The ‘put her in a bikini’ trend rapidly evolved into hundreds of thousands of requests to strip clothes from photos of women, horrifying those targeted

Like thousands of women across the world, Evie, a 22-year-old photographer from Lincolnshire, woke up on New Year’s Day, looked at her phone and was alarmed to see that fully clothed photographs of her had been digitally manipulated by Elon Musk’s AI tool, Grok, to show her in just a bikini.

The “put her in a bikini” trend began quietly at the end of last year before exploding at the start of 2026. Within days, hundreds of thousands of requests were being made to the Grok chatbot, asking it to strip the clothes from photographs of women. The fake, sexualised images were posted publicly on X, freely available for millions of people to inspect.

Unlike in food, there is no upper limit on the amount of pesticide residue levels in flowers. But after French officials linked the death of a florist’s child to exposure in pregnancy, many in the industry are now raising the alarm

On a cold morning in December 2024, florist Madeline King was on a buying trip to her local wholesaler when a wave of dizziness nearly knocked her over. As rows of roses seemed to rush past her, she tried to focus. She quickly picked the blooms she needed and left.

I’m not doing this any more, she thought.

As galling as it is to see young people refer to the items I wore 10 years ago as ‘vintage’, surely the real problem is that so many of them believe their best years are behind them

‘I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,” wrote TS Eliot in 1915, in his seminal poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. And as I sit here in 2026 with my jeans turned up (as per the style of the thirtysomething urban millennial), well, I can relate. What has brought on this bout of contemplation? The latest TikTok craze. Loosely known as “Bring Back 2016”, it involves TikTokers urging their mostly gen Z audience to “live 2026 like it’s 2016” – complete with mannequin challenges, a Major Lazer soundtrack and the promise of never-ending summer. And it’s sure to get heads spinning quicker than the fidget spinners it’s resurrecting.

Admittedly, most of the content is just plain silly: 2016 challenges and dances (the bottle flip, the dab); nostalgia for tech crazes (Pokémon Go and that Snapchat dog filter that made you look like a slobbering puppy but in a weirdly sexy way); and a return to 2016 makeup, fashion and low-effort aesthetics. Remember when “vintage film” filters were all the rage (RIP Instagram’s Mayfair and Sierra)? When videos didn’t need a number of takes, lengthy edits, and border on a professional production? When it was OK to just be online without considering what it said about you as a personal brand? Or when the internet wasn’t divisive politics everywhere? Well, that’s 2016 according to TikTok, and it’s time to “Bring! It! Back!”

As Alzheimer’s tightens its grip, we have started making our way through the hundreds of albums in my childhood home. But some are too painful to revisit

A couple of months ago, my mother moved into a nursing home. Her Alzheimer’s has progressed to a point where it’s no longer safe for her to live alone, and she now needs round-the-clock care. It has been my task to empty out her house, where she lived for more than 50 years.

It’s not a job I would have asked for; it requires that I trawl through memories that aren’t mine, or shared memories that are painful for one reason or another. But my mother is no longer able  to make these decisions herself, about which of her possessions are worth keeping hold of and which should be discarded, either for practical reasons of space or necessity or because a continued attachment to the stories behind them might do more harm than good. By deciding these things for her I’m curating her life story.

Zurich-based firm taps into latest robot tech to ‘fibre-spray’ high-end sports shoes worn by the likes of Roger Federer

A robot leg whirs around in a complex ballet as an almost invisible spray of “flying fibre” builds a hi-tech £300 sports shoe at its foot.

This nearly entirely automated process – like a sci-fi future brought to life – is part of the gameplan from On, the Swiss sports brand that is taking on the sector’s mighty champions Nike and Adidas with a mix of technology and chutzpah.

As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers

Lamar remembered the moment of betrayal like it was yesterday. He’d gone to the party with his girlfriend but hadn’t seen her for over an hour, and it wasn’t like her to disappear. He slipped down the hallway to check his phone. At that point, he heard murmurs coming from one of the bedrooms and thought he recognised his best friend Jason’s low voice. As he pushed the door ajar, they were both still scrambling to throw their clothes on; her shirt was unbuttoned, while Jason struggled to cover himself. The image of his girlfriend and best friend together hit Lamar like a blow to the chest. He left without saying a word.

Two years on, when he spoke to me, the memory remained raw. He was still seething with anger, as if telling the story for the first time. “I got betrayed by humans,” Lamar insisted. “I introduced my best friend to her, and this is what they did?!” In the meantime, he drifted towards a different kind of companionship, one where emotions were simple, where things were predictable. AI was easier. It did what he wanted, when he wanted. There were no lies, no betrayals. He didn’t need to second-guess a machine.

US president claims ‘Iran wants to negotiate’ as rights groups report that regime’s crackdown on protest has killed hundreds

Donald Trump has claimed Iran has reached out and proposed negotiations, as he considers “very strong” military action against the regime over a deadly crackdown on protesters that has reportedly killed hundreds.

Asked on Sunday by reporters aboard Air Force One if Iran had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed, Trump said “they’re starting to, it looks like.”

Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedy thriller and the Netflix breakout drama took home major awards with Timothée Chalamet and Jessie Buckley also winning

• Golden Globes 2026: the full list of winners

One Battle After Another and Adolescence have led this year’s Golden Globes with four wins apiece.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s counterculture epic took home best comedy or musical film. It also earned him best director and screenplay, marking his first-ever Golden Globe wins.

Dozens including TUC join force to oppose ‘wide-ranging’ move to increase police powers in England and Wales

More than 40 civil society groups including the TUC, Greenpeace and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have joined forces to oppose “dangerous” plans to increase police powers to ban protests in England and Wales.

They said an amendment in the crime and policing bill, which would require police to consider the “cumulative impact” of repeated protests in the same area when imposing conditions on demonstrations, represented a “draconian crackdown on our rights to freedom of expression and assembly”.

Exclusive: Lord chancellor urges MPs to back judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases in England and Wales

The backlog of nearly 80,000 trials clogging up the court system could be cleared within a decade if parliament agrees to slash the number of jury trials, David Lammy, the lord chancellor, has claimed.

In an interview with the Guardian, the deputy prime minister, who is facing a backbench rebellion over the proposals, has urged Labour MPs and the public to back a version of Canada’s judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases in England and Wales.

Aaron Horsey says measures in Employment Rights Act will give support ‘at one of most difficult moments imaginable’

A father who has fought for a change in the law so that bereaved parents can look after their babies after the death of a partner will tell his son he can make the “impossible” happen after new rights for workers are laid before parliament on Monday.

Aaron Horsey was shocked when he discovered he had no right to take leave to look after his newborn son, after his wife, Bernadette, 31, died while giving birth at Royal Derby hospital.

Rising costs and economic uncertainty take toll, in contrast to Keir Starmer saying Britain will start to feel richer

UK business confidence weakened sharply at the end of 2025 and hiring fell amid rising costs and uncertainty about the economic outlook, according to key business surveys.

Contrasting with the prime minister’s optimistic new year message that the country was about to start feeling richer again, the jobs market weakened, with full-time and temporary appointments falling in December, according to a study by the accountants KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah accused British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators

The UK has settled out of court by paying a “substantial sum” to a Guantánamo Bay detainee who was suing the government for its alleged complicity in his rendition and torture, according to the inmate’s legal team.

Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah have accused the British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators to put to him while they were torturing him at a string of CIA “black sites” around the world where he was held between 2002 and 2006.

An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote

The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness.

Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel, who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond.

Company says doll is the latest expansion of its commitment to representation and inclusion

With an animated Barbie film in development, following the success of Greta Gerwig’s 2023 blockbuster movie, Mattel Studios will certainly have a diverse range of characters to bring to life.

On Monday, Mattel launches its first autistic Barbie. Coming barely six months after its first doll with type 1 diabetes, this newest addition to Barbie’s Fashionistas range is designed so that more children “see themselves in Barbie” and to encourage all children to play with dolls that reflect the world around them.

The territory and the European bloc are trying to see off the US president, who has said control of Greenland is essential to national security

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that the US needs to gain control of Greenland, justifying its claim from “the standpoint of national security” and warning that it will “do something” about the territory “whether they like it or not”.

This puts the EU and Nato in a difficult spot. Greenland, a largely self-governing part of Denmark, is not a member of the bloc but Denmark is; while the Arctic island is covered by the defence alliance’s guarantees through Denmark’s membership.

Dr Ahmed Muhanna, one of the country’s most senior emergency care consultants, says the scale of destruction he saw on his release brought him to tears

The only thing that kept Dr Ahmed Muhanna going during his 22 months inside Israeli prisons and detention centres was dreaming of his return to his family and to Gaza. When he was finally released after 665 days as a prisoner, he arrived home to find every place he had returned to in his memories had been obliterated.

While in prison, he and the other inmates were “completely cut off from the outside world”, he says. When he was released he was driven over the border and through Gaza to his hospital, the al-Awda. The scale of the destruction he saw “made my skin crawl … my chest tightened and my tears began to flow”.

UK government starts contest to have deep-strike prototypes delivered within 12 months; heat-starved Kyiv under Russian attack again. What we know on day 1,419

Britain is to develop a new deep-strike ballistic missile for Ukraine, the government has announced. Under the project, named Nightfall, the British government said on Sunday that it had launched a competition to rapidly develop ground-launched ballistic missiles that could carry a 200kg (440lb) warhead to a range of more than 500km (310 miles).

“Nightfall missiles will be capable of being launched from a range of vehicles,” said the UK defence ministry (MoD), “firing multiple missiles in quick succession and withdrawing within minutes – allowing Ukrainian forces to hit key military targets before Russian forces can respond.”

Three industry teams would each get £9m to design, develop and deliver their first three Nightfall missiles within 12 months for test firings, said the MoD. Ukraine’s current ballistic missiles include Atacms, for which it relies on the US, and the self-developed Sapsan.

Russia was again attacking Kyiv early on Monday, the Ukrainian military said, sparking a fire in at least one district. Ukrainian air defences were at work against incoming targets, said Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration.

The renewed attack came as more than 1,000 apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital remained without heating because of a Russian bombardment on Friday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said that despite repairs the situation was “still extremely difficult”, particularly in border regions.

At the Vatican, Pope Leo offered prayers for the people of Ukraine, saying the “particularly serious” strikes on energy infrastructure were “hitting the civilian population hard, just as the cold weather is getting worse … I pray for those who are suffering and renew my appeal for an end to violence and for efforts to achieve peace to be intensified.”

Ukraine’s forces hit three drilling platforms operated by Russian oil company Lukoil in the waters of the Caspian Sea, the Ukrainian military general staff announced on Sunday. The strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue used to fund the war. Moscow meanwhile said a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh.

Our politically engaged mother loved deriding me and my sister for being stroppy and delinquent. This picture tells another story – and is a testament to our sunny dispositions

My mother, Gwen, liked to describe things in broad brush strokes. Me and my sister’s teenage years, mid-80s to early 90s, she’d cover with: “Zoe was delinquent, couldn’t get a word of sense out of her.” Or: “1986? That was the year Stacey was awful.” Going through photo albums to make a montage for her funeral, all her pictures from that era were testament to our ill-behaviour: me, sniffing a geranium, sarcastically; Stace, outside a cafe in an indeterminable European city where you can almost lip-read her stroppy “piss off” to camera in the still moment.

Gwen was politically engaged – you’d come downstairs on a Wednesday morning to find a handwritten letter starting, “Dear Pérez de Cuéllar, I cannot deplore enough your silence on the matter of the Western Sahara” – and heavily involved in progressive politics: our kitchen was full of posters that would have to catch on fire before they’d ever get taken down. There was one fighting pit closures, for example, right next to one about having no planet B, and mum went heavy on the spoof public information campaigns. Instead of the government’s “protect and survive” leaflets, telling you how to survive a nuclear war by taking a door off its hinges and propping it against a wall, there was a “protest and survive” poster; a rip-off of the “Don’t Die of Ignorance” HIV campaign, which said something like “Don’t Die of Tories”, and “Heroin isn’t the only thing that damages your mind”, featuring a man reading (I think?) The Sun.

British Museum, London
This retelling of Captain Cook’s death and the merging of two cultures is a trove of miraculously preserved wonders – but beware of the shark-toothed club!

Relations between Britain and the Pacific kingdom of Hawaii didn’t get off to a great start. On 14 February 1779 the global explorer James Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death at Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay in a dispute over a boat: it was a tragedy of cultural misunderstanding that still has anthropologists arguing over its meaning. Cook had previously visited Hawaii and apparently been identified as the god Lono, but didn’t know this. Marshall Sahlins argued that Cook was killed because by coming twice he transgressed the Lono myth, while another anthropologist, Gananath Obeyesekere, attacked him for imposing colonialist assumptions of “native” irrationality on the Hawaiians.

It’s a fascinating, contentious debate. But the aftermath of Cook’s death is less well known – and the British Museum’s telling of it, in collaboration with indigenous Hawaii curators, community leaders and artists, reveals a surprisingly complex if doomed encounter between different cultures.

Neuroscientist Ben Rein is on a mission to show that being around others not only feels good, but can even improve recovery from strokes, cancer and heart attacks. So why are so many of us isolated and glued to our phones?

‘I hate it.” I’ve asked the neuroscientist Ben Rein how he feels about the online sea of junk neuroscience we swim in – the “dopamine fasts”, “serotonin boosts” and people “regulating” their “nervous system” – and this is his kneejerk response. He was up early with his newborn daughter at his home in Buffalo, New York, but he’s fresh-faced and full of beans on a video call, swiftly qualifying that heartfelt statement. “Let me clarify my position: I don’t hate it when it’s accurate, but it’s rarely accurate.”

He draws my attention to a reel he saw recently on social media of a man explaining that reframing pain as “neurofeedback, not punishment” activates the anterior cingulate cortex (a part of the brain involved in registering pain). “That’s genuinely never been studied; you are just making this up,” he says. He posted a pithy response on Instagram, pleading with content creators to “leave neuroscience out of it”. “That’s why I think it’s especially important for real scientists to be on the internet,” he says. “We need to show the public what it looks like to speak responsibly and accurately about science.”

‘The Kid’s jazz-influenced rhythm guitar made him utterly integral to the Dead and his later collaborations solidified the band’s influence over latter-day alt-rock

• Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead, dies at age 78
• Bob Weir: a life in pictures
• Aaron Dessner: ‘Bob Weir remained completely in touch with the Grateful Dead’s wild wonder. I’ll never forget playing with him’

For most of their career, the other members of the Grateful Dead referred to Bob Weir as “the Kid”. You can understand why. He was only 16 when the band that would ultimately become the Grateful Dead was founded. Moreover, Weir was implausibly fresh-faced and boyishly handsome, particularly compared to some of his bandmates. Jerry Garcia’s photo was used in one of Richard Nixon’s campaign broadcasts, a symbol of all that was wrong with US youth. Keyboard player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, by all accounts sweet-natured, nevertheless gave off the air of a man who would strangle you with his bare hands as soon as look at you. Weir, on the other hand, somehow managed to look like the kind of charming young man a mother would be happy for her daughter to bring home, even in the famous 1967 photo of him leaving the band’s Haight-Ashbury residence in handcuffs after being busted for drug possession. His relationship with Garcia and bass player Phil Lesh – five and seven years older than him, respectively – is regularly characterised as that of a junior sibling: at one juncture in 1968, the pair contrived to have Weir dismissed from the band on the grounds that his playing wasn’t good enough.

It never happened – Weir simply kept turning up to gigs and the matter was eventually dropped – but it’s hard to see how the Grateful Dead would have worked without him. For one thing, the band’s famed ability to improvise on stage was rooted in a kind of uncanny psychic bond between the key members – “an intwined sense of intuition”, as Weir described it – that they usually claimed was forged while playing together on LSD as the house band at Ken Kesey’s infamous acid test events of 1965 and 1966. For another, whether Garcia and Lesh thought it was up to snuff in 1968, Weir’s rhythm guitar style was an essential component of their sound. It was less obviously striking than Garcia’s fluid soloing or Lesh’s extraordinary approach to the bass – inspired by his grounding in classical music, he played countermelodies rather than basslines – but no less unique, a mass of alternate chords, harmonic pairings and bursts of contrapuntal lead lines that he said were influenced by the playing of jazz pianist McCoy Tyner. More practically, Weir had huge hands, which enabled him to play chords others physically couldn’t.

Stirling Distillery project risks being viewed as heresy but it says it wants to make the industry more sustainable

Whisky drinkers and tourists are often bewitched by the amber rows of malt whisky that line the shelves of Scotland’s bars, restaurants and hotels.

So proposals from one of Scotland’s smallest distilleries could be viewed by many as heresy.

Wigmore Hall, London
The vocalist travels the full spectrum of the human voice, from subdued sounds of mouth and breath to an exhilarating remix of her own hyper-exuberant electronic soundscape

First, ambient electronics: quiet twitters and whistles approaching birdsong, as if synthesisers had been recorded in the wild. Then crooning, close to the mic but with all trace of melody excised to leave only the sounds of mouth and breath. Then finally something closer to singing – still intensely inward – that travelled the full spectrum from guttural groans and glitching vocal fry to exquisite bel canto resonance as the electronics bubbled, rippled and thudded.

As openers go, Yvette Janine Jackson’s Waiting was slow-burn, even gnomic. Other items in this remarkable programme of works for voice and electronics had more immediate impact – the no-holds-barred intensity of the word “white”, crescendoing to rawness and then looped, that began Laure M Hiendl’s White Radiance^TM. Or the faux-baroque sampled strings that launched Loré Lixenberg’s powerfully bonkers political manifesto-cum-arioso Cosmic Voice Party. From subdued start to exhilarating finish, however, the entire programme laid bare and revelled in the constituent parts of the human vocal apparatus.

While playing with nine-figure Hollywood budgets, the Kill List and Meg 2 director has become a prolific music producer. Next up is his experimental film, Bulk

Dave Welder may just be the most prolific musician you’ve never heard of. In a little more than a year, he has released a staggering 26 records spanning electronica, dub, ambient, kosmische and drone. One of these albums, Thunderdrone, is more than four hours long. Based in Brighton and Hove and described as “a rotating group of musicians and artists”, in reality “Dave Welder” is largely the work of one man who, until now, has been operating in secret: film director Ben Wheatley.

“I’ve always wanted to make music,” says Wheatley, whose films include the independent movies High-Rise, Kill List and Sightseers, along with big-budget Hollywood flicks such as the shark thriller Meg 2: The Trench. “I wanted to do it for my films but there was a dissonance. Of all the art forms, I couldn’t really understand it. I would dream that I could play, but then it was like, no, I can’t.”

When even Poundland and charity shops are closing, we’re near a point of no return. But there is hope

Over Christmas, thousands of people must have had much the same experience: a trip to see friends or relatives somewhere familiar, and the realisation that a once-thriving town centre is dangerously close to the economic point of no return, and a future of eerie silence.

The massed emptying-out of places has been going on since the crash of 2008, but the latest chapter of the story is dramatic. In 2024, the UK lost about 37 shops a day: almost 13,500 retail stores closed for good – including branches of Lloyds Pharmacy, The Body Shop and Ted Baker – which was a rise of 28% on 2023. What we know so far about 2025 is of a piece: thousands of shops owned by major retail businesses closed their doors, and the list is full of equally familiar names – among them Fired Earth, New Look and the beauty chain Bodycare. Even some of the high street’s staples are on their way out, as evidenced by the closure of Poundland shops, and news that even charities are leaving: Cancer Research UK, for example, plans to close about 90 of its shops by May, with up to 100 more to go by April next year.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

Oil is US president’s motivation but his concept of economic success feels as outdated as his music tastes

The word “loot” entered the English language from Hindi in the late 18th century, as the rapacious East India Company plundered its way across the subcontinent.

It was a trading company, not a state – but it had the imprimatur of the English crown and its own large private army, mingling commerce and military force and opening the way for British imperial dominance of India.

The Dead were a formative band for the National. Getting to play with Bob felt like entering a portal into their mystical, musical landscape – though he was always completely present

• Alexis Petridis: ‘Bob Weir was a songwriting powerhouse for the Grateful Dead – and the chief custodian of their legacy’

It’s hard to believe that Bob Weir, founding member of the Grateful Dead who carried the torch for the band’s music after Jerry Garcia passed in 1995, is gone. He had the vibrant, playful energy, constant curiosity and adventurous disposition of someone who seemed as if they would just always be around. Bobby, as he was affectionately known to fans, helped start the legendary band as a teenager in the mid-1960s and co-wrote and sang many of their most famous songs, including Sugar Magnolia and Truckin’. Much more than that, he kept the Grateful Dead’s spirit and music alive more recently in various forms including RatDog, the Other Ones and Dead & Company.

For so many of us, the Grateful Dead was much more than the music we grew up with; it was an endlessly fascinating culture that spanned generations and an integral part of the fabric and foundation of the American musical vernacular. Bobby’s highly creative and unusual way of playing rhythm guitar was an essential counterpoint to Jerry’s inimitable lead playing. Together they defined the core of the band’s sound which was documented throughout its exhaustive touring history by a live taping and bootleg-sharing culture which they embraced.

A congressional hearing this week underscored the danger a WBD deal would pose to journalism and the American public

Donald Trump wants CNN sold. He has said so repeatedly and publicly, demanding it “should be sold” in any deal involving Warner Bros Discovery. Now one of America’s largest media companies is racing to oblige him, while another looks to consolidate its power. Wednesday’s House judiciary hearing on streaming competition – where lawmakers voiced concern over the Trump administration’s influence and a potential merger’s toll on consumers – made clear just how dangerous both options are for free speech, audiences and democracy itself.

