Ben Jennings on the special relationship between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer – cartoon

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian
People in Adamuz rushed to help when two trains smashed into each other and say they will never forget what they saw
Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through the forested hills of eastern Andalucía and beetled down a track to begin picking up the enormous, wrecked pieces of Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade. Behind it rolled a support lorry and a convoy of police cars.
A few minutes’ drive away, between groves of olive and oak trees, lay the two stricken trains that had smashed into each other on Sunday night, killing at least 39 people and critically injuring at least 12 others. As investigators and Guardia Civil officers walked up and down the line by the twisted carriages, the nearby town of Adamuz was in the early stages of trying to process what had happened a few kilometres from its outskirts.
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© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters
What if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?
Every new year – after the holiday glut of travel, parties, shopping and baked goods – there can be pressure to do and be more: more active, more productive, more creative, more thrifty. Maybe this will be the year I finally start meal planning or doing morning pages. New year, new me!
But what if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?
Physical rest: making sure you get enough sleep; taking naps.
Mental rest: journaling; meditating; doing tasks that are not mentally taxing, like puzzles.
Emotional rest: talking through feelings and experiences with a friend or therapist.
Social rest: setting aside time alone to recharge; making sure you’re spending time with people who don’t leave you feeling drained.
Sensory rest: spending time outdoors; taking breaks from screens.
Creative rest: engaging in creative hobbies like drawing, reading or dancing.
Spiritual rest: connecting to a cause or tradition that feels meaningful to you.
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© Illustration: Carmen Casado/The Guardian

© Illustration: Carmen Casado/The Guardian

© Illustration: Carmen Casado/The Guardian
Dramatic tournament left food for thought for the 2027 edition, from the weather to the warm welcome in Morocco
At the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations in Côte d’Ivoire, officiating was at its finest, with the Confederation of African Football’s video assistant referee operation setting standards that were the envy of the Premier League and several other European leagues. Sadly, refereeing standards took a nosedive at this tournament, which many associate with the abrupt dismissal of the Ivorian Noumandiez Doué as head of Caf’s refereeing department on the eve of last year’s African Nations Championship.
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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images
The answers to today’s puzzles
Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.
1. Bonnie Tiler
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© Photograph: Eric Savage/Getty Images

© Photograph: Eric Savage/Getty Images

© Photograph: Eric Savage/Getty Images
Europe could use powerful but untested law amid pressure over Greenland – but it could also lose out from a trade war
Donald Trump’s threat to impose punitive US import tariffs on eight European countries opposed to his ambitions in Greenland has raised fears of a full-blown transatlantic trade war.
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© Photograph: Yassine Mahjoub/SIPA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Yassine Mahjoub/SIPA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Yassine Mahjoub/SIPA/Shutterstock
US justice department announced it is investigating protesters in Minnesota who disrupted church services
Kristi Noem first denied that federal agents were using chemical agents against protesters, then after being shown video footage turned to blaming the protesters themselves, as tensions continued to run high amid the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into Minneapolis.
The head of homeland security, who has acted as spearhead for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in the city – known as “Operation Metro Surge” – told the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday that her department had not used pepper spray against crowds.
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© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock
New menswear director Leo Dell’Orco appears to have ditched the ‘greige’ while embracing the brand’s history
What exactly Giorgio Armani looks like without its eponymous founder at the helm has been the burning question in the fashion industry since the designer’s death in September.
In Milan on Monday afternoon, it got its answer as the designer’s collaborator and right-hand man of four decades, Leo Dell’Orco, made his debut at the Italian fashion house where he will oversee menswear for the foreseeable future. It was the first Armani collection in which the late designer had no involvement.
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© Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/AFP/Getty Images
Worth a staggering $2.45bn, Suno is an AI music company that can create a track with just a few prompts. Why is its CEO happy to see it called ‘the Ozempic of the music industry’?
‘The format of the future,” says Mikey Shulman, “is music you play with, not just play.” As the CEO and co-founder of the generative AI music company Suno, Shulman currently finds himself in the exhilarating if perhaps unenviable position of being simultaneously regarded as the architect of music’s future – and its executioner.
Suno, which was founded just over two years ago, allows users to create entire songs with just a few text prompts. At the moment, you can’t prompt it with the name of a specific pop star, but asking for “stadium-level confessional pop-country” that “references past relationships” or “public rivalries” might get you a Taylor Swift-style song or thereabouts.
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© Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images

© Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images

© Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images
Oscar-nominated actor says his lawyer was trying to reimburse those who had donated money to a GoFundMe appeal set up allegedly to raise funds for the star
The actor Mickey Rourke has again spoken out against the GoFundMe appeal set up in his name, purportedly to raise funds for the star, who is currently in financial hardship.
Earlier this month, the actor – who made his name in 1980s action and romance films before being Oscar nominated for his 2008 comeback, The Wrestler – declared he had nothing to do with the crowdfunder.
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© Photograph: WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images

