It’s not just the triumphalism in the White House. Leaders loth to oppose this gangsterism must think how that looks to Putin, Xi and in the UAE

I never thought it possible that you could look back on the Iraq war, and the foreign invasions of the “war on terror” in general, and feel some measure of nostalgia. For a time when there were at least concerted attempts to justify unilateral interventions and illegal wars in the name of global security, and even a moral duty to liberate the women of Afghanistan or “free the Iraqi people”.

Now, as the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, is in essence abducted and Venezuela taken over by the US, there is barely any effort to situate the coup in any reasoning other than the US’s interests. Nor are there any attempts to solicit consent from domestic or international law-making bodies and allies, let alone the public. The days of the US trying to convince the world that Saddam Hussein did in fact have weapons of mass destruction despite secretly having no reliable intelligence were, in fact, the good old days.

Yulia Lemeshchenko was defiant and did not deny the accusations, saying she had decided to fight against Russian military aggression

At the beginning of autumn 2023, Yulia Lemeshchenko stopped appearing at the Kharkiv gym where she trained most days. A driven athlete, whose talent for weightlifting led her to become champion of Ukraine in 2021, her disappearance prompted confusion among her training partners.

Months later, she resurfaced in a Moscow courtroom, accused of plotting sabotage and assassinations in Russia on behalf of the Ukrainian security services. Prosecutors claimed Lemeshchenko had blown up power lines outside St Petersburg and had later travelled to Voronezh, where she was staking out a Russian air force commander with a view to killing him.

These hearty, warming dishes will brighten up the dark cold months – and remind you there is a world of flavours out there

You can’t get much more than this tender chicken by way of comfort and pure deliciousness

Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner unite for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Michael Sheen launches Welsh National Theatre and Bridget Christie revs up for a return to the stage

‘You don’t have to be tortured to make great art,’ says founder of mental health support organisation Artist Wellbeing

From Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf, from Nina Simone to Amy Winehouse, the tortured-artist archetype looms large: private torment fuelling public brilliance.

But across opera, theatre, film and television, a growing movement is pushing back against what many now insist is a corrosive myth – the romanticised necessity of creative martyrdom.

Nuno lets a golden opportunity slip, Viktor Gyökeres does everything but score and Benjamin Sesko struggles again

Calum McFarlane’s unexpected battle with Pep Guardiola brought back memories of the 2021 League Cup final, when Ryan Mason, Tottenham’s 29-year-old interim coach, faced the significant task of trying to outsmart one of the greatest managers in the game’s history. For Mason there was the added baggage of Spurs’ 13-year trophy drought; for McFarlane, making his senior management debut, it was Chelsea’s astonishingly bad recent record against Manchester City. Four and a half years have passed since Chelsea last beat Guardiola’s side, when Thomas Tuchel’s team triumphed in the Champions League final, and a draw on Sunday took that winless run to 12 matches. But Enzo Fernández’s injury-time equaliser, combining with the midweek upheaval at Stamford Bridge, made it a triumphant point, something Enzo Maresca didn’t achieve against City during his tenure. Taha Hashim

Match report: Manchester City 1-1 Chelsea

Match report: Fulham 2-2 Liverpool

Match report: Bournemouth 2-3 Arsenal

Match report: Leeds 1-1 Manchester United

Match report: Tottenham 1-1 Sunderland

Delcy Rodríguez adopts conciliatory tone as she stands in for Nicolás Maduro after Venezuelan leader captured by American forces and brought to US

• Tense calm spreads at border with Colombia after Maduro capture

• Analysis: European leaders appear torn in face of new world order

A UK minister would not be drawn into saying whether his government believes the US capture of Venezuela’s president was influenced by the country’s rich oil reserves.

Asked on Sky News why he thought Donald Trump had captured Nicolás Maduro and said America would “run” Venezuela, Home Office minister Mike Tapp said:

This is for Donald Trump to answer, and I think he has said in his press conference, which I watched with interest around narco-terrorism and that threat.

Washington keeping 15,000-strong military presence in Caribbean in case interim president hinders US objectives

The prospect of the United States seizing direct control of Venezuela appeared to recede on Sunday after the shocking ousting of president Nicolás Maduro – but US officials warned they might make a fresh military intervention if interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, did not accommodate their demands.

Speaking to reporters late Sunday, Donald Trump also raised the possibility of military action in Colombia.

The operation to capture the Venezuelan president and his wife involved at least 150 aircraft, months of surveillance – and reportedly a spy in the government

It took the US two hours and 28 minutes to snatch President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the small hours of Saturday morning, an extraordinary display of imperial power that plunges 30 million Venezuelans into a profound uncertainty. But it was also months in the planning.

Critical to Operation Absolute Resolve was the work of the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. From as early as August, their goal was to establish Maduro’s “pattern of life”, or as Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, described it, to “understand how he moved, where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets”.

Many shops closed after rush to buy essentials, as exiles held muted celebrations amid uncertainty about future

At the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, which spans the Táchira River, foot and vehicle traffic flowed as normal through the main border crossing between Venezuela and Colombia.

But a day after the extraordinary US capture and rendition of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, there was an air of uncertainty over what comes next.

Stockpiling not partying is the priority for Venezuelans who say they fear crackdowns by the regime the US left in place

There was a whirlwind of emotions on the streets of Caracas on Sunday, 24 hours after the first-ever large-scale US attack on South American soil and the extraordinary snaring of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Uncertainty,” said Griselda Guzmán, a 68-year-old pensioner, fighting back tears as she lined up outside a grocery store with her husband to stock up on supplies in case the coming days brought yet more drama.

Businesses being hit by rising cost of interest rates, energy costs and wages, says Resolution Foundation

The UK is poised for a rise in unemployment in 2026 fuelled by the collapse of “zombie” companies that have struggled to adapt to a rise in business costs, according to a report.

At the start of what could be a pivotal year for the economy, the Resolution Foundation said businesses were grappling with a “triple whammy” of multiyear increases in interest rates, energy prices and the minimum wage that could “finish off” some underperforming companies.

Hundreds of people join silent procession in Swiss town, with youngest known victim just 14-years-old

• Visual guide: what happened in Crans-Montana?

Investigators have identified the last 16 people who died in the New Year’s Eve bar fire at the Swiss mountain resort of Crans-Montana, police said on Sunday.

Officers in Valais canton said they had managed to identify the last of the 40 bodies from the blaze, one of the worst disasters in recent Swiss history, with forensic work particularly slow-going due to the horrific burns sustained by most of the victims.

People who are sent to Manston processing centre will be eligible for searches for electronic devices from Monday

Home Office plans to immediately begin seizing asylum seekers’ mobile phones and sim cards without the need for an arrest have been condemned by a solicitor and anti-torture campaigners.

People who arrive by small boat and are sent to Manston processing centre in Kent will from Monday be eligible for searches for electronic devices, a minister has said, with technology on site to download data.

Exclusive: union facing claim for unfair dismissal from one of two women who complained of bullying and harassment

The GMB trade union is facing fresh turmoil over claims made by two of its female senior leadership team, as it heads towards a crucial general secretary election this year.

The infighting at a senior level comes as Gary Smith, the union’s general secretary, faces a potential battle to retain his job in May.

Danish PM backed by regional leaders as Trump doubles down on claim that Greenland should become part of US

We are also expecting a news line from France this morning, as we are waiting for a verdict in a high-profile case brought for alleged online harassment of the French first lady, Brigitte Macron, with malicious comments about her including claims she was born a man.

10 people are accused of making malicious comments about her gender and sexuality. For some, this included equating her age difference with her husband, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to “paedophilia”. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

The 73-year-old Oscar-nominated actor was issued with an eviction notice in December

Mickey Rourke has turned to fundraising to pay the US$59,100 (£44,000, A$89,000) he allegedly owes in rent, after being sued by his landlord and facing eviction from his Los Angeles home.

The 73-year-old actor, who was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for his performance in the 2008 drama The Wrestler, has approved a GoFundMe page launched by Liya-Joelle Jones, a friend and member of Rourke’s management team. At time of writing, the fundraiser had raised US$33,000 of its US$100,000 goal.

• Fifth Ashes Test; day two: Australia 166-2, England 384

• Root makes 160 but hosts’ opener helps reduce lead to 218

The Richies were out in force on an eventful second day at the Sydney Cricket Ground, an entire block of supporters decked out in either cream, bone, white, off-white, ivory, or beige. Bathed in sunshine, flags fluttering over the two heritage-listed pavilions, the backdrop for Joe Root’s 41st Test hundred was absolutely marvellous.

This has not been the case for Root here over the years. In 2014 the SCG witnessed the one and only time he has been dropped by England. In 2018 he made scores of 83 and 58 not out here but ended up on a drip due to extreme heat, his side having crumbled to a 4-0 series defeat. Four years later came a duck and 24, England saving the Test to dodge the whitewash but his captaincy long since sunk.

Watchdog will also monitor online ban for high fat and sugar products as part of wider effort to tackle childhood obesity

A ban on junk food advertising on TV before 9pm and a total ban online has come into force as the government attempts to tackle the childhood obesity crisis.

Under the rules, which will be enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) 13 categories of products can no longer be advertised on TV before the watershed or at any time online. The banned products are high in fat, sugar and salt.

Marvel, Lost and Hobbit actor says ‘almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity’ after she fainted and fell face-first into a boulder

Evangeline Lilly has revealed she has brain damage, months after she suffered a concussion when she fainted and fell face-first into a boulder.

The 46-year-old Canadian actor, known for her roles in Lost, The Hobbit films and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shared the “bad news” video on her Instagram, one of many updates she has shared since she suffered the traumatic brain injury (TBI) in May, when she fainted on a beach and hit her head on a rock.

Exclusive: data reveals hundreds of UK nests have been raided in the past decade amid growing appetite to own prized birds for racing and breeding

In the echoing exhibition halls of Abu Dhabi’s International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition, hundreds of falcons sit on perches under bright lights. Decorated hoods fit snugly over their heads, blocking their vision to keep them calm.

In a small glass room marked Elite Falcons Hall, four young birds belonging to an undisclosed Emirati sheikh are displayed like expensive jewels. Entry to the room, with its polished glass, controlled lighting and plush seating, is restricted to authorised visitors only.

