Sixteen Valentine’s Day US food gifts that are better than flowers

Rare Kit Kats, wine, pasta subscriptions and more: our curated list of gift ideas for every type of food lover

• Looking for more Valentine’s Day gift ideas? Creative gift ideas for him, sentimental gifts for her, international gifts and best chocolate bars

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Valentine’s Day is firmly a food holiday. New couples can keep it low-stakes with a box of treats. Long-distance relationships call for something like a gourmet dessert delivery that shows up where you can’t. People who live together and don’t want another object in the apartment can split and enjoy a subscription between them.

As a food journalist, I’ve been professionally obligated to try shiny new treats over the years with only minor stomach-related consequences. This guide to 16 food gifts is the result. Most of these picks ship in time for Valentine’s Day as of publication, so if you’re reading this late, you’re still in luck. (If you ask me, the food subscriptions would make great last-minute gifts.)

Best last-minute gift:
Jean-Georges Heart-Shaped Molten Chocolate Cake

Best food delivery gift:
Boarderie Lover’s Classic Cheese & Charcuterie Board

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:15 pm

Underwear optional? The health pros and cons of going commando

There are times when it is better to wear underwear than not. Here’s what the experts say

In 2015, during a particularly energetic performance of the song American Woman in Stockholm, Lenny Kravitz split a pair of leather pants right down the crotch, revealing his manhood to the world.

I’m sorry to say I think about this incident somewhat regularly. Not out of titillation, but because it planted in my head a troublesome question: just how many people, rock stars or otherwise, aren’t wearing underwear in public?

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘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

At the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny challenged the meaning of ‘America’

The Puerto Rican star’s vision of American identity moved beyond colonial tropes to span an entire hemisphere

By now, many of us have a favorite part of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time performance. It’s a dense, rich set that invites rewatching to take in every thoughtful, exuberant detail – even though it’s barely 14 minutes long.

My most beloved part occurs a little more than nine minutes into the homage, when the cuatro puertorriqueño appears. The stringed instrument has its own moment in the spotlight, shown in the talented hands of the cuatrista José Eduardo Santana just before Ricky Martin performs.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:28 pm

‘We feel kinda bad when a solo bird shows up’: Canada sees its first European robin – but how did it get there?

Birdwatchers flock to Montréal for rare sighting of ‘vagrant’ bird that has made its home during a bitterly cold winter

On a quiet Montréal street of low-rise brick apartment buildings on one side and cement barrier wall on the other, a crowd has gathered, binoculars around their necks and cameras at the ready. A European robin has taken up residence in the neighbourhood, which is sandwiched between two industrial areas with warehouses and railway lines and, a few blocks away, port facilities on the St Lawrence River.

Ron Vandebeek from Ottawa, Ontario, is here on a frigid February morning hoping to see the rare bird, which was first spotted at the beginning of January.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:00 pm

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

Epstein engineered intimate relationship for Tesla’s Kimbal Musk, emails show

Elon Musk’s younger brother and the woman were involved for about six months between 2012 and 2013

Jeffrey Epstein engineered an intimate relationship between a woman in his network and Kimbal Musk, who is the brother of Elon Musk and on the board of directors at Tesla, according to emails from the Department of Justice’s recent release of documents involving the convicted sex offender. The younger Musk and the woman were involved for around six months between 2012 and 2013, with Kimbal Musk describing them as “dating”.

In the lead-up to Musk and the woman’s first meeting, Epstein and his longtime associate Boris Nikolic labored to set them up and bring her to a birthday party Musk was throwing – with Nikolic telling Epstein: “please prepare [the woman] —;)”

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:57 pm

ICE director refuses to commit to pausing operations for 2026 World Cup

• Acting director Todd Lyons called ICE ‘key’ to security

• 2026 World Cup takes place this summer in 11 US cities

The acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told a congressional committee on Tuesday that his agency is a “key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup” and refused to commit to pausing operations near games at this summer’s tournament.

The 2026 World Cup will be hosted this summer by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, with 78 of the 104 games taking place in the US. Various entities have estimated that up to 10 million people could visit the 11 US host cities for the quadrennial tournament. However, ICE’s role in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown – including an extended and widespread operation in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolitan area in which two people were killed by federal agents – has raised serious concerns among fans.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:33 pm

FDA declines to review Moderna application for new flu vaccine

Moderna requests meeting to discuss refusal as decision could have implications for all new and updated vaccines

US regulators will not review Moderna’s request to license a new, potentially more effective flu shot – even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously gave the green light to the project – in a decision that could have implications for all new and updated vaccines in the US.

It’s the latest move by the Trump administration against vaccines. Officials in January decided to stop fully recommending one-third of routine childhood vaccines, including flu vaccines.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:52 pm

FBI releases door-camera images of ‘armed individual’ in Nancy Guthrie case

Today show’s Savannah Guthrie says: ‘We believe she is still alive’ as agency hunts for person pictured on Nest camera

The FBI on Tuesday released new photos and video footage of someone the agency’s director described as “an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance”.

