Eggs, hats and unfettered ambition: what we learned about Melania Trump from her documentary

The first lady’s political goals, high-stakes clothes fittings and hints that she and Donald still have sex are just some of the highlights from Brett Ratner’s documentary

Melania’s appears an entirely airless existence, in which she glides solo about gilt corridors in silence, David Lynch-style, observed by tight-lipped heavies. All her staff dress in deference to her, mostly in black, but sometimes – as in the case of her interior designer – in a matching camel-coloured three-piece suit. Candidates interviewing for assistant roles have also got the memo, lining up in a sea of monochrome, with buttery hair and prominent cross necklaces.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:13 pm

ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare | Moustafa Bayoumi

Mobile Fortify lets agents obtain vast amounts of information on anyone by scanning their face

The lethal force Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is meting out on American streets is rightly drawing loud condemnations from politicians and editorial boards across the nation and around the world. Now is the time we must start paying attention to another highly damaging part of ICE’s arsenal: the agency’s deployment of mass surveillance.

I’m referring specifically to Mobile Fortify, a specialized app ICE has been using at least since May 2025. (Usage of the app was first reported last June by 404Media.) What is Mobile Fortify? It’s an app for facial recognition that can additionally take “contactless fingerprints” of someone simply by snapping a picture of a person’s fingers. The app has been used more than 100,000 times, including on children, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. And it’s dangerous.

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

I was told to accept chronic migraines. Then a keto diet gave me my life back | Natalie Mead

It took six years to identify the condition that caused my chronic pain: a blood sugar dysregulation condition

Seven years ago, when I was 27, I got my first-ever migraine. Ten months later, it was still there.

Even after the 10-month migraine ended, frequent weeks-long migraine attacks and bouts of stabbing “icepick” headaches kept me in pain more often than not. I was a software engineer at Facebook, but had to take leave from work because looking at my laptop screen made my head scream in revolt. I would never go back.

Natalie Mead publishes a Substack called Oops, My Brain about life with chronic illness and recovery. She is also working on a memoir about the tension between love and caregiving in chronic illness

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

Why a T-shirt in a hit movie is trending with Brazilian progressives: ‘Almost every day they sell out’

Even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has received one, after Wagner Moura wore it in The Secret Agent

It is glimpsed in just a few scenes in The Secret Agent, the Brazilian film nominated for four Oscars and two Baftas, but that has been enough exposure for a vintage yellow T-shirt to become the latest object of desire among Brazilian progressives.

The garment, worn on screen by Wagner Moura, was first produced in 1978 by Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, a carnival group in the coastal city of Olinda, which until recently would sell just a few dozen a month.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Experience: a bear moved into my house

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

US justice department releases more than 3 million new pages of Epstein files

Batch will include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche says

• Epstein files release – latest updates

US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche announced on Friday that the justice department is releasing more than 3 million pages of documents related to its investigation into disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a testy news conference, Blanche said that the release will include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, which will have “extensive redactions”. He added that the Trump administration has produced roughly 3.5 million pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that they include large quantities of commercial pornography and images “that were seized from Epstein’s devices”.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:21 pm

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon arrested on charges connected to Minnesota church protest

Lemon’s lawyer said he was taken into custody after attending protest in which demonstrators disrupted a church service earlier in January

• Who is Don Lemon, the ex-CNN anchor arrested over a Minnesota church protest?

• US politics live – latest updates

Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested late on Thursday on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month, according to his lawyer.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said that Lemon was “taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards”.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:32 pm

Judge rules Luigi Mangione will not face death penalty in healthcare CEO case

Capital punishment taken off table but Mangione will still face federal charges over killing of Brian Thompson

The death penalty is off the table for Luigi Mangione after a New York federal judge dismissed the charges that were eligible for capital punishment in the case accusing him of killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York in December 2024.

In a written court order on Friday, US district judge Margaret Garnett dismissed counts three and four against Mangione, including murder through use of a firearm, which carried a potential death sentence, and a weapons charge.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:06 pm

Iran says it is ready to talk with US amid diplomatic scramble to head off conflict

Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is ‘ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing’

• Killing Khamenei? Hitting military sites? It is unclear what a US attack on Iran would achieve

Iran has said it is ready to negotiate with the US, but only if talks are not under duress and do not extend to Iran’s missile programme, as diplomats scrambled to head off the threat of a regional conflict.

After meetings with Turkish diplomats on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran was “ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing, based on mutual interests and mutual respect”.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:48 pm

Trump nominates Federal Reserve critic Kevin Warsh as its next chair

Pick of former Fed governor to replace Jerome Powell comes as White House seeks to tighten grip on central bank

• Business live – latest updates

Donald Trump has announced Kevin Warsh as his nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, selecting a candidate who has been an outspoken critic of the US central bank.

The move ends months of speculation about who the president would pick to replace Jerome Powell, as he waged an extraordinary campaign to influence policymaking at the Fed by repeatedly calling for interest rate cuts. Powell’s second term as chair is due to end in May.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:13 pm

Another blast of freezing weather moves into the US south-east

Arctic air moving into region will also freeze Tennessee, as 230,000 households still remain without power in area

Freezing weather that will reach deep into Florida was moving across the south-eastern US on Friday as millions braced for another weekend blast of winter storms following last week’s deadly assault that killed at least 85 people.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in southern states were without power for a sixth day on Friday as the next onslaught of blizzards, ice and biting cold winds approached.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:48 pm

Settler-only IDF units functioning as ‘vigilante militias’ in West Bank

Exclusive: ‘Regional defence’ settler units are escalating violent displacement of Palestinians, Israeli reservists and activists say

Israel’s army has become a vehicle for violent settlers to escalate their campaign against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, with reserve units drawn from settlements functioning as vigilante militias, according to Israeli soldiers and activists, and the United Nations.

