‘My mum went so far as to call me evil’: nine things you need to know about the Beckham family feud

Brooklyn has finally broken his silence about his rift with his parents. He’s not mincing his words – from his ‘overwhelming anxiety’ about being raised in the spotlight to his mum’s ‘inappropriate dancing’ at his wedding

Rich, powerful and beautiful they may be, but the Beckhams are almost certainly having a worse day than you. After quite literally years of tabloid speculation and swipes between siblings on social media, the long-rumoured rift between Lord and Lady Becks and their eldest son, Brooklyn, has finally come to a head, with Brooklyn “breaking his silence” in a wordy, six-slide statement to Instagram late on Monday.

If your response to his opus was “I ain’t reading all that”, here’s the lowdown on 26-year-old Brooklyn’s beef, and David and Victoria’s alleged transgressions, so that you can at least pretend you did.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:18 pm

Why the Trump administration’s demand for a list of Jews at Penn is so dangerous | Sigal Ben-Porath, Serena Mayeri and Amanda Shanor

If history teaches us anything, it is that making lists of Jews, no matter the ostensible purpose, is often a prelude to their and others’ persecution

This month, a judge ordered the University of Pennsylvania to justify its refusal to collect and disclose the names and personal contact information of Jewish faculty, staff and students to the federal government. Late last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Penn to force compliance with this chilling demand, made in the name of fighting antisemitism. Jewish and non-Jewish community members at Penn and beyond have united to support the university’s resistance to compiling and releasing data about members of campus Jewish organizations, the Jewish studies department, and individuals who participated in confidential listening sessions and surveys about antisemitism.

That such a diverse array of organizations, including Penn’s Hillel and Meor chapters, AAUP-Penn, the Association for Jewish Studies, the American Council on Education and Pen America, as well as local chapters of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation and the American Jewish Committee, have all spoken against the EEOC’s lawsuit reflects how deeply disturbing it is to think of the government demanding such a list. The Trump administration claims to act in the name of Jewish safety and against antisemitism, but this common reaction from groups with often divergent views may reflect a growing concern that its actions belie those laudable aims.

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘I’d come back to the UK – but I’m not playing a cop’: Oscar-tipped Wunmi Mosaku on sensational vampire smash Sinners

She grew up on a Manchester council estate. Now she’s gone stratospheric for her pivotal role in Sinners. The star talks about leaving Britain for LA – and the £30 bus trip that changed her life

‘I do love a Greggs,” says Wunmi Mosaku, as she settles into a sofa in a hotel in London’s Holborn. She’s extolling the virtues of the high-street baker after I jokingly suggested that’s what she could have for lunch, now she’s back in the UK from her base in Los Angeles. Despite being Stateside for the best part of a decade, she has lost none of her Manchester twang or sense of humour.

“You know what I love about Greggs?” she asks, leaning in. “In each city, they have something specific to that place. So in London, they’ve got the Tottenham cake. Manchester’s got the Eccles cake. In Liverpool, they’ve got the scouse pie. In Newcastle, they’ve got … a ton of breads. You can’t get them anywhere else!”

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:35 pm

How Trump has tried to undermine the powers of Congress: ‘Violation of norms’

Over his second term, Trump has taken aim at and circumvented the legislative branch – from mass firings to tariffs

Frigid January weather prompted Donald Trump’s second inauguration to be held in the rotunda of the US Capitol, an iconic room ringed by busts of former presidents that lies at the heart of Congress.

Almost immediately after departing the Capitol, Trump took aim at the legislative branch, moving to siphon from lawmakers the powers to control spending, agencies and declaring war, and take them for himself, experts say.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:00 pm

Four shark attacks in 48 hours leave Australian surfer Matt more afraid of local beaches than world’s biggest waves

Spate of incidents involving sharks across Sydney and New South Wales have rattled even the most seasoned surfers and beachgoers

In a city of more than 100 beaches, swimming and surfing are part of Sydney’s lifeblood. But four shark bites in New South Wales in 48 hours – three of which were in Sydney – have rattled even some of the city’s most seasoned ocean users.

On Sunday afternoon, a 12-year-old boy was left fighting for his life after being bitten on a harbour beach in Vaucluse in Sydney’s east. On Monday morning, an 11-year-old’s surfboard was bitten multiple times at Dee Why in the city’s north, while that afternoon, a 27-year-old man was bitten while surfing in Manly, less than 5km away.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘What did I just watch?’ The TV shows that utterly baffle us – but we can’t switch off

From David Bowie being reincarnated as a kettle to Reese Witherspoon in space, our writers list the TV head-scratchers they can’t get enough of

With a gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you with any degree of accuracy what Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company is actually about. In terms of straight plot, it’s the story of a man who is drawn into a conspiracy after a chair breaks when he sits on it. But beyond that, it’s honestly anyone’s guess.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:57 pm

Macron warns against ‘new colonial approach’ after Trump says ‘no going back’ on Greenland – Europe live

French president says ‘we prefer respect over bullies’ after leak of his text exchange with Trump

• Europe condemns Trump’s ‘new colonialism’ as Greenland crisis grows

And Davos looks like the place to be this week, with Trump now declaring that after his call with Nato’s Rutte he will have “a meeting of the various parties” on Greenland – whatever that means and whoever is going to be involved.

Separately, it’s not clear if Macron’s offer of setting up a G7 meeting on the sidelines was accepted (although looking at timings it would risk clashing with the emergency EU summit on Thursday night), but his separate invitation to a dinner at the Élysée Palace might be gone after Trump’s very pointed and personal criticism of the French president.

Attacked the UK, mockingly calling it a “brilliant” ally, for “shocking” plan to hand over sovereignity of the Chagos islands to Mauritius (despite previous US support), saying it’s among a “long line” of reasons why Greenland “has to be acquired”

Leaked private text messages from France’s Emmanuel Macron and Nato’s Mark Rutte discussing his latest policy moves

Threatened France with 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne over Macron’s refusal to join the Gaza “board of peace”, said of Macron that “nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon”

Reiterated his intention of taking over Greenland as “imperative for national and world security,” saying “there can be no going back”

Posted an AI generated visual of himself planting the US flag on Greenland, saying it’s “US territory, est. 2026,” days after the US delegation agreed with Danish foreign minister for talks to be conducted behind closed doors, and not through threatening messages on social media.

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:11 pm

Trump doubles down on Minnesota attacks in rambling remarks at White House briefing – live

Donald Trump opens White House briefing touting a stack of papers labeled ‘accomplishments’ on the anniversary of his second inaurguation

The supreme court did not issue a decision today on the legality of Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.

It’s not immediately clear the next date the court will issue opinions.

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:04 pm

Era of ‘global water bankruptcy’ is here, UN report says

Overuse and pollution must end urgently as no one knows when whole system might collapse, says expert

The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared.

The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:00 pm

‘Children make mistakes,’ David Beckham says after Brooklyn post

Comments come day after son publicly aired grievances and said he had no interest in reconciling with family

David Beckham has said parents must let their children “make mistakes” just a day after his son Brooklyn publicly aired his grievances with his family in an Instagram post that drew global media attention.

Brooklyn, 26, made a host of claims regarding the former England footballer and his wife, the singer and fashion designer Victoria Beckham.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:55 pm

Julia Letlow launches Trump-backed Senate primary bid against Bill Cassidy

Louisiana congresswoman is challenging Cassidy, who voted to convict the US president after 2021 Capitol attack

Louisiana congresswoman Julia Letlow officially announced her bid for Senate on Tuesday after receiving a “complete and total” social media endorsement from Donald Trump over the weekend.

Letlow, a Republican, is issuing a primary challenge to two-term GOP incumbent Bill Cassidy, a former physician who once voted to convict the president of inciting an insurrection during his second impeachment trial after the 2021 Capitol riots.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:37 pm

Israel bulldozes Unrwa headquarters in East Jerusalem

Palestinian refugee agency compound is demolished, while teargas is fired at UN vocational school in West Bank

Israeli crews have started bulldozing the Jerusalem headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem and fired teargas at a UN vocational school in Qalandia, in the West Bank.

Israel accuses the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unwra) of collaborating with Hamas – a charge the agency denies – and last year banned it from operating on its territory. The demolition marks Israel’s latest step against Unrwa, which provides aid to millions of Palestinian refugees.

