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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

One bizarre expression after another: DiCaprio’s viral moment won the Golden Globes

Famously serious Oscar-winner gave rare insight into what might be the real Leo with his commercial break antics

The fact that nobody really knows anything about Leonardo DiCaprio is well-established at this point. Indeed, the best joke of Nikki Glaser’s Golden Globes monologue last night revolved around that fact that DiCaprio gives so little of himself away that the only things she could find to joke about him were his notoriously younger girlfriends and an obscure magazine interview he gave when he was 17, where he announced that his favourite food was “pasta, pasta and more pasta”.

However, DiCaprio then went and instantly gave some of himself away. A camera remained on him during a commercial break, and it caught him giving one of the most flamboyant demonstrations of his personality ever seen.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:43 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:18 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:30 am

‘It was inspired by a snog in a photo-booth’: how Thompson Twins made Hold Me Now

‘We had a disagreement that spilled over into personal insults. But we soon made up – and wrote this about the process’

Thompson Twins were a seven-piece, rag-bag, guitar-based band living in a squat when I met Alannah Currie, who was also squatting in London. She was in an anarchic improv band, the Unfuckables, who were clearly not destined for Top of the Pops, but there was something very exciting about her. When I invited her to come on at the end of a Thompson Twins gig, she stole the show.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:28 pm

Minnesota sues Trump administration to end surge of ICE agents in state

Lawsuit comes in the aftermath of an ICE agent fatally shooting Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good

The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, announced a lawsuit on Monday against the federal government, seeking to end the surge of ICE agents in the state.

The lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials comes in the aftermath of an ICE agent fatally shooting resident Renee Nicole Good behind the wheel of her vehicle last week, leading to protests across the city, and country.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:14 pm

Ex-Fed chairs condemn Trump’s bid to weaken central bank’s independence

Statement signed by 13 former senior officials condemns ‘unprecedented’ assault on Fed’s independence

• Trump’s attempts to influence Fed risk ‘70’s-style inflation and global backlash’

• Nils Pratley: US bond markets should be in revolt. Fed independence matters

Every living former head of the Federal Reserve condemned an “unprecedented” attempt by the Trump administration to weaken the US central bank’s independence, after the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into its chair, Jerome Powell.

Ex-Fed chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen warned similar prosecutorial attacks in other countries had led to “highly negative consequences” for the cost of living – and argued they had “no place” in the US.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:21 pm

Trump ‘unafraid to use military force on Iran’, White House says

Press chief says US president considering ‘many, many’ options amid deadly regime crackdown on protesters

Donald Trump is “unafraid to use military force on Iran” the White House said on Monday as the Iranian regime still faces widespread unrest across the country.

Speaking to Fox News, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that although diplomacy remained Trump’s “first option”, he was “unafraid to use the lethal force and might of the United States military if and when he deems that necessary”.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:24 pm

Mark Kelly sues Hegseth over ‘chilling’ effort to reduce military retirement rank

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth tried to reduce veteran’s pension for speaking out against Trump administration

Democratic US senator Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to nullify the “chilling” attempt by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to reduce the military veteran’s rank and pension as punishment for speaking out against the Trump administration.

Hegseth had previously issued a formal censure to Kelly, a decorated retired navy captain and Nasa astronaut, for alleged “seditious statements” he made urging service members to resist unlawful orders. It began a process that could lead to Kelly, a senator for Arizona since 2021, being demoted and having his pension cut.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:14 pm

Federal prosecutor in Virginia fired after refusing to lead Comey case

Robert McBride, deputy to Trump ally Lindsey Halligan, is latest in series of dismissals

The number two prosecutor in the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of Virginia has been fired, according to two people familiar with the matter, the latest in a series of dismissals in an office that is leading controversial criminal prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James.

Robert McBride, a former federal prosecutor in Kentucky, was brought in late last year to serve as the deputy to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally who the president installed as the acting US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September. McBride was dismissed after declining to lead the Comey prosecution, which a judge threw out in November after ruling Halligan was unlawfully appointed, one of the people said. (The justice department is appealing the ruling.)

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:41 pm

More than 100,000 El Paso residents left with little to no water after main break

Officials in Texas city issued boil water notice and set up water distribution centers after main line break on Saturday

More than 100,000 residents in the Texas border city of El Paso were left with little to no water after a main break over the weekend, and it was expected to take till midweek for operations to return to normal, officials said.