Hagmar, or regional defence units, were set up across the West Bank from October 2023, as conscripts and the standing army deployed there prepared to move to Gaza.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

A ‘wellness bro’, a cosmologist and an RFK Jr crony: meet Bari Weiss’s new CBS News contributors

The network’s editor-in-chief unveiled a curious list of 19 people to be paid contributors across different platforms

A focus on wellness, nutrition, longevity and cosmology, mixed with more than a sprinkling of conservative ideology, appears to represent Bari Weiss’s vision to revitalize CBS News, and regain the trust of the network’s lost viewers and employees.

Editor-in-chief Weiss on Tuesday unveiled a curious list of 19 individuals – including podcasters, influencers, restaurateurs, climate deniers and a number of other opinionated writers – who will be paid contributors offering their wealth of wisdom and insight that will help CBS become, in her words, “fit for purpose in the 21st century”.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

Djokovic shocks Sinner in late-night thriller to reach Australian Open final

• Serb keeps dream of record 25th grand slam title alive

• 38-year-old battles past world No 2 in five gripping sets

Never before had Novak Djokovic been such an underdog in such a significant match. His mere presence in the Australian Open semi-finals, after all, had been the result of a significant slice of good fortune. As he faced off against one of the dominant players in his sport, for many a competitive match would be close enough to a win.

This special champion has achieved so much for so long, but in the early hours of Saturday morning the 38-year-old pulled off one of the greatest upsets of his remarkable career, recovering from a two-sets-to-one deficit to topple Jannik Sinner, the two-time defending champion and second seed, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to return improbably to the Australian Open final.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:47 pm

Newsom fights back after Dr Oz accuses LA’s Armenians of healthcare fraud

California governor files complaint against Medicare head who alleged fraud by members of Armenian community

• US politics live – latest updates

A new front in the battle between the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Trump administration has opened over a video in which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, Mehmet Oz, visits Los Angeles and alleges members of its Armenian community orchestrated large-scale healthcare fraud.

The days-long public scuffle on social media escalated on Thursday evening, when Newsom announced his office was filing a civil rights complaint with the US Department of Health and Human Services accusing Oz of discrimination.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:18 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:00 pm

Brian May says US is currently too dangerous for Queen to tour there

Queen guitarist says ‘everyone is thinking twice about going there at the moment’ when asked about touring plans

Queen guitarist Brian May has ruled out touring in the US for the foreseeable future, because of the potential danger it would pose.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, the 78-year-old said: “America is a dangerous place at the moment, so you have to take that into account.

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:41 pm

FBI raid in Georgia has little legal basis – but serves Trump’s goal to weaken trust in election results

Raid on Fulton county election office is part of the Trump administration’s wider US push to fuel false claims of fraud

The FBI raid on the Fulton county election office Wednesday was an aggressive new front in Donald Trump’s effort to use his 2020 election loss to continue to sow doubt about American elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.

As Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, false claims of malfeasance during ballot-counting in Atlanta became a key part of the big lie about a stolen election. Misleading surveillance video showing ballots being retrieved from suitcases became the basis for a myth that fraudulent ballots were included in the tally. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer and a close ally at the time, was ordered to pay $148.1m to the election workers as part of a libel suit for spreading lies about them. He later settled.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

Antifa used to unmask neo-Nazis, now it’s exposing ICE: ‘Predators don’t get anonymity’

Following in a long American tradition of identifying fascists, a network of leftists has set out to name and shame Trump’s immigration agents

Last week a photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune filmed a border patrol agent approach a protester, lying prone in the street, and aim a canister of pepper spray at his eyes. The protester was already detained, three other agents pressing his body into the pavement, but the agent can nevertheless be seen spraying the orange chemical irritant, which causes excruciating pain, at point-blank range.

The agent probably thought he would enjoy anonymity for this bit of brutality. The federal police terrorizing Minneapolis remain largely nameless as they dole out horrifying – and in two cases, fatal – violence against anyone opposing Operation Metro Surge. But within two hours of the Star Tribune posting the footage to social media, a group called Pacific Antifascist Research Collective claimed to have identified him.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:03 pm

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:53 pm

A resignation and call to conscience at company owned by Maga billionaires

Uline employee says she can no longer work for people who helped ‘America descend into fascism’

When Laura Wittmann decided this week to submit her resignation from Uline, the giant office supply company owned by two of the biggest donors to Donald Trump’s 2024 election and other Maga Republicans, she did not hold back.

“As America descends rapidly into fascism,” Wittmann wrote in a two-page company-wide email sent on Wednesday, “I can no longer work to grow the personal fortunes of people who helped make it so.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:22 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:40 pm

‘A very Italian problem’: inside the fight against the mafia and corruption at the Winter Olympics

Construction works for Milano Cortina have been a lightning rod for suspected infiltration by organised crime, but anti-mafia groups have adopted an approach that will help future hosts

Early on the morning of 8 October, the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri in Belluno put out a press release announcing three arrests, in the culmination of a year-long investigation they called “Operation Reset”. Two of the three were brothers; both were known members of the notorious Lazio Ultras, the Irriducibili, it was stated in the release, and had boasted of having personal ties to former boss Fabrizio Piscitelli, who was murdered in 2019. The crimes the brothers had been arrested on suspicion of had not been committed in Rome, but 400 miles north, in the small alpine ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo, high in the Dolomites, and home, for the next three weeks, to the Winter Olympics.

The brothers are still awaiting trial, but the local public prosecutor’s office has alleged that they were running an operation in three phases. The first was taking control of the drug distribution network in Cortina, the second was to take control of three nightclubs, and the third was to extort the local council into awarding the construction contracts for the works being done for the Games. Among the evidence the prosecutor says it possesses is a note on one of the brothers’ phones saying: “We want the cemetery area for the garages, the former pastry shop, the slip road and the new ring road, the construction of the tourist village.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:15 am

Colbert on Springsteen’s anti-ICE song: ‘Do you know how hard it is to rhyme with Minneapolis?’

