Technology | The Guardian

Full-throttle star turns from Jack Black and Jennifer Coolidge raise laughs but don't help the perfunctory plotting in this screen take on the game franchiseIf you're not familiar with Minecraft as a game then this film, notionally a big screen version of same, won't necessarily solve that. Minecraft, even more than most computer games, is what you make of it, an experience generated by the player. So in a way, the idea of making a film set in the Minecraft world is counterintuitive, because it can never replicate what is good about Minecraft, it can only tell you what is good about Minecraft. In addition to that, this comedy-fantasy takes aspects of the Minecraft world and uses them as building blocks in a rollicking adventure suitable for almost all ages, giving Jack Black and Jason Momoa carte blanche to wild out and be deeply silly. Your affection for and/or tolerance of this latter prospect will dictate to a large extent your enjoyment of this film.Black plays Steve, a crafter who in the game was the original default player, although that doesn't especially matter here. Momoa is Garrett The Garbage Man" Garrison, a washed-up video game champ with an aesthetic stuck permanently and delightfully in the 1980s: pink leather fringed jacket and luscious locks flowing down past his prodigious shoulders like the first snowmelt off a mountain range. As this is kinda-sorta an ensemble film, we also have Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) rounding out the good guys squad. It's not the fault of any of the three latter actors, but it's hard for them to make an impression alongside Black and Momoa going full-throttle - and it would become an exhausting experience if they tried. That does mean their storylines feel like downtime, a chance to relax and catch your breath, rather than providing the emotional core that the writers presumably intended. Continue reading...

State police anti-terrorism unit investigating whether blaze in Torre Angela was started by anarchistsItaly's interior ministry has written to police forces across the country to increase security at Tesla dealerships after 17 of the electric cars made by Elon Musk's company were destroyed in a fire in Rome.Italy's state police anti-terrorism unit, Digos, is investigating whether the fire at the Tesla dealership in Torre Angela, a suburb in the east of the capital, was started by anarchists. Continue reading...

Financial literacy lessons to be given to pupils at primary and secondary schoolsPupils in England are to be taught how to spot the risks of in-game purchases as well as to scrutinise the claims of influencers in a new suite of lessons designed to improve their financial literacy.The package of 80 lessons is aimed at teaching pupils aged five to 16 how to navigate online spending, after reports of children spending large sums of their own or their parents' money online, often inadvertently. Continue reading...

Exclusive: education secretary exploring tools to compile student reports and assess writing and vocational skillsAI tools will soon be in use in classrooms across England, but the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has one big question she wants answered: will they save time?Attending a Department for Education-sponsored hackathon in central London last week, Phillipson listened as developers explained how their tools could compile pupil reports, improve writing samples and even assess the quality of soldering done by trainee electrical engineers. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy don't car side doors - particularly the driver's side and the passenger seat - have wipers on the windows? Lenny Denby, LondonPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

Tesla Takedown's Global Day of Action will be the largest in a series of demonstrations that began after Trump term 2.0Hundreds of protests at Tesla showrooms are planned across the US and internationally on Saturday. Organizers have dubbed it Tesla Takedown's Global Day of Action, the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations that began shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated. Organizers say the rallies will take place in front of more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide, including nearly 50 in California alone.The protesters' goal is to send a message to the Trump administration that they're against what the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, is doing with the US federal government - laying off thousands of workers, cutting department budgets, giving fascist salutes and getting rid of entire agencies. Continue reading...

It drove me to distraction on the ZX Spectrum and now that a new version available on a PlayStation collection, I had to test myself against it once more - with inevitable consequencesI do not replay games. Don't see the point. I don't reread books either, and I rarely rewatch movies or TV shows. There's too much new, bigger and better stuff coming out every day, and too little time to consume it. However, I made an exception with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because the original was so special.It came along towards the end of my ZX Spectrum playing days. I was at university and was previously only interested in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle if it came in a tall glass and was at happy hour prices in the Mandela Bar. But the game hooked me one summer back home and became the hardest video game that I ever completed. And that's what worried me when I started the rerelease on the PS4 that comes as part of the TMNT Cowabunga Collection. (Playstation Plus Essentials March) Continue reading...

