While the game goes ahead, it’s a big night for culture with a much-anticipated half-time show kicking off between 8-830pm, a string of big name ads and a returning role for Taylor Swift
Brad Pitt is making sure you know that football is culture. The actor just showed up in a PSA for … the Super Bowl? That was essentially a rambling collage of American propaganda. Appearing in New Orleans – an interesting choice, given the many issues with homes his foundation built there post-Katrina – Pitt waxes poetic on the football huddle as “a metaphor for our history” along with many platitudes on American unity, for a game Donald Trump is attending.
Tariffs will come on top of existing metal duties and reciprocal tariffs will also come later in week, says president
Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will announce on Monday new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, which would come on top of existing metals duties in another major escalation of his trade policy overhaul.
The US president, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, also said he will announce reciprocal tariffs on Tuesday or Wednesday, to take effect almost immediately.
Prime minister takes home test at No 10 with soul singer Beverley Knight to promote HIV Testing Week
Keir Starmer has taken a public HIV test in an effort to destigmatise testing for the virus and to highlight HIV Testing Week.
The prime minister took a home test at 10 Downing Street alongside the soul singer Beverley Knight. “It’s really important to do it and I’m really pleased to be able to do it. It’s very easy, very quick,” he said.
An enormous fatberg in central Perth has forced a Bryan Adams concert to be postponed after authorities raised concerns that sewage may back up at the venue’s toilets.
Adams was due to perform at the Western Australian capital’s RAC Arena on Sunday night, but the city’s water corporation said a “large blockage of fat, grease and rags” was causing wastewater overflows at nearby properties, prompting authorities to intervene.
Injury-hit side beaten 2-1 in fourth round at Villa Park
‘The players are tired. They have been outstanding’
Ange Postecoglou made a passionate defence of his injury‑ravaged Tottenham squad after their 2-1 FA Cup exit at Aston Villa, arguing that no team could have survived the same level of absentees for such a prolonged period.
Postecoglou was without 11 senior players at Villa Park, where he started with four teenagers and the 21‑year‑old goalkeeper Antonio Kinsky, who was at fault for Jacob Ramsey’s opening goal. Morgan Rogers put Villa 2-0 in front before Mathys Tel’s injury-time consolation.
Liverpool manager rests senior players for later in season
Muslic’s ‘biggest moment yet to come’ in league survival
Arne Slot defended his team selection after a weakened Liverpool lineup was turfed out of the FA Cup by Plymouth Argyle. Despite a shock 1-0 defeat against the Championship’s bottom club, Slot argued that his decision to give senior players a rest would pay dividends later in the season.
Slot made 10 changes from the win against Tottenham on Thursday night, with a relatively inexperienced bench and players such as Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Virgil van Dijk left out of the squad entirely.
Project 2025 architects are among those behind the American Accountability Foundation and their blacklists targeting people of color
A rightwing non-profit group that has published a “DEI Watch List” identifying federal employees allegedly “driving radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives” is bankrolled by wealthy family foundations and rightwing groups whose origins are often cloaked in a web of financial arrangements that obscure the original donors.
One recent list created by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) includes the names of mostly Black people with roles in government health alleged to have some ties to diversity initiatives. Another targets education department employees, and another calls out the “most subversive immigration bureaucrats”.
Because it’s 2025 and he is legally obliged to be in everything, Bob Dylan tribute act (but what a tribute act) Timothée Chalamet pops up chatting to Kendrick Lamar about the half-time show. In black and white because they’re artists. We’ll also have a liveblog and review of Kendrick’s show later – early news is that, no, he’s not going to let Drake off the hook.
Patrick Mahomes has been the Super Bowl MVP for the last two seasons and three times in total (only Tom Brady – five times – has more). Who do our writers think will win in today? I’ll give you one guess …
Donald Trump said that he expects Elon Musk to find “billions” of dollars of abuse and fraud in the Pentagon during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier that aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday.
“I’m going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. ... Then I’m going to go, go to the military. Let’s check the military,” the US president told the host from the rightwing Fox News, adding: “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
As Spurs’ head coach ploughs on, he has no choice but to use his best young players during damaging run of defeats
The midfield press was non-existent, Morgan Rogers carving past white shirts before releasing Jacob Ramsey to shoot. The goalkeeping of Antonin Kinsky bordered on appalling but the travelling Tottenham fans who filled Villa Park’s North Stand had another culprit for the opening goal.
It usually takes longer than 57 seconds to be voiced but “Daniel Levy, get out of our club” – or variants thereof – will be heard at every Tottenham game until, well, Daniel Levy gets out of Tottenham. Or, far more unlikely, he changes his approach to spending the club’s money.
