No one can predict how the war with Iran will unfold | Rajan Menon and Dan DePetris

The war has already become regional: Iran is attacking American-aligned Arab states in the hope that they will pressure Trump to sign a ceasefire

Last week, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday and again on Friday, just before launching Operation Epic Fury, Donald Trump laid out his case for attacking Iran.

The US president offered a lengthy bill of indictment against Iran’s Islamic Republic, stretching back to the 1979 revolution: the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, support for terrorism, brutality towards its citizenry, and support for proxies that have killed Americans.

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

The UK has arrested high-profile figures connected to Jeffrey Epstein. Will the US?

In contrast with the takedowns of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, US consequences have been limited to resignations and apologies

Weeks after justice department officials released more than 3m investigative documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, there have not been any arrests in the US, prompting questions about whether any potential co-conspirators will be held accountable on American soil.

Indeed, consequences in the US for the sex trafficker’s associates have largely been limited to a handful of sombre resignations and public apologies of late – not high-level criminal prosecutions that victims and advocates have long demanded.

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Stardew Valley at 10: the anticapitalist game that cures burnout and inspires queer art

Since 2016, the cosy, inclusive, non-heteronormative escapism of the beloved farming sim has inspired a community of devoted fans, and helped it shift 50m units

When farming sim Stardew Valley first came out back in 2016, most of us saw it as a modest indie hit, offering charm, wit and a beautiful little world. Ten years later, this tiny indie has sold nearly 50m copies. If you haven’t played it yourself, you’ve probably seen someone playing it on the train (or, in the case of one of my musical theatre castmates, in the dressing room between scenes). As we discussed on the Tech Weekly podcast shortly after its launch, this calming game about tending crops and animals and relationships with neighbours rejuvenated the entire farming/life sim genre. To this day, I still get press releases promising that some upcoming cosy game or another is the next Stardew Valley.

While developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone now has a small team to help with periodic updates, the original game – his first – was all his own work, from the distinctive pixel art and animations to the soundtrack that has since toured the world in concert. Unable to get a job after university, he’d started his own project inspired by the Harvest Moon series (now called Story of Seasons). One notable addition was the inclusion of queer romance options. The ability to pursue a romantic relationship with other townsfolk is a key part of the game’s popularity – as demonstrated by the thousands who tuned in to a video from Barone revealing the identities of two new marriage candidates – and the fact that all potential spouses are available to the player character regardless of gender has helped the game garner a dedicated queer fanbase.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:36 pm

Why The Secret Agent should win the best picture Oscar

Kicking off this year’s series in which our writers advocate for one Academy Award nominee, our chief critic on why the Brazilian drama-thriller is the most audacious and fully realised film in the race

As ever, this year’s Oscars have their half-dozen or so favourites and frontrunners, some truly outstanding movies among them. But the one that has stayed in my mind is a knight’s move away from the talking-point consensus: an amazingly sophisticated, wayward and garrulous film from Brazil, a film about love and fatherhood, tyranny and resistance, and coming to terms with the past. It is digressive and droll and yet in its final act escalates stunningly from lugubrious mystery to cold-sweat tension and violence.

When the best picture Oscar is announced, my heart would sing to see its husband-and-wife producers Emilie Lesclaux and Kleber Mendonça Filho go on stage to accept it for their drama-thriller The Secret Agent. Directed by Mendonça Filho, it’s a movie made with effortless style and touched with pure cinematic inspiration. The opening scene alone, with its queasy black-comic unease, is itself a kind of masterpiece. It is like Antonioni’s The Passenger mixed with Leone and Peckinpah and a pulp shocker by Elmore Leonard. Yet it has a kind of novelistic, episodic quality – a cool, discursive self-awareness. You might call it a little miracle, although at near-epic length (2hrs 40mins), it’s actually a very big miracle.

Published: March 2, 2026, 9:55 am

Jailed for losing a pregnancy: how progress on El Salvador’s harsh anti-abortion law is unravelling

Years of campaigning led to the release of 81 women imprisoned under the country’s strict reproductive laws, but the suspension of civil rights by President Nayib Bukele is fuelling a new wave of criminalisation

Her ordeal began with stomach cramps; 19 years old and training to be a nurse, she knew something was wrong. At the hospital she waited for hours in the emergency department. She had suffered an obstetric emergency.

Under El Salvador’s legal framework, emergencies including miscarriages and stillbirths place women under criminal suspicion. She lost the baby and doctors alerted the police. She was arrested and handcuffed.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:15 pm

My search for the perfect brown bar in Amsterdam

I swerved the tourist traps and went on a bar crawl of the city’s bruine kroegen, the cosy, dimly lit pubs that are the Netherlands’ ‘surrogate living rooms’

Is there anything better than a good old British pub? Well, a Dutch person may prefer a bruine kroeg (brown bar). Often nondescript from the outside and thus easy to miss, these cosy, homely, rustic cafe-style bars typically have plain dark-wood furniture, candles on the tables, aged knick-knacks and faded pictures. There will be dim lighting, usually from antique-style lamps, and they make ideal hubs – they are often referred to as a “surrogate living room”.

The name comes from the venues’ tobacco-stained walls and ceilings, which since the smoking ban started in 2008 have been topped up by dark brown paint. Beers and jenevers (Dutch gins) are the most popular drinks, and snacks such as bitterballen (meat ragout croquettes), boiled eggs and borrelnootjes (nuts with a crispy coating) are often available too. The choice of background music is a vital component; soft vintage jazz is ideal, so when I visited Cafe ’t Hooischip the Michael Jackson and Culture Club soundtrack jarred somewhat with the cosy, historic setting.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Trump vows to continue ‘large-scale operations’ and details Iran objectives after refusing to rule out boots on the ground – live

Trump says the US is already ‘substantially ahead’ of its time projections after telling New York Post, ‘I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground’

• Hegseth says US won’t get ‘bogged down’ in Iran

• What is the legality of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran?

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While speaking today, Pete Hegseth acknowledged the fourth US service member killed in Iran’s counterattacks.

“War is hell and always will be,” he said. “Our grateful nation honors the four Americans we have lost thus far and those injured – the absolute best of America.”

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:25 pm

Middle East crisis live: Israel launches new attacks on Tehran and Beirut as Trump lays out objectives

Donald Trump said they projected the mission to go on for four-five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have ‘capability to go far longer’

• Podcast: The assassination of Iran’s ayatollah

• Have you been affected by events in the Middle East?

Bahrain has said that one person was killed by shrapnel from an intercepted missile. The death of a foreign worker at Salman Industrial City, working on a boat there, marks the kingdom’s first reported fatality in the war.

Bahrain, home to the US navy’s 5th fleet, said it intercepted 61 missiles and 34 attack drones launched against it. It said some shrapnel had gotten through, striking buildings and the naval base.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:41 pm

Pete Hegseth sets the tone for Trump’s politically incorrect war on Iran

In a combative press conference, the Pentagon chief dodged questions about the goals of the US military’s Iran operation

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Leave it to Pete Hegseth, the ex-Fox News host now leading the Pentagon, to reframe the massive US-Israeli military operation in Iran as an act of resistance against political correctness: the first based regime-change war of the Maga era.

In a combative press conference at the Pentagon on Monday, Hegseth brought his anti-PC ethos to defend exactly what Donald Trump has said he did not want: to embroil the US in a major intervention in the Middle East with no clear timeline for exit.

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:49 pm

Three US fighter jets mistakenly shot down over Kuwait

All six crew members ejected safely in apparent ‘friendly fire’ as Kuwait launches investigation into incident

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

Three US fighter jets were mistakenly shot down over Kuwait early Monday in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, military officials said. All six crew members ejected safely.

According to a statement from US Central Command (Centcom), Kuwait’s air defences fired on the F-15 war planes during a combat mission on the third day of conflict following Saturday’s launch of US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:44 pm

Conflict deepens across Middle East – in pictures

Violence spreads to Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait and in areas hosting US army bases amid Israel-US strikes on Iran

Published: March 2, 2026, 2:05 pm

UK ‘took far too long’ to let US use its airbases to attack Iran, Trump says

US president also ‘very disappointed’ in Keir Starmer over UK government’s deal to hand Chagos Islands to Mauritius

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

The UK “took far too long” to allow US forces to use its airbases to attack Iran, Donald Trump has said.

The US president added that he was “very disappointed” in Keir Starmer over the British government’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as a means to preserve the status of the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, part of the Indian Ocean archipegalo.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:12 pm

‘They don’t care about Lebanon’: anger with Hezbollah boils as war returns to weary Beirut

Tens of thousands of Lebanese flee homes in eerily familiar scenes as Israeli strikes leave 52 people dead

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

Abu Yehya and his two sons awoke to the sound of bombing in the early hours of Monday morning. A dozen blasts, one just a few hundred metres away, sent them into the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs.

They walked for four hours, bleary-eyed, until they reached the same spot in downtown Beirut where they had fled during the last conflict, 18 months earlier, and curled up on the asphalt. There, they learned Hezbollah had struck Israel, and Lebanon was once again at war.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:00 pm

What is the legality of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran?