Late-night hosts discussed the star’s new protest song and the much-ridiculed premiere of the Melania documentary

Late-night hosts spoke about Bruce Springsteen’s anti-ICE song and Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Ilhan Omar.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:46 pm

Week in wildlife: a rescued owl, a brave blackbird and Fukushima boar babies

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:00 am

Minneapolis is in a state of chaos. Racist governance is to blame | Jamil Smith

What is happening in Minnesota is proof that racist ideas lead to racist policies – and it produces bad, dangerous governance

Minneapolis is in a state of chaos. Since federal immigration agents flooded the region weeks ago, daily life has been destabilized in ways residents say feel unprecedented.

The president’s super-sized immigration force has now killed two people in the Minneapolis metro area since “Operation Metro Surge” began in December. Nearly three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot Renee Nicole Good in the face, armed federal authorities on 24 January killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, who witnesses say was trying to intervene after seeing agents treat another person harshly.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

The AI bubble will pop. It’s up to us to replace it responsibly | Mark Surman

When bubbles burst, what comes next can be better, if we build it differently

It was December 1999. Tech investors were riding high, convinced that a website and a Super Bowl ad were all it took to get rich quick. Spending was mistaken for growth; marketing was mistaken for a business model. In just a few months, the dot-com boom would go bust: $1.7tn in market value vanished, and the broader economy took a $5tn hit.

Yet something remarkable emerged from the wreckage. The post-crash internet wasn’t defined by speculation, but by creation: the rise of web 2.0 and open-source software – and the birth of platforms like Firefox and Wikipedia. The lesson is simple: when bubbles burst, what comes next can be better, if we build it differently.

Mark Surman is the president of Mozilla

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

From ICE to Melania’s black carpet, are Trump’s techlords getting pangs of buyer’s remorse? | Marina Hyde

The first lady’s premiere was marked by conspicuous absences. It turns out chumminess with the president might just come at a cost

Who wasn’t on the red carpet at the official Melania documentary premiere in Washington DC was so much more intriguing than who was. No offence to defence secretary Pete Hegseth, but if I wanted to see formalwear struggling to contain Crusades tattoos, I’d hang around outside the Spartak Moscow Christmas party. Not that it was a red carpet, because the carpet at the “Trump-Kennedy” Center was black. No one bothers hiding the grift any more, with the movie’s own producer openly explaining that this aesthetic was “all about supporting this luxury brand that [Melania’s] creating”. They should have dressed the event like a colon, since Donald’s is effectively where it was being held.

Anyway: arrivals. There was Melania and Donald Trump – she finally got him out of hair and makeup – who were holding hands, a coincidentally convenient way to cover his skin if his glam squad didn’t truck in enough concealer. In recent months, Trump has had terrible bruises on the tops of his hands and even more terrible excuses for why they keep appearing. Aspirin, Swiss furniture, shaking lots of hands – the list of things that aren’t cannula sites grows longer every week.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:36 pm

What the US TikTok takeover is already revealing about new forms of censorship | Paolo Gerbaudo

It’s not what we can or cannot say that matters – rather, it’s whether what we say can get any visibility at all under the US-specific algorithm

We tend to think of censorship as the direct suppression of speech. We conjure images of mouths taped shut, courts seizing books and films, and journalists or activists thrown in jail to silence their voices. But what if, in a digital era governed by invisible yet highly consequential algorithms, censorship no longer revolved around the ability to speak, but rather around the visibility of content, its effective “reach”?

The launch of TikTok’s new US-specific algorithm underscores the urgency of this risk. This week, control over the platform’s operations has shifted to the TikTok USDS joint venture led by a consortium of investors that includes US big tech firms such as cloud-computing company Oracle, with the Chinese parent company ByteDance retaining a 19.9% stake. This arrangement is presented as a means of complying with US legislation introduced under former president Joe Biden, with the aim of protecting user data and preventing political interference from China. Yet many of TikTok’s 200 million US-based users now fear that Donald Trump and his allies may use algorithmic control to do precisely what China was accused of doing: interfering with political discussion by suppressing critical voices.

Paolo Gerbaudo is a senior researcher at the faculty of political science and sociology of Complutense University in Madrid and the author of The Great Recoil

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

How liberals lost the internet | Robert Topinka

In the first part of our series on digital politics, we look at how centrists have lost ground fighting disinformation – when the real battle is over emotion and attention

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

There’s a strange tendency to describe social media as something other people use – those young people on TikTok, that conspiratorial uncle on Facebook, the rightwing trolls on X. In truth, we’re all online now. The number of global social media users surpassed 5 billion in 2024. To put that into perspective there are 8 billion people on the planet.

The internet has totally transformed the ways in which we communicate and share information. First the internet came for print. As free online content began outcompeting subscription newspapers, publishers briefly found new audiences on Facebook, only to see referral traffic plummet after the platform began suppressing posts with external links.

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:00 am

The hill I will die on: Martinis should be served with a sidecar, or not at all | Josh Sharp

A sip in the glass and the rest in a little carafe, please – and make sure it’s ice-cold, otherwise it’s an absolutely degenerate drink

There is very little in life as elegant as the martini. You select vodka or gin. But really, you’re an adult, you select gin. A whisper of vermouth, then it’s chilled. A twist of lemon is added or an olive and her brine, then it’s served. And it’s served – we pray – with a sidecar.

All martinis should have sidecars. You know when you get a martini and there’s only a sip in the glass and the rest is in a little baby carafe sitting on ice? That’s a sidecar and it should be the law.

Josh Sharp is a New York-based comedian. His show, Josh Sharp: ta-da!, is at Soho Theatre, London, from 9 to 28 February

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:35 pm

Maye v Stafford for MVP and Aaron Rodgers getting flattened: NFL end of season awards

With the Super Bowl on the horizon, we pick the outstanding players and moments from the season just gone

Drake Maye struggled through a blizzard as the New England Patriots dragged themselves past the Denver Broncos and into the Super Bowl. But he endured, holding on to execute in the critical moments, as he had done against the Houston Texans the week before.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:30 am

Sha’Carri Richardson arrested on charge of driving over 100mph

• Olympic champion was pulled over on Florida parkway

• Richardson charged with dangerous excessive speeding

U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was arrested on Thursday in Orange County, Florida, and charged with dangerous excessive speeding, according to the Orange County sheriff’s department.

