The rise of vice-signalling: how hatred poisoned politics

Over the last 10 years, the terms of political debate have changed completely – and week by week they seem to get worse

The notion of virtue-signalling – the act of performing progressive stances that don’t cost you anything in order to burnish your own moral credentials – has been around since at least the 00s. In a political sense, it meant always being the one who reminded others to say “chairperson” not “chairman”; always manning the barricades for signs of bigotry, always being on the right demo. If its values were sound – all we’re talking about, really, is trying to systematise courtesy to others – it was often easy to lampoon, because it felt performative and had a hair-trigger.

But what has risen in its wake – vice-signalling – cannot be seen as its mirror or answer, any more than dehumanisation could be seen as the equal and opposite of decency. They’re not in the same rhetorical category. The term doesn’t bring itself to life; for that you need the US president. Cast your mind back to 2015; although Donald Trump had said he might run for election to the highest office in every cycle this century, his speech in Trump Tower was his first campaign launch, and it was where he announced that he would build a wall between the US and Mexico. In seemingly unplanned remarks – the grammar was off, the structure meandered, the vocabulary was vague and repetitive – he said “[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:57 am

Why has Maga lost its mind over Bad Bunny? | Moustafa Bayoumi

It’s not virtue signaling. It’s vitriol signaling about their own perceived persecution

Can someone explain to me why Megyn Kelly is so angry? In an interview with Piers Morgan, the political commentator began ranting so hard about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show that I was starting to worry about her health.

“I’m sorry Piers. To get up there and perform the whole show in Spanish is a middle finger to the rest of America!” she roared. “We don’t need a Spanish-speaking, non-English performing performer, and we don’t need an ICE- or America-hater featured as our primetime entertainment.”

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘I am never off the clock’: inside the booming world of gen Z side hustles

More young Americans are taking on side gigs to explore their passions and make extra cash while navigating an unstable job market

Aashna Doshi, a software engineer at Google, is constantly monitoring her headspace. “This way I don’t burn myself out,” she said. “And I stay a lot more consistent with my podcast and content creation work.”

On top of her day job in the tech giant’s security and artificial intelligence department, Doshi also publishes social media content about working in tech and her life in New York City, and records podcasts – sometimes all three in a day.

Published: February 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘Letting the sound happen around you’: powerful sonic memorial remembers the dead

Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork has created a sound installation emulating second world war spaces: a Japanese internment camp in California and caves used as bunkers in Okinawa

In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, the great-uncle of the Japanese-American, Los Angeles-based artist Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork was stationed on the island as a US solider, having volunteered for service probably in the hopes that his family might be spared from the Japanese internment camps back home. They weren’t, and so while his siblings and parents were incarcerated at Tule Lake in northern California, he was on the frontlines in what has been deemed one of the bloodiest conflicts in the Pacific during the second world war.

The caves of Okinawa were used “almost as bunkers to protect people”, Kiyomi Gork explains. “But they were also spaces of mass suicide because of Japanese propaganda.” Local Uchinanchu who took refuge there were instructed by Japanese soldiers to kill themselves, rather than face what they were told would be a violent fate at the hands of the US army. As one of the few American soldiers who spoke Japanese, Kiyomi Gork’s great-uncle worked to ensure their safe passage.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:23 pm

Oscars 2026 class photo: can you spot the tallest nominee – and a camouflaged Diane Warren?

The annual Academy Award nominees luncheon is my favourite part of an otherwise excruciatingly dull affair – and the group picture reveals more than any winners list could

As you will all be aware, the Oscars aren’t particularly fun. They are an overlong celebration of underwatched films that take place in a room where, by the end of the evening, the bulk of those present have been told that they aren’t good enough to win anything. The whole thing is excruciating.

But you know what’s much better than the Oscars? The annual Oscars nominees luncheon. This is when everyone who has been nominated gathers for a nice lunch. It isn’t televised, so nobody has to be on their best behaviour. No awards are handed out, so technically everyone invited is an equal. And, best of all, they take a class photo of everyone at the end.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:59 pm

Rio’s bloodiest day: the untold story of Brazil’s most deadly police raid

In interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieces together how an operation targeting a criminal gang left 122 people dead last October

• Warning: contains graphic images

• Visual investigation: how Rio’s deadliest police raid unfolded

• The Long Wave newsletter: ‘It doesn’t shock that it’s Black people getting killed’

Juliana Conceição startled awake as the first shots of an infamous day were fired in the Complexo da Penha, the labyrinthine Rio favela where she was born and raised.

It was 4.30am on 28 October. Thousands of police had surrounded the community’s barricaded entrances and were preparing to swarm up its streets on foot and in black armoured personnel carriers with firing ports and bullet-cracked ballistic windows.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:00 am

‘You’re a washed-up loser lawyer’: Pam Bondi taunts Democrats over Epstein

US attorney general goes on attack during questioning by House judiciary committee over handling of files

The US attorney general Pam Bondi attacked and insulted Democrats during a House judiciary committee hearing on Wednesday as she defended the justice department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Democrats pounded Bondi with questions about the way the department has complied with a law last year mandating the complete release of the files with specific and limited room for redactions. Since releasing the documents after the statutory deadline, the justice department has come under intense scrutiny both for releasing the names of survivors and redacting, without explanation, the names of people who may have committed crimes.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:38 pm

Tumbler Ridge school shooting: Police identify suspect in Canada attack as 18-year-old local resident – latest updates

Dwayne McDonald, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, names suspect as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a resident of Tumbler Ridge

• Full report: suspect dead and nine killed in Canada shooting

• What we know so far about the Tumbler Ridge shooting

“We believe we’ve been able to identify the shooter,” said Floyd, adding that RCMP will withhold the shooter’s identity for privacy reasons and for the conduct of the investigation.

Floyd also refused to disclose details on how many of the victims were children and adults, adding that more details will emerge in coming days.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:44 pm

James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson’s Creek, dies aged 48

Actor who also starred in Varsity Blues and Rules of Attraction revealed in 2024 he had been diagnosed with cancer

James Van Der Beek, the actor best known for playing the lead in hit 90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, has died.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith and grace,” reads a statement shared on Van Der Beek’s official Instagram page on Wednesday.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:38 pm

Winter Olympics 2026: USA go for gold and GB for first medal in figure skating, and more – live

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing
• Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch! Mail Tanya

The riders are having to squint into the sun to see their scores come up. There’s lots of USA support on the slopes, first for 19-year old Bea Kim, who looks happy to settle into fifth, then for the queen of half pipe, Chloe Kim, who is aiming for her third consecutive gold medal in this discipline. Oh and she’s also just finished a degree at Stamford. It’s a cracking start – a big backside 720, frontside 900, and something floaty and turny which the commentators describe as “the penny black” of halfpipe. She immediately settles into first.

Women’s halfpipe qualifying: Thinking about my attempts to stand on a skateboard as young women in baggy snow trousers zig-zag and float across the halfpipe.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:42 pm

Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say

Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware

The world is closer than thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said.

Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate far worse than the 2-3C temperature rise the world is on track to reach. The climate would also be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilisation developed.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:00 pm

Irish man held in ICE detention for five months faces ‘dire conditions’, wife says

Tiffany Smyth is married to Seamus Culleton, who despite having a valid work permit was detained in September

The wife of an Irish man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for five months - despite having a valid work permit – is pleading for help in instigating his release from the “dire conditions” he is facing in detention.

“I just want him home where he belongs. I want us to be able to finish what we started,” Tiffany Smyth, wife of Seamus Culleton, said during a Wednesday press conference.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:17 pm

FBI conducting ‘extensive search’ on roads near Nancy Guthrie home

Man who was detained released after several hours of questioning in connection to Guthrie’s disappearance

The FBI announced on Wednesday that it was conducting “an extensive search” along multiple roadways close to the Arizona home of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie who has been missing for 10 days.

The development came after authorities released a man earlier in the day who was detained in a traffic stop following several hours of questioning “in connection to the investigation”, according to reports.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:53 pm

‘Casey should resign’: Abby Wambach leaves Wasserman after Epstein files

• Wambach is first major sports figure to depart agency

• Agency founder had emailed with Ghislaine Maxwell

• LA 2028 Olympics board says it backs chairman

Former US soccer star Abby Wambach has announced she is leaving the Wasserman talent agency and called for its founder and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics chairman, Casey Wasserman, to resign after emails between him and Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Jeffery Epstein files.

The two-time gold medalist and World Cup winner shared a statement on Wednesday saying she was leaving Wasserman, an agency that represents an extensive roster of athletes and celebrities across the sports and entertainment industries.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:44 pm

Hidden passage linked to Underground Railroad found in New York museum

Small opening cut into floor at Merchant’s House Museum indicates site was probably used as ‘safe house’, experts say

A landmark house in Manhattan preserved as a museum to New York’s 19th-century history has revealed an even more intriguing secret: its previously unknown status as a refuge for people who escaped slavery before and during the civil war.

