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

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

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

Mom laughs as she holds me close.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 pm

MLK Day reminds us to harness ‘urgency of now’ as the US grapples with crisis

People across the US are moving on from the empty platitudes MLK Day often evokes – and embodying King’s words

This year, the Dr Martin Luther King Jr holiday forces Americans to grapple with the crisis and protests that have spread across the country, particularly in Minneapolis. Each year on this holiday, we reflect on King’s life and legacy. We wonder about what he might make of this moment. Though civil rights protesters in the 1950s and 60s were repeatedly met with extreme state violence, Americans are now facing a president who is troublingly more powerful than past figures such as the notorious segregationist and Alabama governor George Wallace.

Militarized and masked federal police forces, abetted by a corrupted justice department, are expansive and employ far more deadly weapons against protesters today. Civil rights leaders often sought federal intervention to combat localized racial violence in the south. But now, local and state officials, along with ordinary citizens who have been galvanized by federal violence, are combating government crackdowns against immigrants and their neighbors. Over the span of a week, ICE agents killed an American wife and mother of three, Renee Good, and shot a man from Venezuela during a traffic stop. They have arrested and detained American citizens and have terrorized neighborhoods, businesses and schools. Their irrational, unprofessional and unconstitutional actions have caused chaos, panic and harm throughout American cities. This is far from the progress King dreamed of, and he used his last years to warn Americans to refuse comfort, the status quo, and bring oppression to an end.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

Tickets, travel and Trump: How the 2026 World Cup is shaping up six months from the final

The champion will be decided on 19 July in New Jersey. Here’s a rundown of the issues that will shape the tournament as it comes to North America

We’re only six months from the biggest single sporting occasion in the world. On 19 July in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the men’s World Cup final will kick off and a champion will be crowned (although it will be hard to top the last one).

The final will be more than a coronation (or confirmation, if Argentina repeat as champions). It will also be a culmination of six weeks of near non-stop soccer played across three countries, four time zones, and 16 cities. It’s likely that conclusions will already be drawn at that point on how the whole tournament fared. But for now, at this semi-convenient milestone, it’s worth taking stock of where we are six months out.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:09 pm

I tested the best US pizza makers costing $129 to $2,800. Here's what was worth the price

I spent weeks testing popular at-home pizza tools. Here’s what I found was worth the money, no matter your budget

• Far from ‘upcharged grape juice’: the 13 best nonalcoholic wines in the US

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

It’s never been easier to make pizza at home. And today’s pizza-making gear is more capable and approachable than you might think.

The price range for at-home pizza gear is as wide as the topping choices. On the simple, affordable end, there is the humble carbon-steel slab that slides into the oven you already own – it’s like a basic cheese pie.

Best budget pizza maker:
Baking Steel’s Baking Steel Original

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:00 pm

The pass of the century then brutal reality: the football gods won’t let the Bears have nice things

Caleb Williams pulled off a miracle against the Rams and Chicago looked destined for the Super Bowl. The hope wouldn’t last long

A playoff game often pivots on a single moment. The Bears thought they had theirs. Down a score, driving to keep the game alive, the Bears had the ball on the Rams’ 14-yard line. Fourth down. Four yards to pick up a fresh set of downs. A play to keep their season alive. The ball in Caleb Williams’s hands.

And then it happened.

Published: January 19, 2026, 8:15 am

Donald Trump links Greenland threats to Nobel snub as EU trade war looms

US president tells Norwegian PM he no longer feels obliged to think ‘purely of peace’ as relations with Europe plunge into chaos

Donald Trump has linked his repeated threats to seize control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel peace prize, as transatlantic tensions over the Arctic island escalated further and threatened to rekindle a trade war with the EU.

In an extraordinary text message sent on Sunday to the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, the US president wrote that after being snubbed for the prize, he no longer felt the need to think “purely of peace”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:05 pm

‘The struggle continues’: MLK Day celebrated amid tense political climate

Holiday marked with parades and services but tempered by anxieties over racial and social equality under Trump

Martin Luther King Jr Day was marked with parades and services across the US on Monday. But the celebration for the achievements of the slain 60s civil rights leader was tempered by contemporary anxieties over racial and social equality and Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

At a rally in Harlem, the Rev Al Sharpton referred to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother of three who was killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:30 am

Spain to hold three days of mourning after train crash that killed at least 40

Officials say death toll likely to rise as rescuers continue to comb through wreckage in remote area of Andalucía

Spain will begin three days of mourning on Tuesday as rescuers continue to comb through the wreckage of twisted train cars and scattered debris to locate victims after a train collision that killed at least 40 people and injured dozens.

On Monday, more than 18 hours after a high-speed train carrying about 300 Madrid-bound passengers derailed and collided with an oncoming train, people across the country were still scrambling to make contact with missing loved ones caught up in Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade.

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:24 pm

Noem backtracks on ICE pepper spray denial amid tension in Minneapolis

US justice department announced it is investigating protesters in Minnesota who disrupted church services

Kristi Noem first denied that federal agents were using chemical agents against protesters, then after being shown video footage turned to blaming the protesters themselves, as tensions continued to run high amid the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into Minneapolis.

The head of homeland security, who has acted as spearhead for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in the city – known as “Operation Metro Surge” – told the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday that her department had not used pepper spray against crowds.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:42 pm

Italian fashion designer Valentino dies aged 93

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:05 pm

Intense geomagnetic storms could make auroras visible in southern US

Major disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field may make northern lights visible far more south than usual

The aurora could be visible across Canada and much of the northern tier of US states on Monday night, and possibly even further south, following a major disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, a forecast shows.