Legal experts give their views on the lawfulness of the countries’ actions, including the UK’s ‘defensive’ operation

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

• What we know so far on day three of the Iran war

The US and Israeli attacks on Iran have lit the touchpaper in the region once more. The UK did not take part in the initial strikes but said on Sunday that it would take part in “defensive action”. With the shadow of the 2003 Iraq invasion looming large, the Guardian examines the lawfulness of the different countries’ actions.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:34 pm

Lack of a clear Iran plan could suck US into a long conflict: ‘Where does this go?’

Fears that decision to strike could be open-ended as Trump comes under pressure to spell out his vision for the country

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

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Donald Trump is under pressure to spell out his vision for Iran amid the ongoing attacks on the country and reports of the first American casualties since the launch of unprovoked US and Israeli military strikes.

Trump’s critics are demanding that the White House provide greater clarity about what comes next. Opponents and analysts say the lack of a clear plan outlined so far has created a danger of the US being sucked into a long-lasting conflict of the sort that Trump repeatedly vowed to avoid.

Published: March 2, 2026, 8:00 am

What disrupting the strait of Hormuz could mean for global cost-of-living pressures

The narrow shipping route on Iran’s southern border carries one fifth of global seaborne crude oil, one fifth of LNG shipments and one third of the most widely used fertiliser

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Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the Iranian government by force could trigger a new wave of cost-of-living pressures that embattled governments and central banks around the world will struggle to deal with.

The US-Israel attack on the Middle Eastern country at the weekend is the latest in a long series of global economic shocks.

Published: March 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

Democrats thrown into disarray as US offensive on Iran creates cracks

Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump’s action and killing of Iranian supreme leader

As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump’s decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front.

Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught.

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Authorities investigate mass shooting at Austin bar as potential act of terrorism

Officials continue to investigate Sunday shooting in Texas amid fears of further attacks following US airstrikes on Iran

• Austin bar shooting leaves three dead, including suspect, and 14 wounded

Officials in Texas are continuing to investigate a weekend mass shooting at an Austin bar by a man wearing a “Property of Allah” hoodie as an act of potential terrorism, as fears rise over the possibility of further attacks following US airstrikes on Iran.

Police shot and killed Ndiaga Diagne, 53, a Senegalese national and naturalized US citizen, early on Sunday after he reportedly opened fire at the downtown bar popular with university students. Two people were killed, and another 14 wounded, some of them seriously.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:05 pm

Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna propose bill to impose wealth tax on billionaires

Make billionaires pay their fair share act would apply to those with a net worth of $1bn or more

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Senator Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, a representative, on Monday introduced legislation that would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on America’s billionaires.

The proposal, titled the make billionaires pay their fair share act, would apply to individuals in the US with a net worth of $1bn or more, of which Sanders’s office estimates there are 938 people who meet that threshold.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:27 pm

US Department of Education hangs Charlie Kirk banner outside DC building

Banner has sparked criticism as Kirk was a polarizing figure who made incendiary and often racist and sexist comments

The US Department of Education has hung large banners outside its building in Washington DC, including one featuring an image of the late far-right commentator, Charlie Kirk.

Kirk, who was shot and killed last September while speaking at a campus event a Utah Valley University, co-founded the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA, which advocates for and promotes conservative politics among young people, particularly on college campuses.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:09 pm

Paramount+ and HBO Max to become one streaming service, Ellison says

Billionaire Paramount Skydance chief announces plan days after winning takeover battle for Warner Bros Discovery

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Paramount Skydance plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service, chief executive David Ellison announced during a call with investors, days after the company said it would acquire HBO parent company Warner Brothers Discovery.

The deal would allow major HBO Max titles, such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Succession, to sit alongside Paramount offerings including Yellowstone and Survivor. Ellison said combining the two platforms would give the company over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:31 pm

Pressure on Carney to address Indian interference allegations after Modi meeting

Canadian prime minister and Indian prime minister mostly discussed trade during Carney’s visit to India

Mark Carney is under mounting pressure to address whether he believes Indian interference in Canada remains a threat after he met with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, whose government is accused of orchestrating the killing a Canadian citizen.

“We are one family,” the Canadian prime minister said from New Delhi on Monday, capping a four-day trade-focused trip meant to reset relations with the world’s most populous nation.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:17 pm

Jesse Jackson returns to South Carolina to lie in state

Civil rights leader will get final full honors from state where, in 1960, he led Black students into segregated library

After a long career of fighting for civil rights, the Rev Jesse Jackson Sr is visiting his home for one last time to lie in state at the South Carolina capitol on Monday.

The final full honors from the state where he was born is a far cry from his childhood in segregated Greenville, where in 1960 he couldn’t go inside the local library’s much better-funded whites-only branch to check out a book he needed.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:11 pm

‘He worked on his speech in French for months’: César awards boss rejects Jim Carrey clone conspiracy theories

Gregory Caulier has attempted to quash rumours that Mask actor was replaced by a heavily made-up impersonator for his appearance picking up an honorary award in Paris

The organiser of the César awards has sought to debunk reports that a lookalike stood in for Jim Carrey at last week’s ceremony.

In a statement sent to Variety on Monday, Gregory Caulier, general delegate of the Césars, said the controversy was a “non-issue” and testified to Carrey’s investment in the event, which had been in the planning since last summer.

Published: March 2, 2026, 2:36 pm

Saturday Night Live Bafta sketch branded ‘horrific’ by leading Tourette syndrome charity

Sketch featured parodies of JK Rowling, Bill Cosby and Mel Gibson saying controversial remarks were due to TS

Saturday Night Live is under fire for a sketch that poked fun at the Bafta N-word incident, with a leading Tourette syndrome (TS) charity calling it “horrific.”

Filmed in the style of an informational public service announcement, the segment featured SNL cast members as public figures explaining that their controversial comments were because of TS. The sketch was cut for time on Saturday night’s NBC show but was uploaded to YouTube shortly after.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:54 pm

McDonald’s CEO’s awkward taste test sparks mocking online: ‘His aura screams kale salad’

Video of Chris Kempczinski trying new ‘product’ the Big Arch burger criticized for feeling forced and corporate

Business leaders are increasingly placing themselves in front of the camera, in an effort to appear more relatable to a social media-first audience. When it goes well, it can be a huge hit. When it doesn’t, you risk becoming the subject of online ridicule.

In the recent case of Chris Kempczinski, the McDonald’s CEO and president, it’s the latter.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:33 pm

Iran war escalates: what’s Trump’s endgame? - The Latest

The war in the Middle East continues to escalate, with casualties and destruction reported across at least nine countries in under 10 hours. Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, while US allies in the Gulf states are under attack from Iranian missiles and drones. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian’s head of international news, Jamie Wilson

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:57 pm

‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart

The rapid rollout of datacenters across the US is creating a divide between municipal governments and residents

Wilmington, Ohio, resident Quintin Koger Kidd was so concerned last June with his local public officials’ alleged misdoings – open meeting violations and other discrepancies – that he filed a complaint in court to have the mayor and city council members removed from their posts.

When Koger Kidd later heard that the city supported plans by Amazon Web Services to build a $4bn datacenter on 500 acres (200 hectares) south of town, he was aghast. Amazon has sought a tax abatement that would see its datacenter exempt from paying property taxes for 30 years in exchange for the funding of local schools and infrastructure projects.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘My guitar was mangled – like my life!’ Goo Goo Dolls on how they made epic ballad Iris

‘I’m grateful to Taylor Swift, and others who have covered it, for introducing the song to a new generation. Three billion streams on Spotify is astonishing!’

I was going through a divorce and living in a hotel in West Hollywood when my manager said Warner Brothers were seeking songs for the movie City of Angels. They already had U2, Peter Gabriel and Alanis Morissette, so I thought getting a track on there would draw attention to us. Warners showed me the film and it was like Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. They wanted a song for the scene where the angel – played by Nicolas Cage – decides to become human to be with the woman he loves. That’s the Meg Ryan role. I thought: “What would I say to her if I were him?”

Published: March 2, 2026, 2:44 pm

Learn With Ms Rachel review – undoubtedly the TV event of the year for millions of us

The queen of children’s edutainment is back after four very long months, with her most extraordinary, envelope-pushing and moving special yet. Cue absolute relief for parents the world over

For those whose cultural experiences are largely absorbed through the prism of their mewling infants’ demands for the same thing 437 times in a row, it’s been a long four months. In late October last year, Rachel Accurso released Brush Your Teeth Song with Ms Rachel and Elmo. The 48m views it has since racked up reflect its status as a solid addition to the Ms Rachel canon, and the whole thing is obviously enhanced by Elmo’s guest spot. But it was studded with reheated clips from previous compilations, such as The Wheels on the Bus from Blippi & Ms Rachel Learn Vehicles, and It’s Potty Time from Potty Training With Ms Rachel. There is a limit to the number of plays an adult can reasonably be expected to endure of a bear puppet in a nappy hymning his ability to relieve himself, and the Ms Rachel hive is thirsting for something new.

Enter, on Friday, Learn With Ms Rachel – Friendship & Social Skills, an hour-long compendium, in which the leviathan of contemporary children’s edutainment helps her guests “model important social skills such as kindness, taking turns, sharing, asking a friend to play and helping others”. A few minutes on any of the subreddits that pore over Ms Rachel content clarifies the weight of this cultural moment. Or you could ask my two-year-old about it.

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

The greenest flags: virtue signals that help you find love – from patchwork clothes to car sharing

A new survey shows 80% of gen Zs believe strong environmental values are as important as physical attraction when it comes to finding a partner (so you might want to start reusing your coffee cups)

Name: Green flags.

