Omar says it is "not acceptable" to make early judgments on Minneapolis shooting

"If they're saying we shouldn't believe our eyes, then let the investigation take place before you characterize this mother of three as a domestic terrorist," Rep. Ilhan Omar said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Trump threatens to sideline Exxon from Venezuela's oil: 'They're playing too cute’

His comments come shortly after Exxon CEO Darren Woods said the Venezuelan market is "uninvestable" in its current state.

US will have Greenland ‘one way or the other’, says Trump – Europe live

US president repeats his desire for the territory as he mocks its defences as ‘two dog sleds’ and shrugs off impact on Nato

US president Donald Trump also spoke further about Greenland in his New York Times interview published on Sunday ($).

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he insisted that he wanted to resolve the issue “properly” with the US taking ownership of the territory as it was “psychologically needed for success,” saying that “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.”

“Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.”

‘Hundreds more’ federal agents being deployed in Minnesota after killing of Renee Good – US politics live

Kristi Noem says that more officers are being deployed amid protests in several cities

Goldman Sachs’ chief economist Jan Hatzius has warned this morning that the criminal indictment threat facing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has reinforced worries that central bank independence is being undermined.

Reuters reports that Hatzius told a 2026 Goldman Sachs Global Strategy Conference:

“Obviously there are more concerns that Fed independence is going to be under the gun, with the latest news on the criminal investigation into Chair Powell really having reinforced those concerns.”

“I have no doubt that he (Powell) in his remaining term as chair is going to make decisions based on the economic data and not be influenced one way or the other, cutting more or refusing to cut on the back of data that could push in that direction.”

Malaysia blocks Elon Musk’s Grok AI over fake, sexualised images

Country follows Indonesia in restricting access after global outcry over X’s AI tool

Malaysia has become the second country to temporarily block access to Elon Musk’s Grok after a global outcry over the AI tool and its ability to produce fake, sexualised images.

Malaysia said it would restrict access to Grok until effective safeguards were implemented, a day after similar action was taken by Indonesia.

Iran crisis live: foreign minister says country ready for negotiations but also ‘fully prepared for war’

Abbas Araghchi warns adversaries against ‘miscalculation’ as Trump mulls military response to protest crackdown

• ‘The streets are full of blood’: Iranian protests gather momentum as regime cracks down

• Iranian student killed during protests was shot in head ‘from close range’

• Analysis: Unpredictable Trump weighs up Iranian pleas for help against calls for restraint

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, has said communication lines with the US remain open, as the Trump administration continues to weigh the option of military strikes.

“This channel of communication between our foreign minister (Abbas Araghchi) and the special envoy of the president of the United States is open,” Baghaei said, in apparent reference to Steve Witkoff.

Always opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs, maintains that the sovereignty and security of all countries should be fully protected under international law, and opposes the use or threat of use of force in international relations.

Truckin’ on: Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead’s 10 best recordings

From 46-minute jams to MTV video hits, here are the freedom-loving Dead guitarist and singer’s finest songs about ‘rainbows of sound’ and ‘enjoying the ride’

• Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead, dies at age 78
• Alexis Petridis: ‘Bob Weir was the chief custodian of the Dead’s legacy’
• Aaron Dessner: ‘I’ll never forget playing with him’

The Dead’s love for the road is in evidence on this segment from That’s It for the Other One, the four-part opening track of their second LP, Anthem of the Sun. A rare Bob Weir-penned lyric details the Dead’s youngest member being busted by the cops “for smiling on a cloudy day” – referencing a real-life incident when Weir pelted police with water balloons as they conducted what he took to be illegal searches outside the group’s Haight-Ashbury hangout. It then connects with the band’s spiritual forebears the Merry Pranksters by referencing Neal Cassady, driver of “a bus to never-ever land”. The song later evolved into The Other One, one of the Dead’s most played tunes and a launchpad for their exploratory jams – as in this languid, brilliant version at San Francisco’s Winterland in 1974.

Stan Wawrinka: ‘I really believe that I squeezed the lemon until the last drop’

The 40-year-old is nearing end of his career and has no regrets after winning three grand slams in Big Three era

In the first week of the final year of his life as a professional tennis player, Stanislas “Stan” Wawrinka found himself in the familiar position of staring down an opponent nearly half his age. Wawrinka, now 40, had tussled with the talented 23-year-old Flavio Cobolli for nearly three hours before offering himself a shot at a monumental victory.

Just a few tense errors deep in a tense final set tie-break saw those chances slip away. In theory, deciding that 2026 will be the final year of his career should provide Wawrinka with an opportunity to swing for the fences and completely empty his tank, playing without inhibitions. Life, however, is far more complicated than that. “Of course I would love to play more freely. And sometimes I tell myself: ‘Just play freely,’” sighs a frustrated Wawrinka. “But I care so much that it’s not that easy.”

Criminal investigation into Fed chair Powell has ‘reinforced’ concerns over independence, Goldman Sachs warns – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Justice department opens investigation into Jerome Powell as Trump ramps up campaign against Federal Reserve

In the UK property sector, a higher proportion of homes in London were sold at a loss than any other region in England and Wales last year.

Estate agency Hamptons has reported that nearly 15% of London sellers sold for less in 2025 than they originally paid, almost double the national average of 8.7%.

Last year, the average homeowner in England & Wales sold for £91,260 more than they paid, a value increase of 41.0% over an average holding period of 9.0 years. This is £570 less than the 2024 average of £91,830.

