‘Deliberate targeting of vital body parts’: X-rays taken after Iran protests expose extent of catastrophic injuries

Exclusive: Expert analysis of images from one hospital suggests severe trauma to the face, chest and genitals was caused by metal birdshot and high-calibre bullets

Across the planes of Anahita’s* face, white dots shine like a constellation. Some gleam from inside the sockets of her eyes, others are scattered over the young woman’s chin, forehead, cheekbones. A few float over the dark expanse of her brain.

Each dot represents a metal sphere, about 2-5mm in size, fired from the barrel of a shotgun and revealed by the X-ray camera for a CT scan. Shot from a distance, the projectiles, known as “birdshot”, spray widely, losing some of their momentum. At close range, they can crack bone, blast through the soft tissue of the face, and easily pierce the eyeball’s delicate globe. Anahita, who is in her early 20s, has lost at least one eye, possibly both.

Published: February 17, 2026, 6:00 am

A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now? | Lucy Pasha-Robinson

Many women reading this will have experienced something similar: a warning that sharing public space isn’t a man’s job, it’s a woman’s

What motivates a stranger to push a woman in public? That’s a question I’ve been stuck on this week after a man shoved me out of his way on an empty pedestrian street. I didn’t even see him coming – well, I wouldn’t have, as he came up from behind me.

I had walked in his path, he barked at me. “What path?” I thought, baffled, as I took in the huge expanse of empty pavement around us. I was so stupefied by the encounter that I found myself frozen to the spot, watching him walk away in his blue anorak and technical rucksack. He could have been any man from anywhere on his way to work.

Lucy Pasha-Robinson is a Guardian assistant Opinion editor

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 17, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?

His novel was praised for giving a voice to the victims of Algeria’s brutal civil war. But one woman has accused Kamel Daoud of having stolen her story – and the ensuing legal battle has become about much more than literary ethics

Every November, leading figures of French literature gather in the upstairs room of an old-fashioned Paris restaurant and decide on the best novel of the year. The ceremony is staid, traditional, down to the restaurant’s menu, full of classic dishes such as vol-au-vents and foie gras on toast. In pictures of the judging ceremony, the judges wear dark suits; each has four glasses of wine at hand.

The winner of the Goncourt, as the prize is called, is likely to enter the pantheon of world literature, joining a lineage of writers that includes Marcel Proust and Simone de Beauvoir. The prize is also a financial boon for authors. As the biggest award in French literature, the Goncourt means a prime spot in storefronts, foreign rights, prestige. By one estimate, winning the Goncourt means nearly €1m of sales in the weeks that follow.

Published: February 17, 2026, 5:00 am

Trump has pulled the US out of the World Health Organization – here’s why that’s sheer hypocrisy | Devi Sridhar

There’s a lesson here for the UK and the anti-WHO Nigel Farage – Trump attacks it in public, but in private he knows he still needs it

Donald Trump is persistent. In his first term as president, he withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) on 6 July 2020, giving the necessary one-year notice period. Soon after, Joe Biden was elected, and he reversed this executive order within days of being in office, reinstating the US support for the agency on 20 January 2021. While many hoped this would be the end of the story, Trump came back with a vengeance in his second term and immediately signed an executive order withdrawing on 20 January 2025.

This means that – buried under news of other Trump-related chaos – the US formally left the WHO at the end of last month. It is just the second time in the agency’s history a major power has left. In 1949, during the cold war, the USSR withdrew citing unhappiness with the US influence over the organisation. In 1956, with concerns over disease surveillance and spread, the USSR re-engaged with the UN system.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Published: February 17, 2026, 8:00 am

‘The rallying cry of the rich and horrible’: the song that TV villains love to sing

From The West Wing to The Simpsons, House and now Industry, TV baddies have made a tongue-in-cheek Gilbert and Sullivan show tune their own

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Industry season four, episode six.

If you’re up to date with Industry (if you’re not, proceed with caution) then you’ll know that Kit Harington’s character Henry Muck has spent season four being even more of a nightmare than usual. He has been depressed, intoxicated, suicidal and horny in equal measure, all of which was topped off in the most recent episode with a sweaty bunk-up with a guy in a club.

Published: February 17, 2026, 5:00 am

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot review – a unique memoir by a figure of astonishing power

Pelicot’s riveting account of her ordeal refuses to conform to any agenda but her own

It is a mark of the power and honesty of Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir, A Hymn to Life – a seemingly impossible writing project in which the author must reconcile herself with horrors of which she has no recollection – that in the first 40 pages, the person I felt most angry towards was Pelicot herself. Her ex-husband, Dominique, who will almost certainly be in jail for the rest of his life for drugging and raping his wife and recruiting 50 men over the internet to do likewise, takes his place among the monsters of our age. In his absence, the reader may experience a version of what happened in Gisèle Pelicot’s own family – namely, the misdirection of anger towards her.

I have read enough books by female survivors of male sexual violence to say with confidence that Hymn to Life is unique. Pelicot – she decided to keep her married name in the interests of giving those of her grandchildren who share it a way to be proud rather than ashamed – was 67 when her husband of almost 50 years was arrested in 2020 for upskirting women in a supermarket in Carpentras, a small town in the south-east of France near the couple’s retirement home in the village of Mazan. When the police investigation uncovered a cache of videos and photos in which an unconscious Pelicot was shown being sexually assaulted by scores of men, she entered a nightmare.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:01 am

Jesse Jackson tributes live: Bernice King and Al Sharpton join family in praising ‘transformative leader’

Ordained minister and activist who twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination had been living with progressive supranuclear palsy

• Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader, dies aged 84

• Jesse Jackson – a life in pictures

You can watch Jesse Jackson’s famous 1988 speech at the Democratic convention urging Americans to “keep hope alive” below. It quickly became an American political classic and was echoed in the “hope and change” slogan of Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential campaign.

The civil rights campaigner, Al Sharpton, has paid tribute to his “mentor” Jesse Jackson, whom he worked closely with over the civil rights era. In a tribute posted to X, Sharpton wrote:

My mentor, Rev. Jesse Jackson, has passed. I just prayed with his family by phone. He was a consequential and transformative leader who changed this nation and the world.

He shaped public policy and changed laws. He kept the dream alive and taught young children from broken homes, like me, that we don’t have broken spirits.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:42 pm

‘I feel like I’m in a financial prison’: Trump Wall Street plan puts ‘mom and pop’ investors at risk, advocates say

Trump says everyday Americans deserve a chance to buy higher-risk ‘alternative’ investments. Critics say this could lead to big losses for small investors

On a summer day in 2018, Cathy Shubert, then 58, hopped in her Toyota Rav 4 and drove to the Jacksonville, Florida, office of Mario Payne, an investment adviser at the financial services firm Raymond James. She had a lot on her mind. She was not happy with her job at a local bank branch and wanted to see if Payne thought she had saved enough to retire.

“He said what I was retiring with would carry me and everything would be wonderful,” she remembered. “I went home and told my husband, ‘Oh my God, I want you to go meet him.’”

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:00 am

Hillary Clinton accuses Trump administration of Epstein files cover-up – US politics live

‘Get the files out’, says former secretary of state, adding that she and Bill Clinton have ‘nothing to hide’

Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet this week in Switzerland for a third round of talks brokered by the Trump administration, days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The two-day meeting, kicking off on Tuesday, is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:50 pm

France releases suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker after multimillion-euro fine, as Ukraine peace talks begin in Geneva – Europe live

Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier called for ‘justice and strength’ in diplomacy after Russia hit Ukraine with 400 drones and 29 missiles hours before talks

The European Commission is just giving its daily midday press briefing, and it has confirmed plans to adopt the new, 20th, round of sanctions against Russia by 24 February, the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion on Ukraine.

Foreign affairs spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said:

“We keep on working on measures to deprive Russia of the funds, goods and technologies sustaining its war against Ukraine.