National security committee is investigating whether secret services breached law by using surveillance tool to monitor activists and journalistsThe Italian government approved the use of a sophisticated surveillance tool to spy on members of a humanitarian NGO because they were allegedly deemed a possible threat to national security, MPs have heard.Alfredo Mantovano, a cabinet undersecretary, made the admission during a classified meeting with Copasir, the parliamentary committee for national security, according to a person familiar with the situation. Continue reading...

Dan Ives warns company is in brand tornado crisis moment' as it is removed from Vancouver auto show

Investigation uncovered eight adverts that portrayed women in a harmful or degrading way, says ASAAn investigation by the UK advertising watchdog has found a number of shocking ads in mobile gaming apps that depict women as sexual objects, use pornographic tropes, and feature non-consensual sexual scenarios involving violent and coercive control".The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) used avatars, which mimic the browsing behaviour of different gender and age groups, to monitor ads served when mobile games are open and identify breaches of the UK code. Continue reading...

In a statement, 35 signatories from dance, theatre and music industries express concern about fragile ecosystem'More than 30 performing arts leaders in the UK, including the bosses of the National Theatre, Opera North and the Royal Albert Hall, have joined the chorus of creative industry concern about the government's plans to let artificial intelligence companies use artists' work without permission.In a statement they said performing arts organisations depend on a fragile ecosystem" of freelancers who rely on copyright to sustain their livelihoods. They also urged the government to support the moral and economic rights" of the creative community in music, dance, drama and opera. Continue reading...

Seeing falsehoods everywhere is as damaging as believing too much. Our focus should be on helping people interpret information betterOn 30 October 1938, a US radio station broadcast a dramatisation of HG Wells's apocalyptic novel The War of the Worlds. Some listeners, so we're told, failed to realise what they had tuned into; reports soon emerged of panicked audiences who had mistaken it for a news bulletin. A subsequent academic study estimated that more than a million people believed they were experiencing an actual Martian invasion.A startling example of how easily misinformation can take hold, perhaps. But the story is not all it appears to be. Despite oft-repeated claims, the mass panic almost certainly didn't happen. In national radio audience surveys, only 2% reported listening to anything resembling The War of the Worlds at the time of the broadcast. Those who did seemed to be aware that it was fiction. Many referred to the play" or its narrator Orson Welles, with no mention of a news broadcast. It turned out that the academic analysis had misinterpreted listener accounts of being frightened by the drama as panic about a real-life invasion. Continue reading...

Pavel Durov allowed to leave France, where he is under investigation over criminal activity on messaging appPavel Durov, the Russian-born founder and chief executive of Telegram, has returned to Dubai after authorities allowed him to leave France, where he is under investigation over criminal activity on the messaging app.The billionaire, 40, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris last August. He was subsequently placed under formal investigation and banned from leaving the country, where he holds citizenship. Continue reading...

The company is hanging on by a thread amid rumors it may be broken up and sold - an instability keenly felt in OhioWhen moving massive metal structures from the Ohio river to its Ohio One Campus semiconductor plant 140 miles to the north, Intel took every minute detail into account.Local school bus timetables were found and worked around. Teams of linemen in white crane trucks lined up to move traffic lights out of the way of the cargo, which measured up to three-quarters the length of a football field. Continue reading...

An unsettling new book advocates a closer relationship between Silicon Valley and the US government to harness artificial intelligence in the name of national securityOscar Wilde's quip, Life imitates art far more than art imitates life", needs updating: replace art" with AI". The Amazon page for Alexander C Karp and Nicholas W Zamiska's new book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief and the Future of the West, also lists: a workbook" containing key takeaways" from the volume; a second volume on how the Karp/Zamiska tome can help you navigate life"; and a third offering another workbook" comprising a Master Plan for Navigating Digital Age and the Future of Society". It is conceivable that these parasitical works were written by humans, but I wouldn't bet on it.Mr Karp, the lead author of the big book, is an interesting guy. He has a BA in philosophy from an American liberal arts college, a law degree from Stanford and a PhD in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt. So he's not your average geek. And yet he's an object of obsessive interest to people both inside and outside the tech industry. Why? Because in 2003 he - together with Peter Thiel and three others - founded a secretive tech company called Palantir. And some of the initial funding came from the investment arm of - wait for it - the CIA! Continue reading...

