Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London
There’s no escape from the torments of the past in this show, which celebrates the German artist at his most Wagnerian, enchanting and sickening you simultaneously

Born in 1921, Joseph Beuys was the “perfect” age to fight for Hitler and he did, with the wounds to prove it. The Andy Warhol portraits that complement this exhibition, without actually being part of it, brutally catch his gaunt, ravaged face in the glare of a photo flash under the hat he wore to hide burns sustained in a plane crash while serving in the Luftwaffe. The most haunting portrait turns Beuys into a spectral negative image, all darkness and shadow, his eyes wounded, guilty, lost. This was in the 1970s when Beuys was a charismatic one-man artistic revolution, inspiring young Germans to plant trees, lecturing about flows of ecological and human energy – and, in breathtaking performances, speaking to a dead hare or spending a week locked in a cage with a coyote.

All that remains today of those actions, protests and performances are posters, preserved scrawls on blackboards and mesmerising videos. Yet the moment Beuys disappeared – he died in 1986 – his solid, material sculptures took over. He believed passionately in flow and flux, promoting an animist vision of humanity and the cosmos. When he stopped talking and acting, entropy gripped his art, making it a static, slumped set of dead objects. And all the greater for it.

Late-night hosts discussed national outrage over the killing of Renee Nicole Good as the Trump administration ramps up ICE operations in Minneapolis

Late-night hosts recapped a weekend of nationwide protests over the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer as Donald Trump made a social media post referring to himself as the “acting president” of Venezuela.

Yoon is on trial for insurrection charges, after trying to declare martial law in late 2024

South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, in the first insurrection trial of a Korean head of state in three decades.

Prosecutors characterised the case as the “serious destruction of constitutional order by anti-state forces”, telling Seoul central district court that Yoon had “directly and fundamentally infringed upon the safety of the state and the survival and freedom of the people”.

Hired as a systems coach, the manager was undermined at a club where players – and Florentino Pérez – call the shots

Pep Guardiola sat in the press room at the Santiago Bernabéu and told Xabi Alonso to do it his way but around here, he knows, it tends not to work out like that, which is precisely why he said so. Saying it is one thing, doing it another, doing it successfully something else entirely, and a month and day after being offered that advice, handed that defence, Alonso was gone. On Monday afternoon, not long after landing from Saudi Arabia, a meeting was held at Valdebebas and then came the statement, short and unsentimental. He was a “legend” as a player, but no longer coach at Real Madrid.

Alonso is the 11th manager to last less than a year in two decades under the president, Florentino Pérez. He had begun work only seven months before, and that was earlier than he intended. It had started with the Club World Cup in the US, his first big decision to accept the demand to take over sooner than he wanted, and it ended with the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah, where it was an open secret that final judgment awaited. For a month it had been impossible to avoid the feeling of a manager on borrowed time, especially for the manager himself, exposed and undermined, and you cannot go on like that. There will be hurt pride, regret, but release too.

Star overtook Scarlett Johansson after success of third Avatar – her films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide

Zoe Saldaña has become the highest-grossing actor of all time.

The 47-year-old Oscar winner has overtaken Scarlett Johansson after the success of Avatar: Fire and Ash added more than $1.2bn to her total. Saldaña’s films have now made more than $15.46bn worldwide, according to the Numbers.

Island’s PM tells media event with Danish counterpart ‘we choose Denmark’ and will not be owned or governed by US

• Europe live – latest updates

Greenland’s prime minister has said “we choose Denmark” before high-stakes talks at the White House about Donald Trump’s intention to take control of the Arctic territory.

Amid rising tensions over the US president’s push, Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington.

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are dominating men’s tennis. Will anyone stop them at the Australian Open?

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US president gives clearest signal yet that he might take military action against Tehran over killing of demonstrators

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

Donald Trump has told Iranians to keep protesting and said help was on the way, in the clearest sign yet that the US president may be preparing for military action against Tehran.

“Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday. He added that he had cancelled all meetings with Iranian officials until the “senseless killing” of protesters stopped.