Netflix has bid $82.7bn for Warner Bros Discovery, only to be countered by a hostile $108bn takeover bid from Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, son of Trump’s ally Larry. Neither deal serves the public interest, and both are dangerous for the future of free expression. Both would produce an unprecedented concentration of power over what Americans watch and which stories get told.

Courtney C Radsch is director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute

The Paris declaration by the ‘coalition of the willing’ supports a nonexistent ceasefire that remains at the mercy of Russian intransigence

• Gwendolyn Sasse is director of the Centre for East European and International Studies

An end to Russia’s war against Ukraine is still not in sight. The frequency of high-level meetings of Ukrainian, US and European representatives in recent weeks, as well as the intermittent US-Russia exchanges, have not changed this fundamental reality. There is no ceasefire in place, European and US military support is not confirmed and, most importantly, Russia does not want the war to end.

The latest talks in Paris managed to bring 35 countries of the “coalition of the willing” together. The core objective was to advance the principle, and implementation, of security guarantees for a future ceasefire. The participation of the US alongside European leaders and a wider coalition of partners was noteworthy. However, the actual result remains vague.

Gwendolyn Sasse is the director of the Centre for East European and International Studies and non-resident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe

The president’s inability to tell right from wrong fuels his increasingly dictatorial, illegal and erratic behaviour

Donald Trump made 30,573 “false or misleading” claims during his first term, according to calculations published in 2021 by the Washington Post. That’s roughly 21 fibs a day. Second time around, he’s still hard at it, lying to Americans and the world on a daily basis. Trump’s disregard for truth and honesty in public life – seen again in his despicable response to the fatal shooting in Minneapolis – is dangerously immoral.

Trump declared last week that the only constraint on his power is “my own morality, my own mind”. That explains a lot. His idea of right and wrong is wholly subjective. He is his own ethical and legal adviser, his own priest and confessor. He is a church of one. Trump lies to himself as well as everyone else. And the resulting damage is pernicious. It costs lives, harms democracy and destroys trust between nations.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

It’s important to cultivate a fresh way of seeing – one that isn’t blind to harsh realities but refuses to be cowed by them

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

I once heard that a journalist, stunned by the horrors they’d witnessed while on assignment as a foreign correspondent, was almost equally shocked to find themselves seeking solace in the strangest of places: a church. Not to pray; that wasn’t their thing. But to sit and take stock in silence – perhaps the most appropriate response when processing history’s bloody body count.

If we’re news junkies, or just extremely online, we’re a little like that traumatised journalist. A little. More removed from frontline carnage, sure, but subject to a similar onslaught of non-stop bad news: polarisation, the climate crisis, grim domestic violence statistics. The rising cost of living, the rise of the far right, and AI threatening to upend our livelihoods.

A globally unique programme allowed the poor to demand – and get – jobs, empowering rural women. Narendra Modi courts trouble by hollowing it out

Few countries have attempted anything as ambitious as India’s rural jobs guarantee. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, any adult in the countryside who demanded work was entitled to a job on local public works within 15 days, failing which the government had to pay an unemployment allowance. Enacted in 2005, MGNREGA created the world’s most far-reaching legal right to employment. It generates 2bn person-days of work a year for about 50m households. Over half of all workers were women, and about 40% came from Dalit and tribal communities.

For a country where vast numbers rely on seasonal farm work, the scheme mattered. It stabilised incomes, raised rural wages, expanded women’s bargaining power and reduced internal migration. Households could demand up to 100 days of paid work at a statutory minimum wage, turning employment into an enforceable right. The World Bank derided it as a “barrier to development” in 2009 – but praised it as “stellar” five years later. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has however replaced this rights-based system with a centrally managed welfare scheme, VB-G RAM G, a shift opposed by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and the inequality scholar Thomas Piketty.

The most romantic way to traverse the continent is environmentally friendly and popular with the public. But market challenges need addressing

When the European Union made its 2020 commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century, there was a wave of excitement about what that might mean for the continent’s most romantic form of travel. The golden era of night trains had, it was previously assumed, gone for good amid the rise of low-cost, short-haul flights. But the new environmental imperatives suggested that they could be a glamorous part of a greener future, delivering a climate impact that was 28 times less than flying. The European Commission enthusiastically identified a plethora of potential new routes that it judged could be economically viable.

Sadly, due to a series of challenges that Brussels and national governments have done too little to address, the renaissance appears to be stalling. Last month, a two-year-old night service linking Paris with Vienna and Berlin was scrapped after state subsidies were removed. The French operator, SNCF, has claimed that without financial assistance, the particular costs associated with running a night train are simply too high. Meanwhile, a petition was vainly launched to save the new Basel-Copenhagen-Malmö route, which was due to open in April but has also been derailed by the withdrawal of state funding.

Readers respond to an article by Robyn Vinter in which she argues that it’s not easy being an English northerner surrounded by southerners

I was born in Barnsley, my father a coalminer. After Reading University, I moved to London and made a career in advertising for 40 years. My accent’s softened, perhaps, but I am and always will identify as a northerner (It’s not easy being an English northerner surrounded by southerners. Here’s how we survive, 6 January).

Working-class common sense and direct, plain speaking worked for me. Southerners often see this as being “blunt”, especially in the business world. There, it’s all about endless talking that means nothing and makes sure nothing gets done.

Readers respond to the US president’s threats towards Greenland and his latest comment that he doesn’t need international law

You report that Donald Trump claims that the only thing limiting his power as commander-in-chief is his “own morality” (‘I don’t need international law’: Trump says power constrained only by ‘my own morality’, 8 January). A lifetime’s evidence of that morality at work makes this position chilling. Courts and juries have found him guilty of falsifying business records, liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and responsible for misusing charitable funds for political ends. These are not partisan judgments, but evidence-based legal findings reached after due process.

The consistent pattern is not of any sort of moral restraint, but self-licensing. For him, truth is merely tactical. Rules and conventions are obeyed when convenient, but ignored when obstructive. He resists accountability. When challenged, his response is almost always to retaliate.

Anela Anwar, the head of a charity for children in care and young care leavers, calls for greater support across housing, health, education and employment

At Become, the national charity for children in care and young care leavers, we agree with your editorial that the government’s recent offer of free eye tests and prescriptions for care leavers is a welcome step in strengthening support for those leaving care (The Guardian view on care leavers: responsibility for looked-after children does not end at 18, 2 January). However, this measure does little to address the far more urgent crisis facing care leavers: a third will experience homelessness within two years of leaving care.

Every year, thousands of young people are forced out of care before they are ready, often on their 18th birthday or even younger, with vital support vanishing overnight. Many are pushed into unsuitable housing, such as B&Bs and hostels where they don’t feel safe. They then face the challenge of managing household bills while trying to continue education or find work.

Act of resistance | Amended signs | Curt waiters | Disgusted in Tunbridge Wells | Crossword clues | Smug travellers

What a brilliant message of hope for the new year (As the Israeli bombs fell, my family committed an act of rebellion: we planted a garden in Gaza, 8 January). Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi’s article is inspirational for those who believe in the real world of human life and reject the synthetic values of a world viewed as real estate.
Ruth Baker
Matfield, Kent

• Years ago there was an advert for the railways with the slogan “This is the age of the train” (Letters, 7 January). On one of them someone had written “This train takes ages”.
Maggie Rylance
Winchester

• Former midfielder ahead of Solskjær after interviews

• Darren Fletcher admits he is in the dark over his position

Michael Carrick has emerged as the favourite candidate to be Manchester United’s interim manager for the rest of the season ahead of Ole Gunnar Solskjær after the interview process, with the club’s executive expected to finalise the decision on Monday.

While Omar Berrada, the chief executive, and Jason Wilcox, the director of football, are understood to have not made a formal offer, they are leaning towards Carrick, sources have informed the Guardian. This follows both Carrick and Solskjær having face-to-face discussions with the hierarchy. Berrada and Wilcox met Carrick on Thursday and Solskjær on Saturday at the club’s Carrington training ground.

• San Francisco 49ers 23-19 Philadelphia Eagles

• Niners will play Seahawks in divisional round

• AFC wildcard: Allen shines as Bills beat Jags

Brock Purdy threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey late in the fourth quarter, San Francisco used a trick play on a TD toss from wide receiver Jauan Jennings, and the 49ers eliminated the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles with a 23-19 wildcard victory on Sunday.

The 49ers head to top-seeded Seattle next weekend for an NFC divisional playoff game. The NFC West rivals split the season series.

• Pool 1: Saracens 20-14 Toulouse

• Rotimi Segun also scores twice for Prem side

Even for the world’s best rugby player it is not all glamour. As he sniffed the damp air on a blustery, cheerless Sunday night in north London, Antoine Dupont must privately have been wondering if this was some sort of fiendish Anglo-Saxon conspiracy. Any similarity with the classic cathedrals and comforting familiarity of the Stade de France in next month’s Six Nations was conspicuously lacking.

For a defiant Saracens, though, this chilly, sodden evening delivered the most beautiful of outcomes and a result that transforms the mood of their previous flagging season. They fully deserved this rousing victory, two first-half tries from Rotimi Segun and a barnstorming display from man-of-the-match Tom Willis laying the foundations for the hosts’ best performance of the season which has sharply improved their Champions Cup knockout qualification prospects.

• 55-year-old worker died during overnight shift

• Temperatures plunged to -12C in Cortina d’Ampezzo

A guard at a construction site near a 2026 Winter Olympic venue in the mountain resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo died during a freezing overnight shift, authorities have confirmed. Italy’s infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini, called for a full investigation into the circumstances of the 55-year-old worker’s death.

Italian media reported that the death occurred on Thursday while the worker was on duty at a construction site near Cortina’s ice arena. Temperatures that night plunged to -12C (10.4F).

• Supercopa de España: Barcelona 3-2 Real Madrid

• Raphinha 36 73, Lewandowski 45+4; Vinícius 45+2, García 45+7

Football is wild sometimes, and this was one of those times. A night that didn’t always make sense but was a lot of fun ended with every player on the pitch inside the Barcelona penalty area and the ball dropping through the crowd to Raúl Asencio, standing there on the edge of the six yard box. The board had gone up with six minutes on it, those six minutes had passed and now here it was, his moment and another twist: the chance to somehow take the Super Cup final to a penalty shootout.

Instead, with the clock on 96.43 Asencio headed at Joan García. On his line, the goalkeeper grabbed the shot and held on hard; his team had done the same, two goals from Raphinha and another from Robert Lewandowski enough to take the trophy, goals from Vinícius Júnior and Gonzalo García not enough to take it from them. Whether they will be enough to keep Xabi Alonso in his job remains to be seem; Jeddah was supposed to be the final judgment but there may be those that judge Madrid’s reaction here reason for him to remain.

