Excruciating but worth it: how a decades-old cult dating book helped me find love

Years of singlehood, dating apps and humiliating set-ups left me skeptical. But Calling in ‘the One’ – surprisingly – worked

In January 2023, a friend recommended I read a dating self-help book with her. “I think we need to read this,” she said. “My friend did it and that’s how she met her husband.”

But when the book arrived, I discovered it wasn’t a recommendation so much as an enlistment.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:00 pm

Trump is marching toward war with Iran. He hasn’t bothered to make clear why | Mohamad Bazzi

The US spent months promoting a false case for the invasion of Iraq. This time, we’re in the dark about Washington’s goals

In October 2002, George W Bush laid out his case for taking the US to war against Iraq in a half-hour speech televised around the world. Bush warned that Saddam Hussein’s regime could attack the US “on any given day” with chemical or biological weapons, including anthrax, mustard gas or the nerve agent sarin. He argued Iraq was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and could develop a bomb in less than a year. And if those warnings weren’t enough to terrify the US public, Bush invoked the ultimate fear of an unprovoked nuclear attack: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

The world soon learned that Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq was based on manipulated intelligence and outright lies; the Iraqi regime no longer had any weapons of mass destruction and was not developing them. But the administration’s relentless campaign to convince Americans that Saddam was a threat had paid off by generating significant support. As the invasion got under way in March 2003, many polls showed public approval of the war at more than 70%. Bush’s own approval rating hovered around a similar high, underscoring that war can boost the popularity of America’s commander-in-chief as few other things can.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:00 am

12 laundry products that make your most dreaded chore a little easier

These editors’ picks ranging from detergent to scent sprays will help make the inevitable task less of a chore

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Yes, laundry is inevitable. But with the right products, it doesn’t have to be a grind. We asked our editors and writers to share their favorite laundry hacks and sustainable goods in the hope that we can help you make laundry day a little more fun and a tad less of a chore.

From divided hampers that do away with sorting on laundry day to tablets that banish odor from your washing machine, here are some easy, creative ways to help you clean your clothes and whistle while you work.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:37 pm

Mamdani’s meeting with Trump was a Trojan Horse triumph at the White House

Mamdani wooed the president with much property talk and showed the real ‘art of the deal’ might have been soft power via Photoshop

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In the hours after Zohran Mamdani met with Donald Trump for an undisclosed sit-down in the Oval Office on Thursday, a meme quickly circulated on X.

It resembled the screengrab of a TikToker who doles out dubious financial advice, but instead had the mayor’s picture front and center. On the left it read “I receive 12,000 homes” and “the release of a constituent kidnapped by ICE” and on the right “you receive fake newspaper cover”.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:30 pm

Bruno Mars: The Romantic review – you’re better off listening to the songs he’s blatantly imitating

(Atlantic)
Harking back to Oye Como Va, Move On Up and other 20th-century classics, Mars’s homages are beautifully performed but bereft of new ideas

It is 10 years since Bruno Mars last released a solo album. An eternity in pop music, and yet you’d struggle to describe the follow-up to the umpteen-platinum 24K Magic as eagerly awaited: not for reasons of snark, but simply because the world has hardly been starved of Bruno Mars in the intervening decade.

With Anderson .Paak, he co-piloted Silk Sonic’s hit album An Evening with Silk Sonic. He variously collaborated with Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Sexy Redd and Ed Sheeran. Die With a Smile, 2024’s soft rock duet with Lady Gaga went on to become the most streamed song of last year. Meanwhile, he also recorded the most globally successful song released in 2025, the infernally catchy APT., with Blackpink’s Rosé. There have been two world tours, two Las Vegas residencies, the opening of his own Vegas bar, an appearance on online game Fortnite and the 2026 ambassadorship for Record Store Day.

Published: February 27, 2026, 3:52 pm

Shell-shocked and tense: inside the Mexican tourist town where ‘El Mencho’ made his last stand

Tapalpa deserted and scared by day of terror when military raid brought feared drug lord’s reign to an end

Two days before one of the world’s most powerful drug lords was killed while trying to flee a chalet in the hills outside Mexico’s second biggest city, the Tapalpa Country Club posted an advert on Instagram inviting lovers to visit a place where they could “inhale peace [and] exhale stress”.

“Date idea: Escape to Tapalpa,” read the message, advertising romantic private cabins, picnics with spectacular lake views and a golf course “to have fun together”.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:56 am

Trump advisers scramble to justify US military intervention in Iran

Tehran’s ICBMs cannot currently reach the US, experts say, and White House has claimed its nuclear programme has been destroyed

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Donald Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran – which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war – is fraught with contradictions, and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention.

In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US and that the country was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”. But that claim has not been backed up with evidence by the White House or the Pentagon, and US intelligence reports from just last year say that it would take Iran 10 years to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:24 pm

Trump orders US agencies to stop use of Anthropic technology amid dispute over ethics of AI

Department of Defense and artificial intelligence company were unable to reach agreement before deadline

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Donald Trump said Friday he will direct all federal agencies to “IMMEDIATELY CEASE” all use of Anthropic technology.

The Department of Defense and Anthropic hit an impasse with neither side backing down as a deadline for an agreement lapsed on Friday afternoon. The Pentagon had demanded the artificial intelligence company loosen ethical guidelines on its AI systems or face severe consequences.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:55 pm

Bill Clinton says in House testimony he had ‘no idea’ about Epstein’s crimes

Republican chair calls six-hour deposition ‘very productive’ and says former president answered every question

• Bill Clinton testimony – latest updates

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Bill Clinton told a congressional committee on Friday he “had no idea of the crimes” Jeffrey Epstein was committing and insisted he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker.

The former president’s remarks came in his opening statement in a deposition to the House of Representatives’ oversight committee, a day after his wife, Hillary Clinton, appeared before the same body and called the proceedings “partisan political theater” and “an insult to the American people”.

Published: February 28, 2026, 12:36 am

Judge blocks arrest and detention of some lawful refugees in Minnesota

Trump administration’s unlawful policy turns ‘refugees’ American Dream into a dystopian nightmare’, judge says

A federal judge has blocked a Trump administration policy that allowed immigration authorities to arrest and detain certain refugees in Minnesota, ruling that the government relied on an incorrect interpretation of federal law and unlawfully targeted people who had already been admitted to the US.

In an order on Friday, the court said the administration’s approach had effectively been “terrorizing” refugees by subjecting them to arrest and potentially indefinite detention despite their lawful status. The judge concluded that federal immigration law does not give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authority to detain refugees simply because more than one year has passed since their arrival in the country.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:43 pm

Trump suggests US could carry out ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba

As tensions between two countries reach new highs, US president says regime is ‘talking with us’

Donald Trump has suggested the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba as tensions between Washington and Havana reach a new high after the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

As he left the White House for a campaigning event in Texas on Friday, Trump said: “The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble.”

