Donald Trump says that Iranian leaders have proposed negotiations with the US after he announced he was considering “very strong” military action against the regime over its deadly crackdown on protesters. So far, an estimated 500 people have been killed. “A meeting is being set up,” he said, “but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.” US prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve boss Jay Powell over a $2.5bn renovation of the central bank’s headquarters. Powell says it’s part of a pressure campaign from the White House to undermine the Fed’s ability to set interest rates independently. Trump denies any knowledge of the probe. Adolescence and One Battle After Another were the big winners at last night’s Golden Globes, taking home four awards each. Timothée Chalamet scooped the Best Actor in a Comedy gong for his role in Marty Supreme and Jessie Buckley won Best Actress in a Drama for her performance in Hamnet.

The reason people think the ongoing protests in Iran may lead to regime change, say Alireza Nader and Nik Kowsar in Foreign Policy, is that the Islamic Republic is “the weakest it has ever been”. Its proxies – from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Assad regime in Syria – lie “shattered across the Middle East”. Its vaunted missile defence system was obliterated by Israel last summer. And ordinary Iranians are desperately struggling. The economy is in freefall, with annual inflation up to 42% in December. Tehran is running out of water, as is much of the country, and more Iranians are going hungry, especially members of what were once the middle classes. That’s not to say the mullahs are doomed: the security forces are “stronger than many assume” and the opposition remains divided. But it’s not impossible that this “once seemingly mighty regime” will collapse in the same way that the Assadists “suddenly crumbled” in Syria in 2024.

Here’s hoping, says Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. It’s easy to forget just how radically the mullahs altered perceptions of Islam after coming to power in the 1979 revolution. These bloodthirsty Islamists didn’t just see themselves as Shia leaders; they wanted to radicalise Muslims everywhere and propagate the idea that theocracy is the only legitimate form of power. They believed their terrorist activities abroad – everywhere from Argentina and Australia to Thailand and Nigeria – would “hasten the return of the Twelfth Imam and the end of the world”. Getting rid of the ayatollahs wouldn’t completely kill their illiberal, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic ideology, any more than the fall of the Berlin Wall completely killed communism. But it would still “alter the intellectual landscape”, not just in Tehran but around the world. If the protesters do manage to topple the regime, it will be a boon for everyone: “a flare of light in the gloom”.

Reform UK has a very specific goal, says Tim Shipman in The Spectator: restoring the “primacy of parliament” over the “Blairite legalistic state” where “international law, a politicised judiciary and unelected quangocrats” hold sway. To do it, they are hoping to persuade sitting peers that their plans are worth backing, but realistically they expect a “clash with the Lords”. In that case, the plan is to create as many as 500 new peers – no small task on top of the 600-odd credible parliamentary candidates they’re already searching for. “I think there’s no shortage of good people,” says Danny Kruger, the party’s head of “preparing for government”. “We just need to identify them.”

Elton John has never been a shrinking violet, says Kerry McDermott in Vogue. Take his 50th birthday party in 1997, which he attended dressed, in his own words, as “Louis XIV on acid”. He persuaded triple-Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell to prepare the outfit, which included “the biggest wig of all time” – weighing something like 6kg. It was so vast that the star couldn’t fit into a normal car, and he had to travel to the Hammersmith Palais in a specially modified removals van “fitted with a throne”.

The Starmerites want to lower the drink-drive limit to the point where you will lose your licence if you drive after enjoying a “spoonful of sherry trifle”, says Jeremy Clarkson in The Sunday Times. They say it’s to bring us in line with Europe, but that’s balls: over there you generally only get a fine if you’re just over the limit. “They don’t take away your licence unless you are completely Oliver Reeded.” As for the claim that it’ll reduce drink-driving deaths, when Scotland made the same change in 2014 it did no such thing. Naturally, Starmer’s proposed changes caused much eye-rolling in the pub trade because now, if a potential customer has a few quid left after “paying £800m for a bit of central heating” and comes out for a drink, he or she will only order a “schooner of tap water”.

To soften the blow, the prime minister says he might let pubs stay open until 2am. But this is baffling. Yes, back when I lived in London and hung out with AA Gill, we’d go to a party, then go out for dinner, then pop to the Ivy for a Welsh rarebit and a couple of bottles of wine. But that’s history. Today, restaurateurs tell me their places are deserted by nine, so what’s the point of staying open till two? A massive wage bill (thanks to the hike in employers’ national insurance), an even bigger electricity bill, and no customers. Not only do Labour not understand business, they “actively hate it”. To them, the owner of a small pub in Northamptonshire is an evil billionaire who might as well run a plantation in 18th-century Jamaica. Pubs, you might argue, are tradition. But to Starmer, tradition is just “slavery in a morris dancing outfit”. All this is yet more evidence that the PM, at heart, just doesn’t like fun. Imagine him enjoying a boozy night out. “You can’t, can you?”

One of the lessons from the exposure of CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, who died last week aged 84, is that money received for betraying your country is taxable income. After his conviction in 1994, says The Washington Post, Ames went to federal court to fight a $404,392 tax bill for his traitorous takings. “He lost the case.”

London’s murder rate has dropped to its lowest in more than a decade, says Vikram Dodd in The Guardian, with just 97 homicides recorded in the whole of 2025, down from 153 in 2019 and 109 in 2024. Police say that, contrary to what many believe, the capital is now one of the “safest cities in the Western world”, with homicides among the young having fallen dramatically – only 18 were recorded in 2025, compared with a peak of 69 in 2017. The figures mean the chance of being murdered in London are 1.1 in 100,000, compared to 1.6 in Paris, 2.9 in Brussels and 3.2 in Berlin.

It’s Floor796, says Dave Jones in PC Gamer, an ever-expanding animation scene made by a single designer known on Reddit as 0x00, which takes inspiration mainly from video games, sci-fi and horror movies. Visitors to the site – which is laid out like a single giant floor on a space station – can scan around, zoom in and click on specific figures or scenes for more details. Click here to have a look. Highly engrossing, remember to stop.