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:29 pm

More than 100 vehicles involved in Michigan crash as snowstorm moves across US

Driver said he could barely see the cars in front of him and heard ‘bangs and booms’ behind him

More than 100 vehicles smashed into each other or slid off the interstate in Michigan on Monday as snow fueled by the Great Lakes blanketed the state.

The massive pileup prompted the Michigan state police to close both directions of Interstate 196 just south-west of Grand Rapids on Monday morning while officials worked to remove all the vehicles, including more than 30 semitrailer trucks. The state police said there were numerous injuries, but no deaths had been reported.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:52 pm

Russell Brand appears in UK court charged with further sexual offences

Comedian, 50, appeared via video link from US over charges of rape and sexual assault in relation to two women

Russell Brand has appeared in a UK court via video link from the US charged with two further sexual offences, including rape.

The 50-year-old comedian was charged in December with one count of rape and one count of sexual assault in relation to two women. The two alleged offences took place in 2009.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:53 pm

Naomi Osaka’s jellyfish-inspired outfit steals the show at Australian Open

Over the years, tennis has had its share of noteworthy fashion moments. And Osaka added another in Melbourne

Naomi Osaka’s renowned 125mph serve is positively slow compared with a jellyfish’s sting, which can cover 10 to 20 micrometres in less than one-millionth of a second. But it wasn’t just the invertebrate’s speed that the tennis player was calling on when she wore a jellyfish-inspired outfit to face Antonia Ruzic of Croatia in their first-round match at the Australian Open.

Entering Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, the 28-year-old tennis player’s look consisted of a pleated miniskirt over wide-legged trousers, a wide-brimmed hat with a white veil and a parasol. Jellyfish-esque elements were also incorporated into her on-court outfit, which featured a watery turquoise and green palette and soft frills on the warm-up jacket and dress, alluding to tentacles.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:32 pm

Trump made 10 key pledges a year ago – here’s what happened since then

A review of Trump’s bold promises about immigration, the economy, the US’s standing in the world and much more

There was no debate about record crowd sizes this time. With the temperature plunging to 27F (-3C) and a wind chill making it feel far colder, Donald Trump’s second inauguration was held in the rotunda at the US Capitol in Washington on 20 January 2025.

The great and the good of the political elite were there, including former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama and outgoing president Joe Biden. So were tech oligarchs such as Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. At 12.10pm, they listened intently as Trump began a half-hour-long inaugural address.

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:00 am

Might is right: US ‘foreign policy’ held hostage to mad king Trump’s whims

Increasingly unpopular at home, a president obsessed by his legacy has turned his scattergun on the world stage

One year into the second Trump administration, an actual US foreign policy remains just a nice idea. Instead, the world has been forced to adapt to the world according to Donald Trump: one increasingly shaped by his erratic shifts and unpredictable decisions, his fury at perceived slights and his growing desire to stamp his legacy in the model of an imperial leader from centuries past.

Think of it as the mad king’s court, where every day is a carnival.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:40 pm

Nervous rex: the Davos elite brace for Trump and his dinosaur diplomacy

Leaders of EU, France and Canada stake out positions on Greenland ahead of US president’s speech to World Economic Forum

“There’s no diplomacy with Donald Trump: he’s a T rex. You mate with him or he devours you.”

Debate at the World Economic Forum annual meetings high in the Swiss alps is usually scrupulously polite, but as this year’s gathering got under way in Davos on Tuesday, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, had this blunt advice for handling the week’s star speaker.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:52 pm

Trump’s board of peace is an imperial court completely unlike what was proposed

The US president’s global club was endorsed by the security council on a false prospectus and seems aimed at displacing the United Nations

Like many punters who have tried to do business with Donald Trump in the past, the UN has found itself a victim of a classic bait-and-switch, thinking it was buying one thing, but getting quite another.

When they voted to endorse the board of peace in November, other members of the UN security council hoped they were binding Trump into a Gaza peace process, but it now appears they were hoodwinked into backing a Trump-dominated pay-to-play club: a global version of his Mar-a-Lago court aimed at supplanting the UN itself.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:20 pm

‘2020 never ended’: How Black Lives Matter organizing taught Minneapolis to handle ICE surge

From community watch to mutual aid, grassroots networks in the Twin Cities build on efforts spurred during the 2020 George Floyd protests

• People in Minneapolis and St Paul: what is life like in the Twin Cities right now?

Steps from a Minneapolis police department precinct that burned during 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, Jamie Schwesnedl climbed into his SUV and plugged his phone into the console. He was beginning his afternoon shift watching for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in the neighborhood. Through his car’s speakers, community members gave updates about the location of federal agents nearby.

Schwesnedl is one of thousands of residents in the Twin Cities who have joined neighborhood-level rapid response groups in an attempt to disrupt ICE operations in the city. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis to carry out the Trump administration’s “largest operation to date” targeting immigrants.

Published: January 20, 2026, 11:00 am

Does it even need to be said? No, you don’t need to do a ‘parasite cleanse’

Pricey deworming remedies are being touted as cure-alls. Supermodel Heidi Klum gave it a go – experts roll their eyes

Last August, supermodel Heidi Klum revealed that she and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, were planning a worm and parasite cleanse.

“Everything on my Instagram feed at the moment is about worms and parasites,” she told the Wall Street Journal, ominously adding: “I don’t know what the heck is going to come out.”

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:00 pm

Hilary Duff review – first gig in 18 years for former teen icon is euphoric, escapist fun

Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Despite never being a huge pop force after her years as Disney star Lizzie McGuire, fans come from Brazil and Saudi Arabia for Duff’s charming, self-deprecating return

It’s fair to say that US actor-singer-writer-entrepreneur Hilary Duff has never been a force to be reckoned with in pop music. Her songs and albums have neither been particularly critically acclaimed nor commercially dominant; many people would know her only as Lizzie McGuire, hero of the Disney Channel sitcom from the early 00s. But for the 38-year-old Duff’s first live performance in 18 years, she’s met with a sold-out crowd screaming back every word of her music like they are all universally adored hits. Duff seems overwhelmed by the rapturous reception. Fans have come from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and all over Europe, and they are often so loud you can’t hear the woman on stage.

But after the shock wears off, Duff shows no signs of rust and her fierce sincerity combined with girl next door charm infuses the night with euphoria and escapism. When she jumps up and down on the stage’s sofa singing Why Not, you get the sense that this is how everyone in the crowd once sang the song in their adolescence. She’s also not afraid to poke fun at herself and her past: she brings three fans on stage to recreate the low-energy dance choreography of her 2007 single With Love that went viral on TikTok in 2021.

The 17-song set expertly sprinkles five new numbers from forthcoming album Luck … Or Something in between fan favourites such as 2015’s criminally underrated Sparks and 2003’s So Yesterday to keep the mood elevated. Time has made Duff’s voice more textured and refined, adding new depth to songs like Fly and Come Clean, though the twee Someone’s Watching Over Me, a ballad about self-acceptance, is cloying.

The biggest noise of the night comes with the one-two encore of her new single Mature and the Lizzie McGuire classic What Dreams Are Made Of. A wild singalong ensues complete with pink butterfly confetti as a giddy Duff jumps for joy on stage. It’s an emotional conclusion that takes this devoted crowd to new levels of noisy rapture and proves that Duff could easily put music at the centre of her portfolio career.

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:32 am

This fun thriller does the impossible: it makes you feel sorry for influencers (yes, really)

Influencer stars Cassandra Naud as CW, a Tom Ripley for the Instagram generation, who takes out influencers, posts as them and enjoys their lifestyles

“Film is a machine for empathy,” Roger Ebert famously once said – and given how empathetic this scrappy thriller made me feel towards influencers, of all people, Influencer is a very well-oiled machine indeed. Director Kurtis David Harder takes a good elevator pitch – hot girl kills influencers and takes over their social media accounts – and turns it into something far smarter and entertaining than you might expect, with a small budget and a lead actor who, mark my words, will be in everything before long.

