Davos live: Trump rules out taking Greenland by force but calls for ‘immediate negotiations’

Rolling coverage of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the US president delivered a speech to world leaders

Q: Is the US worried that institutional investors in Europe might pull out of the US Treasury market, such as pension funds in Denmark?

Bessent brushes this aside, saying

The size of Denmark’s investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.

It is less than $100 million.

They’ve been selling Treasuries for years. I’m not concerned at all.

Trump renews attack on UK for not allowing more oil drilling in North Sea – UK politics live

The US president highlighted the North Sea as part of a wider criticism of clean energy policies

We’re not far off PMQs. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

There will be two statements in the Commons after PMQs. At 12.30pm Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, will give one about the warm homes plan, and about an hour later Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, will give one on the water white paper.

Pending home sales drop sharply in December, dampening 2026 outlook

There were just 1.18 million homes on the market in December, down 9% from November, and matching the lowest inventory level of 2025.

Amazon launches AI health-care tool for One Medical members

The service uses large language models and references patients medical records to answer questions, manage medications and book appointments.

Doge improperly shared sensitive social security data, DoJ court filing reveals

Trump administration acknowledges that Elon Musk’s cost-cutting operation accessed Americans’ sensitive data

After months of denials, the Trump administration has acknowledged in a federal court filing that employees working for Elon Musk’s supposed cost-cutting operation accessed and improperly shared Americans’ sensitive social security data.

The justice department court filing, submitted on Friday in an ongoing lawsuit, reveals that a member of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) signed a secret data-sharing agreement with an unidentified political advocacy group whose stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and overturn election results in certain states.

Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump bid to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell planned to attend the oral arguments at the Supreme Court.

Hardened Starmer changes tack as gentle approach fails to sway Trump

Prime minister surprisingly forceful at PMQs over US president’s volte face on Chagos and refusal to drop tariffs threat on Greenland

• UK politics live – latest updates

For a man who chooses his words so carefully, there is no doubt that Keir Starmer’s shift in tone towards Donald Trump at prime minister’s questions was intentional.

Since the turn of the year, as the US president has shown his imperialist ambition, the prime minister’s softly-softly approach to his unpredictable friend in the White House has come under increased strain.

Mercedes and Red Bull facing tough questions as storm brews over new F1 rules loopholes | Giles Richards

Compression ratios will be at the top of the FIA’s agenda in a meeting with F1 teams to head off growing fears before the 2026 season gets underway

Unveiling their new engine in Tokyo should have been a significant moment for Honda to celebrate but behind the scenes, the storied grand prix team – as well as plenty of their Formula One rivals – are worried that a looming row over new engine regulations is threatening to overshadow the opening of the 2026 season.

So significant is the concern that it will be the key topic of discussion at a meeting between the FIA and the engine manufacturers set for Thursday before the first day of pre-season testing at Barcelona.

Trump says U.S. must 'get Greenland,' swipes at Europe in winding Davos speech

Trump said over the weekend that he would slap tariffs on imports from eight European countries in retaliation for moving troops to Greenland.

Mortgage refinances surged again, but rates are now suddenly jumping higher

Mortgage refinancing jumped sharply higher for the second straight week, as interest rates fell further, but that boom may be about to bust.

Why you might get a "peanut butter"-style pay raise in 2026

What's a "peanut butter" raise? Here's what it means, and why this is the type of pay hike you should expect this year.

Greetings from Kalk Bay, a South African fishing village where wild seals await scraps

Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

Suni Williams, Starliner astronaut, retires after 27 years at Nasa

She set the record for most spacewalk time by a woman and spent nine months at the International Space Station

Suni Williams, one of two Nasa astronauts whose 10-day test flight mission turned into a nine-month odyssey on the International Space Station (ISS), has retired from the US space agency.

The 60-year-old former navy captain left in December after 27 years with Nasa, according to a press release from the agency on Tuesday. Jared Isaacman, the agency’s new administrator, praised her as “a trailblazer in human spaceflight”.

Listen Live: Supreme Court hears arguments over Trump's firing of Fed governor

President Trump moved to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last August. Courts have so far allowed her to continue serving in her role while litigation continues.

British army veterans call to keep immunity clause in Northern Ireland legacy law

Government’s remedial order would give judges the power to revive Troubles-related civil actions

• UK politics live – latest updates

British military veteran groups have condemned a government attempt to remove immunity provisions from Northern Ireland legacy legislation, claiming it will expose former soldiers to “hounding” through the courts.

MPs are to vote on Wednesday on a motion to reverse a Tory-era law that granted conditional immunity to those accused of wrongdoing during the Troubles.

I had an eye-opening experience in the queue for a pub toilet | Adrian Chiles

There was the struggle to make chitchat, a whiff of humiliation – and a sobering recognition of what women have to put up with

I had an unusual experience just before Christmas. I think it did me good. This was at a gathering of some old friends of mine, a group of dentists as it happens, but’s that’s not relevant. The assembled were all blokes, which is relevant. This was at a pub/restaurant that was doing a roaring trade. A lost afternoon was had by all. Nice food, nice drink and surprisingly amusing anecdotes about teeth. Naturally enough, the time came for visits to the gents. Those who went, I half-noticed, seemed to be away a long time. I didn’t dwell on why this might have been so, but when it came to my turn all became clear. I turned the corner, and what should I find but a long queue for the gentlemen’s toilet. No queue at all for the women’s toilet, but a great long one for the men’s. What fresh hell was this? This wasn’t a world any of us in this queue recognised.

For the avoidance of doubt, I neither court nor expect sympathy from any woman here. I am obviously aware that, for women, having to queue to use a public toilet is the norm. How many times have I seen women standing in a queue while men in the same establishment have to do no such thing? Apart from the inconvenience of having to queue to use a convenience, there’s a whiff of humiliation about standing there, waiting for something that men generally don’t have to wait for. It was decidedly bracing to get a taste of it myself, watching the other sex breeze through the door while I was forced to stand solemnly in line with my fellow fellas, angling away at whatever we had in our pockets and consulting our phones.

There’s a whole conversational genre here – toilet queue chitchat – of which men have scant experience. Women, I imagine, have learned to be rather good at it, exchanging pleasantries and an interesting observation or two. On this I’ve consulted some women of my acquaintance. The consensus is that intra-queue communication is limited to the odd eye roll and: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the men’s.” A colleague told me it’s only at the washbasins afterwards that conversation tends to break out.

If I was a woman, I’d waste no time on either pleasantries or silence. If I was forced, time and again, to stand in a public line merely for the opportunity to empty my bladder, I’d vent my spleen like nobody’s business at the sheer injustice of it. A useful metric for any civilised society would be gender parity in wee waiting times. I’m seeking out research on this.

