I spent years meeting strangers for masochistic hook-ups. Was I a sex addict?

After a sexually frustrating marriage led to divorce, I chased increasingly extreme BDSM encounters. But I never felt truly satisfied. Had I been looking for the wrong thing all along?

To everyone else, it probably looked like a regular summer’s evening. Couples and families enjoying the beer garden, people playing cricket on the green – and I was being handcuffed in the passenger seat of a 4x4 by a man I barely knew.

My name is Leesa, and I’m a recovered sex addict.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

Want to stop Trump bullying your country? Retaliate

Faced with economic coercion, Europe has trodden carefully. My experience tells me that’s not enough

In February of last year, Donald Trump convened the first full cabinet meeting of his second term in the White House. He proudly announced his intention to impose sweeping tariffs on the US’s closest allies in Europe. When asked by a reporter whether Europe might retaliate, Trump sounded confident. “They can’t,” he said. Pressed to explain, he continued: “We are the pot of gold. We’re the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate, but it cannot be a successful retaliation.” As Trump saw it, Europe was weak and feckless – a minnow compared with the American economic juggernaut. When confronted with a US president prepared to throw his country’s weight around, Europe would certainly cave.

In the year since, Trump has repeatedly wielded America’s economic might against Europe, from coercing the EU and the UK to swallow lopsided trade deals to pressuring Denmark to sell him Greenland. And time and again, his assessment of European countries – that they would scurry to him, hat in hand, eager to make a deal – has been vindicated.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

Bad Bunny gives Super Bowl viewers two choices: crash out or tap in

The claim that music sung in Spanish will alienate viewers ignores the fact that many people would rather join the fun than risk being left out of it

The morning after the 3 January US military action in Venezuela, in which Nicolás Maduro was captured, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace in parts of the eastern Caribbean, and my stay in St Kitts stretched into an unexpected extra week. At the mercy of the systems that determine which corridors open and when, and who gets routed where, an overwhelmed customer service agent suggested I charter a boat to nearby St Maarten, fly to Amsterdam, and then stitch together a series of flights to avoid the affected airspace. I understood the Caribbean, then, less as a string of proximate islands and, instead, as a set of routes connected by powers elsewhere.

Power doesn’t just regulate airspace, it also governs cultural transmission – who gets broadcast, who gets heard, and on what terms. That’s why the handwringing over the Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, and the characterization of his almost exclusive use of Spanish in his music as an intrusion, feel so disingenuous. The drama isn’t about understanding the lyrics. Rather it’s a claim about Bad Bunny and his music as fundamentally un-American, stemming from a fear of feeling left out, or the more colloquially known fear of missing out (Fomo).

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

Valentine’s Day ideas from romance novelists: ‘I always want books. I want chocolate. I want a scented candle.’

Looking for Valentine’s Day gift ideas? Creative gift ideas for him and sentimental gifts for her

• This story was originally published in the Filter US newsletter on buying fewer, better things. Sign up here to get early access to it

Each week we cut through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I’m nostalgic for candy hearts and childhood crushes. But like many facets of adulthood, the holiday becomes more complicated as I grow older.

26 sentimental and practical US Valentine’s Day gifts for her in 2026

24 creative and unexpected Valentine’s Day gifts for him

Chilean olive oil, a Scottish necktie and more: nine Valentine’s gifts Americans haven’t caught on to yet

The 28 best fashion gifts in the US – curated by our favorite stylists and creators

The 20 best US beauty gifts for makeup and skincare lovers – curated by dewy-skinned content creators

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:15 pm

‘I’m the psychedelic confessor’: the man who turned a generation on to hallucinogens returns with a head-spinning book about consciousness

With the Omnivore’s Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan transformed our understanding of food and drugs. Can he do the same for our sense of self?

Several years ago, Michael Pollan had a disturbing encounter. The relentlessly curious journalist and author was at a conference on plant behaviour in Vancouver. There, he’d learned that when plants are damaged, they produce an anaesthetising chemical, ethylene. Was this a form of self-soothing, like the release of endorphins after an injury in humans? He asked František Baluška, a cell biologist, if it meant that plants might feel pain. Baluška paused, before answering: “Yes, they should feel pain. If you don’t feel pain, you ignore danger and you don’t survive.”

I imagine that Pollan gulped at that point. I certainly did when I read his account of the meeting in his latest book, A World Appears. Where does it leave our efforts at ethical consumption, if literally everybody hurts – including vegetables?

Published: February 8, 2026, 9:00 am

The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in the US | Bryan Armen Graham

The real risk for American broadcasters is not that dissent will be visible. It is that audiences will start assuming anything they do not show is being hidden

The modern Olympics sell themselves on a simple premise: the whole world, watching the same moment, at the same time. On Friday night in Milan, that illusion fractured in real time.

When Team USA entered the San Siro during the parade of nations, the speed skater Erin Jackson led the delegation into a wall of cheers. Moments later, when cameras cut to US vice-president JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance, large sections of the crowd responded with boos. Not subtle ones, but audible and sustained ones. Canadian viewers heard them. Journalists seated in the press tribunes in the upper deck, myself included, clearly heard them. But as I quickly realized from a groupchat with friends back home, American viewers watching NBC did not.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:19 am

From New York to New Mexico: new Epstein files shed light on his sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe

Several men appear in photos on the nearly 10,000-acre Zorro ranch, which included a 26,700 sq ft mansion

For years, Jeffrey Epstein took respite at a sprawling ranch in the desert scrub outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Epstein’s nearly 10,000-acre (4,000-hectare) property – known as Zorro ranch – was dotted with cholla cactus and Angus cattle, and came to include a 26,700 sq ft mansion, as well as a private runway and hangar.

For years, Epstein abused teenage girls and young women on this ranch with impunity, according to testimony from several women. In court proceedings, survivors detailed horror after horror they say unfolded on this isolated expanse of land.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:22 pm

Winter Olympics 2026: Malinin and Glenn go for gold in figure skating team event – live

• USA, Japan, Italy, Georgia and Canada in medal contention

• Schedule | Results | Medal table | Briefing

• Email beau.dure@theguardian.com with your thoughts

The lowest free skate score this season for Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii is 130.92, but that was early on. In Grand Prix competition, their low was 134.89.

So they’ll need to be on point to knock the USA off the top spot. Will skating at home be a boost, or will it bring extra pressure?

Published: February 8, 2026, 8:41 pm

Sanae Takaichi’s conservatives cement power in landslide Japan election win

Results mean coalition of recently installed PM has supermajority in lower house of parliament

Japan’s conservative governing coalition has dramatically strengthened its grip on power after a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections in what will be seen as an early public endorsement of the new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.

Her Liberal Democratic party (LDP) was projected to win as many as 328 of the 465 seats in parliament’s lower house, well above the 233 it needed to regain the majority it lost in 2024. With her coalition partner, the Japan Innovation party, she now has a supermajority of two-thirds of seats, easing her legislative agenda as she can override the upper chamber, which she does not control.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:50 pm

Democrats will stop Trump from trying to nationalize midterms, Jeffries says

Top House Democrat says president’s suggestion for Republicans to ‘take over’ elections really means ‘steal it’

Democrats will stop Donald Trump from trying to steal this year’s midterm elections, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives said on Sunday.

Jeffries’ comments come amid widespread concern after Trump said Republicans should “take over the voting”. The US constitution gives states the power to set election rules and says Congress can pass laws to set requirements for federal elections. The constitution gives the president no authority over how elections are run.

Published: February 8, 2026, 8:33 pm

Morgan McSweeney resigns as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff

Longtime aide has said he takes ‘full responsibility’ for advising PM to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador

• ‘Only honourable course’: resignation statement in full

• Profile: Labour election guru undone by poor judgment

• UK politics live – latest updates

Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, has quit his role as the prime minister’s closest aide amid anger over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

The senior No 10 adviser’s position had grown increasingly untenable as pressure on the prime minister mounted over the scandal, which followed the release of emails underlining the extent of Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Published: February 8, 2026, 4:41 pm

Rightwing critics blame Mamdani as New York snow fails to melt

Murdoch tabloid leads charge as big freeze persists – could the mayor please do something about the weather?

