nazis

A genial, lightly comic portrait of Gösta Engzell, the unlikely civil servant who outmanoeuvred Nazi bureaucracy with paperwork

‘It’s a miracle!” exclaims a Swedish official. No, he is corrected by a beaming colleague: “It’s bureaucracy.” This is a man whose diplomatic pincer skills have just stuck it to the Nazi hate machine and will save tens of thousands of Jewish lives. His name is Gösta Engzell, a real-life bureaucrat in the Swedish foreign ministry during the second world war, played here by Henrik Dorsin as bumbling and avuncular in his comfy cardigans and dicky bow ties.

If we are honest, Engzell’s desk-based heroism – deploying the power of loopholes, paperwork and diplomatic notes verbales – to save lives is not terribly cinematic. Co-directors Thérèse Ahlbeck and Marcus Olsson’s workaround is to give us shots of diplomats dashing along the corridors of power, huffing and puffing; it all adds to the film’s affable comic mood, pleasant enough but sometimes jarring with the seriousness of what is at stake.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:00 am

Jimmy and Stiggs review – skull-numbingly silly alien-invasion splatterpunk yarn

Joe Begos’s gross-out aims for sensory assault but delivers only visual noise, numbing gore and a weary joke stretched far beyond endurance

This is a DayGlo-hued, heavy metal-spackled horror film that clearly hopes to provoke nausea in viewers with its abundant scenes of dismemberment and plentiful use of shaky-cam first-person point-of-view footage. But given that the “blood” being spurted out is mostly bright orange and belongs to extraordinarily fake-looking alien creatures, the effect is neither gross-out nor even the slightest bit engrossing; it is just boring and headache-inducing. Just as you should bring tissues to see Hamnet, viewers are advised to bring painkillers to this, and possibly a good book to read during the dull interstitial bits.

Made over several years in a single scuzzy apartment, Jimmy and Stiggs is the brainchild of writer-director-producer-star Joe Begos, who made the marginally better Christmas Bloody Christmas a few years ago and who plays title character Jimmy here. Having made a bunch of horror films with his lifelong friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer) – we see fictional trailers of them at the beginning, definitely the high point from which it all goes downhill – Jimmy’s career is evidently in a slump and he spends his time getting drunk and high in his grimy hovel, which has a cool jellyfish tank and seems lit exclusively by black-lights, like a 14-year-old metalhead’s dream digs.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Reconciliation across difference’: why Practical Magic is my feelgood movie

The next entry in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their favourite comfort films is a journey back to 1998 with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman

The VHS of Practical Magic was kept at the back of the cabinet, where the not-quite-child-appropriate films lived. The cover transfixed me: the ethereal faces of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, surrounded by burning candles. At eight years old, I was instantly drawn to something I didn’t yet understand. One day, I’d be ready.

Despite opening at No 1 at the US box office, Practical Magic failed to recoup its budget and was dismissed as tonally confused. Variety called it “part comedy, part family drama, part romance, part special-effects mystery-adventure … a hodgepodge”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Your Life Without Me by James Meek review – angel of destruction haunts a domestic drama

A plot to blow up St Paul’s Cathedral is seen through the lens of family tragedy

A great demolition is also an act of creation, so long as its execution is bold and impressive enough, so long as it clears out the dead wood and opens up the terrain. It’s the ethos that links Pablo Picasso to 1970s punk, Shiva the Destroyer to the anarchist hero of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Rip it up and start again. Or rip it up for the pure thrill of the ripping. In Graham Greene’s short story The Destructors, the schoolboy vandals of the Wormsley Common Gang systematically unpick a Christopher Wren-designed London house, working from the inside out so that it dissolves into rubble the moment a supporting post is pulled down. The crime’s one adult witness, a lorry driver, guffaws at the sight. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” he tells the home’s distraught owner. “There’s nothing personal, but you got to admit it’s funny.”

Raf, the angel of destruction who haunts the wings of James Meek’s graceful, death-haunted domestic drama, is likewise drawn to the work of Wren – although his project is conceived on a much grander scale. Raf is a professional demolition man, a gifted young engineer and natural born radical, easily moved to laughter or tears and effortlessly dazzling everyone in his orbit. For his PhD project, he has been granted free run of St Paul’s Cathedral in order to test the old building’s resistance to modern traffic vibration. He drills discreet holes in the masonry to install movement censors. But he also packs the cavities with Semtex.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

The Great Resistance by Carrie Gibson review – a panoramic account of the fight to end slavery

An ambitious chronicle spans four centuries of escapes and uprisings in the Americas

‘I am painting a historical landscape,” writes Carrie Gibson – “one that stretches the entire length and breadth of the Americas.” The story she applies this panoramic approach to is that of “the largest, longest-running and most diverse ongoing insurrection the world has ever known”: the fight for freedom by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Americas, from the 1500s to the 1800s.

