US president is suing for defamation over documentary that joined two parts of speech he made on 6 January 2021
President Trump is expected to come under pressure to make rare disclosures about his properties and business interests as part of his $10bn lawsuit against the BBC, the Guardian understands.
Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary that spliced together two parts of the president’s address to a rally on 6 January 2021. The BBC has already apologised and said the edit was misleading, but has denied it defamed Trump.
With fear, surveillance and brute force only set to increase, there are disturbing parallels with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
Sanam Vakil is director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme
Iran is once again convulsed by protests that are threatening the Islamic Republic’s stability and future. What began as demonstrations over a collapsing currency and rising inflation has rapidly evolved into one of the most destabilising episodes of unrest the regime has faced in years. The protests have exposed both the resilience of Iranian society and the growing brittleness of a political system stubbornly unwilling to reform.
It’s the scale, spread and momentum of the demonstrations that have been most alarming to the authorities. Protests have erupted across all provinces in the country, reaching more than 180 towns and cities, cutting across class, ethnic and regional lines. This time, the turn to openly anti-regime slogans has been rapid and widespread. Protesters are no longer demanding relief from within the system. They are rejecting it outright, directly challenging the authority of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei – and the wider establishment.
Sanam Vakil is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme
Some of Trump’s aides refer to his deputy chief of staff as ‘the prime minister’, with many of the most shocking policies leading back to him. Worrying about his actions isn’t enough
If you want to understand what’s happening in the US right now, and what is likely to happen next, don’t just focus on Donald Trump. Rather, pay close attention to Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller. It’s increasingly clear that Miller, a man who has said that “America is for Americans and Americans only” and who is on a mission to “save the west” is the driving force behind the Trump administration’s most extreme policies. Per a recent Bloomberg profile, some of Trump’s aides even privately call Miller “the prime minister”.
Miller’s influence stretches across both foreign and domestic policy. Those masked immigration agents pulling people off the street, and occasionally shooting unarmed citizens in the face? You can trace their aggressive tactics back to Miller. The plot to get rid of birthright citizenship? Miller’s hands are all over it. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro? He helped plan it. The campaign to Maga-fy universities? Miller again! All right-leaning roads seem to lead back to Miller.
As protests over killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis continue, president uses Truth Social post to slam protesters and repeat baseless claims
Donald Trump is heading to Detroit, Michigan today, where he’ll tour a Ford factory in Dearborn.
The president will deliver remarks to the Detroit Economic Club at 2pm ET, to continue his “affordability” tour, where he’s expected to tout the administration’s commitment to revitalising manufacturing and keeping costs down.
A quarter of countries in the developing world are poorer than they were in 2019 before the Covid pandemic, the World Bank has found.
The Washington-based organisation said a large group of low-income countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa, had suffered a negative shock in the six years to the end of last year.
Christmas Eve live broadcast showed holy child portrayed by female performance artist writhing in sticky rice paper
A Roman Catholic diocese in Germany has expressed regret over a Christmas Eve mass shown on national television featuring a “slime Jesus”.
The broadcast on ARD television from St Mary’s in Stuttgart showed a manger in which a female performance actor was huddled up in a foetal position and covered with sticky rice paper.
The actor’s sober note of sanity on Sunday night was the latest courageous move from a man who seems more invested in activism than acting
At times like these, when the world teeters on the brink of several terrifying calamities at once, awards seasons can be something of a tightrope.
This weekend’s Golden Globe awards were a perfect case in point. The main criticism levelled at the ceremony so far seems to be that it didn’t adequately reflect the moment. It was all a bit 1920s Berlin, with a shimmering array of beautiful millionaires busy congratulating themselves, oblivious to the fear and exhaustion of the rest of the world.
Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’
High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns “a bombshell”.
Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years.
Spanish singer allegedly subjected women to ‘inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation’
The Spanish singer Julio Iglesias has been accused of sexual assault by two female former employees who say they were subjected “to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment”.
