Trump gets the Monroe doctrine wrong. He should take a page from Bad Bunny | Ted Widmer

The US president has twisted the 1823 doctrine to suit his quest for domination. It originally had a very different vision for the Americas

Throughout Bad Bunny’s mesmerizing performance during the Super Bowl, the word “America” kept expanding, like an accordion, stretching out to embrace people of all nationalities. “Together we are all America,” his football read, and he obviously meant it, in the largest, most hemispheric sense. Near the end, after shouting “God bless America” (his only words in English), Bad Bunny ran through a long list of countries in the western hemisphere.

That inclusiveness enraged Donald Trump, who erupted on social media, and tried to take the word back, declaring the half-time show “an affront to the greatness of America”. By which, of course, he meant the United States.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

The 9 best winter boots for women to buy for life, vetted by pros who work outdoors

Expert picks for comfortable and durable shoes that have maintained the pep in their step – even in the biting cold

• The best winter jackets for women picked by experts – and on sale

• Eight winter clothing essentials Scandinavians swear by – from heated socks to ‘allværsjakke’

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter

I have a confession to make: I don’t own a pair of snow boots. And after New York City’s latest snowstorm, my daily commute to the office left my socks soaked and my toes frozen.

To help you avoid my fate, I asked for recommendations for comfy, long-lasting boots from people who spend far more time outdoors than I do. They include a ski instructor, a dog sled musher and a former National Geographic “Adventurer of the Year.”

Best affordable women’s boots:
Sorel Whitney III Waterproof Winter Booties

Best women’s boots for outdoor activities:
Merrell Thermo Chill 2 Mid Waterproof Boots

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:15 pm

The key to defeating Trump? Mass non-cooperation | Mark Engler and Paul Engler

Our studies in civil resistance offer insight into the level of popular organizing needed to repel assaults on democracy

In the wake of two horrifying killings of legal observers in Minnesota, on top of the abduction of countless immigrant community members, the country has reached a turning point. Backlash against ICE’s lawlessness and aggression has reverberated so loudly that even Trump has heard it. But the effects on ordinary Americans contemplating what they would do if they lived in Minneapolis or St Paul is perhaps even more profound.

The extraordinary level of grassroots solidarity and creative resistance in anti-ICE protests in Minnesota has given people a new appreciation for the power that mass non-cooperation can have in resisting the Trump administration’s drive toward authoritarianism. And it has created an awareness of why such action is clearly needed.

Mark and Paul Engler are co-directors of the Whirlwind Institute, a social change strategy center. A new and expanded 10th anniversary edition of their book This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-first Century has just been released.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

Bud Cort obituary

American actor who starred in the 1971 dark comedy film Harold and Maude that later became a cult classic

As the death-obsessed young man Harold Chasen in the 1971 countercultural romcom Harold and Maude, the actor Bud Cort, who has died aged 77 of complications from pneumonia, set the mould for mordant bedroom iconoclasts in successive generations of indie films, from Rushmore to Ghost World to Submarine.

The film, directed by Hal Ashby, was a critical and commercial flop on release, slated by Variety as having “all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage” and gone from cinemas after a week. Studio executives had been uneasy about the February-to-December tryst between Cort’s character and Ruth Gordon’s septuagenarian Holocaust survivor, with more passionate bedroom material left on the cutting-room floor.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:21 pm

‘From misfits to bullies’: how America’s Next Top Model became toxic

It was the reality show that aimed to disrupt the fashion industry but, as a shocking Netflix docuseries details, it also became part of the problem

Even for those who didn’t watch the show religiously, there’s a scene in America’s Next Top Model that has broken through from reality TV infamy to hall-of-fame virality.

It’s when Tyra Banks, model-turned-TV-mogul, loses her temper in spectacular fashion at contestant Tiffany Richardson, after misunderstanding her post-elimination response as something to be read as ungrateful. “I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this!” she screams. “When my mother yells like this, it’s because she loves me. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you, how dare you!”

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:02 am

Are we hard-wired for infidelity?

Monogamy may be held up as an ideal, but evolution has other ideas

Most of us know people in committed relationships, even lifelong marriages. And we also know stories about relationship transgressions, of partnerships tested or broken by infidelity.

As an evolutionary biologist who studies sex and relationships, I’m fascinated by these two truths. We humans make romantic commitments to each other – and some also break those commitments by cheating.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

EU foreign policy chief criticises ‘fashionable euro-bashing’ by US

Kaja Kallas says other countries ‘look up to us’ and rejects idea Europe faces ‘civilisational erasure’

The EU’s foreign policy chief has denied claims levelled by the US that Europe is facing civilisational erasure, rejecting what she condemned as “fashionable euro-bashing” by Washington.

Kaja Kallas also said the US was discovering that it could not settle the war in Ukraine without Europe’s involvement and consent.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:23 pm

US teen who pushed for her father’s release from ICE custody dies of cancer

Ofelia Torres, 16, spotlighted her dad Ruben’s illegal detention last fall during Trump’s crackdown in Chicago

A Chicago teenager, whose father was detained by immigration authorities while she navigated cancer, died on Friday, a family spokesperson said.

Ofelia Torres, a 16-year-old in Chicago, had been undergoing treatment for an aggressive and rare form of cancer since late 2024. As she and her family struggled with the medical procedures, her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was detained by immigration authorities while at a Home Depot in October, leading to a contentious and public case that highlighted the human effects of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:24 pm

Authorities appeal for video footage as Nancy Guthrie search enters third week with no arrests

Authorities await DNA test results from pair of gloves found near home as search continues to draw national attention

The search for Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC’s Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie, has entered its third week, as investigators ask neighbors within a two-mile radius to share home video footage and authorities await DNA test results from a pair of gloves found near the home.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the evening of 31 January, when she was dropped off at her home in the Catalina foothills north of Tucson, Arizona, after having dinner with her older daughter and son-in-law. She was reported missing the following day, after she failed to arrive at a friend’s house to watch a church service.

Published: February 15, 2026, 8:20 pm

Rallies held across the world in support of Iran’s anti-government protesters

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, tells 200,000 in Munich he is ready to lead Iran to a ‘secular democratic future’

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rallies around the world to show their solidarity with anti-government demonstrators in Iran whose continued protests have been met with brutal and deadly repression.

On Saturday, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, addressed a crowd of 200,000 people in Munich, telling them he was ready to lead the country to a “secular democratic future”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:47 pm

‘I was so scared’: US trial witnesses allege Alexander brothers worked together to rape women

Real estate agent brothers Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander – known as ‘closers’ – are on trial in New York for sex trafficking

In their time as real estate brokers, the Israeli-American Alexander brothers – twins Alon and Oren and older brother Tal – were known as “closers”, the salesmen who could a get a sale over finish line, often to wealthy hedge funders who were then making hay in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Their technique, one real estate expert explained outside the 26th floor of the federal court house in lower Manhattan last week, was based on the sense that the property salesmen “were just like their clients” – young, eager and successful. Kim Kardashian and then-husband Kanye West, Jared and Ivanka Trump were clients.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:00 pm

Searchers find missing ship in Lake Michigan, over 150 years after it sunk

Shipwreck hunter found Lac La Belle steamer, one of ‘most sought-after missing ships’, after nearly 60-year search

Searchers recently discovered the wreck of one of the “most sought-after missing ships” in Lake Michigan, that had sunk to the bottom of the lake over 150 years ago.

A shipwreck hunter and scuba diver named Paul Ehorn made the discovery after having searched for the Lac La Belle passenger steamer for nearly 60 years. Shipwreck World, a group that works to locate shipwrecks around the globe, announced on Friday that the team led by Ehorn found the wreck about 20 miles (32km) offshore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:49 pm

Renderings show most detailed vision for Trump’s White House ballroom

Trump sparked public backlash when he abruptly began demolishing the East Wing to clear space for his ballroom

New renderings released this week provide the most detailed vision yet of Donald Trump’s proposed $400m White House ballroom addition.