The Olympic gold medalist was pulled over by a traffic enforcement officer while traveling at 104mph (167kph) and “dangerously tailgating and traveling across lanes of travel to pass other motorists”, according to the department.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:58 pm

Teófimo López and Shakur Stevenson set for high-stakes clash at Madison Square Garden

• American stars meet at sold-out Madison Square Garden

• Stevenson rises to 140lb in bid for title in fourth division

• López enters in rare underdog role that suits his history

When Teófimo López and Shakur Stevenson come together on Saturday night inside the big room at Madison Square Garden, a junior welterweight title and a claim to American fistic supremacy will be on the line before a sold-out crowd of more than 20,000 spectators.

Two of the finest US-born fighters of their generation are set to collide in a delicious matchup that pits volatility against control, power against precision, chaotic ambition against measured discipline. Both men arrive as world champions across multiple weight classes, both are 28 and prime, and both view the contest as a gateway to pound-for-pound recognition and the untold opportunities it confers.

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:30 am

Lindsey Vonn airlifted from course after crash in final downhill before Olympics

• Vonn crashes into nets and clutches left knee

• Race in Crans-Montana abandoned after early falls

• US star’s Olympic fitness now under scrutiny

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the final World Cup downhill before the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics on Friday, leaving the American skiing great limping and clutching her left knee as organizers abandoned the race amid worsening conditions.

The 41-year-old lost control after landing a jump on the upper section of the course in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, skidding sideways into the safety netting as snow fell steadily and visibility deteriorated. Vonn’s airbag deployed on impact and she remained down for several moments while medical staff attended to her on the piste.

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:17 am

Pitch Points: Which Arsenal narrative will prevail, and how has Carrick reset Man United?

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. In today’s column, we endeavor to answer three of them

One narrative has been set: Arsenal are bottling it. Last weekend’s home loss to Manchester United confirmed what the Gunners’ biggest doubters always suspected: that Mikel Arteta and his players don’t have it in them to win the Premier League title. Arsenal’s haters already started their victory lap.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:48 pm

Carlos Alcaraz breaks Zverev’s heart after surviving cramp to win five-set epic

• Zverev served to reach Australian Open final in fifth set

• Spaniard holds out in epic 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4) 7-5

• As it happened: look back at an epic semi-final clash

Murmurs around Melbourne Park had been building. That the men’s Australian Open draw had not met expectations. That matches had been one-sided, and lacking memorable moments. That so-called SinCaraz was a foregone conclusion. That ­tennis had lost its touch.

Murmur no more. In the first match this year on Rod Laver Arena to go five sets, Carlos Alcaraz leapt off the canvas to outlast Alexander Zverev 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4), 7-5 over five hours and 27 minutes – the third longest match in Australian Open history.

Published: January 30, 2026, 9:35 am

Cooper Flagg’s 49-point eruption sets teenage NBA record in Dallas defeat

• Flagg scores 49, most ever by an NBA teenager

• Knueppel drops 34 as Hornets steal road win

• Aguirre honored at halftime as rookie mark falls

As Dallas rookie Cooper Flagg set the NBA record for points by a teenager with 49 on Thursday night in a 123-121 loss to Charlotte, he broke the franchise rookie scoring record he shared with Mark Aguirre – whose jersey was retired at halftime.

“Mark Aguirre is special. Such a special night for him and the whole organization,” said Flagg, who turned 19 in December. “I just feel blessed. It’s a pretty cool thing.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:51 am

Champions League playoffs: Benfica get Real Madrid rematch, Newcastle face Qarabag

• Benfica goalkeeper Trubin scored in 4-2 win over Madrid

• Eddie Howe’s men face 3,000-mile trip for first leg

Real Madrid have been dealt an instant rematch with José Mourinho’s Benfica in the Champions League playoffs. The Portuguese club will seek a repeat of Wednesday’s astonishing 4-2 victory against the Spanish giants, when their goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored deep into injury time to send them through, and host the first leg in Lisbon.

It is the headline tie in a draw that also gives Newcastle a 3,000-mile journey to Azerbaijan for a first leg against Qarabag. Eddie Howe’s side will feel confident after an impressive display in holding Paris Saint-Germain, last season’s winners, to a 1-1 draw at Parc des Princes on Wednesday, although they will be aware that the Azeri champions, beaten 6-0 at Liverpool, held Chelsea to a 2-2 draw on home soil in November. They will face Barcelona or, in an all-Premier League clash, Chelsea if they go through.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:11 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

Zelenskyy cautious on Russian bombing pause during extreme cold weather

Ukraine president says he will wait to see if Putin complies with Trump request to halt strikes on energy infrastructure

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was waiting to see whether Russia would observe a proposed pause in strikes on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, as Kyiv endures a spell of bitter winter cold.

Donald Trump on Thursday claimed that Vladimir Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week after he issued a personal appeal to the Russian leader due to the extreme weather in Ukraine.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:07 pm

Panama supreme court cancels Hong Kong company’s canal contracts

Panama’s president says strategic waterway will operate as normal after ruling that advances US policy aims

Panama’s president said ports at each end of the Panama canal would operate as usual after the country’s supreme court ruled the concession held by a subsidiary of a Chinese company was unconstitutional.

The court’s decision on Thursday, which helps US attempts to block any Chinese influence over the strategic waterway, immediately drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing.

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:47 pm

South Africa expels top Israeli diplomat over ‘insulting attacks’ on president

Ariel Seidman declared persona non grata and given 72 hours to leave country after remarks on social media

South Africa and Israel have engaged in a tit-for-tat expulsion of senior diplomats, after South Africa ordered Israel’s chargé d’affaires to leave within 72 hours, citing “insulting attacks” on South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, on social media.

