Trump has lost the ability to entertain. Sadly, he hasn't lost the ability to offend | Moira Donegan

Throughout the speech, Trump seemed tired. He had difficulty reading from his teleprompter; he gripped the podium with a tightness bordering on desperation

It is one of Donald Trump’s unique talents that he reveals the absurd obsolescence of long-held traditions. In presidential election years, is screaming bloviations on stage make the exercise of gathering the candidates together seem futile. In power, when he divorces facts from policymaking and relies instead on myth and grift to guide his decisions, he renders useless and impotent vast fields of expertise.

When he lies in public, and insists that his fantasies and distortions will dictate the course of government action, he makes those of us in the news business wonder if there’s any point, any more, in gathering and printing the truth.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 25, 2026, 6:30 am

I suddenly went blind 2,000 miles from home – alone, penniless and confused

In 1990, Gary Williamson was 18, backpacking in Europe, when his vision began to fail. It was the start of a perilous journey

The first sign that something was wrong was the blurred text in the book Gary Williamson was reading. The problem with his vision had come on suddenly – the day before, it had been normal. Williamson thought perhaps he was tired, or run down. He was 18 and had arrived in Gibraltar after travelling through Europe for two weeks, sleeping rough and not eating or drinking properly. “I’ll go and get some water and something to eat. I thought: maybe it’s nothing. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. The next day, I woke up and it was bad again.” He remembers cautiously getting out his book to test his eyesight: “It’s actually getting worse. I can’t read it now. The lines were starting to blur.” He had relied on a map to get him that far. “I remember thinking: that’s going to become useless very soon. I need to work out what I’m doing.” He needed to get home.

It was 1990, and Williamson didn’t think to call home to ask for help. With no money left – he had made it to Gibraltar four days earlier with the intention to find work – he decided to hitch a lift, thinking a UK-bound lorry would be his best bet. He made it to the gates where the haulage lorries left the port, threw down his backpack by the side of the road and waited. None of the lorries stopped to pick him up. He was, he says, “panicking a little bit, thinking: what do I do? It was harder than I thought it was going to be.” Around 6pm, he gave up. He went back to where he had been sleeping, on a patch of sandy ground behind a sandwich stall over the Spanish border. Before he went to sleep, he wished that he would get a lift the next day, and that his eyesight wouldn’t be any worse. When he woke up, it was.

Published: February 25, 2026, 5:00 am

Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block review – a true ‘Misery’ memoir

A compelling and fitfully harrowing child’s-eye account of a mother’s unravelling

Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him out of school. It was the early 1990s and the family had recently moved from Indianapolis to Plano, Texas, where Block’s father had started a new job. While Block and his older brother, Aaron, had been wrenched away from their schoolmates, their mother had left behind work, a social life and her best friend, and found herself isolated and rudderless. But then she discovered a new purpose: taking charge of her son’s education.

Homeschooled reveals how Block ended up spending five years deprived of the company of his peers (including Aaron, who continued going to school) and at the mercy of his mother’s unpredictable moods. She had decided school was stifling her younger son’s creativity and that mainstream education wasn’t right for a boy of his sensitivities.

Published: February 25, 2026, 7:00 am

Four years ago, the world expected Ukraine to be crushed, but it has stood firm. So what now for Putin? | Rajan Menon

A quick landgrab has distorted into a complex geopolitical conflict – and even Trump’s fulminations can’t seem to make Ukrainians give in

Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine entered its fifth year on 24 February, with no end in sight despite Russia’s vast material superiority.

Most experts expected Ukraine’s defeat within days. Russia’s population is more than three times Ukraine’s, its GDP around 10 times bigger, its army far larger, its arsenal of tanks, artillery, missiles and warplanes greater. Russia’s leadership, Putin included, expected Ukrainians to capitulate, perhaps even to welcome Russian troops. US and British intelligence predicted the war early, but also projected a rapid Russian victory.

Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a time of war. On Wednesday 30 September, join Charlotte Higgins and acclaimed Ukrainian writers Olia Hercules, Sasha Dovzhyk and Olesya Khromeychuk as they reflect on the profound connections between war, art and life. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Published: February 25, 2026, 5:00 am

Buy now, pay later: how to use it without getting into debt

BNPL can be a fee-free way to manage cashflow for an essential purchase but keep track of the payment schedule

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a form of credit that lets you spread payments for everything from clothes, jewellery and white goods to concert tickets, hotel rooms and takeaway meals.

Published: February 25, 2026, 7:00 am

The stranger secret: how to talk to anyone – and why you should

Forget fear of public speaking. A lot of people now shy away completely from speaking to anyone in public. But if we learn to do this it’s enriching, for ourselves and society

It started with two incidents on the same day. In a fairly empty train carriage, a stranger in her 70s approached me: “Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?” I weighed it up for a split second, conscious that I was, in effect, agreeing to a conversation: “No, of course I don’t mind. Sit down.”

She turned out to be an agreeable, kind woman who had had a difficult day. I didn’t have to say much: “I’m sorry to hear that.” “That’s tough for you.” She occasionally asked me questions about myself, which I dodged politely. I could tell she was only asking so the conversation would not be so one-sided. Some moments are for listening, not sharing. I sensed, without needing to know explicitly, that she was probably returning to an empty house and wanted to process the day out loud. I didn’t feel uncomfortable, as I knew I could duck out at any moment by saying I needed to get back to my phone messages. But instead we talked – or, rather, I listened – for most of the 50-minute journey. I registered that it was an unusual occurrence, this connection, but thought little more of it. A small part of me was glad this kind of thing still happens.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:56 am

Trump claims host of successes and attacks old foes in longest State of the Union

President hails ‘turnaround for the ages’ but offers few policy pledges and repeats jibes against ‘crazy’ Democrats

Donald Trump proclaimed his first year in office a success at the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, even as his presidency is dogged by low public approval ratings before November’s midterm elections in which voters could hand control of Congress back to his Democratic opponents.

The annual address to a joint session of Congress came after months of turmoil for the Republican president, including a crackdown on immigrant communities in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens, and faltering progress on his campaign promise of lowering the cost of living.

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:37 am

Rescuer who jumped into icy Chicago lake to save baby: ‘All I did was a human act’

Lio Cundiff, who is trans, told the Guardian he hopes the act shows everyone how ‘human we are – because all I did was a human act’

A Chicagoan who recently jumped into a perilously cold lake to help rescue a baby whose stroller was blown into the water by a wind gust has implored everyone in the US to “just take care of one another”.

In an interview Tuesday, Lio Cundiff, who is a trans man, said of himself: “All I did was a human act. I’m just a human who did the most human thing you could do – which is save someone who can’t save themselves.”

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:00 am

FBI investigations hindered by Kash Patel, whistleblower tells top Democrat

Dick Durbin accuses FBI chief of ‘irresponsible joyriding’ and says agency’s work marred by Patel’s poor decisions

A top Senate Democrat alleged on Tuesday that FBI director Kash Patel’s personal travel and decision-making have undermined high-profile investigations, citing a whistleblower report.

Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, wrote in a letter to two government watchdogs that Patel has “seemingly engaged in what amounts to irresponsible joyriding on DoJ and FBI-operated aircraft at the expense of the American taxpayer and to the detriment of ongoing bureau operations”.

Published: February 25, 2026, 2:36 am

Ukraine-US talks in Geneva on Thursday ‘preparation for trilateral meeting with Russia’, Zelenskyy says – Europe live

Ukrainian president says trilateral meeting with with Russia expected in early March

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was looking to repair the Druzhba oil pipeline but “it was not so fast,” Reuters reported.

Shipments of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia have been cut off since 27 January, when Kyiv says a Russian strike hit pipeline equipment in western Ukraine.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:04 pm

US military leaders pressure Anthropic to bend Claude safeguards

Anthropic presents itself as most safety-forward AI firm and Pentagon has threatened penalties if it does not yield

US military leaders including Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, met with executives from the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic on Tuesday to hash out a dispute over what the government will be able to do with the company’s powerful AI model. Hegseth gave Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, until the end of the day on Friday to agree to the department’s terms or face penalties, Axios reported.

