Decoded genome of meat in pup’s stomach helps scientists build picture of what caused extinction of species
Researchers have shed light on the final centuries of the woolly rhinoceros after studying a hairy lump of meat from the stomach of an ancient wolf cub that became mummified in the Siberian permafrost.
The beautifully preserved remains of a two-month-old female wolf cub were discovered in 2011 near the village of Tumat in northeastern Siberia. The animal is thought to have died 14,400 years ago when a landslide collapsed its den, trapping the cub and others inside.
AI tool faces growing global scrutiny over the spread of nonconsensual sexual images of women and minors on X
Elon Musk said on Wednesday he was not aware of any “naked underage images” generated by xAI’s Grok, as scrutiny of the AI tool intensifies worldwide.
“I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero,” Musk said in an X post. Musk’s comment comes as xAI and X face growing global scrutiny, including calls by lawmakers and advocacy groups for Apple and Google to drop Grok from app stores, an investigation by UK regulators, and bans or legal action in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
Big tech companies cannot be trusted. It is not enough that they remove harm when they find it – the law must make their systems prevent harm
On X, a woman posts a photo in a sari, and within minutes, various users are underneath the post tagging Grok to strip her down to a bikini. It is a shocking violation of privacy, but now a familiar and commonplace practice. Between June 2025 and January 2026, I documented 565 instances of users requesting Grok to create nonconsensual intimate imagery. Of these, 389 were requested in just one day.
Last Friday, after a backlash against the platform’s ability to create such nonconsensual sexual images, X announced that Grok’s AI image generation feature would only be available to subscribers. Reports suggest that the bot now no longer responds to prompts to generate images of women in bikinis (although apparently will still do so for requests about men).
Nana Nwachukwu is an AI governance expert and a PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin
He has broken his ankles, endured 365 days in a cell and faced down the 20th century’s worst winter. Yet he says he is not a masochist. We meet the man Marina Abramovich calls ‘the master’
For one year, beginning on 30 September 1978, Tehching Hsieh lived in an 11ft 6in x 9ft wooden cage. He was not permitted to speak, read or consume any media, but every day a friend visited with food and to remove his waste.
The vital context here is that this incarceration was voluntary: Hsieh is a Taiwanese-American artist whose chosen practice is performance art, undertaking durational “actions” for long periods. Marina Abramović has called him the “master” of the form. In 1980, seven months after the end of Cage Piece, Hsieh began another year-long work, Time Clock Piece, which required him to punch a factory-style clock-in machine in his studio, every hour of each day for 365 days.
Midfielder signs long-term deal after move from Atlético
Thomas Frank: ‘Conor will bring leadership and maturity’
Tottenham have completed the signing of the England midfielder Conor Gallagher. The 25-year-old has joined Spurs from Atlético Madrid in a deal worth in the region of €40m (£34.7m) and is understood to have signed a contract until the summer of 2031.
Aston Villa had initially led the race for Gallagher, who is keen for more playing time ahead of this summer’s World Cup, but Tottenham were able to convince the former Chelsea academy graduate to return to London.
Data leads scientists to declare 2015 Paris agreement to keep global heating below 1.5C ‘dead in the water’
Last year was the third hottest on record, scientists have said, with mounting fossil fuel pollution behind “exceptional” temperatures.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said 2025 had continued a three-year streak of “extraordinary global temperatures” during which surface air temperatures averaged 1.48C above preindustrial levels.
Having started this season at Real Madrid with 13 wins from his first 14 games, Xabi Alonso could be forgiven for thinking he was on to a good thing in his new role of Kindergarten Cop, tasked with instilling discipline among the spoilt and unruly brats in his care. While this excellent run was punctuated by a tonking at the hands of Atlético and a diva strop thrown by Vinícius Júnior, Alonso seemed to have pulled off the unthinkable by introducing something approaching a work ethic into a group of players who had previously been powered on ego and vibes. It wasn’t until November that the passengers on board the Madrid wagon began to unscrew the wheels, when a series of poor results led to revelations that all was not well in the camp. Leaks suggested the squad was split between the few players who were entirely sold on the 43-year-old’s ethos and the apparent vast majority who took exception to this José Come-Lately’s tyrannical demands that they turn up on time, run around a bit and occasionally sit through boring tactical presentations that lasted longer than a FaceSpace Snap.
The suggestion that Manchester United hve taken/should take advice from Seinfeld [yesterday’s Football Daily] got me thinking. There was an episode about a competition during which, um, refraining from certain personal activities led to a temporary increase in intelligence (note: for male participants only!). As I recall, one of the outcomes was that George Costanza became fluent in Portuguese. Does this explain why the United board hired Messrs Mourinho and Amorim and signed Cristiano Ronaldo in recent years? And, does the hiring of Mr Carrick signal the, um, the end of the competition?” – Mike Wilner.
