From Caracas to Minneapolis, the threat is the same – an American president ruling like a global emperor | Jonathan Freedland

9 janvier 2026 à 18:24

Trump’s admission that he recognises no constraint outside his own morality was a horrifying moment of truth. It should galvanise all those who oppose him

For a serial liar, Donald Trump can be bracingly honest. We’ve known about the mendacity for years – consider the 30,573 documented falsehoods from the president’s first term, culminating in the big lie, his claim to have won the 2020 election – but the examples of bracing candour are fresher. This week both began and ended with the US president speaking the shocking truth.

At a press conference to celebrate his capture of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump announced that from now on the US would “run” that country, before moving in the very next breath to Venezuela’s oil. There was no pious talk of democracy, scant mention even of the drug trafficking that earlier served as a pretext for military action. Instead, Trump said out loud what had once been a slogan on leftist placards in protest at past US interventions, admitting that it really was all about the oil. It was as transparent a revelation of Trump’s true motive as you could have asked for.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Did Leonardo da Vinci paint a nude Mona Lisa? I may have just solved this centuries-old mystery

The Guardian

Par :Jonathan Jones

9 janvier 2026 à 16:43

It is one of the most tantalising – and entertaining – puzzles in art, stretching from the Louvre to the Loire via, well, Norfolk. And our critic thinks he has just worked it out

Increased security after the recent heist has made the queues at the Louvre even slower, yet on this rainswept, very wintry morning, no one grumbles. After all, the Mona Lisa is waiting inside for all these tourists who have come from the world over. Leonardo da Vinci’s woman – swathed in dark cloth and silk, smiling enigmatically as she sits in front of a landscape of rocks, road and water – draws crowds like no other painting. But if the Mona Lisa can attract such attention fully clothed, what would the queues be like if she was nude?

Strangely, this is not just amusing speculation – because in 18th-century Britain, she was. An engraving issued by a publisher called John Boydell gave libertine Georgians the opportunity to hang “Joconda” in their boudoir. It must have been popular because many copies survive. This Mona Lisa sits in a chair with her hands crossed in front of a fading view of distant rock formations. And, like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, she smiles enigmatically. But there is one key difference. She is naked from the waist up.