The film opens on Madison (Emily Tennant), an influencer who is in Thailand on a sort of working holiday – taking smiley selfies, posing with skincare products and barely leaving her hotel while espousing the values of travel to her thousands of followers. “I love soaking it all in and really experiencing Asia as it is meant to be experienced – away from my comfort zone,” her voiceover coos, while we watch her eat a burger alone at her hotel and mope over her manager-boyfriend, Ryan (Rory J Saper), who didn’t come with her. After posting a bubbly video on an idyllic beach, she stares blankly out at the beautiful horizon as her phone pings incessantly; this is a lonely, empty life she has chosen, and she seems to know it.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:00 pm

Divorce rings: why women are celebrating their breakups

From repurposed engagement rings to parties, tattoos and the wild home renovations of #DivorcedMomCore, relationship splits have entered a surprising new era

Name: Divorce rings.

Age: Relatively new. British Vogue is reporting that they are a thing. And if it’s in Vogue the chances are it’s in vogue.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:47 pm

Seth Meyers on Trump: ‘It shouldn’t be this hard to make sense of what the president says and does’

The Late Night host roasted Trump’s desperation for the Nobel peace prize as his justification for invading Greenland

With most late-night hosts on holiday, Seth Meyers mocked Donald Trump’s secondhand Nobel peace prize and his incoherent logic for taking over Greenland.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:43 pm

As Trump menaces Greenland, this much is clear: the free world needs a new plan – and inspired leadership | Gordon Brown

The idea that the liberal rules-based order can survive his presidency now seems complacent. This is a historic moment – and a time to act

A European-wide chorus of resistance, led this morning by Keir Starmer, has greeted Donald Trump’s plan to take over Greenland, by force if necessary, and to start a tariff war if any country stands in his way. Have no doubt, this is a moment: if pursued as a non-negotiable demand, Trump’s plan ends any lingering hope that the liberal rules-based order can stumble on through his remaining time in office. The real question now is whether the 2020s will be defined by the complete collapse of the order’s already crumbling pillars and the atrocities accompanying it, or whether an international coalition of the willing can come together to build a new global framework in its place.

For, in quick succession, the US has abandoned its longstanding championing of the rule of law, human rights, democracy and the territorial integrity of nation states. Gone is its erstwhile support for humanitarian aid and environmental stewardship. Gone, too, is the founding principle of the postwar settlement: that countries choose diplomacy and multilateral cooperation over aggression and unilateral action. We cannot doubt any longer that the president meant it when he said he doesn’t “need international law”, and that the only constraint on his exercise of power would be “my own morality, my own mind”.

Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:00 am

In the face of Trump’s threats, Britain’s best path is clearer than ever: hurry back to Europe | Stella Creasy

Labour must urgently seek new roles and alliances, while also enhancing the UK’s own military capabilities

• Stella Creasy is chair of the Labour Movement for Europe

If the threats of Donald Trump prove anything, it is that the mantra of “shared values” with his administration is as much use as a chocolate teapot. Countries across the world are scrambling to adjust. Canada has announced a trade realignment towards China – and talk grows of counter-sanctions in Europe. If the UK wants to avoid being caught in the crossfire, there really is only one alternative: to finally take the brakes off rebuilding our common future in Europe.

In the past few weeks, Nato has suffered life-changing injuries. This should not be surprising, given the repeated signals from Washington, from the anti-European screed in Trump’s National Security Strategy to the harassment of President Zelenskyy at the White House. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time and act accordingly.

Stella Creasy is chair of the Labour Movement for Europe and the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:00 pm

Greenland’s tragedy: the dream of independence now looks like a trap laid by Donald Trump | Rune Lykkeberg

Denmark and its former colony have a complex relationship, but for now they must speak with one voice against US colonial ambitions

There are two tales about the relationship between Greenland and Denmark; both contain truth and blindness. One is the story told by the ruling classes in Denmark, the other is the narrative that unites progressives and nationalists in Greenland.

The moral of the first tale is that Greenland, as a part of the Danish kingdom, has managed the extremely challenging transition to a modern society without sacrificing its culture or identity. This is a rare and impressive achievement. Greenlanders are among the only indigenous people in the world with their own parliament, political institutions and education system and who have maintained their own language. And they have access to the same welfare services as other citizens of Denmark.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:09 pm

I am in Iran watching the protests and desperate for change. But I don’t believe the regime will fall | Anonymous

I wish I were wrong, but all I see is a paranoid state digging in

Iran is caught in yet another round of widespread civil unrest. These lines are written amid an internet blackout and I didn’t know if I’d be able to send them out. Ever since the 2009 post-election uprising, sporadic outbursts of public anger have become somewhat the order of the day, mostly silenced – brutally for a while – only to fester and uncork again on another occasion.

The street protest is not the sole medium through which opposition has tried to convey its dissent. Iranians have tried everything – be it the very narrow and funnelled channel of elections between the limited choices offered by the state, or on social media, in universities and at public events. The demand for meaningful change is repeated through different means, again and again, yet to no avail. Ever since the 2000s, the Iranian state heeds little in the way of democratic demands. And when there has been a narrow crack in the state bulwark, the likes of Donald Trump – by the reimposition of sanctions and violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – sabotaged and derailed civil attempts at reforming the Islamic republic.

The writer lives in Iran

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

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:09 pm

It’s a Brooklyn v Beckham Inc disaster: what happens when the elephant in the room goes rogue | Marina Hyde

Sir David and Victoria cornered the market in selling their family’s privacy for money – but there was a price to pay, and Brooklyn Peltz Beckham has just sent them the bill

The way 2026 has started, none of us wants to see the word “nuclear” in a headline, so on some level you have to feel glad that last night’s news alerts announcing in real time that someone “goes nuclear” and “launches nuclear attack” related to Brooklyn Peltz Beckham. At time of writing, the story about his Instagram broadside against his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, accusing them of treating him as a commercial prop all his life was by far, far and away the best read on the Guardian site, as well as the most deeply read. Again, I’m glad this blow-up wasn’t used as geopolitical cover, because if there was a time for Trump to invade Greenland largely unnoticed, maybe this was it.

Whoever wrote Brooklyn’s intercontinental ballistic Instagram – and it wasn’t the childlike authorial voice behind regular “I always choose you baby … me and you forever baby” posts to his wife – the sentiments will be his. Here’s a sample: “My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first. Family ‘love’ is decided by how much you post on social media, or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo opp …”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:35 am

Bodø/Glimt v Manchester City: Champions League – live

⚽ Champions League updates; kick-off 5.45pm GMT
⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Barry

Erling Haaland: Having grown up in Bryne, a mere 1,948 kilometres south of Bodo, this represents something of a homecoming for the Manchester City striker. The 25-year-old has scored five goals in the Champions League this season and will be hoping to add to his tally following an extremely fallow period in which he has scored just one goal, a penalty against Brighton, in his last seven games in all competitions.

Marc Guehi: The England defender completed a £20m move to Manchester City from Crystal Palace yesterday, with Pep Guardiola describing him as a high-class defender who is the “perfect age” and will provide an immediate boost owing to injuries. Sadly, the boost won’t be as immediate as Pep would like because his new recruit is ineligible to play against Bodo/Glimt. Jamie Jackson reports from just north of the Arctic Circle …

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:13 pm

Mendoza’s plunge helps seal first national football title for Indiana after perfect season

• Miami Hurricanes 21–27 Indiana Hoosiers

• Indiana go 16-0 for season to complete turnaround

• Heisman Trophy winner scores decisive touchdown

Fernando Mendoza bulldozed his way into the end zone and Indiana bullied their way into the history books on Monday night, toppling Miami 27-21 to put the finishing touch on a rags-to-riches story, an undefeated season and the national title.

The Heisman Trophy winner finished with 186 yards passing, but it was his tackle-breaking, sprawled-out 12-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-four with 9:18 left that defined this game – and the Hoosiers’ season.

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:36 am

Inter v Arsenal, Real Madrid v Monaco, and more: Champions League – live

⚽ Champions League updates | Follow Spurs v Dortmund
⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Will

Brahim Diaz is not back on the Real Madrid bench …

Bodo/Glimt are 3-1 up against City, who are down to 10 men after Rodri was sent off.

