Chelsea v West Ham United: Premier League – live

⚽️ Premier League updates from the 5.30pm (GMT) kick-off
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Enzo Fernández and Jarrod Bowen lead the teams out. Anthony Taylor is the man in the middle. We’re ready to go.

Warm-ups are done at the Bridge. Chelsea were harking back to the 90s with their training strip based on that notorious away kit.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:31 pm

‘One of the greatest comic talents’: tributes paid to actor Catherine O’Hara

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy lead tributes to award winning actor

• Catherine O’Hara, actor known for Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek, dies aged 71

Tributes have poured in from the world of showbiz and politics for Catherine O’Hara, with the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, and Schitt’s Creek’s co-creator Dan Levy mourning the loss of a “legend” after the actor died at the age of 71.

O’Hara, who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her role in the TV comedy series, died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness, according to her agency CAA.

Published: January 31, 2026, 3:05 pm

Jeffrey Epstein files: don’t be fooled. Millions of files are still unreleased | Moira Donegan

Federal prosecutors had identified 6 million files that were ‘potentially responsive’ to the law, but only released 3.5. Why?

The justice department released a trove of 3.5m files related to the dead financier and pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche declaring that the release would likely be the last major declassification of files relating to Epstein. Federal prosecutors had identified 6 million files that were “potentially responsive” to the law, meaning that there are millions of files that have still not been released.

The release marked a belated and partial compliance with a bill passed by Congress late last year, which had mandated that all government documents pertaining to Epstein and the various law enforcement investigations into his sexual abuse of girls be made public by 19 December 2025.

Published: January 31, 2026, 4:30 pm

Melania Trump documentary opens to underwhelming reception: ‘It’s not a gripping film’

$75m Amazon-produced paean to the first lady saw empty seats and faint praise as it opened in New York City

At the beginning of her new documentary, Melania Trump tells the viewer that “everybody wants to know” how she spends her time.

“So here it is,” she says. “Twenty days in my life.”

Published: January 31, 2026, 12:00 pm

What makes Finland the happiest place on Earth?

For the last eight years, Finland has topped the list of the world’s happiest countries. Our writer embarks on a tour to discover their secret

I’ve been visiting the happiest country on Earth every year since I was a baby. At first glance, Finland doesn’t seem like an obvious breeding ground for happiness. In midwinter the sun only appears for two to five hours a day and temperatures can plummet to below -20C. (It would seem a warm-year-round, sunny climate is not a prerequisite to happiness.)

The World Happiness Report is based on a survey in which people rate their satisfaction with life – and the Finns have been happiest with their lot for the last eight years. Not short of marketing savvy, Visit Finland latched on to this with a “Masterclass of Happiness” advertising campaign. And it’s probably no coincidence that Lonely Planet named Finland in its 2026 Best in Travel guide as a country “for finding happiness in wild places”.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Fatima Bhutto on her abusive relationship: ‘I thought it could never happen to me’

Fifteen years after her explosive memoir of growing up in Pakistan’s ruling political dynasty, the author has written a devastating account of the abuse she has since endured. She talks about a life on the run and finally settling down

Had Fatima Bhutto been left to her own devices, her devastating forthcoming memoir would have been almost entirely about her relationship with her dog, Coco. “I know it sounds nuts,” she laughs. And it’s true that being dog-crazy doesn’t quite track with the public perception of Bhutto as a writer, journalist, activist and member of Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty. But the pandemic had forced something of a creative unravelling and when Bhutto took stock, she found herself only really able to write about Coco. Her agent politely suggested her memoir might need something more. A second draft was written, then abandoned.

“Until I thought, what if I just tell the truth? And then it fell out of me – it didn’t even pour, it fell.” In around three weeks Bhutto had reworked her draft and, in the process, revealed a shocking chapter of her life that she’d kept secret from everyone around her.

Published: January 31, 2026, 9:00 am

More than 300 anti-ICE protests planned across US this weekend

‘ICE Out of Everywhere’ demonstrations, including vigils and marches, follow Friday’s national strike

More than 300 demonstrations are expected to take place across all 50 states and Washington DC, today, in what organizers are calling “ICE Out of Everywhere”.

Organizers, led by the national grassroots organization 50501, say today’s protests are a response to a series of recent deaths involving federal immigration agents, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, the homicide of Geraldo Campos in an immigration detention facility in Texas and the shooting of Keith Porter Jr by an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Los Angeles.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Snow and blizzards move into US east coast as 85 dead from last week’s storm

About 190,000 are still without power in the south-east as states scramble to prepare for more winter weather

Dozens of people have died in the teeth of a severe winter storm across the US south, with further freezing temperatures, snow and blizzards set to assail the east coast on Saturday.

At least 85 people have died across multiple states, according to an Associated Press tally, with frigid conditions and icy roads causing car crashes, hypothermia and other fatal incidents.

Published: January 31, 2026, 3:36 pm

US government partly shuts down over homeland security funding

Democratic senators refuse to vote for bill authorizing continued DHS spending after killings of two US citizens

Funding lapsed for several US government departments on Saturday, the result of a standoff in Congress over new restrictions on federal agents involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign following the killings of two US citizens in Minneapolis.

The partial government shutdown is the result of Democratic senators refusing to vote for a bill authorizing continued spending by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota’s largest city last week, and Renee Good earlier in January. The minority party’s blockade imperiled a push by Republicans for approval of larger package of legislation funding other departments, which needed to pass the Senate before the government’s spending authorization expired Friday.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:01 am

Epstein files latest: photos appear to show former prince Andrew crouching over woman or girl

Elon Musk and former UK ambassador to US Peter Mandelson among those named in newly released documents

• What have we learned from the newly released Epstein files?

According to one file, Mountbatten-Windsor was said to be “very focused” on financier Harlan Peltz’s girlfriend during a dinner with Maxwell.

The apparent FBI document details a 2020 interview with Peltz in which he provided information to agents about Maxwell.

Peltz was at a dinner with Maxwell and Prince Andrew and Peltz’s then girlfriend. Prince Andrew was very focused on Peltz’s girlfriend. Maxwell would sometimes mention Prince Andrew’s name and that they were friends.

Maxwell would have outrageous parties back then. She liked to put people in uncomfortable positions for her entertainment. Peltz realised that he was a pawn to her and she would try to use him. Sometime later on he found out that he was listed in Epstein’s black book.

People in the finance world never seemed to know how Epstein got his money.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:30 pm

Children and police officers among at least 30 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza

Deadly attacks launched day before border crossing due to open as part of ceasefire deal

Israel has carried out some of its deadliest airstrikes on Gaza in months, killing at least 30 Palestinians, some of whom were sheltering in tent cities for displaced people.

Despite a nominal ceasefire, the Israeli military struck a police station in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood west of Gaza City on Saturday, killing 10 officers and detainees, the civil defence said. It indicated the death toll could rise as emergency responders searched for bodies.

Published: January 31, 2026, 2:28 pm

‘Keep on dreaming’: could Europe really defend itself without the US?

Nato chief has glibly dismissed prospect of coping without US support, but in the age of Trump the case for autonomy is growing

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, was typically blunt when he met members of the European parliament this week. From the dais of the blond-wood committee room in Brussels, he was clear: “If anyone thinks that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t.”

And if Europe wanted to supplant the US nuclear deterrent, existing spending commitments would have to double, he added – “so hey, good luck!”

Published: January 31, 2026, 1:00 pm

One dead and six missing as fishing boat out of historic Massachusetts port is lost at sea

Fate of the Lily Jean, out of Gloucester with crew of seven, remains unknown after empty life boat and debris field discovered

There wasn’t a mayday call from the commercial fishing vessel Lily Jean on Friday morning as it navigated the frigid Atlantic Ocean on its way home to Gloucester, Massachusetts, the US’s oldest fishing port. The coast guard was notified by the boat’s beacon that alerts when it hits the water.

When rescuers arrived they found one person dead, floating in the water, along with a debris field and an empty life boat. Six people remain missing.