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:39 pm

New York businesswoman sentenced to nine years for $30m political finance scheme

Sherry Xue Li ripped off millions from foreign investors and funnelled some stolen money into US political campaigns

A New York businesswoman was sentenced Friday to nine years in federal prison over a financial scheme that ripped off more than $30m from foreign investors and funnelled some of the stolen money into US political campaigns, including a Donald Trump fundraiser during his first presidency.

Sherry Xue Li was also ordered to forfeit $31.5m, as well as property at three locations, and to make restitution to her victims.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:17 pm

LA superintendent placed on leave after FBI raid on home and district office

Trustees unanimously voted to place Alberto Carvalho on leave and appointed Andres Chait in the interim

Two days after the FBI searched the headquarters of the Los Angeles unified school district and the home of its superintendent, the district board of education placed Alberto Carvalho on administrative leave.

The board met in closed session meetings for several hours on Thursday and Friday to discuss Carvalho’s employment with the nation’s second largest school district. The trustees unanimously voted Friday to place Carvalho on paid leave, and appointed another high ranking district official, Andres Chait, to serve as interim superintendent.

Published: February 28, 2026, 12:34 am

Neil Sedaka, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do singer and pop song hitmaker, dies aged 86

Musician died after being taken to hospital in Los Angeles, with his family remembering him as a ‘true rock and roll legend’ and ‘inspiration to millions’

Neil Sedaka, the singer-songwriter behind Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Oh! Carol, Calendar Girl and Bad Blood as well as many hits performed by other artists including Stupid Cupid and Love Will Keep Us Together, has died aged 86.

A representative confirmed his death to Variety on Friday, hours after he was reportedly taken to hospital in Los Angeles. No cause of death was given.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:04 pm

Bobby J Brown, US actor known for The Wire, dies in barn fire

Brown, 62, third member of hit HBO series to die since December, was trying to jumpstart car at home at time of blaze

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The Wire actor Bobby J Brown died recently in a barn fire at his Maryland home, making him the third cast member of the acclaimed HBO show to pass away since December.

According to authorities and a statement on social media from his daughter, Reina, the 62-year-old Brown had gone into a barn at his residence in the St Mary’s county community of Chaptico at about 10pm on 24 February to try to jumpstart a car. It evidently ignited during the attempt, and Brown asked his wife for a fire extinguisher.

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:15 pm

Two transgender men sue Kansas over ‘dehumanizing’ driver’s license law

Law demanding IDs must match ‘sex at birth’ invalidated the driver’s licenses of about 1,700 trans people in the state

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Two transgender men are suing Kansas over a new law that invalidated their driver’s licenses and about 1,700 others for reflecting people’s gender identities and not their sex assigned at birth, arguing that the measure is “dehumanizing”.

The men filed their case Thursday, the same day the law took effect, and argue that it violates rights to privacy, personal autonomy and due legal process guaranteed by the Kansas state constitution. The men also are challenging the law’s tough, new enforcement provisions for the state’s three-year-old policy of barring transgender people from using public restrooms or other single-sex facilities associated with their gender identities.

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:25 pm

Scouting America to reinstate ban on trans children to appease Pentagon

Former Boy Scouts cave to Pete Hegseth as he laments move from ‘focus on God as the ruler of the universe’

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Scouting America will alter several policies at the urging of the Pentagon, including one targeting transgender children, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday as he pushes a campaign against military support for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Some of the changes mirror what the organization suggested to the defense department in January, which included discontinuing its citizenship in society merit badge and introducing a military service merit badge as well as waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.

Published: February 27, 2026, 9:38 pm

Anger at Detroit police U-turn over officers’ call to border agents

Police chief accused of caving to Republican demands by reversing decision to fire implicated duo

A Detroit police department decision to reverse course on firing two officers who allegedly violated local law by coordinating an arrest with federal immigration agents has ignited outrage and accusations that the chief caved to Republican demands.

It has also played into a debate in the US around the role of local law enforcement amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown as many police departments – especially in large Democratic-run cities such as Detroit – have a policy of not co-operating with federal immigration operations.

Published: February 27, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘The way we love them in life is the way we love them in death’: a Gullah Geechee community fights for their cemetery

In a win for the Gullah Geechee people on St Helena Island in South Carolina, access to a long-used cemetery has been restored

A couple times a year, Mary Mack would visit the centuries-old Big House Cemetery on St Helena Island, South Carolina, to pay respect to her grandparents. The cemetery is in an idyllic location, situated on a waterfront property and surrounded by large oak trees. On cleanup days, Mack gathered leaves and branches, swept off vaults, and raked up debris. As a Gullah Geechee woman, the descendant of formerly enslaved west Africans in the sea islands of the south-eastern US, Mack saw the burial ground as tying together past, present and future generations. But in the spring of 2024, she was shocked to learn that landowners blocked access to the Gullah Geechee cemetery through padlocked gates.

“We’ve not been able to go in and clean the cemetery. We’ve not been able to go in and bury deceased loved ones,” Mack told the Guardian last year. “It’s important for the younger folks to know that we don’t just bury our loved ones and leave them there. The way we love them in life is the way we love them in death. And so to continue that bond so that it passes on to the younger generation, it’s very important.”

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

Pakistan’s patience runs out after badly miscalculating over Taliban

Military reckoned ‘good’ Afghan insurgents were separate from ‘bad’ Pakistani insurgents but distinction has blurred

Days after the Taliban swept to power in 2021, Pakistan’s then spymaster appeared in Kabul on what looked to many like a victory lap. Sipping tea in the lobby of the Afghan capital’s fanciest hotel, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed told reporters: “Don’t worry, everything will be OK.”

This week it became clear just how badly Pakistan had miscalculated how it could rely on the Taliban, as Islamabad unleashed airstrikes in Afghanistan and troops from both countries fought each other on the border.

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:12 pm

Inside in the Mexican town where drug lord ‘El Mencho’ was killed – video dispatch

Fires are still burning in the Mexican town of Tapalpa four days after the cartel boss known as 'El Mencho' made his last stand.

The Guardian correspondent Tom Phillips drove to the locations of fierce clashes between police and gang members who dug trenches, set fire to shops and sparked a forest blaze that was still burning days later.

Despite their efforts to distract security forces, the 59-year-old drug lord was wounded and he died in a helicopter on the way to the hospital

• Shell-shocked and tense: inside the Mexican tourist town where ‘El Mencho’ made his last stand

• Violence in Mexico after military kills notorious drug cartel boss – a visual guide

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:36 pm

A Spider-Man Universe without Spider-Man is completely pointless. Why won’t Sony sling him in?

Six movies in, the series about characters linked to the web-slinger is looking ever ropier. More are on the way – but with no sign of the obvious way refresh the franchise

The old adage goes that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The news this week that Sony is planning to reboot its once much-vaunted, now completely risible “Spider-Man Universe”, shows there must be a few Hollywood executives who still believe in it.

