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Posted by Sam Jones in Madrid and agencies

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

A further 75 people hospitalised after two trains collided and derailed near Adamuz in Córdoba province

• Spain train crash – latest updates

At least 39 people have been killed and 12 are in intensive care after two trains collided in southern Spain on Sunday night in what the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called “a night of deep pain for our country”.

A high-speed Iryo train travelling from Málaga to Madrid derailed near the municipality of Adamuz in Córdoba province at about 7.40pm on Sunday, crossing on to the other track where it hit an oncoming train, Adif, Spain’s rail infrastructure authority, posted on X.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

Posted by Daniel Harris

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jan/19/australian-open-2026-swiatek-djokovic-and-andreeva-in-action-on-day-two-live

Live updates from the evening session at Melbourne Park
Tennis civil war erupts | Follow on Bluesky | Mail Daniel

That breaker seems to have taken place while my system was down, but we’re back in good working order now.

Fearnley will be sick to have lost this, having led 3-0 in the fourth, but Majchrzak moves on to face Maroszan.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jan/19/australian-open-2026-swiatek-djokovic-and-andreeva-in-action-on-day-two-live

Posted by Daniel Dylan Wray

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jan/19/uk-crisp-packet-designs-sports-banger

From the Space Raiders cooked up by a 2000AD artist to Odduns with their Dark Side of the Moon style packet, we pop open a new 140-page celebration of crisps and the garishly beautiful bags they’re sold in

Would you eat a smoky spider flavour Monster Munch? What about a Bovril crisp, cooked up to celebrate the release of Back to the Future? Then there’s hedgehog flavour – and even a Wallace and Gromit corn snack designed to capture the unique taste of moon cheese, which the duo rocketed off to collect in A Grand Day Out.

All these salty, crunchy and perhaps even tasty snacks are celebrated in UK Crisp Packets 1970-2000, a 140-page compendium that delves into the colourful, often strange and occasionally wild world of crisp packet design. The book will come as a heavy hit of nostalgia for many people, featuring various childhood favourites – Chipsticks, Frazzles, Snaps – along with the lesser known and the rare.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jan/19/uk-crisp-packet-designs-sports-banger

Posted by Kate Lloyd

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/19/is-it-true-lose-most-body-heat-from-head

This 1970s notion is a bit of a myth – but it’s still a good idea to wear a hat if it’s cold out

‘Always keep your head covered. You can lose 40–45% of body heat from an unprotected head.” That’s the advice in a 1970s US Army Survival Manual, which is probably where this myth originated, says John Tregoning, a professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.

The reality is that there is nothing special about your head. When you go out in the cold, you lose more body heat from any area you leave exposed than from those parts protected by clothing. Out in a snowsuit but no hat? You’re going to lose heat quickly from your face and head, while the suit slows down the cooling of your body.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/19/is-it-true-lose-most-body-heat-from-head

Posted by Daniel Harris

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jan/19/australian-open-2026-swiatek-djokovic-and-andreeva-in-action-on-day-two-live

Live updates from the evening session at Melbourne Park
Tennis civil war erupts | Follow on Bluesky | Mail Daniel

I guess I’m going to watch Fearnley, who’s been broken back in set three but leads Majchrzak 4-3, while trailing 2-1; then, when Yuan v Swiatek and Vekic v Andreeva start in 10 minutes or so, them; and, perhaps Lehecka v Gea.

The oldest wild-card entrant in Aussie open history – and 2014 champ – justifies his presence in a draw that is blessed to have him. Next for Stanimal: Lehecka or Gea.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jan/19/australian-open-2026-swiatek-djokovic-and-andreeva-in-action-on-day-two-live

Posted by Guardian sport

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jan/19/premier-league-10-talking-points-from-the-weekends-action

Manchester United jog memories, Nick Woltemade comes up short and there’s a tough crowd for Chelsea’s owners