The Merchant’s House Museum’s link to the Underground Railroad, a network of abolitionists who secured the safe passage of enslaved people to freedom, was discovered when archaeologists looked beneath the drawers of a built-in dresser in the wall of a hallway leading to bedrooms on the building’s second floor.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:08 pm

Why most democracies won’t touch Trump’s Board of Peace

Whether it’s the $1bn price tag or the US president’s outsized power, key allies are steering clear of the board

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

Hey, do you like peace? Oh, cool, you do? Then, how about we establish a group of countries, all committed to that concept, working together to create global harmony? No, not the one that has already existed for 80 years. A new one. Who’s in?

It turns out: not that many world leaders or global citizens.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:00 pm

Top US medical body to review vaccine effectiveness as government ‘abdicates’ responsibility

AMA to review safety of respiratory vaccines as health agencies end recommendations based on no new data

The largest medical organization in the US will help conduct a review on the safety and effectiveness of respiratory vaccines as federal health agencies and advisers end vaccine recommendations based on no new information.

“They are filling a void that the government created,” Ezekiel Emanuel, vice-provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, told journalists on Tuesday.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:27 pm

Moscow preparing to evacuate Russian tourists from Cuba amid US oil blockade

Cuban aviation authorities have warned country is running out of jet fuel, threatening to derail tourism industry

• Air Canada cancels all flights to Cuba as US oil blockade cuts off fuel access

Moscow has said it is planning to evacuate Russian tourists from Cuba within days as a fuel crisis triggered by US efforts to choke off the island’s oil supplies deepens.

Russia’s aviation authorities said on Wednesday that two of its airlines serving the Caribbean island would operate outbound-only flights to bring tourists home before suspending services.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:14 pm

White House deletes JD Vance’s social media post referring to Armenian genocide

US vice-president’s post marks first time Trump administration used the word to describe the massacres

The White House has deleted a social media post in which the vice-president, JD Vance, referred to the Armenian genocide, prompting anger from members of the Armenian diaspora as well as opposition politicians across the US.

The post was made during Vance’s two-day trip to Armenia to mark a visit by Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, to a memorial for the up to 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman troops more than a century ago. The now-deleted post on Vance’s official X account said he was visiting the memorial to honour “the victims of the Armenian genocide”.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:45 pm

Alleged drones in El Paso airspace cast spotlight on Mexican cartels’ growing arsenals

Closure of airspace draws attention to crime groups’ high-powered weapons – and may give Trump an excuse to attack

An alleged incursion by Mexican cartel drones into US airspace and the sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace has drawn renewed attention to the use of high-powered weapons by organized crime groups in Mexico.

There were conflicting accounts on Wednesday about whether the city’s airspace was shut down due to cartel drones or a disagreement over the Pentagon testing of counter-drone technology, but experts say the use of drones by drug gangs at the border has become increasingly common.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:57 pm

The secretive, destructive work of an ICE attorney: ‘My job is to do what I’m told’

ICE lawyers in New York City earn more than $100,000 a year, enjoy generous benefits and post about rich social lives. Their work is vital to Trump’s deportation agenda

One morning last June in an immigration courtroom in New York City, a lawyer named Estefani Rodriguez looked as if she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She was a prosecuting attorney for the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Her job was to present immigration judges with motions to kick non-citizens out of the United States – to switch on the deportation machine.

Rodriguez is in her late 30s, with long hair and full cheeks. According to the website of the Dominican Bar Association, her parents are immigrants from the Dominican Republic. In online photos, she sports a wide smile. But on this day, as she covered one of some 60 immigration courtrooms housed in labyrinthine federal buildings in lower Manhattan, she seemed to churn with angst. Repeatedly she touched her hands to her mouth, then under her glasses, then back to her mouth, and then she rubbed and rubbed her eyes.

Published: February 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

This $30 sleep mask helps me nap anytime, anywhere

The inexpensive Mzoo sleep mask blocks light without smothering your eyes. Here’s why I wear it every night

• The best sleep masks in the US: I spent six weeks testing 24 masks, and these are my favorites

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

I used to be a never-napper. Even when I was dead tired, I couldn’t seem to get any shut-eye in the middle of the day. Historically, nighttime sleep has been difficult for me too, especially after having a baby in 2017.

In my quest for better sleep, I’ve tried earplugs, melatonin, prescription sleep aids, a white-noise machine, bamboo pajamas and multiple pillows. Then, several months ago, I tested two dozen sleep masks for the Filter US. Four months later, our best overall sleep mask, the Mzoo Luxury Sleep Mask, is still hanging from my headboard.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:15 pm

Crime 101 review – bracing tale of master thief lifts a trick or two from Michael Mann

The pedal is pressed hard to the metal for this very stylish high-stakes armed robbery thriller starring Chris Hemsworth

Bart Layton is the British film-maker who previously gave us American Animals, a true-crime docudrama about the theft of rare books. That film’s title would also have applied perfectly well to this new one, an LA crime thriller adapted from a novella by Don Winslow. It is a little in the style of Michael Mann, though without the military hardware and the overhead shots of SUVs moving in swift convoy that would make it a full Mann homage.

Layton does without the distinctive indirect mannerisms and meta-commentaries of his earlier movies, but he applies his pedal to the metal for what is an enjoyable and very stylish high-stakes armed robbery film about a thief who is highly controlled, super-cool, super-groomed, and naturally looking for the “walkaway money” of the time-honoured one last job.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:00 pm

Is Jacob Elordi really the hottest man on the planet? Six things you need to know

Gen Z fell in love with him on the small screen, but with the release of Emerald Fennell’s steamy new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the Aussie actor’s star is set to shine even brighter

Jacob Elordi is Heathcliff. The 28-year-old Australian actor has scarcely been out of the headlines since his controversial casting in Emerald Fennell’s imminent adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Now, in the week of the film’s release, he’s being hailed as “the hottest man on the planet”, tipped as a future Oscar winner and household name. Not even mixed early reviews seem to be slowing the momentum.

Truly, these heights must seem wuthering to the boy from Brisbane who fell in love with acting after being cast as The Cat in The Hat. “As soon as I was singing and dancing with the big hat on, I knew that that was what I wanted to do,” Elordi said last December. But who is he, and what’s behind his rapid rise?

Published: February 11, 2026, 3:44 pm

The place that stayed with me: I would not have become a writer were it not for Iceland

As a teenager I wondered what I would have in common with this Nordic island. Then my teacher gave me a book of poetry

Lying in my bed, I listened to what sounded like a woman screaming outside in the dark. I picked up my pen. A month of living in this Icelandic village and I was still unaccustomed to the impenetrable January gloom and the ferocity of the wind; its propensity to sound sentient. I had started to feel like the island was trying to tell me something, had a story it wanted me to write.

Sauðárkrókur, a fishing town in the northern fjord of Skagafjörður, was all mountain, sea and valley. There were no trees to slow the Arctic winds, and I had already been blown sideways into a snowbank while walking home from Fjölbrautaskóli Norðurlands vestra, my new high school whose name I could not yet pronounce. At night, my dreams were filled with a soundscape of weeping women. When I woke, their wailing continued in the gusts outside. That was when I wrote. I wrote to understand myself in this new place. I wrote to understand Iceland, its brutality and its beauty.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘A code orange de-mental emergency going on here right now’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s flailing attempts to distract from the fallout of the unsealed Epstein files

Late-night hosts unpacked the Trump administration’s continued attempts to distract from and underplay the Epstein files.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:22 pm

Trump’s racist post about the Obamas was a wake-up call for some. Why did it take so long? | Jamil Smith

The racism was not new. What was new was the inability to look past it. For a moment, at least, the blinders were off

John from New Mexico, a self-professed lifelong Republican, called into C-Span’s Washington Journal earlier this month with penitence on his mind.

“I voted for the president and supported him,” he began. “But I really want to apologize.”

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Published: February 11, 2026, 5:00 pm

The Jeffrey Epstein files have shattered Norway’s illusions about itself | Sindre Bangstad

Norway built its global brand on diplomacy and egalitarianism. The cosying up of its elite to the sex offender can only boost the far right

Donald Trump may have wanted revenge against Norway for the Nobel peace prize snub, but even he could hardly have imagined the damage contained in the latest US justice department’s release of three million emails from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

A string of what appear to be embarrassing messages between a Norwegian princess and Epstein initially led the global headlines. Mette-Marit, the crown princess, communicated regularly with the financier despite his 2008 conviction for child sexual abuse crimes and even went on holiday to his notorious Palm Beach villa. She has since apologised, expressing her “deep regret” for the friendship.