Speaking on The Town podcast this week, the studio’s chief executive and chair Tom Rothman was asked about the future of the bafflingly superfluous superhero franchise that gave us three lukewarm Venom films, the odious Morbius and the tonally anaemic Madame Web. Despite scant clamour for more movies, he confirmed that the saga will live to fight another day. “Is the larger Spider-Verse dead?” Rothman was asked. “No,” he replied. “Are you going to go back to those at some point?” asked his interviewer. “Yes,” Rothman said. “But it’ll be a fresh reboot?” “Yes.” “New people?” “Yes, yes.” Rothman then added: “Scarcity has value … you got to make the audience miss you.”

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:03 pm

Hiding in plain sight: everyone from Meghan to the Beckhams wants a funnel neck

Popped collar worn by Duchess of Sussex and Rama Duwaji is rising in popularity, with searches at John Lewis up 1,000%

Shoppers are avidly searching for jackets that cover half your face – so much that searches are up 1,000% year on year at John Lewis.

The funnel-neck jacket is boxy, generously cut and comes with a permanently popped collar, between 9cm and 14cm high running from clavicle to nose; high enough to cover your mouth, low enough to see out – just.

Published: February 27, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘You’re sweet – and I’m old!’: Billy Porter and Sam Morrison on teaming up for a comedy about love and death

The Emmy-winning singer and actor was so struck by the standup’s autobiographical one-man show Sugar Daddy that he signed on as producer. The pair discuss ‘bears’, blood sugar and bridging the divides between generations of gay men

Sugar Daddy is a one-man show about “love, grief and insulin” by the 31-year-old standup Sam Morrison. An autobiographical monologue that turns tragedy into comedy, it tells of how Morrison fell in love with Jonathan, who was 24 years his senior, after meeting him at a gay bear festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2021, two and a half years into their relationship, Jonathan died from Covid.

For the last four years, Morrison has been performing Sugar Daddy around the world; next month he brings an updated version to London’s West End. The co-producer is Billy Porter, 56, the Emmy-winning singer, actor and director whose credits include Pose, American Horror Story and Cabaret.

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

Robert Carradine obituary

Hollywood actor for more than five decades best known for 1980s cult film Revenge of the Nerds and the teen comedy series Lizzie McGuire

Of the four sons who followed their father, John Carradine, into acting, Keith had the most prestigious career, David netted the largest audience thanks to his early-1970s TV series Kung Fu, and the little-known Bruce amassed a meagre handful of minor credits. The youngest, Robert Carradine, acted continuously without ever becoming a star. He has taken his own life aged 71, after suffering from bipolar disorder, which was exacerbated by David’s death in 2009.

He had small roles in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), where he was the long-haired gunman who shoots dead the drunk played by David, and as a tracker in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012). He also joined David and Keith as the three Younger brothers in Walter Hill’s western The Long Riders (1980), which populated its cast with other sets of real-life siblings, such as James and Stacy Keach playing Frank and Jesse James. Carradine’s aptitude with a gun led to him competing under the alias Bob Younger in quick-draw competitions organised by the Single Action Shooting Society.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:58 pm

Living with hyperphantasia: ‘I remember the clothes people wore the day we met, the things they said word-for-word’

It’s hard to know what people can see in their own mind’s eye. But for Maddie Thomas there was no doubt: she had especially vivid mental imagery

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I close my eyes and picture a boat making its way towards the mainland. Lit only by moonlight, a silhouette walks towards a post box and mails three letters, one by one. Then, the familiar tune of ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) starts to play, and the musical begins.

Sometimes as a child I had trouble falling asleep. But from age 11 and through my early teenage years, recreating the film Mamma Mia! in my head frame-by-frame was my remedy. Running each line of dialogue through my mind and bringing to life the colour of the characters’ clothes, usually by the time they arrive flustered from their journey, I would drift off.

Published: February 27, 2026, 2:00 pm

The supreme court has struck a blow to Trump’s corruption machine | David Sirota

The supreme court has deferred to executive power for decades. Its decision on tariffs is a long-overdue warning

After two decades of deferring to executive authority and eroding anti-bribery laws, the supreme court has suddenly limited presidential power in a way that could make one ugly form of political influence a bit more difficult to pull off. Last week’s ruling did not merely strip one president of his executive power to unilaterally impose levies across broad swaths of the economy – it makes it harder for any president to transform tariffs from a broad economic policy into a personal political cudgel that muzzles criticism and enforces fealty.

“A Supreme Court otherwise inclined to endlessly expand Trump’s authority just restricted his go-to tool, ruling that U.S. presidents do not have the power to unilaterally deploy tariffs and dole out punishment and favor to specific companies and economic sectors, friends and family, and entire countries,” said Lori Wallach of Rethink Trade.

The Washington Post reported that Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, dumped $1m into Trump’s inauguration, cultivated relationships with Trump officials, and “refrained from publicly criticizing the president or his policies on national television” – just before securing tariff exemptions for his company’s products.

ProPublica reported that the administration approved a tariff exemption for a thermoplastic made by a company “owned by a pair of brothers who have donated millions of dollars to Republican causes”.

A tariff exemption for electronics conveniently benefited Tesla and, by extension, its CEO, Elon Musk, who bankrolled a multimillion-dollar campaign to re-elect Trump.

The sugar behemoth Florida Crystals, which has lobbied on tariff policy, gave $2m to the main pro-Trump Super Pac, Maga Inc, ahead of Trump slapping tariffs on imported sugar. Reynolds American likewise delivered $2m to the same Super Pac while successfully pushing Trump to crack down on imports of Chinese tobacco products.

Trump relaxed export controls on the microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) after the company gave $1million to Maga Inc.

Trump reduced tariffs on Vietnam and removed that country from the United States’s export controls list after the Hanoi government approved his family business’s $1.5bn golf course and real estate project.

Published: February 27, 2026, 3:00 pm

Trump has embraced a disturbing strategy to silence free speech | David Bralow

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Media Matters over critical coverage. It’s just one example of the administration’s approach

The Trump administration is embracing an intimidation strategy to silence critical media coverage. Here’s how it works: a federal agency launches a pretextual investigation into a perceived enemy, keeps the investigation open to coerce compliance, and resists any effort to have a court review the lawfulness of the agency’s actions.

There’s no better example than the Federal Trade Commission’s retaliatory investigation of Media Matters for America for its critical coverage of one of the Trump administration’s most powerful allies.

David Bralow is counsel to the Intercept

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

If France could lead the world with Minitel in the 1980s, surely Europe can free itself from Silicon Valley’s shackles now? | Alexander Hurst

Back then, France punched above its weight when it came to tech. The EU needs it to rediscover its taste for the cutting edge

In the 1960s, France became the third country, after the US and Soviet Union, to independently place a satellite (Astérix) into orbit, and the only country to send an animal into space and – crucially, for Félicette the catstronaut – bring it back alive. A decade later, the Franco-British Concorde flicked passengers across the Atlantic in three and a half hours and the TGV began to propel them through the countryside first at 250km/h (155mph), and then 320km/h. Then, in the late 1980s, the French space agency designed a crewed spaceplane, Hermès, that corrected for the Nasa space shuttle’s vulnerability by being integrated into its launch vehicle rather than perched atop it.