The renderings, submitted by the project’s architects and released on Friday by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), depict a vast sprawling structure, expected to be around 90,000sq ft, from multiple angles.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:38 pm

Berlin film festival defends Wim Wenders after Arundhati Roy attacked ‘jaw-dropping’ comments

Berlinale head says artists should not be pushed into soundbites after author quit over president’s remarks that film-makers should ‘stay out of politics’

The Berlin film festival has issued a lengthy statement “in defence of our film-makers, and especially our jury and jury president”, after what it described as a “media storm that has swept over the Berlinale” in its first few days.

The defence follows criticism levelled at the jury, in particular president, Wim Wenders, for comments made when fielding questions about the war in Gaza. Asked during the opening press conference if films can effect political change, the German film-maker said that “movies can change the world” but “not in a political way”, adding that film-makers “have to stay out of politics”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:48 pm

‘The ride was worth the fall’: Lindsey Vonn returning to US for further surgeries after downhill crash

• American fractured tibia in downhill last week

• Vonn reiterates she has no regrets over crash

Lindsey Vonn is preparing to fly back to America after she fractured her tibia in the Olympic downhill last week, according to the CEO of the US Ski and Snowboard Association.

Sophie Goldschmidt says her team’s medical staff has been coordinating Vonn’s recovery and hopes to accompany her back home to the United States. Vonn has had multiple surgeries in Italy to repair the complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:52 pm

Progressive Texas organizers hail shock win as far-right Republicans left reeling

Elation as anti-extremists fight back against influence of billionaire megadonors through grassroots organizing

Chris Tackett started tracking extremism in Texas politics about a decade ago, whenever his schedule as a Little League coach and school board member would allow. At the time, he lived in Granbury, 40 minutes west of Fort Worth. He’d noticed that a local member of the state legislature, Mike Lang, had become a vocal advocate for using public money for private schools – despite the fact that Lang campaigned as a supporter of public education.

With a little research, Tackett found that Lang had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the Wilks brothers and Tim Dunn, billionaire megadonors whose deep pockets and Christian nationalist views have consumed the Texas GOP. Tackett published his findings on social media, and soon enough, people started asking him to create pie charts of their representatives’ campaign funds. These charts evolved into the organisation See It. Name It. Fight It.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:00 pm

Offer to join Trump’s new era is met with growing sense of European steeliness

Talk of a stronger, independent Europe was the dominant mood in Munich amid bitter disagreement on Ukraine

If JD Vance’s thuggish speech to last year’s Munich Security Conference, directed at the solar plexus of Europe, marked the moment when a transatlantic breakup started, this weekend’s conference, in a rainy and cold Bavaria, was where the debate about the terms of the divorce settlement got under way.

Marco Rubio, the chosen Washington representative this year, is a diplomat, so he softened the Trumpian tone with references to German beer, the Beatles, Dante and the Mayflower. But his speech was a stern warning that if Europe wanted to continue on its path of civilisational decline, as this US administration sees it, America would not be interested and has different hemispheres on which to focus.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:03 pm

Trump touts climate savings but new rule set to push up US prices

Critics accuse administration of ‘cooking the books’ by claiming US would save $1.3tn from climate finding reversal

The Trump administration claims its latest move to gut climate regulations and end all greenhouse gas standards for vehicles will save Americans money. But its own analysis indicates that the new rule will push up gas prices, and that the benefits of the rollback are unlikely to outweigh the costs.

On Thursday, the president and his environmental secretary Lee Zeldin announced the finalized repeal of the endangerment finding, a legal determination which underpins virtually all federal climate regulations. He claimed the rollback would save the US $1.3tn by 2055.

Published: February 15, 2026, 1:00 pm

Ex-watchdogs warn rush to give power to local police in immigration crackdown risks ‘threat to civil rights’

Critics say Trump administration’s rapidly expanding system is open to abuse and risks alienating communities from local police

Homeland Security watchdogs who were forced out of their jobs warn that the Trump administration’s “alarming” rush to deputize hundreds of local police departments to enforce federal immigration law – while gutting independent oversight – risks “a threat to civil rights nationwide.”

When the experienced civil rights watchdogs had their jobs cut last year by the Trump administration, they were in the process of scrutinizing the controversial federal program allowing local police to conduct federal immigration enforcement work, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

In Minneapolis, Native American patrols keep watch – and see history repeating: ‘We are still being chased’

The American Indian Movement was established in Minneapolis more than 50 years ago in response to police brutality. After ICE agents flooded the city this winter, neighborhoods reprised citizen patrols

Outside the Pow Wow Grounds coffee shop in Minneapolis’s Native American cultural corridor, a group of watchers huddled around a small firepit. Some cuddled into heated camp chairs, as others grasped steaming cups of coffee as they scanned the intersection for ICE agents.

A volunteer periodically monitored a local chat group for reports of ICE agents in the area. Foot patrollers equipped with heated handwarmers and orange whistles were dispatched throughout the neighbourhood, and watchers with cars took off in pairs.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

No fuel, no tourists, no cash – this was the week the Cuban crisis got real

Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in

Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions.

Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against Cuba’s ally Venezuela at the beginning of January, the US administration is actively seeking regime change.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:00 am

Maxwell’s clemency pitch: can Epstein accomplice talk her way out of prison?

Experts question convicted sex trafficker’s motivations as she claims she can reveal ‘truth’ in exchange for freedom

When Ghislaine Maxwell refused to testify before Congress last week, she nonetheless insisted on her willingness to help.

Maxwell, who was convicted of helping Jeffrey Epstein draw teenage girls into a world of sexual abuse, dangled the prospect of revealing truth before Congress and American public – so long as she was freed from jail.

Published: February 15, 2026, 1:00 pm

The kindness of strangers: my new couch was stranded outside – then a burly gym guy helped move it upstairs

I was frantic – I had to get the couch inside before my parents arrived. Out of desperation, I drove to a nearby gym

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I’d bought a nice new couch after my labrador chewed through the first one. But I didn’t put it in my apartment straight away. My plan was to swap the old couch for the new one right before my parents came to visit from overseas, so the dog wouldn’t have a chance to destroy it before their arrival.

My apartment was upstairs and the new couch was in storage on the ground floor, so I hired removalists to swap the two couches the day my parents arrived. They took the tattered old couch down – but didn’t carry the new one up. Instead, they left it on the street for anyone to grab, and were gone before I had the chance to correct them.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

Facing meltdown? Over 75% of people suffer from burnout - here’s what you need to know

Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts

Once, after surviving yet another round of redundancies in a former job, I did something very odd. I turned off the lights in my room and lay face-down on the bed, unable to move. Rather than feeling relief at having escaped the axe, I was exhausted and numb. I’m not the only one. Fatigue, apathy and hopelessness are all textbook signs of burnout, a bleak phenomenon that has come to define many of our working lives. In 2025, a report from Moodle found that 66% of US workers had experienced some kind of burnout, while a Mental Health UK survey found that one in three adults came under high levels of pressure or stress in the previous year. Despite the prevalence of burnout, plenty of misconceptions around it persist. “Everybody thinks it’s some sort of disease or medical condition,” says Christina Maslach, the psychology professor who was the first to study the syndrome in the 1970s. “But it’s actually a response to chronic job stressors – a stress response.” Here we separate the facts from the myths.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:00 am

The Education of Jane Cumming review – sexuality, race and a real school scandal

Berlin film festival
Sophie Heldman’s drama about two teachers accused of lesbianism by a pupil is exhilaratingly candid

Lillian Hellman’s stage play The Children’s Hour – filmed by William Wyler in 1961 with Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn – is the well-known, earnest story of two women teaching at a private girls’ school whose lives are ruined by a pupil’s malicious accusation of homosexuality: it’s one of the earliest Hollywood movies to tiptoe around the existence of gay people, albeit clearly permitted to exist on the understanding that the people involved are really not gay.