Published: February 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Enjoying mafia movies doesn’t make me a killer. So be wary of the state using rap music to prove murder | Shami Chakrabarti

UK prosecutors are recklessly deploying art against young men in court. That’s why I’m taking parliamentary action to curb it

How often have you slumped into an armchair and surfed various streaming platforms in search of escape? Even if not looking for them, you’ll have been bombarded by a vast array of crime procedurals made in the UK, the US, various continental jurisdictions and further afield. They are set in gritty urban and idyllic rural landscapes; in country houses and even submarines. Whether featuring hardbitten veteran cops or gifted middle-class amateurs, what they all have in common is murder.

Middle England is seemingly addicted to these TV dramas and the books that inspired so many of them. The creativity that produces them is big business. But what if those who write or even just enjoy this form of popular art found themselves prosecuted for real crime, with their work or taste used as evidence of criminality? If you find this possibility ridiculous, spare a thought for the increasing number of young black men and boys charged with “gang-related offences” on the basis of their participation in, or mere engagement with rap and drill music. It’s as though prosecutors were watching The Night Manager and trying to send Hugh Laurie to prison.

Shami Chakrabarti is a lawyer, Labour peer, former shadow attorney general and the author of Human Rights: The Case for the Defence

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

Published: February 11, 2026, 11:00 am

You might love olive oil, but don’t put it on your CV | Polly Hudson

The foodstuff was apparently listed as an interest on a job résumé, according to a viral social media post. It might make you stand out, but not in a good way

Competition in the jobs market is ferocious, so today’s applicants must attempt to stand out. However, it now transpires, not too much. Online debate has been raging over one employment hopeful’s decision to list “olive oil” as an interest on their CV, after an anonymous account on social media claimed that doing so had blown the applicant’s chance of an interview.

In their eyes, this failure of judgment in providing an acceptable interest was a dealbreaker. It spoke completely to the prospective candidate’s character, and it had nothing good to say there. It rendered everything else on the page moot.

Published: February 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Russia plays prideful, but there’s no doubt the Olympics ban is hurting | Bruce Berglund

Some Russians have dismissed the Games over the continued exclusion of their athletes. But the truth is international sport is still important to Moscow

Duma member Vitaly Milonov didn’t mince words when asked four years ago about the international ban against Russian athletes.

“There’s no point in humiliating ourselves and begging to be let in,” said the St Petersburg deputy, a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. “We have our pride.” International events had been corrupted by the United States, he claimed in a 2022 interview, just weeks after the International Olympic Committee and other governing bodies imposed the ban. “Only Russia can say no. Other countries will accept whatever nonsense the Americans force on them – teams of vegans, queers and lesbians.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:00 am

Lindsey Vonn says success has ‘completely different meaning’ after third surgery on broken leg

• American crashed out of Olympic downhill event

• Bryan Graham: Crash a violent but honest ending

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results

Lindsey Vonn says she has had a successful third surgery on the broken leg she suffered during the women’s Olympic downhill on Sunday.

Vonn posted an update on Instagram that included photos of her giving a thumbs up in her hospital bed with a metal frame attached to her leg.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:54 pm

Jordan Stolz crushes Olympic 1000m record to begin four-gold pursuit after reskate

• US star forced to wait through rival Wennemars’s reskate

• Stolz delivers 1:06.28 finish in his signature event

Jordan Stolz had to wait a little longer than expected on Wednesday night. But when confirmation finally came, the 21-year-old American could celebrate his first Olympic gold medal – and the opening chapter of what could become one of the defining campaigns of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

Skating in the second-to-last group, Stolz powered to an Olympic record time of 1min 6.28sec in the men’s 1000 metres, using a devastating final lap to deliver in his signature event and launch his pursuit of a potential four-gold haul across these Games.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:35 pm

‘We’re all aging. Father Time hasn’t beaten me yet’: Nick Baumgartner on snowboarding in the Olympics at 44

The Upper Peninsula snowboarder races his fifth Olympic Games on Thursday, drawing on a career shaped by construction sites, small-town winters and the belief he could still reach the 2034 Games on home soil

At an age when most Olympic snowboarders have already drifted into coaching, broadcasting or nostalgia, Nick Baumgartner is still doing the hardest thing in his sport: showing up to the start gate believing he can win.

On Thursday at Livigno Snow Park, the 44-year-old American will race the men’s snowboard cross at his fifth Olympic Games – less a farewell tour than another extension of a career that has stubbornly ignored conventional timelines.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:00 pm

French biathlete guilty of fraud wins Olympic gold while scammed teammate comes 80th

• Julia Simon holds finger to lips as she crosses line

• Simon found to have spent €2,000 on rival’s credit card

An athlete convicted of committing credit card fraud against one of her national teammates has won an Olympic gold medal for France in the women’s 15km biathlon, beating her victim to do it.

Julia Simon, 29, was handed a €15,000 fine and a three-month suspended sentence last October after she was found to have spent more than €2,000 using card details belonging to Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, also 29, who finished in 80th place in the same race. A third member of the French team, Lou Jeanmonnot, won the silver.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:46 pm

Manchester City v Fulham, Aston Villa v Brighton and more: Premier League – live

• Updates from Wednesday night’s action

• Latest scores | Any comments? Email Tim

Alessia Russo has just scored Arsenal’s fourth goal of the night. Sarah Rendell has the details.

That last news item makes this next email even more topical. “The LA Galaxy vs Los Angeles FC derby,” says Marek Wojenski in Connecticut, “is known as El Tráfico.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:50 pm

The five most noteworthy MLS kits of 2026: Tie-dye, Tina Turner and more

The Grateful Dead and some other interesting influences define the best and worst of this year’s crop of tops

Major League Soccer’s 31st season is nearly upon us, and fans across the league are busy offering takes. Takes on roster building, on relevance, on playoff potential. And, of course, on kits.

It at times feels like there is nothing soccer fans across the globe like more than discussing kits and kit culture. Supporters, even those entirely bereft of any fashion sense to speak of, start offering up terms normally reserved for the catwalk come release day.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:45 pm

Sunderland v Liverpool: Premier League – live

⚽ Minute-by-minute updates on the 8.15pm kick-off
⚽ Slot: season ‘worst of my career’ | Email Scott

2 min: … the ball’s played back to Angulo, who tries to trick Alisson at his near post. The keeper reads the danger and claims. That’s got the home fans, already giving it plenty, going some. Meanwhile here’s Peter Oh: “Liverpool have had such bad luck with injuries, shipping comical last-gasp goals, and suspensions. How could things possibly get worse? Running into eleven Black Cats maybe? Sigh.”

1 min: It has been belting down on Wearside all day. It’s still raining. Windy as well. And Sunderland are on the front foot early doors, Mukiele in space on the right and winning a very early corner off Robertson. From which …

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:50 pm

Hamilton warns F1 over ‘ridiculously complex’ new rules after spin in testing

• Power management regulations will be hard to explain

• Hamilton: ‘You need a degree to fully understand it all’

Lewis Hamilton has issued a striking warning that fans may struggle to understand Formula One’s new regulations for the 2026 season, calling them “ridiculously complex” after having spun while testing his new Ferrari in Bahrain.

Hamilton was speaking at the second pre-season test where the teams are coming to terms with cars and engines that have been subject to what amounts to the biggest single shake-up in the sport’s history, and specifically to how drivers are expected to manage the power of their engines which are now defined by a near 50-50 split between combustion and electrical power.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:29 pm

Super Bowl and Bad Bunny miss US TV audience record but new mark set for social media

• Broadcast averages 124.9 million viewers in US

• Half-time show draws 128.2 million viewers

• Bad Bunny social media views top 4bn

Sunday night’s Super Bowl and Bad Bunny fell short of setting records for the most watched US broadcast and half-time show.

Seattle’s 29-13 victory over New England averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, according to Nielsen. That fell short of the 127.7 million US viewers who tuned in for Philadelphia’s victory over Kansas City last year on Fox.

However, this year’s Super Bowl became the most-watched program in NBC history as the network celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Published: February 11, 2026, 1:44 pm

Pitch Points: Tottenham’s relegation chances; Could Ronaldo leave Saudi Arabia?

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. In today’s column, we endeavor to answer three of them

Last season’s 17th place finish was meant to be rock bottom for Tottenham Hotspur; a nadir for the club in the Premier League era that was awkwardly offset by glory in the Europa League. There is, however, no glory in what Spurs are going through this season and no guarantee that rock bottom isn’t still around the corner.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:00 am

European Super League project officially over after Real Madrid and Uefa deal

• Madrid were sole surviving proponents of breakaway

• Uefa statement suggests club’s legal case will be closed

The Super League project has finally died out after Uefa announced it had reached “an agreement of principles for the wellbeing of European club football” with Real Madrid and the European Football Clubs group.