This indeed includes the 20th package that you have mentioned, and indeed we aim to adopt it … by 24 February, as the High Representative [Kaja Kallas] mentioned at the last foreign affairs council. Member states are discussing it.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:39 pm

Surging prediction markets face legal backlash in US: ‘Lines have been blurred’

At least 20 federal suits filed against companies like Kalshi and Polymarket as lawmakers call it ‘loophole’ for gambling

State lawmakers and gaming regulators across the US are escalating their fight against prediction markets, arguing that the fast-growing platforms are “basically gambling but with another name”.

At least 20 federal lawsuits have been filed nationwide, disputing whether companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket should be treated as federally regulated financial exchanges, as they maintain, or as gambling operations that should be regulated like state-licensed sportsbooks.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:00 pm

Anderson Cooper to leave 60 Minutes amid turmoil at CBS News

Cooper is leaving the fabled news show after nearly 20 years amid a shake-up under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss

Anderson Cooper will leave the CBS News program 60 Minutes after nearly two decades, he said on Monday, in the latest staffing shake-up to hit the storied news magazine amid broader newsroom changes under the new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business,” Cooper said in a statement. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:57 am

Hyatt chair Thomas Pritzker steps down over Epstein links

Billionaire says he exercised ‘terrible judgment’ in maintaining contact with sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell

The billionaire Thomas Pritzker has stepped down as executive chair of the hotel chain Hyatt, after revelations over his ties with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Pritzker said he had exercised “terrible judgment” in maintaining contact with the sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in recruiting and grooming underage girls.

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:02 am

Winter Olympics 2026: Nordic combined, biathlon, ice hockey and more on day 11 – live

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing

• Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch: email Yara

Heinis of France is in the air, it feels hein just looking at him, and he jumps 129, giving him 133.8 points; he moves above Karhumaa and into the lead.

I’ve also got the curling on and, if you’ll excuse my parochialism, I’m not watching pool leaders Switzerland monstering defending champions Sweden, rather USA v China, for reasons of relevance to GB. The Americans now lead 2-1 playing the fifth.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:50 pm

Trump news at a glance: Ukraine must reach a deal with Russia ‘fast’, says president before trilateral talks

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner will meet delegates from Russia and Ukraine in Geneva. Key US politics stories from 16 February at a glance

Donald Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal with Russia “fast” before US-brokered talks in Geneva on Tuesday. “Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One while en route to Washington.

Trump is pushing to end the conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but two previous rounds of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi did not yield any signs of a breakthrough.

Published: February 17, 2026, 2:18 am

Trump lashes out at California governor’s green energy deal with UK

President says it is inappropriate for UK to be dealing with Gavin Newsom after Ed Miliband meets governor in London

Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate.

“The UK’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 7:23 pm

US judge orders Trump administration to restore Philadelphia slavery exhibit

In ruling, judge cited quote from Orwell’s novel 1984 describing process by which authoritarians rewrite history

A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday ordered the National Park Service to reinstall a slavery exhibit at a Philadelphia historic site, pending the outcome of ongoing litigation after the city sued the federal government over its removal.

The National Park Service last month dismantled and removed a long-established slavery-related exhibit at the Independence National Historical park, which holds the former residence of George Washington, in response to Donald Trump’s claims, which have been rejected by civil rights groups, of “anti-American ideology” at historical and cultural institutions.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:22 am

UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears

Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networks

UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems.

The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur.

Published: February 16, 2026, 6:16 pm

'In Israel's eyes, we are terrorists' | In search of Palestine: episode 1 – video

More than two years after Israel’s devastating war in Gaza began, the West Bank has become an increasingly volatile front in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. While international recognition of a Palestinian state has gathered momentum, the situation on the ground is moving in the opposite direction. Israel’s government has advanced new annexation legislation, settlement growth is accelerating, and daily life for Palestinians is becoming more restricted and precarious.

In a new series, reporter Matthew Cassel travels through the West Bank to document what daily life looks like under deepening occupation. Starting in Hebron and moving north to Ramallah, villages outside the city, and finally Nablus, he meets people across generations to ask: what does the idea of a ‘Palestinian state’ mean today?

Published: February 17, 2026, 9:46 am

Mamdani faces first showdown with NYPD – will he risk alienating police?

As an assembly member, Mamdani backed the Stop Fakes Act. Now, the NYPD has admitted to spying online – but wielding actual power as mayor is complex

When Zohran Mamdani was a New York state assembly member, he sponsored the Stop Fakes Act, which would have prohibited law enforcement from creating fake electronic communication service accounts and collecting users’ account information.

“Digital dragnet surveillance is widespread and dangerous, yet it continues to go unregulated,” Mamdani co-wrote in a 2023 City & State op-ed. “Although the NYPD claimed in a Department of Justice report to keep detailed records of its undercover accounts, the department refuses to provide any documentation of its social media surveillance policies or practices for public review.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘The kids don’t get days off. Nor should you’: my secret life as a paedophile hunter on the dark web

US undercover investigator Greg Squire can spend 18 hours a day befriending child sex abusers, to try to identify them and get justice for victims. He reveals the toll the work has taken on him

Greg Squire can never forget the video that opened his eyes to what child sexual abuse could mean. It was a Sunday and he was at his home in New Hampshire, sitting out on his deck, his two young children running around, playing. This was 2008, about a year into Squire’s career as an agent for Homeland Security – he’d been a postman before this – and he reached for his laptop, checked his inbox and saw that the results of an email search warrant for a suspect had come in.

He clicked on a video. A girl was sitting in an adult bed, a child’s picture book beside her. Squire watched as a man came into the frame and began reading it to her. For a moment, it could have been a normal scene – maybe it would be – until the man proceeded to remove the girl’s clothing. Then he raped her. Squire watched her “endure” it – “it looked like her soul left,” he says.

Published: February 17, 2026, 10:00 am

More than 600 people were fired or punished for posting about Charlie Kirk’s death. They want justice

Acolytes of the far-right activist urged employers to fire his critics. Now those who were terminated are suing and claiming their right to free speech

Julie Strebe, a 55-year-old sheriff’s deputy in the small Bible belt town of Salem, Missouri, was on a date with her husband at a Buffalo Wild Wings when her husband slid his phone across the table. On Facebook, people were demanding Strebe’s immediate termination, calling her a “wacko” with “extreme mental health issues”.

It was the afternoon of 13 September 2025, just a few days after Charlie Kirk had been killed by a sniper’s bullet on a college campus. Shortly after his assassination, Strebe had posted on her personal Facebook page: “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.” In comments underneath, she did not mince words. She called Kirk a racist, a sexist, an antisemite and the kind of person who wants to see gay people, like her own son, stoned to death. “I don’t feel bad,” she says, months later, speaking from her home. “I refuse to feel bad for this man, and the hateful things he stood for.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Economic fighters’: the volunteers helping direct sanctions against Russia

Civil society groups and individuals from around world are working to aid Ukraine by damaging Moscow’s war machine

In August 2022, Olena Yurchenko stumbled across a heated discussion on a Russian-language online forum – and made a discovery that would ultimately affect US and European sanctions policy on the Ukraine war.

The war had begun six months earlier. Yurchenko, 22, had been forced to leave Ukraine for Latvia after Russian strikes on her home town in the north. She had joined a nascent effort to pressure western companies to move their operations out of Russia. But the “name and blame” tactic only went so far, she said.

Published: February 17, 2026, 5:00 am

The gulf between critics and audience has never been wider – just look at Melania’s Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics have given the Flotus flick 11% on the aggregator site, but the ‘verified ticket buyers’ score is a near perfect 98%. A campaign by activists, or a sign of our politically disparate times?

If you’ve started to feel like you’re living in an entirely different reality from most of the world, there’s a good chance that it’s because you’ve been looking at the Rotten Tomatoes page for the Melania Trump documentary. There you will find two diametrically opposed numbers. First is the official Rotten Tomatoes score – the one aggregated across published reviews by professional critics – which sits at a minuscule 11%. But then there is the audience rating, which is based on scores from members of the general public. That score, incredibly, is 98%. (Admittedly, this is a score confined to “verified ticket buyers” – Rotten Tomatoes has another section it calls “All Audience” where the reaction is more … mixed.)

