Germany’s foreign minister says French defence spending is ‘insufficient’ in rebuke to Macron – Europe live

Johann Wadephul says French president needs to make ‘difficult decisions’ and to ‘act accordingly’ to meet Nato spending targets

Back to Budapest now. Marco Rubio and the Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, appear to be signing an agreement to facilitate cooperation on a civilian nuclear programme.

We’ll give you any key lines from the press conference. In the meantime, our European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, has reported on the EU’s proposed deportation law that rights groups warn could intensify already widespread racial profiling across the continent. Here is an extract from her story:

More than 70 rights organisations have called on the EU to reject a proposal aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning that it risks turning everyday spaces, public services and community interactions into tools of ICE-style immigration enforcement.

Last March, the European Commission laid out its proposal to increase deportations of people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries.

Winter Olympics 2026: men’s slalom, plus curling, speed skating and more on day 10 – live

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

• Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch: email Daniel

Solberg of Norway looks like he’s going nicely, but he’s still well off the lad at every checkpoint. Increasingly, it looks like getting out first was a big advantage, Atle Lie McGrath still in front, as Sala of Italy joins the growing list of those who didn’t finish.

Visibility isn’t great as Dave “The Rocket” Ryding” sets off for his penultimate Olympic run. The GB veteran isn’t likely to trouble the podium, but he’ll want to make the second run, and he finishes 13th, 3.74 off the lead.

England v Italy: T20 World Cup cricket – live

T20 World Cup Group C updates, play from 9.30am GMT
Sign up for The Spin newsletter | And you can mail Daniel

Alistair Connor writes in and wants to know, “what’s the record of this Italian side against ... Scotland?”

Hmmm. Well, according to a quick Google search, they’ve played each other once with Scotland winning by 73 runs.

Starmer says government remains ‘open-minded’ about social media ban for under-16s – UK politics live

Prime minister says outcomes of consultation on social media ban should be implemented quickly as technology minister says Australia-style ban is not inevitable

Q: Do you support in inquiry into Labour Together commissioning an investigation into journalists?

Starmer says there will be a Cabinet Office investigation into this. “And quite right too,” he adds.

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 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

Harry Styles to curate Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre – and play an intimate gig

The pop superstar will oversee the annual music and art celebration in June, marking the festival’s 31st edition and the venue’s 75th anniversary

Harry Styles is to curate the Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the venue.

The 32-year-old pop star follows Little Simz as curator of the 2025 event, and previous editions led by artists including Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers and Robert Smith of the Cure.

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.

Poem of the week – from plastic: A Poem by Matthew Rice

Two time-stamped poems are taken from a book-length sequence tracking the human moments of a factory night shift

01.29

When we look up at stars on break
we see only stars behind
the exhaled Milky Way
of Bobby’s Golden Virginia,
ways to navigate shift patterns,
nothing seismic or anything approaching
truth; for us stars mean only night shift,
insanity of depth,
the slow individual seconds
during which the dotted starlight
doesn’t burn fast enough.

These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world | Jon Butterworth

If plans by the UK’s science funding body go ahead, we won’t be able to benefit from Britain’s membership of Cern and other large international projects

Alarm bells are ringing in the UK research community. Physics departments may close and researchers leave the UK. What is happening and why?

The alarm comes from changes in the way taxpayers’ money is invested by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which recently published its plan on how to disburse £38.6bn of public research and development funding over the next four years. Change is always unsettling, and as the UKRI’s chief executive, Ian Chapman, says, there will always be those who lose out when change happens. Difficult choices must be made.

Jon Butterworth is professor of physics at University College London, and a member of the ATLAS Collaboration at Cern

‘Unintentionally among the queerest releases of its time’: why Calamity Jane is my feelgood movie

The latest in our ongoing series of writers picking their comfort watches is an appreciation of Doris Day’s rule-defying heroine

There was a real vogue for gunslinging heroines back in mid-20th century American cinema. Gene Tierney wrangled civil war rebels in Belle Starr. Betty Hutton pranced around with a shotgun in a sparkly red cowgirl get-up, alongside a cowhide-wearing Howard Keel, in Annie Get Your Gun. But cinemagoers were thrown a curveball three years later when they got Doris Day – again with baritone sidekick Keel in tow – dressed, wise-cracking and swaggering exactly like a man.

Admittedly, when I first saw Calamity Jane aged nine, I was also not immediately sold. Not because of Day’s gender non-conformity, which had me hooked, but because of the bizarreness of the pseudo-biopic’s synopsis and its grating musical numbers. The New York Times had a point when they deemed it “shrill and preposterous”. Then there was the fact that on first look it appeared to be a western. Part crooning romcom, part frontier drama, it’s a strange beast of a film, but I was soon won over.

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.

'American Struggle' author assesses Trump's expansion of presidential power

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham talks about Trump's impact on democracy. Meacham's latest book is a collection of speeches, letters and other original texts from 1619 to the present.

How to register to vote in the 2026 primaries

For the 2026 primary elections, NPR has collected deadlines and information on how to register to vote — online, in person or by mail — in every U.S. state and territory.

Warner Bros Discovery weighs new sale talks after fresh Paramount offer

Board considering whether to re-engage in move that could prompt a second bidding war with Netflix

• Business live – latest updates

Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is reportedly weighing reopening sales talks with Paramount Skydance, in a move that could spark a fresh bidding war with Netflix for the Hollywood film and TV company.

Members of the board of WBD are discussing whether to re-engage with Paramount, which is pursuing a hostile $108.4bn (£76.8bn) cash takeover directly with shareholders in a bid to derail an agreed deal with Netflix, according to Bloomberg.

Israel will begin contentious West Bank land registration

Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupied West Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swaths of the area for future development.

