‘Deliberate targeting of vital body parts’: X-rays taken after Iran protests expose extent of catastrophic injuries

Exclusive: Expert analysis of images from one hospital suggests severe trauma to the face, chest and genitals was caused by metal birdshot and high-calibre bullets

Across the planes of Anahita’s* face, white dots shine like a constellation. Some gleam from inside the sockets of her eyes, others are scattered over the young woman’s chin, forehead, cheekbones. A few float over the dark expanse of her brain.

Each dot represents a metal sphere, about 2-5mm in size, fired from the barrel of a shotgun and revealed by the X-ray camera for a CT scan. Shot from a distance, the projectiles, known as “birdshot”, spray widely, losing some of their momentum. At close range, they can crack bone, blast through the soft tissue of the face, and easily pierce the eyeball’s delicate globe. Anahita, who is in her early 20s, has lost at least one eye, possibly both.

Thuy Diem Pham’s recipe for joy pancake

This bold, traditional taste of Vietnam is a joy both by name and to eat

There’s something endearing and confident about a dish named after the feeling it gives you. Bánh khoái means “delight” or “joy” cake. This crisp, savoury pancake originates from Hue, the historic capital of Vietnam’s central region. Traditionally served with a rich hoisin dipping sauce, my take swaps that out for a lighter nước chấm with sesame seeds. It stays true to the spirit of the original, though, preserving its joyful texture and bold, satisfying flavours, while using more accessible ingredients.

This recipe is an edited extract from One Pan Vietnam, by Thuy Diem Pham, published by Quadrille at £22.

Chinese tourists shun Japan over lunar new year holiday as rift deepens

Japanese prime minister’s refusal to back down over Taiwan comments brings more criticism and travel warnings from China

Chinese tourists are continuing to shun Japan in large numbers, with the country falling out of the top 10 destinations for those celebrating the lunar new year with a trip abroad.

Japan has had a dramatic drop in the number of Chinese visitors since the end of last year as a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing over the security of Taiwan continues.

Taunts, harassment and assaults: landmark report finds racism at Australian universities is ‘systemic’

Survey by Australian Human Rights Commission found universities failed to meet duty of care, while complaints processes were ‘Kafkaesque’

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Racism is “systemic” at Australia’s universities, according to a landmark report found students have mocked their Palestinian peers with shouts of “terrorism”, some students have been followed by campus security and First Nations students have been compared to “petrol sniffers” in lecture halls.

The report also found Jewish students were fearful to attend classes, with one harassed for wearing their kippa walking to class and another who described people screaming “send them to the camps” at a group of Jews on campus.

Pooping menaces or ‘flying puppies’? How pigeons are dividing a UK city

The growing number of birds in Norwich market has pushed the council to adopt extreme measures – including a hawk and oral contraceptives. But for the city’s pigeon-loving activists, they are just misunderstood creatures

At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Norwich market is only just stirring: shutters are still down and the aisles are quiet. In the nearby Memorial Gardens, however, a large crowd has already gathered: the market’s pigeons are waiting to be fed.

Jenny Coupland arrives on the scene a little later than her usual hour, with a backpack brimming with seed. As she begins doling it out, the birds descend from their perches and cover the ground, pecking furiously. The sun catches their bobbing heads, sending iridescent shimmers across their brown and grey feathers.

‘The rallying cry of the rich and horrible’: the song that TV villains love to sing

From The West Wing to The Simpsons, House and now Industry, TV baddies have made a tongue-in-cheek Gilbert and Sullivan show tune their own

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Industry season four, episode six.

If you’re up to date with Industry (if you’re not, proceed with caution) then you’ll know that Kit Harington’s character Henry Muck has spent season four being even more of a nightmare than usual. He has been depressed, intoxicated, suicidal and horny in equal measure, all of which was topped off in the most recent episode with a sweaty bunk-up with a guy in a club.

‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?

His novel was praised for giving a voice to the victims of Algeria’s brutal civil war. But one woman has accused Kamel Daoud of having stolen her story – and the ensuing legal battle has become about much more than literary ethics

Every November, leading figures of French literature gather in the upstairs room of an old-fashioned Paris restaurant and decide on the best novel of the year. The ceremony is staid, traditional, down to the restaurant’s menu, full of classic dishes such as vol-au-vents and foie gras on toast. In pictures of the judging ceremony, the judges wear dark suits; each has four glasses of wine at hand.

The winner of the Goncourt, as the prize is called, is likely to enter the pantheon of world literature, joining a lineage of writers that includes Marcel Proust and Simone de Beauvoir. The prize is also a financial boon for authors. As the biggest award in French literature, the Goncourt means a prime spot in storefronts, foreign rights, prestige. By one estimate, winning the Goncourt means nearly €1m of sales in the weeks that follow.

2 killed in shooting at high school hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, police say

Police said the deadly shooting during a high school boys' hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, appears to have stemmed from a family dispute.

2/16: CBS Evening News

What we know about deadly hockey game shooting in Rhode Island; FBI analyzing DNA on glove in Nancy Guthrie case.

12/18: CBS Evening News

Greg Biffle killed in plane crash; Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson sign off from the "CBS Evening News."

Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s forces made fastest battlefield gains since 2023, analysis finds

Ukraine is probably leveraging a recent block on Russian troops’ access to Starlink, says Institute for the Study of War; Trump says he wants Kyiv deal with Moscow ‘fast’. What we know on day 1,455

Ukraine recaptured 201 sq km from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The recaptured area (78 sq miles) is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv’s forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counteroffensive. The recaptured land is concentrated mainly to the east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in an area where Russian troops have made significant progress since mid-2025. “These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield,” said the ISW thinktank.

On 5 February, military observers noted disruption of the Starlink antennas used by Moscow on the frontlines, after announcements by Elon Musk of “measures” to end the Kremlin’s use of this technology, the AFP report said. Kyiv claimed that Russian drones were using them in particular to circumvent electronic jamming systems and strike their targets with precision.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption police accused an ex-energy minister on Monday of helping launder kickbacks and stashing millions offshore, a day after he was detained while trying to leave the country, in a case that has shaken Kyiv’s wartime government. The arrest of German Galushchenko was the first major development for months in the “Midas” bribery case, which has loomed over Ukraine’s domestic politics since last year and has reached into President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle. In unveiling the accusations against Galushchenko, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency Nabu said it was working with 15 foreign jurisdictions to expand its investigation. Galushchenko has denied any wrongdoing.