Anthropic, which presents itself as the most safety-forward of the leading AI companies, has been mired in weeks of disagreement with the Pentagon over how the military is allowed to use its large language model, Claude. US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities, while Anthropic has reportedly resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can use AI to kill people without human input. The Department of Defense (DoD) has integrated Claude into its operations, but has threatened to sever the relationship over what its top brass perceives as roadblocks erected by Anthropic.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:35 am

Man stabs four people to death in Washington state

Victims, as well as 32-year-old suspect, confirmed dead after incident in town west of Tacoma, says county sheriff’s office

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A man stabbed four people to death in the street in a town west of Tacoma, Washington, on Tuesday morning after violating a no-contact order, the Pierce county sheriff’s office confirmed to local news outlets.

The four stabbing victims, as well as the 32-year-old suspect, are confirmed dead, the sheriff’s office said. Three of the victims died at the scene, while a fourth was taken to a hospital and later died from their injuries, authorities said.

Published: February 25, 2026, 1:34 am

Meta’s AI sending ‘junk’ tips to DoJ, US child abuse investigators say

Officers say flood of low-quality reports is draining resources and slowing cases amid New Mexico lawsuit

Meta’s use of artificial intelligence software to moderate its social media platforms is generating large volumes of useless reports about cases of child sexual abuse, which are draining resources and hindering investigations, said officers from the US Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce.

“We get a lot of tips from Meta that are just kind of junk,” Benjamin Zwiebel, a special agent with the ICAC taskforce in New Mexico, said last week during his testimony in the state’s trial against Meta. The state’s attorney general alleges the company’s platforms are putting profits over child safety. Meta disputes these allegations, citing changes it has introduced on its platforms, such as teen accounts with default protections. The ICAC taskforce is a nationwide network of law enforcement agencies coordinated with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate and prosecute online child exploitation and abuse cases.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:00 pm

Katherine Short, daughter of actor Martin Short, dies aged 42

Short, a social worker, was found dead at her home in Los Angeles on Monday in an apparent suicide

Katherine Short, the 42-year-old daughter of actor and comedian Martin Short, died on Monday at her home in the Hollywood Hills.

“It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short,” a representative for the Only Murders in the Building star said in a statement. “The Short family is devastated by this loss and asks for privacy at this time. Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”

Published: February 24, 2026, 9:34 pm

Now everyone can come to the cottage as Heated Rivalry house listed on Airbnb

Giant glass box on the side of a lake the setting for Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s secret getaway

For Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov it became the safe house at the edge of the world.

Now Heated Rivalry fans can relive some of the hit television show’s steamiest moments in Barlochan Cottage, tucked away on the granite-edged shores of Ontario’s Lake Muskoka, which has just been listed on Airbnb.

Published: February 25, 2026, 2:30 am

Donald Trump's two-hour State of the Union address in 3 minutes – video

Donald Trump proclaimed his first year in office a success at the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, even as his presidency is dogged by low public approval ratings before November’s midterm elections in which voters could hand control of Congress back to the Democrats. Trump spoke for two hours addressing a host of issues, from his supreme court challenges to Iran, with some Democrats reacting by walking out, holding signs and verbally clashing in the chamber

• Trump claims host of successes and attacks old foes in longest State of the Union

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:35 am

Democrats hold counter-events during Trump’s State of the Union address: ‘These are not normal times’

Lawmakers gather on National Mall as politicians and celebrities including Robert De Niro and Mark Ruffalo gather at National Press Club

• State of the Union address - live updates

Democrats held competing events on the evening of the State of the Union address across Washington where lawmakers boycotted the official event and protesters said they wanted to show the growing opposition to Donald Trump’s increasingly unpopular agenda.

On the National Mall, hundreds of people, including about 30 Democratic members of Congress, gathered for the “People’s State of the Union”, a counter-rally. Attendees held signs that read “No Money for ICE” and “Healthcare Not Warfare”. One person on stage carried a large poster with the photographs of the more than 30 people who had been killed in dealings with ICE since Trump took office in 2025.

Published: February 25, 2026, 2:12 am

Trump news at a glance: president boasts of ‘winning so much’ in State of the Union address

Some Democratic lawmakers boycott Trump’s speech - key US politics stories from Tuesday, 24 February at a glance

Donald Trump proclaimed his first year in office a success at the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, even as his presidency is dogged by low public approval ratings before November’s midterm elections in which voters could hand control of Congress back to his Democratic opponents.

The annual address to a joint session of Congress came after months of turmoil for the Republican president, including a crackdown on immigrant communities in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens, and faltering progress on his campaign promise of lowering the cost of living.

Published: February 25, 2026, 3:43 am

Judge blocks DoJ from searching Washington Post reporter’s seized devices

Court itself to search devices for documents related to national security inquiry as newspaper calls ruling ‘victory’

A federal judge has prohibited the justice department from searching electronic devices it seized from a Washington Post reporter, ruling that the court will search the devices for documents related to a national security investigation itself.

In his ruling, magistrate judge William Porter criticized the Trump administration for omitting relevant case law in its application for a search warrant to seize the devices in the first place, but acknowledged “the possibility that classified national security information may be among the seized material” complicated the matter.

Published: February 25, 2026, 2:03 am

‘Big Four’ meatpackers under fire as beef prices soar

McDonald’s and other food industry players accuse the big beef packers of collusion and price-gouging. The packers deny these allegations

On 21 November, at the end of the first shift at the Tyson Foods beef processing plant in Lexington, Nebraska, all workers were called to the lunchroom and told they no longer had jobs. Many gathered afterward in the gravel parking lot. Some wailed and cried out.

“It’s a terrible thing to know that we won’t be able to pay rent, won’t be able to pay the electricity, our cars – all the bills coming our way,” said Constancio Perales, a 64-year-old worker born in Durango, Mexico, who has worked at the plant since 1996 – the last 25 years cutting the bone out of chuck steaks. “It’s very sad that they would fire us like that – just telling us there’s no more work, as if to say go away.”

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Why the longest-ever State of the Union address was the most inconsequential

Amid Trump’s lies and xenophobic rants, people struggling to pay bills and make ends meet are unlikely to be moved

He wanted to give the king’s speech. Donald Trump entered the US House chamber on Tuesday like a medieval monarch, with Republicans lined up eager to touch his royal robes (or, in two cases, grab a selfie with him). But within moments, the illusion was shattered.

As the US president strolled by, soaking up adulation, Democratic representative Al Green of Texas held aloft a handwritten sign: “Black people aren’t apes!” – a reference to Trump recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:39 am

A Hollywood ‘heir’ levied horrific abuse claims against four industry titans. How did he end up in prison?

Rovier Carrington thought his cases against MTV and Paramount executives should have been the biggest of the #MeToo era. Instead, they raised unsettling questions about victimhood

One unseasonably warm afternoon in February 2023, in a very brown New York City courtroom, Rovier Carrington did the inconceivable: he admitted to a lie. On that day, the aspiring screenwriter told a federal judge that he had altered evidence to support his legal claim of being systematically raped and blacklisted by a bevy of Hollywood powerbrokers.

His 11th-hour capitulation came as a shock.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:00 pm

Tech legend Stewart Brand on Musk, Bezos and his extraordinary life: ‘We don’t need to passively accept our fate’

He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly – not just today, but for the next 10,000 years

Stewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale – as suggested by the title of his celebrated Whole Earth Catalog – and on the longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel to psychedelic drugs to computing. In fact, he was arguably the bridge between the San Francisco counterculture of the 60s and present-day Silicon Valley: in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised the Whole Earth Catalog and Brand’s philosophy, and echoed its farewell mantra: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

You could say that Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old, in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era. He has been a writer, an editor, a publisher, a soldier, a photojournalist, an LSD evangelist, an events organiser, a future-planning consultant, even a government adviser (to the California governor Jerry Brown in the late 70s). “There was a time when people asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I find things and I found things,’” says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his houseboat in Sausalito. “I’m always searching for good stuff to recommend, and good people.”