It snowed two weeks ago in New York. Since then, the temperature has barely risen above freezing – a temperature science naturally dictates is necessary to melt snow and ice.

But science isn’t enough for some US political critics, however, who have instead blamed Zohran Mamdani, New York’s new socialist mayor, for the snow not having melted and still clogging up some of the city’s streets.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:00 pm

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis abruptly resigns amid criticism of staff cuts

Departure comes days after newspaper laid off nearly one-third of staff, including more than 300 journalists

Will Lewis, the Murdoch media veteran who took over as publisher and chief executive of the Washington Post in early 2024, announced abruptly on Saturday evening that he is leaving the company.

His departure comes just three days after the Post laid off nearly one-third of its entire staff, citing the need to cut costs and reposition the money-losing publication. Lewis, who did not appear on the all-staff meeting during which the cuts were announced, has faced criticism for his absence and leadership.

Published: February 7, 2026, 11:27 pm

These US states want polluters to pay for the rising insurance costs of climate disasters

Proposals by California, Hawaii and New York lawmakers aim to hold fossil fuel industry accountable for soaring rates

As climate disasters drive up the price of home insurance, three US states are considering empowering their state prosecutors to sue major polluters for their role in those rising costs.

Lawmakers in California, Hawaii and New York have introduced measures which would authorize their attorneys general to sue fossil fuel companies on behalf of residents whose insurance premiums have soared amid climate disasters.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Landslide win beckons for centre-left candidate in Portugal’s presidential runoff

Exit polls give António José Seguro 67%-73% of vote over far-right populist André Ventura

The moderate socialist António José Seguro appeared to be headed for a landslide victory in Portugal’s presidential runoff on Sunday, with two exit polls putting him in the 67%-73% range, well ahead of his far-right, anti-establishment rival, André Ventura.

The exit polls conducted for the television channels RTP, SIC and TVI/CNN placed Ventura at 27%-33%, still a better result than the 22.8% his anti-immigration Chega party achieved in last year’s general election.

Published: February 8, 2026, 8:26 pm

Seized, subverted, shuttered: a year in Trump’s assault on the Kennedy Center

Since a presidential post on Truth Social the Washington DC arts hub has lost its leadership, had its name changed and will now be closed for years

The Brentano String Quartet had finished their performance when a special guest dropped in backstage: the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “We thanked her for everything she had done for our country,” recalls violinist Mark Steinberg. “It was a nice moment.”

The year was 2016 and the place was the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Fast forward a decade and old certainties have been shaken: Ginsburg is dead, Donald Trump is president and the Kennedy Center has become a case study in how a seemingly solid American institution can quickly unravel.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

NSA detected foreign intelligence phone call about a person close to Trump

Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff

Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) flagged an unusual phone call between two members of foreign intelligence, who discussed a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney who was briefed on details of the call.

The highly sensitive communique, which has roiled Washington over the past week, was brought to the attention of the director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard.

Published: February 8, 2026, 4:54 am

‘A profound sense of being hunted’: with all eyes on Minneapolis, ICE arrests continue quietly across the US

Immigration operations are still stoking fear and disrupting the ability to go to work, school or doctor’s appointments

With the public’s outrage and attention focused on the deadly surge of federal agents in Minneapolis, immigration operations have quietly continued across the US – albeit in less noticeable but still troubling ways, advocates say.

In recent weeks there have been day laborers swept up at a Home Depot in San Diego. A taco truck vendor chased down outside a church in Los Angeles. Immigrants arrested at check-ins in North Carolina, and during traffic stops in the nation’s capital.

Published: February 7, 2026, 3:00 pm

Trump’s EPA reapproves contentious weedkiller dicamba for some GM crops

Environmental groups said dicamba drift has damaged vegetable farms, trees and other critical plants

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday reapproved the weedkiller dicamba for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton, a pesticide that has raised widespread concern over its tendency to drift and destroy nearby crops.

The agency said dicamba was critical for farmers who would otherwise have their crops threatened by fast growing weeds. To ensure the pesticide is used safely, the agency said it imposed strong protections and limits on its use.

Published: February 8, 2026, 4:42 pm

Bad Bunny to meet political moment as Maga fumes over Super Bowl show

Puerto Rican superstar promises ‘the world will dance’ in all-Spanish half-time gig that comes as Trump agents wage deadly crackdown

For 13 minutes on Sunday night, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara will pulse with reggaeton, Latin trap and Caribbean rhythms as Bad Bunny headlines a historic Super Bowl halftime performance, primarily – or perhaps entirely – in Spanish. The Puerto Rican megastar, whose songs fuse the raw energy of música urbana, Boricua pride and resistance politics, has promised a “huge party”.

At a moment when masked federal agents are sweeping through American cities, rounding up long-settled immigrants, legal residents and even US citizens, Bad Bunny’s presence on the grandest stage in US sports offers a striking contrast – a joyful celebration of pride and solidarity for millions of Latinos.

Published: February 8, 2026, 11:00 am

Canada is no stranger to separatism but push for Alberta to join US is a new peril

While Quebec parties have long sought independence, the secret meetings by unelected Albertans with US officials have been branded treasonous by some

A separatist push for a referendum on independence from Canada. Meetings with foreign officials perceived to be sympathetic to their cause. Accusations of treason and sedition.

Ahead of a 1995 referendum, leaders of Quebec’s independence movement made a string of provocative overtures to foreign governments, including a trip by the province’s premier to France. In a move that outraged anglophone Canada, the mayor of Paris gave Quebec’s Jacques Parizeau a welcome befitting a national leader.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

US companies accused of ‘AI washing’ in citing artificial intelligence for job losses

While AI is having an impact on the workplace, experts suggest tariffs, overhiring during the pandemic and simply maximising profits may be bigger factors

Over the last year, US corporate leaders have often explained layoffs by saying the positions were no longer needed because artificial intelligence had made their companies more efficient, replacing humans with computers.

But some economists and technology analysts have expressed skepticism about such justifications and instead think that such workforce cuts are driven by factors like the impact of tariffs, overhiring during the Covid-19 pandemic and perhaps simple maximising of profits.

Published: February 8, 2026, 4:00 pm

As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the storied newspaper has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Trump’s attacks

The email landed in Lizzie Johnson’s in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country’s power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

“Difficult news,” was the subject line. The body text said: “Your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes,” explaining that it was necessary to get rid of her to meet the “evolving needs of our business”.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

Super Bowl 2026 predictions: Picks for Seahawks v Patriots, MVP, score and winners

Will Drake Maye lead New England into a new era of championships? Or will the Seahawks get revenge 11 years in the making? Our writers give their verdicts

Pressure Sam Darnold. Darnold was outstanding in the NFC championship game when forced to throw under duress. But that hasn’t been the case all season. The Seahawks rank sixth in EPA/dropback when there is no pressure, but drop to 22nd when there is pressure. Collapsing the pocket is New England’s best shot at success. Their interior pass-rushers, Christian Barmore and Milton Williams, will need to overwhelm Darnold. OC

Published: February 8, 2026, 11:00 am

Social media companies are being sued for harming their users’ mental health – but are the platforms addictive?

Experts say the term ‘addiction’ is be overused and, for social media use, could be difficult to prove

Forthcoming legal proceedings against Meta and YouTube are frequently referred to as the “social media addiction trials”, but whether these platforms are truly addictive is still the subject of scientific debate.