Published: January 31, 2026, 3:15 pm

Trump wants to build 250ft Washington DC arch that dwarfs Lincoln Memorial – report

US president reportedly eyes plot near Memorial Bridge for a large-scale structure named the Independence Arch

Donald Trump reportedly wants the arch he is planning to build in Washington DC to dwarf the Lincoln Memorial.

The US president envision the planned arch to be a height of 250ft, or significantly taller than the 100ft-tall Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. It would also be significantly taller than Paris’s 164ft-tall Arc de Triomphe – but less than half the height than the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri, the world’s tallest arch.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:28 pm

‘Justice is optional’: why Trump’s pardon of Honduran ex-president scares nature defenders

Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists – and the release of Juan Orlando Hernández has reinforced its ‘crisis of impunity’, say critics

When Donald Trump announced that he would pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, only the second world leader to be convicted of drug trafficking, Anna*, an environmental defender, was shocked.

In 2022, Hernández, also known as JOH, was extradited to the US and later convicted, along with his brother, on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US, becoming the first Honduran head of state to be tried and sentenced abroad for running a narco state. He was also accused of grave human rights violations.

Published: January 31, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘Under pressure’: Greenland’s PM gains fans at home and abroad after his rebuke of Trump

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, impressed Danes with his handling of the crisis but he says many Greenlanders are ‘afraid and scared’

This time last year, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, was better known on the global stage for his sporting achievements than international politics. For years he dominated the territory’s badminton scene, winning the singles and doubles championships almost every year. He won several medals at the Island Games, earning himself a reputation for “very competitive” play on the court.

As it turned out, that was useful preparation for his time in office.

Published: January 31, 2026, 12:00 pm

Will corporate America finally stand up to the Trump administration?

The brutal handling of immigration raids and the killing of Alex Pretti have tested the reticence of the corporate class

During Donald Trump’s first term, the US’s corporate titans were prepared to literally turn their backs on the president when they disagreed with them. Weeks of growing national anger over deadly immigration crackdowns in the US have highlighted how much has changed.

Publicly, the US’s top CEOs have stayed – mostly – quiet during Trump’s second term, even as his administration has undermined free trade policies, cracked down on the immigration that many businesses relied on, and attacked the Federal Reserve – a pillar of the US’s financial hegemony.

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Backing down isn’t an option’: Minnesota ICE shootings mobilize Americans to join ICE observer groups

The killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti have inspired people across the US to document federal agents’ activities in their communities

On Monday night, nearly 80,000 people hopped on a video call to learn how to “observe ICE”, a non-violent and constitutionally protected practice of documenting federal immigration agents’ activities in public. Some wrote in the chat where they were from: Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, Florida and many other corners of the country. Others typed why this was important to them: calling for “ICE out” of their communities and demanding the abolition of the agency itself. “The fact we’re all here gives me hope we’ll come out the other side,” wrote one participant. Within 24 hours, another 200,000 people had watched the recording on YouTube.

The rising interest in ICE observing came two days after Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent and less than three weeks after an agent killed Renee Good.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:00 pm

As US influence wanes, the Chinese trade surplus strangles manufacturing across the globe

Trump’s wounding of the US economy offers Beijing an unparalleled opportunity – if it dials back its overbearing trade tactics

When the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, took to the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to lament how “great economic powers” were dismantling the international order, it seemed clear that he was talking about the United States. He might have been talking about China as well.

Not a week earlier, Beijing had revealed that China’s trade surplus ballooned by 20% in 2025, to $1.2tn. Despite Donald Trump’s wall of tariffs that crashed Chinese sales to the US, its overall exports expanded more than 5%. Sales to the 11 countries in Asia’s Asean bloc increased more than 13%. Exports to the European Union rose over 8%. Chinese imports, by contrast, were flat.

Published: January 31, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Here we go again’: $75m Melania film embodies venal spirit of Trump 2.0

First lady’s big-screen documentary premieres with criticisms over $28m payday and questions over relevancy

Donald and Melania Trump were walking a charcoal-coloured carpet beneath a stark black-and-white “MELANIA” backdrop. “Do you believe you’d be the man you are today if you hadn’t met your wife?” a reporter asked the US president.

Trump smiled and said: “He’s asking me a very dangerous question!” He went on to praise his wife without answering. When the reporter put the same question to Melania, she ventured: “Well, we will all be in different places, I guess.” With a nervous laugh, she turned to look at Trump and asked, “Right?”

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:02 am

We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back?

My use of mobile phones has been compulsive – has it been for better or for worse?

• From a priest to a pensioner, a teenager to a tech CEO: can you guess our screen time?

In 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an extraordinarily prescient book. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do predicted a future in which a student “sits in a college library and removes an electronic device from her purse”. It serves as her “mobile phone, information portal, entertainment platform, and personal organiser. She takes this device almost everywhere and feels lost without it.”

Such devices, Fogg argued, would be “persuasive technology systems … the device can suggest, encourage, and reward.” Those rewards could have a powerful effect on our relationship with these devices, akin to gamblers pumping quarters into slot machines.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

‘I never imagined this!’ How KPop Demon Hunters could make history at the Grammys and the Oscars

As the film’s megahit song Golden looks likely to sweep everything in awards season, its singer Ejae explains why she’s ready to step out from behind her animated alter ego

‘The directors were crying, the producer was crying, and I thought: Oh my gosh, this is an incredible musical world.” It was February 2025, and Ian Eisendrath was conducting an orchestra through the final flourishes for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. He knew that the team had built something special – “but I never thought it would be like this,” he laughs, marvelling at what came next.

Mere weeks after its release in June, the animated film – about Korean girl band Huntr/x who battle soul-hungry demons through song – became Netflix’s most-watched title ever. The film’s soundtrack, a fleet of emotionally charged, devilishly catchy hits crafted by real K-pop heavyweights, became a platinum-rated phenomenon all its own.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:00 am

The rise of ‘beef days’: why even meat lovers are cutting back

Inspired by YouTube creators, some people are limiting beef to a handful of ‘feast days’ a year to cut their climate impact

“I love beef,” says Vlad Luca, 25. But unlike most other self-proclaimed steak lovers, Vlad eats it only four times a year, on designated “beef days”.

The “beef days” phenomenon has been popularised by the brothers John and Hank Green, known collectively as vlogbrothers on YouTube. John, 48, is better known for his YA fiction, including The Fault in Our Stars, while Hank, 45, is a self-described science communicator and entrepreneur.

Published: January 31, 2026, 9:00 am

Seann Walsh: ‘Who would play me in the film of my life? Jack Dee, because he would hate it’

The comedian on getting sacked from TK Maxx, looking permanently hungover, and his 90s crush

Born in London, Seann Walsh, 40, began doing standup in 2006. He was on Strictly Come Dancing in 2018 and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2022. His podcast is Class Clown and he co-hosts Oh My Dog! (with Jack Dee) and What’s Upset You Now? His tour, This Is Torture, starts on 13 February. He lives in London with his partner and two children.

What is your earliest memory?
My dad had loads of friends round, all smoking heroin and singing me Happy Birthday. I was three or four.

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:00 am

‘There’s no way my daughter would have jumped’: why are so many Turkish women falling to their deaths?

Every year in Turkey, hundreds of women are recorded as having taken their lives by ‘throwing themselves from a high place’. But many grieving families maintain that investigators are missing the full story

Almost nothing seemed to scare Şebnem Köker. With her hair dyed fire-engine red, the 29-year-old nurse lived life by her own rules. Friends say she was so headstrong, she’d be getting ready for a night out in their home town, the Turkish coastal city of İzmir, and suddenly suggest a change of plan to a last-minute trip away. Even a prospective move to Canada didn’t seem to daunt her. But there was one thing that had terrified Şebnem: heights. Her father, Abdullah, says she was afraid to even tiptoe on to the slim balcony that wraps around the third-floor apartment they shared in İzmir.

“She wouldn’t even have a cigarette or eat out there. She wouldn’t hang laundry on the balcony,” he says, sitting on the sofa in the darkened living room they once shared. A pouting portrait of Şebnem is tucked into the frame of a mirror on the opposite wall.