Italy’s famous Lovers’ Arch collapses into the sea on Valentine’s Day

Rock structure which served as backdrop to countless proposals disappears into the Adriatic after storm

The famous arch of the sea stacks at Sant’Andrea in Melendugno, Puglia, Italy, popularly known as Lovers’ Arch, collapsed on Valentine’s Day after strong storm surges and heavy rain swept across southern Italy.

The rocky arch, one of the best-known natural landmarks on the Adriatic coast, got its name as it served as a backdrop for wedding proposals, selfies and postcards, and was one of the most recognisable symbols of the Salento, one of Italy’s most heavily visited tourist areas.

An Islamist party becomes Bangladesh's main opposition for the first time

An Islamist party has become Bangladesh's main opposition for the first time in the country's history, challenging the old dynastic political system despite persistent concerns among critics about the party's policies on women.

Morning news brief

Lawmakers no closer to a deal as partial government shutdown continues, officials to meet for more talks as Ukraine war nears 4th anniversary, what is it about Olympics that gives athletes "the yips"?

Cuba suspends annual cigar festival as U.S. oil blockade deepens energy crisis

The postponement comes as the island nation's communist-run government endures its biggest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Michael Jordan, six-time NBA champion, is now a Daytona 500 winner

Tyler Reddick won "The Great American Race" on Sunday with a last-lap pass at Daytona International Speedway that sent Jordan into a frantic celebration.

Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell review – about a boy

A charming child’s-eye view of rural Ireland

There’s a particular energy to novels written from the point of view of small children. Humour, of course, in the things the child misinterprets; pathos in the things they feel they must keep hidden; jeopardy in the dangers we can see, and they cannot. As any relative or babysitter can attest, even the sweetest child can become mind-numbingly dull when they’re all the company one has, so there’s a skill to charm without boring. The other skill is to find ways of enabling the reader to read over the child’s shoulder, as it were, to piece together for themselves the adult dramas to which a child’s natural egotism, or simple innocence, blinds them.

In 1988, the longsuffering mother in Seán Farrell’s first novel, Frogs for Watchdogs, is stranded. This Englishwoman has had a boy and a girl with a handsome rogue of an Irish actor, but he has walked out on them. Asked to leave a commune unsuited to children, skint, too proud, perhaps, to return to the protection of well-heeled parents in England, she rents a farmhouse on the cheap in the deep countryside of County Meath, where she can grow vegetables, raise hens and a few sheep, and attempt to scrabble a living as a healer. (From the multiple dilutions her boy witnesses her perform, her fairly batty practice would seem to be some form of homeopathy with new age elements thrown in.) While her doubtless appalled parents insist on sending the oldest child, a forthright girl called B, to an English boarding school, B’s younger brother spends months running happily feral. Once he is eight, he will be old enough to follow her and be tamed and anglicised.

Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell is published by John Murray (£14.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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.

Some European policymakers welcome U.S. Secretary of State Rubio's warm words, others remain cautious

Rubio's comments at the Munich Security Conference struck a softer tone than Vice President JD Vance's at last year's event.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model review – Tyra Banks comes across terribly in this exposé

This three-part documentary has remarkable access to people involved with this 00s TV hit. It’s an awful tale of body-shaming, humiliation and toxic treatment

If you’re a millennial woman, America’s Next Top Model may have been your first experience of appointment TV. The show, which ran for 10 years from 2003, was an early reality juggernaut and made a household name of the supermodel Tyra Banks, its creator and host. At its peak, Top Model drew more than 100 million viewers globally, and left a niche but indelible impact on culture. “Smize”, meaning to “smile with your eyes”, is in the Collins dictionary, while Banks’ infamous tirade (“We were all rooting for you!”) at an unruly model still circulates as a meme.

With its high-concept photoshoots and extreme makeovers, Top Model was ahead of its time in manufacturing viral moments. Today, however, the exacting critiques and body-shaming makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing, as gen Zers bingeing the show through the pandemic have pointed out. This latter-day reckoning is the peg for Netflix’s three-part docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is on Netflix

The hill I will die on: ‘Being a DJ’ isn’t a proper job | Phil Mongredien

In what other field is a couple of hours’ work taking the credit for somebody else’s brilliance so venerated?

Who earns the easiest money in showbiz? And when I say “earns”, what I actually mean is “gets paid”. If David Guetta and Calvin Harris can make up to $1m for a festival-headlining set – a couple of hours’ work – there can only be one answer: DJs. Because boil it down and all they’re doing for such vast sums of money is quite competently playing music that somebody else actually created. They are proficient labourers rather than artists. In what other field is taking the credit for somebody else’s brilliance so venerated?

Ah, but they get people dancing, you say. Yet how difficult is it to get people to dance when they have come out with the specific intention of dancing, and a reasonable proportion of them are on another planet? These people have invested heavily in having a good time, so it invariably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Given the sheer number of floor-filling tunes made during the past six or seven decades, it’s hardly a great feat to choose a few that other people will tolerate or even like.

Phil Mongredien is joint production editor for Guardian Opinion and Long Reads

FA Cup fourth round: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Pressure is telling on Scott Parker at Burnley while Dominik Szoboszlai is reaching new heights for Liverpool

The lack of pressure on Scott Parker this season, despite a collection of desperate performances and an impending relegation, has been mystifying. Plenty at Turf Moor feel a strong sense of loyalty to Parker, especially the chairman, Alan Pace, but support in the stands is dwindling. The lack of backing in the winter transfer window left the squad short of quality and with limited routes out of their current predicament. The Burnley head coach’s Premier League record is miserable and the style of play is devoid of entertainment. At the weekend he had the chance to follow a first league victory in 17 matches at Crystal Palace with FA Cup progress against third-tier Mansfield, but instead Burnley were deservedly eliminated. The second-half efforts of the Clarets bordered on embarrassment in a half-full ground and it feels like things cannot continue like this much longer. Will Unwin

Match report: Burnley 1-2 Mansfield

Match report: Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle

Match report: Liverpool 3-0 Brighton

Match report: Burton 0-1 West Ham (aet)

Match report: Hull 0-4 Chelsea

One Day has been a bestselling novel, a forgettable film, a beloved TV series – now can it be a musical?