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘A partisan and politician’: Abraham Lincoln and the art of the deal

New book Boss Lincoln takes a fresh look at a well-studied political figure, showing him to be a master of party politics

Some historians are wary of discussing their work in light of modern events, comparing subjects to current political players. Not Matthew Pinsker of Dickinson College, the author of both a major new book, Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln, and the Substack What Would Lincoln Do?.

“I’m not running away from it, that’s for sure,” Pinsker said from Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:11 am

A moment that changed me: I was hit by an SUV – and it made me reconsider my drinking and screen time

I was in New Orleans for work, without travel insurance, when the car crashed into me. In the months I spent recovering, I began to think seriously about how I treated my health

The SUV slammed into me at a crosswalk, where I had right of way. It was 2024 and I was on the first night of a work trip to New Orleans. Time slowed down as I flew 2 metres through the air and crashed on to the road in what felt like slow motion. When I managed to stand up, there were waves of adrenaline juddering through me. My friend, Brandy, and a group of strangers helped me to the side of the road, and it was then that I remembered my annual travel insurance had expired the week before. In a prim, defensive tone, like a dowager who’d just had a fainting spell and resented all the fuss, I insisted that I was perfectly fine and didn’t need an ambulance. Then I blacked out.

The paramedics arrived and, despite my protests, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. On the stretcher, I started calculating how much money I had in my current account, how much I could put on a credit card and how much I could plausibly ask to borrow from my parents. My lack of insurance was entirely due to my own fecklessness, but being forced to run these sums with a head injury, after begging not to receive help that I obviously needed, was an almost comically bleak experience.

Published: February 25, 2026, 6:45 am

The rise of rejection sensitive dysphoria: ‘My chest feels like it’s collapsing’

It makes rejection, teasing or criticism feel unbearable, often prompting a strong physical reaction. Sufferers describe life with a condition that is only just starting to be understood

Jenna Turnbull’s chest is tightening. The 36-year-old civil servant, who lives in Cardiff, can picture herself as she speaks: an 11-year-old in her PE kit waiting with the other kids for her lesson to start. “We were outside by the courts waiting to play netball,” she says. “Somebody commented that I had hairy arms, one of the boys.” Her voice wobbles. The incident was clearly juvenile; rationally, she knows that. Yet 25 years on, her embarrassment is still visceral, with the power to cause instant physical discomfort.

She searches for another example of her acute reaction to teasing and recalls a trip to the pub with her friends six years ago. Amid the loud conversation and laughter, a quip was made in the group about her being untidy at home. Or that’s how she perceived it. “About me not keeping on top of the house,” she recalls. The person “was having a laugh. It was just something that was said off the cuff.” Yet while the memory and detail is hazy, the shame she feels about it is not. “That comment still haunts me,” she says. After that pub outing, she started cleaning her house obsessively – to such an extreme that it became one of the symptoms leading to her diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). “I’ve been known to spend four or five hours cleaning my bathroom,” she says.

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:00 am

Among the gangsters, gamblers and high rollers: a master bookie’s life in Las Vegas

In his new memoir, Art Manteris recalls raucous times in Nevada, and explains why the explosion of sports betting in the US presents serious risks

Forty years ago, the New England Patriots played in their first Super Bowl. It ended disastrously for New England, who lost 46-10 to the Chicago Bears. The Bears’ mammoth defensive tackle, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, even got involved in the scoring with a touchdown.

That moment looked like it would cause serious problems for Art Manteris, who at the time ran the sportsbook at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Under Manteris, Caesars had offered odds on whether Perry would score during the game – and, as fans scrambled to back the popular player, the house stood to lose a significant sum if he did. When Perry ran into the end zone, gamblers collected handsomely, to the tune of $250,000. The next day, Manteris was summoned to meet the boss of Caesars, Henry Gluck.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Marty Supreme’s ping-pong thrills grip but the theatre plot really smashes it | Chris Wiegand

In Josh Safdie’s film, the worlds of sport and stage are aligned – with the stakes higher for Gwyneth Paltrow’s former screen star, now on Broadway, than Timothée Chalamet’s hotshot

• This article contains spoilers about Marty Supreme

Josh Safdie’s ping-pong nerve-jangler Marty Supreme races through ambition, vanity, humiliation, deception, soaring glory, crushing failure and the deathless allure of an 11th-hour comeback. All of this I recognise from hours of playing table tennis in our local park. But I recognise it, too, from nights at the theatre – not so much the plays themselves, perhaps, rather the stage as a crucible for the careers of those involved. The film’s subplot, about a Broadway play’s fraught opening, becomes an inspired parallel to Marty’s frantic story and Safdie’s wired style matches not just the adrenalised world of a tournament but also the sensation of stepping out on the stage. I’m a sucker for theatre scenes in films and Safdie’s are brief but certainly supreme.

Halfway into the movie, Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser sneaks into New York’s Morosco theatre. That’s a real playhouse – or was, until it got demolished in the 80s. The film is set in 1952, the year that Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea was put on at the Morosco, which would soon have a hit with the premiere of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Those plays about failing marriages find a counterpart in the film’s story of Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a silver-screen star of the 30s who is now making a risky return to acting in an overheated play bankrolled by her husband, Milton Rockwell.

Published: February 25, 2026, 9:51 am

‘Tics are involuntary’: people with Tourette syndrome on Baftas outburst

Those with the condition share varying views of John Davidson’s tic during Sunday’s awards ceremony

It was an incident that sparked a furore: during Sunday’s Bafta ceremony Tourette syndrome (TS) activist John Davidson made several outbursts, including shouting the N-word as actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan were presenting a prize on stage.

Among others to comment on the incident were actors including Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce, who starred alongside Jordan in The Wire.

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:38 pm

I was at the Baftas – and while hearing the N-word was unsettling, all anger should be aimed at the BBC | Jason Okundaye

By failing to remove John Davidson’s tic from the broadcast, editors let down both black and disabled people

I attended the Bafta awards on Sunday. And I arrived early enough to hear the Tourette syndrome (TS) campaigner John Davidson, on whom the biographical film I Swear is based, be introduced. He stood up to wave and take in the applause, and we were told that due to his TS, we might expect to hear involuntary vocal outbursts, known as tics, and that we should understand that the Baftas are an inclusive space in which all people are welcome.

Perhaps half the people were listening, others would have been on their phones or engaged in mild chatter. But the tics were instantly audible. When the host, Alan Cumming, was on stage we heard “boring” and there was laughter. When the outgoing chair of Bafta, Sara Putt, was speaking, we heard “shut the fuck up” and there was a mix of knowing silence and confusion. But, as you all now know, it was when Sinners actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented an award that the tics transmuted from things that would be read as benignly antisocial to more outright offensive, as we heard the N-word. There were gasps and whispers of “did he just say … ?”

Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian

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

Published: February 25, 2026, 8:00 am

The ‘vegan but bacon’ principle is here. Could it help us achieve our goals? | Polly Hudson

Social media’s latest trend is a reminder that perfectionism isn’t always the best way forward. If we want to make change, maybe we need to give ourselves a bit of a break

You might at first be tempted to mark the date and write down the exact time, certain that this was the moment we really had heard it all. A new hypothesis is doing the rounds on social media, and it’s called Vegan but Bacon. Yeah, I thought flexitarian was annoying enough too, but apparently not.

Vegan but Bacon. Whatever next, eh? Virgin But Sex? Hang on though, because there might actually be something to this. A plant-based content creator called Liz kicked it off, replying to somebody who said they’d join her culinary crusade if it wasn’t for their relish for rashers. “So do it,” she told them, “Go vegan but bacon.” Three million views later, many had shared how they didn’t eat any animal products 95% of the time, or only at home, or allowed themselves a hall pass item. “Harm reduction is harm reduction,” said Liz (which is vegan for “it’s better than nowt”), before pointing out that most people make progress a step at a time rather than all at once.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Donald Trump is building an enormous tower on the Gold Coast – this plan cannot fail! | First Dog on the Moon

A winning combination of schoolies, real estate and fascism – very Queensland coded

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Published: February 25, 2026, 5:19 am

So Epstein buddies Andrew and Mandelson have been arrested in the UK. And in the US? Zero, zip, nada | Marina Hyde

At least the British gave us the perp-walk shots. But I fear that any Americans seeking real justice will have to wait, and wait, and wait

I can’t believe the cops didn’t max out the theatrics yesterday when taking Peter Mandelson to the police station to help with their inquiries. They didn’t even do that thing where they put their hand on top of the suspect’s head to ease him down into the back seat of the car. Absolutely no sense of occasion.

