Ads to be placed alongside answers as OpenAI looks to beef up revenue for flagship AI product

ChatGPT will start including advertisements beside answers for US users as OpenAI seeks a new revenue stream.

The ads will be tested first in ChatGPT for US users only, the company announced on Friday, after increasing speculation that the San Francisco firm would turn to a potential cashflow model on top of its current subscriptions.

The US president wants Americans to believe they are facing an emergency. The real danger is from his administration

In Minnesota, armed and masked agents are ripping families apart. They are seizing parents while they wait with their child at a bus stop, going door to door seeking undocumented migrants and breaking car windows to drag people out. Last Wednesday an officer shot dead Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American citizen. Her killing is a tragedy for all who loved her, and most of all for the three children left motherless. It also marks her country’s crossing of a Rubicon.

Where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) once preferred to keep a low profile, it now seeks publicity and confrontation – pumped up on billions of dollars in funding, the aggression and brazenness of the administration and the licensing of bigotry.

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Federal agents face widespread accusations of misconduct – but Trump administration leaders won’t prosecute them

• US citizens and permanent residents: have you been racially profiled by ICE?

Rochelle Bilal, Philadelphia’s sheriff, warned ICE agents last week: “If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide.

“Nobody will whisk you off,” she said. “You don’t want this smoke, ’cause we will bring it to you.”

John Ratcliffe meets Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas less than two weeks after his agents helped to oust her precedessor

The CIA chief whose agents reputedly played a key role in abducting Nicolás Maduro has flown to Venezuela to meet his successor as the sidelined opposition leader, María Corina Machado, vowed she would become the country’s first elected female president.

Machado’s comments were broadcast on Friday, a day after she handed her Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump in recognition of what she called a principled and decisive move against Maduro, whom US special forces snatched on 3 January.

Actor held without bond in New Mexico on child abuse charges stemming from twin brothers’ complaint

With allegations of prior sexual misconduct against him continuing to mount, Timothy Busfield received an expression of support from his wife and fellow actor, Melissa Gilbert – as he was also ordered held without bond in connection with on-set child abuse charges in New Mexico.

A statement that a representative for Gilbert, known best for her work on Little House on the Prairie, shared with media outlets said she “supports her husband” and was keeping “her focus … on supporting and caring for their … family, as they navigate this moment”.

US bombs are not the answer, but there’s much the outside world can do – starting with noticing the horror unfolding in Tehran

Did you notice history being made this week? I am not referring to what may have been the most pathetic moment in recorded time – Donald Trump gratefully taking the Nobel peace prize medal from the woman who actually won it – nor the defection of a politician from one British rightwing party to another, but something grimmer. For this week witnessed what could well prove to be a landmark chapter in the blood-soaked history of the Middle East.

Thanks to an information blackout caused by Tehran’s decision to switch off the internet, it is hard to be precise about what just happened on the streets of Iran. But one official has admitted to a death toll of 2,000. CBS News put the number of dead at 12,000, while some warn it could be many thousands more – all of them Iranian civilians, gunned down for daring to protest against their government and to demand a better life.

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

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Trump continues to claim, baselessly, that people protesting against federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis are ‘highly paid professionals’

Trump began his remarks today by undermining the Affordable Care Act, and touted his newly unveiled “Great Healthcare Plan”.

A reminder that Affordable Care Act subsidies, that were extended during the Covid pandemic, expired at the end of last year, and legislation to revive them has stalled in Congress.

Transcripts of 911 calls and police communications after ICE agent killed Renee Good reveal chaotic scene

• People in Minneapolis and St Paul: what is life like in the Twin Cities right now?

New incident reports from the Minneapolis police and fire departments, along with transcripts of 911 calls, provide new details about the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good last week in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.

According to a Minneapolis fire department incident report obtained by the Guardian, along with police records and 911 transcripts, paramedics arrived at the scene at about 9.42am on 7 January and found Good “unresponsive” in the driver’s seat of her car, “with blood on her face and torso”.