A concerted buildout of nuclear power left France with one of the least carbon-intensive economies in the world. And then, of course, there was the Minitel. More than a decade before anyone was typing “www” into their web browsers, French users were able to buy train tickets, check film showings, do their banking, play games, find recipes, read their horoscopes, or even log into, yes, erotic chats – la messagerie rose, as it was known.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:00 am

On a dancefloor at 2am, I heard Jacinda Ardern’s husband say they were moving to Australia. I don’t blame them | Johanna Cosgrove

It’s no surprise that so many Kiwis are leaving New Zealand behind for a nation with much larger capacity for embarrassment: Australia

I got the news that Aotearoa’s most (internationally) famous prime minister is moving to Sydney in a way that is only possible in New Zealand. I was at the final Splore festival in Tāpapakanga at the weekend (one of our longest-running and arguably most beautiful festivals) when Clarke Gayford, Jacinda Ardern’s husband, popped up next to me on the dancefloor dressed as a giant toadstool. “Yeah, we’re moving to Sydney,” he said to a man in funereal pirate garb. “Can’t wait!”

Maybe it was the joy of a perfect tracklist at 2am, maybe it was getting this breaking news from the horse’s mouth, but I felt thrilled for our former first couple. Like Splore, NZ has the hungover malaise of a party being cancelled and the lights going out.

Johanna Cosgrove is an award-winning actor/writer/comedian. She will perform her show Sweetie at the Melbourne international comedy festival and is now in NZ filming an exciting top-secret feature film

Published: February 27, 2026, 12:35 am

The Guardian view on Trump’s war on science: Europe should pick up talent fleeing the US | Editorial

The president’s cuts have defunded and alienated thousands of American scientists. Europe can benefit, if it makes the right offer

Donald Trump has spent much of his second term at war with science and scientists. He is cutting staff at institutions such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a third, and has cancelled or frozen up to 8,000 federal research grants. This hasn’t just hurt individual research programmes, it has damaged America’s credibility as a reliable partner in the scientific community. It is not surprising that many researchers – one poll last year by the journal Nature gave the number of 75% – say they are considering leaving the US entirely.

However, it is one thing to express dissatisfaction, and quite another to up sticks and leave. If the UK and EU want to attract elite scientific talent, their approach must be twofold: appealing directly to scientists concerned with political interference in their research, and offering stable, ringfenced money.

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 27, 2026, 5:50 pm

Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

Chelsea must keep their heads at Arsenal, Anthony Gordon faces his old club and a key return for Sunderland

Unai Emery has seen most things in this game but he has never won at Wolves. In three and a half years at Villa, he has lost two and drawn one of his three games at Molineux. Twelve months ago they lost this fixture 2-0 and this week Emery shared his poor record to stress the difficulty of the challenge facing his side, particularly given they have won just one of their past five matches in all competitions. Emery even mentioned his visit to Wolverhampton with Arsenal in 2019, when his team trailed 3-0 at half-time and lost 3-1. For Emery, there is no better time to break his duck, with the schedule dictating that Villa could move nine points clear of fifth-placed Chelsea, who visit Villa on Wednesday, before Liam Rosenior’s side travel to Arsenal on Sunday. Victory would enhance Villa’s chances of returning to the Champions League but also pile pressure on direct rivals. Ben Fisher

Wolves v Aston Villa, Friday 8pm (all kick-offs GMT)

Bournemouth v Sunderland, Saturday 12.30pm

Burnley v Brentford, Saturday 3pm

Liverpool v West Ham, Saturday 3pm

Published: February 27, 2026, 12:01 am

Trump says he is a savior of women’s sports. His ice hockey joke showed what he really thinks | Austin Killips

The president and his allies have never been interested in helping or elevating female athletes. His true feelings were exposed on Sunday

This past week Team USA won gold in both the women’s and men’s ice hockey at the Winter Olympics, presenting Donald Trump with a golden opportunity. Instead of seizing the easy political points, he embraced his chance to ingratiate himself with the boys by inviting them to the State of the Union address. He followed up his offer of a military jet shuttle to Washington DC with a lament that he would have to also invite the women’s team. It was a bit that lit up the locker room with laughter.

The women’s gold medal had been a prime opportunity for Trump to live up to his stated commitment to “protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports”, a claim made last February when he sought to position himself as the figure saving women’s sports. Instead, he decided to make a joke at the expense of Olympic champions.

Published: February 27, 2026, 9:00 am

MLS's experimental rule changes that cut time-wasting, sped up play are going global

• Ifab expected to adopt changes at meeting this weekend

• MLS added timed sub, off-field treatment rules in 2024

• New rules could make for faster play at the World Cup

Four years ago, MLS Next Pro implemented a pair of rules geared towards eliminating time-wasting. Now, just months ahead of the 2026 World Cup, MLS’s experimentation is set to be adopted globally. The International Football Association Board (Ifab), the sport’s rule-making body, is set to meet this weekend and is widely expected to adopt both changes.

The first of the two, commonly referred to as the timed substitution rule, forces a team to play a man down for a minute if a player takes longer than 10 seconds to leave the pitch. The second of the guidelines, dubbed the off-field treatment rule, removes a player from the match for a minute if they spend more than 15 seconds on the ground after an injury.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:25 pm

Baseball should be riding high. Instead the salary cap debate has it gearing up for war | Howard Bryant

As a potential 2027 stoppage looms, MLB owners argue a wage cap is vital for parity. In truth, it’s just another way to boost their assets and fleece fans

Baseball should be on a high. Spring training has begun and a record-breaking winter makes the games especially welcome – baseball means the good weather is coming soon. Injuries marred the NBA playoffs and the Super Bowl was a dud, but no sport settled its championship last year better than baseball, as the Los Angeles Dodgers barely and thrillingly defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in a seven-game epic that ranks among the greatest World Series ever played.

Instead of basking in the afterglow, however, the game is spending this abundance of capital preparing for war: a 2027 work stoppage portends to be the most catastrophic since the summer of 1994, when the players went on strike and the owners responded by cancelling the World Series for the first time in 90 years.

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

Dual Gomes goals ensure Wolves beat Aston Villa and unwanted points record

As Wolves applied the seal to only their second Premier League victory of the season, Rodrigo Gomes doubling their lead over Aston Villa deep into second-half stoppage time, Rob Edwards hared down the touchline, yelling into the stands as his players started a celebratory pile-on a few yards behind him. It was a moment of catharsis for Edwards, who beat his chest and wellied an advertising hoarding, but for Unai Emery it was a different kind of cue.

