Is Australia getting ruder? How to be kinder to others in everyday life – and break the contagion of rage

Slow down, take a deep breath, maybe even let the other car take the park. In the face of rudeness, sometimes the most radical thing to do is remain passively polite

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Think of a typical day in our angry world. You open social media and read abuse either directed at yourself or someone else, then you get in your car and find yourself aggressively overtaken while driving at the speed limit. You pull into a shopping mall car park, where another driver executes a fast three-point turn to take your park, and then shouts a stream of abuse when you honk.

You find another park but your car gets damaged by a rogue trolley rolling into it; its previous user couldn’t be bothered putting it away.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Can you acquire courage?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s replies: why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads – and what makes an earworm?

Is it possible to acquire courage if you don’t have it? I was moved this week by the story of the Australian boy who swam to land for several hours in rough seas to raise the alarm that his mother and siblings had been swept out to sea. Despite his exhaustion, he then ran several kilometres to find a phone.

But I’m also thinking of the lesser demands for courage – such as standing up to a friend, or family member, or tackling a company that’s ignoring your polite requests when you’re suffering from its actions. Or I also wonder how people do certain jobs that, to me, require buckets of courage: starting a business or any other sort of professional risk-taking; reporting from a war zone like Lyse Doucet or Jeremy Bowen. Or just being a police officer knocking on a door of a suspect and not knowing what will come at you from the other side.

Published: February 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

We offered my friend a room to help her out, but four years later she’s still living with us

You need to check where you stand legally, but I fear you’re being taken advantage of and will have to ask her to leave

In spring 2022, my husband and I were lucky enough to sell our house for a profit and, with help from my parents, bought a much bigger home. At the time, my friend was going through a tough time, so I asked if she would like to move in with us and our two children. There was no written agreement, but the plan was that she would either quit her job and retrain, or save for her own place and move out in six months to a year. She pays us £350 a month, which goes towards energy bills, bar a three-month period when she wasn’t working. I also gave her money towards taking a course.

She hasn’t retrained, got a new job or saved for a new place. And she doesn’t have the money to move out. I feel trapped and resent all I have to do as a working mum while she’s here, but that’s compounded by guilt as I know I’m very privileged to have a big house and a well-paid job. I hate that she sees me at my worst (rowing with my husband/sorting out arguments between the kids) and I feel as if I’m constantly keeping my emotions in check around her. Our friendship feels warped into a parent-child dynamic.

Published: February 8, 2026, 6:00 am

Southern Water admits 18-year meter mix-up – but insists we owe it more

It kept on billing us for a neighbouring house’s supply although I live alone at my grandmother’s home

I’m currently renting my grandmother’s house while she is in a care home with dementia.

Soon after I moved in, I was hit with a £614 quarterly water bill from Southern Water. I was already paying £62 a month in direct debits but was apparently falling short.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Office buzz: UK employers turn to beehives to boost workplace wellbeing

Providers report rise in demand as companies seek mental health benefits and increased sense of community

In a growing number of workplaces, the soundtrack of the lunch break is no longer the rustle of sandwiches at a desk, but the quiet hum of bees – housed just outside the office window.

Employers from Manchester to Milton Keynes are working with professional beekeepers to install hives on rooftops, in courtyards and car parks – positioning beekeeping not as a novelty but as a way to ease stress, build community and reconnect workers with nature in an era of hybrid work and burnout.

Published: February 8, 2026, 12:34 pm

Files cast light on Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to cryptocurrency

Newly released documents detail convicted sex offender’s early backing of bitcoin and Coinbase

Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein have brought to light his ties to the highest echelons of the cryptocurrency industry.

Documents published last week by the US Department of Justice reveal Epstein bankrolled the “principal home and funding source” for bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, during its nascent stages; he also invested $3m in Coinbase in 2014, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, and cut a check that same year to Blockstream, a prominent bitcoin-focused technology firm. Both crypto startups accepted Epstein’s investments in 2014 – six years after his 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘I fell into it’: ex-criminal hackers urge Manchester pupils to use web skills for good

Initiative aims to identify proficient gamers and coders who can help companies identify flaws in their cybersecurity

Cybercriminals, the shadowy online figures often depicted in Hollywood movies as hooded villains capable of wiping millions of pounds off the value of businesses at a keystroke, are not usually known for their candour.

But in a sixth-form college in Manchester this week, two former hackers gave the young people gathered an honest appraisal of what living a life of internet crime really looks like.

Published: February 8, 2026, 8:00 am

I asked AI to name my wife. To the hopelessly incorrect people it cited, my deepest apologies | Martin Rowson

Authors, a newsreader, a lawyer and an esteemed colleague: they’re all great – but I’m not married to any of them. Can we really depend on this technology?

Recently, the Rowsons accidentally invented a new game that anyone can play at home. I have yet to come up with a world-beating name for it, so for now let’s just call it “How bloody stupid is AI?” The playing of the game will change from player to player, depending on their circumstances – but essentially the rules remain the same. Ask AI a simple question about yourself, and see just how wrong it gets it.

