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My use of mobile phones has been compulsive – has it been for better or for worse?
• From a priest to a pensioner, a teenager to a tech CEO: can you guess our screen time?
In 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an extraordinarily prescient book. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do predicted a future in which a student “sits in a college library and removes an electronic device from her purse”. It serves as her “mobile phone, information portal, entertainment platform, and personal organiser. She takes this device almost everywhere and feels lost without it.”
Such devices, Fogg argued, would be “persuasive technology systems … the device can suggest, encourage, and reward.” Those rewards could have a powerful effect on our relationship with these devices, akin to gamblers pumping quarters into slot machines.
Continue reading...Sat, 31 Jan 2026 06:00:56 GMT
As rivers swell and homes are cut off, scientists say UK winter rainfall is already 20 years ahead of predictions
When flooding hit the low-lying Somerset Levels in 2014, it took two months for the waters to rise. This week it took two days, said Rebecca Horsington, chair of the Flooding on the Levels Action Group and a born-and-bred resident. A fierce barrage of storms from the Atlantic has drenched south-west England in January, saturating soils and supercharging rivers.
Continue reading...Sat, 31 Jan 2026 06:00:51 GMT
After a three-year hiatus, the former One Directioner has announced a record-breaking tour. But this week he’s facing a backlash. Will his big comeback go to plan?
God save Harry Styles! Thus far in his career, the former One Direction frontman and unproblematic fave has been the golden boy of British music, one of our few stars to successfully crack America and not embarrass us in the attempt. Amid ever-dwindling sources of national pride, Styles has been a constant, the UK’s preferred Prince Harry and even less controversial than Paddington. But is his charmed run about to come to an end?
As Styles gears up for his big comeback, after a three-year hiatus from music and in large part public life, there are signs he may have set his sights too close to the sun, with controversy over ticket prices and a backlash brewing. Can Harry style it out?
Continue reading...Sat, 31 Jan 2026 05:00:48 GMT
PM flies out after courting world’s second biggest economy aware of difficult balance of risks and potential rewards
The last British prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018. Before the visit, she and her team were advised to get dressed under the covers because of the risk of hidden cameras having been placed in their hotel rooms to record compromising material.
Keir Starmer, in Beijing this week, was more sanguine about his privacy, even though the security risks have, if anything, increased since the former Tory prime minister was in town.
Continue reading...Sat, 31 Jan 2026 06:00:55 GMT
Harry Wilson, Igor Thiago, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Jack Grealish and Antoine Semenyo have shone for their clubs
By WhoScored
Harry Wilson was often a spectator rather than a player in his first three seasons at Fulham. He made 89 appearances in the league, but 48 of them were from the bench and he was taken off 34 times. Having scored just 12 league goals in three years, he was nearly shipped off to Leeds in the summer.
Continue reading...Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:00:34 GMT
Ursula, 29, an events coordinator, meets Culann, 34, a charity worker
What were you hoping for?
To meet someone fun, maybe a bit of romance.
Sat, 31 Jan 2026 06:00:52 GMT
Child sex offender sent thousands of pounds to Reinaldo Avila da Silva, according to documents published by US justice department
Jeffrey Epstein sent thousands of pounds in bank transfers after his release from prison in 2009 to Peter Mandelson’s husband, according to emails published by the US Department of Justice on Friday.
The latest documents raise fresh questions about Epstein’s relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington when details of his support for the disgraced financier emerged in September.
Continue reading...Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:43:01 GMT
Newly released files from DoJ show the pair making plans in 2012 and 2013 for the Tesla CEO to visit Epstein’s island
Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other on two separate occasions to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island.
The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in both 2012 and 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James. Neither exchanges appear to have resulted in Musk visiting the island, due to logistical issues.
Continue reading...Fri, 30 Jan 2026 21:19:06 GMT
Famous figures including Woody Allen were invited to party with disgraced financier and Mountbatten-Windsor, documents indicate
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor attended an intimate party with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein months after he was released from prison, files suggest.
The US justice department released another cache of documents relating to the disgraced financier on Friday.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Fri, 30 Jan 2026 21:09:33 GMT
Democrats question redactions and whether Trump officials are holding back more documents – key US politics stories from 30 January at a glance
The US justice department has released more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a long-awaited announcement that appears to represent the bulk of the so-called Epstein files that have dogged Donald Trump politically.
While an analysis is still under way, the release exposes previously unknown financial ties and social connections between Epstein and prominent figures in the US and UK – including some in the president’s orbit.
Continue reading...Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:20:07 GMT