Published: January 31, 2026, 11:45 am

Blind date: ‘Numbers have been exchanged and dates have been suggested’

Ursula, 29, an events coordinator, meets Culann, 34, a charity worker

What were you hoping for?
To meet someone fun, maybe a bit of romance.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

Can French Connection make FCUK fashionable again?

With a North American licensing deal under its belt, the reinvented high-street giant is growing again under new owners and a global strategy

French Connection is back on the trail of global expansion with the aid of its cheeky initials-based slogan that made it so popular in the late 1990s.

The label once known for clothes bearing FCUK is seeking to reinvent itself again under the ownership of a group of British entrepreneurs based in the north of England who rescued it in 2021.

Published: January 31, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I was really surprised by the swimmers’ powerful energy’: Jorge Perez Ortiz’s best phone picture

After undergoing emergency surgery following an accident, the photographer discovered a newfound appreciation for the human body

Three years ago, Jorge Perez Ortiz was on a small wooden boat travelling from Cartagena in Colombia to a group of nearby islands when the sea became unexpectedly rough. As a strong wave hit, Ortiz, sitting at the bow, felt his body lift and come down sharply on his seat. The sudden impact fractured a vertebra. He was taken to hospital and underwent emergency surgery.

“I’ve always been captivated by the power of water and the sense of freedom and escape one feels when diving into it,” Ortiz says, “but until that point, I’d never considered the other side of this freedom and the risks it carries.”

Published: January 31, 2026, 11:00 am

Tim Dowling: the dog’s training regime has taken a weird turn

Intermediate Dog School involves hiding behind trees in the park …

It is rare for my wife and me to do a midweek dog walk together, but on this particular afternoon I find myself at a loose end, and volunteer to come along.

Joint walks require a bit of negotiation: my wife expects a minimum level of conversation, which is not a normal feature of my weekday afternoon. To solve this, we take turns delivering monologues of complaint – my wife going first. Because I’m a good listener, I can’t help but notice that a lot of my wife’s complaints are about me. Finally, she exhausts herself.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump is pressuring Minnesota to make a deal with the devil. They should stand firm | Claire Finkelstein

Minnesota should not cave to Trump’s demands. The rights of 49 other states and their citizens are hanging in the balance

Donald Trump appears to be practicing his “art of the deal” on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: he is attempting to extract concessions from the North Star state in exchange for a “drawdown” of federal ICE agents. While the details of the contemplated agreement are not clear, border czar Tom Homan’s remarks on Thursday morning and reports of his negotiations with state and local leaders suggest dialing back Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is contingent on striking an agreement for increased cooperation between federal and local law enforcement: Minnesota must agree to participate in ICE roundups by turning over undocumented immigrants in its custody, ending various “sanctuary city” protections, and giving ICE agents more direct access to state penitentiaries to conduct their own roundups prior to the release of undocumented inmates. A letter from Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, sent earlier this week went even further and suggested the justice department’s civil rights division might be demanding access to state voter rolls in exchange for the ICE drawdown. Trump’s offhand remark Thursday evening denying plans to draw down ICE confused matters by contradicting Homan’s statement from earlier in the day – but perhaps that was just an indication that negotiations on Thursday did not go all that well for Team Trump.

That would not be surprising. If Walz were to agree to such terms – concessions literally extracted at gunpoint under threat of continued use of unlawful force by federal immigration agents – he would be abandoning critical domains of state autonomy for the fruitless attempt to appease a president that will accept no limits except those forced upon it by necessity or recommended to it by self-interest. As law firms, universities, foreign leaders, and even former partners in crime have discovered, it is perilous to negotiate with a rank opportunist who lives by no other rule than that of self-interest. For Trump, the alternative to getting handed what he wants voluntarily is taking it by force. The FBI raid on the Fulton county elections office in Georgia to seize about 700 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election sent a well-timed message to Minnesota as well as to any other swing state from which the Trump administration may demand such data: if you don’t give us what we asked for, we’ll take it anyway.

Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is also the founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at The University of Pennsylvania

Published: January 31, 2026, 12:00 pm

This one weird trick could stop US women from voting | Arwa Mahdawi

The Save Act – which would do the opposite of its title – could have a huge impact on the midterm elections

If you are anything like me, then you are currently pickling in your own cortisol. As the US grows increasingly violent, increasingly cruel, every day brings a legion of new horrors. So I’m very sorry to say that I’m here to ruin your weekend by giving you yet another thing to worry about. That thing is called the Save Act and, if the Trump administration gets its way, it could have an oversized impact on the November midterms, particularly when it comes to minorities and married women being able to vote.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: January 31, 2026, 2:00 pm

Young Japanese voters adore their new conservative PM. But that doesn’t mean they are shifting to the right | Karin Kaneko

Sanae Takaichi may seemingly have old-fashioned values, but it’s her economic offering that has captured young people’s imaginations

Japan has rarely seen a prime minister as bold or as social media-savvy as Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader.

Where previous prime ministers have gone viral for unflattering moments, such as the spectacle of one scoffing an onigiri in one messy gulp or another caught dozing off in the parliament during a key vote, Takaichi is being read by supporters as a symbol of a different era of leadership – one they feel Japan has lacked in recent years.

Karin Kaneko is a freelance journalist and a former reporter for the Japan Times

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:00 am

How the right won the internet | Robert Topinka

In the second part of our series on digital politics, we look at how online provocateurs have advanced extreme political ideas – and watched them seep into the mainstream

• Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London

• Part one: How liberals lost the internet

The internet has totally changed the way in which politics is conducted. As established in the first piece in our series, liberals have totally failed to grasp this fact. The right, however, are thriving in this new world. Future historians studying the role that fringe online ideas played in the US republic’s demise will be spoiled for choice. One episode in particular comes to mind: Tucker Carlson, a former primetime speaker at a Republican convention, inviting a white supremacist livestreamer, Nick Fuentes, on to his YouTube show in 2025 for a chat in which he talked about the influence of “organised Jewry” in the US.

Carlson spent years echoing white nationalist talking points on his Fox News show, but Fuentes’ style – combining Nazi salutes with cheeky grins – places him beyond the pale for broadcast television. However, under the logic of YouTube, the meeting of these two major influencers is almost inevitable. Platforms incentivise audience cross-pollination, which is why Fuentes routinely livestreams with figures such as Adin Ross and Andrew Tate, who are known more for their homophobia and misogyny than their thoughts on ethnostates.

Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London

Published: January 31, 2026, 8:00 am

What could bring down extortionate ticket prices? Perhaps stars like Harry Styles taking a stand | Simon Price

The knock-on effect on the rest of the industry is immense. There are many factors at play, but the ones with the power here are the big artists

In October 2024, Heat magazine’s list of the UK’s 30 richest celebrities under 30 ranked Harry Styles at the very top, with an estimated wealth of £200m. (He’d doubtless have fared well in last year’s survey, too, but he’s 31 now.)

Whatever your views on the fabulous wealth accrued by a small elite of megastars, and regardless of your opinion of Styles’ musical merits, that figure doesn’t sit well next to the headlines he is now making.

Simon Price is a music journalist and author

Published: January 31, 2026, 12:00 pm

Sixers’ Paul George suspended 25 games by NBA for anti-drug program violation

• NBA issues 25-game ban for anti-drug policy violation

• Suspension to cost 76ers star about $11.7m in lost salary

• Eligible to return in March with 10 games left in season

Paul George of the Philadelphia 76ers has been suspended 25 games for violating the terms of the NBA’s anti-drug program, the league announced on Saturday.

The NBA did not disclose the nature of the violation or the substance involved. George said in a statement to ESPN that he had taken something “improper” while seeking treatment for a personal issue.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:01 pm

Elena Rybakina rocks Aryna Sabalenka to grab first Australian Open triumph

• Kazakhstani rallies from 3-0 down in final set for glory

• 2023 runner-up turns tables with 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win

Elena Rybakina had many reasons to lose faith in her latest pursuit of a second grand slam title. She had played so well for so much of the Australian Open final, but, just as in their first meeting in a final in Melbourne three years ago, once Aryna Sabalenka began to impose herself, Rybakina lost all control. Trailing 3-0 in the final set, the Kazakhstani’s chances were fading quickly.