And you know, they really may as well have had one. Misconduct in a public office is such an archaic old law and so incredibly difficult to prove that it may well be that you have already seen the high-water mark of law-adjacent consequences for both Mandy and Andy. The perp walk is the punishment. No offence to the highly esteemed Metropolitan police and the various other forces who’ve found the rare grooming-gang scandal they can be arsed with, but it’s hard to get past the deep-rooted suspicion that they are just looking busy. But look, we got one iconic royal photo out of it and a clip of Mandelson over which you could wonder absentmindedly, “Is this honestly the first time he’s been arrested? I must be having a deja vu because it hasn’t happened before, yet it feels so weirdly familiar. For whatever reason.” Anyway, allow me to reiterate that both of the men mentioned in this paragraph deny any wrongdoing.

Marina Hyde 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 24, 2026, 1:18 pm

The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s tariffs: a nostalgia that misreads a changed world | Editorial

The US president fights 1970s battles in a financialised age. America faces not a payments crisis but a slow erosion of industrial and technological power

When the US supreme court voted 6-3 last Friday to strike down Donald Trump’s tariffs, he was incandescent. Two judges he had elevated – Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – were suddenly recast as traitors to the cause. Both were, he insinuated, under the sway of foreign interests. The court ruled that the tariffs overstepped the powers the US Congress granted under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Mr Trump responded by reaching for a 1974 trade law, invoking “international payments problems” to slap on a 10% tariff for 150 days.

Mr Trump was moulded by the 1970s. His political DNA was formed in that era’s crises and he governs as if America were still in the Nixon era of shock politics. In some ways there are parallels. The political mobilisation around economic insecurity echoes that period, as does distrust in elite authority. This explains why many populist politicians on the right reach for the 1970s, which fits the mood of decline and rivalry and offers a narrative of “restoring strength”. Internationally, Mr Trump also sees the world through the 1970s lens of industrial rivalry and trade grievance. But the world today is in a far more financialised and interdependent state.

Published: February 24, 2026, 7:07 pm

US men’s hockey team visit White House as some players with Minnesota ties stay away

• Donald Trump invited team after Olympic gold

• Women’s team chose to skip event

The victorious US Olympic men’s ice hockey team visited the White House on Tuesday, although there were several notable absences.

Donald Trump invited the team to celebrate in Washington DC after they beat Canada in a dramatic Olympic final on Sunday. He also invited the US women’s team, who declined citing “timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments”.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:40 pm

Mauricio Pochettino suddenly has a glut of USMNT options as the World Cup looms

Timing and luck often dictate a team’s success at tournaments. And the co-hosts have players coming into form at just the right time

Bruce Arena once said that if his United States men’s national team had contested the 2006 World Cup a year earlier, the Americans would have done much better than the joyless, winless group stage elimination they suffered through. That team, he felt, had peaked during qualifiers and were past their best – despite being ranked an absurd fourth in the world by Fifa – when the World Cup kicked off.

Four years earlier, when the USMNT stunned the 2002 World Cup by nearly reaching the semi-finals, his side benefited from time’s relentless march, Arena argued. The Americans, cohesive and energized then, upset a golden Portugal generation that had already lost its sheen, 3-2, to spark their run.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

US basketball player Jarred Shaw escaped execution in Indonesia, but his prison ordeal continues

The Texan made the mistake of his life when he ordered gummies to soothe symptoms of Crohn’s disease. Now his health is suffering in a foreign jail

Jarred Shaw is locked up in an Indonesian prison – but at least he isn’t facing execution, something that appeared a possibility less than a year ago.

The 35-year-old American was a key member of the Prawira Bandung team who won the Indonesian Basketball League (IBL) in 2023, the latest highlight in a fascinating professional career that had taken him to countries as varied as Tunisia, Lebanon, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:00 am

World Cup host cities ‘running out of time’ with $625m in funding held up by shutdown

• Funds promised for security have not been received

• Officials warn of potential cancellations to fan festivals

Local and national officials expressed concern on Tuesday that the ongoing partial government shutdown in the United States could adversely affect planning and preparation for the 2026 World Cup, which is just over 100 days away.

In a hearing before the House committee on homeland security, representatives from Miami, Kansas City and New Jersey – three locations that will host a combined total of 21 matches in the tournament, including the final – said they are still waiting on federal funds to be released to their respective local agencies. Last July, lawmakers pledged $625m in federal assistance toward World Cup security via the Trump administration’s “big beautiful” policy bill.

Published: February 24, 2026, 8:37 pm

Champions League: Bodø/Glimt send Inter crashing out, Sørloth seals Atlético’s spot

• Norwegian side win 2-1 in Milan to seal giant-killing upset

• Atlético defeat Club Brugge; Bayer Leverkusen progress

Bodø/Glimt dumped last season’s finalists Inter out of the Champions League with a remarkable 2-1 win at San Siro in their playoff second leg that sent the Norwegian minnows through to the last 16, 5-2 on aggregate.

Under sustained pressure, the visitors struck in the 58th minute when Ole Didrik Blomberg seized on a loose pass on the edge of the Inter area and drove at goal. Yann Sommer pushed his shot away but Jens Petter Hauge reacted quickest to convert the rebound from close range.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:23 pm

US hockey was bathed in a golden Olympic glow. Then Donald Trump and Kash Patel stepped in | Beau Dure

The US men’s and women’s teams claimed titles at the Winter Games this past week. The warm fuzzy feelings didn’t last long

Keeping politics at arm’s length for the US men’s hockey team’s gold-medal matchup with Canada was always going to be difficult.

The game fell on the 46th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, when an underdog group of US college players upset the mighty Soviet Union team against the backdrop of the cold war. But the US team who took the ice on Sunday were no plucky band of amateurs making a stand for democracy against authoritarianism – a point underscored when the US and Canada met last year in the 4 Nations Face-Off. Canadian fans booed the Star-Spangled Banner and the US players, either unaware of, or unsympathetic to, Canadian desires to be neither the 51st US state nor the USA’s opponent in a scorched-earth trade war, dropped the gloves to fight their opponents as soon as the game commenced.

Published: February 24, 2026, 3:46 pm

If you think politics shaped these Winter Olympics, just wait until LA 2028

In Milan, athletes showed that patriotism can be generous. In Los Angeles, that definition will be tested on the biggest, loudest stage sport can offer

The Milano Cortina Winter Games ended on Sunday night as the Olympics always do: in light, spectacle and speeches about unity. In Verona, the Olympic flag passed to the French Alps and the twin flames were extinguished. But unofficially, at least, a flame also flickered 6,000 miles west.

If these Games felt political, just wait until Los Angeles a little more than two years from now.

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:00 am

Swansea bow to co-owner Snoop Dogg with guard of honour before kick-off

• American rapper arrives to see draw against Preston

• Ipswich close on second after Middlesbrough drop points

The Swansea City co-owner Snoop Dogg was greeted with twirling towels and a guard of honour on his first visit to the Welsh club. The American rapper, who is a minority owner of the Championship club alongside the television host Martha Stewart and Croatia international Luka Modric, made his first appearance at the Swansea.com Stadium for Tuesday’s clash with Preston.

Snoop Dogg joined the Swansea ownership group last July and made his way to south-west Wales after being at the Winter Olympics, where he served as Team USA’s honorary coach as well as a special correspondent for broadcaster NBC.

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:33 pm

‘Resilience is the biggest lesson’: Emma Raducanu is ready for revival after setbacks

In Japan to announce her switch to Uniqlo, the British No 1 says frustrations only fuel the fire as she looks to Indian Wells and beyond

Emma Raducanu has no immediate plans to appoint a new coach as she attempts to kickstart a frustrating season in the US next month. The British No 1 will play at Indian Wells and in the Miami Open in March without a full-time replacement for Francisco Roig – her ninth coach since she turned professional – with whom she parted company after her second-round exit at the Australian Open in January.