David Nicholls’s romantic saga is heading to stage, in the very city where its characters first felt the sparks fly. But how to cram 20 years of romance into two tune-filled hours? By focusing on the little moments, say its creators

Playwright David Greig and director Max Webster are not afraid of a theatrical challenge. The last show they worked on together – The Lorax at London’s Old Vic in 2015 – transformed a complicated Dr Seuss story about capitalism, global heating and a grumpy forest guardian into a bright and breezy family show. Greig has tackled mammoth musicals (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and mountainside thrillers (Touching the Void), while Webster’s biggest hit, The Life of Pi, conjured up floating tigers and raging storms with theatrical flair and swagger.

Now the two are collaborating on a staged musical of David Nicholls’s much-loved – and much-adapted – novel One Day, first published in 2009. That might sound like a relatively straightforward theatrical challenge but there are pitfalls aplenty when it comes to staging the near-iconic love story, which follows would-be couple Dex and Em’s relationship over the same day – 15 July – across two decades. A case in point: the fairly disastrous 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway.

Is it true that ... central heating is bad for your skin?

Dry air indoors can cause an inflammatory reaction, yet so can cold, windy outdoor conditions – but turning down the heating and using a moisturising cream can help

‘This is kind of true,” says consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Craythorne. Human skin has evolved to retain water, thanks to a protective barrier on its surface. But that barrier isn’t totally watertight. Water is constantly moving across it, depending on the humidity of the surrounding air.

Skin tends to be most comfortable at a relative humidity of about 40%. When the air around us is drier than that, water is more likely to leave the skin. That matters because the process of water escaping across the skin barrier is mildly inflammatory.

Coventry v Boro: how momentum has shifted in the Championship title race

Frank Lampard’s team started the season with a blaze of goals but Kim Hellberg’s side are now title favourites

By WhoScored

The last time these two teams met, on 25 November, Coventry were on an 18-match run that delivered 13 wins, 50 goals and a 10-point lead at the top of the Championship. Middlesbrough, by contrast, entered the game without a head coach. Rob Edwards had taken the Wolves job and his replacement, Kim Hellberg, watched from the stands as the team conceded two late goals to lose 4-2. Boro were still second in the table but were staring up at what looked like an unbridgeable gap to the leaders.

And yet, as these two sides prepare to meet again a little more than two months later, the table tells a different story. Middlesbrough’s 2-1 win against Sheffield United was not just their sixth in a row, but it also took them above Coventry at the top.

Google puts users at risk by downplaying health disclaimers under AI Overviews

Exclusive: Google fails to include safety warnings when users are first presented with AI-generated medical advice

Google is putting people at risk of harm by downplaying safety warnings that its AI-generated medical advice may be wrong.

When answering queries about sensitive topics such as health, the company says its AI Overviews, which appear above search results, prompt users to seek professional help, rather than relying solely on its summaries. “AI Overviews will inform people when it’s important to seek out expert advice or to verify the information presented,” Google has said.

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

Logicians and their bonnets

Today’s puzzle is a new twist on a classic genre: the “common knowledge” hat riddle in which logicians deduce facts about their hats based on what they know, and what they know others know.

Head sums

‘Life requires cash’: Gaza’s jobs crisis leaves people struggling to afford basics

Fresh fruit and other items now available but at high prices in territory where unemployment is estimated at 80%

Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living.

Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the conflict. Like hundreds of thousands of others across Gaza, Bakr needs a job.

A World Appears by Michael Pollan review – a kaleidoscopic exploration of consciousness

The journalist and polymath probes the mysteries of the mind in this unsettling yet life-affirming investigation

The brain, wrote Charles Scott Sherrington, is an “enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern”. The British neuroscientist created this striking image more than 80 years ago, a time when mechanised looms, not computers, embodied the idea of technology. Even so, the symbolism feels relevant. We struggle to talk of our brains or minds without recourse to the machine metaphor: once it was clocks, then looms, and now computers. We say that our brains are hardwired; we talk of our ability to process information.

The quote appears as merely a footnote in Michael Pollan’s new book, A World Appears, a fabulous and mind-expanding exploration of consciousness: how and why we are self-aware. But the whole thing can be read as a lucid and impassioned riposte to Sherrington’s conception of the mind as a machine. In Pollan’s view, we have become imprisoned by such narratives, which have obscured the richness and complexity of human and non-human consciousness. Bridging both science and the humanities, Pollan mines neuroscientific research, philosophy, literature and his own mind, searching for different ways to think about being, and what it feels like.

Provence in bloom – exploring its flower festivals and the ‘perfume capital of the world’

Mimosas and violets are already out in the south of France, making it the perfect time for a pre-spring road trip

As I take my seat in Galimard’s Studio des Fragrances, in the Provençal town of Grasse, I limber up my nostrils for the task ahead: to create my own scent from the 126 bottles in front of me. Together they represent a world of exotic aromas, from amber and musk to ginger and saffron. But given that I have left the grey British winter behind to come here, I am more interested in capturing the sunny essence of the Côte d’Azur.

Here in the hills north of Cannes, the colours pop: hillsides are full of bright yellow mimosa flowers, violets are peeping out of flowerbeds and oranges hang heavy on branches over garden walls, even though it’s not yet spring. It is the perfect antidote to the gloom back home, and the chance to bottle these very scents is a joy.

North Korea opens a housing district for families of its soldiers killed in Russia-Ukraine war

North Korea said Monday it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

Concerns over autocracy in the U.S. continue to grow

Is America still a democracy? Scholars tell NPR that after the last year under President Trump, the country has slid closer to autocracy or may already be there.