Barcelona earned a hard-fought 4-1 win at struggling Sevilla on Sunday thanks to goals by Robert Lewandowski, Fermín López, Raphinha and Eric García to edge them closer to the top of the table.
The win lifted third-placed Barça to 48 points, one behind Atlético Madrid and two adrift of leaders Real Madrid after the capital rivals drew 1-1 on Saturday.
Lewandowski gave Barça the lead from close range in the seventh minute but Rubén Vargas hit right back to equalise for the home side from a quick counter one minute later.
Synod was asked to bring in alternatives for Eucharist, but says believers can still take part without consuming both
It’s the ancient ritual that unites millions of Christians in faith – but the Church of England is facing accusations that holy communion excludes non-drinkers or worshippers with dietary intolerances.
C of E guidance determines the type of bread and wine that can be consecrated as part of the Eucharist ritual, which symbolises Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, death and resurrection and commemorates the Last Supper.
India captain clinches series with 49th international hundred
England will enter the Champions Trophy this month after four consecutive one-day international series defeats, their latest confirmed by the relentless blade of Rohit Sharma.
Questions about Sharma’s future have piled up in recent weeks, as would be the case for any 37‑year‑old player out of nick. But a one-day series at home is a radically different challenge to a Test tour of Australia, and the aura of a white-ball king remains. Sharma struck a 90‑ball 119, his 49th international hundred, as India hunted down a target of 305 in Cuttack with four wickets and 5.3 overs to spare.
My name is Mark Smith. I am a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). I spent my career working in the Middle East directorate and serving in the Arab world. As a lead officer on arms sales policy, I was responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law.
In August 2024, I resigned over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza. This decision followed over a year of internal lobbying and whistleblowing. My resignation made headlines, and weeks later, the new Labour government announced it would finally suspend arms sales to Israel. While this was welcome, it came far too late. Israel has continued to commit atrocities in Gaza as the UK stands by, unwilling to act.
Mark Smith is a former Foreign Office policy adviser
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Britain’s system for controlling arms exports is broken, subject to political manipulation and has seen conduct that crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes, a former UK diplomat has claimed.
Writing for the Guardian, Mark Smith, who resigned from the Foreign Office in August, said officials were instructed to manipulate findings on the misuse of UK arms by allies, and if they did not do so, their reports were edited by senior colleagues to give the impression that the UK was in compliance with the law.
Christos Papadopoulos took the award for his glacially paced, illusory Larsen C, beating a shortlist that largely eschewed traditional formal techniques and structures • The Rose International shortlist in pictures
The winner of the inaugural Rose International prize was announced on Saturday night. The new biennial competition with a £40,000 bounty for the victor is initially guaranteed to run for 10 editions, by which time it hopes to be on a par with the Booker or Turner prizes, boosting dance’s profile accordingly. It was Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos who took home the honour (and a cool Es Devlin-designed trophy) for his piece Larsen C, chosen by an eclectic judging panel, with Christopher Bannerman and Arlene Phillips from the dance world, musician PJ Harvey and poet Karthika Naïr. (There was also £15,000 awarded to an early-career choreographer in the Bloom prize, won by Stav Struz Boutrous.)
Papadopoulos is pretty much unknown in the UK, but a darling of the Greek dance scene who’s toured widely in Europe. Larsen C may have been the most divisive piece in the contest. The title refers to an Antarctic ice shelf, and the dance does indeed move at glacial pace, with small, repetitive movements that drove some viewers to distraction (it’s rare to hear a “boo” in a polite dance theatre). It was inspired, the choreographer has said, by how your perception of something can completely alter when the smallest element is changed. There’s an element of illusion that can’t help call to mind Papadopoulos’s compatriot Dimitris Papaioannou, as bodies disappear into the blackness of the stage and flashes of flesh appear, looking like truncated arms or extra limbs – the dancers’ feet in shadow making them seem as if they’re gliding soundlessly. There’s beautiful movement here, boneless limbs like drifting tentacles, as mysterious as the creatures in the depths of the Mariana Trench.
Review into accountability soon to report as police seek greater protection from prosecution over use of force
Police want changes to the law giving them “a licence to kill”, leading rights groups have warned as the government prepares to give officers new protections from prosecution.
A government-ordered review into police accountability is expected to report within weeks. It followed fears of a walkout by angry armed officers in London after a police marksman, Martyn Blake, was tried for murder over the shooting of Chris Kaba. Blake was acquitted in October by a jury in three hours.
Spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and billionaire businessman who enjoyed a jet-setting lifestyle
Fast cars, yachts and racehorses are not the usual accoutrements of religious leaders, but they fitted the lifestyle of the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the world’s 12 million Ismaili Muslims, who has died aged 88.
