Rubio visits Orbán, who has a warm relationship with the Trump administration, ahead of Hungarian elections in April with the two countries expected to sign civilian nuclear deal later today The EU’s foreign policy chief has denied claims levelled by the US that Europe is facing civilisational erasure, rejecting what she condemned as “fashionable euro-bashing” by Washington. Kaja Kallas also said the US was discovering that it could not settle the war in Ukraine without Europe’s involvement and consent. Continue reading...

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s documentary examines how humans and animals interact in the confines of captivity, but leaves some questions unexplored Traditional zoos are zones of hierarchy; animal voyeurism is encouraged but interspecies interactions are curbed, if not outright forbidden. Shot in various conservation parks and rescue centres across Argentina, Jessica Sarah Rinland’s sensuous documentary poetically foregrounds the physical and emotional contact that occurs between animals and their carers, even within these spaces of surveillance. From rare giant anteaters to flamingo colonies, the isolated creatures are stunningly varied. Interestingly, Rinland rarely frames the animals by themselves. Instead, we see them actively engaging with human workers during feeding or weighting routines, often in closeup that accentuates minute gestures and expressions. There are echoes of Rinland’s previous works, which lingered on the hands of archivists, farmers or ecologists; those in fact who relate to their environments in a tactile way. In the case of zoo workers, however, they deal not with inanimate plants or archival records, but living, breathing beings. The bonds between them and the animals are profound, but rarely friction-free. Continue reading...

A charming child’s-eye view of rural Ireland There’s a particular energy to novels written from the point of view of small children. Humour, of course, in the things the child misinterprets; pathos in the things they feel they must keep hidden; jeopardy in the dangers we can see, and they cannot. As any relative or babysitter can attest, even the sweetest child can become mind-numbingly dull when they’re all the company one has, so there’s a skill to charm without boring. The other skill is to find ways of enabling the reader to read over the child’s shoulder, as it were, to piece together for themselves the adult dramas to which a child’s natural egotism, or simple innocence, blinds them. In 1988, the longsuffering mother in Seán Farrell’s first novel, Frogs for Watchdogs, is stranded. This Englishwoman has had a boy and a girl with a handsome rogue of an Irish actor, but he has walked out on them. Asked to leave a commune unsuited to children, skint, too proud, perhaps, to return to the protection of well-heeled parents in England, she rents a farmhouse on the cheap in the deep countryside of County Meath, where she can grow vegetables, raise hens and a few sheep, and attempt to scrabble a living as a healer. (From the multiple dilutions her boy witnesses her perform, her fairly batty practice would seem to be some form of homeopathy with new age elements thrown in.) While her doubtless appalled parents insist on sending the oldest child, a forthright girl called B, to an English boarding school, B’s younger brother spends months running happily feral. Once he is eight, he will be old enough to follow her and be tamed and anglicised. Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell is published by John Murray (£14.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading...

T20 World Cup Group C updates, play from 9.30am GMT Sign up for The Spin newsletter | And you can mail Daniel Good morning, buongiorno, how you doin’? Welcome to the OBO of England v Italy. It seems bonkers to say, given the pedigree of both cricket nations, but we could have a proper contest on our hands. Continue reading...

Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch: email Daniel Buongiorno a tutti e benvenuti alle Olimpiadi invernali 2026 – decima giorno! It’s another ludicrously rammed day in Milan-Cortina, featuring six medal events and plenty else to keep us entertained from morning and into the night. Continue reading...

Videos created by new Seedance 2.0 generator go viral, including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting Business live – latest updates ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports. The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt. Continue reading...