Stronger recent price growth in Northern regions has boosted returns, meaning many sellers in the North of England achieved proportionally higher gains than those in much of the South.

Flat sellers were four times more likely to make a loss than house sellers in England & Wales (19.9% vs 4.5%).

New York City expects biggest nurses strike as nearly 15,000 set to walk off job

Strike, amid an intense flu season, is expected to disrupt activity at institutions such as Mount Sinai and Montefiore

Thousands of nurses are set to walk off the job at several of New York City’s largest hospitals on Monday, staging a strike amid an intense flu season.

The action comes three years after a previous strike that compelled some of the same hospitals to move patients elsewhere and reroute ambulances.

Trump’s other Latin American feud: why Colombia’s Petro is not Maduro

Leftwing leader rallies his supporters as US president accuses him of drug trafficking and threatens military action

A leftwing South American firebrand calls for his followers to rally in public squares nationwide to defend his country’s sovereignty and decry verbal attacks from Donald Trump. The US president accuses the leader of personally flooding American streets with illegal drugs and imposes sanctions against him and his wife. Threats of military action are followed by a phone conversation between the two leaders.

One might imagine that this is a description of the buildup of tensions that led to the 3 January special forces raid on Caracas to capture the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, to face several criminal charges in New York.

How the US supreme court case on trans athletes could unravel LGBTQ+ rights

If bans on trans youth athletes are upheld, more girls could face ‘invasive sex testing’ and trans people could broadly lose civil rights protections

The US supreme court will consider state bans on transgender athletes on Tuesday in a major LGBTQ+ rights legal battle that could have far-reaching consequences beyond youth sports.

The court is hearing oral arguments in two cases brought by trans students who challenged Republican-backed laws in West Virginia and Idaho prohibiting trans girls from participating in girls’ athletic programs.

It’s not ‘fantasy’: I know Nigel Farage abused people for their nationality – because I was one of them | Rickard Berg

I remember him as a racist, obnoxious bully, and his allegation that other ex-Dulwich boys and I are liars tells me he hasn’t changed

The new year has delivered a new position from Nigel Farage on the multiple and detailed accounts of his alleged racism and antisemitism during his time as a pupil at Dulwich College.

We had outright denial when the Guardian first published its investigation. As further witnesses came forward, we had excuses: it was “banter”, there wasn’t any malice involved and any such abuse was never targeted at an individual.

Rickard Berg is a musician, music producer and composer

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

Tottenham’s Mathys Tel open to loan for more game time as World Cup looms

• Paris FC, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray keen on forward

• Spurs poised to land Santos left-back Souza in £13m deal

Mathys Tel has informed Tottenham he is open to leaving on loan, having grown frustrated at his lack of game time under Thomas Frank since a £30m move from Bayern Munich.

Paris FC and the Turkish clubs Fenerbahce and Galatasaray are understood to have registered interest in taking the 20-year-old forward on loan until the end of the season. Clubs in Italy and Spain are also believed to have sounded out Spurs, who are thought to be reluctant to let Tel leave after selling Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace for £35m.

Super Stuttgart sweep Leverkusen aside with in-demand Leweling to the fore | Andy Brassell

Plenty of prospective candidates for Germany’s World Cup squad caught the eye in a 4-1 cruise at the BayArena

If ever there was a weekend to show up on your best form, then this was it. Stuttgart travelled to Bayer Leverkusen for Saturday night’s Topspiel not just facing a team with whom they have had a healthy sporting rivalry with over recent years, but with an audience to perform to. Starting with an XI containing seven current national team players they were – of course – under the gaze of Rudi Völler, who served Leverkusen as player and sporting director over two spells amounting to almost 25 years and, though now the sporting director of the DFB, still lives locally and is a frequent visitor to the BayArena.

So if he enjoyed this early-year shockwave to the Bundesliga’s established order, it would have been in a professional rather than a personal capacity. Games between these two have tended to be among the highlights of recent Bundesliga seasons; intriguing, edge-of-the-seat, push-pull affairs between a team that took the express elevator to the very top under Xabi Alonso and one which never blinked for a second when faced by them, emboldened by an inspiring coach of their own in Sebastian Hoeness. “Even in their top year two years ago when Leverkusen dominated everyone,” noted Völler as a Sunday guest on Sport1’s celebrated Doppelpass, “Stuttgart were the only team that played on equal terms in both games.”

Maxim Naumov makes U.S. Olympic team 1 year after parents killed in crash

Maxim Naumov, a Massachusetts figure skater whose parents were killed last year in a Washington, D.C. plane crash, is headed to the 2026 Olympics.

Four months and 40 hours later: my epic battle with 2025’s most difficult video game

When Hollow Knight: Silksong came out last summer I was in so much pain that I didn’t know if I’d be able to play it. Could a video game teach me anything new about suffering?

Last year I became uncomfortably well acquainted with suffering. In March I started experiencing excruciating pain in my right arm and shoulder – burning, zapping, energy-sapping pain that left me unable to think straight, emanating from a nexus of torment behind my shoulder blade and sometimes stretching all the way up to the base of my skull and all the way down into my fingers. Typing was agony, but everything was painful; even at rest it was horrible. I couldn’t play my guitar; I couldn’t play video games; I couldn’t sleep. I learned how quickly physical suffering lacerates your mental wellbeing.