Of course, there has long been a chasm between public and critical opinion, which is why the film that won the most Oscars last year was a small character study about a disenfranchised stripper and the film that brought in the most money was about Minecraft. Even so, the disparity between the brutal reviews that Melania received (“The most depressing experience I have ever had in the cinema” – Mark Kermode) and the glowing public reviews (“Every red blooded American needs to see this movie to recognise the grace, sophistication and power of Flotius [sic]” – Jackie) is enough to give you whiplash.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:37 pm

Wuthering slights: why are film-makers afraid of casting Yorkshire actors as Cathy Earnshaw?

Wuthering Heights is inseparable from its landscape – but northern actors seldom get the lead role, instead are pigeonholed as stereotypical or supporting characters. This Bradford-born actor objects

Emerald Fennell’s casting choices for her new version of Wuthering Heights have already been much scrutinised. As well as the apparent “whitewashing” of Heathcliff by casting Jacob Elordi in the part, there’s the fact 35-year-old Margot Robbie is playing a woman 20 years her junior.

Plus, of course, they’re both Australian, not British – and certainly not from Yorkshire. Fennell has offered a defence of her casting choices as a “personal fantasy” – but amid all the scoff and chatter surrounding the film and its myriad deviations from the book, the erasure of regional authenticity risks going under-discussed.

Published: February 17, 2026, 9:03 am

Frederick Wiseman brought a uniquely empowering scale to his immersive documents of ordinary life

His maximal studies of US institutions such as welfare bureaucracy and an intensive care unit were packed with human detail and free from explicit commentary

• Frederick Wiseman, prolific documentary film-maker, dies aged 96

The documentary form is often thought to be governed by a manageable feature-length high concept: the story of a person, an institution, an historical episode. The subject itself and the film’s attitude towards it, its editorial slant, are habitually plain enough and the procedure is metonymic: the camera focuses on a part, and the whole is illuminated by implication. Often they have a sexed-up, quirky story to tell, which might mean a selective and sneakily tendentious approach to editing the material. But that is not quite the case with the films of Frederick Wiseman. His colossal, immersive movies about ordinary people and ordinary lives enclosed in some kind of institution, and characterised by the absence of voiceovers, intertitles or the off-camera directorial presence of the interviewing voice, are not amenable to the elevator pitch; they are the entire elevator shaft itself, and the whole building that houses it.

Whereas epic-length films might be generally held to be appropriate for big and distinctively historical subjects, such as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah or Marcel Ophüls’s The Sorrow and the Pity, Wiseman applies the maximal approach to static cross-section studies of sometimes less obviously momentous topics such as Paris’s Crazy Horse nightclub or the French restaurant Le Bois Sans Feuilles. However his greatest works are top-to-bottom body-politic pictures of public institutions, huge, intricate constructions of unglamour; his movies themselves were virtual institutions, movie-edifices mirroring their subjects in architectural form and indeed almost always funded by one particular public institution: PBS, the Public Broadcasting System.

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:48 am

‘It’s a nice surprise to be treated like kings!’ Why are mid-level British indie bands massive in China?

My group, Swim Deep, plays to crowds of hundreds across the UK – but in China, we play to tens of thousands. And we’re not the only ones

When I joined the band Swim Deep 13 years ago, my dreams were much like those of any young musician: to play Glastonbury, to tour America and to hear our music on the radio – all of which we’ve managed to achieve. But what I hadn’t counted on was finding a fanbase in China. Despite us never having knowingly released our music there, Swim Deep recently returned triumphant from our fourth run of shows on Chinese soil in barely 10 years, and we’re not the only British indie band benefiting from this unexpected opportunity.

China has had an enthusiasm for British and Irish pop acts for years, long before its ¥500bn (£531m) music industry overtook France to become the world’s fifth largest in 2023. Jessie J became a phenomenon after winning the country’s premier singing competition in 2018, while Westlife have spent decades playing to thousands in Chinese arenas and stadiums. But less heralded is a growing interest in grassroots UK indie bands, for whom the unexpected demand – and promise of excellent pre-gig catering – presents a financial and spiritual lifeline as returns increasingly diminish on home soil.

Published: February 17, 2026, 8:38 am

ICE holds people in disgusting conditions. Now it’s turning warehouses into camps | Moira Donegan

The Trump administration has bought warehouses across the US that could hold thousands. But resistance is growing

There is a vast building, reportedly the size of seven football fields, in Surprise, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix; ICE bought it for $70m. Another building, along the southern border in San Antonio, Texas, was valued at $37m; it’s 640,000 sq ft. In January, ICE bought a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, Pennsylvania, not far outside of Philadelphia, for $87.4m. In Williamsport, Maryland, outside Hagerstown, the cost of a facility on a nearly 54-acre plot was $102m.

These are massive, industrial spaces, built for holding goods to be shipped elsewhere. Warehouses are drafty and difficult to heat, hard-floored and high-ceilinged, not meant for human habitation. But the Trump administration is aiming to convert them into vast detention camps for immigrants. Some of the buildings could house as many as 9,000 people at a time. The rapid slew of new warehouse purchases by deportation agencies brings to mind the words of the ICE director, Todd Lyons, who told a conference last year that he wanted the effort to operate “like Amazon Prime, for human beings”.

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:00 am

Wuthering Heights is at its heart a story of class and race. Emerald Fennell has got it all wrong | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

By turning the novel into just a corset-heaving love story, the director has stripped it of what made it so boundary-pushing

It’s difficult, when watching Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”, not to imagine what Emily Brontë would have made of it. Before I get into it, I feel obliged to state that although I love the book I am not a purist. I often relish creative reinterpretations of classics. Admittedly, this one came with a fair few red flags, from the casting of Margot Robbie (simply too old, Cathy is a teenager) and Jacob Elordi (simply too white, Heathcliff, while his origins are uncertain, is described as darker skinned) to the unhinged marketing and crass brand tie-ins.

Nevertheless, I was still excited to see it. So why did I leave the cinema not only bored, but feeling a little bit sad? Fennell said she wanted to make the film she imagined at 14, the age at which many of us read the novel in English class. Fennell focuses almost entirely on the “love story” at the expense of almost all of the novel’s other themes. Of course, if you’re a teenager in love, the doomed connection between Cathy and Heathcliff does captivate, although as an abuser who hangs a dog, Heathcliff is not exactly fanciable. I do understand the impulse behind Fennell’s fan-fictiony desire to have them consummate their love, when Brontë, who probably never touched a man her entire life, left all that desire unrealised. Horniness at the expense of all else, however, can feel terribly hollow.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: February 17, 2026, 10:00 am

Trump’s Obama and Bad Bunny posts crystallize his political philosophy | Sidney Blumenthal

Maga is a recapitulation of the dark side of American history that cohered into nativist nationalism a century ago

Donald Trump’s posting of a video depicting former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes was the most overtly racist act of a president since Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal civil service – or since Trump’s previous racist gesture. The racist imagery Trump posted was so egregious that the video’s misogyny representing Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as animals was overlooked. Trump’s denigration of women is implicitly assumed as business-as-usual and not newsworthy: “Quiet, piggy!” And down the memory hole are the 3m long-suppressed documents from the Epstein files in which he is mentioned in its unredacted pages “more than a million times”, according to the Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, who was permitted access.

The only Black Republican US senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, said of the Obama portrayal: “It’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” though Scott did not disclose any list, which could have been drawn from an encyclopedia of offenses beginning decades before Trump’s birther campaign. During Trump’s first administration, in 2020, Scott chose to call out one incident as “indefensible”: Trump’s tweet of a video of a supporter chanting “white power”. Trump’s latest racist post was preceded on 11 January by his predictable vandalism of Black History Month in an interview with the New York Times with a remark about the Civil Rights Act of 1964: “White people were very badly treated.”

