Bad Bunny and jingoism lite: was this the Super Bowl where woke roared back?

The NFL appeared keen to welcome the sport’s non-Maga contingent back into the tent. But the theater and violence of capitalism was still there

Roger Federer smiling wolfishly to the crowd: a return to woke? Adam Sandler hangdog in the Levi’s Stadium stands, Jon Bon Jovi mooching on the sideline like a retired dentist on a cruise, Billie Joe Armstrong belting out American Idiot during the pre-game show under his motionless meringue of fogey-blond hair: were they a sign? A New England Patriots team who were neither favored to win nor widely reviled, then promptly repaid a grateful public by losing: was this the Super Bowl which proved that history really can move on, that America is not fated to remain hostage to the tremors and hatreds of the past? Well, yes and no.

A year after Donald Trump made American football’s showpiece all about him, Sunday’s game in Santa Clara always promised a sort of correction – a cooling of the mood, perhaps even an end to the manipulation of sport for political ends. As always the best way to gauge the success of this mission was as the gods intended: through a TV screen. Trump – saddled with historically low approval ratings, facing a massacre in this year’s midterms, and no doubt wary of risking a public appearance in the deep blue sea of the Bay Area – was absent on this occasion, and he kept the F-22 fighter jets that were scheduled to be part of the pre-game flyover away from Levi’s Stadium too. (Unspecified “operational assignments” were the reason offered for the jets’ withdrawal, which means there’s probably a low-ranking member of the Trump administration putting big money on a US military strike somewhere in Latin America as we speak.) And yet, the absent autocrat still weighed on proceedings, his curdling influence turning every moment and gesture on Sunday into a referendum on the prospects for a post-Trumpian sporting future. Could football be normal again?

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:23 pm

Wuthering Heights review: too hot, too greedy adaptation guarantees bad dreams in the night

Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi but makes the most of Martin Clunes

Emerald Fennell cranks up the campery as she reinvents Emily Brontë’s tale of Cathy and Heathcliff on the windswept Yorkshire moor as a 20-page fashion shoot of relentless silliness, with bodices ripped to shreds and a saucy slap of BDSM. Margot Robbie’s Cathy at one stage secretly heads off to the moor for a hilarious bit of self-pleasuring – although, sadly, there are no audaciously intercut scenes of thirst-trap Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi, simultaneously doing the same thing in the stable, while muttering gruffly in that Yerrrrrkshire accent of his.

This then is Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, or rather “Wuthering Heights”; the title archly appears in inverted commas, although the postmodern irony seems pointless. Cathy is a primped belle quivering in the presence of Heathcliff, who himself is a moody, long-haired, bearded outsider, as if Scarlett O’Hara were going to melt into the arms of Charles Manson. However, he does get substantially Darcyfied up later on, rocking a shorter and more winsome hairstyle, his gossamer-thin shirt never dry.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 pm

The Minnesotans trapped at home, too terrified of ICE to go outside: ‘Our house is like a jail’

The surge of federal immigration agents has forced many families to remain inside for weeks, living in fear of roving ICE patrols snatching people off the street

José hasn’t left his house in Saint Paul for 29 days – not to shovel the snow at his driveway, not to fix up the car.

When the car needed an oil change, he video-called his wife, Sara, from inside so he could walk her through it. “I’ve only been from the bedroom to the living room,” he said. He’s afraid to even get near the front door.

Published: February 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

From Spielberg to Tarantino: the year’s big Super Bowl movie trailers

This year’s set of $8m TV spots gave us new looks at alien conspiracy thriller Disclosure Day, slasher sequel Scream 7 and an unlikely new David Fincher film

• Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show review – a thrilling ode to Boricua joy

With Super Bowl spots now up to a reported $8-10m, the market has grown a little less welcoming to Hollywood, an industry still not quite up to pre-pandemic numbers (the global box office for 2025 was down almost $10bn on 2019).

So while last night saw us assaulted with ads for beer and, depressingly, AI, there was a continued decrease in the number of major film ads, a harder spend to justify in this weakened climate. But the biggest of guns still came out, from Spielberg to Ghostface to the Minions …

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:49 pm

How a decades-old video game has helped me defeat the doomscroll

Trading social media for Pokémon battles and evolutions in Kanto on a Game Boy Advance has been surprisingly serene

Cutting back on doomscrolling must be one of the hardest new year resolutions to keep. Instinctively tapping on the usual suspects on your phone’s home screen becomes a reflex, and vast quantities of money and user data have been specifically employed to keep you reaching for the phone, ingraining it into our work, leisure and social lives. You’ll get no shame from me if you love your phone and have a healthy relationship with your apps, but I’ve found myself struggling lately.

This year, I’m attempting to cut back on screen time – sort of. I’m replacing the sleek oblong of my smartphone with something a little more fuzzy and nostalgic. In an attempt to dismantle my bad habit, I’m closing the feeds of instant updates and instead carrying around a Game Boy Advance. I’ve been playing Pokémon FireRed, a remake of the very first Pokémon games, which turn 30 this month. Even this refreshed version is more than two decades old.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:29 pm

My rookie era: on my first ski trip, I felt like a natural – then I was rapidly humbled by the mountain

I was a ski god. An avalanche. I was starting to think about the Olympics. Darude’s Sandstorm was playing in my head. Then wham, bam, stacked it

• Read more summer essentials

Twenty hot lesbians in a cabin in the snow. It sounds like a budget porn plot from the 70s, but it was the pitch my sister gave when she convinced me to try out skiing for the first time.

I am not a sports dyke. I am a like-to-read-books-and-sit-in-saunas dyke.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

RFK Jr misled Senate during confirmation, Congress members and Hawaii governor say

Newly revealed emails undermine Kennedy’s testimony about 2019 Samoa trip ahead of deadly measles outbreak

Three members of Congress say the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during his Senate confirmation hearings in response to newly revealed emails that undermine his testimony that a trip he took to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

The governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the crisis, also spoke out – saying that the disclosure of the emails by the Guardian and the Associated Press show Kennedy misled the Senate and that he should step down.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:23 pm

Ghislaine Maxwell’s refusal to answer questions before Congress draws criticism: ‘Who is she protecting?’

Democratic representative says Epstein associate’s decision to invoke fifth amendment points to ‘White House cover-up’

Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions during a closed-door congressional deposition on Monday, prompting criticism from a House representative backing efforts to release Jeffrey Epstein investigative files.

Robert Garcia, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, said in a statement that Maxwell invoked the fifth amendment and refused to testify during her scheduled deposition. Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, also said that she invoked her fifth amendment right.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:41 pm

Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months

Seamus Culleton has lived in US for two decades, married a citizen and runs a plastering business but faces deportation

• US politics live – latest updates

An Irish man has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.

Seamus Culleton was a “model immigrant” who had become the victim of a capricious and inept system, said his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:04 pm

Prominent Venezuelan opposition politician detained hours after release

Prosecutor claims Juan Pablo Guanipa was re-arrested due to non-compliance with terms of release

One of Venezuela’s most prominent opposition politicians, Juan Pablo Guanipa, has been detained by security forces just hours after being released from prison, as the South American country’s leaders sent mixed signals about their commitment to political reform after Nicolás Maduro’s downfall.

Guanipa, who is a close ally of the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado, emerged from nearly nine months’ detention on Sunday – one of at least 35 political prisoners to be freed over the course of the day.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:27 pm

Air Canada cancels all flights to Cuba as US oil blockade cuts off fuel access

Airlines from as far away as Russia, China and Spain have also been affected as island nation warns of fuel shortage

Air Canada has cancelled all flights to Cuba after the island’s authorities said they were running out of aviation fuel, as a consequence of the US oil blockade on the Caribbean country.

