I spent a couple of hours walking around the Prado with Mathias Énard observer.co.uk/culture/book...

"... I love the thought these pastels once dusted Georgia O’Keeffe’s gorgeous hands" - Annie Leibovitz on her photograph of O'Keeffe's pastels, 2010 #Womensart (via P.Kenny FB)

Presenting our Monthly Spotlight pick for February: At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop 🔗 Tap the link below to discover an interview, reading guide, competition and more. https://thebookerprizes.pulse.ly/lhtpxoyxam

Righteously brilliant from Crace on Mandelson’s disgrace

Remind me why Labour kept on appointing the disgraced Peter Mandelson again and again?

A quaint, wrong but influential opinion has long circulated in London (and elsewhere): that British capitalism is purer and less "corporatist" than its continental counterparts. The Mandelson scandal ought to be the final nail in that particular coffin.

This is great. Spread far and wide

Don Lemon speaks outside of the courtroom after release: "I have spent my entire life covering the news. I will not stop now ... I will not be silenced."

I won’t stop reporting the truth. The First Amendment is the bedrock of our democracy, and I’ll continue to fight to protect it 🤝🏾🇺🇸

Once they round up the journalists, nobody is safe

We asked the extraordinary and rightly celebrated author Marilynne Robinson to respond to events in Minneapolis. She immediately sent us a forceful and utterly direct cri de coeur. The Weekend Essay as.ft.com/r/afe4fee8-1...

Some powerfully resonant quotes from 'Salvation by Words' near the end of @backlisted.bsky.social on Iris Murdoch: 'Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify. The good artist is a vehicle of truth' @irismurdoch.bsky.social www.backlisted.fm/episodes/256...

Rest in Peace Alex Jeffrey Pretti🙏🏾 The VA ICU Nurses send him off right 💔

Our 2026 Historical Fiction guide is here. 🏛️📖 10 essential novels – from Tudor England and 1830s Siberia to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. See the full list and find your next obsession: 🔗 www.saltpublishing.com/blogs/house-... #BookSky #HistoricalFiction

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse serving veterans. He died trying to protect protestors being assaulted. A group of anonymous & masked men fired chemicals into his face, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Then his government smeared him & defended his murder.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A PLAYWRIGHT? // Panel discussion with: Mark Ravenhill, Giannina Carbunariu, Bernhard Studlar and Jibbe Willems @ Kosovo-North Macedonia Theatre Showcase 2025 @markravenhill.bsky.social

This says it all somehow. A five year old 😢

I have a gas mask because I got tear gassed multiple times as a totally nonviolent observer and thought “not next time.” When you launch billowing clouds of tear gas in my city EVERY SINGLE DAY it’s not really rocket science.

On this theme is this fascinating thread detailing how locals are disrupting ICE. Such disruption may not be sustainable or 100% successful, but it certainly exposes the weakness of ICE terror-impositions. Terror-policing can be ineffective policing without local support. bsky.app/profile/marg...

I've seen several popular movements in my lifetime and history now as someone who teaches comparative politics. When people show up in the dead of winter, on a workday, when it is the most inconvenient because of cold, it shows how strongly they are motivated against the government.

Breaking NYT: The FBI agent who sought to investigate the federal immigration officer who fatally shot Renee Good has resigned from the bureau, according to two people familiar with the matter, after leadership pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the officer.

solidarity forever

I will just keep repeating. I have never never never seen anything like this. 30 years of reporting.

It’s -9 degrees. Downtown Minneapolis is packed for the anti-ICE rally and the crowd keeps growing

Demonstrators as far as the eye can see. Current status of the march in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota for Ice Out of Minnesota. They are turning onto 3rd Street from 5th Avenue.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 this new agency will be created exactly 20 years after the Scottish Government, under Salmond, axed Communities Scotland, an agency that did EXACTLY THIS www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

PUBLISHERS, I'm working my way around imprints, having trouble connecting with a few of you. Let's talk 2026 books and possibilities for Wigtown Book Festival 2026. Dates are 25.9 - 4.10. Www.wigtownbookfestival.com

Hari Kunzru and David Sexton to judge the Goldsmiths Prize 2026 By Zuzanna Lachendro

He had gone to see his son, especially in the beginning.

NEW: NEW: Standards commissioner finds Nigel Farage committed seventeen breaches of MPs code of conduct. He failed to declare £333,000 in outside interests (more than 3x MPs annual salary)…

Also the perennially brilliantly pithy @billmckibben.bsky.social made this pronouncement: "Really, however, there’s only one truly vital strategic asset in Greenland, one thing that could change the world. And that’s the ice that covers almost all its landmass."

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein changed from Microsoft to open source solutions at a cost of 9 million. It will save 15 million in fees per year. www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

It's the centenary of the wonderful Agnes Owens' birth this year. Her books are being reissued & a satellite archive has officially opened within the Alasdair Gray archive. I spoke to her son, John, & wrote about this "most unfairly neglected of Scottish authors" in the @heraldscotland.bsky.social.

Pick up The Herald magazine today 🗞️ for @danigaravelli.bsky.social on Agnes Owens—her overlooked place in Scottish lit and plans for her 2026 centenary, plus reissues by @birlinn.bsky.social and archive work celebrating her legacy we are developing with @agnesowenslitest.bsky.social

More funding for social housing in Scotland is a step forward - but it is nowhere near enough for the scale of the #HousingEmergency. Without new money and a credible plan, homelessness, child poverty and public costs will keep rising. More from our Director, here: 👉 shelterscotland.org/SB26AW

Writers' archives are fascinating, and it was amazing to have a rootle through Ronnie Blythe's archive. Great news that the @britishlibrary.bsky.social are looking after it. Ronnie Blythe event there in Feb: events.bl.uk/events/the-r... My story here: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

📅 Save the date! On Thursday 29th Jan, we'll be hosting a webinar to discuss the findings of our UK Poverty 2026 report. We'll share insight and discussion about our report that will set out the depth and breadth of poverty in the UK. Don't miss out, sign up now: https://bit.ly/459R16V

"For 'morality' we must substitute 'megalomania' & brace ourselves for a global supermarket sweep, in which he grabs any country that takes his fancy, knocking down obstacles such as NATO as he goes." My @heraldscotland.bsky.social column. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2575580...

Cannot imagine the courage required for Iranians to keep joining the protests, & find ways of getting testimony out. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

Last night we saw Minnesota meet this moment. We saw a beautiful vigil. We saw thousands of Minnesotans demonstrate peacefully. Let’s keep it that way - stay peaceful, stay safe.

First thoughts on events in Venezuela - with a look back at exactly 35 years ago when something similar happened in Panama. Another bold first military move with little idea about the second, except Trump claims that the aftermath is already sorted. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...?

Kidnapping the leader of a foreign state without any declaration of war and announcing it via social media is full-on rogue state stuff. From the world’s number one superpower.

Anna Boberg(1864-1935), Swedish artist who spent much time painting in Northern Norway, where she had a cabin and lived alone #WomensArt

I I have never yet watched Traitors. Should I start? #Traitors

Mamdani: "We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy ... I will govern as a Democratic Socialist"

“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity... It’s as simple as that.” -Tove Jansson

What an inspirational figure. Glasgow Disability Alliance CEO Tressa Burke turned down an MBE in the New Year honours because Keir Starmer’s Labour Govt is “scapegoating” people with disabilities & "fuelling hatred." Via @libbybrooks.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

So #MOTD is on super late in Scotland tonight and Newcastle won 3:1 🤦🏼‍♀️