In a surprise statement released the day before Uefa stages its annual congress in Brussels, the governing body said all parties had agreed a way forward “respecting the principle of sporting merit with emphasis on long-term club sustainability and the enhancement of fan experience through the use of technology”.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:53 pm

US added 130,000 jobs in January, surpassing expectations as 2025 growth is slashed

Unemployment rate was 4.3% in January with gains 13,000 less than the 143,000 jobs added a year ago, report shows

The US jobs market added 130,000 jobs in January, according to a highly anticipated labor market report released on Wednesday, a surge of job growth after months of fatigue in the labor market.

The unemployment rate was 4.3% in January, a slight cooling since the fall. Economists predicted 70,000 in job gains and an unchanged unemployment rate for January.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:13 pm

Washington Post editor acknowledges ‘genuine trauma’ over mass layoffs

Matt Murray defends paper’s strategy as ‘demoralized’ staffers ask tough questions in contentious town hall

Top Washington Post editor Matt Murray acknowledged “a widespread sense of loss, of genuine trauma” in a contentious town hall meeting with staff on Wednesday after the company laid off nearly a third of its employees a week ago – though he expressed confidence that the Post was now on a path to success.

“There’s no doubt that just the sheer depth of the cuts – and also, with that, the reality of what we face at the Post – has been a very hard thing to wrap our heads around and to grapple with,” Murray said, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by the Guardian.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:27 pm

Iran’s president denies it seeks nuclear weapon and admits ‘shame’ after mass protests

Masoud Pezeshkian tries to convey message of national unity as negotiations with US hang in balance

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Iran’s president insisted his country was not seeking a nuclear weapon as he acknowledged “great sorrow” after the authorities’ recent crackdown on protesters.

Speaking to crowds gathered across Iran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, Masoud Pezeshkian sought to claim a message of national unity after demonstrations that roiled the country and triggered an unprecedented crisis for the regime.

Published: February 11, 2026, 3:19 pm

Briton shot by father in Texas after row about Trump was unlawfully killed, coroner rules

Lucy Harrison died after being shot in chest by alcoholic Kris Harrison while staying at his home in US last year

A Cheshire woman who was shot dead by her “reckless” father while visiting him in the US after a row about Donald Trump was unlawfully killed, a coroner has ruled.

Lucy Harrison, 23, who lived in Warrington and worked as a fashion buyer for Boohoo, was shot in the chest with a semi-automatic handgun by Kris Harrison while staying at his home in Prosper, Texas, on 10 January last year.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:43 pm

Don Lemon hires federal attorney who quit over handling of inquiry into Renee Good’s killing

Ex-CNN anchor brings on Joseph H Thompson to defend him from charges related to coverage of a church protest

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has hired a federal prosecutor, who quit amid the White House’s immigration blitz on Minneapolis, to defend him from charges related to his coverage of a church protest.

Lemon officially brought Joseph H Thompson on to his legal team, according to a Tuesday court filing. Thompson, who Donald Trump had appointed acting US attorney for Minnesota in June, reportedly resigned in January over the justice department’s treatment of immigration enforcement.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:29 pm

US labor board drops years-long legal battle with SpaceX in victory for Musk

National Labor Relations Board says it does not have legal oversight of SpaceX and dismisses case

The US labor board is abandoning a years-long legal battle against Elon Musk’s SpaceX and signaling it will steer clear of future cases against the company, according to a letter from the board cited by the New York Times and Bloomberg.

Two years after issuing a complaint accusing the aerospace firm of firing eight engineers because of their involvement in an open letter criticizing Musk, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said it was dismissing the case, disclaiming jurisdiction over it, according to the letter.

Published: February 11, 2026, 5:00 pm

Pope Leo accepts resignation of embattled New Orleans archbishop Gregory Aymond

The archdiocese agreed to pay 600 abuse survivors a $305m settlement before the Vatican confirmed Aymond’s exit

Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, on Wednesday – one day after the archbishop concluded a series of meetings with survivors of a clergy molestation scandal that has embroiled the city’s church leadership for years.

Aymond had submitted his resignation to global Catholic church leaders at the Vatican, as he was required when he turned 75 in November 2024. But the Vatican didn’t immediately accept it, plotting for Aymond to remain in position until the New Orleans archdiocese settled a federal bankruptcy protection case that it filed in the spring of 2020 amid the continuing fallout of the decades-old worldwide clerical abuse crisis.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:32 pm

Bud Cort, star of Harold and Maude, dies aged 77

Actor best-known for role in Hal Ashby’s black comedy also appeared in films by Robert Altman and Wes Anderson

Bud Cort, the actor best known for his role in dark comedy Harold and Maude, has died at the age of 77.

According to Variety, Cort died in Connecticut after a long illness.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:09 pm

‘The normal should be darkness’: why one Belgian national park is turning off ‘pointless’ streetlights

The radical project is an attempt to preserve wildlife in one of Europe’s most light-polluted countries, but can they persuade local people they will still feel safe?

Two yellowing street lamps cast a pool of light on the dark road winding into the woods outside Mazée village. This scene is typical for narrow countryside roads in Wallonia in the south of Belgium. “Having lights here is logical,” says André Detournay, 77, who has lived in the village for four decades. “I walk here with my dog and it makes me feel safe and gives me some protection from theft.”

Belgium glows like a Christmas decoration at night, as witnessed from space. It is one of the most light-polluted countries in Europe, with the Milky Way scarcely visible except in the most remote areas.

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

Climate crisis linked to fall in southern right whale birth rates as researchers raise ‘warning signal’

Lead author of Australian study says breeding slowdown is linked to climate-driven changes in ‘magnificent’ whale’s foraging grounds

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After decades of recovery, southern right whales are showing signs of a climate-driven decline in breeding rates, which scientists say is a “warning signal” about changes in the Southern Ocean.

After being hunted to near extinction by commercial whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries, southern right whales remained endangered in Australia.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:00 am

Some of world’s oldest trees hit by climate-fuelled wildfires in Patagonia

Wildfires that left 23 people dead were made about three times more likely by global heating, researchers say

The climate crisis inflamed deadly wildfires that left 23 people dead in Chile and devastated forests in Argentina that host some of the world’s oldest trees, scientists have found.

The hot, dry and windy conditions that enabled the fires to blaze across huge areas in January were made about three times more likely by global heating, researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium found.

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:00 am

‘The trend is irreversible’: has Romania shattered the link between economic growth and high emissions?

Emissions have plunged 75% since communist times in the birthplace of big oil – but for some the transition has been brutal

Once the frozen fields outside Bucharest have thawed, workers will assemble the largest solar farm in Europe: one million photovoltaic panels backed by batteries to power homes after sunset. But the 760MW project in southern Romania will not hold the title for long. In the north-west, authorities have approved a bigger plant that will boast a capacity of 1GW.

The sun-lit plots of silicon and glass will join a slew of projects that have rendered the Romanian economy unrecognisable from its polluted state when communism ended. They include an onshore windfarm near the Black Sea that for several years was Europe’s biggest, a nuclear power plant by the Danube whose lifetime is being extended by 30 years, and a fast-spreading patchwork of solar panels topping homes and shops across the country.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:00 am

US union elections declined in 2025 after Trump hobbled labor board

Both the number of workers participating in union elections and the success of elections dropped off

The number of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dropped 30% in 2025 after the Trump administration left the federal labor watchdog powerless, according to an analysis released on Wednesday.

The number of workers participating in union elections dropped by 59,000, a 42% decline compared with the year prior, according to the report from the Center for American Progress. The total number of union elections fell from a 10-year high of 2,124 in 2024 to 1,498 in 2025.

Published: February 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

US officials lift surprise 10-day closure of airspace around El Paso, Texas

FAA initially cited ‘security reasons’ for shutting off skies around El Paso airport in area along border with Mexico

The top US aviation agency has lifted a surprise 10-day closure of airspace above the US-Mexico border town of El Paso, Texas, just hours after it abruptly announced that it would close off the skies for “special security reasons”.

While some officials claimed that Mexican cartel drones invaded US airspace, in recent days a balloon was reportedly mistaken for a drone.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:28 pm

Trump official allies with Europe’s far right in attacks on migration and hate speech policies

US state department’s Sarah B Rogers has become face of White House’s hostility to European liberal democracies

As Donald Trump redoubled his war of words on the European Union and Nato in recent weeks, a senior state department official, Sarah B Rogers, was publicly attacking policies on hate speech and immigration by ostensible US allies, and promoting far-right parties abroad.

