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.

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.

That 1 February 2016 announcement led to Johan Cruyff’s gospel spreading to all corners of our game – and a bromance with Neil Warnock

It wasn’t quite without fanfare but when Manchester City announced, 10 years ago on Sunday, that Pep Guardiola was to be their manager from the next summer, it was a banal, bald press release that brought English football the news that would change it for ever. That was a simpler time, pre-Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, and before centre-halves in League Two would split wide for the keeper to pass out from the back to the holding midfielder, dropping in to receive the ball as a false 9 came deep to link with full-backs stepping into midfield.

“It’s not about coaches adapting to English football,” said Jordi Cruyff in 2016 as Guardiola began to make his mark on England. “It’s about English football adapting to the new things of the game.” And yet that typical Cruyffian confidence looked like hubris when Guardiola’s Manchester City got hammered 4-2 by Leicester, 4-0 by Everton and experienced Champions League humiliations at Barcelona and Monaco in that first season.

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?

‘Everyone wants to know,’ Melania says at the beginning of the two-hour extravaganza – but do we?

It’s Friday afternoon at Hoyts on Sydney’s northern beaches, and the atmosphere is horrific. I am here to see Amazon’s $75m “documentary” on Melania Trump, which has already been condemned as a flop ahead of its release.

When I arrive, I panic for a second that I have the time wrong. There are no Melania posters anywhere and the screening is tucked into the back bottom corner of the large movie theatre, like the weird leftover table at a wedding.

As the film’s megahit song Golden looks likely to sweep everything in awards season, its singer Ejae explains why she’s ready to step out from behind her animated alter ego

‘The directors were crying, the producer was crying, and I thought: Oh my gosh, this is an incredible musical world.” It was February 2025, and Ian Eisendrath was conducting an orchestra through the final flourishes for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. He knew that the team had built something special – “but I never thought it would be like this,” he laughs, marvelling at what came next.

Mere weeks after its release in June, the animated film – about Korean girl band Huntr/x who battle soul-hungry demons through song – became Netflix’s most-watched title ever. The film’s soundtrack, a fleet of emotionally charged, devilishly catchy hits crafted by real K-pop heavyweights, became a platinum-rated phenomenon all its own.

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.

Keir Starmer says he wants to ‘go further’ in relations with Brussels as ministers look to restart stalled negotiations

The UK and the EU are exploring the prospect of new talks on closer defence cooperation, as Keir Starmer stressed on Friday that he wanted to “go further” in the UK’s relationship with Brussels.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, is due in London for talks next week, with trade, energy and fisheries on the agenda. But diplomatic sources said the UK is keen to discuss restarting negotiations on defence as soon as it can.

Talks for the UK to join the EU’s €150bn (£130bn) Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence fund collapsed in November 2025 amid claims that the EU had set too high a price on entry to the programme.

Women’s singles final in Melbourne, 8.30am GMT start
Rybakina poses threat | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Katy

Road to the final. Both have generated dangerous momentum as the tournament has progressed and are yet to drop a set. Sabalenka turned into something of a teen hunter to halt the breakthrough runs of Victoria Mboko and Iva Jovic, before brutally ending the 31-year-old Elina Svitolina’s hopes of a first slam title in the last four. But while Sabalenka’s level has been eye-catching, Rybakina has had the tougher route to this final, and has defeated two top-six players in Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula. And when Rybakina gets on a roll, it’s very hard to stop her.

Tale of the tape
Sabalenka – Rybakina
27 Age 26
1 Seeding 5
1 World ranking 5
4 Grand slam titles 1
8 Grand slam finals 3
22 Singles titles 11
8 Head-to-head 6

Shy 63-year-old’s decision to blow up London traffic camera linked to online conspiracy theories and Islamophobia

To his neighbours, Kevin Rees did not seem like an extremist. The shy 63-year-old lived on a tree-lined street in suburban Sidcup, in Bexley, south-east London. He appeared to be enjoying retirement after a career mending dishwashers and other domestic appliances. “He’s a quiet character – I’ve lived opposite him for 10 years and never really spoken to him,” says Sam, who declined to give her full name.

Behind the lace curtains, Rees was much more abrasive, at least online. Under the user name the “Exterminator” he ranted about London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) which in 2023 was expanded to the capital’s outer borough, including Bexley.