‘The right has won the family’: my relentless search for lefty mommy bloggers

The most popular mom content tends to be rightwing tradwife propaganda or not political at all – pushing progressive creators out of the algorithm

For someone who doesn’t have a marble island in their kitchen I spend a disproportionate amount of time staring at marble kitchen islands, slack-jawed, brain turned half off. That’s because I consume a lot of videos from mommy bloggers, mom influencers and the like. In kitchen “closing shift” videos, they wipe down their islands and reset by lighting luxury candles, the glow accentuating their respectable cosmetic procedures. Other times I watch them waltz through their morning routines: getting kids out the door, sweating it out in boutique fitness classes, showing off Amazon hauls, or explaining their children’s matching holiday photoshoot outfits.

For better or worse, this is how I have chosen to spend my one wild and precious life: consuming blissfully low-stakes motherhood content on my phone. It is domestically competent ASMR that also satiates my desire to peek into everyone’s bathroom cabinets. I nod in unsolicited approval as a TikTok mom I follow shares her green juice order. Fascinating. I should drink something like that. Another posts timestamps of her baby’s night-time sleep schedule. I, who lives between walls that have never heard the wail of an infant, ingurgitate the entire video.

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:00 pm

What is happening in Fulton County is a warning to America | Jamil Smith

The FBI raid in Georgia is not an aberration. It fits a broader playbook, with troubling historic precedents

What in the hell were FBI agents doing in an election facility in Fulton county, Georgia, last week? They surely weren’t investigating a crime. Nor were they serving the public.

Justifying Donald Trump’s “big lie” about winning the 2020 election may seem like his own lost cause – but like his Confederate forebears, he is weaponizing it, damage be damned. Not even his subsequent election victory has quieted Trump’s appetite for more power, earned or otherwise.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:30 pm

Goofy! Pouty! Unvampy! With nine films on the go, can Charli xcx act?

She’s the edgy British brat who conquered the world with her hard-partying, electro-banging aesthetic. But can the star now go where Beyoncé and Harry Styles stumbled – and smash the silver screen?

In the back of a cab, Charli xcx drags a makeup wipe across her face. A closeup of that face, with its distinctive halo of dark hair, the lipstick-smeared pout and lush, overgrown eyebrows, is perhaps the most striking scene in her new film The Moment. Charli peels a strip of ugly stick-on gems from her lower lash line, regret and shame flashing across her face. It’s a rare raw few seconds in Aidan Zamiri’s clever and knowing satire of 21st-century pop stardom, which wonders what would have happened if the singer had lost her head after the success of her 2024 album Brat. The film is billed as a mockumentary, but its ambition to be taken seriously is no joke.

The Moment is already being positioned as Charli’s pivot from pop to the silver screen, after a buzzy premiere at the Sundance film festival last month. Charli was there to promote it, alongside two other films she’s starring in. I Want Your Sex, a dark romp of a comedy from new queer cinema pioneer Gregg Araki was mostly warmly received, though early consensus has declared The Gallerist, which stars Natalie Portman, something of a dud.

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:53 pm

Pro-gun groups quickly rallied for Alex Pretti. Why didn’t they do the same for a Black gun owner?

Philando Castile, a lawful gun owner, was shot and killed by a police officer in 2016 – gun rights groups were largely silent

The killing of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis has sparked a thorny conversation among gun rights groups and Trump administration officials about the second amendment and the right to carry concealed firearms at protests and demonstrations. Among the questions is which cases the movement rallies behind – and which it doesn’t.

In the hours and days after Pretti’s killing, dozens of local national and local gun rights groups lambasted federal officials including Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official, who baselessly claimed that Pretti’s carrying of a handgun proved that he planned to harm and kill border patrol agents. Prominent gun rights organizations, including Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the National Rifle Association (NRA), called for an independent investigation into the shooting and defended Pretti’s right to carry a gun.

Published: February 4, 2026, 1:00 pm

Goodbye, breast implants: why I went back to having a flat chest

At 56, I want to age naturally. Having breast implants ran counter to that, so I got explant surgery, which has surged in demand recently

For 22 years, I ran around with small bags of saline water on my chest – a fact I shared with only a handful of close friends. I felt ashamed of having chosen artificial enhancement.

I’m an outdoorsy mountain runner. At 56, I want to model aging naturally, but having breast implants ran counter to that. Now they are gone, thanks to explant surgery – implant removal without replacement.

Published: February 4, 2026, 1:00 pm

An ‘amazing feat’: how was 13-year-old Austin Appelbee able to swim for four hours to save his family?

Saltwater, survival backstroke and sheer mind over matter may have helped the teenager save his family, experts say

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An Australian 13-year-old who swam 4km (2.49 miles) to shore and then ran 2km (1.24 miles) to get help for his stranded family has been described as “superhuman”.

Experts say Austin Appelbee’s feat of endurance exceeded the limits of what is normally perceived as possible. So how was the teenager able to save the day, and is there any precedent for it?

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

Democrats say ‘dramatic changes’ needed for immigration enforcement as DHS funding negotiations continue – live

Trump’s stopgap bill funds the department of homeland security until 13 February

• White House border czar says 700 federal agents will leave Minnesota

Tom Homan, the president’s so-called “border czar” is set to speak to reporters in Minneapolis shortly.

A reminder that Homan took over the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota from senior border official Gregory Bovino, just days after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and the mounting backlash in the Twin Cities.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:42 pm

Bill Gates says he ‘regrets’ knowing Epstein as ex-wife alludes to ‘muck’ in marriage

Melinda French Gates insists Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with Epstein

Bill Gates has said he “regrets” ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife Melinda French Gates alluded to “muck” in their marriage, and insisted the Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender.

Allegations that Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with “Russian girls” surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein files, which have provided remarkable insight into the disgraced financier’s multiple celebrity connections and activities.

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:37 pm

US and Iran talks at risk of collapse after US rejects move to Oman

Talks were scheduled in Turkey with Arab states present, but Iran requests move amid attempts to limit agenda

Talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Friday appear to be collapsing after the US rejected Iran’s request to move them from Turkey to Oman without the presence of a group of Arab states.

Iran has also vowed that the talks will be confined to its nuclear programme, while other issues the US would like to discuss, such as the range of Tehran’s ballistic missile programme, will be permanently excluded.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:36 pm

Revealed: Israel bulldozed part of Gaza war cemetery containing allied graves

Satellite images and witness testimony show destruction as IDF claims it was forced to take defensive measures

Israeli forces have bulldozed part of a Gaza cemetery containing the war graves of dozens of British, Australian and other allied soldiers killed in the first and second world wars, satellite imagery and witness testimony reveal.

Satellite imagery of the Gaza war cemetery in al-Tuffah, a district of Gaza City, shows extensive earthworks in the southernmost corner of the graveyard. Bomb craters can be seen around the cemetery, but in this area the destruction appears to have been more systematic.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:17 pm

‘It’s an absolute bloodbath’: Washington Post lays off hundreds of workers

Former Post executive editor blasts owner Jeff Bezos’s ‘sickening efforts to curry favor’ with Trump

The Washington Post laid off hundreds of employees on Wednesday, which its former executive editor said “ranks among the darkest days” in the newspaper’s history. Approximately one-third of employees were affected.

Staffers at the Post have been on edge for weeks about the rumored cuts, which the publication would not confirm or deny. “It’s an absolute bloodbath,” said one employee, not authorized to speak publicly.

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:39 pm

Man who tried to assassinate Trump in Florida sentenced to life in prison

Ryan Routh, who tried to kill president in 2024, also receives a consecutive seven-year sentence for gun conviction

A man convicted of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison.

US district judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh’s fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts.

“It’s clear to me that you engaged in a premeditated, calculated plot to take a human life,” Cannon said.

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:15 pm

Texas man sues California doctor for allegedly sending abortion pills to state

Suit is the first under new law allowing residents to sue providers protected in their states under ‘shield laws’

A physician based in California has become the first medical provider sued under a recently enacted Texas statute that empowers private individuals to file civil lawsuits against providers who mail abortion medication into the state.

The case was brought by Jerry Rodriguez, who claims that Remy Coeytaux, a doctor practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area, violated a Texas law that allows abortion providers to face penalties of at least $100,000 if they mail pills into Texas. The filing alleges Coeytaux mailed abortion medication to end Rodriguez’s girlfriend’s pregnancies twice, once in 2024 and again in early 2025.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:52 pm

Fulton county leader says he was warned he faced arrest before FBI raid

Robb Pitts said call came days before federal agents seized 2020 election documents in Georgia

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The Fulton county commission chair, Robb Pitts, said at a press conference this morning that he received a phone call last Monday – two days before the FBI served a criminal warrant to seize 2020 election documents – to warn that he, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, former Raffensperger deputy Gabriel Sterling and others in the state were at risk of imminent arrest by federal agents.

