Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts

Once, after surviving yet another round of redundancies in a former job, I did something very odd. I turned off the lights in my room and lay face-down on the bed, unable to move. Rather than feeling relief at having escaped the axe, I was exhausted and numb. I’m not the only one. Fatigue, apathy and hopelessness are all textbook signs of burnout, a bleak phenomenon that has come to define many of our working lives. In 2025, a report from Moodle found that 66% of US workers had experienced some kind of burnout, while a Mental Health UK survey found that one in three adults came under high levels of pressure or stress in the previous year. Despite the prevalence of burnout, plenty of misconceptions around it persist. “Everybody thinks it’s some sort of disease or medical condition,” says Christina Maslach, the psychology professor who was the first to study the syndrome in the 1970s. “But it’s actually a response to chronic job stressors – a stress response.” Here we separate the facts from the myths.

Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in

Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions.

Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against Cuba’s ally Venezuela at the beginning of January, the US administration is actively seeking regime change.

Ripping up your own rulebook after 20-odd years is brave, but Koba 2.0 is somehow still kicking it

Sometimes, my memories of a restaurant begin at the end, and at Koba in Fitzrovia, central London, the enduring image is the warm, fresh, sugary, bean paste doughnut served with a pot of buckwheat tea. It was an utter delight, but then, Korean sweet bean paste, which is made with adzuki beans, is so very satisfying: pleasantly claggy, almost nutty, and a little decadent, while at the same time still convincing you that it might count as one of your five a day, were it not stuffed inside a hot fresh doughnut with a whopping great dollop of whipped cream. It was a cold winter’s day – the sort where, by lunchtime, my own umbrella had blown inside-out twice and everyone else’s seemed determined to poke my eye out. Against that backdrop, this doughnut was a moment of pure bliss.

Koba, a Korean restaurant by Linda Lee, has been providing moments of such joy for 20 solid years, not least with its traditional tabletop barbecue hot plates on which guests could grill their own dinner. Or, in many cases, have their dinner grilled for them by a kindly server, because nothing says: “Lord God, what time does my shift finish?” more than the face of a tired Korean server watching a gang of tipsy non-Koreans trying to work a tabletop hot plate. After you’ve dropped that first plate of onions into your handbag, you’re often more than grateful for the help. To celebrate reaching 20 years, however, and after an elegant revamp, Lee has now ditched those hotplates altogether. Koba 2.0 has also slung out the black tables, the dangling extraction vents and much of the dark wood, and replaced it with a wabi sabi colour palette that’s pale, dreamy and, in places, even twinkly.

The similarities between now and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then, but who would prevail this time?

A critical moment looms for Iran, and so for the Middle East. The global consequences of any upheaval in Tehran have been made amply clear since the revolution in 1979 that ushered in the rule of radical Islamist clerics. In Oman, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and his team have begun indirect talks with a high-powered US delegation. Many analysts believe the gap between the two sides is too wide to be bridged, and that a conflict is inevitable. Just this weekend, having already threatened military action, Donald Trump said regime change is the “the best thing that could happen” in Iran. The tension, and risks grow higher.

The hold on Iran of those who came to power in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution is now at stake. The ultimate objective of the US appears to be regime change. This may, in fact, already be under way. In December 2025 and January 2026, the most extensive wave of protest since the early 1980s swept Iran, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets from Mashhad to Abadan.

Jason Burke is the international security correspondent of the Guardian and author of The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s

Agenic AI apps first interview you and then give you limited matches selected for ‘similarity and reciprocity of personality’

Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to do. You might as well consider it: can AI help you find love?

For a handful of tech entrepreneurs and a few brave Londoners, the answer is “maybe”.

Custodian University of Sunderland says renovation costs of £45m are too high and building must be pulled down. Not without a fight, say locals, who believe they’re being taken for fools

The “little pieces of Sunderland” produced by the city’s glassmaking factory for more than a century can be traced back to an even older story that began in the seventh century, when English glassmaking began at a monastery beside the River Wear, run by abbott and later saint Benedict Biscop.

In 2007, the Pyrex factory that opened more than 100 years earlier and made glass that found its way into millions of homes closed down, with production moved to France.

Intelligence agencies say deadly toxin in skin of Ecuador dart frogs found in Navalny’s body and highly likely resulted in his death

• What is dart frog toxin, which is said to have been used to kill Alexei Navalny?

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was killed by dart frog poison administered by the Russian state two years ago, a multi-intelligence agency inquiry has found, according to a statement released by five countries, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The US was not one of the intelligence agencies making the claim.

Letter signed by 25 rebel MPs claims approach from the top is ‘increasingly unpopular’ with public

Union leaders and 25 Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to end a “narrow, factional agenda” within the Labour party.

A letter signed by the MPs, by the leaders of several Labour-affiliated trade unions and by campaign groupings within the party, claimed the approach from the top was “increasingly unpopular with the public”.

Jim Boyling gave evidence under his fake identity during prosecution of activists he had infiltrated

Senior police officers praised an undercover officer who had lied to a court about his real identity during a prosecution of environmental activists, secret documents aired at the spycops public inquiry have revealed.

Jim Boyling, an undercover officer, gave evidence under his fake identity when he was prosecuted while masquerading as an activist. He was prosecuted alongside six campaigners for public order offences, but senior officers decided not to tell the court that he was actually a police spy.

Acquisition by Premier Group Recruitment boss Andrew Woosnam appears to be example of ‘phoenixism’

A recruitment business that went bust owing the tax authorities and other creditors almost £3m has promised to send its staff on an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas after being repurchased by its former owner for an initial £10,000.

Premier Group Recruitment went into administration in September with debts of £2.9m – including £647,000 owed to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which had commenced enforcement proceedings against the company.