Australian Open 2026: De Minaur v Bublik, plus Zverev and Medvedev in action – live

Updates from the evening session at Melbourne Park
Alcaraz beats Paul | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Katy

First set: De Minaur* 1-1 Bublik (*next server)

De Minaur is playing in the fourth round for the fifth consecutive year - a feat that not even Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis and Pat Rafter achieved at their home slam – but he’s never been past the quarter-finals. Which largely sums up his career: he’s so consistent in beating the players he’s expected to, but is underpowered against the very best. De Minaur does send a bullet of a backhand winner down the line to get to deuce on Bublik’s serve, though. But two errors then give the Kazakhstani the game.

Arsenal v Manchester United buildup, WSL action and Hearts v Celtic – matchday live

⚽ News, discussion and buildup before the day’s action
⚽ Jonathan Wilson’s column | Fixtures | Email us here

Carrick reveals Solskjær backing for Manchester United role

Michael Carrick has revealed that Ole Gunnar Solskjær has been fully supportive of his appointment as Manchester United’s interim head coach because the Norwegian, who was also interviewed for the role, is a close friend.

Yes, I spoke to him. I’m close, we’ve been through a lot together, so he’s been fully supportive as you’d expect. He’s some man and I respect him an awful lot. He wished us all the best and he was happy that we got the right result against Manchester City.

Brooklyn Beckham and Prince Harry are the canaries in the coalmine. The children of Instagram will be next | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

A generation of overexposed children are being used by their parents for social media clout. What happens when they start to speak out?

A child is born. Before they even landed “Earthside”, in the language of Instagram, a scan of them as a foetus in utero was uploaded to a waiting audience. The room in which they will sleep – the pale pastel paintwork, the carefully curated nursery furniture – is all there, ready, waiting: an advertorial empty of its model. Then comes the photo of the baby being born, held aloft to their audience while still covered in vernix, eyes not yet open, their mother smiling, hair perfect.

From now on, their every moment and milestone is documented for the camera and monetised. That first smile, first word, first step, all mediated by a device and sent to an audience of strangers, many of whom have formed a parasocial relationship with that mother, that father, that child. The child comes to know and understand the black mirror that is regularly put in front of them. There will be days when the child happily performs for the camera; others when they push it away, when they don’t want to be filmed. A natural feeling, but one they may well have learned to suppress. Because performing for the camera makes mummy and daddy happy, although they don’t call it performing. They call it authenticity.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

‘We cut through the online ocean of advice’: the rise of adult sleep coaching

As sleep hygiene becomes received wisdom, growing numbers turning to one-to-one consultants for support

Before he sought out an adult sleep coach, Thorsten had spent countless hours trawling online advice about sleep.

“I devoured advice and implemented it all,” he said. “From the moment I got out of bed, virtually everything I did was tailored towards getting a good night’s sleep the following night.”

Fitness fraud: gym goers warned over fake deals on memberships and personal trainers

January is a prime time for people looking to get fit, so fraudsters create fake websites and apps

A new year means a new start – it’s time to get fit and there are quite a few deals out there. On Facebook you see a local gym advertising a discount on membership if you sign up within the next few hours. There are limited spaces so you act quickly.

It’s only after you pay that you realise the ad was a fraud: you’ve received no membership details and when you contact the gym it has no record of your payment.

10 of the best retreats in Europe to soothe mind, body and soul

Change your life – or just kick back and relax – by connecting with nature, trying a creative workshop, or taking a yoga course somewhere beautiful

Playfulness is at the heart of the Art and Play holiday, based on a farm outside the Bay of Kotor. A family-friendly retreat designed to reignite joy and reconnect with the inner child, it’s one for solo travellers and couples as well as parents with kids. There are creative sessions on everything from dance to painting, as well as time to enjoy the farm – feeding the animals, collecting eggs or helping harvest vegetables for farm-fresh meals. Excursions include hikes to hidden beaches, kayaking and trips to Kotor and Budva, but there’s time to chill by the pool too; evenings are for board games, music and campfires. Accommodation ranges from camping and glamping to cabins, a treehouse and restored farmhouse.
Seven days from £695, children 5-12 £350, under-fives free, includes brunch, dinner and snacks, 3 May and 23 August, responsibletravel.com

Jay Vine recovers from kangaroo crash to win Tour Down Under for second time

• Australian cycling star holds on to lead the hard way

• Kangaroo caused Vine and others to crash during final stage

The Australian cycling star Jay Vine has survived a race crash caused by a kangaroo to win the Tour Down Under for the second time.

Despite losing two more UAE Team Emirates colleagues on Sunday’s last stage, Vine’s commanding lead was enough of a buffer. He also won the event in 2023.

This week on "Sunday Morning" (Jan. 25)

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

Yale grad student killed in what investigators feared was a perfect murder

No one could imagine why Kevin Jiang, 26, was the target of a shooting. But for months, someone Jiang never met had a secret plan to kill him.

Carlos Alcaraz overcomes spirited Tommy Paul to reach Australian Open quarter-finals without dropping a set

• World No 1 claims 7-6 (6), 6-4, 7-5 victory over 19th seed

• Alcaraz recovers from slow start to navigate first real test at tournament

Carlos Alcaraz continued to build momentum in his pursuit of the career grand slam as he navigated a slow start and pushed through his first test at the Australian Open to reach the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (6), 6-4, 7-5 win over the 19th seed Tommy Paul.

Alcaraz, the world No 1, has now reached the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for three consecutive years and this is his first time doing so without dropping a set.

Having already won each of the three other grand slam tournaments twice, he will be attempting to break new ground by reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open for the first time in his career.

Things were far from easy for Alcaraz, who has played many tough matches with Paul over the past four years, losing to the American twice in their seven meetings.

Dingoes on Australia’s K’gari island to be euthanised after tragic death of Canadian tourist Piper James

Queensland government says pack linked to 19-year-old’s death pose ‘unacceptable public safety risk’ as Indigenous traditional owners say they were not consulted

The dingo pack linked to the death of Canadian tourist Piper James on Australian island K’gari will be destroyed, the Queensland government has announced.