This three-part documentary has remarkable access to people involved with this 00s TV hit. It’s an awful tale of body-shaming, humiliation and toxic treatment If you’re a millennial woman, America’s Next Top Model may have been your first experience of appointment TV. The show, which ran for 10 years from 2003, was an early reality juggernaut and made a household name of the supermodel Tyra Banks, its creator and host. At its peak, Top Model drew more than 100 million viewers globally, and left a niche but indelible impact on culture. “Smize”, meaning to “smile with your eyes”, is in the Collins dictionary, while Banks’ infamous tirade (“We were all rooting for you!”) at an unruly model still circulates as a meme. With its high-concept photoshoots and extreme makeovers, Top Model was ahead of its time in manufacturing viral moments. Today, however, the exacting critiques and body-shaming makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing, as gen Zers bingeing the show through the pandemic have pointed out. This latter-day reckoning is the peg for Netflix’s three-part docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is on Netflix Continue reading...

In what other field is a couple of hours’ work taking the credit for somebody else’s brilliance so venerated? Who earns the easiest money in showbiz? And when I say “earns”, what I actually mean is “gets paid”. If David Guetta and Calvin Harris can make up to $1m for a festival-headlining set – a couple of hours’ work – there can only be one answer: DJs. Because boil it down and all they’re doing for such vast sums of money is quite competently playing music that somebody else actually created. They are proficient labourers rather than artists. In what other field is taking the credit for somebody else’s brilliance so venerated? Ah, but they get people dancing, you say. Yet how difficult is it to get people to dance when they have come out with the specific intention of dancing, and a reasonable proportion of them are on another planet? These people have invested heavily in having a good time, so it invariably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Given the sheer number of floor-filling tunes made during the past six or seven decades, it’s hardly a great feat to choose a few that other people will tolerate or even like. Phil Mongredien is joint production editor for Guardian Opinion and Long Reads Continue reading...

Wins for promoted York against champions and Toulouse at Wakefield can only boost game’s appeal at a crucial time The opening weekend of Super League’s new era as a 14-team competition has been undeniably positive and packed with surprises. There have been sell‑out crowds, the attendance boom of 2025 continuing into 2026, and with two out of the three promoted teams winning it is clear the competition is largely unpredictable, which can only be a good thing. It seems some things, though, do not change. York may have stunned the champions, Hull KR, on Thursday while Toulouse defeated Wakefield on Saturday evening, but the final game of the opening round did not maintain the feeling that anything is possible. Continue reading...

If the Sunday already felt golden under the alpine sun for Team GB, it only glittered brighter after dark Super Sunday? More like Golden Sunday. From the sunlit snowboard slopes to the floodlit ice track, Great Britain delivered a one-two punch that will live long in Winter Olympic folklore. In the space of a few hours, two British duos – Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale, then Tabitha Stoecker and Matt Weston – turned near-misses and nerves into history-making golds. Bankes and Nightingale stunned the field to win the mixed team snowboard cross, capturing the first gold medal on snow in the nation’s 102-year history at the Winter Games. In the wild, elbows-out chaos of the event, the British duo seized a title few predicted was coming. Continue reading...

A humbling Six Nations defeat at Murrayfield has left the England coach with significant questions to answer Some of life’s certainties are impossible to sidestep. And to the trinity of death, taxes and rail delays can now be added a fourth familiar staple. When Scotland play England at Murrayfield it is now all but guaranteed the hosts will raise their game to Ben Nevis‑type heights and the visitors will be taken down a peg or three. Thus it was again at the weekend as Scotland reignited the bonfire of English vanities and once more sent the auld enemy homewards tae think again. A chastened England were exposed repeatedly in thought and deed by opponents unrecognisable from the sodden losers in Rome the previous week and, as a result, the visitors were brutally consigned to a fifth Calcutta Cup defeat in the past six editions. Continue reading...

About 220,000 people could be left empty-handed if a deal prioritises the company’s private equity backer BrewDog’s army of “punk” shareholders have voiced anger and frustration after the Scottish brewer confirmed plans for a possible sale that could render their investments worthless. So-called “equity punks” who spoke to the Guardian or posted on BrewDog’s shareholder forum expressed disappointment and accused the company, which has traded on its upstart ethos, of treatment “bordering on contempt”. Continue reading...