Age: This is a thing for younger people, so listen up, boomers.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:50 pm

John Oliver on police bodycam footage: ‘Hoping for leaks cannot be the system here’

Last Week Tonight host looked into the proliferation of law enforcement body cameras, whose presence alone does not provide accountability

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delved into the proliferation of police bodycams, “the devices that gives us a nipple’s-eye view of law enforcement’s interactions with the public” and which represent what some experts have called the largest new investment in policing in a generation.

Bodycams have been viewed as a “popular solution regarding transparency in law enforcement”, he explained, with many Democratic lawmakers currently calling for “masks off, body cameras on” in negotiations over the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in US cities.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:09 pm

My rookie era: in a period of heartbreak, learning to pole dance gave me structure

I disliked my first encounter with pole, but two years later my experience with the sport has made me appreciate my body and my self-determination

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When my friend Bea took up pole dancing, she enthusiastically tried to convert everyone she knew to it – a common trope, I’d later find out. As a childhood gymnast and dancefloor enthusiast, I was scouted as a potential recruit, so along with my sister in 2023 we joined her for a class.

The class was packed and the studio felt overly commercialised. The friction of the metal pole against my skin was straight-up painful and spinning around made me so dizzy I had to sit down to reorientate myself several times.

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Published: March 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

Ben Jennings on Donald Trump’s continuing attacks on Iran – cartoon

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Published: March 2, 2026, 7:09 pm

Merzsplaining: the chancellor’s overconfidence is unpopular in Germany. But could it be what Europe needs? | Joseph de Weck

Unlike his predecessors, Friedrich Merz projects certainty, even when he’s wrong. Now he must turn words into a deliverable plan

The 18th-century philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder is credited in Germany with coining the maxim: “Talk is silver, but silence is golden.” The saying has come to define Germany’s political culture. Olaf Scholz was economical with words and drew mockery for his wooden, monosyllabic replies as the “Scholzomat” or even the “coma chancellor”. Scholz was not entirely different from his predecessor. Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany’s communist dictatorship and learned early that words could be dangerous. She spoke cautiously, almost clinically, in the monotone of a central banker. Every word served a purpose. That was precisely why everyone listened closely.

Friedrich Merz, by contrast, is anything but a soporific speaker. The trained lawyer has a sharp tongue and visibly enjoys the sound of his own voice. In this, the conservative chancellor resembles the French president, Emmanuel Macron – another beau parleur. And like Macron, Merz is a know-all. He rarely misses a chance to show his audience how clever he is.

Joseph de Weck is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all | Taylor Lorenz

Age-verification systems require collecting sensitive data to support the biometric information. In no time, the internet will become a fully surveilled digital panopticon

Over the past year, more than two dozen countries around the world have proposed bans on social media use for vast swathes of their public. These laws, often proposed under the guise of “child safety”, are ushering in an era of mass surveillance and widespread censorship, contributing to what scholars have called a “global free speech recession”.

Last year, Australia became the first country to ban anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media. The move emboldened other countries around the world to quickly follow suit. Germany’s ruling party announced it was backing a social media ban. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for a ban on social media for under-15s. In the UK, Keir Starmer has sought to enact sweeping social media bans. Greece, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan have also pursued similar online identity verification laws.

Taylor Lorenz is a technology journalist who writes the newsletter User Mag and is the author of the bestselling book Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:00 am

A gas shock, not an oil shock, from the Iran war looks more threatening | Nils Pratley

Europe and Asia will take an economic hit if the supply of Qatari LNG is halted by the closure of the strait of Hormuz

• Gas prices soar and oil jumps as Iran war pushes down global stock markets

The price of oil grabs most of the energy-related attention during conflicts in the Middle East for understandable reasons: oil is the commodity on which the world runs (still) and analysts have roughly reliable models for what every $10 per barrel increase in cost does to global growth and inflation.

So, on that front, one can say we’re still a long way from “oil shock” territory. Monday’s rise to $79 a barrel, up 9% since the end of last week, is sizeable, especially as the price was $62 at the start of this year, but remember that $125 was seen shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and $100-plus was then sustained for three months.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:59 pm

I’m on the Meta Oversight Board. We need AI protections now | Suzanne Nossel

AI is transforming our world. Accepting independent oversight is the least companies can do to protect our rights

The speed with which AI is transforming our lives is head-spinning. Unlike previous technological revolutions – radio, nuclear fission or the internet – governments are not leading the way. We know that AI can be dangerous; chatbots advise teens on suicide and may soon be capable of instructing on how to create biological weapons. Yet there is no equivalent to the Federal Drug Administration, testing new models for safety before public release. Unlike in the nuclear industry, companies often don’t have to disclose dangerous breaches or accidents. The tech industry’s lobbying muscle, Washington’s paralyzing polarization, and the sheer complexity of such a potent, fast-moving technology have kept federal regulation at bay. European officials are facing pushback against rules that some claim hobble the continent’s competitiveness. Although several US states are piloting AI laws, they operate in a tentative patchwork and Donald Trump has attempted to render them invalid.

Heads of AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini say they care about safety. But owning the future of AI means pouring billions into models that not even their creators fully understand, and making choices like adding ads – and the capabilities that the Pentagon is now seeking from Anthropic – that raise risk. Anthropic, which styles itself as the most conscientious frontier AI company, says its model is trained to “imagine how a thoughtful senior Anthropic employee” would weigh helpfulness against possible harm. The directive echoes criticisms levied years ago over Silicon Valley companies that shaped the lives of users worldwide from insular boardrooms. Consumers don’t believe they are in good hands. Fully 77% of Americans surveyed last year think AI could pose a threat to humanity.

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Worried about freedom of speech? Then what’s happening at the Open University should terrify you | Owen Jones

The OU has capitulated to a pro-Israel lobby group about the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’. The wider context is impossible to ignore

The west is in the midst of the most serious assault on free speech and academic freedom since the heyday of McCarthyism seven decades ago. For years, we were told the danger came from the left: oversensitive students, censorious activists, no-platforming zealots. Yet the most aggressive and successful campaign to police speech in our public institutions is being waged by cheerleaders of a state currently committing genocide.

Consider a recent case. Last December, a pro-Israel lobby group, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), celebrated another apparent victory. It describes its mission as contributing “generally as lawyers to creating a supportive climate of opinion in the United Kingdom towards Israel”. In practice, this has meant lawfare, directed not only at pro-Palestinian activism, but at the public existence of Palestinian identity itself.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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Published: March 2, 2026, 10:00 am

The French are in uproar about gen Z not lunching with colleagues. I’m on Team Solo Dining | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

For once we can celebrate a British custom: grabbing lunch away from your colleagues to do whatever you like

It’s often striking to me – as a British person and a Francophile – what prompts bewilderment among the French. Most recently, an article in Le Monde describes a concerning trend: younger adults are choosing to dine alone during their lunch breaks, flying in the face of longstanding workplace tradition. Almost one-third of employees under 25 regularly lunch alone, according to a survey by Openeat, compared with 22% of 25- to 34-year-olds, 16% of 35- to 49-year-olds and 12% of over-49s.

These statistics were shocking to me too, but in entirely the opposite way: so few? I forgot that when I was a waitress in Paris, I would serve groups of colleagues all the time. Whenever I visit, I am always struck by tables of people in workwear eating a prix fixe lunch menu of several courses, normally traditional French fare and often with a glass of wine. It always seems so very civilised. This culture may well be shifting, but it remains far more the norm there than in this country.

Published: March 2, 2026, 8:00 am

The Guardian view on parliament’s role in war on Iran: MPs should vote before Britain gets sucked in | Editorial

Sir Keir Starmer draws a narrow legal distinction. But if British bases enable a wider US-Israeli campaign, the UK risks sliding into an unlawful conflict

In the Commons on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer was clear that Britain will not join offensive action against Tehran. It is wise not to join an illegal attempt at “regime change from the skies”. Sir Keir will, however, permit US use of British bases for limited defensive strikes aimed at stopping Iranian missile attacks. That is a legally clear line, but it may be politically and militarily tricky to stick to.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions are reckless and unlawful. But so are Iran’s strikes – hitting hotels, airports and energy infrastructure – across the Gulf. Where Britain’s allies have asked for support, or where UK nationals are at risk, the UK is legally entitled to act in collective self-defence. But this holds only as long as the action is restricted to halt Tehran’s barrage.

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Published: March 2, 2026, 6:39 pm

Yes, relegation is now a very real possibility for Tottenham | Jonathan Wilson

Spurs’ slide from title hopefuls to relegation candidates is a story of complete mismanagement and widespread injury

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Last week, after Tottenham had lost 4-1 at home to Arsenal, Igor Tudor was bullish. It was possible leaving his post-match press conference to think he was a man with the energy and personality to drag Spurs away from the relegation zone. This week, after Tottenham had lost 2-1 at Fulham, Tudor was deflated. The previous week he had spoken of defeat in the North London derby as being part of the process, a game that would startle his players into understanding what was required of them. This week, he just mumbled about having to forget the game and move on. A week in the Tottenham job seemed to have broken him.

Tudor is a specialist firefighter. He has saved teams from worse positions than being four points clear of the relegation zone with 10 games to go, which is where Spurs stand now. But that is what makes his defeatist tone so shocking. He spoke of “big problems”, dismissing a question about his 4-4-2 formation with the snort of a man asked about the shade of the carpet in his hallway as his roof burns down. He talked of an attack that lacks quality, of a midfield that cannot run and a defence that is not prepared to “suffer” to keep goals out. He made fairly explicit that he thinks his players lack the requisite character and pointed out how Fulham were better at reading the game, accusing his players of lacking “brain”.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:30 pm

Iraq or UAE could take Iran’s World Cup finals spot due to Middle East crisis

• Fifa regulations vague on issue of replacing any teams

• Withdrawal would be first since France and India in 1950

Iraq and the United Arab Emirates are viewed as the most likely beneficiaries should Iran withdraw from the World Cup. Fifa’s general secretary, Mattias Grafström, said on Saturday that “our focus is to have a safe World Cup with everybody participating”, but the president of the Iranian Football Federation, Mehdi Taj, has raised doubts over his country’s participation by saying: “After this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope.”

Fifa has not commented since Grafström spoke and remains determined to ensure the World Cup, which starts on 11 June, goes ahead as planned, but several sources have said that if its hand were forced by Iran’s withdrawal the replacement will probably come from the Asian Football Confederation.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:59 pm

Colorado and Deion Sanders in mourning after QB Dominiq Ponder dies at 23

• Ponder loses control of Tesla on Sunday morning

• Coach Sanders mourns ‘one of my favorites’

Colorado quarterback Dominiq Ponder died early Sunday morning in a single-car crash in Boulder County, police said. He was 23.

Ponder lost control of his Tesla on a curve and hit a guardrail, according to the Colorado State Patrol. The car then struck an electrical line pole and rolled down an embankment before it caught fire. Ponder was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said a preliminary investigation “shows that speed is suspected as a factor”.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:22 am

Lamine Yamal’s historic ‘work of art’ offers a liberation from the pressure | Sid Lowe

Hat-trick against Villarreal, his first at 18 years and 230 days, made him the youngest Barça player to score a league one

Mounir Nasraoui and Sheila Ebana watched their little boy make history while everyone else watched too, which takes getting used to but is the way it is now and forever. A moment before the second half began on Saturday, Hansi Flick came to an agreement with Lamine Yamal, or tried to. The teenager had scored twice – both superb, the second absurd – to put them 2-0 up against Villarreal and the coach had an idea. If we score the third, we’ll take you off, Flick said; if I score the third, we will, Lamine Yamal replied. Twenty minutes later both happened together and that, he laughed after, was “perfect”, so up went the board with his number on and up went 44,256 people too, applauding as he went.

Back home, following the game on TV and broadcasting to the world, so did his dad. Lamine Yamal slapped hands with Roony Bardghji, delegate Carlos Naval and Flick, but his eyes were turned towards the stands, looking for his mum. He settled into the bench for a while, saw Robert Lewandowski add another to complete a 4-1 victory and then, when the final whistle sounded, headed back out, collected the match ball from Naval and went to find her. “This is yours,” he said, cameras catching another conversation. “I’m going to take it inside and get everyone to sign it, then bring it to you.” Sheila hugged him hard, kissed her “handsome boy”, and waited for him to return so they could go for dinner.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:34 pm

US Half Marathon Championship ends in chaos as lead runners guided in wrong direction

• Lead vehicle takes top-three off main course

• Jess McClain falls from first to ninth

USA Track & Field has denied an appeal after its Half Marathon Championship in Atlanta ended in chaos.

With less than two miles to go in the women’s race, Jess McClain had a significant lead over Ednah Kurgat and Emma Hurley when the guide vehicle took the trio off course. Molly Born, who had been more than a minute behind the leaders, came through to win the race, with Carrie Ellwood and and Annie Rodenfels in second and third. McClain, Hurley and Kurgat finished in ninth, 12th and 13th respectively around two minutes behind Born. Wesley Kiptoo won the men’s race.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:08 pm

Formula One’s Australian Grand Prix hit by travel chaos amid Middle East crisis

• Flight disruptions force F1 teams into new arrangements

• But all drivers expected to reach Melbourne for first race

As many as one thousand members of the Formula One circus have been forced into last-minute travel changes to get to Melbourne’s opening round in the wake of the escalating crisis in the Middle East, and some are set to miss the start of the season entirely.

However, a larger logistical headache has been narrowly avoided, after the cars and supporting equipment were already shipped from last month’s testing in Bahrain – one of the countries drawn into the conflict – prior to this week’s widespread aviation disruptions.

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:52 pm

Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Jordan Pickford’s ‘best save ever’, Antoine Semenyo’s shifting mentality and Liverpool’s set-piece threat grows

• Premier League top scorers: check the latest standings

Arsenal won the battle of set pieces, beating Chelsea 2-1 to keep Manchester City at bay. In a game that offered few clearcut chances from open play, it was a familiar story of Arsenal overpowering their opponents from corner kicks. Gabriel bullied Reece James to set up William Saliba for their first goal and Jur​riën Timber punished a flailing Robert Sánchez for their second. Mikel Arteta’s side have equalled the record for the most goals scored from corners in a Premier League season (16) with nine games still to go. Meanwhile, Chelsea have conceded seven goals from set pieces in Liam Rosenior’s first 13 games in all competitions. Despite posing a threat offensively through Reece James’s delivery for Piero Hincapié’s own goal, they repeatedly failed to match Arsenal’s physicality when defending. Xaymaca Awoyungbo

Match report: Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea

Match report: Manchester United 2-1 Crystal Palace

Match report: Fulham 2-1 Tottenham

Match report: Newcastle 2-3 Everton

Match report: Leeds 0-1 Manchester City

Published: March 2, 2026, 8:00 am

MLS weekend wrap: teenagers are taking over, and Messi goes full Florida Man

The days of the retirement league trope appear to be ending, while Inter Miami’s star had an outstanding – and amusing – game against Orlando City

Even before David Beckham swapped Madrid for Los Angeles, MLS had harbored a reputation as a “retirement league.” The notion is well worn in banter circles. It’s tired, and also at least a little bit true.

Robbie Keane. Kaká. David Villa. Andrea Pirlo. Didier Drogba. Wayne Rooney. Zlatan Ibrahimović. All of them – and many others – enjoyed late-career stops in the United States. Today, three of the 11 players named to Fifa’s Dream Team after the 2014 World Cup play in the league: Lionel Messi (Inter Miami), Thomas Müller (Vancouver Whitecaps) and James Rodríguez (Minnesota United). When Son Heung-min (33 years old) joined Los Angeles FC after his decade with Tottenham, he reunited with longtime Spurs teammate Hugo Lloris (39), and ensured derby days against the LA Galaxy’s Marco Reus (36).

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:47 pm

‘We have to take bold decisions’: Williams chief James Vowles on 2026 hopes and F1 title dreams

Williams team principal on pre-season travails, why McLaren are an inspiration and closing the gap to the top

“I didn’t realise it until I saw the notice,” James Vowles says of the third anniversary in January of his arrival at Williams as their team principal. On a rainy afternoon he smiles wryly in his London office. “I probably should have allowed myself a moment to reflect, but you are too caught up in the work. That reality defines Formula One.”

Vowles is one of the most interesting men in F1 and not just because, as the director of strategy, he helped two teams to win nine constructors’ championships and eight drivers’ titles. He will soon reveal a reflective side to his character and touch on the adversity he overcame at the outset of his career. His relish for a challenge in pure racing terms is obvious because in 2022 he left Mercedes, who had finished second in the championship, for Williams, after they ended that season in 10th and last place.

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:54 pm

Thousands of flights cancelled as world faces worst travel chaos since Covid crisis

Hundreds of thousands of passengers remain stranded, with key air hubs in Middle East closed amid fallout from US-Israeli strikes on Iran

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

• Business live – latest updates

Thousands more flights were cancelled on Monday as the turmoil in global air travel caused by the US-Israel war on Iran continued, with hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded.

Gulf airports and airlines have suspended normal operations until at least 10.00 GMT on Tuesday. However, a limited number of special services were due to depart from the UAE on Monday evening.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:41 pm

Gas prices soar and oil jumps as Iran war pushes down global stock markets

QatarEnergy says it has halted production of liquefied natural gas after attacks on Ras Laffan and Mesaieed sites

• Nils Pratley: A gas shock – not an oil shock – looks more threatening

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

Gas prices surged on Monday and oil rose sharply as an escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran caused major disruption to production and supplies.

QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, said it had halted production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after attacks on facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed.

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:09 pm

Missing Florida man found over a week later trapped in shoulder-deep mud

Local crews rescued Andrew Giddens, 36, near a borrow pit after he faced freezing weather without food or water

A Florida man who had been missing since Valentine’s Day was found over a week later trapped in mud up to his shoulders, authorities said.

Andrew Giddens, 36, had reportedly gone several days without food or water by then, and officials ultimately rescued him in dramatic fashion to end his nightmarish ordeal.

Published: March 2, 2026, 10:00 am

Rijksmuseum reveals painting to be early work by Rembrandt

17th-century Dutch master’s Vision of Zacharias in the Temple to go on display this week

It hung unrecognised on the wall of a private home for decades but now a 17th-century painting has been revealed as a Rembrandt, taking its potential value from thousands to millions of pounds.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced on Monday that it had rediscovered an early biblical scene by the Dutch master that was once thought lost, thanks to hi-tech scanning and two years of expert analysis.