President raises pressure on European allies as US envoy says deal to take island ‘should and will be made’

• Fear in Greenland as threat of invasion looms

Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on countries that do not “go along” with his plan to annex Greenland, increasing pressure on European allies who have opposed his effort to take over the Arctic territory.

After a tense week in which Nato allies deployed troops to the largely autonomous territory, which is part of the Danish kingdom, the US president announced he might punish countries that do not support his plans to take over Greenland, using force if necessary.

We want to hear from people in Minnesota about the surge of thousands of federal immigration agents in the area

Thousands of federal immigration agents have been sent into Minneapolis in recent days, with protests taking place in Minnesota and across the country in response to last week’s shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests.

Experts say central banks are increasingly stuffing their vaults as an insurance policy in a volatile world

Fifteen minutes after takeoff, the call came for Serbia’s central bank governor: millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars, destined for a high-security Belgrade vault, had been left on the runway of a Swiss airport.

In air freight – despite the extraordinary value of bullion – fresh flowers, food and other perishables still take priority. “We learned this the hard way,” Jorgovanka Tabaković told a conference late last year.

Kevin Hassett, a top contender to replace Jerome Powell, suggests he believes Powell told truth about Fed renovation

Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said he expected there was “nothing to see here” as the US Department of Justice pursues its criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair.

The Trump administration has faced a chorus of criticism in recent days after it emerged that the justice department had served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas, in a significant escalation of its extraordinary attack on the US central bank’s independence.

European countries sending troops to the island is only raising the temperature and generating fear – exactly what the US president wants

Is Greenland Donald Trump’s 25th-amendment moment? Last time around, this was when the Washington “grownups” debated his capacity to be president, notably in the final fortnight of his presidency, after the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Under the constitution, a president can be replaced should the vice-president and a cabinet majority decide their leader is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. The trouble today is that there are no grownups.

The US president’s designs on Greenland are clearly mad. He claims Russia and China are scheming to seize the island and that Denmark should be forced urgently to transfer its sovereignty. Denmark had long allowed the US extended military access to Greenland, but Trump seems to want to own it. None of his staff has been able to say why.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump

When he returned to power last year, Trump was eager to negotiate a new deal with Tehran, but a diplomatic breakthrough has been elusive

Will Donald Trump order a US military attack on Iran? That question captivated the world for the past two weeks, as the US president issued bellicose threats warning the Iranian regime not to crack down on nationwide protests demanding economic and social reforms. On Tuesday, as he was scheduled to be briefed by Pentagon officials on various options for a strike, Trump posted a message on social media urging Iranians to continue their demonstrations and take over government institutions. The president signaled that he was leaning toward ordering an attack, telling protesters that “help is on its way”.

But by Wednesday, Trump pulled back from the brink of a military intervention, saying he had received assurances from “very important sources” that Iran had stopped killing protesters and was not moving forward with executions. A group of US allies in the Middle East – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Turkey – seem to have succeeded in a last-ditch effort to convince Trump not to launch airstrikes against Tehran, warning it could unleash a wider conflict in the region. While many Sunni-led Arab states resent Shia Iran’s influence in the Arab world, they are also worried about retaliatory attacks by Iran and its allies, an influx of refugees and a civil war that could lead to the collapse of the Iranian state.

Any Lucía López Belloza was detained at Boston’s airport in November and flown to Honduras two days later

The Trump administration apologized in court for a “mistake” in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained trying to fly home to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving.

But the administration still argued that the federal government error should not affect her immigration case.

US president criticised for accepting medal awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado

Political leaders in Norway have condemned the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s “absurd” decision to present her Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump, accusing the US president of being a “classic showoff” who takes credit for other people’s work.