Diane Munday helped secure legal terminations in 1967 and, aged 94, is still calling for wider reproductive rights

When the 1967 Abortion Act cleared parliament, marking one of the most significant steps forward for women’s rights in history, Diane Munday was among the campaigners raising a glass of champagne on the terrace of the House of Commons.

“I’m only drinking a half a glass,” she told her colleagues at the time, “because the job is only half done.”

It allocated my NI number to a stranger who has died, and will not process my pension top-up request as a result

HM Revenue and Customs allocated my national insurance (NI) number to a stranger who has since died. It therefore now insists that I am dead and so will not process my pension top-up request.

I’ve had this number since 1991 when I moved to the UK for six years to work.

Respiratory infections are more common in winter, but it’s largely because we spend more time indoors in close contact with other people

Is spending too much time outside on chilly days to blame for coughs and runny noses? Not exactly. “Colds are more common in the winter, but it’s almost certainly correlation, not causation,” says John Tregoning, a professor in vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.

One marginal factor is that UV light can kill viruses. Sneezing outside in the summer, for example, may expose viral droplets to sunlight, which can deactivate the virus, while faster evaporation causes it to desiccate. But the main driver is behavioural: in colder months, we spend more time indoors with poorer ventilation and in closer contact with others.

From territorial overreach to deportations, the current president is not as much of an anomaly as he might seem

‘Almost everyone is a little bit in love with the USA,” declares Edward Stourton in his introduction to Made in America. And why not? It is the land of razzle-dazzle and high ideals, of jazz music, Bogart and Bacall, Harriet Tubman and Hamilton, a nation that was anti-colonialist and pro-liberty from its conception, whose Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”. Why, then, does this same country so often produce clown-show politics, racism at home and abroad, and imperial ambitions, latterly in Greenland and Canada? Why does it regularly show contempt for the world order it helped create? Why did it once again elect Donald Trump?

These contradictions have kept an army of journalists, White House-watchers and soothsayers in business for generations. Alistair Cooke, perhaps the greatest British exponent of the genre, interpreted the country via the minutiae of everyday life, observing people at the beach, say, or riding the subway. Stourton, another BBC veteran, who first reported from Washington in the Reagan years, takes almost the opposite approach. He looks at Trump and Trumpism through the run of history, arguing in a series of insightful essays that the 47th Potus is not an American aberration but a continuation, an echo of dark and often neglected aspects of the country’s past. Trump, he concludes, is “as American as apple pie”.

On a running pilgrimage in the land of my forebears I was blown away by the scenery – and even more so by the warmth of the people

As a long-distance runner, I had always wanted to use running as a means of travel, a way to traverse a landscape. I’d heard of people running across Africa, or the length of New Zealand, and the idea of embarking on an epic journey propelled only by my own two legs was compelling. I had just turned 50, and some might have said I was having a mid-life crisis, but I preferred to envisage it as a sort of pilgrimage – a journey in search of meaning and connection. And the obvious place to traverse, for me, was the land of my ancestors: Ireland.

Most summers as a child, my Irish parents would take us “home” to Ireland, to visit relatives, sitting on sofas in small cottages, a plate of soda bread on the table, a pot of tea under a knitted cosy. Having been there many times, I thought I knew Ireland, but, really, I knew only a tiny fragment.

UK weather warnings for frost and ice have been extended into next week and temperatures are forecast to plunge across central, western and south-west Europe

The US president’s fears about ‘woke’ Europe are laughable. He would feel right at home in today’s EU

I expected the EU to push back strongly against Donald Trump’s new national security strategy. Not only does it show contempt for the EU and its “weak” leaders, but it also targets European citizens and migrants with racist dog whistles and barely disguised Islamophobia. Yet instead of a rousing defence of the bloc’s commitment to human rights and equality, there have just been bland platitudes.

António Costa, the president of the European Council, denounced Trump’s plans to boost support for Europe’s far-right parties. But there was no public challenge to the racist logic underpinning his argument. Costa, who has spoken proudly of his mixed ancestry, could have made a convincing counterargument to the US president’s false premise that Europe was heading for “civilisational erasure” because of migrants and, by extension, millions of Europeans of colour.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

These inventions trigger rage, but also optimism. Maybe they will make people think more critically about debate and democracy

It was my blue shirt, a present from my sister-in-law, that gave it all away. It made me think of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, the lowly bureaucrat in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella The Double, a disconcerting study of the fragmented self within a vast, impersonal feudal system.

It all started with a message from an esteemed colleague congratulating me on a video talk on some geopolitical theme. When I clicked on the attached YouTube link to recall what I had said, I began to worry that my memory is not what it used to be. When did I record said video? A couple of minutes in, I knew there was something wrong. Not because I found fault in what I was saying, but because I realised that the video showed me sitting at my Athens office desk wearing that blue shirt, which had never left my island home. It was, as it turned out, a video featuring some deepfake AI doppelganger of me.

Populists rewrite the history of this nation because they were complicit in much of its ugliness. The progressive fightback must start now

A couple of the more disruptive boys in the class put red laces in their Dr Martens, because someone had told them that was how you showed your support for the National Front. “Jew” was an everyday insult and the N-word was in regular circulation. There were no more than four or five non-white kids in the whole school: I can recall one Asian girl finding her art folder had been covered in racist abuse, and some adolescent desperado singling out a black boy for a spoken version of the same treatment, before insisting that his victim was in on the joke. He wasn’t: he looked at the ground and rushed away, full of the hurt he must have felt every day.

This was what it was like in a Cheshire comprehensive school in the early-to-mid-1980s. Teenage racism was there in plain sight, and there was a scattering of people who seemed to take their prejudices – presumably passed down from parents and elder siblings – very seriously indeed. In what is now known as year 7, for example, each class was given a group of “sixth-form counsellors”, meant to show up once or twice a week and encourage ambition and hard work. One of ours was a tense, soft-spoken young man who liberally used racist epithets, backed the National Front and said he wanted to be a policeman. His view of the world, as far as I could tell, was summed up in a chant that a certain sort of playground thug knew by heart: “There ain’t no black in the union jack/Get back, get back, get back.”

The US president used largely fictitious charges to seize control, but can’t know how Venezuelans will react. He may also overstep now as regards Iran

During his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump pledged to end “forever wars”, abandon “nation-building” interventions and focus instead on reviving a US economy that, in his telling, had been deindustrialised by a floodtide of imports. Though Trump’s electoral victories cannot be attributed to any one thing, his “America first” narrative certainly struck a chord.

But Trump’s use of force to seize the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, his full-bore support for Israel’s demolition of Gaza and his bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations show that he’s no less willing than his predecessors to resort to military interventions.

Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Please note, this piece absolutely includes spoilers for Cruel Intentions, a film made 26 years ago. Do read on

I love spoiling the plot for myself. It’s something I do fairly regularly. Before watching a film, I tend to open Wikipedia and read the entire plot synopsis. If every episode of a series has been uploaded to a streamer, I often open the last episode, watch the final five minutes, close it and then start from the beginning. I did as such when the final season of Top Boy dropped in the autumn of 2023. When I tweeted about it from my now-deleted X account, I drew a range of bewildered and outraged responses, including from the official Top Boy Netflix account.

I’m sure you also probably think I’m a sociopath, a philistine or stubbornly impatient (the last has some truth). But the fact is, sometimes spoilers relieve a sense of burden – that you might have to stick out some film or TV show with this uncertainty hanging over you, this itch to just know who gets snuffed out or who did the snuffing. Isn’t that the point of watching something, I hear you say. Well, yes. But frankly, I’m not willing to put that effort into every bit of media I consume – particularly in the streaming age where there is such a constant abundance of things to watch, all of it varying in quality, and the pay-off is not always guaranteed.

Jason Okundaye is an assistant opinion editor at the Guardian and the author of Revolutionary Acts

The state has created the first registry in the US to track repeat domestic violence offenders

Let’s say you’re going on a first date and you want to make sure the person you’re meeting up with isn’t a registered sex offender. If you live in the US, you can find this out very quickly: there’s a centralized website provided by the US Department of Justice that lets you search a name or location in seconds.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist

The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflict

The overthrow and reported capture by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, ignores sovereign territorial rights, and potentially creates an anarchic situation inside Venezuela itself.

It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

The illegal abduction of Venezuela’s president, and threat to ‘run’ his country, is a dangerous act. Its repercussions will be felt far beyond the region

Amid the immense confusion surrounding the US strikes on Venezuela, the seizure of the president, Nicolás Maduro, and Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will “run” the country and “take back the oil”, one thing is clear – they set a truly chilling precedent. The US has a grim history of interference, invasion and occupation in the region, but the early hours of Saturday saw its first major military attack on South American land. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Mr Trump declared. The decision to unilaterally attack another country and abduct its leader – days after he publicly sought an off-ramp – has still wider repercussions. It should alarm us all.

Venezuelans have endured a repressive, kleptocratic and incompetent regime under Mr Maduro, widely believed to have stolen the last election. They now face profound uncertainty at best. Mr Trump has suggested that Mr Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, would follow US instructions, and dismissed the rightwing opposition leader and Nobel prize-winner María Corina Machado as a plausible replacement. But Ms Rodríguez, now interim president, has so far struck a defiant tone – and other parts of the decapitated regime are more hardline.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

New York’s new mayor will face headwinds as he attempts to carry out a programme of civic renewal. But his affordability agenda speaks to the times

The multiple firsts achieved by New York’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, have been well chronicled: he is the first Muslim to occupy that role, the first south Asian and the first to be born in Africa. He is also the youngest mayor of the largest city in the United States for over a century, having received more votes in November’s election than any candidate since the 1960s. And politically, he is probably the most leftwing incumbent of the office since Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s and 40s.

Hardly surprising then, that Mr Mamdani’s extraordinary rise to prominence should be accompanied by high expectations and tense anticipation. At last Thursday’s inauguration ceremony, he promised to “govern expansively and audaciously”. Whether he succeeds in doing so will have considerable ramifications for progressive politics more widely.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Debates over Alaa Abd el-Fattah and others such as Shamima Begum feed hard-right myths about Britishness, writes Nick Moss. Plus, letters by Sally March and Dr Richard Carter

Good as it is to know that the Home Office does not intend to take any action to remove Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s citizenship over “abhorrent” past social media posts, the fact that, in limited circumstances, it is an option ought to cause us real concern (Alaa Abd el-Fattah ‘will not be stripped of British citizenship’ over past tweets, 30 December).