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:09 pm

Mercedes lead designer John Owen to leave team during upcoming F1 season

• John Owen was key figure in titles won from 2014 to 2021

• Audi to unveil first car in Berlin on Tuesday evening

Mercedes have announced that their leading car designer, John Owen, will leave this season as Formula One enters the first year of a major change in regulations. Owen has played a key part in the enormous success Mercedes has enjoyed in the modern era when the team secured eight consecutive constructors’ championships.

There are no indications as yet that Owen intends to join another team, with Mercedes saying he will continue in his role until mid-season to manage the transition process, after which he will take a period of gardening leave and what the team described as “a break from F1”.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:01 pm

Brahim Díaz’s nightmare miss shows dangers of trying to emulate Panenka

While the famous penalty technique is the ultimate act of showmanship, the cost of failure is too high to justify

Being too smart for your own good is usually drummed out of children before they leave school but sometimes people cannot help themselves. The Panenka penalty, successfully executed, offers the limited benefit of making a goalkeeper look silly and the taker a genius but Brahim Díaz is the latest to learn the cost of what happens when it goes wrong.

Díaz was given 15 minutes to consider what to do with his spot-kick after the ludicrous levels of drama in the Africa Cup of Nations final. Maybe this was his undoing: being able to ponder every option, from the rudimentary to the artistic, until deciding to replicate Antonin Panenka’s creation with what could, and should, have been the last kick of the tournament.

Published: January 20, 2026, 8:00 am

Madison Keys’ Australian Open title defence nearly falters as Ukrainian steals the show

Oleksandra Oliynykova made life hard for the American with a vicious concoction of drop shots, slices and moonballs up to the roof

Fans seated in the upper bowls of the vast Rod Laver Arena are long accustomed to watching tennis from a considerable distance away, but on Tuesday afternoon they enjoyed the rare sight of the tennis ball frequently rising as high as their seats.

That is the magic of Oleksandra Oliynykova, who made life hell for Madison Keys in the first match of the American’s Australian Open title defence with a vicious concoction of drop shots, slices and, most notably, moonballs that seemed to graze the stadium roof. Despite facing two set points in the opener, Keys showed her mental fortitude as she advanced to the second round with a 7-6 (6), 6-1 victory.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:23 am

Dolphins hire Packers DC Jeff Hafley as Titans reportedly get 49ers’ Saleh

• Hafley replaces fired Mike McDaniel

• 49ers defensive coordinator heads to Tennessee

The Miami Dolphins hired former Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as their coach on Monday, ending a swift search and tasking him with turning around a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game in 25 years. Meanwhile, another coaching source is reportedly over with the Tennessee Titans hiring San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.

Hafley replaces Mike McDaniel, who was fired earlier this month after going 35-33 in four seasons. The Dolphins also fired longtime general manager Chris Grier during the season. Saleh spent this season as the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator, his second stint in that job after spending three-plus seasons as coach of the New York Jets. He did not have a winning season with the Jets and was fired after a 2-3 start in 2024, going 20-36 overall. But the 46-year-old still had a strong reputation around the league and was a sought-after candidate in this busy coaching cycle.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:36 pm

Man who stalked Liverpool’s Marie Höbinger given two-year restraining order

• Mangal Dalal sent sexualised content to footballer

• Behaviour made Höbinger feel ‘anxious and scared’

A man who stalked the Liverpool midfielder Marie Höbinger has been handed a two-year restraining order and an 18-month community order.

Westminster magistrates court heard that Mangal Dalal, 42, sent the Austria international sex messages on Instagram, told her he wanted to have babies with her and sent her pictures of underwear.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:30 pm

‘Just not monetizable’: humanities programs face existential crisis at US universities

Fears over the future of humanities spread amid layoffs and restructurings at scores of public and private universities

Last month, students at Montclair State University in New Jersey held a mock funeral outside the university’s college of humanities and social sciences building. Carrying bouquets of flowers, they stood by a tombstone inscribed with the names of the school’s 15 departments, including English, history and sociology.

“We are gathered here today, in front of the humble home of CHSS, Dickson Hall, to mourn the death of the social sciences and humanities at the hands of the MSU administration,” Miranda Kawiecki, a junior at the college and one of the protest’s organizers, read from a written eulogy. “I coordinated this demonstration because I have dreams that cannot be monetized. I have a problem with our society that cannot be solved with an algorithm. I have words to write and say that cannot be generated artificially.”

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:00 pm

Six-year-old girl is only member of family to survive Spanish rail disaster

Child was on way home from a musical with parents, brother and cousin when trains collided, killing 42 people

A six-year-old girl who had travelled to Madrid to see a musical was the only member of her family to survive Sunday’s rail disaster in southern Spain, which killed 42 people, among them her parents, her brother and her cousin.

The girl, who has not been named, was found walking along the tracks after two trains collided near the town of Adamuz in the Córdoba province of Andalucía. She had emerged from the accident with only a minor head wound.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:46 pm

Trump cites UK’s ‘stupidity’ over Chagos Islands as reason to take over Greenland

US president says on social media that Britain’s decision to cede islands to Mauritius is ‘act of total weakness’

Donald Trump has suggested Britain’s decision to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is among the reasons he wants to take over Greenland.

The US president, who is travelling to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, made the claim as he ramped up his rhetoric on acquiring the Arctic territory.

Published: January 20, 2026, 9:16 am

Kurdish forces withdraw from IS detention camp in north-east Syria

US says it no longer supports SDF, which left camp as it loses swathes of territory to government forces

Kurdish-led forces in Syria have announced a withdrawal from a detention camp in north-east Syria housing tens of thousands of Islamic State-linked detainees, as the US announced it was no longer supporting them.

The fate of al-Hawl, which houses among others the most radical foreign women suspected to have been members of IS, and their families, is of great concern to neighbouring states and the international community.

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:02 pm

Head of US Africa bureau urges staff to highlight US ‘generosity’ despite aid cuts

Email sent to diplomats by state department office’s new boss is labelled ‘racist’ after dismissing Africa as a priority

US diplomats have been encouraged to “unabashedly and aggressively” remind African governments about the “generosity” of the American people, according to a leaked email sent to staff in the US state department’s Bureau of African Affairs this January and obtained by the Guardian.

“It’s not gauche to remind these countries of the American people’s generosity in containing HIV/Aids or alleviating famine,” says the email.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:11 pm

Prince Harry feels targeted for ‘standing up’ to Daily Mail publisher, court hears

Lawyer says duke, who is due to give evidence this week, feels he has endured ‘campaign of attacks’ by Associated

The Duke of Sussex believes he has faced a “sustained campaign” of attacks for having “the temerity to stand up” to the publisher of the Daily Mail, the high court has heard.

Lawyers for Prince Harry made the claim as they set out 14 articles about him they allege were secured using unlawful information-gathering by Associated Newspapers Ltd, which publishes the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:56 pm

Netflix sweetens Warner Bros bid with all-cash offer to block Paramount

Streaming company says proposal speeds up completion and allows WBD investors to vote as soon as April

Netflix has sweetened its $82.7bn (£61.5bn) offer for the studios and streaming businesses of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) by making it an all-cash deal, streamlining its potential completion in the face of a hostile bid from Paramount Skydance.

The streaming company had originally secured the unanimous backing of the WBD board last month with a cash-and-shares proposal that valued the business at $27.75 a share.

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:35 pm

Elon Musk floats idea of buying Ryanair after calling CEO ‘an idiot’

Tesla boss clashed with Michael O’Leary when airline boss rejected installing Starlink technology on aircraft

• Business live – latest updates

Elon Musk has floated the idea of buying the budget airline Ryanair, escalating his public spat with the Irish carrier’s boss, Michael O’Leary.

The two outspoken businessmen have locked horns since last week, when O’Leary was asked whether he would follow Lufthansa and British Airways in installing Musk’s Starlink satellite internet technology on his fleet of 650 aircraft.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:19 pm

Amy Adams, Ashley Walters and Charli xcx among the stars lined up for Berlin film festival

Programme for February’s Berlinale includes Adams in ‘enthralling’ film At the Sea, the directing debut for the Adolescence actor and the pop star’s tour mockumentary

New movies starring Amy Adams, Channing Tatum, Pamela Anderson, Callum Turner and Charli xcx and the directorial debut of British rapper-actor Ashley Walters will headline next month’s Berlin film festival, the first major European cinema showcase of the year.