Environment minister Andrew Powell said on Sunday that an entire pack of 10 animals would be euthanised.

Trump’s wrecking ball pushes US allies closer to China

In the search for stability, some western nations are turning to a country that many in Washington see as an existential threat

If geopolitics relies at least in part on bonhomie between global leaders, China made an unexpected play for Ireland’s good graces when the taoiseach visited Beijing this month. Meeting Ireland’s leader, Micheál Martin, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China’s president, Xi Jinping, said a favourite book of his as a teenager was The Gadfly, by the Irish author Ethel Voynich, a novel set in the revolutionary fervour of Italy in the 1840s.

“It was unusual that we ended up discussing The Gadfly and its impact on both of us but there you are,” Martin told reporters in Beijing.

In Somerset, I found glorious proof that the UK can build great council houses. So what is holding us back? | John Harris

It was life-affirming to meet the residents of Rainbow Way in Minehead. But so much still stands in the way of Labour’s vision for social housing

I met Carole Guscott, a retired former carer, on a clear winter’s morning in the Somerset town of Minehead. She was walking her whippet, Gracie, on the way back to her new flat, past the local Premier Inn and on to a cul de sac called Rainbow Way. “I knew as soon as I saw it,” she told me. “I just thought: ‘I can make this place my home.’”

Up until recently, she was living in a private rented place near the centre of town and paying £780 a month in rent. For four years she had known that Rainbow Way was being built. She also knew that its houses and flats were an example of something that is vanishingly rare in post-Thatcher Britain: new council housing, which meant security for the people chosen to be the tenants but also intense competition for places.

‘I was probably just as lost as my callers’: my six months as a telephone psychic

I sat there in my pyjamas, headset against my ear, and knew I was not doing the right thing

I’m not psychic. During the six months I spent working as a telephone psychic, my only supernatural gift was the ability to sound fascinated by a stranger’s love life at 2.17am. Yet for hundreds of billable hours, I sat on my living room floor wearing plaid pyjamas and a telemarketing headset, charging callers by the minute for insights into their lives. Perhaps this made me a con artist, but I wasn’t a dangerous one.

When it started, I’d recently quit my job as an editor at a publishing company to write a novel while doing telemarketing shifts from my kitchen table. Instead of knocking off a bestseller, I found myself cold-calling strangers about energy bills while gripped by writer’s block and an inconvenient yearning to have a baby.

Tin Roof Cafe, Maldon, Essex: ‘Come for topsoil, stay for the shortbread’ – review

This all-day Essex cafe next to a garden centre is a scone-fuelled delight

A tipoff to try the Tin Roof Cafe in Maldon came with prior warning: I wouldn’t get a table easily as this all-day spot serving brunch, lunches and sweet stuff from the in-house bakery is constant, scone-fuelled bedlam. Red brick walls, greenery throughout, alfresco spaces, allotments growing fresh veg and herbs. Capacious, family-run, dog-welcoming, pocket-friendly. There’s bubble and squeak with hand-cut ham, Korean-style chicken burgers and a vegan burger called, rather brilliantly, “Peter Egan” after, I’m guessing, the animal-loving actor who played Paul in Ever Decreasing Circles.

Could this place be any more adorable? No, but still, brace yourself. “It’s one in, one out,” I was told. “There’s a seated holding pen at the front where you wait for a table. Stand your ground in there. There’s loads of sharp-elbowed garden-centre folk. I think they’re there for the Basque cheesecake.” Ah, yes, the equally vast Claremont garden centre, just a few steps away. Cake, as we all know, is catnip to gardeners. Sends them daft. Come for 20 litres of alkaline topsoil and a terracotta trough, stay for the seasonal pavlova and thick wodges of billionaire’s shortbread. That’s millionaire’s shortbread with an extra layer of caramel decadence. Clearly real billionaires would never eat this shortbread, as they’re all on longevity hunts fuelled by OMAD (one meal a day), that meal being a posh spin on Trill budgie food.

Democratic congressman punched in racist attack at Sundance film festival

Maxwell Alejandro Frost says attacker ‘told me Trump was going to deport me’ as police say suspect arrested

The Florida congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost said he was assaulted by a man who said Donald Trump would deport him at a party during the Sundance film festival in Utah.

“Last night, I was assaulted by a man at Sundance Festival who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face,” Frost said in a Saturday post on X. “He was heard screaming racist remarks as he drunkenly ran off. The individual was arrested and I am okay.”

Where to watch UFC 324 live to see Paddy Pimblett vs. Justin Gaethje and more fighters show down

UFC 324 features a stacked fight card. Here's the schedule, time and information on where to watch the UFC event.

Lake Cargelligo shootings were over in minutes but the effects will echo through generations in a small NSW town

The town is awash now with rumour and innuendo, by the warped logic that actions so brutal must have been necessitated by an unforgivable slight

• Warning: This article contains references to Indigenous Australians who have died

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Sophie Quinn was sitting in a car with her partner, John Harris, outside a house in Lake Cargelligo on Thursday afternoon when a ute approached from the opposite direction.

From the driver’s side window, at least three shots were fired, killing her and Harris. Quinn was seven months pregnant with a boy her family say she planned to name Troy.

12/18: CBS Evening News

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

1/24: CBS Weekend News

U.S. citizen shot, killed by federal agents in Minneapolis for second time this month; A giant Kermit the Frog gets a new home in Atlanta

Latest forecast maps show fresh predictions for winter storm

As millions of Americans hunker down for the winter storm, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have declared states of emergency.

Videos, witness accounts of deadly shooting at odds with official statements

Bystander videos verified by CBS News show the scene from multiple angles before the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Prett in Minneapolis.

Flights canceled, states of emergency declared as winter storm bears down

More than 230 million people are under winter storm threats as officials brace for power outages and travel difficulties.

What we know about latest shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis

A man is dead after a shooting in Minneapolis on Saturday involving federal immigration agents from Customs and Border Protection. Here's what we know so far.

