The five new gadgets I tried and loved at CES 2026 (that you can buy right now)

From smartglasses to nano phone chargers, these futuristic products from the Consumer Electronics Show are available right away

• I’m a digital nomad who works on the road. These seven travel gadgets go with me everywhere

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) gives us a glimpse of what’s around the corner in tech: creepy humanoid robots, robovacs that climb stairs, AI baked into everything.

Some of these products will never come to fruition. Some will arrive months later. And some – the rarities we picked out below – are available to order right now. I had a chance to try each one in person on the show floor in Las Vegas. So if you’re looking for a taste of the future today, here’s your fix.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:15 pm

Women are feral for Heated Rivalry. What does that say about men?

The explosive popularity of the gay hockey TV drama reveals women’s desire for sex and romance without violence or hierarchy

The first time gay hockey romance crossed Mary’s radar, she was warned off it. A 64-year-old non-profit executive from Toronto, Mary recalled mentioning the Canadian author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series to her son, a twentysomething queer writer and fellow hockey obsessive, a few years ago.

“I said: ‘Have you heard of these books?’ and he said: ‘Yeah.’ I said: ‘Should I read these books?’ And he said: ‘No. They’re not for you.’”

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Stephen Miller wants us to fear him | Arwa Mahdawi

Some of Trump’s aides refer to his deputy chief of staff as ‘the prime minister’, with many of the most shocking policies leading back to him. Worrying about his actions isn’t enough

If you want to understand what’s happening in the US right now, and what is likely to happen next, don’t just focus on Donald Trump. Rather, pay close attention to Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller. It’s increasingly clear that Miller, a man who has said that “America is for Americans and Americans only” and who is on a mission to “save the west” is the driving force behind the Trump administration’s most extreme policies. Per a recent Bloomberg profile, some of Trump’s aides even privately call Miller “the prime minister”.

Miller’s influence stretches across both foreign and domestic policy. Those masked immigration agents pulling people off the street, and occasionally shooting unarmed citizens in the face? You can trace their aggressive tactics back to Miller. The plot to get rid of birthright citizenship? Miller’s hands are all over it. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro? He helped plan it. The campaign to Maga-fy universities? Miller again! All right-leaning roads seem to lead back to Miller.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:59 pm

From 24 to Danger Mouse: it’s TV’s all-time top spies!

A spy with a superhumanly good bladder, a crime-fighting rodent who lives in a postbox, and piles of dodgy 80s wigs … we rate the best small-screen spooks. Who comes out on top?

With Tom Hiddleston up to his old racy tricks in The Night Manager – not to be confused with Netflix hit The Night Agent, which also returns in February – espionage thrillers are all over our TVs. Anyone would think we lived in unstable times with growing public distrust of governments.

So who is the all-time top small-screen spook? We’ve rated the Top 20. Just make sure you destroy this list after reading …

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:54 pm

Meet the merpeople: ‘Once I put the tail on, my life was changed forever’

Professional mermaids risk hypothermia, seasickness and the cling of skin-tight silicone, but the reward is becoming an ‘ocean ambassador’ – and a bit more colour in the world

Propelled by a shimmering silicon tail, Katrin Gray spins underwater, blowing kisses to the audience as her long, copper hair floats around her face. Her seemingly effortless movement is anything but – a professional mermaid’s free diving and performance skills require training, practice and total concentration.

Mermaiding has become a global cottage industry, with pageants, conventions, retreats and meet-ups, where people gather in “pods” to practise their dolphin kicks. Makers create bespoke tail flukes, bejewelled bras, mermaid hair and even prosthetic gills for professional and hobbyist “seasters”. There is even a Netflix reality series called MerPeople, which documents the occasionally perilous journey of several aspiring professional merfolk. “No dead mermaids,” is the motto of one business featured.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

Can X be banned under UK law and what are the other options?

UK media regulator is investigating whether X has breached the Online Safety Act – what could happen next?

The UK government is threatening Elon Musk’s X with the nuclear option under the country’s online safety laws: a ban. The social media platform is under pressure from ministers after it allowed the Grok AI tool, which is integrated within the app, to generate indecent images of unsuspecting women and children.

The government has said it will support the media regulator Ofcom, which has launched an investigation into X, if it decides to push ahead with a ban. But is such a move likely?

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:39 am

Hundreds of gunshot eye injuries found in one Iranian hospital amid brutal crackdown on protests

Doctors in Tehran tell of overwhelmed medical staff as violent crackdown intensifies

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

An ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital, as overwhelmed medical staff struggle to cope with the toll of an increasingly violent crackdown on nationwide protests by Iranian authorities.

Three doctors, in messages forwarded to the Guardian on Monday, described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot. Medical staff said the gunshot wounds were mostly concentrated on protesters’ eyes and heads – a tactic that rights groups said authorities used against demonstrators in the country’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:15 pm

Trump threatens to revoke citizenship of naturalized immigrants convicted of fraud - US politics live

US president uses winding speech trailed to be on affordability to attack immigrants

Donald Trump is heading to Detroit, Michigan today, where he’ll tour a Ford factory in Dearborn.

The president will deliver remarks to the Detroit Economic Club at 2pm ET, to continue his “affordability” tour, where he’s expected to tout the administration’s commitment to revitalising manufacturing and keeping costs down.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 pm

Federal prosecutors quit in protest over lack of investigation into ICE shooting

Six lawyers from US attorney’s office in Minnesota quit along with four leaders of DoJ’s civil rights division

A wave of federal prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington DC have resigned in protest over the justice department’s decision not to hold a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed US citizen by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis.

Six lawyers from the US attorney’s office in Minnesota quit on Tuesday over the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter of Renee Nicole Good, the New York Times reported.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:53 pm

US supreme court appears poised to uphold laws banning trans athletes

A ruling against two athletes in West Virginia and Idaho could have far-reaching implications for civil rights

The US supreme court on Tuesday appeared poised to uphold laws banning transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in two conservative states, in a landmark legal battle that could carry profound implications for trans rights across US society.