The Nobel laureate gave her medal to Trump at the White House on Thursday “in recognition [of] his unique commitment [to] our freedom”. Several hours later, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Machado “presented me with her Nobel peace prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”

No one wants to visit us any more – but they might pay $50,000 for a bag you could get here for $3

There aren’t many escapes from the grim onslaught of terrible news these days. You can stare at a blank wall, obsessively count the hairs on your arm, or, in a true moment of desperation, ponder the state of global fashion. I prefer the last one. I love being on the cutting edge of style, peacocking out in the decaying slopfest that is our planet. A crisp, well-made suit is a cure for all manner of emotionally trying times. I relish being hyper-aware of the goings-on of fashion, so I was one of the first sorry souls to learn of the current global obsession with flimsy canvas Trader Joe’s shopping bags.

For those unaware, Trader Joe’s is an American grocery store chain known primarily for its affordable prices, whimsical tropical branding, and heart-attack-inducing parking lots – apparently designed to be small because the stores themselves are so tiny that they can’t justify more spaces. I don’t naturally see the use in swanning about with a tote bag promoting a demolition derby disguised as a market, but I’m not most people.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

After Renee Good’s killing in Minneapolis, calls grow for accountability in the shooting of Keith Porter Jr on New Year’s Eve

Family and friends of a Los Angeles man who was killed by an off-duty US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer over the holidays are urging local officials to arrest and prosecute the federal agent.

Keith Porter Jr, a 43-year-old father of two, was fatally shot by an ICE officer on New Year’s Eve outside his apartment complex, according to LA and federal officials. An LA police department (LAPD) spokesperson said after the incident that Porter had fired gunshots into the air. A US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said the off-duty immigration officer was “forced to defensively use his weapon” while responding to an “active shooter”.

Is there any circumstance on Earth that would make these people, in all their finery, skip this thing entirely?

The truest thing ever said about the Golden Globes was by Tina Fey when she hosted the awards in 2019 and described the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of junket hacks, as operating out of the “back booth of a French McDonalds”. The HFPA was disbanded in 2023 after allegations of racism, but 95 former members retained voting rights and on Monday, the show went on.

US president further steps up threats after US special envoy to Greenland says Trump is ‘serious’ about his plans to control island

Meanwhile, Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto does not seem to be convinced about the merits of European military deployments to Greenland.

Speaking to journalists, he wondered “what a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred soldiers of any nationality could do” in Greenland. “It sounds like the beginning of a joke.”

“It’s not a competition to see who sends the military around the world.”

“A part of me is not sure how much of this is a distraction, to try and take the attention of the American people away from some very real issues that we have in the United States right now.

The cost of living is a real concern for Americans [and] Donald Trump got elected saying he was going to address the cost of living.

In this week’s newsletter: US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis, a study reveals – and the hotter the world gets, the greater the economic losses

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Donald Trump has long railed against emissions-cutting policy as an expensive “hoax” and “scam”. But the climate crisis itself comes with a major price tag for Americans, a new study shows.

Previous research has found that global heating has driven up utility costs, home insurance premiums and healthcare bills. But according to the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, it has also slashed US incomes by more than a tenth since 2000 – a severe national economic jolt.

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body

The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age

Africa’s great elephant divide: countries struggle with too many elephants – or too few

Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows

Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought – report

Tackling climate crisis will increase economic growth, OECD research finds

Anonymously sourced report that Jonathan Ross ‘suffered internal bleeding’ after killing Renee Good faced skepticism inside CBS newsroom

Some CBS News employees expressed concern after the network cited two anonymous “US officials” on Wednesday to report that the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis “suffered internal bleeding to the torso” after the incident.

CBS initially published the account about officer Jonathan Ross on X, formerly Twitter. About 30 minutes later, the network followed up with another post, containing a link to an article by two correspondents that similarly cited “two US officials briefed on his medical condition”.

Exclusive: Jesse Binnall and Joe Flynn, who campaigned to overturn 2020 election, seek to win Bosnia deal for little-known US firm

Leading members of Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election are seeking a huge European pipeline contract, the latest figures from the US president’s circle to mix business and geopolitics.

Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who worked on legal actions advancing Trump’s baseless claim that the vote was stolen from him, and Joe Flynn, who also sought to undermine Joe Biden’s victory, have been in Bosnia this week to discuss the project.