The teams are on their way out of the London Stadium tunnel. It’s slightly above freezing and rain, probably not snow, is forecast a bit later this evening. Kick-off is next.
Another 2,000 ICE and homeland security agents will reportedly head to the state, targeting immigrant populations
The Trump administration has sent more immigration agents to Minnesota, part of escalating attacks and rhetoric against the state and its immigrant populations in what immigration officials are saying is the agency’s “largest operation to date”.
“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities — our largest operation to date,” the official Immigration and Customs Enforcement account on X wrote on Tuesday afternoon. “If you’re a criminal illegal alien and/or you are engaged in fraud, expect a visit from ICE.”
The seizure of Venezuelan leader was induced by the prize of petroleum, but driven by spectacle, geopolitics and domestic politics
It’s all about oil. That was the reason Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader illegally abducted by US forces at the weekend, had given for Donald Trump’s fixation with his country. A better way to think about Venezuela is that oil was necessary but not sufficient. The presence of vast reserves made Mr Trump’s interest understandable – if Venezuela’s main export was bananas this would not have happened. But oil alone cannot explain the timing or scale of the move.
Venezuelan crude is extra-heavy as well as expensive and slow to bring online; it will not immediately transform US energy systems, nor rescue refineries that have already adapted to years without it. Instead, oil is the “prize” around which other agendas cohere. These include future profits for US firms; modest downward pressure on oil prices; depriving China of a meaningful ally in America’s backyard; putting pressure on Cuba; and US domestic political signalling in Florida. Each gain is small. But collectively Mr Trump could justify a high‑profile, theatrical – and unlawful – intervention even if the economic returns are incremental.
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Venezuela’s rulers have deployed armed militias to patrol streets, operate checkpoints and check people’s phones in a crackdown to consolidate authority after the US attack on Caracas.
Paramilitary groups known as colectivos criss-crossed the capital with motorbikes and assault rifles on Tuesday in a show of force to stifle any dissent or perception of a power vacuum.
IIHF president says seating at arenas may be reduced
NHL concerned about ice quality and dimensions
The head of the International Ice Hockey Federation said parts of the main hockey rink for the Milan Cortina Olympics might not be fully finished on time, but the playing surface, practice facilities and dressing rooms will be ready when the puck drops for the men’s event on 11 February.
“We can be confident on that,” IIHF President Luc Tardif told reporters Monday at the world junior championship. “You’re not going to go to Milano for nothing.”
Industry experts have expressed skepticism over Donald Trump’s bullish prediction that US big oil firms will rapidly invest tens of billions of dollars to fix Venezuelan infrastructure and ramp up production after the rendition of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
Without an “iron-clad guarantee” that the US federal government will fully reimburse them for the cost of rebuilding the country’s oil market, analysts expect global energy giants to proceed with extreme caution.
Exclusive: Morgan McSweeney says Labour needs emotion, empathy and evidence, sources say
The government must find ways to reconnect emotionally with voters, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is said to have warned cabinet ministers, in a meeting where the prime minister said they were in “the fight of our lives”.
The prime minister sought to rally his cabinet on Tuesday, telling them to ignore the polls and to prepare to take on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
In Manchester United’s brave new world coaches are more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still to blame if it arrives cold
Turns out he could survive losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.
Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994‑95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.
Democrats and ‘make America healthy again’ movement pushed back on the rider in a funding bill led by Bayer
In a setback for the pesticide industry, Democrats have succeeded in removing a rider from a congressional appropriations bill that would have helped protect pesticide makers from being sued and could have hindered state efforts to warn about pesticide risks.
Chellie Pingree, a Democratic representative from Maine and ranking member of the House appropriations interior, environment, and related agencies subcommittee, said Monday that the controversial measure pushed by the agrochemical giant Bayer and industry allies has been stripped from the 2026 funding bill.
New leadership claims former allies are trying to repurpose $160m in NRA Foundation donations for personal gain
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is suing its own charitable arm, the NRA Foundation, claiming that its leaders are trying to seize control of the gun rights organization and illegally “repurposing” $160m in donations to support their “thirst for power”.
The allegations come in a lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court in Washington DC laying bare the turmoil that has plagued the NRA since its disgraced longtime chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, was ousted in 2024 alongside other senior figures after a financial corruption scandal.
LaMalfa’s death cuts the House Republican majority to 218-213, tightening GOP control for passing bills
Doug LaMalfa, a California Republican who represented the state’s rural northern region in the House of Representatives and was known for his work on water and forestry policy, has died at age 65, according to statements from Republican officials.
LaMalfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer who previously served in the California state legislature, was in his seventh term representing California’s first congressional district. He sat on the House agriculture, natural resources, and transportation and infrastructure committees.
