I’m panicking about my new relationship. After my husband’s affair, how can I commit again?

It is reasonable to avoid hurt after such a big betrayal, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but don’t mistake isolation for safety

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I was in a relationship for 26 years, married for 17, and my husband had an affair. It was hidden, long term and denied until discovery. I divorced him but that was delayed and I had to live with him for a further two years. I spent a year alone in my new house with my now adult sons. Now I am a little over a year into a new relationship and suddenly panicking about it. I’m scared to go forward. I’m not sure I can commit to long term again, and if I see him looking at other women (we work together in a predominantly female workplace), I panic! I’m older than him by nine years and I feel like I want to end things to prevent getting hurt. But then I feel I’m being cowardly. How can I stop going down this road in my head?

Eleanor says: On behalf of everyone everywhere, let me say: what a schmuck thing for your husband to do. That is such a big betrayal. And the cruelty you’re living through now is that as well as teaching you to be mistrustful of others, betrayal on that magnitude teaches you to be unsure of yourself. If I misread things once …

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:00 pm

Mind launches inquiry into AI and mental health after Guardian investigation

Exclusive: England and Wales charity to examine safeguards after Guardian exposed ‘very dangerous’ advice on Google AI Overviews

• ‘Very dangerous’: a Mind mental health expert on Google’s AI summaries

Mind is launching a significant inquiry into artificial intelligence and mental health after a Guardian investigation exposed how Google’s AI Overviews gave people “very dangerous” medical advice.

In a year-long commission, the mental health charity, which operates in England and Wales, will examine the risks and safeguards required as AI increasingly influences the lives of millions of people affected by mental health issues worldwide.

Published: February 20, 2026, 6:00 am

Roblox sued by Los Angeles over claims platform ‘makes children easy prey for pedophiles’

LA County says the gaming company does not carry out adequate moderation and its age-verification systems are not fit for purpose, which Roblox denies

Officials in Los Angeles have said they are suing Roblox, alleging the popular online platform exposes children to sexual content, exploitation and online predators.

In a lawsuit, Los Angeles County said the company does not carry out adequate moderation and its age-verification systems are not fit for purpose.

Published: February 20, 2026, 12:31 am

US builds website that will allow Europeans to view blocked content

Freedom.gov appears to be administered by a branch of the Department of Homeland Security

The US has built a portal that will allow Europeans to view blocked content including alleged hate speech and terrorism, according to Reuters.

The portal, “freedom.gov”, will allow worldwide users to circumvent government controls on their content. The site features a graphic of a ghostly horse galloping above the Earth, and the motto: “Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.”

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:15 pm

Digital blackface flourishes under Trump and AI: ‘The state is bending reality’

From TikTok deepfakes to smears put out by the White House, fake videos modeled on Black archetypes are running rampant - putting Black users at risk

Late last year, as a US government shutdown cut off the Snap benefits that low-income families rely on for groceries, videos on social media cast the fallout in frantic scenes. “Imma keep it real with you,” a Black woman said in a viral TikTok post, “I get over $2,500 a month in stamps. I sell ’em, $2,000 worth, for about $1,200-$1,500 cash.” Another Black woman ranted about taxpayers’ responsibility to her seven children with seven men, and yet another melted down after her food stamps were rejected at a corn-dog counter.

Visible watermarks stamped some videos as AI-generated – apparently, too faintly for the racist commentators and hustlers more than happy to believe the frenzy was real. “You got people treating it like a side hustle, selling the stamps, abusing the system,” the conservative commentator Amir Odom whinged. Fox News reported on the Snap deepfakes as if they were authentic, before issuing a correction. Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt claimed people were using Snap “to get their nails done, to get their weaves and hair”. (Lost in the outrage was a basic fact: white Americans make up 37% of Snap’s 42 million beneficiaries.)

Published: February 19, 2026, 3:35 pm

How the anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement

New technology has workers spooked, but experts say it’s creating an opening for a resurgence in worker power

In 2026, it’s a scary time to work for a living.

Gone are the days of quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, and the highly visible union-organizing battles that began the decade and signaled that perhaps worker power was on the rise again in the US. Instead, much of that momentum is being crowded out of our minds by anxieties: a worsening affordability crisis, geopolitical instability and the specter of artificial intelligence looming over the workplace.

Published: February 19, 2026, 1:00 pm

Macron defends EU AI rules and vows crackdown on child ‘digital abuse’

French president rejects US criticism as António Guterres and Narendra Modi warn on child safety and AI monopolies

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Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI, vowing to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s presidency of the G7.

Speaking at the AI Impact summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher safeguards after global outrage over Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot being used to generate tens of thousands of sexualised images of children, and amid mounting concern about the concentration of AI power in a handful of companies.

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:26 am

How to win friends and influencers: Labour’s new social media strategy is a step into the future | Kirsty Major

There was a backlash when No 10 invited online content creators inside its doors. But in a fast-changing media landscape, this solves two problems at once

Last year, No 10 took an unprecedented step: it invited content creators to cross the threshold of Downing Street.

Naturally, the creators all filmed themselves outside the famous door. Once inside, their most treasured possessions, their phones, were taken from them and exchanged for government-approved devices, so they could continue to take photos and record video without breaching security guidelines. At the reception, creators from areas as wide as science, education and travel took part in a networking session at the heart of government.