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, claimed direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Hazrat Bibi Fatima and his son-in-law Hazrat Ali, the fourth rightly guided caliph of Islam.
Protesters in Colorado express solidarity with the undocumented after dramatic raids throughout Denver
Thousands took to the streets on Wednesday and Saturday last week following a series of dramatic raids by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) throughout Denver as protesters expressed solidarity with the undocumented and rage at Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
“We’re here to fight for our neighbors, to stand together and say no to the threats from the Trump administration,” Amanda Starks, a local artist at a rally on Saturday who’s been handing out literature to immigrants on their legal rights.
Finn Russell forced off early after clash of heads
The song remains the same for Scotland. The sound of bagpipes had drifted around Murrayfield, Flower of Scotland was belted out with customary passion, and the inspirational figure of Chris Hoy even delivered the match ball. But when showtime arrived Ireland were simply too good, too physical, too precise. The reigning champions recorded an 11th straight victory over Scotland to top the table with two bonus-point wins, pleasingly poised for a third successive title.
There had been a sense of triumph in the way Hoy, diagnosed with terminal cancer last year, strode on to the pitch for an emotional pre-match ovation. Hope existed among home fans that this might, finally, be their day against Ireland. And while there were flashes of brilliance, particularly Duhan van der Merwe’s stunning finish before half-time, Scotland’s back line is not complemented by a pack that can compete with the best.
And on this whistle, unleash chaos. Nobody really knows how Plymouth Argyle managed to survive those nine minutes of injury time at the end, those interminable minutes when hearts were pounding and nerves were shredding and it felt like not just Conor Hazard’s goal, not just Home Park, but Plymouth itself, was under siege.
Just as nobody had really seen this coming: the team rooted to the foot of the Championship, hosting perhaps the best team in the world right now, and sending them spectacularly to the canvas. Ryan Hardie’s penalty early in the second half was the difference between the sides, and even then nobody really believed. But as those nine minutes ticked away, one of the greatest shocks in the modern history of the FA Cup felt agonisingly close and agonisingly elusive all at once.
Israeli forces have withdrawn from the strategic corridor that divides northern and southern Gaza, as part of a ceasefire plan that has brought a fragile pause to the 16-month war.
On Sunday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas officials confirmed that the Israeli military had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor, the 4-mile (6km) strip of land that Israel set up within weeks of the war and used as a military zone during the fighting.
The Nobel prize-winner’s strange and unsettling new novel takes its protagonist on a mission that ends up confronting terrible pre-war violence
When Han Kang published her International Booker-winning The Vegetarian (2015), translated by Deborah Smith, about a South Korean housewife who gives up meat and wants to become a tree, the novel slotted into a wave of English-language fiction about female appetites and male control. But the books that came next were harder to pin down. After Human Acts, about the 1980 massacre of student protesters in Han’s native Gwangju, came The White Book, in which a Han-like novelist reflects on the death of her baby sister while musing on wartime Warsaw. Then came 2023’s Greek Lessons, riddling to the point of opacity, about a divorced poet’s inability to communicate.
We Do Not Part, Han’s first novel to be translated since winning the Nobel prize for literature last year, has elements of all these books. Stark as well as ethereal, chronologically discontinuous, full of nested narratives – often structured as remembered conversations about remembered conversations – it exhumes historical horror but also swerves into hallucinatory magic realism without breaking the plausibly autofictional frame with which it begins.
Voters who have become victims of crime wave linked to cocaine trade will determine outcome of presidential election
Ecuadorians are voting in a presidential election that has shaped up to be a repeat of the 2023 race, when they chose a young, conservative millionaire over the former leftist president’s protege.
Luisa González and the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, are the clear frontrunners in the pool of 16 candidates. All have promised to reduce the widespread crime that pushed the country into an unnerving new normal four years ago.
Russell Vought is now acting head of CFPB, created in wake of 2008 financial crash to supervise financial companies
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s newly installed acting head of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced on Saturday he had cut off the agency’s budget and reportedly instructed staff to suspend all activities including the supervision of companies overseen by the agency.
Reuters and NBC News reported that Vought wrote a memo to employees saying he had taken on the role of acting head of the agency, an independent watchdog that was founded in 2011 as an arm of the Federal Reserve to promote fairness in the financial sector.
Trump has teased two of the US’s biggest trading partners with levies but has moved the goalpost at least three times in two weeks
Donald Trump was in his element in the Oval Office this week. Surrounded by cameras, flanked by billionaire allies and confronted by a barrage of questions about whether he was really prepared to unleash a trade war on the US’s closest neighbors, the president talked tough.