The recent Institute for Public Policy Research report that 36% of people now think you must be born British to be truly British (Report, 29 December) cannot be separated from the conduct of debates like those around Abd el-Fattah. If, for those who are not white and born in the UK, citizenship is a gift of the state that can be withdrawn, then it’s not citizenship at all but a form of limited leave like any other.

As we edge towards an irreversible point, the climate becomes less a challenge to manage and more a hostile environment in which many will struggle to live, writes Keith Nicholls. Plus letters from Dr David Lowry and Leo Young

Your editorial (The Guardian view on adapting to the climate crisis: it demands political honesty about extreme weather, 26 December) rightly highlights the urgency of climate adaptation. But to truly understand the scale of what we face, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: the Earth will survive this crisis. It is humanity, and countless other living species, that may not.

As we edge closer to an irreversible point, the climate is becoming less a “challenge to manage” and more a hostile environment in which many will struggle to live. The planet is already adapting to its future. The question is whether we will do the same.

England’s various stations serve the community, writes Stuart Walker, so why can’t the UK’s other nations have similar?

In his supportive piece on why the BBC is important to Britain’s culture (The BBC tells the story of Britain in a way Netflix simply cannot. In the year to come, please remember that, 29 December), Tony Hall makes a reference to how important Radio Cumbria is to the people of Cumbria, and tries to suggest the same is true for Radio Scotland and Radio Wales “serving the nations”.

In reality, and unlike in England, BBC Radio no longer serves local communities in Scotland and Wales. For example, Radio Scotland’s morning news programme tends to repeat the same news stories you can hear on Radio 4’s Today programme, except where there are occasional news stories affecting the whole of Scotland.

Alexsandro Pinzon thinks playfulness and shared silliness are essential parts of human interaction and growth. Plus letters from Mike Hine, Torran Turner and Ted Watson

I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that the use of “six-seven” represents a decline in logic or understanding among pupils (Letters, 29 December). From a developmental perspective, this kind of behaviour is a normal and even healthy part of growing up. Children and young people often adopt shared phrases, jokes or nonsensical trends as a way of belonging to a group. The meaning is not always the point; participation is.

As a teacher, understanding and acknowledging this behaviour helps me connect with pupils’ lived realities. When students feel seen and understood – rather than dismissed for engaging in harmless trends – trust is built. That sense of connection plays a crucial role in the learning process: pupils are more likely to engage, take risks and respond positively to guidance when they feel their world is recognised within the classroom.

• Coach believed club would back him in January window

• Amorim had cast doubt on long-term future at United

Ruben Amorim’s future at Manchester United is in the balance, with the head coach’s strained relationship with the director of football, Jason Wilcox, a factor in what is viewed as an unpredictable situation at the club.

Amorim believed United were prepared to back him in the January transfer window should a major signing become available but at the moment this has changed, causing him discontent. The 40-year-old is believed to have been informed of this on the authority of Wilcox, who reports to Omar Berrada, the chief executive.

• Strasbourg manager, 41, to have talks on Monday

• He could be in place before Wednesday’s game at Fulham

Chelsea are closing in on the appointment of Liam Rosenior after the Strasbourg manager flew to London to hold talks over the role.

The 41-year-old is due to meet with the west London club on Monday and it is expected that discussions will end with him agreeing to replace Enzo Maresca, who left Stamford Bridge in acrimonious circumstances earlier this.

• Spurs’ longest-serving player moving on after Wijk deal

• Leicester keen to land experienced players this month

Leicester are poised to sign the experienced full-back Ashleigh Neville from their fellow Women’s Super League club Tottenham, the Guardian understands, after an agreement was reached with all parties.

Neville is Tottenham’s longest-serving player, having been with the club for eight and a half years, and has been a core part of their side since promotion to the second tier in 2017. A fans’ favourite, she became in February 2025 the first player to make 100 WSL appearances for Tottenham and was a key part of the side that reached the club’s first Women’s FA Cup final in 2024.

Today’s fluff is here to neither manage nor coach

Not content with appointing a new head coach in the coming days, Chelsea are plotting a massive £135m move for Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior. The Brazilian is not too happy in the Spanish capital, by all accounts, and is yet to agree an extension to his contract which runs until June 2027. This trifling situation could open up the possibility of a sale, to avoid losing the winger for nothing in 18 months.

Adam Wharton would not be short of suitors if Crystal Palace allowed him to leave in the summer, especially if he makes an appearance at the World Cup. Real Madrid have an interest in the England midfielder, boosted by the potential Vinícius Jr loot, but they would face competition Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United. The latter three clubs would mean the 21-year-old could return to his native north-west.

Double world champion is 14 titles from darts legend’s record but talented youngsters or even Littler himself could stall his quest

Luke Littler looked up and down the rows of filled seats, the line of microphones pointed at his mouth, the expectant faces hanging on his every word. This has long been one of his least favourite parts of the job, a fact he scarcely bothers to conceal. Occasionally everyone has to sit and wait while he sends a text. He leaves as soon as he is legitimately able. But there is of course a silver lining: if he’s sitting in the hot seat, it means he’s won.

“Youse are probably all bored of seeing me now,” he said. “But I’m going to be here for many more years.” And frankly, while the going is this good, why not? A second world title in a row, a 10th major trophy in just 21 attempts, the first ever £1m prize in the sport. Barry Hearn wants to get that up to £5m within the decade on a wave of Saudi investment. He’s 18 years old. Nobody in the sport is remotely as good as him. The boy is fresh and the boy is hungry and the boy is greedy.

Cameroon and hosts Morocco could soon be joined by Nigeria and Egypt at the business end of the tournament

For a decade or more, a familiar theme of Cups of Nations has been how the pyramid of African football has been growing little taller but much broader. African sides came no closer to really challenging at a World Cup, but the range of teams capable of beating the continent’s elite, of getting to the knockout stage of the Cup of Nations, was becoming more diverse. Perhaps, though, a new phase is beginning.

It’s dangerous always to read too much into the performance of one side at one tournament, but in Qatar in 2022 Morocco at last broke through the quarter-final barrier and became the first African side to reach a World Cup semi-final. And now, in the Cup of Nations Morocco are hosting, the traditional powers are reasserting themselves. There is yet to be a real surprise in the tournament and, halfway through the round of 16, the prospect is of the highest-powered list of quarter-finalists in history.

• Rodgers leads Steelers to first AFC North title in five years

• Panthers win NFC South after Falcons beat Saints 19–17

• Jags rout Titans to clinch AFC South, extend hot streak

• Garrett gets sack No 23 to set NFL single-season record

Aaron Rodgers threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Calvin Austin III with 55 seconds left, and the Steelers beat the Ravens 26-24 on Sunday night when Baltimore’s Tyler Loop missed a 44-yard field goal as time expired, giving Pittsburgh the AFC North title.

Pittsburgh (10-7) will host Houston (12-5) in the opening round of the playoffs on Monday 12 January, following an electric fourth quarter that saw four lead changes, including three in the final four minutes.

• Leicester 36-28 Saracens

• Tigers close gap on top four

The temperature was zero at kick-off but when the pluses and minuses were totted up, Leicester were comfortably in credit and Saracens were out in the cold. A clinical and cohesive performance by Geoff Parling’s side has them looking upwards, contemplating the playoffs, while the Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, must reflect on his team’s inconsistency. As the regular season reaches halfway this was a highly significant mid-table encounter: Leicester in fifth, and sixth-placed Saracens still have ground to make up on the top four, but the home side narrowed the gap with an accomplished win.

There were plenty of illustrious names on the teamsheet but it was Billy Searle, the Leicester fly-half, whose headline-grabbing performance won him player of the match. At 29, Searle has already played for five different professional clubs in England and three in France. On this sparkling form you wonder why any of them let him go. Adam Radwan, meanwhile, is trying to force his way into the thinking of Steve Borthwick, the England head coach. The former Newcastle wing is increasingly adding power and perceptiveness to his prodigious pace. Performances this good will spark a conversation or two at Pennyhill Park.

• British No 1 withdraws from Osaka clash with foot injury

• Katie Swan steps in as Team GB beat Japan 2-1 in Perth

Emma Raducanu remains hopeful she will be able to compete this week at the United Cup after her 2026 season began with a concerning false start when she was forced to withdraw from her opening match in Perth because of a foot injury.

Raducanu pulled out of her highly anticipated clash with Naomi Osaka only an hour before play got under way but the Great Britain team admirably battled hard in the searing heat and emerged from a tough day with a solid 2-1 win over Japan.

Emergency managers say the US president has presided over a dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters

Donald Trump has presided over a dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters, according to emergency management experts.

The first year of his second term was marked by crackdowns on climate science that produced world-class weather forecasts and the gutting of frontline federal agencies - policies that have left the country, already struggling to keep pace with severe storms, even more at risk.

Mark Ratcliffe, 67, had been trying to save Sarah Keeling, 45, and her daughter Grace, 15, who remains missing, police say

A man who died trying to save two people from the sea in East Yorkshire on Friday was attempting to rescue a mother and her teenage daughter, Humberside police have said.

The body of Sarah Keeling, 45, was recovered from Withernsea on Friday, while Grace Keeling, 15, remains missing after being washed away.

Exclusive: Patriotic Alternative’s Mark Collett addressed forum along with ideologue described as ‘Putin’s brain’

The head of a leading British far-right group spoke at a summit of European extreme nationalist groups convened in Russia by an influential oligarch linked to Vladimir Putin, it can be revealed.

The revelation has led to renewed concern among MPs over the Kremlin’s links to extremist groups and its attempts to disrupt democracy and sow societal divisions in the UK.

Maximus Textoris Pulcher, an official resident at Rue de la Loi 16, shows a warmer side of Bart De Wever

For nearly 15 years, Britain’s Larry the Cat has charmed visitors to 10 Downing Street. Now another prime ministerial pet is proving a social media hit in Belgium.

Maximus Textoris Pulcher was announced in August as an official resident at the Belgian prime minister’s office, Rue de la Loi 16 in central Brussels.

The 34-year-old posts emotional video saying the girls will ‘fight all the odds’ after spinal muscular atrophy diagnosis

The former Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson has said her twin babies will “fight all the odds” after being diagnosed with a rare genetic condition that means it is unlikely they will ever be able to walk.