Saga of the Silkmen: calm before the storm in Macclesfield as Brentford await

After Macclesfield’s FA Cup giantkilling, the quiet Cheshire town remains suitably unassuming in the spotlight after years of heartbreak

Along the passenger bridge at Macclesfield railway station, a frieze celebrates the town’s history. Towards the far platform it reads “1874, Macclesfield Town established”. The next entry is “1979, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures released”. Local humour has it that for 105 years nothing happened in Macclesfield. “Macc’s Macc,” say those who know of a place where change is for ever slow, many Maxonians happy enough with that.

The town, in the east of Cheshire, a gateway to England’s north-west, is a classic northern mill town, though silk was the product not cotton. It once would have been described as a bustling market town until falling victim to the nationwide death of the high street, its Marks & Spencer branch boarded up in disuse and footfall low. That said, the outdoor Treacle Market, selling artisan foods and trinkets, held on the last Sunday of each month, claims to be the region’s “biggest monthly event”.

Grim reapers: what has fertilised the rich new wave of neo-rural noir?

The Shepherd and the Bear is part of a new breed of films with a sympathy for country matters that has moved on from othering folk-horror

One of the best horror scenes this year arrives in a documentary about French pastoralism. It’s pitch-black out on a Pyrenean mountainside. Wagnerian lightning illuminates the ridges and the rain sheeting down. Bells clank in darkness as the sheep flee en masse to the other side of the col. Yves, the shepherd in charge, faces down this bewilderment, trying to perceive the threat: “Are those eyes?”

The Shepherd and the Bear, directed by Max Keegan, is part of a new breed of films with a heightened sympathy for country matters. Surveying the wind-ruffled pastures, lingering in battered cabins, it’s a highly cinematic depiction of the conflict in the Pyrenees provoked by the reintroduction of the brown bear. Much past rural cinema made hay from insisting we beware of the locals: Deliverance’s vicious hicks, The Wicker Man’s wily pagans, Hot Fuzz’s Barbour-jacketed cabal for the “greater good”. But the new school rides with the locals like Keegan’s film taps their knowledge and tells us what they’ve known all along: that it’s nature that’s truly scary.

Keir Starmer has a unique talent – to alienate absolutely everyone | Nesrine Malik

Who is his constituency now? Not the left or the right – and not the centre any more. That’s why there’s been a nosedive in the polls

After a tumultuous few weeks, we are once again in “reset” territory. Keir Starmer has bought some more time, there is a modest bounce in his polling, and he has had the well-timed fortune of the Munich security conference. His call there for the “remaking” of western alliances and taking the initiative on European defence cooperation has fumigated the air a little of the sense of imminent demise that has been swirling around him. But it will probably be a temporary hiatus. He is in a hole that is too deep to climb out of. The prime minister’s persistent unpopularity is best understood as the result of abundance: there is simply, in Starmer, something for everyone to deplore.

In policy, he has taken stances that have established him in the minds of many people as devoid of principle and compassion. On Gaza, Starmer got it wrong from the start. From his early assertion that Israel had the right to cut off water and power, to refusing calls for a ceasefire and then cracking down on protest (a move now judged as unlawful by the high court), the prime minister positioned himself against a huge domestic swell of distress. Add to that the cuts to disability benefits that made him appear callous after so many years of austerity, and what you have – whatever U-turns or watering down followed – is an impression of a politician whose instincts are those of a state apparatchik; someone whose default is enforcing pre-existing conventional wisdoms in foreign policy and economics, no matter how damaging or unpopular they are.

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, Altman says

OpenClaw, the open source AI agent that's surged in popularity in recent weeks, will live within OpenAI, according to a post on X from Sam Altman.

2/15: CBS Weekend News

Glove found near Nancy Guthrie home has DNA evidence, FBI says; Partial government shutdown continues amid demands for DHS reforms.

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.

Moore says Biden "needed to do more" on immigration, blasts Trump's crackdown

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told CBS News that no administration has ever fully figured out an effective immigration system and only Congress can fix it.

7 highlights from CBS News town hall with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore

In a CBS News "Things That Matter" town hall, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore blasted President Trump — but also urged Democrats to change their perception as "the party of no and slow."

Is this the world’s most eye-popping restaurant? The architectural marvel – in a Leipzig industrial estate

This extraordinary diner is the final wonder of the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who dreamt it up at the age of 103. And it’s a fine place for a sunset kombucha and gin

Perched among old brick buildings in an industrial neighbourhood of Leipzig in eastern Germany, a giant white sphere appears to hover over the corner of a former boiler house. Is it a giant’s golf ball? An alien spacecraft? A fallen planet?

Twelve metres in diameter, the Niemeyer Sphere is the final design of world-famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and probably the most surprising creation by a visionary who valued the sensation of newness in art above all else, the result being mesmerising buildings that seem both space age and out of this world. The Sphere is like a vision from the future, dropped among used-car dealerships and construction equipment rental outlets, in a working-class neighbourhood that few tourists would ever pass through by design.

‘The goal has been to demystify’: how a colonial Nairobi library was restored and given back to the people

Once a whites-only enclave, the grand McMillan Memorial library is one of three in the Kenyan capital that have been transformed for the community

Down a steep, narrow staircase, the basement of the McMillan Memorial Library in Nairobi holds more than 100 enormous, dust-covered bound volumes of newspapers. Here too are the minutes of council meetings and photographic negatives going back more than a century.

“Here lie some of the minute-by-minute recorded debates from the time British colonial powers ruled Nairobi, when it was a segregated city,” says Angela Wachuka, a publisher. Seconds later, a power cut plunges the room into darkness. “We still have a great deal of work to do,” she adds.