Rybakina is renowned for her undemonstrative nature, but her reserved personality belies the grit at the heart of her success. The fifth seed drew on her inner fire to produce one of her finest comebacks, finding a path to victory from a break down in the final set to clinch her first Australian Open title with a supreme 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over the world No 1.

Published: January 31, 2026, 11:19 am

Milan protesters denounce ICE unit at Winter Olympics and ‘creeping fascism’ in US

• Protest targets ICE role at Milan Games

• Mayor says US agents ‘not welcome’

• Organizers link move to US politics

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Milan to protest the deployment of ICE agents during the upcoming Winter Olympics, unbothered by the fact that agents would be stationed in a control room and not operating on the streets.

The protest in Piazza XXV Aprile, a square named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in 1945, drew people from the left-leaning Democratic Party, the CGIL trade union confederation and the ANPI organizations that protect the memory of Italy’s partisan resistance during World War II, along with many other people.

Published: January 31, 2026, 4:50 pm

Christian Horner targets F1 return as he breaks silence after Red Bull sacking

• Former team principal was dismissed last September

• ‘I feel like I have unfinished business in Formula One’
  

Christian Horner said he misses Formula One and has unfinished business in the sport as he spoke publicly for the first time since he was ousted by Red Bull but is prepared to wait for an opportunity to “win something”, adding: “I am not in a rush.”

The 52-year-old was dismissed as Red Bull team principal following July’s British Grand Prix before his official exit was agreed in September. He oversaw a period of extraordinary success during his 20-year career with Red Bull, winning eight drivers’ and six constructors’ titles.

Published: January 31, 2026, 4:38 pm

Leeds 0-4 Arsenal, Brighton 1-1 Everton, Wolves 0-2 Bournemouth – as it happened

Arsenal got back to winning ways in the Premier League with a dominant win over Leeds, while Beto rescued a late point for Everton and Bournemouth earned a 2-0 victory over Wolves

Arsenal fan Lenny Peters has messaged in to say:

“As much as Arsenal win with ease against Kairat and Both Havertz & Gyokeres scored. They also seemed to get in each others space a few times. I wonder if they could be great if terrible together?”

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:39 pm

Emails reportedly show Epstein scouted women for New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch

• Giants owner appears in newly released emails

• Messages show Epstein arranging women for Tisch

• DoJ releases 3.5m pages tied to Epstein case

New York Giants chairman and co-owner Steve Tisch appeared throughout a newly released trove of emails related to Jeffrey Epstein, including communications in which Epstein arranged for Tisch to meet specific women.

The emails, which were sent in 2013, were released Friday by the Department of Justice among 3.5 million documents related to Epstein’s sex trafficking case and were first reported on by the Athletic.

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:47 pm

Lindsey Vonn misses final super-G before Winter Olympics after downhill crash

• American still preparing for Milano Cortina Games

• ‘Thank you for the love and support I have received’

Lindsey Vonn sat out a World Cup super-G race on Saturday after crashing and injuring her left knee a day earlier, but remains on track for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, her coach said.

“No, she is not racing today but preparing for Cortina as usual,” Chris Knight, Vonn’s personal head coach, said in a text message. Vonn then posted on Instagram: “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to race today. Thank you for all of the love and support I have received. Means the world to me. Doing my best right now …”

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:07 am

Unrivaled sets women’s pro basketball attendance mark of 21,490 in Philly

• Record 21,490 fans pack Unrivaled Philly twin bill

• Cloud’s homecoming highlights women’s hoops revival

• Touring gamble lifts buzz despite TV ratings slide

Natasha Cloud rooted for the 76ers as a kid growing up in suburban Philadelphia and – like so many hoopsters back in the day – idolized Allen Iverson.

So when the former WNBA champion and current New York Liberty standout hit the same court where Iverson once dazzled, Cloud couldn’t help but look up to his retired No 3 jersey in the rafters and let the moment truly sink in; that women’s professional basketball was back in Philadelphia for the first time in nearly 30 years – and she was a key figure in the comeback.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:18 am

What to know about the jury trials of Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube

Hundreds of parents, teens and school districts have claimed social media is intentionally addictive and harmful

Social media companies will have to answer to a jury – for the first time – for allegations that their products are intentionally addictive and harmful to young users’ mental health. Hundreds of parents, teens and school districts sued Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube, leading to a series of landmark trials that began this week. Jury selection in the first case started on Tuesday in Los Angeles court.

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is among the big tech CEOs who are expected to testify. Both sides are likely to bring in experts to hash out the science behind alleged addiction to social media.

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:00 am

French MPs demand explanation over tech firm’s contract to help ICE in US

Revelation that subsidiary of Capgemini is to help trace and expel migrants in US provokes outrage in France

French lawmakers have demanded an explanation after one of the country’s biggest tech companies signed a multimillion dollar contract to help the US enforcement agency ICE trace and expel migrants.

The revelation that a subsidiary of Capgemini, a multinational digital services firm listed on the Paris stock exchange, had agreed to provide “skip tracing” – a technique for locating targeted people – with big bonuses if successful, has provoked outrage in France.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

ICE detains two more students from Liam Ramos’s school, officials say

The brothers’ mother was taken by ICE and Minnesota educators were forced to bring the children to her

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken custody of two children who attend the same Minnesota elementary school as Liam Ramos, the detained five-year-old, according to school officials.

The superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, told the Guardian that two brothers, in second and fifth grades, were detained with their mother on Thursday. The mother has a pending asylum case and the family has since been transported to a Texas detention facility, the school official said.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:24 pm

UK and EU to explore renewed talks on defence cooperation

Keir Starmer says he wants to ‘go further’ in relations with Brussels as ministers look to restart stalled negotiations

The UK and the EU are exploring the prospect of new talks on closer defence cooperation, as Keir Starmer stressed on Friday that he wanted to “go further” in the UK’s relationship with Brussels.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, is due in London for talks next week, with trade, energy and fisheries on the agenda. But diplomatic sources said the UK is keen to discuss restarting negotiations on defence as soon as it can.

Talks for the UK to join the EU’s €150bn (£130bn) Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence fund collapsed in November 2025 amid claims that the EU had set too high a price on entry to the programme.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes across Berlin

From zoos to soup kitchens, people are hauling away tonnes of surplus spuds after the biggest crop in 25 years

Germans love their potatoes. They eat on average 63kg a person every year, according to official statistics.

But the exceptional glut of potatoes produced by farmers during the last harvest has overwhelmed even the hardiest of fans.

Published: January 31, 2026, 1:00 pm

Mass grave in Jordan sheds new light on world’s earliest recorded pandemic

Researchers tell ‘human story’ about crisis during plague of Justinian, which killed millions in Byzantine empire

A US-led research team has verified the first Mediterranean mass grave of the world’s earliest recorded pandemic, providing stark new details about the plague of Justinian that killed millions of people in the Byzantine empire between the sixth and eighth centuries.

The findings, published in February’s Journal of Archaeological Science, offer what researchers say is a rare empirical window into the mobility, urban life and vulnerability of citizens affected by the pestilence.

Published: January 31, 2026, 11:00 am

South African artist sues minister for blocking her Venice Biennale Gaza entry

Gabrielle Goliath says Gayton McKenzie violating freedom of expression after ‘highly divisive’ artwork Elergy banned from SA pavilion

A South African artist is suing the arts minister after he blocked her from representing the country at the Venice Biennale, having called her work addressing Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza “highly divisive”.

Gabrielle Goliath filed the lawsuit last week, with Ingrid Masondo, who would have curated the pavilion, and the studio manager, James Macdonald. It accuses Gayton McKenzie of acting unlawfully and violating the right to freedom of expression and demands the high court reinstates her participation by 18 February, the deadline for confirming installations with biennale organisers.