The Berlinale, as the event is known, will spotlight new work on screen from 80 countries in its 76th edition, bringing A-list stars and fresh faces to the German capital during its 12-22 February run.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:53 pm

Looking for Miracle: why have so many dugongs gone missing from Thailand’s shores?

The Andaman coast was one of very few places in the world with a viable population but then dead dugongs began washing up. Now half have gone

A solitary figure stands on the shore of Thailand’s Tang Khen Bay. The tide is slowly rising over the expanse of sandy beach, but the man does not seem to notice. His eyes are not fixed on the sea, but on the small screen clutched between his hands.

About 600 metres offshore, past the shadowy fringe of coral reef, his drone hovers over the murky sea, focused on a whirling grey shape: Miracle, the local dugong, is back.

Published: January 20, 2026, 11:03 am

Antarctic penguins have radically shifted their breeding season – seemingly in response to climate change

Changing temperatures may be behind change in behaviour, which experts fear threatens three species’ survival

Penguins in Antarctica have radically shifted their breeding season, apparently as a response to climate change, research has found.

Dramatic shifts in behaviour were revealed by a decade-long study led by Penguin Watch at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, with some penguins’ breeding period moving forward by more than three weeks.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:01 am

Is your body really full of microplastics? – podcast

Studies detecting microplastics throughout human bodies have made for alarming reading in recent years. But last week, the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reported on major doubts among a group of scientists about how some of this research has been conducted.

Damian tells Ian Sample how he first heard about the concerns, why the scientists think the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives, and where it leaves the field. He also reflects on how we should now think about our exposure to microplastics

Clips: Vox, Detroit Local 4

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:00 am

Bill Gates charity trust’s holdings in fossil fuel firms rise despite divestment claims

Trust had $254m invested in companies such as Chevron, BP and Shell in 2024, a nine-year record, analysis shows

The Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019.

End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest amount since 2019.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Big tech continues to bend the knee to Trump a year after his inauguration

Inside the big rewards tech titans have reaped from caving to Trump. Plus, a look at the US datacenter boom and the effects of Australia’s social media ban

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, the Guardian’s US tech editor.

One year ago today, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States. Standing alongside him that day were the leaders of the tech industry’s most powerful companies, who had donated to him in an unprecedented bending of the knee. In the ensuing year, the companies have reaped enormous rewards from their alliance with Trump, which my colleague Nick Robins-Early and I wrote about last month after Trump signed an executive order prohibiting states from passing laws regulating AI. Trump has sponsored the tech industry with billions in government funding and with diplomatic visits that featured CEOs as his fellow negotiators in massive, lucrative deals.

Published: January 20, 2026, 3:55 pm

US and European markets fall as Trump steps up Greenland rhetoric

Wall Street joins sell-off in first trading day since US president threatened tariffs against eight countries

Stock markets fell on both sides of the Atlantic on Tuesday as investor concerns persisted over the fallout from Donald Trump’s push for US control of Greenland.

The sell-off hit US stocks on Tuesday, the first day of trading on Wall Street since Trump threatened new tariffs on eight European countries, after the market was closed for a public holiday on Monday. The S&P 500 was down 1.5% while the Dow Jones was down 1.3%.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:31 pm

Police search for suspect in the shooting of Indiana judge and his wife

Steven Meyer suffered an injury to his arm and Kimberly Meyer had a hip injury from the attack, authorities said

An Indiana state court judge and his wife were in stable condition on Monday as authorities continued to search for suspects who shot the couple the day before at their Lafayette home.

Steven Meyer, a Tippecanoe superior court judge, suffered an injury to his arm and his wife – Kimberly Meyer – had a hip injury from the attack, authorities said.

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:18 pm

Bessent urges Europe not to retaliate against Trump’s Greenland tariffs

US treasury secretary says at WEF in Davos that countries and companies should pause and ‘let things play out’

• Business live – latest updates

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has urged European countries not to retaliate against the US’s trade tariffs announced over the Greenland crisis.

Speaking in Davos during the World Economic Forum, Bessent said countries and companies should pause and “let things play out” after Donald Trump threatened a 25% tariff on a slew of European countries in his pursuit of the autonomous Danish territory.

Published: January 20, 2026, 9:54 am

My party had no ‘system’ to misuse EU funds, Marine Le Pen tells appeal trial

French far-right leader denies existence of fake jobs ‘system’ in effort to overturn ban on running for president

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has told a Paris appeals court there was no “system” set up by her party to misuse European parliament funds, as she gave evidence in a fresh embezzlement trial that will determine whether she can run in the 2027 presidential election.

“The word ‘system’ bothers me because [it gives] the impression of a manipulation,” Le Pen said on Tuesday, denying she had told members of the European parliament to hire assistants who instead worked for the party headquarters in Paris.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:23 pm

Lucy Letby will face no new charges, Crown Prosecution Service says

Ex-nurse is serving 15 whole-life prison terms for murder of seven babies and attempted murder of seven others

The former nurse Lucy Letby will face no new charges on suspicion of murdering or harming babies, prosecutors have announced.

Letby, 36, is serving 15 whole-life prison terms after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others in the year to June 2016.

Published: January 20, 2026, 4:46 pm

Kim Jong-un fires vice-premier and likens him to ‘a goat yoked to an ox cart’

North Korean leader reportedly blames Yang Sung-ho for ‘confusion’ at factory project as major congress looms

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has dismissed a vice-premier over troubles in a factory modernisation project, in an apparent move to tighten discipline among officials and push them to deliver greater results before a major political conference.

The upcoming ruling Workers’ party congress, the first of its kind in five years, is one of North Korea’s biggest propaganda spectacles and is intended to review past projects, establish new political and economic priorities and reshuffle officials.

Published: January 20, 2026, 11:46 am

Afraid of dying alone? How a Chinese app exposed single people’s deepest, darkest fears

In China, marriage and birth rates have hit record lows and many people are living in isolation. Is the Are You Dead? app just a practical response to this – or something more troubling?

A few days before Christmas, after a short battle with illness, a woman in Shanghai called Jiang Ting died. For years, the 46-year-old had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hongkou, a residential neighbourhood that sits along the Huangpu River. Neighbours described her as quiet. “She rarely chats with people. We only see her when she goes to and from work, and occasionally when she comes out to pick up takeout,” said a local resident interviewed by a Chinese reporter. Her parents long deceased, Jiang had no partner or children to inherit her estate. Her lonely death sparked a debate in Chinese media about how society should handle the increasing number of people dying with no next of kin.

For Xiong Sisi, also a professional in her 40s living alone in Shanghai, the news triggered uncomfortable feelings. “I truly worry that, after I die, no one will collect my body. I don’t care how I’m buried, but if I rot there, it’s bad for the house,” she says.

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Why was it me?’ Mon Rovîa​ on going from war-torn Liberia to US folk-pop stardom

Having just released his debut album, Bloodlines, the singer discusses his fractured identity, survivor’s guilt and how he took solace in Mumford & Sons

Long before he started packing out theatres and earning millions of listeners with his poetic folk-pop, Mon Rovîa began life in Liberia at a time when many of his country’s youngest were armed with assault rifles and forced to fight as child soldiers in a brutal civil war. After his mother died, his grandmother needed help raising his sister, brother and him, and placed him with a white missionary family from Florida. He was the only member of his family to escape the war. “That is something that weighed heavy on me as I grew,” he says. “Why was it me? Why couldn’t my siblings come, or why wasn’t it one of them?” It would be years until he knew what became of them.

Today, his stage name – he was born Janjay Lowe – is a stylised version of the Liberian capital Monrovia; his songwriting addresses his fractured identity, and the spectre of colonialism that surrounded him in Liberia and the US, applying emotional intimacy to global realities. His approach, he theorises, “starts with people trusting that you’re not afraid to be vulnerable in your own way. Then you start talking about the bigger picture.”

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:44 pm

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms review – this is the Game of Thrones we all need now

The real world is way worse than Westeros – so why not let this heartwarming underdog tale of a simple soul and his ethereal squire be your safe space

‘Bless their little cotton socks!” is not a response one expects to have to any of the inhabitants of Westeros, the land of the bloody, violent, incestuous and often depraved series of Game of Thrones. But the endearing protagonists of the latest spin-off of the franchise, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, invite it.