‘It’s the most urgent public health issue’: Dr Rangan Chatterjee on screen time, mental health – and banning social media until 18

The hit podcaster, author and former GP says a failure to regulate big tech is ‘failing a generation of children’. He explains why he quit the NHS and why he wants a ban on screen-based homework

A 16-year-old boy and his mum went to see their GP, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, on a busy Monday afternoon. That weekend, the boy had been at A&E after an attempt at self-harm, and in his notes the hospital doctor had recommended the teenager be prescribed antidepressants. “I thought: ‘Wait a minute, I can’t just start a 16-year-old on antidepressants,’” says Chatterjee. He wanted to understand what was going on in the boy’s life.

They talked for a while, and Chatterjee asked him about his screen use, which turned out to be high. “I said: ‘I think your screen use, particularly in the evenings, might be impacting your mental wellbeing.’” Chatterjee helped the boy and his mother set up a routine where digital devices and social media went off an hour before bed, gradually extending the screen-free period over six weeks. After two months, he says the boy stopped needing to see him. A few months after that, his mother wrote Chatterjee a note to say her son had been transformed – he was engaging with his friends and trying new activities. He was, she said, like a different boy from the one who had ended up in hospital.

No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama after podcast comments cause frenzy

Former US president clarifies ‘they’re real’ answer that he gave during quick-fire interview round

Hours after Barack Obama caused a frenzy by saying aliens were real on a podcast, the former US president has posted a statement clarifying that he has not seen any evidence of them.

In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a speed round of questioning where the host asks guests quick questions and the guests respond with brief answers.

Kim Jong-un unveils housing for families of North Koreans killed in Ukraine war

Leader vows to repay the ‘young martyrs’ who died as North Korea intensifies propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight for Russia

North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead.

State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs” who “sacrificed all to their motherland”.

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.

Savannah Guthrie posts new video: "It is never too late to do the right thing"

Nancy Guthrie has been missing since Feb. 1 and her daughter, "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie, has posted several videos pleading for her return.

Sexual assaults on airplanes are on the rise, CBS News investigation finds

A CBS News investigation found the FBI investigated more than 170 cases of passengers assaulting other passengers on flights in 2024.

More girls playing youth hockey amid Team USA's success

USA Hockey says girls' participation nationwide has surged 65% over the past 15 seasons, making it one of the fastest growing youth sports in the country. Natalie Brand reports.

Casey Wasserman, 2028 Olympics chair, to sell agency after Epstein files revelation

Casey Wasserman, the chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, says he is selling his eponymous talent agency in the wake of the release of emails between himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Airplane sexual assaults on rise, likely underreported, CBS News finds

Authorities are monitoring a threat in the skies: sexual assaults on airplanes. There's fear the crime is underreported. Scott MacFarlane investigates.

American headliners taking backseat to upstarts so far at Olympics

Some of the biggest names going into the Milano Cortina Games are not the ones we're seeing at the very top of the podium. Seth Doane reports.

Partial government shutdown continues amid demands for DHS reforms

Sunday marked the second day of a partial government shutdown impacting more than 260,000 government workers under the Department of Homeland Security across multiple agencies, including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. Democrats are calling for a ban on face coverings for immigration agents and for officers to display identification and wear body cameras. Willie James Inman has more.

Glove found near Guthrie's home appears to match video, has DNA, FBI says

Nancy Guthrie, the mother of "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the following day, Feb. 1.

Glove found near Nancy Guthrie home has DNA evidence, FBI says

A black glove discovered near the Arizona home of Nancy Guthrie contains DNA evidence that is being tested, and appears to match the gloves worn by the suspect seen in a doorbell camera video, the FBI says. Andres Gutierrez has more.

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

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

China hopes for a bumper lunar new year as world’s biggest migration begins

Year of the horse signals optimism and opportunity, with authorities keen that the extra day of holiday this year provides an economic boost

Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead.

The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their only trip home to see their families for the Chinese new year celebrations.

Bondi beach terror attack accused Naveed Akram makes first court appearance

Akram, 24, appears via video link from prison, saying ‘yeah’ and ‘yep’ when asked questions by the magistrate after Bondi shooting

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The accused Bondi beach terrorist Naveed Akram has spoken briefly during his first court appearance in Sydney.

The 24-year-old appeared via video link in the Downing Centre local court on Monday morning on 59 charges, including murder and terrorism offences, over the Bondi beach shooting.

Intermittent fasting no better than typical weight loss diets, study finds

Researchers say limited eating approaches such as 5:2 diet not a ‘miracle solution’ amid surge in their popularity

Intermittent fasting is no better for shedding the pounds than conventional diets and is barely more effective than doing nothing, according to a major review of the scientific evidence.

Researchers analysed data from 22 global studies and found people who are overweight or living with obesity lost as much weight by following traditional dietary advice as when they tried fasting regimes such as the 5:2 diet popularised by the late Michael Mosley.

Warner Bros. may reopen sale talks with Paramount following new deal terms, Bloomberg reports

Warner Bros. board members are weighing whether Paramount's sweetened bid may result in a better deal or prompt Netflix to up its offer, Bloomberg reports.

Trump trade adviser Navarro says administration may force data center builders like Meta to 'internalize' costs

Data centers powering artificial intelligence have strained the electrical grid and driven utility costs higher for consumers.

A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is under consideration. Here’s what parents need to know

Category describes people who have little or no language, an IQ of less than 50 and require 24-hour supervision

When it comes to autism, few questions spark as much debate as how best to support autistic people with the greatest needs.

This prompted the Lancet medical journal to commission a group of international experts to propose a new category of “profound autism”.

How many children met the criteria for profound autism?

Were there behavioural features that set this group apart?

Searchers find missing ship in Lake Michigan, over 150 years after it sunk

Shipwreck hunter found Lac La Belle steamer, one of ‘most sought-after missing ships’, after nearly 60-year search

Searchers recently discovered the wreck of one of the “most sought-after missing ships” in Lake Michigan, that had sunk to the bottom of the lake over 150 years ago.