Donald Trump said he hoped Ukraine reached a deal with Russia “fast” ahead of Tuesday’s trilateral talks in Geneva. “Ukraine better come to the table fast,” the US president said late on Monday. Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet for the second round of talks brokered by the Trump administration days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The two-day meeting in Switzerland starting on Tuesday is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance, reported Luke Harding and Pjotr Sauer. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence showed more Russian attacks on energy targets lay ahead and that such strikes made it more difficult to reach an agreement on ending the war. “Intelligence reports show that Russia is preparing further massive strikes against energy infrastructure so it is necessary to ensure that all air defence systems are properly configured,” he said in his nightly video address on Monday. Zelenskyy also said Russian attacks were “constantly evolving” and resorting to a combination of weapons, including drones and missiles, requiring “special defence and support from our partners”.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine, according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties for each incident rising significantly, reports Dan Sabbagh. An average of 4.8 civilians were reported killed or injured in each strike, 33% more than in 2024, with the worst attack taking place in Dnipro on 24 June.

Frederick Wiseman, prolific documentary film-maker, dies aged 96

Recognised with an honorary Academy Award in 2016, Wiseman directed and produced almost 50 films with a lifelong commitment to curiosity and naturalism

Frederick Wiseman, the prolific film-maker whose documentaries primarily explored US public institutions and communities, has died aged 96.

His death on Monday was announced in a joint statement from the Wiseman family and his production company, Zipporah Films.

Taylor Swift concert attack plot: 21-year-old man charged with terrorism in Austria

Unnamed suspect accused of planning to bomb one of singer’s Eras tour shows in Vienna

Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.

Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled after authorities warned of the plot.

Construction crew brightens hospital stay for 4-year-old patient across the street

While playing with a flashlight in her room at the Cleveland Clinic, a 4-year-old girl shined a light into a building going up across the street. To the hospital's surprise, one of the workers shined a light right back -- and made a sign that said "Get well soon." Tony Dokoupil has the heartwarming story.

Robert Duvall, Oscar winner who starred in "The Godfather," dies at age 95

Robert Duvall was in such classics as "The Godfather," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "M*A*S*H," "The Great Santini" and "Tender Mercies."

AI-generated fight video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt sparks backlash in Hollywood

A 15-second clip released late last week seemed to have all the hallmarks of a big Hollywood studio: two mega-famous leading men, a choreographed fight scene, sweeping camera moves and even a musical score. But the entire video was generated by artificial intelligence -- and Hollywood is not happy. Jo Ling Kent reports.

Remembering Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall

Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall has died at age 95. Shanelle Kaul looks back at a career that spanned some of the biggest films of the 20th century.

Guthrie suspect's mask, clothing believed to be from Walmart, sheriff says

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News the suspect's backpack is one of the most promising leads in the case, as the search continues for Nancy Guthrie.

A timeline of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance as search stretches on

Savannah Guthrie's mom, Nancy Guthrie, was reported missing Feb. 1.

Nancy Guthrie's family have been cleared as suspects, sheriff says

All family members of Nancy Guthrie have been cleared as suspects in her disappearance, authorities in Arizona said.

Olympic wins for Team USA in women's bobsledding and hockey

Team USA won its 18th and 19th medals at the Olympics, including the gold for 41-year-old bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who is now the oldest American woman to ever win gold at the Winter Games. Seth Doane has more.

Mudslide threat grows amid flash flood warnings in Palisades burn scar

Flash flood warnings over the Palisades burn scar areas have ramped up concerns of mudslides in Southern California, shutting down a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. Rob Marciano has more on the weather from coast to coast.

Anderson Cooper to leave 60 Minutes amid turmoil at CBS News

Cooper is leaving the fabled news show after nearly 20 years amid a shake-up under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss

Anderson Cooper will leave the CBS News program 60 Minutes after nearly two decades, he said on Monday, in the latest staffing shake-up to hit the storied news magazine amid broader newsroom changes under the new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business,” Cooper said in a statement. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”

‘I just want to stop hearing about it’: a weary South Korea awaits verdict on Yoon insurrection charges

Yoon Suk Yeol could face the death penalty when judges rule on the martial law crisis that many in South Korea see as a dark moment they would rather forget

South Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with judges due to deliver their verdict on insurrection charges against the former president Yoon Suk Yeol and prosecutors demanding the death penalty.

When Yoon stands in courtroom 417 of Seoul central district court on Thursday to hear his fate, which will be broadcast live, he will do so in the same room where the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death three decades ago. The charge is formally the same. Last time, it took almost 17 years and a democratic transition to deliver a verdict. This time, it has taken 14 months. Chun’s death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on appeal, and he was eventually pardoned.

FBI analyzing DNA found on black glove in Nancy Guthrie case as authorities clear family

The FBI is analyzing male DNA found on a black glove roughly two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Meanwhile, authorities announced they have cleared all of Guthrie's family members as suspects. Jonathan Vigliotti has the latest.

FBI refuses to share evidence in Alex Pretti killing, Minnesota investigators say

Minnesota's top investigative agency said Monday the federal government has formally refused to hand over evidence and information in the killing of Alex Pretti.

What we know about deadly hockey game shooting in Rhode Island

Two people were killed and three others critically injured in a shooting at a high school boys' hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, according to police. CBS Boston reporter Luisa Moller reports.

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot review – a unique memoir by a figure of astonishing power

Pelicot’s riveting account of her ordeal refuses to conform to any agenda but her own

It is a mark of the power and honesty of Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir, A Hymn to Life – a seemingly impossible writing project in which the author must reconcile herself with horrors of which she has no recollection – that in the first 40 pages, the person I felt most angry towards was Pelicot herself. Her ex-husband, Dominique, who will almost certainly be in jail for the rest of his life for drugging and raping his wife and recruiting 50 men over the internet to do likewise, takes his place among the monsters of our age. In his absence, the reader may experience a version of what happened in Gisèle Pelicot’s own family – namely, the misdirection of anger towards her.