Published: March 2, 2026, 1:17 pm

Scotland becomes first UK country to legalise water cremations

Hydrolysis uses alkaline and water to break down body in a few hours and is part of demand for more sustainable funerals

Scotland has become the first part of the UK to legalise hydrolysis, an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation or burial, reflecting increasing demand for more sustainable funeral arrangements.

Also known as water cremation or aquamation, the process is already available in many parts of the world, and regulations approved by the Scottish parliament on Monday mark the most significant change to funeral law since cremation was introduced in 1902.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:24 pm

‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out?

Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be discovered

Once Art Borkent starts speaking about biting midges, he rarely pauses for breath. Holding up a picture of a gnat trapped in amber from the time of the dinosaurs, the 72-year-old taxonomist explains that there are more than 6,000 ceratopogonidae species known to science. He has described and named more than 300 midges, mostly from his favourite family of flies. Some specialise in sucking blood from mammals, reptiles, other insects and even fish, often using the CO₂ from their host’s breath to locate their target, he says. Tens of thousands remain a mystery to science, waiting to be discovered.

But to Borkent’s knowledge, nobody will continue his life’s work of identifying and studying this group of flies once he has gone.

Published: March 2, 2026, 8:00 am

Country diary: Taking the long view of the farm and these fells | Andrea Meanwell

Tebay, Cumbria: At this in-between moment where it’s both winter and spring, I’m reminded that nothing is permanent in farming

To make our new hedgerows as diverse as possible, we are planting a fruit tree every 200 metres in them, and last winter we planted a new apple and damson orchard at Low Park, our abandoned farm. This morning, I am popping some additional fruit trees into the hedges and checking on the orchard. The trees have been sourced from damson growers in the Lyth Valley and the apple trees from a local orchard group.

When I arrive at Low Park, which is nearby in the Lune gorge, I am cheered to see that some primroses are already flowering in the orchard as it is so sheltered. Elsewhere, winter still has us in its grip, with snow earlier in the week on the fells. As well as the primroses, my eye is drawn to some almost fluorescent orange fungi on some deadwood, which I believe is witches’ butter.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:30 am

As measles spreads in South Carolina, RFK Jr’s allies work to gut vaccine laws

Activists who dispute safety of vaccines are pushing to limit immunization requirements in schools

As South Carolina grapples with a measles outbreak that has infected nearly 1,000 people, groups with ties to the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, are pushing to eliminate immunization requirements that protect children.

Activists are targeting vaccine mandates in states trying to tamp down measles as communities across the country struggle to stop the worst spread of the illness since the early 1990s. The Guardian found anti-vaccine groups are encouraging their followers to organize opposition to vaccine mandates in more than 20 states, including at least six with current measles outbreaks.

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

How Florida’s term-limited governor is creating a ‘police state’ as his legacy

Slew of bills in veto-proof Republican state legislature harm individual rights and concentrate power, rights groups say

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican hard-right governor, will be termed out of office in barely 10 months’ time. Civil rights groups watching a slew of new restrictive laws passing through the state’s legislature say his bequest will be a “police state”, where government officials dictate what residents can do, say or believe.

They point in particular to two House bills they say restrict free speech, and which have already found favor with Florida’s veto-proof Republican majority:

HB1471 would give a handful of state officials unprecedented power to designate as a “terrorist group” any organization whose aims and policies they do not like, including non-profits operating for religious, charitable and social justice purposes.

HB945 creates a “counterintelligence and counterterrorism” unit within the Florida department of law enforcement that critics say will be used to spy on groups or individuals whose “actions, views, or opinions” are deemed “a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state”.

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

Arkansas father rushing his sick child to hospital won’t face charges after officer rammed into his car

State trooper used Pit ramming maneuvre to stop Dillon Hess from speeding while transporting his son to hospital

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An Arkansas father speeding while transporting his sick child to the hospital will not face charges after a state police trooper used a vehicle-ramming technique known as a Pit maneuvre to stop his vehicle, authorities have said.

Officials said they have ruled out charges against the father, identified as Dillon Hess, who was speeding as he rushed his son to the hospital for emergency medical treatment after he suffered an allergic reaction, as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first reported.

Published: March 1, 2026, 8:25 pm

Shia LaBeouf blames ‘small man complex’ for alleged assaults and homophobic slurs

Transformers film franchise star says ‘big gay people are scary’ to him in interview and he doesn’t want to go to rehab

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The actor Shia LaBeouf has said he believes he needs to sort out his “small man complex” rather than undergo another round of substance abuse treatment after his recent arrest on allegations that he battered three men at a New Orleans bar while hurling homophobic slurs at them.

In an interview posted Saturday on YouTube by the online outlet Channel 5, the Transformers film franchise star also acknowledged “big gay people are scary” to him. Yet, perhaps providing a glimpse at a potential court defense, he also implied that the violence at the center of his arrest erupted only after his alleged victims touched him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:43 pm

Actor awards 2026: Michael B Jordan, Jessie Buckley and Catherine O’Hara among big winners

The previously named Screen Actors Guild (Sag) awards also saw wins for the ensemble casts of Sinners and The Studio, while Harrison Ford took home lifetime achievement

• Actor awards 2026 red carpet – in pictures

Michael B Jordan, Jessie Buckley and the late Catherine O’Hara were among the big winners at this year’s newly titled Actor awards.

Previously known as the Screen Actors Guild awards, the Actors are voted on by a membership of more than 160,000 actors. The name change was to provide “clearer recognition in terms of what the show is about”.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:14 am

Judge adjourns Paris trial of Islam scholar accused of raping three women

Former Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan did not appear in court as he was in a Geneva hospital, according to lawyers

The prominent Swiss academic and Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan has not appeared in court for the first day of his trial in Paris on charges of raping three women in France between 2009 and 2016.

The head judge in the case adjourned proceedings until Wednesday and ordered a medical report on Ramadan’s health, after his lawyers said he was in hospital in Geneva because of his multiple sclerosis.

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:08 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Starmer says Ukrainian experts will help shoot down Iranian drone attacks in Gulf

Ukrainians to help intercept drones targeting Gulf allies, UK PM says; Russian overnight missile attacks on Ukraine hit new high. What we know on day 1,468

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Ukrainian experts would provide guidance on intercepting Iranian drones being launched at Gulf allies, as Tehran responds to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. “We are not joining these strikes, but we will continue with our defensive actions in the region,” Starmer said on Sunday night. “And we will also bring experts from Ukraine, together with our own experts, to help Gulf partners shoot down Iranian drones attacking them.” Ukraine was yet to comment on Starmer’s announcement.

Russia fired more missiles in overnight attacks at Ukraine in February than in any other month since at least the beginning of 2023, analysis by Agence France-Presse (AFP) shows. The missile attacks targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure in particular, AFP said. Russia launched 288 missiles at Ukraine in February, an increase of about 113% compared to 135 missiles in January. Additionally, in February, Russia launched 5,059 long-range drones during its night-time pummelling of Ukrainian cities and towns – an increase of about 13% percent compared to January. AFP conducted analysis of daily figures provided by the Ukrainian air force.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said changes in Iran brought about by US and Israeli strikes should be “used properly” to benefit the country’s people. Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said Iran had “predetermined the way it is treated” by supplying attack drones to Russia in Moscow’s four-year-old conflict in Ukraine and had also “fomented wars in the region”. “It is important that the this chance for changes in Iran be used properly,” he said, adding “The Iranian people were on their own for a long time, enduring violence while standing against the Iranian regime.” Zelenskyy said on Saturday Moscow had fired more than 57,000 Iranian-designed Shahed-type drones at Ukraine during the war.

Belgium has seized an oil tanker believed to form part of the so-called shadow fleet used by Russia to circumvent western sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Special forces assisted by French helicopters boarded the ship in a clandestine operation in the North Sea on Saturday night, Kate Connolly writes. Prosecutors said the tanker, identified as the Ethera, was falsely flying the flag of Guinea and was believed to be on its way back to Russia when it was seized in Belgium’s exclusive economic zone.

Zelenskyy praised Belgium’s decision to seize the tanker. “This particular vessel has long been under US, EU and UK sanctions, but nonetheless continued to illegally transport Russian oil using a false flag and forged documents,” he wrote on X. “We welcome this strong action against Moscow’s floating purse and thank France for supporting the operation.”

Two women and a man were injured when drone debris fell on a house in the Russian Black Sea city of Novorossiysk, the local authorities said on Monday. The Russian defence ministry said it had downed 172 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions as well as the Black and Azov seas overnight. That included 67 drones over the Black Sea and 66 over the Krasnodar region, host of a port and naval base at Novorossiysk. The Russian Premier League football match between Sochi and Spartak Moscow was postponed to Monday from Sunday over repeated missile alerts in the Black Sea resort city, league officials said.

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:20 am

Shark culls brought in after fatal attack causes division and anger in New Caledonia

Authorities say capture of bull and tiger sharks necessary to protect lives as environmentalists launch urgent legal challenge

Some beaches in areas of New Caledonia are closed to swimming and the authorities have begun shark culling off the capital, Nouméa, after a fatal attack in the popular tourist spot – prompting a legal challenge to stop the operation and reigniting debate over public safety and marine conservation.

