House Republicans are starting a push on Wednesday to hold former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, opening the prospect of the House using one of its most powerful punishments against a former president for the first time.
The contempt proceedings are an initial step toward a criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice that, if successful, could send the Clintons to prison.
They’re not above the law. We’ve issued subpoenas in good faith.
For five months we’ve worked with them. And time’s up.
Opponents say proposal to end sick notes issued over phone would fill up doctors’ waiting rooms unnecessarily
A German proposal to end the right to get short-term sick leave from a doctor over the telephone as a means of cracking down on skiving has met with an outcry from labour groups and the medical profession.
Germans enjoy some of the most generous employee illness policies in Europe, a fact the conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, says is undermining efforts to kickstart the EU’s biggest economy, whose growth has largely stalled since 2022.
Appeasing Trump has only emboldened him. But European leaders are not as helpless as the US president believes
Georg Riekeles is the associate director of the European Policy Centre
EU leaders’ tough rebukes to Donald Trump in Davos must be followed by concrete action when they convene in Brussels on Thursday night. The US president’s attempt to strong-arm Greenland and Denmark, backed by explicit tariff threats against those who refuse to comply, is not bluster or improvisation. It is economic coercion, openly deployed to force political submission and territorial concessions. The danger lies in the demand itself, but also in how Europe responds.
The EU has reached a moment of truth. If it cannot defend one of its member states whose most basic interests are under direct threat, then the EU is weakened as a geopolitical actor and emptied of purpose.
Georg Riekeles is the associate director of the European Policy Centre
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Donald Trump has told the Davos economic forum “without us, most countries would not even work”, but for the first time in decades, many western leaders have come to the opposite conclusion: they will function better without the US.
Individually and collectively, they have decided “to live in truth” – the phrase used by the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel and referenced by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, in his widely praised speech at Davos on Tuesday. They will no longer pretend the US is a reliable ally, or even that the old western alliance exists.
It is the year 2029 and an LA cop finds himself accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to clear his name before robo-justice sends him down
Irish writer Marco van Belle delivers an entertaining script for this real time futurist thriller-satire set in LA in 2029, in a world (as they say) where AI is wholly responsible for assessing criminal guilt or innocence. You’ve heard of RoboCop. This is RoboJustice. Veteran Russian-Kazakh film-maker Timur Bekmambetov directs, bringing his usual robust approach to the big action sequences, and Chris Pratt stars as the LAPD cop accused of murder. (Longtime Pratt fans will appreciate a cameo appearance here of Pratt’s fellow cast-member from TV’s Parks and Recreation, Jay Jackson, effectively reprising his performance as sonorous TV newsreader Perd Hapley.)
The film’s ostensible target is the insidious power of AI, though the movie partakes of today’s liberal opinion doublethink, in which we all solemnly concur that AI is very worrying while not having the smallest intention of doing anything about it. Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, an officer with a drinking problem but nonetheless a poster boy for LA law enforcement in 2029 for having brought in the first conviction under the city’s creepy new hi-tech justice system, ironically entitled Mercy (it doesn’t appear to be an acronym). AI is now the sole arbiter of justice and defendants each have a 90-minute trial to make their case in front of Judge Maddox, an AI-hologram played by Rebecca Ferguson who icily insists on the facts but is capable of weird Max-Headroom-type glitches.
Harry Brook’s side begin Sri Lanka ODI series in poor form but confidence is needed ahead of crucial winter period
A subcontinental World Cup to close an Ashes winter? History tells us this does not end well for England. In 2014 a whitewash in Australia was followed by a group-stage exit at the World T20 with a 45-run defeat to the Netherlands in Chattogram. In 2011 the 50-over side – largely made up of Test regulars – was brutalised by Kevin O’Brien in Bengaluru before exiting with a 10-wicket quarter-final loss to Sri Lanka at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Vic Marks, writing for the Observer, wondered beforehand if England had “anything left to give” after so many months on the road.
And so to the Premadasa again, 15 years on, this time without the goodwill of a recent series victory in Australia. The first one-day international against Sri Lanka will begin just two weeks after Alex Carey struck the winning runs at the SCG, and open the second half of England’s winter, with three T20s to follow in Pallekele. They will hope to end it on 8 March, at the final of the T20 World Cup in Ahmedabad, or Colombo should they face Pakistan, such is the geopolitical mess underpinning the upcoming tournament.