Published: January 31, 2026, 10:00 am

Alarm raised over Chinese CCTV cameras guarding ‘symbol of democracy’ Magna Carta

Campaigners criticise use of ‘vulnerable’ devices at Salisbury Cathedral and Parthenon despite their removal from sensitive UK government sites

Security cameras guarding Magna Carta are provided by a Chinese CCTV company whose technology has allegedly aided the persecution of Uyghurs and been exploited by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged.

In letters seen by the Guardian, campaigners called on Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of four surviving copies of the “powerful symbol of social justice”, to rip out cameras made by Dahua Technology, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:24 am

Starmer hopes his China trip will begin the thaw after recent ice age

PM flies out after courting world’s second biggest economy aware of difficult balance of risks and potential rewards

The last British prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018. Before the visit, she and her team were advised to get dressed under the covers because of the risk of hidden cameras having been placed in their hotel rooms to record compromising material.

Keir Starmer, in Beijing this week, was more sanguine about his privacy, even though the security risks have, if anything, increased since the former Tory prime minister was in town.

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Humanity’s favourite food’: how to end the livestock industry but keep eating meat

Bruce Friedrich argues the only way to tackle the world’s insatiable but damaging craving for meat is like-for-like replacements like cultivated and plant-based meat

For someone aiming to end the global livestock industry, Bruce Friedrich begins his new book – called Meat – in disarming fashion: “I’m not here to tell anyone what to eat. You won’t find vegetarian or vegan recipes in this book, and you won’t find a single sentence attempting to convince you to eat differently. This book isn’t about policing your plate.”

There’s more. Friedrich, a vegan for almost four decades, says meat is “humanity’s favourite food”.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Electric ​cars ​go ​mainstream as ​adoption ​surges ​across ​rich and ​developing ​nations

A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds

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Last year, almost every new car sold in Norway, the nature-loving country flush with oil wealth, was fully electric. In prosperous Denmark, which was all-in on petrol and diesel cars until just before Covid, sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reached a share of 68%. In California, the share of zero-emissions vehicles hit 20%. And at least every third new car now bought by the Dutch, Finns, Belgians and Swedes burns no fuel.

These figures, which would have felt fanciful just five years ago, show the rich world leading the shift away from cars that pump out toxic gas and planet-heating pollutants. But a more startling trend is that electric car sales are also racing ahead in many developing countries. While China is known for its embrace of electric vehicles (EVs), demand has also soared in emerging markets from South America to south-east Asia. BEV sales in Turkey have caught up with the EU’s, data published this week shows.

The Fukushima towns frozen in time: nature has thrived since the nuclear disaster but what happens if humans return?

The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised

The 16-month battle to reveal the truth about Sydney Water’s poo balls

Powering up: how Ethiopia is becoming an unlikely leader in the electric vehicle revolution

‘My Tesla has become ordinary’: Turkey catches up with EU in electric car sales

The electric vehicle revolution is still on course – don’t let your loathing of Elon Musk stop you joining up

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

How Trump’s EPA rollbacks could harm our air and water – and worsen global heating

Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at risk

In his first year back in office, Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, initiating nearly 70 actions to undo rules protecting ecosystems and the climate.

The agency’s wide-ranging assault on the environment will put people at risk, threatening air and water quality, increasing harmful chemical exposure, and worsening global warming, experts told the Guardian. The changes amount to “a war on all fronts that this administration has launched against our health and the safety of our communities and the quality of our environment,” said Matthew Tejada, the former director of the EPA’s environmental justice program.

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:00 pm

Exploding trees: the winter phenomenon behind frost cracks

When temperatures drop suddenly, trapped water can freeze and expand, splitting trunks with a gunshot-like sound

During the recent cold spell in the northern US, meteorologists issued warnings about exploding trees.

A tree’s first line of defence against freezing is its bark, which provides efficient insulation. In cold conditions, trees also enter a form of hibernation, with changes at a cellular level: cells dehydrate, harden and shrink, increasing their sugar concentration. This is the botanical equivalent of adding antifreeze, helping to prevent the formation of ice crystals.

Published: January 30, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump news at a glance: Epstein files release shows emails with Trump officials past and present

Democrats question redactions and whether Trump officials are holding back more documents – key US politics stories from 30 January at a glance

• Epstein files latest: updates as more files released

The US justice department has released more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a long-awaited announcement that appears to represent the bulk of the so-called Epstein files that have dogged Donald Trump politically.

While an analysis is still under way, the release exposes previously unknown financial ties and social connections between Epstein and prominent figures in the US and UK – including some in the president’s orbit.

Published: January 31, 2026, 2:20 am

Atlanta FBI boss reportedly ousted after questioning DoJ’s renewed interest in 2020 election

Paul W Brown reportedly voiced concerns about the FBI’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in Fulton county

The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office was reportedly removed from his post after questioning the Trump administration’s renewed interest in investigating the role of Fulton county, Georgia, in the 2020 election.

The agent, Paul W Brown, had expressed concerns around the unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in Fulton county, which have been perpetuated by Donald Trump since he was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, according to an MS NOW report on Friday. Citing sources, MS NOW also reported that Brown refused to carry out searches and seizures of records connected to the election that Trump lost four years before winning a second presidency in 2024.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:34 pm

Trump commerce secretary Howard Lutnick arranged to visit Epstein island, files show

Newly released documents reveal Lutnick sent email to ‘Jeff’ and floated plan for ‘Sunday evening for dinner’

Howard Lutnick, currently serving as Trump’s US secretary of commerce, arranged to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s island in 2012, according to Epstein-related files released by the Department of Justice on Friday.

According to the newly released documents, on 20 November 2012, Epstein’s longtime assistant emailed Lutnick saying that “Jeffrey Epstein understands you will be down in St Thomas some over the holidays” and that “Jeffrey requested I please pass along some phone numbers to you so the two of you can possibly get together.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:26 pm

Man accused of falsely confessing to killing Charlie Kirk faces up to 15-year sentence

George Zinn, 71, further admitted to possessing child sexual abuse material and pleaded no contest to allegations

A man accused of trying to thwart authorities investigating Charlie Kirk’s killing by falsely confessing to the deadly shooting faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading no contest to the allegation – and separately admitting to possessing child sexual abuse material.

The case centering on George Zinn, 71, all but concluded at a court hearing on Thursday in Provo, Utah, about 5 miles away from the college campus where the Turning Point USA executive director was fatally shot on 10 September 2025.

Published: January 30, 2026, 9:52 pm

Protesters to demand resignation of Hungarian politician for anti-Roma remark

Thousands set to gather in Budapest after János Lázár’s remarks captured on video

Thousands of people are set to gather in Budapest to demand the resignation of a senior Hungarian politician, for making a racist remark against Roma people earlier this month.

János Lázár told attendees at a political forum that migration was not the solution to the country’s labour shortage. “Since there are no migrants, and someone has to clean the bathrooms on the InterCity trains,” Lázár said Roma people would do the job, using an offensive slur in his speech.

Published: January 31, 2026, 8:00 am

‘It’s like a gift from God’: undocumented foreign workers welcome Spanish amnesty

Half a million migrants will be ‘regularised’ under plans to boost economic growth that have angered rightwing parties

Not everyone has been enthused by the Spanish government’s decision this week to buck European political trends by announcing plans to regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers to boost “economic growth and social cohesion”.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party (PP), described the move as a reward for “illegality” that would bring more people into the country and “overwhelm our public services”.

Published: January 31, 2026, 5:00 am

Venezuela announces mass amnesty plan for political prisoners dating back to Chavez era

Delcy Rodríguez also plans to close notorious El Helicoide prison as opposition figures remain wary over new leadership

Venezuela’s acting president announced on Friday a proposal for mass amnesty in the country, in her latest significant reform since the US toppling of Nicolás Maduro just weeks ago.

In a speech at the Venezuelan supreme court attended by top government officials, Delcy Rodríguez said she would propose a “general amnesty law covering the entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present”.