The lawsuits were brought against Meta, YouTube (Google), Snap Inc and TikTok by plaintiffs alleging these platforms severely damaged their mental health when they were children. Snap and TikTok settled the first case to go to trial, brought by a woman known as KGM, now about 20. The remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube, were set to go to court this week, but the trial was delayed because Meta’s senior attorney became ill.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘I don’t have to create his legacy, I just have to protect it’: Chadwick Boseman’s widow Simone on grieving a global star – and guarding his secrets

Black Panther made him a megastar, but in private the actor and his wife Simone Ledward Boseman were dealing with his terminal cancer diagnosis. In a rare interview, she talks about the shock of losing him, and how a revival of one of his plays has helped her heal

Simone Ledward Boseman is reflecting on the five years that have passed since the death of her husband, actor and writer Chadwick Boseman. “The edges of grief get less sharp over time,” she says. “Five years definitely feels like a marker. I’ve had to gradually figure out how I talk about Chad. What do I want to share, and what do I feel comfortable sharing? Can I find something that I might want to share in the midst of something I don’t want to share?” We meet on a video call across time zones – it’s 9am in California, where she lives. “Except for my mom, I’m not talking to anybody before 10am,” she laughs. She’s made an exception to give a rare interview ahead of the UK premiere of her late husband’s play Deep Azure, which is currently in previews in London at Shakespeare’s Globe.

When Boseman’s death was announced at the end of August 2020, the shock reverberated across the globe. He was devastatingly young – only 43 – and the world was just getting to know him. The release of the movie Black Panther two years earlier, in which he played the eponymous character also known as T’Challa, had skyrocketed his fame. Before then, he had been a successful Hollywood actor. Now? He was a global megastar – the first Black superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The news was doubly shocking because the family had not previously revealed that he had been suffering with colorectal cancer.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

Thinking of trashing a small business on social media? Please, think again

Online pile-ons can destroy small businesses. Save the derision for big companies that can weather social media storms

A viral Reddit post mocks a $22 grilled cheese sandwich and helps to sink a Bay Area shop. A restaurant owner is forced to push back on a viral complaint. A small business owner in Maine faces a viral backlash after posting a “No ICE” sign. The owner of a furniture store mistakenly receives backlash after being confused with another store. An influencer calls out a South Carolina boutique in a TikTok video after a negative shopping experience.

I have had countless bad experiences at small businesses. I have eaten cold pasta and seen mice scurry behind a table. I don’t go back. Sometimes, when the experience is particularly great, I’ll give a quick good review on Google. But when I have had a bad experience? Never. Ever.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:00 pm

We offered my friend a room to help her out, but four years later she’s still living with us

You need to check where you stand legally, but I fear you’re being taken advantage of and will have to ask her to leave

In spring 2022, my husband and I were lucky enough to sell our house for a profit and, with help from my parents, bought a much bigger home. At the time, my friend was going through a tough time, so I asked if she would like to move in with us and our two children. There was no written agreement, but the plan was that she would either quit her job and retrain, or save for her own place and move out in six months to a year. She pays us £350 a month, which goes towards energy bills, bar a three-month period when she wasn’t working. I also gave her money towards taking a course.

She hasn’t retrained, got a new job or saved for a new place. And she doesn’t have the money to move out. I feel trapped and resent all I have to do as a working mum while she’s here, but that’s compounded by guilt as I know I’m very privileged to have a big house and a well-paid job. I hate that she sees me at my worst (rowing with my husband/sorting out arguments between the kids) and I feel as if I’m constantly keeping my emotions in check around her. Our friendship feels warped into a parent-child dynamic.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

This Black History Month, the leaders of the past can teach real resistance | Eric Morrison-Smith

Movements are not born fully formed – they begin when ordinary people decide to act

Nearly 60 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr posed a question that still haunts us. In his final book, published just a year before his death, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, he argued that we were standing at a crossroads: one path leading toward chaos – deepening poverty, violence, and repression – while the other required us to collectively choose and build community.

Too few of us answered his call. At times, we chose distraction, comfort and complacency. At others, we turned away from the violence this country inflicted on the world, allowing the corruption of those in power to harden and accumulate. We can blame politicians and corporations, or those who remained neutral – but the truth is, we all carry some level of responsibility.

Eric Morrison-Smith is executive director of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color

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 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

After years spent documenting state terror, I know it when I see it. And I see it now in the US and Israel | Janine di Giovanni

It’s chilling to watch as Trump and Netanyahu adopt the methods of regimes their countries once condemned

• Janine di Giovanni is a war correspondent and the executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crimes unit in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza

In Syria, where I worked during the years of Bashar al-Assad’s terror, people were often taken away to torture cells before dawn by masked men. The timing was deliberate. It disoriented them at their most vulnerable, ensuring the torture to come would be even more agonising. The testimonies I recorded from survivors almost always contained the same phrase: “The morning they came for me.” One young woman, shattered by rape and violence, later told me that her life had split in two – before and after the masked men came for her.

In Iraq, those who spoke against Saddam Hussein – even abroad, even casually – were punished in cruel ways by a vengeful leader determined to crush any hint of dissent.

Janine di Giovanni is a war correspondent and the executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crimes unit in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza. She is the author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria.

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 8, 2026, 6:00 am

The risk of nuclear war is rising again. We need a new movement for global peace | David Cortright

With the end of the New Start treaty, we face a potentially catastrophic arms race. It can still be prevented

The risk of nuclear war is greater now than in decades – and rising. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set its famous Doomsday Clock closer to midnight, indicating a level of risk equivalent to the 1980s, when US and Soviet nuclear stockpiles were increasing rapidly. In those years, massive waves of disarmament protest arose in Europe and the United States. Political leaders responded, the cold war ended, and many people stopped worrying about the bomb.

Today, the bomb is back. Political tensions are rising, and nuclear weapons have spread to other countries, including Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. China is rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal. The US-Russia arms competition may accelerate soon with the expiration on 5 February of the last remaining arms control agreement, the New Start treaty. To prevent the growing nuclear threat, we need a new global peace movement.

David Cortright, a visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, was the executive director of Sane, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, during the 1980s

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Why has food become another joyless way to self-optimise? | Emma Beddington

The age of ‘liquid salad’, fibremaxxing and recolonising your microbiome is here – but our meals should be about pleasure, too

The crisis point came with the sea moss. Or perhaps the hemp protein powder? Certainly, when I started adding goose-poo-coloured dust to my breakfast, the unease I have been feeling around food culture deepened. Turning an already drab meal (plain vegan yoghurt, enough seeds to kill a gerbil) into what looked, and tasted, like mud felt more like self-harm than self-care. But, no, what pushed me over the edge was the tiny £2 Marks & Spencer sea moss shot. Sorry, not just sea moss: “High-quality red algae sea moss … high in iodine, vitamins C, B1, B6 and B12.” It was blue and tasted awful, with hints of bubble bath. Of course it did – I’m not a limpet; I’m not supposed to consume sea moss!

When did food become medicine? There’s all the pseudoscientific supplementary stuff, but even normal food has started to feel functional, mere units of nutrition. A tally runs in my head of things I “need” to eat: am I getting enough oats, beans, leafy greens? What about nuts? I cut back on crisps to cram more nuts in and chuck tofu into everything, because neglecting protein is the worst crime a middle-aged woman can commit. I’m not sure I remember what I actually enjoy eating any more. I’m certain no one on earth enjoys eating flaxseeds – they have all the personality of polystyrene packaging chips – but I choke them down daily, for my cholesterol and gut health.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 am

Trump posted something blatantly racist? What a surprise | Arwa Mahdawi

The Obama video should take a toll on the president’s political career – but of course it won’t

Despite Donald Trump’s war on woke, he hasn’t (yet) made Black History Month illegal. In fact, on Tuesday the president issued a proclamation declaring February 2026 to be a celebration of Black history and called “upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities”.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: February 7, 2026, 2:00 pm

The biggest threat facing Europe is not a Trump invasion. It’s his global political revolution | Mark Leonard

I am convinced that Europe’s ‘new right’ is a radically contemporary movement. Defeating it means understanding its critique of liberalism

European governments are terrified of Donald Trump’s threats on trade, Greenland and the future of Nato. But the biggest threat is not that Trump invades an ally or leaves Europe at the mercy of Russia. It is that his ideological movement could transform Europe from the inside.