A shipwreck hunter and scuba diver named Paul Ehorn made the discovery after having searched for the Lac La Belle passenger steamer for nearly 60 years. Shipwreck World, a group that works to locate shipwrecks around the globe, announced on Friday that the team led by Ehorn found the wreck about 20 miles (32km) offshore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

European football: Serie A referees’ chief apologises after controversial Kalulu red card

• Juventus lost 3-2 in dramatic fashion away at Inter

• Santos scores on debut to earn Napoli draw with Roma

Serie A’s referee designator Gianluca Rocchi said the match official Federico La Penna was “clearly wrong” in showing the Juventus defender Pierre Kalulu a second yellow card during Saturday’s loss at Inter, and apologised over the incident.

Kalulu was sent off after Inter’s Alessandro Bastoni tumbled to the ground and immediately gestured towards the referee demanding a card, indicating that Kalulu had grabbed his shirt to bring him down. Television footage suggested there was no contact between the players. Juventus, down to 10 men after the sending off, lost 3-2, meaning Inter are now eight points clear at the top.

James Trafford could leave Manchester City after being frozen out by Donnarumma

• Keeper did not think Guardiola would sign Italian

• ‘It’s football, you’ve got to keep grafting every day’

James Trafford has admitted he did not expect Manchester City to sign Gianluigi Donnarumma after his transfer from Burnley last summer, with the deputy goalkeeper potentially leaving this summer.

Trafford returned to City after two years at Turf Moor on 31 July in a deal worth £31m before Pep Guardiola informed the club executive that the manager also wanted Donnarumma. The Italian joined on 2 September from Paris Saint-Germain for £26m and became Guardiola’s first choice.

Watson season two review – a Sherlock Holmes spinoff full of naughty wit

It is like House meets Elementary for this show about the sidekick of Conan Doyle's detective, who investigates a different medical mystery each week – when he isn't having tastefully lit horizontal time

Go to 221B Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes fans you meet there will be American, not British – and while the BBC’s Sherlock might be the most famous Holmes revival on TV this century, the US has us beat when it comes to volume. Stateside telly responded to Sherlockmania with Elementary, which relocated Jonny Lee Miller’s Holmes to New York and made Watson and Moriarty female, but was in many ways a more faithful sleuthfest than the overblown Benedict Cumberbatch show and ran for scores more episodes. Long before that, the biggest drama in the world was House, which was set in a hospital but featured a mercurial genius solving baffling mysteries – once the House-Home-Holmes penny dropped, you knew you were watching Sherlock in disguise.

Watson is the latest attempt by US network television to keep the Conan Doyle canon firing, and it’s a straight cross between House and Elementary. Morris Chestnut is Dr John Watson, who is an American practising medicine in present-day Pittsburgh, but is also a war veteran who, when the show aired its first season last year, had just finished a stint cracking crimes in London with Sherlock Holmes. Showrunner Craig Sweeny, formerly a writer/producer on Elementary, gave his new Watson a litter of eager doctor pups who, like the gang who used to trail around behind Dr House, were always a step behind their boss when it came to working out which arcane condition was about to kill that week’s patient.

Watson aired on Sky Witness and is available on NOW in the UK, and Paramount in Australia.

‘That’s hockey’: Canada’s Wilson shuns Olympic tradition and brawls during win over France

• Wilson and Pierre Crinon ejected after brawl

• Fighting is rare at Winter Games

Canada’s Tom Wilson shunned tradition on Sunday, deciding to fight during his team’s victory over France in their Olympic ice hockey game.

While fighting is a regular – and tacitly accepted – part of professional ice hockey, it rarely occurs on the Olympic stage. But Wilson dropped the gloves late in Canada’s 10-2 rout of France on Sunday, tangling with Pierre Crinon, who had delivered a forearm to the head of teammate Nathan MacKinnon minutes earlier.

Revealed: The true toll of female suicides in UK with domestic abuse at their core

Exclusive: Research suggests official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases

• Katie’s story: her abusive ex-partner said ‘kill yourself’. When she did, police dropped domestic violence inquiry

The number of women who are driven to suicide by domestic abusers is being under-reported, and their cases overlooked by police, in what has been described by experts as a “national scandal”.

Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.

Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Feb. 15, 2026

On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, Tom Homan and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries join Ed O'Keefe.

UK’s top prosecutor says ‘nobody above law’ amid claims against former prince Andrew

Director of public prosecutions says he is confident police would examine any evidence of potential misconduct

The UK’s top prosecutor has said “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein.

Thames Valley police said earlier this week they were in discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations of misconduct in public office against the former prince.

‘Right about everything’: Liz Truss tweets photo of meeting with Trump

Unclear how encounter between Britain’s shortest-serving PM and US president was initiated and how long it lasted

After spending time and resources crisscrossing the Atlantic to cultivate the support of the Maga faithful, Liz Truss has finally got the prize she apparently craved: a photo with Donald Trump.

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister tweeted a photo on Sunday showing her in the company of the US president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Rosebush Pruning review – dysfunctional rich family move in strange circles

Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning lead a starry cast in this clumsy satire that provides little fascination in a wealthy family’s suffocating lives

Since Jesse Armstrong’s Succession and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, wealthy, spoilt, dysfunctional siblings are the new rock’n’roll, and now here is a film from Greek screenwriter Efthimis Filippou (co-author of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps and Dogtooth) and directed by Karim Aïnouz. It is a weird-wave contrivance concerning a messed-up US plutocrat clan living in Spain, freely remade from Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 film Fists in the Pocket. Their bizarre and cartoony secrets, involving sex abuse, manipulation and self-harm, are satirically symptomatic of capitalism and the patriarchy, and how the rich, however entrepreneurial and smart, create a next-gen class of useless drones, on whose behalf all this wealth has supposedly been accumulated. I have to admit to finding it heavy-handed and clumsy more often than not, although there are some good performances, notably from Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning.