I’d had episodes of nagging pain from so-called repetitive strain injuries before, the product of long hours hunched over laptops and game controllers over the course of decades, but nothing like this. A few months later, after the initial unrelenting agony had subsided to a permanent hum of more moderate pain, it was diagnosed as brachial neuritis, inflammation of the nerve path that travels from the base of your neck down to your hand. (Nobody knows what causes it, but it sometimes happens after an infection or an injury.) The good news, I was told by a neurologist, was that it usually gets better in about one to three years, and I hadn’t lost any function in my right hand. The bad news was that there was nothing much to be done about the pain in the meantime.

Who are the figure skaters representing Team USA? Key names and backstories to know

Sixteen U.S. figure skaters are competing in all four Olympic disciplines: men's, women's, pairs and ice dance. The team includes a mix of seasoned vets, world champions and rising stars.

The pet I’ll never forget: Dory the 10kg rabbit, who saved me from a diabetic coma

My Flemish giant bunny loved chomping on carrots, computer cables and my skirting board – and being walked on a leash. When I suffered a medical emergency, she jumped into action

The first time I saw a Flemish giant rabbit was at TruckFest in Peterborough in 2002. Among a sprawling maze of stalls at the East of England showground, I was led into a tent filled with the biggest rabbits I’d ever laid eyes on. I’d never heard of Flemish giants before, but I knew then that I needed one. I couldn’t have predicted in that moment that one of these beautiful creatures might save my life.

Dory was a baby when I met her, but even as a bunny she was already bigger than most normal-sized rabbits. We brought her home in a cat carrier, but she soon outgrew it. By the time she was fully grown, she weighed nearly 10kg, and I was walking her on a leash like a dog.

Trump is repeating mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi

As it did in 2003, the US is underestimating the potential for instability as Trump resurrects one of the Iraq war’s biggest myths

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, famously declared at a press conference in Baghdad on 14 December 2003, a day after US troops had captured Saddam Hussein. Iraqis in the audience broke out in cheers, leapt up from their seats and pumped their fists in the air – many had waited decades for that moment. “This is a great day in Iraq’s history,” Bremer said, adding: “The tyrant is a prisoner.”

I was in the audience that day in Baghdad, covering the Iraq invasion’s aftermath as a correspondent for a US newspaper. It quickly became clear that Bremer and other jubilant US officials would use the occasion – US soldiers dragged the disheveled former Iraqi dictator out of a hole in the ground where he had been hiding near his home town – to declare that America’s war had reached a decisive turn. Despite a growing insurgency led by ex-members of the Iraqi security forces, US officials in Baghdad and Washington projected confidence that victory was in sight now that Saddam was locked up and headed for the gallows.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

One look at my baby’s dungarees was all it took to give me the rage

Why should he, an eight-month-old boy, have more pockets on his clothes than I do?

There’s much about becoming a new mother that could be filed under “maddening”. The phrase “sleep when the baby sleeps”. The way people stop asking how you are, instead only asking after the baby. The sheer volume of unsolicited advice – some barbed, some so painfully obvious it’s borderline offensive, and all of it totally inescapable. (I suppose I could try living on a desert island, though no doubt someone would send a plane to skywrite: “They’re probably just hungry!”)

But it was while doing the laundry last week that I found something truly unhinged. I was sorting my infant son’s clothes from mine when I noticed that he had more pockets on his clothes than I did. What exactly does an eight-month-old need with a tiny pocket? Is he supposed to keep something in there? A dummy? Bits of rice cake? All the sleep he’s stolen from me (in which case he’d need a bigger pocket)?

Fed Chair Powell says he's under criminal investigation, won't bow to Trump intimidation

President Donald Trump has criticized Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates as much and as quickly as the president wants.

People put off giving CPR by unrealistic TV depictions, researchers say

Most dramas show characters searching for pulse and giving breaths but experts say chest compressions on their own can save lives

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a dramatic intervention, but researchers say TV portrayals are often misleading – potentially influencing whether viewers feel able to carry it out themselves.

According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in the UK.

‘Fear of the next deluge’: flood-scarred Britons join forces to demand help

As climate breakdown puts millions more people at flood risk, traumatised homeowners are finding common voice

Darren Ridley is always on high alert, constantly checking his phone for rain warnings – even in the middle of the night.

“Our whole family is permanently on edge,” he says. “If we hear rain, day or night, we’re up and checking the house. I can’t sleep without replaying our flood plan in my head for weaknesses.”

Poem of the week: Dream-Pedlary by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

From an almost whimsical beginning, these verses on wishing to overcome mortality grow lyrical and deeply moving

Dream-Pedlary

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What does sugar do to your body – and how can you avoid a slump?

We evolved to like energy-dense foods such as honey, but modern diets tend to include too much sugar. Here’s how to make sure you eat the right amount, at the right time

Sugar tastes great for good reason: we evolved to like it, back when honey was a hard-to-get, energy-dense treat and we spent half of our time running around after antelope. Now that it’s much easier to get and we don’t move as much, that sweet tooth is working against us: many of us are consuming far too much of it, and suffering from poor health as a result. But is there anything specifically bad about it beyond it providing too many calories and not enough nutrients?