Broadcast journalist Savannah Guthrie, host of NBC’s Today and Nancy’s daughter, wrote on social media: “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:40 pm

Debunked claims from election deniers influenced FBI raid in Georgia, affidavit reveals

The 28 January raid of the Fulton county election office also came after a referral from a White House lawyer

The FBI’s rationale behind raiding the Fulton county election office in Georgia last month was based on debunked claims from election deniers and came after a referral from a White House lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election, a search warrant affidavit unsealed on Tuesday reveals.

The warrant offers the first insight for the basis for the FBI’s 28 January raid on the Fulton county election office. FBI officials seized nearly 700 boxes of election materials in the raid.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:53 pm

Mark Carney reminds Trump that Canada paid for key border bridge US president says he won’t open

Trump earlier had ranted against bridge and also warned that China would ‘terminate’ hockey in Canada

Mark Carney said he had held a “positive” conversation with Donald Trump after the US leader threatened to block a new key bridge between their two countries, reminding the president that Canada paid for the structure – and that the US shares ownership.

Late on Monday, Trump posted a lengthy message on social media, falsely claiming that the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, had “virtually no US content”. The bridge is due to open in early 2026.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:28 pm

Britney Spears sells rights to music catalog for undisclosed sum, say reports

Music publisher Primary Wave said to have bought rights to pop star’s music, including Toxic and Baby One More Time

Britney Spears has sold the rights to her music catalog, which includes hits such as Toxic, Baby One More Time and Gimme More, according to media reports.

The music publisher Primary Wave is said to have purchased the pop star’s music rights on 30 December, TMZ reported on Tuesday, citing legal documents. An unnamed source “familiar with the deal” confirmed the sale to the New York Times.

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:33 am

Gray wolf appears in Los Angeles county for first time in more than 100 years

Three-year-old black coat female, known as BEY03F, crossed into LA county around 6am on 7 February

A gray wolf wandered into Los Angeles county for the first time in more than a century on Saturday morning.

“This is the most southern verified record of a gray wolf in modern times,” Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California department of fish and wildlife, said.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:43 pm

Ukraine racer defies IOC ban by wearing ‘helmet of memory’ as anger grows

• Luger shares ‘remembrance is not a violation’ message

• Officials will allow racer to wear black armband instead

Ukrainian athletes have stepped up their defiance of International Olympic Committee rules banning them from protesting against the Russian invasion while in competition, amid growing anger over a decision to ban a “helmet of memory” for the ­country’s war dead.

On Tuesday evening the ­skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych revealed that he had continued to use the helmet, which shows athletes killed during the war, during his practice runs in Italy in defiance of the IOC.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:53 pm

Trump administration removes LGBTQ+ Pride flag from Stonewall national monument

‘They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again,’ says Manhattan borough president

The Trump administration has removed a large pride flag from the Stonewall national monument in New York City, marking the latest move by the federal government to end diversity initiatives and sanitize the history shared in national parks.

The monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The six days of protests against the police action were a key moment in sparking the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the site has since become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride.

Published: February 10, 2026, 9:50 pm

Trump to repeal key ruling allowing regulation of planet-heating gases

Climate groups vow to fight rollback of 2009 finding determining CO₂ and other greenhouse gases harm health

In what is set to be its most audacious anti-environment move yet, the Trump administration on Thursday will roll back the mechanism allowing the government to regulate planet-heating pollution, the White House press secretary has told reporters.

“President Trump will be joined by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the recession of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” Karoline Leavitt said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:17 pm

Iran tells US not to let Netanyahu thwart nuclear talks before Trump meeting

Tehran’s intervention comes as the Israeli prime minister heads to a hastily arranged White House encounter

Tehran has told the US not to allow Israel to destroy the chance of reaching an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme amid speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu intends to use a hastily arranged White House meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday to divert negotiations.

Iran’s intervention came as the Israeli prime minister flew to Washington to plead with Trump not to negotiate a deal with Tehran if it excludes limiting the country’s ballistic missile programme, dropping its support for proxy forces in the region and curtailing human rights abuses at home.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:34 pm

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick says he had lunch with Epstein on his private island

As he faces calls from lawmakers to resign, Lutnick testifies that he and his family visited disgraced financier in 2012

The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had lunch with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the disgraced financier’s private island, he said on Tuesday, as he faces mounting calls to resign from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

“I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation” in 2012, Lutnick said in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate appropriations committee.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:56 pm

US restaurants targeted for opposing ICE: ‘I refuse to cook for fascists’

Restaurants face one-star reviews and less business in an already precarious industry. Some restaurateurs fear speaking out as immigrants themselves

Amid calls for a national shutdown on 30 January, Anton Kinloch displayed a sign on the sidewalk outside Lone Wolf, his craft cocktail bar and restaurant in Kingston, New York. In large block letters he wrote: “WE LOVE ICE IN DRINKS. WE DON’T LOVE ICE IN REAL LIFE. SOLIDARITY ALWAYS.”