Their names, as in the George RR Martin novellas on which the series is based, are Dunk – short for Ser Duncan the Tall – and Egg. Dunk (Peter Claffey, a suitably tall former Irish rugby union player, last seen in Bad Sisters) was squire to a hedge – non-noble – knight, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), who took the boy under his wing but never quite got round to knighting the man before dying. We first meet Dunk burying his mentor under an old elm tree and taking up his arms against the sea of troubles that are about to engulf him. Dunk is a simple soul (very simple, some might say – he may look like a medieval Jack Reacher, but inside he is more of an eager but baffled labrador) and sets out to find a lord he can himself serve as a hedge knight.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:50 pm

Cosmic Princess Kaguya! review – trippy anime adapted from Japanese folk dives into virtual reality popworld

Emojis explode all over the screen in this hyperactive adaptation of a Japanese folk tale about a princess who has run away from the moon

Never has a film been more deserving of an exclamation mark at the end of the title than this animation from Japan. Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, the story of a princess from the moon discovered inside a bamboo stalk in a poor rural village. A decade ago, Studio Ghibli adapted the tale into a gorgeously animated movie with a traditional, lovingly hand-painted feel. This film could not be more different, a trippy, high-energy, techno anime set in the near future, half of it in a virtual reality world – and TikTok-ifed with emojis and stickers exploding all over the screen.

It begins when a 17-year-old high school student called Iroha finds a baby girl inside a glowing lamppost (rather than the bamboo stalk of the original). Iroha (voiced by Dawn M Bennett in the English dub) is a sensible kid, a talented musician and grade-A student who has already moved out of the family home and is living alone, working all hours to pay the rent of her tiny studio flat. In any free time she does have, Iroha follows her idol, AI musical megastar Yachiyo, in a crazy, chaotic virtual reality world called Tsukuyomi.

Published: January 20, 2026, 11:00 am

Aryan Papers review – Holocaust-themed thriller means well but turns out to be a shockingly poor effort

We are in 1942 Stuttgart – though the sight of modern wheelie bins says otherwise – as a woman at a facility dedicated to breeding Aryan babies tries to smuggle two Jewish children to safety

This second world war-set drama should not be confused with a famous unrealised film project of similar name. That one is the Holocaust-themed feature based on the novel Wartime Lies by Louis Begley that Stanley Kubrick tinkered with for years before finally abandoning; Suspiria director Luca Guadagnino is now rumoured to be trying to get it off the ground. Like the Kubrick/Guadagnino, this Aryan Papers, written and directed by ultra-low-budget film-maker Danny Patrick (The Film Festival, The Irish Connection), takes its name from the Nazi-issued certificate, also known as the Ariernachweis, which people were compelled to carry during those dark times to prove they weren’t Jews, Roma or from another persecuted minority.

Apparently, Kubrick abandoned his Aryan Papers in part because he feared it wouldn’t do as well at the box office if it came out after Schindler’s List – just as Full Metal Jacket appeared to have been eclipsed by Platoon. Fortunately for Guadagnino, no matter if and when his Aryan Papers comes out, he will have little to worry about with regards to Patrick’s film, a work that with any luck will be forgotten by next week. Like the embarrassingly bad comedy The Film Festival (AKA The Worst Film Festival Ever), this is a shockingly poor effort on just about every level, from the inept, back-of-a-beer-mat script, the lazy use of obviously not-German, non-period-proofed locations (a modern plastic wheelie bin is visible in several shots), to the frankly insultingly bad acting throughout.

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Kids referenced it as they asked for condoms’: the makers of cult hip-hop film House Party look back

‘I wanted Kid ’n Play but the studio said, “Who are these guys?” I replied, “They’ve got platinum records.” I had no idea if they did’

Black music videos weren’t played on MTV in the late 80s. So while I was still at Harvard, I’d make music videos in my head. One day, while listening to Bad Boy/Having a Party by Luther Vandross, I thought: “This could be a great music video or movie.” And I sat down that night and wrote a script for a short film that ended up not only being made but shown at festivals and becoming a big hit in the world of student films. Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It had piqued interest in up-and-coming black film-makers. New Line Cinema saw my short and brought me in for a meeting. I pitched an expanded version of my idea and they said: “Let’s do it.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘Cinematic comfort food’: why Heat is my feelgood movie

The latest entry in our series of writers picking their most rewatched comfort films is a nostalgic trip back to 1995

I meet up at least once a year with a group of university friends. We pick a city, descend on it and then leave 48 hours later, often a little worse for wear. I would say about 60% of all communication on these trips is quotes from Michael Mann’s 1995 heist thriller, Heat. Screaming like Al Pacino’s coked-up Los Angeles police detective Vincent Hanna or calmly saying “I have a woman” like Robert De Niro’s robotic master thief Neil McCauley if any of my friends ask me about my wife.

The comedian and film-maker Stanley Sievers did a skit about a guy whose life is destroyed because his whole personality is the film Heat. I laughed along with that awkwardly, while considering just how many times I said “the action is the juice” the last time I met up with my friends.

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Release the beast! How Iron Maiden and a naked Ralph Fiennes created the ultimate big-screen needle drop

The Number of the Beast lights up an unforgettable scene in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple thanks to director Nia DaCosta expertly blending ‘craziness and romance’

There were laughs of surprise around me in screen three of the Everyman in Muswell Hill, north London, as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple drew to its conclusion. Without giving too much away for those who haven’t seen it, Ralph Fiennes dancing semi-naked among piles of human bones to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is not how you expect one of our greatest thespians to deport himself on screen.

“Alex Garland chose that song,” says the film’s director, Nia DaCosta. “He wrote it into the script. And you can’t get better than that in a film about satanists.”

Published: January 20, 2026, 8:30 am

Is this man the future of music – or its executioner? AI evangelist Mikey Shulman says he’s making pop, not slop

Worth a staggering $2.45bn, Suno is an AI music company that can create a track with just a few prompts. Why is its CEO happy to see it called ‘the Ozempic of the music industry’?

‘The format of the future,” says Mikey Shulman, “is music you play with, not just play.” As the CEO and co-founder of the generative AI music company Suno, Shulman currently finds himself in the exhilarating if perhaps unenviable position of being simultaneously regarded as the architect of music’s future – and its executioner.

Suno, which was founded just over two years ago, allows users to create entire songs with just a few text prompts. At the moment, you can’t prompt it with the name of a specific pop star, but asking for “stadium-level confessional pop-country” that “references past relationships” or “public rivalries” might get you a Taylor Swift-style song or thereabouts.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:30 pm

A novelty golf-ball finder that conned the military: best podcasts of the week

This unbelievable, Alice Levine-narrated true story sees governments fooled by a fake bomb detector. Plus, Peter Bradshaw’s darkly comic thriller about a charming nurse

Alice Levine narrates this scam story in customary wry fashion. We meet Steve, an ex-copper who helps his childhood best pal sell his cutting-edge bomb detector, only to end up with detectives arresting him. It’s a slickly produced tale of a con that fooled governments and militaries, with action flitting from questionable Hong Kong banks to the Iraqi airports in which it’s installed as a security measure – with potentially lethal consequences. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Cameo by Rob Doyle review – a fantasy of literary celebrity in the culture war era

In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero

Rob Doyle’s previous novel, Threshold, took the form of a blackly comic travelogue narrated by an Irish writer named Rob. In one episode before Rob becomes an author, we see him as a sexually pent-up teacher abroad, masturbating over an essay he’s marking. That the scene is an echo of one in Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised (once named by Doyle as the best book from the past 40 years) hardly lessens our discomfort, and it’s hard not to feel that our unease is precisely the point. “Frankly, a lot of my life has been disastrous,” he once told an interviewer – which might not be quite as self-deprecating as it sounds, given that Doyle has also argued that “great literature” is born of “abjection” not “glory”.

The autofictional game-playing continues in his new novel, Cameo, but instead of self-abasing display, we get a perky book-world send-up for the culture war era, cartoonishly dramatising the ups and downs of creative life. It takes the form of a vertiginous hall of mirrors centred on gazillion-selling Dublin novelist Ren Duka, renowned for a long novel cycle drawn on his own life, the summaries of which comprise the bulk of the book we’re reading. Duka’s work isn’t autofiction à la Knausgård: hardly deskbound, still less under the yoke of domesticity, he leads a jet-set life of peril, mixing with drug dealers, terrorists, spies, and eventually serving time for tax evasion before he develops a crack habit, a penchant for threesomes in Paris and – perhaps least likely of all – returns to his long-forsaken Catholicism.