A year after Trump’s return to the White House, his “second American revolution” is radiating outward into Europe. The Epstein files reveal how this began clumsily in 2018 with Steve Bannon; but it has become a much more sophisticated partnership with the second coming of Trump and the rise to power of JD Vance. The US National Security Strategy published by the White House in November called for strengthening the growing influence of “patriotic” European parties such as Reform UK, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN), Fidesz in Hungary and Vox in Spain. As with the communist movements of the cold war, these nationalist, populist and in some cases far-right parties are best understood not as isolated national phenomena but as expressions of a shared intellectual project – a movement that is, to varying degrees, now being reinforced by a foreign power.

Mark Leonard is the author of the report The new right: anatomy of a global political revolution. He is director of the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 am

Lindsey Vonn’s crash is violent but honest ending to an unprecedented Olympic bid

The gruesome finish to the US star’s comeback, at age 41 and with a ruptured ACL, is a reminder of skiing’s unforgiving nature

There was always a version of this story that ended in a single, violent instant. Lindsey Vonn was 13th to push out of the start gate on Sunday in Cortina d’Ampezzo knowing exactly what she was racing with: a fully ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, a heavy brace wrapped around the joint, and the accumulated wear of a career spent flirting with speed and consequence.

Vonn barely made it out of the opening phase of the run.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:46 pm

Trump calls Hunter Hess ‘a real loser’ for skier’s ambivalence about representing US

• US president attacks freestyle skier in post

• Hess had said representing the US was ‘a little hard’

Donald Trump responded to Hunter Hess on Truth Social on Sunday, calling the Olympian a “real loser” and criticizing comments the US freestyle skier made in a press conference days earlier.

Hess was asked in a press conference on Wednesday what it was like to represent the US in the Olympics given the current situation in the country, which has included ICE raids in Minnesota and a number of geopolitical crises. Hess said representing the US at the 2026 Winter Olympics brought up “mixed emotions” and that it was “a little hard.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:20 pm

Winter Olympics day 2 - in pictures

We take a look at the best images from day two of the Games, including women’s downhill, biathlon and cross-country skiing

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:23 pm

Super Bowl 2026: Seattle Seahawks v New England Patriots – live

• Latest scores as teams meet for NFL title at Levi’s Stadium

• Predictions: Our writers’ picks for the winner, MVP and more

• Email david.lengel@theguardian.com with your thoughts

David will be here shortly. In the meantime, here are our writers’ score predictions:

Published: February 8, 2026, 8:30 pm

Manchester City keep up title chase with late comeback win at Liverpool

Pep Guardiola threw himself back into his seat in the dugout. The Manchester City manager had just witnessed a moment of sheer brilliance and, like everyone connected to his club, he had to fear the worst. Because bad things tend to happen to him at Anfield.

The blow had been administered by Dominik Szoboszlai, the stand-in Liverpool right-back, and it is worth dwelling on it for a moment – if only a moment as it would be rapidly overtaken by a bonkers finale. When the Hungarian addressed a free-kick 30 yards out, City did not look overly concerned. They only put two men in their wall. Perhaps they had not remembered what Szoboszlai did to Arsenal from a similar position at the start of the season.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:50 pm

‘We all on Kalshi now’: Giannis Antetokounmpo and the quiet collapse of sporting trust

The Bucks star has become a shareholder in one of the world’s largest prediction markets. It only ushers the NBA further into the fetid swamp of sports betting

Couldn’t he have just started a podcast? “The Internet is full of opinions. I decided it was time to make some of my own,” Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the four best basketball players in the world, posted in a statement announcing that he was joining the prediction market Kalshi as a shareholder. “We all on Kalshi now.”

We are not, but doesn’t the tone sum it up? The universe’s ineffable forces have clearly decided that the ubiquity of sports betting companies is insufficient. There must be new companies, with which you can bet on any outcome – Kalshi competitor Polymarket has hosted markets tied to geopolitical outcomes, including scenarios related to Israel and Gaza, for instance – that incentivize people to treat life’s most important avenues as trivially as a sports game. Kalshi and Polymarket are prediction platforms rather than traditional betting companies. Users effectively bet (or “trade”) against others on the platform about the outcome of events, from familiar wagers such as the result of a sporting event, to the obscure, such as the color of a politician’s suit at an election appearance. Kalshi has enjoyed plenty of freedom under the second Donald Trump administration, and Donald Trump Jr is a “strategic advisor” for them and Polymarket. A Kalshi outcome taking bets until recently was “Giannis Antetokounmpo’s next team?” as rumors swirled that the two-time NBA MVP was about to leave the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo will be involved in marketing and publicity for Kalshi, and is forbidden from trading on markets related to the NBA. The move is also in step with the NBA’s rules – players are allowed to endorse betting companies as long as they don’t gamble on the league itself. But that hasn’t prevented scores of fans across Instagram and Reddit, and media members on Twitter, from expressing their displeasure at the move and insisting there is a conflict of interest.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:00 pm

Duke coach says staff ‘got punched in the face’ during UNC court-storming

• Jon Scheyer bemoaned the behavior of some UNC fans

• North Carolina AD Cunningham apologizes

Duke coach Jon Scheyer said he had staff members “that got punched in the face” as North Carolina fans stormed the court to celebrate a late winning shot in the famed rivalry Saturday night, prompting UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham to publicly apologize.

The 14th-ranked Tar Heels stunned the fourth-ranked Blue Devils 71-68 on Seth Trimble’s 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left, a shot that originally appeared to come as time expired and had jubilant fans rush the court in a chaotic celebration. Officials reviewed the play and determined time was left, so fans had to be cleared for Duke to get one final play before storming the court again when the clock officially hit zero.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:59 pm

Lindsey Vonn airlifted to hospital after crashing out of Olympic downhill race

• US skier stable after surgery on broken leg

• Vonn’s US teammate Breezy Johnson tops podium

• Winter Olympics 2026: live news and updates

The Olympic career of Lindsey Vonn has ended in a sickening, split-second crash high on the side of the Tofane downhill run in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The American, one of the most successful skiers in history, had come out of a five-year retirement to compete in her fifth Games, and was hoping to become the oldest athlete, male or female, ever to win a medal in the downhill.

Vonn was just 12 seconds into the race when her legs gave way beneath her as she rode a bump. She twisted, fell, and tumbled and, after the first stunned screams and shouts, the crowd all around the mountain fell entirely silent in shock and worry. The US team later confirmed she was in a “stable condition and in good hands” following surgery after breaking her left leg.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:29 pm

Falcons’ James Pearce Jr arrested on battery charges after dispute with WNBA star

• Atlanta rookie allegedly fled police, crashed car

• Police say incident involved LA Sparks’ Rickea Jackson

Atlanta Falcons rookie star James Pearce Jr was arrested near Miami on Saturday night after fleeing officers and then crashing his car after what police said was a domestic dispute with WNBA player Rickea Jackson.

Pearce, the first-round pick who led the Falcons in sacks and was third in NFL defensive rookie of the year voting, was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center after Doral police were summoned to investigate a reported domestic dispute between a man and a woman.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:44 pm

Controversial YouTuber Jack Doherty barred from PGA Tour events after Phoenix Open disruption

• Doherty removed over incident at golf tournament

• 22-year-old has subscriber count of nearly 30 million

• Source confirms streamer’s ban from future events

A controversial livestreamer has been barred from attending PGA Tour events indefinitely after being trespassed from the Waste Management Phoenix Open, according to a person familiar with the matter, though the tour has declined to publicly confirm any specific disciplinary action.

Security and law enforcement removed Jack Doherty from the tournament grounds on Friday after he appeared to pay a spectator to shout during a player’s pre-shot routine, according to videos circulating online and accounts of the incident.

Published: February 8, 2026, 5:59 am

‘It has changed my life’: Wrexham’s Hollywood takeover, five years on

When Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac became club guardians in 2021 the Premier League was a dream. Now it’s a target

Two Chewbaccas handed out flyers to passersby. No one making their way towards the Turf batted an eyelid, but then again, for five years now, a touch of Hollywood has become pretty much the norm in Wrexham.

Ninety minutes before kick-off the city’s most famous public house was heaving. Lying in the shadow of the Racecourse Ground, it is the watering hole of choice for locals, and, thanks to landlord Wayne Jones’s prominent role in Welcome to Wrexham, the hit documentary following the club’s many fortunes, a tourist attraction.