Back in my queue, I tried to get some brotherly banter going about this novel situation of ours. I tutted a bit, rolled my eyes and said something along the lines of: “Well, this makes an unpleasant change, doesn’t it lads?” Someone smiled, someone else looked blank, a third looked sheepish. Another shook his head as if this was yet another manifestation of broken Britain, woke madness etc. Otherwise, silence reigned. Someone emerged, zipping up. The queue shuffled up a place. Two more men joined the back of it. I sighed.

A woman wafted out of the adjacent facility, all fragrant and relaxed. It was all right for some. I grinned bashfully at her, trying to communicate acknowledgement of this topsy-turvy scenario. She said: “Don’t look to me for solidarity, you bastard. Come back when you’ve done this another hundred times and then I might give you the time of day.” Actually, she didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything. But I know that’s what she was thinking. And I really wouldn’t blame her.

• Adrian Chiles is a writer, broadcaster and a Guardian columnist

Trump's 10% credit card cap deadline is here. Will card companies comply?

President Trump called for a one-year 10% cap on credit card rates starting Jan. 20. Here's what credit card companies are doing.

Here’s how to fix America’s immigration system. Trump’s path is not the solution | Kenneth Roth

A grand bargain on immigration could address problems with both the old approach and Trump’s new approach

Immigration is one of the most divisive issues facing the United States, as it is in many countries. An ICE agent’s killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis is only the latest outrage that has brought the issue to the fore.

Facing a 30 January deadline to renew funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, Democrats are now insisting on limits on ICE, at risk of another shutdown. It may be a pipe dream, but it is worth asking whether now might finally be a time to forge the long-elusive bipartisan agreement on immigration.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood review – getting through the day

Alex Jennings’s performance hums with buried rage in Christopher Isherwood’s landmark exploration of grief

At the start of A Single Man, George Falconer wakes up at home in the morning and drags himself despondently to the bathroom. There he stares at himself in the mirror, observing not so much a face as “the expression of a predicament … a dull harassed stare, a coarsened nose, a mouth dragged down by the corners into a grimace as if at the sourness of its own toxins, cheeks sagging from their anchors of muscle”.

Set in 1962, Christopher Isherwood’s landmark novel follows a day in the life of a 58-year-old British expat and college professor living in California. George is silently trying to come to terms with the death of his partner, Jim, after a car accident. We accompany him from his morning ablutions – during which he reflects on the judgment of his homophobic neighbour Mrs Strunk – and his drive to work, to a teaching session, a gym workout and a drink with his friend Charley. Throughout we are privy to his internal monologue, which reveals George as a man prone to existential dread and who is isolated in a world that, owing to his sexuality, regards him with suspicion.

Trump tells world leaders: Europe is not heading in the right direction

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said some areas of Europe are no longer recognizable — and "not in a positive way."

How Greenland went from backburner issue to geopolitical flashpoint in just 2 weeks

CNBC takes a look at how diplomatic tensions over Greenland have reached a crisis point.

Behind the growing trend of divorce among adults over 50

Across the U.S., divorce rates are down - except among people who are older than 50. It's part of a trend called "gray divorce," which often happens when kids are grown and have left the home. Lisa Ling has more.

‘A cash advance on your death’: the strange, morbid world of Aids profiteering

In Oscar-shortlisted documentary short Cashing Out, a little-known industry that saw dying LGBTQ+ people sell their life insurance policies is remembered

During the summer of 2020, at the onset of the Covid pandemic, the documentary director Matt Nadel was back home in Boca Raton, Florida. He remembers one particular evening walk that he took with his father, Phil, as they weathered out those early months.

As they strode through the neighborhood, Nadel, now 26, said that the prospect of a vaccine was exciting, but the idea of pharmaceutical executives profiting off a devastating virus left him feeling uneasy. Phil grew concerned by the complex ethical predicament that his son laid out, and Nadel could quickly tell that his father was acting strangely.

Meta’s $2 billion Manus deal pushes away some of startup’s customers, who are 'sad that this has happened’

Following Meta's purchase Manus at the end of December, some customers of the AI startup jumped ship due to concerns about the new parent company.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang says AI robotics is a 'once-in-a-generation' opportunity for Europe

Europe's industrial base sets it up well to lead in the physical AI space, Huang told WEF

Carlos Alcaraz marches on at Australian Open after golfing with Roger Federer

• World No 1 eases to 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2 win over Hanfmann

• Britain’s Cameron Norrie holds nerve against Nava

Carlos Alcaraz’s preparations for his second-round victory at the Australian Open included a round of golf in Melbourne with Roger Federer, whose abilities off the tee he praised following a 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2 win over Yannick Hanfmann.

“It’s as beautiful as his tennis,” Alcaraz said of Federer’s golf swing. “I’m not surprised. It’s unbelievable. Everything he does, he does in style, really beautiful. On the golf course, it’s a really beautiful swing.”

Danish pension fund says it's selling all its U.S. Treasuries

The chief investment officer of AkademikerPension said the decision was not directly related to the rift between the U.S. and Greenland.

Prince Harry denies claim ‘leaky social circle’ fed stories to journalists

Duke of Sussex rejects that his private information was secured from friends and says publisher has ‘obsession’ with surveilling him

Prince Harry has insisted he did not have a “leaky” social circle that gave stories about him to journalists at the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, as he told the high court the publisher of the titles had “an obsession” with surveilling him.

Giving evidence in the high court against Associated Newspapers Led (ANL), the Duke of Sussex rejected the publisher’s claims that its journalists had secured information about him from his friends and acquaintances, rather than through unlawful means.

‘The powerful have their power. We have the capacity to stop pretending’: the Canadian PM’s call to action at Davos | Mark Carney

In a rousing speech, Mark Carney made the case for unity in the face of Donald Trump’s new world order. We reproduce it here

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics – where the large, main power, geopolitics – is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

Jerome Powell could stay at the Fed even after being removed as chair. Here's what that means

The saga over President Donald Trump's efforts to reshape the Federal Reserve has another twist.

The IMF’s banal language is sane-washing an economic crisis created by the egomaniacal Donald Trump

Their latest report makes no mention of Greenland, Venezuela, or even Trump. This is just a pretence that normality continues

This week the IMF released an update to its World Economic Outlook, titled “Global Economy: Steady amid Divergent Forces” and, seriously, in what fricking world are they living? It was yet another example of international groups, governments and parts of the media sane-washing the utter crisis we all exist in because Donald Trump is an egomaniacal bully with the impulses of a spoiled toddler.