As those in old gold savoured a win over near neighbours that takes them to 13 points, ending any fears that they may not eclipse Derby’s record-low tally of 11 in 2007-08, Emery marched straight down the tunnel before the post-match handshakes.

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:12 pm

Jack Doohan received ‘serious death threats’ and called for police help before Alpine exit

• Australian F1 driver was replaced after 2025 Miami GP

• Doohan revealed threats and abuse on Drive to Survive

Jack Doohan has said he received death threats and called police to resolve an encounter with armed men around the time of last year’s Miami Grand Prix, just before he lost his Formula One drive with Alpine.

In the latest series of the Netflix documentary Drive to Survive, released on Friday, the Australian driver said he had been threatened by email, describing the atmosphere around what proved to be his final race as “pretty heavy stuff”.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:02 am

Lionel Messi tackled by pitch invader during chaotic friendly in Puerto Rico

• Preseason game was rescheduled due to a Messi injury

• Messi entered in second half and scored winning PK

• Inter Miami visits Orlando City in MLS play on Sunday

Lionel Messi was briefly tackled to the ground by a pitch invader and a security guard in a midweek, early-season friendly on Thursday evening in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

Inter Miami were fulfilling a make-up date for a postponed friendly against Ecuadorian club Independiente del Valle, originally slated for 13 February. The initial date was scrapped after Messi had felt discomfort in his hamstring during the preceding tune-up exhibition at Ecuadorian side Barcelona SC. Inter Miami cited coordination with “the event promoter and the government of Puerto Rico” in determining the makeup date of 26 February – five days after Miami opened the 2026 MLS season in Los Angeles, losing 3-0 to Son Heung-min’s LAFC.

Published: February 27, 2026, 4:45 am

Paramount Skydance wins Warner Bros Discovery bid after Netflix walks away from deal

Streamer said ‘deal no longer financially attractive’ at price required to match offer by David Ellison’s firm

Paramount Skydance has beaten Netflix to take over Warner Bros Discovery’s storied Hollywood studios and streaming business after the streaming giant refused to increase its bid.

The $110bn deal ends a high-stakes bidding war between the two media companies, but the takeover still faces regulatory hurdles and a backlash from critics worried about a rightward tilt in US media.

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:17 pm

Democrats outraged at US military’s downing of CBP drone near Mexico border

Second time in two weeks military used laser to attack what it mistakenly thought was a threat, disrupting air traffic

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Democratic members of Congress have expressed astonishment and anger at what they claim is the incompetence of the Trump administration after the US military used a laser on Thursday to shoot down what it thought was a threatening drone on the US-Mexico border in Texas but later turned out to belong to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The apparent confusion between two entities in the US government led to airspace being closed around Fort Hancock, right along the border. It was the second time in two weeks that air traffic was disrupted in the region as a result of a high-energy laser being deployed against drones.

Published: February 27, 2026, 2:37 pm

Los Angeles faces record high temperatures week after winter storm

By mid-afternoon, it was 91F (33C) in downtown LA, according to the National Weather Service

After a week of heavy downpours that left parts of Los Angeles flooded, the city is now facing unusually high temperatures for late February.

By mid-afternoon Friday, it was 91F (33C) in downtown Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). That breaks the daily record for 27 February, which was 88F (31C), set last year.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:30 pm

Labour MPs demand Starmer change course after humiliating byelection loss

Scale of defeat to Greens has plunged party into fresh despair and again raised prospect of leadership challenge

Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton.

Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday. Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:46 pm

Two dead and 38 injured after tram derails in Milan

Investigation under way after vehicle ploughs into building

A tram derailed and crashed into a building in Milan on Friday, killing two people and injuring 38 others.

One of the dead was hit by the tram as it derailed while the second victim was a passenger, the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, told reporters at the scene.

Published: February 27, 2026, 7:40 pm

Target says it will stop selling breakfast cereals with synthetic colors

US retailer’s decision comes as RFK Jr and Maha movement increase pressure on food industry to drop dyes like red 40

The big-box US retailer Target announced on Friday that by 31 May it will only sell breakfast cereals made without certified synthetic food colors.

The company is introducing the restriction amid increased pressure on the food industry from the Trump administration and the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement to stop using such ingredients, which they see as dangerous.

Published: February 27, 2026, 7:17 pm

Nasa announces Artemis III mission no longer aims to send humans to moon

Plans to return humans to the moon will come in later mission as agency grapples with delays and glitches

Nasa announced on Friday radical changes to its delayed Artemis III mission to land humans back on the moon, as the US space agency grapples with technical glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon.

The abrupt shift in strategy was laid out by the space agency’s recently confirmed administrator, Jared Isaacman. Announcing the changes on Friday, he said that Nasa would introduce at least one new moon flight before attempting to put humans back on the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century, in 2028.

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:16 pm

Winter getting shorter in 80% of major US cities, new data shows

Researchers find that across 195 US cities, winters are on average nine days shorter than they were in 1970-1997

For the millions of people across the United States who have spent the last month digging themselves out of above-average levels of snow and ice, this winter has felt especially long and harsh. But the typical winter is actually getting shorter in 80% of major US cities scrutinized by researchers, according to new data released by Climate Central, an independent climate science and communication group.

Researchers found that across 195 US cities, winters are on average nine days shorter today than they were from 1970 to 1997, as the climate crisis progresses.

Published: February 27, 2026, 7:18 pm

Trump officials move to kill system that protects US from chemical disasters

EPA rolls back rules as chemical firms claim provisions in RMP protection system too expensive to implement

The Trump administration is slowly dismantling the federal disaster management system that protects the nation from chemical catastrophes, such as fires and explosions at high-risk facilities.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Response Management Program (RMP) requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to develop protocols to prevent catastrophes, or limit fallout, and was largely designed to protect workers, first responders, and fence-line communities.

Published: February 27, 2026, 2:00 pm

Most US coal plants could meet air pollution rules. Trump weakened them anyway

EPA found only 27 of 219 plants needed upgrades; 71 later got exemptions as Donald Trump scrapped mercury limits

Almost all coal-fired power plants in the US had the ability to comply with rules limiting their emission of dangerous pollutants such as mercury that can cause brain damage in children. Despite this, Donald Trump’s administration decided to demolish the standards anyway.

Last week, the Trump administration said it is loosening restrictions on air toxins from mercury, lead and other heavy metals that are released by coal plants. Such pollution is known to be neurotoxic and has been linked to irreversible brain damage in children and infants, as well as heart disease and cancer in adults.

Published: February 27, 2026, 12:30 pm

‘The river won’: how campaigners in Brazilian Amazon stopped privatisation of waterway

Local river defenders force U-turn by occupying grain terminal operated by one of US powerhouses of world trade

“A victory for life.” That was the triumphal message from Indigenous campaigners in the Brazilian Amazon this week after they staved off a threat to the Tapajós River by occupying a grain terminal operated by Cargill, the biggest privately owned company in the United States.

“The river won, the forest won, the memory of our ancestors won,” said the campaigners in Santarém when it was clear their actions had forced the Brazilian government into a U-turn on plans to privatise one of the world’s most beautiful waterways and expand its role as a soy canal.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:00 am

California fast food workers, still reeling from ICE raids, demand employers step up

Union-backed pledge urges fast food employers to protect workers’ rights as immigration raids fuel fear and walkouts

Fast food workers in California are demanding employers sign a pledge reaffirming workers’ rights amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at workplaces across the US.

The California Fast Food Workers Union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, drafted a Constitutional Pledge to California Workers’ Rights for workplaces to sign that affirms a commitment to protecting workers and “keep ICE from going where they are not allowed”.

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

Science of sex and gender being misrepresented by Trump officials, experts warn

Scientists say crackdown on gender-affirming care could have impact on healthcare of all Americans

As more health systems end gender-affirming care for patients amid a crackdown from the Trump administration, scientists and advocates say the science of sex and gender is being misrepresented – and will have major repercussions for the healthcare for all Americans.

Trump officials “don’t actually understand the science at all”, said Jey McCreight, who is the founder of Beyond X&Y and has a doctoral degree in human genomics. McCreight, who uses they/them pronouns, added that using misinformation to limit who can seek healthcare is a warning for all patients.

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:00 pm

Trump says affordability crisis is over. Voters and data disagree

Despite claims, polls and economists say tariffs and structural pressures keep US households under strain

The affordability crisis is over, Donald Trump told the US on Tuesday. The president’s state of the union address put the blame for soaring prices squarely on the “dirty, rotten” lies of the Democrats and claimed prices were now “plummeting downward”.

“Soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago,” Trump said.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:00 am

Lynx could return to Scotland – but can rewilders win over wary Highlanders?

With most Scots supportive of reintroducing the wild cat, charities are focusing on those whose jobs could be affected

Could lynx, the elusive wild cat driven to extinction in Britain more than 1,000 years ago, become the new Loch Ness monster? “Whether Nessie’s there or not, she draws tourists,” said Margaret Luckwell, a resident of Moray, Scotland. “It would be the same with lynx. I’d love to see a lynx in the wild.”

Luckwell’s view is a majority one among local people gathering at village halls across the Highlands, as a painstaking consultation slowly gathers momentum for the apex predator’s return to Scottish forests.

Published: February 27, 2026, 1:32 pm

‘More exploitation, fewer rights’: Argentina braces for sweeping overhaul of labor laws

Javier Milei’s boosters say law will revive employment, but critics decry cuts to severance and longer working hours

Argentina’s senate is poised to approve a sweeping overhaul of labour laws aimed at weakening trade unions and lowering labour costs for businesses.

The government of the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, says the initiative will help revive formal employment, after 290,600 registered jobs were lost between December 2023, when he took office, and November 2025.

Published: February 27, 2026, 9:00 am

Ghana says at least 55 of its people killed after Russia ‘lured’ them to fight Ukraine

Foreign minister says 272 Ghanaians are thought to have been drawn into battle since 2022, after he visited Kyiv

At least 55 Ghanaians have been killed in Russia’s war with Ukraine after being “lured into battle”, Ghana’s foreign minister has said after a visit to Kyiv in which officials raised the issue of Russian recruitment of African people.

Reports of African men being attracted to Russia by promises of jobs and ending up on Ukraine’s frontlines have become more frequent in recent months, creating tensions between Moscow and some of the countries involved.

Published: February 27, 2026, 4:42 pm

European girls aged 13-15 have world’s highest rate of tobacco use for age group

World Health Organization report also finds one in seven adolescents across continent use vapes and e-cigarettes

Teenage girls in Europe have the highest rate of tobacco use in their age group around the world, while one in seven adolescents across the continent use vapes and e-cigarettes, figures show.

The data, based on analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO), shows that Europe is on course to maintain its status as the world’s biggest consumer of tobacco up to 2030, and reveals “particularly concerning” trends of tobacco use among women and young people.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:00 am

Growing pains: Industry has shown that bigger isn’t always better

The fourth season of TV’s once underrated drama has maxed out on everything – sex, nastiness, nihilism – and it’s been a major miscalculation

There’s a lot of talk about growth on Industry, the hit HBO/BBC drama concerning the ruthless world of London finance. Characters wax poetic and soothingly incoherent (to the layperson) about stocks and shorts, asset values and private funds. Charismatic entrepreneurs peddle the latest groundbreaking green energy company or democratized bank or, to quote one particularly foul-mouthed character in a show full of scoundrels, “the Paypal of bukkake”. All espouse and consecrate the profit motive.

Naturally, there’s a lot of hot air; in the show’s caustic nexus of business, politics and global media – not so much a fun-house mirror as a high-budget, impressionistic rendering of five minutes scrolling X – your worth is not in dollars or pounds but in narrative confidence. “We don’t need proof,” says one short-seller out for the kill, “because we finally have a good story to tell”. Cooked books can be explained as “simply a misalignment between the velocity of my vision and the velocity of regulation”, according to the slippery fintech entrepreneur Whitney Halberstram, played with reptilian cool by Max Minghella, in the fourth season’s most recent episode. The gap in between is “where smart people have always made money”.

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:04 am

‘It’s good music, not a guilty pleasure’: how Bruno Mars embraced cheese to become pop’s most popular star

He gets more streams than Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny, thanks to a shamelessly corny and cannily timeless style. Close collaborators and industry experts explain his secret

Sixteen years since his sugary debut Just the Way You Are became a megahit, Bruno Mars is the most-streamed musician in the world. Last year, the Hawaiian-born 40-year-old became the first (and still only) artist to reach 150m monthly listeners on Spotify, and his staying power shows little sign of waning: Mars now has more listeners than even Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift. His latest, funk-inspired single I Just Might – which he performed at the Grammys earlier this month, with a brass band, slick suit and his trademark bandana – shot to the top of the US Hot 100, making him only the fourth male soloist in chart history to achieve 10 No 1 singles there, after Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Drake.

“We always say, I don’t know when that happened,” laughs Philip Lawrence, the songwriter and producer who has helped shape Mars’s story, when asked about their huge success together. The two musicians were introduced in 2006 and bonded over a shared dream to get signed and get on stage. “That was our connection – let’s perform!”

Published: February 27, 2026, 10:40 am

‘I’ve never been so frightened’: the veteran reporter who turned his lens on the empty bedrooms of school shooting victims

The director of an Oscar-nominated documentary that goes into the bedrooms of children killed in US school shootings on why it was his most daunting challenge to date – and the hard task of encouraging people to see it

Steve Hartman has been a CBS correspondent since 1996. In the US, he is known for his feelgood human interest stories. This month he has reported on the retirement of a well-loved New Jersey postman after 33 years on the job and a truck driver who has spent two decades building a balsa wood scale replica of New York City.