• Top scorers: check out the latest top-flight standings

Sir Jim Ratcliffe was present to see the best victory and performance of his two years of minority ownership. When Ratcliffe bought in, the public impression given was of a billionaire signing up to taste the magic for himself. Saturday, and beating Manchester City, was an undoubted revival act where Michael Carrick’s team played the football of yore. That will almost certainly be unsustainable in the medium term, since most opposition will not play City’s high-line, high-wire act. But in engaging their supporters with determination and aggression, United jogged memories. There was a time when just about every big game had Old Trafford rocking like this, when the opposition could not hear themselves think. Surely that was the myth and legend Ratcliffe wanted to be part of? Would that be possible in the new stadium the Ineos chief has plans for instead of Old Trafford? Tottenham’s recent experiences suggest otherwise. Would Liverpool’s owners cash out the Anfield experience? Surely not. John Brewin

Match report: Manchester United 2-0 Manchester City

Match report: Aston Villa 0-1 Everton

Match report: Wolves 0-0 Newcastle

Match report: Nottingham Forest 0-0 Arsenal

Match report: Tottenham 1-2 West Ham

Match report: Sunderland 2-1 Crystal Palace

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 Brentford

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jan/19/premier-league-10-talking-points-from-the-weekends-action

Posted by Stuart Clark

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jan/19/starwatch-watch-the-crescent-moon-pass-saturn-as-dusk-gathers

Earth’s satellite will be visible in conjunction with the ringed planet as twilight gives way to darkness

A slender crescent moon slides past Saturn this week, offering a rewarding conjunction. It will be the perfect way to start your evening, a little quiet contemplation of the night sky as the evening twilight gives way to full darkness.

The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 18:00 GMT, although the pair will have been visible from the moment dusk begins to gather.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jan/19/starwatch-watch-the-crescent-moon-pass-saturn-as-dusk-gathers

Posted by Alex Clark

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/19/departures-by-julian-barnes-review-this-final-novel-is-a-slippery-affair

Memoir merges with fiction as the author reflects on failed love, ageing and the end of life in this last instalment to his writing career

Julian Barnes tells us that this is his final book, so that’s one departure accounted for – the last instalment of a writing career spanning 45 years, encompassing novels and short stories, memoirs and essays, biography, travel writing, translation and even a little pseudonymous detective fiction. Many of these works turn up here, whether obliquely or overtly, referred to through subject matter, style, tone or connotation; in the contemporary cultural argot, which Barnes is fond of examining, these writerly winks might be known as Easter eggs.

The other form of leave taking is the “departure without subsequent arrival”: death. It is, as Larkin had it, “no different whined at than withstood”, and the truth is that most of us are both whiners and withstanders, querulous until there’s nothing left to complain at, stoic until pushed too far. Barnes is perhaps the great interpreter of mundane grandiosity, or grandiose mundanity – understanding that even as we attempt to inhabit the heroic mode, or to reach an intellectual accommodation with both mortality and morality, we will slip on a banana skin (or in Barnes’s case, he tells us here, a wooden staircase approached with bath-damp feet in a rush to answer the doorbell).

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/19/departures-by-julian-barnes-review-this-final-novel-is-a-slippery-affair

Posted by Carolyn Boyd

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jan/19/france-charente-maritime-royan-mussels-seafood

Charente-Maritime is a more affordable, less manicured family destination than nearby Île de Ré

Dinner comes with a spectacle in La Tremblade. Before I sit down to a platter of oysters at La Cabane des Bons Vivants, one of the village’s canal-side restaurants, I stand and watch orange flames bellow up from a tangle of long, skinny pine needles inside a large, open oven. They are piled on top of a board of carefully arranged mussels and, by setting fire to the pine needles, the shellfish cook in their own juices.

This is the curious tradition of moules à l’éclade, a novel way of cooking mussels developed by Marennes-Oléron oyster farmers along the River Seudre in the Charente-Maritime, halfway down France’s west coast. The short-lived flaming spectacle is a prelude to sliding apart the charred shells and finding juicy orange molluscs inside – and just one highlight of our evening along La Grève. The avenue that cuts between the oyster beds, lined by colourful, ramshackle huts and rustic pontoons is an alluring venue for a sunset meal by the canal, the atmosphere all the more lively and fascinating for it being in a working oyster-farming village.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jan/19/france-charente-maritime-royan-mussels-seafood

Posted by Anna Tims

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jan/19/eon-cancelled-bill-energy-supplier-balances-account

A bereaved young customer was baffled by the wildly fluctuating balances the energy supplier claimed on a family’s account

When my mother died of cancer, my aunt adopted me. She, too, died of cancer in 2024. At 26, I am now alone and struggling to deal with enormous, nonsensical energy bills from E.ON Next.

