Innehållsförteckning för 16 January 2026 från Guardian Weekly

CLIMATE Aviation emissions could be halved without flight cuts Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half without reducing passenger journeys, according to analysis. Carbon dioxide per kilometre flown has fallen as aircraft have become more fuel efficient. But the number of flights has grown, and emissions could double or even triple by 2050, according to experts. Prof Stefan Gössling, at Linnaeus University in Sweden, who led the research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, said all-economy-seat planes, 95% occupancy and use of the most efficient aircraft could cut fuel use and emissions by 50-75%. MEDICAL RESEARCH People regain weight lost on GLP-1 jabs within two years People who stop taking weight loss jabs regain all the weight originally lost in under two years, significantly faster than…

Diplomacy and Arctic security European governments, led by Denmark’s ambassador to the US, Jesper Møller Sørensen, and Greenland’s envoy, Jacob Isbosethsen, have been lobbying US lawmakers to talk Trump out of his territorial ambitions for the island. Diplomatic overtures will also aim to meet US security concerns – first by stressing that a US-Danish defence treaty from 1951, updated in 2004, already allows for massive expansion of the American military presence on the island. They will also underline that, as Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, put it, a US attack on Greenland would mean “the end of Nato”. Nato ambassadors reportedly agreed in Brussels last week that the transatlantic alliance should boost military spending in the Arctic to help allay US security concerns. Diplomats believe a western move to strengthen…

For some reason, we have collectively agreed that the new year is the time to vent ourselves. The problem, for many people, is that we’ve tried all the usual health kicks – running, rein-yoga, meditation, the latest diets – even if we haven’t really enjoyed them, in an attempt to improve our minds and bodies. But have any of us given as much thought to creativity? Allow me to suggest that this year be a time to embrace the arts. Ever since our Palaeolithic ancestors began painting caves, carving figurines, dancing and singing, engaging in the arts has been interwoven with health and healing. Look through the early writings of every major medical tradition around the world and you find the arts. What is much newer – and has rapidly…

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. Last 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 next breath to Venezuela’s oil. There was no talk of democracy, scant mention of the drug trafficking that earlier served as a pretext for military action. Instead, Trump said out loud that it was all about…

Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust When the European Union made its 2020 commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century, there was a wave of excitement about what that might mean for the continent’s most romantic form of travel. The golden era of night trains had, it was previously assumed, gone for good amid the rise of low-cost, short-haul flights. But the new environmental imperatives suggested they could be a glamorous part of a greener future, delivering a climate impact 28 times less than flying. Sadly, due to a series of challenges that Brussels and national governments have done too little to address, the renaissance appears to be stalling. Last month, a two-year-old night service linking Paris with Vienna and Berlin was scrapped…

The Score By C Thi Nguyen Two years ago, I started learning Japanese on Duolingo. At first, the daily accrual of vocabulary was fun. Every lesson earned me experience points that measured my progress. But something odd happened. As I climbed the leaderboards, I found myself favouring lessons that offered the most points for the least effort. Things came to a head when I spent an entire holiday glued to my phone, repeating the same 30-second Kanji lesson over and over, ignoring my family and learning nothing. Philosopher C Thi Nguyen’s new book tackles this kind of perverse behaviour. He argues that mistaking points for the point is a pervasive error that leads us to build our lives and societies around things we don’t want. “Value capture”, as Nguyen calls…

Prep 5 min Cook 1 hr 15 min Serves 6 Ingredients 3 large granny smith apples200ml apple juiceDouble cream, yoghurt or vanilla ice-cream (dairy or otherwise), to serve For the filling 70g dried fruit (any combination of raisins, figs, apricots, dates), cut into roughly the size of raisins25g shelled pecans, chopped25g light or dark brown sugar30g tahini½ tsp ground cinnamon Finely grated zest of1 small lemon1 tbsp lemon juice⅛ tsp flaky sea salt For the oat and sesame crisp 25g oats15g sesame seeds1 tbsp olive oil, or melted coconut oil1 tbsp maple syrup⅛ tsp flaky sea salt After the excesses of December, these baked apples are a light, refreshing pudding. If need be, you can make these vegan and/or dairyfree with a few simple tweaks. The filling makes good use…

Hastings is the grandfather of international chess tournaments, first staged in 1895 and then every year since 1920, with breaks for war and pandemics. Its vintage years were the 1930s, 50s and 70s. Nowadays, Hastings is sandwiched between the London Classic and Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, and runs simultaneously with the Magnus Carlsen show in the World Rapid/Blitz. This year’s event lacked any player from the world’s top 200 grandmasters. Hastings had a £10,000 ($13,400) prize fund, compared with £50,000 for the London Classic and €1m for the World Rapid/Blitz in Qatar. The Sussex seaside resort maintained its reputation for unveiling new talent. Alex Golding, 22, who tied for first by defeating the experienced GM Simon Williams in the final round, developed his skills in Guildford, who for years…