During oral arguments on two cases of trans students who sued over Republican-supported laws in West Virginia and Idaho that barred them from girls sports, one member of the court’s conservative majority after another voiced skepticism about the students’ cases.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:51 pm

Actor Timothy Busfield surrenders to face child sexual abuse charges in New Mexico

Actor denies allegations of abuse centering on two preteen boys in video statement: ‘I’m going to confront these lies’

The actor and director Timothy Busfield surrendered on Tuesday to New Mexico authorities, four days after they obtained a warrant to arrest him on child sexual abuse allegations, according to officials.

The Albuquerque police department spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos confirmed Busfield turned himself over to officers after it was widely reported that the agency was working with US marshals to search for the Emmy winner.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:13 pm

US carbon pollution rose in 2025 in reversal of previous years’ reductions

Study from research firm finds that US greenhouse gas emissions grew faster than economic activity last year

In a reversal from previous years’ pollution reductions, the United States spewed 2.4% more heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels in 2025 than in the year before, researchers calculated in a study released on Tuesday.

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of datacenters and cryptocurrency mining, and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by Donald Trump’s administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said. Heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the major cause of worsening global warming, scientists say.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:09 pm

US aircraft that attacked suspected drug boat reportedly disguised as civilian plane

Experts say obscuring plane’s military identity would constitute a war crime

The US aircraft that carried out the first airstrike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean was reportedly disguised as a civilian plane – a possible war crime.

The New York Times reported that the aircraft had been painted to obscure its military identity, and its munitions were hidden inside its fuselage rather than visible under its wings.

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:56 pm

Bill and Hillary Clinton refuse to testify in House Epstein investigation

James Comer said he would move to hold former US president in contempt for not appearing for testimony

Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their relationships to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, while launching an extraordinary attack on Republicans and Donald Trump.

The Republican-led House oversight committee in August subpoenaed the former president and first lady after its chair, James Comer, announced the panel would review the government’s handling of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by what was determined to be suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:48 pm

Global central banks offer ‘full solidarity’ to US Fed’s Powell amid Trump threats

Ten governors including Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey and ECB’s Christine Lagarde say independence is critical

• JP Morgan boss says Trump attacks risk central bank independence

Global central banks have issued an extraordinary joint statement offering “full solidarity” to the US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, in the face of the latest threat to his independence from Donald Trump’s White House.

“The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability,” the statement said.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:50 pm

UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’

Groups say EEOC demand for names and personal details echoes dark history and threatens safety and civil rights

Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:12 pm

Judge blocks White House bid to revoke whistleblower lawyer’s security clearance

Mark Zaid, a national security attorney, regains access to classified material after accusing White House of retaliation

After the Donald Trump administration revoked his security clearance in March, attorney Mark Zaid reported learning on Monday that the memorandum revoking his clearance is “no longer in effect” – and that his “access to classified info is restored”.

The development comes after Zaid sued the president’s administration in May over the revocation of his security clearance.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:41 pm

‘A very tough moment’: how Trump has put museums in jeopardy

A study has shown the devastating impact of arts funding cuts on institutions across America and many within the industry are concerned for what’s next

From Times Square to the Washington Monument, America saw in the new year with a bigger bang than usual, celebrating the fact that 2026 marks the nation’s 250th birthday. Yet as the US looks back, precious repositories of the nation’s history are facing an uncertain future.

Museum attendances are down. Budgets are precarious. Cuts in federal funding are taking their toll. And Donald Trump’s culture wars are spreading fear, intimidation and self-censorship among some directors and donors.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:12 pm

Hyperlocal and highly visible: the power of freeway overpass protests amid Trump 2.0

Since Trump retook office, protesters across the US are sending messages that are hard for drivers to miss

Bonnie Connery was horrified when she read the news about the death of ICE observer Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on 7 January. Within minutes, she and her local Missoula Visibility Brigade were messaging each other. By 3.30pm, the group of 20 was standing on the South Reserve Street Pedestrian Bridge, arranging letters cut out of craft paper and glued onto black foam and hanging them across the bridge using bungee cords. Thousands of cars driving by during rush hour passed under their messages: “ICE THUGS KILL CITIZEN” and “DHS LIES.”

The idea was to grab drivers’ attention quickly, which often means using a short, shocking message. When asked why the group chose this location, Connery said: “These cars are driving out of Missoula, which is blue, into the very red areas outside of the city.”

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body

Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’

High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns “a bombshell”.

Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:20 pm

Mapped: how the world is losing its forests to wildfires

Wildfires now destroy twice as much tree cover per year as two decades ago – a crisis fuelled by climate change

The world is losing forests to fire at an unsustainable rate, experts have warned.

Wildfires have always been part of nature’s cycle, but in recent decades their scale, frequency and intensity in carbon-rich forests have surged.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘They want to break us’: Russian energy grid strikes give freezing Kyiv some of its darkest days

Impact of raid on infrastructure rivals early weeks of war when tanks tried to force their way into Ukrainian capital

On the night of 9 January, amid warnings from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of massive and imminent Russian airstrikes, Tetiana Shkred began cooking for her children at midnight.

Concerned that the power was once again about to be knocked out in her apartment block on Kyiv’s left bank – the side of the city that has been most affected by Moscow’s attacks on energy infrastructure – she cooked until 3am, when her flat was plunged into freezing darkness.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:24 pm

‘A perfect, wild storm’: widely loathed datacenters see little US political opposition

Issue dubbed ‘great unifier’ but Republicans and Democrats are instead jockeying for big tech’s financial favor

In late October, an unlikely coalition formed to fiercely oppose controversial plans for more than a dozen Michigan datacenters – rightwing “Stop the Steal” activists joined forces with groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, and people of all political stripes in between.

Polling showed just 28% of residents supported new datacenters, and, amid the furor, Dylan Wegela, a Michigan state congressman, introduced a bill to repeal datacenter tax credits. Despite an opportunity for what looked like an easy political win, the bill has few co-sponsors, is unlikely to move in the state house, and most datacenter plans are poised to be built.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple review – Ralph Fiennes is phenomenal in best chapter yet of zombie horror

A murderous Clockwork-Orangey gang take on the zombies in this gruesome and energised fourquel. It’s the finest of the 28 franchise by a blood-curdling mile

It’s very rare for a fourquel to be the best film in a franchise, but that’s how things stand with the chequered 28 Days Later series. In this one, which follows immediately on from the previous episode, 28 Years Later, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell bring pure death-metal craziness. There is real energy and drama in this latest iteration of the post-apocalyptic zombie horror-thriller saga, created by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland back in 2003, with Nia DaCosta taking over directing duties for this film. Fiennes’s dance to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is basically one of the most extraordinary moments of his career. At the screening I attended, we were on our feet, looking for a speaker bin to headbang into. The band surely has to rerelease this track with Fiennes’s performance as a new official video. His Voldemort was never so freaky.