How’s this for timing: on Sunday Donald Trump announced from 1 February he will levy a 10% tariff “on any and all goods sent to the United States” from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland, and will increase it to 25% from 1 June unless they let the US gain control of Greenland.

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: 2026 will be the year of the skirt – and no, it doesn’t have to be short

I’ve got a feeling this is the year skirts regain their main character energy

I never stopped wearing skirts, I just sort of stopped thinking about them. They were a plus-one, not the main event. For the past few years I have planned my outfits around my obsession with pleated trousers, or my latest experimental jean shape. Or I have worn dresses. Sometimes I have ended up in a skirt, but the skirt was kind of an afterthought. For instance, at one point last year when it was chilly and I needed to look smart as well as cosy, I picked out a sweater and a pair of knee-high boots, and then slotted in a plain midi in satin or wool, just something to sit in between.

Things could be about to change. I’ve got a feeling that 2026 could be the year that skirts get main character energy again. For a start: hemlines are getting shorter again, which makes skirts more attention-grabbing. If you left the house with your eyes open at any point in 2025, you will have noticed this happening: generation Z and Alpha wear very, very short skirts – she says, trying and failing not to sound about 150 years old – but the trend for above-the-knee hemlines crosses all generations. Adult women with their legs out was very much a feature of the pre-Christmas party season. But what is noticeable is that the mini renaissance is much more about a skirt, than it is about a dress. A short skirt feels cooler; more about your style and less about your body than a minidress.

Australians to perform acts of kindness on national day of mourning for Bondi terror attack victims

Mitzvahs – or charitable acts – will include preparing meals for vulnerable communities while the Sydney Opera House will host a memorial service

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Thousands of Australians are expected to perform acts of kindness on Thursday to commemorate the victims of last month’s Bondi terror attack, as the Jewish tradition of mitzvah spreads across faiths and backgrounds.

A mitzvah, which is a core value in Judaism, has come to mean any charitable act and is being requested of Australians to mark the national day of mourning.

Football Daily | Let’s hear it for the kacktors! Celebrating crap goals in football

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Sure, volleying a can of Tin from the bath straight into the bin feels good, but have you ever felt the rush of successfully slipping a foreign word in a sentence? Whether Football Daily is subtly and frivolously deploying a “merci” at Pret a Manger or winning hearts and minds at Football Daily Towers by describing an overcome hangover as the greatest remontada since Barcelona’s 6-1 win over PSG in 2017, there is simply nothing like the smugness one feels after borrowing a word or two from our European brethren.

As their midwinter slump goes on, what exactly is going wrong at Manchester City? | Jamie Jackson

Manchester City have issues with injury and form, and need their big players to step up and turn the ship around

At Bodø/Glimt, in a first Champions League outing since 1 October, the 29-year-old appeared what he is: a player still recovering after 18 months out with a serious knee injury and several related setbacks. This was only a third start since his latest return began with the second 45 minutes of the goalless draw at Sunderland on New Year’s Day. Last week Rodri declared he was “ready to go” and said: “I’m really happy to be on the pitch every single day.” Yet in Saturday’s 2-0 loss at Manchester United he was a one-paced, non-factor unable to do what he did with ease pre-anterior cruciate ligament rupture: run midfield and so the contest. In Tuesday’s 3-1 humbling in Norway the Spaniard was the same, and two moments tell the tale of his form. First Jens Petter Hauge left him a statue before registering a memorable long-range strike for Bodø’s third goal; thencame the two yellow cards in two minutes that had Rodri sent off.

Snapchat’s parent company settles social media addiction lawsuit before trial

Snap’s chief executive had been due to testify in civil action also involving Meta, TikTok and YouTube

Snapchat’s parent company has settled a civil lawsuit shortly before it was due to start in California, but other large tech companies still face a trial under the case.

Snap’s chief executive, Evan Spiegel, had been due to testify in a tech addiction lawsuit which also involves the Instagram owner, Meta; ByteDance’s TikTok; and Alphabet-owned YouTube – which have not settled.

These are the best places to work in 2026, according to Glassdoor

A car wash chain beat out bigger employers such as Google and Nvidia to take the top spot as the best place to work in 2026.

Claudette Colvin obituary

US civil rights activist who as a schoolgirl protested against segregation on Alabama’s buses

Although she was a pivotal figure in the US civil rights movement, Claudette Colvin, who has died aged 86, never received the full recognition she deserved for her courageous and groundbreaking protest against segregation.

On 2 March 1955 Colvin, aged 15, was riding a bus home from school in Montgomery, Alabama, with seats in the front reserved for white passengers, while those in the rear were designated for black people. She was in a “neutral” zone from which, as the bus filled up, the driver could order black passengers to move to the back. When she refused to give up her seat to a white woman, the driver called the police, and Colvin was arrested. Soon afterwards she appeared before a juvenile court. Charges of violating segregation laws and disturbing the peace were eventually dropped on appeal, but her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld.

Trump, tractors and camels on parade: photos of the day – Wednesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select some of the most powerful photos from around the world

Animal Crossing’s ​new ​update ​has revive​d ​my ​pandemic ​sanctuary

After years away​ revisiting my abandoned island uncovers new features, old memories and the quiet reassurance that ​you can go home again

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Nintendo’s pandemic-era hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons got another major update last week, along with a £5 Switch 2 upgrade that makes it look and run better on the new console. Last year, I threw a new year’s party for my children in the game, but apart from that I have barely touched my island since the depths of lockdown, when sunny Alba was my preferred escape from the monotonous misery of the real world. Back then, I spent more than 200 hours on this island. Stepping out of her (now massive) house, my avatar’s hair is all ruffled and her eyes sleepy after a long, long time aslumber.

I half-expected Alba to be practically in ruins, but it’s not that bad. Aside from a few cockroaches in the basement and a bunch of weeds poking up from the snow, everything is as it was. The paths that I had laid out around the island still lead me to the shop, the tailors, the museum; I stop by to visit Blathers the curatorial owl, and he gives me a new mission to find a pigeon called Brewster so that we can open a museum cafe. “It’s been four years and eight months!” exclaims one of my longtime residents, a penguin called Aurora. That can’t be right, can it? Have I really been ignoring her since summer 2021? Thankfully, Animal Crossing characters are very forgiving. I get the impression they’ve been getting along perfectly fine without me.

How to turn a cauliflower into ‘risotto’ – recipe | Waste not

This creamy grain-free dish contains flaked almonds for extra crunch and protein – perfect if you’re cutting down on carbs

I’m fasting for three days a week for the whole of this month. It’s not for everyone, I know, and it’s important to talk to your doctor first, but the benefits are well researched and include improved digestion and immune function, and lowered blood pressure. When we fast, the body goes into ketosis, which breaks down fat for energy, and to stay in ketosis afterwards it helps to reduce carbs and increase protein, which is where today’s low-carb, zero-waste recipe comes in.