The forecast, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s space weather prediction center, comes amid intense geomagnetic and solar radiation storms, said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the center.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:51 am

Second man dies at Texas ICE detention facility in two weeks

Victor Manuel Diaz was found unresponsive at Camp East Montana in what ICE officials claim is ‘presumed suicide’

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

A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:07 pm

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

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

Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, the son of David and Victoria Beckham, has said he does not want to reconcile with his family.

The 26-year-old has spoken out for the first time and acknowledged the feud between him and his family in a post on Instagram.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:02 pm

‘Make America Go Away’: spoof Maga caps soar in popularity amid Greenland crisis

Red caps are becoming a symbol of protest in Denmark as Donald Trump ratchets up the pressure on Greenland

Red baseball caps spoofing Donald Trump’s Maga hats have become a symbol of Danish and Greenlandic defiance against the US president’s threat to seize the frozen territory.

The caps reading “Make America Go Away” – parodying Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan – have gained popularity, along with several variants on social media and at public protests, including a weekend demonstration held in freezing weather in Copenhagen.

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:16 am

Kremlin says Putin has been invited to join Trump’s Gaza ‘board of peace’

Russia says it is seeking to ‘clarify all the nuances’ of offer it claims Washington has made before responding

The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Monday that Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, before giving its response.

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:04 pm

‘Very historic time’: US protests have jumped since Trump’s first term

Data shows 133% increase from 2017 to 2025 as anti-ICE and No Kings protests push mobilization against White House

In the year since Donald Trump retook office, the number of protests in the US outpaced those at the same point in his first administration, according to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, an open-source project collaboration between Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut.

There were more than 10,700 protests in 2025, a 133% increase from the 4,588 recorded in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term. According to the data, an overwhelming majority of US counties – including 42% that voted for Trump – have had at least one protest since he was re-inaugurated last year.

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘No other option’: inside the refugee camp for trans Americans fleeing Trump

Fear, abuse and eroding rights have forced many trans people to leave the US – can they claim asylum in the Netherlands?

• The transgender refugees fleeing the US – podcast

Ter Apel, a small, unassuming Dutch town near the German border, is a place tourists rarely have on their itinerary. There are no lovely old windmills, no cannabis-filled coffee shops and on a recent visit it was far too early for tulip season.

When foreigners end up there, it is for one reason: to claim asylum at the Netherlands’ biggest refugee camp, home to 2,000 desperate people from all around the world.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Counterintuitive and dangerous’: advocates warn Trump administration policies will increase homelessness

Recent cuts to flagship federal program that funds housing and other services described as ‘chaotic and disruptive’

When Shawn Pleasants first heard that the federal government was tearing up almost two decades of homelessness policy, it sent chills up his spine.

Pleasants, 58, was brought right back to the moment he lost his car and was forced to start living on Los Angeles’s streets. “That feeling of, you could never be safe – there’s no more future,” he said.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:00 pm

Rashida Tlaib on fighting billionaire oligarchs: ‘The American people overwhelmingly want to tax the rich’

The Democratic representative plans to introduce a bill halting subsidies and tax advantages for the super-rich

They had the best seats in the house. When Donald Trump was sworn in as US president a year ago this week, tech titans Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg were sitting closer than even some of his cabinet picks, living symbols of the US’s new gilded age.

“It was so gross,” Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic representative from Michigan, recalled in a phone interview. “It was like a reunion of all the billionaires. Some of them didn’t even like each other, but boy, did they come together for Trump.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:00 pm

‘We had to remove the dead to get to the living’: train crash shocks Spanish town

People in Adamuz rushed to help when two trains smashed into each other and say they will never forget what they saw

Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through the forested hills of eastern Andalucía and beetled down a track to begin picking up the enormous, wrecked pieces of Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade. Behind it rolled a support lorry and a convoy of police cars.

A few minutes’ drive away, between groves of olive and oak trees, lay the two stricken trains that had smashed into each other on Sunday night, killing at least 39 people and critically injuring at least 12 others. As investigators and Guardia Civil officers walked up and down the line by the twisted carriages, the nearby town of Adamuz was in the early stages of trying to process what had happened a few kilometres from its outskirts.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:29 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:50 pm

Matt Damon is right: phones + Netflix mean we are now in the pub bore age of cinema

The streaming giant has the data that proves we all just watch things with one hand gripping our phones, so need to have the plot explained to us over and over again

Matt Damon has a new film out, a $100m cop thriller co-starring Ben Affleck called The Rip. It is currently the most watched film on Netflix, because it is a Netflix movie. So how is Damon choosing to promote his new Netflix movie? By kind of laying into Netflix.

During an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, Damon went to great lengths to describe the differences between going to see a film theatrically and watching it on television. Explaining his experience of watching One Battle After Another in an Imax screening, Damon said: “I always say it’s more like going to church – you show up at an appointed time. It doesn’t wait for you.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:51 pm

Positive thinking could boost immune response to vaccines, say scientists

People picturing positive experiences found to produce more antibodies, hinting at future clinical potential

Positive thoughts may boost the immune system according to research that points to a connection between the mind and our body’s natural defences.

Scientists have found people who used positive thinking to boost activity in the brain’s reward system responded better to vaccination, with their immune systems producing more antibodies than others after having the shot.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:08 pm

Sex, death and parrots: Julian Barnes’s best fiction – ranked!