“That did not happen on Monday,” Pitts said. “It didn’t happen on Tuesday, but lo and behold on Wednesday, the FBI shows up.”

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:26 pm

No suspect yet in apparent abduction of Savannah Guthrie’s mother

Sheriff’s department says detectives are speaking with anyone who may have been in contact with Nancy Guthrie

Authorities in Arizona have still not identified a suspect in the investigation surrounding the apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the elderly mother of the Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

In a statement posted on X, the Pima county sheriff’s department said that detectives were continuing to speak with anyone who may have been in contact with Nancy Guthrie and were working with the Guthrie family.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:06 pm

Democrats say Trump’s immigration crackdown has undermined efforts to combat human trafficking

House Democrats say US anti-trafficking efforts have been hamstrung by diversion of resources to immigration raids

A diversion of law enforcement personnel and resources to assist with Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and deployments to US cities has undermined the government’s efforts to combat child exploitation and human trafficking, Democratic lawmakers warned.

In the letter, sent on Wednesday and first shared with the Guardian, nearly two dozen House Democrats demand that the homeland security and justice departments “immediately” restore full staffing and resources to their anti-trafficking divisions. It also makes reference to the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files, arguing that the government’s failure to publicly release the full scope of the documents in its possession “damages trust in institutions meant to deliver justice”.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:02 pm

Pentagon threatens to cut ties with Scouting America over ‘core values’

Defense department says it may end support unless youth group abandons inclusivity and returns to ‘God and country’ values

The Pentagon is again threatening to sever ties with Scouting America unless the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America reverts to “core values” and realigns itself with service to “God and country”.

A warning to end the US military’s longstanding partnership with one of the nation’s largest and most popular youth organizations came in a Monday night post to social media by the Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, who insisted the scouting movement “lost its way” in a 2025 rebrand that promoted inclusivity and included admitting girls and LBGTQ+ members.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:49 pm

Trump’s environmental rollbacks contradict RFK Jr’s healthy America promise, report finds

Dismantling rules will make children vulnerable to chronic diseases ‘make America healthy again’ wants to eradicate

Donald Trump’s aggressive rollback of environmental protections directly contradicts the promises of his “make America healthy again” campaign, according to new research.

Helmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health and human services department has touted pledges to “transform our nation’s food, fitness, air, water, soil and medicine” and “reverse the childhood chronic disease crisis”. But the president’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing the country in the opposite direction, says the new report from the liberal research and advocacy non-profit Center for American Progress (CAP).

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:30 pm

Billionaire US investor Ken Griffin accuses Trump White House of ‘enriching’ itself

Citadel hedge fund boss, Republican donor and vocal Trump critic says administration has made ‘distasteful’ choices not in the public interest

The billionaire investor Ken Griffin has accused Donald Trump’s administration of “enriching” its families, and criticised its interference in American businesses as “distasteful”.

Griffin, who is the chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel and a large Republican donor, rebuked the Trump administration, saying it “has definitely made missteps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those in the administration”.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:01 pm

Murdered son of Muammar Gaddafi was perceived as a threat to Libya’s elite

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, shot dead on Tuesday, appealed to ‘a nostalgia for a past that is remembered as more secure’

The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of Libya’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is a reminder of both how violent Libya remains more than 15 years after his father’s demise – and how much Saif had come to be perceived as a threat to Libya’s governing elite.

The loyalist Gaddafi green movement remained a potent gathering point for some Libyans nostalgic for a return to imagined past security that Saif’s father symbolised.

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:26 pm

The Pup Cup: thousands of dogs compete in the Westminster Dog Show – in pictures

Penny, a doberman pinscher, won best in show at the 150th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:18 pm

‘We can all relate to a birthday’: the traveling US art exhibit that honors victims of police violence

The exhibit marks what would have been the 40th birthday of Oscar Grant whose death inspired the film Fruitvale Station

The last time that Wanda Johnson saw her son Oscar Grant alive, they were eating gumbo to celebrate her birthday on New Year’s Eve in 2008. They laughed as they ate the thick stew integral to Black American tradition in hopes of calling in a successful new year. A few hours later on 1 January, Grant was shot by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale station in Oakland as he was on his way back home from celebrating with friends. The 22-year-old father died later that morning.

Every year since his death, which inspired the film Fruitvale Station, Johnson has said a prayer to Grant on his birthday on 27 February. “Oscar, I wish we had that time when we had gumbo and was able to laugh and hug again,” Johnson told the Guardian. “You’re forever in my heart.”

Now the spirit of Johnson’s prayers will be realized in an exhibit honoring what would have been her son’s 40th birthday. At the Black Panther Party Museum in Oakland, California, the Happy Heavenly Birthday, Oscar exhibit commemorates Grant’s legacy with a display of photos from his life. Visitors can write messages for Grant on birthday cards, and a phone booth installation plays birthday voicemails from people around the world. Also on display is a screening of the film Happy Birthday Oscar Grant, Love Mom, about how family and friends have celebrated his birthday since his death. The exhibit serves as a reflection of the ripple effects of gun violence on a local community, and runs from 1 February to 11 April.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:04 pm

A moment that changed me: I shaved off my hair – and immediately became an invisible woman

Strangers used to open doors, help lift my pram and greet me with approval when I looked ‘like a mum’. After one simple haircut, I was treated very differently

In November 2000, two weeks after giving birth to my first and only child, I found myself collapsed in bed, breastfeeding in front of Top of the Pops, hair matted, sheets dirty, surrounded by sick-soaked muslin rags. I liked it. Or at least, it felt like a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing, until Madonna – who had given birth to Rocco Ritchie only three months earlier – appeared on the screen in a cropped leather jacket, belly bared, sexy-dancing to Don’t Tell Me. Did I feel inspired? Resentful? Brimming with pity for this attention-seeker? For sure, it was all three.

As the weeks wore on, I began to see how it might be possible to shower, put on actual clothes and maybe even pop to the corner shop. Occasional visits to cafes, museums and other warm, baby-friendly spaces soon followed and stopped me from feeling as if I had fallen into a well of loneliness.

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:55 am

‘A god-tier new classic’: first reactions to Wuthering Heights praise ‘hot, horny’ Emerald Fennell adaptation

The acclaimed latest version of the Emily Brontë bestseller is, however, not without controversies over race and age

Reviews might be embargoed until next Monday, but Los Angeles social media is getting hot under the collar after an early screening of Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

“Intoxicating, transcendent, tantalising, bewitching, lust worthy, hypnotic,” wrote Courtney Howard, adding that the film “expertly captures the breathtaking ache and essence of desire” and “is a god-tier new classic”.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:24 am

Dark showering: is this the very best way to wash?

A shower before bed, with the bathroom lights off, is said to get you to sleep more quickly and rinse off the day’s stress. No wonder it’s suddenly so popular

Name: Dark showering.

Age: The name is new; the idea is not.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:34 pm

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘We are now at the women-should-smile-more stage of his presidency’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s testy reaction to a female reporter’s question about the Epstein files

Late-night hosts dug into Donald Trump’s deflections from the Jeffrey Epstein files and the backlash to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show.

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:38 pm

I knew Trump would target Minnesota. I didn’t expect this level of violence | Rachel Leingang

I’m reporting on a political retribution campaign, disguised as immigration enforcement, in the community where I live

I knew they would come here.

If you’re a president hell-bent on retreading 2020 and retaliating against your enemies, the midwestern state that started the George Floyd protests, with a generous social safety net and diverse population, governed by a vice-presidential candidate you vehemently hate, is a certain target.

Published: February 4, 2026, 10:00 am

Shamed by the Epstein scandal, riven by infighting: have the UK royals ever been in a bigger mess than this? | Stephen Bates

The sad truth is that we are witnessing a legacy of the over-indulgent late queen: an organisation unable to meet today’s challenges

Curious that the Epstein scandal, which has caused such an overwhelming furore in the US, should so far have done more to damage the British royal family than the US presidency. Even though many Americans have an obsession with the minutiae of the monarchy and all its works – despite proudly revolting against the institution themselves 250 years ago – their concerns have understandably focused more on their own big beasts, Donald Trump and the Clintons, than ours. It’s as if King Charles and his brother, the artist now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, are some quaint curlicue, a baroque adornment to the main event. Which, of course, is how they see the British monarchy anyway.

Kings and queens have always been susceptible to men with money and power. In the past they were able to bestow both on their loyal followers. Now it is more transactional. It is evident that what appealed to Epstein was access to class and status: the chance to sit jokily on the throne in Buckingham Palace or have a weekend in Balmoral or Sandringham and thereby tie a susceptible royal into his web of contacts and obligations. What appealed to Andrew and his importunate and permanently hard-up former wife, Sarah, was access to cash and the luxuries that went with it. Hard to believe given the royal family’s wealth, but what probably appealed most was cosying up to the sort of money that has brownstone mansions in Manhattan to stay in and private islands for holidays in the Caribbean.