In 2022, I discovered my aunt had been paying massively inflated bills for the flat I shared with her, so I had the account closed and a new one set up in my name. An E.ON agent took meter readings, a smart meter was installed, and a final bill sent showing the account was more than £6,000 in credit. E.ON wouldn’t let me have it in cash, so the credit was transferred to the new account and used to pay the bills for the next two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jan/19/eon-cancelled-bill-energy-supplier-balances-account

Posted by Sam Jones in Madrid and agencies

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

Another 75 people hospitalised, officials say, after two trains collide and derail near Adamuz in Córdoba province

At least 39 people have been killed and 24 others seriously injured after two trains collided in southern Spain on Sunday night in what the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called “a night of deep pain for our country”.

A high-speed Iryo train travelling from Málaga to Madrid derailed near the municipality of Adamuz in Córdoba province, crossing on to the other track where it hit an oncoming train, Adif, Spain’s rail infrastructure authority, posted on X.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

Posted by Patrick Commins and agencies

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/chinas-economy-hit-growth-goal-last-year-despite-trump-trade-war-and-property-crisis

Economy weathered a fraught geopolitical landscape to reach 5% target but structural challenges at home ‘are not going away’, say experts

Chinese authorities can say they hit their growth goals last year, but Donald Trump’s ongoing trade aggression, a slow-motion housing market collapse and unhappy consumers remain major challenges for the world’s second-largest economy.

Data released on Monday showed the Chinese economy grew by 5% in 2025, steady on the year before and hitting the official target of “around” that pace.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/chinas-economy-hit-growth-goal-last-year-despite-trump-trade-war-and-property-crisis

Posted by Hollie Richardson, Graeme Virtue, Phil Harrison and Ellen E Jones

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jan/19/tv-tonight-the-game-of-thrones-prequel-that-is-actually-heaps-of-fun

An unlikely pair set off on an adventure in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Plus, a debauched Marie Antoinette party in Industry. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
If you loved the unlikely pairing of the Hound and Arya in Game of Thrones, this lighter, funnier new prequel is way more enjoyable than the dismal drama of House of the Dragon. Set 100 years before the events of GoT, the story is based on a George RR Martin novella, following the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), a sweet, courageous hedge knight (“like a knight … but sadder”) and his inquisitive young squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). But it’s not all fun and games – after all, what is Westeros without the cunning characters and grisly bits? As Duncan’s journey begins, expect puppet dragons, projectile poo and a promise to win a jousting tourney. Hollie Richardson

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jan/19/tv-tonight-the-game-of-thrones-prequel-that-is-actually-heaps-of-fun

Posted by Nesrine Malik

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/19/ice-crackdown-britain

This shocking moment is the outcome of a political, institutional and media environment that is not far off Britain’s

There is not much that can still shock about Donald Trump’s second administration. But the killing of Renee Good earlier this month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, as well as the regular, often violent confrontations that ICE stages on US streets, show so much that is unravelling in plain sight. The rule of law, the freedom to protest, and even the right to walk or drive in the streets safely without being assaulted by the state, seems to exist no longer in the towns and cities where ICE has made its presence felt. The most disturbing aspect of all this is how quickly it has happened. But for a government agency such as ICE to become the powerful paramilitary force that it is, several factors need to be in play first. Only one of them is Donald Trump.