Published: January 31, 2026, 4:05 am

Ulez bomber: the retired electrician who turned bomb-making extremist

Shy 63-year-old’s decision to blow up London traffic camera linked to online conspiracy theories and Islamophobia

To his neighbours, Kevin Rees did not seem like an extremist. The shy 63-year-old lived on a tree-lined street in suburban Sidcup, in Bexley, south-east London. He appeared to be enjoying retirement after a career mending dishwashers and other domestic appliances. “He’s a quiet character – I’ve lived opposite him for 10 years and never really spoken to him,” says Sam, who declined to give her full name.

Behind the lace curtains, Rees was much more abrasive, at least online. Under the user name the “Exterminator” he ranted about London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) which in 2023 was expanded to the capital’s outer borough, including Bexley.

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Once Upon a Time in Harlem review – remarkable Harlem Renaissance documentary

Sundance film festival: a once-in-a-lifetime dinner party from 1972 is transformed into a thrilling and inspiring hang-out movie

In August 1972, the experimental film-maker William Greaves convened a once-in-a-lifetime dinner party at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem. The occasion was a celebration and reconsideration of the Harlem Renaissance, the watershed African American cultural movement of the 1920s. The guest list included its still-living luminaries, some of the 20th century’s most influential – and still underappreciated – musicians, performers, artists, writers, historians and political leaders, all in their sunset years. Over four hours and untold glasses of wine, talk wheeled freely from vivid recollections to consternation, lively anecdotes to contemplations of ongoing struggle. Greaves, by then niche renowned for his innovatively meta documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, lightly directed the conversation but otherwise let the energy flow. He considered it the most important footage he ever recorded.

You could probably release that remarkable footage in full, completely unedited and unstructured, and still have a good documentary; every piece is now, 50 years later – the same distance to us as the Harlem Renaissance was to them – a bridge to a time no living person can remember, each face and gesture informed by decades of aftermath no straightforward nonfiction film on the period could capture. But Once Upon a Time in Harlem, directed by Greaves’s son David, who was one of four cameramen that day, manages to seamlessly clip and contextualize the party into 100 mesmerizing minutes. It’s both a sublime hang-out of a film and a celebration of individual achievements, a fascinating map of a long-ago scene and a referendum on legacy.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

Published: January 30, 2026, 9:47 pm

Displacement Film Fund review – Cate Blanchett masterminds short film collection that brims with life and intensity

Rotterdam film festival
A set of shorts by film-makers from Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, Syria and Somalia are shocking, funny and mysterious in equal measure

With considerable chutzpah and elan, and in her capacity as producer and UNHCR Goodwill ambassador, Cate Blanchett has achieved a geopolitical film-making coup. In concert with festival authorities in Rotterdam, she has secured cash and commissioned short films on the subject of displacement from five directors – including Mohammad Rasoulof, now in exile from his native Iran due to his pro-democracy activism, in effect making his first public statement since the recent massacres and apparently expressing his fears that he may never go home again.

The films are far from solemnly earnest – this is an anthology of five brilliant miniature artworks. By turns shocking, funny, confessional and deeply mysterious, this is a tremendous collection; the constituent films of which benefit in some enigmatic way from being shown together. What Ealing Studios’s Dead of Night did for scariness, these films may have done for 21st-century exile.

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:16 pm

Groundbreaking director Reginald Hudlin: ‘It’s taken a lot of effort but the reward is always worth it’

The man who created House Party, wrote for the Black Panther comics, produced Django Unchained and briefly ran BET talks his illustrious career

Reginald Hudlin’s home office is a monument to an audacious American dream – the Black scion who grew up far from Hollywood glamour and rose to become one of the industry’s most adaptable storytellers. On the walls, a framed Black Panther comic page he penned glints under glass near a portrait of Jamie Foxx – a souvenir from Hudlin’s stint producing Django Unchained – and a piece of the Martin Luther King memorial that he was gifted while shooting the Disney sports drama Safety. “Look, I’m pleased with my life,” he tells me with a wry smile. “But honestly it’s taken a lot of trickery to get people to let me do these crazy things. It’s taken a lot of effort, but the reward is always worth it.”

Hudlin may be the nearest thing in Hollywood to a real-life Forrest Gump, given the things he’s done, the folks he’s worked with and the history he’s made. On Marvel Comics’ Black Panther graphic novel, Hudlin was the writer who repositioned the franchise as an explicit Black empowerment allegory, laying the foundation for Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster feature films. On the big screen, Hudlin has directed Eddie Murphy in Boomerang, Samuel L Jackson in The Great White Hope and Chadwick Boseman in Marshall.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:22 pm

Reality winners: the rise and rise of the ‘verbatim’ movie

From Kaouther Ben Hania’s reconstruction of the killing of a five-year-old Gazan girl in The Voice of Hind Rajab to Ira Sachs use of a taped interview in Peter Hujar’s Day, real-life dialogue is being turned into drama

Alfred Hitchcock, the director behind some of the best films ever, supposedly said that just three essential ingredients are needed to make a great film: “The script, the script and the script.” For a film-maker, it might seem a godsend when a fully formed one lands in your lap. But behind a rising number of films is a simple hack: pinch all your dialogue from real people. An increasing number of film-makers are turning to transcripts and recordings to re-enact episodes on film, with the promise that they are as an exact a facsimile as possible. From Reality (2023), Tina Satter’s true-to-life portrayal of whistleblower Reality Winner, which progresses in real time from harmless small talk to a full-blown FBI grilling, to Radu Jude’s Uppercase Print (2020), in which a rebel teen is given the third degree in Ceaușescu-era Romania, the title-card proclamation “inspired by true events” is being taken to a wholly literal new level.

Within the space of a month, two more “verbatim” movies are in UK cinemas. Peter Hujar’s Day, Ira Sachs’ time capsule of 1974 New York and its colourful culturati, is based on candid conversation between Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and her photographer pal Peter (Ben Whishaw), who would die from an Aids-related illness less than a decade later. Meanwhile, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is set in January 2024 amid the evacuation of Gaza City, revisiting beat for beat an emergency call centre’s attempts to rescue the six-year-old girl of the title to harrowing effect.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:17 am

‘He used the trumpet as a songbird’: 100 years of Miles Davis, by jazz greats Sonny Rollins, Yazz Ahmed and more

Ahead of the centenary of Davis’s birth, musicians including Terence Blanchard and John Scofield analyse his brilliance: from his soft phrasing and spiritual feel to his raspy cussing and leather outfits

The architect of the bestselling jazz album of all time, 1959’s Kind of Blue, trumpeter Miles Davis is a towering figure in the history of the genre. Possessed of a piercing tone, innate melodic sensibility and a singularly uncompromising approach on the bandstand, Davis spent his five-decade career presiding over numerous stylistic shifts: bebop to “cool” jazz, modal jazz, electronic fusion, jazz funk and even hip-hop. Always honing his ear for fresh talent, he turned his bands into incubators for rising artists, providing early starts for the pianists Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, saxophonists Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, and drummers Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette.

With 2026 marking the centenary of Davis’s birth, I asked several of his surviving collaborators to select his greatest recordings and discuss his enduring influence, including the 95-year-old Rollins, who played with Davis in the 1950s; the guitarist John Scofield and the saxophonist Bill Evans, who both played with Davis in his 80s fusion groups; and several contemporary jazz stars.