Stephen Bates is a former royal correspondent of the Guardian

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

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:33 pm

Trump 2.0 is proving a challenge for Hollywood – just look at this deeply silly new thriller | Emma Brockes

Anniversary depicts a rightwing takeover of the US inspired by a book of essays. But it’s fuzzy on the bits in between

As we all know from history and the current news cycle, autocracy is bad. But it can also be boring. For every explosive confrontation in Minneapolis, there is a quieter, less tangible threat in the form of Kash Patel’s FBI seizing voting records from Fulton county, Georgia – a state Donald Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020 – or the steady implementation of 900-page manifesto by the influential rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, neither of which lend themselves to blockbuster treatment. And so we have a problem: how to animate the quiet part of what’s happening in the US to reflect a dangerous but tedious reality – namely, that this thing ends not with a bang, but a combination of voter manipulation and federal electoral interference that undermines faith in the democratic process.

I bring this up after a week of watching popular movies that resonate in Trump’s US, most of which go heavy on the firefights and light on the details of how we arrive at them. The latest, Anniversary, which launched this week on Netflix – a streamer increasingly uninterested in the subtleties of any situation, let alone this one – depicts a US in which an evil rightwing genius in the shape of a beautiful young woman talks the country into ditching democracy via the medium of (I love this detail; the sheer optimism of it) a stirring book of essays.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:30 pm

Things reek, stink and pong – but why are there no verbs for describing a delightful odour? | Adrian Chiles

We don’t have a single verb to express smelling something nice. Welsh and Croatian, by contrast, are never caught short when something fragrant gets right up your nose

I remember the first time I remembered a smell. This was remembering to the extent that it stopped me in my tracks, taking me back to a specific moment, a specific place and a specific feeling. The smell was that of a bike shop. Mainly rubber, with notes of oil and plastic and a strong hint of sheer excitement. In that instant I was about 10 years old, in Bache Brothers Cycles at Lye Cross, near Stourbridge, in the West Midlands. My grandad was next to me, with the shop man. I was getting a bike for my birthday.

When I was talking about the power of smell on the radio, Speth, a Welsh speaker from Manchester, got in touch to say that in Welsh you can hear a smell as well as smell it. At first this sounded charming, if far-fetched. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. While I can’t – in English, anyway – exactly hear the smell of that Black Country bike shop in 1977, I can smell, hear and see it very clearly. I can feel it too. I can feel the shop man’s grip as he lifts me into the saddle. And I can hear him saying to my grandad: “Blimey, he’s a lump, isn’t he?” Ever sensitive about my weight, that was a sour note. But I’ll let it pass, because all I can feel, then and now, is the general joy.

Published: February 4, 2026, 4:16 pm

Make the orchestra great again: how a painting of Trump as conductor misunderstands the symphony | Tom Service

A new painting by the maestro of Trumpian kitsch offers a fever dream of musical unity – and fundamentally misunderstands orchestras and conductors. And where are the music stands?

Events in the United States of Trumpland continue to reveal staggering new dimensions to the possibilities of orchestral music. Trump’s announcement that his “Trump Kennedy Center” is to be shut for a refit is a brilliantly cynical way to stop the noise when artists try to cancel their appearances during the rest of his presidential tenure: it’s shut already! Bigly losers, all of you!

But that’s not the new dawn for the artform I’m talking about. I mean the inspirational painting unveiled by the maestro of Trumpian kitsch, Jon McNaughton (and stamped with the presidential seal of approval – ie a post on Truth Social).

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:29 pm

Want to avoid an invitation? Try the 'soft no' | Polly Hudson

I didn’t know how to refuse the offer of a drink without causing offence – until I learned how to kindly demur

Although honesty is the best policy in general, justice for Pinocchio, because it turns out sometimes lying is the only option. In certain situations, if you didn’t smash the glass and break out an emergency fib, you’d simply be cruel. The secret to pulling it off in a way you can live with, as I’ve just learned, is in the branding.

I was faced with a delicate dilemma: an acquaintance I had unwittingly socialised with in a group messaged me, suggesting a drink one-on-one. There is no way of saying thanks but no thanks to that kind of invitation without causing offence. This person is perfectly nice, it’s not like an evening with them would be an ordeal, but I was pretty confident we had more than covered the totality of our common ground during the group hang. Life’s quite short, isn’t it? I really didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but I also really didn’t want to go. However, backed into a corner, I came to the conclusion I’d have to spend time, money and small talk doing it anyway, because of stupid old politeness.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:00 am

When Maga oligarchs control the platforms, it isn’t really a debate about ‘free speech’ | Rafael Behr

Moves to ban under-16s from social media should raise deeper questions about who controls democracy’s digital infrastructure

The last UK general election of the 20th century was also the first to anticipate, albeit faintly, the coming technological revolution. The 1997 Labour and Conservative manifestos both included pledges to connect schools to something they called “the information superhighway”.

That metaphor soon fell out of use, unmourned, although it contains an interesting policy implication. Roads need rules to prevent accidents. Superhighways do not sound like the kind of places where children should play.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink? On Monday 30 April, ahead of May elections join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat is Labour from both the Green party and Reform and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader of the Labour party? Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:00 am

The Guardian view on Epstein, power and accountability: full transparency is the least survivors deserve | Editorial

As the wheels of justice begin to turn in Britain, a spotlight should also shine on the financier’s wealthy enablers in the US

“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him,” commented the US lawyer Lisa Bloom in an interview with the Guardian this week. As Ms Bloom, who represents 11 of Jeffrey Epstein’s dogged and brave victims, drily notes: “That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work.”

From the outset, the Epstein affair has offered a textbook example of the ability of the influential and well-connected to avoid scrutiny and intimidate those who would exert it. A ruthless pursuit of transparency, both institutional and personal, is the only way to combat such tactics and hold power to account. In the extraordinary days following the release of further Epstein files last week, the wheels of justice in Britain are belatedly beginning to turn on that basis.

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

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:36 pm

From Evil Empire to Super Bowl underdogs: is it OK to like the Patriots now?

Under Tom Brady and Bill Belichick New England were ruthless winners. But new head coach Mike Vrabel has transformed the narrative around the team

There used to be a simple rule: Anybody but the New England Patriots.

From 2001 through 2019, the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick dynasty totaled six Super Bowl titles, 13 conference championship appearances and 17 divisional crowns. They were the Evil Empire, constant contenders in a league designed for parity. It didn’t matter who you were; the Patriots were the final boss.

Published: February 4, 2026, 10:00 am

Report: Dallas Mavericks trade Anthony Davis to Washington Wizards

• Davis played sporadically after arriving in Luka Doncic trade

• Eight-player swap comes ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline

The Dallas Mavericks are sending 10-time All-Star forward Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards in an eight-player trade, ESPN reported Wednesday.

The Mavericks will receive Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson, Malaki Branham and Marvin Bagley III plus two first-round draft picks and three second-round selections, per the report.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:35 pm

Lindsey Vonn forced to wait as first women’s Winter Olympics downhill training cancelled

• US skiing icon must wait to test injured knee

• Coach confident skier will be competitive at Games

Lindsey Vonn has been forced to wait for her chance to test her injured knee after heavy snowfall led to the cancellation of the first women’s downhill training at the Winter Olympics.

The American skiing icon was due to take part in Thursday morning’s training session in Cortina d’Ampezzo as she attempts to compete at the 2026 Games with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:06 pm

New York City’s real animal welfare crisis isn’t the Westminster Dog Show | Lauren Caulk

As Westminster week once again put dog breeding under the spotlight, Peta’s messaging remains as incisive as ever. But its moral clarity fades when the conversation shifts to cats

Every February, the Westminster Dog Show arrives in New York City trailing equal parts pageantry, nostalgia and protest. The dogs come to be judged. The owners and handlers come to uphold breed standards. And, almost as reliably as the movie references and the best-in-show ribbon, Peta arrives ready to dominate the conversation.

If there is one certainty about the Super Bowl of canines, it’s that the protest will share the stage with the pageantry. Westminster is an annual collision of tradition, spectacle and dissent, and Peta has become exceptionally good at owning that moment. This year was no different. Two enormous billboards screamed down from across the street of the Javits Center, where breed judging unfolded on Monday and Tuesday ahead of the prime-time sessions at Madison Square Garden. One read: Flat-faced dogs struggle to breathe. NEVER buy them. Another: You can get a nose job. They can’t. DON’T buy breathing-impaired breeds.

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:45 pm

Mauricio Pochettino’s odd jab at Tim Weah misread the player and the moment | Leander Schaerlaeckens

The USMNT manager said players should stay out of conversations that don’t deal with soccer

Last week, Mauricio Pochettino began a World Cup year with an unforced error.