Alex Pretti did not brandish gun, witnesses say in sworn testimony

Pair testify that Pretti did not hold weapon and was trying to help woman federal agents had shoved to the ground

Two witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti have said in sworn testimony that the 37-year-old intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, contradicting a claim made by Trump administration officials as they sought to cast the shooting of a prone man as an act of self-defense.

Their accounts came in sworn affidavits that were filed in federal court in Minnesota late Saturday, just hours after Pretti’s killing, as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Minneapolis protesters against Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials directing the immigration crackdown in the city.

Airlines cancel over 13,000 weekend flights due to winter storm

Sunday is seeing the most cancellations for a single day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daughter defends loving dad now accused in her mom's cold case murder

For more than 30 years the murder of Debe Atrops in suburban Oregon remained unsolved. Then, an Oregon cold case team took a fresh look at the case and thought there was enough to prosecute Bob Atrops, Debe's estranged husband at the time. Their daughter thinks they have the wrong man.

1/20: CBS Evening News

Massive winter storm threatens half the U.S.; DOJ investigating Minnesota state and local leaders

Josephine review – Channing Tatum is a knockout in shattering drama of lost innocence

Sundance film festival: taut and emotionally intelligent drama follows the aftermath of an eight-year-old witnessing a horrifying sexual assault

Josephine, the titular character of Beth de Araújo’s stunning second feature, is eight years old. Played by equally remarkable newcomer Mason Reeves, Josephine likes playing soccer with her dad Damien (a phenomenal Channing Tatum), with whom she is close – the film’s crisp, near wordless opening minutes, which shift seamlessly from Josephine’s perspective to third party co-conspirator, running with the pair through San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, swiftly convey a tender, playful bond: supportive, teasing father and innocent child.

That’s about all we know of Josephine – all we need to know, really – before seeing the incident that ruptures her youth. Having run ahead of her father at the park, Josephine alone witnesses the brutal rape of a female jogger by a man in a distinctive aqua polo. Much to the audible shock of viewers at the Sundance premiere, de Araújo rejects the ellipsis now de rigueur in movies handling sexual assault, how much of post-MeToo cinema – Promising Young Woman, She Said, Women Talking, last year’s Sundance standout Sorry, Baby – have skipped over or elided the actual assault, de-emphasizing violence and allowing viewers to fill in the blanks.

Josephine is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

Alex Honnold successfully free solos Taipei 101 in live Netflix climb

• Honnold climbs 508m Taipei 101 without ropes

• Netflix airs climb live after rain delay

• Feat sparks awe – and ethical unease

American rock climber Alex Honnold climbed the Taipei 101 skyscraper on Sunday without any ropes or protective equipment.

Cheers erupted from a gathered crowd as he started climbing the 508-metre (1,667ft) tower earlier Sunday, using the horizontal metal beams to pull himself up with his bare hands.

Did a secret obsession lead a "genius" to murder a Yale grad student?

Kevin Jiang, 26, a Yale graduate student and former Army National Guardsman, was gunned down in New Haven, Connecticut. What appeared to be a road rage incident soon unraveled into a story of obsession and premeditation.

5-year-old taken into ICE custody has immigration case, preventing deportation

The 5-year-old immigrant boy taken into ICE custody alongside his father in Minnesota has an active immigration case and cannot be legally deported yet, records reviewed by CBS News indicate.

Man killed by federal officer in Minnesota worked as ICU nurse, his parents say

The 37-year-old man killed by a federal officer in Minneapolis is identified by his family as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was "very upset with what was happening" in the ICE crackdown.

NTSB to rule on cause of midair collision that killed 67 people near D.C. airport

Thursday marks a year since an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair with an American Airlines plane. The NTSB is expected to rule on the probable cause.

A giant Kermit the Frog gets a new home in Atlanta

A 900-pound Kermit the Frog took a journey from Hollywood to Atlanta. Brian Unger has the story.

Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv and Moscow set to hold more face-to-face talks as US hails ‘big step’ forward

First round of trilateral meetings shows ‘a lot of progress’ made towards peace, says US official, despite new Russian attacks. What we know on day 1,432

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a second round of US-brokered direct peace talks next weekend after a two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi, despite Ukrainian complaints that negotiations were undermined by a barrage of deadly strikes. The trilateral talks in the UAE would resume on 1 February, a US official said on Saturday, adding: “I think getting everyone together was a big step. I think it’s a confirmation of the fact that, number one, a lot of progress has been made to date in really defining the details needed to get to a conclusion.” The talks were the first known direct contact between Ukrainian and Russian officials on a plan being pushed by Donald Trump to end the nearly four-year war. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “a lot was discussed, and it is important that the conversations were constructive”.

Russia was criticised for launching drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv – Ukraine’s two largest cities – during peace talks in Abu Dhabi, reported Peter Beaumont. “Peace efforts? Trilateral meeting in the UAE? Diplomacy? For Ukrainians, this was another night of Russian terror,” the country’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said after the latest Russian assault on critical infrastructure. With Kyiv and other cities in the midst of widespread outages of heat, water and power after Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, officials in the capital said one person had been killed and at least 15 injured in the strikes that continued until morning.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin for four hours in Moscow ahead of the trilateral peace talks, a US official said. They “met for just about four hours, and again, [a] very, very productive discussion, speaking about the final issues that are open”, the official told a media call on Saturday.

The governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod said Ukrainian forces had launched a “massive” attack on the region’s main town, damaging energy infrastructure but causing no casualties. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram on Saturday that a building in the town – also called Belgorod – had been set on fire and an emergency crew was tackling the blaze. A downed drone had also damaged homes in a nearby village, he said.