It is just so exhilarating to see this intergenerational face-off between such superb actors as Fiennes and O’Connell. That brings us to the point of my agnosticism about this whole franchise; Bone Temple is the best for an interesting reason – because the zombies are almost entirely irrelevant and are at a minimum. The always slightly dull business of zombieism is de-emphasised, and what counts is the conflict between sentient human beings. Even the one important zombie here is interesting because he is being transformed into something else.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:00 pm

Tired of the wellness industrial complex? Six rules to ditch – and what to do instead

Dr Ezekiel J Emanuel, a former Obamacare adviser, has deceptively simple advice for living a healthy life

Being healthy shouldn’t feel this complicated. Yet every week brings a new wellness fixation, from “fibermaxxing” to “zone 2 training”, creatine and cortisol-hacking.

Between prescriptive plans, complex science and often contradictory advice, it can seem like being healthy is a full-time job – or a hopeless cause.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 pm

Mark Ruffalo’s howl of frustration was the Golden Globes’ finest hour

The actor’s sober note of sanity on Sunday night was the latest courageous move from a man who seems more invested in activism than acting

At times like these, when the world teeters on the brink of several terrifying calamities at once, awards seasons can be something of a tightrope.

This weekend’s Golden Globe awards were a perfect case in point. The main criticism levelled at the ceremony so far seems to be that it didn’t adequately reflect the moment. It was all a bit 1920s Berlin, with a shimmering array of beautiful millionaires busy congratulating themselves, oblivious to the fear and exhaustion of the rest of the world.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:22 pm

Jon Stewart on the Minneapolis ICE shooting: ‘We are in a confusing, dark place’

Late-night hosts discussed national outrage over the killing of Renee Nicole Good as the Trump administration ramps up ICE operations in Minneapolis

Late-night hosts recapped a weekend of nationwide protests over the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer as Donald Trump made a social media post referring to himself as the “acting president” of Venezuela.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:30 pm

The Jerome Powell investigation shows Trump’s need for limitless power | Austin Sarat

The inquiry into the Federal Reserve chair sends a message to anyone standing in Trump’s way – including the supreme court

News that Donald Trump’s justice department has launched an investigation of Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, is the latest example of the president’s governing philosophy: do what I want, or I will crush you. The desire to make Powell’s life miserable is also a warning sign to anyone who thinks that they have an independent source of authority.

What is happening to Powell is a test, not just for him and the Fed, but for any other person or institution that dares to stand up to the president.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

With thousands dead, the Iranian regime may survive these protests – but not in its current form | Sanam Vakil

With fear, surveillance and brute force only set to increase, there are disturbing parallels with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq

• Sanam Vakil is director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

Iran is once again convulsed by protests that are threatening the Islamic Republic’s stability and future. What began as demonstrations over a collapsing currency and rising inflation has rapidly evolved into one of the most destabilising episodes of unrest the regime has faced in years. The protests have exposed both the resilience of Iranian society and the growing brittleness of a political system stubbornly unwilling to reform.

It’s the scale, spread and momentum of the demonstrations that have been most alarming to the authorities. Protests have erupted across all provinces in the country, reaching more than 180 towns and cities, cutting across class, ethnic and regional lines. This time, the turn to openly anti-regime slogans has been rapid and widespread. Protesters are no longer demanding relief from within the system. They are rejecting it outright, directly challenging the authority of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei – and the wider establishment.

Sanam Vakil is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:00 pm

2026 is already pure chaos. Is that Trump’s electoral strategy? | Moustafa Bayoumi

Less than two weeks into the year, the US is stoking mayhem at home and abroad – with midterms coming in the autumn

Have we ever seen a year in recent memory begin with as much deliberate turmoil as 2026 has? Less than two weeks into 2026, we have witnessed Donald Trump deploy US forces to depose and abduct the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, along with Cilia Flores, his wife and close political adviser. The US president then informed the world that the United States would “run” Venezuela for the time being, which he later explained could potentially last for several years.

Trump has also threatened – and then seemingly made peace with – the president of Colombia; seized at least five oil tankers in the Caribbean (actions that UN experts label illegal armed aggression); promised US military strikes targeting cartels in Mexico against the wishes of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum; and frightened the people of Cuba with the prospect that Marco Rubio could be their next president.

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Drugs and gangs exist in Venezuela, but don’t be fooled. Trump arrested Nicolás Maduro to plunder our wealth | Andrés Antillano

The US president invokes the usual suspects – drugs, organised crime, illegal migration – but this is simply a grab for resources and power

In the early hours of 3 January, Caracas and other cities in Venezuela were bombed and the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, was kidnapped along with his wife by US military personnel. In addition to the 100 deaths recorded so far as a result of the attack, approximately 100 more were caused by US attacks on small boats in the previous months, under the pretext of combatting drug trafficking. Although it seems clear that the real intention of Donald Trump’s administration was to seize Venezuela’s wealth, the initial argument to justify the military deployment in the Caribbean was that it was to fight the illegal drugs trade and stop the flow of migrants that the Venezuelan government was allegedly causing by emptying prisons of criminals and sending them to the US.

As a criminology professor who has studied Venezuelan drug trafficking for 20 years, I find this far-fetched. To understand this, we have to consider Venezuela’s historical role in drug trafficking. As a typical Andean country neighbouring the world’s main coca producers, Venezuela has always played a significant role as a cocaine corridor. Since the turn of the century, its involvement in international drug trafficking has increased significantly as a result of growing European demand for cocaine, the effects of 2000’s Plan Colombia, which displaced illegal operations to border regions and neighbouring countries, and the breakdown of technical cooperation with Washington.