I have read enough books by female survivors of male sexual violence to say with confidence that Hymn to Life is unique. Pelicot – she decided to keep her married name in the interests of giving those of her grandchildren who share it a way to be proud rather than ashamed – was 67 when her husband of almost 50 years was arrested in 2020 for upskirting women in a supermarket in Carpentras, a small town in the south-east of France near the couple’s retirement home in the village of Mazan. When the police investigation uncovered a cache of videos and photos in which an unconscious Pelicot was shown being sexually assaulted by scores of men, she entered a nightmare.

Six Sarah Ferguson-linked companies to close after Epstein revelations

Messages from ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to sex offender, sent after his conviction, came to light last month

Six companies linked to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, are being wound down in the wake of revelations about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

According to Companies House, an application to strike off each company was filed after new details about Ferguson’s contact with Epstein came to light in the millions of documents released by US authorities as part of the Epstein files.

‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating

Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is ‘not rocket science’

Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating.

Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”.

Frederick Wiseman, who captured the weirdness and wonder of everyday life, dies at 96

The prolific, pioneering filmmaker made dozens of documentaries and chronicled the inner workings of institutions. His 1967 film, Titicut Follies, revealed appalling conditions at a prison facility.

Epstein files fallout: The high-profile people burned by past dealings with a predator

Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a New York City federal jail in 2019. But more than six years later, people are still losing their jobs because of him.

Muir fourth again after agonising tumble as Oldham wins big air gold for Canada

• China’s Eileen Gu second, Italy’s Flora Tabanelli third

• Briton, fourth again, says: ‘I really did have to go for it’

This time, Kirsty Muir must surely have believed that a Winter Olympic medal was in her grasp. But as a thrilling big air competition reached its denouement, an Italian with no anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee came down a 180‑feet ramp and drove a stake through the Briton’s heart.

It all looked so promising when the 21-year-old from Aberdeen landed a stunning left double 1620, with four and a half rotations, to move into the medal positions after two of the three rounds. However, with just four jumps of the competition remaining, Flora Tabanelli, who tore her ACL in November, did the same trick as Muir but only better to score 94.25 points to steal the bronze medal.

Haji Wright hat-trick sinks Middlesbrough and returns Coventry to Championship summit

“We are top of the league,” sang the Coventry City supporters on loop after returning to the summit of the Championship with a victory that quelled the nagging noise surrounding Frank Lampard and his promotion-chasing side. Coventry, pace-setters for the majority of the season, had won just four league games since the end of November. But Haji Wright hit a timely hat-trick as Coventry again traded places with Middlesbrough, whose six-game winning run came to an abrupt halt, to renew belief in these parts.

Riley McGree pulled a goal back midway through the second half but from the restart Boro conceded a penalty that allowed Wright to claim the match ball. Coventry’s lead may be a single point but this felt a significant victory, psychologically as much as anything, their having taken just 16 from the previous available 39. “There have been quite a few questions asked and I think the lads should get a lot of credit,” Lampard said. “It was a big game, a really good game, which probably showed why we are one and two in the league. We have to take this as a bit of a template of what has to go into a game.”

Macclesfield’s fairytale FA Cup run ended by Heathcote’s own goal against Brentford

The standing ovation from the Macclesfield fans at full time was deserved. Their side may have lost 1-0 on the night, their dream FA Cup run coming to an end just when a lucrative trip to West Ham’s London Stadium in the fifth round had veered into sight, but pride was the overriding emotion.

Ultimately it had taken an unfortunate own goal from Sam Heathcote, a PE teacher when not playing as a part-timer in the National League North, to nudge Brentford of the Premier League into the fifth round.

Two U.S. moms in their 40s rocketed to gold and bronze in Olympic bobsled showdown

American sliders Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, and Kaillie Humphreys, 40, secure gold and bronze medals. Meyers-Taylor built on her record as the Black athlete with the most Winter Olympics medals.

Canada's Megan Oldham takes gold in freestyle big air, Eileen Gu takes silver

Defending Olympic champion Eileen Gu took silver in freeski big air at the 2026 Winter Olympics as Canada's Megan Oldham won the gold medal on Monday night.

USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor storms monobob to win first Olympic gold at age 41

• American was competing in her fifth Olympics

• Ties Bonnie Blair for US women’s medal record

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results

It took her five Olympics, but she finally got there: USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor won gold in the monobob on Monday, capping a long and brilliant career.

The 41-year-old competed in her first Olympics at Vancouver 2010, and since then she has won three silver medals and two bronze across two events, the monobob and the two-woman bobsleigh. Her victory at the Milano Cortina Games came down to the final run of the competition with Laura Nolte competing to best Meyers Taylor’s time of 3min 57.93 sec. But the German could not respond and Meyers Taylor became America’s oldest-ever female Winter Olympic champion.

The U.S. women's hockey team is dominating the Olympics. Now they will play for gold

The Americans, whose captain Hilary Knight is leading a generation of thrilling young talent, are undefeated through six games at the Olympics — and they're outscoring their opponents 31 to 1.

‘I struggled without realising’: Tommy Freeman reveals mental toll of workload

• Northampton coaches eased post-Lions burden

• England back played 34 games last season

England’s Tommy Freeman has revealed the extent of his mental struggles after the victorious British & Irish Lions tour of Australia at the end of a season when he exceeded the player welfare limits for the number of appearances.

Freeman played in 34 games last season – 19 for Northampton, nine for England and six for the Lions – and has spoken of a “built-up anxiety” as a result of the workload. The mandated limit is 30, but players were given dispensation for the Lions tour on the proviso they were allowed five weeks off on returning from Australia and missed the first two rounds of the 2025-26 season.

Rayo Vallecano stun Atlético with their fans in revolt and stadium unusable | Sid Lowe

Rayo had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. But they still managed to upset Atlético Madrid

One day in November, the coach of Rayo Vallecano decided that was it: he was out. The captain in whom he finds strength had reached a similar conclusion long ago, handing in his armband as an act of protest and dignity. Two Fridays ago, the squad signed a statement saying they couldn’t carry on like this. And last Friday, the fans who’ve been through it all before decided they too would walk away. Yet 48 hours later, after another week that proved them right, resisting everything, there they were still, celebrating another implausible success, another day when they had stuck it to The Man. If not, admittedly, the man they’d like to stick it to.