Along with his wife and business partner, Lisa Dy, he had made the difficult decision to stay open, electing instead to donate a portion of the night’s proceeds to a local immigrant advocacy group. With frigid temperatures and inclement weather stymying business in the region this winter, he simply could not afford the lost revenue. But he refused to stay silent in the aftermath of the brutal killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Minneapolis.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 pm

Venezuela welcomes Trump-loving US TV channel in ‘marriage of convenience’

Newsmax, granted major access as the first foreign outlet admitted after the US strike, hailed Trump as a ‘liberator’

In the days after Nicolás Maduro was abducted by US special forces, hundreds of journalists from as far away as Japan flocked to Colombia’s border with Venezuela hoping to witness the fallout from one of the most dramatic moments in South America’s recent history. None were granted visas to enter. Those who tried to do so anyway were detained and thrown out.

But last weekend a team of reporters was finally allowed to visit Caracas.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:57 pm

Ohio city stands up to Trump’s ‘attitude of hate’ toward Haitian community

Churches in Springfield provide networks of support as Haitians face uncertainty over the future of TPS legal protections

At morning services at Central Christian Church in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday, congregants greeted one another with hugs and expressed gratitude for a rare piece of good news. Nearly a week before, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to end legal protections for 350,000 Haitians in the US.

The church is one of several in Springfield that provide services in Haitian Creole and has opened its doors to thousands of Haitians living in the small city in south-western Ohio. Addressing the ruling, pastor Carl Ruby explained in his sermon that during times of suffering, the silence of God doesn’t mean the absence of God.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:37 pm

From Melania to Kid Rock’s halftime show: why is Maga art so dreadful?

As the right stokes culture wars, their alternatives to ‘woke’ Hollywood prove to be shoddily made and uninspired

It’s not fair, what they did to rightwing folks on Super Bowl Sunday. Regular viewers could either take in an elaborate and joyful halftime performance from Puerto Rican recording artist Bad Bunny, one of the most popular music stars in the world, or, if they weren’t interested in football or in Bad Bunny’s music, they could quietly find something else to watch or listen to. There are a lot of options out there. Those who wanted to prove their Maga bona fides or loyalties, however, may have felt obligated to watch a parade of similar-sounding country singers lead into a performance from a shorts-wearing Kid Rock, jumping around and seemingly lip-syncing to a novelty hit from 1999.

For rightwingers who couldn’t stomach the Spanish lyrics to Bad Bunny songs, they could take comfort in the clear English of the man also known as Robert Ritchie: “Bawitdaba, da-bang, da-bang, diggy-diggy-diggy.” (These lyrics are actually just what a certain segment of white listeners prefer: something ripped off from Black culture, in this case rapper Busy Bee.) This sad spectacle was provided by Turning Point USA, which is not actually a charity organization for faded turn-of-the-century rap-rockers, but a rightwing advocacy group co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk. When Kid Rock pivoted back to Ritchie and covered the country tune Til You Can’t (with a pious and half-assed new verse added by Ritchie himself), the music was chased with a tribute to Kirk. This means that viewers were treated to all the artistry of a Kid Rock show plus all the cheerfulness of a funeral.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:44 pm

I drove hours to see the monks walking for peace. Five minutes with them was the gift of a lifetime

I glimpsed the monks on their 2,300-mile pilgrimage across America – their message of loving-kindness had me in tears

“I’m obsessed with the monks,” my friend Sam told me. “It’s the only thing getting me through the violence of this second Trump administration. The monks, and my meds.”

I nodded. I’d first heard about the monks walking for peace after my brother and sister-in-law traveled to hear them in Alabama, returning with stories of stillness and a grounded sense of hope.

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

Gentrification is pricing artists out of New York, threatening its cultural edge

The city’s artist population has fallen for the first time in decades, a report finds, for want of affordable housing

Rowynn Dumont, a curator, painter, photographer and writer, lived in about 25 places around the world before settling in New York in 2017.

“It’s where my community and the art world infrastructure already were,” said Dumont.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:00 pm

Wallace, Gromit and a new use for lentils: blockbuster Aardman exhibition opens at Young V&A

Children are encouraged to get hands-on as the world’s leading stop-motion studio showcases its work in east London

What would Wallace – everyone’s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor – look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker’s coat? Would a massive set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana?

Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London’s Young V&A that showcases the work of the world’s leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman studios. Early sketches for Nick Park’s much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:26 pm

Jon Stewart calls Maga backlash to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show ‘actually pathetic’

Late-night hosts discussed rightwing backlash to Bad Bunny’s all-Spanish Super Bowl half-time show

Late-night hosts addressed the performative Maga outrage over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:29 pm

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

Gavin Newsom’s likely presidential bid is built on broken promises | Gil Durán

The California governor has a record of failed pledges on housing, healthcare and more as he mistakes theatrics for leadership

Gavin Newsom has stumbled upon the perfect slogan for his likely upcoming presidential campaign: “Strong and Wrong.” In a recent interview, California’s governor said Americans prefer crude politicians like Donald Trump over leaders who cling to niceties and norms.

