16 h. ago Two benefits set to be replaced by Universal Credit this April

The DWP is sending letters to some benefit claimants with jsut a few months left to switch to Universal Credit or lose payments

Politics

25 h. ago In an effort to unplug, younger generations are bringing back letter writing in epic fashion

Writing and sending letters evokes a powerful sense of nostalgia

Politics

47 h. ago The Guardian view on ICE and Renee Good’s killing: Trumpism’s brutal tactics don’t end with migrants | Editorial

The US president wants Americans to believe they are facing an emergency. The real danger is from his administrationIn Minnesota, armed and masked agents are ripping families apart. They are seizing parents while they wait with their child at a bus stop, going door to door seeking undocumented migrants and breaking car windows to drag people out. Last Wednesday an officer shot dead Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American citizen. Her killing is a tragedy for all who loved her, and most of all for the three children left motherless. It also marks her country’s crossing of a Rubicon.Where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) once preferred to keep a low profile, it now seeks publicity and confrontation – pumped up on billions of dollars in funding, the aggression and brazenness of the administration and the licensing of bigotry. Continue reading...

Events

52 h. ago Prison tutor jailed after sending explicit love letters to inmate

The court heard handwritten letters from Murphy containing “explicit romantic and sexual content” were found in the prisoner’s cell

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s assault on the Fed: it is part of an affordability blame game | Editorial

Attacking Jerome Powell distracts from Republicans’ thin legislative record and policies that continue to squeeze American household incomesThe US government’s authoritarian and vexatious attack on Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, should be seen in the light of America’s affordability crisis, which Donald Trump once dismissed, but is now scrambling to claim as his cause. The cost of living is eroding his support ahead of the congressional midterms. By launching a legal assault on the Fed, Mr Trump is trying to shift blame for borrowing costs.Yet despite controlling the presidency, Senate and the House, Republicans have passed little beyond a large tax-cutting bill that benefits the rich. They have not legislated on housing supply, childcare, healthcare costs or wages. Indeed most of their actions are worsening affordability, notably deferring action even though millions face a sharp rise in their health insurance bills. Mr Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for credit card ca...

Politics

5 d. ago Brooklyn Beckham faces calls to change his surname as ongoing family feud continues

Brooklyn Beckham has sparked controversy with his parents after sending them a legal letter, now a First Dates star has suggested he ditch the Beckham name in a viral TikTok

Politics

5 d. ago The Guardian view on regulating big tech: politicians must back Ofcom’s challenge to Musk | Editorial

A flood of non-consensual deepfake bikini shots on X is putting the UK’s Online Safety Act to the testThe unleashing on X (formerly Twitter) of a torrent of AI-generated images of women and children wearing bikinis, some in sexualised poses or with injuries, has rightly prompted a strong reaction from UK politicians and regulators. Monday’s announcement that X is being investigated was Ofcom’s most combative move since key provisions in the Online Safety Act came into force. None of the other businesses it has challenged or fined have anything like the global reach or political clout of Elon Musk’s social media giant. Whatever happens next, this is a defining moment. What is being defined is the extent to which some of the wealthiest companies on the planet are under democratic control.But the announcement is only a first step. Ofcom has given no indication of how long its investigation will take. On Friday Downing Street described as insulting the decision to li...

Politics

6 d. ago Five moments that led to Brooklyn Beckham's decision to block his own parents

The public and bitter fallout between Brooklyn Beckham and his family wages on with the 26-year-old sending a legal letter asking them to stop contacting him - we take a look at some of the reasons he may have iced them out of his life

Politics

7 d. ago The Guardian view on Europe’s stalling night train revival: don’t let it hit the buffers | Editorial

The most romantic way to traverse the continent is environmentally friendly and popular with the public. But market challenges need addressingWhen the European Union made its 2020 commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century, there was a wave of excitement about what that might mean for the continent’s most romantic form of travel. The golden era of night trains had, it was previously assumed, gone for good amid the rise of low-cost, short-haul flights. But the new environmental imperatives suggested that they could be a glamorous part of a greener future, delivering a climate impact that was 28 times less than flying. The European Commission enthusiastically identified a plethora of potential new routes that it judged could be economically viable.Sadly, due to a series of challenges that Brussels and national governments have done too little to address, the renaissance appears to be stalling. Last month, a two-year-old night service linking Paris w...

Events

9 d. 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

9 d. 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

9 d. ago Brooklyn Beckham 'in contact' with grandparents after sending 'legal' letter to Victoria and David

Brooklyn Beckham reportedly maintains private contact with his grandparents despite appearing to ignore them on social media

Politics

9 d. ago Brooklyn Beckham 'sends legal letter' to David and Victoria amid ongoing family feud

Brooklyn Beckham reportedly sent his parents David and Victoria a legal letter during the summer, explaining he should only be contacted by them through his lawyers

Politics

9 d. ago Brooklyn Beckham 'sends legal letter' to David and Victoria as family war escalates

Brooklyn Beckham has reportedly sent a 'desist' letter to his parents after blocking them online days before Christmas

Events

9 d. ago Beckham family at war as Brooklyn 'sends legal letter' to David and Victoria

Brooklyn Beckham's latest move has reportedly shocked his parents - David and Victoria - as their family feud appears to worsen by the 'arrival of a legal letter'

Events

9 d. 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

9 d. 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

1 week ago Residents of Scots Greenland warn Donald Trump to keep his hands off their home

People living in the small farming settlement near Thurso are sending an urgent letter to America amid fears the Orange Manbaby might mistake it for the Danish territory.

Events

1 week 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

1 week 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