The break in the 36-inch water main line happened late Saturday night in El Paso, which has a population of about 700,000, officials said. Gilbert Trejo, an official with El Paso Water, called it “an event of unprecedented proportion”. He said the break was made even more impactful because of “the way the pipeline itself was designed along with how different connections of smaller lines were made to it”.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:35 pm

Greenland says it cannot accept US takeover ‘under any circumstances’

Self-governing island stresses it is member of Nato, which is looking at improving Arctic defences, through Denmark

Greenland’s government has said it “cannot under any circumstances accept” Donald Trump’s desire to take control of Greenland, as Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the organisation was working on ways to bolster Arctic security.

At the start of a critical week for the vast Arctic island, a largely self-governing part of Denmark, the US president restated his interest in the strategically located, mineral-rich territory, saying the US would take it “one way or the other”.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:03 am

David Letterman calls CBS News a ‘wreck’ under newly installed leadership

Former late-night host makes comments amid merger of CBS’s parent company Paramount with Skydance Media

The former CBS late-night host David Letterman has criticized his old network, calling its news division a “wreck” under its newly installed leadership.

“By the way, what about those idiots at CBS?” Letterman, 78, said in a clip posted to his YouTube channel on Friday from his appearance on The Barbara Gaines Show, a podcast hosted by his former executive producer.

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:28 pm

US judge lets Danish firm resume Rhode Island offshore wind project halted by Trump

Ørsted and other wind developers have faced repeated disruptions to multibillion dollar projects under Trump

A federal judge on Monday cleared Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted to resume work on its nearly finished Revolution Wind project, which Donald Trump’s administration halted along with four other projects last month.

The ruling by US district judge Royce Lamberth is a legal setback for Trump, who has sought to block expansion of offshore wind in federal waters.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:29 pm

Some Republicans speak out against DoJ investigation into Fed chair

Republican senator vows to block all Fed nominations ‘until legal matter is fully resolved’

Several Republican lawmakers have begun speaking out against the Trump administration’s criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, with one senator going so far as to threaten all Fed nominations as a result.

Thom Tillis, a senator from North Carolina, vowed to block all Federal Reserve nominations after the justice department opened the investigation, inflaming tensions over the central bank’s independence.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:34 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:30 pm

Trump regrets not seizing voting machines after 2020 election loss

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:18 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:07 pm

How Iran’s protest movement has gained increasing momentum – a visual guide

Demonstrations initially focused on economic issues but as they have grown and become political the regime has responded with deadly force

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

A protest movement in Iran that started as a small demonstration by shopkeepers in Tehran over a weakening currency has exploded into the largest nationwide uprising in years against the country’s theocratic leaders.

Fearing a threat to its decades-old grip on the country, the government has responded with deadly force. Rights groups have reported that hundreds of people have been killed by security forces and the state-backed Basij militia.

Published: January 12, 2026, 4:11 pm

Will Trump go to war with Iran? | The Latest

Donald Trump has promised he will ‘shoot at Iran’ if Iranian security services attack anti-government protesters, but analysts suggest the US is not prepared for military action. It comes as the death toll from Tehran’s crackdown on protests soars, and as demonstrations continue to shake the country. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:49 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:11 pm

Is it true that … stretching before exercise prevents injury?

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:00 am

‘Her time has come’: did Mondrian owe his success to a cross-dressing lesbian artist who lived in a Cornish cove?

Piet Mondrian found fame, fortune and glory with his grid-like paintings lit with basic colours. But did many of his ideas come from Marlow Moss? Our writer celebrates an extraordinary British talent who died in obscurity

In 1972, the mighty Kunstmuseum in the Hague bought three paintings by a little known British artist called Marlow Moss. The prestigious art gallery was keen to show the enormous influence of Piet Mondrian – the famous Dutch painter acclaimed for his black grids lit with bold blues and brash yellows – on such lowly also-rans as Moss.

Yet, should you visit the Kunstmuseum today, you’ll find the Moss works positioned front and centre, while a similar piece by the great Mondrian, who would later become the toast of New York, is hidden behind a pillar. Why the volte-face? Because it is now widely recognised in the art world that it was as much Moss who influenced Mondrian as the other way round, at least when it came to the double or parallel lines he started using in the 1930s to add tension to his harmonious abstract paintings, one of which hammered last May for $48m.