As the Booker prize-winning author prepares to publish his final novel at 80, we assess his finest work

Duffy is the first in a series of crime novels about a bisexual private eye that Barnes published under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. It came out the same year as Barnes’s debut novel proper, Metroland, but where that took seven years to write, this took 10 days. Not that it shows: this “refreshingly nasty” (as Barnes’s friend Martin Amis put it) crime caper is beguilingly well written, with passages that display all of Barnes’s perception and wit. The plot of reverse blackmail and the shocking climax only add to the fun.
Sample line “Two in the morning is when sounds travel for ever, when a sticky window makes a soft squeak and three Panda cars hear it from miles away.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

In Davos, the rich talk about ‘global threats’. Here’s why they’re silent about the biggest of them all | Ingrid Robeyns

Economic inequality is at the heart of all humanity’s major problems, but the wealthiest refuse to confront a system that benefits them

This week, hundreds of government leaders, heads of state, and business executives are gathering at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. They will be discussing solutions to the world’s biggest risks and problems.

But everything suggests that, once more, what will not be addressed at their meeting is the biggest threat to humanity and the planet: neoliberal capitalism.

Ingrid Robeyns is an economist and philosopher, and holds the chair in ethics of institutions at Utrecht University. Her most recent book is Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:10 pm

From Trump’s rejected treaties to our daily lives, we’re building walls around ourselves | Anand Pandian

Martin Luther King Jr knew that ‘whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly’. But we Americans are denying that reality

The United States seems determined to turn its back on the rest of our planetary neighbors. The Trump administration’s recent decision to withdraw from 66 international treaties, conventions and organizations is striking for the range of its rejections. Everything from the global treaty on climate change to multilateral efforts to address migration and cultural heritage, clean water and renewable energy, and the international trade in timber and minerals has been summarily dismissed as “contrary to the interests of the United States”.

It’s no surprise that an administration hellbent on physical walls around the United States would also put up such walls of indifference, as if all of these longstanding collective efforts were simply “irrelevant” to our interests as a country, as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, put it in a public statement. And yet, as we know, the reality of contemporary life on Earth is so profoundly otherwise. How has the truth of our interconnectedness with others elsewhere become so difficult to grasp in the United States?

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

Did God fix a football match? Welcome to the great divine intervention debate | Ravi Holy

Vicars, the devout – and some who are desperate – do a lot of praying to get their wishes fulfilled. But it's complicated by lots of dos and don'ts

‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God,” sings Nick Cave in the opening line of his 1997 song, Into My Arms. But Jim Sharma, a football fan who is a devotee of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, very much does – and who can blame him?

For the detached, the uninformed and nonsports fans, the issue here is that Wolves had a terrible start to the season and, until the other day, looked set to beat Derby County’s unenviable record as the worst-performing team in Premier League history. Then they played my team, West Ham, and had their first taste of victory since April. Wolves 3 West Ham 0.

Ravi Holy is the vicar of Wye in Kent and a standup comedian

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Donald Trump needs helpers for his appalling neocolonialist project. What else is this ‘board of peace’? | Owen Jones

Blair, Putin, Erdoğan, Orbán: the names of those invited to serve say it all. And it's about so much more than Gaza

The fate of the Palestinian people offers a warning about the future of humanity. When I recently visited the West Bank, Palestinians kept impressing the same point on me: Israel has turned their land into a laboratory. The technology of oppression that it has deployed – including in its genocide in Gaza – ranges from hi-tech surveillance to military drones and AI on the battlefield. These technologies have been exported to oppressive states across the world. And it doesn’t stop there.

This brings us to Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, now set to rule Gaza. In the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay, where George Orwell lies buried, the ground itself ought to be shaking. This isn’t peace. It’s naked neocolonialism.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:27 pm

Afraid to take vacation? The problem isn’t your boss – it’s how you work

Many people use their vacation time each year. These people take ownership of their jobs, and make sure they get them done

A recent survey of more than 3,000 US workers for employment search site FlexJobs found that almost a quarter didn’t take a vacation day during the past year and – more concerning to the study’s authors – as many as 82% “avoid using” their accrued time off. Why?

Kelsey Szamet, an employment lawyer, says the reason is a shift in mentality. “Many employees are concerned about the security of their jobs,” she told Quartz. “The adoption of AI and automation technologies has allowed employees to actually consider their own replaceability before requesting a leave or a holiday, or any kind of time-off benefit.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

Why can’t women enjoy Heated Rivalry without being treated with contempt? | Zoe Williams

The TV hit has cracked open a rich seam of misogyny: romance is written off as a weird thing that women like, and the audience is dismissed as ‘wine moms’

I’ve never heard anything more sexist in my life than the (mounting) reasons why women supposedly love the hit TV drama Heated Rivalry. Quick recap: if you’re a woman, or even if you’re not and don’t yet love it: Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) are two professional ice hockey players on rival teams. It matters that they’re hockey players, beyond the athletic perfection of their “insanely oiled, slick bodies” (as my friend, Eve, who’s 21, put it). And it matters that Rozanov is Russian, because the obstacles are real: he cannot be gay – think about the sponsorship, think about the fans, think about the oppressive patriarchal regime. Think about it for two seconds and this can not happen; and it achingly doesn’t, and almost does, and does, then doesn’t happen, over years.

Heated Rivalry dropped in Canada and the US at the end of November, and the fandom around it is so intense that Williams and Storrie have a compound nickname (HudCon). The actors are all over the late-night US TV shows; the clip of them presenting at the Golden Globes has been viewed more than a million times, and their most throwaway remark on social media blows up.