Andrés Antillano is a social psychologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:04 pm

My new year resolution comes late but it can't be more important | Ranjana Srivastava

At the funeral of a family friend, the intensity of my sorrow surprises me. I think it’s because he made me feel seen

On the last day of 2025, an old friend and I lament that the usual resolutions like exercise more, work smarter and be a better parent are beginning to sound tired. After all, in this second phase of our lives, if we haven’t found a way forward it might pay to examine the goals rather than their pursuit.

For entertainment, I tell her that a US news network had called me that morning to schedule an “urgent” interview. I’d moved things around only to have the producer cancel without explanation. I didn’t mind the cancellation but hated the possibility that my patients could have been inconvenienced.

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

I am moving house – and being a lifelong hoarder has finally caught up with me | Zoe Williams

As I pack up for pastures new, I’m wondering why I still can’t tell the difference between a knick-knack and a mess

I’m trying to move house; so are more than one pair of friends. We spend a lot of time trying to get on the insurance for each others’ cars, because some can fit a sideboard, and others can’t fit a handbag. We swap recommendations for things like secondhand book exchangers, and avoid talking about fond memories of the home about to be departed, concentrating on all the brilliant things there are to be said about new pastures. The main thing we don’t talk about is that none of us know how to do anything and that all of us are hoarders.

There’s a reason not to know the big stuff – how to paint a skirting board, how to mend a bannister spindle – never doing a thing without landing in a place of pure ignorance. Probably if any of us were 25, we’d be no worse at painting than any other 25-year-old.

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Iran’s protesters need our support – not another western-intervention disaster | Owen Jones

Previous meddling has damaged the region, and once again the the US and Israel don’t have Iranians’ best interests at heart

What does it take to shake illusions in western intervention? This is not a question designed to deflect from the barbarism being unleashed by Iran’s theocratic regime. Because it severed the country’s internet connection, facts are difficult to establish, but the respected Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 544 have been killed and well over 10,000 arrested – those numbers are probably significant underestimates.

Here is a regime that consolidated its power in the 1980s by butchering leftists – helped, it should be noted, by both MI6 and the CIA, who supplied them with lists of alleged Soviet agents. Today, trade union activists are arrested and tortured, while women’s activists languish in jails. The economic disaster resulting from sanctions may have helped spark these latest protests, but millions of Iranians are fed up with living under fundamentalist rule – underlined by surveys confirming growing religious non-observance and opposition to the compulsory hijab.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 am

The Guardian view on Trump’s assault on the Fed: it is part of an affordability blame game | Editorial

Attacking Jerome Powell distracts from Republicans’ thin legislative record and policies that continue to squeeze American household incomes

The US government’s authoritarian and vexatious attack on Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, should be seen in the light of America’s affordability crisis, which Donald Trump once dismissed, but is now scrambling to claim as his cause. The cost of living is eroding his support ahead of the congressional midterms. By launching a legal assault on the Fed, Mr Trump is trying to shift blame for borrowing costs.

Yet despite controlling the presidency, Senate and the House, Republicans have passed little beyond a large tax-cutting bill that benefits the rich. They have not legislated on housing supply, childcare, healthcare costs or wages. Indeed most of their actions are worsening affordability, notably deferring action even though millions face a sharp rise in their health insurance bills. Mr Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for credit card caps and housing interventions is pure opportunism.

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 13, 2026, 6:34 pm

Pittsburgh Steelers part ways with head coach Mike Tomlin after 19 seasons

• Tomlin never recorded losing season with team

• Steelers had endured long run of playoff losses

Head coach Mike Tomlin is leaving the Pittsburgh Steelers after 19 seasons, the team confirmed on Tuesday.

“Obviously, I am extremely grateful to Mike for all the hard work, dedication and success we have shared over the last 19 years. It is hard for me to put into words the level of respect and appreciation I have for Coach Tomlin,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “He guided the franchise to our sixth Super Bowl championship and made the playoffs 13 times during his tenure, including winning the AFC North eight times in his career.”

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:29 pm

Newcastle United v Manchester City: Carabao Cup semi-final first leg – live

⚽️ League Cup updates, 8pm GMT kick-off at St James’ Park
⚽️ Live scores | Follow us on Bluesky | And send Barry a mail

An email: “G’Day Bazza,” writes Chris Paraskevas from Australia. “It’s a civilized 0700 kickoff for those of us Down Under and there is only one question on Newcastle fans’ collective hive mind: will Anthony Gordon and Anthony Elanga wear matching headbands tonight?

“As the season has progressed, Gordon has moved from plain black headband to a branded Adidas one, but Elanga’s game and fashion have comparatively stalled this season - maybe he’ll go fot something spicey, like one of the bandanas the gangsters wear in Blood In Blood Out.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:04 pm

Shiffrin extends slalom stranglehold as Moltzan seals US one-two in Flachau

• Shiffrin wins sixth slalom of season at Flachau

• Moltzan finishes second in American one-two

• Shiffrin nears slalom crystal globe before Olympics

Mikaela Shiffrin completed another dominant night in Flachau, Austria, on Tuesday, winning a World Cup slalom to extend her season-long stranglehold on the discipline while leading an American one-two finish with teammate Paula Moltzan.

Shiffrin followed up her fastest opening run with a composed second run to finish 0.41sec clear of Moltzan, claiming her sixth victory in seven slalom races this season. It was also Shiffrin’s record-extending 107th career World Cup win, her 70th in slalom and her sixth slalom victory on the demanding Flachau course.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:59 pm

Xabi Alonso failed to control Real Madrid’s egos in brief and bitter reign

Hired as a systems coach, the manager was undermined at a club where players – and Florentino Pérez – call the shots

Pep Guardiola sat in the press room at the Santiago Bernabéu and told Xabi Alonso to do it his way but around here, he knows, it tends not to work out like that, which is precisely why he said so. Saying it is one thing, doing it another, doing it successfully something else entirely and a month and day after being offered that advice, handed that defence, Alonso was gone. On Monday afternoon, not long after landing from Saudi Arabia, a meeting was held at Valdebebas and then came the statement, short and unsentimental. He was a “legend” as a player, but no longer coach at Real Madrid.