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:00 am

‘A giving, giving man’: former MLB outfielder Terrance Gore dies at age of 34

• Gore played for three World Series champions

• Outfielder was known for speed and athleticism

Terrance Gore, a speedy outfielder who played for three World Series champions while spending parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, has died. He was 34.

Chad Funderburk, a family friend who also worked with Gore through his baseball academy, confirmed Gore died on Friday night. He said Gore’s family would provide further details when they feel ready.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:39 am

Thai PM’s party on track to win election in blow to pro-democracy camp

Staunch royalist Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai party builds commanding lead on disappointing night for rivals

The party of the Thai prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul, a staunch royalist and shrewd political dealmaker, is on track to win the most seats in Sunday’s election after a disappointing night for his rivals in the youthful, pro-democracy People’s party.

“We are likely to take first place in the election,” the 59-year-old told reporters at the headquarters for his Bhumjaithai party in Bangkok. “The victory today belongs to all Thais, no matter whether you voted for us or not,” he said.

Published: February 8, 2026, 5:51 pm

Iran sentences Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to seven more years in prison

Women’s and human rights activist, arrested at a demonstration in December, is said to be on hunger strike

Iran has sentenced the Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to more than seven more years in prison after she began a hunger strike, her supporters said Sunday, as Tehran cracks down on all dissent following nationwide protests and the deaths of thousands at the hands of security forces.

The new convictions against Mohammadi come as Iran tries to negotiate with the US over its nuclear programme to avert a military strike threatened by Donald Trump. Iran’s top diplomat said on Sunday that Tehran’s strength came from its ability to “say no to the great powers”, striking a maximalist position just after negotiations in Oman with the US.

Published: February 8, 2026, 5:27 pm

'We will pay,' Savannah Guthrie says in desperate video plea to potential kidnappers of her mother

Today show host tells potential kidnappers of mother Nancy that family is prepared to pay for safe return

Savannah Guthrie told the potential kidnappers of her mother, Nancy Guthrie, on Saturday that the family is prepared to pay for her safe return, as the frantic search for the 84-year-old entered a seventh day.

“We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” she said in a video posted on social media, flanked by her siblings. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:50 am

Minneapolis protesters arrested during one-month anniversary of Renee Good’s death

Several demonstrators taken into custody Saturday after marking killing of Minnesota woman by immigration officer

Police arrested several demonstrators on Saturday outside a federal building just south of Minneapolis, breaking up a protest marking the one-month anniversary of a Minnesota woman’s death at the hands of an immigration officer.

Renee Good was killed on 7 January as she was driving away from immigration officers in a Minneapolis neighborhood. Her death and the killing of another Minneapolis resident, Alex Pretti, just weeks later have stoked outrage nationwide over Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Published: February 7, 2026, 11:55 pm

Memorial for Swiss bar fire victims goes up in flames

Blaze probably caused by candles at makeshift tribute near Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, say police

A memorial for the victims of a deadly fire at a new year party in Switzerland caught fire early on Sunday, probably sparked by candles left burning inside, police have said.

The memorial was a makeshift tribute to the 41 people killed and the 115 injured in the fire that erupted in the early hours of 1 January at Le Constellation bar in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana, which was packed with mainly teenagers and young adults.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:35 pm

Mystery plaintiff challenges Karl Lagerfeld’s will – but pampered cat can rest easy

Relatives shut out of €200m fortune reportedly receive letters from executor saying will could be overturned

The late German-born Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld was famously precise, exacting and known to hold a grudge, but his final wishes concerning the beneficiaries of his vast fortune could now be overturned beyond the grave in a looming court battle.

Seven years after Lagerfeld’s death from cancer, an unnamed plaintiff has come forward to challenge the haute couture titan’s last will and testament.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:45 pm

Russia says man suspected of shooting general detained in Dubai

Man in his 60s ‘arrested and handed over to Russia’ after fleeing to UAE, according to media reports

Authorities in Dubai have arrested and handed over to Russia a man suspected of shooting and wounding a senior officer in Russia’s intelligence services, according to Moscow’s security service.

The announcement on Sunday came two days after a gunman shot Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev three times on the stairwell of his Moscow apartment, leaving him in a critical condition.

Published: February 8, 2026, 3:55 pm

Her father’s war grave in Gaza was bulldozed by Israel. Amid the grief and anger, she wants answers

Wilma Spence’s father was an Anzac buried in a part of the Gaza War Cemetery bulldozed by the IDF

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

“Fighting for those who love him, our darling daddy died,” the inscription reads.

Just saying the words threatens to overwhelm Wilma Spence.

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

French police arrest six over crypto-linked magistrate kidnapping

Arrests follow discovery on Friday of magistrate and her mother in a garage in south-east of country

French authorities have arrested six suspects, including a child, after a magistrate and her mother were held captive last week for about 30 hours in a cryptocurrency ransom plot.

Four men and one woman were detained, three overnight and two on Sunday morning, the Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran told Agence France-Presse. He later confirmed a child had been arrested on Sunday afternoon.

Published: February 8, 2026, 4:49 pm

Chance of El Niño forming in Pacific Ocean may push global temperatures to record highs in 2027

One expert says 2027 could be even hotter than the last three years, which have been the top three warmest on record

• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here

Weather agencies and climate scientists have pointed to the possibility of an El Niño forming in the Pacific Ocean later this year – a phenomenon that could push global temperatures to all-time record highs in 2027.

Both the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology have said some climate models are forecasting an El Niño but both cautioned those results came with uncertainties.

Experts told the Guardian it was too early to be confident, but there were signals in the spread of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific that suggested an El Niño could form in 2026.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

Bermuda snail thought to be extinct now thrives after a decade’s effort

Special pods at Chester zoo helped conservationists breed and release more than 100,000 greater Bermuda snails

A button-sized snail once feared extinct in its Bermudian home is thriving again after conservationists bred and released more than 100,000 of the molluscs.

The greater Bermuda snail (Poecilozonites bermudensis) was found in the fossil record but believed to have vanished from the North Atlantic archipelago, until a remnant population was discovered in a damp and overgrown alleyway in Hamilton, the island capital, in 2014.

Published: February 7, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump shifts blame to aide as he refuses to apologize for racist video of Obamas

After first dismissing uproar over depiction of Obamas as apes, White House then said it was erroneously posted by staffer

Donald Trump said on Friday he made the call to post a now-deleted video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes but deflected blame for the move, causing new speculation in his orbit about whether the blame lay with the president or his aide Natalie Harp.

The brief clip, shared late Thursday night on Trump’s Truth Social account, appeared in a video pushing conspiracies about the 2020 election. Invoking racist tropes, the video depicted the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the bodies of cartoon apes dancing to The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Published: February 7, 2026, 2:43 pm

Federal judge reverses Trump’s freeze on $16bn for NY-NJ tunnel project

President reportedly wanted Dulles airport and Penn Station to be renamed after him in exchange for funding

A federal judge has reversed a freeze put on funds by Donald Trump for $16bn in enhanced rail links connecting New York and New Jersey amid reports that the US president wants major travel landmarks named after him in return for continued investment.

The Gateway Project will build a new commuter rail tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey under the Hudson River on the western side of New York City and repair a century-old tunnel used by more than 200,000 travelers and 425 trains daily.

Published: February 7, 2026, 3:27 pm

Outrage after US Congress votes to slash $125m in funding to replace toxic lead pipes

Move will hit Michigan, Illinois, New York and other states with highest levels of lead drinking water pipes the hardest

There is outrage among some politicians and activists after the US Congress voted to slash $125m for replacing toxic lead drinking water pipes that are particularly a threat to children.

The move will hit Michigan, Illinois, Texas, New York and other states with the highest levels of lead pipes the hardest. The cut was part of a broader government funding bill and particularly controversial in the context of the fight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding.