ICE may look as if it came out of nowhere, but the sort of authoritarianism that results in these crackdowns never does. It takes shape slowly, in plain sight, in a way that is clearly traceable over time. First, there needs to be a merging of immigration and security concerns, both institutionally and in the political culture. Established in the wake of 9/11, ICE was part of a government restructuring under President George W Bush. It was granted a large budget, wide investigative powers and a partnership with the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce. The work of enforcing immigration law became inextricably linked to the business of keeping Americans safe after the largest attack on US soil. That then extended into a wider emphasis, under Barack Obama, beyond those who posed national security threats, and on to immigrants apprehended at the border, gang members and non-citizens convicted of felonies or misdemeanours.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/19/ice-crackdown-britain

Posted by Diane Taylor

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/theyre-emboldened-british-far-right-activists-step-up-harassment-of-asylum-seekers-in-northern-france

Aid groups say rise of far-right rhetoric in politics has fed into intimidation, vandalism and hate graffiti around migrant camps

Not far from a camp in Dunkirk where hundreds of asylum seekers sleep, hoping to cross the Channel to the UK, are some chilling pieces of graffiti. There is a hangman’s noose with a figure dangling next to the word “migrant” and, close by, another daubing: a Jewish Star of David painted in black surrounded by red swastikas.

Utopia 56, a French group supporting migrants in northern France, posted the image on X on Christmas Day with the comment: “This is what comes from normalising the extreme right’s rhetoric, a visible, unapologetic, unabashed hatred.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/theyre-emboldened-british-far-right-activists-step-up-harassment-of-asylum-seekers-in-northern-france

Posted by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jan/19/scottish-power-ranked-uk-worst-supplier-customer-service-which

Consumer group gives many of the biggest suppliers low ratings in its annual survey of energy provider performance

Scottish Power has been ranked Britain’s worst energy supplier for customer service in a survey from a leading consumer body that placed many of the UK’s biggest suppliers at the bottom of the league table.

British Gas and EDF Energy were just above Scottish Power at the foot of the annual Which? rankings. These are based on a satisfaction survey of almost 12,000 energy customers and a Which? assessment of each supplier’s customer service.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jan/19/scottish-power-ranked-uk-worst-supplier-customer-service-which

Posted by Guardian staff and agencies

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

Another 75 people hospitalised and others still trapped, officials say, after two trains collide and derail near Adamuz in Cordóba province

At least 21 people have been killed and 75 people hospitalised after two trains collided in southern Spain on Sunday in what the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called “a night of deep pain” for the country.

A high-speed Iryo train travelling from Málaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz, crossing on to the other track where it hit an oncoming train, Spain’s Adif rail body posted on X. The second train was also derailed and went down an embankment, authorities said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/high-speed-train-crash-in-adamuz-cordoba-southern-spain

Posted by Steve Rose

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/19/ed-zitron-on-big-tech-backlash-boom-and-bust-ai-has-taught-us-that-people-are-excited-to-replace-human-beings

His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he’s no longer the outsider he once was

If some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about “how the AI bubble burst”, Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He’s the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who’s become one of big tech’s noisiest critics.

This is not to say the AI bubble will burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron’s blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where’s Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he’s a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself – one user describes him as “a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit”.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/19/ed-zitron-on-big-tech-backlash-boom-and-bust-ai-has-taught-us-that-people-are-excited-to-replace-human-beings

Posted by Lyndsey Winship

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jan/19/amber-davies-strictly-love-island-legally-blonde

She started out performing in her living room, charging £1.50 a ticket. Now, having blazed through Love Island and silenced her Strictly haters, the Welsh sensation is really hitting the big time

At the end of last year’s Strictly Come Dancing semi-final, pro dancer Nikita Kuzmin made a tearful appeal to camera, “I speak to the audience at home: guys, just please, please be kind!” His celebrity partner, Love Island winner, Dancing on Ice contestant and musical theatre actor Amber Davies, had been getting a lot of flak online. “You have had so much hate, every single day,” said Kuzmin.

Isn’t it crazy that we have to remind people to be nice to other humans who are just doing their job, I say to Davies, when we meet in a London hotel bar. “I genuinely think it’s getting worse,” says Davies, who has been in the public eye since 2017. “With TikTok, when people jump on a bandwagon, they go for it,” she adds. “But I feel like the nasty comments I was getting [on Strictly] weren’t actually coming from the younger audience, they came from the older audience.”

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jan/19/amber-davies-strictly-love-island-legally-blonde