Byelection candidate accused of indulging ‘alt right fantasy’ by suggesting women need ‘biological reality’ check

Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has been accused of wanting a “Handmaid’s Tale future” after unearthed YouTube footage revealed he called for “young girls and women” to be given a “biological reality” check.

In a clip posted to his personal YouTube channel in November 2024, Matt Goodwin stated that “many women in Britain are having children much too late in life”.

USS Gerald R Ford will take about three weeks to sail to region, amid pressure on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programmes

Donald Trump has ordered the world’s largest carrier to sail from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East in an effort to increase pressure on Iran amid discussions over curbing its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

The USS Gerald R Ford and its supporting warships should take about three weeks to return to the region, where it will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, dramatically increasing the military firepower available to the US leader.

From ‘honour’ killings to nuclear war, some screen works have led directly legislative action – despite what jury head Wenders suggested at the Berlin film festival

Should film festivals be more than just screenings and red carpets? Should they prompt us to think about the role cinema plays in the world? Novelist Arundhati Roy certainly thinks so. She pulled out of the jury at the Berlin festival in protest at jury president Wim Wenders’ claim that films should “stay out of politics”; she said Wenders’ stance was “unconscionable”, and that to “hear [him] say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”

Wenders had suggested that cinema is a way to build empathy, but not directly change politicians’ minds. However this is simply not true. Some films – both documentary and narrative – have not only changed public opinion about social issues but led directly to legislation. Despite evidence to the contrary, politicians are people too. They can be moved. And sometimes they are even moved to action.

• ‘Quad God’ leads contenders in men’s free skate

• Email Beau or get in touch on Bluesky

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing

Malinin can surely win with a solid program that doesn’t include the quadruple axel.

If you were Malinin, would you attempt it?

Tree has never been granted preservation order to protect it under law and prevent it from being cut down

The future of the original Bramley apple tree, which is responsible for one of the world’s most popular cooking apples, is at risk now that the site where it grows has been put up for sale, campaigners have warned.

The tree is situated in the back garden of a row of cottages in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, which has been owned by Nottingham Trent University since 2018 and has been used as student accommodation.

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The US band’s brawny, pit-inciting riffs come laced with blurry waves of distortion, making for music that is oddly reflective and melancholy

Early 00s metal is enjoying a revival, but that alone can’t account for the dramatic surge in commercial fortunes being enjoyed by Deftones. Thirty-one years on from the release of their debut album, they find themselves, as frontman Chino Moreno has put it, “literally bigger than we’ve ever been”. Between the release of 2020’s Ohms and last year’s Private Music their monthly listener figures on Spotify surged from two million to 17 million. The 15,000-capacity venue where they open their UK tour is accordingly heaving.

The reason, with a certain inevitability, is TikTok virality. Tonight, Deftones’ setlist is liberally peppered with tracks ubiquitous on the social media app, from opener Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away) to encore Cherry Waves – although why its users have alighted on them is a matter of conjecture. On fan forums, opinions range from the practical (younger listeners discovered the band after emo rappers sampled their music) to the more earthy: there is discussion of a phenomenon called – dear God - “hornycore” into which the Deftones apparently fit because Moreno has “sexual tones” and is “a fox/daddy”.

Annexe holding 6,000 women and children is now mostly empty, raising security and humanitarian concerns

Most of the foreign families of suspected Islamic State fighters have left al-Hawl camp since the Syrian government took control of the facility, prompting security and humanitarian concerns over their whereabouts.

About 6,000 women and children from 42 different countries were previously held in the foreigners’ annexe of al-Hawl camp in north-east Syria, which housed some of the most radical former members of the extremist group. The foreigners’ annexe was separate from the part of the camp that contained about 20,000 Syrians and Iraqis.

• French judge marked French duo higher than US pair

• Petition calling for probe approaches 15,000 signatures

• ISU says it has ‘full confidence’ in scoring system

The International Skating Union (ISU) has defended the integrity of Olympic ice dance judging after a single judge’s scoring gap became central to the outcome of the gold medal contest, insisting variations across panels are expected and that safeguards exist to prevent bias from determining results.

In a statement released on Friday, the governing body rejected suggestions that the judging system failed during the competition, in which France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron narrowly defeated Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates in one of the closest and most disputed finishes of the Milano Cortina Games.

• Vladyslav Heraskevych reacts to say: ‘Cas has failed us’

• Lizzy Yarnold: Olympic chiefs have got it badly wrong

The Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych has lost his appeal to compete at the Winter Olympics after the court of arbitration for sport ruled that the IOC guidelines banning his “helmet of memory” were fair and proportionate.

Heraskevych had gone to Cas after being dramatically removed from the men’s competition on Thursday just 45 minutes it was due to start because of his helmet, which depicts 24 athletes and children killed by Russia.

With their profile and vile words, these malign provocateurs are tearing down decency’s guardrails

It lacks the elegance of “greed is good”, but as a distillation of the spirit of the age, it’s right up there. “I feel liberated,” a top banker told the Financial Times shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled … it’s a new dawn.”