Pressure is telling on Scott Parker at Burnley while Dominik Szoboszlai is reaching new heights for Liverpool The lack of pressure on Scott Parker this season, despite a collection of desperate performances and an impending relegation, has been mystifying. Plenty at Turf Moor feel a strong sense of loyalty to Parker, especially the chairman, Alan Pace, but support in the stands is dwindling. The lack of backing in the winter transfer window left the squad short of quality and with limited routes out of their current predicament. The Burnley head coach’s Premier League record is miserable and the style of play is devoid of entertainment. At the weekend he had the chance to follow a first league victory in 17 matches at Crystal Palace with FA Cup progress against third-tier Mansfield, but instead Burnley were deservedly eliminated. The second-half efforts of the Clarets bordered on embarrassment in a half-full ground and it feels like things cannot continue like this much longer. Will Unwin Match report: Burnley 1-2 Mansfield Match report: Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle Match report: Liverpool 3-0 Brighton Match report: Burton 0-1 West Ham (aet) Match report: Hull 0-4 Chelsea Continue reading...

When Stephen Spencer began setting his daughter’s surreal stories to music, he had 36 followers. Now his banging pop miniatures have been streamed nearly 30m times – and are making parents cry I’m listening to the latest Stephen Spencer song when suddenly I burst into tears. Was it the falsetto vocals? The swirling harmonies? No, it was the lyrics: “What did Apple-the-Stoola say? He said ‘I love you’ twenty-sixty times.” Spencer, you see, has a unique lyrical collaborator: his three-year-old daughter. Over the last four months, he has been posting short songs online based on her stream-of-consciousness stories. There’s a smooth soul number about “a regular rabbit, who has regular ponytails just like me”. A song called Funchy the Snow-woman that could fit easily on to a 1975 album, but for its lyrical message about using a litter tray in the forest. And a festive tune about a Christmas cat called Harda Tarda, who hopes that Taja (“a funny way to say Santa”) will bring her “a doggy, a puppy and a ninja-bread man”. Continue reading...

Much of Messina’s cultural memory was destroyed in a 1908 earthquake, but the Italian government has secured a masterpiece by the port city’s greatest son On 28 December 1908, the city of Messina was struck by what is still considered the deadliest natural catastrophe in modern European history. In just 37 seconds, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed half its population and levelled much of the city. Along with homes, churches and monuments, invaluable historical sources and documents were lost, including works by Messina’s greatest son, Antonello da Messina, the artist widely credited with transforming the course of Renaissance art. Continue reading...

David Nicholls’s romantic saga is heading to stage, in the very city where its characters first felt the sparks fly. But how to cram 20 years of romance into two tune-filled hours? By focusing on the little moments, say its creators Playwright David Greig and director Max Webster are not afraid of a theatrical challenge. The last show they worked on together – The Lorax at London’s Old Vic in 2015 – transformed a complicated Dr Seuss story about capitalism, global heating and a grumpy forest guardian into a bright and breezy family show. Greig has tackled mammoth musicals (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and mountainside thrillers (Touching the Void), while Webster’s biggest hit, The Life of Pi, conjured up floating tigers and raging storms with theatrical flair and swagger. Now the two are collaborating on a staged musical of David Nicholls’s much-loved – and much-adapted – novel One Day, first published in 2009. That might sound like a relatively straightforward theatrical challenge but there are pitfalls aplenty when it comes to staging the near-iconic love story, which follows would-be couple Dex and Em’s relationship over the same day – 15 July – across two decades. A case in point: the fairly disastrous 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway. Continue reading...