“Given the choice … the American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right,” he said.

Gil Durán is a California journalist and author of the forthcoming book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War On Democracy. He was an adviser to several Democratic politicians

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

The far right in power always co-opts culture – in France, it has already begun | Alexander Hurst

Marine Le Pen’s party is concocting plans to replace a vital, vibrant arts scene with a retrograde movement that would glorify the country’s past

Should you judge the quality of a film based on how many people have been to see it? It’s the type of argument you would expect to hear in the context of the “culture war”; but is it what you would expect to hear from French culture warriors? From a country that uses language quotas to maintain its musicians on broadcast media, has fought to promote its language abroad and has always seen itself as a place that radiates art outwards? After all, this is a country that put on an opera for the 2024 Olympic closing ceremony.

Enter Sébastien Chenu, vice-president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). Chenu advanced the box-office success argument as a reason for his party’s proposal to eliminate, Doge-style, France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC) – the public body that subsidises almost every nook and cranny of the country’s heavy-hitting film industry. Let the market take over? Quality as a derivative of quantity? If the RN is perfectly happy to surrender Audiard for Avengers 18 (or whatever), why not apply the logic elsewhere as well?

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist. H​is memoir, Generation Desperation​, is out now

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

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.

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

My patient’s near-death experience in hospital left me with worry and guilt. This is how vicarious trauma starts | Ranjana Srivastava

Afterwards, my team and I kept going without ever discussing the event. But something felt heavy. And because I couldn’t name it, I didn’t know how to deal with it

“And who are you?” Tracking the voice, I realise the nurse is talking to me.

“I’m the physician looking after the patient.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:00 pm

The Guardian view on Jimmy Lai: what Britain’s caution says about its relationship to Beijing’s power | Editorial

Australia defended a detained journalist despite the risks. Britain’s muted response to a media mogul’s harsh sentence suggests a narrowing view of what confrontation is worth

If the sentence handed to the media mogul Jimmy Lai was meant to surprise, it would have been shorter. Twenty years behind bars is not a burst of rage. It is a sentence designed to make repression routine in Hong Kong. The 78-year-old founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is now likely to die in prison after being convicted of sedition. The court was telling Hongkongers what kind of place they now live in, and signalling to foreign governments what kind of relationship Beijing expects them to accept.

China’s national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, was designed to dismantle the former British colony’s pro-democracy movement and to place freedom of expression under permanent political constraint by the Chinese Communist party. From 2020 to 2026, at least 385 individuals have been arrested and 175 convicted under national security-related offences.

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: February 10, 2026, 6:56 pm

Norwegian biathlete wins Winter Olympics bronze and then tells TV interview of affair

• Sturla Holm Lægreid stuns viewers watching in Norway

• ‘Three months ago I made the mistake of my life’

The Norwegian Sturla Holm Lægreid broke down in tears after winning bronze in the men’s 20km biathlon, apologising for having an affair and saying: “It has been the worst week of my life.”

Johan-Olav Botn won gold, with the Frenchman Éric Perrot in second, but it was Lægreid who stunned television viewers in Norway after opening up to the broadcaster NRK about his private life over the past six months.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:33 pm

‘My needles are waiting’: Ben Ogden credits knitting habit after cross-country silver

• Vermont native ends US men’s 50-year medal drought

• Result continues strong showing at Milan-Cortina

• Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo wins seventh gold

Ben Ogden delivered the most significant result in US men’s cross-country skiing in decades on Tuesday afternoon, winning Olympic silver in the men’s sprint classic at the Milano Cortina Games to end a 50-year medal drought. And afterwards he credited the relaxation he finds in knitting.

The mustachioed 25-year-old finished in 3min 40.61sec after surging through the final with his trademark classical technique, less than a second behind Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who secured the seventh Olympic gold medal of his career in 3:39.74. Klæbo’s teammate Oskar Opstad Vike took bronze after climbing from 20th in qualifying to the podium.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:55 pm

Winter Olympics officials find fix for broken medals and promise repairs

• Downhill champion Breezy Johnson among the affected

• ‘A solution has been identified, and a fix put in place’

After days of embarrassing stories about Winter Olympic medals cracking, snapping, and even breaking in two after falling in the snow, organisers say they have finally fixed the problem.

Officials have also promised to repair any of the medals that were awarded in the opening three days of competition in Milano Cortina, after identifying on Monday that the issue stemmed from the medal’s cord, which is fitted with a breakaway mechanism required by law.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:47 pm

Mikaela Shiffrin’s Winter Olympics drought continues after slalom slump in team event

• American wastes strong downhill leg from Johnson

• Slalom standout missed out on medals in 2022

• Raedler and Huber win gold for Austria

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results

Mikaela Shiffrin extended her Olympic slump with a fourth-place finish in the new team combined event at the Milan Cortina Games on Tuesday after partner Breezy Johnson led the opening downhill leg.