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:00 am

Add to playlist: the boundless bedroom-made black metal of Powerplant and the week’s best new tracks

Theo Zhykharyev, the Ukrainian wizard working low-profile under this brand since 2017 has pivoted to a new realm which blends ferocious energy with freewheeling fun

From London
Recommend if you like Devo, Home Front, Snõõper
Up next New album Bridge of Sacrifice released 13 March

Theo Zhykharyev is one of those brilliant weirdos capable of turning wild ideas into reality. Since starting Powerplant as a bedroom recording project in 2017, a couple of years after he left Ukraine to study in London, he has released records built around fizzing electro-punk, dungeon synth and treble-heavy hardcore, concocting Dungeons & Dragons-inspired role-playing adventures to accompany some of them, while slinging visually arresting DIY merch through his Arcane Dynamics label. Yet even coming amid an output this freewheeling, his upcoming new record is full of surprises.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

Julie Campiche: Unspoken review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month

(Ronin Rhythm)
The composer’s first unaccompanied album turns extended harp technique into music of intimacy, restraint and conviction – inspired by the women who shaped her world

When the London jazz festival ran online only in 2020, an enthralling livestreamed performance by Swiss harpist Julie Campiche’s avant-jazz ensemble was a startling highlight, introducing UK audiences to a virtuoso instrumentalist and composer who was already turning heads in Europe. Campiche plucked guitar, zither and east Asian-style sounds from the harp, mingled with vocal loops, classical music, Nordic ambient jazz and more. You might call her soundscape magical or otherworldly if it didn’t coexist with a campaigner’s political urgency on environmental and social issues. But Campiche is too much of a visionary to overwhelm the eloquence of pure sound with polemic, as her new album, the unaccompanied Unspoken, confirms more than ever.

Campiche’s extra-musical agenda here is a celebration of sisterhood, dedicated to women in public and private lives who have inspired her. The opening Anonymous is built around a Virginia Woolf quote – “for most of history, ‘anonymous’ was a woman” – repeated by a chorus of women’s voices in different languages building to a clamour. Grisélidis Réal is named after the Swiss artist and writer who took her physical and mental life to every precipice, including sex work, expressed in gently lyrical harp lines around the spooky sounds of footsteps clicking on pavements.

Published: January 30, 2026, 9:00 am

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

White Moss by Anna Nerkagi; The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin; The Roof Beneath Their Feet by Geetanjali Shree; Berlin Shuffle by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

White Moss by Anna Nerkagi, translated by Irina Sadovina (Pushkin, £12.99)
“You, too, need a woman!” Alyoshka’s mother tells him. “Even a plain one, as long as her hands and legs aren’t crooked.” And Alyoshka, part of the nomadic Nenets people in the Russian Arctic, does find a wife, but can’t consummate their marriage: he’s still in love with a girl who left for the city years ago. This novel takes us around the camp, from Alyoshka’s family to Petko and his friend Vanu discussing old age to a new arrival who shares his tragic story of alcohol addiction: “The devil had entered my soul, and it was fun to be with him.” Meanwhile, Soviet representatives, intended to support the Nenets people, come and go: “They didn’t stick, because strictly speaking there was nothing to stick to.” This story of a solid community where people stick instead with one another is a perfect warming tale for winter.

The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Daunt, £14.99)
Agathe, a 30-year-old French woman living in New York, is so estranged from her sister Véra that when she receives a text message saying “Papa’s dead”, she replies: “Who is this?” Now she returns to the family home in the Dordogne to help clear out his things. “If we set fire to the books, there’d be nothing left.” Relations remain difficult: Véra communicates only by text message; she hasn’t spoken since the age of six. This is a book of absence and silence – village shops are closed, streets deserted, Agathe’s husband in the US doesn’t reply to her – and written with apt spareness. “I’m following the advice of decluttering influencers,” Agathe tells us, but it’s her past that she needs to offload, and slowly we learn the history of the family breakup. The balance between revelation and continued mystery makes this book both tantalising and satisfying.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

What we’re reading: George Saunders, Erin Somers and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in January

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Lately I’ve been going back to read some classic works that I had, in my zany life-arc, missed, in the (selfish) hope of opening up new frequencies in my work. So: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (the zaniness seems to lack agenda and yet still says something big and political); then on to Speak, Memory by Nabokov, newly reminded that language alone (dense, beautiful) can power the reader along; and, coming soon, The Power Broker by Robert A Caro – a real ambition-inspirer, I’m imagining, in its scale and daring.

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

Susan Choi: ‘For so long I associated Dickens with unbearable Christmas TV specials’

The Booker-shortlisted novelist on the seismic effect of Sigrid Nunez, and wanting to write like Virginia Woolf

My earliest reading memory
Asking my mom if she could stop reading my bedtime book to me and just let me read it on my own, since I felt she was going too slowly. The book was either Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, both by Roald Dahl.

My favourite book growing up
I loved Stuart Little, and all his small, clever things – his tiny canoe, his tiny sailboat. He had such a relaxed demeanor and was so dapper! I also loved Mary Norton’s The Borrowers series – tiny people living under the floorboards and improvising household goods out of “borrowed” safety pins and match boxes and so on. Clearly I had a thing for miniatures.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

There’s a reason that Wii Bowling remains my mum’s favourite game | Dominik Diamond

At a family gathering over Christmas, I took on my 76-year-old mother once again at virtual bowling. Could I finally best her?

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving. She is the glue that holds our family together. But right now, I am kicking her ass at video game bowling, and it feels good!

In the 00s, my mum was the best Wii Bowling player in the world. She was unbeatable. Strike after strike after strike. The Dudette in our family’s Big Lebowski. So when she said she was coming to visit us in Canada, I thought the time was right to buy the updated Nintendo Switch Sports version of her favourite game. She’s 76 now, and I might finally have a chance of beating her, I thought, especially if I allowed myself a cheeky tune-up on the game before she arrived.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Tom Gauld on the rewards of enhanced reading – cartoon

Published: January 31, 2026, 3:00 pm

Catherine O’Hara managed to make difficult characters utterly delightful

The death of the 71-year-old actor and comedian leaves behind a long line of unforgettably original comic creations, from Beetlejuice to Schitt’s Creek

• Catherine O’Hara, actor known for Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek, dies aged 71

One of the later and less beloved Christopher Guest comedies featuring his troupe of peerless, often SCTV-related improvisers is For Your Consideration, a medium-funny savaging of Hollywood’s feverish awards-season prestige campaigning.

The film’s unquestionable highlight is Catherine O’Hara, playing an actor who gets a whisper of awards buzz for a schlocky, still-filming drama called Home for Purim, and slowly loses her mind with the knowledge that she could maybe, possibly be recognized by her peers. O’Hara, known for her distinctively brassy yet malleable trill of her voice and her frequently red hair, peels back her performer’s bravado to expose the frenzied need beneath it. She somehow plays the outsized beneath the regular-sized, as her Marilyn Hack goes from plugging-away workhorse to desperate striver. Unsurprisingly, O’Hara briefly generated awards buzz of her own for playing this part; even less surprisingly, an Oscar nomination was not forthcoming. It couldn’t be; otherwise, it might have marred O’Hara’s masterclass in how certain actors, especially those specializing in comedy, are destined to go under-recognized in their lifetimes.

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:25 pm

‘Begging my boyfriend to get one’: Paul Mescal inspires yet another fashion craze with Hamnet earring

The Night Manager’s Diego Calva and James Norton are also helping to build hype around small singular hoops

While Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet has been nominated for eight Academy Awards including best picture, for many it is a tiny silver hoop earring worn by Paul Mescal in his portrayal of William Shakespeare that steals the show. Worn in his left ear lobe, the barely there hoop has people fixated online.

“Begging my boyfriend to get a tiny hoop earring too,” reads one post dedicated to the accessory. “I cried for over half of Hamnet, but Paul Mescal’s slutty little earring made me feel conflicted,” reads another.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:40 pm

Incarcerated activists from Oscar-nominated documentary The Alabama Solution sent to solitary

Transfer of subjects of acclaimed film about inhumane prison conditions described as ‘straight-up retaliation’

The Alabama prison system has moved three well-known incarcerated activists who supported a 2022 prison strike and were featured in an Oscar-nominated documentary about the troubled system to isolated cells with little contact with others, family members and attorneys said.

Family members of the three men said they fear for their loved ones’ safety and are concerned the moves to solitary confinement are a form of retaliation for outspokenness about problems within the prison system. Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray and Raoul Poole were transferred two weeks ago from their existing prisons to solitary confinement at the Kilby correctional facility outside Montgomery, their lawyers said. The transfers come as some groups have encouraged a new prison labor strike this year.