Manager showed tactical bravery in darkest hour and like Postecoglou may find respite outside Premier League
Thomas Frank was backed into a corner on every level, including team selection. The Tottenham manager had next-to-no options, only 11 established outfield players for the Champions League home game against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night.
The expectation was for an either/or choice between Djed Spence and Destiny Udogie at left-back. But when the teamsheets dropped, it turned out Frank had picked them both and left Randal Kolo Muani on the bench. It was the latest low point for Kolo Muani, who has to be regretting his decision to join on a season-long loan from Paris Saint-Germain.
Far-right incoming president picked Judith Marín, who has publicly decried bills to decriminalise abortion, for the role
Chile’s incoming far-right president José Antonio Kast has named a vehement opponent of abortion who has repeatedly stated her support for life “from conception to natural death” as the country’s new women and gender equality minister.
Judith Marín, 30, was once ejected from Chile’s senate by police for screaming “return to the Lord” during a vote to decriminalise abortion under restricted circumstances.
Intimate correspondence between John Cairncross and Gloria Barraclough features in National Archives exhibition
It was a love letter written by one of the more important British spies of the cold war that made Tom Brass realise he had never fully known his mother.
The spy in question was John Cairncross, the alleged fifth man in the Cambridge spy ring, whose spycraft also helped the Soviets win the Battle of Kursk and turn the tide of the second world war.
A French magistrate has said two Trump administration emissaries approached her seeking to lobby against an election ban on the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Magali Lafourcade, the secretary general of France’s human rights commission (CNCDH), an independent body that advises the government, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) she had reported the content of the meeting to the French foreign ministry immediately, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.
Director of Wien Museum says ‘we all have to economise’ as city temporarily reduces access to cultural sites
It prides itself on its reputation as the world’s home of classical music. But Vienna will temporarily close several museums dedicated to famous composers this year as the Austrian capital cuts its culture budget to meet public spending targets.
The apartment where the Austrian composer Franz Schubert died, the residence of “Blue Danube” writer Johann Strauss, as well as the house where Joseph Haydn lived are to be closed temporarily as cost-saving measures, the director of Vienna’s museums announced on Wednesday.
He lit up Europe with bands ranging from Peachfuzz to Kings of Convenience. But it was the Whitest Boy Alive that sent Erlend Øye stratospheric. As they return, the soft-singing, country-hopping sensation looks back
If you were to imagine the recent evolution of music in Europe as a series of scenes from a Where’s Wally?-style puzzle book, one bespectacled, lanky figure would pop up on almost every page. There he is in mid-90s London, handing out flyers for his first band Peachfuzz. Here he is in NME at the dawn of the new millennium, fronting folk duo Kings of Convenience and spearheading the new acoustic movement. There he is strumming his guitar in the vanguard of Norway’s “Bergen wave”. Then he’s off spinning records in Berlin nightclubs during the city’s “poor but sexy” post-millennial years. By the 2010s, he’s driving a renaissance of Italian chamber pop as part of La Comitiva, his bandmates hailing from the southern tip of Sicily.
It’s hard to think of a figure more musically cosmopolitan than Erlend Otre Øye, connecting the dots across a continent where national scenes rarely overlap – and making magic happen. No wonder his debut solo album, with 10 tracks recorded in 10 different cities, was called Unrest. Of all his reincarnations, though, the one that has best endured (if you go by Spotify) is his four-piece, The Whitest Boy Alive. And this spring and summer, they’re reuniting for a tour of South America and Europe to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Dreams, their debut album.
Kirsty Coventry steers clear of global politics in buildup
Organisers will meet with vice-president JD Vance
The International Olympic Committee has yet to establish formal communications with the US president Donald Trump on preparations for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, the IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, has confirmed.
The global economic system doesn’t even benefit its US and European creators any more – let alone indebted nations or emerging giants
Donald Trump represents everything that the Davos crowd hates – and it is unlikely they are any more well-disposed towards him after being forced to listen to more than an hour of the president’s rambling speech today. He is a protectionist, not a free trader. He thinks the climate crisis is a hoax and is suspicious of multilateral organisations. He prefers power plays to dialogue and he doesn’t have any time for the “woke” capitalism that Davos has been keen to promote, with its focus on gender equality and ethical investment. The shindig’s organisers, the World Economic Forum (WEF), had to agree to sideline those issues in order to secure Trump’s appearance.