Inside the magic and chaos of the Africa Cup of Nations

While Senegal’s victory in the chaotic final has made the headlines, we look at five other big takeaways from the tournament – from the strong diaspora representation to the floor-filling tunes

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Hello and welcome to The Long Wave! We are now a few days removed from Senegal’s dramatic win at the 35th Africa Cup of Nations. I made the trip to Morocco to experience my first Afcon, and it didn’t disappoint. The tournament, especially the final, had the sporting world talking – for better or worse.

From the iconography on display in the stands to the histrionics of those final moments in Rabat, and what it all means for Morocco’s grand events strategy, this week’s newsletter examines five key cultural and sporting reflections from an unforgettable tournament that had something for everyone, regardless of how much you like football. Here are five things we’ve learned from Afcon.

Spain’s rail network under scrutiny after second deadly crash in as many days

Trainee driver killed in accident near Barcelona just days after 43 died in collision between two high-speed trains

Spain’s rail network is under scrutiny after a commuter train crashed near Barcelona just days after at least 43 people died and 152 were injured in a collision between two high-speed trains.

The second crash in as many days occurred at approximately 9pm on Tuesday when a retaining wall collapsed on to the track near Gelida in the region of Catalonia in north-east Spain, derailing a local train.

Mayfield claps back at former coach Stefanski and says Browns treated him like ‘garbage’

• Pair will face off in NFC South next season

• Stefanski reportedly said QB ‘failed’ with Browns

Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield has vented his frustrations over the treatment he received from his former head coach Kevin Stefanski, who he will now face twice a year as an opponent.

Mayfield played for Stefanski at the Cleveland Browns before he was traded to the Carolina Panthers in 2022. The two are now major figures in the NFC South after Atlanta hired Stefanski as head coach on Saturday.

Mayfield appeared to be angered after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter posted that Stefanski said Mayfield and another Browns quarterback, Deshaun Watson, had “failed” in Cleveland.

French government not in favour of World Cup 2026 boycott over Greenland threats

• Minister says there is ‘no desire’ to boycott tournament

• But Coquerel says US should be stripped of World Cup

The French government is not in favour of boycotting this year’s World Cup being co-hosted by the United States over Donald Trump’s Greenland threats, France’s sports minister has said.

Trump has targeted France among the eight European countries threatened with tariffs for their opposition to his drive to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Former sports reporter Michele Tafoya running for U.S. Senate in Minnesota

Michele Tafoya, running as a Republican, is seeking the open seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith.

As many as 25 nations have signed onto Trump's "Board of Peace," Witkoff says

As many as 25 countries have signed on to join President Trump's "Board of Peace" for Gaza, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff says.

Syrian army takes control of detention camp for Islamic State suspects

Move follows withdrawal of Kurdish forces from al-Hawl, where 24,000 people are being held over alleged IS links

Syrian government forces have taken control of al-Hawl detention camp, which houses tens of thousands of suspected Islamic State members, after Kurdish forces withdrew.

Soldiers entered the heavily fortified camp on Wednesday, part of a handover from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which oversaw the camp for the last seven years, as the Syrian government vowed to secure the facility.

What to expect from Trump's Davos speech. And, the DOJ subpoenas Minnesota officials

President Trump is expected to address affordability at the World Economic Forum today. And, Minnesota officials react after the Justice Department subpoenas them.

Blinken and British counterpart signal trans-Atlantic unity with visit to Ukraine

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart, David Lammy, are raising alarms about Iranian ballistic missiles in Russia that threaten Ukraine.

‘Who will stand up and oppose it?’: Trump’s relentless campaign of retribution in his second term

From firing lawyers and government officials to pursuing indictments – president has created a culture of vengeance

During his first year in the White House, Donald Trump has pursued a campaign of retribution unlike any other president in US history.

That Trump would pursue such a campaign is not surprising. Since he launched his first run for president in 2015, Trump has channeled the politics of grievance into political success. Returning to the White House after surviving two impeachments and four different criminal cases against him, Trump has used the might of the federal government to punish those he believes have wronged him.

American democracy on the brink a year after Trump’s election, experts say

Scale and speed of president’s moves have stunned observers of authoritarian regimes – is the US in democratic peril?

Three hundred and sixty-five days after Donald Trump swore his oath of office and completed an extraordinary return to power, many historians, scholars and experts say his presidency has pushed American democracy to the brink – or beyond it.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, the democratically elected US president has moved with startling speed to consolidate authority: dismantling federal agencies, purging the civil service, firing independent watchdogs, sidelining Congress, challenging judicial rulings, deploying federal force in blue cities, stifling dissent, persecuting political enemies, targeting immigrants, scapegoating marginalized groups, ordering the capture of a foreign leader, leveraging the presidency for profit, trampling academic freedom and escalating attacks on the news media.

How North Carolina erased medical debt for 2.5 million people

The state partnered with a nonprofit to wipe out the debts. It also has a plan in place to prevent medical debt for people in specific income brackets.

‘There is a sense of things careening towards a head’: TS Eliot prize winner Karen Solie

The Canadian poet, whose winning collection explores environmental and personal loss, discusses making art in existential times

Early on in her latest collection, the Canadian poet Karen Solie apologises: “I’m sorry, I can’t make this beautiful.” The line appears in a poem, Red Spring, about agribusiness and its sinister human impact: the world’s most widely used herbicide, glyphosate, is “advertised as non-persistent; but tell that to Dewayne Johnson // and his non-Hodgkin lymphoma”. In 2018, a jury ruled that Monsanto’s glyphosate weedkiller, Roundup, caused the former groundskeeper’s cancer.

Solie’s admission – that real horror can’t be prettified – recalls Noor Hindi’s viral 2020 poem, Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying. We can’t “treat poetry like it’s some kind of separate thing” to what’s going on around us, says Solie, speaking to me in Soho, London, the morning after finding out she has won the TS Eliot prize for her collection Wellwater. “We all have to keep our eyes open”, but “that doesn’t mean we can’t say we’re scared, because it’s scary”.

‘London is a second home to me’: Steve Nash on the NBA, punditry and non-league football

We sat down with the basketball legend at the O2 to discuss his ties to Tottenham, Vancouver, Majorca and Macclesfield

By No Helmets Required

Does your background, growing up outside basketball’s mainstream on Vancouver Island with English parents, help you appreciate how people in places such as London or Berlin feel when a big NBA game comes to town? Yeah. That’s true. I didn’t watch much basketball on TV until I started playing at 13, so can relate to coming upon something new and exciting. At the same time, the world’s so small now with social media access. But it is interesting to go to parts of the world where basketball is smaller and see how can we make the game accessible to them.

Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker and John Amaechi were guests at the O2. But every team had a foreign player on opening night this season, with 135 players from 43 countries across the league; up from 7% in 1992 to 24% now. Are the current Europeans different to that generation or have they just had more opportunities? Europeans have always been quite good. It’s not like Serbia wasn’t always great at basketball but, as the game has grown, the possibilities grow. The world gets smaller with the internet and social media. There’s not as much difference; everyone has access to all the pertinent information. The NBA is more accessible nowadays to people from Europe, Africa and every corner of the world. It’s only natural that more Europeans have success in the NBA.

TR-49 review – inventive narrative deduction game steeped in the strangest of wartime secrets

PC; Inkle
The UK game developer’s latest is a database mystery constructed from an archive of fictional books. Their combined contents threaten to crack the code of reality

Bletchley Park: famed home of the Enigma machine, Colossus computer, and, according to the premise of TR-49, an altogether stranger piece of tech. Two engineers created a machine that feeds on the most esoteric books: treatises on quantum computing, meditations on dark matter, pulp sci-fi novels and more. In the mid-2010s, when the game is set, Britain finds itself again engulfed by war, this time with itself. The arcane tool may hold the key to victory.

You play as budding codebreaker Abbi, a straight-talking northerner who is sifting through the machine now moved to a crypt beneath Manchester Cathedral. She has no idea how it works and neither do you. So you start tinkering. You input a four-digit code – two letters followed by two numbers. What do these correspond to? The initials of people and the year of a particular book’s publication. Input a code correctly and you are whisked away to the corresponding page, as if using a particularly speedy microfiche reader. These pages – say, by famed fictional physicist, Joshua Silverton – are filled with clues and, should you get lucky, further codes and even the titles of particular works. Your primary goal is to match codes with the corresponding book title in a bid to find the most crucial text of all, Endpeace, the key to understanding the erudite ghosts of this machine.

Former South Korean PM jailed for 23 years for role in martial law insurrection

Han Duck-soo verdict marks first judicial ruling stemming from ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s 2024 martial law decree

South Korea’s former prime minister Han Duck-soo has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for his role in an insurrection stemming from the former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law declaration.

The judge, Lee Jin-kwan, ordered Han’s immediate detention.

Netanyahu to join Trump ‘board of peace’ despite previous objections

Israeli prime minister accepts position on US-proposed body with initial remit to oversee Gaza ceasefire

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Wednesday that he had agreed to join a US-backed “board of peace” proposed by Donald Trump, despite his office having earlier criticised the composition of its executive committee.

The body, chaired by the US president, was initially presented as a limited forum of world leaders tasked with overseeing a ceasefire in Gaza. More recently, however, the initiative appears to have expanded well beyond that remit, with the Trump camp extending invitations to dozens of countries and suggesting the board could evolve into a vehicle for brokering conflicts far beyond the Middle East.

‘A grenade under her pillow?’: the Filipino journalist jailed for six years without trial

The arrest of Frenchie Mae Cumpio has been described as a ‘travesty of justice’. On Thursday a court will deliver its verdict, potentially sentencing her to 40 years in prison for alleged terrorism

For weeks before the police came for her, Frenchie Mae Cumpio had noticed odd incidents. The Filipino journalist – just 21 years old but already hosting a radio show and working as executive director of a local news website – told colleagues that a stranger had begun turning up and asking after her at the boarding house where she lived. She was sent a bouquet of flowers designed for a grave. She reported that two men had been following her on a motorcycle.

Cumpio believed it was deliberate intimidation. She had recently published a series of reports after visiting poor rural farmers who said they were being harassed by army units in the region.

We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is exactly how they start | Claire Finkelstein

Developments in Minnesota closely mirror a scenario explored in a 2024 exercise conducted at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, which I direct

Since January 6, roughly 2,000 ICE agents have been deployed to Minnesota under the pretext of responding to a fraud investigation. In practice, these largely untrained and undisciplined federal agents have been terrorizing Minneapolis residents through illegal and excessive uses of force – often against US citizens – prompting a federal judge to attempt to place limits on the agency’s actions. The Trump administration is encouraging the lawlessness by announcing “absolute immunity” for ICE agents. But if the secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, does not heed the court ruling, the consequences may be nothing short of civil war.

In just the past week, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, shortly after she returned from dropping her child off at school. They blinded two protesters by shooting them in the face with so-called “less deadly” weapons. They fired teargas bombs around the car of a family carrying six children, sending one child to the emergency room with breathing problems. They violently dragged a woman out of her car and on to the ground screaming. They have shot protesters in the legs. They have forcibly taken thousands of individuals to detention facilities, separating families and casting people into legal limbo – often without regard to their legal status.

Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is also the founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center

The pub that changed me: ‘I was snowed in there for four days’

We had a mass snowball fight and a disco, and I slept in a room full of drunk men with wet socks. It was fun, but in future snowstorms I won’t be rushing to the pub

In all my years of reporting, nothing seems to fascinate people more than the four days I spent snowed in at Britain’s highest pub last year. It was early January and the Met Office had issued severe warnings for snow. It dawned on me that people were about to live out a British fantasy of being snowed in at their local pub. I knew where I needed to be: The Tan Hill Inn, high up in the wilderness on the very northern edge of the Yorkshire Dales national park.

World leaders in Davos must stand up to Trump. This is their chance | Robert Reich

The world needs global leaders to clearly and firmly denounce the havoc Trump is wreaking on the US and international order

Hundreds of global CEOs, finance titans, and more than 60 prime ministers and presidents are in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s powerful and wealthy: the World Economic Forum.

This year’s Davos meeting occurs at a time when Donald Trump is not just unleashing his brownshirts on Minneapolis and other American cities, but also dismantling the international order that’s largely been in place since the end of the second world war – threatening Nato, withdrawing from international organizations including the UN climate treaty, violating the UN charter by invading Venezuela and abducting Nicolás Maduro, upending established trade rules, and demanding that the US annex Greenland.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Lawmakers intensify efforts to remove Trump's name from Kennedy Center

At least one federal lawsuit and two bills in Congress aim to strip President Trump's name from the exterior sign at the Kennedy Center.

‘Pay up’: Rory McIlroy delivers Ryder Cup warning to LIV pair Hatton and Rahm

• LIV rebels are appealing against DP World Tour sanctions

• Forthright McIlroy wants duo to show their commitment

Rory McIlroy has challenged Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm to demonstrate their commitment to the Ryder Cup cause by settling fines for their LIV Golf participation.