The culling operation began on 23 February, after a man from New Caledonia riding a wing foil in a recreational area was attacked and killed. Preliminary investigations indicate the victim was attacked by a tiger shark that measured at least three metres.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:20 am

‘I’m dying for the day heterosexuals have to come out’: Catherine Opie and her astonishing shots of queer America

Famed for having a child’s drawing of a family carved into her back, the photographer has devoted her life to queer America, from endurance swimmers to drag artists to her son in a tutu. Now she’s finally getting a major UK show

There is no direct reference to Trump’s America in Catherine Opie’s To Be Seen, the US photographer’s first large museum exhibition in Britain, featuring key works going back to the 1990s. Mythic and personal, the images depict the American landscape and American family. Above all, they are concerned with the 64-year-old’s career-long interest in the representation of gay, lesbian and queer Americans missing from mainstream art history. Most of the photos were taken long before the Trump presidencies and yet, browsing the show, it feels like a powerful rebuke to the current administration – so much so that it brings on a mood of almost hysterical relief.

For 27 years, Opie taught photography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and would tell her students that it was part of the mission of the serious artist to show “an example in a public space of what it is to be brave”. So it is with To Be Seen, which features some of Opie’s most famous and bravest works, from her portraits of friends to denizens of LA’s 1990s leather dyke scene: the iconic, androgynous Pig Pen, a friend who appears in a series of shots, looking coolly at the camera, daring the viewer to define them; her Being and Having series, an early challenge to gender norms featuring 13 butch lesbians posing in stick-on, Halloween-grade facial hair, in an absurdist performance of masculinity; and Dyke, in which Opie’s friend Steakhouse – speaking of brave – poses with her back to the camera, the word “dyke” tattooed in large ornate script across the back of her neck.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:00 am

‘Do what you really want to do while you’re still alive’: Masayoshi Takanaka, the Japanese guitar hero surfing a second wave in his 70s

Playing a surfboard-shaped axe, Takanaka was a stadium-level artist at home but little known in the west – until YouTube brought him a huge new audience

In November 2025, Masayoshi Takanaka announced his first ever UK solo gig. Originally slated for London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, there was such demand that it was upgraded to two nights at Brixton Academy – nearly 10,000 people will flock to see a 72-year-old Japanese jazz fusion virtuoso play a surfboard-shaped guitar in March. Come the summer, he’ll headline an outdoor festival in London’s Crystal Palace park. “I was actually planning to fade out [my career],” he says on a video call. “But now I feel like this might be my second coming. My life has changed so much in the last few years.”

Born in Tokyo in 1953, Takanaka picked up the guitar in middle school, taking inspiration from western artists such as Cream, the Beatles and Ten Years After. He hung out in Shibuya jazz clubs while still in school uniform, asking bands if he could jam with them, and by 1972 he was playing with Sadistic Mika Band, who became the first Japanese rock band to tour the UK when they were invited to support Roxy Music in arenas. “They were already rock stars, so they had a limousine,” recalls Takanaka. “We were driving a Rover.”

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:50 am

Hoppers review – fun Pixar flick about a teen trying to talk to the animals and save them from an evil developer

Sprightly animation about a student’s attempt to stop the destruction of a woodland leans into Disney’s love of anthropomorphism and riffs amusingly on Avatar

Writer-director Daniel Chong brings us a witty, sprightly family animation, co-produced by Pixar veteran Pete Docter and co-written by Jesse Andrews, who may conceivably have supplied quite a bit of the punching-up and the funny incidental lines. In its modest, insouciant way, it is about protecting the environment, and riffs amusingly on films such as Avatar (there’s some amusing preemptive material about it not being like Avatar, but it is, especially at the end) as well as Inception, The Lion King and Dr Dolittle. It’s also about Disney anthropomorphism generally: the great mystery of what it must be like to be an animal and the human yearning to communicate and empathise with them.

Mabel, voiced by Piper Curda, is a teenager who lives with her grandma (the absence of her mom is slightly skated over) and learns from this wise older person the importance of loving nature, particularly the peaceful woodland glade near their house – and the associated importance of acceptance and forgiveness for people that you maybe don’t get along with. But when the evil Mayor Jerry (voiced by Jon Hamm) says he intends to destroy this glade to make way for a freeway, Mabel realises that the only way to stop him legally is to repopulate the glade with the beavers and other animals who have mysteriously vanished.

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘I watched it endlessly as a teen’: why Mrs Doubtfire is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers singling out their go-to comfort watches is a look back at a complicated comedy showcase for Robin Williams

I can’t think of another film that pulls at my heartstrings while making me chuckle as reliably as Mrs Doubtfire does. It has that rare tonal elasticity: genuine sadness, even grief, followed almost immediately by absurdity and welcome comic relief. You might feel your throat tighten one minute, only to find yourself laughing out loud the next. Few films manage that without emotional whiplash, but this one does it with warmth.

I watched it endlessly as a teenager on video tape on a tiny TV in my bedroom as I grappled with the peculiarities of my own ultimately loving family life. I adored Mrs Doubtfire for the obvious reasons: all of Robin Williams’s voices, the slapstick and the sheer range of comedic force that the late actor unleashes.

Published: March 2, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Some parents said they’d break my knees’: the teacher who exposed Putin’s primary school propaganda

Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework. Pavel Talankin’s undercover film about his school’s indoctrination drive won a Bafta and is tipped for an Oscar, but has left him in exile

In order to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary in which many of them have starring roles, pupils at Karabash School No 1 have had to source bootlegged copies, viewing the film in private, on their phones or their laptops.

Last week’s Bafta best documentary win for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been studiously ignored by Russian state media, and the prize the film won at Sundance last year was also met with silence. Staff at the school and government officials in the Kremlin seem united in their desire to pretend that they know nothing about the film.

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Photophobia review – down in the Kharkiv rail tunnels with a 12-year-old as the bloodshed rages overhead

Warmly observed documentary follows Nikita, confined with thousands of others to the Ukrainian city’s metro as war goes on above ground

While war rages on, hope continues to take root underground in Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík’s moving documentary. Shot in the Kharkiv metro in Ukraine, the film follows Nikita, a spirited 12-year-old, during his daily routines in what has become a cavernous bomb shelter. Seeking refuge from the endless bombing and shelling, thousands call the metro their new home, bringing with them the barest of necessities. Lit by stark fluorescent lights, this subterranean hideout has no sunlight, yet it glows with the warmth of camaraderie and community.

Often at Nikita’s eye level, the camera observes the metro through his gaze. An air of precariousness and danger hangs in the air, as the inhabitants speak of food scarcity, illnesses caused by prolonged confinement and the bloodshed that occurs just above ground. With its echoing tunnels, abandoned carriages and wartime messages blasting through intercom speakers, the metro resembles a sci-fi dystopia; like Nikita, however, Photophobia searches for small joys in times of darkness. Though both have experienced unimaginable loss and trauma, Nikita and his new friend Vika make up their own adventures and in these moments of play are allowed to be children again.

Published: March 2, 2026, 9:00 am

How Courtney Barnett made her new album by retreating to the desert: ‘It nearly drove me mad’

After closing her scene-making record label and moving to the US, Barnett decamped to Joshua Tree – where she learned to slow down and make noise again

In the early months of 2024, Courtney Barnett was living in the kind of limbo that usually precedes a major psychic shift. The Grammy-nominated Australian musician was bouncing between sublets as a transplant to Los Angeles – a city she still navigates via a mental map of Melbourne, the place that made her: “Silver Lake is kind of like Collingwood,” she says, laughing. She was simultaneously winding down Milk! Records, the independent label she co-founded more than a decade earlier, and writing her fourth record. Her head was spinning.

“It felt like the end of a chapter, and then the next chapter kind of began without me totally realising.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:52 pm

Bon appétit! Celebrity pals pop round for lunch: best podcasts of the week

Joanna Page and her Gavin & Stacey on-screen husband Mathew Horne host a foodie podcast for celebs. Plus, Love Islanders Molly Smith and Tom Clare take over the reins from Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo

One for the Gavin & Stacey fans, as Joanna Page and her on-screen husband Mathew Horne are reunited for a foodie podcast. It’s a familiar format: they invite two celebrity friends for lunch (courtesy of Good Food) and a light natter about things such as the Jaffa Cakes biscuit/cake debate. Page is on top form with first guests, wine lovers Gary Barlow and Olly Smith: “I know nothing about wine; I’m from Swansea, I was brought up with White Lightning.” Hollie Richardson
Widely available, episodes weekly

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I never had those deep chats in the smoking area’: Arlo Parks on embracing late night life with her hedonistic new album

In her teens, the Mercury prize-winning musician was stuck on tour buses when she should have been on the dancefloor. Now she is throwing herself into club culture – and living on her own terms

Until only a few years ago, Arlo Parks had never been clubbing. The lack of a party phase makes sense when you consider that while most of her friends were decamping to university at 18, Parks was busy bagging a record deal, releasing her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, a few months after her 20th birthday. “It’s something that I almost didn’t have time to think about,” she says, speaking from LA, where she has lived since 2022, and where she feels very much at home. (This morning has already consisted of gymming and a walk in 28-degree sunshine that’s as bright as her neon-red hair.) “But I definitely did come to the conclusion that I had missed out – I hadn’t really had the time to be silly and have crazy, deep conversations in the smoking area. To be in an anonymous space and feel like you’re part of this whole.”