At the tail-end of a virtual press conference that covered a wide range of ongoing USMNT business, the 53-year-old Argentine – who has made himself commendably available to the American soccer press – was asked about recent comments by Tim Weah.

Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:29 pm

Ten athletes from Team USA to watch at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics

With the Winter Olympics set to begin in proper on Friday, here’s a look at 10 Americans worth keeping an eye on

Mikaela Shiffrin has surpassed Vonn’s record haul of World Cup wins and staked her claim as the GOAT. But Vonn has a solid claim to be the best ever in the speed events (downhill, super-G), and she has been racing exclusively in those disciplines since returning from retirement, surging to the top of the World Cup downhill standings at age 41. She has a score to settle with the sport’s biggest stage – her lifetime total of three Olympic medals (one gold) would probably be higher if not for a horror crash in practice in 2006 and injuries that either limited or outright excluded her from other Games. After some selection drama in the team combined event in last year’s world championships, it seems inconceivable that Vonn and Shiffrin, both of whom have had some misfortune in the Olympics, would not be paired up to form Alpine skiing’s equivalent of the 1992 basketball Dream Team. Vonn was in a nasty crash last weekend but it seems that she will be fit to take part in Italy.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:00 am

Quadruple-chasing Arsenal can dream a micromanaged dream | Barney Ronay

After prevailing in a gristly physical ballet with Chelsea, Arsenal’s season has now reached a point of pre-ignition

Zamina mina. Waka, waka, hé-hé. By the end of this gruelling, bruising, deep tissue ache of a football match, it felt as though the opening 96 minutes had been staged simply as an extended tease for a startlingly carefree final 30 seconds.

Up to that point Arsenal and Chelsea had produced something that felt like the football equivalent of having your eyes descaled with a wire brush. This was a dense, gristly kind of physical ballet. Johan Cruyff once said that in football the clock is never your friend. It’s either moving too fast or too slowly. Here the clock didn’t really seem to move at all, or to be going backwards. The clock hated everyone.

Published: February 3, 2026, 11:55 pm

Butler did it: 11 years on, was the NFL’s most criticized call actually the right decision?

The last time the Seahawks and Patriots met in a Super Bowl, a dramatic interception by an undrafted rookie changed the history of both franchises

When the New England Patriots faced off against the Denver Broncos in this season’s AFC championship, Malcolm Butler was at home in Houston. He had considered attending the game in Denver or watching on TV in a No 21 Patriots jersey, which he wore in Foxboro for four seasons through the mid-to-late 2010s, but feared he might jinx the outcome. In the end, it was just him and his nerves for company.

Just as Butler was feeling somewhat at peace with that setup, and the Patriots’ prospects, a bad omen intruded: His wifi glitched, delaying the broadcast as the Patriots clung on to a three-point lead in the fourth-quarter. “I was lagging bad,” Butler tells the Guardian. “But I did get the wifi back working. And as soon as I did my phone was ringing like crazy, so I knew something was going right. It’s crazy that we’re back.”

Published: February 3, 2026, 10:00 am

Are the Whitecaps about to die? Vancouver sound alarm bells amid difficult sale process

Scheduling and financial impasses at Vancouver’s World Cup stadium are leading down a road the league hasn’t traveled in over a decade

On the surface, Vancouver Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster’s press conference last week would have felt familiar to almost any North American sports fan. Once again, a team was agitating for more money or a better stadium. Once again, local governments were at least partially to blame.

Some of his comments, though, felt more alien, and raised a question that seemed unfathomable just a couple of months ago: are the Vancouver Whitecaps about to die?

Published: February 3, 2026, 5:52 pm

Winter Olympics: full schedule for Milano Cortina 2026

Keep abreast of every event at the Winter Olympics with our day-by-day and sport-by-sport schedules

The Winter Olympics returns to Italy for the first time in two decades. From the fashion capital of Milan to the dramatic peaks of Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Milano Cortina Games – the first to be co-hosted by two cities – will stretch across northern Italy blending world-class winter sport with a strong sense of history and ambition.

Sixteen sports and more than 110 gold medals await, from the raw speed of alpine skiing and bobsleigh to the tactical endurance of biathlon and cross-country. Alpine fans will once again be drawn to Mikaela Shiffrin, still redefining excellence across the technical disciplines.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:00 pm

Skinning, boot-packing and downhill skiing: welcome to skimo at the Winter Olympics

The Games’ newest sport combines the seemingly impossible task of ascending a mountain on skis with hiking and then a rapid descent

No one could suggest that the Winter Olympics are lacking in challenge. Skiers zipping down the slopes and flying through the air. Skeletons hurtling around at more than 100km/h. Ice skaters, metal-bladed, spinning, leaping and twisting. Slopestyle athletes pulling off the most outrageous tricks while landing the biggest air. But everyone from recreational skiers to the most extreme sports enthusiasts knows there is always room for more.

Enter the new kid on the ice block at Milano Cortina 2026: ski mountaineering. The new challenge? How about going up the mountain, hiking a bit, followed by a rapid descent on the tiniest skis possible. Before you ask, “why”? Cast your mind over the other disciplines on the schedule and remember that the answer is almost always, “why not”?

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

Lindsey Vonn confident she can compete at Olympics despite ‘completely ruptured’ ACL

• Vonn confident despite ACL rupture before Olympics

• Will decide after testing knee at race speeds soon

• Olympic downhill scheduled for Sunday at Cortina

Lindsey Vonn said she is “confident” she can compete at the Milano Cortina Winter Games despite revealing she has been managing a ruptured ACL, maintaining that her Olympic comeback remains on track after a crash last week raised fresh doubts over her participation.

Speaking on Tuesday, the 41-year-old American said she was approaching the final decision cautiously but remained focused on lining up for the downhill at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where the Olympic women’s alpine programme opens Sunday.

Published: February 3, 2026, 3:28 pm

Winter Olympics briefing: final preparations amid the noise for Milano Cortina

What to look out for as the action gets under way in Italy despite the Games not yet beginning until Friday

In my opening briefing last week, I wrote that organisers were banking on the cultural pull of Italy – its architecture, food, history and fashion – to cut through any political noise surrounding the Milano Cortina Games. So far, that has not been the case. And the Olympics have not yet officially begun.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Milan’s Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the day Italy was liberated from Nazi fascism in 1945, to protest against the planned deployment of ICE agents during the Games. The ICE agents to be deployed to Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minneapolis and other US cities.

Published: February 4, 2026, 8:00 am

Ukraine and Russia begin second round of US-led peace talks in Abu Dhabi

Major obstacles to viable deal remain after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accuses Moscow of violating energy truce

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held the first round of US-led peace talks in Abu Dhabi as Washington seeks a pathway to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

The two-day trilateral talks that started on Wednesday come after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of exploiting a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile weapons before launching a record number of ballistic missile attacks at Ukraine on Tuesday.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:31 pm

Israeli strikes kill at least 21 in Gaza as Rafah patient crossings halted

Six children among dead as Israeli agency restricts evacuations two days after crossing to Egypt reopened

Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes have killed at least 21 people, including six children and seven women, in Gaza, and Israel has halted the evacuation of patients through the Rafah border crossing just two days after it reopened.

Among the casualties was a medic who rushed to the scene to assist the wounded and was killed by a second strike on the same location in the southern city of Khan Younis. Tents in al-Mawasi, an encampment of displaced people in Khan Younis, were shredded by the blasts.

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:45 pm

Democrats launch aggressive campaign to win back infrequent voters

DNC’s Local Listeners initiative will target one million ‘infrequent’ voters in battleground districts

Democrats are launching an aggressive campaign to win back voters they lost, not to Donald Trump, but to the proverbial “couch”, as they look to regain support ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

On Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rolled out a new initiative called Local Listeners with the goal of targeting over one million “infrequent” voters in key battleground districts. Seeking to build on the party’s string of off-year election victories, which extended into 2026 with an upset in Texas last weekend, the DNC is betting that early, localized outreach will be crucial in winning back these voters’ trust – and their ballots – this time around.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:00 am

Son of Norway’s crown princess ‘does not remember’ taking videos of alleged sexual assault

Marius Borg Høiby, 29, on trial accused of 38 crimes, broke down in tears as he claimed press had harassed him for years

Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has told a court he does not remember taking pictures and videos found on his phone that police say show him sexually assaulting a woman at a royal residence.

Høiby, Mette-Marit’s son from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, is on trial accused of 38 crimes, including four rapes and assaults.

Published: February 4, 2026, 6:37 pm

Gunmen kill more than 160 people in attacks on two west Nigeria villages

Local politician says armed men rounded up residents, bound their hands behind their backs and shot them

More than 160 people have been killed in two villages in western Nigeria in the country’s deadliest armed assaults this year, as communities reel from repeated and widespread acts of violence perpetrated by jihadists and other armed groups.