Shiffrin, the most successful World Cup racer of all time with a record 108 victories –71 of them in slalom, also a record – has now gone seven straight Olympic races without a medal.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:23 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

Sesko rescues late point for Manchester United to deny West Ham precious win

Stop all the clippers, don’t cut off the barnet: United’s winning run is over. Frank Ilett, the man who pledged never to visit a barber again until Manchester United won five matches in a row, may have been denied a viral haircut, but United’s resilience came to the fore here to deny the Hammers what would have been a deserved victory deep into added time.

A studded finish from the fan favourite Tomas Soucek was cancelled out by an impressive, instinctive strike from Benjamin Sesko to leave this match honours even. United lacked energy and snap, West Ham saw two precious points fall away at the last; both sides will leave frustrated but not disconsolate. The Hammers remain in 18th place, United stay in fourth, their contrasting objectives remain in play.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:20 pm

USA dominates short-handed Canada to close out women’s hockey group play

• Hannah Bilka scores twice in 5-0 shutout win

• Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin out with injury

• US will face Italy in quarter-final on Friday

Hannah Bilka scored twice, and the United States’ youth and speed overwhelmed a Canadian women’s hockey team missing its captain in a 5-0 win at the Milan Cortina Games on Tuesday.

The lopsided victory in Milan clinched first place for the US in Group A entering the quarter-finals, and continued confirming why the Americans entered the tournament as favorites. Team USA swept all four preliminary-round games by a combined score of 20-1 and brought back memories of how a Canadian team in their prime rolled to winning gold at the 2022 Beijing Games.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:32 pm

Keion White becomes second 49ers player shot in San Francisco in 18 months

• Lineman shot in ankle hours after Super Bowl

• 27-year-old’s injuries are non-life threatening

Keion White, a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, has undergone surgery after he was shot in the ankle early on Monday morning.

The shooting happened in San Francisco hours after the end of the Super Bowl, which was played at Levi’s Stadium in nearby Santa Clara.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:10 pm

Infantino dogged by threat of Russia and fear of Trump as he heads to sweet-talk Uefa

Fifa president will be under major scrutiny when he goes to Brussels to address the Uefa annual congress on Thursday

Assuming Gianni Infantino turns up on time, he is expected to make his customary address to Uefa’s annual congress on Thursday. The couple of hours spent in Brussels Expo Hall 3 will be largely procedural but the Fifa president’s messaging will be worth delegates’ attention. Even by the standards of relations between football’s major governing bodies, the past 12 months have been fractious. The fault lines hardly get narrower and there is certainly no reduction in the number of thorny issues simmering away.

At last year’s edition, in Belgrade, Infantino used the gathering of European football’s great and good to make a caveated case for Russia’s return to competitive action. If that was a rolling of the pitch, his comments on the matter in an interview last week amounted to letting the sprinklers loose. Infantino said the ban on Russian sides should be reassessed, at least for age-group teams, but there is little chance of his views gaining weight around Europe even if he elects to revisit the argument.

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:00 am

Four players ejected after brawl breaks out during Hornets-Pistons game

• Police briefly enter court as tempers flare, benches clear

• Hornets coach Charles Lee later tossed for arguing call

A fight between the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets in the third quarter of Monday night’s game resulted in four player ejections.

Charlotte’s Moussa Diabate and Miles Bridges were tossed, along with Detroit’s Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart. Hornets coach Charles Lee was ejected in the fourth quarter after he had to be restrained from going after an official while arguing a call.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:16 pm

‘A step in the wrong direction’: Israel’s West Bank plans prompt global backlash

US, Britain, EU and Arab nations condemn plans that Israeli ministers say will ‘kill the idea of a Palestinian state’

Israeli measures to tighten its control of the West Bank have prompted a global backlash, including a signal from Washington restating the Trump administration’s opposition to annexation of the occupied territory.

Announcing the measures, which involve extending Israeli control in areas that are currently under Palestinian administration, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, made clear they were aimed at strengthening Israeli settlements in the West Bank and pre-empting the emergence of an independent sovereign Palestine.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:00 pm

Norway defence chief says Russia could invade to protect nuclear assets

Exclusive: Eirik Kristoffersen, who served in Afghanistan, rejects Trump’s claim that Nato troops stayed off frontlines

Norway’s army chief has said Oslo cannot exclude the possibility of a future Russian invasion of the country, suggesting Moscow could move on Norway to protect its nuclear assets stationed in the far north.

“We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States,” said Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s chief of defence.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:07 pm

Ukraine war briefing: UK promises to double troop numbers in Norway to deter Putin

Defence secretary John Healey says Russian president is ‘rapidly re-establishing military presence in the region, including reopening old cold war bases’. What we know on day 1,449

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:53 am

Man convicted of first-degree murder is first to be executed by Florida in 2026

Ronald Palmer Heath killed a traveling salesman in 1989; last year the state had a record 19 executions

A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman he and his brother had met at a bar has become the first person executed in Florida this year.

Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6.12pm on Tuesday after a three-drug injection at the Florida state prison near Starke. Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:51 pm

Five bones, teeth and car key found in Tasmanian search for missing backpacker Celine Cremer

Police have been searching for Belgian tourist, 31, since she went missing near Cradle Mountain in June 2023

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Investigators are closer to uncovering the mystery of what happened to missing Belgian tourist Celine Cremer after a major discovery in the wilderness.

Five bones, teeth and a Honda car key were found by Tasmania police after a two-day search of the Arthur River area, where Cremer is believed to have disappeared.

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:22 am

Actor Noel Clarke arrested over allegation of attempted rape in 2007

Former Doctor Who star is also facing allegations of exposure and sexual assault by touching

The actor Noel Clarke has been arrested over an attempted rape, which allegedly took place in 2007.

The former Doctor Who star is also facing allegations of exposure and sexual assault by touching.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:54 pm

Exercise can be ‘frontline treatment’ for mild depression, researchers say

Biggest improvements seen in young adults and new mothers, with group activities of most benefit

Aerobic exercise such as running, swimming or dancing can be considered a frontline treatment for mild depression and anxiety, according to research that suggests working out with others brings the most benefits.

Scientists analysed published reviews on exercise and mental health and found that some of the greatest improvements were observed in young adults and new mothers – groups that are considered particularly vulnerable to mental health problems.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:30 pm

Iran’s shadow fleet of old tankers a ticking bomb for sea life, say experts

Exclusive: Analysts say there will be oil spill catastrophe that could be far bigger than Exxon Valdez disaster

Decrepit oil tankers in Iran’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet are a “ticking time bomb”, and it is only a matter of time before there is a catastrophic environmental disaster, maritime intelligence analysts have warned.

Such an oil spill could be far bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster that released 37,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea, they said.

Published: February 10, 2026, 11:50 am

Republican House bill guts laws protecting US consumers from toxic chemicals

Bill limits type of science used to determine health risks and gives industry major role in chemical review process

A new Republican House bill proposes sweeping changes to US toxic chemical laws that would gut protections for consumers, workers and the environment, public health advocates mobilising against the legislation warn.

Among other changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), the bill would limit the type of science that is used to determine health risks, stop legally requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure chemicals won’t harm people, give industry a prominent role in chemical review processes, and make it more difficult legally for the agency to ban toxic substances.

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

Jeffrey Epstein plotted with lawyer to try to have woman deported, documents reveal

Wall Street attorney Brad Karp, who represented Epstein’s business associate, Leon Black, also coordinated surveillance on the woman

Jeffrey Epstein plotted with a high-powered Manhattan lawyer to try arranging the deportation of a woman who was an inconvenience to someone in his social circle, newly released documents reveal.

While their efforts were unsuccessful, emails also reveal that this Epstein associate, Wall Street attorney Brad Karp – who represented the late financier’s business associate, Leon Black – coordinated surveillance on the woman.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:00 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

Trump Rx prescription drug site ‘not a solution’ for many patients, experts say

New website lists only limited number of medications – and many of them cost less in generic form elsewhere

The Trump administration has launched TrumpRx, but there are other sites offering discounts on more medications, and the new government site will appeal to a very limited group of patients, experts say.

Trump has promised reforms on the unusually high drug prices in the US, and he called the announcement “the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history” at a press conference on Thursday. Yet the site only lists 43 medications, more than half of which are available in generic form at significantly cheaper prices elsewhere.

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:30 pm

‘Opportunity of a lifetime’: details emerge on couple who wed at Bad Bunny Super Bowl half-time show

Story of Eleisa ‘Elli’ Aparicio and Thomas ‘Tommy’ Wolter’s love began surfacing after their cameo

They celebrated their one-year anniversary as a couple in February 2024. And roughly just two years later, they said “I do” in one of the most watched Super Bowl half-time shows ever.

Details of Eleisa “Elli” Aparicio and Thomas “Tommy” Wolter’s love story began surfacing through news reports and social media sleuthing on Monday, a day after the Los Angeles-area pair all but shed their anonymity by getting married amid Bad Bunny’s sensational performance on the field at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, during Super Bowl LX’s half-time show.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:12 pm

UK signed deals with US firms that were clients of Mandelson lobbying company

Clients of Global Counsel, co-founded by Mandelson, included OpenAI and Palantir, which have both signed deals with government

A lobbying firm co-owned by Peter Mandelson worked for OpenAI before the US tech company signed a wide-ranging agreement with the UK government to explore deploying AI in Britain’s justice, security and education systems.