Amazon Web Services enters emerging race against tech giants days after Microsoft revealed its quantum chipAmazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday announced Ocelot, its first-generation quantum computing chip, as it enters the race against fellow tech giants in harnessing the experimental technology.Developed by the AWS Center for Quantum Computing at the California Institute of Technology, the new chip can reduce the costs of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90%, according to the company. Continue reading...

Users complained of not safe for work' videos in feeds despite some having enabled setting to filter such contentMeta Platforms said on Thursday it had resolved an error that flooded the personal Reels feeds of Instagram users with violent and graphic videos worldwide.It was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the glitch. Meta's comments followed a wave of complaints on social media about violent and not safe for work" content in Reels feeds, despite some users having enabled the sensitive content control" setting meant to filter such material. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X; Capcom

Billionaire CEO claims bot is maximally truth-seeking' as he looks to rival DeepSeek, OpenAI and Google GeminiElon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has introduced Grok-3, the latest iteration of its chatbot that integrates with X, formerly Twitter.Grok-3 debut comes at a critical moment in the AI arms race as Musk looks to compete with the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google. Musk's bot has seen less widespread adoption than DeepSeek's namesake chatbot, which wowed the world weeks ago and caused panic in stock markets, as well as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Continue reading...

As an early years specialist, I've seen the drastic impact of screens replacing physical activity and face-to-face interactionAs an early years education specialist, over the past decade I have seen children enter classrooms with fewer and fewer of the skills needed to begin their formal education. The key culprit, in my opinion? Screen time.On a child's first day at school, it's normal to expect a few nerves. But they should be able to move around confidently, pick up stationery, make new friends, build a relationship with their teacher and start to feel part of a wider community. Instead, a recent survey reported that some children in England and Wales are unable to sit up or hold a pencil. I have seen kids racked with separation anxiety and unable to form bonds. Upset and confused, they miss instructions and hold back or lash out. To a busy teacher this looks like a lack of ability, or a disruptive child to be managed. Children are simply being set up to fail.Kathryn Peckham is an early childhood consultant, researcher, author and founder of Nurturing Childhoods Continue reading...

Hampstead theatre, London

Fares is a refreshingly unpredictable voice, starting as a film director before moving into games; now, he says, working on a movie would be a vacation'There aren't many video game developers as outspoken as Hazelight's Josef Fares. Infamous for his expletive-laden viral rants at livestreamed awards shows, Fares is a refreshingly firy and unpredictable voice in an all too corporate industry. As he puts it, It doesn't matter where I work or what I do, I will always say what I want. People say to me that that's refreshing - but isn't it weird that you cannot say what you think in interviews? Do we live in a fucking communist country? Obviously, you have got to respect certain boundaries, but to not even be able to express what you think personally about stuff? People are too afraid!"Yet while gamers know him as a grinning chaos merchant and passionate ambassador of co-op gameplay, in Fares' adopted homeland of Sweden, he is best known as an award-winning film director. His goofy 2000 comedy Jalla! Jalla! was a domestic box office success, while his 2005 drama Zozo was a more introspective work about his childhood experience of fleeing the Lebanese civil war. Continue reading...

Thanks to Donald Trump's sweeping executive orders attacking a number of terms, women' is literally being erasedThanks to the intolerant left, nobody can say the word women" any more! Do you remember when that was a major talking point in certain quarters? Prominent columnists wrote endless pieces declaring that the word women" had become verboten". The thought police, these people claimed, were forcing everyone to say bodies with vaginas" and menstruators" instead. Even the likes of Margaret Atwood tweeted articles with headlines like: Why can't we say woman' anymore?" Continue reading...

Army of digital imposters uses names associated with president's family in apparent bid to deceive investorsDespite once calling cryptocurrency a scam", Donald Trump made a theoretical fortune of billions after launching a self-named and highly controversial meme coin immediately before his second inauguration in January.Now an army of digital imposters is trying to cash in on the president's name and online presence to make their own crypto killing, according to a report in the Financial Times that details hundreds of copycat and spam coins" uploaded to Trump's official wallet in cyberspace. Continue reading...

DeepSeek's home | Bare bones | Liquid lift-off | Labour faithfuls? | School sports | Questionable teachingRachel Reeves is behind the tech curve in proposing to create Europe's Silicon Valley" (Report, 28 January). She should surely be considering an equivalent of Hangzhou, home of DeepSeek, the company that knocked $1tn off the value of US tech stocks in a day.