The death toll from Tuesday’s attacks in Woro and Nuku in Kwara state stood at 162 on Wednesday afternoon, according to Mohammed Omar Bio, a member of parliament representing the area.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:40 pm

Coroner opens inquest into five babies murdered by Lucy Letby

Cheshire coroner says there is ‘reason to suspect unnatural deaths’, with proceedings to begin in September

A coroner has formally opened inquests into the deaths of five newborn babies Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering.

In a 20-minute hearing at Cheshire coroner’s court, the senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish heard brief details of the deaths before adjourning proceedings until September.

Published: February 4, 2026, 1:15 pm

Angel that looked like Giorgia Meloni removed from Rome church fresco

Vatican appears to have ordered removal of restored work, which artist confessed he had made to resemble PM

The face of a winged angel bearing a striking resemblance to the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been erased from a fresco in a historic Rome church, putting an end to a debacle that embarrassed the Vatican.

The image on the wall painting in a chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina in central Rome was removed overnight, leaving the cherub headless.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:27 pm

Drax insiders privately raised concerns over its sustainability claims, court papers show

Company publicly denied allegations that primary forests were being cut down to fuel UK’s biggest power plant

Senior executives at Drax raised concerns internally about the validity of the energy company’s sustainability claims while it publicly denied allegations that it was cutting down environmentally important forests for fuel, court documents have revealed.

Britain’s biggest power plant assured ministers and civil servants of the company’s green credentials as it scrambled to defend itself against claims in a BBC Panorama documentary that it had burned wood sourced from “old-growth” forests in Canada.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:02 pm

Wildlife photographer of the year – people’s choice 2026

A shortlist of 24 images has been selected for the wildlife photographer of the year people’s choice award. You can vote for your favourite image online. The winner will be announced on 25 March and shown from that date as part of the overall wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which runs until 12 July at the Natural History Museum in London

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:00 am

California officials move forward with plans to exterminate mule deer from island

Conservancy sees nonnative species as major threat to local biodiversity, while residents rally to preserve local identity

California wildlife officials moved forward last week with a plan to eradicate a mule deer herd from Santa Catalina Island: extermination.

The plan has long pitted locals from the island off the coast of Los Angeles against the Catalina Island Conservancy, an environmental non-profit that manages 88% of the island’s terrain. The conservancy sees mule deer, which are not native to the island, as a major threat to local biodiversity, water quality and fire resilience.

Published: February 3, 2026, 11:05 pm

‘It’s sick’: Trump administration uses mascot called ‘Coalie’ to push dirtiest fossil fuel

Cartoon lump of coal with giant eyes was spotlighted by US interior secretary in X post saying: ‘Mine, Baby, Mine!’

The Trump administration has turned to an unusual weapon in its attempt to resurrect coal mining – a cartoon lump of coal, complete with giant eyes and yellow mining garb, called “Coalie”.

The administration’s new mascot, kitted out with a helmet, boots and gloves, was introduced in a seemingly artificial intelligence-generated picture posted online by Doug Burgum, Donald Trump’s interior secretary.

Published: February 3, 2026, 10:42 pm

Jeffrey Epstein messaged with former CIA director Bill Burns, files show

Spokesperson says Burns ‘deeply regrets ever meeting’ with Epstein and cut ties after learning of his conviction

A new tranche of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed several communications with William J Burns, a career diplomat who would go on to become the central intelligence director under Joe Biden.

The documents describe the planning for meetings between Burns and Epstein, two of which occurred, and show Epstein texting with Burns and recommending that other people in his orbit meet with him. The meetings and correspondence occurred after Epstein had pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges in Florida in 2008, including solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:00 pm

Striking Starbucks workers urge customers to delete coffee chain’s app

Unionized baristas continue to fight for a fair contract and ask public for solidarity as strike stretches into third month

Striking Starbucks baristas are calling on customers of the world’s largest coffee chain to delete its popular mobile app in solidarity with their demands for a first union contract.

Starbucks Workers United, which has been coordinating a strike for almost three months, is vowing to press ahead.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Our family feels deep distress’: Renee Good’s brothers plead for Democrats’ help at hearing

No Republicans attended Capitol Hill forum of US citizens detailing their experiences being harmed by federal agents

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Democrats on Capitol Hill offered apologies and promises of accountability on Tuesday amid often harrowing testimony from people who had experienced violent encounters with federal agents engaged in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

With Republicans conspicuously absent, the forum of senators and representatives heard from Luke and Brent Ganger, the brothers of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot dead by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on 7 January as she tried to drive away from agents.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:34 am

Charlie Kirk killing: key Utah prosecutor denies conflict of interest

Lawyers for accused Tyler Robinson urge removal because prosecutor’s daughter attended rally where Kirk was killed

A Utah prosecutor involved in the case against Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, denied allegations of a conflict of interest in the case during a hearing on Tuesday.

Robinson’s attorneys have argued that a judge should disqualify local prosecutors because the adult daughter of Chad Grunander, a deputy county attorney, was in attendance at the rally on a Utah college campus where Kirk was shot dead. The defense alleges that the office’s move to seek the death penalty just days after Kirk’s killing indicated a “strong emotional reaction” from Grunander, and suggested a conflict of interest.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:49 am

Boy, 13, who took family campervan on 70mph joyride given points on future licence

Teenager admitted it was not the first time he had taken the vehicle but told the court he ‘won’t do it again’

A 13-year-old boy who drove his family’s Volkswagen campervan on a 70mph road in the middle of the night for a joyride in Dorset has been given penalty points for a future licence, a court heard.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was spotted by other motorists driving the 2.5-litre silver van on the A35, a busy dual carriageway in Poole. His father told the judge at Poole magistrates court his son would be “washing cars for the next year” to pay off his debt.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:44 pm

Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy becomes mascot for year of the horse in China

Mandarin transliteration of character’s name regarded as auspicious, prompting wave of memes and fan art

Draco Malfoy, one of Harry Potter’s most recognisable villains, has become an unlikely lunar new year icon across China, as fans embrace the character for the year of the horse.

In Mandarin, Malfoy’s name is transliterated as “mǎ ěr fú”. The first character means “horse” while the final character, “fú”, means “fortune” or “blessing” – a powerful symbol found across lunar new year celebrations.

Published: February 4, 2026, 8:47 am

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of ex-Libyan leader, killed, say officials

Dictator’s second son, a key figure in post-2011 Libyan politics, reportedly shot dead at home by masked assailants

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and for years the second most powerful person in the country, has been killed in a village south-west of Tripoli, officials said on Tuesday night.

The 53-year-old died from gunshot wounds in the town of Zintan, 85 miles south-west of the capital, according to the Libyan attorney general’s office. Gaddafi’s own office said he was killed in his home by masked assailants.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:25 pm

Death of Nigerian singer after snakebite highlights crisis of ‘preventable’ fatalities

Ifunanya Nwangene died in hospital after being bitten in her Abuja home, raising questions about the availability of effective antivenoms

In a last message to her friends, Ifunanya Nwangene wrote: “Please come.”

The 26-year-old singer and former contestant on The Voice Nigeria had been bitten by a snake while asleep in her flat in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and was in hospital, anxiously awaiting treatment.

Published: February 4, 2026, 10:00 am

‘One moment it was a little blip. The next, our friends are dying’: the gay porn soundtrack composers lost to the Aids crisis

Gay porn in the 80s was home to beautifully moody synth music that is only now getting rediscovered – tragically too late for many of its creators

Michael Ely knew from the first moment he met James Allan Taylor that he had found someone special. The pair had separately hitchhiked to a gay bar, with fake IDs, in Sunset Beach, California. They connected, they danced and stepped outside for a kiss in the thick fog. “I was only 18 but I knew I had just met my soulmate,” says Ely.

The pair remained a couple until 2015 when Taylor, who was nicknamed Spider, died from liver cancer. A new collection of Taylor’s music, Surge Studio Music – electronic pieces he composed for gay porn films – has just been released. “I was like: wait, there’s a fanbase for 80s gay porn music?” laughs Ely. “I had no idea. When Josh contacted me, I found the cassette tapes in a box in the back of the closet. They’d been there for ever.”

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:00 pm

May-a: ‘I was not in a good place – no one’s in a good place when they get a neck tattoo’

She’s just 24, but Maya Cumming has won the Hottest 100, survived LA, played with Cyndi Lauper – and is only now releasing her first album, which ‘was driven by spite’

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At just 24, the Australian singer-songwriter Maya Cumming – known to fans as May-a – has already experienced the promise and heartache of Los Angeles as a star-making town. In 2021, she signed with Atlantic Records in the US ahead of her debut EP, Don’t Kiss Ur Friends – a moment she described at the time as “a dream”. The following February, she featured on Flume’s precision-made festival anthem Say Nothing, which went on to win the 2022 Triple J Hottest 100.