“Right now I wouldn’t say I’m actively looking for a coach,” Raducanu says in Tokyo, where on Tuesday she was unveiled as a global brand ambassador for the Japanese clothes retailer Uniqlo after ending her association with Nike.

Published: February 24, 2026, 6:44 am

Marco Rubio briefs US lawmakers on Iran as Trump uses State of the Union to threaten nuclear programme

Secretary of state makes rare briefing to so-called ‘gang of eight’ as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003

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Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran, just a few hours before Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to say that Tehran would never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Amid the largest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war, Trump said he wanted to solve the confrontation with Iran through diplomatic means while claiming that Tehran was seeking to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the US, without providing further details.

Published: February 25, 2026, 4:31 am

‘A rushed execution’: the case of the woman convicted of child murder that shocked Somalia

The speed at which Hodan Mohamud Diiriye was executed has raised questions about the fairness of her trial

On 12 November last year, Hodan Mohamud Diiriye called her husband to tell him that his 14-year-old great niece, Saabirin Saylaan, who had been living in their house for two months, was unconscious. Together, they took Saabirin to the hospital in Galkayo, in central Somalia, where medical staff pronounced her dead and called the police.

Diiriye, a 34-year-old mother of more than 10 children, was arrested. Less than three months later, on 3 February, she was executed by a firing squad for murder.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Democrats to investigate whether DoJ withheld Epstein files on Trump abuse claim

Lawmaker says DoJ appears to have withheld interviews with survivor who accused Trump of ‘heinous crimes’

Democrats on the House oversight and government reform committee announced on Tuesday the launch of an investigation to determine whether the US Department of Justice (DoJ) purposely withheld materials that pertain to allegations against Donald Trump in the government’s release of the Epstein files.

The lawmakers pledged to look into a report that Trump had been accused by a woman of sexually abusing her decades ago when she was a minor, and that material relating to the allegation in the Epstein files has not been released to the public.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:48 am

How rightwing rhetoric has risen sharply in the UK parliament – an exclusive visual analysis

In the past five years, MPs’ attitudes in the House of Commons towards immigration have swung harder to the right than at almost any other time in the last century

Labour and Conservative MPs are speaking in a more hostile way about immigration than at almost any other time in the last century, the Guardian can reveal.

An unprecedented analysis of 100 years of parliamentary speeches has shown a sharp shift to the right on the issue – with the biggest swing from positive to negative attitudes coming in the past five years.

Published: February 25, 2026, 8:00 am

Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson says Bafta told him ‘any swearing would be edited out of the broadcast’

Davidson said he ‘can’t begin to explain how upset and distraught I have been’ over slurs he shouted during the award ceremony

• With N-word incident, Bafta has shot itself in the foot
• Why the Baftas must pivot to broadcasting live

John Davidson, the Tourette syndrome (TS) activist at the centre of the Baftas N-word controversy, says that Bafta and the BBC “should have been aware of what to expect” from TS, and that he had been told that any offensive words would be removed.

In an interview with Variety, Davidson said that Bafta had told him and the film’s backers StudioCanal “that any swearing would be edited out of the broadcast”. He said: “I have made four documentaries with the BBC in the past, and feel that they should have been aware of what to expect from Tourette’s and worked harder to prevent anything that I said – which, after all, was some 40 rows back from the stage – from being included in the broadcast.”

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:35 am

Chronic ocean heating fuels ‘staggering’ loss of marine life, study finds

Fish levels fall by 7.2% with as little as 0.1C of warming per decade, northern hemisphere research shows

Chronic ocean heating is fuelling a “staggering and deeply concerning” loss of marine life, a study has found, with fish levels falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade.

Researchers examined the year-to-year change of 33,000 populations in the northern hemisphere between 1993 and 2021, and isolated the effect of the decadal rate of seabed warming from short shifts such as marine heatwaves. They found the drop in biomass from chronic heating to be as high as 19.8% in a single year.

Published: February 25, 2026, 10:00 am

Trump touts ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda – but no mention of climate crisis

President derided Biden’s ‘green new scam’ during State of the Union address, and hailed the rise in US oil production

Trump didn’t say the words “climate change” during the State of the Union, but it loomed large over his 108-minute speech as he touted his “drill, baby, drill” agenda and derided Joe Biden’s “green new scam”.

Toward the beginning of his address, the president discussed last year’s flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas, saying they were “one of the worst things I’ve ever seen”.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Citizen scientists discover a Great Barrier Reef coral giant ‘like a rolling meadow’

Volunteer group Citizens of the Reef made the find as part of the Great Reef Census

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Citizen scientists have discovered what they believe is one of the largest coral colonies ever documented on the Great Barrier Reef.

The coral spans approximately 111 metres in maximum length and covers an estimated area of 3,973 sq m – about half the size of a soccer field.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:00 pm

How Trump’s big climate finding repeal could actually hurt big oil

Without federal climate regulation, fossil fuel industry may be more vulnerable to local lawsuits

The Trump administration’s repeal of a foundational climate determination could clear a path for new litigation and policies targeting big oil, legal experts say.

Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule revoking the “endangerment finding”, a 2009 determination that established that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The move eliminated federal limits on climate-warming emissions from motor vehicles, and is expected to extend to all other pollution sources.

Published: February 24, 2026, 12:30 pm

US congressman refuses to resign after allegations of affair with staffer

Republican Tony Gonzales allegedly pressured Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide, into sexual relationship

US congressman Tony Gonzales refused growing calls to resign from his fellow Republicans on Tuesday amid a furore over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

Gonzales has been accused of sending sexually explicit text messages in which he appeared to pressure the senior staffer to share images of herself and, eventually, coerced her into a sexual relationship.

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

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:11 pm

Caribbean leaders call for ‘de-escalation and dialogue’ amid US oil embargo on Cuba

Four-day Caricom summit dominated by debate about US interventions in the region as military strikes against suspected drug boats continue

US interventions dominated speeches at a summit of 15 nations from the Caribbean and the Americas on Tuesday, as the region’s leaders met amid deadly military strikes against suspected drug boats and an oil blockade on Cuba.

During the opening ceremony of the four-day Caricom summit in St Kitts and Nevis, leaders of the regional bloc called for a strategic collaborations to deal with the impact of recent US policies.

Published: February 25, 2026, 2:51 am

US justice department sues UCLA over alleged antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests

Lawsuit is latest action by Trump administration against a university and escalation of president’s feud with California

The justice department sued the University of California, Los Angeles on Tuesday, alleging the university created a hostile work environment for Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff after protests against the war on Gaza broke out across campus.

The lawsuit claims UCLA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by “failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct” after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and ensuing war on Gaza. The lawsuit is the latest action against a US university by the Trump administration since the president took office last year, and an escalation of Donald Trump’s feud with the state of California.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:23 am

Man convicted of killing 70-year-old grocery store owner executed in Florida

Melvin Trotter, 65, gets lethal injection for 1986 stabbing death, becoming second person executed by state this year

A man convicted of killing a 70-year-old grocery store owner was put to death Tuesday in Florida, becoming the second person executed by the state this year after a record 19 executions in 2025.

Melvin Trotter, 65, was pronounced dead at 6.15pm following a lethal injection at Florida state prison near Starke for the 1986 stabbing death of Virgie Langford, according to authorities. Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesperson for Republican governor Ron DeSantis, said there were no complications.

Published: February 25, 2026, 12:28 am

Mexico pledges safety for World Cup after violence erupts from cartel boss’s killing

Mexico’s president says there is ‘no risk’ for those visiting for Fifa games after military killed drug lord ‘El Mencho’

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

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said that there is “no risk” for visitors coming to Fifa World Cup games scheduled to be held in the country, after the death of a top cartel boss triggered a wave of retaliatory violence from gunmen who blocked roads and attacked security forces across the country.

The Mexican military attempted to detain “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in a dawn raid on Sunday, leading to a firefight in which he was fatally wounded, before dying while being airlifted to hospital.