“When we taste sugar, the body starts reacting the moment sweetness touches the tongue,” says Dawn Menning, a registered dietitian who works with health app Nutu. “The brain recognises it as a quick source of energy and activates the reward system, releasing the feelgood chemical dopamine that makes it so appealing.” Interestingly, not everyone tastes sugar in exactly the same way – in 2015, researchers compared different types of siblings’ perception of sugar and sweeteners, and found that identical twins were more similar to each other in their sweet taste perception than fraternal twins or non-twin siblings. They concluded that genetic factors account for about 30% of the variance in how sensitive people are to sweet tastes – but it’s unclear whether that actually affects how much we eat.

How IVF has led to a record number of single moms in their 40s

Who gets to be a parent has been reshaped by IVF: Single women in their 40s are increasingly opting to become moms.

Exercise is as effective as medication in treating depression, study finds

New research shows exercise is as effective as medication at reducing symptoms of depression. And you don't need to run a marathon to see benefits. So how much is enough?

London’s murder rate drops to lowest in more than a decade

Sadiq Khan says ‘public health’ approach has made the capital one of the safest cities in the western world

London’s murder rate has dropped to its lowest in more than a decade with police in the capital and the mayor saying it is now one of the safest cities in the western world.

The figures come as those on the radical right criticise the city for having a crime problem, hoping to gain politically from such claims being believed.

How to responsibly recycle your children's old toys

Now that the holiday gift-giving season is over, parents may be looking for ways to recycle or donate their children's old toys. Here's what you need to know about recycling responsibly.

Carney heads to Beijing as Trump’s America First agenda forces Canada into trade rethink

Canada’s PM seeks to smooth over past ructions in relationship with China as trade war takes its toll

During the final stretch of Canada’s spring election campaign, Mark Carney told a debate audience that China was the country’s “biggest geopolitical risk”. He pointed to its attempts to meddle in elections and its recent efforts to disrupt Canada’s Arctic claims.

When Carney’s government plane touches down in Beijing this week, it will be the first time a Canadian prime minister has been welcomed in nearly a decade. The trip, undertaken amid the rupturing of global economic and political alliances, reflects a desire by Ottawa to mend a broken relationship with a global superpower that uses its vast and lucrative market to both woo and punish countries.

Escape review – notorious Japanese revolutionary tells story of country’s most wanted criminal

Director Masao Adachi – formerly of the Japanese Red Army – on the infamous Satoshi Kirishima, who went on the run in 1975 after a series of corporate bombings

Masao Adachi is an 86-year-old Japanese film-maker and former revolutionary activist who spent almost 30 years in Lebanese exile due to his former membership of terrorist group the Japanese Red Army in the 1970s; arrested on his return to Japan, after his release from prison he returned to cinema – and has now made this intriguing chamber piece called Tôsô, or Escape, an intensely, sometimes even passionately acted piece of work, imagining the inner life of a man who was once Japan’s most wanted fugitive.

It is about the now infamous Satoshi Kirishima who, after his involvement in terrorist attacks on corporate buildings, went on the run from the police in 1975 and for decades lived as a cash-in-hand construction worker under a false name, hiding under the radar but in plain sight. He was never recognised and finally confessed his true self on his hospital deathbed in 2024, having being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The Only Cure by Mark Solms review – has modern neuroscience proved Freud right?

An expert in both disciplines makes a bold attempt to convince sceptics, and partially succeeds

Vladimir Nabokov notoriously dismissed the “vulgar, shabby, and fundamentally medieval world” of the ideas of Sigmund Freud, whom he called “the Viennese witch doctor”. His negative judgment has been shared by many in the near 90 years since Freud’s death. A reputational high-water mark in the postwar period was followed by a collapse, at least in scientific circles, but there are signs of newfound respectability for his ideas, including among those who once rejected him outright. Mark Solms’s latest book, a wide-ranging and engrossing defence of Freud as a scientist and a healer, is a striking contribution to the re-evaluation of a thinker whom WH Auden described as “no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion”.

It would be difficult to improve on Solms’s credentials for the task he sets himself. He is a neuroscientist, expert in the neuropsychology of dreams, the author of several books on the relationship between brain and consciousness, a practising psychoanalyst and the editor of the 24-volume revised standard edition of Freud’s complete works. He is also a wonderfully witty and lucid writer.

UK ‘pays substantial sum’ to tortured Guantánamo Bay detainee

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

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

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

Qatar in talks with Fifa to host first Women’s Club World Cup in January 2028

• Qatar has no Fifa women’s ranking after lack of games

• January tournament will disrupt domestic seasons

Qatar is in talks with Fifa about staging the inaugural Women’s Club World Cup, which is in line to cause major disruption to domestic seasons in 2027-28, including in Europe.

Fifa announced last month that its latest new club competition would take place from 5 to 30 January 2028, but the governing body has not said where it will be held or whether it will run a formal bidding process.

‘Big step forward’: Myanmar military faces Rohingya genocide case at UN court

Survivors of violence hope proceedings will bring justice a step closer and set a precedent for future genocide allegations

“Finally, I feel like our voices are being heard, and like something is going to happen that is positive for the community,” says Monaira*. She was forced to flee her home in Myanmar in 2017, when the military launched so-called clearance operations across Rohingya villages.

During the violence, her brother was taken by military soldiers, shot dead, and his home set on fire. “Children were thrown into the fire in front of my eyes,” says Monaira, who was raped by military personnel.

