Rolling coverage of the final day of the World Economic Forum in Davos
Davos is now hearing about the geopolitical risks of the year ahead.
Jane Harman, chair of the bipartisan US Commission on the National Defense Strategy, warns that America is leaving a “huge vacuum” around the world, which China is moving into.
Norrie and Zverev are going through the pre-match formalities. The umpire tells the players to smile big for the cameras. Not sure how easy that is for Norrie, given the British No 2, the last Brit standing in the singles, has lost to Zverev in all six of their previous meetings. The last time they played at the Australian Open was in 2024, when Norrie was denied 7-6 in the fifth set. But Norrie will at least take something from the fact he was able to push Zverev all the way then, and the fact that this is a night match, with slightly slower conditions, may help Norrie, because the rallies will be longer and more attritional and that’s what he loves.
Up next: we’ve got De Minaur v Tiafoe on Rod Laver and Norrie v Zverev on John Cain and Svitolina v Shnaider on Margaret Court.
James Bord’s consortium is the preferred bidder to take over Sheffield Wednesday but his data-led player recruitment record is mixed, especially with United
Sheffield Wednesday fans will be delighted to hear that one associate of James Bord describes the preferred bidder for their club as “a mini Tony Bloom”, although the professional poker player’s references from the other side of the Steel City are rather less complimentary.
Until it became clear late last year that Bord was planning to buy Wednesday his data company, Short Circuit Science, had a consultancy contract with Sheffield United to assist with their recruitment, which, as their position in the lower reaches of the Championship indicates, has delivered limited success.
Since the end of the second world war, all eyes have been on Russia. Yet Trump’s increasingly erratic, hostile presidency is shattering old assumptions
One of the things that the depleted, often denigrated British state is still pretty good at is persuading the public that another country is a threat. As a small, warlike island next to a much larger land mass, Britain has had centuries of practice at cultivating its own sense of foreboding. Arguably, preparing for conflict with some part of the outside world is our natural mindset.
Warnings about potential enemy countries are spread by our prime ministers and major political parties, intelligence services and civil servants, serving and retired military officers, defence and foreign affairs thinktanks, and journalists from the right and the left. Sometimes, the process is relatively subtle and covert: reporters or MPs are given off-the-record briefings about our “national security” – a potently imprecise term – facing a new threat.
First round at Wijk aan Zee delayed for over an hour after protesters dump coal at venue and unveil banner reading ‘no chess on a dead planet’
Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”, has been sponsored for all its 88 years by the local steelworks, either in its previous incarnations as Hoogovens and Corus or under its current Indian management.
Its relations with the local community have previously been good, but this year protesters targeting Tata Steel drew attention to the company’s heavy use of coal by dumping two tons of coal in front of the entrance, and draping a banner reading “No chess on a dead planet” over the sports hall. Play in the opening round eventually began one and a half hours late.
The Free Solo star will attempt to climb the 1,667ft skyscraper without ropes in a live Netflix broadcast, drawing awe, ethical concern and global attention
Alex Honnold has spent the past three months training for this moment: free soloing – climbing without ropes or a harness – one of Asia’s tallest skyscrapers, Taipei 101. It is an ambition that began more than a decade ago and is now close to being realized.
Th climb will be broadcast globally on Skyscraper Live, Netflix’s latest foray into live sports programming. The star of the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo insists that climbing Taipei 101 will feel no different from any other of his ascents.
Shock: Chelsea have been linked with another young player. This time it is the Rennes centre-back Jérémy Jacquet, who would offer something the team is lacking.
Dear Abby advises a woman who says her husband follows very attractive women on Instagram if that is considered cheating, and if so, is worthy of divorce.
Virginia's new Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger, made headlines this week by signing an executive order stating that local and state law enforcement will not cooperate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
An Oklahoma teenager is behind bars after allegedly calling 911 to tell authorities he stabbed his brother to death after becoming "enraged" over a video game.
