5 h. ago The Guardian view on the French far right: mainstream parties are running out of time | Editorial

A Paris appeals court will decide if Marine Le Pen can stand in next year’s presidential election. But legal troubles have not damaged the fortunes of her partyIn a Paris courtroom, the first act of the 2027 French presidential election is already under way. On Tuesday Marine Le Pen began to answer judges’ questions in her appeal against a conviction relating to the embezzlement of European parliament funds. If she wins, the far-right leader will be free to run for the presidency for a fourth time. If the sentence is upheld, her 30-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, is almost certain to take her place in the race.Having presented the original verdict as an assault on democracy by judges bent on thwarting her political ambitions, Ms Le Pen has softened her stance. If the appeals court is swayed by arguments that offences committed by her National Rally party were inadvertent, a five-year ban on running for public office may be reduced or overturned. Even if she loses, however, her po...

Politics

53 h. ago The Guardian view on Trump and Greenland: get real! Bullying is not strength | Editorial

Tariff threats over the Arctic island expose the limits of coercive diplomacy. Europe’s united response and pushback shows fear is fadingFor all Donald Trump’s bluster about restoring American strength, his attempt to bully European allies over Greenland reveals a deeper weakness: coercive diplomacy only works if people are afraid to resist. Increasingly, they aren’t. And that is a good thing. Bullies often back down when confronted – their power relies on fear. Mr Trump’s threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Europeans unless they acquiesce to his demand to “purchase” Greenland has stripped his trade policy bare. This is not about economic security, unfair trade or protecting American workers. It is about using tariffs as a weapon to force nations to submit.The response from Europe has been united and swift. That in itself should send a message. France’s Emmanuel Macron says plainly “no amount of intimidation” will alter Europe’s position. Denmark has anchored the issue firmly insid...

Politics

53 h. ago The Guardian view on microplastics research: questioning results is good for science, but has political consequences | Editorial

Errors in measuring microplastic pollution can be corrected. Public trust in science also needs to be shored up It is true that science is self-correcting. Over the long term this means that we can generally trust its results – but up close, correction can be a messy process. The Guardian reported last week that 20 recent studies measuring the amount of micro- and nanoplastics in the human body have been criticised in the scientific literature for methodological issues, calling their results into question. In one sense this is the usual process playing out as it should. However, the scale of the potential error – one scientist estimates that half the high-impact papers in the field are affected – suggests a systemic problem that should have been prevented.The risk is that in a febrile political atmosphere in which trust in science is being actively eroded on issues from climate change to vaccinations, even minor scientific conflicts can be used to sow further doubt. Given that there...

Politics

4 d. 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

7 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

8 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

9 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

1 week 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

1 week 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

1 week 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

1 week 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 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

1 week 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

2 w. 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

2 w. 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

2 w. 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

2 w. ago Brave shopkeeper shares CCTV as she tackles thug stealing booze on Hogmanay

Mum-of-three Nathalie Fullerton, who runs One Stop in Partick, Glasgow, said she “saw red” when the reveller attempted to run out of her shop with a £9 stash of booze.

Events

2 w. 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

2 w. 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...

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