But since 1997, Hartman has also been reporting on school shootings, which have become a horrifyingly common feature of American life. (CNN reports that there were at least 78 in 2025, though there is no universal definition of a school shooting, which means that numbers vary depending on the source. Other reports suggest a much higher figure.)

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:00 am

Vanished review – even Kaley Cuoco can’t save this desperately daft mystery caper

With poor Sam Claflin virtually banished from screen, it’s up to the Big Bang Theory star to keep this woefully formulaic show afloat – and it’s a losing battle

Buckle up, buttercups! Three hours of overstuffed nonsense split into four 45-minute bursts is about to come atcha, and fast.

Vanished stars Kaley Cuoco, who found fame in The Big Bang Theory from 2007-2019, then starred in The Flight Attendant a few years back. Cuoco played an ordinary, if functionally alcoholic, stewardess who found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and enmeshed in an ever-deepening mystery, then mortal peril. She found unexpected reserves of courage and resourcefulness and managed to stay half a step ahead of the bad guys until it was time for vanquishings and comeuppances all round.

Vanished is on Prime Video now.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:00 am

‘Everybody wants a bestie like this guy!’ Rush on rock’s most anticipated reunion – and its greatest bromance

After drummer Neil Peart died in 2020, many thought the Canadian prog legends would never reform. As they book a mammoth global tour, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson explain how their lifelong bond drew them back together

The two men on the sofa, Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, have known each other for 60 years now. “When we first met in junior high school, we sat beside each other, and we laughed,” says Lee, the elder by a month. “He’s the funniest guy I’ve ever known, and I make him laugh, too.” Lifeson, who has been gazing at his friend happily, nods vigorously. “Yeah!” The two of them gently tease each other, and speak of each other with such happy admiration, that I feel suffused with warmth from the off. “Everybody wants to have a bestie like this guy!” Lee says at one point, beaming.

It’s only because they like each other so much that they’re in this posh London hotel suite. Lifeson came over to Europe for some health checks, and Lee decided to come with him. Once they were here, they decided they may as well talk to some journalists about Rush’s upcoming R50 reunion tour, and the decision to add 24 European and South American shows to the 58 arena dates they’d already announced for North America (they’ll play the UK in March 2027). The interviews were meant to be separate, but they decided it would be more enjoyable to speak together. Honestly, if you ever want to see a model for male friendship, spend time with Rush and feel cleansed.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:00 am

Lala Lala: Heaven 2 review – brooding alt-popper fights the urge to run

(Sub Pop)
Lillie West’s fourth album is a hazy, mid-tempo meditation on escape that gets stuck in a numbing mid-tempo mode – though there is a gorgeous moment of release

Over fidgety, impatient keys, Lala Lala – UK-born, US-based Lillie West – declares her intention to leave. “Get me out of America,” she whispers, frustrated, on opener Car Anymore. Yet West’s fourth album (and first for Sub Pop) is about stillness – or trying to fight the urge to run.

After darting between Chicago, New Mexico, Reykjavík and London, West found love in Los Angeles and started to put down roots. But Heaven 2 (produced by Jay Som’s Melina Duterte) is shrouded in uncertainty, with cloaks of reverb, and lyrics buried beneath breathy deflection. Scammer toys with the romantic tension of threatening to split town, over an austere soundscape of purring synths and crisp snare, while Anywave battles a crisis of self – “If I existed, I don’t any more” – across bleary sirens and a spinning drum machine, like a nihilist sibling to Lorde’s Melodrama.

Published: February 27, 2026, 9:30 am

Tomeka Reid: Dance! Skip! Hop! review – an early contender for jazz album of the year

(Out of Your Head)
The cellist reunites with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara for five stunning tracks that are boundary-pushing yet populist

US cellist and composer Tomeka Reid and her frequent guitar soulmate Mary Halvorson have collected so many compliments for their jazzily genre-loose innovations over the past decade and a half, that they don’t need to waste a moment proving anything to anybody. These two fearless musicians have played alongside the tough, cerebral Anthony Braxton, and Reid has been part of that great Chicago avant-jazz institution, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). But if they ever considered extending a conciliatory hand to the jazz-averse, it might sound like this entrancing and aptly named set.

This is the fourth release by Reid’s quartet featuring Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Over five tracks and almost 50 minutes, they race and cruise through jiving swingers, fast brush-shuffles, Latin-jazzy harmonies, hip-hoppish fuzz-guitar burn-ups, and sensuous acoustic-cello reveries.

Published: February 27, 2026, 8:30 am

Scholar, seductress, alchemist: who was the real Cleopatra?

The Egyptian queen has fascinated me from childhood, but following the archives led only to ancient gossip and Roman propaganda. Fiction was the way to liberate her from misogynist myth

Witch, whore, villain – there are few women who have been as vilified through history as Cleopatra VII. The disdain of ancient sources that sought to dismiss her as exotic and seductive has corrupted her legacy. But I take pleasure in knowing that her name has permeated through time with far more recognition than the men who wrote about her. Ask a 10-year-old child who Plutarch is and they’ll scrunch up their brows – but Cleopatra? Their eyes light up with glee.

Mine did when I was tasked by my schoolteacher to draw Cleopatra. My small hands searched through the box of crayons. I picked up the brown, its tip pristine from lack of use. It was the loneliest colour in the box, used only to draw mud or bark. The face I drew reflected my own in features and colour.

Published: February 27, 2026, 11:00 am

Ancient by Luke Barley review – the secret history of Britain’s woodlands

A former ranger tells the story of how the UK’s forests intimately shaped – and were shaped by – its people

It may not sit well with the politicians who now seek to govern it, but Britain has always been a land of immigrants – our “native” fauna and flora among them. More than 10,000 years ago, in the wake of retreating ice sheets, trees from the warmer south began to re-colonise this chilly north-western fringe of Europe: first birch, then hazel, elm, oak and alder. By the time rising sea levels submerged the marshy lowlands connecting it to the rest of the continent, the new British mainland was covered in a luxuriant tangle of forest. In this primeval wildwood, a squirrel could leap tree-to-tree from north coast to south, east coast to west.

Or so one story goes. In Ancient, woodland expert Luke Barley sets out to tell a more complex and fascinating tale of our forests and the people that have lived with and made use of them. His title points back to the post-ice age woodland and its forerunners in sweltering or wintry deep prehistory, but it also holds a more specific meaning. Under classifications drawn up in the 1970s, a UK wood is considered “ancient” if it was already in existence by 1600 (in Scotland, by 1750), as shown on the earliest accurate maps. These are our last links to the wildwood, places where the undisturbed soil still supports a rich and intricate ecosystem that no human ingenuity can recreate.