Actually, ‘there’? Not all of them were in the same place, even if that was a way of showing they were in this together. Because Rayo fans were out on the streets of the self-styled independent republic of Vallecas with their banners and scarves and songs on Sunday, while their team and coach were 10km south, playing in a different city. With their training ground unusable and their home home ground declared to be so too, they had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. Where, in front of 9,000 empty seats, and kicking off in the relegation zone, they only went and beat Atlético Madrid 3-0, three days after Diego’s Simeone’s side had battered Barcelona 4-0.

The Blood Countess review – Isabelle Huppert reigns supreme in a surreal vampire fantasia

Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role

From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role.

Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the classic Huppert opaque gaze – part dreamy, part coldly assessing – and the politely bemused half-smile of concealed distaste, merging into a pout, at the absurdity or ill manners of someone to whom she cannot avoid being introduced. Unlike the other mere mortals in this film, Huppert’s face is lit like that of a Golden Age Hollywood star, giving her impeccable maquillage a ghostly sheen of profane sainthood.

A curling scandal rocks Olympic ice

Allegations of cheating and swearing on the curling ice have rocked the sport after the Swedes accused the Canadians of "double touching" in a match. What happened then, and what's happened since?

FBI won’t share Alex Pretti shooting evidence, Minnesota authorities say

State’s governor had demanded impartial inquiry into the shooting of the VA nurse by federal immigration agents

Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.

Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis.

The patience and the poker face: Iran’s wily diplomat set to face the US in nuclear talks

Abbas Araghchi is steeped in more than a decade of nuclear dealmaking with a book on the art of negotiations

If the US and Iran are to avoid a regional war, both sides need to start to make concessions at talks in Geneva on Tuesday, and also to accommodate one another’s very different bargaining styles.

The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, steeped in almost 15 years of Iranian nuclear talks, is a near lifelong diplomat who has written a book on the art of negotiations that reveals the secrets of the Iranian diplomatic trade – the feints, the patience, the poker faces.

The U.S. ready to make up, Europe ready to break up in Munich

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to reassure Europe at the Munich Security Conference, but European leaders are skeptical.

"Signal sniffer" to detect Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker deployed, sources say

A device that can pick up certain electronic signals is being used in the search for Nancy Guthrie, as it may detect emissions from her pacemaker, sources told CBS News.

Trump lashes out at California governor’s green energy deal with UK

President says it is inappropriate for UK to be dealing with Gavin Newsom after Ed Miliband meets governor in London

Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate.

“The UK’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”

Average tax refund is nearly 11% higher so far this year, IRS data shows

Forecasters predicted filers would benefit from larger checks​ this year due to a series of new tax provisions in the "one big, beautiful" bill.

Why athleisure giant Lululemon is losing momentum

After a decade of rapid growth, Lululemon is struggling to find its footing in an increasingly saturated market.

Why Starmer’s latest U-turn over local elections could be a gift for Reform

Ditching plans to delay votes in 30 English councils gives Nigel Farage chance to capitalise on Labour unpopularity

• Starmer abandons plans to delay local elections in England in latest U-turn

Keir Starmer was challenged on Monday morning over the list of U-turns he has made since entering government less than two years ago, including on cuts to winter fuel payments, cuts to disability benefits and hikes in inheritance tax for farmers.

“I am a pragmatist. I am a common-sense merchant,” he told the BBC presenter Jeremy Vine in his defence.

Producer of Israeli spy thriller found dead in Athens hotel room

Dana Eden, 52, co-creator of hit TV series Tehran, reported by Greek police to have taken her own life on Sunday

The co-creator of an Israeli hit TV series has been found dead in a hotel room in Athens where the fourth season of the spy thriller is being filmed.

Dana Eden, 52, was discovered by her brother late on Sunday, Greek police said, attributing her death to suicide.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Actor Robert Duvall has died — he brought a compassionate center to edgy hard roles

Duvall appeared in over 90 films over the course of his career, imbuing stock Hollywood types — cowboys, cops, soldiers — with a nuanced sense of vulnerability.

Italy's athletes shine at the Milan Cortina Olympics

Call it homefield advantage, call it national pride. Italy's athletes are shining in the Winter Olympics underway in Milan and the Alps.

Serie A referee La Penna told to stay at home by police after dozens of death threats

• La Penna wrongly sent off Juve’s Kalulu against Inter

• Official could face one-month ban following incident

The referee Federico La Penna has received dozens of death threats after wrongly sending off a Juventus player at Inter on Saturday. Italian police have reportedly advised him not to leave his home.

La Penna sparked fury among Juventus fans after dismissing Pierre Kalulu, showing the defender a second yellow card for a challenge on Alessandro Bastoni. Replays showed Bastoni had clearly simulated the fall. Juventus officials and fans argued that the decision heavily influenced the game, which Inter won 3-2, despite the Bianconeri having fought back to level the score with 10 men.

Robert Duvall was a vigorous and subtle actor who always performed with passion and conviction

From his steely self-effacing consigliere in The Godfather to his surf-crazed Wagner enthusiast in Apocalypse Now, just to see him on screen made me smile

• Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95

Robert Duvall was a foghorn-voiced bull of pure American virility, and he put energy and heart into the movies for more than 60 years. Just to see him on screen was enough to make me smile. That handsome face and head gave him the look of a Roman emperor from Waxahachie, Texas or a three-star general playing the country music circuit. Duvall was famously bald (the rare roles needing hairpieces always looked artificial on him) and so he looked the same age almost all his acting life: forever in his vigorous fortysomething prime – though often playing figures complicated with tenderness and woundedness.

Duvall had a long, rich career, starting out with notable roles in To Kill a Mockingbird, M*A*S*H, The Conversation and Network, but it was destiny to be chiefly known for two sensational and very different roles given to him by Francis Ford Coppola at either end of the 1970s. One was Tom Hagen, the quiet, self-effacing consigliere to the Corleone crime family in The Godfather (1972), with a complex relationship both with the Don himself, played by Marlon Brando, and his youngest son and heir, the coldly imperious Michael, played by Al Pacino. And the second was his extraordinary turn as the surf-crazed Wagner enthusiast Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979), who with his “Air Mobile” division of helicopters leads a gigantic attack on a Vietnamese village in broad daylight, with speakers blaring The Ride of the Valkyries – in theory to airlift Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, and his boatful of men into the river’s strategic entry point. But all too clearly, it’s because he just wants an excuse for a whooping and hollering cavalry attack.

UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears

Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networks

UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems.

The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur.