Chalamet a smash, Sinners shut out: the key Golden Globes snubs and surprises

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another looks unstoppable ahead of the Oscars, despite Timothée Chalamet’s triumph over Leonardo DiCaprio for best actor

The biggest backlash brewing concerns Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, lauded by critics and embraced – especially in the US – by audiences as one of 2025’s key cultural landmarks. The thriller did win two Globes – for cinematic and box office achievement and original score – but both wound up not really counting. The first is the Globes’s consolation prize (it was won by Barbie in 2023 and Wicked last year); the second wasn’t even broadcast on the telecast. Coogler missing out on screenplay to One Battle After Another was perceived by some as a slap in the face – the Oscars and Baftas separate the category into original and adapted, however, so a corrective could come.

Brilliant, battered and unkillable: Josh Allen lurches towards the Super Bowl

The Buffalo Bills quarterback is not only a danger to opponents. His bravery and skill inspires his teammates to elevate their play

Two things about the NFL playoffs are predictable: Josh Allen will play out of his skin ... and Josh Allen will suffer a soul-sucking, stupefying loss. Except, maybe, this year.

We all know about the postseason heartbreaks and shortfalls over the years for Allen and the Buffalo Bills. In each season since 2019, Buffalo’s ride has ended in either the divisional or conference championship round, usually at the hands of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. But with no dominant team coming out of the regular season and no Mahomes this postseason, maybe it’s time for Allen and the Bills to finally capture the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy.

Justice Dept. served subpoenas to the Fed, Powell says

The subpoenas threatened a criminal indictment related to Jerome Powell's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June 2025, according to the Fed chair.

I’m sick of avocado toast – I just want to keep my local, untrendy cafe | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

With its pasties, decent brews and staff who are happy to chat, it’s a vital community space. So why are its days numbered?

What do James McAvoy and my three-year-old son have in common? Very little, you might think, notwithstanding their shared awareness of the book The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet. Yet their lives overlap in a more tangible way, because they, along with Benedict Cumberbatch, patronise the same cafes on Hampstead Heath. Both actors have signed a petition protesting against the takeover of four family-owned north London cafes by the Australian-inspired chain Daisy Green. It’s a move that has dismayed the local community, leading to protests, and threats of legal action against the landowner, the City of London Corporation, whose new funding model for green spaces prioritises “income generation”.

You’re probably wondering why you should care, either about what Hollywood actors think, or about this notoriously chi-chi part of London. And yet, like them, and like me, you probably have a favourite cafe, one that feels very special. So please indulge me in describing mine: the Parliament Hill cafe, which has been run by the D’Auria family for more than 40 years.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

England’s Ashes has been a disaster but touring Australia with a disability has been ‘too easy’

Going to Australia as a freelance journalist with a form of muscular dystrophy was not without trepidation but an away Ashes was too good to pass up

“Australia is not for weak men.” Had I heard Ben Stokes’s words in Brisbane earlier perhaps I wouldn’t have decided to cover the Ashes series as a freelancer. Had I known how England were going to play, I almost certainly wouldn’t.

My attendance was not in any way predicated on how well England might do in the series – making decisions based on the potential success of the English cricket team can only lead to madness. But having been born with a form of muscular dystrophy, the physical requirements of an eight-week tour to Australia were more of a consideration.

Is it true that … stretching before exercise prevents injury?

Loosening your muscles is beneficial, but choosing the right type of movement for your chosen exercise is key

It depends on what kind of stretching you’re doing, says Dr Alex Dinsdale, senior lecturer in sport and exercise biomechanics at Leeds Beckett University.

Injuries, he says, happen for all sorts of reasons, from poor footwear to fatigue. Two key factors are not having the range of motion required or not being strong enough to control that motion. “You might go for a run and lift your knees higher than your hamstrings can manage,” he says. Or you might lack the muscle strength needed to handle moving a limb at speed.

Why most Greenlanders favor a future without Trump — or Denmark

"Greenland never has been for sale and never will be for sale," Aaja Chemnitz, one of two MPs in the Danish parliament representing Greenland, told CNBC.

Celebrities wear pins protesting ICE at the Golden Globes

Some celebrities donned anti-ICE pins at the Golden Globes on Sunday in tribute to Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week in Minneapolis.

3 inmates dead, 12 hurt after "major fights" at Georgia prison, authorities say

A disturbance at a prison in northern Georgia Sunday afternoon left three inmates dead and 12 more injured along with a guard, authorities say.

Malaysia, Indonesia become first to block Musk's Grok over AI deepfakes

Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and non-consensual images.

What Trump’s Venezuela intervention means for Guyana’s vast oil wealth

Venezuela's Maduro had adopted an increasingly aggressive stance toward the disputed Essequibo region in recent years.

How a family were shocked by allegations about a dead dad’s double life: best podcasts of the week

Was British army major Robbie Mills leading a secret double life? Or was his posthumous accuser hoodwinking Mills’ family? A true-crime investigation finds out

A true-crime investigation into the supposed secret double life of British army major Robbie Mills. After Mills died in 1955, apparently from an accident on a submarine, a man called John Cotell turned up at his home claiming to be a friend of his – and a fellow spy. Journalist Eugene Henderson tells the troubling tale of Cottell, who rapidly insinuated his way into the Mills family’s lives. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

Seven by Joanna Kavenna review – a madcap journey to the limits of philosophy

With its cast of thinkers, gamers and artists, this romp across Europe explores our desire to define reality – even as it slips from our intellectual grasp

Joanna Kavenna’s two decades as a writer have seen her beat a gorgeously unconventional path through a plethora of subjects and genres, from polar exploration to motherhood to economic inequality, and from travelogue to academic satire to technological dystopia. “I like genre,” Kavenna said in a 2020 interview, “because there’s a narrative and you can kind of work against it, test it.” That being said, her seventh published book, Seven, is a curiously uncategorisable, protean thing: a slim, absurdist novel, but chunky with ideas.

Of all the genres Kavenna has worked within – or, more accurately, vexed the boundaries of – Seven (Or, How to Play a Game Without Rules) is probably closest to an academic satire. We first encounter the novel’s thoroughly anonymised first-person narrator in Oslo in the summer of 2007, where he or she or they are employed as a research assistant to a renowned Icelandic philosopher named Alda Jónsdóttir. Jónsdóttir is described as “eminent, tall, strong and terrifying”, and likes to host dinner parties for her histrionic institutional peers. The hapless narrator’s job is to help facilitate her work in “box philosophy”: “the study of categories, the ways we organise reality into groups and sets […] the ways we end up thinking inside the box, even when we are trying to think outside the box”.

Afghan women in the UK: amplifying their voice – a photo essay

Over four years have passed since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. Claudia Janke’s photographic series features 7 Afghan women who have found safety in the UK after escaping at great personal risk. She worked using an Instant Box Camera, the only type of camera allowed under the Taliban’s first regime, reclaimed for the these women to amplify their voices

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the regime has imposed sweeping restrictions on the rights of women and girls, with devastating consequences for society. Girls are barred from attending school beyond the sixth grade, and women are prohibited from working, appearing on television, leaving the house alone, and singing or speaking in public. They have been systematically erased from public life.

A recent UN Women report underscores the scale of this repression. The Afghanistan Gender Index 2025 reveals, among other findings:

No female representation in national or local decision-making bodies.

A complete ban on secondary education for girls.

A staggering 76% gender gap across health, education, finance, and governance – one of the worst in the world.

Guián review – celebration of multicultural identity through a Chinese grandmother in Costa Rica

Director Nicole Chi Amén embarks on a journey to learn more about her own mixed cultural heritage after the death of her Guangdong-born grandma

Nicole Chi Amén, a Costa Rican woman of Chinese descent, has always been on the outside looking in. The opening scene of her moving debut feature replicates this predicament visually: her face pressed against a metal barricade, she looks through a hole in the opaque facade with interest. The camera is observing, too, and the sight of a house being torn down gradually comes into view. This was once the home of her maternal grandmother, a Guangdong native who emigrated to Costa Rica more than 60 years ago. Conceived in the aftermath of her passing, Amén’s film probes the fragility as well as the resilience of cultural heritage as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Since neither Amén nor her grandmother speaks the other’s native language, a barrier looms large in their relationship. Even “guián”, the name Amén used to call her grandma, is a linguistic hiccup; the word refers to a paternal grandmother in the Enping dialect, a variation of Cantonese. In fact, miscommunication surrounds Amén wherever she goes. In a revealing sequence stitched together from various taxi rides, she is constantly queried by drivers confused by her multicultural identity. Seemingly innocuous, their prying betrays startling ignorance and racist prejudice. The same situation recurs when she travels to Guangdong to get closer to her roots, only this time the people asking these questions look like her.

A new start after 60: I adopted a Guide Dog mum – and found true love, community and confidence

After her husband died suddenly, and her children left home, teacher Helen Smith started to question everything in her life. Then a radio programme about a shortage of Guide Dogs gave her an idea

Helen Smith was cleaning her bathroom and listening to the radio, some time after the pandemic, when a story came on about a shortage of guide dogs. The pandemic had made it hard to breed puppies. One vision-impaired owner faced a two-year wait for a new dog. Knowing the importance of her own relationship with dogs, Smith was overcome with sadness for him. Right then, she thought, “Well, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

She was living in the south of Hesse, in Germany, having moved in 1998 from Shropshire for her husband’s work. Their daughters were nine and three. The family settled. They got a dog. Smith found tutoring work and started a business teaching English.

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

March of the penguins: the Golden Globes red carpet marks the return of the staid black suit

The performative male was over at the 2026 Golden Globes, where even risk-takers like Timothée Chalamet, Jacob Elordi and Jeremy Allen White did little to temper the black tie stuffiness

Timothée Chalamet was the final clue. As he arrived in good time on the Golden Globes red carpet, the star of Marty Supreme put pay to speculation as to whether the chromatic marketing of the film’s ping pong balls would have him wearing orange. Instead, he wore a black T-shirt; vest, jacket and Timberland boots with silver buttons by Chrome Hearts, souped up with a five-figure Cartier necklace. Kylie Jenner, his partner and sartorial foil, was nowhere to be seen.

Styled by Taylor McNeill, who was also responsible for Chalamet’s wildly amusing if chaotic red carpet campaign for the film, the look was bad boy Bond. It also set the tone for an evening of subdued tones. If we thought the penguin suit had gone extinct, we were wrong. The performative male is over – welcome to the return of the staid suit.

Trump says Iran wants to negotiate as the death toll in protests rises

President Trump said Sunday that Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters.

Sorry, Trump and Farage – London is no lawless ‘warzone’. Violent crime is lower than ever | Sadiq Khan

Reform’s new candidate for mayor claims people pity Londoners for living in an unsafe capital. But the evidence is clear: we’re making our streets safer

Last year, something extraordinary happened in London. As the conversation about crime got even louder, London quietly reached the lowest per capita homicide rate in its recorded history. Even London’s harshest critics have to accept this is impressive progress.

For too many, it will no doubt come as a surprise. In recent years, politicians and commentators have sought to spam our social media feeds with an endless stream of distortions and untruths – painting a dystopian picture of a lawless place where criminals run rampant.

Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London

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

‘Act of family vengeance’: French defamation case highlights perils of writing autofiction

Complaint against Cécile Desprairies over Nazi collusion novel alleges that ‘resentment permeates the entire work’

The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz is famously credited with the line: “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” In contemporary European literature, a book these days is often the beginning of a familial feud. With thinly disguised autobiographical accounts of family strife undergoing a sustained boom across the continent, it can increasingly lead to family reunions in courtrooms.

Such was the case with the French historian Cécile Desprairies, who on Wednesday was sued for defamation by her brother and a cousin over the depiction of her late mother and her great-uncle in her 2024 novel La Propagandiste.

West African sunshine dishes: Toyo Odetunde’s chicken yassa pot pie and stuffed plantain boats – recipes

Beat the winter blues with a soul-soothing, Senegalese-inspired spiced chicken pie and hearty Nigerian plantain boats stuffed with black-eyed beans

If there’s anything that can assuage my winter blues, it’s a soul-soothing chicken pie. I’ve long enjoyed innovating fusions between west African and other cuisines, and today’s marriage of a deeply flavourful Senegalese chicken yassa-inspired filling in buttery, flaky puff pastry is one of my all-time favourites. But, first, my take on hearty Nigerian stewed beans – ewa riro – using tinned beans for added convenience. Typically paired with ripe plantain, I use the rich beans to fill canoas (plantain boats) in a playful, Latin American-inspired twist.

PM recalls parliament to fast-track hate speech and gun laws in wake of Bondi terror attack

MPs to return next week to debate new racial vilification offence, ‘hate preachers’ crackdown and gun buyback

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Anthony Albanese will push the Coalition and the Greens to support urgent legislation establishing tougher hate speech laws and gun reform, bringing MPs back to Canberra next Monday to debate laws proposed in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.

Recalling parliament two weeks early, the prime minister said the new hate speech and anti-vilification laws would be considered in the same legislation as provisions to establish the biggest gun buyback program since the Port Arthur massacre.

‘The response is a beautiful thing’: how Glasgow is squaring up to Reform

In the face of Nigel Farage, flag-waving and a longstanding housing crisis, some Glaswegians are taking on anti-immigration rhetoric

Selina Hales has a thing about pineapples. She is talking in a quiet office, set aside from the bustle of Refuweegee, the charity she founded 10 years ago, and the walls are festooned with tissue paper cutouts of the fruit, which is an international symbol of hospitality.

Refuweegee – its name a combination of the words “refugee” and “Weegee”, local slang for Glaswegian – has expanded exponentially over the decade into an operation that supports hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees in the city every day. Back then, she had a simple idea about making welcome packs, each one including a handwritten letter from a Glasgow resident. “One of our very favourite early letters said: “Welcome to Glasgow. I like pineapples. What do you like?”

1/11: CBS Weekend News

Protests in Iran intensify despite threat of death for dissidents; Suspect in custody after Mississippi's oldest synagogue targeted in arson attack.

My favourite family photo: ‘We’re plainly not allergic to our mother here, as her legend always had it’

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

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

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

No staff, no equipment, no medicine: a doctor on returning to Gaza after 665 days in an Israeli prison

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

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

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

What can the EU and Nato do to stop Trump from trying to claim Greenland?

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

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

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

Most memorable moments from the 2026 Golden Globes

From historic wins to powerful speeches, here are the highlights and most memorable moments from the 2026 Golden Globes.

1/7: CBS Evening News

Woman killed in Minneapolis ICE shooting identified; U.S. military seizes Russian-flagged oil tanker.

Trump threatens to block ExxonMobil from Venezuela after CEO calls country ‘uninvestable’

US president says company is ‘playing too cute’ after CEO responds sceptically to his push for oil investment after deposing Nicolás Maduro

Donald Trump has said he might block ExxonMobil from investing in Venezuela after the oil company’s chief executive called the country “uninvestable” during a White House meeting last week.

Darren Woods told the US president that Venezuela would need to change its laws before it could be an attractive investment opportunity, during the high-profile meeting on Friday with at least 17 other oil executives.

Arson engulfs Mississippi synagogue, a congregation once bombed by Ku Klux Klan

A suspect is charged with arson in a fire that burned through a synagogue in Mississippi. Flames and smoke destroyed its library, housing Torahs.

Some Americans say they'll go without health insurance as ACA rates spike

After the ACA tax credit lapsed in December, enrollees are opting for less robust health plans or dropping coverage altogether.

DOJ subpoenas the Federal Reserve in an escalating pressure campaign

The Justice Department has subpoenaed the Fed over Chair Jerome Powell's testimony over the central bank's headquarters renovation. Powell calls it part of a pressure campaign over interest rates.

Allegiant to buy rival budget airline Sun Country in $1.5 billion cash and stock deal

Budget airlines in the U.S. like Allegiant and Sun Country have faced a surge in costs following the pandemic and the increase in domestic capacity.