Published: January 20, 2026, 9:00 am

Poem of the week: Now, Mother, What’s the Matter? by Richard W Halperin

An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the lens of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?

Only the monsters do not have troubled hearts.
Life is for troubled hearts. Art is for troubled
hearts. For my whole life, Hamlet has been
a bridge between. Hamlet’s ‘Now, mother,
what’s the matter?’ is life on earth. Something
is always the matter, and not just for mothers.
(As I write this, the Angelus rings.) Every
character in Hamlet is troubled, there are
no monsters in it. I render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s — everything is
troubled there and, if I am lucky, Caesar
is troubled. I render unto God the things
that are God’s and feel — want to feel? Do feel —
that God is troubled. I also render unto art.
But I have no idea what art is. What
Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ is. What
the luminous chaos of The Portrait of
a Lady is. What The Pilgrim’s Progress is.
My feet knew the way before I opened
the book: that just before the gate to heaven
is yet another hole to hell.

Published: January 19, 2026, 11:24 am

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes review – this final novel is a slippery affair

Memoir merges with fiction as the author reflects on failed love, ageing and the end of life in this last instalment to his writing career

Julian Barnes tells us that this is his final book, so that’s one departure accounted for – the last instalment of a writing career spanning 45 years, encompassing novels and short stories, memoirs and essays, biography, travel writing, translation and even a little pseudonymous detective fiction. Many of these works turn up here, whether obliquely or overtly, referred to through subject matter, style, tone or connotation; in the contemporary cultural argot, which Barnes is fond of examining, these writerly winks might be known as Easter eggs.

The other form of leave taking is the “departure without subsequent arrival”: death. It is, as Larkin had it, “no different whined at than withstood”, and the truth is that most of us are both whiners and withstanders, querulous until there’s nothing left to complain at, stoic until pushed too far. Barnes is perhaps the great interpreter of mundane grandiosity, or grandiose mundanity – understanding that even as we attempt to inhabit the heroic mode, or to reach an intellectual accommodation with both mortality and morality, we will slip on a banana skin (or in Barnes’s case, he tells us here, a wooden staircase approached with bath-damp feet in a rush to answer the doorbell).

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

David Lynch would struggle to make films in social media landscape, say collaborators

Shorter attention spans would make it hard for director to tell ‘deeply connective’ stories, say colleagues on 80th birthday

A film-maker as unique as David Lynch would struggle to emerge in present-day Hollywood because of audiences’ shorter attention spans and the influence of social media on their ability to concentrate, according to collaborators of the director.

Lynch, who died in January 2025 and would have been 80 on Tuesday, was celebrated for his complex, funny and unnerving films and TV work, including Twin Peaks, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, all made in his distinctive “Lynchian” style.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘It felt celebratory’: Portrait of Britain winners – in pictures

From charity workers to synchronised swimmers via a young lad having tea with his nan, these people all inspired award-winning photographs

Published: January 20, 2026, 7:00 am

‘He’s a little megalomaniac’: Stellan Skarsgård criticises Trump’s ‘criminal’ actions in Greenland

The Swedish actor said that ‘he’s trying to take the world’ and called the recent actions of the US president ‘absurd’

The actor Stellan Skarsgård has criticised the attempts of the US president to annex Greenland, calling him “a little man who got megalomania”.

Speaking at the European Film awards over the weekend, the actor – now frontrunner to win the supporting actor Oscar for his role in Sentimental Value – called the actions of Donald Trump “absurd”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:23 pm

Mary Nolan’s ‘extraordinary’ photos: evocative, nostalgic and overlooked – in pictures

Once the home of Australian artist Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne, Bundanon – set across 1,000 hectares on the NSW south coast – is now home to an art museum, where the latest exhibition celebrates the Boyd women whose artistic careers have been overlooked.

Among them is Arthur’s sister Lady Mary Nolan (nee Boyd), who had four children with her first husband, the artist John Perceval, before moving to London and marrying Sidney Nolan in 1978. A painter and a potter, Mary is less known for her photographs, 48 of which are now on show after being unearthed at the National Library of Australia. They showcase a family dedicated to art, travel, creativity and the outdoors

• The Hidden Line: Art of the Boyd Women is open at Bundanon gallery until 15 February

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I’d give anything just to see her again’: owners’ grief for their beloved pets

As a study says a pet death can hurt as much as that of a relative, three people describe their emotions

Grief over the death of a pet could be as chronic as that for a human family member, according to research. The study, published in the academic journal PLOS One, suggests grieving pet owners can suffer from prolonged grief disorder (PGD).

PGD is a mental health condition that can last months or even years, and often involves intense longing and despair, and problems socialising and going about daily tasks. Currently, only those grieving the loss of a person can be diagnosed.

Published: January 20, 2026, 6:00 am

Valentino obituary

Italian fashion designer who dressed some of the world’s most photographed women in glamorous, show-stopping gowns

After Valentino Garavani retired in 2008 from a fashion world in which the meaning of luxury had changed, his half-century of couture creation was marked with exhibitions.

The one at Somerset House in London in 2012, Valentino: Master of Couture, displayed more than a hundred of his outfits within close peering range, each with a card bearing the name of the woman – royal, diva, star, social leader – for whom it had been created.

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:00 pm

There’s no gold medal in the stress Olympics – here’s how to start resting

What if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Every new year – after the holiday glut of travel, parties, shopping and baked goods – there can be pressure to do and be more: more active, more productive, more creative, more thrifty. Maybe this will be the year I finally start meal planning or doing morning pages. New year, new me!

But what if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Physical rest: making sure you get enough sleep; taking naps.

Mental rest: journaling; meditating; doing tasks that are not mentally taxing, like puzzles.

Emotional rest: talking through feelings and experiences with a friend or therapist.

Social rest: setting aside time alone to recharge; making sure you’re spending time with people who don’t leave you feeling drained.

Sensory rest: spending time outdoors; taking breaks from screens.

Creative rest: engaging in creative hobbies like drawing, reading or dancing.

Spiritual rest: connecting to a cause or tradition that feels meaningful to you.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 pm

The pet I’ll never forget: Bosko the great flying cat inspired my art – and delivered me from grief

He had youth, energy, a tiny purr and could jump 7ft in the air. I always knew when he was about to do it, because he would stare at me intensely before launching himself towards the ceiling

My animals play a big, crazy role in my life. I grew up with cats when I was a little kid but my love of black cats began when I moved from New York to LA in 1996 and found four feral black cats in my back yard. Almost immediately, two female cats got knocked up and had two litters at the same time. Suddenly, we had 13 black cats, the most I’d ever cared for at once.

I’ve been an artist all my life and during the early 2000s my career really started to take off. I began creating a lot of merchandise toys and had my own TV series called Teacher’s Pet, which won five Emmys and a Bafta. My cat Blackie was the inspiration behind all my artwork at the time; he was a scholarly cat with a giant purr – I often drew him as my alter ego. When Blackie died from illness in 2020, I felt as though I’d lost a part of myself – he had been my companion for 15 years. It took me a year to grieve before I could finally consider another cat. That’s when Bosko came into my life.

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Gut check: are at-home microbiome tests a way to ‘hack your health’ or simply a waste? | Antiviral

Spruiked by online influencers as a way of gaining insight into our health, experts say at-home tests oversimplify complex factors and can cause unnecessary distress

• Read more in the Antiviral series

For a few hundred dollars you can put your poo in an envelope and post it off to a laboratory. In return you’ll get a report (sometimes generated by AI) outlining your food sensitivities, metabolic fitness, and what pathogens or fungi you’re harbouring.

These at-home gut microbiome tests or “GI mapping” kits are frequently promoted by influencers as a way to “hack your health” and “take control” through analysing some of the trillions of organisms that live in your digestive tract.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:00 pm

Write a card, read a poem, take fewer photos: how to feel more human in 2026

While ‘touch grass’ has become a popular prescription for a less digital life, choosing social friction over efficiency can also feel curative

At the turn of the millennium daily life looked very different. The modern internet was just a decade old, mobile phones were far from universal and our social lives were mostly physical – and local.