Published: January 12, 2026, 4:14 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:00 pm

Ben Jennings on Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool – cartoon

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Published: January 12, 2026, 7:01 pm

US bond markets should be in revolt. Fed independence matters | Nils Pratley

It is a perilous time to mess with the principle that rate-setters under an independent system should be free of political pressure

• Ex-Fed chairs condemn Trump’s bid to weaken central bank’s independence

• Trump’s attempts to influence Fed risk 1970s-style inflation and global backlash’

Well said, Jerome Powell. The chair of the US Federal Reserve responded to news of a subpoena from the US Department of Justice with a statement that was extraordinary, necessary and stark.

A criminal investigation into the Fed, and him personally, over the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters is an attempt to bully officials into setting policy according to the president’s whims, said Powell.

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:08 pm

This year, I’m sticking with achievable New Year’s resolutions. Here are a few | Dave Schilling

This could be your year to worry less about your waistline and spend more time at the movies

We are now more than a week into 2026, and it might shock you to know I’m feeling quite cheery. All the professional emails I’ve waited a month to send are out. The grout in my shower is scum-free. The music at the pharmacy is normal again. If you’re like me, and you find the holiday season a grim and lonely time that involves too much booze, too much food, too much Mariah Carey and not enough routine, the start of the new year is more than welcome.

The one thing that dampens my cheer at being dragged back to my desk for the comfort of drudgery – besides the endless and brutal news headlines – is the New Year’s resolution. The tradition of picking a few things to promise yourself to do (or not do) in the spirit of wellness is centuries old, dating back as far as 2000BC. Not sure what the Babylonians were resolving to do. Tidy up the storage closet in the ziggurat? Finally finish that tower they’d been thinking about? Try not to get sold into slavery (again)?

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 pm

Trump is repeating mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:44 am

Social media is corrupting young minds – but a ban is not the answer | Zoe Williams

Kicking under-16s off the social platforms is tempting, but it ignores the root of the problem: the older generations who made them so toxic in the first place

Kemi Badenoch is evolving into one of those politicians who, whatever she says, it’s not just likely to be wrong, it’s likely to be the opposite of what’s right. She says Greenland is not a big deal (a “second-order issue” is how she described it to the BBC) – it is a big deal. She says net zero is too expensive – the opposite is true: net-anything-but-zero is a cost we can’t afford.

But her promise to ban under-16s from using social media, echoing Australia’s recent move, is hard to write off completely; people across the spectrum, including Andy Burnham, agree with it. Nobody who has ever met a teenager, or read the news, will be completely at ease with the role of social media in young lives. There are horrific effects, which have been well documented and inadequately addressed ever since the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:37 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

The Guardian view on Europe’s crisis of self-confidence: a new mindset needed for new times | Editorial

The tumultuous start to 2026 should force a reckoning in Brussels and European capitals, and a recognition of the power the EU can exert

Another week, another set of dilemmas for Europe’s beleaguered political class to deal with. On Wednesday Brussels is due to outline the terms of the €90bn loan it has promised to Ukraine, amid internal tensions over whether Kyiv can use the money to buy US as well as EU weapons. On the same day, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is due to meet ministers from Denmark and Greenland, as Donald Trump continues to insist that the US will take ownership of the latter “one way or another”. And as the body count of protesters rises in Iran, the EU is under mounting pressure to do more than merely “monitor” the situation, as the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, somewhat feebly put it over the weekend.

Beyond the crisis management, a deeper reckoning is overdue after a tumultuous beginning to 2026. It has long been a truism that there is a profound mismatch between the EU’s economic heft and its geopolitical clout. But only a year into Mr Trump’s second term, the disjunction looks unsustainable in the “America first” era.

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 12, 2026, 6:49 pm

The Guardian view on regulating big tech: politicians must back Ofcom’s challenge to Musk | Editorial

A flood of non-consensual deepfake bikini shots on X is putting the UK’s Online Safety Act to the test

The unleashing on X (formerly Twitter) of a torrent of AI-generated images of women and children wearing bikinis, some in sexualised poses or with injuries, has rightly prompted a strong reaction from UK politicians and regulators. Monday’s announcement that X is being investigated was Ofcom’s most combative move since key provisions in the Online Safety Act came into force. None of the other businesses it has challenged or fined have anything like the global reach or political clout of Elon Musk’s social media giant. Whatever happens next, this is a defining moment. What is being defined is the extent to which some of the wealthiest companies on the planet are under democratic control.