Students in England and Wales launch legal action over Covid-hit studies

More than 170,000 seek compensation after UCL Covid settlement opens door to claims across university sector

Dozens of universities are facing legal action from more than 170,000 students seeking compensation after their studies were moved online during Covid-19.

Pre-action claim letters have been sent to 36 universities in England and Wales, including Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Imperial College London, Leeds, Liverpool and Warwick, on behalf of aggrieved students.

Primary care is in trouble. Doctors are banding together to increase market power

As costs increase, primary care practices are joining forces in Independent Physician Associations. The goal is to leverage better insurance contracts, while ensuring doctors still call the shots.

CBS News Things That Matter: A Town Hall with Governor Wes Moore

Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a rising star in the Democratic Party, sits down with CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell to discuss issues impacting the nation, including the critical 2026 midterm elections and his vision for the future of the Democratic Party.

Far-right character’s monologue prompts violent scenes at German theatre

Actor shouted down and pelted with fruit during Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists

An actor at a theatre in Germany was at the weekend shouted down, pelted with fruit and subjected to an attempted stage invasion as he delivered a final monologue in character as a far-right activist.

The violent scenes came on Saturday during the German premiere of the Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’s work Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia.

The NFL just wrapped a record-breaking season. Here’s why next year’s going to be even bigger

In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, the NFL announced that Paris, Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro will host regular-season games for the first time.

Brilliant Sri Lanka leave Australia on brink of T20 World Cup elimination

• Stunning ton by Pathum Nissanka seals hosts’ run chase

• Australia need Ireland to beat Zimbabwe on Tuesday

Australia could be out of the T20 World Cup before they even play their final first round group match after a stunning fightback by Sri Lanka in Pallekele.

Returning captain Mitch Marsh and a revived Travis Head looked to have set Australia on course for a victory that would have kept their tournament hopes alive as they smashed a century-plus opening stand at more than two-runs-a-ball.

Why did Obama say aliens are real? | The Latest

Barack Obama has caused a frenzy after saying he thinks aliens are real during a podcast interview. The former US president was forced to release a statement clarifying he had not seen any evidence of extraterrestrials. There is a long-running conspiracy theory claiming the US government is hiding extraterrestrials at Area 51, a highly classified air force site in Nevada.
Lucy Hough speaks to the host of the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast, Madeleine Finlay

Did you solve it? Chapeau! A smart new hat puzzle

The answer to today’s peaky poser

Earlier today I set you this logic puzzle. Here is is again with the solution.

(If you found it too simple. Here’s a harder version.)

Milano Cortina Winter Olympics 2026 day 10 – in pictures

Check out the best images from day 10 of the Games, from alpine skiing to medal-biting celebrations

‘I just needed some time for myself’: Norwegian skier hides in woods after slalom gold heartache

• Meillard takes title after McGrath crashes out

• GB’s Dave Ryding finishes 17th in his final race

For more than a century of Winter Olympic sport, athletes have dealt with defeat in almost every possible way: tears, tantrums, breaking things, breaking down. On Monday afternoon in Bormio, the Norwegian Atle Lie McGrath processed his grief in a novel way after the men’s slalom gold medal had slipped away. First, he threw his ski poles as far as he could and then he hid in the woods.

“I just needed to get away from everything,” he said. “I thought I would get some peace and quiet, which I didn’t because photographers and police found me out in the woods. I just needed some time for myself.”

Savannah Guthrie makes new appeal for missing mother: ‘It’s never too late to do the right thing’

In Instagram post, TV host whose mother disappeared 15 days ago in Arizona says ‘you’re not lost or alone’

The TV news anchor Savannah Guthrie issued a fresh appeal to anyone who knows the whereabouts of her missing mother, saying that “you’re not lost or alone” and “it is never too late to do the right thing”.

The Today anchor, who is stepping away from NBC’s morning broadcast, urged “whoever has her or knows where she is” to come forward, but did not make reference to any ransom demands or communication with any abductor.

Parents say Camp Mystic counselor "died a hero" trying to save girls from flood

In their first television interview, the parents of 19-year-old Katherine Ferruzzo are demanding changes from Camp Mystic​, where their daughter died in last summer's devastating floods.

How British skeleton left the world in its tracks with golden Winter Olympics haul | Andy Bull

Big investment in coaches and kit – £5.8m in the last cycle – has paid off despite lack of facilities and snow at home

According to the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, 3,500 people have signed up to audition for their skeleton Talent ID programme in the past three days, an extraordinary surge of interest in what has never been what you might call the most accessible sport.

It is all after Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker won Great Britain’s 10th and 11th Olympic medals in the sport, continuing a lineage that reaches back to 1928, when it was the winter sport of choice for the most reckless of a set of aristocratic adventurers. The 11th Earl of Northesk won bronze ahead of his teammate, and the pre-race favourite, Lord Brabazon of Tara. It is some legacy. After a century of competition, skeleton is the only Winter Olympic sport in which Britain lead the all-time medal table.

O’Romeo review – Bollywood Shakespeare takes dive into grisly mafia queens territory

After hit takes on Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet, Vishal Bhardwaj’s Romeo and Juliet adaptation sees dead-eyed lovers drag one another to gutter and grave

It must be Misbegotten Adaptations week. This Hindi gangland epic’s credentials are impeccable: director Vishal Bhardwaj previously wowed with textured, inventive variations on Macbeth (Maqbool, 2003), Othello (Omkara, 2006) and Hamlet (Haider, 2014). But rather than a straightforward modernisation of Romeo and Juliet, this latest revisits a grisly true-crime story ripped from Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai, the book that previously inspired Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2022 hit, Gangubai Kathiawadi. The results align Bhardwaj with the newly lurid turn mainstream Bollywood has taken with recent smashes Animal and Dhurandhar, but it’s jarring to witness, as if Kenneth Branagh had followed his turn-of-the-90s Shakespeare successes by trying for Natural Born Killers.

For Venice (or Baz Luhrmann’s Venice Beach), Bhardwaj swaps the Mumbai underworld of the 1990s, ushering in the movies’ first morally degenerate Romeo. Shahid Kapoor’s Hussein Ustara – nicknamed Romeo – is a heavily tattooed bellower employed as a hitman for a local godfather; his Juliet (Animal’s Triptii Dimri) an aggrieved widow clutching a sizeable hitlist. These two are star-crossed: he rescues her amid a bungled assassination attempt on the lawyer smearing her late husband, earning them both powerful foes. The fish tank through which Leo glimpsed Claire Danes here abuts the bed to which this Romeo takes two escorts while his Juliet listens in. Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.