A spy with a superhumanly good bladder, a crime-fighting rodent who lives in a postbox, and piles of dodgy 80s wigs … we rate the best small-screen spooks. Who comes out on top?

With Tom Hiddleston up to his old racy tricks in The Night Manager – not to be confused with Netflix hit The Night Agent, which also returns in February – espionage thrillers are all over our TVs. Anyone would think we lived in unstable times with growing public distrust of governments.

So who is the all-time top small-screen spook? We’ve rated the Top 20. Just make sure you destroy this list after reading …

New Mexico authorities obtained warrant to arrest Busfield and US marshals are reportedly helping search for him

Actor and director Timothy Busfield evidently remained at large on Tuesday, four days after New Mexico authorities obtained a warrant to arrest him on child sexual abuse allegations, and US marshals are reportedly helping search for him.

Albuquerque police told outlets including Deadline and People that its officers were working with the marshals – who specialize in capturing fugitive criminal suspects – to get Busfield into custody. The agency did not offer a timeline for when the Emmy winner may be arrested in connection with a case that has gained attention across the US entertainment industry and beyond.

Trees still block roads and scores of people remain without power or water almost a week on from storm

Linda Williams, 86, has been without heating, lighting and a working phone for the best part of five days. She is trying to keep warm by layering up and she picks her way around her home in the remote Cornish village of New Mill with old battery lamps from her days of caravanning.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re in a bit of a state,” said Williams, a retired council accounts assistant. “But it can’t go on for ever … can it?”

Northumberland teenager, who denies terrorism charges, amassed weapons and researched local synagogues, alleges prosecutor

A teenage boy alleged to hate Jews and black people gathered weapons and researched local synagogues as he prepared to commit acts of terrorism, a jury has heard.

The boy, now 16, from Northumberland, was proud of holding Nazi beliefs and became a member of a banned terror group which had the goal of creating a “white supremacist utopia”, prosecutors said.

The US president invokes the usual suspects – drugs, organised crime, illegal migration – but this is simply a grab for resources and power

In the early hours of 3 January, Caracas and other cities in Venezuela were bombed and the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, was kidnapped along with his wife by US military personnel. In addition to the 100 deaths recorded so far as a result of the attack, approximately 100 more were caused by US attacks on small boats in the previous months, under the pretext of combatting drug trafficking. Although it seems clear that the real intention of Donald Trump’s administration was to seize Venezuela’s wealth, the initial argument to justify the military deployment in the Caribbean was that it was to fight the illegal drugs trade and stop the flow of migrants that the Venezuelan government was allegedly causing by emptying prisons of criminals and sending them to the US.

As a criminology professor who has studied Venezuelan drug trafficking for 20 years, I find this far-fetched. To understand this, we have to consider Venezuela’s historical role in drug trafficking. As a typical Andean country neighbouring the world’s main coca producers, Venezuela has always played a significant role as a cocaine corridor. Since the turn of the century, its involvement in international drug trafficking has increased significantly as a result of growing European demand for cocaine, the effects of 2000’s Plan Colombia, which displaced illegal operations to border regions and neighbouring countries, and the breakdown of technical cooperation with Washington.

Andrés Antillano is a social psychologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela

Cut out flying and you shred skiing’s carbon footprint. And opting for a high-altitude resort that needs less artificial snow makes it even greener. Les Arcs in the French Alps ticks both boxes

I’ve always wanted to try skiing, but it’s not a cheap holiday and I have always had a lingering suspicion that some resorts are like Las Vegas in the mountains, with artificial snow, damaging infrastructure, annihilated vegetation and air-freighted fine dining – in short, profoundly unsustainable.

However, if there’s a way to have a green family ski holiday, then sign me – and my husband, Joe, two kids and my mum – up. Here’s how to do it.

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.

Republican House oversight committee chair James Comer says he will move to hold former president in contempt

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.

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

Global growth ‘downshifted’ since Covid pandemic and sub-Saharan Africa particularly affected, report says

• Business live – latest updates

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 televised Christmas Eve mass featuring a portrayal of the newborn Christ by an adult woman covered in sticky rice paper that was described by some critics as “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.