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 16, 2026, 11:00 am

Europeans are dangerously reliant on US tech. Now is a good time to build our own | Johnny Ryan

By trusting the US, we handed Trump a kill switch. Yet Europe’s digital sovereignty is an achievable goal

The French judge Nicolas Guillou knows exactly how deep Europe’s dependence on US tech is. Guillou and his colleagues at the international criminal court are under US sanctions. They can no longer use e-commerce, book hotels online or hire a car. Their home smart devices ignore them. Credit cards from European banks no longer function, because Europe has still not developed its own EU-wide payments system, so most electronic purchases go through Visa and Mastercard. Converting euros to foreign currencies is extraordinarily difficult because everything passes through dollars. Living in Europe is no protection against Donald Trump bricking your digital life.

This dependence is not limited to mod-cons. Last year, the chairman of the Danish parliament’s defence committee said that he regretted his part in Denmark’s decision to buy US-made F-35 fighter jets: “I can easily imagine a situation where the USA will demand Greenland from Denmark and will threaten to deactivate our weapons and let Russia attack us when we refuse. Buying American weapons is a security risk that we can not run.” He is not alone. Spain has abandoned plans to buy F-35s.

Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

Published: February 17, 2026, 5:00 am

The Guardian view on Palestine Action: banning the group was a step too far | Editorial

The high court was right to rule that ministers overstretched terror laws in proscribing direct action. Protest should be policed by criminal law

The high court ruled last week that the British government’s proscription of Palestine Action is unlawful and disproportionate. Its judgment, however, is hardly one in praise of militant protest. That makes it all the more awkward for ministers. The bench rejected Palestine Action’s claim that it was engaged in Gandhian civil disobedience. The judges also accepted that a number of incidents involved serious property damage that technically satisfied the statutory definition of terrorism.

But they were clear and correct: the existing criminal law “is available to prosecute those concerned”. This judicial distinction between terror and crime matters – and is devastating for the government. Ministers, the bench reasoned, can’t ban every organisation that meets the legal terror threshold just because it brings “significant disruptive benefits” to do so.

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 16, 2026, 6:30 pm

Russian woman carried Ukraine team placard at Winter Olympics opening ceremony

• Anastasia Kucherova has been living in Milan for 14 years

• ‘It’s important to show not all people think the same way’

The woman who carried the Ukrainian team placard at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony was a Russian living in Milan, who chose to perform a small act of resistance to show her support for Ukraine.

Anastasia Kucherova, an architect who has been living in Milan for 14 years, was unrecognisable in a hooded silver puffer coat, with her eyes also covered with dark glasses.

Published: February 17, 2026, 9:14 am

Winter Olympics briefing: Swiss stranglehold on skiing shows no sign of loosening

Franjo von Allmen has led the way for the men with three golds and Loïc Meillard’s slalom victory brought a fourth gold

Switzerland’s men have dominated the ski slopes of Milano Cortina. Not since the super-G and the team combined were added to the Olympic programme in 1988 has one country won four of the five events – a feat achieved with Loïc Meillard’s victory in the slalom on Monday. Only Brazil managed to stop them in these Games.

Franjo von Allmen has been their undisputed star, heading home with three golds in his hand luggage. After winning the downhill on the opening weekend, he was given a helping hand by Tanguy Nef’s scintillating slalom run as they won the team combined. Nef deserved an individual medal of his own and sat in the leader’s chair for a while on Monday until tumbling out of the podium places all together.

Published: February 17, 2026, 8:00 am

Winter Olympics: Unbeaten USA roll into women’s ice hockey final v Canada

• Ruthless Americans reel off 5-0 victory v Sweden

• Poulin leads Canada to 2-1 win over Switzerland

• Olympic final is set for Thursday in Milan

A United States women’s hockey team already being hailed as one of the best ever assembled is right where they expected to be: playing for Olympic gold. The Americans brushed aside Sweden 5-0 in the first of Monday’s semi-finals, setting the stage for a seventh gold-medal showdown with Canada, who held on for a closer-than-expected 2-1 win over Switzerland in the nightcap.

Twenty years ago, almost to the day, the USA women absorbed one of the great Olympic shocks when Sweden stunned them at the same stage in a shootout just down the A4 autostrada in Torino, ending a streak of 25 straight losses to the Americans during which they’d been outscored 187-29. There would be no such ambush this time, even if Sweden coach Ulf Lundberg had suggested the US team were “just human beings” and might not have been overly keen on facing his team in the semi-finals.

Published: February 16, 2026, 7:44 pm

Muir fourth again after agonising tumble as Oldham wins big air gold for Canada

• China’s Eileen Gu second, Italy’s Flora Tabanelli third

• Briton, fourth again, says: ‘I really did have to go for it’

This time, Kirsty Muir must surely have believed that a Winter Olympic medal was in her grasp. But as a thrilling big air competition reached its denouement, an Italian with no anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee came down a 180‑feet ramp and drove a stake through the Briton’s heart.

It all looked so promising when the 21-year-old from Aberdeen landed a stunning left double 1620, with four and a half rotations, to move into the medal positions after two of the three rounds. However, with just four jumps of the competition remaining, Flora Tabanelli, who tore her ACL in November, did the same trick as Muir but only better to score 94.25 points to steal the bronze medal.

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:06 pm

‘I’m trying to expand what it means to be a skier’: Mallory Duncan on jazz, freedom and the mountains

The Californian once had ambitions of winning gold at the Winter Olympics. But now he is more interested in what skiing can do for the soul

Growing up in the Hayward Hills, just south of Oakland, California, Mallory Duncan lived a hybrid lifestyle throughout his childhood. Weekdays were spent at school, avoiding homework, disrupting class and getting in trouble. Weekends at Alpine Meadows, a ski resort on the north-west shores of Lake Tahoe, were for jumping off cliffs and skiing powder with friends. Every Sunday he would have dinner at his grandad’s house, watch football and listen to jazz.

“I’ve come to accept that I don’t always fit into the ski industry,” says Duncan, a professional skier, award-winning film-maker, entrepreneur and saxophonist. “I live in Portland and love the city life, music and the integration of art into my work. Being exposed to many different types of experiences helps me be more creative in everything I do.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:00 am

Real Madrid need reinvention as special circumstances are needed to rule Europe | Philipp Lahm

Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane’s impact is clear but where the Spanish giants go post-Xabi Alonso only Florentino Pérez knows

All eyes are on Real Madrid again but in a different way than to which the 15-time Champions League winners are accustomed. Every fan expects Real to be among the best eight in Europe but they are in the playoffs for a second season in a row after a 4-2 defeat at Benfica in the final league fixture.

Looking back, Carlo Ancelotti’s impact at Real is even clearer, as is the case with Zinedine Zidane, who won three successive Champions League titles with the club. Why were they suited to this club? Because they themselves once stood on the pitch alongside outstanding footballers. Ancelotti also played under Arrigo Sacchi at Milan while Zidane scored key goals in Champions League and World Cup finals. People with this aura are respected by the best.

Published: February 17, 2026, 8:00 am

Dolphins cut star receiver Tyreek Hill to free up $23m in salary cap space

• Five-time All-Pro suffered season-ending ACL injury

• Miami had signed Hill to $120m extension in 2022

• Pass rusher Bradley Chubb also cut in flurry of moves

The Miami Dolphins are releasing star wide receiver Tyreek Hill in a cost-cutting move, multiple outlets reported Monday.

Releasing Hill, an eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver who turns 32 on 1 March, will save the Dolphins $22.8m against the 2026 salary cap, per ESPN.

Published: February 16, 2026, 6:02 pm

Italian biathlete returns to Olympic squad after blaming doping positive on Nutella

• Rebecca Passler may feature in women’s relay

• 24-year-old tested positive for letrozole in January

The Italian biathlete Rebecca Passler rejoined her team at the Winter Olympics on Monday after a successful appeal against a suspension handed out before the Milano Cortina Games for an alleged doping violation.