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:14 pm

My partner died in 2020, but grief made it impossible to complete this final step | Nova Weetman

Scattering the ashes of someone we love can feel like an overwhelming responsibility at a time when getting out of bed is hard enough

My partner died back in 2020 and I still haven’t collected his ashes from the funeral home. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s because he died during the pandemic lockdowns, which made the basic administrative tasks required after someone dies even harder. Or perhaps it’s because he didn’t leave any instructions about where he wanted to be scattered, and the idea of storing an urn without a plan is too overwhelming. Or, perhaps, grief just made it impossible to complete that final step.

When someone dies, the paperwork seems endless. And even after you think you’re done, letters arrive in the name of the dead person and you are forced to pick up the phone once again and deal with it, while later breaking at the sight of their name on a bill they will never pay. It is utterly exhausting to be undertaking all of this when you are chafed with grief, and also attempting to organise a funeral, a memorial, a burial or a cremation.

Nova Weetman is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults, including The Edge of Thirteen, winner of the Abia award 2022.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Morocco to pursue legal action over chaotic end to Africa Cup of Nations final

• Hosts believe Senegal walk-off affected game’s outcome

• Brahim Díaz says his ‘soul hurts’ after Panenka drama

Morocco’s football federation has announced it will pursue legal action over the chaotic and controversial Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday based on a belief that the decision of Senegal’s players to leave the pitch, causing a 15-minute delay, had a material impact on the result.

Senegal secured their second Afcon title via a 1-0 victory at the Stade Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat, Pape Gueye scoring the only goal on 94 minutes. But that came after an incredible denouement to normal time with Morocco awarded a penalty when El Hadji Malick Diouf was penalised, following a video assistant referee review, for a pull on Brahim Díaz as he defended a corner.

Published: January 19, 2026, 11:36 am

LeBron James misses out as NBA All-Star starter for first time in 22 years

• World team will play US teams in mini-tournament

• James could still make team as a reserve

The first-ever World team for the NBA All-Star Game already looks loaded. And the fate of LeBron James’ record streak of All-Star selections will now be decided by coaches, or perhaps even Commissioner Adam Silver.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver’s Nikola Jokić, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Dončić and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama were among those announced Monday as starters – an inexact term this year – for next month’s All-Star Game at the Los Angeles Clippers’ home arena in Inglewood, California. They’re likely heading to the World team, which will take on two teams of US players as part of yet another new format for the midseason showcase.

The NBA announced 10 starters, five from each conference. Golden State’s Stephen Curry, New York’s Jalen Brunson, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and Boston’s Jaylen Brown all are presumably headed to the US squads that will play in the three-team, round-robin tournament on 15 February – all 12-minute mini-games, with the top two teams advancing to a 12-minute championship game.

Published: January 19, 2026, 8:16 pm

Buffalo Bills fire head coach Sean McDermott after latest playoff failure

• Bills lost dramatic overtime game to Broncos

• Buffalo missed Super Bowl under coach’s leadership

The Buffalo Bills have fired Sean McDermott after the team yet again fell short in the NFL playoffs.

The Bills lost a dramatic divisional round game in overtime to the Denver Broncos on Saturday. Buffalo have reached the playoffs in all but one of the seasons since McDermott took over in 2017, when he helped the Bills reach the postseason for the first time in 17 years. However, they have failed to reach the Super Bowl in that time despite the presence of Josh Allen, one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. Under McDermott, the Bills became the first team to win a playoff game in six straight seasons and not claim a Super Bowl.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:51 pm

Djokovic continues to make Australian Open history as tour’s elder statesman

Serb showed off astounding movement in 100th win in Melbourne to begin his 22nd grand slam season in style

The very first point of Novak Djokovic’s 2026 season offered an instant reminder of his enduring greatness. Djokovic started his first match of his Australian Open campaign, also his opening match of the season, by working his way through a breathless 17-stroke rally and then punctuating the exchange with a perfectly timed forehand winner. He could not help but chuckle at his own genius.

That blazing start set the tone for a straightforward night inside Rod Laver Arena as Djokovic began his 22nd grand slam season with an effortless 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win against Spain’s Pedro Martínez. It was the Serb’s 100th win at the Australian Open, a feat he has also achieved at Wimbledon and Roland Garros.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:01 pm

Indiana's rise to CFP final is a tale for our topsy-turvy times

If Rudy was a charming underdog story, the Hoosiers’ worst-to-first ascent to college football’s title game on Monday night is the stuff of science fiction

We are living in upside down times. Kim Kardashian advocates for prison reform as the American government spams out cartoonish memes promoting mass deportation and detention. Dave Chappelle – flaws aside – is more trusted to interpret the news than CBS’s Tony Dokoupil. The selection committee behind college football’s playoff somehow put together a compelling tournament without inciting the usual torrent of backlash, and the team raising the trophy at the end could well wind up being Indiana. And, no, that’s not a typo.

In case it’s unclear, Indiana is basketball country – the birthplace of Larry Bird, the home of the NBA’s Pacers, the inspiration behind Gene Hackman’s Hoosiers. Tier-one campus research, Bobby Knight’s tempestuous hardwood reign, and Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban are Indiana University’s claims to fame; football rarely, if ever, entered the chat. Before the NFL’s Colts snuck in from Baltimore and blended into Indiana’s sports tapestry, Hoosiers fans spent football season rallying around Notre Dame, a national brand that happens to reside in-state, and saved their true colors for the college basketball tipoff.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:00 am

‘I don’t want to be a punching bag’ – retirements mar dramatic day at Australian Open

Félix Auger-Aliassime surrendered with cramp while Britain’s Fran Jones was among a list of injured players forced to bow out in Melbourne

“I’ve honestly got no bloody clue what happened after that point in the match,” Francesca Jones said as she fought back tears. Jones had been battling hard on court 15 at Melbourne Park, chasing her first grand slam main-draw win at the fifth attempt, when she slipped and fell. She instantly felt a tear in her glute muscle. Jones soon had no choice but to retire from her Australian Open first-round match while trailing 6-2, 3-2 against Linda Klimovicova, a 21-year-old Polish qualifier.