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:18 pm

Floods and landslides in Brazil kill at least 30 after record rainfall

Firefighters search for 39 people missing in debris after river burst and houses were swept away

Three firefighters pulled a man’s body from the mud amid the rubble of houses swept away in a landslide in south-eastern Brazil, where 30 people died and 39 were still missing on Tuesday after torrential rains.

A river in the state of Minas Gerais burst its banks and streets became raging currents of brown water after an overnight downpour in a region that has seen record rain this month.

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:28 pm

Humans – not Mimmo the dolphin – need managing in Venice lagoon, say scientists

Researchers say solitary bottlenose has adapted well to city waters, but tighter controls on boat traffic and human behaviour are needed

Italian scientists monitoring the movements of a dolphin in the Venice lagoon have said humans are the ones who need managing, rather than wildlife.

Known as Mimmo, the bottlenose dolphin has been spotted on several occasions since it made its first appearance in June last year, prompting a research team from the University of Padova to spring into action.

Published: February 25, 2026, 5:00 am

Obstructive sleep apnoea costs UK and US economies £137bn a year, research finds

Disease, which causes people to stop breathing while asleep, linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke

Obstructive sleep apnoea costs the US and UK economies more than £137bn ($185bn) a year, according to research.

People with the serious health condition repeatedly stop breathing temporarily while asleep; they tend to snore very loudly and can wake up gasping for breath.

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:30 pm

Palestine Comedy Club review – roving performance collective finds light in darkness

This portrait of a multi-ethnic comic troupe could do with more unpicking, but its reflections on the grind of war, life on the road and the reactive nature of comedy are insightful

It must surely, sometimes, seem to everyone involved that the name should be Palestine Tragedy Club – but this theatre collective, founded by Alaa Shehada from Jenin in the north of the West Bank, and Sam Beale from the UK, is all about laughter. They are exploring the nature of comedy and standup as a response to being a Palestinian now. This documentary follows the group as they attempt to put together a national tour, with shows in Ramallah, Nablus, Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem. In so doing, they encounter the basic problem of struggling through roadblocks, and sheer dismay and horror at the wholesale destruction of the war between Israel and Hamas.

We also see how members of the company find themselves, in effect, in exile in Amsterdam and Berlin and experiencing the existential pain of loneliness and homesickness. Things are further complicated at one stage, by being in London – the seat of empire – for a particular show, making it clear that the British are the imperial villains of all this (it is Britain, not Israel, that is singled out for explicit criticism on stage). I would have liked to see more of the Palestine Comedy Club’s actual show, and more of the way the material is developed and performed, but we do get a very entertaining bit from Shehada as he says that over here, he gets solemn and supportive “mmmm”s instead of laughs – the audiences mulling over it, perhaps laughing later when they’ve had time to think.

Published: February 25, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I considered starting over as a farmer’: Masao Adachi on political cinema, revolution and Japan today

The director and ex-Japanese Red Army militant discusses his new film Escape, about the anarchist fugitive Satoshi Kirishima, the frustrations of radical film-making and progressive politics

Last month, on the same day that Revolution+1 – a fictionalised account of the life of Tetsuya Yamagami, the man who assassinated the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022 – screened at London’s ICA, during a season on the radical film-maker Masao Adachi, a court in Japan sentenced Yamagami to life imprisonment.

Whether the programming was a result of foresight or sheer coincidence, the dismantling of boundaries that would otherwise keep movies hemmed inside a screen and removed from the world outside are characteristic of Adachi’s lifelong practice.

Published: February 24, 2026, 2:42 pm

The Martini Shot review – Matthew Modine and a cast to die for can’t fathom an unholy mess

Modine plays a dying director shooting his final film – alongside Derek Jacobi, John Cleese and Stuart Townsend – in this baffling existential drama

Shot in Ireland, so at least the landscapes look pretty, this cuckoo-bananas drama stars Matthew Modine – rocking a white mop of hair and a bushy brush of fake beard – an American film director called Steve who is facing the end of his life. Or maybe he is God himself, casting souls in some indie-budget nonsense about a film director named Steve who looks just like him – or a deluded mortal who thinks he’s God who is fantasising all this on his death bed, or all those things at once.

Like the concept of the Holy Trinity, this is not easy for mere mortals to comprehend, but it has to be said that this is a mostly annoying and only fitfully interesting film. To give The Martini Shot the barest minimum of dues, it at least has a few fine actors in the cast, like Modine himself, Derek Jacobi, John Cleese, Stuart Townsend and, weirdly, Morgana Robinson (so great as Pippa Middleton in The Windsors). They help ease the tedium of waiting for this waffly, “spiritual” self-indulgent nonsense to finish.

Published: February 25, 2026, 9:00 am

Jon Stewart on politicization of USA hockey win: ‘Is Kash Patel a Make-a-Wish man?’

Late-night hosts discussed FBI director partying with victorious US men’s Olympic hockey team and supreme court overruling Trump’s tariffs

Late-night hosts reacted to Republicans claiming USA hockey Olympic victories as their own and the US supreme court declaring Donald Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional.

Published: February 24, 2026, 4:30 pm

‘I like the challenge’: French animator Florence Miailhe on being nominated for an Oscar for the first time aged 70

The film-maker’s passionate and richly textured new short Papillon (Butterfly) tells the heartbreaking story of French-Jewish swimmer Alfred Nakache, who was stripped of his citizenship in Vichy France

“My father would’ve loved me to swim competitively. I was in a club when I was young, but I always set off a little bit late in races – and so I had no chance of winning.” French animation director Florence Miailhe chuckles about her swimming career being over before it began. Happily, the same isn’t true of film-making. At 70, she may have left it late for her first Oscar nomination, in the animated short category; but the work in question – the passionate and richly textured Papillon (Butterfly), about world-record-holding French-Jewish swimmer Alfred Nakache – gives her every chance of taking the prize.

Miailhe isn’t sure why Nakache – whom her parents met while they were in the resistance – came to mind again in the mid-2010s. “Frankly, I don’t know why my memory was working like that. Maybe because I was thinking of my father,” Miailhe says. Memory is what runs through Papillon, which is swept away on surging tides of reminiscences as Nakache bathes for the final time at Cerbère on the Spanish border (where he died of a heart attack in 1983).

Published: February 24, 2026, 7:00 am

The Bluff review – Priyanka Chopra Jonas fights dirty in grisly pirate action flick

The Russo brothers produce a swashbuckling and often gory tale of 19th-century buccaneers in the Caribbean

In a recent interview to promote her new film The Bluff, Priyanka Chopra Jonas put her pivot to Hollywood down to feeling “limited” by the Bollywood industry that first made her a star. In the decade since she began focusing on American film roles, it’s been hard to work out exactly what Chopra Jonas was being held back from. Aside from an acclaimed turn in 2021’s Bafta-nominated The White Tiger, the actor and sometime Pitbull collaborator has generally favored mindless, straight-down-the middle entertainment such as the Céline Dion-centered romcom Love Again and the insipid spy series Citadel. I couldn’t get through the pilot of the latter, but it is Amazon Prime’s second most-watched show of all time.

The Bluff marks a return to Chopra Jonas in action heroine mode, 10 years after her western breakout TV show Quantico. The twist? This time, she is a 19th-century pirate. Her character Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden grew up sailing the seven seas, but when we meet her she has long left her swashbuckling ways behind her. She lives an idyllic life on Cayman Brac, settled in a town with conch shell-lined walkways and where her neighbors happily cook up turtle soup for their colonial masters. She can still jerryrig a machete in five seconds flat, but these days it is used to chop down coconuts for her young family. Ercell is anxiously waiting for her husband TH (The Rings of Power’s Ismael Cruz Córdova) to return from sea, not knowing that he has been kidnapped by captain Connor (Star Trek’s Karl Urban), her former mentor and one of the most fearsome pirates of them all.

Published: February 24, 2026, 12:11 pm

‘We’re losing accessibility’: America says goodbye to the mass-market paperback

The so-called ‘pocket book’ sold in supermarkets is being phased out across the US, the latest sign of an ongoing shift in how people are choosing to read

Shelly Romero has early memories of going to her local supermarket and picking pulp fiction off the shelves. “We were very working class; my mom was working two jobs sometimes,” she recalls. “The appeal of books being cheaper and smaller and able to be carried around was definitely a thing.”