But the announcement is only a first step. Ofcom has given no indication of how long its investigation will take. On Friday Downing Street described as insulting the decision to limit the use of the image‑making Grok AI chatbot to X’s paying subscribers. The government said that this amounted to turning the creation of abusive deepfakes into a “premium service”.

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 12, 2026, 6:50 pm

Xabi Alonso leaves Real Madrid after seven months and replaced by Álvaro Arbeloa

• Super Cup final defeat by Barcelona spells the end

• Madrid are four points off Catalan club at top of La Liga

Xabi Alonso has left his job as coach of Real Madrid, only seven months after arriving for his first day at the club’s Valdebebas training ground. A brief statement announced his departure “by mutual consent” on Monday evening after Madrid’s 3-2 defeat in the final of the Spanish Super Cup against Barcelona the previous night.

He will be replaced, at least in the short term, by his former Real Madrid and Liverpool teammate and friend Álvaro Arbeloa, who was coach of Castilla, Madrid’s B team.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:19 pm

Brooks Koepka returns to PGA Tour after $5m charitable donation

• PGA offers re-entry to LIV Golf players via new program

• Koepka stands to miss out on at least $50m in equity

Brooks Koepka is returning to the PGA Tour just five weeks after bolting from LIV Golf, agreeing to a one-time program for elite players that comes with a financial penalty that could rank among the largest in sports.

Koepka plans to resume his PGA Tour career in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of the month. But he will not be eligible for PGA Tour equity grants for five years, he will not receive FedEx Cup bonus money in 2026 and he cannot play signature events unless he earns his way in.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:16 pm

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

• Katie Uhlaender misses sixth trip to Olympics

• Athlete says she was deliberately deprived of points

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:10 pm

Tottenham agree £34.6m deal for Conor Gallagher to head off Aston Villa interest

• Spurs make Atlético Madrid offer worth £25m upfront

• Former Chelsea man keen on Premier League return

Tottenham look to have beaten Aston Villa to the signing of Conor Gallagher from Atlético Madrid after agreeing a transfer fee of up to €40m (£34.6m) for the England midfielder.

Talks with Atlético have progressed rapidly and Gallagher is understood to be keen to move back to the Premier League to boost his chances of making England’s World Cup squad, having made just four starts in La Liga this season. Spurs were in the market for midfield reinforcements after Rodrigo Bentancur sustained a hamstring injury that is likely to keep him sidelined for three months. The club have identified the 25-year-old as their primary target.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:33 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

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

• San Francisco 49ers 23-19 Philadelphia Eagles

• Niners will play Seahawks in divisional round

• AFC wildcard: Allen shines as Bills beat Jags

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:18 am

USWNT captain Heaps signs with NWSL’s Denver Summit

• Midfielder to join after OL Lyonnes contract ends in June

• Return comes amid recent exodus of US stars to Europe

Lindsey Heaps is coming home.

The US women’s national team captain is joining the NWSL’s expansion Denver Summit this summer when her contract with French club OL Lyonnes is done.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:50 pm

Is Morocco ready to co-host the 2030 World Cup? Afcon indicates yes | Jonathan Wilson

The Africa Cup of Nations has been a brilliant display for a continent carrying no doubt about quality on the pitch

More than any other continental tournament, there is always a sense with the Africa Cup of Nations that it is a referendum on the continent’s football generally. Perhaps it’s because so many of the players are familiar to those who habitually watch the European leagues or the Champions League, but the question is less about individual quality of players – that is a given – than it is about organisation and structures. Somewhere in the background, perhaps, lurks Pelé’s notorious prediction, made in 1977, that an African team would win the World Cup by the end of the 20th century. Is a World Cup win for Africa any closer than it was half a century ago?

In Morocco at this year’s edition of the tournament, there has been an extra element: the country’s status as World Cup co-hosts with Spain and Portugal in 2030. What are facilities like? Is the infrastructure there? This question is readily answered: in terms of stadiums, pitches and hotels, Morocco is already well on the way to being able to stage the World Cup. All six cities hosting games at this Cup of Nations are candidates for 2030.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:45 pm

US plan to exploit Venezuela’s oil could eat up 13% of carbon budget to keep 1.5C limit

Exclusive: ClimatePartner analysis shows how move would risk plunging Earth further into climate catastrophe

US plans to exploit Venezuela’s oil reserves could by 2050 consume more than a tenth of the world’s remaining carbon budget to limit global heating to 1.5C, according to an exclusive analysis.

