Amid the triumphs, failures and broken medals in Milano Cortina, here’s our countdown of the outstanding moments that will live long in the memory

Cheating has been part and parcel of the Olympics since at least Eupolus of Thessaly in 388BC. But crooked boxers from ancient Greece never confessed their indiscretions on live television. Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Lægreid did exactly that after winning bronze in the men’s 20km biathlon for his first individual Olympic medal, publicly admitting he’d two-timed his girlfriend three months earlier and calling it “my biggest mistake” in an overshare for the ages carried live by national broadcaster NRK. Lægreid’s shot appeared to have missed the target one day later when the wronged party, wishing to remain anonymous, told the Norwegian paper VG it was “hard to forgive” what he did.

Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’

When Karen Newton left home in late July 2025, she knew that international travellers were being locked up in immigration detention centres in the US. “I was aware,” she nods. “But I never thought it would have any impact on my holiday.” Karen, 65, had a British passport and a tourist visa. She hadn’t been abroad for eight years, and was keen for some guaranteed sun. “I really just wanted to get away from the house.”

She and her husband, Bill, 66, had an ambitious itinerary that would take them through California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and then on to Canada over two months. Las Vegas wasn’t to Karen’s taste: “Way too commercialised.” She much preferred Yellowstone, where they saw Old Faithful, the famous geyser, as it shot boiling water into the air, and got up close with some extraordinary wildlife. “There was a bison right next to the car. Another time, a wolf walked past.” Her eyes sparkle at the memory. “It was just amazing.”

Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential

In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

Dr Cox is still electrifying, the original cast’s interactions are a joy to watch, and after a couple of episodes it finds its tone – making it just the comfort TV we need right now

It is possible to believe contradictory things. For instance, I believe TV’s reliance on reviving old shows is a risk-averse, creative regression. On the other hand, I love it. I particularly love it when fictional characters have visibly aged. There’s a broken humanity that you don’t get with flawless, collagen-rich skin. You sense you could talk to them about your sciatica and they’d get it.

I got that feeling with the new series of Scrubs (Disney+, from Thursday 26 February), a show I once mainlined on E4. Scrubs was as comforting as tea and toast. Surprisingly malleable, too. In its bones, it was a coming-of-age workplace bromance between junior doctors JD and Turk, played by then newcomers Zach Braff and Donald Faison. Their chemistry was the show’s anchor, balancing sassy racial harmony with irreverence and heart, as they bore witness to universal human drama. But is it healthy enough to survive resuscitation, more than 15 years after its last episode aired?

A cricket match kindled my love affair with the Greek island, inspiring both a literary festival and my new novel

This is not where you would expect an article about one of the Mediterranean’s most beautiful islands to start. It’s the tail end of winter, 2021. Kensal Green Cemetery in west London: the imperial mausolea canted and crumbling, low clouds dissolving into rain. We are still  in that  strange phase of the pandemic when we are masked, newly aware of our bodies and the space around them. We are here to bury Nikos, a man who for me, for many, was the incarnation of Corfu.

I had spent my 20s trying to find the perfect Greek island, hopping from the well-trodden (Mykonos, Santorini, Cephalonia) to the more obscure (Kythira, Symi, Meganisi). None quite matched the vision I had dreamed into being as a child, when I segued from Robert Graves to Mary Renault, then to Lawrence Durrell and John Fowles. Greece was an idea before it was a place: freedom and deep thought, a constellation of sand, salt and thyme.

As the war enters its fifth year, it’s time for Europe to take the fight to Putin on its own terms and tell Trump to get lost

Viewed from Europe, the US’s failure to defend the people of Ukraine against Russian aggression is the greatest and most consequential of a host of recent American betrayals. It’s not just the sickening subservience shown to Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal and mass killer. It’s not only the victim-blaming and bullying of Kyiv into making concessions. It’s not even Donald Trump’s crass attempts to monetise the war and milk the misery of millions for Nobel glory, while undercutting Nato allies and trampling sovereign rights.

What really shocks, and hurts, is the sheer bad faith shown by a country that Europeans always counted a friend. As the 18th-century English gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe noted, “few circumstances are more afflicting than a discovery of perfidy in those whom we have trusted”. To echo Trump’s dark warning after he was rebuffed over Greenland: Europe will remember.

President calls six justices a ‘disgrace to the nation’ while praising three justices who dissented

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Donald Trump on Friday railed against the supreme court justices who blocked his use of tariffs, calling them a “disgrace to the nation”, and later signing documents imposing a 10% tariff on all countries.

Trump said he would immediately sign an order increasing tariffs globally by 10% under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and will begin investigations of unfair trade practices allowing further tariffs. He asserted that he had the authority to impose additional tariffs under existing statutes without congressional approval.

MPs will meet on Tuesday to discuss the former prince, as it emerged he pestered ministers for a bigger government role

An influential committee of MPs could launch an inquiry into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s role as a UK trade envoy despite his arrest, it is understood, as it emerged that the disgraced former royal pestered ministers about getting a bigger government role.

After his arrest on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the cross-party business and trade committee said it would meet next Tuesday to discuss a possible investigation into the role he held from 2001 to 2011.

Exclusive: Project Giving Back, set up in 2022 to help charities exhibit show gardens, says this year will be its last

Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.

Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.

Exclusive: Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy says treating these objects as collectors’ items ‘should be looked at in horror’

An antiques auction selling chains linked to the enslavement of African people in Zanzibar has been accused of “profiting from slavery”.

Neck irons dated to the Omani-Arab dominated trade in enslaved people in east Africa, which ended after African resistance and British pressure in the late 19th century, will go on sale this weekend in Scotland.