26 h. ago The Guardian view on Iran’s protests: old tactics of repression face new pressures | Editorial

A brutal regime has failed to safeguard either the country’s physical security or basic living standards. But Donald Trump’s threats to intervene won’t help civiliansThe internet blackout across Iran is meant to prevent protests from spreading, and observers from witnessing the crackdown on them. But it’s also emblematic of the deep uncertainty surrounding this unrest and the response of a regime under growing pressure.Rocketing inflation and a tanking currency sparked the protests in late December. They have since broadened and spread. Videos showed thousands marching in Tehran on Thursday night and people setting fire to vehicles and state-owned buildings.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. Continue reading...

Events

26 h. ago The Guardian view on living more creatively: a daily dose of art | Editorial

It can make us healthier, happier and live longer. Engaging in culture should be encouraged like good diet and exerciseThe second Friday in January has been dubbed “Quitter’s Day”, when we are most likely to give up our new year resolutions. Instead of denying ourselves pleasures, suggests a new batch of books, a more successful route may be adding to them – nourishing our minds and souls by making creativity as much a daily habit as eating vegetables and exercising. Rather than the familiar exhortations to stop drinking, diet, take up yoga or running, there is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that joining a choir, going to an art gallery or learning to dance should be added to the new year list.Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt, professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London, brings together numerous research projects confirming what we have always suspected – art is good for us. It helps us enjoy happier, healthier and longer lives. One study fou...

Politics

49 h. ago The Guardian view on the new global disorder: Britain and Europe must find their own path | Editorial

Donald Trump’s Venezuela policy confirms he has no time for rules or process. America’s allies must find new ways to guarantee their own interestsOccasionally, history generates smooth changes from one era to another. More commonly, such shifts occur only gradually and untidily. And sometimes, as the former Downing Street foreign policy adviser John Bew puts it in the New Statesman, history unfolds “in a series of flashes and bangs”. In Caracas last weekend, Donald Trump’s forces did this in spectacular style. In the process, the US brushed aside more of what remains of the so-called rules-based order with which it tried to shape the west after 1945.The capture of Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro has precedents in US policy. But discerning a wider new pattern from the kidnapping is not easy, especially at this early stage. As our columnist Aditya Chakrabortty has argued this week, the abduction can be seen as a assertion of American power, but also as little more than a c...

Politics

49 h. ago The Guardian view on Ofcom versus Grok: chatbots cannot be allowed to undress children. | Editorial

A wave of humiliating sexualised imagery must prompt regulators and politicians to step upAn online trend involving asking Grok, the Elon Musk-owned chatbot, to undress photographs of women and girls and show them wearing bikinis has rightly sparked outrage in the UK and internationally. Earlier this week Liz Kendall, the science and technology secretary, described the proliferation of the digitally altered pictures, some of which are overtly sexualised or violent, as “unacceptable in decent society”. What happens next will depend on whether she and her colleagues are prepared to follow through on such remarks. The government’s generally enthusiastic approach to AI, and the growing role they see for it in public services, do not inspire confidence in their ability to confront such threats.In addition to the deluge of bikini images, the Internet Watch Foundation, a charity, has evidence that Grok Imagine (an AI tool that generates images and videos from prompts) has been used to crea...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on Britain and Europe: time to move together, faster and further | Editorial

The chaos that Donald Trump is causing in the world makes the case for continental solidarity and explicit repudiation of Brexit divisions Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for 2026 was to talk more about the domestic issues that concern British voters. Donald Trump knocked that plan off course. US intervention in Venezuela inevitably demanded the prime minister’s attention, as did this week’s summit of Ukraine’s allies, the “coalition of the willing”, in Paris. Progress towards agreeing security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace deal with Russia was overshadowed by Mr Trump restating his ambition to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. The dust had not settled when American special forces boarded a Russian-flagged oil tanker in European waters, ostensibly to enforce a blockade against Venezuela.Prime ministers have to multitask, but under these circumstances it is understandable if Sir Keir’s mind has been filled with foreign affairs. He should be used to this by now. Mr Trump’...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on granting legal rights to AI: humans should not give house