The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday its forces had completed the takeover of the village of Starytsya in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region. The village is near the town of Vovchansk, close to the Ukraine-Russia border, where Russian forces launched an incursion in May 2024, and Moscow’s troops have been trying to extend their gains despite Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian military’s general staff said late on Saturday that Russian forces had launched six attacks on an area including Starytsya. It made no acknowledgement that the village had changed hands. Ukraine’s DeepState military blog made no mention of the village in a report on Friday but said Russian forces “are continuing their pressure in the Vovchansk area”. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

An intercepted oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet headed on Saturday to a port in southern France for police to inspect, French authorities said. The tanker, the Grinch, was intercepted on Thursday morning in international waters between Spain and North Africa, French president Emmanuel Macron said on X. French prosecutors suspect it of belonging to the network of vessels Moscow is accused of using to dodge sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine. The tanker would be anchored at Fos-sur-Mere near Marseille and kept at the disposal of the Marseille public prosecutor as part of a preliminary investigation for failure to fly a flag, the regional maritime prefecture said.

Minneapolis business owners react to deadly shooting: "A neighbor was murdered"

Minneapolis business owners and community members were among the crowd of protesters in sub-zero temperatures following the deadly shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti​.

Senate Democrats will not provide votes to advance DHS funding bill, Schumer says

Sens. Chris Murphy and Alex Padilla have spent the past two days calling colleagues to whip opposition to the DHS funding bill, according to a source familiar with the process.

Myanmar election enters final stage amid airstrikes and exclusions

Third and final phase of voting taking place on Sunday in village just days after military airstrike killed 21 people

Polling stations open on Sunday for the final stage of Myanmar’s three-phase election, a one-sided vote that has been widely derided as a sham, with politicians jailed, the main opposition party banned and conflict raging across parts of the country.

Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has defended the vote as “free and fair”, presenting it as a return to democracy and stability. The election is happening almost five years after the military seized power in a coup, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering a fierce conflict. The 80-year-old has been detained since she was ousted, and her party has been banned.

Trump walks back comments after insulting U.K., NATO allies about their veterans, fallen soldiers

President Trump shocked NATO partners in an interview with Fox News this week about U.K. veterans and fallen soldiers in Afghanistan. He walked back the comments on Truth Social. Haley Ott has more details.

Trump insults Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, threatens new tariffs against country

President Trump insults the Canadian prime minister, calling him "Governor Mark Carney," as he threatens new tariffs against the country. Willie James Inman has the details.

Russian strikes knock out heat in freezing Kyiv as peace talks continue

Russian strikes left much of Kyiv without heat, water and power during freezing temperature, even as Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. held talks on ending the nearly four-year war.

Travel cancellations pile up amid winter storm

The winter storm's impact on travel grew by the hour on Saturday. Airlines have already canceled more than 10,000 flights this weekend and counting. Ali Bauman reports from Newark Liberty International Airport.

Extreme cold, freezing rain and ice begins in Southern Plains

The slow-moving monster storm hit the southern plains on Saturday, and in Oklahoma City, it arrived with extreme cold. Jason Allen has more on the storm.

Defence department chief Greg Moriarty to succeed Kevin Rudd as Australian ambassador to US

Career public servant and former chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull to represent Australia’s interests with Trump administration from April, including progression of Aukus agreement

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The head of the department of defence, Greg Moriarty, will succeed Kevin Rudd as Australia’s ambassador to the United States.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, announced Moriarty’s appointment to the role on Sunday. A former chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull and former Australian envoy to Iran and Indonesia, he has led the defence department since 2017. He will take up the posting in Washington from April.

U.S. citizen shot, killed by federal agents in Minneapolis for second time this month

Warning: Video might be disturbing. For the second time this month, a federal agent has shot and killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis. The moment was caught on video again, and the city's police chief is urging outraged citizens to keep the peace. Lana Zak reports.

Gov. Walz calls on Trump to halt ICE operations in Minnesota after another fatal shooting

"Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota," Walz said.

Protesters supporting Palestine Action hunger striker arrested outside prison

Police said group breached HMP Wormwood Scrubs grounds where Umer Khalid is being held

A group of protesters supporting a Palestine Action prisoner on hunger strike have been arrested after they breached prison grounds, the Metropolitan police has said.

The force said on Saturday evening that it had detained a group of protesters outside HMP Wormwood Scrubs, in west London, and was in the process of making a number of arrests.

Airlines cancel more than 13,000 weekend flights as massive winter storm sweeps across the U.S.

U.S. airlines canceled tens of thousands of flights and waived change fees for travelers as a massive winter storm swept across the country.

European football: Augsburg fight back to end Bayern Munich’s unbeaten run

• Massengo and Chaves strike late in Bavarian derby

• Mbappé sends Real Madrid top; Nwaneri scores on debut

Strugglers Augsburg scored twice in six minutes late in the second half to come from a goal down and stun hosts Bayern Munich 2-1 in the Bavarian derby on Saturday, the league leaders’ first Bundesliga loss of the season.

The hosts, fresh from securing a Champions League knockout spot with Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Union Saint-Gilloise, took a 23rd-minute lead thanks to Hiroki Ito’s header but lacked any spark up front as Augsburg struck in the 75th and 81st minutes through Arthur Chaves and Han-Noah Massengo to earn their first win in Munich for 11 years.

Photos: Massive winter storm sweeps across the U.S.

A look at the extreme winter storm impacting two-thirds of the U.S.

Snow, sleet and power outages: 140m Americans under warnings for major winter storm

Dangerous weather engulfing large area of country as 16 states plus DC declare states of emergency

A powerful winter storm with more than 140 million Americans in its crosshairs started sweeping across much of the US on Saturday, packing heavy snow and sleet as well as freezing rain and causing widespread power outages.

Snowfall was already being reported on Saturday morning across parts of the plains, the south and the midwest, including in areas of Oklahoma, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas and Missouri.

Arne Slot says Liverpool ‘ran out of energy’ in defeat at Bournemouth

• Head coach highlights away game in Champions League

• Slot questions fixture list after difficult away trip

Arne Slot conceded his side ran out of steam in defeat at Bournemouth, after Amine Adli’s 95th-minute winner condemned Liverpool to a first loss since November. Liverpool pulled level from 2-0 down late on courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai’s sensational free-kick, but Bournemouth responded impressively and Adli struck a winner from a long throw with almost the last kick.