The airline, one of a dozen who serve the island, said it would begin repatriating 3,000 customers. Cuba’s beaches are a major holiday draw for Canadian tourists in winter, and one of the government’s most important sources of hard currency.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘Made me feel proudly American’: stars react to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show

While Trump has attacked the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican star, celebrities have come out in force to support the half-time show

As blue, red and white fireworks filled the sky at the end of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show, a message filled the screen in all capitals: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

It was the enduring statement from a 13-minute spectacle that invited an estimated 135.4 million viewers into Bad Bunny’s world, with richly textured references to politics, history and Puerto Rican culture. The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio transformed the pitch of the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, into his own love letter to the island, with cinematic set pieces including sugarcane fields, a house party, and a lively wedding ceremony featuring a surprise performance by Lady Gaga.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:48 pm

Arrested journalist Don Lemon urges US to ‘keep fighting’ for right to free press

Ex-CNN anchor arrested after covering anti-ICE protest says it was ‘very frightening’ to experience official overreach

The former CNN anchor Don Lemon has warned the US must “keep fighting” for its right to a free press, calling it “the breath in the lungs of democracy” following his arrest alongside another journalist by the Trump administration.

Lemon was arrested late last month, days after covering an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:56 pm

Starmer tells Labour MPs he is ‘not prepared to walk away’ after call for him to resign – UK politics live

Prime minister addresses parliamentary Labour party amid Mandelson scandal fallout

• Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar calls on Keir Starmer to stand down

Tim Allan said he was standing down to allow Keir Starmer the opportunity to build a new team.

In a statement, he said:

I have decided to stand down to allow a new No 10 team to be built.

I wish the PM and his team every success.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:54 pm

‘She’s a grown woman’: skiers defend Lindsey Vonn’s decision to race despite crash

• American was competing with ruptured ACL

• Vonn fractured leg after crashing in Sunday’s race

Lindsey Vonn’s fellow skiers have defended her decision to compete in the women’s downhill at the Winter Olympics while dealing with a ruptured ACL.

The American crashed out early in her run on Sunday. She suffered a fractured leg and was airlifted from the course. Some users on social media said she should not have been racing only a week after injuring her knee. But those who know the risks of skiing best supported Vonn’s decision.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:27 pm

Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood demand Phantom Thread music removed from Melania film

Director and composer of 2017 drama allege breach of agreement after score reused in controversial documentary

Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, the director and composer, respectively, for Phantom Thread, have requested that music from the 2017 film be removed from the controversial new documentary on Melania Trump.

“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” the pair said in a statement to Variety. “While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:27 pm

Ofcom under fire after refusing to investigate ‘misleading’ GB News Trump interview

US president not challenged over false claims climate change is ‘hoax’ and parts of London have sharia law

The UK’s media regulator Ofcom has been accused of abandoning “any pretence” of guarding against misleading and biased television coverage, after it refused to investigate a series of complaints about a GB News interview with Donald Trump.

During the interview with the rightwing network, broadcast last November, the US president falsely claimed human-induced climate change was “a hoax” and that London had no-go areas for police. He said parts of the capital had “sharia law”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:57 pm

Sony Pictures chief calls racist Trump video ‘despicable’ in rare intervention

Tom Rothman, CEO of the major Hollywood film studio, described a clip depicting the Obamas that was posted on Truth Social as ‘regressive’

In a highly unusual intervention, Hollywood studio chief Tom Rothman has described Donald Trump’s posting of a racist video featuring former US president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as “despicable”.

The remarks were reported by the Hollywood Reporter, and were made when Rothman was speaking at the African American Film Critics Association awards ceremony, where he accepted the Impact award on behalf of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, of which Rothman is chair and CEO.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:36 pm

World’s largest pencil maker accuses Costa Rica of misusing old factory as detention center

Faber-Castell says it was unaware its facility was being used to detain asylum seekers deported by the Trump administration

The world’s largest pencil maker has accused the Costa Rican government of misusing an old factory that the German manufacturer donated for humanitarian purposes – by detaining asylum seekers there who were deported from the US by the Trump administration last year.

Faber-Castell produces more than 2bn wooden pencils a year worldwide and used to have a factory in the southern part of Costa Rica, bordering Panama and supplied by trees cultivated in the region.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:00 pm

These are the high schoolers taking a stand against ICE: ‘You can’t let despair take over’

Thousands of students across the US have been walking out of their schools to protest ICE in their communities

Over the past six months, thousands of students have been walking out of their schools in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) presence in their communities. Some of their schools supported the protests; some didn’t, threatening disciplinary action. Other schools stayed neutral out of fear of inviting unwanted attention to vulnerable immigrant students.

The Guardian spoke to seven teenagers who led or participated in school walkouts. Many said their organizing went beyond leaving class, extending to checking social media for suspected ICE sightings, distributing “know your rights” materials and making political posters. All were resolute about the need to protest against ICE regardless of any risk – and whether or not they got support from the grownups around them.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:00 pm

Jimmy Lai: will Hong Kong media tycoon die in jail? | The Latest

The media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences. His family has described the sentence as ‘heartbreakingly cruel’, given the 78-year-old’s declining health. Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, after pleading not guilty to all charges.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:07 pm

Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?

Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet. Can the two be decoupled?

During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.

Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO₂ as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

Ultrarunners in secondhand trainers: the rickshaw drivers taking on the world’s toughest races – photo essay

Members of an athletics club in Madagascar formed by rickshaw drivers are now beating elite athletes in international endurance events

It is a fiercely competitive market, and one of the toughest physical jobs in Madagascar’s Antsirabe, but over the past five years cycle rickshaw driver Haja Nirina has honed his athletic prowess alongside his business.

In this city, about 100 miles (160km) south of the capital, Antananarivo, there are more than 4,000 rickshaws for a population of 265,000, the cheapest transport available for people and goods. Some are pulled by cycles, others by hand. Each day, Nirina makes between 10 and 15 trips, making 10,000 to 15,000 ariary (£1.70 to £2.60). Unlike 99% of drivers, Nirina doesn’t lose 5,000 ariary of his income paying a daily rental fee for the rickshaw. For the past three years, he has owned his, thanks to a programme run by his local athletic club.

The chaotic streets of Antsirabe, where the rickshaw drivers vie for trade

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

‘A beaver blind date’: animals given freedom to repopulate Cornish rivers

Release into Helman Tor reserve marks historical first for keystone species hunted to extinction in UK 400 years ago

Shivering and rain-drenched at the side of a pond in Cornwall, a huddle of people watched in hushed silence as a beaver took its first tentative steps into its new habitat. As it dived into the water with a determined “plop” and began swimming laps, the suspense broke and everyone looked around, grinning.

The soggy but momentous occasion marks the first time in English history that beavers have been legally released into a river system, almost one year after the government finally agreed to grant licences for releases.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 pm

Choremancing: is this the best way to date – or the death of romance?

You could do the weekly shop on your own, or you could turn it into the ultimate compatibility test by inviting a date along. And there’s always that flatpack furniture to assemble ...

Name: Choremancing.

Age: About four months.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:18 pm

Epstein was not ostracised for his crimes. To some powerful men, he became even more appealing | Moira Donegan

The latest tranche of files expose how he was viewed as a sexual svengali – and an expert on dodging the #MeToo movement

A new tranche of Epstein files has blasted its way through the worlds of media, politics, tech, academia, finance and Hollywood. High-profile individuals have once again been forced to explain their relationship with the billionaire financier – and why exactly they sent that email, or what they were doing in that photo, in that place, at that time. There have been resignations in Norway, Slovakia, France, the UK and on Wall Street. Each individual scandal matters. But take the files as a whole and a new picture forms: of Jeffrey Epstein as a man who was seen to survive a sexual abuse scandal, and who was then feted as a sexual svengali and a valuable ally in navigating allegations of sexual abuse amid the #MeToo movement.