Amid that whirlwind period, Cumming was flown back and forth to LA for arranged studio sessions with producers and artists she felt little connection to, ultimately relocating there in 2024. What should have felt like a career arrival was instead a dispiriting eye-opener.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

Relationship Goals review – Kelly Rowland and Method Man flirt through breezy romcom

The Valentine’s Day offerings begin with Amazon’s fast-paced, millennial-coded film that’s a fun enough watch even if its messaging is a little suspect

On its face, Relationship Goals is a classic romcom, calibrated for viewers of a certain generation. The perennially resplendent Kelly Rowland is Leah, a boss babe morning TV producer in line to replace her retiring boss (the omnipresent Matt Walsh) as showrunner. Just as she’s poised to break the glass ceiling, the network higher-ups stick her in a bake-off with Jarrett, a ringer from her romantic past played with devil charm by Method Man. The promise of one of Destiny’s Children playing the will they/won’t they game with the hunk of the Wu-Tang Clan could well prove too strong a lure to stop the scores who grew up on their music from clicking on the Prime Video thumbnail just out of nostalgic curiosity.

It’s a tractor beam made stronger by director Linda Mendoza’s extraordinarily fast pace. I mean, those 90 minutes just breeze by. Relationship Goals’s three-headed writer team – led by Michael Elliott, whose credits include Queen Latifah’s Just Wright and Beyoncé’s Carmen hip-hopera – are bracingly efficient with their paint-by-numbers set-up. Leah’s besties – Treese, the tragically single makeup girl (Flamin’ Hot’s Annie Gonzalez); Brenda, the wistful morning anchor (A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Robin Thede), Roland, the omniscient assistant (Pose’s Ryan Jamaal Swain) – helpfully fast-talk through backstory points and punctuate scenes with snappy one-liners and winks at the audience. (Brenda titles her emergency engagement plan: Project Put a Ring on It.) Only Dennis Haysbert slows things down as Leah’s grieving father, but not enough to be a drag.

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:21 pm

The Investigation of Lucy Letby review – this sensationalist take isn’t what this awful case needs

The broad-brush, emotive telling of the questions around the neonatal nurse’s conviction uses arrest footage that her parents have said ‘would likely kill us’ if they watched. Did her mother’s howl of distress need to be broadcast?

The Investigation of Lucy Letby is at least the fifth documentary that has been produced in the wake of the neonatal nurse’s convictions in 2023 and 2024 on seven counts of murder and seven of attempted murder of babies in her care at the Countess of Chester hospital. Probably the best of them was ITV’s Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? last summer. It did a fine job of meticulously explaining the evidence against her – and why a growing body of experts believe that at the very least her conviction on the basis of what was gathered is unsafe, and at most that none of the babies were murdered by her, but were victims of a chronically understaffed and mismanaged unit that might have sought to scapegoat an individual for its failings.

The Investigation of Lucy Letby does not compare in its attention to detail, preferring a broader-brush, more emotive telling of the story of either one of the most prolific female serial killers in history or one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent times. Its publicity has made much of the fact that it contains hitherto unseen footage of Letby’s arrest at her parents’ home. Her mother and father say they were unaware that it would be shown until Letby’s barrister told them. “We will not watch it – it would likely kill us if we did.” When the footage is shown, you can hear her mother howl in distress as the police take Letby away. It is an almost inhuman sound. It is hard to say what value such an inclusion adds except to warn the viewer to brace themselves for sensationalism along the way as the case is pieced together using accounts from the police, people – from both sides – directly involved with the case, Letby’s best friend Maisie and Letby’s current lawyer (not the one who represented her in court), Mark McDonald, along with media reporting from the time and tapes of her interviews with investigators.

The Investigation of Lucy Letby is on Netflix now

Published: February 4, 2026, 8:01 am

André Is an Idiot review – a riotously funny, painfully honest film about facing death

A cancer diagnosis becomes the catalyst for gallows humour, rage and hard-won emotional openness in a disarmingly frank film about how to say goodbye

There are about a zillion films – fiction, nonfiction, and everything in between – about people coping with cancer, so kudos to the team behind this one for finding a relatively fresh way to tackle the subject. San Francisco-resident André Ricciardi – a constantly wisecracking former advertising executive, a semi-reformed hard-living hedonist, and father of two teenage girls and loving husband to wife Janice – was only in his early 50s when he realised that he’d made a big mistake when he passed up the chance to have a colonoscopy test with his best friend, Lee Einhorn. Because only a year or so on from when he would have had that colonoscopy, he found out that he has stage four colon cancer which had it been spotted earlier might have been more treatable. Damn.

With assistance from director Tony Benna and a film crew, Ricciardi goes on a mission to create, among other goals, an unconventional public service announcement in the form of this film to persuade (American) viewers not to be idiots like him and get colonoscopies whenever possible after the age of 45. (In the UK, the procedure isn’t automatically offered by the NHS, although home faecal immunochemical tests are recommended every couple of years after a certain age.) At one point, Ricciardi even hooks up with his colleagues at his old advertising agency to advise on a witty PSA campaign using fruit and other everyday objects with vaguely anus-shaped orifices to raise awareness.

Published: February 4, 2026, 9:00 am

V/H/S/Halloween review – plenty of grisly invention in latest helping of engaging horror anthology

Portmanteau series’ latest instalment has nice touches with eerily jolly villains and haunted soda, but it could use a bit of an edit

This horror bonanza, the eighth instalment in the V/H/S anthology series, is a mixed bag, with some very high highs and regrettably poor lows. This is essentially a collection of Halloween-themed shorts, and while they’re billed as “found footage” in keeping with the conceit of the original, the idea that you’re watching found footage has been more or less worn away to a nub at this point. The series would in all honesty be better off ditching that element, and simply leaning into the broader idea of a regular horror anthology of unsettling short films.

Among the highlights is a riotous and disgusting chapter called Fun Size, made with grisly flair by Casper Kelly, whose viral masterpiece Too Many Cooks took the internet by storm in 2014 and whose feature film Buddy just premiered at Sundance. Fun Size sees a group of young adults stumble into what might best be described as a wrongness zone where they’re pitted against a villain who comes on like the vicious kid brother of the Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Published: February 4, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Charisma is a form of psychosis’: inspiring Eric Clapton, having kids at 70 … the irreverent life of post-punk puppeteer Ted Milton

He crossed paths with William Burroughs, Terry Gilliam and Spitting Image while whipping up almighty grooves with his band Blurt. Now 82, he’s back on tour – and bracing for a warts-and-all documentary made by his many children

The big bloke in the khaki suit speaks quietly these days. We are nestled in the corner of Ted Milton’s studio above a rehearsal space in Deptford, London, cocooned by record boxes, poetry books, plus a single big, bright suitcase, and I have to nudge the recorder closer to pick up his voice. Milton – a saxophonist, poet, countercultural survivor and one-time avant garde puppeteer – is 82, and uses a couple of sticks to get around, yet he is once again going on the road across Europe with his long-running band Blurt, as well as releasing a new album with his duo the Odes.

Today, he is making record covers destined for the tour merch table with the help of his old woodblock setup. “That orange suitcase?” he points across the desk. “I just bought it.” He booms out a massive laugh, as if to prove he still has the lung power to command a room. “I’m a fetishist about luggage. I know how to survive touring. Haha!”

Published: February 3, 2026, 2:00 pm

On the Future of Species by Adrian Woolfson review – are we on the verge of creating synthetic life?

A genomic entrepreneur’s guide to the coming revolution in biology raises troubling questions about ethics and safety

The prophet Ezekiel once claimed to have seen four beasts emerge from a burning cloud, “sparkling like the colour of burnished brass”. Each had wings and four faces: that of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle. Similarly, a creature called Buraq, something between a mule and a donkey with wings and a human face, was said to have carried the prophet Muhammad on his journeys; while the ancient Greeks gave us the centaur, the mythical human-horse hybrid recently rebooted by JK Rowling in the Harry Potter books.

“The impulse to blend the anatomical traits of other species with those of humans appears to be hardwired into our imagination,” notes Adrian Woolfson in his intriguing and disturbing analysis of a biological revolution he believes is about to sweep the planet. Very soon, we will not only dream up imaginary animals – we will turn them into biological reality.

Published: February 4, 2026, 9:00 am

Tantrums, rancid meatloaf and family silver stuffed into underpants: the delicate art of the Holocaust comedy

Making light of one of the darkest horrors of the 20th century is a risky business – but a new generation is taking ownership of family histories by making space for human foibles, says an award-winning graphic novelist

My beloved German-Jewish grandmother Gisela was not an affable person. She enjoyed laughing at her own jokes, revelling in the misfortunes of others, and telling people off. If an event combined opportunities for all three activities, so much the better.