Move over, Wonder Woman! The latest MCU spin-off is an intriguing and surprisingly meta affair. Plus: a brilliant documentary about the boyband – and more regency raunch as Bridgerton returns
In terms of audience recognition, Wonder Man is no Wonder Woman. But, as this latest addition to the MCU shows, that can afford a certain freedom. This miniseries is a surprisingly meta affair; a superhero fantasy by way of the kind of behind-the-camera machinations familiar to fans of Seth Rogen’s The Studio. It tells the story of a pair of struggling actors, Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), who are hustling hard to be cast in eccentric European director Von Kovak’s movie Wonder Man. But what seems like a simple Hollywood satire soon develops special powers as Simon finds he shares certain attributes with his fictional persona. Intriguing.
Disney+, from Wednesday 28 January
Slim frames and tinted lenses are reshaping how men present themselves. Glasses have become the must-have accessory – even if you don’t have a prescription
Last spring, Tom Broughton, founder of eyewear brand Cubitts, was asked to comment on a meme that was going viral, that featured a pair of his company’s ‘Plimsoll’ frames. The small, delicate, and slightly round unisex shape had been worn by British actor, Jonathan Bailey, in leaked stills from the 2025 movie, Jurassic World Rebirth – and had been dubbed by the internet as a pair of ‘slutty little glasses’.
“It all just blew up,” remembers Broughton, noting how the brand struggled to deal with the sudden demand for what had become the sexiest specs on the market. A subsequent capsule collection, made in partnership with Bailey’s LGBTQ+ charity the Shameless Fund, sold out almost instantly, too. Thousands of pairs were gone in minutes, and after multiple restocks, “we’re maybe down to our last 15 pairs,” adds Broughton. Nearly the entire run was bought by men.
The Andaman Coast has one of the largest concentration of dugong in the world, so why are numbers falling dramatically and what can they tell us about a biodiversity warning cry
Thailand’s Andaman Coast is home to one of the largest dugong populations in the world, with 273 of the plump marine mammals, sometimes called sea cows, estimated to be living there as of 2022. In recent years, though, more and more dead or stranded dugongs have been washing ashore. Now the Andaman Coast population may have fallen by more than half, experts say.
In late November, I travelled to Phuket, following in the footsteps of film-makers Mailee Osten-Tan and Nick Axelrod, who have been investigating Thailand’s dugong crisis over the past year for a new Guardian documentary.
The plight of a reluctant medieval king is glimpsed through scattered pieces of the past, in an ingenious novel that asks how much we can really know about history
In a medieval palace an unnamed king chafes under the new and unsought burden of power. His uncertain fate plays out in the present-day imagination of an unnamed curator of unspecified gender, who has been employed by the palace to dress some of its rooms for public viewing in the wake of an undescribed personal tragedy.
It’s likely that you’ll either be utterly intrigued or deeply put off by that summary of poet Rebecca Perry’s debut novel, May We Feed the King, a highly wrought puzzle-box of a book which deliberately wrongfoots the reader at every turn. However, the intrigued will find that it richly rewards those who approach it with curiosity – just not in the ways we as readers (and as interpreters of stories in any form) have been trained to expect.
LSO/Schmidt (Heritage) A 1980 live recording reveals the Danish conductor’s assured handling of a colossal symphony – a balance of architectural clarity and gothic extravagance
Havergal Brian has often been looked at askance, his vast gothic symphony approached like climbing Everest – merely because it’s there – rather than taken seriously as a milestone in 20th-century British music. For the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, the Heritage label has brushed off this 1980 BBC live broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall under Danish conductor Ole Schmidt, the fourth recording of the complete work to enter the catalogue.
Written over eight years and completed in 1927, the work was inspired by the magnificence and eccentricities of the gothic age, Brian’s idiosyncratic response ranging from guileless melody to wickedly complex polyphony. The 35-minute part one is a persuasive three-movement symphony all on its own, but it’s the challenging, hour-long setting of the Te Deum that demands the listener’s concentrated attention. Influences include Bruckner, Berlioz and Sibelius.
Footprints trudging from the back door into the snow and a left-behind knife sheath paint one of the clearest pictures of the quadruple murderer's movements on Nov. 13, 2022.
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