The Liverpool head coach felt the referee, Michael Salisbury, should have played more second-half stoppage time taking in substitutions and video assistant referee checks but admitted he feared a Bournemouth winner. “I think it is safe to say they could have scored 3-2 a little bit earlier,” Slot said, alluding to chances for the Bournemouth pair Evanilson and Ryan Christie. “A few of our players ran out of energy and I cannot even criticise them for that because two days ago [three] we had to play an away game. We’re the only team that played in the Champions League that has two games in between.

Starmer allies urge him to block Andy Burnham from running in byelection

Greater Manchester mayor has applied to stand for Labour in Gorton and Denton, setting up potential fight for PM’s political future

Keir Starmer’s allies are urging him to block Andy Burnham from running in the Gorton and Denton byelection, after the Greater Manchester mayor declared his intention to stand, setting up a potential fight for the prime minister’s political future.

Burnham said on Saturday he wanted to contest the seat after the sitting MP, Andrew Gwynne, said he intended to stand down.

Appeals court declines to order judge to sign arrest warrants against Don Lemon, others

The ruling made public on Saturday did not identify the names of the five defendants​ for whom the Justice Department is seeking arrest warrants, but multiple sources confirmed to CBS that Lemon is one of them.

Leviticus review – queer desire is a deadly curse in haunting horror

Sundance film festival: Conversion therapy has gory results in a smart and surprisingly romantic debut feature from Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella

Something rather nasty is unfolding in Sundance horror Leviticus. If you asked the god-fearing residents of the isolated Australian town at its centre, they would say it’s the curse of homosexuality, quietly infecting the youth. If you asked the gay teens themselves, they would say it’s something far more horrifying.

In writer-director Adrian Chiarella’s indelible debut feature, queer desire is not only a danger to one’s safety from the bigots that you live, work and pray with, but it’s also a supernatural affliction. We first see teens Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) as they engage in a clandestine hang, that familiar dance of a play-fight leading into a kiss. For Naim, it’s a new world opening up, a reason to believe there might be something to be happy about in an otherwise dull new town with his warm yet clueless single mother (Mia Wasikowska). But when Naim sees Ryan engaging in a similar tryst with Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt), the son of the local preacher, he allows his heart to overrule his head and does something he’ll live to regret.

Leviticus is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

Trump threatens to impose 100% tariff if Canada makes deal with China

In his Truth Social post, Trump suggested that China would try to use Canada to try to avoid paying U.S. tariffs.

The Moment review – Charli xcx struggles through defanged Brat summer satire

Sundance film festival: There’s a smart idea at play here, with the star playing a hellish version of herself fighting against corporate forces, but there’s not a lot else

In April 2025, the pop singer Charli xcx posted a TikTok reflecting on nearly a year of her seminal album Brat: “It’s really hard to let go of Brat and let go of this thing that is so inherently me and become my entire life, you know?” she said. “I started thinking about culture, and the ebbs and flows and lifespan of things … ” She acknowledged that over-saturation is perilous, and that maybe she should stop, but “I’m also interested in the tension of staying too long. I find that quite fascinating.”

The frank, informal admission fit with Brat, a pop culture-shifting album that channeled, with stunning immediacy, the imperious ego and bristling insecurity of an artist keenly aware of her own precarious level of fame. Her ambivalence was understandable – Brat rapidly turned Charli, who spent over a decade as a fixture of pop’s so-called middle class, into a main pop girl, an artist played at midwest sorority weddings and used by a US presidential campaign. But her interest in “the tension of staying too long” also felt a little trite, the type of smart-sounding musing that dead-ends in self-awareness. Brat summer was heady, hedonistic, fun – a meme, an aesthetic, a vibe, a moment. That said moment passes? Well … yeah.

Man shot dead by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis

The incident, which was caught on video, marks the second deadly shooting by federal officers in Minneapolis in less than a month.

‘It’s such a complex little area’: how to really look after your wrists

The structure of wrists mean we have the capacity to do both handstands and neurosurgery. A lot can go wrong

• Read more summer essentials

It’s a bad time of year for wrists. Parents – and sometimes grandparents – full of enthusiasm and holiday cheer hop on their child’s new scooter or bike, keen to show said child how great the new toy is, and forget that gravity isn’t as kind to the body when we’re older. Falls happen, and wrists often take the brunt.

“It’s got its own name: ‘fall on an outstretched hand’,” says Brigette Evans, an occupational therapist at Bathurst Hand Therapy. As we fall, our instinct is to put our arms out in front of us to protect our body, face and head, and the wrist takes a lot of that force.

Could Sydney’s creaking sewerage system be linked to the spate of shark attacks?

Experts say dirty waters can attract more sharks – but there are many other factors at play

• Fatberg the size of four buses likely birthed poo balls that closed Sydney beaches – and it can’t be cleared

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After four shark attacks in New South Wales in less than 48 hours, authorities on Tuesday urged beachgoers to “just go to a local pool instead”.

Sydneysiders have heard similar warnings before – in the past, they’ve been issued for beaches polluted with faecal matter after heavy rains.

Trump’s ‘new normal’ leaves Australia marooned. We can no longer pretend otherwise | Zoe Daniel

The rules-based global order is rapidly disintegrating. It’s time for middle powers to stand together

The French president Emmanuel Macron borrowed some lines from Hugh Grant about bullies at the World Economic Forum in Davos. His target was Donald Trump, who had leaked a conciliatory text message from Macron who, evidently, was trying to get the US president to the table to shore up the rapidly disintegrating global order.

In the love-it-or-hate-it Christmas film Love Actually, Grant – playing the foppish British prime minister of the day – confronts the US president, saying: “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend, and since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger.”

Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus: ‘Bass players are just cool. We’re the one that brings it all together’

The bass player and singer on naming his chickens, selling his Banksy and surviving cancer

You used to keep chickens named after women from Blink-182 songs. Which was your favourite?

There was Wendy, Holly, Josie … I forget the others. We lived in London, but also had a 25-acre farm out in Somerset with a Georgian farmhouse that was built in 1750. A guy from the British Beekeeping Association, who worked at the local church, would come over and help me open up my hives and harvest the honey. It was crazy how much honey we got – up to 150 jars a season. It was the best honey I’ve ever tasted.