‘Heath Ledger knocked my tooth out jousting with a broom’: how we made A Knight’s Tale

‘The lances were made of balsa wood and filled with uncooked spaghetti – so that when they broke, there’d be an explosion of what looked like splinters’

I wrote and directed the Mel Gibson film Payback but got fired during post-production. It was my first film as director and I thought my career was over. It was during this downtime that I wrote A Knight’s Tale. I loved the idea that jousting tournaments were medieval sports, but I had never figured out what to do with it. I thought about the ideas underpinning it: a peasant who wants to be a noble was like a screenwriter wanting to be a director. It’s a guy trying to be something he has no right to be.

Starmer vows to fast-track social media law but says under-16s ban not definite

Prime minister says action will be taken on young people’s social media access in ‘months, not years’

• What social media restrictions has Keir Starmer announced?

Keir Starmer has pledged action on young people’s access to social media in “months, not years”, while saying this did not necessarily mean a complete ban on access for under-16s.

Speaking at an event in London after the government promised to extend the crackdown to AI chatbots that place children at risk, Starmer said the issue was nuanced and that a ban was not definite, noting concerns from charities such as the NSPCC.

Did the USA v World format revive the NBA’s struggling All-Star Game?

Critics say what was once a showpiece for the league has turned into a glorified practice session. But there are signs an updated version may have worked

Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady flashed a look of disdain when recalling last year’s NBA All-Star Game.

“The All-Star Game that we witnessed last year was not an All-Star game,” McGrady told the Guardian. “I don’t know what that was.”

Carnival, lunar new year and anti-US fervour: photos of the day – Monday

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

DHS government shutdown is underway. Here are the services affected.

The Department of Homeland Security officially shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday after Congress failed to pass a bill to fund its operations before a stopgap measure lapsed.

Pizza Hut feasts and improvised altars: lunar new year in Australia’s small town Chinese restaurants

They’re normally behind the wok or taking orders, year-round. But when it’s time to celebrate, these Chinese restaurant families create their own traditions

Two things are certain at Chinese restaurants in Australian country towns: you’ll find lemon chicken on the menu and the restaurant is open almost every day.

In the 1960s and 70s, Ruby Lee’s parents ran the Pagoda Cafe in Burleigh Heads, a surf town in Queensland. They worked 14-hour days and opened the restaurant year-round, even Christmas. When they did eventually close for one day a year, it was for lunar new year.

My rookie era: I attempted only the easiest Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cakes. Then came the duck cake

When I shared my attempt online, my duck cake was described as ‘Big Bird on crack’

• Read more summer essentials

I assume no parent aspires to give their offspring an unmemorable and vanilla childhood. I wanted to be a fun mum, creating love-soaked memories and quirky family traditions for my children right from the get-go. I wanted to be Bluey’s parents before Bluey even existed.

The Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cakes were destined to be a pillar of my perfectly imperfect parenting rituals. One child quickly became three, and that iconic recipe book was in constant rotation. In the early years, I would simply choose a cake that matched my very basic baking skills. I also only owned a round tin, so my kids’ early cakes were circle-shaped, or circle-adjacent: the swimming pool (a round cake filled with jelly), the cat (a round cake with ears) and the race track (two round cakes with the centres removed).

What's open and closed on Presidents Day 2026?

Most retail and food establishments will remain open, but services like mail delivery will be suspended for the federal holiday.

Gisèle Pelicot: The Newsnight Interview review – you can only gaze admiringly at her strength and grace

Mme Pelicot’s innate dignity shines through, as she explains why she waived her anonymity – after her husband drugged her so that dozens of men could sexually assault her

It’s hard to judge an interview with Gisèle Pelicot in the normal terms. Let’s start with the easy bit: Victoria Derbyshire is the ideal interlocutor. The co-presenter of Newsnight has a kind of steely warmth that meshes well with the innate dignity of Mme Pelicot – as she is called throughout – while they walk unflinchingly through her terrible story.

Her “descent into hell” began on 2 November 2020 when the local police called her and her husband, Dominique Pelicot, to the station. They believed it was to do with his recent arrest for covertly taking pictures underneath the skirts of three women in the supermarket. It was not. In the course of that investigation they had found on his laptop thousands upon thousands of videos and photographs accumulated over a decade of his wife unconscious and being raped by strangers.

Train derails in Switzerland amid fatal avalanches across the Alps

Swiss police say derailment near Goppenstein injured five as large areas of western Alps remain under category 5 avalanche risk

Avalanches from heavy snowfall in the European Alps claimed more lives over the weekend, as a train was derailed by a snow slide in Switzerland on Monday and roads and villages around Mont Blanc were closed or placed under evacuation orders.

As large areas of the western Alps remained under a high risk of avalanche – following a week in which alerts reached category 5, the highest level – Swiss police said a train derailment caused by an avalanche injured five people near the town of Goppenstein.

New UK border rules for dual nationals are discriminatory against women, campaigners say

British women in Spain and Greece face ‘huge problems’ entering UK because of differing surname rules

New rules requiring British dual nationals to show a UK passport when entering Britain are “discriminatory” against women, campaigners claim.

From 25 February, British dual nationals are required to present a British passport when boarding a plane, ferry or train to the UK, or attach a new document, a “certificate of entitlement”, which costs nearly £600, to their second passport.

International humanitarian law is at risk – but it still carries weight | Kenneth Roth

A study says IHL is at ‘critical breaking point’ amid horrendous violations in Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere. But to declare its demise would be premature

Is international humanitarian law (IHL), the law designed to spare civilians as much as possible the hazards of warfare, at risk of imploding? That is the conclusion of a new compendious study of current armed conflicts around the world, citing the killing of civilians and other atrocities in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere. “While the threat to IHL is not yet existential,” it warns, “it is at a critical breaking point.”

There is no doubt that the disregard for civilian life in these conflicts has been horrendous. In Gaza and Sudan, it has risen to the level of genocide. But do these represent serious violations of the law or its demise?