McIlroy pointed towards motivation used by Europe during victory at Bethpage last September after it emerged the United States players were paid to play in the Ryder Cup.

1/20: CBS Evening News

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

‘A new form of theater’: can Ian McKellen, 52 cameras and ‘mixed reality’ reinvent a medium?

At the Shed in New York, attendees wearing enhanced glasses are witnessing an experimental new play where actors appear in video form

You sit in a circle at the Shed, the cultural center in Manhattan’s futuristic Hudson Yards, waiting for the show to begin. Through your enhanced glasses, you see four empty chairs facing you, just out of reach. You watch strangers look out for the actors to arrive. As they do, one at a time, you feel unsettled – each locks eyes with you, specifically. “Don’t panic,” the esteemed British actor Ian McKellen assures you, as the actors take their seats.

Except the actors are not there, really – McKellen, along with co-stars Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene and Rosie Sheehy, appears in An Ark, a new play at the Shed, in video form, a nearly opaque specter overlaid on the candy-apple red carpeting and crisp white walls of the theater and the outlines of your 180 or so fellow audience members. The experimental new play, written almost entirely in the second person by Simon Stephens (whose most recent show, the Andrew Scott-starring Vanya, wowed audiences at the Lucille Lortel theater last year), is one of the first so-called “mixed reality” shows staged in New York, blending physical experience with digital elements. Over 47 minutes, the actors address you, the viewer, directly. Their gaze remains trained on you. Don’t panic, they repeatedly assure. (Though due to some technical malfunctions at the preview I attended, there was some panicking.)

‘Every time I look at one, I smile!’: how axolotls took over the world

Our passion for these cute-looking salamanders means they are everywhere – except in the wild, where the species is under increasing threat

Axolotls are the new llamas. Which were, of course, the new unicorns. Which triggered a moment for narwhals. If you are an unusual-looking animal, this is your time. Even humans who have never seen an axolotl – a type of salamander – in the smooth and slimy flesh will have met a cartoon or cuddly one. Mexican axolotls have the kind of look that is made for commercial reproduction. The most popular domestic species is pink. Some glow in the dark – and their smile is bigger than Walter’s in the Muppets.

At Argos or Kmart, you can buy axolotls as cuddly toys, featured on socks, hoodies and bedding, or moulded into nightlights. You can crochet an axolotl, stick a rubber one on the end of your pencil or wear them on your underpants. The Economist says they’re a “global megastar”. More than 1,000 axolotl-themed products are listed on Walmart’s website. They grace US Girl Scouts patches, McDonald’s Happy Meals, and the 50-peso bill, a design so popular that, last year, the Bank of Mexico reported that 12.9 million people were hoarding the notes.

Trump administration claims offshore wind poses a threat. But it won't say how.

The Interior Department said pausing construction of offshore wind farms would allow the government agencies to work with project developers to mitigate potential risks. But wind companies say the administration isn't sharing information about newly-discovered threats.

Trump says 'I won't use force' to obtain Greenland in Davos speech

The U.S. president is in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. Trump's push to acquire Greenland has turned to antagonism toward allies in recent days.

Nigel Farage apologises for 17 breaches of MPs’ code of conduct

Reform UK leader, who failed to declare £380,000 on time, says he is computer-illiterate ‘oddball’

• UK politics live – latest updates

Nigel Farage has apologised for 17 breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct after failing to declare £380,000 of income on time, saying he is an “oddball” who does not do computers.

The Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton said he had relied on a senior member of staff to submit his income to the register of interests and had been let down, but he took full responsibility for the error.

‘Exclusively for the elite’: why Mumbai’s new motorway is a symbol of the divide between rich and poor

With 64% of the city’s residents relying on buses and trains so overloaded that up to 10 passengers die a day, anger is rising over a taxpayer-funded road most will never use

Mumbai is known for its graphic inequality, its gleaming high-rises where the rich live with panoramic views of the Arabian Sea standing next to windowless hovels perched over drains. It is home to 90 of India’s billionaires, but also to more than six million slum dwellers, about 55% of central Mumbai’s population.

Now Mumbai has a new symbol of the gulf between rich and poor: a high-speed, eight-lane motorway on its western coast, which critics say serves only the wealthy despite being built with taxpayers’ money.

‘Soviet attitudes framed local culture as backward’: the record label standing up to Russian imperialism

Ored Recordings documents chants, laments and displacement songs of the Caucasus threatened by erasure. After the invasion of Ukraine, its ‘punk ethnography’ has never been more urgent

In May 2022, a few weeks after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, musician Bulat Khalilov was attending a demonstration in Nalchik, a southern Russian city in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. As he joined a group congregating around the monument to the Circassian victims of Russo-Circassian war, Khalilov was approached by a policeman and sensed trouble. To his surprise, the officer asked: “Are you from Ored Recordings? I follow you on Instagram. You’re doing great.”

Their gathering still had to be dispersed, but the enthusiasm that Ored Recordings inspires even among enforcers of the law speaks volumes about the power of what Khalilov and his friend and label co-founder Timur Kodzoko call “punk ethnography”: the recording of religious chants, laments and displacement songs at family gatherings, local festivals, in people’s kitchens, to fight against the erasure of Circassian culture.

Beckham family estrangement is neither rare nor unique, say therapists

Family splits are more common than people realise and are typically caused by abuse, new partners and differing beliefs

Family therapists say they typically come across three reasons why parents and children become estranged: abuse, new partners, and irreconcilable differences over morals, values and beliefs.

At least two of these were evident in the Beckhams’ highly publicised family feud, which culminated in Brooklyn Beckham’s scathing Instagram post this week announcing his estrangement.

Goodbye, Queer Eye: pure comfort TV that’s too fabulous to exist in this world any more

The fab five convene in Washington DC for the show’s 10th and final season – and one last, escapist feelgood hurrah

In 2018, hopes were not high for Queer Eye. Having dredged the sea floor of early 00s nostalgia, Netflix announced that it had reimagined Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a makeover series that churned out 100 episodes between 2003 and 2007. In it, switched-on gay men had told clueless straight men how to dress, act and behave. Fifteen years after it debuted, however, that concept felt like a relic. At best, it was a testament to an era in which queer representation on screen was still rare and mostly dealt in unthreatening stereotypes. Bringing it back sounded unpromising, like yet another dead-end television reboot.