Donald Trump will not attend Super Bowl because it’s ‘too far away’

• Trump tells New York Post he will skip Super Bowl

• NFL stands by Bad Bunny amid rightwing backlash

Donald Trump said he will not attend next month’s Super Bowl in northern California, citing the distance to the game, amid an ongoing culture-war backlash over the NFL’s choice of half-time and pre-game performers.

Trump told the New York Post he plans to skip the 8 February championship game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara because the trip is “just too far away”, adding that he would have considered attending if it were a shorter flight. The decision means Trump will not repeat his appearance at last year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, where he became the first sitting US president to attend the NFL’s showcase event.

Thomas Frank calls for ‘calm heads’ as Tottenham fans renew calls for his exit

• Head coach targeted in draw at Burnley

• Frank: ‘You can’t say we didn’t do everything to win’

Thomas Frank has called for “calm heads” after Tottenham fans urged the club to dismiss him during their draw at relegation-threatened Burnley. The away end sang “You’re getting sacked in the morning” at full time, making their views clear to the hierarchy and head coach.

Cristian Romero salvaged a late point for Tottenham after Axel Tuanzebe and Lyle Foster had turned things around to counter Micky van de Ven’s opening goal. The draw leaves Tottenham with two wins in 14 and mired in mid-table.

Donald Trump walks back comments about UK soldiers in Afghanistan

After anger at claim that Nato troops ‘stayed off frontlines’, US president says UK forces were ‘great and very brave’

Donald Trump has said UK soldiers who fought in Afghanistan were “among the greatest of all warriors” after previously drawing criticism for his claims that Nato troops stayed away from the frontlines during the conflict.

In a post on social media on Saturday, the US president said: “The great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America.

A man is fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis

Federal agents have shot and killed another person in Minneapolis, this time a 51-year-old man.

‘What the hell happened’ to Tucker Carlson? A new book tries to find out

Hated by All the Right People is the first book to reckon critically with arguably the most dangerous media personality of the Trump age

Tucker Carlson, the podcaster and former Fox News host, once told a hostile conservative crowd that rightwing media needed to be more responsible. In a 2009 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he argued that publications on the right should hold themselves to a higher standard.

“This is the hard truth,” Carlson said. “If you create a news organization whose primary objective is not to deliver accurate news, you will fail.” Conservatives loved to complain about the New York Times, he added, when what they really needed was their own New York Times. The crowd jeered and booed at him.

Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests

Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month

• How the ‘confident authority’ of AI Overviews is putting public health at risk

Google’s search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.

The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are “reliable” and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic.

Trump threatens Canada with 100% tariffs over its new trade deal with China

The announcement is a reversal for Trump, who initially initially praised the agreement with China as something Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney "should be doing."

Root and Rashid steer England past Sri Lanka in second ODI to end barren run

• 2nd ODI: Sri Lanka 219; England 223-5. Eng win by five wkts

• Root hits 75 but says pitch not ‘great wicket for ODI cricket’

It’s been a rough few years for England’s 50-over side but the glow of their World Cup victory has not completely disappeared. Joe Root and Adil Rashid, both part of the 2019 class, were the headliners of the second one-day international against Sri Lanka, setting up a five-wicket victory to level the series.

Rashid led the England attack on a serious turner, taking two for 34 as Harry Brook used 40.3 overs of spin, limiting Sri Lanka to a total of 219. It was still a proper challenge, particularly in a must-win game for the tourists, their winless run away from home in ODIs having stretched to 11 on Thursday.

Trump withdraws 'Board of Peace' invitation to Carney in widening rift with Canada

Trump said he has withdrawn the invitation to Canada to join the new Board of Peace, days after Carney warned against economic coercion by superpowers.

Here’s how Europe can file for divorce from Donald Trump | Phillip Inman

Amid the tumult of the WEF in Davos this week, some investors are leading the way by ditching US government bonds

There is a way to file for divorce from Donald Trump and Europe needs to grab the opportunity.

To the public it will look as if nothing has changed. But behind the scenes the EU and the UK could close the joint bank account and cut up the credit cards, or at least set in motion a form of financial separation that limits the power of a controlling former partner.

Trump deals with fallout over NATO comments

President Trump is facing backlash after making comments about NATO's participation in Afghanistan.

Trump threatens Canada with 100% tariff over possible deal with China

President also claims US refineries will process seized Venezuelan oil, saying ‘we take the oil’

Donald Trump on Saturday said he would impose a 100% tariff on all Canadian imports if the North American country makes a trade deal with China.

Beside that tariff threat, another Trump foreign policy maneuver to make news on Saturday involved the president announcing the US had taken the oil that was on recently seized Venezuelan tankers.

ICE raids turn life into a daily terror for Minneapolis schoolkids: ‘This is a generational trauma’

As Trump-deployed agents pervade the region, students struggle to carry on with lessons while carrying grief and fear that they or their loved ones will be taken

In south Minneapolis, a special education student logged on for their online class from the basement. They were hiding because immigration agents were banging at the door.

A second grader started having a panic attack in the middle of art class because agents had arrested his dad. His teacher had to ask a colleague to watch the other students, bring him outside, and hold him for half an hour to help calm him.

UK expected to reduce amount of steel it allows in tariff-free

Change being considered amid global glut driven by supplies from China along with a rise in protectionism

The UK is expected to reduce the amount of foreign steel it allows in tariff-free, as the government looks to protect its domestic industry amid a global glut and a rise in protectionism.

Ministers are considering changing the quota system that allows a quantity of the metal to be imported before imposing a 25% levy on anything above that level.

Heavy snow and rainfall kill 61, injure 110 over 3 days in Afghanistan

Dozens were killed and hundreds homes destroyed, according to the country's disaster management authority, in storms impacting 15 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

Six people injured after car crashes inside Detroit airport

Driver taken into custody after car crashes through airport entrance and strikes Delta ticket counter

A car crashed through the entrance of Detroit’s metropolitan Wayne county airport on Friday evening, striking a ticket counter and injuring six people, airport officials said.