It is an ambitious project. In 1979, the historian Eugene Genovese remarked that this story “might require 10 large volumes to tell in adequate detail”. Gibson attempts it in 500 pages. Flitting from Baltimore to Bridgetown to Bahia, her 35 chapters are a catalogue of escapes, armed uprisings and revolution – a dense tapestry as rich in stories from Spanish Cuba, Portuguese Brazil, French Martinique or Dutch Curaçao as from the more familiar settings of the United States or the Anglophone Caribbean. Not that it ignores well-known events or prominent people. William Wilberforce and the campaign to end the slave trade feature, as does Abraham Lincoln and the American civil war. But such familiar terrain is placed within a much broader context.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:00 am

Poem of the week: To Wordsworth by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The radical young poet’s backhanded tribute to the older writer is a stern judgment on his lapsed political idealism

To Wordsworth

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, —
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou should cease to be.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett review – a seductive drama of art and rivalry

Tensions simmer when a struggling artist joins her wealthy friends for a hen week on an exotic Greek island

It is the summer of 2019, and Sophie Evans, the reckless protagonist of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s unsettling second novel, has arrived on an idyllic island in the Cyclades with her university friends Helena, Iris and Alessia to celebrate Helena’s forthcoming marriage. Helena doesn’t want it called her “hen … Like we’re dumpy little featherbrains going cluck, cluck, cluck”, but all the same, the men – including Sophie’s curator boyfriend of six years, Greg – will not arrive for another five days.

She may be on holiday but Sophie is not at ease in the villa’s atmosphere of “almost offensive” good taste, with luxurious meals, cocktails on tap and endless sunshine. In the 10 years that have passed since they first met as students, the differences between the women have become more pronounced: money has “made itself known”. Elegant, chilly Iris, whose parents have bought her a place in Peckham, works in publishing; the family of spoilt, patrician art dealer Alessia seem practically to own the island on which the women are holidaying; and Helena’s aspiration is to be a trophy wife with a house full of “nice things”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 am

How a decades-old video game has helped me defeat the doomscroll

Trading social media for Pokémon battles and evolutions in Kanto on a Game Boy Advance has been surprisingly serene

Cutting back on doomscrolling must be one of the hardest new year resolutions to keep. Instinctively tapping on the usual suspects on your phone’s home screen becomes a reflex, and vast quantities of money and user data have been specifically employed to keep you reaching for the phone, ingraining it into our work, leisure and social lives. You’ll get no shame from me if you love your phone and have a healthy relationship with your apps, but I’ve found myself struggling lately.

This year, I’m attempting to cut back on screen time – sort of. I’m replacing the sleek oblong of my smartphone with something a little more fuzzy and nostalgic. In an attempt to dismantle my bad habit, I’m closing the feeds of instant updates and instead carrying around a Game Boy Advance. I’ve been playing Pokémon FireRed, a remake of the very first Pokémon games, which turn 30 this month. Even this refreshed version is more than two decades old.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:29 pm

Philippe Gaulier, clown guru and mentor to theatre and comedy greats, dies aged 82

Teacher who ran school outside Paris was a formative influence on generations of comedians and actors including Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson

Master clown Philippe Gaulier, the influential founder of France’s École Philippe Gaulier, has died aged 82. Gaulier taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.

Gaulier died on Monday due to complications from a lung infection. He had a stroke in 2023 and, since then, had “received warm words of encouragement from all over the world”, according to a statement made by his family. “He seemed especially happy to receive letters and messages from his former students. Teaching was his passion and purpose in life.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:18 am

Unmasking US rap iconoclast MF Doom’s final years in West Yorkshire

Podcast by Adam Batty and BBC 6 Music DJ Afrodeutsche follows the leads to Leeds

The hunt for clues about the life of the masked rapper MF Doom had taken Adam Batty to some strange places, none more so than a remote-control car shop in the market town of Otley, West Yorkshire.

Rumour had it that Doom, who died in Leeds in 2020, had spent thousands in the shop. Other sightings placed him in the indie venue the Brudenell Social Club.

MF DOOM: Long Island to Leeds is available on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 10 February.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Was I scared going back to China? No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, western censorship and returning home

He has been jailed, tracked and threatened by China’s government. What was it like pay a visit home? As he publishes a polemic about surveillance and state control, the artist relives a momentous trip to see his mother

Ai Weiwei is talking me through the decision-making process before his first visit to China in over a decade. The artist, known around the world as the most famous critic of the Chinese communist regime, had to do some fraught arithmetic before deciding to head back home.

Before boarding a flight with his son, who had never met the artist’s elderly mother, Ai thought back to his time in detention when his captors told him he would spend the next 13 years in custody on bogus charges: “They said, ‘When you come out, your son won’t recognise you.’ That was very heavy and really the only moment that touched me.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

Houseplant hacks: is candle wax useful for taking cuttings?