For generations of readers, the gateway to literature was not a hushed library or a polished hardback but a wire spinner rack in a supermarket, pharmacy or railway station. There, amid chewing gum and cigarettes, sat the mass-market paperback: squat, roughly 4in by 7in and cheap enough to be bought on a whim.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:03 am

My Bags Are Big by Tibor Fischer review – how to make it in crypto

Amusing oddballs populate a wise-cracking wheeler-dealer’s tale of leaving London for Dubai in search of loot and laughs

The narrator of Tibor Fischer’s eighth novel, My Bags Are Big, is a walking anachronism. Dan is “an old school crypto geezer” who hails from south London and lives in Dubai, where he drives an old Citroën and wears a Mickey Mouse watch given to him by his father in the 1970s. He’s done well for himself – the bags of the title are a slang term for a cryptocurrency wallet – though it didn’t happen overnight. “Get rich quick? It was very much a get slightly comfortable slowly deal.” His adopted city, he tells us, is “a cross between Las Vegas, an airport departure lounge and a pirate bay”, and a magnet for low-status westerners looking to reinvent themselves: “Assistant masseurs at second division football clubs. Taxi drivers. Linen porters. Nail technicians. Dog groomers. Life coaches. They’re all through the pearly gates, here in Dubai.”

Dan himself is one such individual. Having just turned 60, he relates his journey from Catford to Dubai, via a calamitous career in sports management, a doomed love affair with a quantum physicist, and several brief encounters with David Bowie. In the 80s he won a vindaloo-eating contest and had a Monty Python-esque run-in with some Maoist student revolutionaries. The novel is populated by amusing oddballs, including one character who belongs to an international bollard appreciation society, and another who superstitiously smears caviar on to a lottery ticket in the hope of “giving it a taste of wealth”.

Published: February 25, 2026, 9:00 am

Witches, Nazi collaborators and banned books: International Booker prize announces 2026 longlist

Thirteen books make this year’s longlist for translated fiction, which awards a first prize of £50,000

Olga Ravn, Daniel Kehlmann, Ia Genberg, Mathias Énard and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara are among those longlisted for the International Booker prize, which recognises the best translated fiction and turns 10 this year.

A “Booker dozen” of 13 books were longlisted for this year’s prize. One author-translator pair will win £50,000, to be split equally.

Published: February 24, 2026, 2:12 pm

Pieced Together review – poignant narrative game gathers bittersweet fragments of a friendship

Glowfrog Games; PC
Short but very sweet tale asks the player to compile a scrapbook of mementoes telling the story of a heartfelt bond that frays over time

There are few things sadder than the end of a close friendship. Whether it happens in a sudden moment of betrayal or after years of gradual separation, the feelings of loss can stay with you for a lifetime.

This is the theme of Pieced Together, a quiet, charming narrative game about best pals Connie and Beth, who meet at school in the 1990s and form an immediate, seemingly inseparable bond. Through the ingenious medium of an interactive scrapbook, we play as Connie, glueing in photos, notes and memories of her friend after years of separation. The game begins with several attempts to write Beth a letter, before we cut-out, stick and sort the story of their lives together.

Published: February 25, 2026, 11:00 am

Anlife: what does an unusual evolution simulator have to say about AI?

We explore the strange food-obsessed world of a new game whose tech was once called ‘an insult to life itself’ by Hayao Miyazaki, the film-maker behind Spirited Away

A strange piece of software has recently landed on the PC gaming store Steam. And “software” feels like the cleanest way to describe it. Existing somewhere between a full-blown life sim, a science project and a kind of haunted fish tank, Anlife: Motion-learning Life Evolution probably would have disappeared without making much impact if it wasn’t for one unusual factor. Several years ago some of its creators were absolutely roasted on camera by one of the genuine legends of Japanese animation.

Back in 2016, Hayao Miyazaki, the director of movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, was shown new technology that used AI in order to animate models. Faced with a zombie that utilised its head to move by knocking its skull against the ground and wriggling its body like a fish, Miyazaki declared what he had seen was “an insult to life itself”. It’s hard not to watch the clip without feeling slightly seared – but now, a decade later, the ashen-faced developers from that room have sufficiently recovered to make their work widely available.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:00 am

Éliane Radigue, French composer and musique concrète legend, dies aged 94

The Paris-born artist reinvented the synthesizer through meditative and feedback-drenched sonic explorations

The French composer and musique concrète pioneer Éliane Radigue has died at the age of 94.

“It is with immense sadness that we learn of the passing of Éliane Radigue at the age of 94,” the Paris-based experimental music center INA GRM posted on Instagram. “A major figure in musical creation has left us.”

Published: February 24, 2026, 7:53 pm

‘I like my footballers wispy – or monumental!’ Rebel artist Rose Wylie on still painting till 3am at 91

Underestimated for too long, Wylie is now wanted by galleries worldwide and her giant, wild, witty paintings – of Hollywood stars, soccer greats, black swans and flying bombs – fetch huge sums. We visit her relaxed studio in Kent

The Royal Academy is billing Rose Wylie as a “rebel artist” for her forthcoming show and at 91, she finds there’s still a lot to rebel against. An establishment that has long underrated women’s work, for one: astonishingly, hers is the first solo show by a British woman to occupy all the academy’s main galleries. Being pigeonholed is another: her giant canvases – with their bold colours, painted texts and wild juxtapositions (Nicole Kidman meets ancient Egypt at a Kent community centre) – have been compared to the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Philip Guston. But she does not identify with any one movement and dislikes art that is “up your arse”.

For more than 60 years now, Wylie has lived in her low-slung, 17th-century house in Sittingbourne, Kent, where she rebels against conventional domesticity. Jasmine grows in a tangle through the kitchen ceiling and bouquets of dead flowers crowd another room. A ceramic horse given to her by the actor James Norton, a collector, lies by the windowsill. Next to the sink, two plates of petrified cakes are fuzzy with cobwebs. “I bought that biscuit in Costa two years ago,” says Sara, who works at Wylie’s London gallery, pointing to one of them. She thinks there’s a Battenberg buried somewhere upstairs in the studio.

Published: February 24, 2026, 4:00 pm

Number of plays attributed to 16th-century playwright Thomas Kyd double in new edition

Exclusive: Canon now includes domestic tragedy Arden of Faversham, which is attributed solely to Kyd and ‘not at all’ to Shakespeare

The number of plays attributed to the 16th-century playwright Thomas Kyd has more than doubled in a major new edition.

The forthcoming second volume of The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd makes a substantial case for his sole or part-authorship of plays previously attributed to William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe.

Published: February 24, 2026, 3:00 pm

Temple of boom! Why Taiwan’s religious sites are becoming unlikely rave venues

Dance culture faces barriers in Taiwan, with frequent raids on nightclubs. But Temple Meltdown is trying a different tack, with sound systems overseen by gods

When Andrew Dawson brings a sound system to Puji Temple in Tainan, Taiwan, for lunar new year celebrations, its deities keep watch. Behind the plywood speaker stack hangs a circular plaque of Caishen, the Chinese god of prosperity. Around the corner from the dub and reggae street party, families burn long incense sticks for the site’s patron religious figure, the thousand-year-old Chifu Wangye, a prince who died sampling well water poisoned by the plague gods to save his own villagers.

To some, partying in a religious site like this might seem sacrilegious, or at least insensitive. But Dawson has been doing this for three years with his Temple Meltdown party series, inspired by religious sites and their role as vibrant centres of civic life: to him, the marriage of underground music to these spaces felt like a natural next step. “Every temple in Taiwan is very different because each of its founders has a unique vision or dream. But the interesting thing is that there is always a plaza area outside where people can gather, cook, hang out with their friends,” says Dawson, who is half American and half Taiwanese and also goes by 陳宣宇 or Chen Xuan Yu. The scene at his Lunar New Year party is no different, with people swaying, smoking, and some feeding each other skewered pieces of Taiwanese fried chicken on the dance floor.