When Queer Eye launched, however, it had undergone a makeover of its own, and confounded most expectations. It chopped the name in half, ditched the focus on straight men as its subjects – though, ever inclusive, they were very much part of it – and dragged itself into a more emotionally literate and sensitive era. The five men at its core did fashion and style, of course, but they were delicate about it. The idea was not to shame people for their bodies or personal taste – a common feature of early 00s makeover shows – but to give them a helping hand, lift them out of the doldrums and make them feel as if they and their lives had value and worth.

Saipan review – Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy’s epic spat becomes amusing state-of-the-nation psychodrama

Éanna Hardwick and Steve Coogan star as furious Keane and his luckless manager McCarthy in this retelling of the Man Utd star’s infamous 2002 walkout

Here is a sports drama which is also a true-life psychodrama of the Irish republic. In the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the nation was convulsed with dismay when mercurial star player Roy Keane stormed out of Ireland’s chaotic training camp on the Pacific island of Saipan and got on the first plane home after a colossal row with manager Mick McCarthy. Could it really be true that Ireland’s key performer was going to let the side down? Was he just a spoilt Man U brat? Or was Keane a true Irish patriot, insisting on high standards of training and management for Irish football which this (English-born) manager wasn’t providing?

It’s a story which is capably, straightforwardly told by film-makers Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, and well acted by its leads Éanna Hardwicke as Keane and Steve Coogan as McCarthy. It is almost like a theatrical chamber piece, putting us on the spot with the two male egos as they butt heads – but perhaps giving less sense of the angst they were creating back home.

‘All these souls deserve a dignified rest’: Ukraine’s ‘body seekers’ bring home the fallen

Driven by a belief in a common humanity, the Platzdarm search team bring the bodies of soldiers back from the frontline – no matter which side they fought on

Alexei clears his throat without showing the slightest expression on his face. Squatting and wearing gloves, he shakes the military uniform that once belonged to a man. The jacket and trousers still hold their shape, but inside there is nothing. Just air.

Alexei pulls out a worn, stained piece of paper from one of the pockets. “Andrei. Moscow,” he reads aloud. “There’s a phone number written here. Good. It helps us trace his origin.” Whoever he was, he was a Russian soldier.

Finding bodies from both sides is common at the front – the remains pile up after a battle

So a cow can use a stick to scratch its backside. When will we learn that humans are really not that special? | Helen Pilcher

Veronika’s improvised grooming device has caused great surprise – but that tells us more about humans than cows

I have a farmer friend who regularly regales me with colourful stories of her cattle. Take the time when a beef cow called Noisette used her tongue to pull back the catch on the door of her pen so she could steal cattle nuts from the nearby feed bin. Or the time when she did it again, not to let herself out, but seemingly to stand back and watch as her freed compatriots “mooched around and caused mayhem.”

Where others see a herd of cows standing around looking bored, my friend sees a soap opera, with characters and plot twists. Cows, she tells me, learn quickly, bore easily and have an indefatigable penchant for mischief.

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction

Union Saint-Gilloise’s Christian Burgess: ‘I’ll definitely be asking Harry Kane for his shirt’

The former Portsmouth defender took a chance when moving to Brussels but is now captain of the Belgian champions and preparing to mark the England captain in the Champions League

Below the zigzagging contrails that paint the blue Brussels sky, Christian Burgess is reflecting on the latest chapters of his extraordinary journey, those since joining Royale Union Saint‑Gilloise almost six years ago. At the time he felt that his career was at risk of stagnating, but after rummaging Wikipedia to get a handle on the club and learning of their big ambitions, it felt a leap of faith worth taking.

Even so, there is a detectable disbelief at how that decision led him to the Champions League and an unlikely reunion with Harry Kane, with whom he last duelled as an 18-year-old on trial at Tottenham more than 15 years ago. On Wednesday Union play at Bayern Munich in arguably the biggest match in their history, knowing a positive result would keep alive their chances of advancing to the knockout stage.

Is listening to an audiobook as good as reading?

Queen tells reading campaign that listening counts too – and the publishing industry increasingly agrees

Queen Camilla has met many disreputable characters in her time as a royal, but her encounter this week with two celebrity reprobates was at least for a good cause. The queen has appeared in the Beano alongside its celebrated bad boy Dennis the Menace and his dog, Gnasher, as part of a campaign to promote reading.

It wasn’t the cartoon Camilla’s waspish waist that captured the headlines (“I wish,” she said of her comic strip avatar), but what she had to say while encouraging the tween menace to “go all in” for reading: “Comics and audiobooks count too!”

Air Force One headed to Davos turns around after "minor electrical issue," Leavitt says

After returning to Joint Base Andrews, President Trump departed for Davos about one hour later aboard a second aircraft.

Trump touts first-year accomplishments in lengthy White House briefing

President Trump spoke in the White House briefing room for nearly two hours on Tuesday, marking the first year of his second term​ before departing for a high-pressure trip to Europe.

Rock up to London: discovering stones and fossils from around the world on an urban geology tour

The city’s architecture travels through time and continents, incorporating everything from slabs of the Italian Alps to meteorites that hit southern Africa 2bn years ago

In the heart of London’s Square Mile, between the windows of a tapas restaurant, a 150m-year-old ammonite stares mutely at passersby. The fossil is embedded in a limestone wall on Plantation Lane, sitting alongside the remnants of ancient nautiloids and squid-like belemnites. It’s a mineralised aquarium hiding in plain sight, a snapshot of deep time that few even glance at, a transtemporal space where patatas bravas meet prehistoric cephalopods.

How often do you give thought to the stones that make up our towns and cities? To the building blocks, paving slabs and machine-cut masonry that backdrop our lives? If your name’s Dr Ruth Siddall, the answer to that question would be yesterday, today and every day for the foreseeable. Her passion is urban geology, and it turns out that the architecture of central London – in common with many places – is a largely unwitting showcase of Earth science through the ages.

Vigil by George Saunders review – will a world-wrecking oil tycoon repent?

The ghosts of Lincoln in the Bardo return to confront a dying oil man’s destructive legacy – but this time they feel like a gimmick

George Saunders is back in the Bardo – perhaps stuck there. Vigil, his first novel since 2017’s Booker prize‑winning Lincoln in the Bardo, returns to that indeterminate space between life and death, comedy and grief, moral inquiry and narrative hijinks. Once again, the living are largely absent, and the dead are meddlesome and chatty. They have bones to pick.

They converge at the deathbed of an oil man, KJ Boone. He’s a postwar bootstrapper: long-lived, filthy rich and mightily pleased with himself. “A steady flow of satisfaction, even triumph, coursed through him, regarding all he had managed to see, cause and create.” Boone is calm in his final hours, enviably so. He seems destined to die exactly as he lived, untroubled by self-reflection. But as his body falters, his mind becomes permeable to ghosts, and they have work to do. The tycoon has profited handsomely from climate denial, and there is still time for him to acknowledge his fossil-fuelled sins before the lights go out.