Now 25, she has very much made up for lost time with her third album, Ambiguous Desire – a paean to the night-time, which fuses elements of house, techno, UK garage and more with Parks’s celestial, feather-light vocals. While she hasn’t ditched the guitars altogether, it’s a long way from where we were when we first met Parks, born Anaïs Marinho, back in 2018. Fresh out of sixth form, where she had honed her craft via GarageBand, hers was a confessional, clear-eyed strain of alt-pop, with influences that ranged from Nick Cave to Erykah Badu. Before long, she had signed with an agent and nabbed that aforementioned record deal with Transgressive, fuelled by youthful chutzpah rather than any nepo connections. While her songs were often laced with perfectly curated cultural callbacks (“You do your eyes like Robert Smith,” she cooed on Black Dog), she didn’t shy away from singing about mental health, romantic rejection or drug abuse. One of the top comments on the YouTube video for her early single Eugene reads: “It’s so undignified for a 51-year-old bloke to be crying on a train about a song but here I am.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 10:00 am

‘By 18 I was having sex to the music of Brian Eno’: Tim Booth’s honest playlist

The James frontman fell for Leonard Cohen as a child and would do Val Doonican at karaoke. But which singer taught him that ‘music could be medicine’?

The first song I fell in love with
My older sister, Penny, played me So Long, Marianne by Leonard Cohen when I was eight, like some kind of initiation, to say: “Now this is a real poet.” It felt like contraband and so different to all the pop flotsam I had heard in my otherwise white, suburban upbringing, and gave me a taste of adult romantic relationships that a child could not possibly understand. I love my sister and I wanted to impress her.

The first single I bought
I was given WH Smith tokens as a child, so I must have used the bloody things. When I was 15, I ordered Hey Joe/Radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith through the post and would play it like it was the word of God.

Published: March 1, 2026, 9:00 am

The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain review – virtuoso portrait of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath’s final year

Portraying the breakdown of the couple’s marriage through the eyes of the people around them, this deeply researched and utterly convincing debut is an astonishing achievement

Set in the early 1960s, The Daffodil Days tells the story of a couple who move from London to the countryside, have a second child and attempt to settle there, but then, their marriage in tatters, move away again. Instead of describing the couple directly we glimpse them through the eyes of the people around them, from the village doctor, their charlady and various neighbours, to friends, colleagues and visitors, offering the reader vignettes drawn from varying distances and perspectives. Although it is not mentioned in the book’s jacket copy, the couple in question are Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; eight weeks after the period described in the novel, Plath, having returned to London, would take her own life.

During their time in Devon, from 1961–2, Plath completed The Bell Jar, gave birth to a son, Nicholas, at home, and wrote the poems that would be posthumously published as Ariel; Hughes began his affair with Assia Wevill, which Plath quickly discovered. Given that the couple’s lives provide the source material for an entire cottage industry, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was little left to say about their time in Devon that has not already been said; but by coming at its subject from the viewpoints of others, this virtuoso, deeply researched and utterly convincing debut achieves something quite extraordinary. At points, the experience of reading it feels very close to time travel: Yes, you think, as you watch Plath sitting with her daughter Frieda on her lap in the garden, or having her thumb stitched up by the local GP, or glimpse her getting up to write at 4am: that is just how it must have been.

Published: March 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Becoming George by Fiona Sampson review – the remarkable story of a cross-dressing 19th century novelist

A reappraisal of one of literature’s most sensational personalities, the author of more than 70 books

If we really are in a reading crisis – whether you blame TikTok or podcasts – it stands to reason that, of all the genres, literary biography might have particular cause to fear for its life: who wants the life story of somebody whose books no one reads?

Such anxiety, justified or not, can be heard jangling away in the background amid some of the noisier claims made by Fiona Sampson at the start of her new biography of the pseudonymous 19th-century author George Sand, “one of the most famous writers in the world, at a time when books had something of the glamour that would later surround, say, Hollywood movies”. Best known for the 1832 novel Indiana, whose eponymous young heroine walks out on a loveless age-gap marriage, Sand’s life “reveals … the nature of all lives as self-invention”, not least because she scandalously wore trousers: “by suiting up as a garçon she was, criss-cross, acknowledging that to be a writing woman is a little off-centre: is queer,” writes Sampson, calling Sand “one of the boldest precursors of that perhaps final hope modernity holds out: that we might choose what we become”.

Published: March 2, 2026, 9:00 am

Brave, visionary and queer: the Bohemian brilliance of author George Sand

With her radical politics and flamboyant affairs, Sand was no stranger to controversy, but it’s time to debunk the myths surrounding a writer ahead of her time

It would be hard to find a more courageous and perverse, iconic yet controversial figure in European literary history than George Sand. One of the great romantics, she helped transform culture, and her writing shifted social attitudes in ways we still benefit from. Victor Hugo called her “an immortal”; Gustave Flaubert, “one of the great figures of France”. Matthew Arnold said she was “the greatest spirit in our European world [since] Goethe”.

The 150th anniversary of her death this year is a chance to revisit her extraordinary achievements and legacy. But to do that we need to debunk some of the myths that surround this pioneering ecological, feminist and republican writer.

Published: March 1, 2026, 1:08 pm

Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion and The Terror, dies aged 77

Award-winning science fiction and horror writer died in Colorado on 21 February with family at his side

Dan Simmons, the author of more than 30 novels and short story collections spanning horror, political thrillers and science fiction such as Hyperion and The Terror, has died at age 77.

Simmons died in Longmont, Colorado on 21 February, with his wife and daughter at his side, his obituary announced.

Published: March 2, 2026, 3:14 am

Christina Applegate on life with multiple sclerosis: ‘I won’t lie and say any of this is a blessing’

When the Emmy-winning comedy star was diagnosed, her body started giving up on her. She writes about losing control, gaining weight – and refusing to be a ‘good girl’

In 2021 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. MS attacks your nervous system and slows down your functions – your respiratory system, your organs, everything. The disease eats away at all the things we take for granted. Some of us with MS have a raft of pain; some don’t. I have a lot of it. When I wake up, I often can’t get my arm to move far enough to grab the cup of water by my bed or my phone from its charger. I have infusions every six months to slow the disease’s progress, but those infusions kill all my B cells [a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies], making me prone to infection. My stomach frequently slows to a halt, leaving me to rush to the emergency room in agony. Most days, simply walking across the room feels like scaling a mountain.

One of the worst side-effects of the illness is the exhaustion. It feels as though I’ve been on a three‑day sleepless bender – and that’s how I feel after a good night’s sleep. Hence all the time I spend on and in bed, snuggled up against my heating pad. On the back of that diagnosis and the symptoms I face, I no longer care what I say or how I come across or how it makes anyone feel. I don’t have patience for bullshit any more, for things that are meaningless or merely “extra”. And it’s not just because I’m no longer working. Sure, there’s no one breathing down my neck to represent their business or movie or TV show, things I’ve had to represent, usually willingly and passionately, for almost 50 years. It goes deeper. I’ve become an honesty missile. When your physical situation deteriorates, and your life shrinks to the size of a king-sized bed, suddenly all the things you thought were important shift, too. The truth clarifies, like a camera lens slowly focusing.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

£12m for a Pokémon card? If you’re not in the game you’re missing a trick

The record sum paid at auction for a rare example is part of a boom in trading cards – and the prices can be staggering

For £12m, you could buy a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north London, or a Bugatti La Voiture Noire, one of the world’s most coveted sports cars, with a few hundred thousand quid to spare. Alternatively, you could blow it all on a Pokémon card.

This is what AJ Scaramucci, son of financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, did earlier this month when he bought the world’s only Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator card, one of the rarest and most coveted Pokémon cards ever, at auction. The seller, YouTuber, wrestler and occasional boxer Logan Paul, made a mighty profit after flipping the card for about £8m more than the £3.9m he originally paid for it in 2021.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Should you overshare more?

We may cringe at influencers and friends who let it all hang out, but research shows that keeping quiet might be worse

Do you recoil at oversharers on social media, or joke among your friends about “TMI”? I know I do. But while mocking public confession comes easy, it’s harder to appreciate the risks of normalising silence: withheld anxieties, unspoken family histories, and the little omissions that make workplaces and relationships brittle. The instinct to pour scorn on “attention seekers” may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment.

For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don’t put your passwords in a document, don’t take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don’t broadcast things you can’t take back. I was a walking contradiction, though. Privately, I did online quizzes for fun. I kept a notepad of passwords on my desktop. I knew the rules and, like many of us, I broke them.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

There’s a lot to hate about AI. But what if there was a mindful way to use it?

Our new free course AI for the People will show you practical ways to work with AI –without giving up judgment, privacy or your humanity

• Sign up for AI for the People, a six-week newsletter course, here

Published: March 2, 2026, 11:00 am

‘You know when you’ve hit it – it’s a transformation’: Ruth E Carter on building the bold world of Sinners

The two-time Oscar winner on dressing Michael B Jordan’s twin antiheroes, her start with Spike Lee and crafting the period detail of Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending epic

Ruth E Carter’s costumes were a crucial part of establishing the identities of the two identical twins, both played by Michael B Jordan, in multi-Oscar-nominated Sinners. Particularly the hats. One brother, Stack, wore a red fedora. The other brother, Smoke, wore a blue newsboy flat cap. Finding the hats was a critical moment in the film’s backstory. When director Ryan Coogler first saw Jordan try on Stack’s red fedora, bought by Carter in Los Angeles’s Melrose Avenue, “he was like – that’s it. Then he goes up into the rest of the office, and people are coming down, like, ‘Ryan’s talking upstairs about a red hat?’ You know when you’ve hit it – it’s a transformation.”