Kirsty Major is a deputy Opinion editor for the Guardian

Published: February 20, 2026, 12:15 pm

The QuickShot II joystick review – 80s clicks and waggles lovingly recreated

The updated QuickShot II brings retro gameplay into the modern era while preserving the no-frills button smashing and endearing flaws that fans loved

Nostalgia is big in the modern games industry. It’s ironic that the most technologically obsessed art form on the planet is just as watery-eyed about the past as cinema and music. And to prove it here is the new version of the legendary QuickShot II, a plasticky joystick from the early 1980s that wasn’t even that good the first time round. It was, however, cheap and it resembled an actual fighter plane control stick with its multiple fire buttons and ergonomic shaft. If you wanted a rugged and precise controller you’d go for the Competition Pro, but that one didn’t let you pretend to be in Star Wars or Airwolf. Plus, the QuickShot II had suckers on its base so you could stick it to your cockpit control panel – sorry, I mean MDF computer table.

The new QuickShot II from Retro Games and Plaion Replai is almost an exact replica in terms of its dimensions. You can grasp it in your fist and wrap your thumb and forefinger around its large red buttons. Yes, you can stick it to your table; the designers have even included the original auto-fire switch at the rear for players who weren’t prepared to hit the fire button repeatedly while playing Green Beret.

Published: February 20, 2026, 11:30 am

Mario Tennis Fever review – serving up banana peel-laced multiplayer chaos

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo
This ruthlessly competitive game will have everyone from your granny to semi-pros trying to set fire to their opponent’s side of the court with powered-up ‘fever rackets’

Tennis has been a regular hobby of Mario’s for the past 30 years, beginning with the headache-inducing Mario’s Tennis on the Virtual Boy and most recently resurfacing as the surprisingly complex Mario Tennis Aces on the Switch. Now he’s back in his whites (and reds) with a charming new take on the sport that dials back the difficulty level and adds lots of fun modes and features, aiming to appease complete newcomers and Djokovic-esque veterans.

At first, the range of options is almost bewildering. You can opt to play in one-off matches with up to three other players or NPCs, or enter a more structured tournament of singles or doubles play. Then there’s the extremely fun Mix It Up, which offers a range of fun tennis derivatives. These include Forest Court where piranha plants appear and gobble any balls that get close, and Pinball where bumpers and barriers pop up as you play. Trial Towers, meanwhile, presents a tower of increasingly tough tennis challenges which all have to be completed to open the next two buildings; fail more than three times and you’re sent back to the beginning – yes, it’s Mario Tennis: The Roguelike.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Mystery of snowman-shaped space objects cracked

Research adds weight to theory Arrokoth’s two lobes produced by gravitational collapse – and reveals process

It is the most distant and primitive object ever visited by a spacecraft from Earth: now researchers say they have fresh insights into how the ultra-red, 4bn-year-old body known as Arrokoth came to have its distinctive snowman-like shape.

Arrokoth sits in the Kuiper belt, a vast, thick ring of icy objects that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune. This region of space is home to most of the known dwarf planets as well as comets and small, solid rubble heaps called planetesimals – the building blocks of planets.

Published: February 19, 2026, 7:00 pm

Inside voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness?

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences

What was I thinking? This is not as easy or straightforward a question as I would have thought. As soon as you try to record and categorise the contents of your consciousness – the sense impressions, feelings, words, images, daydreams, mind-​wanderings, ruminations, deliberations, observations, opinions, intuitions and occasional insights – you encounter far more questions than answers, and more than a few surprises. I’d always assumed that my stream of consciousness consisted mainly of an interior monologue, maybe sometimes a dialogue, but was surely composed of words; I’m a writer, after all. But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts – a flattering term for these gossamer traces of mental activity – are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable.

I discovered this because I’ve been going around with a beeper wired to an earpiece that sends a sudden sharp note into my left ear at random times of the day. This is my cue to recall and jot down whatever was going on in my head immediately before I registered the beep. The idea is to capture a snapshot of the contents of consciousness at a specific moment in time by dipping a ladle into the onrushing stream.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

‘We’re no longer attracting top talent’: the brain drain killing American science

As Trump slashes science funding, young researchers flee abroad. Without solid innovation, the US could cease to have the largest biomedical ecosystem in the world

In April 2025, less than three months after Donald Trump returned to the White House, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out its latest public health alert on so-called “superbugs”, strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

These drug-resistant germs, the CDC warned, are responsible for more than 3m infections in the US each year, claiming the lives of up to 48,000 Americans.

Published: February 19, 2026, 12:00 pm

Psychedelics for depression, dart frog poison and why do we have chins? – podcast

Madeleine Finlay sits down with science editor Ian Sample and science correspondent Nicola Davis to discuss three eye-catching stories, including the impact of a powerful psychedelic on depression, answers on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and an explanation to the mystery of why humans have chins

Single dose of potent psychedelic drug could help treat depression, trial shows

Was Navalny poisoning by frog toxin meant to send a message?

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:00 am

The ‘guinea pigs’ who had face transplant surgery – podcast

Face transplant patient Robert Chelsea and writer Fay Bound Alberti talk through the promise – and darker side – of this pioneering surgery

In 2019, Robert Chelsea made medical history, becoming the first black patient to ever have a full face transplant.

He had previously suffered from a devastating car crash, leaving his face severely burnt. Once, he recalls to Annie Kelly, a little boy on the street shouted that he ‘looked like a zombie’.

Published: February 19, 2026, 4:40 am