Published: February 7, 2026, 1:00 pm

Alarm bells sound over Trump’s ‘take over the voting’ call

Democracy experts say there is little doubt about president’s desire to interfere in elections this November

Donald Trump set off alarm bells earlier this week with comments that his administration should “take over the voting” in some states in the run-up to the 2026 midterms, which followed an unprecedented FBI raid on an election office in Georgia. Although election experts say it’s clear the president doesn’t have authority over elections, they warn the president’s corrosive rhetoric leaves little doubt about his intent.

For months, the Trump administration has stoked doubts about the integrity of American elections largely through lawsuits designed to create the impression states aren’t doing enough to keep ineligible voters off the rolls. That effort escalated significantly last week when the FBI raided the election office in Fulton county, Georgia and seized ballots, along with other materials, related to the 2020 election. Shortly after the raid, Trump escalated his attack even further, saying the federal government should take over elections.

Published: February 7, 2026, 11:00 am

Zelenskyy says US has set June deadline for Ukraine-Russia peace deal

Ukrainian president says Trump administration has proposed to host next round of trilateral talks in US

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the US has given Ukraine and Russia yet another deadline to reach a peace settlement, and is now proposing the war should end by June. The Ukrainian president also told reporters that both sides had been invited to further talks next week.

Zelenskyy said the Trump administration “will probably put pressure” on Ukraine and Russia to end the war by the beginning of the summer. “They say they want to get everything done by June,” he said. “They will do everything to end the war and they want a clear schedule of all events.”

Published: February 7, 2026, 2:38 pm

Use of Irish airport for US deportation flights to Israel called ‘reprehensible’

Irish politicians condemn use of Shannon airport by private jet en route to Israel, owned by Trump donor Gil Dezer

• Revealed: Private jet owned by Trump friend used by ICE to deport Palestinians to West Bank

Politicians in Ireland have said the use of an airport in County Clare by planes deporting Palestinians from the US to Israel is “reprehensible”.

A private jet owned by the Donald Trump donor Gil Dezer was chartered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for two separate flights that took detainees to Israel, a Guardian investigation revealed this week.

Published: February 7, 2026, 3:38 pm

No one owns our Arctic land, we share it, say Greenland’s Inuit

Greenland and its people were thrust into the global spotlight last year when Trump revived his demand that the US take control of the island for national security and to access its abundant mineral resources. For the Inuit people, who have lived here for centuries, no one owns the Arctic land

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:00 am

In your face: Close-up Photographer of the Year Awards 2026 – in pictures

Animals, insects, flora and fauna – the world photographed in close-up in the annual competition dedicated to micro and macro photography. Cupoty 7 was won by underwater photographer Ross Gudgeon, triumphing over 12,000 entries from 63 countries

Published: February 8, 2026, 9:00 am

‘People keep reinventing the same damn movie’: cinematographer Roger Deakins on 50 years behind the camera and his fears for film’s future

This master craftsman’s work has lit up everything from Bond to Blade Runner 2049. But as he publishes his memoir, why does he believe the artform he made his name in is in such decline?

Roger Deakins – cinematographer to the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese and Sam Mendes, whose work has earned him 14 Oscar nominations and two wins, five Baftas, a knighthood and a reputation for being the greatest practitioner of his craft alive – is struggling to explain just exactly what he does. “Argh!” he exclaims, when confronted by the question: what is cinematography?

“Well, I started off trying to be a still photographer, someone like Don McCullin. And it’s been a whole arc through cinematography. Now what is cinematography? I don’t know. It’s very different from still photography. But the essentials are the same. You’re trying to tell a visual story.” It is “very much a collaboration”, he continues; working with “hundreds of people” on films can be a “wonderful experience … I suppose I’m not answering your question, because actually I’ve got no idea,” he says. “The cliche is visual storytelling, but it’s much more than that.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 10:00 am

Lord of the Flies: the castaway classic is such excellent, surreal horror that you will feel sick throughout

Jack Thorne takes on William Golding – and you’ll never have felt so grateful to live under the rule of law, that ultimate dweeb’s charter

Castaway stories, from Cast Away to The Martian, often make for feelgood classics. They are tales about an ingenious individual overcoming huge odds, a triumphant metaphor for the human spirit. Here’s a funny thing: castaway stories featuring large groups of people lead to the exact opposite. Forced to self-organise, they end up eating each other. The exception is Lost; I don’t know what that was about. Polar bears?

Needless to say, I like them all. So it’s exciting to see a new kid on the block – or rather an old boy. William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, about a group of British schoolboys who crash-land on a desert island, has been part of the UK curriculum for more than 60 years. I wonder if we forget the books we’re forced to study, and are obliged to rediscover them in later life. I know this story well, but am not sure I can say I fully experienced it until this striking new BBC version (Sunday, 9pm, BBC One).

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 am

The Guide #229: How an indie movie distributed by a lone gamer broke the US box office

​In this week’s newsletter: Iron Lung, a largely unheralded indie horror game adapted for the big screen by a YouTuber is a hit of a very modern kind, built on blood, sweat and parasocial relationships

• Don’t get The Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Two very unusual films were released last weekend. One you will have absolutely heard of: Melania, the soft-focus hagiocumentary of the US first lady, which was plonked into thousands and thousands of often entirely empty cinemas across the globe by Amazon and Jeff Bezos in what is widely perceived as a favour-currier to the White House. Melania’s $7m takings in the US were marginally better than forecasted (and far ahead of the risible numbers for the film elsewhere) but, given the documentary’s vast cost, still represents a dramatic loss (especially if the rumour that Amazon paid for the film to be in some cinemas is true). Then again, this was a rare multimillion dollar film where the primary marker of success was probably not financial.

The other unusual film released last weekend you are less likely to have heard of, even though it dwarfed Melania’s takings. Adapted from a video game of the same name, Iron Lung is a grimy post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror in which a convict has to pilot a rusty submarine through an ocean of human blood on a distant planet. That peculiar plotline isn’t the most unusual thing about the film, though. No, what’s really remarkable is that Iron Lung came close to topping the US box office, earning $17m in its opening weekend, despite being entirely self-financed by an American YouTuber.

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 am

The ’Burbs review – Keke Palmer takes over from Tom Hanks for frothy TV remake

A new take on the 1989 horror comedy is a mostly engaging, Only Murders in the Building-adjacent mystery series buoyed by the charisma of its lead

We’re a little bit past the very worst of a mostly awful trend, where studio-owned streamers desperately rifle through back catalogues to find much-seen films they can needlessly contort into barely watched TV shows. Paramount did it with Fatal Attraction, American Gigolo and, shudder, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies; Warner gave us animated Gremlins and Aquaman shows, and Universal has tried with Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin and a pickup of Lionsgate’s The Continental: From the World of John Wick. It was all boringly inevitable and predictably pointless, but mercifully, that pipeline has now slowed.

Instead, there have been more recent examples of it actually working, film-to-TV extensions with slightly more thought attached. Shows such as The Penguin, Alien: Earth, It: Welcome to Derry, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Ted have found ways to move beyond their source material and focus on the why rather than the just-because. Peacock’s gentle new take on The ’Burbs, a 1989 Tom Hanks comedy horror that slowly found cult classic status, isn’t exactly a necessary next step, but it’s a mostly harmless, decently engaging one that only really reveals its limitations at the very end.

Published: February 7, 2026, 11:11 am

‘It’s become more about politics than music’: what will Bad Bunny bring to the Super Bowl?

Grammy-winning Puerto Rican star is in the center of US culture wars before leading this weekend’s half-time show

A few days after Christmas 2022, Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaetonero, appeared without warning on one of the most unlikely of stages: the roof of a Gulf Oil gas station in San Juan. To a massive crowd singing every word, he performed a surprise concert, along with friend and collaborator Arcángel, that was part hype-y music video shoot, part exultant post-tour homecoming, and part pointed critique. He ended the set with El Apagón (“The Power Outage”), a clubby protest anthem about local displacement and the rolling blackouts that have plagued Puerto Rico, a US “commonwealth” (read: colony), since Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Bad Bunny sang it from a roof on Santurce’s Calle Loíza, a thoroughfare in a former working-class Black neighborhood now dotted with Airbnbs. But you do not need the full context to get the show’s contagious energy. Though I have never walked Calle Loíza, nor do I speak Spanish, the gas station show is still my favorite concert to rewatch via online fan clips: electric, organic, genuinely popular. In terms of reach, critical acclaim and longevity, Bad Bunny rivals – and sometimes outsells – the likes of Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Drake, though it is hard to imagine those peers appearing so unguarded, so public, as he does on that roof.