But until this moment I knew nothing about the real-life libel case from 19th-century Scotland on which it was based, which in 2013 was the subject of a study by LGBT scholar Lillian Faderman entitled Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired The Children’s Hour.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:45 pm

This is how we do it: ‘Whether it’s kinky sex in a dungeon or shopping at Costco, it’s all about our bond’

Dan and Zoe met on a train and connected instantly. Twenty years and three kids later, they’re still trying out new things
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

We have a cup of tea and a chat with the receptionist then go on to a leather-clad room

Published: February 15, 2026, 11:00 am

As defence chiefs, we warn you today about Russia, and say this rearmament is not warmongering | Richard Knighton and Carsten Breuer

Our security is more uncertain than in decades. But by working together, and by showing strength, Britain, Germany and the rest of Europe can preserve peace

• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton is UK chief of the defence staff. Gen Carsten Breuer is German chief of defence

• Top British and German military chiefs press ‘moral’ case for rearmament

We write today not merely as the military leaders of two of Europe’s largest military spenders, but as voices for a Europe that must now confront uncomfortable truths about its security. Through the early years of our careers, Europe was emerging from the shadow of the cold war. Governments of all political colours chose to take what was known as the “peace dividend” – investing in public services and reducing spending on defence. That was an understandable choice at the time. Now it’s clear that the threats we face demand a step change in our defence and security. European leaders, along with military and civilian officials, have just discussed necessary consequences at the annual Munich security conference.

As military leaders, we see every day from intelligence and open sources how Russia’s military posture has shifted decisively westward. Its forces are rearming and learning from the war in Ukraine, reorganising in ways that could heighten the risk of conflict with Nato countries. This is a reality we must prepare for; we cannot be complacent. Moscow’s military buildup, combined with its willingness to wage war on our continent, as painfully evidenced in Ukraine, represents an increased risk that demands our collective attention.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton is UK chief of the defence staff. Gen Carsten Breuer is German chief of defence

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 15, 2026, 6:00 pm

Nobody knows what would follow regime change in Iran – but what happened in 1979 offers some pointers | Jason Burke

The similarities between now and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then, but who would prevail this time?

A critical moment looms for Iran, and so for the Middle East. The global consequences of any upheaval in Tehran have been made amply clear since the revolution in 1979 that ushered in the rule of radical Islamist clerics. In Oman, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and his team have begun indirect talks with a high-powered US delegation. Many analysts believe the gap between the two sides is too wide to be bridged, and that a conflict is inevitable. Just this weekend, having already threatened military action, Donald Trump said regime change is the “the best thing that could happen” in Iran. The tension, and risks grow higher.

The hold on Iran of those who came to power in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution is now at stake. The ultimate objective of the US appears to be regime change. This may, in fact, already be under way. In December 2025 and January 2026, the most extensive wave of protest since the early 1980s swept Iran, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets from Mashhad to Abadan.

Jason Burke is the international security correspondent of the Guardian and author of The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:00 am

Even amid rising economic uncertainty, now is not the time to hug your job

In a rapidly changing job market, it’s not necessarily good for workers to cling to their current employment

After all the employee protests over the past few years – the “great resignations”, the “quiet quittings”, the “bare-minimum Mondays” and “coffee badgings” – we have finally arrived at “job hugging”.

Amid all the economic uncertainty and the rising costs of everything, people aren’t feeling as confident as they once were. Instead of slacking off while you hunt for something better, everyone’s scared about losing their jobs. With all the news about big corporate layoffs and the ominous and still-undefined threat of AI, it’s understandable that people are hugging their jobs.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:00 pm

Hungarians have had enough of Viktor Orbán. But Trump’s tailwind could save his skin

Opposition challenger Péter Magyar is ahead in the polls on a promise of hope. Orbán is betting on fear of war to stay in power

After 16 years of uninterrupted power, Viktor Orbán is facing his biggest electoral challenge. For years Hungary’s prime minister has spun weak policy performance as success. The rise of a rival, Péter Magyar, and the opposition Tisza party has exposed the limits of that strategy.

The economy is stagnating, despite repeated promises of a long-awaited takeoff. Over the past decade and a half, Hungary has slipped from being one of central and eastern Europe’s strongest performers to one of its weakest. Public services, from healthcare to transport, are widely seen as neglected, and Policy Solutions surveys show that voters have noticed. Hungary is not alone in facing a cost of living crisis, but comparisons offer little consolation to voters who were assured that Orbán’s model would deliver exceptional results.

András Bíró-Nagy is a senior research fellow at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest and director of Policy Solutions. He is the author of The Path of Hungary’s EU Membership

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:00 am

Learn this from Bezos and the Washington Post: with hypercapitalists in charge, your news is not safe | Jane Martinson

His shameful stewardship of a once great title highlights how much we lose when private interest eclipses the public good

Not long after being made Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999, Jeff Bezos told me: “They were not choosing me as much as they were choosing the internet, and me as a symbol.” A quarter of an increasingly dark century later, the Amazon founder is now a symbol of something else: how the ultra-rich can kill the news.

Job cuts in an industry that has struggled financially since the internet came into existence and killed its business model is hardly new, but last week’s brutal cull of hundreds of journalists at the Bezos-owned Washington Post marks a new low. The redundancies that were announced to staff on a video call, the axing of half its foreign bureau (including the war reporter in Ukraine) – not since P&O Ferries have layoffs been handled so badly. Former Post stalwart Paul Farhi described a decision that affected nearly half of the 790-strong workforce as “the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation”.

Published: February 14, 2026, 10:00 am

The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead | Editorial

The president’s destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump’s assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a “hoax” framed this primarily as about deregulation – perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:30 pm

The Guardian view on AI: safety staff departures raise worries about industry pursuing profit at all costs | Editorial

Cash-hungry Silicon Valley firms are scrambling for revenue. Regulate them now before the tech becomes too big to fail

Hardly a month passes without an AI grandee cautioning that the technology poses an existential threat to humanity. Many of these warnings might be hazy or naive. Others may be self-interested. Calm, level-headed scrutiny is needed. Some warnings, though, are worth taking seriously.

Last week, some notable ground-level AI safety researchers quit, warning that firms chasing profits are sidelining safety and pushing risky products. In the near term, this suggests a rapid “enshittification” in pursuit of short-term revenue. Without regulation, public purpose gives way to profit. Surely AI’s expanding role in government and daily life – as well as billionaire owners’ desire for profits – demand accountability.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:25 pm

‘That’s hockey’: Canada’s Wilson shuns Olympic tradition and brawls during win over France

• Wilson and Pierre Crinon ejected after brawl

• Fighting is rare at Winter Games

Canada’s Tom Wilson shunned tradition on Sunday, deciding to fight during his team’s victory over France in their Olympic ice hockey game.

While fighting is a regular – and tacitly accepted – part of professional ice hockey, it rarely occurs on the Olympic stage. But Wilson dropped the gloves late in Canada’s 10-2 rout of France on Sunday, tangling with Pierre Crinon, who had delivered a forearm to the head of teammate Nathan MacKinnon minutes earlier.

Published: February 15, 2026, 9:31 pm

Federica Brignone sparks Italian joy with second gold as Mikaela Shiffrin struggles

• Italian wins her second gold medal on Cortina slopes

• Sara Hector and Thea Louise Stjernesund share silver

Federica Brignone, the racing queen of Cortina, has won her second gold medal in the space of three days at the Winter Olympics. After her victory in the women’s Super-G on Friday, she won the giant slalom by just over six-tenths of a second.