Iran’s foreign minister on Monday claimed the situation in the country had “come under total control” as authorities carried out a brutal crackdown against the nationwide protest movement. Abbas Araghchi made the comments to foreign diplomats in Tehran, without supplying evidence. The few messages and videos to have emerged from Iran last weekend showed that protests were continuing, but an ongoing internet blackout made it difficult to judge if the authorities’ use of violence had been effective in blunting the movement’s momentum. The protests, which began on 28 December, started when traders in Tehran took to the streets to protest over a sudden depreciation in the national currency. They expanded into nationwide demonstrations with protesters calling for the fall of the Iranian regime – triggering a heavy-handed response by authorities.…

1 Find your creative pick-me-up Use music and books to boost your mood. The dopamine release provided by stories and songs comes not only at the most joyous or exciting parts – the choruses in songs and climaxes in plotlines – but also from the tension that builds during the lead-up to those moments, as our brains anticipate what’s coming. When a song or story feels too predictable, it can seem bland (think lift music) and there isn’t enough build up of anticipation. If it’s too far outside our comfort zone, our brains don’t know how to judge it, so we miss the joy of the tension and resolution. You can maximise the joy you get from the arts by finding your personal sweet spot between familiarity and complexity. 2 Choose…

ON 30 MAY LAST YEAR, Kim Sajet was working in her office in the grandly porticoed National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The gallery is one of the most important branches of the Smithsonian Institution, the complex of national museums that, for almost 200 years, has told the story of the nation. The director’s suite, large enough to host a small party, has a grandeur befitting the museum’s role as the keeper of portraits of the United States’ most significant historical figures. Sajet was working beneath the gaze of artworks from the collection, including a striking 1952 painting of Mary Mills, a military-uniformed, African American nurse, and a bronze head of jazz and blues singer Ethel Waters. It seemed like an ordinary Friday. Until, that is, an anxious colleague came…

WRITE TO US Letters for publication weekly.letters@theguardian.com Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions, see: THEGUARDIAN.COM/LETTERS-TERMS Editorial  Editor: Graham Snowdon To contact the editor directly: editorial.feedback@theguardian.com Corrections Our policy is to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Please write to guardian.readers@theguardian.com or the readers’ editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK The myth of pensions and their unaffordability I am sorry to see that the Guardian Weekly has fallen into the trap of thinking ageing populations spell pension unaffordability (Pots of gold, Big story, 2 January). In fact, there is no direct relationship between these two things. The affordability of pensions is based on the…

Book of the week Made in America By Edward Stourton ‘Almost everyone is a little bit in love with the US,” declares Edward Stourton in his introduction to Made in America. And why not? The US is the land of razzle-dazzle and high ideals, of jazz music and Hamilton, a nation that was anti-colonialist and pro-liberty from its conception, whose Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”. Why, then, does this same country so often produce clown-show politics, racism, and imperial ambitions. Why did it once again elect Donald Trump? These contradictions have kept an army of journalists, White Housewatchers and soothsayers in business for generations. Stourton takes almost the opposite approach. He looks at Trump through the run of history, arguing that the 47th Potus is…

I am in my 80s and an old friend has several health issues. She will probably die in the not too distant future due to the inoperable cancer she has been aware of for some years. She has two adult children, with domestic and career problems of their own, but she sees them frequently, and I know them both. Some time ago, talking to her about a mutual friend with dementia, I said if I were diagnosed with it, I would want to end my life while I was still me. She asked how I would do that, and has brought up the subject once or twice since. I was afraid she would ask me to help her end her life. While I could not bear to see her suffer…

1 What identically named comic strips debuted in the US and UK in March 1951? 2 Which pharaoh was known by later Egyptians as the Great Ancestor?  3 Which Spanish-language singer is the world’s most-streamed artist? 4 Which big cat has the widest geographical distribution? 5 Who was the first woman to train a Grand National winner?  6 What element has the lowest boiling point?  7 Which artist has museums in Pittsburgh and Slovakia? 8 Which country has more than 9m abandoned homes? What links: 9 Billie Eilish; George Gershwin; Barry Gibb; Robert Sherman? 10 Annan; Dee; Eden; Esk; Kirtle Water; Nith; Wampool? 11 Lord Kitchener and Mighty Sparrow; nymph of Ogygia; Jacques Cousteau’s ship?  12 Barclays; Cadbury; Clarks; Fry’s; Lloyds? 13 Rose; tree; bird; arrow; globe; poppy?  14 Nicola…

The White House has revived the Monroe doctrine as the cornerstone of its newly aggressive policy in the Americas. A national security strategy unveiled in November stated: “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe doctrine to restore American preeminence in the western hemisphere.” Donald Trump has touted the term, calling it the Donroe doctrine to show his ownership of the idea. The original doctrine, put forward in 1823 by President James Monroe (below) , was quite different. He proposed that the US act as a guarantor against European imperialism, declaring the nations of the American continents were “not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation”. In 1904, the doctrine was updated by President Theodore Roosevelt (above) to suit the enthusiasm for US colonialism in the…