Following Dan Westacott’s letter about JR (yesterday’s letters), surely a growing number of Manchester United’s fans are praying that they will wake up back in 2013, where Sir Alex Ferguson will be getting out of the shower one morning, preparing himself for a press conference when he will announce that he isn’t actually retiring” – Simon Dunsby.
Not only did Dan get a letter published with a joke from 40 years ago, but he won letter of the day! And you didn’t even have to look it up! Oh, wait …” – Z Snook.
Seriously guys? Only two options and you gave letter of the day to the writer not called Gumley Slats!?!” – Adam Sherlock.
Six puppies were revived and treated by first responders and are now being monitored at a local animal shelter
Six puppies in rural Washington state will soon be up for adoption after being revived following a suspected drug overdose – and some of them might go home with the fire-station staff who saved them.
Two people dropped off three of the sickened puppies at the Sky Valley fire station, about an hour’s drive north-east of Seattle, on Sunday. Officials believe the animals either breathed or ate fentanyl.
TikTokification of the sport brings in crowds with Tennis Australia as big a winner as new millionaire
A 29-year-old tennis coach from Sydney won the inaugural One Point Slam at the Australian Open and its A$1m prize on Wednesday, after upstaging a field which included Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff.
It is Tennis Australia, however, which won the jackpot, after the new concept – despite its near three-hour duration, often confusing format and awkward exchanges between players – attracted a full house to Rod Laver Arena during opening week as organisers look at non-traditional ways to attract fans to Melbourne Park.
Israel’s war in Gaza has caused high numbers of maternal and neonatal deaths, say two reports
Israel’s war in Gaza has led to a 41% fall in births in the territory, and high numbers of maternal deaths, miscarriages, newborn mortality and premature births, two reports into the impact of the conflict on pregnant women, babies and maternity care reveal.
Two reports by Physicians for Human Rights, in collaboration with the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel document how the war has led to high figures for maternal and neonatal mortality and forced births in dangerous conditions and systematically dismantled health services – consequences of “a deliberate intention of preventing births among Palestinians, meeting the legal criteria of the Genocide Convention,” researchers said.
Sarah Porter was running 108-mile Montane Winter Spine Challenger South race when security team had to disable tracking device
A woman was pulled out of Britain’s most gruelling ultramarathon after receiving death threats over her fundraising for Afghan women and girls.
Sarah Porter was nearly a third of the way through the 108-mile Montane Winter Spine Challenger South endurance race when organisers made the “difficult decision” to withdraw her due to threats to her life in relation to the foundation she runs helping women and girls in war zones.
‘I couldn’t be more ready and happy about everything’
Manchester City have signed the USA midfielder Sam Coffey on a three-and-a-half year deal.
The 27-year-old won gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics and has accrued 42 caps and scored five goals for the USA, becoming a key part of Emma Hayes’ national team. After graduating she joined Portland Thorns and lifted the 2022 NWSL Championship in her debut season.
Agents searched Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home and seized devices in inquiry tied to a classified materials case
The FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter early Wednesday in what the newspaper called a “highly unusual and aggressive” move by law enforcement, and press freedom groups condemned as a “tremendous intrusion” by the Trump administration.
Agents descended on the Virginia home of Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. The Post is “reviewing and monitoring the situation”, a source at the newspaper said.
Critics call move to cut payments after 1 February for number of Democrat-run states ‘unconstitutional’
Donald Trump has revived his stalled push to cut federal funding for a number of Democrat-run states, announcing that any with a perceived “sanctuary city” will not receive payments after 1 February.
The president made the statement during a freewheeling address at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday night, shortly after he flipped off a heckler at a Ford plant in the city.
If you’ve ever refused to knock down a game’s difficulty level, or chased a purposefully pointless achievement, you might have this pernicious but pleasurable affliction
Studies on gaming’s effect on the brain usually focus on aggression or the cognitive benefits of playing games. The former topic has fallen out of fashion now, after more than a decade’s worth of scientific research failed to prove any causative link between video games and real-world violence. But studies on the positive effects of games have shown that performing complex tasks with your brain and hands is actually quite good for you, and that games can be beneficial for your emotional wellbeing and stress management.
That’s all well and good, but I’m obsessed with the concept of “gamer brain” – that part of us that is drawn to objectively pointless achievements. Mastering a game or finishing a story are normal sources of motivation, but gamer brain is inexplicable. When you retry the same pointless mini-game over and over because you want to get a better high score? When you walk around the invisible boundaries of a level, clicking the mouse just in case something happens? When you stay with a game longer than you should because you feel compelled to unlock that trophy or achievement? When you refuse to knock the difficulty down a level on a particularly evil boss, because that would be letting the game win? That’s gamer brain.
‘Huge parts of the city were being destroyed. This was part of my attempt to preserve the whole damn thing. The area became a juvenile prison’
I landed in America in 1965 from Chile. I literally arrived on a banana boat. I went to the University of Notre Dame in the midwest and then to Columbia in New York. I had a teacher – also a photographer – who taught foreign students to write and speak better English. I would try to write poetry, which he thought was terrible. I’d never taken a picture before but he encouraged me to try photography and offered to lend me the money for a Pentax Spotmatic he’d seen for sale downtown. After that, I would just walk around New York with it and take photos. It quickly became clear to me how divided the city was. Half was white and the other half was Black and Latino. There was tremendous segregation.
Columbia was very prosperous. The students were well off and many were the sons of extremely rich people. I felt out of place. Also, there’s just a huge sense of loss when you leave your country and you don’t know anybody and are on your own. It made me want to look at what else was going on: to see the other side and the underside of the city. I found it easily because, in the late 60s and early 70s, deindustrialisation was going on. Big companies and car plants were shutting down and there were huge job losses and store closures. That contrast resonated with me. My family had lost a lot of money. The first part of my life was about seeing things disappear and having to make do with less and less. I was interested to see that in the US.
This year’s Coupe de France was in need of a spark and Paris FC were on hand to provide it. Their league match against Paris Saint-Germain last weekend – the first derby between the clubs in 43 years – was somewhat anticlimactic. The rivalry between is tepid, bordering on amicable, and the difference in quality was stark as PSG ran out fairly comfortable 2-1 winners. Stéphane Gilli’s men are a long way off challenging the reigning European champions over a full season but, on Monday night, that was irrelevant. Paris FC returned to the Parc des Princes and won 1-0, progressing to the last 16 of the Coupe de France at their neighbour’s expense.
It was a derby once again lacking in derby feel. Jonathan Ikoné scored the winner but did not celebrate against the club from whose academy he graduated. Luis Enrique even wished Paris FC “all the best for the rest of the competition” after the match – all very cordial. The PSG manager was left ruing his side’s wastefulness as he succumbed to his first defeat in the competition since arriving in France in 2023. As far as the cup is concerned, though, PSG’s slip-up was a welcome one.
Bring your ostracised wardrobe items in from the cold by forgetting about whether they go with each other. Instead, let them shine in all their glory
Fashion is a dance between rules and rebellion. Great style requires a bit of both. The rules are essential, because one of the key emotional benefits that a great wardrobe can deliver is a sense of control in a chaotic world. The rules are there to simplify and clarify, lighting our route to a well put-together outfit. That well put-together outfit has the power to help you feel calmer, simply because you look in the mirror and see a competent person and therefore feel like a competent person. Style rules also come in useful for making sense of the world around us. Dress codes, style tribes, the signals we send – whether as blatant as the slogan on a T-shirt, or as subtle as the brand of your rucksack – hold an important social function, making other people legible to us.
But style also needs friction. Fashion dies if it stops moving, because moving with the times is what makes it fashion rather than just pretty clothes. The restless forward energy that moves hemlines and invents new silhouettes is what drives the plot and keeps us interested.
From not treating your rectum as a storage facility to weight lifting, experts offer advice on how to maintain a healthy pelvic floor for longer
Pelvic floor health has long been relegated to whispered conversations about pregnancy or aging, often reduced to vague instructions to “do your kegels”.
But according to experts, daily maintenance of the pelvic floor is important.
Robin Kelly, Ilhan Omar and Maxine Dexter to move against homeland security secretary over ICE killing of Renee Good
Democratic representative Robin Kelly on Wednesday plans to formally introduce articles of impeachment against Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, following the fatal shooting of a US citizen by an immigration agent in Minneapolis last week.
The new push comes amid mounting national outrage over the death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, at the wheel of her car on a residential street, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
In 1994, Bowie and Brian Eno spent a day with ‘outsider’ artists. Intimate photographs, showing in Australia for the first time, reveal the effect it had
From the Thin White Duke to Ziggy Stardust, the Berlin recluse to the late-career elegist, David Bowie’s oeuvre is defined by reinvention. As an artist, he was relentlessly attuned to the conditions that might provoke the next creative rupture. One defining moment, however, has largely slipped from the popular imagination: a day spent inside a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Vienna – one that would prove unexpectedly formative.
In September 1994, Bowie and Brian Eno – who had recently reunited to develop new music – accepted an invitation from the Austrian artist André Heller to visit the Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic. The site’s Haus der Künstler, established in 1981 as a communal home and studio, is known internationally as a centre for Art Brut – or “Outsider Art” – produced by residents, many living with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
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