The 3.5m documents that have thus far been released to the public – out of a reported 6m documents pertaining to Epstein in the US justice department’s possession – paint Epstein as someone for whom elites, and particularly elite men, often felt a sense of camaraderie and affection, maintaining intimate and friendly relationships long after his 2008 conviction on child sexual abuse charges. And their content implies that, in some cases, this was not simply a case of them turning a blind eye to their friend’s sexual crimes: the powerful actively approached Epstein for sexual and romantic advice, and saw him as a thrower of “wild” parties and a listening ear in whom they could confide their anxieties about the excesses of the #MeToo movement.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Keir Starmer, you have two choices now – sort your warring party out or call an election | Ed Davey

The country just can’t afford another three and half years of this dysfunctional soap opera. I say, get a grip or get thrown out

“It’s nice, isn’t it. The quiet.” The now-infamous social media post produced by a Starmer supporters at the start of his time in office is now written only in sarcasm beside yet another terrible news headline. Rayner resigns: “Nice, isn’t it. The quiet”; Mandelson sacked: “Nice, isn’t it. The quiet”; the prime minister loses his chief of staff – you get the picture.

Around the time of that post, we had our glorious first conference in Bournemouth after winning our best election result in a century, and a prominent BBC journalist said to me: “We won’t have to cover the soap opera like before – it’s going to be about policy.” Imagine being the leader of the Liberal Democrats, known for our torrents of policy, and being told this by a BBC journalist; the phrase pig in excrement comes to mind.

Ed Davey is leader of the Liberal Democrats

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

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:52 pm

A Minnesotan nurse saved my refugee family’s life. Four decades on, we watched the news together in horror | Rathana Chea

Alex Pretti’s death in Minneapolis reveals a painful contradiction – nurses are carers in times of crisis, often invisible, yet they carry our moral compass

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Four decades ago, my parents were Cambodian refugees. As high school students, they were thrown into one of the darkest chapters of humanity’s history, surviving nearly five years in forced labour camps under the Khmer Rouge genocide. An estimated 2.7 million of my kin perished during that time. Fortunately for my family, they were accepted under Australia’s humanitarian program and arrived in Australia on 26 January, a date heavy with complexity for Australian identity, and our refugee story became another layer within it.

Our journey began when my mother discovered she was pregnant. Together with my father, they decided to flee on foot through landmine-ridden jungle toward the Thai-Cambodian border, carrying nothing but their lives and the hope that their unborn child might escape the suffering they had endured.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:11 am

France’s letters to 29-year-olds to remind them to have babies is a spectacular missing of the point | Zoe Williams

A serious plan to tackle low birthrates could include addressing the fact that if people could afford to house themselves, they might be quicker to settle down

I almost never wonder how I’d feel if I were a 29-year-old French woman. I fear the question would lead to dissatisfactions too profound (would I be eating oysters right now? Would my socks be cashmere? Would I know what existentialism meant – no, I mean really know?). This morning, however, I did stop and give it some serious thought: specifically, how would I feel if my government wrote to me, reminding me to have children? To get that letter from childless Macron would be like getting told off about your BMI by a nurse whose BMI is definitely the same as yours, if not greater: on the one hand, it’s none of your business who has kids or what anyone’s BMI is. But on the other, how about we just all keep out of each other’s business? Luckily the letter is going to be sent out by the health ministry, and say what you like about ministries, you can’t criticise their lifestyle choices.

Before you get your panties in a twist, feminists, this letter will be sent to both men and women of the 29-year-old variety, and the government underscored that “fertility is a shared responsibility between women and men” – a statement that is both true and woke (yup, I’m reclaiming “woke” to mean “things I approve”).

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

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:12 pm

I asked AI to name my wife. To the hopelessly incorrect people it cited, my deepest apologies | Martin Rowson

Authors, a newsreader, a lawyer and an esteemed colleague: they’re all great – but I’m not married to any of them. Can we really depend on this technology?

Recently, the Rowsons accidentally invented a new game that anyone can play at home. I have yet to come up with a world-beating name for it, so for now let’s just call it “How bloody stupid is AI?” The playing of the game will change from player to player, depending on their circumstances – but essentially the rules remain the same. Ask AI a simple question about yourself, and see just how wrong it gets it.

In my case, all you need know is that while I, through the nature of my job, have a fairly large online presence, my partner (we married in 1987) has assiduously avoided having one at all. Which means that if you Google “Martin Rowson wife” in images, you may get a picture of me next to our then 14-year-old daughter or me with my friend and fellow cartoonist Steven Appleby, who happens to be trans but has kept her given first name.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

The Mandelson I knew had a fatal flaw: he was a machiavellian who always cast himself as a victim | Andy McSmith

The UK’s first ‘spin doctor’ thrived because he was immensely valuable to those he served. But the strategist always felt entitled to more

Others will be shocked by his sleazy, self-regarding disloyalty and apparent lack of concern for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, but something that will puzzle people who knew Peter Mandelson is: how could he be so stupid?

Should you be thinking of stabbing a colleague in the back, and betraying your country, your government and your party – to paraphrase the prime minister – a basic precaution is not to leave an email trail. During the 2008 expenses scandal, it was the MPs who left proof of their dishonesty in emails who went to jail. I suspect many others got away with it for want of written evidence. You might think a politician so deviously clever that they call him the Prince of Darkness would know that, and not end up with police searching two of his houses.

Andy McSmith was chief press officer for the Labour party in the 1980s, and spent almost 30 years as a political journalist based in the House of Commons. His latest book, Strange People I Have Known, includes a chapter on Peter Mandelson

Published: February 9, 2026, 1:18 pm

The Guardian view on Morgan McSweeney’s resignation: Sir Keir’s premiership is on the road to nowhere | Editorial

The departure of the prime minister’s chief of staff signals the demise of the political project which put him in No 10. All bets are off now.

The Labour party spent 14 years in the wilderness, following the general election of 2010. It has taken only 18 months for the political project with which it returned to power to implode. The resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and the man credited with orchestrating his path to Downing Street, has left the prime minister isolated, rudderless and at the mercy of events he is in no position to control.

Mr McSweeney fell on his sword after taking responsibility for backing the appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador, despite what was known about the peer’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The hope, clearly, was that his departure will give the prime minister the breathing space to reset yet again. Monday’s call for Sir Keir’s own resignation by Anas Sarwar, Labour’s leader in Scotland, soon dispelled that illusion, although it also provoked a show of loyalty from cabinet colleagues.

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

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:55 pm

Jutta Leerdam’s ruthless brilliance leaves speed skating in awe and Jake Paul in tears

The Dutch star, who combines commercial visibility alongside elite results, won gold on Monday in front of a packed arena that included her influencer boyfriend

Jutta Leerdam delivered the defining race of her career on Monday night, roaring to Olympic gold in the women’s 1000m and setting a new Olympic record of 1min 12.31sec to lead a Dutch one-two and deliver the Netherlands’ first medals of the Games.

The 27-year-old finished 0.28sec ahead of compatriot Femke Kok, who had briefly held the Olympic record after clocking 1:12.59 earlier in the final group. Japan’s defending Olympic champion Miho Takagi took bronze in 1:13.95.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:09 pm

Winter Olympics: Eileen Gu expresses sympathy for Hess after Trump’s ‘loser’ attack

• Freeskier was ambivalent about representing US

• Fellow athletes defend friend after president’s attack

Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu have weighed in on Donald Trump’s attack on Hunter Hess after the freeskier said he was ambivalent about representing the US during the president’s immigration crackdown.

“I think in moments like these, it is really important for us to unite and kind of stand up for one another for all that’s going on,” said Kim, the two-time Olympic gold medalist whose parents are South Korean immigrants and who has faced racism throughout her career.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:07 pm

Winter Olympic officials to investigate why medals keep breaking

• Athletes report medals are chipped, cracked or damaged

• ‘We are aware. We are looking into what the problem is’

They are among the most prized possessions in sport, yet embarrassingly for Olympic officials the medals in Milano Cortina keep breaking.

On Monday organisers promised to launch an investigation into why it was happening after Winter Olympic medallists, including the American downhill skiing champion Breezy Johnson, reported chipped, cracked and damaged medals.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:48 pm

Ukrainian competitor displays images of athletes killed in war on Winter Olympics helmet

• Heraskevych held up ‘No War in Ukraine’ sign in Beijing

• IOC have contacted Ukrainian officials over his protest

Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych trained on Monday at the Winter Olympics in a helmet with images of compatriots killed during the war in Ukraine, delivering on a promise to use the event to keep attention on the conflict.