Alonso is the 11th manager to last less than a year in two decades under the president, Florentino Pérez. He had begun work only seven months before, and that was earlier than he intended. It had started with the Club World Cup in the US, his first big decision to accept the demand to take over sooner than he wanted, and it ended with the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah, where it was an open secret that final judgment awaited. For a month it had been impossible to avoid the feeling of a manager on borrowed time, especially for the manager himself, exposed and undermined, and you cannot go on like that. There will be hurt pride, regret, but release too.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:27 pm

The hidden hierarchy of tennis practice courts: ‘I was back in the park, smelling the weed’

The unwritten rule in professional tournaments? Do not hog the practice court. But as leading players testify – the reality is very different

On a cool Wednesday afternoon before the US Open last year, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev were busy fine-tuning their games in an intense practice set at Louis Armstrong Stadium. Danielle Collins and Christian Harrison, semi-finalists in the mixed doubles tournament, were scheduled to take their place at the hour and the American pair duly arrived a couple of minutes before their allotted slot.

An amusing scene soon unfolded. Medvedev and Zverev were clearly desperate to continue playing for a little longer, but their court time had run out. The pair began to sheepishly deliberate over whether to attempt to play another game, even lining up on the baseline again, and they still occupied the court past the hour. Finally, they admitted defeat, allowing Collins and Harrison, who had been standing quietly on the sidelines, to begin.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 pm

Jim Hartung, Olympic champion with historic 1984 US gymnastics team, dies aged 65

• Olympic champion on historic 1984 US team

• Nebraska legend with seven NCAA titles

• Longtime coach and international judge

Jim Hartung, a two-time Olympian who helped lead the 1984 US team to its first and only gold medal in men’s gymnastics, has died. He was 65.

The University of Nebraska announced Hartung died Saturday night. He had been a Cornhuskers assistant coach for 19 years. No cause of death was given.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:34 pm

40 years on, did Proposition 48 protect US college sports – or punish Black athletes?

When the NCAA tied eligibility to standardized test scores in 1986, hundreds of recruits were barred from competition. But its legacy is still a subject of debate

Tony Rice noticed the looks and smirks during his first week of freshman classes in the fall of 1986 at Notre Dame.

He had accepted his fate a few months earlier when standardized test results led to the decision that he would not be eligible to participate in collegiate sports his freshman year. But nothing prepared him for this.

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Watching James Bond play my great uncle Brendan in Giant was surreal and spooky | Sean Ingle

Biopic charting Naseem Hamed’s rise has reopened old wounds but is also a reminder of what was and what might have been

The first time I watched Prince Naseem Hamed train, my jaw couldn’t have dropped any faster if he had hit me with one of his lassoing uppercuts. I had followed all his fights on TV, of course. But to see him in the flesh in September 1994, a year before he became world champion, was an altogether more visceral and mesmeric experience.

Hamed’s punches sounded like firecrackers welcoming in the new year as they smashed into the pads. He was almost impossible to hit. And, most staggering of all, despite standing 5ft 4in tall and weighing only nine stone, he would bully far bigger men in sparring – including fighters such as John Keeton, who went on to become the British cruiserweight champion – until my great uncle, Brendan Ingle, called time.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Amad Diallo sparkled at Afcon. What does it mean for Manchester United?

The Côte d’Ivoire winger was his nation’s best player in Morocco, but his place in a post-Amorim world is uncertain

It’s often easy to forget that Amad Diallo is only 23. In the five years since he joined Manchester United from Atalanta for a reported £19m (about $25m) plus add-ons, the winger has seen plenty of ups and downs.

Once a much-hyped prospect, Amad struggled to earn minutes at United in his first season with the club and was soon sent out on loan to Rangers and Sunderland. Now, three years since he returned to Manchester, Amad is no longer sidelined or dismissed; he has become a difference maker.

Published: January 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Greenland and Denmark unite against US advances before White House talks

Island’s PM tells media event with Danish counterpart ‘we choose Denmark’ and will not be owned or governed by US

Greenland’s prime minister has said “we choose Denmark” before high-stakes talks at the White House as Donald Trump seeks to take control of the Arctic territory.

Amid rising tensions over the US president’s push, Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Tuesday told a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:19 pm

House Democrat and Republican to reintroduce ‘click-to-cancel’ bill

Exclusive: Unsubscribe Act, to be reintroduced in the House on Tuesday, would ban complex subscription cancellations

• US politics live – latest updates

The average American is losing hundreds of dollars each year on subscriptions they forget to cancel or struggle to end, even as federal consumer protections meant to address the problem remain blocked by a federal court ruling.

With the regulatory route stalled, two representatives are offering a bipartisan fix: California Democrat Mark Takano and Nevada Republican Mark Amodei are reintroducing the Unsubscribe Act Tuesday morning that would prohibit deliberately complex cancellation processes.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Louisiana officials seek to extradite abortion provider from California

Louisiana law enforcement officials allege California doctor mailed abortion pills to a woman in the southern state

Louisiana law enforcement officials are seeking to extradite a California doctor who, officials say, sent abortion pills to a woman living in the southern state.

The extradition order for the doctor, Remy Coeytaux, marks the latest salvo in the escalating battle between states that protect abortion rights and those that ban the procedure. While Louisiana is one of more than a dozen states that have banned almost all abortions, California and a handful of other blue states have enacted so-called “shield laws”, which aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state extradition or prosecution.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:09 pm

Scott Adams, Dilbert creator and conservative commentator, dies aged 68

Cartoonist – who was dropped from US papers in 2023 after calling Black people a ‘hate group’ – had prostate cancer

Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the satirical comic strip Dilbert and conservative commentator, has died aged 68 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

On Tuesday, Adams’s ex-wife Shelly Miles revealed his death in a tearful livestream of his YouTube channel Real Coffee with Scott Adams.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:29 pm

Gavin Newsom comes out swinging against California billionaire tax

Ballot initiative, opposed by the ultra-wealthy, would levy one-time 5% tax on individuals worth more than $1bn

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, renewed his pledge this week to fight a controversial plan to tax billionaires in the state. The proposed ballot measure, which could go to voters in November, has gained public attention recently amid heavy criticism and threats from tech moguls to leave the state.