The driver was taken into custody, the Wayne county airport authority (WCAA) said in a statement. The cause of the crash was not yet known, and airport police were investigating.

The taking of Liam Ramos reveals the sheer sadism of ICE | Moira Donegan

It has become difficult to feel shock at the actions of the Trump administration. But this useless cruelty is shameless

Liam Ramos is five. In photographs of his arrest on Tuesday, released by the school district where he is enrolled as a preschooler, he is wearing a large blue hat with a bunny face and ears. According to the superintendent, Liam had just arrived home from school with his father when ICE agents apprehended the two and arrested them. Allegedly, one of Liam’s relatives, who was outside at the time, begged for the little boy to be allowed to stay there in their care; instead, both father and son were captured by the federal agents and quickly transported to a detention camp in Dilley, Texas. Liam’s father has no apparent criminal record; he has a pending asylum case. Does it need to be said that the child does not have a criminal record, either? In one picture, a white man’s hand clutches, claw-like, on to the back of Liam’s Spider-Man backpack. In another, a masked man stands behind Liam, stooping slightly to reach the small child, as the boy stands at the front door of his home. According to school officials, the agent instructed Liam to knock on the door and ask to be let into the house “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”.

Liam is the fourth child from his Minneapolis-area school district to be seized by ICE agents since the surge of federal immigration forces in the city. According to school officials, two 17-year olds were also taken – one snatched alone from their car, another captured at home with her mother. Another child, a 10-year-old girl in the fourth grade, was allegedly also taken by the federal forces – while on her way to school with her mother.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Police Federation criticises plans for mandatory ‘licence to practise’ for officers

Crime minister says reforms will improve standards, but Federation says unsafe workloads must be tackled first

The government must stop burdening police officers with unsafe workloads and improve police pay and training if they want “professional” policing, the Police Federation has said, in response to sweeping Home Office changes to improve standards in the police.

Under the new plans, to be unveiled in a white paper on Monday, police officers in England and Wales will be required to hold and renew a “licence to practise” throughout their career in the future.

China's top general under investigation in latest military purge

Analysts believe these purges aim to reform the military and ensure loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Another commission member, Liu Zhenli, is also under investigation.

They survived conquistadors and settlers. Now the Arhuaco are facing an even greater threat

Colombia’s Sierra Nevada has become a strategic prize for drug traffickers and paramilitaries, leaving its Indigenous people threatened with ‘physical and cultural extinction’

Around a fire in a ceremonial hut in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Arhuaco people make a pledge. Tying traditional cotton threads around their wrists, they promise to guard the land beneath them – and then they ask for protection.

“Our culture has been preserved for thousands of years,” says Ati Quigua, an Indigenous leader. “We are a peaceful community, but now violence is coming to our land.”

What else can be done to force Trump’s DoJ to release all the Epstein files? Legal experts weigh in

The deadline for Trump’s justice department to release the files came and went, but experts say there are still options

For months, the 2025 news cycle was dominated by the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Public outrage over the continued secrecy surrounding Epstein investigative files – which Donald Trump failed to release fully early in his second term, despite campaign promises – was growing.

‘The invisible man’: Joe Biden has disappeared in almost every way – except in Trump’s daily commentary

The 46th president largely exists as Trump’s foil, with his successor blaming him for the country’s woes

In bitter cold beneath the US Capitol dome, he walked to a marine helicopter and shared parting words with Donald Trump. Then, arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Joe Biden offered farewell remarks to his loyal staff. “We’re leaving office,” he said, “We’re not leaving the fight.”

But, one year later, Washington, and the world, have mostly moved on from the 46th president. Biden, 83, has been writing a lucrative memoir, planning a presidential library and fighting prostate cancer. He was once the most powerful man on the planet, but now Biden’s public appearances have been scarce and his influence has palpably diminished.

Opinion: Mark Carney's warning and its echoes from the past

When he spoke at Davos this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney referenced a 1978 essay by Vaclav Havel, written when Czechoslovakia was under Soviet control.

Syrian and Kurdish forces agree to extend ceasefire as threat of war looms

Ceasefire to be extended for one month to allow transfer of suspected Islamic State members from Syria to Iraq

The Syrian government and Kurdish forces agreed to extend a ceasefire on Saturday, according to Syrian diplomatic sources, temporarily staving off a looming war between the two sides in the north-east of the country.

Sources told Agence France-Presse the ceasefire would be extended for “a period of up to one month at most”, citing the need to facilitate the transfer of suspected members of Islamic State from Syria to Iraq.

Why 3 Catholic cardinals released a statement critical of Trump's foreign policy

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago tells NPR's Scott Simon why he and two other Catholic cardinals released a statement critical of the Trump administration's foreign policy.

High on ... mustard? Cannabis industry teams up with chefs in push to stand out

US legal cannabis industry seeks new ways to incorporate weed into meals after a tough year for business in 2025

Food and stoner culture have always gone together, but these days chefs and cannabis professionals are working together to find thoughtful, new ways to incorporate weed into meals.

For National Hot Pastrami Day on 14 January, a celebrated Jewish deli in Chicago teamed up with a local Illinois dispensary to give customers free pastrami sandwiches garnished with cannabis-infused mustard.

Meta's Reality Labs cuts sparked fears of a 'VR winter'

Meta's deprioritizing virtual reality in favor of artificial intelligence and Internet-connected smart glasses raised concerns about the future of the industry.

‘Displaying the cloth like this showed its true beauty’: Aung Chan Thar’s best phone picture

A beautiful lake, gorgeous fabric: how could the Myanmar photographer resist?

When Aung Chan Thar was 25, he was selected to represent Myanmar as part of Asean Centre for Biodiversity’s (ACB) Young Asean Storytellers programme. A cohort of 20 young artists and writers visited Asean Heritage Parks in their own countries to tell stories of biodiversity, nature and culture.

Aung first travelled to Inlay Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, known for its floating gardens, in 2022. “The Intha people live around the lake and build floating houses: structures made from bamboo on stilts,” Aung says. “Fishing is a common occupation; they use their feet to paddle their boats. So is the production of colourful cloth.”