In my case, all you need know is that while I, through the nature of my job, have a fairly large online presence, my partner (we married in 1987) has assiduously avoided having one at all. Which means that if you Google “Martin Rowson wife” in images, you may get a picture of me next to our then 14-year-old daughter or me with my friend and fellow cartoonist Steven Appleby, who happens to be trans but has kept her given first name.

Published: February 9, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Was I scared going back to China? No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, western censorship and returning home

He has been jailed, tracked and threatened by China’s government. What was it like pay a visit home? As he publishes a polemic about surveillance and state control, the artist relives a momentous trip to see his mother

Ai Weiwei is talking me through the decision-making process before his first visit to China in over a decade. The artist, known around the world as the most famous critic of the Chinese communist regime, had to do some fraught arithmetic before deciding to head back home.

Before boarding a flight with his son, who had never met the artist’s elderly mother, Ai thought back to his time in detention when his captors told him he would spend the next 13 years in custody on bogus charges: “They said, ‘When you come out, your son won’t recognise you.’ That was very heavy and really the only moment that touched me.”

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am

How a decades-old video game has helped me defeat the doomscroll

Trading social media for Pokémon battles and evolutions in Kanto on a Game Boy Advance has been surprisingly serene

Cutting back on doomscrolling must be one of the hardest new year resolutions to keep. Instinctively tapping on the usual suspects on your phone’s home screen becomes a reflex, and vast quantities of money and user data have been specifically employed to keep you reaching for the phone, ingraining it into our work, leisure and social lives. You’ll get no shame from me if you love your phone and have a healthy relationship with your apps, but I’ve found myself struggling lately.

This year, I’m attempting to cut back on screen time – sort of. I’m replacing the sleek oblong of my smartphone with something a little more fuzzy and nostalgic. In an attempt to dismantle my bad habit, I’m closing the feeds of instant updates and instead carrying around a Game Boy Advance. I’ve been playing Pokémon FireRed, a remake of the very first Pokémon games, which turn 30 this month. Even this refreshed version is more than two decades old.

Published: February 9, 2026, 2:29 pm

Logitech MX Master 4 review: the best work mouse you can buy

Ergonomic shape, quality materials and satisfying clicks, now with novel haptic feedback and repairable design

Logitech’s latest productivity power-house updates one of the greatest mice of all time with smoother materials, a repair-friendly design and a haptic motor for phone-like vibrations on your desktop.

The MX Master 4 is the latest evolution in a line of pioneering mice that dates back more than 20 years and has long been the mouse to beat for everything but hardcore PC gaming. Having given it a magnetic free-spinning scroll wheel, plenty of buttons and precise tracking, now Logitech is trying something different for its seven-generation: the ability to tap back at you.

Published: February 9, 2026, 7:00 am

A couple of teas or coffees a day could lower risk of dementia, scientists say

Findings suggest smaller cognitive decline, but US study cannot prove daily caffeine hit is good for the brain

People who have a couple of teas or coffees a day have a lower risk of dementia and marginally better cognitive performance than those who avoid the drinks, researchers say.

Health records for more than 130,000 people showed that over 40 years, those who routinely drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of caffeinated tea daily had a 15-20% lower risk of dementia than those who went without.

Published: February 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

Almost 70% of NHS areas in England offer only one cycle of IVF, data shows

Charity says situation breaks Nice guidelines and is having devastating impact on couples struggling with infertility

Millions of women in England are able to access only one round of IVF on the NHS because of health authority cutbacks and in contravention of official policy, research from a fertility charity has shown.

Nearly 70% of local areas fund just one cycle for women under 40 who have been unable to conceive for two years, rather than the three full cycles they should be offered in line with official guidance, according to data collected by the Progress Educational Trust (PET).

Published: February 9, 2026, 3:07 pm

Starwatch: Crescent moon rises next to Antares before dawn

Find an unobstructed view of the south-east horizon and the moon will guide you to the brightest star in Scorpius

Early on the morning of 11 February, the waning moon passes close to Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius.

Antares is a red supergiant star about 550 light years away. From the UK, it never climbs far above the horizon, so it always feels like an achievement to glimpse it, especially when it is joined by the contrasting silver light of the moon.

Published: February 9, 2026, 6:00 am

Synthetic opioids may have caused hundreds more UK deaths than thought

Study find nitazenes, which are up to 500 times stronger than heroin, can degrade significantly in portmortem blood samples

Deaths caused by a synthetic opioid that is hundreds of times stronger than heroin may have been underestimated by up to a third across the UK, according to research.

Nitazenes are a class of synthetic opioids that are extremely potent, and up to 500 times stronger than heroin. They were manufactured originally as a painkiller in the 1950s but their development was halted due to their extreme potencies resulting in a high risk of addiction.

Published: February 9, 2026, 5:00 am