This is just a small example of the canny period world-building that has made Carter the most-garlanded Black woman in Oscars history, and the owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (her family were in attendance, she says, of its Covid-era unveiling, while Oprah and Eddie Murphy dialled in via Zoom). Her work on Coogler’s genre-squashing, Jim Crow-era drama, which has gained a record-breaking 16 Oscar nods, has landed a fifth nomination for the two-time Oscar winner (she is, according to a poll by Variety, a favourite in the category). Among her starry upcoming projects: a biopic of the pioneering Black fashion designer, Ann Lowe – designer of Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress – which she will produce alongside Serena Williams.

Published: March 2, 2026, 9:00 am

A non-toxic cooking pan and a $7 hand cream: 11 things you loved in February

From a fluffy bath towel to a hot pot routine at home – these are the products you fell head over heels for last month

• The seven best non-toxic cooking pans in the US

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Everyone has a different love language. And here at the Filter, ours comes in the form of really good product recommendations. Forget roses and Hershey’s chocolate; we adore nothing more than helping you purchase fewer and better things.

Last month, we played matchmaker for the most romantic time of year, introducing you to products we hoped you’d fall head over heels for – including a face mask for achieving the coveted glass skin look and a fluffy bath towel to elevate your post-shower routine.

Published: March 1, 2026, 3:15 pm

Less waste and fewer dishes: these glass food containers changed how I store leftovers

Don’t let leftovers languish in the fridge. These oven, microwave and freezer-safe glass containers from Anyday will help you waste less food – and cut back on dirty dishes

• The seven best non-toxic cooking pans in the US

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

When I cook for my family, I always pack up leftover food with the best of intentions, and remnants of a weeknight meal generally get eaten within a day or two. Large spreads, however, are a different story.

In the past, I would stuff what was left from a large dinner or party into the biggest air-tight containers they required, then cram them all into my fridge, full-well believing my kids and I would live off of those leftovers for the better part of a week.

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

Published: March 2, 2026, 2:54 pm

This is how we do it: ‘We schedule sex ahead – being organised has reaped massive dividends’

Being spontaneous is overrated, say Mia and Elijah, who find timetabling sex means it never gets forgotten

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

OK, you’re volunteering on Tuesday, and I’m going fishing on Thursday, so we’re going to have sex on Monday and Friday

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

My best friend’s ex is turning my partner against her. How can we heal our friendship group? | Annalisa Barbieri

Things will get better in time, but it’s not your responsibility to resolve this

I’ve been best friends with Ellie [all names have been changed] for more than half my life. She’s truly one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I started dating Will three years ago, and we have a good relationship. Ellie was in a long-term relationship with Tim for five years, and for two of those years the four of us were a little friendship group. Six months ago, Ellie and Tim broke up, which really shook our group dynamic. Our larger, mixed-gender friendship circle has now split a bit into “boys v girls”. I still see Tim as he and Will are good friends, but it’s awkward.

The issue is that Tim has been confiding in Will about the breakup. Tim has a lot of anger towards Ellie and it’s causing Will to dislike her too. Ellie and Tim weren’t right for each other and probably should have broken up sooner. Ellie wasn’t a great girlfriend to Tim, but there was no cheating or abuse, just two people who didn’t work well together.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Muslim women are not afraid to be seen’ – the power of the printed hijab

At London fashion week models wore headscarves adorned with jewellery, and brands like Vela are leading the change online. For gen Z Muslim women, bolder designs are making a break from darker colours

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There’s a common sentiment among my hijab-wearing friends: a plain black headscarf is the equivalent of putting your hair in a slickback bun. A slickback bun is classic, timeless and polished – it can go with almost anything.

But, it can also look a little tired. I love bold prints, and it isn’t just me. A friend of mine gravitates toward leopard prints and pashmina-style scarves, a nod to her Kashmiri heritage. And it’s not only an aesthetic choice – for many hijab-wearing women, patterned scarves feel like a push against the idea that Muslim women should blend in.

Published: March 2, 2026, 6:45 am

Silvana Armani emphasises softness and wearability in Milan solo debut

Late designer’s niece opts for natural womenswear look after Bottega Veneta features swishy yeti coats in faux fur

Does it matter who designs women’s clothes? Silvana Armani – niece of the late Giorgio, creative director of womenswear and one of the few women in charge of a fashion house – thinks so.

“The way women and men relate to their bodies is different, which affects the design process. Dressing a woman is more complex than dressing a man,” she said before her first solo show on the last day of Milan fashion week. “Yet, as a woman, you know your body. You try things on and notice if a jacket’s length is off, adjusting it as necessary.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 4:05 pm

Touch, sound and style: how London fashion week is opening up to visually impaired guests – photo essay

From live audio descriptions to fabric swatch booklets, designers including Chet Lo are rethinking the catwalk experience for blind and low-vision clothes-lovers

‘If you put your hands out and run your fingers along this skirt, you’ll feel that there are soft feathers appliquéd on to it,” says the fashion designer Chet Lo. “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.

Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Did you solve it? You won’t believe these optical illusions!

A magician reveals his visual tricks

Earlier today I posted five optical illusions by Olivier Redon, a French-American inventor. Here they are again – with demonstrations of how he created the effects.

Three of the images are inspired by the Necker cube, a two-dimensional drawing of a cube that can be understood in two ways: either with the bottom left face at the front, or the top right face at the front. Once your eyes settle on one interpretation, it is hard to see the other.

Published: March 2, 2026, 4:56 pm

‘People think you’re old if you need a hearing aid’: Pete Tong on ageing, all-nighters and hearing loss

He helped bring dance music to the mainstream, was a staple of the 90s Ibiza scene and at 65 still DJs on Radio 1. But all those hours in the club have come at a cost. Here, he talks survival, selling out and why he’s secretly quite shy

‘I’m of an era, really, where nobody ever got old,” says Pete Tong with a smile. Certainly not in the rave scene. “When you start, you never think you’re going to be doing it for that long. But then, equally, you don’t think it’s going to only be for, like, two years or 10 years. You just don’t think about it.” The dawn of dance music in the 80s was far too exciting to worry about when the party might end – and there is no sign it is about to. Tong is still presenting his BBC Radio 1 dance music show 35 years later, as well as running a record label. Last year, he says, he had more gigs than he has for ages.

Tong, who is 65, was talking to fellow DJ and longtime friend Carl Cox (63) about it the other day. “We’re just so blessed and lucky to still be doing it – being able to play music to people and doing what we loved as kids.”

Published: March 2, 2026, 5:00 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Harvey, the most human of cats who helped me through grief and illness

He could use door handles and steal catnip from the kitchen cupboards. And, when I became very unwell, he would pace around me like a doctor on call

Harvey came into our lives during a year of loss. It was 2004, and my grandmother had just died, quickly followed by our beloved cat Skeet (Manx English for “nosy”). With the family thrown into mourning, the house became eerily quiet and still, and my mother was grieving.

I was only 11, and did not know how to take care of her, but I did know that we needed the chaos and joy of a new cat. We found Harvey at the local cattery on the Isle of Man: he sat squeezed at the back of his pen, looking curiously at us with enormous, owl-like eyes. My mother smiled for the first time in months. We knew he was the cat for us.

Published: March 2, 2026, 10:00 am

He broke the story of the US Catholic clergy abuse scandal. Now he reflects on struggling to keep his faith

A reporter ponders on how to repair a religious structure long thought of as good but supported by an evil underside

In 1965, just shy of my junior year at the Jesuit high school of New Orleans, with good potential as an offensive end, I had an epiphany in the muddy slog of August football practice: Why are you doing something you don’t like?

Soon after, I quit, and was trailed by guilt for a dereliction of duty. Jesuit vaunted student achievements of all kinds. I played on the golf team and did some pieces for the school paper. Jesuit fostered a fraternal culture, molding friendships I carry to this day.

Published: March 1, 2026, 12:00 pm

Savannah Guthrie may never know what happened to her loved one. In the US, she’s not alone

Thousands go missing every year, including more than 5,000 Native American and Alaska Native women and girls

Savannah Guthrie could be moving back to New York to resume anchoring NBC’s Today show and acknowledging that her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, may not be found a month after she disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the middle of the night.

“We still believe in a miracle,” Guthrie said in a video last week announcing a $1m reward for her mother’s return in an enduring mystery that has gripped the US for four weeks. “We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone.”

Published: March 1, 2026, 11:00 am

An ugly year for the Louvre: where does the world’s biggest museum go from here?

After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation

Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.

Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.

Published: March 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Tell us: how have you been affected by the latest events in the Middle East?

If you’re living or working in the region and have been impacted by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, we would like to hear from you

• US-Israel war on Iran: latest updates

In a statement posted to social media, the Israel Defense Forces says it is now striking “targets” of the Iranian “regime in the heart of Tehran”.

Iran has launched a new round of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and several Gulf cities, after vowing retaliation for the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled the country since 1989.

Published: March 1, 2026, 10:14 am

Rembrandt discovery and Iran conflict: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: March 2, 2026, 12:43 pm