Published: February 24, 2026, 1:23 pm

Heated laundry drying racks are the British money saver you didn’t know you needed

Americans should take a closer look at the super-efficient drying racks that save money and electricity on laundry

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Recently, I spent a long weekend in a cabin in Oregon where one of the best (and most useful) features of the space was in the bathroom. It wasn’t the Toto toilet or the rainfall shower head, but another luxury: a shiny chrome towel rack that, to my surprise, quietly warmed my bath towels.

Enchanted by this device, I experimented with a wet swimsuit, which I left draped over its bars for a day. I returned to find it warm and dry enough to pack away, as if it’d spent a day basking in the sun on a clothesline.

Best for high capacity
Tors + Olsson X Frame

Best for a tight budget
Maas & Bath Heated Drying Rack

Published: February 24, 2026, 9:43 pm

My maddening battle with chronic fatigue syndrome: ‘On my worst days, it feels almost demonic’

I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis.
Could retraining my brain be the answer?

At the Croydon secondary school I attended in the late 1990s, the deputy headmistress was a stocky woman with a military haircut who patrolled the corridors in voluminous outfits patterned in shades of brown. The outfits were much discussed, not charitably, by the teenage girls in her charge – as was her voice, which made you think of a blunt knife being drawn across a rough surface. Thirty years later, I can still hear that terrible voice refer to my “mystery illness”. In truth, the deputy headmistress never actually spoke those words – they were included in a typed letter she sent to my parents concerning my prolonged absence from school. Still, the indicting force of five syllables is as distinct in my ear as if she were looming over me.

I was 11 and, after coming down with a normal-seeming virus, I simply hadn’t got better. Instead, my system seemed to have become stuck, sunk into some grey, unchanging state. I had a headache, a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes, body pains both dull and sharp, fatigue and weakness, plus something I later learned went by the name of “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome”: a faintness and momentary blacking out upon sitting or standing up. When I list the symptoms in this way, as a collection of discrete and manageable items, it seems false. I wish things felt discrete and manageable. Instead, being ill felt – and still feels – more like a thick, obscuring cloud. When that cloud descends, my blood feels like old glue mixed with whatever you’d scrape off the bottom of a Swiffer. During bad episodes, I can’t quite locate my mind, or my personality. Reading is impossible. TV is abrasive. Breathing feels effortful, forming words is a strain.

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:00 am

The accidental hacker: how one man gained control of 7,000 robots

When Sammy Azdoufal found he had access to data from robot vacuum cleaners around the world, he told a tech publication. But the implications could be mind-boggling

Name: The accidental hacker.

Age: It doesn’t matter how old Sammy Azdoufal is. What he did is what’s important here, and what he did is very much of the age.

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:12 pm

Do you really need to chill cookie dough? | Kitchen Aide

What you plan to bake plays a big part in whether or not to chill a dough, and in terms of hydration, flavour and texture

Does chilling cookie dough really make for a better result?
Emily, by email
“It all depends on what kind of cookie it is,” says Guardian baker Helen Goh. “Let’s say it’s a cookie that you need to stamp out – the dough needs to be firm enough to roll it, but not so firm that you can’t.” That said, the question of whether to fridge or not to fridge is probably most prevalent in the chocolate chip cookie sphere. “There’s a perceived wisdom that chilling helps the dough develop the flavour and caramelisation,” Goh says, “but, to be honest, it also makes the dough a little easier to roll and ensures it bakes evenly, which is worth far more than that slight improvement in flavour.”

Recommended chilling times vary from 30 minutes to overnight, although Goh finds the latter results in a “cakey” cookie: “I’m a real Goldilocks, so I like crisp at the edges with a chewy centre.” On the flip side, if you don’t chill that dough enough and the butter is too soft, the cookies will end up “very thin and crisp. They might be greasy, too, because the dough melts before setting up its structure.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: February 24, 2026, 1:00 pm

Houseplant hacks: will my plants be healthier if I use Leca balls instead of soil?

This method can help deter pests and promote growth, but it won’t work for every plant

The problem
Enter any deep plant nerd space such as the Reddit threads, and you’ll find Leca. Hardcore followers cite positives to growing plants in these clay balls, such as fewer pests and watering mistakes, and faster growth. Switching from soil to semi-hydro is tempting, but does it actually make life easier?

The hack
Leca stands for lightweight expanded clay aggregate. Unlike soil, it is inert and doesn’t feed the plant. Its job is to hold moisture and air around the roots, while you provide everything else via a diluted fertiliser solution. Water sits at the bottom of the pot, and the clay wicks it upwards, keeping the root zone evenly damp.

Published: February 24, 2026, 10:00 am

No Time To Heal: the psychological rehabilitation of a Ukrainian soldier after Russian captivity

Ukrainian soldiers are sent to The Forest Glade – Ukraine’s first centre for the treatment of psychological trauma – before returning to the frontline. After spending over three years in Russian captivity following the battle for Mariupol, 25-year-old Kyrylo Chuvak spends three weeks at the centre, a brief opportunity for rehabilitation. Hidden in the pines near Kyiv, this modest building offers soldiers psychological therapy as well as tango, archery, guided breathing, medieval games and quiet conversations over tea. After four years of war, and with waning international attention, the battle is not only taking place on the frontline but in the mind

Published: February 24, 2026, 11:02 am

‘We’ve been paying for happy endings for Andrew for years’: the inside story of a royal disgrace, by his biographer

Andrew Lownie spent years investigating the greed and excesses of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson for his book Entitled. Here, the writer reveals the barriers he faced in getting to the truth

The Saturday morning I meet Andrew Lownie, the author of “the most devastating royal biography ever written” (according to the Daily Mail), the front page of every newspaper carries the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Some have aerial shots of the police arriving to search his home, most including the now infamous photograph of his face in the back of his car. He looks hunted, because he literally has been, but his expression is curiously blank, its most legible emotion grievance. One journalist, Lownie says, reported late on the night of Friday’s arrest that: “Andrew still can’t see what the problem is. He thinks he’s been hard done by. He’s obsessed with other details – whether he can take his horses up to Norfolk, who’s going to get the dogs, where he’s going to park his car. It’s a sort of disassociation.”

Lownie’s office, in his home a stone’s throw from parliament, is a monument to the success of his book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (along with his other books: one on the Mountbattens, one on Guy Burgess, one to come on Prince Philip). One desk is piled high with books about Andrew and Sarah, some of them by Ferguson herself, others warts-and-all, kiss-and-tell accounts from confidants and clairvoyants. Lownie has stacks of rejected freedom of information requests, from UK Trade and Investment; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the Information Commissioner – “They sometimes took so long to respond that they haven’t even downloaded the request before it expires.” He approached 3,000 people from all the way through Mountbatten-Windsor’s life; only a tenth of them would speak to him, which to me feels quite unsurprising, and yet Lownie is indignant. “I wrote to ambassadors, and they said ‘not interested’. This was a matter of public interest. Others, very cheerily when I wrote to them a third time, said ‘nice try’, as if it was some sort of joke. These are the guys I want in the dock, in parliament, on oath. This is the thing that makes me upset. I, perhaps naively, expect standards in public life.”

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:00 am

Four years into Ukraine invasion, Russia’s gains are small, while Kyiv remains resilient

With the Russian military performing poorly, Ukraine is clarifying strategy and pushing back with modest success

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now entering its fifth grim year, has already gone on longer than the entire fight on the eastern front in the second world war. The Soviets marched from the gates of Leningrad to Berlin in a little over 15 months in 1944-45; today the Russian rate of gain in Pokrovsk in Ukraine is 70 metres a day, in Kupiansk, 23 metres, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

The gains are trivial, given Ukraine’s size, amounting to 1,865 sq miles during 2025 (about 0.8% of the country) – so the idea touted by the Russians, sometimes accepted by a credulous White House, that Ukraine is suffering a slow-motion defeat, is not accurate. In reality, even allowing for the fact that hundreds of thousands of homes are without electricity, heating and water after Russian bombing, Ukraine is clarifying its strategy and pushing back with modest success.

Published: February 24, 2026, 5:00 am

Ukraine war anniversary and snow in New York: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: February 24, 2026, 1:11 pm