Ariel Seidman, the chargé d’affaires at Israel’s embassy in Pretoria, was declared persona non grata by South Africa’s department for international relations and cooperation (DIRCO) in a statement on its website on Friday afternoon.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:11 pm

‘Do the leg thing’: Mark Carney jokes with Heated Rivalry star on red carpet

Canadian PM swaps tough talk at Davos aimed at Donald Trump for some fun at a film gala with Hudson Williams

Last week, Mark Carney was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, giving global leaders a lesson in realism. His powerful speech about the end of the old order and the need for middle powers to unite in the face of fractured international norms received a standing ovation.

The economist and central banker struck a slightly different tone at a gala in Ottawa to promote the Canadian film industry on Thursday evening. Appearing on the red carpet with the Canadian actor Hudson Williams, star of the hit HBO ice hockey drama Heated Rivalry, Carney was in a playful mood.

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:25 am

Jack Kerouac’s 37 metre-long, first draft scroll of On the Road to be auctioned

The draft – one of the Beat Generation’s defining artefacts – will be part of a wider sale of pieces from the Jim Irsay Collection at Christie’s in March

Jack Kerouac’s original typescript scroll for On the Road – the 37 metre (121ft) long roll of paper on which he typed his defining Beat novel in a three-week burst – will go under the hammer at Christie’s in March, with a sale estimate of £1.8m to £2.9m ($2.5m to $4m).

The scroll is one of the centrepieces of the Jim Irsay Collection, one of the most extensive private collections of music, literary, film and sports memorabilia ever assembled.

Published: January 30, 2026, 4:49 pm

Sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife to be published this autumn

Audrey Niffenegger’s follow-up to her global bestseller focuses on Alba, the daughter of Henry and Clare, as she negotiates two marriages and various modern-era dystopias

A follow-up to the 2003 blockbuster novel The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is set to be published this autumn.

Life Out of Order, which Niffenegger worked on for 13 years, is set in the same world as the original novel. The Time Traveler’s Wife has sold more than 9m copies globally since its publication, and was adapted into a 2009 film starring Rachel McAdams, as well as an HBO series and a musical.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:00 pm

Weather tracker: Winter storms cause death and outages across eastern north America

Millions told to stay home in US and more than a million are left without power, while Australia faces record heatwave

Cold weather across a vast swathe of the eastern US has been the likely cause of at least 49 deaths in the past week.

At one point, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warnings, affecting areas from New Mexico to New England – a spread of about 2,000 miles (3,200km). Millions were told to stay at home, and at one point there were more than a million people without power. As of Wednesday night, there were still 312,000 outages, mostly across Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:45 am

Exploding trees: the winter phenomenon behind frost cracks

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 6:00 am

Americans recount living through the deadly winter storm: ‘There was ice in the toilets’

With hundreds of thousands of homes still without power, we spoke to residents affected, many confined indoors

More than 40 people have died in a huge winter storm in the US. Schools were closed and flights cancelled as people grappled with heavy snowfall and icy conditions.

Nearly 300,000 households are also still without power, several days later, according to poweroutage.us. We spoke to people affected by the storm. Here are some of their responses.

Published: January 29, 2026, 3:37 pm

US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate

Projects in development expected to grow global capacity by nearly 50% amid growing concern over impact on planet

The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast.

This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with projects in development expected to grow existing global gas capacity by nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found.

Published: January 29, 2026, 1:58 pm

Trump sues IRS and US treasury for $10bn over leak of tax returns

Agencies accused of failing to take precautions to stop former contractor leaking returns to ‘leftist media outlets’

Donald Trump on Thursday sued the US treasury department and Internal Revenue Service for $10bn over the disclosure of his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.

In a complaint filed in Miami federal court, Trump, his adult sons and his namesake company said the agencies failed to take “mandatory precautions” to prevent the former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from leaking their tax returns to “leftist media outlets”, including the New York Times and ProPublica.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:24 am

Trump threatens tariffs on goods from countries that sell oil to Cuba

White House cites Cuba’s ties to hostile powers as order ratchets up Trump’s pressure to topple its government

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday laying the groundwork to slap tariffs on goods from countries that provide oil to Cuba, the White House said.

The order, which ratchets up Trump’s pressure to topple the communist government, declares a national emergency and establishes a process for the US secretaries of state and commerce to assess tariffs against countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to the island nation. The White House has yet to specify tariff rates for violating its new policy of blocking Cuba from buying oil.

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:06 am

Democrats express alarm at Tulsi Gabbard’s presence at FBI elections office raid

Lawmakers question national intelligence head’s fitness for office after overt, unexplained appearance

Democratic lawmakers are raising questions about why Tulsi Gabbard, the president’s director of national intelligence, was “lurking” in Fulton county on Wednesday while FBI agents carted off boxes of 2020 election documents.

Gabbard visited an elections hub in Fulton county, home to Atlanta, on Wednesday as the FBI executed a search warrant for records related to the 2020 election. The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in the county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian.

Published: January 29, 2026, 11:29 pm

LA fire department paid celebrity PR firm $65,000 to shape messaging after Palisades fire

LAFD’s non-profit, which raised large sums after 2025 fires, hired firm amid growing criticism over handling of disaster

The official non-profit for the Los Angeles fire department has acknowledged that it had paid $65,000 to hire a leading communications agency to represent the agency last year.

The move came as the department was facing growing criticism over its handling of the Palisades fire.

Published: January 29, 2026, 11:23 pm

Islamic State claims attack on international airport and airbase in Niger

Motorcycle-riding militants launch strikes using heavy weaponry and drones, damaging planes belonging to Ivorian carrier and Togolese airline

Islamic State in the Sahel has claimed responsibility for an audacious assault at the international airport and adjacent air force base in Niamey, the capital of Niger, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist activity and communications worldwide.

The attack, which began shortly after midnight on Thursday, reportedly involved motorcycle-riding militants who launched a “surprise and coordinated” strike using heavy weaponry and drones, according to statements released via IS in the Sahel’s propaganda arm, Amaq news agency.