Yoshua Bengio says competition in field could mean danger, as international panel points to AI's malicious potential

Much of the power of work like counselling lies in a relationship where we really see each other. And tech just can't do that

From pay shortfalls to being dropped by apps, drivers face a range of issues - often with no way to fix themMost days a thicket of couriers can be seen around the McDonald's in Northern Ireland's Ballymena, waiting for orders and discussing the mysteries of the systems that rule their working lives.This week gig workers, trade unions and human rights groups launched a campaign for greater openness from Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo about the logic underpinning opaque algorithms that determine what work they do and what they are paid. Continue reading...

We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe than pick up a pen. But in the process we are in danger of losing cognitive skills, sensory experience - and a connection to historyHumming away in offices on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon and in the White House is a technology that represents the pragmatism, efficiency and unsentimental nature of American bureaucracy: the autopen. It is a device that stores a person's signature, replicating it as needed using a mechanical arm that holds a real pen.Like many technologies, this rudimentary robotic signature-maker has always provoked ambivalence. We invest signatures with meaning, particularly when the signer is well known. During the George W Bush administration, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, generated a small wave of outrage when reporters revealed that he had been using an autopen for his signature on the condolence letters that he sent to the families of fallen soldiers. Continue reading...

From aviation to retail, many industries are already looking to artificial intelligence to improve productivityKeir Starmer this week announced a 50-point plan that aims to give the UK world leader status in artificial intelligence and grow the economy by as much as 47bn a year over a decade.The multibillion-pound investment, which seeks to create a 20-fold increase in the amount of AI computing power under public control by 2030, has been framed as a gamechanger for businesses and public organisations. Continue reading...

Despite security concerns, Americans are flooding the app, where Chinese users are welcoming them with open arms - and Luigi Mangione memesCute cats. Fit checks. Travel vlogs. Luigi Mangione latte art. Americans who downloaded RedNote saw it all this week, as they fled to the Chinese social media app in advance of an imminent (or not ) TikTok ban.English language content has flooded RedNote, whose default language is Mandarin, with Americans posting introductions to themselves and kicking off cross-cultural discussions: How much do you pay for groceries? What Chinese slang do I need to know? Do you have any opinions about the state of Ohio? Continue reading...

President-elect has warm spot' for platform and wants political solution to preserve app but protect data'

The latest in the Like a Dragon series of Japanese crime drama is taking an improbably nautical turn - but its makers want you to know that it's still got heartIn May last year, an anonymous forum poster shared details of what they claimed would be the next game in the Like a Dragon series, the Japanese gangster drama with a unique spirit of melodrama and ridiculousness. It would star the series' most theatrical, violent villain, Goro Mad Dog" Majima, as a pirate with amnesia, and it was called Project Madlantis. This leak went under the radar, quite possibly because it sounded so silly that nobody would believe it. But then, at 2024's Tokyo Game Show in September, Sega surprised everyone by announcing exactly this. It is called Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. That's it. That's the game.Madlantis sounds like a theme night at a noughties student bar, but is in fact the game's pirate hub, a nautical Vegas where captains battle and bet on each other in coliseum face-offs. Ships are outfitted with cannon and pistols, but also machine guns and rocket launchers. Sailing the seas around Hawaii, avoiding lightning strikes during storms, Captain Majima can let go of the wheel of the ship and heft an RPG on to his shoulder to blow up an enemy craft. Boarding another vessel results in a fight between crews, which, given all the tricorn hats and outlandish costumes, looks like a punch-up between a bunch of extras from an 80s music video. Continue reading...

As factchecking attempts end, Meta's platforms will become a wasteland of fake news and misinformationMark Zuckerberg craves one metric more than any other: engagement, the statistic that tracks how long social media users spend scrolling, clicking, commenting, and viewing ads. More engagement, more profit. The Meta CEO will do almost anything to keep users online for an extra two minutes - even, it seems, surrender his websites to a flood of fake news.On Tuesday, Zuckerberg announced that his company plans to fire its US factcheckers and weaken its ability to moderate disinformation on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. This new policy is meant to curry favor with the coming Trump administration. It's also a desperate attempt to boost engagement across all Meta's social networks. Continue reading...

