The Guardian Nachrichten

 

Trump is no longer bending the rules – he is demolishing them, with consequences far beyond CaracasUS strikes on Venezuela – live updatesHardly anyone expected 2026 to be a year of peace, and it was barely two days old when the worst fears were confirmed.The overnight strikes on Venezuela, the abduction of its leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, and Donald Trump's declaration that the US would “run” the country and sell its oil, have driven another truck through international law and global norms. But that is not even the most concerning thing about it. Continue reading......

US president says oil majors primed to invest in rebuilding infrastructure following Maduro ousterUS oil giants have so far remained silent on Donald Trump's claim that they are primed to spend “billions and billions of dollars” rebuilding the Venezuelan oil industry following the ouster of Nicolás Maduro​.Chevron, the only US oil company still operating in Venezuela, committed only to following “relevant laws and regulations” after the US president suggested American energy multinationals would be central to his plans for the country. Continue reading......

US president made comments after US military special forces captured Venezuelan president and wifeDonald Trump has said the US will be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela's oil industry after launching a military attack that swept the country's authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power.The president gave a phone interview to the conservative Fox News channel hours after a dramatic pre-dawn assault on Caracas and the surrounding region ended in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Continue reading......

Suspected offences include homicide by negligence, causing bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligenceThe two managers of a bar where a blaze on New Year's Day killed at least 40 people have been placed under criminal investigation, Swiss prosecutors have said.French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti owned and managed the Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, which was crammed with young new year's revellers when a blaze began at about 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) on Thursday, killing about 40 people and injuring more than 100. Continue reading......

Damage to cables means tens of thousands will be without electricity until Thursday amid freezing temperaturesTens of thousands of homes in Berlin will be without electricity until Thursday as authorities struggle to repair power cables seriously damaged in a suspected arson attack, officials have said.Some households may also be without heating as the outage has affected local systems at a time when the German capital is blanketed in snow and temperatures are hovering around freezing. Continue reading......

The novelty of eating at a diner owned by the richest person in the world seems to have worn off in just a few monthsLess than six months since it opened, Elon Musk's Tesla Diner has the feel of a ghost town. Gone is the Optimus robot serving popcorn, gone are the carnivore-diet-inspired “Epic Bacon” strips, gone are the hours-long, hundred-person lines wrapped around the block. Even the restaurant's all-star chef, Eric Greenspan, is gone. The Hollywood burger-and-fries shop seems like a shell of the bustling eatery it was when it opened in late July.On a balmy Friday afternoon in December, the parking lot for Tesla car charging was, at best, half full. Inside what the company describes as a “retro-futuristic” diner, a handful of people trickled in, ordering burgers and hotdogs or asking for merch. The upstairs deck, AKA “Skypad”, was vacant except for a pair of employees stringing holiday lights. More staff was busy at work, buffing fingerprints off the chrome walls and taking out the trash...

Across the US, federal public media cuts have galvanized many communities to donate to their local radio stationsAs soon as the US government voted to cut funding to more than 1,500 public media outlets last July, Luke Dennis, general manager at WYSO, a public radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio, kicked into action an emergency funding drive.“The thing that really bothered me was not so much that the federal funding went away, because I felt like that was inevitable under the current administration, but to give us zero runway to prepare for it,” says Dennis. Continue reading......

UK pastry chain has plans for two new factories and 800 more branches, despite sales falling in 2025 and analysts questioning brand's direction An enormous carpet of pastry snakes its way around the factory. Four huge metal urns of meat filling are waiting to be added. Workers in hairnets and overalls buzz about, checking a production line that holds 4.5 tonnes of pastry at any one time.This is food production on an industrial scale, designed to satisfy the UK's seemingly insatiable appetite for sausage rolls, vegan bites and other baked treats. Continue reading......

From Shetland to the Western Isles, campaigners argue ageing ferries are driving depopulation – and undersea tunnels are the only 21st-century solutionFor Alec Priest, an instrument technician at Sullom Voe oil terminal on Shetland, the case for digging tunnels under the narrow stretches of ocean that separate his home from work is clear-cut.As things stand, two ageing ferries crossing tidal sounds notorious for their powerful currents break up his commute. For a casual tourist, that adds to the mystique. For time-pressed islanders, care workers and businesses, it adds delays, stress and costs. Continue reading......

Exclusive: diplomats had to scramble to contain fallout with Beijing after Douglas Alexander's trip to TaipeiChina threatened to cancel high-level trade talks with the UK earlier this year over a government minister's visit to Taiwan, the Guardian can disclose.Beijing told the British government it would pull its first trade and economic dialogue with the UK in seven years after Douglas Alexander, then a trade minister, travelled to Taipei in late June. Continue reading......

East Midlands Railway will switch to bi-mode Aurora fleet to cut emissions and noise but elsewhere electrification is delayedRailway fossil fuels once helped to turn King's Cross and St Pancras into a seamy, smoke-choked area of London. Now, in the two grandly redeveloped stations with their swanky plazas, even a dropped paper ticket would look out of place.One last corner of St Pancras station is polluted by the fug of diesel trains – but not for much longer. East Midlands Railway, which runs services to cities including Derby and Sheffield, will fire up its diesel units in London for the final time by the end of 2026. Continue reading......

Defenders say AI can do good to fight the climate crisis. But spiralling energy and water costs leave experts worriedDuring a golden sunset in Memphis in May, Sharon Wilson pointed a thermal imaging camera at Elon Musk's flagship datacentre to reveal a planetary threat her eyes could not. Free from pollution controls, the gas-fired turbines that power the world's biggest AI supercomputer were pumping invisible fumes into the Tennessee sky.“It was jaw-dropping,” said Wilson, a former oil and gas worker from Texas who has documented methane releases for more than a decade and estimates xAI's Colossus datacentre was spewing more of the planet-heating gas than a large power plant. “Just an unbelievable amount of pollution.” Continue reading......

From Trader Joe's totes to Greggs jewellery, swag mania reveals how small businesses can promote their 'brands' – and how we use stuff to signal our tribeFor all its many charms, Norwich tends to lag behind London on internet-buzzy trends (personally, I count that as among its charms), but it's not always easy to pinpoint by exactly how long. So I was interested to spot, on a recent trip into the fine city, a woman carrying a Trader Joe's-branded tote bag.Trader Joe's is a US supermarket; it does not operate in the UK, let alone East Anglia. And yet its merchandise – specifically this black-strapped, red-stamped but otherwise unremarkable tote bag – has been increasingly ubiquitous in London this year, as noted by the New York Times in July. Continue reading......

Platform is now Britain's fourth most visited social media site as users seek out human-generated contentReddit, the online discussion platform, has overtaken TikTok as Britain's fourth most visited social media service, as search algorithms and gen Z have dramatically transformed its prominence.The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years, with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023, according to Ofcom. Continue reading......

From cheaper shopping to tax and travel cash, there is a host of resources to help you out. We pick some of the bestMoney is central to many people's new year resolutions – whether it's trying to save more, organising what you have already, or improving your spending or saving habits.If you have promised to tackle your finances this year, there are lots of tools and apps that can help you achieve your goal. Here are 26 to help you in 2026. Continue reading......

Quieter destinations, such as Malta's sister island, Gozo, and long-haul locations are expected to be popularUK travel companies are bracing for one of their busiest periods for bookings as winter-wearied consumers plan sunny breaks, with package holiday bookings forecast to be up 5% this January.The Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator that administers the Atol travel financial protection scheme, has forecast that 200,000 more holidaymakers will book trips this month compared with the 4.3 million who did so in the same period last year. Continue reading......

Executive chair Richard Baker to replace Marc Metrick after company misses $100m interest payment on debtSaks Global said on Friday that its CEO, Marc Metrick, has stepped down and named executive chair, Richard Baker, as his successor, amid reports that the luxury retailer is preparing for bankruptcy.The change at the top comes days after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Neiman Marcus parent company is preparing for bankruptcy after missing an interest payment exceeding $100m on debt from its Neiman merger. Continue reading......

xAI says it is working to improve systems after lapses in safeguards led to wave of sexualized images this weekElon Musk's chatbot Grok posted on Friday that lapses in safeguards had led it to generate “images depicting minors in minimal clothing” on social media platform X. The chatbot, a product of Musk's company xAI, has been generating a wave of sexualized images throughout the week in response to user prompts.Screenshots shared by users on X showed Grok's public media tab filled with such images. xAI said it was working to improve its systems to prevent future incidents. Continue reading......

Blue-chip share index, created in 1984, has risen by more than 20% over past 12 monthsBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK's blue-chip share index has broken through the 10,000-point level for the first time, as London shares continued to rise after a bumper 2025. .The FTSE 100 jumped on Friday morning to a high of 10,046, a new peak for the index, before easing back slightly. Continue reading......

Sales at Elon Musk's company slump after Donald Trump's withdrawal of EV subsidiesChina's BYD overtook Tesla as the world's largest electric carmaker in 2025, after the US company run by Elon Musk reported a slump in deliveries at the end of the year.BYD sold 2.26m battery electric cars during the year, easily outstripping the 1.63m deliveries reported on Friday by Tesla for the same period. Continue reading......