For decades, anti-globalisation protesters have sought to shut down the WEF. Thanks to Trump’s threat to take over Greenland, their prayers may soon be answered. In today’s world, Davos is an irrelevance and it seems fitting that Trump should be on hand this week to deliver the coup de grace to the liberal international rules-based order that the WEF prides itself on upholding.
Director Christopher Gans returns to the haunted town franchise but can’t seem to figure out what to do with it
There’s an admirable loyalty, maybe even poetry, in a film-maker returning to an unpromising, barely there movie series 20 years after his first crack became a minor hit. The horror film Silent Hill, based on a video game of the same name, has garnered a cult following in the decades since its 2006 release, but it’s not exactly a genre classic nor beloved franchise, with a single little-seen 2012 sequel to its name – until now. Return to Silent Hill brings back the first film’s director, Christopher Gans, for a new story set in the same ash-strewn ghost town, this one based on the Silent Hill 2 video game. Characters in these movies tend to wander into a place that is obviously haunted or cursed, refusing to leave even after it becomes clear that they should, and only decide to escape after it’s too late. Maybe Gans can relate.
Or maybe he’s the only man for the job because no one else will take it. That could almost describe James (Jeremy Irvine), the hapless protagonist of Return to Silent Hill. After a chance traffic-accident meeting with Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson) that unconvincingly thwarts her attempt to leave home, the two fall in love, and after a time James even moves to Mary’s oddball town; as a painter, he can go anywhere (though if there’s a reason that Mary couldn’t leave, given that she was already ready to hop a bus when they meet, I missed it). Despite the movie skipping over what makes them so instantly compatible, James is all in; someone has to be.
Archaeologists say stencil painted with ochre in limestone cave on Muna Island was created at least 67,800 years ago
The faded outline of a hand on a cave wall in Indonesia may be the world’s oldest known rock art, according to archaeologists who say it was created at least 67,800 years ago.
The ancient hand stencil was discovered in a limestone cave popular with tourists on Muna Island, part of south-eastern Sulawesi, where it had gone unnoticed between more recent paintings of animals and other figures.
The groundbreaking singer, actor and athlete became a victim of McCarthyism and saw his shining career destroyed and his legacy tarnished
In August 1972, the front page of the New York Times arts section published a story titled, Time to Break the Silence on Paul Robeson? The legendary bass-baritone spent the first half of the 20th century as one of the greatest talents the US had ever produced, and its second, both in life and in death as an outcast, the greatest casualty of the second Red Scare period to which today’s current attacks on liberal and progressive politics draw comparison.
This week marks 50 years since Robeson’s death and the silence remains. His erasure from the lineage over the decades shows that what Robeson’s political opponents did not take from him, the years have most certainly. Robeson’s decoupling from the story of African American culture has been so complete that in the half-century since his death, even generations of Black Americans have never heard of him.
Kemi Badenoch has called on Keir Starmer to “just get on” with a ban on social media for under-16s, saying delay is a dereliction of duty that is harming children’s mental health.
In this week’s newsletter: how mass exodus is bringing Cuba closer to collapse, Iran protests, and the new motorway dividing Mumbai
In a world where geopolitical flashpoints push global media to focus on a narrow group of countries, turning vast regions into virtual news deserts, Cuba is a remarkable exception. For decades, it was scrutinised intensively; now it has slipped into obscurity as an undercovered Caribbean island.
Rather than adopting the ideological biases that shaped 20th-century debates about Cuba under Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, I recently sought to show the Guardian’s global audience the challenging circumstances faced by the Cuban people, which were evident when I visited Havana.
Compression ratios will be at the top of the FIA’s agenda in a meeting with F1 teams to head off growing fears before the 2026 season gets underway
Unveiling their new engine in Tokyo should have been a significant moment for Honda to celebrate but behind the scenes, the storied grand prix team – as well as plenty of their Formula One rivals – are worried that a looming row over new engine regulations is threatening to overshadow the opening of the 2026 season.