The 34-year-old singer and her fiance, Zion Foster, welcomed their twins, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe Nelson-Foster, in May after they were born prematurely. In an emotional Instagram video posted on Sunday, Nelson revealed the girls had been diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1).

Erik Irmer has been documenting the spread of invasive plant and animal species that disrupt native ecology across Europe. He focuses on humans’ interactions with these plants and animals. Aliens is published by Fotohof

Defenders say AI can do good to fight the climate crisis. But spiralling energy and water costs leave experts worried

During a golden sunset in Memphis in May, Sharon Wilson pointed a thermal imaging camera at Elon Musk’s flagship datacentre to reveal a planetary threat her eyes could not. Free from pollution controls, the gas-fired turbines that power the world’s biggest AI supercomputer were pumping invisible fumes into the Tennessee sky.

“It was jaw-dropping,” said Wilson, a former oil and gas worker from Texas who has documented methane releases for more than a decade and estimates xAI’s Colossus datacentre was spewing more of the planet-heating gas than a large power plant. “Just an unbelievable amount of pollution.”

Bird organisations say more research on the species needed to control impact on other wildlife

In the past 20 years, the soundscape in the ancient wild, rolling landscape of Richmond Park has been transformed. Once you would have heard the chirrup of the stonechat, the chirp of the greater spotted woodpecker or the song of the skylark. Today, the auditory power of one bird dominates.

The bright green ring-necked parakeet increased 25-fold from 1994-2023 in the UK. They are still mainly based in the skies, parks, and woodlands around London and suburban areas in the south east, but in recent years they have made their way to northern cities including Manchester and Newcastle.

Mean temperature for year was 10.09C, surpassing 2022 record, and 1,648.5 hours of sunshine were recorded

2025 was the UK’s warmest and sunniest year on record, the Met Office has confirmed.

The UK’s three hottest years on record have now all been in this decade, which meteorologists say is proof of a rapidly changing climate. All of the top 10 warmest years have happened in the past two decades.

After attacks on immigrants’ homes, groups patrol the streets to intimidate potential victims, who try to keep a low profile

When a mob stormed a neighbourhood in Ballymena last summer to expel families from their homes, a chilling shout echoed around the narrow streets: “Where are the foreigners?”

The hunt for immigrants in the Northern Ireland town prompted Poles, Bulgarians, Filipinos, Nigerians and other nationalities to flee or barricade their doors. Police called the outburst of hate an attempted pogrom, one that made headlines around the world.

Flights cancelled and travel warnings issued with 30cm of snow expected on high ground in northern Scotland

Transport delays, treacherous driving conditions and school closures will greet many people as they return to work and study after the Christmas break, with winter weather warnings in place across the UK.

Four amber warnings for heavy snow in northern Scotland are in place until Monday morning, while yellow snow and ice warnings cover all of Northern Ireland, Wales and much of England.

Lucy Morville, from Burnley, thought most students would be from the north and felt ‘culture shock’ surrounded by southerners

Like many students from the north, Lucy Morville says she felt “culture shock” at being surrounded by southerners when she arrived at university. But she said the shock was even greater because it wasn’t what she expected when she enrolled at the University of York.

“I hadn’t travelled much down south before university, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re all from London and Cambridge.’ It was such a shock to me,” she said.

Narinder Kapur proposes ‘Amin’s rule’ named after Amin Abdullah who killed himself after losing his job

NHS England is being urged to introduce an independent second opinion whenever it decides to dismiss a healthcare professional, in memory of a nurse who set himself on fire after being unfairly dismissed from his job.

Dr Narinder Kapur, an NHS whistleblower, is proposing “Amin’s rule”, named after Amin Abdullah, who killed himself in 2016, to plug a gap he says exists when it comes to staff wellbeing.

Protest over climate crisis and AI has cut power to tens of thousands of homes which may take days to fully restore

German leftwing militants protesting over the climate crisis and AI have claimed responsibility for an arson attack that cut power to tens of thousands of households in Berlin.

The fire that broke out on a bridge across the Teltow canal in the south-west of the capital early on Saturday could deprive up to 35,000 homes and 1,900 businesses of electricity – and in many cases heat – until 8 January, the grid company Stromnetz Berlin said.

King Charles leads tributes to Holocaust education campaigner, who he met in 2022, saying he and Camilla ‘admired her deeply’

King Charles has paid tribute to Anne Frank’s stepsister, Eva Schloss, who has died at the age of 96.

The king, who danced with Schloss while visiting a Jewish community centre in north London in 2022, said he and Queen Camilla had “admired her deeply” and he was “privileged and proud” to have known her.

Bangladesh was scheduled to play three cricket matches in Kolkata next month, but concern about players’ safety has spiked

Bangladesh will not play their Twenty20 World Cup matches in India, with the country’s cricket board saying they are concerned for the safety of their players amid growing tensions between the countries.

Bangladesh were scheduled to play three Twenty20 World Cup matches in Kolkata next month, with the 7 February to 8 March tournament being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka.

Misinformation from the Trump administration is cited as fuelling Canadians’ concerns over childhood vaccinations

Canadian officials and public health experts are warning that US health and science institutions can no longer be depended upon for accurate information, particularly when it comes to vaccinations, amid fears that misinformation from the Trump administration could further erode Canadians’ confidence in healthcare.

“I can’t imagine a world in which this misinformation doesn’t creep into Canadians’ consciousness and leads to doubt,” said Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist and professor at McMaster University in Ontario.

Reduction follows Bank of England’s base cut in December, with further cuts expected this year

HSBC has become the first major lender to cut mortgage rates this year, a move that could spark a price war over the coming months.

The banking group, which is one of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders, has cut rates across a range of residential and landlord buy-to-let mortgage products. The new rates come into effect on Monday.

AI safety expert David Dalrymple said rapid advances could outpace efforts to control powerful systems

The world “may not have time” to prepare for the safety risks posed by cutting-edge AI systems, according to a leading figure at the UK government’s scientific research agency.

David Dalrymple, a programme director and AI safety expert at the Aria agency, told the Guardian people should be concerned about the growing capability of the technology.

London predicted to be the first UK city to go diesel-free, largely because of the ultra-low emission zone

Battery electric cars are poised to overtake diesels on Great Britain’s roads by 2030, according to analysis that suggests London will be the first UK city to go diesel-free.

The number of diesel cars on Great Britain’s roads in June had fallen to 9.9m in June last year, 21% below its peak of 12.4m vehicles, according to analysis by New AutoMotive, a thinktank focused on the transition to electric cars. Electric car sales are still growing rapidly, albeit more slowly than manufacturers had expected.

Analysts and investors voice caution about tech valuations and Trump’s influence on the US central bank

Investors expect global stock markets to keep rising in 2026, despite fears that the AI bubble could burst, and anxiety about chaos engulfing the US central bank.

Wall Street strategists broadly expect the S&P 500 share index of US-listed companies to continue to rise over the next 12 months, but said it could be a volatile year if geopolitical tensions increase and inflation fails to fall.

After his heart stopped beating for 40 minutes, the former lawyer experienced weeks of hallucinations. The visions he experienced during his recovery set him on the path to a new career

On the evening of Monday 1 February 2021, during the third Covid lockdown, my wife Alexa and I sat down on the sofa to have sausages and chips in front of the TV. The children were tetchy, and we were worn out from trying to home-school them while working from home, me as a lawyer in the music industry and Alexa as a charity fundraiser. But at least, Alexa said to me, we had made it through January.

Then I started making strange noises. “Are you joking?” she asked. Then, “are you choking?”

In 2025 the Doncaster-born singer-songwriter has earned two UK No 1s, three Grammy nominations and the respect of rock’s greats – and he says it’s all down to putting fans first

In November, Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud, received three Grammy nominations. The news that he had become the first British artist in history to be nominated that many times in the awards’ rock categories came as a suitably striking finale to what, by any metric, was an extraordinary year for the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

In June, his fourth studio album, Idols, entered the UK charts at No 1, outselling its nearest competitor by 50%. The same month, the annual festival he curates and headlines, Bludfest, drew an audience of 30,000 to The National Bowl in Milton Keynes. In July, he played at Back to the Beginning, the farewell performance by Black Sabbath, whose frontman Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days after the gig. On a bill almost comically overstuffed with heavy metal superstars paying tribute – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, Slayer – his rendition of Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad Changes unexpectedly stole the show, appearing to win him an entirely new audience in the process: the crowd at the gig skewed considerably older than the gen Z fans Harrison traditionally attracts.

Leo Suter steps into the role for a polished reboot. Plus: Lucy Worsley gets her teeth into a grisly Victorian cold case. Here’s what to watch this evening

8.30pm, BBC One
Leo Suter (Sanditon, Vikings: Valhalla) steps into DI Tommy Lynley’s well-heeled shoes in this reboot of the 00s series, based on Elizabeth George’s novels. Lynley is paired with working-class DS Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay), who reckons he is just a “fresh-faced city boy who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow”. But as the chalk-and-cheese duo get on with solving their first murder case, could their work prove they’re a dream team? Hollie Richardson

This intensely personal film follows Colombian director Inti Jacanamijoy’s grandfather to the ancestral lands of the Wayuu people

Spirituality and history collide in Inti Jacanamijoy’s debut documentary, shot among the rugged, enigmatic terrain of La Guajira, Colombia, the birthplace of his grandfather, José Agustín. Now in his 90s, the older man muses on the inevitability of death, all while looking back on his painful upbringing as a Wayuu Indigenous person. His voiceover, laid over the sight of lush forest and babbling brooks, recalls a cruel separation from his mother and his ancestral land, forced by Catholic invaders. This sense of fracture resonates throughout the family lineage. Jacanamijoy too speaks of his feelings of loss caused by generational trauma.

Against such emotional and geographical disconnects, the film looks to dreams – and even the afterlife – as a possible space for reconciliation and healing. José Agustín’s mother has long passed, yet he often sees her in his nocturnal reveries, filled with all-consuming longing. The film’s sensorial soundscape, which builds a symphony out of natural sounds, further enhancing this metaphysical atmosphere. It is as if the presence of José Agustín’s mother, along with the souls of other Indigenous people, are embedded on the land itself, despite the efforts of colonial occupiers to erase their culture. In a beguiling moment, as the old man envisions his own burial, the film conjures the imagined voice of his deceased mother, welcoming him into another realm of existence.