“Some of them were my friends,” Heraskevych, who is his country’s flag bearer, said after his training session at the Cortina sliding centre.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

The flawed Patriots face a harsh truth: only the very best teams get a Super Bowl sequel

Successful reruns are rare in the NFL. And New England showed enough holes on Sunday to suggest making it back to the big dance soon will be tough

The greatest lie a fanbase tells itself is that there is always next year.

It is the softest landing spot in sport, a comfort blanket after a crushing defeat. Next year, we’ll be healthier. Next year, we’ll fix our offensive line. Next year, we’ll add that superstar receiver and retain all our guys. Next year.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:27 pm

Winter Olympics 2026: Jutta Leerdam takes speed skating gold but GB medal wait goes on – live

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

• Gallery: best pictures from day three | And email Geoff

Which of these events is most terrifying? This a question that reminds me of when a teacher asked five-year-old me which hand I wanted to be caned on, and I kept saying neither – yes, a real man would’ve said either or both – except the other way around, the answer being all of them. But for the less lily-livered, there must be an answer.

The slalom section of this competition is tomorrow, which is to say the downhillers go today, then the times of the two team members are added together, with the quickest taking gold. Germany now lead, having gone faster than Switzerland.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:05 pm

Falcons’ Pearce allegedly hit officer and crashed into WNBA star Jackson’s car prior to arrest

• Linebacker faces five felony charges over allegations

• Rookie is said to have attempted to evade officers

Atlanta Falcons linebacker James Pearce Jr, who was detained on five felony charges on Saturday, allegedly struck a police officer while evading arrest and crashed into a vehicle driven by WNBA player Rickea Jackson, ESPN reported on Monday.

According to the criminal complaint obtained by ESPN from the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office, the charges against Pearce include aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated stalking and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:25 pm

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

Liverpool rue costly mistakes, Viktor Gyökeres builds up a head of steam and Rayan gets the hype train chugging

• Premier League top scorers: the latest standings

Arne Slot was close to landing a coup against Pep Guardiola, the coach he admires most. Then came more of the individual errors that have ruined Liverpool’s title defence. Aching weaknesses within Slot’s squad were exposed again. Dominik Szoboszlai playing Bernardo Silva onside for Manchester City’s equaliser was an error midfielders playing full-back will make. Szoboszlai’s late red card was, though, foolish. Alisson’s foul on Matheus Nunes for Erling Haaland’s decisive penalty was another rush of blood. Liverpool’s huge summer spend was motivated by their executives’ belief in buying the best individuals to unlock the Premier League’s tactical cages. City’s key individuals showed such a policy can pay off, with Silva inspirational, Gianluigi Donnarumma making the save that sparked the game’s chaotic final scenes, Marc Guéhi looking an astute defensive signing and Haaland supplying Silva’s goal. City had been unconvincing but their mentality held, allowing them to eventually profit from Hugo Ekitiké’s misses and the waning of Mohamed Salah. John Brewin

Match report: Liverpool 1-2 Manchester City

Match report: Brighton 0-1 Crystal Palace

Match report: Arsenal 3-0 Sunderland

Match report: Newcastle 2-3 Brentford

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

Emma Raducanu retires in Qatar opener after on-court blood pressure test

• Briton forced to pull out when 2-0 down in deciding set

• Qualifier Camila Osorio into Qatar Open second round

Emma Raducanu retired during the third set of her first-round match with the qualifier Camila Osorio at the Qatar Open, having tried to play on after taking a medical timeout.

The British No 1 was looking to move swiftly on from the disappointment of losing in straight sets on Saturday against the home ­favourite Sorana Cirstea in the ­Transylvania Open final, a match she described as “very difficult emotionally and physically”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:27 pm

Lindsey Vonn airlifted to hospital after crashing out of Olympic downhill race

• US skier stable after surgery on broken leg

• Vonn’s US teammate Breezy Johnson tops podium

• Winter Olympics 2026: live news and updates

The Olympic career of Lindsey Vonn has ended in a sickening, split-second crash high on the side of the Tofane downhill run in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The American, one of the most successful skiers in history, had come out of a five-year retirement to compete in her fifth Games, and was hoping to become the oldest athlete, male or female, to win a medal in the downhill.

Vonn was just 12 seconds into the race when her legs gave way beneath her as she rode a bump. She twisted, fell, and tumbled and, after the first stunned screams and shouts, the crowd all around the mountain fell silent in shock and worry. The USA team confirmed later that she was in a “stable condition and in good hands” following surgery after breaking her left leg.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:29 pm

You may not like the Liverpool red card, but it was the right call | Jonathan Wilson

Referee Craig Pawson sent off Dominik Szoboszlai by the letter of the law; the only way it should be done

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Refereeing is the most thankless of jobs. There are times when you can get a decision absolutely right and still you get criticised on all sides.

In the final seconds at Anfield on Sunday, with the Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson caught upfield, Rayan Cherki rolled the ball towards the Liverpool goal. Erling Haaland gave chase and would have gotten there to nudge the ball definitively over the line but he was pulled back by Dominik Szoboszlai, who would then have caught up with the ball to clear had he not been pulled back by Haaland. The ball crossed the line but the referee Craig Pawson, after a VAR review, gave not a goal but a free-kick for the first offence, sending Szoboszlai off for the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:48 pm

Trump calls Hunter Hess ‘a real loser’ for skier’s ambivalence about representing US

• US president attacks freestyle skier in post

• Hess had said representing the US was ‘a little hard’

Donald Trump responded to Hunter Hess on Truth Social on Sunday, calling the Olympian a “real loser” and criticizing comments the US freestyle skier made in a press conference days earlier.

Hess was asked in a press conference on Wednesday what it was like to represent the US in the Olympics given the current situation in the country, which has included ICE raids in Minnesota and a number of geopolitical crises. Hess said representing the US at the 2026 Winter Olympics brought up “mixed emotions” and that it was “a little hard.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:20 pm

At least 18 people now dead as historic New York cold stretch nears end

City faced one of longest periods of subzero cold since 1961, forcing ‘code blue’ and extreme weather warnings

• Deadly cold tests New York’s ability to protect its homeless communities

The death toll related to New York City’s dangerous and enduring cold has risen to 18, officials said on Sunday.

The climbing number of fatalities came as a stark reminder of the danger of the subzero temperatures gripping the area, which has been subjected to one of the longest stretches of subzero cold since 1961.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:22 pm

Search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother continues as detectives analyze ransom note

Investigation in apparent abduction enters second week as deadline for purported ransom note demanding $6m looms

The search for television host Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother entered its second full week on Monday, with investigators returning over the weekend for a new search of her Arizona home. They appear no closer to finding her, or identifying an alleged abductor.

Detectives are analyzing a purported ransom note giving a deadline of 5pm MT (7pm ET) Monday for Guthrie’s family to pay $6m, a development that prompted the Today show presenter and her siblings to record a video released on Saturday saying: “We will pay”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘We’re being turned into an energy colony’: Argentina’s nuclear plan faces backlash over US interests

Push to restart uranium mining in Patagonia has sparked fears about the environmental impact and loss of sovereignty over key resources

On an outcrop above the Chubut River, one of the few to cut across the arid Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina, Sergio Pichiñán points across a wide swath of scrubland to colourful rock formations on a distant hillside.

“That’s where they dug for uranium before, and when the miners left, they left the mountain destroyed, the houses abandoned, and nobody ever studied the water,” he says, citing suspicions arising from cases of cancer and skin diseases in his community. “If they want to open this back up, we’re all pretty worried around here.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

A couple of teas or coffees a day could lower risk of dementia, scientists say

Findings suggest smaller cognitive decline, but US study cannot prove daily caffeine hit is good for the brain

People who have a couple of teas or coffees a day have a lower risk of dementia and marginally better cognitive performance than those who avoid the drinks, researchers say.

Health records for more than 130,000 people showed that over 40 years, those who routinely drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of caffeinated tea daily had a 15-20% lower risk of dementia than those who went without.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

Files cast light on Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to cryptocurrency

Newly released documents detail convicted sex offender’s early backing of bitcoin and Coinbase

Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein have brought to light his ties to the highest echelons of the cryptocurrency industry.

Documents published last week by the US Department of Justice reveal Epstein bankrolled the “principal home and funding source” for bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, during its nascent stages; he also invested $3m in Coinbase in 2014, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, and cut a check that same year to Blockstream, a prominent bitcoin-focused technology firm. Both crypto startups accepted Epstein’s investments in 2014 – six years after his 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

UK, UN and EU deplore ‘monumental injustice’ of Jimmy Lai’s 20-year jail sentence

Son says Hong Kong media figure, 78, fears dying alone while legal team say Lai is now world’s highest profile political prisoner

The UK, the UN, EU and rights groups have condemned the sentencing of the pro-democracy activist and publisher Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who has been jailed for an unprecedented 20 years in Hong Kong for national security convictions that critics say are politically motivated.

Yvette Cooper, the UK foreign secretary, said: “For 78-year-old Jimmy Lai, 20 years is an effective life sentence, following a politically motivated prosecution under a law that was imposed to silence China’s critics. The Hong Kong authorities must end Jimmy Lai’s appalling ordeal and release him to be with his family.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:35 pm

San Francisco teachers begin first strike in nearly 50 years

Thousands walk out after talks with district failed to reach agreement on wages, healthcare and resources for students with special needs

About 6,000 public schoolteachers in San Francisco went on strike on Monday, the first public schoolteachers strike in the city in nearly 50 years.

The strike comes after teachers and the district failed to reach an agreement over higher wages, health benefits and more resources for special needs students. The San Francisco Unified School District closed all its 120 schools and said it would offer independent study to some of the district’s 50,000 students.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:14 pm

Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

Exclusive: António Guterres says world’s accounting systems should place true value on the environment

• Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

‘To live a normal life again, it’s a dream come true’: UK’s first climate evacuees can cast off their homes and trauma

Forty-odd residents of Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, south Wales, relieved by council buyout after years in fear of fast flooding

When Storm Dennis hit the UK in 2020, a wall of dirty, frigid water from a tributary of the Taff threw Paul Thomas against the front of his house in the south Wales village of Ynysybwl. He managed to swim back into his home before the storm surge changed direction, almost carrying him out of the smashed-in front door.

“I was holding on to downpipes to stop myself being dragged out again. It was unbelievably strong, the water,” he said.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:00 am

EU urged not to roll back green agenda in effort to revive faltering economy

Campaigners say industrial issues cannot be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies

• Europe live – latest updates

• Business live – latest updates

EU leaders have been warned against a rollback of the green agenda before a summit focused on reviving the bloc’s waning economy.

Campaigners from the Climate Action Network, a pan-European group of NGOs, said European industry was “under real pressure” from “high energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity and delayed investments”, but these issues could not be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:47 pm

These US states want polluters to pay for the rising insurance costs of climate disasters

Proposals by California, Hawaii and New York lawmakers aim to hold fossil fuel industry accountable for soaring rates

As climate disasters drive up the price of home insurance, three US states are considering empowering their state prosecutors to sue major polluters for their role in those rising costs.

Lawmakers in California, Hawaii and New York have introduced measures which would authorize their attorneys general to sue fossil fuel companies on behalf of residents whose insurance premiums have soared amid climate disasters.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

US federal contractor hired white supremacist leader for wildfire relief

Ian Michael Elliott of neofascist Patriot Front worked ‘crisis relief missions’ funded by Department of Agriculture

A federal security contractor that has been awarded millions of dollars by the Department of Agriculture hired a prominent white nationalist leader to work on its patrols last year.

Ian Michael Elliott, a longstanding senior figure in the neofascist group Patriot Front, was part of “crisis relief missions” undertaken on the US west coast by Knight Division Tactical, according to an image shared on LinkedIn in September by one of the company’s executives.

Published: February 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

US chemical giant to stop producing herbicide called ‘toxic cocktail’ by critics

Corteva will discontinue a mixture of Agent Orange and glyphosate, but another of its herbicides will still use Vietnam war-era defoliant

The chemical giant Corteva will stop producing Enlist Duo, a herbicide considered to be among the most dangerous still used in the US by environmentalists because it contains a mix of Agent Orange and glyphosate, which have both been linked to cancer and widespread ecological damage.

The US military deployed Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, to destroy vegetation during the Vietnam war, causing serious health problems among soldiers and Vietnamese residents.

This article was amended on 9 February 2026 to add comment from a Corteva spokesperson.

Published: February 9, 2026, 12:00 pm

Whistle becomes key tool in protests against Trump’s ICE crackdown

Protesters have been blowing whistles to alert people to agents’ presence – and that has upset figures on the right

When Justin Vernon of Bon Iver appeared on the red carpet at the Grammy awards he was wearing an accessory that has become a must-carry for activists in neighborhoods targeted by ICE: a whistle.

The whistle has become a key part in the defense against Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, used to alert people to the presence of agents. But it has also become a target for the right, who have branded whistles “hearing-loss-causing machines” and said the act of blowing a whistle may constitute “assault”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

Rightwing critics blame Mamdani as New York snow fails to melt

Murdoch tabloid leads charge as big freeze persists – could the mayor please do something about the weather?

It snowed two weeks ago in New York. Since then, the temperature has barely risen above freezing – a temperature science naturally dictates is necessary to melt snow and ice.

But science isn’t enough for some US political critics, however, who have instead blamed Zohran Mamdani, New York’s new socialist mayor, for the snow not having melted and still clogging up some of the city’s streets.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:00 pm

Europe’s ‘painful’ realisation it must be bolder with US set out in security report

Need for greater military autonomy also accepted, says report for Munich Security Conference, which takes place this week

Europe has come to the painful realisation that it needs to be more assertive and more militarily independent from an authoritarian US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values, a report prepared by the Munich Security Conference asserts.

The report sets the scene for an all-out ideological confrontation with the Trump White House at the high-level annual meeting of security policy specialists, which starts on Friday.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Ebo Taylor, Ghanaian highlife pioneer and guitarist, dies age 90

Taylor, who did for Ghanaian music what his friend Fela Kuti did for Nigeria, has been called the greatest rhythm guitarist in history

Ghanaian musician Ebo Taylor, a definitive force behind the highlife genre, has died age 90.

His son Kweku Taylor announced the news on Sunday: “The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music. Ebo Taylor passed away yesterday; a day after the launch of Ebo Taylor music festival and exactly a month after his 90th birthday, leaving behind an unmatched artistry legacy. Dad, your light will never fade.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 1:44 pm

King Charles ‘ready to support’ police over claims about Andrew

Mountbatten-Windsor suspected of forwarding reports to child sex offender when he was government trade envoy

King Charles has expressed his “profound concern” over allegations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and will “stand ready to support” the police if approached over the claims, Buckingham Palace has said.

Thames Valley police confirmed on Monday they were assessing claims that Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential reports from his role as a government trade envoy with the child sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2010.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:41 pm

‘We’ve lost everything’: anger and despair in Sicilian town collapsing after landslide

People in Niscemi struggle to comprehend loss of homes and businesses and feel disaster could have been avoided

For days, the 25,000 residents of the Sicilian town of Niscemi have been living on the edge of a 25-metre abyss. On 25 January, after torrential rain brought by Cyclone Harry, a devastating landslide ripped away an entire slope of the town, creating a 4km-long chasm. Roads collapsed, cars were swallowed, and whole sections of the urban fabric plunged into the valley below.

Dozens of houses hang precariously over the edge of the landslide, while vehicles and fragments of roadway continue to give way, hour by hour, under the strain of unstable ground.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

‘If I didn’t write about him, I’m afraid I might become him’: the making of Taxi Driver at 50

Screenwriter Paul Schrader talks the inspiration and legacy of Martin Scorsese’s incendiary New York nightmare

If Travis Bickle were real and alive today, he would not be a taxi driver but more likely be sitting in his parents’ basement, exploring the dark, misogynistic depths of the internet.