Rogers has arguably become the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies. Since assuming office in October, she has met with far-right European politicians, criticized prosecutions under longstanding hate speech laws, and boasted online of sanctions against critics of hate speech and disinformation on US big tech platforms.

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

Marine Le Pen appeal trial ends with presidential race at stake

Judges’ verdict on embezzlement challenge will determine whether far-right leader can stand in 2027 election

Defence lawyers for Marine Le Pen have told a Paris appeals court she did not orchestrate a system to misuse European parliament funds, at the close of an embezzlement trial that will determine whether the far-right leader can run in the 2027 French presidential election.

Le Pen’s lawyer, Sandra Chirac Kollarik, told the court on Wednesday: “At no moment did Marine Le Pen imagine that she broke the rules.” She added: “Never in her life would she have deliberately accepted making a false contract.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:41 pm

Gisèle Pelicot describes shock of seeing herself like ‘a rag doll’ in memoir

Pelicot writes of ‘brain stopping working’ when police told her of crimes of man she shared her life with for 50 years

Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global symbol of courage during the trial of her ex-husband and the dozens of men who raped her while she was unconscious, has described her shock when police first showed her images of the crimes, likening herself to a “rag doll”.

In extracts from her forthcoming memoir, A Hymn to Life, Pelicot, 73, describes her shock when police told her of the actions of her ex-husband Dominique, whom she considered “a great guy” and had shared her life with for 50 years.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:25 pm

How to make the Guardian your go-to news source in Google search

Google now allows you to pick your preferred sources in Top Stories. Here’s how to do it in two clicks

You may have noticed some changes in how news appears in Google search. The company recently rolled out a “Preferred Sources” feature that allows people to choose which outlets they’d like to see stories from, customised to their interests.

By selecting the Guardian as a preferred source you’ll have more control over what shows up in your search results without having to rely on the algorithm alone. Here’s how to do it.

Published: February 11, 2026, 1:59 pm

Russian crackdown on Telegram app prompts rare criticism from soldiers, pro-war bloggers and officials

Critics say restricting social media app risks harming communications between state, military units and public

A Russian crackdown on the Telegram social media app risks damaging its own army, pro-war bloggers have warned, as the platform’s founder refused to bend to pressure from Moscow.

Russia’s communications watchdog said on Wednesday that the app – used by more than 60 million Russians each day – would begin slowing nationwide, accusing it of failing to address earlier regulatory violations.

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:48 pm

A plague doctor dances with a rat at a Covid ball: Lisl Ponger’s best photograph

‘In Florida, people were told to keep the length of a baby alligator apart. So I included a character wearing an alligator mask in my pandemic-themed masked ball’

When Covid started, everybody was talking about masks. I thought about the face coverings we all had to wear, and I thought about masks more widely. I researched masked balls and carnival masks and read a lot about the many outbreaks of plague in Venice starting in the 14th century, and about pandemics in general.

This photograph, Danse Macabre, was inspired by Covid. If you take a close look at the paper lamps hanging from the ceiling, you’ll see some Covid-19 viruses smuggled in among them. In the middle of the scene, a doctor in a plague mask – the type still sold at carnival in Venice – is dancing with the rat that caused the plague. The couple on the left reference the fact that the Bolsonaro-led Brazilian government at the time of the pandemic was accused of allowing many Indigenous people to die unnecessarily [he denied any wrongdoing]. So those two deal with colonialism – the woman in the yellow hat represents an Indigenous person, the guy she’s dancing with is wearing a mask with the face of Pedro de Alvarado, a Spanish conquistador responsible for massacring Indigenous populations in Guatemala in the 16th century.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:57 pm

‘Deaf people can’t hide behind words!’ Inside the first ever dating show to use British Sign Language

Hold My Hand focuses exclusively on signers – who can be refreshingly blunt and extremely revealing. Heroda and Hermon Berhane, the deaf identical twin presenters, say it reveals their community in a way never seen before

It may not be the first TV programme to describe itself as being “more than just a dating show”, but Hold My Hand is undoubtedly the first to focus exclusively on British Sign Language.

“We’ve been waiting to get a show of our own for such a long time,” says Heroda Berhane, one half of the deaf identical twin presenting duo, Hermon and Heroda. “People have never seen our culture, our identity, the way we discuss the things. So it’s a dating show, yes, but it’s not just about dating; it’s also revealing our identity and our culture, and that has never been seen before.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:03 pm

The mother of all meltdowns: Rose Byrne on playing a parent cracking up in her taboo-busting new film

What if loving your child is destroying you and all you want to do is escape? That’s the nightmare the Oscar-nominated Byrne faces in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. The star and its director reveal why backers were scared

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, for which Rose Byrne just won a Golden Globe and is Oscar-nominated for best actress, is unmistakably a horror film. And yet how can it be? It’s the story of a mother, Linda, with a very sick child. You never see the child, only the outlines of the anxious medics. You never find out what’s wrong with her, only that it involves a feeding tube. Linda is going steadily crazy, because who wouldn’t? On paper, this is a painful yet heartwarming tale of love and adversity. Instead, it is claustrophobic and vertiginous. It sometimes has the panic-attack surrealism of an anxiety dream, and other times is so real you can barely look directly at it. I’ve never seen the maternal condition drawn as a trip to the abyss. The only film I’ve seen that’s anything like this is Eraserhead.

“I was very influenced by that film,” writer and director Mary Bronstein says, carefully. She’s a fascinating conversationalist, frank and open but watchful. Byrne is more reserved. Both are darkly funny, all the time. They look Hollywood-polished, in this central London hotel, but fair play, they’ve just come out of a photoshoot. “Eraserhead is about a type of parental anxiety that only men can have,” Bronstein says. “And this is a film about a parental anxiety only a woman can have. In Eraserhead, he can leave and that’s his angst. Linda cannot leave. That’s hers.”

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:00 am

The President’s Cake review – toughly revealing story of kid on a baking mission for Saddam Hussein’s birthday

Nine-year-old Lamia is obliged by her school to make a birthday cake for the Iraqi president, and meets a series of vivid characters as she shops for sanctioned ingredients

There’s a terrific charm and sweetness in this debut from Iraqi film-maker Hasan Hadi, a Bake Off-style adventure about a little girl in early-90s Iraq required by her school to make a birthday cake in Saddam Hussein’s honour, despite sanctions and the consequent shortage of every single cake-making ingredient. Hadi is a former Sundance Lab fellow and his film lists Hollywood heavy-hitters Chris Columbus and Eric Roth among its executive producers – who may just have induced Hadi to sprinkle some old-fashioned Tinseltown sugar into the mix. The moment when the little girl gazes at her reflection in the river is surely inspired by The Lion King.

Among the largely nonprofessional cast is the unselfconsciously excellent Baneen Ahmad Nayyef as nine-year-old Lamia, whose greedy teacher gobbles the apple she has brought to school for her lunch. This blowhard announces that the class must draw lots for which of them will bake the Saddam cake; it falls to Lamia. In addition, her pal Saeed (Sajad Mohama Qasem) – who has a crush on Lamia – has to supply the fruit for this party, on which only the teacher will be gorging himself. Lamia sets off into town with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) on a desperate shopping expedition, carrying her pet cockerel, Hindi, who gives a great animal performance and whose unpredictable crowings clearly forced the actors to improvise lines around him.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:00 am

Beyond Trainspotting: The World of Irvine Welsh review – uniquely funny writer holds court

The author discusses his writing, the movies it created and his own youth, but not all the interviewees in this documentary are quite so gripping

Here, in addition to Paul Sng’s recent documentary about Irvine Welsh, is another one; it is watchable enough, though with less original interview material. The extended footage of Welsh in conversation is certainly engaging, as he discusses his writing and the movies it created, and his own youth in Edinburgh.

Some of the rest of the interviewees aren’t quite so gripping, however, and the film is padded out with a fair bit of redundant anecdotage from people on the subject of getting hilariously wasted in Irvine’s company — or at least his approximate vicinity. As for one 90s ladmag-style story about Irvine doing some kind of Marquis de Sade-themed photoshoot in Ibiza’s Manumission club involving prising apart young women’s buttocks for the camera … well maybe you had to be there.

Published: February 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was never a love story. It was a warning

Watch Michel Gondry’s 2004 time-twister as a hard sci-fi film and you might heed its advice

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film about the gap between what we think we can control and what happens when reality hits. Over the years, many critics and fans have celebrated Michel Gondry’s film as a tender-hearted love story. But a rewatch might reveal that Gondry’s second collaboration with postmodern American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is much closer to another, twistier genre: hard sci-fi.

