With tech bros investing in vast underground homes to shield them from future horrors, a slew of ‘bunker-buster’ dramas like Paradise and Silo are asking: do they know something we don’t? Sam Altman’s got one – although Mark Zuckerberg’s is, apparently, bigger. Peter Thiel’s is described as “mega” and located in New Zealand. These days, a doomsday bunker (or, in Elon Musk’s case, an “apocalypse resort”) is de rigueur for any self-respecting billionaire – enough to make you wonder if they know something we don’t. A slew of recent dramas suggests that we are fascinated by such impressive underground real estate. Most audacious is Paradise on Disney+, in which tech-billionaire Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) funds a staggeringly elaborate building project under the not-so-subtle codename “Versailles”. Unlike Clive Owen’s Andy Ronson in A Murder at the End of the World, saving a few hand-picked individuals isn’t enough for this girl-boss-cum-tech-bro. Instead, Redmond has gone a step further, building “the world’s largest underground city”, an ersatz all-American suburb, accommodating 25,000 people while a climate catastrophe plays out above their heads. Continue reading...

Hillary Clinton to testify Thursday from their home in Chappaqua, while Bill Clinton will speak to panel friday Hillary Clinton will testify before congressional lawmakers investigating the ties of Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday in the first of two closed-door hearings that will also include her husband, Bill Clinton. Both have complained that they are being singled out unfairly to distract public attention from Donald Trump, who had a long friendship with Epstein before breaking with him. They also claim the testimony should occur in public. Continue reading...

BBC and Financial Times among those calling for frameworks to help publishers gain control over their content being ‘scraped and copied’ A coalition of UK media companies including the Guardian has urged industry peers to back global frameworks ensuring AI firms pay for the journalism they use. The news providers are calling on leaders across publishing, broadcasting, media and news to join their newly created group, with the aim of protecting “original journalism” and securing “the long-term sustainability of our industry”. Continue reading...

Will US intelligence learn its lessons from the Iraq war, and just how badly their legitimacy has been undermined? Four years ago, on 24 February 2022, the Russian military began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, having already occupied Crimea since 2014. Tensions between Ukraine’s government and western leaders on one side and the Kremlin on the other had been escalating for years, but war did not seem like a foregone conclusion, at least not to key European politicians and even to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president. Zelenskyy hadn’t even packed an emergency suitcase, though talk of war was everywhere. All that changed at 4.50am that Thursday morning. Russian missiles rained down on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and Russian troops invaded the eastern flank of the country on three different fronts. Zelenskyy and his family fled to an undisclosed location amid threats of Russian assassination squads. What has become the largest war on European soil since the second world war, what Putin has blandly called a “special military operation”, had begun. Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York Continue reading...

After the star made a fresh denunciation of the US president at an alternative State of the Union event, Trump returned fire at length on Truth Social Donald Trump has responded to a recent podcast appearance by Robert De Niro, in which he called the president “an idiot”. Speaking on Monday’s episode of The Best People with Nicole Wallace, De Niro, who has long criticised the politics, morals and competence of Trump, said: “He’s an idiot. We gotta get rid of him. He’s gonna ruin the country.” Continue reading...

Home Office figures also show a rise in asylum refusal rates, with government claiming tightening of rules is working UK politics live – latest updates The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in hotels has fallen to the lowest level for 18 months, Home Office figures show. The statistics released on Thursday also show a drop in asylum granting rates. Continue reading...

Deposition will be filmed but take place behind closed doors, with former president Bill Clinton scheduled to answer questions tomorrow Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is to testify behind closed doors later today before a congressional committee investigating the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. If they want answers, let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about. The FBI fired at least 10 people this week who worked on the special counsel’s investigation of Donald Trump for illegally taking classified documents after he lost the presidency and left office in 2021. A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, deporting immigrants to countries to which they have no ties, is unlawful. Dr Jerome Adams, who served as the US surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, denounced the president’s nomination of Dr Casey Means, a wellness influencer without a medical license Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $259m in federal Medicaid funds from his state “has nothing to do with fraud”, but is instead about Trump “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states”. Continue reading...

The Oman-mediated discussions take place amid a massive buildup of US warships and aircraft in the Middle East The state-run Oman News Agency has posted photos on social media showing the Omani foreign minister Badr Albusaidi sat with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Geneva. The accompanying message struck a positive tone, saying: [They] reviewed the Iranian side’s views and proposals, as well as the responses and inquiries of the US negotiating team, related to addressing the main elements of Iran’s nuclear programme and the necessary guarantees to achieve the desired agreement on this important issue in all its technical and monitoring aspects. [Albusaidi] stated: Efforts are continuing diligently and constructively, with the negotiators demonstrating unprecedented openness to new and creative ideas and solutions, and creating a supportive environment for progress and reaching a fair agreement with sustainable guarantees. Continue reading...