Anthropomorphising tech helps Silicon Valley shares to soar, but our empathy should be directed to worthier causesMost readers of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun will have been moved by the portrait of its eponymous AI narrator. As a solar-powered “artificial friend”, bought as a companion and potential substitute for a sick teenage girl, Klara fulfils her duties with a loving loyalty that makes it impossible to think of her as a mere piece of tech.Brilliant, thought-provoking fiction. But back in the real world, anthropomorphising AI may not be such a clever idea. During the summer, Anthropic, a leading tech company, announced that in the interests of chatbot welfare, it was allowing its Claude Opus 4 model to avoid supposedly “distressing” conversations with users. More broadly, amid explosive growth in AI capacities, there is emerging speculation over whether future Klaras may even deserve to be accorded legal rights like human beings. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Britain's hidden heritage which leaves thousands of artefacts unable to view

Britain's hidden heritage which leaves thousands of artefacts unable to view  Guardian Series

Politics

3 d. ago Justin Baldoni claims Blake Lively used sex scene to sabotage him in latest legal filing in It Ends With Us lawsuit

Baldoni, 41, complained to his ex-agent at WME, Danny Greenberg, on December 30, 2023 about a 'really, really bad week' he had directing the film amid creative clashes with Lively, 38.

Society

4 d. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s raid in Caracas: oil matters, but it’s not the whole story | Editorial

The seizure of Venezuelan leader was induced by the prize of petroleum, but driven by spectacle, geopolitics and domestic politicsIt’s all about oil. That was the reason Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader illegally abducted by US forces at the weekend, had given for Donald Trump’s fixation with his country. A better way to think about Venezuela is that oil was necessary but not sufficient. The presence of vast reserves made Mr Trump’s interest understandable – if Venezuela’s main export was bananas this would not have happened. But oil alone cannot explain the timing or scale of the move.Venezuelan crude is extra-heavy as well as expensive and slow to bring online; it will not immediately transform US energy systems, nor rescue refineries that have already adapted to years without it. Instead, oil is the “prize” around which other agendas cohere. These include future profits for US firms; modest downward pressure on oil prices; depriving China of a meaningful ally in Am...

Politics

4 d. ago Molly Parkin obituary: Artist, writer, fashion editor and Swinging Sixties icon dies aged 93

Known for her flamboyant dress sense, foul-mouthed charm and string of famous lovers, the fashion editor, author, artist and self-described ‘astral twin’ of Elizabeth Taylor lived a dazzling life of creativity and hedonism

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on Europe’s response to ‘America first’ imperialism: too weak, too timid | Editorial

Sir Keir Starmer and European leaders must defend the rule of international law, as a dangerous new world order emergesThe initial reaction of European leaders to Donald Trump’s illegal military intervention in Venezuela was not only weak, it also had the briefest of shelf lives. Refusing on Sunday to condemn the attack as a breach of international law, European Union member states called hopefully for “a negotiated, democratic, inclusive and peaceful solution to the crisis, led by Venezuelans”. The delusional nature of that response was laid bare as Mr Trump told reporters the same day: “We’re in charge.”So much for the restoration of democracy. The US president also repeated threats of further military action, should the repressive regime left behind when Nicolás Maduro was seized fail to do Washington’s bidding. As Mr Trump’s marginalising of the Nobel prize-winning opposition figurehead María Corina Machado illustrated early on, the will of Ven...

Politics

6 d. ago The Guardian view on the US seizure of Maduro: Trump has turned the world’s superpower into a rogue state | Editorial

The illegal abduction of Venezuela’s president, and threat to ‘run’ his country, is a dangerous act. Its repercussions will be felt far beyond the regionAmid the immense confusion surrounding the US strikes on Venezuela, the seizure of the president, Nicolás Maduro, and Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will “run” the country and “take back the oil”, one thing is clear – they set a truly chilling precedent. The US has a grim history of interference, invasion and occupation in the region, but the early hours of Saturday saw its first major military attack on South American land. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Mr Trump declared. The decision to unilaterally attack another country and abduct its leader – days after he publicly sought an off-ramp – has still wider repercussions. It should alarm us all.Venezuelans have endured a repressive, kleptocratic and incompetent regime under Mr Maduro, widely believed to have stolen the last el...