When my father was six, he refused to eat the meatloaf that his mother had given him for lunch. Gisela took the piece of meatloaf, now rapidly turning rancid in the Zimbabwe afternoon heat, and served it to him for dinner, and breakfast, and every subsequent meal until he forced himself to eat it. It was the late 1950s – tyrannical parenting was de rigueur, and uneaten meatloaf was the hill that Gisela was willing to die on.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:00 am

Crux by Gabriel Tallent review – a passionate portrait of teenage climbers

The follow-up to My Absolute Darling, this tale of best friends who dream of a better life features exquisite sports writing and a lovable heroine – but the plotting is unconvincing

Tamma and Dan are 17-year-old best friends growing up in a California desert town blighted by the strip-mall nihilism of late capitalism. They’re poor. They’re unpopular. Their families are a wasteland. But they have each other and their great shared passion: trad rock climbing. Whenever they can, they head to a climbing route – sometimes a boulder at the edge of a disused parking lot, sometimes a cliff an hour’s hike into a national park – and climb, often with no gear but their bloodied bare hands and tattered shoes.

This is the premise of Crux, the second novel from Gabriel Tallent, the author of the critically acclaimed My Absolute Darling. At its heart, it’s a sports novel, and Tallent’s prose here is precise and often exquisite, inching through a few seconds of movement in a way that reflects the unforgiving nature of climbing. We get a lot of closeups of granite and faint half-moons in rock that suddenly become “the world’s numinous edge”. The language of climbing – a dialect of brainy dirtbags – is a gift to the writer. Tallent’s characters talk about “flashing bouldering problems” and “sending Fingerbang Princess”; a list of routes with “Poodle” in the title includes Poodle Smasher, Astropoodle, Poodle-Oids from the Deep, A Farewell to Poodles, and For Whom the Poodle Tolls. Tallent also has an extraordinary gift for descriptions of landscape; a road is “overhung with stooping desert lilies, tarantulas braving the tarmac in paces, running full out upon their knuckly shadows, the headlights smoking with windblown sand”.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:00 am

The Good Society by Kate Pickett review – the Spirit Level author takes stock

A whistle-stop tour of the greatest hits of progressive policy fails to take account of a central conundrum

If you’ve written a successful book based around one big idea, what do you make the next one about? Back in 2009, Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level (co-authored with Richard Wilkinson) argued that inequality was the ultimate cause of almost all our social problems, from obesity and teenage pregnancy to violent crime; more equal societies, they claimed, had better outcomes across the board. While criticised – as most “big idea” books are – for overstating the case and cherrypicking evidence, they struck a chord, and some aspects of their thesis are now mainstream.

However, when it comes to the UK, there is an awkward problem, both for Pickett and for economists like me who, while not entirely convinced by The Spirit Level, would still like to see a more equal society. In the first chapter of Pickett’s new book, inequality is once again the root of all (social) evils: “if you know a country’s level of inequality, you can do a pretty good job of predicting its infant mortality rate, or prevalence of mental illness, or levels of homicide or imprisonment”. By contrast, she argues that GDP or GDP growth are very poor measures of overall welfare. Pickett then goes on to list the ways in which the UK has become a worse place to live since 2010 – higher child poverty, flattening life expectancy and child mortality, more people in prison.

Published: February 3, 2026, 7:00 am

Gaming’s new coming-of-age genre embraces ‘millennial cringe’

Perfect Tides perfectly captures the older millennial college experience, and a time when nobody worried about being embarrassing online

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I’ve noticed an interesting micro-trend emerging in the last few years: millennial nostalgia games. Not just ones that adopt the aesthetic of Y2K gaming – think Crow Country or Fear the Spotlight’s deliberately retro PS1-style fuzzy polygons – but semi-autobiographical games specifically about the millennial experience. I’ve played three in the past year. Despelote is set in 2002 in Ecuador and is played through the eyes of a football-obsessed eight-year-old. The award-winning Consume Me is about being a teen girl battling disordered eating in the 00s. And this week I played a point-and-click adventure game about being a college student in the early 2000s.

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is set in New York in 2003 – a year that is the epitome of nostalgia for the micro-generation that grew up without the internet but came of age online. It was before Facebook, before the smartphone, but firmly during the era of late-night forum browsing and instant-messenger conversations. The internet wasn’t yet a vector for mass communication, but it could still bring you together with other people who loved the things that you loved, people who read the same hipster blogs and liked the same bands. The protagonist, Mara, is a student and young writer who works in her college library.

Published: February 4, 2026, 12:35 pm

‘She thought it was too sexy!’: portraits of Kate Moss, Grace Jones and a tea-drinking chimp – in pictures

From a gold-covered Dennis Rodman to Jack Nicholson sitting in the snow, Albert Watson has spent a career shooting the stars – as well as the occasional giant coffee spoon

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Our bodies bear traces of all we’ve endured’: exhibition explores bodily photography

A new exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum looks at how the human body has been captured on film, from athletic portraits to revealing looks at ageing

Photography has a unique capacity to take us right to humanity’s extremes. Whether it’s the outsiders photographed by Diane Arbus, the revelatory motion studies of the human body made by Eadweard Muybridge, views of remote Indigenous communities taken by the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, or in-your-face shots of heated competition from the sports photographer Walter Iooss, photographs can wow us with transformational dispatches from the fringes of the human condition.

All four of those photographers, plus about three dozen more, can be seen at the Phoenix Art Museum’s captivating new show Muscle Memory. It aims to delve into the question of how our human bodies can at once be the focus of so much of our awareness while also being something we frequently ignore.

Published: February 4, 2026, 10:03 am

Young ladies too tired to stand at a Black debutante ball: Miranda Barnes’s best photograph

‘The girls wait for two or three hours to be introduced. The reason they’re sitting on the ground is because there weren’t any chairs in the waiting room’

My new book Social Season opens with a poem set in the mid-1800s, a time that marked the beginning of a period of increased financial prosperity for some African Americans. Cotillion dances have European origins, but in the poem, Black New Yorkers perform classic dances such as waltzes and quadrilles and are dressed in fine outfits. These Black debutante balls go back a long way, and are one example of African Americans trying to create a better life. Today, they continue to introduce young women into society and retain a strong emphasis on the participants’ education.

Initially, I had been working towards creating a book with a larger overview of Black subcultures in general. I’d photographed cheerleaders, churches, traditional rodeos and other intergenerational community gatherings. I wanted to include a debutante ball in a post-industrial city, and Detroit has a very rich Black history. When I first reached out to the city’s Cotillion Society, I only planned to attend one year’s event. But after that evening in 2022, I realised this was a project in itself and that I was really going to have to work for the images I wanted.

Published: February 4, 2026, 3:02 pm

New home, new outlook? What’s next for the Sundance film festival?

The final Utah edition of the hub for American independent film saw slow sales and a mixed bag of movies but a future in Colorado could bring a refresh

Sundance is over. Well, not quite. The Sundance we all know, with Robert Redford as its head and Park City, Utah, as its location, is over. The festival’s beloved founder died last year months after the festival also opted for a move to Boulder, Colorado.

But on the alarmingly snow-light ground, there was also chatter about what would become of Sundance as a whole, once the shining beacon of American independent cinema, after it entered a new phase. There were standout films as ever but again not quite enough to override concerns over what the festival now represents in a harsh new world where it’s arguably easier to make an indie (or whatever cobbling together bits of AI slop might be called) but harder to get it sold.

Published: February 3, 2026, 5:52 pm

The place that stayed with me: I was cautious in showing my queerness, until a night spent dancing at a Tokyo gay bar

Despite hearing many words of warning about expressing public affection, travelling in Japan with my boyfriend helped me loosen up

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The first time I saw gay people on TV, it was during an ABC news package about Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. My Egyptian parents were chomping through a bag of dried pumpkin seeds when the assault on our eyeballs took place.

Muscle bears in backless chaps, shirtless lifesavers in tiny budgie smugglers, chunky women with buzzcuts and saucer-plate nipples revving their Harley-Davidsons down the strip. It was too much for my father, who announced: “Atstaghfurallah: they should not show such things.” Mum just sucked her teeth in dismay. But the sight of all the handsome, gleaming men sent a hot flush of excitement up my 12-year-old cheeks.

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Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I think we feel stuck’: Kate Pickett on how to build a better, fairer, less stressed society

In her new book, the co-author of The Spirit Level gathers jaw-dropping facts about the inequality crisis in the UK – and explores creative ways to address it

There was a moment when reading Kate Pickett’s new book that I realised I was underlining something on nearly every page. Occasionally it was an exclamation mark, or a star. Other times, she herself was doing something similar. “I’m sorry to say that is not a typo,” she writes, at one point. And then, in a later chapter, “I’m going to have to put this in bold …”

It wasn’t stylistic commentary, although The Good Society is well written. Nearly every scribble was next to a fact. Pickett is a social epidemiologist, and deals in facts: “In the decade from 2011 to just before the pandemic, total spending on preventive services for families declined by 25%”, for instance. Or that half of children born in Liverpool in 2009 and 2010 had been referred to children’s services by the time they were five. Or that in 2023-4, England’s local authorities had only 6% of the childcare places they needed for children with disabilities (that was the bit Pickett wished to point out wasn’t a typo).