Tech boss suggests move to self-learning synthetic data though some warn this could cause model collapse'

PC; Tom van den Boogaart/Sokpop

Meta's rewritten policies mean different things may be allowed to pass on Facebook, Instagram and ThreadsMeta's rewritten policies on hateful conduct" mean users will now be able to say different types of things on its platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. After Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of sweeping changes to oversight of content on its platforms, multiple edits have been made to its policies.Among them are:A specific injunction against calling transgender or non-binary people it" has been deleted. A new section has been added making clear that we do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation". It said this was a reflection of political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like weird'". It also says the policies are designed to allow room for types of speech including people calling for exclusion or [using] insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration or homosexuality".Meta's policies are unchanged in saying that users should not post content targeting a person or group of people on the basis of their protected characteristics or immigration status with dehumanising speech with comparisons to animals, pathogens or sub-human life forms such as cockroaches and locusts. But the changes suggest it may now be possible to compare women to household objects or property and to compare people to faeces, filth, bacteria, viruses, diseases and primitives.It should also be possible now to say transgender people do not exist".Meta has deleted warnings against self-admission of racism, homophobia and Islamophobia. It has also deleted warnings against expressions of hate, such as calling people cunt", dick" and asshole".The changes may also mean it is acceptable to post about the China virus", a term the US president-elect, Donald Trump, has frequently used in relation to coronavirus. Continue reading...

Is technology really to blame for bad behaviour, or is something else afoot?People who walk along the street with their heads down, staring at their phones, are enemies of society. They are narcissistic babies who have unilaterally derogated from the social contract that says you should look where you're going to make sure you don't bump into people. They implicitly believe that others should do that cognitive work for them while they shuffle along scrolling for porn or doom. If, however, a normal person bumps into them they will be enraged at the unpleasant reminder that other human beings exist outside their solipsistic bubble. Meanwhile, they are walking so slowly that everyone behind them, too, is inconvenienced; they are prime contributors to urban congestion and alienation and the general breakdown of the fabric of society.All that is true enough, but The Extinction of Experience has a lot ofother complaints about modern technology. Young folk these days can't do joined-up handwriting, and taking lecture notes on laptops is worse for their understanding. People photograph their food in restaurants and themselves in tourist hotspots. People don't stare into space while waiting any more. We are losing the knack for analogue, face-to-face communication. Continue reading...

Comments by co-chair of oversight board Helle Thorning-Schmidt come as X CEO welcomes rival's moveThe co-chair of Meta's oversight board said the company's systems had become too complex", as the chief executive of Elon Musk's X welcomed its decision to scrap factcheckers.Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the co-chair of the social media company's oversight board and the former prime minister of Denmark, has said she and the departed president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, had agreed Meta systems have been too complex", adding that there had been over-enforcement". Continue reading...

Government announces new contracts to install gigabit level fibre coverage for 131,000 households and businessesThe last corners of England and Wales yet to be covered by a 5bn push to widen fast broadband could finally get access to rapid downloads, streaming and video calls after the government announced 289m in new taxpayer-funded contracts enabling coverage.After some people in broadband blackspots were forced to turn to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite-enabled internet connections, the latest deals to boost connectivity should give 131,000 households and businesses in village and rural internet deserts gigabit-level fibre coverage - allowing a high-definition movie to be downloaded in around a minute. Continue reading...

Instagram profile of proud Black queer momma', created by Meta, said her development team included no Black peopleMeta is deleting Facebook and Instagram profiles of AI characters the company created over a year ago after users rediscovered some of the profiles and engaged them in conversations, screenshots of which went viral.The company had first introduced these AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them by summer 2024. However, a few characters remained and garnered new interest after the Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times late last week that the company had plans to roll out more AI character profiles. Continue reading...

Settlement of proposed class-action lawsuit represent nine hours of profit for Apple, which has denied wrongdoingApple has agreed to pay $95m in cash to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant Siri violated users' privacy, listening to them without their consent.iPhone owners complained that Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers. A preliminary settlement was filed on Tuesday night in the Oakland, California, federal court, and requires approval by US district judge Jeffrey White. Continue reading...