A strange extended family lives in a luxurious modernist house; the father (Tracy Letts) is a blind widower haunted by the memories of his late wife (Pamela Anderson) who was savaged by wolves in a nearby forest. His grownup children, infantilised by wealth, all live there: highly strung Robert (Lukas Gage) has epilepsy, and is entrusted with supervising his father’s horse riding; Anna (Riley Keough) is a talentless singer-songwriter; and Ed (Callum Turner) is a would-be fashionista. First among equals is Jack (Jamie Bell), who has the intimate honour of helping his father with his nightly teeth-cleaning; their mother’s teeth were always dazzlingly white.

This week on "Sunday Morning" (Feb. 15)

A look at the features for this week's broadcast of the Emmy-winning program, hosted by Jane Pauley.

Steamer that sank in Lake Michigan more than 150 years ago has been found

The Lac La Belle was one of the most popular steamers on Lake Michigan. It went down in 1872.

Femke Kok dominates 500m speed skating to end Jackson’s hopes of retaining Olympic title

• Dutch star’s years of dominance culminates in gold

• Jutta Leerdam wins silver in Dutch one-two

• USA’s Erin Jackson misses out on retaining title

Speed skater Femke Kok had admitted that anything but gold in her signature 500m race would be a disappointment after opening her Olympic account last Monday with silver in a Dutch one-two alongside Jutta Leerdam in the 1000m. On Sunday evening, she performed like an athlete insistent on leaving no room for doubt.

Kok leveraged two years of total sprint dominance into the first Olympic gold medal of her career. She blew away the field in the women’s 500m in an Olympic-record time of 36.49sec with the kind of controlled, furious circuit that has made her a three-time world champion at the distance at 25 years old.

Youssef Chermiti hat-trick powers Rangers to victory over leaders Hearts

Hearts will take no consolation whatsoever from the fact their progress to the status of serious entity in a Scottish title race was demonstrated by the atmosphere at Ibrox. The scale of celebration that met Rangers’ victory decreed they had not defeated also-rans. Danny Röhl, the Rangers manager, went cavorting down the touchline as his team scored a fourth.

This proved the game of the season in Scotland. A genuine thriller. It was also one Rangers dare not lose; that they took three points properly fuels hopes of snatching the league from Celtic’s grasp. An inspired second half from Rangers was sufficient as their visitors wilted.

Nicola Jennings on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s move to Sandringham – cartoon

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Nightborn review – Rupert Grint bringing up a monster baby

Dark forces give new parents more than they bargained with in this unsubtle Finnish horror from Hanna Bergholm

Finnish director Hanna Bergholm made a witty and unnerving baby-body-horror movie with her 2022 debut Hatching about a creepy giant egg, a complex, psychologically plausible study of family dysfunction in which the idea of fertility plays an important part. And now … she has given these ideas a retread with this programmatic and unsubtly acted film, a scary movie about a monstrous newborn that is very much less interesting and original than Hatching; the paganism is cliched and the element of black comedy – so often the alibi for not being scary in films like this – is really not all that funny. The face and body of the screeching VFX model devil-baby itself is mostly never shown to the audience, an omission that does not seem disturbing but rather an admission that this prop wouldn’t look convincing in plain sight.

Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her stolid British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) have come to live in Saga’s dilapidated family home in the remote Finnish forest, planning to fix it up so that it can be a lovely place to bring up what they hope will be a big family. (Fixing up this place would in the real world take a couple of years while they lived somewhere else, but they more or less manage it unaided in about two weeks.) Saga is obscurely moved and excited by the vital subterranean forces throbbing in the dark depths of the forest that surrounds the house. They have passionate sex there but the resulting baby is a brutal, hirsute, bloodsucking troll that destroys Saga’s marriage and happiness.

As defence chiefs, we warn you today about Russia, and say this rearmament is not warmongering | Richard Knighton and Carsten Breuer

Our security is more uncertain than in decades. But by working together, and by showing strength, Britain, Germany and the rest of Europe can preserve peace

• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton is UK chief of the defence staff. Gen Carsten Breuer is German chief of defence

• Top British and German military chiefs press ‘moral’ case for rearmament

We write today not merely as the military leaders of two of Europe’s largest military spenders, but as voices for a Europe that must now confront uncomfortable truths about its security. Through the early years of our careers, Europe was emerging from the shadow of the cold war. Governments of all political colours chose to take what was known as the “peace dividend” – investing in public services and reducing spending on defence. That was an understandable choice at the time. Now it’s clear that the threats we face demand a step change in our defence and security. European leaders, along with military and civilian officials, have just discussed necessary consequences at the annual Munich security conference.

As military leaders, we see every day from intelligence and open sources how Russia’s military posture has shifted decisively westward. Its forces are rearming and learning from the war in Ukraine, reorganising in ways that could heighten the risk of conflict with Nato countries. This is a reality we must prepare for; we cannot be complacent. Moscow’s military buildup, combined with its willingness to wage war on our continent, as painfully evidenced in Ukraine, represents an increased risk that demands our collective attention.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton is UK chief of the defence staff. Gen Carsten Breuer is German chief of defence

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

At least 12 Palestinians killed and several hurt in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people

At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.

The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya.

The Education of Jane Cumming review – sexuality, race and a real school scandal

Berlin film festival
Sophie Heldman’s drama about two teachers accused of lesbianism by a pupil is exhilaratingly candid

Lillian Hellman’s stage play The Children’s Hour – filmed by William Wyler in 1961 with Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn – is the well-known, earnest story of two women teaching at a private girls’ school whose lives are ruined by a pupil’s malicious accusation of homosexuality: it’s one of the earliest Hollywood movies to tiptoe around the existence of gay people, albeit clearly permitted to exist on the understanding that the people involved are really not gay.

But until this moment I knew nothing about the real-life libel case from 19th-century Scotland on which it was based, which in 2013 was the subject of a study by LGBT scholar Lillian Faderman entitled Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired The Children’s Hour.