There’s a new trend for propagating plants by dipping cuttings in melted wax. Is it worth all the faff?

The problem
Plants like pothos are easy to propagate. But the internet loves anything that resembles a scientific experiment, so now there’s a trend for using candle wax.

The hack
Putting a wax “cap” on a cutting is supposed to keep bacteria out and force new roots to sprout from the nodes above. In practice, you’re coating a wound that already knows how to heal, with a substance that does nothing to help it.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

Say no to fake snow: the Austrian ski resort that likes to keep it real

Like many Alpine areas faced with declining snowfall, Villach had to make a difficult choice: bring in the snow cannons or reinvent itself

Walking up a winding trail in the Dobratsch nature park in Carinthia, surrounded by picturesque snowy slopes dotted with pines, we hear shrieks coming from round the corner. The path is as wide as a one-way street but Birgit Pichorner, the park ranger I’m taking a tour with, motions for me to move to the side, where we watch a couple with wide grins glide past on a wooden toboggan.

We have seen families out hiking with young children and speed walkers pacing for the summit, while on a trail above us, four skiers are zigzagging up one of the nature park’s designated ski touring routes. For residents of Villach, the southern Austrian town at the foot of Dobratsch, this is very much their Hausberg, a much-loved “locals’ mountain”, says Birgit.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

The best bath towels in the US, from fluffy to quick drying – tested

We tested bath towels at all price points to find the softest, most absorbent towels that can withstand the rigors of life – and are worth the money

• Experts tips for cleaning and caring for your bath towel to keep them softer, longer

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I am a huge fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That book has taught me two things: don’t panic, and a quality bath towel will get you far in this world (it says that a towel “is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”). A nice bath towel is also a simple way to add a dash of luxury to your daily routine.

When it comes to bath towels, I want one that’s soft, fluffy, absorbent, and can withstand the rigors of life. Above all, it has to be worth the money.

Best overall bath towel
Parachute Organic Super Plush towel

Best value bundle
Brooklinen Super-Plush Turkish Cotton Bath Towels

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:47 pm

My rookie era: on my first ski trip, I felt like a natural – then I was rapidly humbled by the mountain

I was a ski god. An avalanche. I was starting to think about the Olympics. Darude’s Sandstorm was playing in my head. Then wham, bam, stacked it

• Read more summer essentials

Twenty hot lesbians in a cabin in the snow. It sounds like a budget porn plot from the 70s, but it was the pitch my sister gave when she convinced me to try out skiing for the first time.

I am not a sports dyke. I am a like-to-read-books-and-sit-in-saunas dyke.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

A new start after 60: I became a wrestler, 50 years after falling in love with the sport

After a career in accountancy, Sally Goldner decided to get in the ring – as Zali Gold – and live out her childhood dreams

On the night of her 60th birthday, Sally Goldner climbed on to the top rope of the wrestling ring, to the roars of the crowd, and launched herself on to her competitors with a missile dropkick. The crowd roared. For a second, she was completely airborne, before landing on her opponents.

“‘Wow, I’m doing this,’” she thought. “Exhilarating. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing on my birthday.” She had seized her moment in an Alpha Pro battle royal, a multi-competitor elimination match. As her opponents – all men – threw her out of the ring, they wished her a happy birthday.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Is it true that … hair grows faster when you cut it?

Does a good trim really make your locks longer and thicker – or is it more complicated than that?

‘That’s not true,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. Hair grows from follicles – tiny structures in the scalp sitting 2-4mm beneath the skin. Inside each follicle, the hair fibre is formed long before it becomes visible at the surface of the scalp. By the time it emerges, the hair that you’re cutting is dead, hardened tissue.

“Cutting what’s above the surface has no effect on what’s happening in the follicle below,” says Tobin.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

Moroccan lamb filo pie and rhubarb panna cotta: Thomasina Miers’ Sunday best recipes

A succulent, richly seasoned lamb pie filled with honey carrots and almonds, followed by a cardamom- and orange-spiked desert

There is little as pleasing to cook in the depths of the winter as a pot of enticingly fragrant, slow-braised meat. A shoulder of lamb is one of my favourite cuts; you, or a friendly butcher, will need to trim away its excess fat, a job that will reward you with an exquisite flavour that marries beautifully with bold spicing. Here, we travel to Morocco, with sweetly aromatic ginger, turmeric and cinnamon, and follow that with cardamom, cream and rhubarb for pudding. A sumptuous, colourful feast to stave off any February blues.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:00 am

Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?

Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet. Can the two be decoupled?

During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.

Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO₂ as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

The distance between us: are these people together or apart? – in pictures

Intriguing images abound in Yolanda del Amo’s new book Archipelago, which explores how our longing for closeness coexists with a desire for individuality

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am