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:57 pm

Syrian government and Kurdish forces reach deal on permanent truce

Milestone appears to resolve escalating tensions over the question of Kurdish autonomy in north-east Syria

The Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces have reached an agreement to extend a fragile ceasefire into a permanent truce, laying a framework for integrating Kurdish forces into the state and ending nearly a month of fighting.

The agreement on Friday appeared to resolve escalating tensions between the two sides over the question of Kurdish autonomy in north-east Syria and paved a way for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to join Syria’s new army through negotiations, rather than battle.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:56 pm

Saudi dissident awarded £3m damages threatens enforcement action if he is not paid

London-based satirist hails ‘amazing’ ruling that found Gulf state targeted and attacked him for his criticism

A London-based Saudi dissident who a judge decided should receive more than £3m in damages from the kingdom for assault and the hacking of his phone has insisted that it must pay up or face enforcement action.

Mr Justice Saini ruled that the Saudi government infected the phone of Ghanem al-Masarir with Pegasus spyware and, while surveillance was continuing, in 2018, its agents attacked him outside Harrods in central London.

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

British American Tobacco accused of helping North Korea fund terrorism in lawsuit

Victims of terrorist attacks say BAT’s operations in North Korea helped fund weapons used in the Middle East

Hundreds of US military service members, civilians and their families have filed a lawsuit for unspecified damages against British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, and a subsidiary, claiming the company spent years illicitly helping North Korea fund terrorism weapons that were used against Americans.

BAT formed a joint venture in 2001 with a North Korean company to manufacture cigarettes in the country. The venture quietly continued, a 2005 Guardian investigation revealed, even as the US government publicly warned North Korea was funding terrorism and imposed sanctions on the country. Amid mounting international pressure in 2007, the company claimed it was ending business in North Korea, but secretly continued its operation through a subsidiary, the US justice department said in 2023. BAT’s venture in North Korea provided around $418m in banking transactions, “generating revenue used to advance North Korea’s weapons program,” Matthew Olsen, then the justice department official in charge of its national security division, said during a 2023 Senate hearing.

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

Wall of Tears: 50ft Brooklyn mural pays tribute to children killed in Gaza

Installation remembers the names of over 18,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2025

First is وسام اياد محمد ابو فسيفس, or Wesam Iyad Mohammed Abu Fsaife, a 14-year-old boy. Last is صباح عمر سعد المصري, or Sabah Omar Saad al-Masri, an eight-year-old girl.

These names of two children mark the beginning and end of the Wall of Tears, a massive art installation paying homage to the 18,457 children killed in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 19 July 2025. Created by artist Phil Buehler, it opened next to Pine Box Rock Shop bar at 12 Grattan Street in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday.

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:04 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 8:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:17 am

From Jon Snow to Buffy: the TV characters who just couldn’t stay dead

Be it The Night Manager’s Richard Roper or Blue Lights’s Gerry, classic TV characters are increasingly finding it hard to stay in the grave. Here are the 10 greatest televisual resurrections

On TV, you’re never really dead. When a beloved character is killed off on your favourite show, you can be forgiven some scepticism. Who’s to say they won’t be miraculously revived in future?

The BBC hit The Night Manager brought arms-dealing antagonist Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) back to life mid-series to face off against his old adversary, MI6 agent Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston). The action duly cranked up several gears, building temptingly towards Sunday’s finale. Will Roper be eliminated for good this time?

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

Seized review – captivating documentary goes inside a shocking newspaper raid

Sundance film festival: the story of the Marion County Record and the forces that tried to destroy it is expanded for a charming, and concerning, look at freedom of the press

On 11 August 2023, police officers executed a search warrant on the offices of the Marion County Record, a small, family-owned paper in central Kansas. Local law enforcement seized the computers, cell phones and reporting materials from all staff, as well as from the homes of one city council member and paper co-owner Eric Meyer, without incident – though they met the impassioned resistance of Meyer’s 98-year-old mother Joan, the paper’s other co-owner, who threw her walker to the ground and declared the raid “Nazi stuff”.

“This is illegal,” Eric Meyers warns the officers, as seen in a new documentary on the episode. “You’re going to be on national news tonight.”

Published: January 29, 2026, 10:38 pm

Undertone review – disappointing podcast horror is mostly skippable

Sundance film festival: there are some effective early moments in this ultra low-budget, audio-first horror but deja vu soon replaces intrigue

There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from. The debut feature from writer-director Ian Tuason, about horror podcasters who receive a set of mysterious recordings, has elements of Paranormal Activity, Session 9, Hereditary, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist, enough sighs of familiarity to give horror fans a scary case of deja vu. It’s not that total originality is expected at this particular moment (this weekend’s Send Help has been touted as Misery meets Castaway), but given the genre’s overcrowd, it’s hard to see what pushes Undertone above the noise.

What it does do is make for an impressively resourceful use of a low budget, the whole thing costing about $500,000. It’s all shot in one house (Tuason’s actual home) and for the most part, any sinister goings on are restricted to audio footage, heard through the headphones of our lead Eva (Nina Kiri, who reminds me of a young Alice Eve). She’s living back home with her terminally ill mother, fending calls from a thoughtless boyfriend and patiently awaiting those from her friend, and maybe one that got away, Justin (the voice of White Lotus breakout Adam DiMarco, replacing the original voice after the A24 acquisition). The pair co-host a podcast that analyses creepy tales, Eva as the skeptic and Justin as the believer, the pair’s flirtatious pitter-patter positioning them as the Mulder and Scully of the audio world.

Published: January 29, 2026, 6:34 pm

Bruce Springsteen’s angry anti-ICE song is on-the-nose in the right way

The star’s urgent and to-the-point protest song is not subtle about its target and right now that’s why it works so well

Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song isn’t open to interpretation.