Pushback from Susan Collins and Thom Tillis is striking amid tepid response from most other Republican senators
Two senior Republican senators on Monday openly opposed Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempt to punish their fellow Senator Mark Kelly by demoting him and cutting his pension after he released a video telling active-duty military to follow the law.
Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate appropriations committee with jurisdiction over the Pentagon’s budget, said she believed it was wrong to target Kelly’s military benefits because of a political video.
Grok still being used to digitally undress women and children, while US takes TikTok approach to drones
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Happy new year! I hope your 2026 is off to a great start. Today in tech, we are examining the output of Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, and the US’s ban on foreign drones.
But Maduro himself and others close to the couple agree that she was always far more than that. Before her rendition to New York, Flores wielded power comparable with – and at times greater than – that of other figures from the regime, including Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice-president who is now the country’s acting leader.
From RFK Jr to Pete Hegseth, the president’s top aides have been disastrous. We shouldn’t be surprised
As 2024 ended and Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were rolled out, commentators scrambled to decide which one was the worst. Was it Matt Gaetz for attorney general? Or Pete Hegseth, for secretary of defense? Or maybe Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services?
Soon after, the White House crowed that Trump had assembled “the greatest cabinet of all time”.
Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
The club are in a decent position but there is dissatisfaction with the ownership and the new head coach must not get caught in the crossfire
The way Chelsea are run will come as no surprise to Liam Rosenior. He has longstanding relationships with three of the five sporting directors and will know from his time at Strasbourg, who are part of the same ownership, that the head coach’s best chance of surviving is not to make the mistake of rebelling against the structure.
Rosenior will have to show more political savvy than Enzo Maresca, who talked himself out of the job last week. Yet given the 41‑year‑old is familiar with the working conditions at BlueCo, the investment vehicle that owns Chelsea and Strasbourg, his biggest challenge is unlikely to be managing upwards. Rosenior will know where to train his focus and not to rock the boat. Crucially, he does not inherit a team in crisis. Chelsea are fifth and earned a creditable draw at Manchester City on Sunday; despite the rancour of Maresca’s final days, this is not a situation that calls for a major rebuild.
Increasingly, teens are given only parts of books, and they often read not in print but on school-issued laptops
Reading fiction has been such a joy for me that my heart broke a little to learn recently that many schools no longer assign full books to high school students.
Rather, teens are given excerpts of books, and they often read them not in print but on school-issued laptops, according to a survey of 2,000 teachers, students and parents by the New York Times.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Trump’s domestic and foreign policies – ranging from his attempted coup against the United States five years ago, to his incursion into Venezuela last weekend, to his current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland – undermine domestic and international law. But that’s not all.
They threaten what we mean by civilization.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now
Adil Boulbina’s sensational strike deep in extra time gave Algeria a 1-0 win in the Africa Cup of Nations last-16 ties against DR Congo
10 min: Algeria win their first corner … Bensebaini takes but it barely clears the first man. Amoura is now down and the replay shows his football boot came clean off during that corner. No foul, which is the right decision I think, and play continues with a DR Congo free-kick.
9 min: Chancel Mbemba is down receiving treatment. Would be a huge miss for DR Congo for their captain to be injured early but he seems to be OK.
Steve Phelps stepped down after 20 years at the circuit
Antitrust trial was settled late last year
The fallout from Nascar’s federal antitrust trial continued into the new year as Nascar Commissioner Steve Phelps on Tuesday announced his resignation after more than 20 years with the top racing series in the United States.
His resignation comes after last month’s trial in which inflammatory texts Phelps sent during contentious revenue-sharing negotiations were revealed. Phelps will leave the company at the end of the month, ahead of the start of the first exhibition race of the season on 1 February.
Cost-saving plan to transfer Antwerp museum’s entire collection to another city described as ‘simply insane’
Prominent artists have spoken out against an “arbitrary reshaping” of Belgium’s museum landscape, as the Flanders region seeks to cut public spending by dismantling the country’s oldest contemporary art museum and transplanting its entire collection to another city.
At a press conference in Antwerp on Tuesday, the directors of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), which was founded in 1985, decried what they called the “flagrant illegalities” of the museum sector shake-up, which is due to be debated in Belgium’s parliament on Friday.
The conveniences of modern life such as Uber Eats and ChatGPT are robbing us of satisfaction – and worse still, infantilising us. But should we really go back to the basics?
Doug Ford’s move comes after Diageo announced plan to shutter Ontario whisky plant and move operations to US
Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, has warned rye drinkers they will need to “stock up” if they want to keep consuming Crown Royal, as he promised to make good on plans to banish the Canadian whisky brand from his province.
Ford has since September been locked in a simmering feud over tariffs and economic nationalism with the multinational spirits maker Diageo. This week, he renewed his threats to wield the power of the province’s liquor control board – one of the largest buyers of alcohol in the world – to banish Crown Royal.
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