Politics

7 d. ago Fresh Donald Trump health fears sparked as president may be 'killing himself' with aspirin

Concerns over President Donald Trump’s health are mounting after he admitted to significantly increasing his daily meds dose to maintain “nice, thin blood” defying medical advice

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on Gaza’s winter: the world must take heed as Palestinian suffering deepens again | Editorial

Families are struggling to survive amid the devastation. Israel’s ban on international NGOs will worsen this disasterAs Gaza enters the bleakest period of winter, children are dying of hypothermia, drowning in flooded camps and burning to death as their families try to cook in flimsy tents. Israel destroyed nine out of 10 homes over more than two years of war. Camped amid the ruins, Palestinians struggle against strong winds, heavy rain and freezing temperatures. Aid deliveries resumed following the ceasefire, staving off the famine that had taken hold in parts of the territory, but remain wholly insufficient: 1.6 million people face acute food insecurity. The sanitation infrastructure has collapsed.The UK, Canada, Japan, France and six other nations have jointly warned that the situation is catastrophic. Yet Israel is now deepening one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. On Tuesday, it announced that it is deregistering 37 NGOs active in Gaza. They must cease all operations t...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on mRNA vaccines: they are the future – with or without Donald Trump | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we examine how the White House’s war on vaccines has left the future of a key technology uncertain and up for grabsThe late scientist and thinker Donald Braben argued that 20th-century breakthroughs arose from scientists being free to pursue bold ideas without pressure for quick results or rigid peer review. The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines seemed to validate his claim: emergency conditions sped up trials, relaxed regulatory sequencing and encouraged scientists to share findings before peer review. Out of that sprang one of the great scientific success stories of our age: mRNA vaccines. These use synthetic genetic code to train the immune system to defend itself against viruses. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose work enabled the mRNA Covid vaccine, went on to win the Nobel prize. Their breakthrough suggests that loosening traditional constraints could...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on the new Monroe doctrine: Trump’s forceful approach to the western hemisphere comes at a cost | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today, how US foreign policy has dramatically – and alarmingly – turned towards Latin America and the CaribbeanDonald Trump is not generally noted as a student of history. Yet over the past year, his decisive reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Americas has revived a playbook dating back two centuries, to the fifth president, James Monroe. Now the 47th is doubling down. An anti-interventionist is having second thoughts. Remarks that sounded at first like bad jokes or random outbursts from the presidential id have become more sinister through repetition or accompanying actions. Only a fool would take all of Mr Trump’s comments literally – but they should certainly be taken seriously.He has refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state. He threatened to seize the Panama canal. He has imposed swing...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on antibiotics: recent breakthroughs are great news, but humanity is losing the bigger race | Editorial

Our magic bullets are increasingly rare and ineffective. The golden age of discovery is over and the way we develop and use drugs needs to changeDuring her tenure as director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan used to say that all of the “easy” antibiotics had already been found. Her point was that in responding to the urgent threat of antibiotic-resistant infections, we would struggle to find new medicines – or preserve the ones we have – if we didn’t find new ways of working. She was right.Since 2017, just 16 antibiotics have gained widespread regulatory approval – mostly close relatives of medicines already in use and so unlikely to evade resistance for long. The development of new ones is a slow and unprofitable business, curative medicines being less lucrative than ones treating longer-term conditions. And the scientific outlook remains bleak.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to s...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on the new space race: humanity risks exporting its old politics to the moon | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look skyward, where a new lunar contest mirrors humanity’s struggle to live within planetary limitsDuring the cold war’s space race, the Apollo moon missions were driven by the need to prove American superiority. Having made that political and technological point with the 1969 moon landing, the contest between Moscow and Washington petered out. A new dash across the skies kicks off in 2026, reigniting geopolitical competition under the guise of “peaceful exploration”. The moon’s south pole is emerging as the most valuable real estate in the solar system, offering “peaks of eternal light” for solar arrays and ice deposits in craters shielded from the sun.The US and a China-led bloc are eyeing the lunar surface and its potential to control a post-terrestrial economy. Space had been humanity’s last commons, supposedly shielded by the 1967 UN outer space treaty that bans state ...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on adapting to the climate crisis: it demands political honesty about extreme weather | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justiceThe record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on May 2026 elections: a new political geography is coming into view across Britain | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at the impact of devolution on growing volatility of party political allegianceNext year will be pivotal in British politics, and 7 May will be the point around which things pivot. Elections to local councils, the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Senedd will give millions of voters across the UK a chance to express party preferences. Their verdicts could imperil Labour and Conservative leaders. In Wales, Labour might be sent into opposition for the first time since devolution. Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are set to make substantial gains. At Holyrood, the Scottish National party (SNP) is on course for a majority. That would be an extraordinary defiance of political gravity for a party weighed down by nearly two decades of incumbency.In England, both Labour and the Tories risk losing scores of councillors as their vote shares are gobbled up by the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and ...

Politics