Bouncing back: from an ankle sprains to a shoulder pinch, experts on how to recover from common injuries

Done your knee in running or in a match? Pulled something while playing with the kids? These tips should get you on the road to recovery

There’s nothing quite like a persistent ache or pain to ruin your mood. Whether it’s a recurring twinge in your lower back or an acute injury from an accident, most issues stem from imbalance – when one area of the body compensates for weakness elsewhere.

“Our bodies are inherently asymmetrical – no one’s left and right sides are exactly the same,” says personal trainer Luke Worthington. “Problems arise when we inadvertently force symmetry, trying to make both sides move identically. It disrupts our natural equilibrium and leads to overuse, strain or injury.”

Published: January 23, 2026, 3:00 pm

Having synaesthesia is a lot like being a twin – we don’t know any different

Identical twins Helen Besgrove, a marketing executive, and Kirsty Neal, a GP, share their different experiences perceiving the world

Helen Besgrove: My twin sister, Kirsty, and I have a very similar experience of synaesthesia in that our experiences of sounds, tastes, smells, words, noises and motion is very visual. Whether it’s a name, a personality, a sound or a smell – everything has a colour and a texture in our mind’s eye.

What’s interesting is that the colours and the textures Kirsty and I see can be very different. When I drink a glass of chardonnay, I get these swirls of custardy oil but Kirsty might describe the same wine as fuzzy or blobby. It’s the same with people’s personalities, which we both see as a coloured and textured aura around that person. My best friend Jenn’s personality is poo brown, which she hates. For Kirsty, Jenn’s personality is yellow and blue with a brown stripe in the middle.

Published: January 23, 2026, 2:00 pm

Experience: my daughters were born conjoined at the head

Seeing them separated for the first time felt like a miracle

I was already a mother of three when I lay back for my 10-week ultrasound in 2019. At first, seeing the gel on my stomach and the flickering black and white image on screen was familiar and soothing. Then I saw the look on the sonographer’s face.

She dropped the probe and ran out of the room without a word. I tried not to panic, but by the time she sprinted back in with a doctor, who looked at the screen and said, “Oh my goodness”, I was terrified.

Published: January 23, 2026, 5:00 am

TikTok announces it has finalized deal to establish US entity, sidestepping ban

Majority US-owned venture includes Larry Ellison’s Oracle, private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX

TikTok announced on Thursday it had closed a deal to establish a new US entity, allowing it to sidestep a ban and ending a long legal battle.

The deal finalized by ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, sets up a majority American-owned venture, with investors including Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX owning 80.1% of the new entity, while ByteDance will own 19.9%.

This article was amended on 23 January 2026 to clarify that the new board includes a senior advisor to TPG, not a current TPG executive.

Published: January 23, 2026, 8:43 am

Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF

Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out

Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.

Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.

Published: January 23, 2026, 1:35 pm

SpaceX lines up Wall Street banks as Musk eyes blockbuster IPO

US aerospace tech company reportedly held talks last year over private share sale that values business at $800bn

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly lining up four Wall Street banks to help the company list on the stock market as investors prepare for an expected rush of US tech listings.

SpaceX is considering Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for leading roles in an initial public offering, according to the Financial Times and Reuters.

Published: January 23, 2026, 11:54 am

‘Cornwall isn’t resilient enough’: towns struggle with broadband outage after Storm Goretti

Politicians call for more infrastructure funding amid anger that county is seen as ‘holiday playground’

Accessed by a steep, winding lane, the tiny settlement of Cucurrian in the far-west of Cornwall feels remote at the best of times. But over the last two weeks, the people who live here have felt even more isolated after they were left without a way of communicating with the outside world as a result of Storm Goretti.

“I think people feel let down, angry, failed,” said Mark Pugh, an audiobook producer, who has spent more hours than he would care to tot up carefully picking his way out of Cucurrian and sitting in his car in a layby to find a mobile signal good enough to work from. “This storm has shown that Cornwall isn’t resilient enough. A lot is promised, but not enough is delivered.”

Published: January 23, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘I’m picking winners’: UK business secretary takes activist approach to economic growth

AI evangelist Peter Kyle wants to scale up businesses, attract overseas investors and look out for UK’s poorer regions

The UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said he is “betting big” and “picking winners” as the government takes direct stakes in growing businesses to boost economic growth.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been talking up Britain’s prospects, Kyle said ministers were taking an “activist” approach to industrial policy.

Published: January 23, 2026, 7:00 am

SpaceX lines up Wall Street banks as Musk eyes blockbuster IPO

US aerospace tech company reportedly held talks last year over private share sale that values business at $800bn

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly lining up four Wall Street banks to help the company list on the stock market as investors prepare for an expected rush of US tech listings.

SpaceX is considering Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for leading roles in an initial public offering, according to the Financial Times and Reuters.

Published: January 23, 2026, 11:54 am

‘It’s the sovereignty of the country’: Guinea-Bissau says US vaccine study suspended

Despite US pushback, officials in west Africa say controversial hepatitis B study on pause amid ethics concerns

US health officials insisted it was still on. African health leaders said it was cancelled. At the heart of the controversy is the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau – one of the poorest countries in the world and the proposed site of a hotly debated US-funded study on vaccines.

The study on hepatitis B vaccination, to be led by Danish researchers, became a flashpoint after major changes to the US vaccination schedule and prompted questions about how research is conducted ethically in other countries.

Published: January 23, 2026, 5:09 pm

New filtration technology could be gamechanger in removal of Pfas ‘forever chemicals’

Researchers found a new way to filter and destroy Pfas chemicals at 100 times the rate of current systems

New filtration technology developed by Rice University may absorb some Pfas “forever chemicals” at 100 times the rate previously possible, which could dramatically improve pollution control and speed remediations.

Researchers also say they have also found a way to destroy Pfas, though both technologies face a steep challenge in being deployed on an industrial scale.

Published: January 23, 2026, 1:00 pm