In the 25 years since, technology has changed how we live in profound ways. Most people check their phone within minutes of waking and return to it on average 186 times a day. Computers and the systems that sit behind them mediate every aspect of modern life, shaping how we move through the world.

Published: January 20, 2026, 2:00 pm

The truth about health patches: can they really treat stress, spots and lost libido?

For three weeks, I wore stickers on my skin supposed to address all sorts of conditions. Are they a panacea, problem or performance?

This morning, I woke up feeling a little groggy. My go-to remedy is usually a coffee and cold-water face plunge, followed by a compulsive phone scroll. But today called for something more, so I unpeeled a small, yellow “energy” patch the size of a walnut, popped it on to my upper arm and hoped for the best.

The patch (£12 for 30) contains – so the packaging says – vitamins B5, B3 and a “microdose” of caffeine. It is made by Kind Patches, which is one brand in an increasingly crowded market of wellness stickers that claim to treat everything from lack of sleep to period pains to pimples. They are coin-sized, and often come in TikTok-friendly shades of sunflower yellow and peachy orange: you may have seen a teenager sporting a star-shaped one on their face to treat spots, or influencers patting blue magnesium ones on their wrists before bed.

Published: January 20, 2026, 5:00 am

Is it true that … you lose most body heat from your head?

This 1970s notion is a bit of a myth – but it’s still a good idea to wear a hat if it’s cold out

‘Always keep your head covered. You can lose 40–45% of body heat from an unprotected head.” That’s the advice in a 1970s US Army Survival Manual, which is probably where this myth originated, says John Tregoning, a professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.

The reality is that there is nothing special about your head. When you go out in the cold, you lose more body heat from any area you leave exposed than from those parts protected by clothing. Out in a snowsuit but no hat? You’re going to lose heat quickly from your face and head, while the suit slows down the cooling of your body.

Published: January 19, 2026, 8:00 am

Italian fashion designer Valentino dies aged 93

His eponymous label is renowned for its opulent, elegant take on women’s fashion and has a legion of famous fans

Valentino Garavani, the designer central to pioneering Italian glamour with his eponymous fashion house, has died aged 93.

“Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,” his foundation said on Instagram on Monday. “Valentino Garavani was not only a constant guide and inspiration for all of us, but a true source of light, creativity and vision,” it added.

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:05 pm

Fashion world gets first glimpse of Armani’s post-Giorgio direction

New menswear director Leo Dell’Orco appears to have ditched the ‘greige’ while embracing the brand’s history

What exactly Giorgio Armani looks like without its eponymous founder at the helm has been the burning question in the fashion industry since the designer’s death in September.

In Milan on Monday afternoon, it got its answer as the designer’s collaborator and right-hand man of four decades, Leo Dell’Orco, made his debut at the Italian fashion house where he will oversee menswear for the foreseeable future. It was the first Armani collection in which the late designer had no involvement.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:31 pm

I do not want to reconcile with my family, says Brooklyn Peltz Beckham

Son of David and Victoria Beckham takes to Instagram to open up about feud with parents

A very public spat on social media captured global attention and filled the front pages on Tuesday with its grave consequences for a once close relationship.

No, not the US president Donald Trump slamming the UK for its “extreme stupidity” but this was Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham, apparently permanently cutting ties with his family.

Published: January 20, 2026, 8:46 am

He never warms the jars, so why doesn’t my son’s marmalade go mouldy?

Our preserving pundits dive into the bittersweet dilemmas surrounding baking paper circles, wax seals and the judicious application of heat

When my son makes marmalade, he never warms the jars or uses circles of baking paper and cellophane – he just puts the lids on. It never goes mouldy, so am I wasting my time doing it the “proper” way?
Dagna, Berkhamsted, Herts
You can’t get much sweeter than marmalade, and this is most likely the reason for both Dagna and her son’s success, despite their differing strategies. “The chance of mould developing is low because there’s so much sugar to balance the bitterness of the orange peel,” says Camilla Wynne, preserver and author of All That Crumbs Allow. “Mould needs water to do its thing, and sugar binds to water.” She recalls a former student who, like Dagna’s son, simply ladled her marmalade into jars and closed the lids. All was fine until one day the student’s latest batch of marmalade was covered in mould: “She’d been reducing the sugar in her recipe over the years, so her method no longer worked because there was available water for mould to grow.”

But back to the particulars of the family dispute. “He’s more right than she is,” says Pam Corbin, author of Pam the Jam: The Book of Preserves. “Nowadays, we have fantastic food-grade lids, which have a wax seal inside and keep preserves safer than a wax disc and cellophane would.” Some people put a wax disc under the twist-on lid, too, but for Corbin that’s a hard no: “As the marmalade cools, condensation forms on top of the paper, so you’re more likely to get mould.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:00 pm

The pub that changed me: ‘I saw an Isle of Man that had been largely unknown to me’

‘The Woody’ was crammed and chaotic, and nobody could be rushed. There was always time for another pint and conversation

I felt eyes on me the second I stepped into the pub. It was as though we were interlopers in a sacred space – everyone turned to look. Self-consciously, I walked to a door labelled “BAR” and pushed it open, and was met by further stares at me and my female companion. Only once we had got our pints and sat down did we notice the “GENTS ONLY” sign on the wall.

Published: January 20, 2026, 11:00 am

Houseplant hacks: can you really use banana water as a fertiliser?

Bananas contain nutrients, but rotting peel smells and attracts fruit flies

The problem
Do you ever finish your smoothie, look at the peel and think: “Surely this could feed something?” You are not alone: social media is full of claims that soaking banana skins in water makes a fertiliser that will give you bigger leaves and better blooms.

The hack
Put banana peels in a jar of water, leave them to sit, then pour the liquid on your plants. Bananas do contain potassium and small amounts of other nutrients. The snag is you have no idea how strong it is or what’s missing.

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:00 am

The influencer racing to save Thailand’s most endangered sea mammal

Amateur conservationist and social media influencer Theerasak 'Pop' Saksritawee has a rare bond with Thailand’s critically endangered dugongs. With dugong fatalities increasing, Pop works alongside scientists at Phuket Marine Biological Centre to track the mammals with his drone and restore their disappearing seagrass habitat. Translating complex science for thousands online, Pop raises an urgent alarm about climate change, pollution and habitat loss — before Thailand’s dugongs vanish forever

Published: January 20, 2026, 10:58 am

At nine, I disappeared into home schooling. No one came looking

Mom insisted I needed a ‘free-form education’ outside public school. After four years of loneliness, I gave up hope that someone would get me out

“Every mother in the world wishes her kid wouldn’t grow up so fast.”

Mom laughs as she holds me close.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Never-before-seen home video is earliest footage of Martin Luther King: ‘What a gift!’

In a brief scene, the seminarian known as ML stands with his then girlfriend, a white woman named Betty Moitz

Several years ago, near Chester, Pennsylvania, Jason Ipock’s aunt was looking to downsize now that she had retired. In her possession was a collection of old family home videos that took up too much room.

Some of the films were in worn-out film canisters, and Ipock worried they’d soon be unplayable. “I decided that I should have the family films digitized, so that we’ll always have a copy in the event of a catastrophe,” he said.

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:43 am

Who is on the frontline of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown?

These are the federal agencies detaining people across the US – mostly, but not all, under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security

When the Trump administration ordered a surge of armed federal immigration enforcement personnel on to the streets of Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security declared it the largest operation in its history and the liberal midwestern city became Donald Trump’s latest chosen hotspot.

Such escalations mark the US president’s agenda of mass arrests and deportations from the US interior. The highest-profile efforts involve officers from multiple agencies rushing to prominent Democratic-led US cities, against local leaders’ wishes. But coast to coast, federal officers have been raiding homes, businesses, commercial parking lots – even schools, hospitals and courthouses. The efforts have delighted the president’s hardcore Make America Great Again voter base, but are also tearing families apart and spreading fear and even death on the streets and in detention.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

A hovering helicopter and a winter whiteout: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select some of the most powerful photos from around the world

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:21 pm