Published: February 7, 2026, 10:03 am

Never mind the lit-bros: Infinite Jest is a true classic at 30

Forget its reputation as a performative read for a certain breed of intense young man, thirty years after its publication, David Foster Wallace’s epic novel still delivers, says the Crying in H Mart author

I’m not what you might consider Infinite Jest’s target demographic. The novel’s reputation precedes it as a book infamously few ever finish, and those who do tend to belong to a particular breed of college-age guys who talk over you, a sect of pedantic, misunderstood young men for whom, over the course of 30 years, Infinite Jest has become a rite of passage, much as Little Women or Pride and Prejudice might function for aspiring literary young women.

Most readers come to the novel in their formative years, but I was a late bloomer. It wasn’t until the winter of 2023 that, at the age of 34, smoking outside a party in Brooklyn, I found myself suddenly motivated to embark on the two-pound tome. A boy I knew from high school brought it up, and as I happened at the time to have developed a casual interest in those works one might attribute to the “lit-bro” canon (Bret Easton Ellis, Hemingway, etc), it seemed the appropriate time to take it on.

Published: February 7, 2026, 9:00 am

Brad Arnold of Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down dies aged 47

Lead singer died on Saturday, months after he announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer

Brad Arnold, the lead singer of the Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down, has died, months after he announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer. He was 47.

The band said in a statement on Saturday that Arnold “passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, in his sleep after his courageous battle with cancer”.

Published: February 7, 2026, 11:22 pm

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck: ‘Jacob Elordi! That hair! Those dreamboat eyes!’

Ahead of the Looney Tunes’ first fully animated feature, the pair discuss keeping young, their Hollywood crushes and why they don’t like CGI

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Ducks typically live between five and 10 years, and pigs 10 to 20. You first appeared on screen in 1935 and 1937, which makes you 91 and 89, respectively. What’s your secret to your eternally youthful looks?

Daffy Duck: Firtht of all, it’s very rude to comment on a duck’s age. Thecond of all, thank you for noticing how youthful I look. My thecret is very thimple – moisturise daily, stay hydrated and tell the artist who draws you to take out any wrinkles.

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

Anthems, agency and arias: baritone Davóne Tines on rewriting his role – and the rules

The acclaimed US opera singer refuses to restrict himself or his audience. His current Barbican residency sees him range across genres. Always ask questions, always engage, he says. He talks ‘capital O opera’ and big ideas

In performance, Davóne Tines is electrifying. In the first concert of the US bass-baritone’s 2025-26 residency at London’s Barbican Centre, he appeared at the back of the auditorium and then slowly descended towards the stage, spotlit and subtly miked. His unaccompanied voice fractured into stentorian booms, spat-out consonants and the violent crackle of mouth noises. This, unmistakably, was the musician whom the New Yorker announced back in 2021 was “changing what it means to be a classical singer”.

Since then, Tines has been named Musical America’s vocalist of the year, he has won a 2024 Chanel next prize for “international contemporary artists who are redefining their disciplines”. And he was awarded the 2025 Harvard arts medal for distinguished alumni of the Ivy League university who have demonstrated achievement in the arts. Recent winners of the latter include architect Frank Gehry and novelist Margaret Atwood. Unlike those cultural figureheads, Tines is not yet 40.

Published: February 7, 2026, 2:00 pm

My cultural awakening: Bach helped me survive sexual abuse as a child

For pianist James Rhodes, the composer’s music expressed feelings that he could not put into words – and kept helping him as his mental health suffered in adulthood

When I found a cassette tape of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, aged seven, it’s how I imagine a kid would feel seeing Messi play football and thinking: I have to do that with my life. By then, I had already been sexually abused by a teacher for two years, and despite showing all the signs of trauma – night terrors, twitching, wetting the bed, constant stomach aches – I obediently kept his secret. To me, the world was a war zone of pain. I was a shy, awkward, lonely kid, but alone in my bedroom with that piece of music, I found a little bit of light that was just for me. Hearing it for the first time was almost a religious experience.

People think classical music is dry, but Bach was anything but. Half of his 20 children died in infancy: there was no way to get rid of that grief other than through his music. Bach composed the Chaconne when his wife died suddenly, and he didn’t get to say goodbye or even go to the funeral. Even if you don’t know any of that, listening to it, on some level you will know. When you think it’s the end, it just carries on, like having one more thing to say to a person after they die. There’s so much truth and so much emotion hidden inside those 16 minutes of music.

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 am

Dining across the divide: ‘Tariffs are the one thing I agree with Donald Trump on’

Two Cornishmen agreed on the problems facing their home county. Would they see eye to eye on the solutions?

John, 41, St Austell

Occupation Automotive engineer

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Green time over screen time’: how to really look after your eyes

About 90% of vision loss can be prevented or treated. So what can you to do avoid eye damage, and what are just the inevitable ravages of age?

• Read more in The way you move series

The eyes are “the lamp of the body” according to the Bible; if they are healthy, the body is full of light, and if they are not, there is darkness.

Literally and metaphorically, it’s on the money. Our eyesight is one of the most important ways with which we interact with the world, and it interacts with us. We take our eyesight for granted, which is why it comes as such a shock when it starts to let us down.

Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

Avocados are a Super Bowl staple – but are they truly a miracle food?

Americans are expected to devour nearly 280m pounds of avocados during Super Bowl weekend. Are they actually healthy?

Most American adults today didn’t grow up with avocados, but we’ve certainly developed a hearty appetite for them. In 1990, the United States imported 38m pounds of avocados; by 2023, that number was 2,789m, mostly from Mexico.

On average, each of us eats about 20 avocados, or 9lbs of the fruit, a year – a sixfold increase from 1998. Super Bowl guacamole alone fuels a staggering demand for the fruit; in the lead-up to this Sunday’s game, Americans are expected to devour nearly 280m pounds of avocados, a historical record.

Published: February 7, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘I’ll marry this one’: the best (and worst) chocolate bars for Valentine’s Day, taste tested

Much like partners, there is a chocolate for everyone – from Hu’s vegan bar to a crowd-pleasing milk chocolate from Endangered Species

• Looking for Valentine’s Day gift ideas? Creative gift ideas for him, sentimental gifts for her and international gifts

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

Finding the perfect chocolate bar is a bit like dating. Some bars are an acquired taste, while others are love at first sight.

No matter your preference, there is a chocolate (and a person) out there for everyone. And with Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’re looking for the very best – the unique brands that go beyond your basic Godiva, Dove or Hershey’s. No Dubai chocolate either.

Best milk chocolate bar:
Endangered Species 48% Cocoa

Best dark chocolate bar:
Theo 70% Cacao

Published: February 7, 2026, 2:15 pm

This is how we do it: ‘Having sex with other people brought us closer, but also exposed insecurities’

Amber feared having sex with other women had ruined the best thing in her life, but Todd says exploring together has ultimately strengthened their partnership
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

The first time we had sex with a couple, I didn’t anticipate how destabilising it would feel

Published: February 8, 2026, 11:00 am

Blind date: ‘We didn’t kiss but we exchanged Instas, which among gay men is close to the same thing’

Alfie, 31, a playwright, meets Sam, 33, who works in tech

What were you hoping for?
To meet a silly softie with a penchant for the occasional deep chat.

Published: February 7, 2026, 6:00 am

The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome: ‘I was crushed by the pressure I put on myself’

This unofficial diagnosis describes the anxiety-driven, compulsive obsession with living as long as possible. While it might seem healthy to monitor your diet, exercise and biomarkers, it can come at a huge emotional cost

It was a pitta bread that finally broke Jason Wood. It arrived with hummus instead of the vegetable crudites he had preordered in a restaurant that he had painstakingly researched, as he always did, weeks before he and his husband visited. “In that moment, I just snapped,” he recalls. “I hit rock bottom, I got angry … I started crying, I started shaking. I just felt like I couldn’t do it any more, like I had been crushed by all this pressure I put on myself.”