The two women – a domestic worker and a physical therapist who were employed at Iglesias’s Caribbean mansions in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas – allege that the assaults took place in 2021.
Professional mermaids risk hypothermia, seasickness and the cling of skin-tight silicone, but the reward is becoming an ‘ocean ambassador’ – and a bit more colour in the world
Propelled by a shimmering silicon tail, Katrin Gray spins underwater, blowing kisses to the audience as her long, copper hair floats around her face. Her seemingly effortless movement is anything but – a professional mermaid’s free diving and performance skills require training, practice and total concentration.
Mermaiding has become a global cottage industry, with pageants, conventions, retreats and meet-ups, where people gather in “pods” to practise their dolphin kicks. Makers create bespoke tail flukes, bejewelled bras, mermaid hair and even prosthetic gills for professional and hobbyist “seasters”. There is even a Netflix reality series called MerPeople, which documents the occasionally perilous journey of several aspiring professional merfolk. “No dead mermaids,” is the motto of one business featured.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte says ‘an illiterate pundit, YouTuber or influencer’ has more impact than a literary prize winner
One of Spain’s best-known novelists has launched a withering attack on the country’s leading linguistic authority, saying it ignores the opinions of writers when it comes to changes in language, and that its “anything goes Taliban” yields instead to social media, commentators and influencers.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte used a column in Monday’s El Mundo to accuse the Spanish Royal Academy (RAE) – of which he is a member – of failing to live up to the mission laid out in its celebrated motto of “cleaning, fixing and giving shine” to the Spanish language.
The Guardian's Peter Beaumont is in Kyiv where temperatures are expected to fall to -20C during the night. Many residents are forced to use emergency shelters to warm up and use electricity after a large-scale Russian attack on the capital on 9 January damaged energy facilities. Hundreds of homes have been left without power or heating after the strikes
50-year-old was snowboarding in Switzerland on Sunday
Kestenholz won bronze in giant slalom at Nagano 1998
Snowboarder Ueli Kestenholz, who won a bronze medal in the sport’s first Olympic race, has died after being trapped in an avalanche, the Swiss Ski federation said on Tuesday. He was 50.
Kestenholz was third in snowboard giant slalom at the 1998 Nagano Olympics – a debut event that became a story of the Games when Canadian gold medallist Ross Rebagliati fought to keep his title after a positive test for cannabis.
Less than two weeks into the year, the US is stoking mayhem at home and abroad – with midterms coming in the autumn
Have we ever seen a year in recent memory begin with as much deliberate turmoil as 2026 has? Less than two weeks into 2026, we have witnessed Donald Trump deploy US forces to depose and abduct the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, along with Cilia Flores, his wife and close political adviser. The US president then informed the world that the United States would “run” Venezuela for the time being, which he later explained could potentially last for several years.
Trump has also threatened – and then seemingly made peace with – the president of Colombia; seized at least five oil tankers in the Caribbean (actions that UN experts label illegal armed aggression); promised US military strikes targeting cartels in Mexico against the wishes of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum; and frightened the people of Cuba with the prospect that Marco Rubio could be their next president.
The explosive popularity of the gay hockey TV drama reveals women’s desire for sex and romance without violence or hierarchy
The first time gay hockey romance crossed Mary’s radar, she was warned off it. A 64-year-old non-profit executive from Toronto, Mary recalled mentioning the Canadian author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series to her son, a twentysomething queer writer and fellow hockey-obsessive, a few years ago.
“I said: ‘Have you heard of these books?’ and he said: ‘Yeah.’ I said: ‘Should I read these books?’ And he said: ‘No. They’re not for you.’”
The satirical title targeted in an Islamist attack 10 years ago published a racist, sexist caricature of me that speaks volumes about its values
The day before Christmas Eve, just as France readied itself to slip into the holiday slowdown, something abruptly shook me out of any festive torpor. The satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, known globally and tragically for being the target of an Islamist attack in 2015 published a caricature – of me. And it was appallingly racist. A huge, toothy grin, an enormous mouth, the cartoon depicts me dancing on a stage before an audience of laughing white men, adorned with a banana belt on a largely exposed body. The headline: “The Rokhaya Diallo Show: Mocking secularism around the world.”
