87 minutes ago The Observer view: Selling a piece of fruit for £4m isn’t bananas, it’s decadent. Art is better than this

The sale of Maurizio Cattelan’s work, Comedian, to a crypto entrepreneur is a grim concept that has little to do with disruptionPaulina Brandberg, the Swedish minister for gender equality and work life, has a phobia of bananas so severe, her aides check rooms for the fruit before she’s due to enter them. Like other sufferers of this most unlikely of conditions, she is triggered by the merest traces of banana: a skin mouldering in a far-off wastepaper basket; a lingering smell; the sense that until recently something bendy and yellow lurked next to the perfectly innocent apples and oranges in the bowl on that coffee table.We can only hope, then, that the minister was – trigger warning – nowhere near the big auction house news of last week, in which a banana sold for $5.2m (£4.1m) at...

Economics

3 hours ago Storm Bert brings Scotland to a standstill as snow, wind and rain collide

Widespread disruption was felt throughout the country.

Events

4 hours ago Major UK supermarket wants to bring in 'facial recognition' to stop 'very real threat'

Richard Walker, the boss of Iceland, confirmed on Linkedin that he would 'happily' give facial recognition a trial in his stores, as long as it was 'legal and proportionate'

Events

4 hours ago Fleet of drones is spotted over major US airbase in Britain where they are building facilities to house nuclear weapons

The largest American airbase on British soil was buzzed by drones this week, amid unconfirmed reports that fighter planes were dispatched to intercept the encroaching aircraft.

Events

4 hours ago I’ve joined Bluesky and it feels like a breath of fresh air – in some ways | John Naughton

The flourishing new platform may be like Twitter once was. The problem is the limited algorithmic scope of all social mediaAs I write, there’s a window on my laptop screen that is providing a live view of a stampede. It’s logging the numbers of people joining the social network Bluesky. At the moment, the number of registered users is 20.5 million. By the time you read this there will be more than 30 million of them, judging by the rate that people are currently joining.The proximate cause of it is the role that Elon Musk, owner of X (née Twitter), played in the election of Donald Trump, when a significant proportion of the platform’s 200 million-plus users realised that they’d been had – that they had, in effect, been useful idiots for Musk on his path to the centre of political power....

Politics

5 hours ago Storm Bert live updates: Man dies after tree falls on car as ‘worst weather yet to arrive’

Scores of flood alerts issued across UK as major rail routes and roads closed amid ‘avalanche risk’ in mountains

Events

5 hours ago Chef left with horror injuries after 'front of the bus caved in' on him

Chef Gideon Ingham, 32, was travelling into work on a Bee Network bus in Manchester when it ploughed into the back of another stationary bus - leaving him with devastating injuries

Events

5 hours ago Terrifying World War Three map reveals how quickly Russian missiles could hit major cities

A terrifying map has shown where Russian president Vladimir Putin could fire his Oreshnik missiles, and how fast they would impact European cities like London, Warsaw and Paris

Events

5 hours ago M4 long delays and Severn Bridge closed due to Storm Bert chaos and disruption

There is congestion on parts of the M4 and main roads in Wales as well as rail disruption as Storm Bert batters the UK

Events