Passler began training in the bright sunshine at the Antholz-Anterselva Biathlon Arena on Monday afternoon, firing off shots in bunches of five on the range as her coaches watched intently.

Published: February 16, 2026, 2:14 pm

‘They were like bombs’: Helenio Herrera’s little white pills kept Inter’s players buzzing

In an extract from his book, Richard Fitzpatrick reveals in the early 1960s the grand Italian club was equipped for doping like ‘a small hospital’

The quantity of drugs floating around the campus at Inter in the early 1960s meant the club was equipped like “a small hospital”, to borrow an expression used about the doping culture at Juventus in the 1990s. Inter’s coach Helenio Herrera – or “HH”, as he was known in the world of football – used the players on the youth team as “guinea pigs” for his drug experiments, according to Ferruccio Mazzola, who was on the books at Inter’s academy at the time (and a younger brother of Sandro Mazzola, one of the team’s star players).

“I can describe the effects of those white tablets,” he wrote in a confessional memoir. He said he couldn’t sleep after taking HH’s pills. The hallucinations left him like a fish thrown up on the bank of a river. “I was shaking all over. I looked like an epileptic. I was scared. Also, the effect lasted for days and was followed by a sudden, tremendous tiredness.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 8:00 am

Did the USA v World format revive the NBA’s struggling All-Star Game?

Critics say what was once a showpiece for the league has turned into a glorified practice session. But there are signs an updated version may have worked

Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady flashed a look of disdain when recalling last year’s NBA All-Star Game.

“The All-Star Game that we witnessed last year was not an All-Star game,” McGrady told the Guardian. “I don’t know what that was.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 2:38 pm

Tyson Fury says death of Anthony Joshua’s friends prompted his return to the ring

• Fury set to step back into the ring after 15 months out

• Joshua involved in fatal Nigeria car crash in December

Tyson Fury has revealed the deaths of two of long-time rival Anthony Joshua’s friends in a car crash in December was the catalyst for his return to boxing.

Fury will step back into the ring on 11 April after a 15-month absence to face the Russian-born heavyweight Arslanbek Makhmudov in a bout at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which will be broadcast live on Netflix.

Published: February 16, 2026, 5:47 pm

Haji Wright hat-trick sinks Middlesbrough and returns Coventry to Championship summit

“We are top of the league,” sang the Coventry City supporters on loop after returning to the summit of the Championship with a victory that quelled the nagging noise surrounding Frank Lampard and his promotion-chasing side. Coventry, pace-setters for the majority of the season, had won just four league games since the end of November. But Haji Wright hit a timely hat-trick as Coventry again traded places with Middlesbrough, whose six-game winning run came to an abrupt halt, to renew belief in these parts.

Riley McGree pulled a goal back midway through the second half but from the restart Boro conceded a penalty that allowed Wright to claim the match ball. Coventry’s lead may be a single point but this felt a significant victory, psychologically as much as anything, their having taken just 16 from the previous available 39. “There have been quite a few questions asked and I think the lads should get a lot of credit,” Lampard said. “It was a big game, a really good game, which probably showed why we are one and two in the league. We have to take this as a bit of a template of what has to go into a game.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:01 pm

Serie A referee La Penna told to stay at home by police after dozens of death threats

• La Penna wrongly sent off Juve’s Kalulu against Inter

• Official could face one-month ban following incident

The referee Federico La Penna has received dozens of death threats after wrongly sending off a Juventus player at Inter on Saturday. Italian police have reportedly advised him not to leave his home.

La Penna sparked fury among Juventus fans after dismissing Pierre Kalulu, showing the defender a second yellow card for a challenge on Alessandro Bastoni. Replays showed Bastoni had clearly simulated the fall. Juventus officials and fans argued that the decision heavily influenced the game, which Inter won 3-2, despite the Bianconeri having fought back to level the score with 10 men.

Published: February 16, 2026, 6:25 pm

France issues red flood alerts after ‘exceptional’ rainfall

Aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across country with flooding under way or expected on Garonne, Maine and Loire rivers

France has issued red alerts for flooding in three départements as the aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across the country.

Flood waters have inundated homes and isolated villages after the Garonne River overflowed its banks, with hydrologists warning that rain is falling on soils that have hit record-breaking levels of saturation.

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:23 pm

Medics in UK and US say they have been barred from Gaza after speaking out

Israel accused of denying doctors re-entry into territory after they gave first-hand testimony on conflict

Medics in the UK and US believe they have been denied re-entry to Gaza after speaking out on the conflict.

Following reports of rising refusal rates, medical workers and organisationswho have provided humanitarian aid in Gaza have described what they see as arbitrary denials.

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:15 am

EU to investigate Shein over sale of childlike sex dolls and weapons

Bloc also examines ‘addictive design’ of shopping site, including rewards, and its recommender systems

• Business live – latest updates

The EU is to open a formal investigation into the Chinese retailer Shein over multiple suspected breaches of European laws including the sale of childlike sex dolls and weapons.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it had launched the inquiry after demanding information from the fast-growing company last year.

Published: February 17, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating

Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is ‘not rocket science’

Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating.

Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”.

Published: February 16, 2026, 11:01 pm

Madrid museum shuffles its pack charting decades of rapid change in Spain

Reina Sofía’s three-year rehang of works by artists from Spain and beyond is billed as a ‘critical reinterpretation’

The Reina Sofía’s new rehang opens, quite pointedly, with a painting of a detained man sitting, head bowed and wrists shackled, as he waits for the arbitrary hand of institutional bureaucracy to decide his fate.

The picture, Document No …, was painted by Juan Genovés in 1975, the year Francisco Franco died and Spain began its transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship. Genovés’s faceless, everyman victim of the Franco regime’s control and repression is the natural starting point for the Madrid museum’s exploration of the past 50 years of contemporary art in Spain.

Published: February 17, 2026, 6:00 am

‘It’s betrayal’: Shetland’s scallop fishers brace for arrival of UK’s largest salmon farm

Huge project by Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms gets go-ahead amid concerns over the environmental cost of fish farming and threat to traditional way of life

At Collafirth, north Shetland, Sydney Johnson is unloading bags of two-dozen scallops by throwing them over his head like medicine balls to the pier above. Johnson, who has just finished a 10-hour shift on his boat, the Golden Shore, is concerned that plans for a new salmon farm will put fishers like him and his two sons out of business.

“They say it’s just one farm,” says Johnson. “But it’s one farm more. There’s only so much water and we’re at saturation point.”

Published: February 17, 2026, 12:00 pm

Cyprus appeals to residents to cut water use by two minutes a day amid drought

Island’s reservoirs hit record lows even before tourist season starts as Cypriots are warned ‘every drop counts’

• Europe live – latest updates

Authorities in Cyprus have urged residents to reduce their water intake by 10% – the equivalent of two minutes’ use of running water each day – as Europe’s most south-easterly nation grapples with a once-in-a century drought.

The appeal, announced alongside a €31m (£27m) package of emergency measures, comes as reservoirs hit record lows with little prospect of replenishment before the tourist season starts.

Published: February 16, 2026, 2:49 pm

Country diary: An anxious buzzard has me mirroring its movements | Derek Niemann

Frome, Somerset: As the large raptor squirms and uses its wings to try to balance on a precarious perch, I find my own arms lifting in solidarity

Six, seven, eight, nine long‑tailed tits are on a foraging flit through hawthorn bushes, and the straggler drops obligingly on to a berry‑stacked twig before my eyes. Its tail works like the hand of a clock as the clinging bird jiggle‑jumps through a full 360-degree rotation, beak pecking for who knows what. The twig is unmoved by such exertions, for the bird weighs the equivalent of seven paperclips. What must it be like to inhabit the insubstantial ghost‑world of a long‑tailed tit, where you can leap and land all you like with no discernible impact?

Ahead and above, a bird 100 times its weight is weightless in the sky. The soaring buzzard masters gravity with its “fingertips” – the deeply separated primary feather tips on the wings. I cannot see the little flicks and tilts that enable it to descend in controlled steps; drop and hold, drop and hold.