Published: February 4, 2026, 10:00 am

Black sesame is growing more popular in the US. Is it actually good for you?

The nutty seed is an essential dessert flavor in Asia and is now forecasted to be a top food trend in the US this year

In many parts of Asia, black sesame is an essential dessert flavor. The nutty, mildly bittersweet seed appears in ice-cream parlors and doughnut shops alongside matcha and ube – offerings as standard as chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are stateside, says Sophie Hung, a California-based registered dietitian nutritionist who grew up in Hong Kong.

Now, black sesame’s popularity is growing in the US, with Yelp naming it a top food trend for 2026 based on user data (searches for “black sesame matcha” are up almost 150% since 2023). Yet, beyond its appealing flavor and striking color, what exactly are you getting nutritionally when you add black sesame to your diet?

Published: February 3, 2026, 5:00 pm

A romance fraudster ruined my life – how I survived two years with a psychopath

At first, Mike made Tamsin feel good about herself – and his love-bombing led her to leave her family and resign from her job. Soon she had lost her car, phone and all her money

Tamsin met Mike in the summer of 2022. He was a mechanic in a garage that she walked past twice each day between home and work. After a while, he’d call out “good morning” or “good evening” and she’d wave and smile back. Then the exchanges got a little longer. (“Hard day?” “Looking forward to dinner?”) Six months later, Mike and Tamsin exchanged numbers.

Within two years, her life was wrecked. She had left her marriage, lost her home, quit her job, and sold her car and her phone, spent all her savings and racked up tens of thousands in debt. (Under her current repayment plan, it will take another eight and a half years to pay back her creditors.) Tamsin’s story seems scarcely credible and she is mortified to have to tell it. She stumbles through, piles of notes on her lap and a support worker from Victim Support at her side. Every few minutes, she breaks off to say, “It sounds so stupid”, “I sound like an absolute nutter” or “Where was my head?” In truth, she spent two years in the company of a psychopath, a master manipulator. He is in prison now, serving a 22-year sentence, but not for romance fraud, or anything involving Tamsin. Her experience, police have told her, “would not stand up in court”.

Published: February 3, 2026, 5:00 am

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: lift your winter look with a pop of white

Like the first cluster of snowdrops, a burst of white is a reminder to focus on the positive – just don’t go full snowman

Everyone knows that the prettiest scraps of winter are the precious snow days. At this time of year, when it feels like we’ve been scurrying around in near-constant darkness like moles for as long as we can remember, we crave the brightness you get with snowfall – and the glamour of it, too. The disco-ball sparkle of frost is a counterpoint to chapped lips and three-week sniffles that won’t budge.

We can’t make it snow, but we can create our own little flurry. A pop of snowy white is the best boost you can give an outfit right now. White is to January what rust and orange are to October: a colour pulled from nature to remind us of the best bits of the season. After all, autumn has grey skies and muddy puddles too, but we ignore them and lean into its gorgeous falling-leaf colours instead.

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘Demand has increased, without a doubt’: the shocking rise of personal protection dogs

Pets trained to bite, hold and release on command are growing ever more popular in the UK. But why – and at what cost to the animals and their owners?

Even if you’re not afraid of dogs, you might be a little intimidated by Butch Cassidy. His tail may be wagging, but the Belgian shepherd weighs 40kg and moves with awesome agility. Even a casual brush of his body could knock you off your feet if you weren’t expecting it. “I don’t for a minute think he’s going to bite anyone,” said his owner Grahame Green earlier. “Although he would, if I asked him to.” Now Green’s about to demonstrate.

He brings Cassidy to heel, and gets him to sit. Facing them is another man, Florin, already braced and wearing a protective arm sleeve. The dog is visibly quivering with excitement, so keen is his anticipation for what comes next. Green gives a one-word command, in German. Cassidy darts forward, an auburn arrow, and in that split-second clamps on to Florin’s forearm. Florin is engaging every muscle to remain upright, but Cassidy does not let go until Green gives the word.

Published: February 4, 2026, 5:00 am

Breathwork has its uses – but when it comes to ‘unlocking your fullest human potential’, beware the puffery | Antiviral

While some benefits such as stress relief are backed by solid evidence, they can be achieved without expensive hyped-up courses

• Read more in the Antiviral series

In the 2012 film adaptation of the Dr Seuss book The Lorax, a fable about capitalist greed, air is a commodity.

The mayor of Thneedville deprives the city’s residents of trees so a company he heads can sells bottles of air. He has, as one advertising lackey puts it, “gotten rich selling people air that’s ‘fresher’ than the stinky stuff outside”.

Donna Lu is an assistant editor, climate, environment and science at Guardian Australia

Antiviral is a fortnightly column that interrogates the evidence behind the health headlines and factchecks popular wellness claims

Published: February 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

How to make moreish cookies from store-cupboard odds and ends – recipe | Waste not

Almost anything goes with these thrifty and delicious cookies

I often eat a bag of salty crisps at the same time as a chewy chocolate bar, alternating bite for bite between the two, because the extreme contrast of salt from the chips and the sweetness of the chocolate fire off each other and create an endorphin rush. The same goes for these cookies, adapted from a recipe by Christina Tosi at New York’s legendary Milk Bar.

Published: February 4, 2026, 1:00 pm

Fairphone 6 review: cheaper, repairable and longer-lasting Android

Sustainable smartphone takes a step forward with modular accessories, a good screen and mid-range performance

The Dutch ethical smartphone brand Fairphone is back with its six-generation Android, aiming to make its repairable phone more modern, modular, affordable and desirable, with screw-in accessories and a user-replaceable battery.

The Fairphone 6 costs £499 (€599), making it cheaper than previous models and pitting it squarely against budget champs such as the Google Pixel 9a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, while being repairable at home with long-term software support and a five-year warranty. On paper it sounds like the ideal phone to see out the decade.

Published: February 4, 2026, 7:00 am

This is Muslim New York: artists, thinkers and politicos on defining a new era for the city

A burgeoning set of Muslim creatives and intellectuals are thriving amid the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s rise. We ask 18 of them about this historic moment in New York City life

Against the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral rise is a dynamic scene of Muslim creatives and intellectuals who are helping usher in a new era for New York City. Their prominence represents a rebuke of the ugly Islamophobia that defined the period following 9/11, and is in many ways an outcrop of the mass movement for Palestinian rights forged over the last two years. We ask 18 Muslim New Yorkers to discuss their work and what this moment means.
How Muslim New Yorkers are changing the city’s cultural landscape

Published: February 3, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘The smart, the rich, the powerful’: Epstein associated with Silicon Valley elite years after his release from prison

Billionaires and intellectuals attended events with the disgraced financier years after he served time for sex offense, files reveal

Newly released emails and travel itineraries appear to show that for years after Jeffrey Epstein served time for procuring underage girls for prostitution, he continued to attend exclusive dinners alongside Silicon Valley’s most famous billionaires.

The emails, part of a trove released by the Department of Justice on Friday, show that as late as 2018, Epstein was invited to or attended dinners alongside the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Google vice-president and later Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

Published: February 3, 2026, 11:41 pm

The criminalizing of protest and dissent has a long history in America

Trump administration is accusing protesters of ‘domestic terrorism’ but this brazen tactic is as old as the country itself

When federal immigration agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on 23 January, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, wasted no time claiming to the press, without credible evidence, that Pretti had been engaged in “domestic terrorism”. Though the administration seems to be trying to soften that initial response after fierce backlash, it’s an accusation that members of the Trump administration have been leveling at wide swaths of people beyond Pretti – including Renee Nicole Good, another Minnesotan killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents two and a half weeks prior, and Marimar Martinez, who survived being shot by ICE agents in Chicago in October – as part of an ongoing strategy to criminalize dissent.

It’s a claim ICE agents themselves have started to make directly in confrontations with citizens, seemingly to try and intimidate legal observers, sometimes known as ICE watchers. In one recent video from Portland, Maine, an ICE officer told an observer to stop recording him on her phone, and when she wouldn’t, he took her information down and said: “We have a nice little database … and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

Published: February 3, 2026, 3:00 pm

Tell us your all-time favourite moments from the Winter Olympics

We would like to hear about your favourite ever moments from the Winter Olympics

With the Winter Olympic Games underway, we would like to hear about the moments from the games that stayed with you, and why. Was there a particular athlete who entertained you? Or an event that inspired you? Tell us your favourite ever moment from the Winter Olympics and why.

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Published: February 4, 2026, 5:15 pm

Dancing robots and a military parade: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Published: February 4, 2026, 1:27 pm