In Streets of Minneapolis, the Boss condemns “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” that “came to Minneapolis to enforce the law – or so their story goes”. He names Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by federal agents amid protests. He rages against “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”, referencing the faces of the Trump administration’s onslaught against immigrants.

Published: January 29, 2026, 2:50 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 9:00 am

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 11:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Virgin by Hollie McNish audiobook review – myth-shattering poetry about purity and sex

The author and spoken word artist’s delivery is full of tenderness and humour as she confronts the outdated notions of innocence that surround women

The latest collection by the poet Hollie McNish is dedicated to anyone who has been “blamed, shamed, pressured, tortured, dehumanised, de-mothered over a man-made concept about your own body”. Virgin is a series of poems and prose stories aimed at busting myths and challenging stereotypes about sex and the body.

McNish tackles the persistently weird and outdated notions of innocence and purity around young women: “Do not tell me which touches have mattered the most / This is your obsession not mine.” In Send Nudes she notes how any shame about those who have sent “a snapshot of your body stripped autumn bare” lies with the person who broke trust by sharing or mocking it, and not with the sender.

Published: January 29, 2026, 3:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Cairn review – obsession, suffering and awe in a climbing game that hits exhausting new heights

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Game Bakers
A punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve – you’ll be in tears by the end

Mountaineers and climbers, especially the free-solo kind, are humanity’s most fascinating maniacs: single-minded, daring souls who throw themselves into profoundly optional life-endangering feats. It is hard not to be compelled, and appalled, by someone like Alex Honnold. Even with ropes, a single wrong move can mean death in mountaineering, a mad activity that puts you at the full mercy of nature. You cannot help but wonder what kind of person willingly chooses this: what kind of person looks at a towering cliff face, or a wall of wind-whipped ice, and thinks, I bet I can get up there.

Aava, Cairn’s protagonist, is that kind of person: a champion climber, a woman who has conquered summit after summit, but for some reason can’t walk away. Before her stands Mount Kami, an ice-tipped, Himalayan-style peak that has never before been climbed. Kami was once home to a tribe of people, whose remnants you find as you pull yourself up each section of the mountain, but now you are very much alone. Controlling Aava’s limbs, you move her hands and feet towards imperfections in the rock, jamming her fingers into cracks and her toes on to tiny ledges. You quickly learn to read the mountain, as Aava would.

Published: January 29, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘Women hold our power in our orifices’: Kristen Stewart on her audacious feature directing debut

The Chronology of Water is a ‘punk rock ayahuasca trip’ of a film that takes no prisoners. Stewart and her star, Imogen Poots, talk about the passion and pain that fuelled it

‘The movie is to be eaten alive and re-metabolised and shat out differently, from everyone’s perspective,” says Kristen Stewart, bracingly. The actor’s directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, has been doing the rounds at film festivals, and when we meet in London the reviews are coming in. Stewart knows that this impressionistic, arthouse collage of a film – adapted from an experimental memoir about a woman’s pain and loss, the elusive nature of memory and the reclamation of desire – is not going to be for everyone. “My favourite Letterboxd review is: ‘The Chronology of what the fuck did I just watch?’” But it matters to her that people respond to it. “Whether it’s your least favourite movie or your most favourite, it’s not lying, it’s genuine. And I’m so fucking proud of that.”

Stewart is sitting next to the film’s star, a slightly more sanguine Imogen Poots. Watching Stewart talk, her leg bouncing, her vocabulary ferocious, feels a bit like being sandblasted. It is invigorating and strangely galvanising, but you don’t go into a conversation with her half asleep. The same can be said for the film itself. “Language is a metaphor for experience,” writes the author Lidia Yuknavitch, at the beginning of the book on which it is based. “It’s as arbitrary as this mass of chaotic images we call memory.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

Hilltop hijinks: White Lotus to take over luxury chateau on French Riviera

Mike White’s show will begin production in April at five-star Saint-Tropez resort known for old-world opulence

Will it be a fatal attack with a pétanque boule under the parasol palms? Some skulduggery in the swimming pool of a €21,000-a-night private villa? Perhaps a poisoned cocktail on the terrace overlooking the luxury yachts in the Mediterranean?

Bienvenue to season four of The White Lotus on the Côte d’Azur; judging by past series, someone is not making it out of the French Riviera alive.

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:28 pm

This isn’t the film you are looking for: the Star Wars franchise is hamstrung by a massive identity crisis

The space opera to end them all once blasted everything in its path. But a muddled approach has led to indecision and paralysis

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars was an actual movie that people watched. It drew people to cinemas in huge numbers, largely because it was completely unembarrassed about being a pulpy space adventure about comic wizards and laser swords. Nowadays, it is something else entirely. A TV show about a likable space dad and his cute, cheeky, telekinetically powered adopted alien son, or perhaps a divisive culture-war bellwether that vacillates between trying to destroy itself in a blaze of operatic self-importance and hamfistedly rebuilding itself.

These days Star Wars also seems mainly to be press releases and announcements, throwaway comments in interviews that gesture mournfully towards what once was and what might, one day, be again. Which brings us to Taika Waititi, the Oscar-winning director from New Zealand, who has been giving fresh updates on his episode in the long-running space saga. “I’m just trying to sort of go back and harness a little bit more of the fun from the original films,” he told Variety, adding of George Lucas’ original trilogy: “The stakes were very high [and] there were serious things going on but also there was a lot fun to be had in those films. That’s what I was trying to bring back.”

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:17 pm

10 years of Photo Brussels, Belgium’s leading photography festival

Tenth edition showcases Belgian talent and introduces global themes and artists in a celebration of creativity

Where better to be in the midst of Belgium’s biting winter but in the warmth of Lee Shulman’s creation, The House. Cloaked in cosy mid-century nostalgia, the staging of this flagship exhibition at Hangar Gallery sets a fitting scene for Shulman’s collection of found photography, The Anonymous Project. The playful curation features all manner of family snaps from holidays to birthday parties, and sees characters peeping out of kitchen cupboards or lounging on the beach, photographed through the window of a caravan. The effect is a seductive step into the past, even if only the past of your dreams.