“We call them incels now,” reflects Paul Schrader, who wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver, released 50 years ago on Sunday. “‘Incels’ wasn’t a word at that time but it is these guys who are lonely, who see themselves unable to make contact with women, have a repressed backlog of anger and resentment and imagine some kind of glorious transcendent transformation through violence.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:03 am

‘We recorded it in a kitchen!’ How China Crisis made Black Man Ray

‘Our producer was toasting sesame seeds in a pan. Coming from a working-class family, I’d never seen such a thing’

Ed and I had just come off a long tour of Europe and North America supporting Simple Minds and needed a break. I immersed myself in music-making with a synth, drum machine and a four-track Tascam Portastudio. I was very inspired by Brian Eno. I’d seen the words “found sounds” on his album credits. The notion that any sound could be included in a recording struck me as magical. I just held a mic out of my bedroom window. Black Man Ray started out as an ambient number with an intro featuring the sound of a boy I recorded singing in the street below. In the end, he actually featured in the opening bars of our song The Highest High.

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:16 pm

‘Reconciliation across difference’: why Practical Magic is my feelgood movie

The next entry in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their favourite comfort films is a journey back to 1998 with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman

The VHS of Practical Magic was kept at the back of the cabinet, where the not-quite-child-appropriate films lived. The cover transfixed me: the ethereal faces of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, surrounded by burning candles. At eight years old, I was instantly drawn to something I didn’t yet understand. One day, I’d be ready.

Despite opening at No 1 at the US box office, Practical Magic failed to recoup its budget and was dismissed as tonally confused. Variety called it “part comedy, part family drama, part romance, part special-effects mystery-adventure … a hodgepodge”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Goat review – noisy, lightning-speed basketball animation does it for the kids

A diminutive young buck aspires to compete with rhinos and horses in ‘roarball’, but this by-numbers tale is not the greatest of any time

Greatest of all time? No. Possibly not even the greatest of half-term. This loud, chaotic and unlovable animated kids’ comedy feels as though it is bordering on AI slop, algorithmically generated and instantly familiar from Zootropolis, Sing and other movies with talking animals. It is a shame, because it has a real-life inspiration: basketball star Stephen Curry, who was repeatedly told at the start of his career that he was too skinny and too small to make it as a pro. Curry is a producer here, and has a performing role. But in spite of this connection, Goat lacks heart and soul, and a sense of genuine emotions.

What it does have is some pretty decent voice acing, bringing a degree of charm to the movie. Will Harris (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) is a goat who has grown up dreaming of playing professional “roarball”, a fiercer and faster version of basketball. But Will is a “small” and roar players are all “bigs” – powerful beasts such as rhinos and horses. Will’s hero and the star of his favourite team, the Thorns, is a panther called Jet (Gabrielle Union), a champ close to retirement but determined to win the league. When Will gets a shot at joining the Thorns, he is laughed at, underrated but undeterred.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 pm

What We Hide review – opioid-crisis thriller sees sisters pick up the pieces and hide their mother’s dead body

Both the leads are good value in Dan Kay’s movie in which Jessie and Spider hide conceal a corpse to avoid being separated in the care system

A fatally overdosed mother called Jacey is unceremoniously bundled into a trunk at the start of this southern US-set drama; the uncredited actor who plays her should probably have a word with her agent, as the role is surely in contention for a world record as the least likely to boost your career. Jacey is just one of the drug casualties littering director Dan Kay’s underpowered film about the US’s super-strength opioid crisis, as her two bereaved daughters desperately tread water in the aftermath.

While 11-year-old Jessie (Jojo Regina) steps up with loving words in the face of tragedy, 15-year-old Spider (Mckenna Grace) has a practised indifference. All too accustomed to dealing with her mother’s addiction, her attention is on what happens now – notifying the authorities of the death would mean the sisters would be separated by the care system. So she steps up to run the household and fend off Jacey’s junkie boyfriend Reece (Dacre Montgomery), while she tries to find a solution.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Stitch Head review – animated adaptation of hit Frankenstinian tale hangs loosely together

Asa Butterfield leads a cast of freaks looking for acceptance and love in a harsh and uncaring world in this rather melancholy version of Guy Bass’s kid-lit series

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of this middling Brit-populated, European-financed, Indian-manufactured animation is the radical change of career trajectory it represents for its pinballing director, Steve Hudson. Hudson broke through with 2006’s Loachian social drama True North, a migrant movie starring Peter Mullan – now, having witnessed how the other half lives while directing episodes of primetime TV’s Cranford, he pivots to pixels with a big-screen adaptation of Guy Bass’s kid-lit books. Stitch Head feels like a tentative first step into a heavily crowded field, sutured together from ideas and images previously encountered in far more confident and accomplished entertainments.

Bass’s eponymous hero is rendered here as a boy with Bowie-esque heterochromatic eyes, a baseball-like head and the voice of Asa Butterfield; his home is a castle overlooking small town Grubbers Nubbin, where a mad professor (Rob Brydon) carries out Frankenstinian experiments. If the lead character design is solid – accompanying adults may wind up knitting replicas of Stitch Head’s onesie – the surrounding menagerie seems a bit too Pixar for comfort; Stitch’s furry cyclops pal Creature (Joel Fry) is conspicuously a hybrid of Monsters, Inc’s Mike and Sully. Once this pair abscond to join a travelling freak show, Stitch Head ventures a rather melancholy and misshapen showbiz story – that of a boy who, much like the film, just wants to be loved.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Poem of the week: To Wordsworth by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The radical young poet’s backhanded tribute to the older writer is a stern judgment on his lapsed political idealism

To Wordsworth

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, —
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou should cease to be.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett review – a seductive drama of art and rivalry

Tensions simmer when a struggling artist joins her wealthy friends for a hen week on an exotic Greek island

It is the summer of 2019, and Sophie Evans, the reckless protagonist of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s unsettling second novel, has arrived on an idyllic island in the Cyclades with her university friends Helena, Iris and Alessia to celebrate Helena’s forthcoming marriage. Helena doesn’t want it called her “hen … Like we’re dumpy little featherbrains going cluck, cluck, cluck”, but all the same, the men – including Sophie’s curator boyfriend of six years, Greg – will not arrive for another five days.

She may be on holiday but Sophie is not at ease in the villa’s atmosphere of “almost offensive” good taste, with luxurious meals, cocktails on tap and endless sunshine. In the 10 years that have passed since they first met as students, the differences between the women have become more pronounced: money has “made itself known”. Elegant, chilly Iris, whose parents have bought her a place in Peckham, works in publishing; the family of spoilt, patrician art dealer Alessia seem practically to own the island on which the women are holidaying; and Helena’s aspiration is to be a trophy wife with a house full of “nice things”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 9:00 am

‘I’m the psychedelic confessor’: the man who turned a generation on to hallucinogens returns with a head-spinning book about consciousness

With the Omnivore’s Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan transformed our understanding of food and drugs. Can he do the same for our sense of self?

Several years ago, Michael Pollan had a disturbing encounter. The relentlessly curious journalist and author was at a conference on plant behaviour in Vancouver. There, he’d learned that when plants are damaged, they produce an anaesthetising chemical, ethylene. Was this a form of self-soothing, like the release of endorphins after an injury in humans? He asked František Baluška, a cell biologist, if it meant that plants might feel pain. Baluška paused, before answering: “Yes, they should feel pain. If you don’t feel pain, you ignore danger and you don’t survive.”

I imagine that Pollan gulped at that point. I certainly did when I read his account of the meeting in his latest book, A World Appears. Where does it leave our efforts at ethical consumption, if literally everybody hurts – including vegetables?

Published: February 8, 2026, 9:00 am

‘Was I scared going back to China? No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, western censorship and returning home

He has been jailed, tracked and threatened by China’s government. What was it like pay a visit home? As he publishes a polemic about surveillance and state control, the artist relives a momentous trip to see his mother

Ai Weiwei is talking me through the decision-making process before his first visit to China in over a decade. The artist, known around the world as the most famous critic of the Chinese communist regime, had to do some fraught arithmetic before deciding to head back home.