So significant is the concern that it will be the key topic of discussion at a meeting between the FIA and the engine manufacturers set for Thursday before the first day of pre-season testing at Barcelona.
Donald Trump has stepped up his demand to annex Greenland in an extraordinary speech in Davos, but said the US would not use force to seize what he called the “big, beautiful piece of ice”.
Addressing thousands of business and political leaders at the World Economic Form in the Swiss ski resort, the US president said he was “seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”.
‘After I took this, police officers bundled me into the back of a car and drove me to the local station where I was questioned for a long time. On the way out, they took turns to punch and kick me’
In 1993, a photograph I’d taken of a bus driver in Luxor, Egypt, won a competition. The prize was some money, a camera and a return ticket to anywhere in the world. I chose Chile. The camera was an all-bells-and-whistles model: I sold it to a taxi driver at 3am. I’ve always preferred working with light 35mm cameras.
After three months in Chile, I caught a train that rose up to the high Bolivian Altiplano plateau, leaving me with a splitting headache only relieved by some coca tea. I had an open-ended commission with the Financial Times to provide photographs from financial areas of the South American cities I went to, so while my main aim was to wander around photographing exciting things I came across, I also made sure to head to the financial district and government quarters in the city of La Paz, which is where this was taken.
There was the struggle to make chitchat, a whiff of humiliation – and a sobering recognition of what women have to put up with
I had an unusual experience just before Christmas. I think it did me good. This was at a gathering of some old friends of mine, a group of dentists as it happens, but’s that’s not relevant. The assembled were all blokes, which is relevant. This was at a pub/restaurant that was doing a roaring trade. A lost afternoon was had by all. Nice food, nice drink and surprisingly amusing anecdotes about teeth. Naturally enough, the time came for visits to the gents. Those who went, I half-noticed, seemed to be away a long time. I didn’t dwell on why this might have been so, but when it came to my turn all became clear. I turned the corner, and what should I find but a long queue for the gentlemen’s toilet. No queue at all for the women’s toilet, but a great long one for the men’s. What fresh hell was this? This wasn’t a world any of us in this queue recognised.
For the avoidance of doubt, I neither court nor expect sympathy from any woman here. I am obviously aware that, for women, having to queue to use a public toilet is the norm. How many times have I seen women standing in a queue while men in the same establishment have to do no such thing? Apart from the inconvenience of having to queue to use a convenience, there’s a whiff of humiliation about standing there, waiting for something that men generally don’t have to wait for. It was decidedly bracing to get a taste of it myself, watching the other sex breeze through the door while I was forced to stand solemnly in line with my fellow fellas, angling away at whatever we had in our pockets and consulting our phones.
There’s a whole conversational genre here – toilet queue chitchat – of which men have scant experience. Women, I imagine, have learned to be rather good at it, exchanging pleasantries and an interesting observation or two. On this I’ve consulted some women of my acquaintance. The consensus is that intra-queue communication is limited to the odd eye roll and: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the men’s.” A colleague told me it’s only at the washbasins afterwards that conversation tends to break out.
If I was a woman, I’d waste no time on either pleasantries or silence. If I was forced, time and again, to stand in a public line merely for the opportunity to empty my bladder, I’d vent my spleen like nobody’s business at the sheer injustice of it. A useful metric for any civilised society would be gender parity in wee waiting times. I’m seeking out research on this.
Back in my queue, I tried to get some brotherly banter going about this novel situation of ours. I tutted a bit, rolled my eyes and said something along the lines of: “Well, this makes an unpleasant change, doesn’t it lads?” Someone smiled, someone else looked blank, a third looked sheepish. Another shook his head as if this was yet another manifestation of broken Britain, woke madness etc. Otherwise, silence reigned. Someone emerged, zipping up. The queue shuffled up a place. Two more men joined the back of it. I sighed.
A woman wafted out of the adjacent facility, all fragrant and relaxed. It was all right for some. I grinned bashfully at her, trying to communicate acknowledgement of this topsy-turvy scenario. She said: “Don’t look to me for solidarity, you bastard. Come back when you’ve done this another hundred times and then I might give you the time of day.” Actually, she didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything. But I know that’s what she was thinking. And I really wouldn’t blame her.
• Adrian Chiles is a writer, broadcaster and a Guardian columnist
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