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

The US is merely the latest to join the global rush to hoard critical minerals

JD Vance is seeking to create a ‘trading bloc’ as shortages and climate crises mean a kaleidoscope of rare earths are increasingly jealously guarded

The announcement by the US vice-president, JD Vance, that the country is seeking to create a new critical minerals “trading bloc” is a final, exotic, nail in the coffin of the old global trading system. The era of mass abundance, as supplied by unfettered free trade and global markets – “neoliberalism” – is over. We live in a new world of strategic competition between states over scarce but essential resources, with shocks to supplies from human activity and natural disasters an ever-present risk.

This means recalibrating how we think about our economy: the new economic fundamentals today are resource constraints and climate and nature crises, and these, rather than human activity, will increasingly shape the world we inhabit. Flows of finance and stocks of wealth will matter less than stocks and flows of real material resources.

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for ginger sesame meatballs with rice and greens | Quick and easy

A simple, warmingly spiced supper, irrespective of whatever mince you choose to use

I make variations of these meatballs every fortnight for my children, usually with chicken mince. The texture is fantastic and, whisper it, they’re even better made in an air fryer. Yes, I finally got one and it’s fantastic. You do, however, have to cook them all in one layer, which, depending on the size of your air-fryer basket, might mean cooking them in multiple batches. It feels more efficient to make them all in one go, though, so I’ve provided oven timings below.

Disappearances in Mexico surge by 200% over 10 years

More than 130,000 people considered missing or disappeared in Mexico as drug cartels expand

It was a bright morning in August 2022 when Ángel Montenegro was taken. A 31-year-old construction worker, Montenegro had been out all night drinking with some work buddies in the city of Cuautla and was waiting for a bus back to nearby Cuernavaca, where he lived.

At about 10am, a white van pulled up: several men jumped out and dragged Montenegro and a co-worker inside before speeding off. Montenegro’s co-worker was released a few hundred meters down the street, but Montenegro was driven away.

DHS shuts down after a funding lapse. And, why athletes get the 'yips' at the Olympics

Congress is out on recess as a partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security is underway. And, why some superstar athletes have been getting the "yips" at the Winter Olympics in Italy.

Epstein sympathized with Kavanaugh during supreme court confirmation, emails show

Files show convicted sex abuser messaged with Ken Starr and others about Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford

Jeffrey Epstein sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh during the then-supreme court nominee’s contentious 2018 confirmation and even suggested Republicans should have been harder on Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Emails and text messages released by the Department of Justice show Epstein was closely monitoring the confirmation and seemed to believe that Ford’s allegation of sexual assault could derail the process.

More heartache than Hamnet?: Maggie O’Farrell’s best books – ranked!

As her Women’s prize-winning novel heads to the Oscars, we rate the author’s best work – from tales of new motherhood to a life-affirming memoir of mortality

The ghost of a previous lover is always a challenge, particularly if you (mistakenly) believe that she’s actually dead. This is the unenviable situation for Lily, the protagonist of O’Farrell’s second novel, who is swept off her feet by dashing architect Marcus and in short order moves in with him. Lily takes his assurances that her predecessor Sinead is “no longer with us” to mark a more permanent absence; in fact, Sinead has simply been thrown over, and it is in the details of the collapse of her relationship with Marcus that the novel most engages. Hints of the gothic ghost story deepen one of the main takeaways, which is that Marcus consists almost entirely of red flags.

Keith Wood: ‘After a Lions series, every player that went on tour is wrecked’

The former Ireland hooker on his rugby family, why Andy Farrell’s side need to rebuild and the physical toll of touring with the Lions

I have known Keith Wood for nearly 30 years and so it’s easy to talk about life and death long before we move on to rugby. But the game always provides context and, last Friday afternoon, the 54-year-old former Lions hooker and Irish captain drove to Cork to watch his youngest son, Tom, play for Ireland against Italy in the Under‑20 Six Nations.

The previous weekend Tom made his first-team debut for Munster to match his dad and the grandfather he never met. Gordon Wood played for Munster, as well as Ireland and the Lions, before he died, aged 50, in 1982. Keith was only 10 when that first tragedy occurred but he went on to play for the same three teams as his dad.

Floating cities of logs: can the ‘lungs of Africa’ survive its exploitation?

The Congo River basin is one of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But it is also home to a growing population and relentless trade in timber and charcoal

“You can’t be scared of the storms,” says Jean de Dieu Mokuma as the sun sets on the Congo River behind him. “With the current, once your voyage has begun, there is no turning back.” Mokuma, along with his wife Marie-Therese and their two young children, is piloting a cargo of timber downstream lashed on to a precarious raft and tied to a canoe.

Families wake up at dawn on rafts of logs and merchandise that are being transported down the Congo River by boat to Kinshasa, the DRC capital

Every generation gets the Wuthering Heights it deserves. And Emerald Fennell’s is for the always-online | Nadia Khomami

Packed cinemas testify to the allure of Emily Brontë’s tale, even if this latest retelling is not to everyone’s taste

It’s hard to think of any book with a stronger hold on its admirers than Wuthering Heights. Almost 200 years after publication, Emily Brontë’s tale of forbidden love and ruthless revenge inspires a devotion that makes any reinterpretation feel like a personal and proprietary affront.

Into this sea of sensitivities has plunged the director Emerald Fennell, whose new adaptation has become one of the year’s most debated films. Dubbed “50 shades of Brontë”, everything about it has been scrutinised: from the casting of Aussies Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff to the anachronistic costumes and music, and the overt sexualisation of the plot.

What's next for Cuba? Trump turns the screws as the island runs out of jet fuel

Cuba’s government appears to be on the brink of economic collapse amid a worsening energy crisis.

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is big movie with a very small mind | Adrian Horton

The maximalist adaptation of the gothic romance shows great interest in production design but very little in character

It does not take long into Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s English lit classic, for one to detect the film-maker’s true faith. It is not to the challenging and beloved gothic novel of emotional repression and inheritance; as with many other cinematic adaptations, Fennell dispenses with the unruly latter half of the book, along with most of its conventions. In Fennell’s emphatically maximalist vision – she has explained that the quotation marks in the film’s marketing are a note of humility, to her singular and limited interpretation – the tortuously connected Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) swoon about the Yorkshire moors in extravagant, anachronistic formalwear, flagrantly unbound by period decorum.