Published: February 16, 2026, 5:30 am

Shooting at Rhode Island ice rink leaves at least three people dead

Police confirm suspect is one of dead, with three more in hospital, after incident at boys’ hockey game in Pawtucket

At least three people are dead and three more hospitalized in critical condition in a mass shooting at an indoor ice rink in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during a high school hockey match on Monday afternoon.

The Pawtucket police chief, Tina Goncalves, told reporters at a news conference that the suspect is one of the dead.

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:23 pm

FBI won’t share Alex Pretti shooting evidence, Minnesota authorities say

State’s governor had demanded impartial inquiry into the shooting of the VA nurse by federal immigration agents

Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.

Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:19 pm

Savannah Guthrie makes new appeal for missing mother: ‘It’s never too late to do the right thing’

In Instagram post, TV host whose mother disappeared 15 days ago in Arizona says ‘you’re not lost or alone’

The TV news anchor Savannah Guthrie issued a fresh appeal to anyone who knows the whereabouts of her missing mother, saying that “you’re not lost or alone” and “it is never too late to do the right thing”.

The Today anchor, who is stepping away from NBC’s morning broadcast, urged “whoever has her or knows where she is” to come forward, but did not make reference to any ransom demands or communication with any abductor.

Published: February 16, 2026, 4:06 pm

Epstein sympathized with Kavanaugh during supreme court confirmation, emails show

Files show convicted sex abuser messaged with Ken Starr and others about Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford

Jeffrey Epstein sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh during the then-supreme court nominee’s contentious 2018 confirmation and even suggested Republicans should have been harder on Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Emails and text messages released by the Department of Justice show Epstein was closely monitoring the confirmation and seemed to believe that Ford’s allegation of sexual assault could derail the process.

Published: February 16, 2026, 12:00 pm

Taylor Swift concert attack plot: 21-year-old man charged with terrorism in Austria

Unnamed suspect accused of planning to bomb one of singer’s Eras tour shows in Vienna

Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.

Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled after authorities warned of the plot.

Published: February 17, 2026, 1:40 am

Producer of Israeli spy thriller found dead in Athens hotel room

Dana Eden, 52, co-creator of hit TV series Tehran, reported by Greek police to have taken her own life on Sunday

The co-creator of an Israeli hit TV series has been found dead in a hotel room in Athens where the fourth season of the spy thriller is being filmed.

Dana Eden, 52, was discovered by her brother late on Sunday, Greek police said, attributing her death to suicide.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Published: February 16, 2026, 6:43 pm

Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95

From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, the Oscar-winning actor’s films spanned a remarkable range

• Robert Duvall was a vigorous and subtle actor who always performed with passion and conviction

Robert Duvall, the veteran actor who had a string of roles in classic American films including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, M*A*S*H and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95.

“Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” wrote his wife, Luciana Duvall, in a message on Facebook.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:14 pm

Bangladesh’s incoming PM Tarique Rahman sworn into parliament

Tarique Rahman set to take oath and become prime minister after landslide victory prompted by ousting of Sheikh Hasina

Bangladesh’s incoming prime minister Tarique Rahman and other politicians were sworn into parliament on Tuesday, becoming the first elected representatives since a deadly 2024 uprising.

Rahman is set to take over from an interim government that has led the country of 170 million people for 18 months since the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina was overthrown.

Published: February 17, 2026, 6:22 am

Robert Duvall was a vigorous and subtle actor who always performed with passion and conviction

From his steely self-effacing consigliere in The Godfather to his surf-crazed Wagner enthusiast in Apocalypse Now, just to see him on screen made me smile

• Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95

Robert Duvall was a foghorn-voiced bull of pure American virility, and he put energy and heart into the movies for more than 60 years. Just to see him on screen was enough to make me smile. That handsome face and head gave him the look of a Roman emperor from Waxahachie, Texas or a three-star general playing the country music circuit. Duvall was famously bald (the rare roles needing hairpieces always looked artificial on him) and so he looked the same age almost all his acting life: forever in his vigorous fortysomething prime – though often playing figures complicated with tenderness and woundedness.

Duvall had a long, rich career, starting out with notable roles in To Kill a Mockingbird, M*A*S*H, The Conversation and Network, but it was destiny to be chiefly known for two sensational and very different roles given to him by Francis Ford Coppola at either end of the 1970s. One was Tom Hagen, the quiet, self-effacing consigliere to the Corleone crime family in The Godfather (1972), with a complex relationship both with the Don himself, played by Marlon Brando, and his youngest son and heir, the coldly imperious Michael, played by Al Pacino. And the second was his extraordinary turn as the surf-crazed Wagner enthusiast Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979), who with his “Air Mobile” division of helicopters leads a gigantic attack on a Vietnamese village in broad daylight, with speakers blaring The Ride of the Valkyries – in theory to airlift Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, and his boatful of men into the river’s strategic entry point. But all too clearly, it’s because he just wants an excuse for a whooping and hollering cavalry attack.

Published: February 16, 2026, 6:25 pm

Dear Beautiful Beloved review – a powerful message from the Ukrainian frontline

Film-maker Juri Rechinsky documents moments of kindness and compassion among the death and grief that surrounds evacuation and forensics teams

“My son, my sunshine, my beloved child.” A mother is overwhelmed by grief as she strokes the face of her son, a soldier lying in a coffin, killed on the frontline. Another week, another Ukrainian film about the terrible toll of the war. This documentary from film-maker Juri Rechinsky follows two evacuation missions in Ukraine: teams of volunteers transporting the elderly and frail from their homes to safety away from the front; and the operation to return the remains of fallen soldiers to their families. It’s a painful film, haunted by death, but also tender and moving, with a powerful message that compassion, love and resilience can be acts of defiance.

It opens with the evacuation of the elderly from their homes to a processing centre in a former hospital (where one volunteer addresses them “comrade grannies”). From here they will be relocated to more permanent housing. As she prepares to leave her flat, one woman frets: “My hair is a mess.” An English volunteer called Elizabeth is all gentleness, smiles and patience as she clasps the woman’s hands in her own. Rechinsky also films women and children getting on to trains leaving Ukraine, tugging along wheelie cases, babies bundled into their warmest onesies.

Published: February 17, 2026, 9:00 am

The Blood Countess review – Isabelle Huppert reigns supreme in a surreal vampire fantasia

Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role

From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role.

Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the classic Huppert opaque gaze – part dreamy, part coldly assessing – and the politely bemused half-smile of concealed distaste, merging into a pout, at the absurdity or ill manners of someone to whom she cannot avoid being introduced. Unlike the other mere mortals in this film, Huppert’s face is lit like that of a Golden Age Hollywood star, giving her impeccable maquillage a ghostly sheen of profane sainthood.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:45 pm

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model review – Tyra Banks comes across terribly in this exposé

This three-part documentary has remarkable access to people involved with this 00s TV hit. It’s an awful tale of body-shaming, humiliation and toxic treatment

If you’re a millennial woman, America’s Next Top Model may have been your first experience of appointment TV. The show, which ran for 10 years from 2003, was an early reality juggernaut and made a household name of the supermodel Tyra Banks, its creator and host. At its peak, Top Model drew more than 100 million viewers globally, and left a niche but indelible impact on culture. “Smize”, meaning to “smile with your eyes”, is in the Collins dictionary, while Banks’ infamous tirade (“We were all rooting for you!”) at an unruly model still circulates as a meme.

With its high-concept photoshoots and extreme makeovers, Top Model was ahead of its time in manufacturing viral moments. Today, however, the exacting critiques and body-shaming makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing, as gen Zers bingeing the show through the pandemic have pointed out. This latter-day reckoning is the peg for Netflix’s three-part docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is on Netflix

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:01 am

My Sister’s Bones review – drab adaptation doesn’t deliver the dark punch of the bestselling novel

Despite the best efforts of the fine cast this psychological thriller about a war correspondent returning to her home town falls short of exploring the full scope of family trauma

Fans of Nuala Ellwood’s bestselling psychological thriller about a war reporter revisiting the horrors of her childhood in Herne Bay may decide to stick with the book after this drab adaptation. Like a black sock that has infiltrated a wash-load of white bedsheets, the story has come out a dreary dull grey. The movie is stubbornly unintriguing despite a fine cast of actors doing their utmost. Even the almighty twist ending fails to pick up the pace.