Today, Wood, 40, speaks calmly. Neat and groomed, he seems orderly by nature. But at that time, his attempts to control every aspect of his life had spiralled. He painstakingly monitored what he ate (sometimes only organic, sometimes raw or unprocessed; calories painstakingly counted), his exercise regime (twice a day, seven days a week), and tracked every bodily function from his heart rate to his blood pressure, body fat and sleep “schedule”. He even monitored his glucose levels repeatedly throughout the day. “I was living by those numbers,” he says.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

The sneeze secret: how much should you worry about this explosive reflex?

It is one of the most powerful involuntary actions the human body can perform. But is a big sneeze a sign of illness, pollution or something else entirely?

How worried should we be about a sneeze? It depends who you ask. In the Odyssey, Telemachus sneezes after Penelope’s prayer that her husband will soon be home to sort out her house-sitting suitors – which she sees as a good omen for team Odysseus, and very bad news for the suitors. In the Anabasis, Xenophon takes a sneeze from a soldier as godly confirmation that his army can fight their way back to their own territory – great news for them – while St Augustine notes, somewhat disapprovingly, that people of his era tend to go back to bed if they sneeze while putting on their slippers. But is a sneeze an omen of anything apart from pathogens, pollen or – possibly – air pollution?

“It’s a physical response to get rid of something that’s irritating your body,” says Sheena Cruickshank, an immunologist and professor at the University of Manchester. “Alongside the obvious nasal hairs that a few people choose to trim, all of us have cilia, or microscopic hairs in our noses that can move and sense things of their own accord. And so if anything gets trapped by the cilia, that triggers a reaction to your nerve endings that says: ‘Right, let’s get rid of this.’ And that triggers a sneeze.”

Published: February 8, 2026, 10:00 am

Deafening, draining and potentially deadly: are we facing a snoring epidemic?

Experts say dangerous sleep apnoea affects an estimated 8 million in the UK alone, and everything from evolution to obesity or even the climate crisis could be to blame

When Matt Hillier was in his 20s, he went camping with a friend who was a nurse. In the morning she told him she had been shocked by the snoring coming from his tent. “She basically said, ‘For a 25-year-old non-smoker who’s quite skinny, you snore pretty loudly,’” says Hiller, now 32.

Perhaps because of the pervasive image of a “typical” sleep apnoea patient – older, and overweight – Hillier didn’t seek help. It wasn’t until he was 30 that he finally went to a doctor after waking up from a particularly big night of snoring with a racing heartbeat. Despite being young, active and a healthy weight, further investigation – including a night recording his snoring – revealed that he had moderate sleep apnoea. His was classed as supine, the most common form of the condition, meaning it happens when he sleeps on his back, and is likely caused by his throat muscles.

Published: February 7, 2026, 12:00 pm

In the decade since my sons left home, walking has brought us together

The exodus of grown children mostly happens without fanfare. For Lisa Walker, hiking the Camino turned into both a goodbye and a glimpse at the future

• Read more summer essentials

Don’t let them push you around, my youngest son said halfway through the Camino de Santiago. You don’t have to get up early if you don’t want to.

I didn’t know that was an option, replied his brother from his bunk.

Published: February 8, 2026, 1:00 am

The best women’s lingerie: 22 favourites for every mood and budget

Whether you want everyday comfort or a special set for Valentine’s Day, our fashion writer rounds up the styles that’ll have you hooked – from skimpy to supportive, recycled to racy

• The best Valentine’s Day gifts for 2026

Lingerie isn’t about dressing for someone else. The best lingerie will feel comfortable, supportive and genuinely good to wear, whether that’s an everyday staple or an investment piece.

The design of lingerie has never been better, with a wide variety of brands focusing on comfortable materials, breathability and support, as well as style. From ultra-soft lace that moves with the body to wireless bras that actually stay up, sometimes the best lingerie is all about subtle design details rather than extra frills.

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:00 am

Why western Sicily is Italy’s emerging arts hub

Art is helping to revitalise Sicily’s ghost towns and deserted urban spaces, with the earthquake-hit town of Gibellina becoming Italy’s first Capital of Contemporary Art

From the ostentatious baroque square of Quattro Canti all the way up to the Teatro Massimo, Palermo’s Via Maqueda is thick with tourists. Pomegranate juice sellers are setting up pyramids of fruit on their carts at gaps in the crowd and waiters are trying to reel in passersby with happy hour prices for Aperol spritzes. Amid the noise and movement, it’s easy to walk straight past number 206, whose arched doorway features a stone cross stained black with dirt – a clue to the building’s former use.

Convento dei Crociferi was abandoned for 30 years, until Sicilian power couple Andrea Bartoli and Florinda Saievi took over and transformed it into Palermo’s newest arts space, the Museum of World Cities, due to open at the end of February. Inside, a cloister with high, scalloped porticoes frames a verdant courtyard filled with palms and banana trees. Bartoli comes to meet me and enthusiastically pumps my hand before leading me up to the grand, marble-floored rooms on the first floor, which have been given over to a rather self-referential exhibition on urban change.

Published: February 8, 2026, 7:00 am

What links Derek Malcolm, Roger Ebert and Philip French? The Saturday quiz

From arctos and americanus to North America’s ‘other’ US, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Who is the only British female singer with seven No 1 singles (including as a featured artist)?
2 What was the alias of 15th-century criminal chaplain Robert Stafford?
3 What became the world’s first $5tn company in 2025?
4 Which hat was banned in Turkey in 1925?
5 D.G.REX.F.D is written on what everyday items?
6 Slightly Included and Very Slightly Included are grades of what?
7 What is North America’s “other” US?
8 Which watersport is usually added to make a quadrathlon?
What links:
9 Arctos (lay down); americanus (fight back); maritimus (goodnight)?
10 Dunkery Beacon; High Willhays; Urra Moor?
11 Fools and Mortals; Hamnet; King of Shadows; Nothing Like the Sun?
12 Roger Ebert; Philip French; Pauline Kael; Derek Malcolm; David Thomson?
13 Harmondsworth Barn, Hillingdon; Mathematical Bridge, Cambridge; Greensted church, Essex?
14 BYD; Changan; Chery; Geely; GWM?
15 Jack Broughton; London Prize Ring; Marquess of Queensberry?

Published: February 7, 2026, 7:00 am

The Epstein files reveal that a vast global conspiracy actually exists – sort of

The documents confirm what many have long assumed: elites live by their own special rules and codes of immunity

The millions of Jeffrey Epstein files dumped last Friday by the US Department of Justice will provide journalists, conspiracy theorists and interested members of the public with months of reading. And what they will read is enraging.

What makes these files so infuriating, however, is not just Epstein’s horrific predatory behavior, which is well-known, but the more mundane examples of elite conduct that the documents continue to expose. They vividly illustrate a world whose existence many everyday people, whether fevered with visions of the Illuminati or just jaundiced by banal anti-establishment cynicism, already suspected exists: an informal global club of powerful, ultra-rich people who all seemingly know each other, help one another out, and protect each other from the consequences of their depravity.

Published: February 7, 2026, 12:00 pm

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters

Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

The global publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism, a Guardian investigation has found.

The platform, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, allows members of the public to self-publish articles and charge for premium content. Substack takes about 10% of the revenue the newsletters make. About 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on its platform.

Published: February 7, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘Can Mette-Marit be queen after this?’: Rape trial and Epstein files bring double crisis for Norway’s royals

Marius Borg Høiby pleads not guilty in court while pressure mounts against his crown princess mother over Epstein friendship

There will be little to celebrate when Norway’s King Harald, Europe’s oldest reigning monarch, turns 89 later this month.

Two multigenerational crises have rocked the institution, causing its popularity to dip in polls of Norwegians and bringing a public glare that far exceeds that of previous scandals.

Published: February 7, 2026, 5:00 am

Resting seals and floating Marilyns: photos of the weekend

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

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:57 pm