A later-life love triangle? Redefining how to grow old – in pictures

From naked embraces and sofa snogging to the very final stages of life, a new exhibition proves there is no one way to age

Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart review – her frankness about her ordeal is truly inspiring

Taken from her bedroom at the age of 14 and sexually abused for nine months, Smart, now a child safety activist, rails powerfully against shame in this true-crime documentary

New year, new true-crime documentary from Netflix. Age cannot wither the genre made famous by the streamer all the way back in 2015 with Making a Murderer, which explored the wrongful conviction of Steven Avery for sexual assault and attempted murder who spent 18 years in prison for that and who was later tried and convicted of another murder. That documentary was a decade in the making. Things move more quickly now, and the preferred content is more palatable to a mass audience – tales of victims’ survival and the very rightful conviction of perpetrators meet the voyeuristic appetite and proxy lust for vengeance without requiring too much painful thinking abut the inadequacies of a country’s legal system, say, or the corruption of its law enforcement.

Still, the new approach has brought some astonishing untold stories of forgotten victims into the light and – usefully or not – given us a better measure of the depraved depths to which men can go. (And it is almost always men, who either have an innate problem or need to bring a suit against an incredibly biased set of film-makers and commissioners tout damn suite.)

Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms, study shows

Critics accuse leading firms of sabotaging climate action but say data increasingly being used to hold them to account

Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed.

Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.

Donald Trump is not forgetting America’s old alliances – his goal is to destroy them | Rafael Behr

European leaders who know their continent’s history must now see that the US president is siding with the forces of tyranny

In January 2018, when Donald Trump was in the second year of his first term as US president, Angela Merkel, in her 13th year as German chancellor, gave a gloomy speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She opened her remarks with a warning from Europe’s past. Politicians had “sleep-walked” into the first world war. As the number of surviving eyewitnesses to the second world war dwindled, she added, subsequent generations would have to prove they understood the fragility of peace. “We need to ask ourselves if we have really learned from history or not.”

Fast forward eight years. Vladimir Putin’s territorial aggression harries Europe’s eastern flank. To the west, Trump, now in his second term and guest of honour at Davos, threatens to annex Greenland. This is not a world that has internalised the lessons of the 20th century.

‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’: Mark Carney is emerging as the unflinching realist ready to tackle Trump

In a speech at Davos, written by Carney himself, the Canadian prime minister laid out his doctrine for a world of fractured international norms

For much of Mark Carney’s career as an economist and central banker, he existed at the nexus of global thinkers and multilateral institutions. The “rockstar banker” was a fixture at summits, where he spoke beside business leaders and the political elite, espousing the values of international cooperation and the need for open economies and shared rules.

But after less than a year as prime minister of Canada, Carney offered a blunter assessment of the world on Tuesday: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

Shinzo Abe’s killer sentenced to life in prison over shooting of Japanese former PM

Abe was killed by Tetsuya Yamagami in 2022 while campaigning in the city of Nara, a shooting that shocked Japan, where gun crime is almost unheard of

A court in Japan has sentenced the assassin of former prime minister Shinzo Abe to life in prison – a case that shocked the public and exposed politicians’ ties to an influential religious group.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, had earlier pleaded guilty to killing Abe in July 2022 as he was making an election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

‘I could not stay silent’: Palestinian prisoner tells of sexual abuse in Israeli jail

Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence

• Warning: contains graphic descriptions of torture

Sami al-Saei said he heard the Israeli prison guards who raped him laughing through the assault, before they left him lying blindfolded, handcuffed and in agony on the floor to take a cigarette break.

At least one of the group knew a crime was being committed and intervened, not to stop the torture but to prevent its documentation. Al-Saei said he heard the man warning others “don’t take a photo, don’t take a photo” as they attacked.

My analogue month: would ditching my smartphone make me healthier, happier – or more stressed?

When I swapped my iPhone for a Nokia, Walkman, film camera and physical map, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But my life soon started to change

When two balaclava-clad men on a motorbike mounted the pavement to rob me, recently, I remained oblivious. My eyes were pinned to a text message on my phone, and my hands were so clawed around it that they didn’t even bother to grab it. It wasn’t until an elderly woman shrieked and I felt the whoosh of air as the bike launched back on to the road that I looked up at all. They might have been unsuccessful but it did make me think: what else am I missing from the real world around me?

Before I’ve poured my first morning coffee I’ve already watched the lives of strangers unfold on Instagram, checked the headlines, responded to texts, swiped through some matches on a dating app, and refreshed my emails, twice. I check Apple Maps for my quickest route to work. I’ve usually left it too late to get the bus, so I rent a Lime bike using the app. During the day, my brother sends me some memes, I take a picture of a canal boat, and pay for my lunch on Apple Pay. I walk home listening to music on Spotify and a long voice note from a friend, then I watch a nondescript TV drama, while scrolling through Depop and Vinted for clothes.

Scene changers: on the road with the experimental Pip Simmons theatre group – in pictures

The maverick theatre-maker Pip Simmons, who died two years ago aged 80, is captured on stage and off in a book by photographer Sheila Burnett documenting the radical troupe’s years of European touring

1/16: CBS Evening News

New details in death of Minneapolis ICE shooting victim; Winter storm wreaks havoc on Northeast

Halligan exits DOJ after judge bars her continued use of U.S. attorney title

Lindsey Halligan has departed the Justice Department after a federal judge Tuesday barred her from referring to herself as a U.S. attorney in court filings.

Exclusive interview with convicted "mastermind" of Minnesota fraud scheme

As tensions spiked over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, CBS News' Jonah Kaplan spoke exclusively with Aimee Bock, the so-called "mastermind" of the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme in Minnesota.

Greenland should be prepared for 'everything,' prime minister says, not ruling out U.S. military action

While the scenario is unlikely, Greenland has to be prepared as "the other side" has not ruled out the use of military force.

How parents are finding community support in delaying smartphones

As parents grapple with their children's technology use, new guidance goes beyond individual behavior to approach the digital ecosystem.

Researchers say this cow's behavior is challenging long-held assumptions

Dating back to the dawn of civilization, humans have been one of the only creatures on Earth that use multi-purpose tools. Now, there's a new animal in the club. "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil has the story.

Parents find support in delaying kids' use of smartphones, social media

As parents grapple with their children's technology use, new guidance goes beyond individual behavior to approach the digital ecosystem. Meg Oliver has details.

Measles cases surge in South Carolina as U.S. risks elimination status

An infectious disease physician and former CDC official said he does not "have faith" that the U.S. is "handling measles very well."