Jenny Seagrove plays Kate Rafter, a hardened correspondent haunted by PTSD. She’s back from a stint in Aleppo for her mum’s funeral and staying in her childhood home. Seagrove plays it imperiously, eyes flashing; Kate has witnessed terrible atrocities, and seems irritated by the smallness of the lives in her home town. But she is raw and damaged; there are flashbacks to Iraq where she befriended a young boy, and some unconvincing scenes of sessions with a psychologist trying to unpick the trauma of her childhood in a home terrorised by a violent alcoholic father. When Kate starts hearing a child crying in the next door house, no one believes her.

Published: February 17, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I love you twenty-sixty times’: how lyrics written by a three-year-old became tear-inducing viral hits

When Stephen Spencer began setting his daughter’s surreal stories to music, he had 36 followers. Now his banging pop miniatures have been streamed nearly 30m times – and are making parents cry

I’m listening to the latest Stephen Spencer song when suddenly I burst into tears. Was it the falsetto vocals? The swirling harmonies? No, it was the lyrics: “What did Apple-the-Stoola say? He said ‘I love you’ twenty-sixty times.”

Spencer, you see, has a unique lyrical collaborator: his three-year-old daughter. Over the last four months, he has been posting short songs online based on her stream-of-consciousness stories. There’s a smooth soul number about “a regular rabbit, who has regular ponytails just like me”. A song called Funchy the Snow-woman that could fit easily on to a 1975 album, but for its lyrical message about using a litter tray in the forest. And a festive tune about a Christmas cat called Harda Tarda, who hopes that Taja (“a funny way to say Santa”) will bring her “a doggy, a puppy and a ninja-bread man”.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:00 am

Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward review – reimagining Andrea Dworkin

Three women, two real and one fictional, seek social justice in an ambitious novel that explores power in 1970s America

What kind of justice can we have in a world driven by power? The actor turned writer Sophie Ward likes to fuel her novels with philosophical conundrums and set herself complex writerly challenges. Her ingenious, Booker-longlisted Love and Other Thought Experiments was structured around philosophical thought experiments, from Pascal’s Wager to Descartes’ Demon, with a chapter narrated by an ant living inside a character’s brain. The Schoolhouse explored the ethics of self-directed schooling and of policing in a complicated cross-period procedural. Now she turns her attention to questions of justice, freedom and power in the 1970s United States, with a tripartite structure bringing together three women – two real and one imagined.

It’s 1971: the Manson Family have just been found guilty and hundreds of thousands are marching against the Vietnam war. In the Netherlands, 25-year-old Andrea Dworkin escapes her abusive husband and attends a debate between Chomsky and Foucault on justice and power. Back in the US, the poet Muriel Rukeyser throws herself into protesting once again, though her lover, the literary agent Monica McCall, tells her rightly that her health won’t stand it. The third character is loosely based on the family history of Ward’s own Korean-American wife. Phyllis Patterson welcomes her son home to rural Illinois from the army base in South Korea, and attempts to build a relationship with her new Korean daughter-in-law and grandchildren. All three women are testing their own capacity for justice in an unjust world.

Published: February 17, 2026, 7:00 am

More heartache than Hamnet?: Maggie O’Farrell’s best books – ranked!

As her Women’s prize-winning novel heads to the Oscars, we rate the author’s best work – from tales of new motherhood to a life-affirming memoir of mortality

The ghost of a previous lover is always a challenge, particularly if you (mistakenly) believe that she’s actually dead. This is the unenviable situation for Lily, the protagonist of O’Farrell’s second novel, who is swept off her feet by dashing architect Marcus and in short order moves in with him. Lily takes his assurances that her predecessor Sinead is “no longer with us” to mark a more permanent absence; in fact, Sinead has simply been thrown over, and it is in the details of the collapse of her relationship with Marcus that the novel most engages. Hints of the gothic ghost story deepen one of the main takeaways, which is that Marcus consists almost entirely of red flags.

Published: February 16, 2026, 12:00 pm

Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell review – about a boy

A charming child’s-eye view of rural Ireland

There’s a particular energy to novels written from the point of view of small children. Humour, of course, in the things the child misinterprets; pathos in the things they feel they must keep hidden; jeopardy in the dangers we can see, and they cannot. As any relative or babysitter can attest, even the sweetest child can become mind-numbingly dull when they’re all the company one has, so there’s a skill to charm without boring. The other skill is to find ways of enabling the reader to read over the child’s shoulder, as it were, to piece together for themselves the adult dramas to which a child’s natural egotism, or simple innocence, blinds them.

In 1988, the longsuffering mother in Seán Farrell’s first novel, Frogs for Watchdogs, is stranded. This Englishwoman has had a boy and a girl with a handsome rogue of an Irish actor, but he has walked out on them. Asked to leave a commune unsuited to children, skint, too proud, perhaps, to return to the protection of well-heeled parents in England, she rents a farmhouse on the cheap in the deep countryside of County Meath, where she can grow vegetables, raise hens and a few sheep, and attempt to scrabble a living as a healer. (From the multiple dilutions her boy witnesses her perform, her fairly batty practice would seem to be some form of homeopathy with new age elements thrown in.) While her doubtless appalled parents insist on sending the oldest child, a forthright girl called B, to an English boarding school, B’s younger brother spends months running happily feral. Once he is eight, he will be old enough to follow her and be tamed and anglicised.

Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell is published by John Murray (£14.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Published: February 16, 2026, 9:00 am

Poem of the week – from plastic: A Poem by Matthew Rice

Two time-stamped poems are taken from a book-length sequence tracking the human moments of a factory night shift

01.29

When we look up at stars on break
we see only stars behind
the exhaled Milky Way
of Bobby’s Golden Virginia,
ways to navigate shift patterns,
nothing seismic or anything approaching
truth; for us stars mean only night shift,
insanity of depth,
the slow individual seconds
during which the dotted starlight
doesn’t burn fast enough.

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:13 am

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews

For years, the gaming storefront Steam has let abuse and bigotry pass through its moderation, according to players and developers who use it. The platform is now host to reams of content that violate its own guidelines.

According to developers who spoke with the Guardian, abuse – particularly directed towards transgender creators – is a fact of life on the platform. “Everyone is at one another’s throats all the time in reviews, discussions, forums, anywhere you can possibly find it on Steam,” says content creator and Steam curator Bri “BlondePizza” Moore. “It ensures no one is safe on the platform; developers and consumers alike.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:00 am

Pints, prayers and horse racing on the beach: Martin Parr in rural Ireland – in pictures

The iconic photographer believed his two years shooting horse fairs, pubs and dance halls in the 1980s had been overlooked. A new exhibition aims to put that right

Published: February 17, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It was spooky’: folk singer Olivia Chaney on how a song reflecting her own Brontë-ish love triangle wound up in Wuthering Heights

Offsetting Charli xcx, Chaney’s take on 19th-century ballad Dark Eyed Sailor accompanies Margot Robbie on the moors – but it’s just a tiny part of her culture-crossing, history-vaulting musical catalogue

An hour into Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, Margot Robbie is in a gauzy wedding dress, gliding forlornly across the moors towards the man her character feels she has to marry. A lone female English voice appears to accompany her, high and pure against the buzzing drone of a harmonium, singing about a woman roaming alone, and a man who, for “seven years, left the land”, before his eventual return.