In interviews with Politico and the New York Times published on Monday, Newsom described his office’s efforts to kill the proposed billionaire tax and told the Times he would “do what I have to do to protect the state”. As a direct-to-voters ballot initiative, Newsom would not have the power to veto the tax if the proposal passed.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:42 pm

South Korean prosecutors demand death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol

Yoon is on trial for insurrection charges, after trying to declare martial law in late 2024

South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, in the first insurrection trial of a Korean head of state in three decades.

Prosecutors characterised the case as the “serious destruction of constitutional order by anti-state forces”, telling Seoul central district court that Yoon had “directly and fundamentally infringed upon the safety of the state and the survival and freedom of the people”.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:29 pm

Red-state Republicans seek climate ‘liability shield’ for fossil fuel industry

If enacted, Utah and Oklahoma measures would restrict litigation against oil companies over role in climate crisis

US lawmakers in two red states are attempting to shield the fossil fuel industry from climate liability.

In Oklahoma, a newly introduced bill would bar most civil lawsuits against oil companies over their role in the climate crisis, unless plaintiffs allege violations of specific environmental or labor laws. A similar proposal in Utah would block lawsuits over climate-warming emissions, unless a court finds the defendant violated a statute or permit.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 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

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

Berry nice to meet you: bumper fruit crop could lead to huge mating season for NZ’s endangered kākāpō

After a four-year wait, the abundant fruiting of the rimu tree could inspire the world’s heaviest parrots to boost their population

It has been four long years, but the world’s heaviest parrots, the kākāpō, are finally about to get it on again. The mass fruiting of a native New Zealand tree has triggered breeding season – a rare event conservationists hope will lead to a record number of chicks for the critically endangered bird.

Kākāpō, the world’s only nocturnal and flightless parrot, were once abundant across New Zealand. But their population plummeted after the introduction of predators such as cats and stoats, and by the 1900s they were nearly extinct.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:21 am

Trump warns of ‘complete mess’ if supreme court rejects tariffs

US president speaks after saying that any country that does business with Iran will face 25% levy on trade with US

• Business live – latest updates

Donald Trump has said “it would be a complete mess” if the US supreme court were to strike down his global trade tariffs.

In a lengthy post on social media, the US president said “WE’RE SCREWED” if the supreme court rules against the tariffs. The decision is expected as soon as Wednesday. It is a crucial legal test of his controversial economic strategy and his power.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:10 am

Trump may have to disclose details about assets as part of BBC lawsuit

US president is suing for defamation over documentary that joined two parts of speech he made on 6 January 2021

President Trump is expected to come under pressure to make rare disclosures about his properties and business interests as part of his $10bn lawsuit against the BBC, the Guardian understands.

Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary that spliced together two parts of the president’s address to a rally on 6 January 2021. The BBC has already apologised and said the edit was misleading, but has denied it defamed Trump.

Published: January 13, 2026, 3:00 pm

California county accused of profiling Asian Americans agrees to police reforms

Agreement in Siskiyou county comes after lawsuit from Hmong residents alleging harassment by law enforcement

A northern California county accused of pervasive and systematic racial discrimination against Asian Americans has agreed to policing reforms and independent oversight.

Siskiyou, a sprawling rural county in the state’s far north, has for years been the site of conflict over water rights, marijuana and policing practices.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:00 pm

Ex-FDA workers warn Trump cuts will increase risk of food safety lapses in US

Current and former workers caution administration’s ‘politicization of science’ will negatively affect Americans

Sweeping cuts and the “politicization of science” inside the Food and Drug Administration have increased the risk of safety lapses across the US, former agency workers warned.

Less than a year after Donald Trump returned to power, and his administration oversaw the firing and resignation of thousands of FDA employees, a listeria outbreak that killed six people and sickened 27 across 18 states due to contamination of prepared pasta meals underlined the danger posed by safety failings.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Keir Starmer offered place on Trump’s Gaza ‘peace board’

Prime minister is yet to receive a formal invitation, but the Guardian has been told that Starmer is expected to accept

Keir Starmer has been offered a place on the Gaza “peace board” set up by Donald Trump as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

The prime minister was asked to sit on the board by a senior member of the Trump administration. The Guardian has been told that Starmer is expected to accept but has not yet received a formal invitation, while conversations about the exact makeup of the board are continuing.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:47 pm

China’s London super-embassy almost certain to get go-ahead next week

Approval shortly before Keir Starmer’s trip to Beijing would come despite widespread concern among Labour MPs

A vast new Chinese embassy complex in east London is almost certain to be formally approved next week despite renewed worries among Labour MPs about potential security risks and the effect on Hong Kong and Uyghur exiles in the capital.

The green light for the super-embassy at Royal Mint Court near Tower Bridge would smooth relations before Keir Starmer’s visit to China, which is expected to take place at the end of January, but officials insist there has been no political input in the planning process.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:26 pm

Zoe Saldaña becomes highest-grossing actor of all time

Star overtook Scarlett Johansson after success of third Avatar – her films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide

Zoe Saldaña has become the highest-grossing actor of all time.

The 47-year-old Oscar winner has overtaken Scarlett Johansson after the success of Avatar: Fire and Ash added more than $1.2bn to her total. Saldaña’s films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide, according to the Numbers.

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:27 pm

‘We are living in an age of cruelty’: George Clooney rebukes Tarantino for insulting Paul Dano

The Jay Kelly star says he would be honoured to work with Dano, Owen Wilson and Matthew Lillard after all three actors were criticised by the director

George Clooney has said he would be “honoured” to work with three actors who were heavily criticised by Quentin Tarantino last month. Speaking at AARP’s Movies for Grownups awards on 10 January, Clooney said: “By the way, Paul Dano and Owen Wilson and Matthew Lillard, I would be honoured to work with those actors. Honoured.”

Clooney continued by describing his new film, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, as a movie “made by people who love actors – that’s an important part. People I’ve known most of my life … actually, most of them are actors. I have a great affinity [for them], and I don’t enjoy watching people be cruel.”

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:11 pm

‘We’re a hot button topic’: is intimacy coordinator the most misunderstood job in film-making?

Specialists in choreographing sex scenes have come under fire from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Mikey Madison – is there any weight to their complaints?

When intimacy coordinator Adelaide Waldrop gets asked about her job at parties, she contemplates lying. “I’ve considered saying I’m an accountant,” she says. When she reveals the truth, the response is almost always seedy. There are questions about erections, merkins, and inappropriate celebrities. “Or it’s a lot of, ‘Oh we could use one of you at home with me and the missus’, and questions about my sex life,” Waldrop adds. “We’re a hot button topic.”

Lately, the heat has been on high. To some, intimacy coordinators are an auspicious part of a post-#MeToo industry, one that protects cast and crew while providing crucial creative input – Michelle Williams, Alexander Skarsgård, and Emma Stone are among those to have gushed about their experiences. To others, they’re the sex police, impeding artistry for the sake of avoiding an HR headache. Mikey Madison didn’t want an intimacy coordinator for her Oscar-winning sex worker film Anora. Gwyneth Paltrow asked hers to “step back a little bit” while making Marty Supreme. Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t even remember if she had one while filming Die My Love (she did), but said it wouldn’t have been necessary because her co-star, Robert Pattinson, “is not pervy”.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Joseph Beuys review – the grotesque bathtub containing all the horrors of modern history

Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London
There’s no escape from the torments of the past in this show, which celebrates the German artist at his most Wagnerian, enchanting and sickening you simultaneously

Born in 1921, Joseph Beuys was the “perfect” age to fight for Hitler and he did, with the wounds to prove it. The Andy Warhol portraits that complement this exhibition, without actually being part of it, brutally catch his gaunt, ravaged face in the glare of a photo flash under the hat he wore to hide burns sustained in a plane crash while serving in the Luftwaffe. The most haunting portrait turns Beuys into a spectral negative image, all darkness and shadow, his eyes wounded, guilty, lost. This was in the 1970s when Beuys was a charismatic one-man artistic revolution, inspiring young Germans to plant trees, lecturing about flows of ecological and human energy – and, in breathtaking performances, speaking to a dead hare or spending a week locked in a cage with a coyote.

All that remains today of those actions, protests and performances are posters, preserved scrawls on blackboards and mesmerising videos. Yet the moment Beuys disappeared – he died in 1986 – his solid, material sculptures took over. He believed passionately in flow and flux, promoting an animist vision of humanity and the cosmos. When he stopped talking and acting, entropy gripped his art, making it a static, slumped set of dead objects. And all the greater for it.

Published: January 13, 2026, 5:00 pm

Sex giggles! Nail clippings on the sofa! The new TV romance so realistic it’s close to perfect

Fans of Normal People and One Day will adore The New Years, which follows a relatable on-off couple in Madrid. It is the best relationship drama you haven’t seen yet

It is rare to watch a fictional romance and feel genuinely invested in the question of will-they-won’t-they – and even rarer for it to reflect familiar relationship turbulence. Many love stories on TV skip straight to wish-fulfilment, delivering instant chemistry, no challenges that can’t be overcome within the runtime and glib reassurance that Love Conquers All.

Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, for instance – based on a real couple, and ostensibly exploring whether a relationship can survive differences of faith – didn’t wait to resolve that question before bringing its leads together. In real life, promising connections fall at much lower hurdles, for such banal reasons as incompatible schedules.

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:59 pm

The Knife review – audaciously taut film about police encounter is intense drama of mutual suspicion

A crime committed in the home of a regular black American family results in paranoia on all sides in this 81-minute film from Nnamdi Asomugha

Here is a compact drama that twists itself like a tourniquet over 81 minutes, as a bad situation turns into a catastrophe for an ordinary American family.

Late one night in an unnamed city, construction worker Chris (Nnamdi Asomugha, also the film’s director and co-writer) finishes a DIY project in his own home and sinks a beer or two. He takes a couple of pills before checking on his two young daughters Kendra (Amari Alexis Price) and Ryley (Aiden Gabrielle Price), who have been sneakily pretending to be asleep. Then he gets into bed with wife Alex (Aja Naomi King) for a chat and a soon-abandoned attempt to have exhausted marital sex while their infant baby sleeps next door.

Published: January 13, 2026, 9:00 am

State of Statelessness review – Dalai Lama presides over intimate dramas about Tibetans’ life of exile

Tibetan directors, who all live outside Tibet, deliver a quartet of films that explore the pain of separation and migration

The wrench of exile is the theme of this quartet of short films from Tibetan directors, who themselves all live outside Tibet. Their intimate, emotional family dramas tell stories of separation and migration. In two of them, the 90-year-old Dalai Lama smiles out from photographs on shrines, a reminder of the precariousness of Tibet’s future. As a character in one of the films puts it bluntly: will there be anything to stop China erasing Tibetan identity when its rock-star spiritual leader is no longer around?

In the first film a Tibetan man lives in a kind of complicated happiness in Vietnam. He loves his wife, and they both adore their sunny-natured little daughter, but he has mournful eyes. Home is a town on the banks of the Mekong River, which has its source in Tibet. The river is a constant reminder of the region – and of Chinese might too, since Chinese hydropower dams are the cause of drought downstream in Vietnam.

Published: January 13, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 10:00 am

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

‘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

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

Love Machines by James Muldoon review – inside the uncanny world of AI relationships

A sociologist talks to the people putting their faith – and their hearts – in the hands of robots

If much of the discussion of AI risk conjures doomsday scenarios of hyper-intelligent bots brandishing nuclear codes, perhaps we should be thinking closer to home. In his urgent, humane book, sociologist James Muldoon urges us to pay more attention to our deepening emotional entanglements with AI, and how profit-hungry tech companies might exploit them. A research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute who has previously written about the exploited workers whose labour makes AI possible, Muldoon now takes us into the uncanny terrain of human-AI relationships, meeting the people for whom chatbots aren’t merely assistants, but friends, romantic partners, therapists, even avatars of the dead.

To some, the idea of falling in love with an AI chatbot, or confiding your deepest secrets to one, might seem mystifying and more than a little creepy. But Muldoon refuses to belittle those seeking intimacy in “synthetic personas”.

