Ballot initiative, opposed by the ultra-wealthy, would levy one-time 5% tax on individuals worth more than $1bn

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, renewed his pledge this week to fight a controversial plan to tax billionaires in the state. The proposed ballot measure, which could go to voters in November, has gained public attention recently amid heavy criticism and threats from tech moguls to leave the state.

In interviews with Politico and the New York Times published on Monday, Newsom described his office’s efforts to kill the proposed billionaire tax and told the Times he would “do what I have to do to protect the state”. As a direct-to-voters ballot initiative, Newsom would not have the power to veto the tax if the proposal passed.

Cartoonist – who was dropped from US papers in 2023 after calling Black people a ‘hate group’ – had prostate cancer

Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the satirical comic strip Dilbert and conservative commentator, has died aged 68 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

On Tuesday, Adams’ ex-wife Shelly Miles revealed his death in a tearful livestream of his YouTube channel Real Coffee with Scott Adams.

As US president tells protesters ‘help is on the way’, any military action would be unlikely to succeed

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

Donald Trump may not be unafraid to use military force against Iran, according to the White House, but the reality is the US president has few to no options that could obviously help that country’s protest movement, never mind the fact that the history of US intervention in the region has hardly been a success.

Emboldened by the seizure of the erstwhile Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, after an operation that took months of planning, Trump talked up military intervention against the Iranian regime with no military pre-positioning having taken place. In fact, there has been a drawdown in the last few months, reducing military options further.

A study has shown the devastating impact of arts funding cuts on institutions across America and many within the industry are concerned for what’s next

From Times Square to the Washington Monument, America saw in the new year with a bigger bang than usual, celebrating the fact that 2026 marks the nation’s 250th birthday. Yet as the US looks back, precious repositories of the nation’s history are facing an uncertain future.

Museum attendances are down. Budgets are precarious. Cuts in federal funding are taking their toll. And Donald Trump’s culture wars are spreading fear, intimidation and self-censorship among some directors and donors.

Impact of raid on infrastructure rivals early weeks of war when tanks tried to force their way into Ukraine’s capital

On the night of 9 January, amid warnings from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of massive and imminent Russian airstrikes, Tetiana Shkred began cooking for her children at midnight.

Concerned that the power was once again about to be knocked out in her apartment block on Kyiv’s left bank – the side of the city that has been most affected by Moscow’s attacks on energy infrastructure – she cooked until 3am, when her flat was plunged into freezing darkness.

• World No 2’s victory continues run of 6-2 match results

• John Higgins faces Barry Hawkins in late Tuesday game

Kyren Wilson, the 2024 world champion, defeated Si Jiahui in impressive fashion to reach the Masters quarter-finals with the 6-2 result continuing a curious statistic: every match at Alexandra Palace this week up to their encounter had finished with the same scoreline.

After edging the first frame following a run of snookers, Wilson – yet to win a tournament this season having broken his cue at the start of the campaign – looked set to build a maximum in the next, but just missed the 11th red into the bottom corner pocket as he moved 2-0 ahead.

A rainstorm swept across the Gaza Strip, flooding hundreds of tents and collapsing homes sheltering families displaced by two years of war. At least six people have been killed, local health officials said. Three months since a ceasefire halted major combat, Israeli forces have ordered the near-total depopulation of nearly two-thirds of Gaza. More than 2 million people have been forced into a narrow strip near the coast, with most living in makeshift tents or damaged buildings

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.

Sanctions to target finance, energy, transport, software and other significant industries, Yvette Cooper tells MPs

• Iran crisis live – latest updates

The UK has announced “full and further sanctions” against Iran amid widespread protests that have resulted in hundreds of deaths and arrests.

The sanctions will target finance, energy, transport, software and other significant industries, Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, told MPs.

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

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 …

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.

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.

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?”

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 women – a domestic worker and a physical therapist who were employed at Iglesias’s Caribbean mansions in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas – allege the assaults took place in 2021.

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.