Long before Emerald Fennell found Olivia Chaney’s version of 19th-century ballad the Dark Eyed Sailor online, Chaney was preparing to sing it for a 2013 live session on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 2 folk show, in the midst of her own Brontë-esque love triangle. “I was at the beginning of my relationship with the man who is now my husband and the father of my two children – he nearly married someone else, and I nearly had kids with someone else.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 3:33 pm

Is this the world’s most eye-popping restaurant? The architectural marvel – in a Leipzig industrial estate

This extraordinary diner is the final wonder of the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who dreamt it up at the age of 103. And it’s a fine place for a sunset kombucha and gin

Perched among old brick buildings in an industrial neighbourhood of Leipzig in eastern Germany, a giant white sphere appears to hover over the corner of a former boiler house. Is it a giant’s golf ball? An alien spacecraft? A fallen planet?

Twelve metres in diameter, the Niemeyer Sphere is the final design of world-famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and probably the most surprising creation by a visionary who valued the sensation of newness in art above all else, the result being mesmerising buildings that seem both space age and out of this world. The Sphere is like a vision from the future, dropped among used-car dealerships and construction equipment rental outlets, in a working-class neighbourhood that few tourists would ever pass through by design.

Published: February 16, 2026, 5:00 am

Do plans for a new Mummy film signal the end for the multiverse blockbuster franchise?

With audiences fatigued by endlessly interconnected mashups, studios are reverting to movies with one storyline that ends in a natural conclusion – what a radical idea

The news this week that Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are to return in a new Mummy film for the first time in a quarter of a century feels a bit like Hollywood stumbling out of a very long house party it doesn’t entirely remember attending. The last time the pair appeared together was 2001, when The Mummy Returns (itself an insipid sequel to 1999’s much better The Mummy) hit multiplexes. Since then we’ve had a spin-off (2002’s The Scorpion King, featuring an early turn from Dwayne Johnson) and a second sequel that didn’t feature Weisz, 2008’s forgettable The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

And then, of course, there was the ill-fated “Dark Universe”, forever immortalised by that solemn publicity photograph of Russell Crowe (Dr Jekyll), Javier Bardem (Frankenstein’s Monster), Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp (The Invisible Man) staring into the middle distance like an ageing goth supergroup. The plan was to launch an interconnected saga in which Jekyll would act as a sort of monster-movie Nick Fury, corralling Dracula, Frankenstein and assorted undead assets into a synergised Marvel-style cinematic ecosystem. Fortunately it rapidly fell apart: 2017’s Cruise-led The Mummy landed with all the grace of a cursed sarcophagus dropped down a lift shaft. And that, as far as the Dark Universe was concerned, was that. Universal pivoted to smaller films such as Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, while Bardem’s Monster and Depp’s Invisible Man never materialised at all.

Published: February 16, 2026, 12:05 pm

The pet I’ll never forget: Otto, the wild, people-loving golden retriever who had 20 volunteer dog walkers

His charm and excitement helped us see the world as he did – full of kindness and joy

When we bought Otto, a golden retriever, a year after the death of our previous dog Bertie, we were sceptical that he could live up to our high expectations. What quickly became apparent, during the routine humiliation of our puppy training classes, was that Otto was a law unto himself.

“He’s not normal” quickly became a stock family phrase, as Otto demonstrated a series of wild, mischievous and outlandish behaviours. During classes, I remember being told euphemistically that he was “wilful” and shamefully resorted to hiding cocktail sausages in my pockets during the final exam to encourage a modicum of civility in him. It just about worked.

Published: February 16, 2026, 11:00 am

Is it true that ... central heating is bad for your skin?

Dry air indoors can cause an inflammatory reaction, yet so can cold, windy outdoor conditions – but turning down the heating and using a moisturising cream can help

‘This is kind of true,” says consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Craythorne. Human skin has evolved to retain water, thanks to a protective barrier on its surface. But that barrier isn’t totally watertight. Water is constantly moving across it, depending on the humidity of the surrounding air.

Skin tends to be most comfortable at a relative humidity of about 40%. When the air around us is drier than that, water is more likely to leave the skin. That matters because the process of water escaping across the skin barrier is mildly inflammatory.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:00 am

The 11 best men’s winter boots, according to stylists, Antarctic workers and a dog musher

Tested in cold climates and wet conditions, these are the boots professionals swear by during the winter

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With six weeks left of winter, there is still ample time for another snowstorm to derail our weekend brunch plans or outdoor running routine. Unless you have the right footwear.

A good pair of boots lets you venture out while the rest of your neighbors are hibernating indoors, rewatching Friends for the hundredth time. And the best pairs make stomping through slush and snow look stylish.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:15 pm

Houseplant hacks: are light meters handy or hopeless?

They are hardly essential, but can act as useful teachers

The problem
Lots of houseplants fail because they aren’t getting enough light. But what does “bright, indirect light” really mean in practice? Light meters and apps promise to turn guesswork into numbers, but are they useful, or just kit for professionals and plant nerds?

The hack
Light meters measure the amount of light hitting a spot. Some are dedicated devices; others are phone apps that use the camera sensor. Instead of guessing whether a corner is bright enough, you measure it and then find the right plant for that spot with more confidence.

Published: February 17, 2026, 10:00 am

The one change that worked: When good things happen, I write them down – and it’s made me more optimistic

Growing up in a turbulent household taught me to expect the worst. Then one day I found £20 in the street and shifted my thinking

Growing up, I was envious of one type of person. It was never the kids who were smarter, sportier or more popular. My awe was reserved for a rarer breed of people: optimists. I was hypersensitive to the ease with which they sailed through exams, social gatherings or teenage milestones with a sunny conviction that things would more or less work out. To me, they were the chosen people. “It’ll be fine,” one such friend would reassure me. “Or you could embarrass yourself,” my mind would purr like a villain. “Be rejected. Fail.”

I was a chronic worrier. A negative Nancy. I couldn’t fathom that people’s brains weren’t hardwired to compulsively fear things might go wrong. I grew up as the eldest daughter in a turbulent household where my father’s moods would plummet quickly and I walked on a knife-edge. Every morning, the second my eyes opened, I would force myself to accept it was going to be a bad day – an act of self-preservation so the rug could never get pulled from under my feet hoping for better. My thinking was that if you always expected the worst, things had a tendency to turn out better than you imagined.

Published: February 16, 2026, 11:00 am

My rookie era: I attempted only the easiest Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cakes. Then came the duck cake

When I shared my attempt online, my duck cake was described as ‘Big Bird on crack’

• Read more summer essentials

I assume no parent aspires to give their offspring an unmemorable and vanilla childhood. I wanted to be a fun mum, creating love-soaked memories and quirky family traditions for my children right from the get-go. I wanted to be Bluey’s parents before Bluey even existed.

The Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cakes were destined to be a pillar of my perfectly imperfect parenting rituals. One child quickly became three, and that iconic recipe book was in constant rotation. In the early years, I would simply choose a cake that matched my very basic baking skills. I also only owned a round tin, so my kids’ early cakes were circle-shaped, or circle-adjacent: the swimming pool (a round cake filled with jelly), the cat (a round cake with ears) and the race track (two round cakes with the centres removed).

Published: February 16, 2026, 2:00 pm

Floating cities of logs: can the ‘lungs of Africa’ survive its exploitation?

The Congo River basin is one of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But it is also home to a growing population and relentless trade in timber and charcoal

“You can’t be scared of the storms,” says Jean de Dieu Mokuma as the sun sets on the Congo River behind him. “With the current, once your voyage has begun, there is no turning back.” Mokuma, along with his wife Marie-Therese and their two young children, is piloting a cargo of timber downstream lashed on to a precarious raft and tied to a canoe.

Families wake up at dawn on rafts of logs and merchandise that are being transported down the Congo River by boat to Kinshasa, the DRC capital

Published: February 16, 2026, 12:00 pm

Share your tributes and memories of Robert Duvall

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of actor Robert Duvall – whether you met him, or appreciated his work

Robert Duvall, the veteran actor with many roles across film and TV including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, M*A*S*H and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95.

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of Robert Duvall – whether you met him, or appreciated his work.

Published: February 17, 2026, 9:47 am

Carnival, lunar new year and anti-US fervour: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: February 16, 2026, 2:33 pm