As small as that gap sounds, it was an enormous margin in a race where there were only six-hundredths of a second between the three women who finished behind her; Sweden’s Sara Hector, Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund and Brignone’s Italian teammate Lara Della Mea. The gap between Brignone and second place was the same as that between second and 15th.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:50 pm

Klæbo leads Norway to relay win and claims record ninth Winter Olympics gold

• Norwegian on course for six potential golds at Games

• France take cross-country skiing relay silver, Italy bronze

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo led Norway to victory in the men’s 4 x 7.5km cross-country relay at the Milano Cortina Games on Sunday to win a record ninth career gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

The 29-year-old has won four gold medals at these Games and is widely expected to take another two in the men’s team sprint on Wednesday and 50km classic race on Saturday.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:33 pm

Femke Kok dominates 500m speed skating to end Jackson’s hopes of retaining Olympic title

• Dutch star’s years of dominance culminates in gold

• Jutta Leerdam wins silver in Dutch one-two

• USA’s Erin Jackson misses out on retaining title

Speed skater Femke Kok had admitted that anything but gold in her signature 500m race would be a disappointment after opening her Olympic account last Monday with silver in a Dutch one-two alongside Jutta Leerdam in the 1000m. On Sunday evening, she performed like an athlete insistent on leaving no room for doubt.

Kok leveraged two years of total sprint dominance into the first Olympic gold medal of her career. She blew away the field in the women’s 500m in an Olympic-record time of 36.49sec with the kind of controlled, furious circuit that has made her a three-time world champion at the distance at 25 years old.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:48 pm

2025 NFL predictions revisited: Seahawks blindsided us, but we were right about Jets

We didn’t see Super Bowl LX coming, but some of us were early believers in Ben Johnson’s Bears, Trevor Lawrence’s Jaguars and the fallibility of the Chiefs

It doesn’t take long for the egg the start dripping from our faces. The early September headline accompanying our 2025 NFL predictions – Will it be Mahomes, Jackson or Allen in the Super Bowl? – was the ultimate hedge. After all, what were the odds that one of them wouldn’t emerge from the AFC?

Then there was the reality. Mike Vrabel’s dramatic turnaround of New England. The Bears transforming from worst-to-first in the NFC North under Ben Johnson. The first-half magic of Daniel Jones. The successful pairing of Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Sam Darnold.

Published: February 15, 2026, 11:00 am

Love is in the big air for Ukrainian skier after reaching Winter Olympics final

• Kateryna Kotsar gets engaged at end of qualifying run

• ‘It was so cute … it’s two really huge things for me’

For most athletes, qualifying for your first Olympic final would be more than enough excitement for one night. But the Ukrainian freeskier Kateryna Kotsar’s evening was just getting started.

Having made the big air final, Kotsar then wrote “freedom of memory” on her glove to protest against the ban of her compatriot Vladyslav Heraskevych for wearing images of slain athletes on his helmet. And a Valentine’s Day she will never forget took another surprise turn when her boyfriend, Bohdan Fashtryha, then dropped to one knee and proposed.

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:09 am

‘We are Europeans’: fans fly Greenland flag during Olympic US-Denmark ice hockey game

• Greenland flag raised in crowd after Danes’ opening goal

• Fans say gesture is sign of support amid Trump rhetoric

• Americans pull away after slow start for 6-3 win

Two fans who raised a flag of Greenland as the United States played Denmark in men’s ice hockey at the Winter Olympics on Saturday say they did so as a gesture of European support for the island and for Denmark.

Vita Kalniņa and her husband, Alexander Kalniņš, fans of the Latvian hockey team who live in Germany, held up a large Greenland flag during warmups and again when the Danish team scored the opening goal against the US at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:49 pm

Eden Hazard: ‘I’m more of a taxi driver than a football player now, but it’s OK’

Former Chelsea and Real Madrid idol wants merely to be remembered as ‘a good player and a funny guy’ after a career of multiple titles – and spats with Mourinho

If Italy is a boot, Lecce sits right on the heel. It is here, deep in the countryside a few kilometres outside the baroque city, that the noise of the Bernabéu and the intensity of Stamford Bridge feel like a lifetime ago. The setting is rustic, quiet and slow-paced: a stark contrast to the frenetic energy that defined Eden Hazard’s career on the pitch.

It has been almost three years since he stopped playing, and the silence since his retirement at 32 has been notable. After an injury-hit spell at Real Madrid brought a premature end to a dazzling career, Hazard did not seek the spotlight. Surrounded by vineyards rather than defenders, slumped in an armchair, he seems entirely at peace, remarkably comfortable with his life after football.

Published: February 15, 2026, 8:00 am

Anatomy of an upset: how Ilia Malinin lost Olympic figure skating gold

Ilia Malinin entered the Olympic free skate as the runaway favorite. Early mistakes triggered a meltdown that laid bare the brutal math of modern figure skating

What made Ilia Malinin’s Olympic defeat so shocking was not simply his years-long dominance entering Friday night. It was how completely the competition had tilted in his favor before he even stepped on the ice.

For nearly three years, Malinin had been men’s skating’s guiding light: unbeaten since late 2023, winner of back-to-back world titles, the skater who recalibrated the sport’s technical ceiling and then made winning look procedural. He arrived at the Milano Ice Skating Arena leading by more than five points after the short program and carrying the most difficult planned program in the field. Under almost any normal competitive logic, that combination should have been decisive.

Published: February 14, 2026, 4:16 pm

Eberechi Eze inspires Arsenal to emphatic FA Cup victory against Wigan

It has been a testing few months for the man who scored the winner for Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final last season. But after being substituted at half-time during the disappointing draw with Brentford on Thursday, perhaps this competition could help to breathe new life into Eberechi Eze’s Arsenal career.

As well as providing assists for Noni Madueke’s and Gabriel Martinelli’s goals – albeit against a poor Wigan side languishing in the League One relegation zone – the England midfielder’s swagger was back for the first time since he scored a hat‑trick in the north London derby in November.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:51 pm

Two races, two golds: Jordan Stolz smashes another Olympic record in 500m

• US speed skating star’s four-gold pursuit continues

• 500m considered toughest of Stolz’s individual events

• Entire podium finishes below previous Olympic record

The men’s 500m is speed skating distilled to its most unforgiving form: one and a quarter laps of the oval, no pacing, no recovery window, no margin for technical compromise. On Saturday afternoon in Milan’s western suburbs, Jordan Stolz mastered the sport’s fastest and most unpredictable race and pushed his Olympic campaign toward historic territory.

The 21-year-old American won the 500m in an Olympic-record 33.77 seconds, securing his second gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics and adding pace behind what is rapidly becoming one of the defining individual campaigns of these Winter Games.

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:35 pm

Canada’s curling war of words with Sweden escalates after warning over ‘F-bomb’

• Kennedy insists he is innocent of any wrongdoing

• World Curling says officials will clamp down on violations

The Canadian curler at the centre of a cheating row at the Winter Olympics has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the Swedish team of deliberately trying to “catch us in the act”.

On Saturday, World Curling confirmed that Canada had escaped punishment despite being accused of breaking the rules in the 8-6 victory over Sweden on Friday night. However, the sport’s governing body did warn Canada about their abusive langugage and introduced emergency spot checks on Saturday afternoon to make sure teams were not cheating when releasing the stone.

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:54 pm

Six ejected after fight forces 20-minute delay in St John’s-Providence basketball game

• Police enter court amid fracas sparked by hard foul

• Coach Rick Pitino holds back players as tempers flare

Six players were ejected from Saturday’s college basketball game between No. 17 St John’s and Providence after a fracas resulting from a hard foul by Friars forward Duncan Powell on Bryce Hopkins sent the Red Storm star crashing to the ground.

St John’s coach Rick Pitino, who led Providence to the 1987 Final Four, was in the middle of it, trying to hold back his players. But several entered the fray as it drifted toward the Red Storm’s visitors’ bench.

The game was delayed by nearly 20 minutes while the referees sorted out the punishments: four St John’s players were booted and two from Providence, and by the time the Friars got the ball back they had watched a one-point lead turn into a four-point deficit.

“You’re not supposed to come off the bench, but you can’t let your players get beat up,” Pitino said after the 79-69 victory gave the Red Storm its 11th straight win. “You can’t fight. Back when I was the Kentucky coach we fought almost every SEC game, and it was not a big deal. But you can’t fight any more, so toughness has to come between the lines.”