All the furniture used in the staging of The House has been sourced from online websites

Published: January 30, 2026, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 3:00 pm

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

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

• Read more in the Home truths series

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 2:00 pm

The ‘Goldilocks’ of sleep masks and $8 winter gloves: 12 things you loved this month

Here are the things Filter US readers loved in January, from screen-time reducers to fitness essentials – all under $100

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You’ve probably heard the discouraging sentiment that most New Year’s resolutions fail.

At The Filter US, we’re on a mission to disprove this notion, sharing the best products for hitting your goals – including reducing screen time, starting a fitness routine, and traveling somewhere new.

​​The best glass food storage containers: Anyday 2-Cup Glass Round Dish Multipack

Published: January 29, 2026, 8:15 pm

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 12:48 pm

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

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

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 5:00 am

What to wear with red statement trousers

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 6:00 am

Brand Beckham and the rise of the clapback costume

When words fail, clothes do the talking – from the Beckhams to Diana’s revenge dress, fashion is the language of image management

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It’s been over a week since Beckxit and still we wait. Yes, we’ve had David’s aphorisms at Davos; Romeo on the Willy Chavarria catwalk; Cruz on tour; Victoria’s reunion – not to mention the various fulsome Instagram posts from both parties. But no rebuttal, no apologies, no tears. Then, the remaining Beckhams hit Paris fashion week and finally we got our first statement.

David Beckham – once the most famous footballer in the world, now its most famous parent – was in town to wingman Victoria Beckham as she became a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. But he was also there for the optics. The remaining kids flew in. So did their partners. Some wore Victoria Beckham, others wore Loewe, everyone looked demure and sober and matchy-matchy, what a celebrity astrologist might call “a united front”.

Published: January 29, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘Rage knitting’ against the machine: the hobbyists putting anti-ICE messages into crafts

Makers take a stand through ‘Melt the ICE’ red knit caps and sparkly nails – all while raising funds for those affected by immigration raids

In the nine years that Gilah Mashaal has owned Needle & Skein, a yarn store in the suburbs of Minneapolis, she has tried to maintain a rule that “nobody talks politics” in the shop. But amid the weeks-long occupation of the Twin Cities by federal immigration paramilitaries, Mashaal and one of her employees decided to turn one of their weekly knit-alongs into a “protest stitch-along”.

They didn’t want to return to the “pussy hats” that symbolized women’s resistance to Donald Trump in 2016, so Paul, their employee, did some research and came back with a proposal: a red knit hat inspired by the topplue or nisselue (woolen caps), worn by Norwegians during the second world war to signify their resistance to the Nazi occupation.

Published: January 29, 2026, 12:00 pm

Sledges, bears and a hotel with Wes Anderson vibes: Switzerland’s quirkiest family ski resort

Forget flashy St Moritz or Zermatt, the unsung village of Arosa has childlike charm, with animal sanctuaries, cool accommodation and kid-friendly tobogganing

On the approach to Arosa in the Graubünden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret.

On the village’s frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand. A little farther along, on the snow-covered main street, children sled rapidly downhill, overtaking cars. The resort’s mascots are a happy gang of brown bears. And there are Narnia lamp-posts, which turn the falling snow almost gold every evening. Switzerland is replete with ski towns but none feel quite this innocent and childlike, like stepping into a fairytale.

Published: January 29, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It’s still a family favourite’: your heirloom recipes – and the stories behind them

From baked beans with a Gujarati twist to billowing Yorkshire pudding with bramley apples, Guardian readers share the dishes that have connected their families across the generations

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A few years ago, I bought my mother a notebook for her recipes. It was a weighty, leather-bound affair that could act as a vault for all the vivid stews, slow-cooked beans and many other family specialities – the secrets of which existed only in her head. Although the gift has basically been a failure (bar a lengthy WhatsApp message detailing her complex jollof rice methodology, she still has an allergy to writing down cooking techniques or quantities), I think the impulse behind it is sound and highly relatable. Family recipes are a form of time travel. An act of cultural preservation that connects us deeply to people we may not have met and places we may not have visited.

Those realities shine through in this week’s gathered compendium of heirloom recipes submitted by readers. Baked beans given a Gujarati twist. An Atlantic-hopping riff on spinach and feta pie. A billowing yorkshire pudding with sticky bramley apples in its base. All of these preparations, particularly when a recipe for anything is a mere tap away, point to the power of human connection and the ingenuity of domestic chefs. And perhaps the best thing about ancestral culinary approaches is that they can be passed from one clan to another, living on even as they are adapted and evolve.

Published: January 29, 2026, 12:35 pm

A helper and a patriot: Alex Pretti’s family and friends on the life of nurse killed by federal agents

People who knew Pretti describe him as ‘generous with his time’ and denounce the Trump administration’s assessment of him

Travis Vanden Heuvel had been following the recent news out of Minnesota for weeks. On Saturday morning, like many others, he saw video clips of the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month.

But the story became personal later that day. That afternoon, Vanden Heuvel’s former choir director reached out to tell him that the man who had been shot was Alex Pretti – a childhood friend with whom he had been in choir.

Published: January 29, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Very masculinist’: how Iran unrest felt different to 2022’s hijab protests

Previously popular ‘woman, life, freedom’ slogan ignored as son of former shah becomes focus of desperation for change

As the nightly protests that recently gripped Iran got under way, familiar shouts of “death to the dictator” and “death to [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei”, Iran’s most powerful cleric and political figure, filled the air in Karaj, a city 30 miles to the west of Tehran.

But when female participants tried to add another recent popular rallying cry, “woman, life, freedom”, the slogan found few takers – despite having proved an inspirational call to solidarity in demonstrations that swept the country in 2022 after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes.

Published: January 29, 2026, 1:17 pm

The premiere of Melania and Alcaraz celebrates: photos of the day – Friday

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

Published: January 30, 2026, 1:43 pm