Released two days before his death, Bowie’s last album Blackstar was a redemptive masterstroke. But his career was stuffed with failures – and this documentary refuses to gloss over the most painful parts

David Bowie’s story ended poignantly. On 8 January 2016, he released Blackstar, an album recorded with the knowledge that he would not live to make another. Two days later, on 10 January 2016, just as listeners and reviewers were starting to laud Blackstar as the tenderest ever expression of his craft, Bowie died.

Perhaps only Bowie could have turned his demise into a perfectly timed creative event and, in Jonathan Stiasny’s feature documentary The Final Act, Blackstar is presented as a definitive masterstroke, the closing chapter that makes sense of the rest of the book. To make that case, the film has to take some narrative-shaping liberties, because in reality Bowie’s career was, like most artistic arcs, full of false starts and long pauses. The Final Act dabbles in some parts of the Bowie timeline and elides others before focusing intently on moments that don’t deserve the attention. But in its effort to find a new angle on Bowie and make us love him afresh, it succeeds.

Dennis Kelly’s brilliant drama about a teacher in prison is moving, gripping and almost painfully vulnerable – plus the main character decimates everyone at a middle-class dinner party. What more could you want?

It’s hard to imagine a better route into true philosophical inquiry than time in prison. Regret, causality, the nature of freedom: these are urgent issues to the incarcerated. Time is both impossibly empty and passing at terrifying speed. You face endless days and nights with only the inside of your head for company. You are at the sharpest end of practical philosophy, whether you like it or not. What is life for? Could it be changed for the better?

Accordingly, the teaching of philosophy in prison is entirely logical. But that depends on who is doing the teaching, and why. This magnificent six-part drama is adapted by Dennis Kelly (with both sitcom romp Pulling and conspiracy epic Utopia on his CV, Kelly is a hard man to predict) from Andy West’s memoir A Life Inside. By becoming a philosophy professor, West – recast here as Dan and brought astonishingly to life by Josh Finan – was escaping his background. But only up to a point. His father, uncle and brother all did time, while he found a different destiny. That didn’t save Andy/Dan from endless, intrusive fantasies that he was doomed to follow them anyway.

Kayvan Novak revives bungling art critic Brian Badonde to interview celebrities. Plus, inside a shocking multimillion-dollar child cancer scam

Fonejacker and Facejacker prankster Kayvan Novak is back with this very silly, very Marmite series, in which he revives one of his most infamous personas: the bungling art critic Brian Badonde. Interviewees include “bodcaster” Adam Buxton and singer Ella Eyre, who – in spite of her interviewer’s shtick and inability to correctly pronounce any words that don’t start with a b – offers a candid account of her time in the music industry. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

The actor first realised what music was when he heard Yellow Submarine and knows a lot of Paul Simon lyrics, but what would he put on at a party?

The first song I fell in love with
My earliest memory is walking into a room at nursery school where they were playing Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. I was captivated by the sound effects, and Lennon shouting: “Full speed ahead!” When it got to the chorus, I remember thinking: “This must be music!”

The first single I bought
When I was eight, I won a competition at school to pick a new record to play at the mini disco we had on Fridays. My teacher took me to Woolworths, and I chose Come Back My Love by [50s revivalists] Darts. The first single I bought with my own pocket money was Mull of Kintyre by Wings from a record shop in Colne in Lancashire. It was No 1 at the time, and I chose it when my dad pointed out that it was by one of the Beatles.

(Babel Label)
The 80s sax star leads an A-list quartet, plus a shared trumpet role for Laura Jurd and Ballamy’s son Charlie

Opening 2026’s jazz reviews with a story from the mid-1980s might be risking audience restiveness, but that was the decade in which a far-sighted young saxophonist on the UK jazz scene called Iain Ballamy first appeared on this writer’s radar. The cross-generational lineup and captivating ideas of Riversphere, his first solo release in years, testify to exactly why he has stayed there for 40 years.

In their 20s, Ballamy and pianist/composer Django Bates frequently joined forces as two mavericks, skilfully respectful of the classic jazz tradition while adventurously and often mischievously transforming it. They were key figures in a gifted UK generation that created some of the sparkiest European jazz of the 1980s and 90s, most influentially in the revolutionary orchestra Loose Tubes, which brought together genres from old-school swing to vaudeville, improv and avant-rock, and on occasion really did get people dancing in the streets.

From CMAT and the Carpenters’ fresh starts to the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun and Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, starting again is a rich theme in pop. Here are some of the best examples

It’s hard to imagine anyone’s heart not being lifted a little by Right Back Where We Started From: the euphoric rush of new love rendered into three minutes of cod-northern soul (performed, unexpectedly, by various ex members of ELO, the Animals and 60s soft-poppers Honeybus). Avoid the 80s cover by Sinitta at all costs.

After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.

The novelist on how The Rainbow made him want to write, the strange genius of Penelope Fitzgerald and finding comfort in Tintin

My earliest reading memory
Sitting on the sofa with my mum reading Mabel the Whale by Patricia King, with beautiful colour illustrations by Katherine Evans. I think it was pre-school. My mother was not always a patient teacher, and I was often a slow learner, but the scene, the tableaux, in memory, has the serenity of an icon.

My favourite book growing up
Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth. It’s a story set in Roman Britain; the Eagle is the lost standard of the ninth legion. I was a boy already obsessed by all things Ancient Roman (the alternative to the kind of boy obsessed with dinosaurs). One of the places I remember reading it is in bed with my dad. On Sunday mornings my brother and I would climb into the big bed. My parents had long since split up. There was a picture on the wall, a modest reproduction of Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus. To me, this voluptuous woman gazing at herself in a mirror was my mother. It’s interesting to me how the setting in which you read is such an integral part of the reading experience.

In this energisingly original novel, an emotionally detached English student at college in New York tells a big lie

Lies offend our sense of justice: generally, we want to see the liar unmasked and punished. But when the deception brings no material gain, we might also be curious about what purpose the lie serves – what particular need of their own the liar is attempting to meet. This is precisely what Grace Murray’s witty, assured debut explores: not just the consequences of a lie but the ways in which it can, paradoxically, reveal certain truths.

At a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year by claiming that her father has just died of a heart attack. In fact, he is alive and well back in Lichfield, England. This lie is the jumping-off point for an unpacking of Charlotte’s psychology, as well as the catalyst for her relationship with fellow student Katarina, a quasi-love story that forms the book’s main narrative.

The Bonfire Party by Sean O’Brien; Plastic by Matthew Rice; Retablo for a Door by Michelle Penn; Jonah and Me by John F Deane; Intimate Architecture by Tess Jolly

The Bonfire Party by Sean O’Brien (Picador, £12.99)
This sombre collection showcases O’Brien’s varied use of forms and subject matter, exploring themes of history, remembrance of war and political conflict, death, time, the passing of friends and loved ones as well as human desire and culpability. A central sequence entitled Impasse is inspired by Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels. These poems plunge us into the landscape of the detective hero’s world, a process O’Brien describes as “analogous to dream-life, where certain motifs (cities, railway stations, libraries in my case) recur without ever abolishing the mystery that animates them”. The penultimate poem of the final sequence ushers in an elegiac, pensive tone as the speaker reminds us not to forget “birdsong / the descant of the rising lark / that never ends, composed of silence”. The book reinforces O’Brien’s authority as a chronicler of our times, “love and death consorting as they must”.

Plastic by Matthew Rice (Fitzcarraldo, £12.99)
This book-length poem explores the experiences of a night worker turned poet. Structured as a continuous narrative, it illustrates the frustrations, inequities and relentless cycle of 21st-century manual labour: “The night is proletarian, a morgue of ghosts / given the present is a borderline”. Rice documents the tragic incidents and surreal imaginings that occur within the nightmarish confines of a plastic moulding factory. “Once, in this building, a kid clocked off night shift / for good at the end of a rope / another’s heart gave out at 3am / performing a task as menial as mine.” This sardonic, bleakly moving book interrogates ideas of working-class masculinity and intergenerational trauma, with “hell as an idea of what work could be”; there are glimpses of hope in poetry itself, “the treasure buried in my father’s field”.

In this week’s newsletter: The year’s most popular stories reveal how play, power and politics collided in the past 12 months – and what you’re psyched for in 2026

• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

With the best games of the year duly noted (yours and ours), I’d like to highlight some of the work we’ve done covering them. Reviewing the top-performing articles that we published in 2025, I see a portrait of a conflicted year: plenty of great works and games that captured the imagination and the world’s attention, but also growing anxiety about their place in the real world, and the political circumstances they reflect. And a lot of (justified) hand-wringing over Roblox.

But first: I wanted to extend heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads this newsletter and the rest of our work at the Guardian. If you’ve enjoyed our coverage, do consider supporting us to do more of it – either through a recurring or one-off contribution. Without your support, none of the great journalism we produce would be possible. Thank you for being with us in 2025, and I hope you stick around to watch me slowly lose my mind working overtime in the buildup to Grand Theft Auto 6’s release in November 2026. (Finally).

As 007 makes his gaming return, you can climb a mountain in Cairn, play a scaredy-cat in Resident Evil, and play a criminal couple in GTA VI

Live your mountaineering fantasies and brave the elements in a wonderfully illustrated climbing game. You must carefully place climber Aava’s hands and feet to make your way up a forbidding mountain, camping on ledges and bandaging her fingers as you go. Like real climbing, it is challenging and somewhat brutal.
• PC, PlayStation 5; 29 January

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Embark Studios
The breakout hit, which has players coming together (or turning on each other) to battle intimidating robots in an apocalyptic future, is worth the hype

Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios – so, a game where you deploy into a map full of other players and do as much shooting and looting as you can before making an escape. This is my first real go at the genre, and it’s excellent. It has smooth, only occasionally cumbersome combat, sound design that scratches the brain just right and robotic enemies that genuinely terrify. And it satisfies my constant need to sift through my inventory and rifle through every drawer.

But I have to keep my head on a swivel: Arc Raider’s player v player element means I can get jumped for my precious cargo by a malicious rival at any moment. And also, the knowledge that this game was made with the help of generative AI voice acting makes me slightly ashamed of how much I enjoy it. I play every game sheepishly looking over my shoulder (and my character’s) in case someone in-game takes my sought-after blueprint, or someone in real life kicks down my door to call me a hypocrite.