The ongoing battle over who will own the iconic film studio is set to have a major impact on what we, the viewers, get to watch in the future It’s not unusual for a corporate merger to take months and months to actually finalize, but even by those standards, the bidding for ownership of Warner Bros Discovery has been drawn out. Netflix made a deal to buy the Warner Bros side of the company – its studio and streaming businesses – late last year, but Paramount Skydance has been undeterred, aggressively pursuing what it claims to be a better offer for the entire WBD operation. After several failed attempts at a hostile takeover, WBD is considering a final Paramount offer, to which Netflix will have the opportunity to counter. What we have is what learned cinema scholars might refer to as an Alien v Predator situation, in honor of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox: whoever wins, we lose. That is to say that for cinema devotees, casual viewers and people working in the film industry, the ideal outcome would be for Warner Bros to continue as its own entity: an entertainment company making movies and TV series. But that’s clearly not going to happen – nor are any number of relatively superior options floated last year, like the idea of Apple, who worked with the studio on the global smash and Best Picture nominee F1, buying Warner instead. They’re still a massive corporation, but they’ve shown a willingness to spend on major (and theatrically released!) projects like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and have such a thriving business in other areas that they could afford to run Warner as a real studio, trying to continue the company’s recent hot streak. Continue reading...

In the second episode of a new series, reporter Matthew Cassel travels across the West Bank to document what daily life looks like under deepening Israeli occupation. In this episode he travels from Bethlehem to Nablus, to ask those living there if a Palestinian state is possible amidst an increasingly entrenched settler network. Continue reading...

A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives There’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts – and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them. We’ve entered into a Faustian pact with these companies: “While it’s brilliant to have access to high-quality products and software, very often for ‘free’, it’s important to remember that there is a trade-off involved – often of our personal data and privacy,” says Lisa Barber, tech editor at Which? We give these companies our attention and our information, which they then turn into big bucks and apparently unassailable monopolies. Continue reading...

Theatre says it will harness art ‘to inspire societal shifts towards restorative relationship with nature’ From “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” to “one touch of nature made the whole world kin”, some of the most famous lines in William Shakespeare’s works are about the relationship between humans and the environment. It is this connection with the bard’s work that has inspired Shakespeare’s Globe to launch its first climate playwriting prize for 2026, which it says will harness the skills of storytellers and artists to “inspire societal shifts towards a restorative relationship with nature”. Continue reading...

Murderous governments and armed groups always considered reporters like Marie Colvin a nuisance – now they see them as legitimate targets A friend wrote to me last week to tell me that my name appeared in the Epstein files. “But it’s for a good cause,” he wrote. “Nothing sinister.” In 2012, shortly after my friend and colleague Marie Colvin was killed in Homs, Syria, I met with the now-disgraced Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen. Rød-Larsen was a renowned fixer who had negotiated the 1993 Oslo accords. 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 Continue reading...

Some say the technology is devaluing their work, while others reckon it is not yet – and might never be – good enough to replace them entirely Workers grappling with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence have said they feel “devalued” by the technology and warned of a downward trajectory in the quality of work. Recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund found AI would affect about 40% of jobs around the world. Its head, Kristalina Georgieva, has said: “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.” Continue reading...

Spurred on by a vision of the Shakers’ founding leader, Celia Rowlson-Hall masterminded the whirl of movement in Mona Fastvold’s feverish film ‘I’ll tell you something I’ve not told anyone,” says Celia Rowlson-Hall. “This might make me sound a little wild, but I don’t care.” The choreographer is recounting her experience on The Testament of Ann Lee, a fever dream of a film starring Amanda Seyfried as the leader of 18th-century Christian sect the Shakers, whose ecstatic prayer rituals could involve dancing for days. “The night before we started filming, I was sleeping and, literally, the ghost of Ann Lee was over my bed with angels around and she said: ‘Go forth!’” Rowlson-Hall laughs at herself for revealing this. “Was that my imagination allowing myself to go forth? Maybe, probably,” she smiles. “It was so intense that I will never forget it.” In Mona Fastvold’s film, we see Lee, a blacksmith’s daughter from Manchester, having vivid religious visions that trigger her evangelism. Much like creative visions, I say. Maybe in a different time Lee would have been an artist? “She was an artist, without a doubt,” says Rowlson-Hall. To be an artist, she continues, “you have to believe in more than just what you see in front of you. It’s a concoction of faith and drive, a little delusion and a lot of energy. Like gunpowder.” Lee definitely had those qualities, leading the Shakers to the US, preaching piety, pacifism, celibacy and the confession of sins, and inspiring devotion as well as ire. Continue reading...

Powerful case studies can’t make up for this book’s superficiality when it comes to the broader issues ‘We are today in need of more humility in how we frame geographies of the mind,” says Gavin Francis, a GP and travel writer. In his new book he attempts to combine both disciplines as he treks the uncanny topography of mental illness. The journey is divided into chapters that explore various genres of human anguish – clinical anxiety, trauma, bipolar disorder, depression and psychosis – as well as autism and ADHD. He attempts to summarise each condition’s history in roughly 20 pages, evaluate past and contemporary theories, and weigh up the efficacy of treatments. To call this ambitious is to break new frontiers in understatement. Continue reading...