Reduced European subsidies, a US shift to lower-priced hybrids and Chinese competition have squeezed EV makerTesla reported its first decline in annual deliveries on Thursday, as the automaker handed over fewer-than-expected electric vehicles in the fourth quarter and incentives failed to boost demand for its ageing lineup of models. The company failed to meet quarterly delivery targets multiple times in 2024.Deliveries for 2024 were 1.79m, 1.1% lower than a year ago, below estimates of 1.806m units, according to 19 analysts polled by LSEG. Tesla moved 495,570 vehicles in the three months to 31 December, missing estimates of 503,269 units, according to 15 analysts polled by LSEG. Tesla delivered 471,930 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and 23,640 units of other models, including the Model S sedan, Cybertruck and Model X premium SUV. It produced 459,445 vehicles during the October-December period. Continue reading...

Billionaire ally of Donald Trump also accuses Keir Starmer on X of failing to prosecute child rapists in OldhamElon Musk has caused anger by calling for the release of Tommy Robinson and accusing Keir Starmer of failing to prosecute child rapists in Oldham in Greater Manchester.The billionaire ally of Donald Trump pinned a message at the top of his X feed overnight saying Free Tommy Robinson!", tagging the far-right activist who is in jail for contempt of court. Continue reading...

Motion-sensor software sent alerts to prevent lighting up at most vulnerable moments for those trying to quitSmartwatches could be used to help people quit smoking, a study suggests.Researchers have developed pioneering motion sensor software that can detect the typical hand movements that occur when someone is holding a cigarette. Continue reading...

Company's share price has risen twentyfold after it changed its strategy to become first bitcoin treasury company'In the summer of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic upended economies around the world, an obscure US software firm decided to diversify. MicroStrategy, whose head office is situated next to a shopping mall and metro station in Tysons Corner, Virginia, had decided the steady business of software as a service" was not racy enough.Instead, it would branch out by investing up to $250m in alternative assets - stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold, digital assets such as bitcoin or other asset types". Continue reading...

While we certainly don't encourage people to turn away from the news, we also know it's important to take breaksDoomscrolling happens to the best of us. Algorithms across social platforms are finely tuned to feed you content and posts that keep you locked in. It can be hard to pull yourself away even when you're consuming a barrage of news about the state of the world online.While we certainly don't encourage people to turn away from the news, we also know it's important to take breaks. A recent MIT study found that social media can create a negative feedback loop: those who are already struggling with their mental health are more likely to consume negative content, which makes their mental health worse. Continue reading...

Tech selloffs not only cost tax revenue and jobs, but are turning the UK into a vassal stateThere is much to admire about the US. The great French social observer Alexis de Tocqueville, nearly 200 years ago, lauded its commitment to civic virtue, individual self-improvement and hard work - legacies of its puritan founders.Those traits are still evident today, but alongside them a darker one has emerged. The US, the hegemon of the 20th century still committed to democracy, has changed. It has transmuted into an imperial power careless of democracy but ever readier to exact economic tribute from its vassal states. Continue reading...

The new US president will almost certainly bring unpredictability but several themes will dominate the year ahead. Observer writers offer their guide on what lies ahead in politics, film, fashion, sport and moreThe only thing that can be predicted with absolute certainty about Donald Trump's second term as US president is that it will be unpredictable. Trump does not really know what he wants to do on a range of issues. He talks a good game, which is how he got re-elected. But he often seems to decide policy on the basis of what the last person he spoke to told him. Is he serious about mobilising the military to carry out mass deportations of illegal" migrants? Will he use the justice department to hunt down political enemies and media critics? Will he impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports and trigger aglobal trade war? Or will he act with greater circumspection, using these threats as bargaining tools? Who knows? Hedoesn't yet. Continue reading...

Checking my emails at every possible opportunity had become distracting and draining. So I set myself new boundariesAs a freelance writer, the structure of my work day can often vary wildly. Sometimes, it feels as if I have too much to do - other days, too little.Yet no matter the shape of my 9to 5, one thing remains constant: emails. I receive about 100 a day, ranging from the inane (Tesco Clubcard updates) to the infuriating (the PR who keeps sending me the fluctuating numbers of Taylor Swift's Instagram following) and the important (editors, often wondering when the piece they have asked me to write mightmaterialise). Continue reading...