In 2024, the $500bn-valued maker of ChatGPT was a client of Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded and part-owned. Keir Starmer subsequently appointed Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:14 pm

EU moves closer to creating offshore centres for migrants and asylum seekers

MEPs vote to allow people to be deported to places they have never been to, as NGOs express fears over new ‘safe third countries’ list

The EU has moved closer to creating offshore centres for migrants and asylum seekers, after centre-right and far-right MEPs united for tougher migration policies.

MEPs voted for legal changes that will give authorities more options to deport asylum seekers, including sending people to countries they have never been to.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:38 pm

Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent

When piloted, initiative that provided €325 a week to eligible artists recouped more than its net cost, study shows

Ireland is creating a scheme that will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work and boosting their creativity.

The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) initiative will provide €325 (£283) a week to 2,000 eligible artists based in the Republic of Ireland in three-year cycles.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:21 pm

Drive the ‘ice road’, Estonians told – just don’t fasten your seatbelt

Cold spell means cars can cross 20km stretch of frozen sea but drivers must be able to exit quickly in case of a problem

Temperatures in northern Europe have been so low that citizens of Estonia can now drive across a 20km stretch of frozen sea linking the country’s two main islands.

The so-called “ice road” connecting the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, located in western Estonia between the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga, was officially opened on Sunday with a line of cars waiting to use it that afternoon.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:54 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

Masterpiece, fridge magnet, phone case … opera: how Hokusai’s The Great Wave hit the stage

He survived a stroke, a lightning strike, a fire – and created one of the world’s most recognisable images. Now the Japanese artist’s ‘wild, fascinating’ life has inspired an opera

Opera has inspired many of the 20th century’s greatest artists to create extraordinary sets. Oskar Kokoschka designed a Magic Flute for Salzburg and a Ballo in maschera for Florence. Salvador Dalí produced a controversial Salome for London; David Hockney’s designs for Glyndebourne’s Rake’s Progress complement Stravinsky’s sound-world so miraculously that they are still in use 50 years after their creation. Marc Chagall’s ceiling fresco for Paris’s Opéra Garnier and murals for the New York Met testify to the intimate connection between opera and painting.

And yet remarkably few operas portray visual artists. Something about their painstaking work seems to resist representation in this most extravagant of artforms. Only two operas about artists are regularly performed: Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, depicting the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald, and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini – and Cellini gave Berlioz a head-start with his rollicking memoirs about his scandalous adventures in 16th-century Florence.

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:05 pm

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was never a love story. It was a warning

Watch Michel Gondry’s 2004 time-twister as a hard sci-fi film and you might heed its advice

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film about the gap between what we think we can control and what happens when reality hits. Over the years, many critics and fans have celebrated Michel Gondry’s film as a tender-hearted love story. But a rewatch might reveal that Gondry’s second collaboration with postmodern American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is much closer to another, twistier genre: hard sci-fi.

By now, the story of Eternal Sunshine is familiar. Depressed introvert Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), whose box-dyed hair colour and moods change as often as the weather. A mismatch made in heaven. The troubled couple eventually find a fix for their rocky, codependent relationship: a service provided by a sketchy medical company called Lacuna Inc that offers to erase their memories of each other. Clementine goes first. Out of spite, Joel follows.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:00 pm

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

Florence + the Machine review – ​a thrilling shift in tone towards stark, sombre catharsis

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Florence Welch is backed by the folk-horror dramatics of a petticoat-clad choir – but quite capable of transfixing the crowd with her billowing voice alone

‘I’ve only sung this once before and it makes me shake,” Florence Welch admits, crouching alone at the far end of a long, narrow thrust stage. Watching her command this arena during the first of two sold-out shows in Glasgow in honour of Florence + the Machine’s sixth album Everybody Scream, it’s hard to imagine Welch fearing anything. Just seconds ago, she was racing barefoot, flouncy skirts gathered in one hand, ripping through Spectrum (the band’s first UK No 1, back in 2012) and its searing demand: “Say my name!”

But the new song she is steeling herself to sing presses on a bruise. With ratcheting intensity, You Can Have It All grieves an ectopic pregnancy which almost killed her, as well as a music industry that punishes its stars for motherhood. Over grungy electric guitar, her tempestuous voice billows like sails in high wind: “Am I a woman now?” It leaves the arena in stunned silence. She gives a wry curtsey.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:35 pm

J Cole: The Fall Off review – rap legend’s final album is a self-obsessed hip-hop history lesson

(Interscope)
Bowing out after six consecutive US No 1 albums, Cole references rap greats and even conjures a convo between Biggie and 2Pac – but the lens rarely strays from himself

J Cole released his debut mixtape in 2007, and now, nearly two decades later and after six back-to-back US No 1 albums, the North Carolina MC is still wrestling with the weight of so much hope heaped upon him. He is framing The Fall Off as a graceful bowing out – “to do on my last what I was unable to do on my first”, he has said – and it’s almost as if he is a student coming to the end of a long period of study, with this double album as his graduate thesis.