Before boarding a flight with his son, who had never met the artist’s elderly mother, Ai thought back to his time in detention when his captors told him he would spend the next 13 years in custody on bogus charges: “They said, ‘When you come out, your son won’t recognise you.’ That was very heavy and really the only moment that touched me.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

Most Indians don’t read for pleasure – so why does the country have 100 literature festivals?

With their carnival atmosphere, music and Bollywood stars, books often take a back seat. But that doesn’t mean writers and their works won’t make a lasting impression

Sounding amused, publisher Pramod Kapoor recalls the reaction of the Indian cricketing legend Bishen Singh Bedi when he learned Kapoor was printing 3,000 copies of his autobiography. “Only 3,000?” he protested. “I fill stadiums with 50-60,000 people coming to see me play and you think that’s all my book is going to sell?”

Kapoor, the founder of Roli Books, explains that Bedi’s legions of admirers were unlikely to translate into book buyers. “That was in 2021. Nothing has changed. The average book in English sells only around 3-4,000 copies. If it tops 10,000, it’s counted a bestseller.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

Want to stop Trump bullying your country? Retaliate

Faced with economic coercion, Europe has trodden carefully. My experience tells me that’s not enough

In February of last year, Donald Trump convened the first full cabinet meeting of his second term in the White House. He proudly announced his intention to impose sweeping tariffs on the US’s closest allies in Europe. When asked by a reporter whether Europe might retaliate, Trump sounded confident. “They can’t,” he said. Pressed to explain, he continued: “We are the pot of gold. We’re the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate, but it cannot be a successful retaliation.” As Trump saw it, Europe was weak and feckless – a minnow compared with the American economic juggernaut. When confronted with a US president prepared to throw his country’s weight around, Europe would certainly cave.

In the year since, Trump has repeatedly wielded America’s economic might against Europe, from coercing the EU and the UK to swallow lopsided trade deals to pressuring Denmark to sell him Greenland. And time and again, his assessment of European countries – that they would scurry to him, hat in hand, eager to make a deal – has been vindicated.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘The music could not stop for three days’: how Sirāt went on a road trip to the dark heart of rave

Club culture is notoriously hard to capture on film. Oscar-tipped director Oliver Laxe explains why he had to organise his own music festival in the Moroccan desert to find deeper meaning in dance-floor ecstasy

In the opening scene of Oliver Laxe’s existential mystery thriller Sirāt, a crowd of partygoers stack up a sound system for a rave in the southern Moroccan desert, where the paths of the film’s protagonists cross for the first time. Crucially, Laxe explains, the revellers were no ordinary extras. Most of them were committed, lifelong ravers who had travelled to the makeshift festival from across Europe. One of the DJs who played, Sebastian Vaughan AKA 69db, was a core member of Spiral Tribe, the pioneering British “free party” collective of the 1990s.

“In film, reality is usually made to adapt to the rules of cinema,” the French-born Spanish director tells me when we meet in Berlin. “But we do the opposite: we adapt cinema to reality.” When negotiating with the ravers how to best represent them in the film, he recalls, “they told us that the music cannot stop for three days. And we were really pleased with this idea”.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Reshona Landfair on her life after R Kelly: ‘I had to rebuild my entire self’

She was just 14 when she was groomed by the R&B star, and filmed in an explicit video. She tells the extraordinary story of how she survived

Picture Reshona Landfair in 1996 at 12 years old, when she met the R&B superstar R Kelly (real name Robert Kelly). Her world, she says, seemed like “a buffet” spread out before her. She was a popular girl, a seriously talented basketball player and the youngest member – in her words, “the pint-sized girl rapper” – of 4 The Cause, the singing group she had formed with three cousins. They’d been signed to a record label, made the Top 10 in eight countries and toured much of Europe. Her large extended family from the West Side of Chicago was tight-knit. Life was filled with music, sport, church, Sunday lunch at Grandma’s, family road trips and everybody knowing everybody’s business. “That was a beautiful time,” she says. “I had love and good people all around me. I was living in my true light of who I wanted to become. I felt like I was on my way.”

Fast forward to Landfair at 26 years old, when she finally left Kelly’s orbit. By then, half her family weren’t speaking to the other half, and the relationships that survived were charged with guilt, unasked questions and terrible past mistakes. She had no friends left, as Kelly hadn’t allowed it. Her hopes of a musical career were also long gone – Kelly had made her leave 4 The Cause when she was just 15. She had no qualifications beyond high school and no idea what she wanted to do because, for more than a decade, she’d relied on Kelly to tell her. She couldn’t imagine a healthy relationship; she’d learned sex, she says, “through the lens of a paedophile”. Every element of her 12-year-old life, everything on that “buffet table”, had been destroyed by Kelly. Yet she is still told regularly by total strangers that she must be a “gold digger”, that she “rode the gravy train” and took Kelly for all she could get.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Mishka, the surly but beloved raccoon

She hated water, attacked our Christmas tree, destroyed our wallpaper – but everyone who met her was won over

Mishka was about eight weeks old when we got her. It was 2004, we were living in Dibden, New Forest, and I was looking to buy some guinea pigs. I saw an ad for a raccoon on the secondhand site Preloved. My husband, Graham, and I lived in Florida in the 90s and had a raccoon that would come into the yard. It had a bad leg, and we nurtured it, so I was very interested in raccoons.

I met someone who bred them after researching on Google, and we ended up with three, one after the other – we bought two, Nigel and Casey, and later, Mishka was given to us.

Published: February 9, 2026, 11:00 am

How do romance novelists do Valentine’s Day? Heart-shaped pizzas and ICE intervention training

We asked five romance writers for creative and sweet ways to celebrate whether you’re single, partnered or anything in between

• Looking for Valentine’s Day gift ideas? Creative gift ideas for him and sentimental gifts for her

• This story was originally published in the Filter US newsletter on buying fewer, better things. Sign up here to get early access to it

Each week we cut through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I’m nostalgic for candy hearts and childhood crushes. But like many facets of adulthood, the holiday becomes more complicated as I grow older.

26 sentimental and practical US Valentine’s Day gifts for her in 2026

24 creative and unexpected Valentine’s Day gifts for him

Chilean olive oil, a Scottish necktie and more: nine Valentine’s gifts Americans haven’t caught on to yet

The 28 best fashion gifts in the US – curated by our favorite stylists and creators

The 20 best US beauty gifts for makeup and skincare lovers – curated by dewy-skinned content creators

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:15 pm

The best bath towels in the US, from fluffy to quick drying – tested

We tested bath towels at all price points to find the softest, most absorbent towels that can withstand the rigors of life – and are worth the money

• Experts tips for cleaning and caring for your bath towel to keep them softer, longer

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

I am a huge fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That book has taught me two things: don’t panic, and a quality bath towel will get you far in this world (it says that a towel “is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”). A nice bath towel is also a simple way to add a dash of luxury to your daily routine.

When it comes to bath towels, I want one that’s soft, fluffy, absorbent, and can withstand the rigors of life. Above all, it has to be worth the money.

Best overall bath towel
Parachute Organic Super Plush towel

Best value bundle
Brooklinen Super-Plush Turkish Cotton Bath Towels

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:47 pm

I spent years meeting strangers for masochistic hook-ups. Was I a sex addict?

After a sexually frustrating marriage led to divorce, I chased increasingly extreme BDSM encounters. But I never felt truly satisfied. Had I been looking for the wrong thing all along?

To everyone else, it probably looked like a regular summer’s evening. Couples and families enjoying the beer garden, people playing cricket on the green – and I was being handcuffed in the passenger seat of a 4x4 by a man I barely knew.

My name is Leesa, and I’m a recovered sex addict.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

We offered my friend a room to help her out, but four years later she’s still living with us

You need to check where you stand legally, but I fear you’re being taken advantage of and will have to ask her to leave

In spring 2022, my husband and I were lucky enough to sell our house for a profit and, with help from my parents, bought a much bigger home. At the time, my friend was going through a tough time, so I asked if she would like to move in with us and our two children. There was no written agreement, but the plan was that she would either quit her job and retrain, or save for her own place and move out in six months to a year. She pays us £350 a month, which goes towards energy bills, bar a three-month period when she wasn’t working. I also gave her money towards taking a course.

