Sturla Holm Lægreid stuns viewers watching in Norway
‘Three months ago I made the mistake of my life’
The Norwegian Sturla Holm Lægreid broke down in tears after winning bronze in the men’s 20km biathlon, apologising for having an affair and saying: “It has been the worst week of my life.”
Johan-Olav Botn won gold, with the Frenchman Éric Perrot in second, but it was Lægreid who stunned television viewers in Norway after opening up to the broadcaster NRK about his private life over the past six months.
In Lancashire, I met people living with dangerous levels of Pfas, including in their food. The government is failing them
Last week, on the morning the government published its Pfas action plan, I got a worried phone call from a woman called Sam who lives next door to a chemical factory in Lancashire. Sam had just been hand-delivered a letter from her local council informing her that after testing, it had been confirmed that her ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden in Thornton-Cleveleys, near Blackpool, are contaminated with Pfas.
Pfas – per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment – are a family of thousands of chemicals, and I have been reporting on them for years. Some, including those found in the eggs Sam and her family have been eating, have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers.
Thomas Massie, a US congressman, has said he knows the identity of six more men who are “likely incriminated” by their inclusion in the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files after he viewed an unredacted version of the documents relating to the disgraced late financier and sexual abuser.
The Kentucky Republican suggested he might reveal their names under congressional privilege if the justice department (DoJ) continued to conceal their identities in publicly available copies of the documents that are still redacted.
Under US pressure as part of the ‘war on drugs’, the WHO still categorises the sacred Indigenous remedy as akin to heroin or fentanyl, despite its many therapeutic properties
For thousands of years, Andean people living around what is now the town of Coripata, east of La Paz, Bolivia, have used coca leaves to relieve fatigue, hunger and altitude sickness (known as soroche), as well as to treat headaches and digestive problems.
Concerned about the future of this cultural and religious practice, Daynor Choque, heir to this ancient tradition, points to a pile of leaves on the table in front of him.
From Pennsylvania to Montana, the White House’s war on ‘woke’ has targeted US monuments that address topics like racism and Indigenous history
Blank spaces now exist where a series of panels about enslavement once appeared on the walls of the President’s House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The site, which honors the home of George Washington and John Adams, is a major landmark that bore artwork and informational signs for more than a decade. But on 22 January, National Park Service (NPS) workers used hand tools to pry off 34 panels to comply with a presidential executive order designed to reframe the national narrative. The panels that highlighted the lives of people enslaved by George Washington when Philadelphia was the US capital in the 1790s are now in storage.
The removal is one of several across the nation, as NPS staff aim to conform with Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” issued on 27 March 2025. Public markers, monuments and statues that the Trump administration considers disparaging to past or current Americans have been flagged at more than a dozen parks. Two exhibits at Montana’s Little Bighorn battlefield national monument that discuss Indigenous history and the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been targeted and deemed noncompliant. Additionally, signage about climate change at Muir Woods national monument in California and visitor brochures at Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home national monument in Mississippi that referred to Medgar Evers’s killer as racist were also removed.
No suspect named yet as TV host’s mom still missing a day after deadline set by ransom note from alleged kidnappers
The search for television host Savannah Guthrie’s mother continued on Tuesday morning amid desperate family entreaties for her safe return.
The FBI still has yet to identify a suspect or person of interest. Nancy Guthrie remains missing, a day after the deadline set by a ransom note from her purported kidnappers.
Tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta to collectively invest $600bn on artificial intelligence this year
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Today in tech, we’re discussing the Persian Gulf countries making a play for sovereignty over their own artificial intelligence in response to an unstable United States. That, and US tech giants’ plans to spend more than $600bn this year alone.
Cowan-Dickie starts at hooker in only other change
Maro Itoje has been restored to the England captaincy for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash against Scotland while Luke Cowan-Dickie starts at hooker with Steve Borthwick otherwise keeping faith with the side who thrashed Wales last week.