“I’m at a career high,” Jones said. “I’m probably in the main draws of the Masters, and then you are thinking: ‘Should I continue, do I fight because it’s a slam?’ There’s money, there’s points on the line. Equally with my history, it’s probably not the smartest thing to keep pushing. I’m just having that internal debate.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:44 am

How Sadio Mané’s calm saved the Afcon final from absolute chaos | Jonathan Wilson

The veteran is known for his sense of responsibility and it was apparent as his Senegal teammates threatened to quit African football’s showpiece

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Sadio Mané has done many great things for Senegal and for Senegalese football, but what he did on Sunday evening, in what he confirmed would be his last Africa Cup of Nations game, was perhaps greater than his winning goal in Wednesday’s semi-final, greater than his penalty to win the World Cup qualifying playoff against Egypt in 2022, greater even than his decisive penalty in the 2021 final.

When Senegal stormed off the pitch in protest at the award of a penalty against them eight minutes into added time at the end of the Cup of Nations final, African football faced a crisis. For this to happen at all was embarrassing, for it to happen in the final of the confederation’s showpiece would have been a humiliation – not least because many may have felt that Senegal had a point. Refereeing has been a topic of discussion in this tournament in a way it should never be.

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:43 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says military innovation will ‘transform’ air defences

President says air force’s new system involves ‘mobile fire groups’ and interceptor drones as he warns of fresh Russian attacks ahead. What we know on day 1,427

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Ukraine’s armed forces are introducing a new facet of air defence, made up of small groups deploying interceptor drones, as the country braces for new mass Russian attacks, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. Ukraine is still reeling from a wave of Russian strikes earlier this month that knocked out power and heating to thousands of apartment blocks in freezing temperatures, particularly in the capital, and Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for air defences to be strengthened. “There will be a new approach to the use of air defences by the air force, concerning mobile fire groups, interceptor drones and other ‘short-range’ air defence assets,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly video address. “The system will be transformed.” Zelenskyy announced the appointment of a new deputy air force commander, Pavlo Yelizarov, to oversee and develop the innovation.

Zelenskyy also warned Ukrainians to be “extremely vigilant” ahead of anticipated new Russian attacks. “Russia has prepared for a strike, a massive strike, and is waiting for the moment to carry it out,” he said, urging every region in the country to “be prepared to respond as quickly as possible and help people”. Zelenskyy and foreign minister Andrii Sybiha both warned at the weekend that Ukrainian intelligence had noted Russia was conducting reconnaissance of specific targets, particularly substations that supply nuclear power plants. Ukrainian energy minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday that he had informed the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Russian preparations for more strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities, including those that ensure the operations of nuclear plants.

The IAEA said on Monday that a back-up power line had been reconnected to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after repair work carried out under an IAEA-brokered ceasefire. The Ferosplavna-1 line is one of two high-voltage lines supplying electricity to the Russian-controlled plant in Ukraine and was disconnected earlier this month.

Russia launched a barrage of drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight to Monday, cutting off power in five regions across the country amid sub-zero temperatures and high demand, Ukrainian officials said. Russian forces had launched 145 drones and air defences shot down 126 of them, the Ukrainian air force said. “As of this morning, consumers in Sumy, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions are without power,” the energy ministry said. “Emergency repair work is under way if the security situation allows.”

Ukraine will face enormous challenges to organise its first elections since Russia’s 2022 invasion, with its infrastructure shattered and millions of people displaced by war, the country’s election chief said. Bringing Ukraine’s voter registry up to date and making the proper preparations for a vote would take significant time, Oleh Didenko, the head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, told Reuters. Amid diplomatic efforts to end the war, US president Donald Trump has demanded Ukraine hold elections, even though they are banned under martial law – in force since the invasion – and a majority of Ukrainians oppose a wartime ballot.

Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will travel to Davos in Switzerland this week and hold meetings with members of the US delegation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Reuters has reported, citing two sources. Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said on Sunday that talks with US officials on ending the war would continue at the WEF this week.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:54 am

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows

Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use.

Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker from a small town in Carinthia near the Italian border, keeps Veronika as a pet and noticed that she occasionally played with sticks and used them to scratch her body.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:00 pm

After four shark attacks in 48 hours, NSW authorities urge beachgoers ‘just go to a pool’

Surfer taken to hospital with minor injuries after shark attack at Point Plomer beach on mid-north coast

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A surfer has been taken to hospital after being bitten by a shark off the coast of a New South Wales national park campground, the state’s fourth incident in 48 hours.

The local health district said the man, 39, was in hospital in a stable condition with minor injuries. The attack took place near the Point Plomer campground, less than 20km up the coast from Port Macquarie, on Tuesday morning.

Published: January 20, 2026, 1:58 am

Teenager among Iranian protesters sexually assaulted in custody, rights group says

Two people detained in Kermanshah, including 16-year-old, tell group they were subjected to sexual abuse during arrest

A 16-year-old was among protesters sexually assaulted in custody by the security forces in Iran during the nationwide uprising that has left thousands dead, according to a human rights group.

Two people, one of them a child, detained in the city of Kermanshah in western Iran told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that they were subjected to sexual abuse by riot police during their arrest.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 am

World’s oldest monastic brewery to be sold as German beer sales slide

Brewing tradition of nearly 1,000 years at Weltenburg Abbey in Bavaria to be bought up by Munich company Schneider Weisse

The world’s oldest monastic brewery, Germany’s Weltenburger, is being sold to the Munich brewers Schneider Weisse as part of consolidation in the sector in response to plunging sales.