The calculation highlights how any moves to further exploit the South American nation’s oil reserves – the largest in the world, at least on paper – would put increasing pressure on climate goals, and risk plunging the Earth further into climate catastrophe.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:38 pm

Coal power generation falls in China and India for first time since 1970s

‘Historic’ moment in biggest coal-consuming countries could bring decline in global emissions, analysis says

Coal power generation fell in China and India for the first time since the 1970s last year, in a “historic” moment that could bring a decline in global emissions, according to analysis.

The simultaneous fall in coal-powered electricity in the world’s biggest coal-consuming countries had not happened since 1973, according to analysts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and was driven by a record roll-out of clean energy projects.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:01 am

Dozens of artists call for end to Israel’s ‘systematic attacks’ on Gaza hospitals

Actors, doctors and human rights leaders sign letter calling for restoration of medical care to ‘collapsed’ system

Dozens of artists, including Cynthia Nixon, Mark Ruffalo and Ilana Glazer, have joined with doctors, human rights leaders and humanitarian organizations to call for the immediate restoration of medical care in Gaza in a letter addressed to the state of Israel and world leaders.

“Israel’s systematic attacks on hospitals and unlawful blockade have collapsed Gaza’s healthcare system,” says the letter, which was shared exclusively with the Guardian. “Through its policies and military activities, the government of Israel has deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and then denied the very help that could save them.”

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:41 pm

Peter Thiel makes $3m donation to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax

Ballot proposes one-time, 5% tax on anyone in state worth more than $1bn and grant a five-year period for payment

Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has donated $3m to a California lobbying group advocating against a proposed wealth tax that would target billionaires in the state. The seven-figure contribution comes as several ultra-wealthy tech moguls have left or threatened to leave California over the tax.

Thiel, worth some $26bn, made the donation last month to the California Business Roundtable’s political action committee, according to a public disclosure filing which was first reported by the New York Times. A representative for Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:19 pm

Peter Mandelson apologises for Epstein association in sudden U-turn

Former ambassador to US had earlier declined to give apology for keeping in touch with sex offender after his conviction

Peter Mandelson has issued an apology for his association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – after declining to do so in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

The Labour peer, who was sacked as US ambassador when details of his support for Epstein emerged in September, gave an interview to the BBC in which he suggested that as a gay man he knew nothing of the disgraced financier’s sex life.

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:36 pm

Suspected arsonist targeted Mississippi synagogue for its ‘Jewish ties’, FBI says

Man charged with maliciously damaging building after blaze at historic Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson

The FBI says that a suspect in the arson fire at a historic Mississippi synagogue admitted to targeting the institution because of its “Jewish ties”.

Stephen Spencer Pittman was charged on Monday with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive, the FBI said.

Published: January 12, 2026, 8:15 pm

Ex-Alaska Democratic representative launches bid for US Senate seat

Mary Peltola seen as Democrat capable of flipping seat in Republican-leaning state as party seeks to reclaim Senate

• US politics live – latest updates

Former Alaska representative Mary Peltola announced on Monday she is running for Alaska’s US Senate seat, handing Democrats a major recruitment victory as the party battles to reclaim the chamber’s majority in this year’s midterm elections.

Peltola, who served as Alaska’s sole House member from 2022 until her narrow defeat in 2024, is considered one of the few Democrats in the Republican-leaning state capable of mounting a serious challenge to Senator Dan Sullivan, who is seeking re-election.

Published: January 12, 2026, 4:57 pm

Weather tracker: Canada issues warnings for freezing rain, heavy snow and strong winds

Severe weather, driven by two low-pressure systems merging, is expected to bring power outages and hazardous road conditions

Atlantic Canada is under widespread weather warnings for snow, freezing rain and strong winds as a winter storm moves across the region. In Newfoundland, up to 40cm of snow fell on Sunday, along with wind gusts of about 74mph, creating blizzard-like conditions.