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:45 pm

Catherine Connolly is the third woman to become what? The Saturday quiz

From the Cloak of Invisibility and the Elder Wand to Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which European city changed its name in 1914, 1924 and 1991?
2 Which gun dog has won best in show at Crufts the most times?
3 Catherine Connolly is the third woman to become what?
4 Which arm of the Arctic Ocean is named after a Dutch navigator?
5 Which nut characterises Dubai-style chocolate?
6 What is the most abundant metal in the human body?
7 Where do you hear Hayley Sanderson and Tommy Blaize sing?
8 Where were the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan destroyed in 2001?
What links:
9 Court and King, 1973; Navratilova, 1992; Sabalenka, 2025?
10 Cloak of Invisibility; Elder Wand; Resurrection Stone?
11 AMS; AV; AV+; FPTP; PR; STV?
12 JB Books; Father Karras; Władysław Szpilman; László Tóth; George Valentin?
13 Bucentaure; Santísima Trinidad; Victory?
14 Adopt Me!; Dress to Impress; Flee the Facility; Grow a Garden; Steal a Brainrot?
15 The Cradle; Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight; The Harbour at Lorient; Woman at her Toilette?

Published: January 31, 2026, 7:00 am

Goodreads, but make it mindful: why I switched to a reading journal

Papier’s reading journal is the low-tech way I made reading feel calmer and more intentional – and you don’t need to love reading to benefit from it

• The best e-readers in the US, for every kind of book lover

• 10 banned books for curious and rebellious US readers

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

In 2025, I thought I failed. I was six books shy of achieving my annual reading goal. No matter that I’d read 44 books, more than the average American; it wasn’t the 50 I’d set out to complete.

For a while, flipping the pages of a novel has felt more like an item on my to-do list and less like a way to unwind. Then, while reporting on the best ways to read more in 2026 (are we surprised?), I tried out a reading journal from one of my favorite stationery brands, Papier.

The best way to read mindfully: Papier Reading Journal

Published: January 30, 2026, 6:15 pm

‘They’re taught that showing feelings is shameful’: eight reasons men don’t go to therapy – and why they should

A clinical psychologist on why men still don’t seek help for their mental health

When Jake, a businessman in his 50s, first arrives at my therapy practice, it’s obvious that he has some misgivings. Jake’s marriage to Louise is in trouble, and she has insisted he come and see me. “If not for Louise, you wouldn’t be here, would you?” I enquire tentatively. He looks sheepish at first; then emboldened, he gives an emphatic “No.” As is almost always the case, Jake’s wife has registered a problem that has passed him by, and prompted his visit. Over the next few weeks, we sift through a maze of obstacles, and in the end, Jake is full of emotion: “I’m alone in the world, everyone leans on me, there’s no one for me,” he says. “There’s no one to turn to.”

It’s a common pattern, one I’ve seen throughout my 35 years as a psychologist specialising in male mental health. Men make up only 33% of referrals to NHS talking therapies. They don’t come easily, and when they do seek help in a crisis, they can disappear as suddenly as they arrive. Yet male vulnerability is clear – men report lower levels of life satisfaction than women and make up three-quarters of suicides and problems with addiction. But despite the increase in awareness around male mental health, men still tend to think there’s a stigma to speaking with a professional, even though most of those who have tried therapy have a positive experience.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:00 pm

My family motto? It’s amazing how lucky you get if you work really hard

Work, duty and responsibility are not always seen to yield joy and delight, but there is a deep satisfaction in achievement

• Read more in the Home truths series

It’s amazing how lucky you get if you work really hard.

It’s the family motto. My father, one of five children, left school after grade 9 and immediately started work. In his early 20s, Dad went back to night school and then served in the public service for more than 40 years. Mum had a career as a secretary too, and together they worked hard to ensure we had the best education they could offer us.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:00 pm

You be the judge: should my husband stop expecting me to come to all his family gatherings?

Edwin wants Chloe to join him at all of his large family’s events, but she values her independence. You decide who is playing happy families
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

It’s thoughtless to wheel me out to his family as a formality. I need my own space sometimes

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:48 pm

Lift with your legs — and label everything: 15 tips for moving house with minimum stress

Very few things are more daunting than a house move. But it doesn’t have to be hell. Here is how to transport everything without breakages – or injuries

Moving home can be incredibly stressful. How should you make sure you get everything from A to B without breakages or injuring yourself? Removal professionals share the secrets to a smash-free, smooth move.

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

What to wear with red statement trousers

Leather, lace and an unexpected accessory or two will perfectly complement bold trousers

Published: January 30, 2026, 6:00 am

Experience: a bear moved into my house

I heard this huff, then a stomp. A growl that sounded like a death warning

Last November, I’d been out for the evening with friends who were visiting Los Angeles. Afterwards, I checked the notifications on my phone. There was a motion alert from one of the cameras around my house. It had captured a big black bear nosing around my bins.

We get wildlife here: raccoons, skunks. But I’d never had a bear rummaging through my trash. I watched as it turned things over, then wandered off. I assumed he had left.

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

The hard lessons of ignoring storm warnings: Becky Barnicoat on millennial life

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Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

Meera Sodha’s vegetarian recipe for patates yahni

Sometimes, all that’s required for supper is simply stewed Mediterranean vegetables and potatoes with a dollop of yoghurt on top …

The world over, you’ll find home cooks trying to turn bags of potatoes into dinner, myself included. Sometimes, my answer is a Sri Lankan potato curry, or a Gujarati one. Perhaps a slow-cooked Spanish omelette if it’s a date night with Hugh at the kitchen island (like this Friday) but today, the solution is Greek. Yahni is the Greek word for a style of cooking: vegetables braised in plenty of olive oil and tomatoes, until tender. It’s a way of being, a vote for the simple and the slow and the good (but it is also dinner, if you wish).

Published: January 31, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump has tapped a new Federal Reserve chair. Has he finally found his yes-man?

Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, an ex-Fed governor, for the role as the White House continues to attack Jerome Powell

The US Federal Reserve requires “strong, sound and steady leadership”, according to Donald Trump. The president found a man to lead the central bank who would “provide exactly that type of leadership”, he declared.“He’s strong, he’s committed and he’s smart.”

This is not how Trump described Kevin Warsh, the former Fed governor whom he unveiled as his new nominee to chair the central bank on Friday – but how he hailed Jerome Powell, the current Fed chair, when nominating him for the job about eight years ago.

Published: January 31, 2026, 8:00 am

On Polymarket, ‘privileged’ users made millions betting on war strikes and diplomatic strategy. What did they know beforehand?

The prediction market’s disciples and CEO believe its an unbiased way of knowing the future. But experts warn users could reshape the world to win big

In the early hours of 13 June, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets began pummeling Iran with bombs, lighting up the Tehran skyline and initiating a 12-day war that would leave hundreds dead.

But for one user of the prediction market Polymarket, it was their lucky day. In the 24 hours before the strike occurred, they had bet tens of thousands of dollars on “yes” on the market “Israel military action against Iran by Friday?” when the prospect still seemed unlikely and odds were hovering at about 10%. After the strike, Polymarket declared that military action had been taken, and paid the user $128,000 for their lucky wager.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘I was overwhelmed, it was a miracle’: the jailed mothers getting a second chance in Colombia

More than 200 women with caring responsibilities have been freed from prison under the country’s Public Utility Law

Jennifer Chaparro Pernet cannot remember the exact moment she became aware of a commotion outside the prison. But she recalls feeling a ripple of excitement when she heard people shouting, and then a guard calling her name. By 6pm she was walking out of El Buen Pastor women’s prison in Bogotá, a small bag of clothes in her hand, to a cacophony of banging, cheering and stomping as her fellow prisoners celebrated her release. She was four years into a 12-year sentence.

It was 4 May 2024, and Chaparro Pernet, 36, was the first woman to be released under Colombia’s 2023 Public Utility law, which allows first-time female offenders who are heads of households with caring responsibilities to apply to serve their remaining sentence in the community.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

New York nurses hold candlelight vigil for Alex Pretti amid strike – in pictures

Nurses gathered outside a Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan to mourn Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:53 pm