Madeline Horwath on not watching Heated Rivalry with your parents – cartoon

‘I wish I had the power to ease his suffering’: Gaza’s cancer patients trapped by war and blockade

Thousands of Palestinian cancer patients are living without treatment as they await medical evacuation

When the Gaza war began, Ismail Abu Naji was just 18 months old, his small body covered in swollen, bleeding lesions. Months earlier, doctors had diagnosed him with a rare blood cancer, one that, if untreated, is often a death sentence.

In the weeks before the war, Ismail’s family had arranged for him to be transferred to Al-Makassed hospital in Jerusalem, a charitable institution for Palestinians, for specialised care. But the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack that triggered the conflict meant Ismail could not leave the territory.

As the winter storm rages, here's what to know in your state

Reporters across the NPR Network are covering the impact of the storm and how officials are responding. We've also got tips for staying safe once bad weather hits.

Bear Grylls: ‘I’ve bought an apocalypse-proof boat, with an array of weaponry’

The adventurer on his family’s escape vessel, his crush on the Princess of Wales, and a disgusting toenail habit

Born in Northern Ireland, Bear Grylls, 51, served as a soldier in the 21 SAS regiment and went on to star in adventure series, including seven seasons of Discovery Channel’s Man vs Wild. Other shows are Running Wild With Bear Grylls, the Emmy award-winning You vs Wild, and Bafta-winning The Island With Bear Grylls. His new series, Wild Reckoning, starts on BBC One next month. He is married with three sons and lives in London, north Wales and Switzerland.

What is your greatest fear?
Small things make me anxious – like social things – but I have no big fears because I have faith in my heart.

‘To say I was the favourite would imply I was liked’: Mark Haddon on a loveless childhood

As a bookish child with a distant father and a disapproving mother, the Curious Incident author retreated into a world of his own. Looking back, he asks what it means to lose parents who never showed you love

When I see washed-out photographs of English life in the 60s and 70s – cardiganed grandmothers eating roadside picnics beside Morris Minors, pale men sunbathing in shoes and socks on stripy deckchairs, Raleigh Choppers and caged budgerigars and faux leather pouffes – I feel a wave of what can’t properly be called nostalgia, because the last thing I’d want is to return to that age and those places where I was often profoundly unhappy and from which I’d have been desperate to escape if escape had been a possibility. Why then this longing, this echo of some remembered comfort?

Is it that, as children, we live inside a bubble of focused attention that gives everything inside a memorable fierceness? The way one could lie, for example, on a lawn and look down into the jungle of the grass to see earwigs and woodlice lumbering between the pale green trunks like brontosauri lumbering between the ferns and gingkos of the Late Jurassic. The way a rucked bedspread could become a mountain range stretched below the wings of a badly painted Airfix Spitfire. Or do objects, in their constancy, provide consolation in a world where adults are unpredictable and distant and unloving?

‘Repatriate the gold’: German economists advise withdrawal from US vaults

Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts

Germany is facing calls to withdraw its billions of euros’ worth of gold from US vaults, spurred on by the shift in transatlantic relations and the unpredictability of Donald Trump.

Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£122bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York.

‘A long time coming’: table tennis world hails Marty Supreme-fueled boom

Once dismissed as a basement game, table tennis is enjoying an unlikely US revival as the Oscar-tipped biopic Marty Supreme collides with a wave of new players

For decades in the US, table tennis has lived a double life: one of the most widely played sports in the country, yet still dismissed by many as a basement pursuit. Now, unexpectedly, it is having a cultural moment.

The release of Marty Supreme, a film steeped in obsession and myth, and loosely based on postwar American table tennis champion Marty Reisman, has pushed ping-pong into the pop-culture mainstream – just as US Major League Table Tennis sells out matches, clubs report growing interest, and younger players pick up paddles for the first time.

The Guide #227: A brain-melting sci-fi movie marathon, curated by Britain’s best cult film-maker

In this week’s newsletter: As his movie Bulk tours indie cinemas, director Ben Wheatley recommends the oddball influences that fuelled his most unconventional wor​k

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Few directors currently working merit the title of ‘cult hero’ more than Ben Wheatley. Over a 15-year-plus career, the British film-maker has dabbled in just about every cinematic genre and style imaginable: psychedelic horror (A Field in England, In the Earth), grimy video nasty (Kill List), stylish, gun-toting thrillers (Free Fire), murderous Mike Leigh homages (Down Terrace, Sightseers), literary adaptations (Rebecca, High-Rise), and even a whopping great studio monster movie (Meg 2: The Trench).

Wheatley’s latest film further cements that cult status. Bulk is a defiantly DIY sci-fi-noir-paranoid-thriller hybrid, starring Sam Riley as an investigative journo tasked with rescuing a scientist from his own malfunctioning multi-dimensional creation. With its handwritten title cards, overdubbed dialogue, sticky-back-plastic special effects and general vibe of formal experimentation, Bulk exists a world away from most modern film-making. Even it’s delivery method feels far from the churn of the mainstream: instead of a standard release, the film is in the middle of a tour of independent cinemas across the UK and Ireland – tonight in Liverpool, tomorrow Lewes, with Dublin and Cork on the horizon (you can seek out your nearest screening here).

Could a surfing retreat in Morocco conquer my fear of the sea?

The process of learning to catch a wave is an all-consuming activity that can prove to be a powerful therapeutic tool

I can’t remember when my terror of waves began in earnest. Maybe it was a singular incident that triggered it, like that monster wave in Biarritz, France, almost 20 years ago that body-slammed me on to the seabed, taking all the skin off my chin.

More likely is that my transition from fearless to frightened had been more of a slow creep, and a perfectly rational one when you consider the danger of riptides, hidden rocks, sharks and concussion. But for me, I feel it goes deeper. Almost inevitably my job will have had something to do with this. Nearly two decades of working as a journalist reporting on the very worst things that human beings can do to other human beings in a wide array of contexts has definitely eroded my sense that I can keep myself – and others – safe from harm in a dangerous world.