By his telling, powerful economies were scrambling to bend to his will. Hours earlier, Mexico had announced a series of measures to shore up its border, prompting the White House to hastily postpone the imposition of 25% tariffs on all its goods; Canada would announce similar measures, and receive the same reprieve, later that day.
"As a Liverpool fan, I’m thinking that starting eleven better get the job done, because that bench is about as thin as I’ve ever seen,” emails Joe Pearson.
Yes, I’m not sure Slot is going to turn to his young guns in the unlikely event that things do go south for Liverpool. Curtis Jones and Darwin Nunez will surely be called upon, but I would expect to see a few debuts if the away side pull away.
Trump tells the New York Post that he has a plan to end the war but declined to go into details
Donald Trump has said he held talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over a negotiated end of the three year Russia-Ukraine war, indicated that Russian negotiators want to meet with US counterparts.
Trump told the New York Post that he had spoken to Putin, remarking that “I better not say” just how many times.
Elementary schoolers in the San Francisco Bay Area are embarking on tasting journeys of fruits and vegetables
On a crisp winter morning in San Francisco, a team of six-year-olds declare that their favorite fruits and vegetables are peaches and broccoli – but then again, they have yet to venture out into the farmers’ market where produce they have never tried before awaits them. With handfuls of tokens, they will purchase persimmons, pomegranates, Asian pears, purple potatoes, kale and more from the farmers who grew them – then embark on a tasting journey, featuring new and familiar spices.
The first-graders are visiting the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market – a Bay Area institution that draws more than 100 farmers to San Francisco’s waterfront three days a week – with 22 of their classmates from Lincoln elementary. That morning, the children had ridden the subway from their school in Oakland’s Chinatown into the city with parent chaperones and their teacher, Kitty Chen.
In prison, Alaa taught me the power of this form of resistance. His mother, Laila Soueif, and I have used it to challenge Downing Street
Alaa Abd el-Fattah knows about hunger strikes. When I was locked up in a cell next to him in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison in early 2014, he and I would stride the exercise yard discussing Egyptian politics, history, political reform, and – yes – forms of protest and resistance, including starving yourself.
Hunger strikes, he explained, are the ultimate tool of the powerless. When all other forms of agency are stripped away, all that remains is to exercise control over the one thing left: your own body. That would become my first lesson in strikes.
The Bidwell mansion was a symbol for the city of Chico, but for some it was a reminder of colonization and genocide
In the early – morning darkness on 11 December, a police dispatcher at California State University, Chico, smelled the distinctive odor of smoke, a trigger in this fire-prone part of far northern California.
She began combing through roughly 500 cameras on campus to find its source. Soon it became clear: the Bidwell mansion, a pink 26-room Victorian building dating to 1865 and one of the oldest buildings in the region, was on fire.
Older people don’t want to get married; youngsters aren’t dating. But maybe there’s more to life than being in a couple
Sorry, Valentine’s Day is cancelled: we’re in a relationship recession. Analysis of demographic data by the Financial Times shows a dramatic decline in married or cohabiting young adults, with tanking “relationship formation” rates in countries as diverse as Thailand, Finland, Peru, South Korea and Turkey. In the US, the marriage rate fell by 54% between 1900 and 2022, while younger people aren’t even dating: the percentage of 16- to 18-year-olds who report having dated has dipped under 50%, the Atlantic reports, “with the decline particularly steep in the past few years”.
My immediate thought is: well, obviously. The resurgence of the far right, accelerating climate collapse, geopolitical instability and deep economic precarity aren’t exactly Marvin-Gaye-and-oysters vibes. As relationship red flags go, isn’t getting horny amid imminent global catastrophe one of the biggest, reddest ones? I just have to imagine Elon Musk and I’m ready to be walled up in an anchorite’s cell.
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If you can find a workout you always look forward to, you’re far more likely to stick with it and keep fitter for longer. Trainers give their pointers – and pitfalls
Only an idiot would claim to love every form of exercise. At 61, I believe it’s the only way to delay the body’s slow crumble, but ugh, so much of it is unpleasant, or dull, or just not for me. I don’t think I will ever not hate Bulgarian split squats. I’m bored to tears by the static bike. Football, rugby, tennis, cricket? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.
But that’s OK, because there’s a lot that I adore. Running. Lake swims. Yoga. Skiing, snowshoeing, anything snow-related. Just bloody walking! And above all, calisthenics – dangling from gymnastics rings, standing on my hands, trying to hoist and fold and balance myself in ways that demand far more strength and control than I can usually muster. I will never be cool, but “cali” is.
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
Why can’t I stop looking at myself on video calls? It’s become obsessive, to the point where I have to turn off the camera. Daniel Brown, London
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