‘People want to help’: Canadians rally round Tumbler Ridge after school shooting

Tragedy has prompted a wave of support for town from neighbouring communities and across country

When Jim Caruso heard the news of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, he knew immediately he needed to be there. He packed his bags and boarded a plane for the community 700 miles away. “I wanted to be here to bring some level of comfort,” he said. “I wanted to hug people, pray for them and, most importantly, to cry with them.”

On Tuesday, a shooter opened fire in the town’s secondary school, killing eight people, most of them young children. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Canada’s history and has left the country reeling.

The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead | Editorial

The president’s destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump’s assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a “hoax” framed this primarily as about deregulation – perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.

The Guardian view on AI: safety staff departures raise worries about industry pursuing profit at all costs | Editorial

Cash-hungry Silicon Valley firms are scrambling for revenue. Regulate them now before the tech becomes too big to fail

Hardly a month passes without an AI grandee cautioning that the technology poses an existential threat to humanity. Many of these warnings might be hazy or naive. Others may be self-interested. Calm, level-headed scrutiny is needed. Some warnings, though, are worth taking seriously.

Last week, some notable ground-level AI safety researchers quit, warning that firms chasing profits are sidelining safety and pushing risky products. In the near term, this suggests a rapid “enshittification” in pursuit of short-term revenue. Without regulation, public purpose gives way to profit. Surely AI’s expanding role in government and daily life – as well as billionaire owners’ desire for profits – demand accountability.

Rallies held across the world in support of Iran’s anti-government protesters

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, tells 200,000 in Munich he is ready to lead Iran to a ‘secular democratic future’

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rallies around the world to show their solidarity with anti-government demonstrators in Iran whose continued protests have been met with brutal and deadly repression.

On Saturday, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, addressed a crowd of 200,000 people in Munich, telling them he was ready to lead the country to a “secular democratic future”.

Tom Gauld on the modern romance novel – cartoon

Federica Brignone sparks Italian joy with second gold as Mikaela Shiffrin struggles

• Italian wins her second gold medal on Cortina slopes

• Sara Hector and Thea Louise Stjernesund share silver

Federica Brignone, the racing queen of Cortina, has won her second gold medal in the space of three days at the Winter Olympics. After her victory in the women’s Super-G on Friday, she won the giant slalom by just over six-tenths of a second.

As small as that gap sounds, it was an enormous margin in a race where there were only six-hundredths of a second between the three women who finished behind her; Sweden’s Sara Hector, Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund and Brignone’s Italian teammate Lara Della Mea. The gap between Brignone and second place was the same as that between second and 15th.

Nature: Whooping cranes in Texas

We leave you this Sunday morning with whooping cranes whooping it up at Aransas Bay in Texas. Videographer: Scot Miller.

Documenting the bedrooms of school shooting victims

Over six years, the parents of school shooting victims opened their doors to CBS News' Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp, inviting them to see what it's like to live alongside their children's bedrooms, just as they left them. [Originally broadcast Nov. 17, 2024.]

Extended interview: Stephen A. Smith

In this web exclusive, the host of ESPN's "First Take" talks with "Sunday Morning" national correspondent Robert Costa about being an authentic (albeit at times controversial) voice on sports (and, now, politics).

Street festivals and a steam train: photos of the weekend

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

A roller coaster week in the search for Nancy Guthrie

There were promising leads and disheartening setbacks in the investigation into the apparent abduction of the 84-year-old mother of "Today" host Savannah Guthrie. As the search for Nancy Guthrie now enters its third week, Jonathan Vigliotti looks at how her disappearance remains a painful mystery.

How Washington's crossing of the Delaware presaged a changing world

On the evening of Christmas 1776, Gen. George Washington surprised the King's forces by leading the Continental Army in a surprise crossing of a near-frozen Delaware River - a watershed military maneuver that dramatized a changing America, and a changing climate.

‘I want people to be warned’: son forced to remove tubes from father’s septic body after death in Bali hospital

Jake Harvey says he has lasting trauma after trying to get help from the Australian government for critically ill father

• Australian man died in Bali after consulate refused to assist with medical transfer

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Jake Harvey remembers vividly the moment he was told in a Balinese hospital that he had just two hours to remove his father’s dead body from the intensive care ward.

He had just watched his father, Wayne, die, but within minutes he was told he had to “unplug” him – leaving him to work out how to remove a catheter and a tube that was still down his father’s throat.

Readers reply: can you acquire courage?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions ponders how to overcome fear and do what is needed

This week’s question: what would be the most socially useful way to spend a billion dollars?

Is it possible to acquire courage if you don’t have it? I was moved by the recent story of the Australian boy who swam to land for several hours in rough waters to raise the alarm that his mother and siblings had been swept out to sea. Despite his exhaustion, he then ran several kilometres to find a phone.

But I’m also thinking of the lesser demands for courage – such as standing up to a friend, or family member, or tackling a company that’s ignoring your polite requests when you’re suffering from its actions. Or I also wonder how people do certain jobs that, to me, require buckets of courage: starting a business or any other sort of professional risk-taking; reporting from a war zone like Lyse Doucet or Jeremy Bowen. Or just being a police officer knocking on the door of a suspect and not knowing what is on the other side.

Trump touts climate savings but new rule set to push up US prices

Critics accuse administration of ‘cooking the books’ by claiming US would save $1.3tn from climate finding reversal

The Trump administration claims its latest move to gut climate regulations and end all greenhouse gas standards for vehicles will save Americans money. But its own analysis indicates that the new rule will push up gas prices, and that the benefits of the rollback are unlikely to outweigh the costs.

On Thursday, the president and his environmental secretary, Lee Zeldin, announced the finalized repeal of the endangerment finding, a legal determination which underpins virtually all federal climate regulations. He claimed the rollback would save the US $1.3tn by 2055.