So that’s what they meant by “vibe shift”. Though, as the Epstein files reveal daily, the top 0.01% were hardly primly biting their tongues before Trump’s win, at least not in private. Those with telephone-number fortunes and great power felt able to speak, and write, to each other about women in language so vicious, so filled with hate – women discussed as body parts, as “less than human”, in Gordon Brown’s apt phrase – that they didn’t need the encouragement of a “grab ’em by the pussy” president to cast off their inhibitions.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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With 2026 being the year of the fire horse, this spicy number has a suitable kick to mark the occasion

Here’s a spicy little number that will help you see in the lunar new year in style on 17 January.

Rron Rakoci, mixologist, Huŏ, London

An undercover operative stopped the pair from carrying out what could have been UK’s deadliest terrorist attack

Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.

From Blue Lights gossip to How to Get to Heaven from Belfast cocktails, the city has become a small-screen hotspot – and is basking in its newfound fame

‘I love them!” Minutes after I jump into a taxi at Belfast International airport, the driver is beaming about Derry Girls. So many tourists he picks up want to talk about the hit comedy and, as a fan himself, he’s happy to oblige.

We’re stuck in traffic, which is odd for this small city on a wet Tuesday morning. “It’s because all the media are here,” he jokes. But there is some truth to it. I’m visiting for the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, the new series from Derry Girls mastermind Lisa McGee, and to see how the capital became home to the best TV.

Seven states must make deal for sharing basin that supplies 40 million people, before US government steps in. With negotiations at an impasse, what’s at stake?

The future of the American west hangs in balance this week, as seven states remained at a stalemate over who should bear the brunt of the enormous water cuts needed to pull the imperiled Colorado River back from the brink. Time is running short to reach a deal before a critical deadline, set for Saturday.

In the region where water has long been the source of survival and conflict, the challenges hindering consensus are as steep as the stakes are high.

Author says she is ‘disgusted’ by claim from jury president Wim Wenders that film-makers should remain apolitical

The author Arundhati Roy has withdrawn from the Berlinale after the film festival’s chief jurist said film-makers must stay out of politics.

The festival got off to a shaky start on Thursday after the competition jury, led by the German film-maker Wim Wenders, fielded questions about the conflict in Gaza. Asked if films can affect political change, Wenders said that “movies can change the world” but “not in a political way”.

• Tudor’s former clubs include Juventus and Marseille

• Door remains open for summer Pochettino return

Tottenham have reached an agreement for Igor Tudor to become their interim manager until the end of the season, leaving the door open for Mauricio Pochettino to return this summer.

The club turned to Tudor after making checks on the former Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzic and the former RB Leizpig manager Marco Rose. The former Croatia international has been out of work since he left Juventus in October after the Serie A club went eight games without a win.

Negotiations over funding bill stall as Democratic members of Congress try to force Republicans to consider measures on ICE and CBP behavior

The annual rate of US inflation eased in January, according to the latest data consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the last 12 months, the cost of goods has increased by 2.4% – down from 2.7% in last month’s report.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate left Washington on Thursday as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) heads for another shutdown, when stopgap funding lapses tonight. Nearly all Democrats blocked a second attempt to pass the annual DHS appropriations bill as negotiations for guardrails on federal immigration enforcement have stalled. Senator John Fetterman was the only lawmaker to break ranks with the party.

In Canadian town stunned by shooting perpetrated by one of its own, there is anger, but also a prevailing sense of duty

Residents of the Canadian mining town Tumbler Ridge largely agree that Tuesday 10 February began like a normal day. The cloudy haze that settled over the valley was typical. So, too, was the chill of winter.

There were no hints that the quiet and comfortable routine of daily life in the mountains would be irrevocably shattered in one of Canada’s worst acts of mass violence.

Customers flock to Daoxiangcun to pick up cakes selected by the president during lunar new year tour around city

A Beijing pastry shop visited by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on a lunar new year tour this week has been swarmed by customers hoping to get their hands on Xi-approved sweet treats.

Traffic was brought to a standstill in Beijing’s capital as the president took a tour around the city on Monday and Tuesday.

• ‘Society is better when we embrace other cultures’

• Haaland doubt for FA Cup tie, Rodri charged by FA

Pep Guardiola has said that blaming people from overseas for a country’s problems is wrong, the Manchester City manager’s comments coming amid the fallout of Sir Jim Ratcliffe claiming the United Kingdom is being “colonised by immigrants”.

Ratcliffe’s comment, made in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, has led to widespread condemnation, including from within football, leading to Manchester United’s single largest minority owner saying he was sorry that his “choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe”.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Whether you blame the US or the communist regime, there is no doubt that this is an island spiralling into tragedy

Felix Valdés García was nine years old when the revolutionaries came to blow up his trees. It was the verge of the 1970s and his father, Felin, was losing the family farm to Cuba’s 10-year-old communist regime. A push called the Revolutionary Offensive was under way, mobilising the people to sow, clean and harvest 10m tonnes of sugar cane in an effort to make Cuba financially independent. The land needed to be cleared.

For decades the family had nurtured their 800 hectares of rich loam alongside the meandering Sagua River. Eight couples, all related, worked the fields, while Felix and his sister had fruitful adventures among the royal palms, avocado, mango and magnificent ceiba.