Published: February 14, 2026, 9:34 pm

At least 12 Palestinians killed and several hurt in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people

At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.

The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:52 pm

California’s billionaires pour cash into elections as big tech seeks new allies

As Gavin Newsom departs, ultra-wealthy flex wealth and influence to fight regulation and keep the boom going

Tech billionaires are leveraging tens of millions of dollars to influence California politics in a marked uptick from their previous participation in affairs at the state capitol. Behemoths such as Google and Meta are getting involved in campaigns for November’s elections, as are venture capitalists, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and Palantir’s co-founders. The industry’s goals run the gamut – from fighting a billionaire tax to supporting a techie gubernatorial candidate to firing up new, influential super political action committees (Pacs).

The phenomenon squarely fits the moment for the state’s politics – with 2026 being the year that Politico has dubbed “the big tech flex”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘People want to help’: Canadians rally round Tumbler Ridge after school shooting

Tragedy has prompted a wave of support for town from neighbouring communities and across country

When Jim Caruso heard the news of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, he knew immediately he needed to be there. He packed his bags and boarded a plane for the community 700 miles away. “I wanted to be here to bring some level of comfort,” he said. “I wanted to hug people, pray for them and, most importantly, to cry with them.”

On Tuesday, a shooter opened fire in the town’s secondary school, killing eight people, most of them young children. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Canada’s history and has left the country reeling.

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:34 pm

‘Right about everything’: Liz Truss tweets photo of meeting with Trump

Unclear how encounter between Britain’s shortest-serving PM and US president was initiated and how long it lasted

After spending time and resources crisscrossing the Atlantic to cultivate the support of the Maga faithful, Liz Truss has finally got the prize she apparently craved: a photo with Donald Trump.

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister tweeted a photo on Sunday showing her in the company of the US president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:09 pm

US boards second oil tanker in Indian Ocean after it fled Venezuelan raid

Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured

US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a US military operation.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:30 pm

Fast-spreading measles outbreak takes hold among under-10s in north London

UK Health Security Agency urges parents in Enfield to get their children vaccinated as Easter holiday travels approach

A big measles outbreak in north-east London is affecting unvaccinated children under the age of 10, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed.

UKHSA previously reported 34 laboratory-confirmed measles cases among children who attend schools and nurseries in Enfield from 1 January to 9 February, with some requiring hospital treatment.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:37 pm

‘I want people to be warned’: son forced to remove tubes from father’s septic body after death in Bali hospital

Jake Harvey says he has lasting trauma after trying to get help from the Australian government for critically ill father

• Australian man died in Bali after consulate refused to assist with medical transfer

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Jake Harvey remembers vividly the moment he was told in a Balinese hospital that he had just two hours to remove his father’s dead body from the intensive care ward.

He had just watched his father, Wayne, die, but within minutes he was told he had to “unplug” him – leaving him to work out how to remove a catheter and a tube that was still down his father’s throat.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

Katie’s story: her abusive ex-partner said ‘kill yourself’. When she did, police dropped domestic violence inquiry

After her death, police dropped a case examining Katie Madden’s former partner, despite evidence he had repeatedly told her to kill herself

• Revealed: The true toll of female suicides in UK with domestic abuse at their core

Hours before Katie Madden took her own life, she had a tense phone call with her former partner Jonathon Russell. Russell was on bail after allegedly assaulting Madden – he was banned from contacting her – but the conversation took place nevertheless.

There was a witness to the call who gave evidence to the inquest into Madden’s death. Mason Jones, a friend of Madden’s, said Russell was “vile” and “abusive”. Although Jones said he could not remember the exact words Russell used, he said: “I recall Jon saying at least once that he was in control of the town and would end her life if she didn’t do it herself.”

Published: February 15, 2026, 9:00 pm

The greening of career education: US students learn new skills as climate crisis intensifies

Some districts are adding programs in clean energy and sustainability, while one state is infusing environmental lessons into culinary education and construction

On one end of the classroom, high school juniors examined little green sprouts – future baby carrots, sprigs of romaine lettuce – poking out of the soil of a drip irrigation system they built a few weeks prior.

On the opposite end of the room, a model of a hydropower plant showed students how the movement of water can stimulate electrical currents. In this class in South Carolina’s Greenville county school district, students primarily learn about one topic: renewable energy.

Published: February 15, 2026, 1:00 pm

Trump’s repeal of landmark Obama-era climate rule: four key takeaways

Environmental groups say ‘cynical and devastating’ reversal of endangerment finding has grave implications

The Trump administration has dismantled the basis for all US climate regulations, in its most confrontational anti-environment move yet.

The 2009 endangerment finding determined that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare and should therefore be controlled by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). By revoking it on Thursday, officials eliminated the legal foundation enabling the government to control planet-heating pollution.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:00 am

US military used Anthropic’s AI model Claude in Venezuela raid, report says

Wall Street Journal says Claude used in operation via Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir Technologies

Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Saturday, a high-profile example of how the US defence department is using artificial intelligence in its operations.

The US raid on Venezuela involved bombing across the capital, Caracas, and the killing of 83 people, according to Venezuela’s defence ministry. Anthropic’s terms of use prohibit the use of Claude for violent ends, for the development of weapons or for conducting surveillance.

Published: February 14, 2026, 4:15 pm

A missing woman, bloodstains and a masked intruder: tantalising clues but few leads in hunt for Nancy Guthrie

The disappearance in Arizona of the Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother has captivated the nation

Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home two weeks ago, setting off a potent chain reaction of federal and local criminal investigation, amateur sleuthing and public obsession that – so far – has resulted in neither the 84-year-old grandmother being located or anyone named as a suspect or, indeed, arrested.

It is a case that is both enthralling and baffling the American public, casting doubts on the ability of investigators to get to the bottom of the mystery that each day generates a fresh 24-hour news cycle – but seemingly little in the way of solid fresh leads likely to solve the case.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:00 am

Democratic senators launch inquiry into EPA’s repeal of key air pollution enforcement measure

Senators said repeal was ‘particularly troubling’ and was counter to EPA’s mandate to protect human health

More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.

Published: February 14, 2026, 4:32 pm

Andrew aide advised Epstein to omit conviction on China visa form, files suggest

Epstein files release shows David Stern advised against mentioning ‘being denied previously or criminal charges’

An aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor advised Jeffrey Epstein to illegally hide his child sexual abuse conviction to obtain a visa to China, according to the latest Epstein files release.

David Stern, who was a close associate of both Epstein and the then prince, was asked for his help after the disgraced financier’s initial application for a visa was rejected.

Published: February 14, 2026, 7:00 am

UK’s top prosecutor says ‘nobody above law’ amid claims against former prince Andrew

Director of public prosecutions says he is confident police would examine any evidence of potential misconduct

The UK’s top prosecutor has said “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein.

Thames Valley police said earlier this week they were in discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations of misconduct in public office against the former prince.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:24 pm

UK considers new Russia sanctions after Navalny frog toxin finding

Yvette Cooper says claim against Kremlin ‘deeply serious’ while Russia dismisses western ‘feeblemindedness’

The UK is mulling fresh sanctions against Moscow after pinning blame on the Kremlin for the poisoning of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Yvette Cooper has suggested.

The Foreign Office and four of the UK’s allies – Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands – announced on Saturday they had determined that Navalny’s death was most likely the result of poisoning using dart frog toxin arranged by the Russian state.

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:52 pm

Welsh munitions factory seen as crucial to boosting UK stockpiles and aiding Ukraine is yet to open

Exclusive: Delay at Glascoed is latest setback for armed forces and for UK’s capacity to supply shells to Ukraine

A new factory in Wales seen as crucial to boosting UK munitions production remains unopened more than six months after its planned launch, adding to a string of delays dogging the armed forces.

The explosives facility at Glascoed, south Wales, was expected to bring a 16-fold increase in Britain’s capacity to make artillery shells, replenishing dwindling stock and increasing supplies for Ukraine.