Fin Smith replaces namesake Marcus in the No23 jersey but that, Itoje’s expected return to the starting lineup and the decision to utilise Jamie George’s experience from the bench, aside, Borthwick has challenged the majority of his players to repeat the trick at Murrayfield.
Andy Burnham has publicly backed Keir Starmer while calling for him to show more boldness and be more willing to accept contributions from others within Labour.
After a day of turmoil on Monday when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for Starmer to resign, the Greater Manchester mayor used a speech and Q&A in Westminster to call for unity while promoting his views on what the government’s platform should look like.
The Puerto Rican star’s vision of American identity moved beyond colonial tropes to span an entire hemisphere
By now, many of us have a favorite part of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time performance. It’s a dense, rich set that invites rewatching to take in every thoughtful, exuberant detail – even though it’s barely 14 minutes long.
My most beloved part occurs a little more than nine minutes into the homage, when the cuatro puertorriqueño appears. The stringed instrument has its own moment in the spotlight, shown in the talented hands of the cuatrista José Eduardo Santana just before Ricky Martin performs.
Hong Kong’s once-vibrant media outlets have responded with silence or celebration to the 20-year jail sentence handed down to Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media tycoon and critic of the Chinese Communist party.
Lai, 78, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison after being convicted of sedition and colluding with foreign forces under Hong Kong’s national security law. The charges were widely seen as being politically motivated and designed to silence one of Hong Kong’s most influential pro-democracy campaigners.
PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, PC; Grasshopper Manufacture/Marvelous Inc After some dumb fun hacking at zombies, legendary developer Suda51’s first original game in a decade sadly only delivers a host of incoherent disappointments
Ever since he baffled GameCube owners with 2005’s Killer7, Japanese game director Suda51 has had a reputation for turning heads. From parodying the banality of open-world games with 2007’s No More Heroes to collaborating with James Gunn for 2012’s pulpy Lollipop Chainsaw, his games often offer a welcome reprieve from soulless, half-a-billion-dollar-budget gaming blockbusters. It was with considerable excitement that I fired up Suda’s first new game in 10 years.
The game kicks off with a slick cartoon that shows our hero, Romeo Stargazer, being eaten by a zombie. Hastily resurrected by his zany scientist grandfather, Romeo returns from the brink imbued with new powers – and then we’re off. Almost immediately I am bombarded by an impenetrable wall of proper-noun nonsense. It’s like this for the next 20 hours.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film about the gap between what we think we can control and what happens when reality hits. Over the years, many critics and fans have celebrated Michel Gondry’s film as a tender-hearted love story. But a rewatch might reveal that Gondry’s second collaboration with postmodern American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is much closer to another, twistier genre: hard sci-fi.
By now, the story of Eternal Sunshine is familiar. Depressed introvert Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), whose box-dyed hair colour and moods change as often as the weather. A mismatch made in heaven. The troubled couple eventually find a fix for their rocky, codependent relationship: a service provided by a sketchy medical company called Lacuna Inc that offers to erase their memories of each other. Clementine goes first. Out of spite, Joel follows.
Glenn and Seb McKinnon clear up ‘hiccup’ in process
Skater to compete next in the women’s singles next week
The US figure skater Amber Glenn said Tuesday that she has resolved copyright concerns with the Canadian recording artist Seb McKinnon after the musician expressed surprise that one of his songs appeared in her Olympic free skate program, closing a brief dispute that underscored the growing complexity of music rights in figure skating.
McKinnon, who releases music under the name CLANN, posted on social media after Glenn performed to his track The Return during the Olympic team event, questioning whether the music had been cleared. He later congratulated Glenn on her team gold medal, and both sides have since described the episode as a misunderstanding rather than a conflict.
The only reason we might not get our seventh prime minister in 10 years is that no one can find one
Keir Starmer is now the only person to have lost more comms chiefs than Meghan and Harry. After yet another day of drama, we kept hearing that the prime minister would be pressing the reset button. Not again! Starmer’s reset button is like the OK button on your TV remote – worn blank through overuse. He has pressed that thing more often than you’ve decided another 44 minutes of a crap thriller is somehow less of an effort than getting yourself to bed. Anyway, next episode in five, four, three …
Ian Claughton, 60, jailed after setting up crow scarers, stun guns and homemade flame-thrower to deter intruders
A drug dealer has been jailed for seven years after rigging a series of houses with Home Alone-style booby traps to deter intruders.