© Photograph: WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images

© Photograph: WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images
Pool stages could revert to an October start
‘The format is delivering,’ insists European rugby chief
The organisers of the Champions Cup are looking to shift the start of the tournament back to October to add extra impetus to the pool stages. This year’s competition kicked off in December, but there is collective support from coaches and clubs to commence their campaigns before the packed November Test window.
The current structure and calendar slots are technically in place until 2030, but there is growing recognition that a change could be helpful. Among other benefits, clubs would have a better chance of having their best players fit and firing before the autumn internationals which, in turn, could encourage more early season interest.
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© Photograph: David Gibson/Fotosport/Shutterstock

© Photograph: David Gibson/Fotosport/Shutterstock

© Photograph: David Gibson/Fotosport/Shutterstock
People picturing positive experiences found to produce more antibodies, hinting at future clinical potential
Positive thoughts may boost the immune system according to research that points to a connection between the mind and our body’s natural defences.
Scientists have found people who used positive thinking to boost activity in the brain’s reward system responded better to vaccination, with their immune systems producing more antibodies than others after having the shot.
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© Photograph: Rob Daly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rob Daly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rob Daly/Getty Images
Serb showed off astounding movement in 100th win in Melbourne to begin his 22nd grand slam season in style
The very first point of Novak Djokovic’s 2026 season offered an instant reminder of his enduring greatness. Djokovic started his first match of his Australian Open campaign, also his opening match of the season, by working his way through a breathless 17-stroke rally and then punctuating the exchange with a perfectly timed forehand winner. He could not help but chuckle at his own genius.
That blazing start set the tone for a straightforward night inside Rod Laver Arena as Djokovic began his 22nd grand slam season with an effortless 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win against Spain’s Pedro Martínez. It was the Serb’s 100th win at the Australian Open, a feat he has also achieved at Wimbledon and Roland Garros.
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© Photograph: Shi Tang/Getty Images

© Photograph: Shi Tang/Getty Images

© Photograph: Shi Tang/Getty Images
Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees
Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use.
Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker from a small town in Carinthia near the Italian border, keeps Veronika as a pet and noticed that she occasionally played with sticks and used them to scratch her body.
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© Photograph: see caption

© Photograph: see caption

© Photograph: see caption
Bills lost dramatic overtime game to Broncos
Buffalo missed Super Bowl under coach’s leadership
The Buffalo Bills have fired Sean McDermott after the team yet again fell short in the NFL playoffs.
The Bills lost a dramatic divisional round game in overtime to the Denver Broncos on Saturday. Buffalo have reached the playoffs in all but one of the seasons since McDermott took over in 2017, when he helped the Bills reach the postseason for the first time in 17 years. However, they have failed to reach the Super Bowl in that time despite the presence of Josh Allen, one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. Under McDermott, the Bills became the first team to win a playoff game in six straight seasons and not claim a Super Bowl.
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© Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

© Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

© Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP
Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate
Munch, Bourgeois, Gormley and Baselitz go shoulder to shoulder with up-and-coming artists in an exhibition that revels in its stygian gloom
Tracey Emin catches me looking from her self-portrait to her as I try to assess the closeness of the resemblance. Not that close. This inky screenprint is bigger than she is, its face wider and taller. But it’s not a picture of the outer person but an inner vision. As we stand in front of it I seem to fall into radiating pools of blackness – to cross into darkness.
Emin has curated an exhibition for the depths of winter. It’s a generous, unexpected show with an eclectic yet profound openness to kinds of creativity many might think incompatible: paintings, installations, performance art all face the night here. She sets artists she nurtures at the Emin Studios alongside her heroes Edvard Munch, Louise Bourgeois and other luminaries of modern art – if luminary is the right word in this stygian setting. For, by a stroke of lighting genius, the Carl Freedman Gallery has been plunged into nocturnal shadow that still lets you see the art.
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© Photograph: Courtesy of Carl Freedman Gallery

© Photograph: Courtesy of Carl Freedman Gallery

© Photograph: Courtesy of Carl Freedman Gallery
Embark Studios’ multiplayer extraction shooter game has already sold 12m copies in just three months. Will it capture you too?
Released last October Arc Raiders has swiftly become one of the most successful online shooters in the world, shifting 12m copies in barely three months and attracting as many players as established mega hits such as Counter-Strike 2 and Apex Legends. So what is it about this sci-fi blaster that’s captured so many people – and how can you get involved?
So what is Arc Raiders?
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© Photograph: Embark Studios