Beer has been brewed at Weltenburg Abbey, a stunning, still active monastery on the banks of the Danube in Bavaria, for nearly 1,000 years.

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:38 pm

Prostate cancer is most commonly diagnosed cancer across UK, study finds

Cancer charity highlights apparent ‘postcode lottery’ of testing and diagnoses across different regions seen in study

Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer across the UK, surpassing breast cancer, according to a leading charity.

There were 64,425 diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2022, an analysis of NHS figures by Prostate Cancer UK found, and 61,640 new cases of breast cancer.

Published: January 20, 2026, 12:01 am

China’s population falls again as birthrate drops 17% to record low

Fourth year of decline deepens concerns over ageing, shrinking workforce and long-term economic impact

China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to another record low despite the introduction of polices aimed at encouraging people to have children.

Registered births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025 – or 5.63 for every 1,000 members of the population – down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, and the lowest since records began in 1949.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:12 pm

Dozens of IS prisoners freed in Syria amid clashes between army and Kurdish-led forces

Two sides blame each other for release of inmates, as Syria’s president looks to gain control of north-east

Dozens of inmates from a jail holding Islamic State prisoners have been freed in Syria amid clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and government-affiliated forces in the north-east of the country.

Videos released by the SDF showed what it said were IS members being broken out from a jail in Shaddadi by figures in black balaclavas. It said it had lost control of the building after an attack by government-affiliated fighters that killed or wounded dozens.

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:39 pm

Guatemala declares state of emergency after eight police officers killed in prison gang violence

President announces 30-day order after inmates also took 46 people hostage at three prisons

Guatemala’s president has declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency to combat criminal gangs after authorities accused them of killing eight police officers and holding hostages at three prisons.

The killings occurred in the capital, Guatemal City, and surrounding areas a day after gang-affiliated inmates took 46 people hostage in the three prisons across the country to demand incarcerated gang leaders be moved to lower-security facilities.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:53 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Why does Sydney pump sewage into the ocean and put its famous beaches at risk of poo balls?

Experts say Sydney Water should better treat wastewater before sending it offshore at Malabar, Bondi and North Head. The corporation disagrees

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In the first half of the 1900s, the mantra “the solution to pollution is dilution” ruled. The idea was that harmful chemicals and pollutants could be dealt with by spreading them out in the environment.

Now, that approach is derided as outdated and, often, dangerous.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Scientists warn of ‘regime shift’ as seaweed blooms expand worldwide

Study links rapid growth of ocean macroalgae to global heating and nutrient pollution

Scientists have warned of a potential “regime shift” in the oceans, as the rapid growth of huge mats of seaweed appears to be driven by global heating and excessive enrichment of waters from farming runoff and other pollutants.

Over the past two decades, seaweed blooms have expanded by a staggering 13.4% a year in the tropical Atlantic and western Pacific, with the most dramatic increases occurring after 2008, according to researchers at the University of South Florida.

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

15 years after Fukushima, Japan prepares to restart the world’s biggest nuclear plant

A return to nuclear power is at the heart of Japan’s energy policy but, in the wake of the 2011 disaster, residents’ fears about tsunamis, earthquakes and evacuation plans remain

The activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is reaching its peak: workers remove earth to expand the width of a main road, while lorries arrive at its heavily guarded entrance. A long perimeter fence is lined with countless coils of razor wire, and in a layby, a police patrol car monitors visitors to the beach – one of the few locations with a clear view of the reactors, framed by a snowy Mount Yoneyama.

When all seven of its reactors are working, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa generates 8.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power millions of households. Occupying 4.2 sq km of land in Niigata prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, it is the biggest nuclear power plant in the world.

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:46 am

Epstein victims’ advocates express outrage over slow release of files

Deadline mandated by Epstein Files Transparency Act long past, but millions of documents have still not been released

One month after the justice department’s congressionally mandated deadline to release all Jeffrey Epstein investigative files went unmet, victims’ advocates are expressing outrage over the department’s failure to comply with federal law.

Advocates have also indicated that they are not surprised, describing the justice department’s noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act as yet another example of US officials failing to hold wrongdoers accountable in the ongoing saga.

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:00 pm

Prince Harry accuses Daily Mail publisher of ‘terrifying’ intrusion

Duke of Sussex and six other high-profile figures say media company used unlawful information gathering

Lawyers representing Prince Harry and six other prominent figures have accused the publisher of the Daily Mail of “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering” to secure stories about them.

In a witness statement submitted to the court, the Duke of Sussex accused the newspaper group of subjecting him to “intrusion [that] was terrifying” for loved ones, creating a “massive strain” on his personal relationships. He said it had the effect of “driv[ing] me paranoid beyond belief, isolating me”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:15 pm

Man in critical condition with ‘probably life-changing injuries’ after third Sydney shark attack in two days

All northern beaches remain closed on Tuesday after attack in Manly on Monday evening follows attacks in Dee Why and Vaucluse

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A man believed to be in his 20s is in a critical condition after being bitten by a shark in the third attack at Sydney beaches in two days.

He was taken to Royal North Shore hospital on Monday evening after New South Wales ambulance officers treated the man at Manly beach in Sydney’s north following the attack.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:22 pm

Trump tariff threats risk triggering ‘spiral of escalation’ in world economy, says IMF

Fund warns rising geopolitical tensions could have ‘material impact’ on global growth and investment

• Gold and silver hit record highs as markets reel

Donald Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland risk triggering a “spiral of escalation” that would damage the world economy and lead to a sharp sell-off in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

In an update as Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Nato allies opposed to his ambition to take over the Arctic territory from Denmark, the Washington-based fund said a renewed eruption in trade tensions was among the biggest risks to global growth in 2026.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:46 pm

Japan’s prime minister calls snap election as approval ratings ride high

Sanae Takaichi tells senior figures in ruling Liberal Democratic party she plans to dissolve lower house on 23 January

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has called a snap election as she attempts to capitalise on high approval ratings since becoming the country’s first female prime minister three months ago.

Takaichi, a conservative who is embroiled in a deepening dispute with China over the security of Taiwan, said on Monday she would dissolve the lower house of the Diet – Japan’s parliament – on 23 January, with an election to follow on 8 February.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:39 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:00 pm

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox review – space-hopping comedy asks the big question

Stimson Snead’s preposterous time-leaping indie starring multiple Samuel Dunnings is just about rescued by cameos from Keith David and Danny Trejo

For the sheer quantity of its gibbering, jabbering nonsense, this movie deserves some points. That, and the amusing cameo at the end from Keith David as the Simulator, AKA God, who explains to the awestruck mortals that God is an entirely free creator, rather like a self-published novelist, then grows irritated when the mortals think that being self-published is lame: “It’s not my fault if you don’t understand the industry!”

This is an exhausting indie romp on the subject of time travel, and sometimes plays like a funnier version of Shane Carruth’s time-travel classic Primer – well, slightly funnier. Samuel Dunning plays Tim Travers, a goateed scientist who has stolen nuclear materials from a terrorist group to power the time machine he has invented. He sends himself back one minute into the past with a gun to kill his younger self to investigate the time-traveller’s paradox: if he eliminates his one-minute younger self, then won’t he also disappear at that moment, popping like a soap bubble, because it means he can’t exist in the future? But given that he has to exist in the future to have set all this in motion, doesn’t it mean that this time-travelled self has to survive?

Published: January 19, 2026, 11:00 am

Mother of Flies review – horror in the woods as house guests are microdosed with psychedelics

The Adams-Poser clan, a family of four who make low-budget horror films, return with a menacing tale of Solveig, a woman attempting to cheat death by strange means

If you are a certain kind of parent who likes folk-horror films, crafting with the kids, and unusual family road trips, then perhaps images from the work of the ultra-cool Adams-Poser family, a clan comprising upstate New York hepcat parents (Toby Poser and John Adams) and their hepkitten kids (Zelda and Lulu Adams), might be on your mood board. This film-making family multitasks above and beyond, serving not just as

co-directors, co-writers, producers and stars, but also operating the camera and making the costumes. The results are genuinely striking, professional and effective (especially in terms of scare-generation). And if the scripts are often a smidge pretentious, they are never less than interesting and always original.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:30 pm

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 11:24 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Be More Bird by Candida Meyrick review – less soaring avian self-help than a parroting of tired cliches

This contrived addition to a sub-genre popularised by H is for Hawk and Raising Hare falls to earth with a thud

In July 2020, Candida Meyrick, better known as the novelist Candida Clark, became the owner of Sophia Houdini White Wing, better known as Bird. Bird is a Harris hawk, a feathered killing machine who hunts the rich Dorset fields on the edge of the New Forest. She can take down a rabbit but much prefers cock pheasants. Recently she has been eyeing up the peacocks that the Meyricks keep on their estate.

Meyrick’s starting point in this puzzling book is that Bird has a rich interior life that we flightless clod-hoppers would do well to emulate. What follows are 20 brief “life lessons” inspired by the hawk’s assumed musings. So, for instance, the fact that Bird prefers to hunt her own dinner rather than accept substitute snacks from Meyrick is used to urge the reader to “stay true to your higher self”. Likewise, her ability to keep cool under threat from a pair of thuggish buzzards becomes an exhortation to “hold your ground, you’re stronger than you think”. Other maxims include “Stay humble. Keep working at it” and the truly head-scratching “Just show up; and when you can’t, don’t”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 9:00 am

‘Payback will be severe’: Mickey Rourke vows revenge on those behind crowdfunder ‘scam’ in his name

Oscar-nominated actor says his lawyer was trying to reimburse those who had donated money to a GoFundMe appeal set up allegedly to raise funds for the star

The actor Mickey Rourke has again spoken out against the GoFundMe appeal set up in his name, purportedly to raise funds for the star, who is currently in financial hardship.

Earlier this month, the actor – who made his name in 1980s action and romance films before being Oscar nominated for his 2008 comeback, The Wrestler – declared he had nothing to do with the crowdfunder.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:12 pm

‘I’ve had to fight tooth and nail’: Amber Davies on Strictly trolls, Love Island hunks – and her Legally Blonde no-brainer

She started out performing in her living room, charging £1.50 a ticket. Now, having blazed through Love Island and silenced her Strictly haters, the Welsh sensation is really hitting the big time

At the end of last year’s Strictly Come Dancing semi-final, pro dancer Nikita Kuzmin made a tearful appeal to camera, “I speak to the audience at home: guys, just please, please be kind!” His celebrity partner, Love Island winner, Dancing on Ice contestant and musical theatre actor Amber Davies, had been getting a lot of flak online. “You have had so much hate, every single day,” said Kuzmin.