Stunned by the violence of this grotesque cartoon, I shared it on social media with a brief analysis: “In keeping with slave-era and colonial imagery, Charlie Hebdo once again shows itself incapable of engaging with the ideas of a Black woman without reducing her to a dancing body – exoticised, supposedly savage – adorned with the very bananas that are hurled at Black people who dare to step into the public sphere.”
Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, writer, film-maker and activist
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From one-pot meals to versatile dishes that last all week, our panel of experts serves up ideas for solo chefs
I really struggle with cooking for one, so what can I make in January that’s interesting but easy and, most importantly, warming? Jane, via email
“There’s an art to the perfect solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, author of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence with ease.” For Chung, that means good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a dish that can be cooked in one pan (“a night alone must be maximised with minimal washing-up”) and eaten with a single piece of cutlery, “preferably in front of the telly and out of a bowl nestling in your lap”. Happily, she says, all of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has all the rich and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but with a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying.” Not only that, but you can knock it up in less than 10 minutes. “Melt cheese, milk and miso in a pan to make the sauce base, then add frozen udon that have been soaked in hot water.” Coat the noodles in the sauce, then serve with crisp bacon or perhaps a few anchovies for “pops of salty fat”. Crown with a golden egg yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should then be broken: “Add a crack of black pepper, and your cosy night in has begun.”
“January feels like a time for fresh, bright flavours,” says the Guardian’s own Felicity Cloake, which for her often means pasta con le sarde made with tinned fish, fennel seeds and lots of lemon juice; “or with purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of garlic and chilli”. A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, with harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings the possibility of a quick stew, Cloake adds, while it’s always a good shout to braise some beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – so long as they’re versatile, that is.
Fans of Normal People and One Day will adore The New Years, which follows a relatable on-off couple in Madrid. It is the best relationship drama you haven’t seen yet
It is rare to watch a fictional romance and feel genuinely invested in the question of will-they-won’t-they – and even rarer for it to reflect familiar relationship turbulence. Many love stories on TV skip straight to wish-fulfilment, delivering instant chemistry, no challenges that can’t be overcome within the runtime and glib reassurance that Love Conquers All.
Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, for instance – based on a real couple, and ostensibly exploring whether a relationship can survive differences of faith – didn’t wait to resolve that question before bringing its leads together. In real life, promising connections fall at much lower hurdles, for such banal reasons as incompatible schedules.
Non-essential French embassy staff have left Iran, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Agence France-Presse. The personnel left on Sunday and Monday, the sources added, without saying how many people had departed. “The protection of our personnel and our citizens is a priority,” a French foreign ministry official told AFP.
Commenting on the protests, the UN high commissioner for human rights VolkerTürk said:
This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue. The Iranian people and their demands for fairness, equality and justice must be heard.
Top seed was leading Osorio 6-3, 2-4 when play called off
Venus Williams lost 6-4, 6-3 to Tatjana Maria in Tasmania
Emma Raducanu cut a frustrated figure on Tuesday at the Hobart International as her first round match was suspended for the night due to rain with the Briton struggling to hold on to her precarious 6-3, 2-4 lead against Camila Osorio of Colombia.
Raducanu, the top seed in Hobart, will return to the court on Wednesday afternoon hoping to close out her first win of the season. She lost her only match of 2026 to Maria Sakkari at the United Cup mixed-team competition last week. Afterwards, Raducanu explained how her pre-season had been badly disrupted by the foot injury she had been struggling with since she prematurely ended her 2025 season in October. The 22-year-old only began to play points and move properly in her training sessions once she arrived in Australia at the end of December.
Global central banks have issued an extraordinary joint statement offering “full solidarity” to the US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, in the face of the latest threat to his independence from Donald Trump’s White House.
“The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability,” the statement said.
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