By now, the story of Eternal Sunshine is familiar. Depressed introvert Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), whose box-dyed hair colour and moods change as often as the weather. A mismatch made in heaven. The troubled couple eventually find a fix for their rocky, codependent relationship: a service provided by a sketchy medical company called Lacuna Inc that offers to erase their memories of each other. Clementine goes first. Out of spite, Joel follows.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:00 pm

​AI slop, begone! The viral musical virtuosos bringing brains and brilliance back to social media

Whether making microtonal pop or playing Renaissance instruments with sheep bones, a crop of bold artists are making genuinely strange music go mainstream – but are they at the mercy of the algorithm?

Chloë Sobek is a Melbourne musician who plays the violone, a Renaissance precursor to the double bass. But instead of playing it in the traditional manner, she puts wobbling bits of cardboard between its strings or uses a sheep’s bone as a bow, and these weird interventions have become catnip for Instagram’s algorithm, getting her tens of thousands – sometimes hundreds of thousands – of views for each of her self-made performance videos. “Despite how it might appear, I’m a reasonably shy person,” she says.

When Laurie Anderson’s robo-minimalist masterwork O Superman hit No 2 in the UK charts in 1981, thanks to incessant airplay on John Peel’s radio show, it was a signal of a media outlet’s power to propel experimental music into the mainstream. That’s now happening again as prepared-instrument players such as Sobek, plus experimental pianists, microtonal singers and numerous other boundary-pushing solo performers, are routinely breaking out of underground circles thanks to videos – generally self-recorded at home – going viral on TikTok and Instagram.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:38 am

Florence + the Machine review – ​a thrilling shift in tone towards stark, sombre catharsis

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Florence Welch is backed by the folk-horror dramatics of a petticoat-clad choir – but quite capable of transfixing the crowd with her billowing voice alone

‘I’ve only sung this once before and it makes me shake,” Florence Welch admits, crouching alone at the far end of a long, narrow thrust stage. Watching her command this arena during the first of two sold-out shows in Glasgow in honour of Florence + the Machine’s sixth album Everybody Scream, it’s hard to imagine Welch fearing anything. Just seconds ago, she was racing barefoot, flouncy skirts gathered in one hand, ripping through Spectrum (the band’s first UK No 1, back in 2012) and its searing demand: “Say my name!”

But the new song she is steeling herself to sing presses on a bruise. With ratcheting intensity, You Can Have It All grieves an ectopic pregnancy which almost killed her, as well as a music industry that punishes its stars for motherhood. Over grungy electric guitar, her tempestuous voice billows like sails in high wind: “Am I a woman now?” It leaves the arena in stunned silence. She gives a wry curtsey.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:35 pm

J Cole: The Fall Off review – rap legend’s final album is a self-obsessed hip-hop history lesson

(Interscope)
Bowing out after six consecutive US No 1 albums, Cole references rap greats and even conjures a convo between Biggie and 2Pac – but the lens rarely strays from himself

J Cole released his debut mixtape in 2007, and now, nearly two decades later and after six back-to-back US No 1 albums, the North Carolina MC is still wrestling with the weight of so much hope heaped upon him. He is framing The Fall Off as a graceful bowing out – “to do on my last what I was unable to do on my first”, he has said – and it’s almost as if he is a student coming to the end of a long period of study, with this double album as his graduate thesis.

Across 24 tracks and 101 minutes, The Fall Off is full of technical proficiency, raw lyrical skill, citation, interpolation and sampling, and it attempts nothing less than to embody a half-century of hip-hop. Through direct and indirect references, lessons unfold throughout. The Fall-Off Is Inevitable is inspired by Nas’s 2001 Stillmatic track Rewind. I Love Her Again is an obvious nod to Common’s I Used to Love HER. Bunce Road Blues borrows lyrics from Usher’s Nice & Slow but connects to R&B’s present with guest vocals from Nigerian singer Tems. The Let Out is reminiscent of SpottieOttieDopaliscious from OutKast’s Aquemini, and so forth: all ample material for audiences to think through hip-hop’s past and future.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:50 pm

Stay Alive: Berlin 1939-45 by Ian Buruma – how Berliners defied their Nazi masters

An immersive account of how the inhabitants of a liberal city – including the author’s father – survived fascism

In December 1941, the Nazi authorities received a letter from a soldier complaining that, on his recent leave in Berlin, he had been thoroughly disgusted by what he saw. While his comrades were dying at the front, plenty of young men appeared to have dodged military duty and were now to be found carousing in Berlin’s packed bars. The women were no better: husbandless but flush with ration coupons purloined from soldiers on leave, they were busy gorging themselves. “If Berlin were Germany,” huffed the complainant, “we would have lost this war years ago.”

Berlin had always been a case apart. The legacy of the wild Weimar years – all that artistic and political radicalism, not to mention louche living – had continued under the Third Reich. The city remained defiantly itself and, despite the efforts of high command, mulish about being told what to do. That, at least, had been the situation in 1941.

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:00 am

This month’s best paperbacks: Susan Choi, Sarah Perry and more

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some fantastic new paperbacks, from a Facebook exposé to a globetrotting family saga

Published: February 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘A white man’s war, a Black man’s fight’: the eye-opening story of Black soldiers in Vietnam

At a time when Black military history is being rewritten under Trump officials, new book The War Within a War provides a vital reminder

Wil Haygood’s new book, his 10th, is The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. Meeting in Washington DC to discuss it, he produces from between the pages a small Ziploc bag. Carefully, he takes out a flier, yellowed and brittle with age. The text at the top is Vietnamese. Underneath there is English.

It reads: “Colored GI’s! The South Vietnamese people, who are struggling for their independence and freedom, are friends with the American colored people being victim of barbarous racial discrimination at home. Your battlefield is right in the USA! Your enemy is the war lords in the White House and the Pentagon!”

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:03 am

Your Life Without Me by James Meek review – angel of destruction haunts a domestic drama

A plot to blow up St Paul’s Cathedral is seen through the lens of family tragedy

A great demolition is also an act of creation, so long as its execution is bold and impressive enough, so long as it clears out the dead wood and opens up the terrain. It’s the ethos that links Pablo Picasso to 1970s punk, Shiva the Destroyer to the anarchist hero of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Rip it up and start again. Or rip it up for the pure thrill of the ripping. In Graham Greene’s short story The Destructors, the schoolboy vandals of the Wormsley Common Gang systematically unpick a Christopher Wren-designed London house, working from the inside out so that it dissolves into rubble the moment a supporting post is pulled down. The crime’s one adult witness, a lorry driver, guffaws at the sight. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” he tells the home’s distraught owner. “There’s nothing personal, but you got to admit it’s funny.”

Raf, the angel of destruction who haunts the wings of James Meek’s graceful, death-haunted domestic drama, is likewise drawn to the work of Wren – although his project is conceived on a much grander scale. Raf is a professional demolition man, a gifted young engineer and natural born radical, easily moved to laughter or tears and effortlessly dazzling everyone in his orbit. For his PhD project, he has been granted free run of St Paul’s Cathedral in order to test the old building’s resistance to modern traffic vibration. He drills discreet holes in the masonry to install movement censors. But he also packs the cavities with Semtex.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

Reanimal review – you will never turn your back on a pelican again as long as you live

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Switch 2; Tarsier Studios
Childhood terrors come to wretched life in a grim fairytale of a puzzle-platformer that’s as beautifully macabre as it is hard to put down

“I thought you were dead,” are the first words you’ll hear from the child protagonists of this horror puzzle-platformer. It’s your first sign that things were going badly long before you got here. Exploring dark waves and desolated urban environments in a rowboat, they’re on a search for their lost friends across a world of rabid, malformed entities. As the children struggle with their outsize fears, so will you, but you’ve at least got the option to play co-op if you want someone on the couch to brave the horrors with.

In the early 2000s, irreverent gaming blog Old Man Murray pioneered the “crate review system”. The rubric was simple: the sooner the player encountered their first wooden cube of heinous mediocrity, the more uninspired the game. Updating this method for 2026, we’ve got a few new contenders: how soon before you shimmy slowly through a gap, boost a companion over a high ledge so they can pull you up or tediously rotate some mechanism with the analogue stick? Reanimal pulls out all these hits within the first 20 minutes and, by the time the credits roll, six hours in, it feels as if developer Tarsier has wrung the final drops of interactive novelty from its formula of light exploration puzzles, tense but simple stealth and ghastly chases. And yet this grim fairytale is still difficult to put down.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:00 pm

Romeo Is a Dead Man review – a misfire from a storied gaming provocateur

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, PC; Grasshopper Manufacture/Marvelous Inc
After some dumb fun hacking at zombies, legendary developer Suda51’s first original game in a decade sadly only delivers a host of incoherent disappointments

Ever since he baffled GameCube owners with 2005’s Killer7, Japanese game director Suda51 has had a reputation for turning heads. From parodying the banality of open-world games with 2007’s No More Heroes to collaborating with James Gunn for 2012’s pulpy Lollipop Chainsaw, his games often offer a welcome reprieve from soulless, half-a-billion-dollar-budget gaming blockbusters. It was with considerable excitement that I fired up Suda’s first new game in 10 years.