At least 23 people were injured in overnight strikes, with 420 drones and 39 missiles used by Russia to target Ukraine, Kyiv says Defending Nato’s eastern flank in case of a potential Russian aggression would cost at least €1.2tn ($1.42 trillion), Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski said in a speech to parliament, Reuters reported. “Defending the countries of Nato’s eastern flank in the event of a potential Russian aggression would cost at least twelve hundred billion euros - twenty-four times more than the Polish defence budget,” he warned. “Despite what its propaganda claims, Russia is by no means winning. Don’t fall for it. Russia is not, and never has been, invincible.” Continue reading...

Major restructure by retail technology business will lead to reduction of about 5% of global workforce Business live – latest updates Ocado is to cut 1,000 jobs as the retail technology business attempts to slash costs by £150m in a major restructure. The group confirmed about 5% of its global workforce is being cut, with about two-thirds of the job losses affecting its UK operations. Continue reading...

‘Index of repression’ includes smears, disinformation and harassment, according to advocacy group Palestinian solidarity is being “silenced, criminalised and sanctioned”, according to an advocacy group that says it has recorded more than 900 examples of repression across Britain in the last six years. People who have been targeted have suffered smears, disinformation, harassment, doxing (having private or identifying information published online), visa cancellations, financial blacklisting, loss of employment and arrest, according to the European Legal Support Center, which along with the research group Forensic Architecture has created the “index of repression”. Continue reading...

MPs raise cases of honeymooners and other Britons caught out by new passport requirements as minister rejects calls for a grace period The Home Office has dismissed as “absurd” claims that it failed to properly communicate new border rules that left some British dual nationals at risk of being denied boarding flights to the UK. During a heated session in parliament on Wednesday, the Home Office minister Mike Tapp suggested that media coverage in the Guardian and BBC reflected the department’s efforts to publicise the changes. Continue reading...

The Palace hero must wonder how things have gone so wrong so quickly, but still hopes ‘to shift the narrative’ Dean Henderson became a cult hero in south London after saving a penalty in Crystal Palace’s victory against Manchester City in last season’s FA Cup final. The England goalkeeper then boosted his popularity when he dropped into a local pub as supporters celebrated August’s penalty shootout victory over Liverpool in the Community Shield and put £1,000 behind the bar. Henderson, made captain when Marc Guéhi was sold to Manchester City in January after Palace were humbled in the Cup by non-league Macclesfield, must be wondering how things have turned sour at Selhurst Park so quickly. Supporters turned on the manager, Oliver Glasner, during the first leg of the Conference League playoff against Zrinjski Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina last week and demanded his sacking after another unconvincing performance in the 1-1 draw. Continue reading...

Wendy Faith and Alesi Diana Denise were taken into custody under laws that have outraged LGBTQ+ community and rights activists Two women have been arrested and detained in Uganda after allegedly kissing in public, an act of “same-sex activity” which can lead to a life sentence in the east African country.. Wendy Faith, a 22-year-old musician known as Torrero Bae, and Alesi Diana Denise, 21, were taken into custody after police raided their rented room in Uganda’s north-west Arua City last week. Continue reading...

Half a century ago, the famed New York venue run by a former marine and folk singer was ground zero for the punk and new wave scenes. Now the bands who played there are being celebrated on a 101-track box set Fifty years ago, a dive bar in New York’s East Village started to attract attention as a new hub for rock music. Initially, this was a whisper conveyed in a handful of small-circulation music magazines. Then, celebrated musicians, record label executives, hip journalists and photographers, followed by the influencers of that era, began making a beeline for 315 Bowery, the home of CBGB. Inside, an array of young, unknown artists were making music that would change rock’s sound and look, attitude and aesthetic. These outsiders created a template for punk, spoken word, powerpop, new wave, no wave, mutant funk, hardcore and so much more besides. Continue reading...

Some on the right portray this TikTok phenomenon as tantamount to treason. That says more about them than the fans of Chinese culture As it’s Chinese lunar new year, it would not be surprising if you’ve found yourself scrolling through some China-inspired content. But before you click the heart on a TikTok of paper lanterns or mouthwatering noodles, think twice. As an unsuspecting citizen, you may well be participating in a geopolitical battle where western civilisation itself is on the line. This isn’t the plot of a mediocre action thriller on Amazon Prime – this is “Chinamaxxing”, an internet trend that has got some commentators worrying that gen Z are about to topple the west from the inside. Coco Khan is a writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK Continue reading...

Emily wants Ananya to load the machine methodically. Ananya is happy with her more random approach. Whose argument stacks up? You decide • Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror There is a correct way to load a dishwasher. Ananya’s haphazard method makes no sense My method works fine. By dictating how it should be done, Emily is being superior and controlling Continue reading...