Isn’t it crazy that we have to remind people to be nice to other humans who are just doing their job, I say to Davies, when we meet in a London hotel bar. “I genuinely think it’s getting worse,” says Davies, who has been in the public eye since 2017. “With TikTok, when people jump on a bandwagon, they go for it,” she adds. “But I feel like the nasty comments I was getting [on Strictly] weren’t actually coming from the younger audience, they came from the older audience.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Roger Allers, Disney film-maker and co-director of The Lion King, dies aged 76

With Rob Minkoff, Allers directed 1994’s The Lion King, which remains the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time

Roger Allers, the Disney film-maker who co-directed The Lion King and worked on films including Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, has died aged 76.

Allers’ colleague at the Walt Disney Company, Dave Bossert announced his death on social media on Sunday morning, remembering him as “an extraordinarily gifted artist and film-maker, a true pillar of the Disney Animation renaissance”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 12:57 am

‘I was bullied in school for being different. At 16, I hit a crashing point’: the awkward kid who became the world’s strongest man

As a boy, Tom Stoltman was diagnosed with autism and bullied at school. When he became depressed in his teens, his older brother, a bodybuilder, suggested a trip to the gym

• ‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

Tom Stoltman was a skinny kid: 90kg, 6ft 8in, with glasses and sticking‑out teeth. Diagnosed with autism as a young child, he felt he didn’t fit in. “I was really shy,” he says. “I got bullied in school for being different.” Back then, the boy from Invergordon didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. He lived in baggy hoodies. “Hood up. That was my comfort.” He loved football but “I used to look at people on the pitch and think, ‘He’s tinier than me, but he’s pushing me off the ball.’”

By 16 he’d hit a “crashing point”. He went from football-obsessed to playing Xbox all day. He’d skip meals in favour of sweets. “Sometimes it was four or five, six bags.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Nine easy swaps to reduce ultra-processed foods in your diet: it’s not an ‘all-or-nothing approach’

Modern western diets are full of ultra-processed foods, but experts say we need to reduce our intake. Here they offer achievable alternatives

• My week avoiding ultra-processed foods

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“It’s not poor willpower,” says Mark Lawrence. The ecological nutrition professor from Deakin University is a global expert in ultra-processed foods, a beacon of knowledge in the proliferation of UPFs. “It’s really difficult to avoid them.”

Australia, alongside the US and UK, has one of the world’s highest consumption rates of ultra-processed foods which have been linked to “multiple diet-related chronic diseases”, according to a global report of which Lawrence was a co-author.

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Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 8:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:31 pm

My rookie era: the shame of failing my scuba diving licence sticks to me like my wetsuit

Aside from the actual swimming, every scuba skill I practised in the ocean filled me with dread. Aren’t hobbies supposed to be fun?

• Read more summer essentials

Would you rather go to space or the bottom of the ocean? I have always chosen the ocean, where beauty is bountiful. Under the sea are hundreds of mini-worlds unbothered by life on the surface.

Which is one reason why my friend suggested I get my scuba diving licence. The other was that diving was on the itinerary for an upcoming holiday. I’d never thought about being a certified diver before, but I was excited to have the ability to explore the big blue.

Published: January 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

In 2021, Harold Price, now 82, broke a vertebra while cycling with a friend, leaving him barely able to use his legs. Then a chance recommendation changed his life

• ‘It took time to love my soft, larger shape’: the body-positive writer who recovered from an eating disorder

Before the accident, Harold Price, 82, loved being on two wheels. A retired engineer from Griffithstown in Wales, he cycled about 95 miles a week on his road bike. “Not bad for 78,” he says. On other days he’d be out on one of his restored motorbikes, as he was in June 2021, with a friend. They were riding at 10 miles an hour on a narrow road when his friend pulled out in front of him. “I had nowhere to go,” Price says. He remembers his head snapping back into his helmet before he blacked out.

Price spent months in hospital. He had broken the fifth vertebra in his neck, resulting in compression of his spinal cord. He was told he wouldn’t walk again. “That was a bit of a downer, obviously,” he says. He was determined to prove the doctors wrong. “My mind told me I could get up and walk out. But when I tried, I collapsed.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:00 pm

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for harissa-spiked orzo with chickpeas and pine nuts | Quick and easy

A store-cupboard saviour for weeknights and ends of the month that you can adapt at will

This is my favourite store-cupboard dinner when faced with the pre-shop complaints that “there’s nothing in the fridge”. The cherry tomatoes provide a welcome fresh note, but otherwise it’s a happy cupboard raid. An old Nigel Slater recipe first put me on to the idea of using yoghurt to finish a pasta dish, and it works brilliantly here to balance the harissa. Excellent for a work-from-home lunch, too.

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:00 pm

The one change that worked: I tried all the hobbies I thought I’d hate – and found friendship and escape

I was in a work-commute-collapse cycle and didn’t know what to do. Then I began sampling activities I’d previously dismissed – book clubs, line dancing, chess – and it became oddly addictive

For most of my life, I treated taste as fixed. There were things I liked and things I didn’t, and that was that. Hobbies, foods and even social situations were quietly written off with the certainty of personal preference. But sticking to that sentiment had left me in a bit of a rut.

When I moved to London, I threw myself into work: long hours, commuting and networking. In the process, I stopped making time for hobbies or trying anything new.

Published: January 19, 2026, 11:00 am

Ed Zitron on big tech, backlash, boom and bust: ‘AI has taught us that people are excited to replace human beings’

His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he’s no longer the outsider he once was

If some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about “how the AI bubble burst”, Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He’s the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who’s become one of big tech’s noisiest critics.

This is not to say the AI bubble will burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron’s blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where’s Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he’s a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself – one user describes him as “a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 am

Prince Harry at court and an Afcon victory dance: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:32 pm