Remembering the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir

Andres Gutierrez looks back at the life and career of Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, who has died at 78.

Fire damages historic Mississippi synagogue, suspect arrested

Authorities have not disclosed the suspect's motive, but Jackson Fire Chief Charles Felton told CBS News the FBI is looking into the possibility of a hate crime.

Reporter remembers saving animals a year after L.A. wildfires

One year after the devastating L.A. wildfires, CBS Los Angeles' Jasmine Viel remembers when she and her photographer rushed in to help a woman desperate to save her pet chickens and ducks as flames closed in on her home.

U.S. officials to meet with Danish officials Wednesday about Greenland, sources say

Trump administration officials are set to meet with Danish officials about Greenland on Wednesday, diplomatic sources tell CBS News.

Suspect in custody after Mississippi's oldest synagogue targeted in arson attack

A suspect is in custody after the oldest synagogue in Mississippi, and the only synagogue in the city of Jackson, was set on fire in a suspected arson attack. Shanelle Kaul has more.

Noem says more federal agents coming to Minnesota, protests continue days after fatal ICE shooting

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says hundreds more federal agents are being sent to Minnesota as protests continue there and across the country, demanding justice after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good. Nicole Sganga has more.

Trump briefed on new military options for Iran strikes amid protests, sources say

President Trump has been briefed on new military options for a strike against Iran amid widespread protests and a government crackdown on communications for Iranians, a senior U.S. official tells CBS News. Willie James Inman has more.

Andrew Clements, Guardian’s classical music critic, dies aged 75

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

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

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

Michael Carrick emerges as favourite to be Manchester United interim manager

• Former midfielder ahead of Solskjær after interviews

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

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

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

Omar says federal probe into Minnesota fraud is "creating confusion and chaos"

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar denounced a surge of federal agents to Minneapolis targeting Somalis and other immigrants after a fraud scheme in the state.

2 men killed, 2 others rescued after avalanche in Washington state

Kittitas County Sheriff said four men were on two snowmobiles in an area near Longs Pass trail on Friday afternoon when they were caught in the mass of snow.

Trump is weighing options against Iran: Reports

Iran has said it will retaliate if the U.S. intervenes amid political unrest in the Middle East country.

Reference to Trump's impeachments removed from National Portrait Gallery

The wall text, which summarized Trump's first presidency and noted his 2024 comeback victory, was part of the museum's "American Presidents" exhibition.

Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Jan. 11, 2026

On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Rep. Ilhan Omar join Margaret Brennan.

"Real possibility" U.S. businesses take stake in Venezuelan oil, energy secretary says

"That's going to be up to American businesses. That's certainly a very real possibility," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

ICE Minneapolis shooting: Noem to deploy hundreds more federal agents to city

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good was engaged in an act of domestic terrorism, a claim Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey disputes.

‘The last actual hippie’: musicians pay tribute to Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir

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

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

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

Ella Baron on Iran’s anti-government protests – cartoon

The Guardian view on India’s employment guarantee: scrapping a right to work risks a rural revolt | Editorial

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

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

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

The Guardian view on Europe’s stalling night train revival: don’t let it hit the buffers | Editorial

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

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

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

Germany rejects RFK Jr claims about Covid vaccine exemption prosecutions

Health minister Nina Warken says Robert F Kennedy Jr’s assertions that German doctors are facing legal action are unfounded

The German government has sharply rejected claims by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that doctors in Germany have faced legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The statements made by the US secretary of health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” Germany’s health minister, Nina Warken, said in a strongly worded statement released late on Saturday.

Guard at Winter Olympic construction site dies in freezing conditions

• 55-year-old worker died during overnight shift

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

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

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

Green whisky? Scottish distillery tests eco-friendly aluminium bottles

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

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

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

Walmart teams up with Google's Gemini to make it easier for shoppers to find and buy products

The retail giant also has a similar deal with OpenAI's ChatGPT and has its own AI-powered chatbot, Sparky.

The surprising history of the Monroe Doctrine

In 1823, President James Monroe called for European powers to stay out of the Americas – a stance that for generations led to U.S. military interventions across the Western Hemisphere, including President Trump's incursion into Venezuela.

Bob Weir was a songwriting powerhouse for the Grateful Dead – and the chief custodian of their legacy

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

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

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

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

State of denial: How insurance companies impact health care today

As millions of Americans struggle with paying for health care, doctors and health experts discuss how medical care is being eroded by insurers denying necessary tests and treatment, making it "more difficult to be healthy in the United States."

‘You can’t replace time’: Harcourt’s wine and beer producers mourn loss of industry’s heart in Victoria bushfires

The Harcourt Cooperative Cool Stores kept priceless stock for local businesses – but it was also the focal point for friendships in ‘a passionate industry’

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Trevor Peeler has spent 50 years of his life driving in and out of the gates of the Harcourt Cooperative Cool Stores. He didn’t see the site burn to the ground on Friday night because he was blocks away protecting his house.

Not that he could have done anything. The Cool Stores were directly in the path of the fire – and were turned into an inferno.

The kindness of strangers: alone in the crowd at Glastonbury, a stranger hugged me tight while I cried about my dead dad

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

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

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

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

‘There’s a dark side to floristry’: are pesticides making workers seriously ill – or worse?

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

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

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