The storm began late on Sunday and is forecast to persist until Tuesday morning. Freezing rain warnings are in place across Nova Scotia, including Annapolis and Kings counties, while parts of New Brunswick could get up to 25cm of snow on Monday.

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:40 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:29 am

Woman charged for starting GoFundMe posing as father of Texas flooding victim

Maitlin Paige White accused of soliciting donations as Matthew Childress, whose daughter died at Camp Mystic

A Florida woman allegedly posed as the grieving father of a teenager who died in July’s deadly Camp Mystic flooding in Texas and tried to raise money, leading to her being criminally charged with online impersonation, according to authorities.

According to court records reviewed by multiple outlets, Maitlin Paige White, 28, of Crestview, Florida, is accused of posing as Matthew Childress and soliciting donations in the days after the death of his 18-year-old daughter, Chloe Childress, who was working as a counselor at Camp Mystic in Kerr county, Texas.

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:07 pm

Three inmates dead after ‘possible riot’ at Georgia state prison

‘Major fights’ broke out Sunday at prison in Davidsboro, county sheriff said, with a dozen others taken to hospital

Three inmates died and a dozen others were taken to hospital with injuries after a “possible riot” on Sunday at a state prison in Georgia, authorities said.

The Washington county sheriff, Joel Cochran, said several “major fights” broke out early Sunday afternoon at a state prison in Davisboro, the Georgia television news outlet WMAZ reported, resulting in 13 prisoners being transported for treatment.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:38 pm

Actor Timothy Busfield charged with child sexual abuse offense

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:53 pm

Google parent Alphabet hits $4tn valuation after AI deal with Apple

After Apple chose Gemini to power Siri, Alphabet surpassed Apple to become second-most valuable company in world

Google’s parent company hit a major financial milestone on Monday, reaching a $4tn valuation for the first time and surpassing Apple to become the second-most valuable company in the world.

Alphabet is the fourth company to hit the $4tn milestone after Nvidia, which later hit $5tn, Microsoft and Apple.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:14 pm

Cypriot president says he has ‘nothing to fear’ over corruption allegations

Incriminating video, dismissed by officials as part of a ‘hybrid attack’, has forced resignations of Nikos Christodoulides’s wife and chief of staff

The Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, has said he has “nothing to fear” over a scandal that has forced the resignations of his chief of staff and his wife from a leadership role of a major charity.

As allegations of high-level corruption swirled days after the island assumed the rotating EU presidency, officials insisted the country had been the victim of “hybrid warfare”. The incriminating claims, implicating the president and first lady in a cash for access network, were made in a video uploaded on X.

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:33 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:26 pm

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

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

• Europe live – latest updates

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 1:17 pm

Eva Schloss obituary

Holocaust survivor, educator and bestselling author who was a co-founder of the Anne Frank Trust UK

At the time, in 1940, when the 11-year-old Eva Schloss (then Eva Geiringer), newly arrived from Vienna, played with a group of children that included Anne Frank in the grassy square between their Amsterdam flats after school, she could not have imagined how intimately linked her name and Anne’s would become.

Eva, who has died aged 96, and Anne were not close: although born a month apart and neighbours in Merwedeplein (Anne lived at flat 37 and Eva at 46), they were unalike – Eva athletic, Anne more interested in fashion, films and flirting.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:44 pm

Owen Cooper: how schoolboy conquered Golden Globes and changed acting for a generation

Warrington 16-year-old is inspiring young boys to embrace drama

Standing on stage at the Golden Globes in front of Hollywood’s elite, Owen Cooper said that the experience simply “did not feel real”.

The 16-year-old from Warrington picked up best supporting male actor for his performance in Netflix’s “incel” drama, Adolescence, which was one of the big winners at the ceremony and dominated the cultural conversation around male toxicity for much of 2025.

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:46 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 9:00 am

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

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

Dream-Pedlary

i.

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:10 am

Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, guitarist for rock band Black Midi, dies aged 26

Family statement said musician died ‘after a long battle with his mental health’

Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, the guitarist who was a member of acclaimed British experimental rock band Black Midi, has died aged 26.

A statement from his family said he died “after a long battle with his mental health. A talented musician and a kind, loving man finally succumbed; despite all efforts.

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:33 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 12:01 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

The friendship secret: why socialising could help you live longer

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:45 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

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

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

Name: Unc.

Age: Younger than you might think.

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:40 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:12 pm

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 2:31 pm