Published: February 15, 2026, 3:16 pm

New Zealand officials warn more flooding could hit north island as man killed after heavy rain

Worst weather forecast to hit late on Sunday, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses and home evacuations

New Zealand’s weather bureau has warned more flooding could hit the country’s North Island, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses, home evacuations and caused the death of a man whose vehicle was submerged on a highway.

There was “threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips” as a deepening low-pressure system east of the North Island brought heavy rain and severe gales to several regions, the weather bureau said.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:42 am

‘She dared to be difficult’: How Toni Morrison shaped the way we think

The Beloved author’s refusal to conform made her a hero to many – and the only black female writer to have won a Nobel prize in literature

There are many ways to be difficult in this world. You can be demanding, inconvenient, stubborn, complicated, troublesome, baffling, illegible. Black womanhood is one place where all these forms of difficulty overlap. I feel like I have always known this; I have been called difficult more times in my life than I can count. But I only began to understand – to discover the meanings and uses of – my own difficulty because of Toni Morrison.

Morrison has shaped the way we think about everything from literature to politics, criticism to ethics, to the responsibilities of making art. In 1993 she became the only black woman ever to win the Nobel prize in literature. But the facts remain: she is difficult to read. She is difficult to teach. Notwithstanding the voluminous train of profiles, reviews and scholarly analysis that she drags behind her, she is difficult to write about. More to the point, she is our only truly canonical black female writer – and her work is highly complex.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

Plantation weddings and pre-civil war fashion: the film that critiques the historical fantasy of Natchez

A documentary about Mississippi examines competing forces: the nostalgic celebration of the old south and the refusal to sanitize the brutal history of enslavement

“Natchez swallowed a master narrative about the old south.”

In Suzannah Herbert’s documentary Natchez, the opening remark from National Park Service ranger Barney Schoby functions as both diagnosis and thesis. The film that follows does not evade the Mississippi town’s contradictions. Instead, it actively adjudicates them, staging white people’s curated nostalgia against Black people’s historical knowledge, lived experience and institutional fact.

Published: February 14, 2026, 12:00 pm

Watson season two review – a Sherlock Holmes spinoff full of naughty wit

It is like House meets Elementary for this show about the sidekick of Conan Doyle's detective, who investigates a different medical mystery each week – when he isn't having tastefully lit horizontal time

Go to 221B Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes fans you meet there will be American, not British – and while the BBC’s Sherlock might be the most famous Holmes revival on TV this century, the US has us beat when it comes to volume. Stateside telly responded to Sherlockmania with Elementary, which relocated Jonny Lee Miller’s Holmes to New York and made Watson and Moriarty female, but was in many ways a more faithful sleuthfest than the overblown Benedict Cumberbatch show and ran for scores more episodes. Long before that, the biggest drama in the world was House, which was set in a hospital but featured a mercurial genius solving baffling mysteries – once the House-Home-Holmes penny dropped, you knew you were watching Sherlock in disguise.

Watson is the latest attempt by US network television to keep the Conan Doyle canon firing, and it’s a straight cross between House and Elementary. Morris Chestnut is Dr John Watson, who is an American practising medicine in present-day Pittsburgh, but is also a war veteran who, when the show aired its first season last year, had just finished a stint cracking crimes in London with Sherlock Holmes. Showrunner Craig Sweeny, formerly a writer/producer on Elementary, gave his new Watson a litter of eager doctor pups who, like the gang who used to trail around behind Dr House, were always a step behind their boss when it came to working out which arcane condition was about to kill that week’s patient.

Watson aired on Sky Witness and is available on NOW.

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:00 pm

Nightborn review – Rupert Grint bringing up a monster baby

Dark forces give new parents more than they bargained with in this unsubtle Finnish horror from Hanna Bergholm

Finnish director Hanna Bergholm made a witty and unnerving baby-body-horror movie with her 2022 debut Hatching about a creepy giant egg, a complex, psychologically plausible study of family dysfunction in which the idea of fertility plays an important part. And now … she has given these ideas a retread with this programmatic and unsubtly acted film, a scary movie about a monstrous newborn that is very much less interesting and original than Hatching; the paganism is cliched and the element of black comedy – so often the alibi for not being scary in films like this – is really not all that funny. The face and body of the screeching VFX model devil-baby itself is mostly never shown to the audience, an omission that does not seem disturbing but rather an admission that this prop wouldn’t look convincing in plain sight.

Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her stolid British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) have come to live in Saga’s dilapidated family home in the remote Finnish forest, planning to fix it up so that it can be a lovely place to bring up what they hope will be a big family. (Fixing up this place would in the real world take a couple of years while they lived somewhere else, but they more or less manage it unaided in about two weeks.) Saga is obscurely moved and excited by the vital subterranean forces throbbing in the dark depths of the forest that surrounds the house. They have passionate sex there but the resulting baby is a brutal, hirsute, bloodsucking troll that destroys Saga’s marriage and happiness.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:33 pm

Rosebush Pruning review – dysfunctional rich family move in strange circles

Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning lead a starry cast in this clumsy satire that provides little fascination in a wealthy family’s suffocating lives

Since Jesse Armstrong’s Succession and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, wealthy, spoilt, dysfunctional siblings are the new rock’n’roll, and now here is a film from Greek screenwriter Efthimis Filippou (co-author of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps and Dogtooth) and directed by Karim Aïnouz. It is a weird-wave contrivance concerning a messed-up US plutocrat clan living in Spain, freely remade from Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 film Fists in the Pocket. Their bizarre and cartoony secrets, involving sex abuse, manipulation and self-harm, are satirically symptomatic of capitalism and the patriarchy, and how the rich, however entrepreneurial and smart, create a next-gen class of useless drones, on whose behalf all this wealth has supposedly been accumulated. I have to admit to finding it heavy-handed and clumsy more often than not, although there are some good performances, notably from Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning.

A strange extended family lives in a luxurious modernist house; the father (Tracy Letts) is a blind widower haunted by the memories of his late wife (Pamela Anderson) who was savaged by wolves in a nearby forest. His grownup children, infantilised by wealth, all live there: highly strung Robert (Lukas Gage) has epilepsy, and is entrusted with supervising his father’s horse riding; Anna (Riley Keough) is a talentless singer-songwriter; and Ed (Callum Turner) is a would-be fashionista. First among equals is Jack (Jamie Bell), who has the intimate honour of helping his father with his nightly teeth-cleaning; their mother’s teeth were always dazzlingly white.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:03 pm

‘Full of emotional wisdom’: Guardian writers on the best movie romances you might not have seen

For Valentine’s Day, writers picked their favourite lesser-known film love stories – from a dom-sub chamberpiece to a magical teen comedy

• ‘It launched a million fantasies’: the greatest ever TV romances

It’s the first rule of romcoms that opposites attract, and you can’t imagine two more different lovers than Poinsettia (Lynn Redgrave), a spark plug of a dame convinced that she is in a relationship with the 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini, and Fish (James Earl Jones), a gentle giant who spends his spare time wrestling a demon that only he can see. That makes for some of the film’s funniest moments, like when Poinsettia ruins a Madama Butterfly opera performance by loudly singing along to the aria. Charles Burnett’s touching film is about how Fish and Poinsettia find refuge with each other that lets them emerge from the fantasies protecting them from the real world’s cruelty, and they find a kind of late-in-life puppy love over dinner dates, cozy sleepovers and card games at their Barbary Lane-like boarding house. When I saw the restoration last 14 February, the theater was filled with couples who, like my boyfriend and I, seemed cozied up just a little closer than usual. Owen Myers

The Annihilation of Fish is available on the Criterion Channel in the US

Published: February 14, 2026, 9:07 am

‘Stabbed in the Face soundtracked an incredibly joyous time’: the weirdest songs we find romantic

Declarations of undying affection, comparisons to a summer’s day? Who needs ‘em! Our writers recall the offbeat songs that capture their hearts

By Easter 2004, I’d been in a relationship with my partner, Maria, for four months and I was just realising how deeply in love I was. We had become inseparable. A magazine sent me to the ATP festival at Pontins in Camber Sands to interview “the Beastie Boys of noise”, Wolf Eyes. The interview fell to pieces when the band, in a state of great psychic refreshment, all wearing Manowar T-shirts, refused to stop watching a Manowar DVD and signalled they would only answer questions if they related to Manowar.

Published: February 14, 2026, 1:00 pm

Tom Gauld on the modern romance novel – cartoon

Published: February 15, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘There’s only one bed’, ‘fake dating’ and ‘opposites attract’: how tropes took over romance

They’re all over blurbs and social media, but do these bite-size labels lead to formulaic fiction? Plus the classics reimagined for a modern reader

Opposites attract. He falls first. Coffee shop. Forced proximity. Sports romance. University sports romance. Ivy League university sports romance! Best friend’s brother. Brother’s best friend. Slow burn. Age gap. Amnesia. Wounded hero. Single father. Single mother. Language barrier. The bodyguard. Fake dating. Marriage of convenience.

If this list means nothing to you, you’re not a romance reader. Tropes, as these bullet-point ideas have come to be known, have taken over romance. Those who write, market and read romantic fiction use them to pinpoint exactly what to expect before the first page is turned. On Instagram, Amazon and bookshop posters you’ll find covers annotated with arrows and faux-handwritten labels reading “slow-burn” or “home-town boy/new girl in town”. Turn over any romance title and they’ll be there listed in the blurb.

Published: February 14, 2026, 9:00 am

‘I cut out one little house at a time’: the trucker who spent decades building a tiny replica of NYC

Queens-born Joe Macken’s hyperrealistic model, made with wood, cardboard and glue, is now on view at the Museum of the City of New York

In 2003, Joe Macken built a miniature model of a bridge out of popsicle sticks. He wanted it to look like a “hybrid” of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges. Soon after, Macken, who grew up in Middle Village, Queens, moved his family to a small town upstate, more than 160 miles from the city. Macken loaded his bridge on the moving truck. It did not make the trip.

“It got destroyed, and I was kind of bummed,” said Macken, who is now 63. “So I figured, let me build something better.”

Published: February 14, 2026, 1:00 pm

I took up paddleboarding in my 60s. Now I feel calm in the water and strong on land

It was a wobbly start. But every time I haul my paddleboard out I feel my balance and confidence improving

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At 66, I don’t feel old but, according to my grandsons, I’m ancient. While I’m reasonably active and walk most days, articles about ageing well hit home. Walking isn’t sufficient. I should be doing something about my strength, balance and core. Five-minutes-a-day routines may work for some but I know that I’ll start with good intentions and soon give up. I’m not one for going to the gym and yoga has never been my thing.

The answer is in my boat shed. It’s a paddleboard I bought for fun a few years ago. I was a total beginner; a friend gave me a few lessons. Then several floods turned the Hawkesbury River, where I live, a foul brown and my board has been sitting in the boat shed, unused. Then winter got in the way.

Published: February 14, 2026, 7:00 pm

‘What do we want gardens to sound like?’ It began with a frog pond – then suburban rewilding became an obsession

Wild gardening is about shedding obsessions with tidiness, embracing a looser aesthetic and providing a home for ‘the most important creatures on the planet’

On a wintry January day in Manchester, I crossed University Green, navigating a paved path behind our hotel through lush patches of lawn. It was the start of the inaugural “Wilding Gardens” conference. For two days, scientists and practitioners were gathering to discuss new ways to think about gardens and nature, about what nature needs to thrive, and the untapped potential of gardens – if we step back and allow ecological processes to unfold – to help counter climate change and biodiversity loss.

Clumps of snowdrop flowers poked through the unmown grass and a grey squirrel streaked across it, from one bare-branched tree to another. Probably common alders, going by the University of Manchester Tree Trail. The world’s first industrial city seemed an apt venue for a talkfest on the urgency of rewilding suburban gardens to help save the planet from precisely what drew Marx and Engels there to study, 180 years ago: the impacts of industrialisation.

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Published: February 14, 2026, 7:00 pm

My cultural awakening: ‘Thirteen influenced my hedonistic youth, until a psychotic episode ended it’

My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing down

At 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”

Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest. The reckless rebellion the two best friends portrayed was seductive to me, and within weeks of watching the film, I’d met some girls from the co-ed school opposite who were having sex, going to parties and taking drugs. Soon, I was doing it all too.

Published: February 14, 2026, 7:00 am

I thought my powerlifter father was the strongest man in the world. But a secret steroid addiction took him – and us – to the brink

He didn’t look like a stereotypical ‘drug addict’, but when he fled to South Africa with all our savings it was obvious that is what he had become

When I tell people that a drug addiction nearly killed my dad, I know what most of them are thinking. Heroin. Crack. Maybe meth or ket. Those substances that steal your soul and slowly wreak havoc on your body. They’re imagining Trainspotting; too-skinny frames and protruding hip bones, the physical effects of addiction that are impossible to miss.

But that isn’t how it played out in my family.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

My husband has started a friendship with a woman he used to work with. Am I right to be worried? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

It’s possible this is a platonic relationship, but your concerns are valid and your husband isn’t providing any reassurance

My husband and I are in our 60s. We have been married for 40 years, some of it happily, some not so much. Our children are grown up and gone, and we have recently retired. Some of our tensions over the years have been around my husband’s tendency to be undermining and belittling. He claims not to understand why I might find certain things upsetting, yet refuses to engage with couples counselling (apparently I would tell lies). We have muddled through and mostly get on well now, though he dislikes most of my friends and siblings, and won’t socialise with them. To be fair, he is self-contained and doesn’t seem to need friends in the way I do – he has one friend.

A few months ago, an ex-colleague got in touch with my husband and asked to meet for coffee. They met, had a long lunch, and my husband mentioned a few weeks later that they were arranging to meet again as he had enjoyed the catchup. I was a bit thrown. I found it odd that she couldn’t confide in her partner or friends, but my husband exploded and we had one of our worst, most vicious arguments in years. He accused me of not wanting him to have friends (the opposite is true) and threw up the fact that I have platonic male friends; true, but my male friends and I go back 30-plus years and we don’t meet one-to-one. This just feels a bit out of character and potentially inappropriate.

Published: February 15, 2026, 6:00 am

Steam up the house with this shortcut to restaurant-level hotpot at home

Start with this rich, tongue-tingling soup base - plus more low-effort tips for hotpot night at home

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Lunar New Year is 17 February this year. It’s cold. You simply would not like to go outside, thank you very much. Here comes hot pot to the rescue: few meals feel more soothing in winter than one that gathers everyone around a big ‘ol bubbling pot, cooking together while talking about nothing and everything.

If you haven’t tried hotpot at home though, it can feel intimidating. Do I need some sort of custom vessel? Do I need to make a pilgrimage to Chinatown for eight different spices? What do I even put in there? Fortunately, thanks to a ton of easy shortcuts, anyone can enjoy this belly-warming ritual without an ordeal.

For a hotpot soup base:
Fly By Jing Fire Hotpot Base

For a pot:
Lolykitch Stainless Steel Stock Pot with Lid

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:15 pm

‘Love, honor, cherish, accommodate’: 16 hard-earned relationship tips

While there is no one recipe for a successful relationship, we can learn from each other to build one that lasts

What is the key to a good relationship?

For some couples, it’s important to share hobbies. Others say having individual interests is imperative. I’ve read that couples who sleep in separate beds are the happiest and I’ve also read that sleeping in separate beds is the death knell of romance. When I got engaged, I asked my parents – who have been married for 40 years – what advice they had for me, and my mother offered: “Contribute as much as you can to your retirement accounts.” OK!

Published: February 14, 2026, 12:00 pm

No swiping involved: the AI dating apps promising to find your soulmate

Agentic AI apps first interview you and then give you limited matches selected for ‘similarity and reciprocity of personality’

Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to do. You might as well consider it: can AI help you find love?

