Art and antiques help lift retail sales in Great Britain to biggest monthly rise since 2024

Retail sales in Great Britain rose 1.8% in January, the largest monthly increase in almost two years, according to official data, as heavy discounting and post-Christmas sales drew consumers back to bigger ticket purchases.The rise easily beat forecasts of a 0.2% rise and was partly driven by sales of artwork and antiques sales in January, alongside continued strong sales from online jewellers, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. It was the biggest monthly rise since May 2024

France and Germany agreed to build the fighter jet of the future. Now they can’t agree who is in charge

France and Germany’s plan to build a fighter jet of the future, planned to come with a swarm of drones and a “combat communications cloud”, is collapsing.Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, said this week that the €100bn programme no longer worked for him. He insisted it was “not a political dispute”, but a technical one. France needs a jet that can carry nuclear weapons and launch from aircraft carriers, while Germany does not. However, the problems go back much further

Skiers stranded by California avalanche used iPhone SOS feature to seek help

California’s deadliest avalanche killed at least eight people in a ski group near Lake Tahoe on Tuesday. The six survivors used the iPhone’s emergency SOS feature to help first responders find them as they waited under a tarp and discovered some of the bodies, according to the Nevada county sheriff. Apple’s feature, introduced in 2022, allows users to text law enforcement, even if there’s no cell service or wifi by connecting the phone to a satellite.First responders reached the skiers’ location and learned of the six survivors based on conversations held through the feature, Sheriff Shannan Moon said at a press conference on Wednesday.California office of emergency services law enforcement chief Don O’Keefe said his staff spoke with one of the stranded guides for more than four hours to relay information to the sheriff’s office, which was leading rescue efforts

US builds website that will allow Europeans to view blocked content

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

Ireland loves No 10 needle but it’s a Six Nations soap Farrell could do without

In the summer of 1979 Irish rugby jumped off a lower shelf in the nation’s sports shop, landing front and centre. This wasn’t prompted by a dramatic development on the field, rather it was a selection decision. Tony Ward, voted the first European player of the year two months earlier, was dropped. He had won the award largely for his dazzling form in that season’s Five Nations Championship. Then, before the first Test on Ireland’s tour of Australia, he was canned

Clapping skis to the pulpy thrash of poles: the Winter Olympics are an ASMR wonderland

The mountains always promise escape from the squalor of existence at sea level, if not a kind of purification. The fortifying ruggedness of the terrain, the apple-crisp air, the high-albedo dazzle of sunlit snow: at altitude, it seems, everything is thinned to its essence. The Winter Olympics frequently play on this mythology of purity, but rarely has culture’s quadrennial ascent up the switchbacks felt as clarifying as it does this year. Propelling us into heights untroubled by the compromises and tradeoffs that blight sport’s lower zones, Milano Cortina has delivered images so brilliant and sharp they’ve also served to expose how ugly – and morally murky – most non-Olympic team sports have become over the past four years.As a TV spectacle, the excellence of this Olympiad has been defined as much by absence as presence