Across 24 tracks and 101 minutes, The Fall Off is full of technical proficiency, raw lyrical skill, citation, interpolation and sampling, and it attempts nothing less than to embody a half-century of hip-hop. Through direct and indirect references, lessons unfold throughout. The Fall-Off Is Inevitable is inspired by Nas’s 2001 Stillmatic track Rewind. I Love Her Again is an obvious nod to Common’s I Used to Love HER. Bunce Road Blues borrows lyrics from Usher’s Nice & Slow but connects to R&B’s present with guest vocals from Nigerian singer Tems. The Let Out is reminiscent of SpottieOttieDopaliscious from OutKast’s Aquemini, and so forth: all ample material for audiences to think through hip-hop’s past and future.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:50 pm

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

Romeo Is a Dead Man review – a misfire from a storied gaming provocateur

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, PC; Grasshopper Manufacture/Marvelous Inc
After some dumb fun hacking at zombies, legendary developer Suda51’s first original game in a decade sadly only delivers a host of incoherent disappointments

Ever since he baffled GameCube owners with 2005’s Killer7, Japanese game director Suda51 has had a reputation for turning heads. From parodying the banality of open-world games with 2007’s No More Heroes to collaborating with James Gunn for 2012’s pulpy Lollipop Chainsaw, his games often offer a welcome reprieve from soulless, half-a-billion-dollar-budget gaming blockbusters. It was with considerable excitement that I fired up Suda’s first new game in 10 years.

The game kicks off with a slick cartoon that shows our hero, Romeo Stargazer, being eaten by a zombie. Hastily resurrected by his zany scientist grandfather, Romeo returns from the brink imbued with new powers – and then we’re off. Almost immediately I am bombarded by an impenetrable wall of proper-noun nonsense. It’s like this for the next 20 hours.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:11 pm

A peeping peacock and a snow moon – readers’ best photographs

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

Published: February 10, 2026, 4:00 pm

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

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

‘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

‘Boy kibble’: why are young men turning to dog food for meal inspiration?

The dried food, traditionally for pets, has become an unlikely influence for meal preppers. Some commenters have even claimed the trend could be an antidote to toxic masculinity

Name: Boy kibble.

Age: It’s new.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:43 pm

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 is fibremaxxing – and how much is too much? | Kitchen aide

Most of us aren’t getting enough fibre in our diet, but, as our panel of experts explain, upping your intake is a case of taking baby steps …

Why is everyone talking about fibremaxxing?
Chris, by email
TikTok-born trends rarely go hand in hand with sage health advice, but that’s not to say upping our fibre – an often-forgotten part of our diets – is a bad idea. “Fibre needed its moment, so this is a good thing,” says dietitian Priya Tew. The non-digestible carbohydrate has two main functions: “There’s insoluble fibre, which is found in things such as whole grains, brown rice or vegetable skins, and I think about it like a broom,” Tew says, “in that it brushes the system out.” Then there’s soluble fibre (oats, beans, lentils), which she likens to a sponge: “It turns into this gel in your gut, and aids digestion and keeps us regular.” But that’s only part of the story, because fibre can also help lower cholesterol and stabilise blood sugar.

So, are you getting enough? “The aim is 25-30g fibre a day, but in reality most of us are maybe getting 15-18g,” Tew says, so we’ve got a little way to go. That said, some folk on the #fibremaxxing train have set their sights higher, which is where things can become problematic. “If you’re having too much fibre, you can end up feeling bloated, constipated or have abdominal pain,” she says, and that can occur when you increase your fibre intake too quickly: “The body needs time to get used to what’s happening.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

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

‘So shameful’: backlash as US national monuments conform to Trump’s rewrite of history

From Pennsylvania to Montana, the White House’s war on ‘woke’ has targeted US monuments that address topics like racism and Indigenous history

Blank spaces now exist where a series of panels about enslavement once appeared on the walls of the President’s House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The site, which honors the home of George Washington and John Adams, is a major landmark that bore artwork and informational signs for more than a decade. But on 22 January, National Park Service (NPS) workers used hand tools to pry off 34 panels to comply with a presidential executive order designed to reframe the national narrative. The panels that highlighted the lives of people enslaved by George Washington when Philadelphia was the US capital in the 1790s are now in storage.

The removal is one of several across the nation, as NPS staff aim to conform with Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” issued on 27 March 2025. Public markers, monuments and statues that the Trump administration considers disparaging to past or current Americans have been flagged at more than a dozen parks. Two exhibits at Montana’s Little Bighorn battlefield national monument that discuss Indigenous history and the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been targeted and deemed noncompliant. Additionally, signage about climate change at Muir Woods national monument in California and visitor brochures at Medgar and Myrlie Evers home national monument in Mississippi that referred to Medgar Evers’s killer as racist were also removed.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:00 pm

Readers: what is your top piece of relationship advice?

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, we want to hear from readers on their one top tip for healthy romantic relationships

There is a lot of free relationship advice out there, much of it conflicting:

“Never go to sleep angry.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:00 pm

A camel race and Donald Trump taking a Liberty: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:54 pm