There was no shortage of fun and video games in the Diamond household in the last 12 months. Which ones did we play so much our thumbs hurt? And which one saved my soul? Let the ceremony begin …
• The 20 best video games of 2025

So, how was 2025 for your household? Was it really all as good as you pretended it was on Facebook? Full of A-grades for the kids and riotous themed fancy dress birthday parties for the grownups? Or was it a sea of disappointment with only occasional fun flotsam? And was any of it actually real, or are we all now seven-fingered AI slop beings with Sydney Sweeney’s teeth?

I have gathered my thoughts (and the Diamond household) together, whether they wanted to or not, to reflect on the most important thing in any given year: which video games we enjoyed the most. Without further ado:

Rattigan hoped his 1954 tale about a swindler who exploits his son’s sexual allure would prove him a serious dramatist. Its scandalous story reveals much about the playwright and resonates freshly

I hear on the grapevine that plans to name a London West End theatre after Terence Rattigan have temporarily stalled. An even better way to honour Rattigan is to revive his plays and the latest such revival is the rarely seen Man and Boy, which opens at the National’s Dorfman theatre at the end of this month. The play had brief runs on Broadway and in London in 1963 with Charles Boyer in the lead and another outing in 2005 with David Suchet giving a mesmerising performance as “the man” of the title, a beleaguered Romanian financier, but to all intents and purposes this is an unknown Rattigan.

I would suggest that it reveals a surprising amount about its author. The first thing to hit one is how much the play’s success or failure mattered to Rattigan himself. It was sparked by a book about the swindling Swedish financier Ivar Kreuger, whose business empire collapsed at the height of the Great Depression. Setting the action in 1934, Rattigan shows his hero, Gregor Antonescu, hiding out in his estranged son’s Greenwich Village apartment to which he lures the chair of American Electric in the hope of securing a life-saving merger. What is shocking is the ruthlessness with which Gregor exploits his son’s sexual charms.

Omnibus theatre, London
Sweet and funny show is based on rumoured vampire sightings in north London in the 1960s and 70s – though it could do with producing a few more goosebumps

For a time in the late 1960s and early 70s, the area around Highgate cemetery in north London was believed to be terrorised by a vampire. There were sightings, exorcisms, illicit grave excavations and even some desecrations. At the frenzied height of the speculation, the local police force got involved.

In real-life events that sound like the stuff of Hammer horror (indeed, the Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing Hammer horror film Dracula AD 1972 was apparently inspired by the incident), two men, David Farrant and Sean Manchester, got involved in hopes of solving the case. But rather than becoming a Holmes and Watson of the supernatural dimension, they embarked on a bitterly fought contest to be the first to vanquish the vampire, each undermining the other man’s authority along the way.

Wigmore Hall, London
Cutting’s programme of songs and music were all connected to the theme of night, in an evening that felt more cabaret than concert

Hugh Cutting is still sometimes described as a rising countertenor. That should surely now be unconditional. Cutting has risen, almost to the top, and 2025 has been a stellar year. This enthusiastically performed and received recital, a world away from the general run of pre-Christmas concerts or countertenor recitals, and accompanied by the eclectically matched eight-strong Refound Ensemble, showed why.

Themed recitals are common, but Cutting’s programme of songs and music, all connected to the theme of night, was built on levels of thought and performative imagination that few such programmes would even attempt, much less bring off. The pieces ranged from the baroque to the brand new, via Schubert, folk song and Don McLean. Few familiar pieces on the programme were played as written, with Cutting preferring arrangements mostly by members of the ensemble. It was compelling from first to last, more cabaret than concert.

Chadderton Town Hall, Oldham
Set over the course of local village hall fundraiser, Jim Cartwright’s play is charmingly performed and has a built-in sense of community

Yesterday it was the salsa class. Coming up is the panto. On other days, it may be anything from language lessons to arts and crafts. Today in this multipurpose venue, it is the turn of the annual Christmas fair, with its bric-a-brac stalls, grotto and tree. Sitting on four sides of the elegant ballroom in Chadderton town hall, a refuge for Oldham Coliseum during renovations, we require no leap of the imagination to picture ourselves at a genuine local fundraiser.

That gives Jim Cartwright’s 2012 play a built-in sense of community. Director Jimmy Fairhurst keeps the house lights up, save for the most poignant speeches, and expects us to clap along to the Christmas hits and cheer the young carol singers as if they were children of our own. Blurring the fact/fiction divide, the interval is less a break in the action than a chance to buy the scented candles and prints by Oldham artists that are otherwise part of the set.

With 2025 but a distant memory, it’s time to get stuck into a huge year of entertainment. To help with this daunting task, we’ve provided a handy, alphabetised guide to the big releases and trends coming in the next 12 months, from AI’s continued rise to a whole lot of Zendaya

Bad news: the intellectual property equivalent of The Terminator is here to obliterate the concept that the mug who actually wrote something matters somewhat. Better news: cinemas are fighting back against AI with films anxious about the new tech, including Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (13 February), in which a man apparently from the future (Sam Rockwell) wants to warn people about an incoming AI hellscape, followed by The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (title says it all really), from the film-makers behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, in March. Then, later in the year, Luca Guadagnino unveils Artificial, his biopic of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Catherine Bray

According to Nasa, a supermoon occurs when the moon, due to its proximity to Earth, appears up to 15% larger and 30% brighter than a regular full moon

The stage and screen actor on turning gaffes into gifts, the impact of Eowyn, and the Lord of the Rings stew scene fans won’t stop asking about

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Your latest role is Queen of the Cuttlefish, in The Pout-Pout Fish; if you could be a fish for a day, which one would it be and why?

The blue groper at Clovelly beach – because it’s like an institution, and people go there to see it. I just think it’s cool that there’s a local fish that people actually go and see and talk about – it’s a special fish.

A UK government warning that Amal Clooney risks US sanctions over her role in the issuing of an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister is key among reasons the couple have sought French citizenship

The exodus from Hollywood to shores not presided over by Donald Trump has been busy and loud. Ellen DeGeneres, Robin Wright and Courtney Love moved to England; Rosie O’Donnell opted for Ireland; Eva Longoria, Spain. Other Trump critics, including Richard Gere, Lena Dunham and Ryan Gosling, have upped sticks without citing the re-election as a motivating factor.

In the case of Clooney, however, there has appeared little doubt that his decision to gain French citizenship was primarily because of Trump, whose re-election he energetically campaigned against. Yet amid the heat and headlines generated by the pair’s war of words, some of the actor’s reasons for relocating may have flown under the radar.

Searching for a concealer that can do it all? From creamy to crease-resistant, brightening to hydrating, these are the formulas that impressed us most

• The best mascaras for longer, fuller and fluttery lashes

When life gets stressful, your face is often the first place to show telltale signs. Eye bags get darker after sleepless nights and pimples appear in protest at the first signs of stress. Whatever the cause, the best concealers can help to even out imperfections, so you look flawless regardless of what is going on behind the scenes.

It might seem obvious, but not all concealers are the same. Some leave a cakey finish on the skin, while others settle quickly into fine lines or blend out and leave barely any coverage at all. Many modern concealers also include active skincare ingredients to combine the benefits of both products.

Best concealer overall:
Nars Radiant Creamy concealer

Best budget concealer:
Collection Lasting Perfection concealer

These once obscure fizzy ferments are now widely available in our supermarkets – but which are a sparkling success and which leave you feeling a bit flat?

• It’s easy to ferment at home. Here’s all the kit you need

Similar to vinegar, kombucha is made with a scoby (a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), or mother, which looks like a blobby creature from the deep. Homemade kombucha is an enjoyable project and really cheap to make (it’s essentially just the cost of some sugar and a teabag), but it’s also a skill that takes a little refining. Over-ferment it, and you end up with vinegar or, worse, it could explode during the secondary fermentation, especially if you forget to “burp” the bottle to release the excess gas that gives kombucha a natural effervescence.

And, while making your own kombucha is fun, the range on the market now is vast and of really high quality, with some even being created expressly as non-alcoholic alternatives to cocktails and wine. Kombucha is naturally lower in sugar than most sweetened drinks – the fermentation process consumes sugar, but the amount left will depend on how long it’s fermented for. Some are completely sugar-free, but many of those are sweetened with steviol glycosides and erythritol, which makes them ultra-processed foods, and I think they taint the flavour, even though they’re derived from natural sources. Most of the products I tested had 2-3g sugar per 100ml, which is much lower than cola, say, which has about 10.6g, or the equivalent of about seven teaspoons per can! I tasted all these kombuchas chilled and straight from the vessel (and with water breaks in between).

Activate fresh-start mode with our fashion editor’s favourites for 2026 – including an unlikely new obsession

Are we ready for 2026? Ready as we’ll ever be, right? We’ve got this, team. Time to turn the page and kick things forward, with the help of a few key pieces to nudge mind, body and soul into the onwards and upwards.

Making your wardrobe a little more 2026 is a surprisingly effective strategy for activating fresh-start mode. Read on for your new-year primer: the cosiest moon boots, the sleekest hair pins, and where to get a quarter-zip – high fashion’s latest obsession – on a post-Christmas budget.

Whether you’re cohabiting with flatmates or family, cut down on communal living confusion with these clever tips and tricks, from colour-coded towels to fridge organisers

• How to update your rental home on a budget

Between clashing routines, different cleanliness standards, and that one person who always “forgets” to take the bins out, keeping a shared household running smoothly – whether that’s family or flatmates – isn’t easy.

After years of living in flat-shares, I’ve picked up a few tricks which, in my experience, make the home setup – whatever form that takes – smoother. From fridge organisers to shoe storage that stops your hallway from feeling like an obstacle course, here are 21 ways to cut down on communal living confusion, dread and passive-aggressive Post-it notes.

Whether it’s an electric toothbrush or the ultimate overnight bag, your favourites make one thing clear: you’re ready for a long nap

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The urge to hibernate through winter is perfectly understandable, but all year? Judging by the products you loved (and bought) most over the past 12 months, you wanted to sleep through 2025. And given that it was the year of Trump 2.0, Kim Kardashian’s acting and the Coldplay kiss cam, we can hardly blame you.

Your favourite item overall was our top-rated mattress, the Otty Original Hybrid. By Otty’s own admission, it’s suffering seasonal delivery delays, so we’ll resist the temptation to spotlight it again here, at least for now. Even without it, the list of your most-loved items reads like a hotel suite inventory, from an electric toothbrush via a silky sleep mask to a sunrise alarm clock – plus an overnight bag to keep them in.