After Macclesfield defeat, club must invest wisely to bolster a weak squad and convince their manager to stay

Oliver Glasner’s face told the story. The Crystal Palace manager watched in exasperation as the FA Cup holders headed towards ignominy on Macclesfield’s artificial surface and was still in shock when he conducted his post-match interview. “Honestly, I have no explanation for what I have seen today,” said Glasner.

A mere 238 days since the greatest day in Palace’s history, when he and the club stalwart Joel Ward paraded their first major trophy at Wembley, Marc Guéhi’s first thought after the final whistle at the weekend was to face the music from the diehards who had made the trip to Cheshire from south London. Accompanied by the assistant manager, Paddy McCarthy, the Palace captain held intense discussions with several supporters as Macclesfield celebrated their historic victory with a pitch invasion.

• Murphy defeated 6-2 by China’s Wu Yize

• UK champion Mark Selby also knocked out

The defending champion Shaun Murphy is out of the Masters after a shock 6-2 defeat against China’s Wu Yize on the opening day of the 2026 tournament at Alexandra Palace.

Wu, the world No 13, dominated from the outset and won the opening three frames, recording a superb break of 137 in the second. Murphy, the top seed, rallied briefly but, with a highest break of only 49, could not get back into the contest.

Chelsea secured a statement 5-0 victory against struggling West Ham to breathe life back into their Women’s Super League title defence. Sandy Baltimore scored twice and Lauren James and Alyssa Thompson once each in an impressive demolition of their London rivals.

Rita Guarino endured a nightmare start to her West Ham tenure as her team conceded four first-half goals to put them firmly on the back foot in an already difficult encounter. A combination of defensive errors and careless work in possession ­contributed and left West Ham’s new head coach with problems to solve as the ­Hammers remain locked in a battle with Liverpool at the bottom.

• Alexander Schwolow sees red but Hearts win 1-0

• Aberdeen 0-2 Rangers | Celtic 4-0 Dundee United

Hearts demonstrated their title credentials by overcoming a red card for their goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow to grind out a 1-0 victory at Dundee, leaving the leaders’ manager, Derek McInnes, praising Craig Gordon for doing so well after “coming on cold”.

In front of a 4,000-strong travelling support, the league leaders went ahead through Cláudio Braga’s 27th-minute strike. The wind was removed from their sails when Schwolow was sent off in first-half stoppage time for fouling Tony Yogane. But the Scotland goalkeeper Craig Gordon came on for his first Hearts appearance of the season and helped secure a potentially huge victory in their quest for glory by pulling off a stunning 93rd-minute save from Emile Acquah.

Move would mean Brussels would receive compensation if future government reneged on deal Starmer is negotiating

The EU is reportedly demanding guarantees the UK will compensate the bloc if a future government reneges on the Brexit “reset” agreement Keir Starmer is currently negotiating.

The termination clause is a stark reminder of the painful and costly divorce in which the EU set up a colossal €5.4bn (£4.7bn) fund to help its member states cope with the disruption caused by the UK’s exit in 2020.

Fed chair accuses DoJ of threatening criminal charges over building renovation projects because central bank defied Trump’s interest rate demands

The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve, a significant escalation in Donald Trump’s extraordinary attack on the US central bank.

Powell said the Department of Justice had served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Friday, threatening a criminal indictment related to his testimony before the Senate banking committee in June last year, regarding renovations to the Fed’s historic office buildings in Washington DC.

Tech giant says ongoing compliance will be a ‘multi-layered process’ as UK Labour faces pressure to bring in similar ban for teenagers

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Meta has deactivated more than half a million accounts for teenagers across Facebook, Instagram and Threads as a result of Australia’s under-16s social media ban, the company has announced.

Just over one month since the ban came into effect, Meta announced on Monday that between 4 December, when the company began deactivating accounts, and 11 December, 544,052 accounts Meta believed to be held by users under 16 were deactivated.

Danish prime minister says country is at a crossroads and accuses US of turning its back on Nato

Mette Frederiksen has said that Denmark is at a “fateful moment” amid Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, accusing the US of potentially turning its back on Nato.

Speaking at a party leader debate at a political rally on Sunday, the Danish prime minister said her country was “at a crossroads”.

Organisers clarify award ‘cannot be revoked, shared or transferred’ after Venezuelan opposition leader’s comments

The organisers of the Nobel peace prize have said it “cannot be revoked, shared or transferred” after Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said she wanted to give her award to Donald Trump.

When Machado was named Nobel laureate in October, it was seen as a snub by the White House, despite Machado rushing to dedicate the prize to the US president and his “decisive support of our cause”.

Swedish producer is trying to to accelerate the process of extracting the elements vital for hi-tech products

It is deep winter with temperatures dropping to -20C. The sun never rises above the horizon, instead bathing Sweden’s most northerly town of Kiruna in a blue crepuscular light, or “civil twilight” as it is known, for two or three hours a day stretching visibility a few metres, notwithstanding heavy snow.

But 900 metres below the arctic conditions, a team of 20 gather every day, forgoing the brief glimpse of natural light and spearheading the EU’s race to mine its own rare earths. Despite identification of several deposits around the continent, and some rare earth refineries including Solvay in France, there are no operational rare earth mines in Europe.

After her Altadena home burned down, Darlene Hamilton wondered whether her cats Merlyn and Kiki had escaped. A year later, she hasn’t given up hope

Most nights for the last year, Darlene Hamilton slept four hours and woke at about 4.30am. She wanted to sleep, but she could not.

Instead the 66-year-old started the day at her Altadena rental home in morning darkness with a familiar routine, scouring through websites of local humane societies and lost animal groups in search of two familiar little faces. For a year, her days often began and ended with this ritual.

Prosecutors claim Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, started a smaller wildfire that went on to become the devastating Palisades blaze. Is he ultimately to blame?

More than a year after a devastating wildfire tore through Pacific Palisades, all but obliterating one of the west coast’s most iconic neighborhoods, prosecutors are honing their case against the man they say is responsible.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old occasional Uber driver who used to live in Pacific Palisades, was charged with three felonies by federal prosecutors in October, who claim he was in the neighborhood in the early hours of New Year’s Day. According to a federal complaint, Rinderknecht allegedly used an open flame – likely a lighter – to start a small blaze that grew to about 8 acres (3.2 hectares) before firefighters rushed to the area and extinguished it.

Former UK ambassador tries to distance himself from financier and says he knew nothing of his sex life

Peter Mandelson has declined to apologise to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims for staying friends with the convicted child sex offender, and suggested that as a gay man he knew nothing of the financier’s sex life.

The Labour peer, who was sacked as US ambassador when details of his support for Epstein emerged in September, gave an interview to the BBC on Sunday, saying he had paid a “calamitous” price for his association with the “evil monster”.

Bow-born actor would go on to play the devoted father and taxi driver in the BBC One soap between 2000 and 2011

Derek Martin, who starred as Charlie Slater in EastEnders, has died aged 92.

Martin played the devoted father and taxi driver on the BBC One soap between 2000 and 2011, and continued making guest appearances until his departure in 2016.

Campaign groups argue online transactions ‘present real risks to our democracy’ as it is hard to trace their true source

Downing Street has been urged to ban political donations in cryptocurrency by seven senior Labour MPs who chair parliamentary committees.

The committee chairs – Liam Byrne, Emily Thornberry, Tan Dhesi, Florence Eshalomi, Andy Slaughter, Chi Onwurah and Matt Western – called on the government to introduce a full ban in the forthcoming elections bill amid concern that cryptocurrency could be used by foreign states to influence politics.

Frances and Ceri Menai-Davis, who lost their son Hugh to cancer, say gap in financial help is ‘devastating’

Parents of critically ill children are being “crushed” by a lack of statutory financial support when they need to take time off work, the parents of a six-year-old boy who died of cancer have said.

Hugh Menai-Davis was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease when he fell ill suddenly in October 2020. The boy, then aged five, had been happy and healthy before he developed severe stomach pains.

Man, thought to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow and had been skiing off-piste

A British skier has been killed by an avalanche in the French Alps.

The man, believed to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow after a 50-minute search, a statement from the La Plagne resort in south-eastern France said.

Police allege a 47-year-old imam was assaulted after he and his wife were forced off the road by three people in Melbourne’s south-east

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Three people have been arrested after a Muslim leader was allegedly punched in the face after he and his wife were forced from their car on a Melbourne freeway in what police say was a racially motivated attack.

The Bosnia-Herzegovina Islamic Society in Noble Park said its leader, Imam Ismet Purdic, and his wife had suffered “profound trauma” as a result of the incident, which was also condemned by the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan.

Early Rain pastor said to be among those held in sweep that followed arrests of members of other unregistered churches

Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country.

On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members: Dai Zhichao, a pastor; and Ye Fenghua, a lay member. At least a further four members were taken and later released, while some others remain out of contact.

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests

Google has removed some of its artificial intelligence health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information.

The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “helpful” and “reliable”.

Independents muscle in on craze for the black stuff with dark beers that use same nitrogen process as Irish favourite

Famously, according to the advertising slogan anyway, Guinness is good for you. But for the past couple of years, Guinness has been practically inescapable.

Backed by its owner Diageo’s £2.7bn marketing war chest, the brand has shaken off its “old man” reputation, becoming a staple of gen Z pub culture, exploiting its Instagrammable colour scheme and social media trends such as the “splitting the G” drinking game.

Barclays, HSBC and NatWest shareholders already approved big pay rises after post Brexit loosening of remuneration rules

Lloyds Banking Group boss, Charlie Nunn, could be in line for a maximum annual pay packet worth more than £13m, as he becomes the latest boss to benefit from the UK’s controversial decision to lift a cap on banker bonuses.

The bank’s remuneration committee has begun drafting a new three-year executive pay policy that, for the first time, will take advantage of looser pay rules that have sent potential payouts soaring at rival banks.

Created by two uni mates whose last gig was a David Hasselhoff comedy, the series has become a star-making transatlantic hit. Now it’s back for an intense fourth season that heads everywhere from Ghana to Sunderland

• Spoiler alert: this article contains references to major events in the previous three series of Industry

Industry is not for everyone. Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s drama about young City bankers is zeitgeisty, iconoclastic and slightly inaccessible. “It is niche,” says Down. “We don’t write to any kind of brief. We don’t write what we think is going to be interesting to other people – or commercial.” For every 10 people that don’t understand a “reference or the thing we’re trying to do with the costume or the subtle hint we’re making about someone’s class, there’ll be one person that gets it. The show’s for that one person.”

And for that one person, Industry is hard to beat. “Not to toot my own horn,” says Myha’la, the mononymous 29-year-old who co-stars as daredevil American trader Harper Stern, “but I think there isn’t anything better than this show out there right now.”