Over three features, the English writer-director has demonstrated a penchant for sticky visuals; arguably the most-discussed scene from 2023’s Saltburn, her discourse-driving sophomore feature, involved the licking of cummy bathwater from the drain. Wuthering Heights is not to be controversially out-soaked. In closeup, sweat beads and drips down a spine; snail slime indolently streaks a window; freshly poured pig blood mucks Cathy’s dress. Desire, less suggested than enforced, stains everything. Early in the film, just after the abrupt ageing of Cathy and Heathcliff from boundless children (played by Charlotte Mellington and Adolescence’s Owen Cooper) to unspecific adults, Elordi’s brooding, beastly Heathcliff catches Robbie’s blonde Cathy, furiously horny after a bit of light voyeurism, pleasuring herself against the windswept rocks. She tries to hide her hand in her dress; he picks her up by the bodice strings, and licks her fingers clean.

One Olympic sport doesn't allow women. These Games could determine its future

Nordic combined is the only Olympic sport that doesn't allow women to compete, despite athletes' efforts to change that. They say their odds for 2030 hinge on people watching men's events this week.

The one change that worked: When good things happen, I write them down – and it’s made me more optimistic

Growing up in a turbulent household taught me to expect the worst. Then one day I found £20 in the street and shifted my thinking

Growing up, I was envious of one type of person. It was never the kids who were smarter, sportier or more popular. My awe was reserved for a rarer breed of people: optimists. I was hypersensitive to the ease with which they sailed through exams, social gatherings or teenage milestones with a sunny conviction that things would more or less work out. To me, they were the chosen people. “It’ll be fine,” one such friend would reassure me. “Or you could embarrass yourself,” my mind would purr like a villain. “Be rejected. Fail.”

I was a chronic worrier. A negative Nancy. I couldn’t fathom that people’s brains weren’t hardwired to compulsively fear things might go wrong. I grew up as the eldest daughter in a turbulent household where my father’s moods would plummet quickly and I walked on a knife-edge. Every morning, the second my eyes opened, I would force myself to accept it was going to be a bad day – an act of self-preservation so the rug could never get pulled from under my feet hoping for better. My thinking was that if you always expected the worst, things had a tendency to turn out better than you imagined.

The pet I’ll never forget: Otto, the wild, people-loving golden retriever who had 20 volunteer dog walkers

His charm and excitement helped us see the world as he did – full of kindness and joy

When we bought Otto, a golden retriever, a year after the death of our previous dog Bertie, we were sceptical that he could live up to our high expectations. What quickly became apparent, during the routine humiliation of our puppy training classes, was that Otto was a law unto himself.

“He’s not normal” quickly became a stock family phrase, as Otto demonstrated a series of wild, mischievous and outlandish behaviours. During classes, I remember being told euphemistically that he was “wilful” and shamefully resorted to hiding cocktail sausages in my pockets during the final exam to encourage a modicum of civility in him. It just about worked.

Trump’s Obama and Bad Bunny posts crystallize his political philosophy | Sidney Blumenthal

Maga is a recapitulation of the dark side of American history that cohered into nativist nationalism a century ago

Donald Trump’s posting of a video depicting former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes was the most overtly racist act of a president since Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal civil service – or since Trump’s previous racist gesture. The racist imagery Trump posted was so egregious that the video’s misogyny representing Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as animals was overlooked. Trump’s denigration of women is implicitly assumed as business-as-usual and not newsworthy: “Quiet, piggy!” And down the memory hole are the 3m long-suppressed documents from the Epstein files in which he is mentioned in its unredacted pages “more than a million times”, according to the Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, who was permitted access.

The only Black Republican US senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, said of the Obama portrayal: “It’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” though Scott did not disclose any list, which could have been drawn from an encyclopedia of offenses beginning decades before Trump’s birther campaign. During Trump’s first administration, in 2020, Scott chose to call out one incident as “indefensible”: Trump’s tweet of a video of a supporter chanting “white power”. Trump’s latest racist post was preceded on 11 January by his predictable vandalism of Black History Month in an interview with the New York Times with a remark about the Civil Rights Act of 1964: “White people were very badly treated.”

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

Why Marco Rubio’s ‘reassuring’ speech to Europe was nothing of the kind | Nathalie Tocci

After JD Vance’s frontal attack in Munich last year, the US secretary of state’s tone seemed almost soothing. That’s just a new Maga trap

The good news from the Munich Security Conference is that there was no dramatic deterioration in the transatlantic relationship. After the shock of last year’s event, when JD Vance stunned the audience with a frontal US attack on Europe’s liberal democracies, the seemingly more conciliatory tone struck by Marco Rubio was greeted by many present, including Wolfgang Ischinger, a veteran German diplomat and the conference chair, as “reassuring”. Indeed, the US secretary of state got a standing ovation in the room – a gesture perhaps more of relief than of adulation. But is the Trump administration’s message to Europe really any different now from that contained in Vance’s assault 12 months ago? What traps are being laid and what lessons should Europeans draw?

A year ago, Vance accused Europe of succumbing to the alleged tyranny and censorship of woke liberals and losing sight of the cultural bonds that link the two shores of the Atlantic. His attack baffled European leaders, who, while often prone to navel-gazing about their internal struggles, do not consider restrictions on free speech a primary concern. The US vice-president shocked Munich by insisting that Europe’s biggest threat was the woke “threat from within”, even as he endorsed far-right nationalists including Germany’s AfD. The insult was so deep that this year the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, used his opening address to issue a blunt warning about American unilateralist values, declaring that “the culture war of the Maga movement is not ours”.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

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Weather tracker: New Zealand hit by storms and widespread floods

Low pressure system funnels rain over already saturated areas, compounding risk of further flooding

A deep area of low pressure to the south-east of New Zealand’s North Island swept into the region on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, gale-force winds and dangerous coastal swells that lashed exposed shorelines. The storm triggered power outages, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure, with further impacts likely on Monday as the system lingers for a time, before tracking southwards later.

Its arrival came after days of widespread flooding in the Ōtorohanga district, where a man was found dead after his vehicle became submerged in flood waters. Some areas recorded more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours on Thursday, with Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty bearing the brunt of the deluge. The Tararua district and Wairarapa have also been experiencing heavy rain and strong winds from the storm, with 24-hour rainfall totals reaching more than 100mm locally, and wind speeds of about 80mph (130km/h) along coastal parts.