Psychologist Chris Moore saw first-hand how powerful and complex an emotion it is

Fuelled by the relief of having finished end-of-year exams, the pleasure of a warm late spring evening and quite a lot of alcohol, the house party was one of those that should have been remembered for all the right reasons. At some point, later in the night, Chris Moore and three friends were ready to leave. The party was some way out of town – Cambridge – and too far to walk, and, anyway, there was a car, temptingly, in the driveway, its keys in the ignition.

Somebody – Moore can’t remember who – suggested they drive back, and with the recklessness of youth and too much beer, they all got in. “I ended up in the front passenger seat and fell asleep,” he says. He came to, being taken out of the car by paramedics, then sitting by the side of the road, his face streaming with blood, surrounded by the lights of the emergency services. They had been in an accident, and Moore had hit the windscreen, asleep, and had deep lacerations on his forehead. He was the only one of the four who had been injured. What he didn’t know until the next day, in hospital after surgery, was that they had driven into a cyclist and killed him.

Valerie and Max have discovered the secret of maintaining an active sex life in your 70s – and are happy to pass on their tips

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I’ve actually found that age has affected sex in a very positive way. Now I can have five orgasms in a row

Batch-cook weekday breakfasts in advance, and you’ll always have something filling and healthy to kickstart your day

The saying goes that you should breakfast like a king, and I’ve long found that the key to making that happen during the busy work week is to batch-prepare breakfast at the weekend. As we start a new year, the focus is back on balance, and these dishes offer both nourishment and flavour, while also being ideal for making ahead. The overnight oats are a source of fibre, the muffins are high in protein and the pie is a source of both.

The cooking is refreshingly light, delicate and, you might even say, wholesome

If you find yourself ice-skating at Somerset House in central London over the next week or so (and hurry: you’ve got only until 11 January before it closes), then first please accept my commiserations. Second, please also note that the Chinese restaurant Poon’s, by Amy Poon, scion of the Poon’s restaurant dynasty, recently rooted itself in the New Wing.

Ice-skating itself I have nothing against, but we can all agree that these slippery yuletide stampedes on temporary rinks are the polar opposite of festive, so surely it would be far better to be hiding indoors in the warmth with a round of prawn wontons, a bowl of nourishing “magic soup”, or some wind-dried meat claypot rice. Plus, when the weather outside is frightful, the decor in Poon’s is utterly delightful. So gorgeous, in fact, that within two minutes of entering this dusky, muted salmon-pink, twinkly peach, womb-like space, I found myself asking for the name and brand of the paint shade, because it felt instinctively one that, if applied to my own walls at home, would solve many existential problems.

Roll up, roll up for the yummiest start to the day with this tantalising TexMex mishmash of refried beans, eggs, potatoes. But just what goes in, and what should be left out?

Breakfast tacos should not be confused with tacos eaten for breakfast. Of course, they often are eaten for breakfast, but the stuffed flour tortillas eaten on both sides of the southern US border are quite different from the tacos mañaneros of central and southern Mexico, the rich, corn-based tacos de canasta (“tacos in a basket”) or the smoky beef barbacoa that Monterrey-born Lily Ramirez-Foran recalls being her dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast. Instead, Texas Monthly explains, breakfast tacos “marry the key elements of an American morning – scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes – with the Mexican staples of salsa, cheese, refried beans … genius.”

Although they’re originally a Mexican creation, according to José R Ralat, the magazine’s taco editor (what a job title!), these $3 treats are now so popular north of the border that they’re the subject of regular taco wars, mostly between those who claim Austin as their spiritual home (often blow-ins, according to their fiercest critics), and those who know that no single city can take the credit. The fillings may vary, from pork chops to chilaquiles and beans to cheese, but Ralat maintains that all should be salty, soft and, above all, comforting, and told the Washington Post a few years ago that “the greatest breakfast taco is the one made at home”. Which, if you live 5,000 miles from the Mexican border, is good news indeed.

Bittersweet maroon leaves pair perfectly with juicy red wine in this elegant winter risotto served with a walnut pesto

Bitter ingredients are not to everyone’s taste, but, amid these darkest months, they make me feel alive. I love Seville oranges, grapefruit, brassicas, bitter greens, chicory and, most of all, radicchio. I like the burgundy-spotted castelfranco (great for salad with citrus and cheese) and the long-locked tardivo (best cooked with balsamic vinegar), but radicchio di chioggia is the popular leader of the pack. A chubby little cabbage-y nugget with a middle-of-the-road bitterness that becomes milder, sweeter and more delicious, especially when cooked alongside a large glass of juicy chianti and finished off with a snowy dusting of parmesan.

Your friend fears dependency and wants to regain control. Is there someone you can talk to about your own feelings?

I am in my 80s and an old friend has several health issues. She will probably die in the not too distant future due to the inoperable cancer she has been aware of for some years.

She has two adult children, with domestic and career problems of their own, but she sees them frequently, and I know them both.

Karyshma, 27, a financial data analyst, meets Arun, 36, a radiographer

What were you hoping for?
A memorable evening, good company and to meet someone I wouldn’t have crossed paths with. I’m a romantic, so I like the idea of letting the universe (or the Guardian) do some matchmaking instead of the Hinge monotony.

Sometimes Michelle Law looks at people who make risky decisions and feels a deep sense of envy. But when that envy materialises, so too does the voice of her mother

• Read more in the Home Truths series

In news that will delight my enemies, I believe there’s a chance I’ll die young and by accidental means. To clarify, I’m currently in excellent health (sorry to my enemies), but I’m sensing a spectacular midlife crisis on the horizon that could spell the end.

Maybe it’ll be an overdose in a seedy nightclub. Maybe I’ll drink myself into oblivion. Maybe I’ll get kicked in the head during an orgy. Whatever it is, it’ll be the result of a botched attempt at compensating for a lifetime of being the world’s most risk averse, law-abiding scaredy cat who is terrified of physical danger.

Monique Todorovski, a clinical administrator, shares her experience of lexical-gustatory synaesthesia

• Read more in the way I feel series

When I met my husband and found out his name was Philip, I felt conflicted. I liked him as a person but his name tasted like crunchy green pears and I don’t like green pears at all. My compromise was to call him Phil, which tastes more like stewed pear – sweeter and not as crunchy. It’s just a nicer-tasting name in my mind.

Fortunately I was 30 by the time I met Phil, so I had an explanation for my word-taste associations, after years of strange looks from family and friends. I had lexical-gustatory synaesthesia, one of the rarest forms of the phenomenon, in which words or sounds trigger taste sensations. Researchers estimate it affects just 0.2% of the population.

Fraudsters use phishing to steal card details, which fund a spending spree using Apple Pay or Google Pay

You get a call from your bank and the informed voice asks to you to confirm the personal details they have on file, which you do. You are then asked whether you bought something at an electrical retailer recently for £120 and spent £235 in Birmingham, but neither transaction rings true.

The caller tells you they have blocked the payments but they must now secure your account, and say they will send you a notification to approve, or a code to pass on to them. You feel under pressure to protect your money, so you do what is asked.

From cheaper shopping to tax and travel cash, there is a host of resources to help you out. We pick some of the best

Money is central to many people’s new year resolutions – whether it’s trying to save more, organising what you have already, or improving your spending or saving habits.

If you have promised to tackle your finances this year, there are lots of tools and apps that can help you achieve your goal. Here are 26 to help you in 2026.

Energy price cap goes up on 1 January and Bank of England will make three interest rate decisions by end of April

At the start of 2026, it seems the financial picture is finely balanced. Inflation has come down from its latest peak, mortgage rates have started falling and changes announced in the budget should take some money off energy bills from April.

But the price of housing, groceries and energy remain far higher than pre-pandemic, and there are some changes coming that will make aspects of life more expensive.

Prevention and and keeping on top of the small problems will save you money in the long term

Looking after electrical goods will save you money in the long term. “Regular, small tasks keep appliances working efficiently and help you avoid early replacements,” says Paula Higgins, the founder of the HomeOwners Alliance.

Rutger Bregman, Josie Long, Michael Rosen, Meera Sodha and others on what they are no longer wasting their time on

Rutger Bregman, author

Guardian writers and readers share the simple tricks they use to bring a bit of joy into their lives

During the pandemic, my husband found some wood on our street and used it to build a tiny, squirrel-sized picnic table. We attached it to the side of our fence with a handful of peanuts on top. Few sights are guaranteed to lift my day more than watching a “dining in” Nutkin parking its rump on the tiny wooden seat, occasionally glancing towards the house as if he’s waiting for you to bring the drinks. If you don’t have as much time on your hands as my husband did during lockdown, you can buy one on Etsy.

With vaping now more common than smoking, experts explain addiction and what actually helps people quit

More socially acceptable than smoking – yet just as addictive – vaping has become the UK’s default way of consuming nicotine.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics last month showed that the number of over-16s in Great Britain who use vapes or e-cigarettes has overtaken the number who smoke cigarettes for the first time, with 5.4 million adults now vaping daily or occasionally, compared with 4.9 million who smoke.

Hydrated skin and some trips to the gym – I’ll be embracing better beauty habits next year

I’m not given to making new year resolutions, but by coincidence I have recently made a number of pledges to adopt better beauty habits. I believe that even someone in this job, who already moisturises and UV protects religiously, can still find areas for improvement.

Once again, I have pledged to drink more (or indeed some) water. After decades of tea dependency, I never find myself thirsty in the way others describe, and so force myself to hydrate only for the sake of my skin (to which it makes a noticeable difference) and well, aliveness. To this end, I’ve bought one of those ridiculously enormous mugs influencers drain several times daily, and hope to make my way through perhaps one by bedtime.

In politics, clothes matter – as the mid-market formal wear favoured by the new, young New York mayor testifies

Growing up in London in the 00s, I was surrounded by suits. On City boys darting around the Square Mile. In Hyde Park, where Arab dads in baggy suits kicked footballs with their children in honeyed light. At school, where cheap grey suits were our uniform. The suit has always been a costume of seriousness that signals powerfulness and performance; all the things I was apparently supposed to want if I ever intended to become a “man”. But until recently, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but disappeared from my consciousness.

Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn in at a private ceremony dressed in a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt and an Eri silk tie from New Delhi-based designer Kartik Kumra of Kartik Research – styled by US fashion editor, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson. Buoyed up by an ingenious campaign, he caught the imagination of the world like no other New York mayoral candidate of recent times. But whether he was throwing his hands in the air at a hip-hop club or at a premiere party for the film Marty Supreme, one thing on his campaign trail rarely changed: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with soft shoulders, yet conventional and ordinary, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit – well, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

Ease yourself into a routine again with relaxed silhouettes, cosy fabrics and slipper-adjacent footwear

Whether Vinted’s to blame or TikTok’s to thank, people are flocking back to car parks in search of secondhand bargains. How did the car boot get hip again?

It’s a crisp Sunday morning in south-west London. Tucked within rows of terrace houses, the playground of a primary school has been transformed into an outdoor treasure trove. Tables are filled with stacks of books and board games; clothes hang from metal racks or are piled into boxes which are strewn over a hopscotch. It’s the 10am opening of Balham car boot sale. A modest queue filters through the entrance: families, pensioners, fashion influencers, TikTokers.

Three friends – Dominique Gowie, Abbie Mitchell (both 25 years old) and Affy Chowdhury (26) – arrived an hour earlier, to set up. They are selling at a car boot for the first time, enticed by the growing hype circulating on social media. “If you go out and say: ‘Oh I bought this at the car boot,’ I think it’s actually cooler than saying I bought this on Asos,” says Dominique.

Young men swapping Nike Tech fleeces for quarter-zips are all over TikTok, as well as staging IRL meetups worldwide. What’s behind the growing movement centring a once unremarkable garment?

As I’m wearing a quarter-zip jumper and sipping on an iced matcha, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s my last day of term before the school holidays. The giveaway is it’s a Saturday in London’s Soho, and I’m surrounded by 20 or so young men between the ages of 13 and 21 who are all here for London’s first ever “quarter-zip meetup”.

Organised, rather bizarrely, by sibling rappers OKay the Duo, the meetup is the latest manifestation of a growing tongue-in-cheek trend for quarter-zips and matcha that has taken over TikTok globally. Previous meetups have taken place in Houston and Rotterdam.

Climbing, skiing and paddleboarding also feature in our round-up of this year’s charity challenges

SwimQuest’s annual Isles of Scilly challenge is a 15km island-hopping swim, broken into five sessions with walks in between. The longest swim is the 6km leg from St Agnes to Bryher; the shortest is 600 metres from Bryher to Tresco; and the island walks in between are no longer than 45 minutes. Swimmers can opt to complete the challenge in one tough day, or space it out over two – there is a party after both events.
Entry is £299 for the one-day challenge on 20 September or £379 for two days (17 and 18 September), no minimum fundraising, scillyswimchallenge.co.uk

A 100km hike to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer proves uplifting and challenging in equal measure, with friends made for life

The day starts with a gentle trek. We clamber up from Flodigarry to circle under the black cliffs of the Quiraing where clouds flood around the bizarre rock formations. At the pass, we meet a howling wind and force our way down with shrieks of laughter.

I’m walking on the Isle of Skye, specifically a section of the Trotternish Ridge for CoppaFeel!, the young people’s breast cancer awareness charity. There are 120 participants in total, split into four groups of 30. Over five days, we will trek about 100km on the island’s rugged trails, traversing sea cliffs, climbing mountains, passing ruined castles, crossing bogs and jumping over rivers to raise money for the charity.

Whether it’s for the satisfaction of completing a tough physical challenge or to raise money for charity, our readers select their most memorable adventures

• Tell us about your favourite beach in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

When tackling a big cycling challenge, choose an event with strong support – it makes all the difference. Riding the full Tour de France route with Ride Le Loop was tough, but the incredible staff turned it into an unforgettable experience (riders can tackle individual stages too). Their infectious enthusiasm and constant encouragement kept spirits high, even on the hardest climbs. They not only looked after logistics but created a warm, positive atmosphere that bonded riders together and amplified the joy of the journey. My advice: pick an organised challenge where the team cares as much about your success as you do. The next one is 27 June to 20 July 2026.
Neil Phillips

From rock climbing in the Peak District to honing your creative writing skills in Crete, why not take a break with like minds and fellow learners this year?

Even complete beginners will soon be scaling sheltered Peak District crags on this two-day course with Pure Outdoor. Participants will master tying in, belaying and several climbing techniques, as well as abseiling down. With a maximum of six learners to one instructor, there is a lot individual attention and personalised targets. The course is suitable for anyone aged 13 and over, from first-time climbers to those with some indoor experience. It is non-residential, but Pure Outdoor has a list of recommended, affordable accommodation nearby, including campsites, hostels, B&Bs and pubs with rooms. The training centre is 10 minutes’ walk from Bamford railway station, which is on the Hope Valley line from Manchester to Sheffield.
£199 for two days, weekends from 7 March-8 November, plus weekday courses most months, pureoutdoor.co.uk

Raise an eyebrow for World Logic Day

All days of the year host an annual celebration.

January 14 is a day of the year.

Joseph on sussing the school system at the age of four, an awkward audition for the National Youth Theatre, and why he loves his ‘horrible’ Peep Show character

Born in Willesden, north-west London, in 1964, Paterson Joseph is an actor and writer. A graduate of Lamda, he worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company before moving into TV and film, with roles including Alan Johnson in Peep Show and Keaty in The Beach. He published his award-winning debut novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, in 2022. His children’s book, Ten Children Who Changed the World, is out now. Joseph is a judge for the debut fiction category of the 2025 Nero Book Awards. The winners will be announced on 13 January.

This was taken by my sister Glenda, who had decided she wanted to get into hair and makeup. She was pulling together a portfolio and used me as a guinea pig, something my sisters had done since I was small. I was going for that slightly curmudgeonly old man expression, but it came out more like a smirk.

I was running an hour late and couldn’t think clearly. I was in despair that I might miss my plane home

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Twelve years ago, I was in Queanbeyan to see a specialist for my chronic health condition. I was headed home to Queensland early the next morning and had set my alarm to wake me for the taxi I had ordered to the airport. But when I woke up, I realised that I had forgotten to allow for daylight savings. I was now running an hour late to the airport, with no taxi to get me there.

I ordered another taxi and made my way out to wait in front of the motel, in despair that I might miss my flight. I stood on the dark footpath and spoke on the phone to my sister in Queensland about how I had missed my taxi and how unwell I felt. My health condition can affect my ability to think clearly, and I was telling her how my brain just wasn’t working that day. Then the taxi arrived – phew. Except, as the driver told me when I opened the door to get in, it wasn’t for me.

As Andrew Ngeh and Kathleen Oliver paddleboarded together in a secluded bay in Vanuatu, the chemistry between them was undeniable

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In 2015, I’d been living in Vanuatu for a year, coaching the Vanuatu women’s beach volleyball team as they aimed to qualify for the Rio Olympics. I was a volunteer through an Australian government program, and a new intake of Australians was arriving in Port Vila one afternoon in February, so I went to the Australian High Commission to meet them.

I got chatting with this gorgeous and bubbly girl called Kath, who’d been volunteering in Indonesia. I thought we were meeting for the first time, but as I introduced myself, Kath explained that we had in fact met before, walking across Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney during our training weekend.

Dying is a process and in a person’s final hours and days, Nickie and her Threshold Choir are there to accompany people on their way and bring comfort. Through specially composed songs, akin to lullabies, the choir cultivates an environment of love and safety around those on their deathbed.  For the volunteer choir members, it is also an opportunity to channel their own experiences of grief and together open up conversations about death.

Full interview with Nickie Aven, available here

A fantasy figure for men and women, a victim of press intrusion, a defender of animals … the French actor was also a mouthpiece for racial hatred whose views grew uglier over time

Brigitte Bardot inspired many fantasies, from the wanton, panting reveries of assorted French auteurs in the 1950s and 60s, to the perky-nippled bust created in 1969 as a model for Marianne, the embodiment of the French Republic itself.

With her death on 28 December, another more contemporary Bardot illusion was shattered. The singer Chappell Roan, responding to Bardot’s passing at 91, posted a photo of the actor in her beehived prime on Instagram, saying she had inspired her song Red Wine Supernova and writing": “Rest in peace Ms Bardot.”

Dystopian warnings once reserved for the far right have found a wider audience – but there are good reasons for scepticism

It is a darkly dystopian vision of Britain’s future, in which tens of thousands die in a bitter civil war in just a few years time.

Yet such forecasts are no longer limited to niche corners of the internet or the X feed of Elon Musk, condemned by Downing Street for claiming that war in Britain was inevitable after the post-Southport rioting.

As Labour seeks abolition of hereditary peers, Tory-dominated House of Lords has inflicted near-record number of defeats on No 10

Dining in the House of Lords canteen just after Labour came to power, one Labour adviser found themselves sitting opposite two Tory peers.

In particular, the pair were fuming about the forthcoming abolition of hereditary peers. Both agreed, the adviser said, that there should be a deliberate strategy to undermine the government on all its legislation, to slow down debate, and to push the new Lords leader, Angela Smith, to ask No 10 for concessions.

We’d like to hear from people who are training AI to replace their current roles

Analysis by the International Monetary Fund says Artificial intelligence will affect about 40% of jobs around the world.

We’d like to find out more about the impact of AI on jobs now. With this in mind, we want to hear from people who have been training AI to replace their current roles. What has the experience been like? How do you feel about your future at your company? Do you have concerns?

Perhaps you have been living with friends for many years, or live in a commune

Do you have what could be described as unusual living arrangements?

Perhaps you live in communal housing, or a commune or with extended family.

We’d like to hear from people in the UK, under the age of 30, about whether they’re managing to put money into a pension scheme – or cannot afford to

With 150,000 people in the UK now having student loan debts of more than £100,000, tenants spending 36.3% of their income on rent and the cost-of-living crisis still having an impact – young workers are having to make sacrifices from cutting holidays or not paying into a pension scheme.

If you’re under 30, we’d like to hear about your pension scheme arrangements. If you don’t pay into a pension scheme, we want to know why. How much do tax and student loan repayments affect your ability to pay into a pension? How about rent and the cost of living? How do you view retirement? Do you have any concerns?

Did you decide not to pursue your dream profession or did you have to retrain? We would like to hear from you

AI will affect 40% of jobs and probably worsen inequality, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

What has your experience been of trying to future-proof your career? Have you retrained or moved jobs because your previous career path is at risk of an artificial intelligence takeover?

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