Forget puritanical self-discipline – the way to really make a new habit stick is to lace it with instant gratification

Like many people, I spent New Year’s Eve making a list of the goals I want to achieve in the year ahead – a habit that never fails to arouse the ire of my boyfriend. “Why do you always have to put yourself under pressure?” he’ll ask, rolling his eyes. “It’s so puritanical!”

And he has a point. When most of us turn our minds to self-improvement, we assume that we need to put pleasure on pause until we’ve reached our goal. This is evident in the motivational mantras that get bandied about – “no pain, no gain”, “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory”. If we fail, we tend to think it’s our own fault for lacking the willpower needed to put in the hours and stick at it, probably because we’ve given in to some kind of short-term temptation at the expense of long-term gain.

This steamy queer romance between ice hockey rivals is packed with constant shots of muscular bottoms in fancy hotel rooms. But a bit more character development or emotional investment wouldn’t go amiss

I suspect that Chala Hunter is still on a recuperative retreat somewhere. Until about May, I would think. For she was the intimacy coordinator on Heated Rivalry and she has earned a break.

For those not aware: intimacy coordinators gained prominence in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, when assorted testimonies from actors (largely female) made public and unignorable the shocking fact that actors (largely male) and directors (largely male) will often (largely always) try to get away with more than has been contracted for once they are naked with A N Other person. An intimacy coordinator is there to help arrange scenes and advocate for actors. Think of them as somewhere between a bureaucrat and a contraceptive.

Ravishing actors, charged glances, buttocks like pneumatic hams … this is one steamy love story. But it’s far more than just a porny sport-based bodice-ripper

I was surprised to learn that ice hockey romance is a genre, a popular one. Surprising, but it makes sense. Love in a cold setting has a fairytale quality. It’s why the great Russian romances endure, though they aren’t relatable. Most of us don’t sit by windows, waiting for a horse to bring word that our cousin has survived the winter in Smolensk. Perhaps it’s time for a modern Doctor Zhivago? Enter Heated Rivalry (Saturday 10 January, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), a Canadian queer romp so hot it threatens to scorch the ice it skates upon.

Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are star players from Montreal and Moscow respectively, mysteriously drawn to each other on the rink, in the full glare of the media. Well, not that mysteriously. The co-leads get down to business almost immediately, with a not-quite meet cute in a shower room. Every episode thereafter features charged glances, sweaty necks and muscular pumping. Even the camera feels as if it’s in lust, gliding over 8%-fat sports star bodies and the glass walls of luxury flats. It’s an audacious feat, making ice hockey sexy. Those padded uniforms usually make wearers resemble the Thing from The Fantastic Four.

Almost every scene in Steven Knight’s late-Victorian thriller is stolen by its female lead. You absolutely marvel at her in this darker second outing

The problem with having Erin Doherty star in your TV drama is that it makes it extremely difficult to tell whether it’s any good or not. The 33-year-old is more than an impressive actor – she is a magnetic presence, able to sell the idea that she actually is her character in a way few others can (a particularly impressive feat considering her breakthrough was playing Princess Anne in The Crown). As such, Doherty’s participation in a series can elevate the premise, plot and script in a slightly confusing way. Watching the first few episodes of Steven Knight’s late-Victorian thriller A Thousand Blows, I wasn’t sure whether I was genuinely enjoying the programme or simply marvelling at Doherty’s effervescent turn as wily, tough-as-boots pickpocketing queen Mary Carr.

Series two makes it easier to spot the difference. While the first outing suffered from its share of heavy-handed exposition, the tale of an East End boxer (played by Doherty’s Adolescence co-star Stephen Graham) whose local dominance is undone by a smart Jamaican fighter (Malachi Kirby) was propulsive and slick, and the presence of the Forty Elephants – a real all-female crime syndicate – was giddily novel. The rivalry between Henry “Sugar” Goodson (old school, bare-knuckle, chip-on-both-shoulders, mildly deranged) and Hezekiah Moscow (young, fun, good-hearted, and willing to cash in on the gentrified west London boxing scene) was a framework that allowed room for commentary on colonialism, racism, tradition and class. Throw in Mary and her mischievous colleagues and you also had a compelling exploration of female empowerment, poverty and the psychology of risk and reward.

Teaser reels for next December’s coming episode give no clues to the story, still less to how these old characters are returning via the multiverse

Avengers: Doomsday may still be almost a year off, but already it feels as if Hollywood has entered a new era of confidence marketing, built around a sort of ritualised roll-call of legacy characters who really need everyone to know they haven’t been retired yet. In the last few weeks we’ve had three almost completely pointless short trailers online, with another reportedly playing in cinemas ahead of Avatar: Fire and Ash. First there was Captain America cradling his baby, then Thor praying to his dear old dead omnipotent dad. This week we got our first proper look at the classic X-Men lineup in the new film, and there are suggestions that an encounter between the Fantastic Four’s The Thing and half of Wakanda is imminent.

Something weird is clearly happening. These aren’t teaser trailers in any meaningful sense, because these half-cocked, chord-drenched promotional entries tell us absolutely nothing about what is to come. Assembled fandom wants to know who Doctor Doom is in the new movie, and why he looks exactly like Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man (because if this is just stunt-casting there are going to be walkouts). We want to know how all the Fantastic Four and X-Men have suddenly turned up in the main Marvel timeline, when the last 17 years of these movies made no mention of them whatsoever. And we’d really like it not to just be explained away by … “the multiverse”.

(Transgressive)
In Jenny Hollingworth’s first solo venture, her singular songwriting powers shine in swooping vocals and transcendent pop melodies

Over the past decade, 27-year-old Jenny Hollingworth’s musical output has become steadily less strange. As half of Let’s Eat Grandma, the Norwich native started out making freaky synth-folk the arch syrupiness of which chimed with the then-nascent hyperpop scene: I, Gemini, the duo’s 2016 debut, was outsiderish juvenilia of the most thrilling variety. For its follow-up, I’m All Ears, Hollingworth and her bandmate, Rosa Walton, sharpened their songwriting skills while holding tight to their eccentricities; the result was an album of sensational futurist pop. By 2022’s Two Ribbons, they were slipping into slightly more subdued, conventional territory – albeit retaining enough idiosyncratic sonic detailing to maintain their place at the edge.

So it takes a moment to adjust to the overt familiarity of Hollingworth’s first solo venture. Like Two Ribbons, it reflects on grief (she lost her partner in 2019) and the temporary disintegration of her lifelong friendship with Walton, except this time the introspection is set to knowingly nostalgic 1980s new wave. When the choruses don’t sparkle, Quicksand Heart can feel like plodding through the past, but the moment Hollingworth lands on an irresistible melody – see: Every Ounce of Me, whose bittersweet bounce bridges the gap between Olivia Rodrigo and the Waterboys – the effect is transcendent. The record peaks with the archetypally perfect powerpop number Appetite and the genre-bending Do You Still Believe in Me? in which Hollingworth patchworks together breakbeats, vertiginously swooping vocals, squealing hair metal bombast and shoegazey dissonance, reminding us of her singular powers in the process.

(Self-released)
The Beirut-born producer’s masterly second album revels in dark tension to cinematic effect, finding beauty in ruinous sound

Arabic electronic experimentalism is thriving. In recent years, diaspora artists such as Egyptian producer Abdullah Miniawy, singer Nadah El Shazly and Lebanese singer-songwriter Mayssa Jallad have each released records that combine the Arabic musical tradition of maqam and its slippery melodies with granular electronic sound design, rumbling bass and metallic drum programming to create a dramatic new proposition.

Beirut-born and Amsterdam-based composer Toni Geitani is the latest to contribute to this growing scene with his masterfully produced second album Wahj (“radiance” in Arabic). Working as a visual artist and sound designer, Geitani is well versed in creating imaginative soundscapes for films such as 2024 sci-fi Radius Collapse, as well as referencing the shadowy nocturnal hiss of producers such as Burial on his dabke-sampling 2018 debut album Al Roujoou Ilal Qamar. On Wahj, he harnesses soaring layali vocalisations, reverb-laden drums and analogue synths to leave a cinematic impression.

Bray/Vann/Grainger/Schofield
(Chandos)
The easy fluency of Bray and pianist William Vann guides us through familiar and less well known Kurt Weill songs with the haunting Youkali as the lodestar on our journey

Youkali, for Kurt Weill, was the land of desires, promised but never to be attained – a strong image for an exiled and itinerant composer. The 1935 song in which he captured the idea, a lilting tango, forms the lodestar of Katie Bray’s voyage through Weill’s chameleonic songwriting career, undertaken alongside the pianist William Vann, accordionist Murray Grainger and double bassist Marianne Schofield, the latter moonlighting from the Hermes Experiment.

First, we hear a haunting, unaccompanied musing on the Youkali melody, then more of these punctuate the programme until we reach the song in full at the end. The journey takes in numbers in German, French and English – some familiar, some not – including a couple of songs written for the Huckleberry Finn musical Weill was working on at the time of his death.

(PIAS)
The Jarman brothers’ ninth album adds a little 80s pop sheen to their distorted guitars and confident songwriting, while always sounding exactly like the indie stalwarts

Last summer, the BBC broadcast an eight-part podcast called The Rise and Fall of Indie Sleaze. Its third episode heavily featured the Cribs’ bassist and vocalist Gary Jarman talking about his band’s first flush of mid-00s fame. It centred on their 2005 single Hey Scenesters!, from which the episode also took its name. It was a curious choice: on close examination, Hey Scenesters! wasn’t a celebration of what some people unfortunately dubbed the New Rock Revolution so much as the sound of Jarman and his bandmate brothers poking fun at it.

There was the peculiar dichotomy of the Cribs in a nutshell. They were a band so of the mid-00s moment that they were nearly signed to a record label founded by Myspace. But they always seemed slightly apart from the scene. They were certainly less voracious in the pursuit of mainstream success than contemporaries Razorlight or Kaiser Chiefs: “A cash injection, a nasty infection – don’t regret it,” offers a song from their ninth album, Selling a Vibe, with the pointed title Self Respect. They were more in tune with what their sometime-producer Edwyn Collins called “proper indie” from a pre-Britpop age, when “indie” indicated not a predilection for skinny jeans and trilby hats, but something set apart from the mainstream that viewed the attentions of Top of the Pops and the tabloid press with deep suspicion and balanced limited commercial ambitions against artistic freedom. It was a point underlined by the kind of artists who gave them co-signs. Quite aside from the former frontman of Orange Juice, there was Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Johnny Marr – who briefly joined the Cribs, co-writing 2009’s Ignore the Ignorant – and the late producer/engineer Steve Albini.

From Jorge Luis Borges to George Orwell and Margaret Atwood, novelists have foreseen some of the major developments of our age. What can we learn from their prophecies?

This year marks 100 years since the first demonstration of television in London. Elizabeth II sent the first royal email in 1976. The first meeting of the Lancashire Association of Change Ringers took place in 1876. All notable anniversaries. But I’m going with 2026 as the 85th anniversary of a great short story: Jorge Luis Borges’s The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). It’s about chance, labyrinths and an impossible novel. Ts’ui Pên, an ancestor of the narrator, sets himself the task of writing a novel with a cast of thousands: “an enormous guessing game, or parable, in which the subject is time”. In most novels, when a character reaches a fork in the path, they must choose: this way, or that way. Yet in Ts’ui Pên’s novel, all possible paths are chosen. This creates “a growing, dizzying web of divergent, convergent, and parallel times”. The garden of forking paths is infinite.

It’s often said that Borges’s story foreshadows the multiverse hypothesis in quantum physics – first proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957, then popularised by Bryce DeWitt in the 1970s as the “many worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics. In a 2005 essay, The Garden of the Forking Worlds, the physicist Alberto Rojo investigated this claim. Did the physicists read Borges? Or did Borges read the universe? It turned out that Bryce DeWitt hadn’t known about Borges’s garden. When Rojo questioned Borges, he also denied everything: “This is really curious,” he said, “because the only thing I know about physics comes from my father, who once showed me how a barometer works.” He added: “Physicists are so imaginative!”

The author on the trouble with the Brönte novels, what she gained from reading John Updike and Martin Amis – and the brilliance of Barbara Pym

My earliest reading memory
Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome, aged seven. I didn’t learn to read in the first years of school and became entrenched in illiteracy until my grandmother, a retired primary school teacher, intervened. I loved the Swallows and Amazons series, and especially Swallowdale in which a shipwreck is redeemed and the adults provide exactly the right support when the children mess up.

My favourite book growing up
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose politics I now find obviously objectionable. I often tell students that what you don’t get is what gets you, and I’m sure the obsession with rugged independence and the repression of foundational violence did me no good, but I liked the landscapes and the combination of domesticity and adventure.

This poignant debut about two strangers who fall in love offers a powerful portrait of the lived realities of immigrants in Britain

“Love is not an easy thing … It’s both the disease and the medicine,” a character says in Manish Chauhan’s meditation on modern love. This poignant and perceptive coming-of-age story, about two strangers who become star-crossed lovers, is a powerful portrait of the lived realities of immigrants in Britain, and of love as home, hope and destiny.

Newly arrived in England following an arranged marriage with British-Indian Rajiv, Mira feels increasingly out of place as she finds out that Rajiv holds secrets and loves someone else. On the eponymous Belgrave Road in Leicester, entire days go by “without sight of an English person”, and Mira feels “disappointed that England wasn’t as foreign or as mysterious as she had hoped”. She takes English classes, finds companionship in her mother-in-law and fills her days with household chores, but nothing shifts her deep loneliness.

The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums

Trope, POV, backstory, character arc. In the 30 years since I was a student of that benign, pipe-smoking, elbow-patched man of letters Malcolm Bradbury, the private language of creative writing workshops has taken over the world.

What writers used to say to small circles of students in an attempt to help them improve their storytelling technique has become a familiar way, often parodic and self-knowing, of interpreting the grand and not-so‑grand narratives of our time. “Don’t worry about Liz Truss’s YouTube series – she’s just having a main character moment.”

From the greatest cartoon racing game in history to a remastered version of an Alien-inspired sci-fi shooter, here are the Switch’s must-play games

• The 15 best games to play on the Nintendo Switch in 2025

Although the Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for several months, not everyone has made the leap to the new machine and there is still much to enjoy on the original console in 2026 (and beyond). From timeless Mario adventures to cutesy shooters to chasm-deep role-playing quests, here are 15 games no Switch owner should be without.

PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, Xbox, PC; Square-Enix
This landmark role-playing game remains a revolutionary tour de force

At first glance, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, first released in 1997 and now available in newly remastered guise, does little to separate itself from other boilerplate fantasy fiction. There is a hero, Ramza – an idealistic nobleman with luscious blond hair who cavorts about the medieval-inspired realm of Ivalice in search of high adventure. But quickly, and with narrative elegance, the picture complicates: peasant revolutionaries duke it out with gilded monarchists; machiavellian plots plunge the kingdom into chaos. Ramza must navigate this knotty political matrix, all while experiencing his own ideological awakening.

There is a strong case to be made that Final Fantasy Tactics tells a better story than the landmark Final Fantasy VII (which saw Cloud Strife and a ragtag bunch of eco-terrorist pals taking on the shady megacorporation Shinra). And with our real-world political focus shifting from the looming threat of the climate crisis to the more pressing rise of fascism (though the two are inextricably linked), one can make the argument that Tactics is now also the more timely game.

This now venerable hardware remains an ideal platform for classics such as Minecraft and daring experiments from the brightest new developers

Now surely approaching their twilight years, the Xbox Series S and X machines nevertheless still have plenty to offer both new and veteran owners. We have selected 15 titles that show the range of what’s on offer, from the biggest blockbusters to lesser known indie gems you may have missed. Whether you’re after tense psychological horror or wild escapism, it’s all here and more.

New mind-bending puzzlers, landmark RPGs and furry multiverse adventures await you as the PlayStation 5 enters its sixth year

Entering its sixth year, the PlayStation 5 has built up a formidable library of epic adventures, button-pummelling shooters and even the odd cutesy platformer. So whether you’ve owned the machine for years or only just entered the current console generation, here are 15 titles we think you should have in your PlayStation collection.

Hampstead Theatre, London
With shades of MR James and Inside No 9 Jamie Armitage’s innovative recording studio haunting is a good old-fashioned fairground-ride chiller

The trigger warning at the start of this “headphone horror” reminds us that its ghost is not real. All we have to do, if we become overwhelmed, is take off our headphones and the ghost will go away. You don’t really want to, though, because writer Jamie Armitage’s chiller really does delight in giving you the creeps through sound, words, and insinuation.

The audience enters a dark auditorium, stumbling up the stairs in my case. Headphones hang on the back of each seat, enabling you to access this haunting, which has flecks of MR James: a man’s estranged father has just died. When he goes to his remote home to clear it out, it begins to stir with past menace.

Jermyn Street theatre, London
An outstanding cast grapple with this revival of Lyle Kessler’s 80s set drama but the play feels incomplete with too many threads remaining unresolved

The quietly intimidating interloper who wanders in to a household to stir up a family drama is not an unfamiliar dramatic trope. The intruder in Lyle Kessler’s Philadelphia household comes disguised first as victim, then slowly exerts his dominance until he is ruling the roost.

The family here consists of two oddball brothers; Phillip (Fred Woodley Evans) is the younger, more vulnerable and apparently housebound. Treat (Chris Walley) is more volubly in charge, and a petty thief in the outside world.

Wigmore Hall, London
The baritone has refined his playlist to include Vaughan Williams, Ina Boyle and Gerald Finzi, lending this enthralling cycle deeper melancholy than the original

Roderick Williams hit on the idea of creating an English song equivalent to Winterreise when studying Schubert’s iconic song cycle a decade ago. Since then, he’s refined his playlist, adding and subtracting until finally arriving at the intriguing programme presented here. It’s an enthralling conceit that more than holds water over an hour and a half, especially in the hands of such a lithe-toned and instinctual storyteller.

Some connections were straightforward. Vaughan Williams’ The Vagabond is driven by the same dogged tread as Winterreise’s Good Night, while the flurry of chords that propel Quilter’s Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind mimic Schubert’s madly spinning Weathervane. The arboreal imagery and homespun melody of Linden Lea, here given in a gently burring Dorset dialect, is a musical doppelganger for the similarly folksy Linden Tree.

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
An imaginatively programmed concert featured Anders Hillborg alongside Sibelius and Shostakovich – with Alban Gerhardt the impeccable soloist in the latter’s second cello concerto

Cadavre Exquis was the game – akin to Consequences – in which surrealist artists such as Yves Tanguy and Joan Miró made separate contributions to a single piece of work without sight of what anyone else had done, to see how a picture might evolve, or just for the hell of it. Anders Hillborg took the principle as inspiration for his composition Exquisite Corpse but, where the surrealists hoped for signs of an unconscious collective sensibility, the emerging components of Hillborg’s piece bear his consciously singular imprint while also incorporating references to composers as disparate as Stravinsky, Ligeti and Sibelius.

In the performance given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under their chief conductor Ryan Bancroft, the unfolding layers of sound were never less than brilliantly alive. Hillborg’s instinct for a remarkable range of instrumental colour – delicate tendrils of harmony, monstrously growling bass registers, insistent conga drumming, shrill piccolos – taunted and teased the ear before finally fading into a gentle haze.

Stars from Bob Dylan to Brandi Carlile remember rock band co-founder as ‘beautiful human’ after his death at 78

The death of Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead co-founder, rhythm guitarist, vocalist and writer of much of the legendary psychedelic rock band’s songs, drew a chorus of tributes from fellow musicians and fans who described him as a “musical guru” and “the last actual hippie”.

Weir recently survived cancer but died from “underlying lung issues”, according to a statement posted on Saturday on Instagram.

The comedian and actor on her favourite Bond film, revisiting the Death Star canteen and escaping the red carpet with Brad Pitt

When you started performing your one-woman Hamlet, how much did you labour over your delivery of the play’s most iconic lines, such as “To be or not to be”?

The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt very at home. I thought, “That’s unusual – I should be quaking in my boots!” I just felt very at ease and happy to be there. But the first time I performed “to be or not to be” on stage, there was a sense of – aren’t bells supposed to ring here? Isn’t there supposed to be a klaxon?

At the annual gathering at the Starman memorial in south London devotees talk about the immense impact the artist’s life and death had on them

For Debbie Hilton, David Bowie meant “everything”. “My house is a shrine to him. He’s still alive in my house. My Christmas tree was David Bowie, even my bedding is Bowie,” she said.

She travelled from Liverpool to join her fellow Bowie devotees at the Starman memorial in Brixton, south London, where the singer was born, to pay their respects on the anniversary of his death.

The snapshot was taken just months after I lost my mum, and not everyone in it is still with us. But it is an image of survival, capturing the aftermath of grief and the beforemath of future losses

I remember the moment this photo was taken: five years ago, on my partner Claire’s birthday, in a National Trust for Scotland garden six miles east of Edinburgh. We were standing on a wooden deck, an ideal spot for pond-dipping with the kids and a lesser-known viewing platform for trainspotters. This is where my autistic son, then six, loved (and still loves) to jump in tandem with the ScotRail trains toggling back and forth in the middle distance. We had just eaten a small, hasty birthday picnic of pastries and Nosecco. We wandered down through the walled garden to the wild meadow encircling a pond. We ended up where we always end up. On our deck.

Somehow I knew it was a moment worth freezing in time. I gave our dear friend Dawn – whose husband had recently died and who was slowly, informally becoming part of our family – my phone. She took two photos. In the first, two of the five subjects – dog and son – are showing their rear ends to the lens. In the second – this one – almost all of us are looking directly at the lens. Some of us even look happy. Result!