Ian Claughton, 60, was found guilty of several drugs and firearms offences in November after standing trial at Doncaster crown court alongside his ex-wife Lesley Claughton, who was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years.
I glimpsed the monks on their 2,300-mile pilgrimage across America – their message of loving-kindness had me in tears
“I’m obsessed with the monks,” my friend Sam told me. “It’s the only thing getting me through the violence of this second Trump administration. The monks, and my meds.”
I nodded. I’d first heard about the monks walking for peace after my brother and sister-in-law traveled to hear them in Alabama, returning with stories of stillness and a grounded sense of hope.
Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism
The global publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism, a Guardian investigation has found.
The platform, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, allows members of the public to self-publish articles and charge for premium content. Substack takes about 10% of the revenue the newsletters make. About 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on its platform.
Critics brand deal with regulator as ‘lightweight’ with ‘no legal bite’ as tech giants avoid legally binding measures
Apple and Google have committed to avoid discriminating against apps that compete with their own products under an agreement with the UK’s competition watchdog, as they avoided legally binding measures for their mobile platforms.
The US tech companies have vowed to be more transparent about vetting third-party apps before letting them on their app stores and not discriminate against third-party apps in app search rankings.
Manager says this season has been toughest of career
Liverpool lack right-back options for Sunderland game
Arne Slot has said it would be unacceptable for Liverpool not to qualify for the Champions League and that this season has been the toughest of his managerial career “by a mile”.
The Premier League champions lie sixth, five points off fourth place, although fifth is likely to yield a Champions League spot. Liverpool, who spent almost £450m on players last summer, are heavily reliant on Champions League income for their business model but have won once in seven league games before Wednesday’s visit to Sunderland.
The California governor has a record of failed pledges on housing, healthcare and more as he mistakes theatrics for leadership
Gavin Newsom has stumbled upon the perfect slogan for his likely upcoming presidential campaign: “Strong and Wrong.” In a recent interview, California’s governor said Americans prefer crude politicians like Donald Trump over leaders who cling to niceties and norms.
“Given the choice … the American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right,” he said.
Gil Durán is a California journalist and author of the forthcoming bookThe Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War On Democracy. He was an adviser to several Democratic politicians
Most of us aren’t getting enough fibre in our diet, but, as our panel of experts explain, upping your intake is a case of taking baby steps …
Why is everyone talking about fibremaxxing? Chris, by email TikTok-born trends rarely go hand in hand with sage health advice, but that’s not to say upping our fibre – an often-forgotten part of our diets – is a bad idea. “Fibre needed its moment, so this is a good thing,” says dietitian Priya Tew. The non-digestible carbohydrate has two main functions: “There’s insoluble fibre, which is found in things such as whole grains, brown rice or vegetable skins, and I think about it like a broom,” Tew says, “in that it brushes the system out.” Then there’s soluble fibre (oats, beans, lentils), which she likens to a sponge: “It turns into this gel in your gut, and aids digestion and keeps us regular.” But that’s only part of the story, because fibre can also help lower cholesterol and stabilise blood sugar.
So, are you getting enough? “The aim is 25-30g fibre a day, but in reality most of us are maybe getting 15-18g,” Tew says, so we’ve got a little way to go. That said, some folk on the #fibremaxxing train have set their sights higher, which is where things can become problematic. “If you’re having too much fibre, you can end up feeling bloated, constipated or have abdominal pain,” she says, and that can occur when you increase your fibre intake too quickly: “The body needs time to get used to what’s happening.”
The proposed $10bn, 3,000-hectare green hydrogen and ammonia production facility, known as INNA, included a port, transport links to the coast and three solar power plants, and had been under evaluation by Chile’s environmental regulator for almost a year.
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