The game kicks off with a slick cartoon that shows our hero, Romeo Stargazer, being eaten by a zombie. Hastily resurrected by his zany scientist grandfather, Romeo returns from the brink imbued with new powers – and then we’re off. Almost immediately I am bombarded by an impenetrable wall of proper-noun nonsense. It’s like this for the next 20 hours.

Published: February 10, 2026, 2:11 pm

Kristin Scott Thomas says male theatre critics fail to grasp plays about women

Actor’s comments came as she accepted a lifetime achievement award for women in the arts

Kristin Scott Thomas has accused male theatre critics of failing to understand plays written by women and about women.

Citing her monologue on menstruation in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, she said the speech had “ripped through the internet”, proving the appetite for female stories told on their own terms.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:12 pm

Snippets? Apps? Visuals? Why classical music should stop trying to be pop

Classical music’s blessing is also its curse: you’ve simply got to pay it attention. Plus: No wonder Rossini was an Olympics hit – he invented disco

If you’re reading this, you too may know the essential power of the music we call classical to chart and change your life. That power of connection and empathy is among the miracles of human creativity, and it’s something that everyone has a right to. That is despite decades of underfunding of music education and the whole sector in this country; despite generations of the astounding innovation of its practitioners being ignored by government after government; despite the ravages of technology companies who would replace human-created music with rights-free AI given half a chance. With all of those pressures, and more, it’s no wonder that classical music is in a psychological state of defensiveness and a perennial struggle for relevance, and ends up trying to do things on terms that are set by the streaming companies and social media, not by the art form or the artists themselves.

Classical’s blessing and curse is that it demands our unmediated attention and our time, making it unfit for purpose in the second quarter of the 21st century. What to do with hour-long symphonies and evening-length operas in a cultural feedback loop of ever-shorter attention spans and a media landscape in thrall to the playlist, the reel, the image, the moment? Who has time for time?

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:27 pm

‘It still feels incredibly relevant’: the groundbreaking art of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Korean-American artist’s work has continued to resonate in many years since her tragic murder in 1982 at the age of 31

If there’s one thing the late avant-garde artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha is known for, it’s almost certainly her experimental 1982 book Dictée, a hard-to-classify work that has become a mainstay of college curriculums and ambitious writers. Poet Juliana Spahr has described the work as “part autobiography, part biography, part personal diary, part ethnography, part auto-ethnography, part translation”, noting that it collages “multiple voices – American, European, and Asian – so as to build a history”.

A major new retrospective of Cha at the Berkeley Art Museum – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings – aims to go far beyond Dictée to present the artist’s varied and prodigious output, bringing attention to her full complexity as a creative force and the many contemporary thinkers who have been inspired by her career.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:03 am

That’s Life! The magazine that shaped America – in pictures

From grown men eating ice cream – gasp! – to Noël Coward sweating in the desert and a baseball team without pants – a new exhibition celebrates images from the era-defining magazine

Published: February 11, 2026, 7:00 am

A moment that changed me: I wasn’t sure about my relationship. Then my boyfriend went missing on 9/11

I was quite spoiled and he could be a little dour. But on that terrible day, when he was just two blocks away when the South Tower exploded, I realised he was all I wanted

I met Chris in the college bar in 1997. I was part of a group of visiting American students visiting the University of Oxford – we kept ourselves to ourselves in the first few weeks of term – and he leaned over from the next table to talk to me. I saw his one-dimpled smile and the cocky way he tipped his chair back on two legs and I thought: “Uh-oh, here’s trouble.”

Despite the fact that I was only at Oxford for one term, we quickly became a couple – and stayed together. When he finished university and started working in London, I returned to North Carolina to finish my English degree. We visited each other when we could. He made a surprise appearance at my 21st birthday party; we spent a New Year’s Eve in Paris.

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:55 am

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: the easiest shortcut to chic? Jeans with heels

The combination of denim with heels is more than a trend – it elevates both you and your look

On the Notes app on my phone, among the to-do lists and the half-drafted email replies, I have a random list called Things That Are Just Always Chic. Wearing a watch that only tells the time. Having a signature scent. Black Ray-Ban sunglasses. All-white flowers in a vase. Also: wearing jeans with high heels.

Jeans with heels gets me every time. The woman who walks into the room in jeans and heels looks as if she owns the place, in a good way. It is a style language that speaks to everyone, confident and direct, a woman who is on top of her brief but also fun. The impact is stronger than a casual outfit, more compelling than a formal one.

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

The best bath towels in the US of 2026, from fluffy to quick drying – tested

We tested top-rated bath towels from Parachute, Brooklinen, Quince and more to find the softest, most absorbent towels – at every price point

• Experts tips for cleaning and caring for your bath towel to keep them softer, longer

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

I am a huge fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That book has taught me two things: don’t panic, and a quality bath towel will get you far in this world (it says that a towel “is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”). A nice bath towel is also a simple way to add a dash of luxury to your daily routine.

When it comes to bath towels, I want one that’s soft, fluffy, absorbent, and can withstand the rigors of life. Above all, it has to be worth the money.

All of the best bath towels

How I tested these towels

Towels that didn’t make the final cut

Best overall bath towel
Parachute Organic Super Plush towel

Best value bundle
Brooklinen Super-Plush Turkish Cotton Bath Towels

Published: February 11, 2026, 8:46 pm

Underwear optional? The health pros and cons of going commando

There are times when it is better to wear underwear than not. Here’s what the experts say

In 2015, during a particularly energetic performance of the song American Woman in Stockholm, Lenny Kravitz split a pair of leather pants right down the crotch, revealing his manhood to the world.

I’m sorry to say I think about this incident somewhat regularly. Not out of titillation, but because it planted in my head a troublesome question: just how many people, rock stars or otherwise, aren’t wearing underwear in public?

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘Boy kibble’: why are young men turning to dog food for meal inspiration?

The dried food, traditionally for pets, has become an unlikely influence for meal preppers. Some commenters have even claimed the trend could be an antidote to toxic masculinity

Name: Boy kibble.

Age: It’s new.

Published: February 10, 2026, 5:43 pm

US poet laureate of style Ralph Lauren opens New York fashion week

Unabashedly grand collection featuring velvet and beading is teamed with knits and loafers to reflect fashion in the real world right now

Ralph Lauren is the US’s poet laureate of style. His brand came of age in a gilded era of American charm, when Bill Clinton was president, the economy was booming and the twin towers glittered on the Manhattan skyline. His clothes speak to an America of sportsmanship and vigour, where everyone has a firm handshake and perfect teeth.

The US could use some poetry right now, and Lauren is still the man. In fact, at 86, he is the hottest designer at New York fashion week.

Published: February 11, 2026, 4:06 pm

Method dressing: nine actors who stayed wildly in character on the red carpet

Whether it’s Zendaya in tennis-inspired shoes, Cynthia Erivo dressed in green, Margot Robbie as Barbie or Jenna Ortega in shredded black leather, today’s movie stars rarely disappoint on the promo circuit

‘Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?” Kristen Stewart said last year, the implication being that method acting is the exclusive preserve of a particular type of man, unburdened by caring responsibilities or needing to be agreeable. But what is available to all actors (without getting their teeth pulled, taking magic mushrooms or demanding to be spoon-fed on set) is method dressing: that is, promoting a film in an outfit inspired by their character.

Everyone seems to be doing it, particularly in the past few months as Wicked: For Good and now Wuthering Heights have hit the red carpet. Why? It’s a low-stakes way to offer an extra endorsement for the film the actor is promoting (they liked it so much they’re willing to stay in character) and to drum up column inches and excitable TikTok commentary. It can also be a knowing wink – a gift, even – to fans. Some actors (or their stylists) include subtler sartorial semiotics and Easter egg accessories in their outfits that only the hardcore fandom and fashion nerds can appreciate. Either way, there’s a lot of it about. But who are the Daniel Day-Lewises and Robert De Niros of promo tour dressing?