For a handful of tech entrepreneurs and a few brave Londoners, the answer is “maybe”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Nothing says love like chemicals’: Valentine’s roses often covered in pesticides, testing finds

Bouquets imported to Europe found to be heavily contaminated, often with chemicals banned in EU and UK

Stay away from roses this Valentine’s Day, environmental campaigners have warned after testing revealed them to be heavily contaminated with pesticides.

Laboratory testing on bouquets in the Netherlands, Europe’s flower import hub, found roses had the highest residues of neurological and reproductive toxins compared with other flowers.

Published: February 14, 2026, 3:00 pm

The moment I knew: as soon as we parted I realised Hitomi was the one. I waited years to see her again

There was a language barrier, a mother who burned their letters and a record label manager who disapproved. But Kerry Cox was madly in love

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In my early 20s I quit my job in New Zealand and moved to Sydney to study martial arts. In 1982, after competing in the World Pugilist championships in Hong Kong, I hitchhiked around Japan for a month or so, then headed for Korea via ferry in January 1983. I’d heard air fares were cheap from Korea. No internet back then!

While boarding, I was approached by a very attractive Japanese woman, with limited English, who told me that if I bought one box of bananas and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label, I could pay for most of my trip in Korea. These items were very much in demand back then.

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Published: February 14, 2026, 7:00 pm

Blind date: ‘My friends would adore her. She is a cupcake in a world of muffins’

Sabah, 38, a publicity director, meets David, 36, a PhD candidate

What were you hoping for?
In an ideal world, my last first date. Failing that, an entertaining voice note for my pals.

Published: February 14, 2026, 6:00 am

‘You think: Do I really need anyone?’ – the hidden burden of being a hyper-independent person

Self-reliance is often encouraged over asking others for help in the modern world. But doing everything yourself can be a sign that you are scared of intimacy

When a relative was seriously ill and in intensive care for more than a month, Cianne Jones stepped in. “I took it upon myself to be that person in the hospital every single day – chasing doctors, taking notes, making sure I understood why they were doing things.” It was so stressful, she says, that at one point her hair started falling out, but she ploughed on.

It was Jones’s therapist who gently questioned whether she was going to ask for help. Jones laughs. “The hair falling out didn’t suggest to me that I needed help, it was somebody else looking in and saying that.” She has a large, close family who would have helped immediately – and did, once Jones asked – it’s just that it didn’t occur to her to ask. “I had taken that role on: ‘I’m just going to get everything done.’ I just took off, and that was it.”

Published: February 15, 2026, 5:00 am

‘The most quietly romantic town we have ever visited’ – the enduring charm of Chiavenna, Italy

Writers from George Eliot to Goethe put this Lombardy town on the map, then it fell out of fashion. Today it makes a picture-perfect alternative to the Italian lakes

The ancient settlement of Chiavenna, in Lombardy, near Italy’s border with Switzerland, was once well known among travellers. “Lovely Chiavenna … mountain peaks, huge boulders, with rippling miniature torrents and lovely young flowers … and grassy heights with rich Spanish chestnuts,” wrote George Eliot in 1860.

Eliot wasn’t the only writer to rhapsodise about this charming town. Edith Wharton described it as “fantastically picturesque … an exuberance of rococo”. For Mary Shelley it was “paradise … glowing in rich and sunny vegetation”, while Goethe described it as “like a dream”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:00 am

Readers reply: can you acquire courage?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions ponders how to overcome fear and do what is needed

This week’s question: what would be the most socially useful way to spend a billion dollars?

Is it possible to acquire courage if you don’t have it? I was moved by the recent story of the Australian boy who swam to land for several hours in rough waters to raise the alarm that his mother and siblings had been swept out to sea. Despite his exhaustion, he then ran several kilometres to find a phone.

But I’m also thinking of the lesser demands for courage – such as standing up to a friend, or family member, or tackling a company that’s ignoring your polite requests when you’re suffering from its actions. Or I also wonder how people do certain jobs that, to me, require buckets of courage: starting a business or any other sort of professional risk-taking; reporting from a war zone like Lyse Doucet or Jeremy Bowen. Or just being a police officer knocking on the door of a suspect and not knowing what is on the other side.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

How to make the perfect chicken massaman – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

Thai cuisine’s most delicious curry is also its most complex. Thankfully, our resident perfectionist is here to help you master your massaman

Bickering pleasantly over the menu in a Thai restaurant with my family recently, I realised I was unable to explain exactly what a gaeng massaman was, beyond the fact it was probably a safe bet for those concerned about the three chillies next to the green curry (a dish I first tackled for this column back in 2010). The gap in my repertoire was explained later when I opened David Thompson’s pink bible of Thai Food and learned that “a mussaman curry is the most complex, time-consuming Thai curry to make”. The fact the esteemed Australian chef also describes it as “the most delicious” is scant comfort given I’ve just promised my editor I’ll make at least six of the things … but then I remember how incredibly tasty it is, and knuckle down to my research.

Though the first recipe dates from 1899, massaman, whose name suggests an association with the country’s Muslim minority, probably dates back to the 17th century, and reflects either Persian or Malaysian influence, or perhaps that of the Indian and Middle Eastern spice traders who travelled through southern Thailand on their way to China. It’s unusual in its use of dried spices like cumin and cinnamon, bay leaves and cloves alongside more classic Thai aromatics like lemongrass and galangal to create a richly savoury gravy that cloaks the protein and potatoes like a warm hug direct from Bangkok. Straightforward enough if you have a Thai specialist nearby, it’s still more of a weekend project than a weeknight dinner, but a very worthwhile one nonetheless.

Published: February 15, 2026, 1:00 pm

What would be the most socially useful way to spend a billion dollars?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• Read this week’s readers’ reply. Can you acquire courage?

I’ve always thought it would be good to acquire an old warehouse in every town throughout the land and convert it into low-rent community workspaces for artists, local charities and small businesses getting off the ground. A kind of people’s WeWork. What would others do with a humungous, but not unlimited, pile of dosh to benefit society? Roland Freeman, West Yorkshire

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

Venezuelan deportee can return to US but fears repeat of ordeal: ‘I’m not over that nightmare yet’

Luis Muñoz Pinto, 27, who was sent to notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, would like to clear his name after US judge’s ruling

A US federal judge’s order that some of the Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a notorious prison in El Salvador must be allowed to return to the United States to fight their cases has been greeted with hope and a sense of vindication – but also fear – by one of the deportees.

US district judge James Boasberg ruled on Thursday in Washington DC that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of deportees who are currently in countries outside Venezuela, saying they must be given the opportunity to seek the due process they were denied after being illegally expelled from the US last March.

Boasberg added that the US government should cover the travel costs of those who wish to come to the US to argue their immigration cases.

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:34 pm

He ran, but he can’t keep hiding: Pressure mounts for Andrew to talk to police

As calls for the former prince to cooperate with investigation become deafening, this may be the reckoning Andrew cannot escape

Gordon Brown is a man who gets into the detail.

In office, and since then, he has applied his forensic mind to the matters that concern him. Lately, he has been focused on the Epstein files.

Published: February 14, 2026, 6:00 am

The problem with doorbell cams: Nancy Guthrie case and Ring Super Bowl ad reawaken surveillance fears

Many people bought the devices thinking they would do little more than protect their delivery packages

What happens to the data that smart home cameras collect? Can law enforcement access this information – even when users aren’t aware officers may be viewing their footage? Two recent events have put these concerns in the spotlight.

A Super Bowl ad by the doorbell-camera company Ring and the FBI’s pursuit of the kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, have resurfaced longstanding concerns about surveillance against a backdrop of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The fear is that home cameras’ video feeds could become yet another part of the government’s mass surveillance apparatus.

Published: February 14, 2026, 6:00 pm

Street festivals and a steam train: photos of the weekend

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

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:41 pm