Published: January 13, 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

‘Uncomfortably relatable’: writers on their favourite unlikable movie characters

With debate still swirling over the unlikable nature of Marty Supreme’s careless protagonist, Guardian writers have picked their all-time love-to-hate leads

Spoilers ahead

I can remember seeing As Good As It Gets in the theater as a teenager and being pleasantly startled by the sight of Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall, romcom super-grouch. Here’s a bestselling romance author who disdains love, an OCD sufferer who weaponizes his affliction, a New Yorker who hates crowds (who can’t relate?). In one scene, an adoring fan asks Melvin his secret to writing women. “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability,” he says, an epic burn forever seared in my brain. Of course Melvin’s anti-charm offensive only goes so far in a James L Brooks project. Before long, the rudeness erodes as Melvin is forced on to a journey of self-discovery with the nextdoor neighbor he can’t abide (Greg Kinnear) and the diner waitress he can’t live without (Helen Hunt). Melvin comes out a changed man in the end, but retains the essence of his super-grouch-dom. That was the moment I fell in love with the writer’s life. Andrew Lawrence

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:01 am

Punchdrunk’s new mission: inside ‘live action video game’ Lander 23 – in pictures

The celebrated immersive theatre company has launched a new multiplayer stealth game at its headquarters in Woolwich, south-east London. Photographer Tristram Kenton was granted special access

Published: January 13, 2026, 12:00 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

Biffy Clyro review – triumphant set marks a thunderous renewal

Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham
Coming off the back of a rough period, the Scottish band find reconnection, renewal and purpose in their singular mix of pop, rock and metal

‘With a little love, we can conquer all,” Simon Neil croons on Biffy Clyro’s opening song A Little Love, over its huge, infectious arena-rock chorus. It’s a line that feels like a mantra for the Scottish band 30 years and 10 albums in: they’re currently touring 2025’s Futique having come through a rough period. They experienced major burnout, band members fell out for the first time and founding member James Johnston pulled out of this tour due to mental health and addiction issues. But their new songs feel rooted in renewal, reconnection and newfound purpose. Neil pays tribute to his departed bandmate on the urgent and zippy Friendshipping, which is an ode to the importance of maintaining such relationships.

Futique was recorded in Berlin; the band said that the ghosts of Bowie, Iggy and Nick Cave’s the Birthday Party “bled into the songs”. No such art-pop apparitions feel present tonight. Instead there’s a rousing pop sensibility to these new tracks. Goodbye is a slow-burn ballad that explodes into an arms-aloft anthem, while Shot One embodies the band’s knack for merging sugary melodies and meaty riffs – existing in the blurred middle ground between rock, pop and metal that they comfortably own.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:21 am

An icy swim and luscious lupins– readers’ best photographs

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

Published: January 13, 2026, 4:00 pm

January tips if you’re cooking for one | Kitchen aide

From one-pot meals to versatile dishes that last all week, our panel of experts serves up ideas for solo chefs

I really struggle with cooking for one, so what can I make in January that’s interesting but easy and, most importantly, warming?
Jane, via email
“There’s an art to the perfect solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, author of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence with ease.” For Chung, that means good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a dish that can be cooked in one pan (“a night alone must be maximised with minimal washing-up”) and eaten with a single piece of cutlery, “preferably in front of the telly and out of a bowl nestling in your lap”. Happily, she says, all of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has all the rich and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but with a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying.” Not only that, but you can knock it up in less than 10 minutes. “Melt cheese, milk and miso in a pan to make the sauce base, then add frozen udon that have been soaked in hot water.” Coat the noodles in the sauce, then serve with crisp bacon or perhaps a few anchovies for “pops of salty fat”. Crown with a golden egg yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should then be broken: “Add a crack of black pepper, and your cosy night in has begun.”

“January feels like a time for fresh, bright flavours,” says the Guardian’s own Felicity Cloake, which for her often means pasta con le sarde made with tinned fish, fennel seeds and lots of lemon juice; “or with purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of garlic and chilli”. A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, with harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings the possibility of a quick stew, Cloake adds, while it’s always a good shout to braise some beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – so long as they’re versatile, that is.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: January 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 6:45 am

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

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

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

Competency porn: is there any greater escapism than watching a capable person on TV?

In 2026, when it feels as though the world is moments away from any number of disasters, there is nothing hotter than watching someone do their job really, really well

Name: Competency porn.

Age: Relatively new.

Published: January 13, 2026, 6:05 pm

Houseplant hacks: do moisture meters prevent overwatering?

Given how easy it is to kill plants by overwatering, these devices are tempting – but can they beat simply sticking your finger in the soil?

The problem
Houseplants often die from too much water, not neglect. Might a moisture meter help?

The hack
For around £10, a probe promises to tell you exactly when to water.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 11:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 5:00 am

How 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

‘It’s not the 90s any more’: the all-women team reinventing abortion advice for the TikTok age

The irreverent approach of the Colombian hotline Jacarandas has made it the most-followed abortion account on social media in the Spanish-speaking world

What do a purple cartoon cat and abortion have in common? Nothing – and that is the point, say the women behind Jacarandas, a Colombian abortion helpline. Determined to set themselves apart from more traditional reproductive health organisations, Jacarandas commissions street and graphic artists to create eye-catching illustrations – most recently a cartoon feline called Gataranda, inspired by the team’s much-loved office pet.

The aim is not to make light of abortion but to appeal to the teenagers and young women who use Jacarandas’ services. “A lot of people do not connect with [an image of] the uterus on fire, so we thought ‘what can we do to connect more with young women?’” says Carolina Benítez Mendoza, the deputy director.

Published: January 13, 2026, 10:00 am

An Australian writers’ festival cut a Palestinian author in the wake of a terror attack. Then it fell apart

Randa Abdel-Fattah, who is Palestinian Australian, has faced criticism for controversial comments on Israel, including alleging Zionists had ‘no claim or right to cultural safety’

When the board of a South Australian festival cut a prominent Palestinian Australian author from its lineup, citing her “past statements” in the context of the deadly Bondi terror attack, it no doubt braced itself for controversy.

What it may not have foreseen, however, is an implosion.

Published: January 13, 2026, 8:21 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 12, 2026, 3:12 pm

Orthodox new year, fallen fighters and Larry the cat: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: January 13, 2026, 2:31 pm