Published: February 27, 2026, 7:00 am

Seth Meyers on Team Trump’s Iran threats: ‘These guys speak like they’ve been hit on the head’

Late-night hosts addressed US-Iran tensions, Trump’s failed businesses and Hillary Clinton’s ‘ridiculous’ Epstein hearing

On Thursday night, late-night hosts remarked on the Jeffrey Epstein investigations, the threat of a US attack on Iran and Donald Trump nominating a wellness influencer as the next US surgeon general.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:24 pm

Tracey Emin’s lust for life, gaudy Egyptian treasure and Don McCullin hits 90 – the week in art

Emin reminds us of the deep power of art, Ramses II parades his megalomaniac gold and Rose Wylie’s witty paintings finally get their due – all in your weekly dispatch

Tracey Emin: A Second Life
The most serious and intelligent, as well as passionate, artist of her generation proves art can still touch us all and express what it is to be alive.
• Tate Modern, London, until 31 August

Published: February 27, 2026, 12:18 pm

‘Watching my six year old deadlift 35kg was pretty cool’: meet the children who work out

A growing number of parents are letting their young children train with weights. But is it a good – or safe – idea? We ask the experts to weigh in

Most parents remember the first time their baby smiled or when they took their first steps. Eve Stevenson recalls different milestones. “Watching my daughter, Madison, deadlift 35kg at the age of six was pretty cool,” she says, grinning with pride from her living room in south-west London.

As a personal trainer (PT) and former British weightlifting champion, her daughter’s achievements shouldn’t really be that surprising. Still, Stevenson has been on the receiving end of some harsh opinions about her daughter and three-year-old son, Beau, doing resistance training with her. “People tell me it will stunt their growth or that it’s dangerous,” she says. She is also often accused of forcing her children to train, when actually it all started the other way round. “What child doesn’t look at their parents and want to do what they’re doing?” she asks. And although to many people the idea of a small child strength training or competing might feel jarring, Stevenson is among a growing number of parents who see value in helping their children build muscles.

Published: February 27, 2026, 3:00 pm

Demna brings sexy back in effort to reinvigorate Gucci

Designer’s first catwalk for the brand in Milan flirts with bad taste with short, tight dresses and a diamante G-string

Demna is fashion’s dark lord of apocalyptic streetwear. Gucci is the glossy sex kitten of Milan. Put the two together, and what do you get? Sex appeal that flirts with bad taste.

At Demna’s first Gucci catwalk show, staged in Milan on Friday afternoon in front of an audience including Donatella Versace and Paris and Nicky Hilton, dresses were so short and tight that Emily Ratajkowski periodically yanked down a handful of disco-ball sequins to cover her bottom as she walked. There were lapdance-bar tinsel hair extensions, and Kate Moss in a diamante G-string. A certain sketchiness in the roll of the hips, a model who pulled his phone out of his bumbag and scrolled his way down the catwalk.

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:21 pm

‘Putting on a brave face’: why royal fashion has never been more arresting

Could the royal family’s latest troubles usher in a new era of diplomatic dressing?

As Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was taken into police custody last week, his brother King Charles made a “surprise” appearance on the front row at the opening of London fashion week. Styled in one of his staple jaunty ties, clashing pocket handkerchief and British-made suit, it sent the message loud and clear: this was business as usual.

That message persisted when, at the Baftas at the weekend, the Prince and Princess of Wales showed a united front in coordinated burgundy velvet (“Pantone diplomacy”, as the New York Times put it). Catherine’s blush Gucci gown showed not just solidarity in hue but also, arguably, signalled her ethics in a week when the royal family’s came under fire: she’d worn the dress before, on a previous outing.

Published: February 27, 2026, 9:00 am

Fashion’s greatest challenges ‘inequality and AI’, say Prada designers

Speaking at Milan fashion week, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented a more concentrated, but relatable, show

Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the co-designers of Prada, said backstage at Milan fashion week that fashion’s greatest challenges were inequality and artificial intelligence.

An interesting perspective, since Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire owner of Meta, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, sat next to Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s husband, in the front row.

Published: February 27, 2026, 7:00 am

Experience: my record company replaced me with an ‘impostor’

Kendrick Lamar has sampled my track. I’d love to ask him if he knows my story

Growing up in North Miami Beach in the 1980s was a lot of fun. We might not have had TikTok, but we weren’t bored: we would ride our bikes around and blast music from our boomboxes all weekend. In my mid-teens, I did a work placement at a record store. I loved it, and became something of an expert in R&B and rap, listening to Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC and 2 Live Crew on repeat.

One day in 1984, when I was 17, a record producer named Tony Butler – better known as “Pretty Tony” – came into the store. He heard me speak and asked me whether I wanted to make some music. I thought, “Why not?!”

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:00 am

Will Trump try to seize voting machines to disrupt the midterm elections?

State election leaders have been raising concerns about the intent behind Trump’s recent moves on elections

After the FBI seized elections materials from Fulton county last month, Donald Trump returned once again to his false claim that he beat Joe Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump said to Dan Bongino on the former FBI staffer’s podcast earlier this month . “We should take over the voting in at least – many – 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Later that week, it was revealed that the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who was present at the Fulton county raid, led an investigation into Puerto Rico’s voting machines – taking some machines to examine – last May to identify what her office said were potential vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems. Taken together, Trump’s comments and actions are pointing toward a possibility Democratic voters have until now only contemplated: the federal government seizing voting machines across the country in a way that disrupts voting in the 2026 midterms.

If the federal government declared some digital voting machines off-limits at the last minute, it would set off a chain of emergency court hearings, leaving elections directors scrambling to find another way to print and count ballots before those cases resolved. Early voting could crater. Election Day voting could be curtailed. And results might not be ready for weeks.

Published: February 27, 2026, 12:00 pm

North Korea’s ‘most beloved’ child: what the key congress revealed about Kim Jong-un’s succession plans

Many observers believe North Korean leader has decided daughter Kim Ju-ae will succeed him, but others say gender politics could block her path to power

When North Korea’s ruling party held a top-level meeting this month there were predictable boasts of unstoppable nuclear development and, more unexpectedly, a suggestion by Kim Jong-un that his country and the US “could get along” – provided that Washington recognised North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power.

But for many North Korea watchers, the Workers’ party congress – held over several days just once every five years – was a rare opportunity to speculate over the identity of the country’s future leader.

Published: February 27, 2026, 5:53 am

Seals, shipwrecks and a screaming swallower: Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026 – in pictures

The annual competition draws thousands of entries from across the world and brings together images from below the water’s surface that show the diversity and challenges of subaquatic life

• All photographs courtesy of Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:00 am

Tell us what Pokémon means to you

As Pokémon turns 30, we would like to hear what the franchise means to you

It is 30 years since the game Pocket Monsters was released for the Nintendo Game Boy in Japan. Many more video games, trading cards, toys, an animated series and films followed as the franchise became a worldwide hit. With this in mind, we would like to hear what Pokémon means to you after three decades.

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Published: February 27, 2026, 3:37 pm

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Russian airstrikes in Kyiv, Ramadan in Gaza, Trump’s State of the Union address and snow in New York City – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: February 27, 2026, 6:58 pm