Like thousands of women across the world, Evie, a 22-year-old photographer from Lincolnshire, woke up on New Year’s Day, looked at her phone and was alarmed to see that fully clothed photographs of her had been digitally manipulated by Elon Musk’s AI tool, Grok, to show her in just a bikini. The “put her in a bikini” trend began quietly at the end of last year before exploding at the start of 2026. Within days, hundreds of thousands of requests were being made to the Grok chatbot, asking it to strip the clothes from photographs of women. The fake, sexualised images were posted publicly on X, freely available for millions of people to inspect. Relatively tame requests by X users to alter photographs to show women in bikinis into increasingly…

“There is a risk that China views Canada as weak and abused by Trump’s administration During the final stretch of Canada’s spring election campaign, Mark Carney told a debate audience that China was the country’s “biggest geopolitical risk”. He pointed to its attempts to meddle in elections and its recent efforts to disrupt Canada’s Arctic claims. With Carney’s government plane headed for Beijing this week, it will be the first time a Canadian prime minister has been welcomed in nearly a decade. The trip reflects a desire by Ottawa to mend a broken relationship with a global superpower that uses its vast market to both woo and punish countries. But Carney’s state visit also speaks to the pain of a trade war with the US and a need to expand…

HE’D GONE TO THE PARTY WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND but hadn’t seen her for over an hour, and it wasn’t like her to disappear. He slipped down the hallway to check his phone. At that point, he heard murmurs coming from one of the bedrooms and thought he recognised his best friend Jason’s low voice. As he pushed the door ajar, they were both still scrambling to throw their clothes on. The image of his girlfriend and best friend together hit Lamar like a blow to the chest. He left without saying a word. Two years on, when he spoke to me, the memory remained raw. He was still seething with anger, as if telling the story for the first time. “I got betrayed by humans,” Lamar insisted. In the meantime,…

THE KOREAN WAVE isbeingfetedaround the world right now but Park Chanwook is not feeling too celebratory. From the outside, South Korea seems to be a well-oiled machine pumping out world-conquering pop music, cuisine, cars, cinema (especially the Oscarwinning Parasite) and TV shows, as well as the Samsung flat-screens to watch them on. But Park’s latest film, No Other Choice, bursts the balloon somewhat. It paints modern-day Korea as an unstable landscape of industrial decline, downsizing, unemployment and male fragility – with no KPop Demon Hunters to save the day. “I did not mean for it to be a realistic portrayal of Korea in 2025,” says Park, a serene, almost professorial 62-year-old. “It’s more accurate to view it as a satire on capitalism.” No Other Choice’s setting is the comically mundane…

MUSIC The Cribs Selling the Vibe (Pias) The Cribs were a band so of the mid-00s moment that they were nearly signed to a record label founded by Myspace. But they always seemed slightly apart from the scene. They were certainly less voracious in the pursuit of mainstream success than contemporaries Razorlight or the Kaiser Chiefs: “A cash injection, a nasty infection – don’t regret it,” offers Self-Respect, from their ninth album, Selling a Vibe. They were more in tune with what their sometime-producer Edwyn Collins called “proper indie”. That sense of distance served the Cribs well. Unlike their peers, they never met with vast success but they kept having Top 10 albums long after Britain’s 00s alt-rock vogue passed. The lyrics on Selling a Vibe regard their past with…

The Ten Year Affair By Erin Somers In Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair, Cora, a millennial mother, craves a bygone kind of passion from a bygone kind of man. Unfortunately for her, morality in 2015 is rigid and cynical, and instead of having the affair, Cora spends 10 years overthinking it, fantasising about it and discussing it with her potential lover, Sam – a playgroup dad who is “chief storytelling officer” at a mortgage startup. I’d call it the midlife adultery story our entire generation deserves: a propulsive, witty takedown of insufferable handwringers who have managed to ruin even sex. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down. Cora and her husband Eliot are smug, overeducated Brooklynites who have moved reluctantly upstate. They hang out with other smug, overeducated Brooklynites who…

1 Jumblies Rearrange the letters of ORGANISED to make another word. 2 Dropouts Identify these words in which each asterisk represents a missing letter: *R*U*I*N (not just a cigar?) R*U*I*N (island meeting?) 3 Cryptic Busy doing nothing? (8) 4 Missing Links Find a word that follows the first word in the clue and precedes the second, making a fresh word or phrase. Eg fish mix could be cake (fishcake & cake mix). a) red kin b) kind kite c) a leaf d) crab turnover © CMM2026 Puzzles 1 GRANDIOSE (ORGANDIES). 2 FREUDIAN, REUNION. 3 (IN ACTION) INACTION. 4 a) red/wines/kin, b) kind/red/kite, c) a/new/leaf, d) crab/apple/turnover.…

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