Frank Lampard’s team started the season with a blaze of goals but Kim Hellberg’s side are now title favourites By WhoScored The last time these two teams met, on 25 November, Coventry were on an 18-match run that delivered 13 wins, 50 goals and a 10-point lead at the top of the Championship. Middlesbrough, by contrast, entered the game without a head coach. Rob Edwards had taken the Wolves job and his replacement, Kim Hellberg, watched from the stands as the team conceded two late goals to lose 4-2. Boro were still second in the table but were staring up at what looked like an unbridgeable gap to the leaders. And yet, as these two sides prepare to meet again a little more than two months later, the table tells a different story. Middlesbrough’s 2-1 win against Sheffield United was not just their sixth in a row, but it also took them above Coventry at the top. Continue reading...

Dry air indoors can cause an inflammatory reaction, yet so can cold, windy outdoor conditions – but turning down the heating and using a moisturising cream can help ‘This is kind of true,” says consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Craythorne. Human skin has evolved to retain water, thanks to a protective barrier on its surface. But that barrier isn’t totally watertight. Water is constantly moving across it, depending on the humidity of the surrounding air. Skin tends to be most comfortable at a relative humidity of about 40%. When the air around us is drier than that, water is more likely to leave the skin. That matters because the process of water escaping across the skin barrier is mildly inflammatory. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as Japan misses growth forecasts for the final three months of 2025 Competition among UK house sellers is running at an eleven-year high, giving buyers more opportunities and keeping prices pegged this month. Property portal Rightmove is reporting this morning that the average asking price for a newly listed homes dipped by just £12 this month, to £368,019. “Virtually flat prices in February really needs to be viewed alongside what happened in January. After the prolonged uncertainty in the run up to the late November Budget, plus the usual Christmas slowdown, we saw activity pick up again from Boxing Day. Many sellers, some of whom had been holding back because of the Budget, came to market in early 2026 with renewed confidence, which helped to drive that bumper January price rise. “I figured the GDP figures would be treated as past figures, but seeing the Nikkei average struggling to gain, there may be some slight impact.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: Google fails to include safety warnings when users are first presented with AI-generated medical advice Google is putting people at risk of harm by downplaying safety warnings that its AI-generated medical advice may be wrong. When answering queries about sensitive topics such as health, the company says its AI Overviews, which appear above search results, prompt users to seek professional help, rather than relying solely on its summaries. “AI Overviews will inform people when it’s important to seek out expert advice or to verify the information presented,” Google has said. Continue reading...

Analysis reveals big regional disparities as critics say Labour’s proposed levy could slow uptake of EVs Drivers in the south-west of England would pay nearly four times as much as those in London as a result of Labour’s mileage-based tax on electric cars, according to analysis of official data. The 3p-a-mile road charge, announced in the autumn budget and due to take effect in 2028, is expected to raise £1.1bn a year, partly offsetting the loss of fuel duty revenues as drivers switch from petrol to electric vehicles. Continue reading...

Logicians and their bonnets Today’s puzzle is a new twist on a classic genre: the “common knowledge” hat riddle in which logicians deduce facts about their hats based on what they know, and what they know others know. Head sums Continue reading...

Protesters welcome high court decision but many remain in legal limbo as government prepares to lodge appeal Retirees making up some of the nearly 3,000 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action since the organisation was proscribed have said they feel “vindicated” by the high court’s decision to overturn the ban this week. However, uncertainty remains over whether their trials under terror laws may still go ahead after the government revealed it plans to appeal against the judgment made on Friday by three of the UK’s most senior judges. Continue reading...

What is Blue Labour? Can Andy Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ be replicated elsewhere? And is the two-party system over in British politics? In a special episode, Pippa and Kiran take your questions. Please keep sending them to politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com You can listen back to Pippa and Kiran’s interviews with Andy Burnham at the Labour party conference here, and with the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, here. Watch John Harris’s Anywhere But Westminster in Gorton & Denton here. Continue reading...

Fresh fruit and other items now available but at high prices in territory where unemployment is estimated at 80% Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living. Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the conflict. Like hundreds of thousands of others across Gaza, Bakr needs a job. Continue reading...