Published: February 11, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Every shirt has a story’: the designers saving football kits from landfill

The beautiful game has a fast fashion problem, with clubs bringing out multiple kits every season. But a move towards upcycling old shirts and wearing vintage garments is on the rise

It may have been a quiet January transfer window, but even so, thousands of new shirts will be printed for Lucas Paquetá, returning to his former Brazilian club Flamengo, while his West Ham shirt instantly feels old. Not to mention the thousands of other players moving from one club to another. Uefa estimates that up to 60% of kits worn by players are destroyed at the end of the season, and at any one time there are thought to be more than 1bn football shirts in circulation, many of which are discarded by fans once players leave.

The good news is that lots of designers are bringing their upcycling skills to old kits, taking shirts and shirring them, sewing them or, as in the case of designer and creative director Hattie Crowther, completely transforming them into one-of-a-kind headpieces. “I’m not here to add more products into the mix, I’m here to reframe what’s already in circulation and give it meaning, context, and longevity while staying culturally relevant,” says Crowther, whose creations involving the colours and emblems of Arsenal, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, are, she says, “a response to how disposable football product has become”.

Published: February 10, 2026, 8:00 am

My helicopter went into freefall – inside an active volcano

Christopher Duddy was shooting a film in Hawaii when disaster struck. For 28 hours he choked on fumes near a lava lake, fighting to get to safety

The 1993 erotic thriller Sliver should have ended differently: Zeke, played by William Baldwin, was scripted to fly a helicopter towards an active volcano, after Sharon Stone’s character, Carly, reveals she’s the killer. The pilot, Craig Hosking, had been tasked with flying low over Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, accompanied by the director of photography, Mike Benson, and his assistant Christopher Duddy, to film the bubbling lava and white plumes of smoke escaping from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent. It was a clear day on the Big Island when Duddy watched a corkscrew trail form in the smoke behind the helicopter, and he remembers thinking: “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.”

It was November 1992, and a big storm was due to hit the area, so they were shooting as much footage as they could along the coast, capturing the rainforest and brilliant blue ocean shimmering against the black lava of the volcano, before the weather disrupted production. But as they dipped over Puʻu ʻŌʻō for a second time, the helicopter’s engine failed. Their visibility faded as thick smoke engulfed them. Duddy jolted his eyes away from the camera monitors towards the open doors and saw that they were heading straight for a cliff. There was a loud crash as the rotor sheared off on impact and the helicopter went into freefall.

Published: February 10, 2026, 6:00 am

Beats Powerbeats Fit review: Apple’s compact workout earbuds revamped

Secure, noise-cancelling Bluetooth earbuds that shine for exercise and everyday use on Android and iPhone

Apple’s revamped compact workout Beats earbuds stick to a winning formula, while slimming down and improving comfort.

The new Powerbeats Fit are the direct successors to 2022’s popular Beats Fit Pro, costing £200 (€230/$200/A$330). They sit alongside the recently redesigned Powerbeats Pro 2 as Apple’s fitness alternatives of the AirPods.

Published: February 10, 2026, 7:00 am

What is fibremaxxing – and how much is too much? | Kitchen aide

Most of us aren’t getting enough fibre in our diet, but, as our panel of experts explain, upping your intake is a case of taking baby steps …

Why is everyone talking about fibremaxxing?
Chris, by email
TikTok-born trends rarely go hand in hand with sage health advice, but that’s not to say upping our fibre – an often-forgotten part of our diets – is a bad idea. “Fibre needed its moment, so this is a good thing,” says dietitian Priya Tew. The non-digestible carbohydrate has two main functions: “There’s insoluble fibre, which is found in things such as whole grains, brown rice or vegetable skins, and I think about it like a broom,” Tew says, “in that it brushes the system out.” Then there’s soluble fibre (oats, beans, lentils), which she likens to a sponge: “It turns into this gel in your gut, and aids digestion and keeps us regular.” But that’s only part of the story, because fibre can also help lower cholesterol and stabilise blood sugar.

So, are you getting enough? “The aim is 25-30g fibre a day, but in reality most of us are maybe getting 15-18g,” Tew says, so we’ve got a little way to go. That said, some folk on the #fibremaxxing train have set their sights higher, which is where things can become problematic. “If you’re having too much fibre, you can end up feeling bloated, constipated or have abdominal pain,” she says, and that can occur when you increase your fibre intake too quickly: “The body needs time to get used to what’s happening.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: February 10, 2026, 1:00 pm

Houseplant hacks: is candle wax useful for taking cuttings?

There’s a new trend for propagating plants by dipping cuttings in melted wax. Is it worth all the faff?

The problem
Plants like pothos are easy to propagate. But the internet loves anything that resembles a scientific experiment, so now there’s a trend for using candle wax.

The hack
Putting a wax “cap” on a cutting is supposed to keep bacteria out and force new roots to sprout from the nodes above. In practice, you’re coating a wound that already knows how to heal, with a substance that does nothing to help it.

Published: February 10, 2026, 10:00 am

The big AI job swap: why white-collar workers are ditching their careers

As AI job losses rise in the professional sector, many are switching to more traditional trades. But how do they feel about accepting lower pay – and, in some cases, giving up their vocation?

California-based Jacqueline Bowman had been dead set on becoming a writer since she was a child. At 14 she got her first internship at her local newspaper, and later she studied journalism at university. Though she hadn’t been able to make a full-time living from her favourite pastime – fiction writing – post-university, she consistently got writing work (mostly content marketing, some journalism) and went freelance full-time when she was 26. Sure, content marketing wasn’t exactly the dream, but she was writing every day, and it was paying the bills – she was happy enough.

“But something really switched in 2024,” Bowman, now 30, says. Layoffs and publication closures meant that much of her work “kind of dried up. I started to get clients coming to me and talking about AI,” she says – some even brazen enough to tell her how “great” it was “that we don’t need writers any more”. She was offered work as an editor – checking and altering work produced by artificial intelligence. The idea was that polishing up already-written content would take less time than writing it from scratch, so Bowman’s fee was reduced to about half of what it had been when she was writing for the same content marketing agency – but, in reality, it ended up taking double the time.

Published: February 11, 2026, 5:00 am

‘So shameful’: backlash as US national monuments conform to Trump’s rewrite of history

From Pennsylvania to Montana, the White House’s war on ‘woke’ has targeted US monuments that address topics like racism and Indigenous history

Blank spaces now exist where a series of panels about enslavement once appeared on the walls of the President’s House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The site, which honors the home of George Washington and John Adams, is a major landmark that bore artwork and informational signs for more than a decade. But on 22 January, National Park Service (NPS) workers used hand tools to pry off 34 panels to comply with a presidential executive order designed to reframe the national narrative. The panels that highlighted the lives of people enslaved by George Washington when Philadelphia was the US capital in the 1790s are now in storage.

The removal is one of several across the nation, as NPS staff aim to conform with Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” issued on 27 March 2025. Public markers, monuments and statues that the Trump administration considers disparaging to past or current Americans have been flagged at more than a dozen parks. Two exhibits at Montana’s Little Bighorn battlefield national monument that discuss Indigenous history and the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been targeted and deemed noncompliant. Additionally, signage about climate change at Muir Woods national monument in California and visitor brochures at Medgar and Myrlie Evers home national monument in Mississippi that referred to Medgar Evers’s killer as racist were also removed.

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘We feel kinda bad when a solo bird shows up’: Canada sees its first European robin – but how did it get there?

Birdwatchers flock to Montréal for rare sighting of ‘vagrant’ bird that has made its home during a bitterly cold winter

On a quiet Montréal street of low-rise brick apartment buildings on one side and cement barrier wall on the other, a crowd has gathered, binoculars around their necks and cameras at the ready. A European robin has taken up residence in the neighbourhood, which is sandwiched between two industrial areas with warehouses and railway lines and, a few blocks away, port facilities on the St Lawrence River.

Ron Vandebeek from Ottawa, Ontario, is here on a frigid February morning hoping to see the rare bird, which was first spotted at the beginning of January.

Published: February 10, 2026, 12:00 pm

Tell us: what is your top piece of relationship advice?

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, we want to hear from readers on their one top tip for healthy romantic relationships

There is a lot of free relationship advice out there, much of it conflicting:

“Never go to sleep angry.”

Published: February 10, 2026, 3:00 pm

People living in Cuba: tell us how you are affected by the fuel blockade

Cancelled flights and petrol shortages are disrupting daily life across the island. We want to hear from people living in Cuba about what it’s like right now

Severe fuel shortages are disrupting daily life across Cuba after the US tightened its oil blockade on the island. International flights have been cancelled and petrol stations have closed with people reportedly struggling to access fuel.

The US has threatened any country that sends oil to Cuba with increased tariffs, claiming the island’s government is a threat to US national security and comes amid wider tensions between Havana and the Trump administration.

Published: February 11, 2026, 10:23 am

Displaced Palestinians, protests and the pope: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Published: February 11, 2026, 2:32 pm