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions tackles a road safety issue

• Read this week’s replies: Can you really fake it to make it?

What’s the point of having speed limits if camera-warning signs and apps allow drivers to slow down in advance – then just continue speeding? Maybe the UK government in its new consultations on road safety should add the question of hiding speed cameras to their list of concerns. I’m a driver, but also a pedestrian and cyclist and get fed up with seeing cars zooming down local roads at way more than 20 or 30mph. There are flashing lights that tell drivers what speed they’re doing, but there’s no penalty for going over at those points. Amy, Cornwall

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Also: advice to reduce screen time, how to maximize your toaster oven, the best gloves and at-home fitness staples

• This piece 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.

At this time last year, I was a full-time student, throwing on the requisite leggings and an oversized sweatshirt for evening classes and late-night library sessions. This year, I’ve joined countless others in office life, zipping in and out of conference rooms and hopping on video calls for interviews and meetings. I love any excuse to shop, but many office-friendly pieces, including pricey blazers and crisp button-downs, are far outside my price range.

The 27 best fashion gifts in the US – curated by our favorite stylists and creators

Eight winter clothing essentials Scandinavians swear by – from heated socks to ‘allværsjakke’

Whether it’s hidden layers or touchscreen gloves, our fashion expert shares her tips for staying snug when the temperature drops

• The best slippers for men and women

Dressing for winter is a balancing act: it’s rare you’ll ever be the perfect temperature. One moment you step outside to see your breath hanging in the air, the next you’re packed into a sweltering, crowded train.

Luckily, a few smart wardrobe hacks can help with this seasonal conundrum. From thermal fabrics that keep you warm without bulk to breathable knitwear, these simple upgrades can transform your winter style while keeping you warm and cosy even on the coldest days.

Which supermarket marmalades hit preserve perfection and which aren’t worth their rind?

• The baking kit the pros can’t live without

For this week’s taste test, I asked my old River Cottage colleague, friend and author Pam “the Jam” Corbin for advice. “A truly brilliant marmalade,” she says, “is simply one where the peel, the gel, the texture and indeed the flavour are in harmony.

“The amazing and rather magical thing about marmalade,” Pam says, “is that if 100 people made a panful, each one would vary: different sugars, different peel sizes, different boil times and even different water influence the final outcome.” Store-bought products are no different, though most commercially produced marmalades are made with extra pectin, acidity regulators and orange oil, which, while relatively harmless, all affect the taste and texture, and aren’t entirely necessary, either.

Our fitness expert clocked up his indoor miles to put the best exercise bikes, including simple spin machines and gym-quality models, to the test

• The best treadmills for your home, tested

Cycling has the potential to benefit your health in myriad ways, whether it’s the mood-boosting properties of inhaling fresh air, the social element of riding with friends or the simple act of improving cardiovascular fitness with every pedal stroke.

The UK weather doesn’t always play ball, though, so for those who don’t want a dire forecast to result in a missed workout, indoor training replicates the exercise (if not the fresh air).

Best exercise bike overall:
Peloton Bike+

Best budget exercise bike for beginners:
Horizon 3.0SC indoor cycle

Arrabbiata means angry, but this simple and delicious pasta dish is pure joy

Pasta all’arrabbiata is the perfect dish for January. Not only is it quick, vegan and made from ingredients you might conceivably have in the cupboard already, but the name, which means angry, could be said to suit my mood now that the last of the Christmas festivities are over. Happily, a big plate of rich, tomatoey pasta can always be relied upon to lift the spirits.

Prep 5 min
Cook 25 min
Serves 2

Does central London really need another fancy Italian restaurant? Well, yes, apparently it does …

Does the area around Sloane Square in central London really need another fancy, Italian-leaning restaurant that serves up tortellini in brodo and veal Milanese? Well, yes, apparently it does. One Saturday lunchtime late last year at Martino’s was hectic even in the delightful reception area, where we were waiting to check in a coat with the elegantly uniformed front-of-house ladies. All the tables in this hot new all-day brasserie were booked and busy, and plenty of walk-ins were champing at the bit for cancellations.

Actually, “delightful reception” is not a phrase I’ve often uttered, or even thought, but this is a Martin Kuczmarski restaurant, so the small things tend to add up to a larger picture – this cocoon-like holding pen keeps would-be queuers away from the diners. Why was I so charmed by this weird, crisply officiated bends chamber that operates as a liminal space between the real grubby world outside and the glitzy, sexy, mock-Italian trattoria inside? Well, it turns out that’s because it solved a problem that I didn’t even realise I had.

Earthy, sweet swede soaks up a curry sauce like a champion, and this ginger, tomato and coconut number is no exception

As a day-in-day-out home cook, there is no more welcome tool in my dinner toolbox than a bung-it-in-the-oven dish. A second necessary tool in the month of January is the ability to dispose of or transform a swede into an evening meal. For the uninitiated, when roasted, the swede, that pretty, purple-creamed, dense little ball, is part-creamy, part carrot-like in nature, and earthy and sweet in flavour. It also takes to big-flavoured sauces such as this tomato, ginger and coconut curry like a chip to vinegar and couples up well with its seasonal pal, fresh, crunchy purple sprouting broccoli.

A sweet and sparkly way to use up cocktail cherries at the 19th hole

If, like many people, you’ve got an opened jar of cocktail cherries in the fridge after the festivities, here’s a very classy way to use up some of the syrup.

Emilio Giovanazzi, head bartender, The American Bar, Gleneagles, Auchterarder, Perthshire

Sex parties allow Conrad and Callum to explore their desires in a safe space – and as couple

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

We keep the connection with subtle signals, glances across the room and an unspoken agreement that we won’t disappear

Counselling should help, but it sounds as if you need to slow down and give yourself time to grieve

I am 37 years old, happily married and have two children, who came along quickly after we got married in my late 20s. I instantly fell in love with them. However, I wasn’t really emotionally or practically ready, and developed postnatal anxiety.

I’ve always cared about the climate crisis, and since after having kids, and knowing it will affect their lives more than mine, I became motivated to make changes. We live a very “green” life.

In Vallejo, California, ‘trad sons’ report feeling trapped by family obligations, slim job prospects and the fear of violence – leaving little room for romance

Are boys becoming men later? In recent decades, the markers of adulthood have shifted for young American men: they are almost twice as likely to be single, less likely to go to college and more likely to be unemployed. Most significantly for their parents, they are also less likely to have fled the nest, with the term “trad son” springing into social media lexicon in recent months. In the 1970s, only 8% of Americans aged 25 to 34 were living with their parents, but by 2023, that figure had jumped to 18%, with men more likely to live at home than women, according to a Pew survey.

But not everywhere in the US has the same rates of adults living in their familial home. The living arrangement is least common in the midwest and most common in the north-east. Topping the list was Vallejo, where 33% of young adults live with their parents. How were they making it work?

Bored, lonely and emerging from lockdown, a less-traditional relationship was just what I was looking for

We were just two midlifers in our 50s who met back in 2020 using a popular dating app. Bored, lonely and emerging from lockdown we jumped at the chance for an outing. We had our first date at a trendy, dimly-lit Japanese restaurant and bar in Sydney’s Surry Hills. By our second lychee martini, we became aware of some mutual connections that we knew and discovered that we had actually grown up in the same place.

There was an immediate feeling of familiarity and a shared sense of humour that clicked without effort. We were in no rush for anything too serious. In fact, it would take another five outings, including antique-trawling for some 70s-inspired crockery, before things would develop into more of a romantic connection.

Thousands of people thought they paid the Dart Charge, but only realised when they got a penalty charge notice

You have had a long car journey but, thankfully, remember after you get home that you have to pay the Dart Charge, the toll for driving over the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, part of the busy Dartford Crossing over the Thames linking Essex and Kent. You quickly pay on your phone after searching for the website.

A few weeks later, however, a penalty charge notice (PCN) arrives and you realise you have been duped. The site you thought you had paid the £3.50 toll through was a fraud and the money went to criminals, while you are left with a £70 fine.

Some experts have voiced fears a tech meltdown could hit our savings and pensions – here’s how to protect yourself

The new year has started as 2025 ended – with share prices booming amid warnings from some that the growth is being driven by overvalued technology stocks. Fears of an “AI bubble” have been voiced by people from the governor of the Bank of England to the head of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Even if you have not actively invested in technology shares, the chances are you have some exposure to companies operating in the sphere. Even if you do not, a collapse could take down other companies’ values.

Research finds growing trend of employers letting employees work remotely to free up more holiday time

Katherine first caught the bug when she visited Australia a couple of years ago. The flights were expensive, and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so she asked her manager if she could extend the trip by two weeks, and work remotely from her friend’s house.

That was her first taste of a “workation” – combining working with a holiday – and she loved it. She now regularly arranges petsitting in different places so she can visit family, friends and new cities for long weekends without spending extra.

The firm that is holding the files has gone out of business, and complaining may take months

My dad died in July in harrowing circumstances. Our probate application was close to being finalised by our solicitor.

Then this month we received an email from the solicitor, Samuel Phillips Law, to say it had ceased trading. No explanation was given.

From the best exercise moves to how many steps you really need to aim for a day, experts weigh in on how to maintain hip health

When Elvis the pelvis gyrated and thrust his way across national television screens, audiences were delighted and censors were scandalised. But physiotherapists were probably standing up in their seats cheering at the display of such healthy and limber hip movements.

Hips are a key weight-bearing joint, yet we rarely give them the amount of love and attention they deserve.

From vitamins C and D to calcium and magnesium, it’s critical to know whether you’re taking the correct dosage to avoid health problems

There are more than 100,000 supplements on the US market – capsules, powders, tablets and gummies sold to improve or maintain health. Supplements can contain vitamins, minerals, botanicals and amino acids on their own or in various combinations.

The consumption of these products is surging. But it’s a common misunderstanding that these products are entirely safe, says Dr Pieter Cohen, an internist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Excessive amounts of nutrients can cause health problems, so it’s critical to know whether you’re using the correct dosage of high-quality products.

This article was amended on 9 January 2026 to clarify the possible negative side effects of probiotics.

As we age, we naturally lose mobility. But there are some steps we can take to keep these joints healthy for longer

• Read more summer essentials

You’re clinging to the overhead strap on a packed bus during rush hour when the driver suddenly slams on the brakes. As the crowd surges, your arm jerks back and your shoulder takes the full force of the momentum. It’s times like these one is grateful for a strong and healthy shoulder.

“If you’ve got a strong and mobile shoulder, you have the control to reduce the risk of anything [bad] happening,” says Dr Josh Zadro, a physiotherapist and senior research fellow at the University of Sydney.

Arm circles: Large, controlled circles in front of your body.

The wall slide: Face a wall and slide your hands up as high as possible.

