On the whims of Fifa’s Peace Prize winner, a life usually so focused on sports has found anything but peace

It’s Saturday morning, and news breaks shortly after the Premier League kickoff window; another member of your community has been brutally killed in the streets by ICE. There are already a few videos on social media, depicting multiple angles of the grotesque scene. This killing, like the one before, has felt inevitable – because of the actions of the federal government, and in spite of the diligence and peaceful pushback by you and your neighbors.

For more than a decade, watching soccer has been a staple of your Saturday routine, as it is for millions of others. Given that, it was hard not to think about a prize awarded by the sport’s most powerful organization just eight weeks prior, to the president overseeing and encouraging all of this. You know, the medal meant to reward “exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace.” Plenty of people have been joking about this “honor” online since the day it was announced. You were among them in December. Today, you find it hard to laugh.

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I’ve been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn’t much video games coverage that feels like it’s specifically for people like me. So I’m creating a home for it: Mothership

Whether you’re reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry’s mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What’s more, games journalists – as well as all other kinds of journalists – have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump’s White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world’s slide to the right.

The manosphere is back, and we’ve lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of “woke”. Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who’s been a games journalist and critic since 2007.

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Millennials in South Korea are being mocked for trying too hard to follow fashion. It’s far better to accept the march of time

Apparently, South Korea’s millennials are getting ribbed by gens Z and Alpha as mercilessly as their western counterparts. The BBC explains they are getting labelled and parodied as “Young 40s”. It’s a term that used to have positive connotations – youthful and “with it” (yes, an expression no one youthful or “with it” uses) – but is now more mocking. A “Young 40” is a try-hard, clinging to a dearly held idea of their own relevance.

Some Young 40s the BBC interviewed sounded wounded and confused by their new status. “I’m just buying and wearing things I’ve liked for a long time, now that I can afford them,” one said of his skate gear and Air Jordans. “Why is this something to be attacked for?” Another felt self-conscious in interactions with younger colleagues: “I try to keep conversations focused on work or career concerns.”

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Prosecutors allege real-estate trio Tal, Alon and Oren Alexander raped, assaulted and trafficked dozens of women

Prosecutors in New York will tell a jury on Monday that three brothers from a wealthy Florida family raped, sexually assaulted and trafficked dozens of women during a decades-long reign of terror and depravity.

The high-profile trial in Manhattan with elements of money, fame and power has parallels in other recent sex-trafficking cases held there, including the conviction and sentencing of the musician Sean “Diddy” Combs last year on prostitution-related charges.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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The prospect of a stay in a stately pile with a charming young woman is a draw for these hapless gents, but this horror farce never lives up to its promising premise

Very occasionally a film just does not work, and this low-budget horror is unfortunately one of those. The premise is not the problem: a sexy young woman lures six eligible young men to her family’s country pile for a weekend of romance, only to reveal to the men that they are now trapped in a reality-TV-meets-Saw farce in which they will struggle to survive. On paper, The Bachelorette-meets-femme-Jigsaw sounds potentially fun.

The biggest problem is that the film never achieves the necessary suspension of disbelief; horror films have to feel at least somewhat real or deliberately ludicrous while you’re watching them; but this just feels like student theatre. You can pick out interesting individual moments that could have been something, but you’re never inside the action, willing the characters to escape (or die).

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George Campbell, 69, slept in bus station as officials questioned his right to live in the UK after hospital stay

A Windrush generation man who arrived in Britain as a child 60 years ago has spent several months homeless and destitute, after officials questioned whether he had the right to live in the UK.

George Campbell, 69, ended up staying in a bus shelter in east London and visiting food banks after he was discharged from a hospital stay last year. Because he had no paperwork proving that he was in the UK legally, council officials classified him as ineligible for state-funded homelessness support.

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2026 is shaping up to be a bumper year for patch management

Microsoft dropped a weekend treat for administrators with yet another out-of-band update to deal with Outlook freezes and broken cloud storage.…

Vlaardinger Mats Deijl beleefde een ongekende week, waarin hij zijn transfer van Go Ahead naar Feyenoord afronde. Een volgend hoofdstuk in zijn carrière, waarvan het verhaal toch al leest als een jongensboek.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De ANWB waarschuwt voor files op de wegen naar en in Noord-Italië in de periode van de Olympische Spelen. Die beginnen volgende week vrijdag in Milaan en Cortina d'Ampezzo. De organisatie verwacht extra drukte en tijdelijke verkeersmaatregelen.

Zo moeten reizigers richting Cortina d'Ampezzo rekening houden met vertraging op de drukke doorgangsroute van Duitsland naar Tirol, zoals bij de Fernpass (B179) tussen Reutte en Nassereith en op de Duitse A7 tussen Ulm en Füssen. Deze route is ook populair bij Nederlandse wintersporters. Wie richting Milaan rijdt, kan lange wachttijden verwachten bij de St. Gotthardtunnel (A2) in Zwitserland.

De Winterspelen duren tot en met 22 februari.

BREDA (ANP) - De 33-jarige Elias M. moet achttien jaar de cel in voor het aanranden en doden van een 75-jarige vrouw uit het Brabantse Halsteren. De rechtbank in Breda heeft hem ook veroordeeld tot tbs met dwangverpleging. De opgelegde straf is iets lager dan de twintig jaar celstraf en tbs die het Openbaar Ministerie had geëist.

De vrouw was in oktober 2023 met haar echtgenoot aan het wandelen in een bosgebied bij Halsteren. Haar man ging eerder naar huis en de vrouw wandelde nog een stukje verder, toen M. haar passeerde. Hij randde de vrouw aan en doodde haar door haar te smoren en te wurgen. Daarna sleepte hij het lichaam van het slachtoffer dieper het bos in en probeerde hij de vrouw onder bladeren en takken te verstoppen. Iets verderop begroef hij ook haar telefoon en jas onder bladeren.

Volgens de rechtbank heeft M. de vrouw gedood om te voorkomen dat de aanranding aan het licht zou komen.

Hij was verminderd toerekeningsvatbaar, oordeelt de rechtbank.