She hasn’t retrained, got a new job or saved for a new place. And she doesn’t have the money to move out. I feel trapped and resent all I have to do as a working mum while she’s here, but that’s compounded by guilt as I know I’m very privileged to have a big house and a well-paid job. I hate that she sees me at my worst (rowing with my husband/sorting out arguments between the kids) and I feel as if I’m constantly keeping my emotions in check around her. Our friendship feels warped into a parent-child dynamic.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

This is how we do it: ‘Having sex with other people brought us closer, but also exposed insecurities’

Amber feared having sex with other women had ruined the best thing in her life, but Todd says exploring together has ultimately strengthened their partnership
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

The first time we had sex with a couple, I didn’t anticipate how destabilising it would feel

Published: February 8, 2026, 11:00 am

A new start after 60: I became a wrestler, 50 years after falling in love with the sport

After a career in accountancy, Sally Goldner decided to get in the ring – as Zali Gold – and live out her childhood dreams

On the night of her 60th birthday, Sally Goldner climbed on to the top rope of the wrestling ring, to the roars of the crowd, and launched herself on to her competitors with a missile dropkick. The crowd roared. For a second, she was completely airborne, before landing on her opponents.

“‘Wow, I’m doing this,’” she thought. “Exhilarating. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing on my birthday.” She had seized her moment in an Alpha Pro battle royal, a multi-competitor elimination match. As her opponents – all men – threw her out of the ring, they wished her a happy birthday.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 am

The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome: ‘I was crushed by the pressure I put on myself’

This unofficial diagnosis describes the anxiety-driven, compulsive obsession with living as long as possible. While it might seem healthy to monitor your diet, exercise and biomarkers, it can come at a huge emotional cost

It was a pitta bread that finally broke Jason Wood. It arrived with hummus instead of the vegetable crudites he had preordered in a restaurant that he had painstakingly researched, as he always did, weeks before he and his husband visited. “In that moment, I just snapped,” he recalls. “I hit rock bottom, I got angry … I started crying, I started shaking. I just felt like I couldn’t do it any more, like I had been crushed by all this pressure I put on myself.”

Today, Wood, 40, speaks calmly. Neat and groomed, he seems orderly by nature. But at that time, his attempts to control every aspect of his life had spiralled. He painstakingly monitored what he ate (sometimes only organic, sometimes raw or unprocessed; calories painstakingly counted), his exercise regime (twice a day, seven days a week), and tracked every bodily function from his heart rate to his blood pressure, body fat and sleep “schedule”. He even monitored his glucose levels repeatedly throughout the day. “I was living by those numbers,” he says.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

The sneeze secret: how much should you worry about this explosive reflex?

It is one of the most powerful involuntary actions the human body can perform. But is a big sneeze a sign of illness, pollution or something else entirely?

How worried should we be about a sneeze? It depends who you ask. In the Odyssey, Telemachus sneezes after Penelope’s prayer that her husband will soon be home to sort out her house-sitting suitors – which she sees as a good omen for team Odysseus, and very bad news for the suitors. In the Anabasis, Xenophon takes a sneeze from a soldier as godly confirmation that his army can fight their way back to their own territory – great news for them – while St Augustine notes, somewhat disapprovingly, that people of his era tend to go back to bed if they sneeze while putting on their slippers. But is a sneeze an omen of anything apart from pathogens, pollen or – possibly – air pollution?

“It’s a physical response to get rid of something that’s irritating your body,” says Sheena Cruickshank, an immunologist and professor at the University of Manchester. “Alongside the obvious nasal hairs that a few people choose to trim, all of us have cilia, or microscopic hairs in our noses that can move and sense things of their own accord. And so if anything gets trapped by the cilia, that triggers a reaction to your nerve endings that says: ‘Right, let’s get rid of this.’ And that triggers a sneeze.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 10:00 am

Is it true that … hair grows faster when you cut it?

Does a good trim really make your locks longer and thicker – or is it more complicated than that?

‘That’s not true,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. Hair grows from follicles – tiny structures in the scalp sitting 2-4mm beneath the skin. Inside each follicle, the hair fibre is formed long before it becomes visible at the surface of the scalp. By the time it emerges, the hair that you’re cutting is dead, hardened tissue.

“Cutting what’s above the surface has no effect on what’s happening in the follicle below,” says Tobin.

Published: February 9, 2026, 8:00 am

Mystery plaintiff challenges Karl Lagerfeld’s will – but pampered cat can rest easy

Relatives shut out of €200m fortune reportedly receive letters from executor saying will could be overturned

The late German-born Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld was famously precise, exacting and known to hold a grudge, but his final wishes concerning the beneficiaries of his vast fortune could now be overturned beyond the grave in a looming court battle.

Seven years after Lagerfeld’s death from cancer, an unnamed plaintiff has come forward to challenge the haute couture titan’s last will and testament.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:45 pm

The kindness of strangers: my teenage son was on a date at a fancy restaurant when a fellow diner helped pay the bill

She made a special night even more special for these two young people – and gave me something special too

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Adolescence leaves its mark on everyone but for my son the marks have been particularly obvious. I’ve lost track of how many casts he’s had. He loves electric bikes and at various times this has led to a broken arm, a broken hand, a broken leg, a wide variety of cuts and grazes, and terrifyingly close calls with much worse.

It also led to him getting a job as a delivery rider for the local Domino’s Pizza, which valued him for his speed (another broken wrist) and his ability to be cheerful in the face of unhinged customers. Once, after getting no answer when he buzzed a flat and phoned, he left a woman’s pizza on her doorstep. She called him “the scum of the earth” and promised he would lose his job and never get another one.

Published: February 8, 2026, 11:04 pm

Social media companies are being sued for harming their users’ mental health – but are the platforms addictive?

Experts say the term ‘addiction’ is be overused and, for social media use, could be difficult to prove

Forthcoming legal proceedings against Meta and YouTube are frequently referred to as the “social media addiction trials”, but whether these platforms are truly addictive is still the subject of scientific debate.

The lawsuits were brought against Meta, YouTube (Google), Snap Inc and TikTok by plaintiffs alleging these platforms severely damaged their mental health when they were children. Snap and TikTok settled the first case to go to trial, brought by a woman known as KGM, now about 20. The remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube, were set to go to court this week, but the trial was delayed because Meta’s senior attorney became ill.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:00 pm

In the decade since my sons left home, walking has brought us together

The exodus of grown children mostly happens without fanfare. For Lisa Walker, hiking the Camino turned into both a goodbye and a glimpse at the future

• Read more summer essentials

Don’t let them push you around, my youngest son said halfway through the Camino de Santiago. You don’t have to get up early if you don’t want to.

I didn’t know that was an option, replied his brother from his bunk.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:00 am

The best women’s lingerie: 22 favourites for every mood and budget

Whether you want everyday comfort or a special set for Valentine’s Day, our fashion writer rounds up the styles that’ll have you hooked – from skimpy to supportive, recycled to racy

• The best Valentine’s Day gifts for 2026

Lingerie isn’t about dressing for someone else. The best lingerie will feel comfortable, supportive and genuinely good to wear, whether that’s an everyday staple or an investment piece.

The design of lingerie has never been better, with a wide variety of brands focusing on comfortable materials, breathability and support, as well as style. From ultra-soft lace that moves with the body to wireless bras that actually stay up, sometimes the best lingerie is all about subtle design details rather than extra frills.

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:00 am

As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the storied newspaper has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Trump’s attacks

The email landed in Lizzie Johnson’s in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country’s power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

“Difficult news,” was the subject line. The body text said: “Your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes,” explaining that it was necessary to get rid of her to meet the “evolving needs of our business”.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

A forest of incense sticks and football in Gaza: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:29 pm