The overhead reach: Stretch your arms to the ceiling to counteract the forward hunch of computer work.

Engaging in creativity can reduce depression, improve immunity and delay ageing – all while you’re having fun

For some reason, we have collectively agreed that new year is the time to reinvent ourselves. The problem, for many people, is that we’ve tried all the usual health kicks – running, yoga, meditation, the latest diets – even if we haven’t really enjoyed them, in a bid to improve our minds and bodies. But have any of us given as much thought to creativity? Allow me to suggest that this year be a time to embrace the arts.

Ever since our Paleolithic ancestors began painting caves, carving figurines, dancing and singing, engaging in the arts has been interwoven with health and healing. Look through the early writings of every major medical tradition around the world and you find the arts. What is much newer – and rapidly accelerating over the past two decades – is a blossoming scientific evidence-base identifying and quantifying exactly what the health benefits of the arts are.

Claudia Winkleman is among high-profile women again popularising the trouser style once favoured by hippies

In fashion currently, trouser shape firmly sit in two camps – skin-tight, as with the revival of skinny jeans, or ultra oversized and baggy. But, perhaps, there is a third way. Enter – once again – the flare.

The trouser shape, first popularised in the 70s and flirted with briefly five years ago, is back again in 2026. Resale app Depop says there has been a 30% increase in the searches for the style this month alone.

As screen fatigue grows, a new trend is swapping smartphones for crosswords and sketchbooks – turning the humble bag into a tool for offline living

There’s a new “it” bag – but this time it is not about a designer label or splashy logo. Instead, it’s what is inside that counts.

So-called analogue bags, filled with activities such as crosswords, knitting, novels and journals, have become the unexpected accessory of the season.

Against a backdrop of rising white nationalism, the ‘global authority on colour’ has chosen white as the shade of 2026. Four experts wade in on the implications for everything from interior design choices to racial politics

• Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

For more than 25 years, Pantone, which describes itself as “the global authority for colour communication and inspiration”, has attempted to prophesy the year ahead by choosing its specific colour. For 2026, it is hedging its bets on something called cloud dancer.

While it’s highly unlikely that the next 12 months can be neatly summarised by one colour before the year has even kicked off (Pantone’s announcement took place in December), it still garners headlines because, in a way, Pantone’s decision does reflect on some level what is happening in the zeitgeist – or, at least, what is expected to happen. After the economic crash in 2009 came mimosa, a “warm and engaging” shade of yellow said to represent hope and optimism (it rang true with a mimosa-coloured sofa becoming a must-have and everyone taking up daily affirmations). In 2016, there was the blending of serenity and rose quartz – AKA the ubiquitous millennial pink – while last year’s mocha mousse is the reason you are seeing brown everywhere.

Exfoliating, plumping and hydrating, the best products will leave your skin glowing without costing a fortune

Lactic acid – always the bridesmaid for the more hyped glycolic acid – is my first choice of alpha hydroxy acid for all manner of reasons. It exfoliates without stripping or stinging (its bigger molecule size makes it particularly well tolerated by even sensitive skins), can stimulate collagen and ceramide production to firm, plump and protect mature skins, has antibacterial properties for more problematic ones, and binds with water to keep every type more hydrated. Lactic also imparts an unmistakable glow to the complexion and deflakes rough areas brilliantly.

I’ve always loved it, but have rarely been so spoilt for choice. Beauty Pie’s new Youthbomb Extreme Retinal Triple Renewal Serum (£49 to members) is their best formula in some time, which goes some way to justify its high (for Beauty Pie) price point.

Our popular readers’ tips column has been running for 20 years. We’ve selected some highlights from the past 12 months to help you plan your 2026 adventures
• Enter this week’s competition, on life-changing holidays

Poland’s capital is now rated above cities like San Francisco and Copenhagen for its vegan options. We sample plant-based schnitzel, ramen and, of course, pierogi

Pinny on, hands dusted with flour, I rolled out dough, cut it into circles, added a spoonful of filling and sealed it into little parcels. I was getting stuck into a dumpling cooking class in one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the world. Making gyoza in Tokyo, perhaps? Wontons in Singapore? Potstickers in Taipei?

In fact, I was preparing pierogi in Warsaw. Friends who associate Polish cuisine with stews and sausages were surprised to hear it, but vegan food has proliferated across the country over the past 20 years. Happy Cow, the veteran vegan restaurant guide, now consistently ranks Warsaw in its top cities globally – last year it was in 11th place, ahead of Bangkok, San Francisco and Copenhagen.

On Ulva, in the Inner Hebrides, Banjo Beale and his husband are transforming a rundown mansion into their dream hotel, while another adventurous couple have created a charming bothy for hardier folk

Ulva House is a building site. There are workmen up ladders, hammering, plastering, but I leave my muddy walking boots by the door. There’s no central heating or hot water and Banjo Beale and his husband, Ro, have been camping out here for weeks, but he greets me, dazzlingly debonair, in a burnt orange beanie and fabulous Moroccan rug coat.

The 2022 winner of the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, who went on to front his own makeover show Designing the Hebrides, Banjo’s vibe is more exuberant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen than quizzical Kevin McCloud. His latest project with Ro, the transformation of a derelict mansion on the small Hebridean island of Ulva into a boutique hotel, is the subject of a new six-part series, airing on BBC Scotland. I’m here for a preview of the finished rooms.

The festive season can stretch waistbands and wallets to breaking point. Here’s our pick of boltholes for a new year reset – each with a spa and rooms for under £160 a night

Virginia Woolf described the South Downs as “too much for one pair of eyes, enough to float a whole population in happiness”. So where better to head at this time of year, when our happiness levels are traditionally at their lowest ebb? Striding across the rolling chalkland towards the teetering sea cliffs buoyed up by a stiff breeze is the perfect antidote to the January blues. And if there’s a cosy hotel bar with an open fire waiting for you at the end of the walk, so much the better.

They bonded over football and felt the same about taxing billionaires. How did they fare on immigration?

Fraz, 22, Bradford

Occupation Law graduate, training to become a commercial solicitor

As I sobbed to U2, she would hug me tighter as we swayed to the music

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

My father died when I was 19, after a short and sharp fight with cancer. Unsure of what to do or how to proceed with life, I took a year off university and went backpacking through Europe. The other side of the world seemed like a good place to be.

I ended up at the music festival Glastonbury in 2011. It was a great lineup that year but there was one act on the bill that really caught my eye: U2. They were my dad’s favourite band, so it seemed only right that I should go and see them. Of course, U2 aren’t exactly a massive draw for people my age, so I ended up alone in the massive crowd at the main stage while my friends saw other bands.

The comedian and presenter on being a quiet child, his alternative youth, and doing 300 gigs in a year

Born in Rockhampton, Gloucestershire, in 1985, Joel Dommett is a comedian and presenter. His career began with acting roles in shows such as Skins and Casualty, before making his name as a standup comedian, performing on Live at the Apollo, and becoming a household name on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2016. Dommett is the host on I’m a Celebrity … Unpacked and The Masked Singer on ITV.

This was taken outside the front door of the bungalow I grew up in. I’m stood next to my grandpa’s yellow pickup truck. That T-shirt was a gift from Uncle John who lived in South Africa.

Making a star of Murphy the labrador seemed like a harmless and plausible quest. But I hadn’t reckoned with all kinds of costs

• Read more summer essentials

Eddie sits at a cafe dressed in a turtleneck and blue beret. “On a scale of 10-10, rate how good I look,” the caption to his post reads.

The socialite’s page is full of candid content: enjoying a doughnut at a popular Melbourne brunch spot, relaxing in a chic robe and celebrating a paid “staycation” at the Hyatt House in Melbourne, adorned in a leopard print outfit.

Dying is a process and in a person’s final hours and days, Nickie and her Threshold Choir are there to accompany people on their way and bring comfort. Through specially composed songs, akin to lullabies, the choir cultivates an environment of love and safety around those on their deathbed.  For the volunteer choir members, it is also an opportunity to channel their own experiences of grief and together open up conversations about death.

Full interview with Nickie Aven, available here

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds PIs have been hired as part of harassment campaigns and in some cases have tracked women to domestic violence refuges

As Laura stood in the court witness box, preparing to tell magistrates about her ex-husband’s obsessive nature, she flicked through the prosecution’s evidence file and saw the photographs. One of her leaving the house, another of her driving her car on the motorway. They had been taken by a professional. Staring at the grainy images, she felt numb.

Laura’s ex-husband had hired a private investigator to put her under surveillance. On two occasions she had been trailed, with the PI taking photographs of her as he went. Her ex-husband was later sanctioned with a stalking protection order, but the man he hired to facilitate his harassment was never even questioned.

How a hospital is helping NHS staff realise they need not accept violence, abuse and aggression on the job

Hugo (not his real name), an advanced clinical practitioner, was on the night shift in A&E at Great Western hospital, Swindon, when a drunk patient started swearing aggressively at a nurse. “When I asked if I could help, he told me, ‘Fuck off you gay cunt.’ When I asked him not to speak to me like that and to return to his seat in the waiting room, he just walked up the corridor swearing and repeatedly shouting ‘gaydar’.”

Hugo said he was initially more annoyed than scared, even when the patient grabbed a crutch and started swinging it about. “There wasn’t time to be frightened,” he said. “You’re just trying to protect your colleagues and the patients.” He called security and in the end the police had to arrest the patient. He said although he had experienced aggressive and violent behaviour – over the course of his career, he has been kicked, spat at, pushed and intimidated – “it’s still upsetting and psychologically exhausting to deal with.”

Our wildlife series Young Country Diary is looking for articles written by children, about their winter encounters with nature

Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14.

The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a whether it’s a winter flower, something lurking in a pond or a fascinating bug.

We would like to hear from people about the impact of the stormy weather conditions in the UK and parts of Europe

Road, rail and air travel have been disrupted across the UK as Storm Goretti has brought wind, rain and snow to the country and parts of Europe.

At the time of writing, there six weather warnings in place across the UK. According to the Met Office, there are five yellow weather warnings and one amber.

We would like to hear about the TV shows you like to watch again and again

Some TV shows are made to watch again and again, to the point where they become a soothing presence in the background of our lives. We would like to hear about your favourite comfort TV shows. What is the show that you would happily watch on loop forever, and why?

If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

We are looking to tell the stories of pairings who developed friendships because a common life experience - either shared at the same time or lived apart - bonded them

Do you have a friend who was the right person at the right time? Did they become a great source of support because you met at a certain moment in your life or a particular shared set of circumstances brought you together?

We are looking to tell the stories of pairings who developed life-affirming friendships because a common life experience - either shared at the same time or lived apart - bonded them. From becoming parents at the same time to losing a relative or dealing with a new diagnosis, we want to hear how you helped each other. Whatever scenario brought you close – whether overcoming adversity or celebrating a new life stage – we’d love to hear about your friendship and how it helped you both.

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