© Photograph: Embark Studios

© Photograph: Embark Studios
Reuters obtains letter from union last year raising worries over potholes and power lines amid investigations into cause of devastating crash
King Felipe of Spain has expressed his “concern about the terrible accident” in which at least 39 people have been killed.
Speaking from Greece, the monarch was quoted as having told the media:
We have been in contact with Sánchez and Juanma Moreno to learn the details. As soon as we finish, we will return as soon as possible. I understand the anguish of the families of the victims and the injured.
We know that many residents of Adamuz assisted the victims immediately, and we express our gratitude to them for that.
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© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

© Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters
England defender’s contract was due to expire in summer
City are without injured Dias, Gvardiol and Stones
Marc Guéhi has completed his £20m move to Manchester City from Crystal Palace. The England international has signed a contract to 2031 after choosing the club over other offers.
An agreement was reached on Friday and the England defender was withdrawn from Palace’s weekend game at Sunderland to finalise the transfer. Guéhi was close to joining Liverpool last summer before Palace pulled the plug but the Premier League champions decided not to revive their interest because they saw no value in a January deal for a player out of contract in the summer.
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© Photograph: MCFC

© Photograph: MCFC

© Photograph: MCFC
PM’s effort to take heat out of Greenland situation is yet another humiliation in his relationship with The Donald
Toady, or not toady? That is the question. When even Piers Morgan has taken his head out of Donald Trump’s bum far enough to see a glimmer of daylight, then it’s fair to say the US president has probably overstepped the mark.
Not content with threatening tariffs against the UK and seven EU countries for sending troops to Greenland – having previously demanded Nato allies get stuck in to protect the country from Russia and China – The Donald has now sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister to complain about not winning the Nobel peace prize and to say he was so pissed off he was thinking of starting a war instead.
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© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Countries due to play on Valentine’s Day in Italy amid Trump threats to seize Danish territory of Greenland
Their rendezvous may be on Valentine’s Day, but its nature looks likely to be anything but romantic: Denmark and the US, their relations frostier than they have been for decades, are due to face each other in ice hockey next month.
A week into the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, the Danish Lions are scheduled to play Team USA in a preliminary round game at Milan’s Santagiulia ice hockey arena on 14 February, according to the official programme.
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© Photograph: Brad Rempel/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brad Rempel/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brad Rempel/Getty Images
The TV hit has cracked open a rich seam of misogyny: romance is written off as a weird thing that women like, and the audience is dismissed as ‘wine moms’
I’ve never heard anything more sexist in my life than the (mounting) reasons why women supposedly love the hit TV drama Heated Rivalry. Quick recap: if you’re a woman, or even if you’re not and don’t yet love it: Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) are two professional ice hockey players on rival teams. It matters that they’re hockey players, beyond the athletic perfection of their “insanely oiled, slick bodies” (as my friend, Eve, who’s 21, put it). And it matters that Rozanov is Russian, because the obstacles are real: he cannot be gay – think about the sponsorship, think about the fans, think about the oppressive patriarchal regime. Think about it for two seconds and this can not happen; and it achingly doesn’t, and almost does, and does, then doesn’t happen, over years.
Heated Rivalry dropped in Canada and the US at the end of November, and the fandom around it is so intense that Williams and Storrie have a compound nickname (HudCon). The actors are all over the late-night US TV shows; the clip of them presenting at the Golden Globes has been viewed more than a million times, and their most throwaway remark on social media blows up.
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© Photograph: Sphere Abacus/Sky

© Photograph: Sphere Abacus/Sky

© Photograph: Sphere Abacus/Sky
Data shows 133% increase from 2017 to 2025 as anti-ICE and No Kings protests push mobilization against White House
In the year since Donald Trump retook office, the number of protests in the US outpaced those at the same point in his first administration, according to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, an open-source project collaboration between Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut.
There were more than 10,700 protests in 2025, a 133% increase from the 4,588 recorded in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term. According to the data, an overwhelming majority of US counties – including 42% that voted for Trump – have had at least one protest since he was re-inaugurated last year.
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© Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
‘I wanted Kid ’n Play but the studio said, “Who are these guys?” I replied, “They’ve got platinum records.” I had no idea if they did’
Black music videos weren’t played on MTV in the late 80s. So while I was still at Harvard, I’d make music videos in my head. One day, while listening to Bad Boy/Having a Party by Luther Vandross, I thought: “This could be a great music video or movie.” And I sat down that night and wrote a script for a short film that ended up not only being made but shown at festivals and becoming a big hit in the world of student films. Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It had piqued interest in up-and-coming black film-makers. New Line Cinema saw my short and brought me in for a meeting. I pitched an expanded version of my idea and they said: “Let’s do it.”
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© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock