In an interview with Nick Robinson, the Tory leader made it clear she was thrilled to see the back of international law. May the best country win!

These weren’t exactly the words Kemi Badenoch had been hoping to hear. Halfway through her interview on the Today programme on Tuesday morning, the BBC presenter Nick Robinson observed that, in regard to the US coup in Venezuela, the Conservative leader’s position wasn’t that far off from Keir Starmer’s. You could sense the air go out of the room. In KemiWorld there is no greater dishonour than a likeness to the prime minister. Time for the fightback to begin. To create some distance.

OK, Kemi said. Yes, she too drew the line at Greenland. That would be a step too far. There was no need for Donald Trump to claim the country for America. That was an action that could threaten Nato. And besides, as far as she knew, Greenland wasn’t a rogue narco state. She, too believed in a world of moral relativism. One where it was fine to invade countries whose regimes we disliked. There was one rule for the west and another for the rest.

The foreign secretary faces a tight balancing act between keeping the US involved in peace talks, and trying to maintain international order

Anyone trying to understand why Yvette Cooper studiously avoided saying whether the UK viewed the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro as a breach of international law only needs to look to what was planned in Paris a day later.

After the foreign secretary’s 90-minute humiliation in the House of Commons on Monday night, a joint statement was expected in the French capital by the coalition of the willing – and a draft included the US promising binding security guarantees to protect Ukraine in the event of a further Russian attack.

The conveniences of modern life such as Uber Eats and ChatGPT are robbing us of satisfaction – and worse still, infantilising us. But should we really go back to the basics?

Name: Friction-maxxing.

Age: Brand new.

When the Afrobeat sensation first saw Lemi Ghariokwu’s work, he said, ‘Wow!’ Then he plied him with marijuana and asked him to design his album sleeves. The artist recalls their extraordinary partnership – and the day Kuti’s Lagos HQ burned

‘There were flames everywhere. Soldiers with bayoneted rifles were dragging people out into the streets, staggering, naked and bleeding. Nobody knew if Fela was still inside the burning building.”

Lemi Ghariokwu pauses. For much of our video-call, the 70-year-old artist has joyfully revisited his years as friend and confidant of Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer whose legacy has been celebrated recently by both a high-profile podcast produced by the Obamas and a career-spanning box-set, The Best of the Black President, designed by Ghariokwu.

Though most nosebleeds are mild and benign, they shouldn’t happen. Experts weigh in on when to see a doctor

If you frequently experience nosebleeds, you might come to regard them as nothing more than a messy inconvenience.

Yet, even though most nosebleeds are mild and benign, they shouldn’t happen “if everything inside the nose is healthy”, says Dr Patricia Loftus, an otolaryngologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

It may only be January, but you already know this banking drama is going to be one of the year’s best shows – a daring, debauched and jaw-dropping treat

Many dramas – especially good ones – don’t become major hits overnight. Think of the likes of Game of Thrones or Succession, which needed time to warm up, and some jaw-dropper episodes (namely the Red Wedding and Kendall bumping off a waiter, respectively) to really get going. Industry is one such show – the slow-burn HBO/BBC series that firmly hit its stride in season three. Good news: season four is even better, truly top-tier television that’s surely destined for end-of-year lists, a serious feat when we’re barely a week into January.

Industry is, of course, the one about young investment bankers, the drama that initially drew comparisons with This Life, and the show where our fresh-faced grads were as likely to be hooking up with one another as they were to be stabbing each other in the back. Fast forward to season four and it’s feeling decidedly more dark and debauched, while still held together with pitch-perfect dialogue. Kiernan Shipka – here, vastly closer to Don Draper than to his daughter, Sally, whom she played in Mad Men – Max Minghella, Kal Penn and Charlie Heaton are among the big names who have joined the cast this time around. They meld seamlessly with our existing leads – the mononymous Myha’la, Marisa Abela, Kit Harington – to make something more twisted and sophisticated than viewers may be expecting. Props, too, for Toheeb Jimoh of Ted Lasso for integrating flawlessly; his jaunt over the Atlantic with Miriam Petche as Sweetpea is a treat in particular.

Trilateral declaration of intent signed after ‘coalition of the willing’ summit in Paris with plan to establish military hubs

Britain and France have declared they are ready to deploy troops to Ukraine in the aftermath of a peace deal, a major new commitment that has been under discussion for months, although one which Russia is likely to block forcefully.

The announcement came after a summit in Paris hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and attended by more than two dozen leaders of the states that make up the “coalition of the willing” of Ukrainian allies, plus the US envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who said the US president “strongly stands” behind the security protocols.

Deal indicates Venezuelan government is responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to US oil companies or risk more military intervention

Donald Trump has said Venezuela will be “turning over” $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump said in a post online.

Support comes after presidential aide Stephen Miller says ‘no one will fight US militarily over future of Greenland’

European leaders have dramatically rallied together in support of Denmark and Greenland after one of Donald Trump’s leading aides suggested the US may be willing to seize control of the Arctic territory by force.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, declared that Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark – “belongs to its people”, in a rare European rebuke to the White House.

Eye-tests for older drivers, compulsory braking technology in new cars and a crackdown on drink-driving among new proposals

• ‘Bigger than me’: Road safety campaigner whose son died in collision welcomes new UK rules

Tougher rules on drink-driving, eye tests for older motorists and automatic emergency braking in new cars will be mandated by the government in an attempt to significantly reduce casualties on Britain’s roads.

The first road safety strategy in more than a decade aims to save thousands of lives with a range of measures, from training and technology to stiffer penalties for offenders.

AI company’s chatbot faces criticism over its generation of sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and girls

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has raised $20bn in its latest funding round, the startup announced Tuesday, even as its marquee chatbot Grok faces backlash over generating sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and underage girls.

xAI’s Series E funding round featured big-name investors, including Nvidia, Fidelity Management and Resource Company, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and Valor Equity Partners – the private investment firm of Musk’s longtime friend and former Doge member Antonio Gracias. The funding round exceeded its initial $15bn target, according to xAI’s press release. The company touted Grok’s image-generation abilities in the announcement of its latest funding round.

Exclusive: Morgan McSweeney says Labour needs emotion, empathy and evidence, sources say

UK politics live – latest updates

The government must find ways to reconnect emotionally with voters, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is said to have warned cabinet ministers, in a meeting where the prime minister said they were in “the fight of our lives”.

The prime minister sought to rally his cabinet on Tuesday, telling them to ignore the polls and to prepare to take on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Justice department translated recordings made in Portuguese by man believed to be behind killings

The man accused of killing an MIT professor and two students at Brown University left behind video recordings in which he says he had planned the attack for years, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.

The shooter in the 13 and 15 December attacks was a former Brown student and Portuguese national, whom law enforcement found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility days after the shootings.

Fresh warnings across parts of England and Wales will follow days of delays and closures from Oxford to Orkney

The UK is braced for further disruption as heavy snow and strong winds are forecast to hit swathes of England and Wales on Thursday, with the arrival of Storm Goretti.

Many parts of the country are already reeling from days of travel chaos and school closures, although Tuesday night was not expected to be as chilly as Monday, when temperatures fell to -12.5C in Norfolk, making it this winter’s coldest night so far.

Over-by-over updates from Sydney Cricket Ground
The Ashes top 100 | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Rob

128th over: Australia 542-7 (Smith 136, Webster 58) England hit Australia with a five-man pace attack on the first day at Perth. Brydon Carse is the last man standing and continues to charge in with intent, if not always accuracy. A poor ball is tickled for four by Webster to bring up the hundred partnership. England are face down in the dirt and there’s nothing they can do about it.

127th over: Australia 535-7 (Smith 136, Webster 52) Webster works Stokes for a single to reach a breezy half-century from 64 balls. He looks a really good player, has from the moment he turned the India series Australia’s way on debut a year ago.

Meera Naran, whose son inspired ‘Dev’s Law’, said the measures proposed by the government would save lives

• Government signals tougher motoring rules to reduce casualties on Britain’s roads

For Meera Naran, the new road safety strategy is a long-awaited milestone after years of campaigning since her eight-year-old son Dev was killed in a motorway collision in 2018.

As ministers unveiled plans to cut thousands of deaths by 2035, they paid tribute to campaigners, Naran in particular, whose son is commemorated with a pledge to mandate safety technology in new vehicles as “Dev’s Law”.

After the removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, there are fears Donald Trump could turn his sights to Greenland, after he renewed his calls for the US to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory. While European leaders convened in Paris and rallied behind Denmark, one of Trump’s top aides ramped up the pressure by questioning Copenhagen's claim to the Arctic territory

Here are the wildest theories about who is beneath the red cloak. Brace yourself for handwriting analysis, Jekyll and Hyde vibes and crucial slips of the tongue

It’s the question on everyone’s lips. No, not “Why am I half a stone heavier and in dire need of an afternoon nap?” but “Who is the Secret Traitor?” And thankfully, we’re about to find out.

The curveball new role has proved a gamechanging twist in BBC mega hit The Traitors. Swishing around Ardross Castle in a red cloak, as opposed to the Traitors’ familiar green, the Secret Traitor’s identity is unknown to contestants and viewers alike. It hasn’t just stoked paranoia in the Traitors’ turret but enabled the audience to play along at home, turning us all into armchair sleuths as we try to crack the case.

Duke of York’s Theatre, London

Sheridan Smith’s disconsolate housewife seeks refuge in a fantasy world, in critique of the emptiness of married life

Susan is not the first woman battling inner demons in her middle years that Sheridan Smith has taken on for the West End stage. Before Alan Ayckbourn’s disconsolate housewife here, there was her superlative Shirley Valentine, navigating middle-age wobbles by setting sail for the island of her dreams, and John Cassavetes’ Myrtle, in Opening Night, more brittle and inebriated in her mid-life malaise.

Susan is, like Shirley and Myrtle, in a mentally fragile state. That is partly because she has taken a knock to the head with a garden rake, which has triggered an alternate, hallucinatory world. This, at first, seems like a refuge from the emotionally deadened real life she shares with vicar-husband, Gerald (Tim McMullan), dour sister-in-law, Muriel (Louise Brealey), and rebel son, Rick (Taylor Uttley) who has refused to speak to his parents since joining a sect in Hemel Hempstead.

Our reviewer sheds some light on adding brightness to your mornings with the best dawn simulation alarms, from Lumie and Philips to Hatch

• The best sleep aids recommended by experts: from blue light-blockers to apps to help you nap

To wake each day in darkness is a plight you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, yet that’s what many of us do routinely throughout winter. Getting up in the dark decouples our life from our circadian rhythm (our body clock), with bodily processes such as cognition and metabolism put to work before they’re fully prepped.

Thank heavens, then, for sunrise alarm clocks. These “dawn simulation” devices glow with gradually intensifying brightness as your wake-up time approaches, kickstarting your circadian rhythm before you get out of bed. For many users, this results in a happier, healthier start to the day.

Best sunrise alarm clock overall:
Lumie Bodyclock Glow 150

Best budget sunrise alarm:
Momcozy Sunrise Echo

From gaping plot holes to television so confusing it’s actually distressing to watch, here’s our ranking of the US author’s TV adaptations

The American novelist Harlan Coben is, by commercial fiction standards, one of the most successful writers working today. A No 1 New York Times bestseller author, he writes pulpy thrillers of the type you buy at the airport, consume feverishly poolside, and never take home.

Coben has written 35 novels, and is 11 adaptations (eight of them English language) into a nine-year, 14-book adaptation deal with Netflix. These series share a tone, style, and even actors – in multiple shows, Spooks heart-throb Richard Armitage pops up like a bad penny.

Twenty-five years after I revealed the practices of the industrial food giants, the profits – and dangers – of mass producing meat and milk have only grown

Cats have long been kept at American dairy farms to kill rats, mice and other rodents. In March 2024, a number of barn cats at dairies in the Texas panhandle started to behave strangely. It was like the opening scene of a horror movie. The cats began to walk in circles obsessively. They became listless and depressed, lost their balance, staggered, had seizures, suffered paralysis and died within a few days of becoming ill. At one dairy in north Texas, two dozen cats developed these odd symptoms; more than half were soon dead. Their bodies showed no unusual signs of injury or disease.

Dr Barb Petersen, a veterinarian in Amarillo, heard stories about the sick cats. “I went to one of my dairies last week, and all their cats were missing,” a colleague told her. “I couldn’t figure it out – the cats usually come to my vet truck.” For about a month, Petersen had been investigating a mysterious illness among dairy cattle in Texas. Cows were developing a fever, producing less milk, losing weight. The milk they did produce was thick and yellow. The illness was rarely fatal but could last for weeks, and the decline in milk production was hurting local dairy farmers. Petersen sent fluid samples from sick cows to a diagnostic lab at Iowa State University, yet all the tests came back negative for diseases known to infect cattle. She wondered if there might be a connection between the unexplained illnesses of the cats and the cows. She sent the bodies of two dead barn cats to the lab at Iowa State, where their brains were dissected.

Last week’s events in Caracas come in a long line of American interventions. The White House has awesome power and is never shy of using it

It is starting to trickle out. Last week in Caracas was not an invasion, it was a putsch. It was the militarised kidnap of one ruler to aid his more amenable deputy into power. Since April last year, according to reports, vice-president and now interim president Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge – the president of the Venezuelan national assembly – have been dealing secretly with Washington. This has reportedly been via that hotspot of informal diplomacy, Qatar.

We have yet to know the details. But the rumours are plausible that last week’s episode was staged to look outrageous, including Delcy Rodríguez’s initial condemnation of it as atrocious. President Nicolás Maduro was handed over to the Americans swiftly and peacefully. The only slip was Trump describing Delcy as “quite gracious” before she was hastily sworn into office soon after the raid. A more serious slip was his dismissal of the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, as lacking “the support within or the respect within the country”. She had championed Edmundo González Urrutia, probable winner of the rigged 2024 Venezuelan election, for which she won the Nobel peace prize Trump so coveted. Why no mention of him from Trump?

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump

If Rachel Reeves and the London Stock Exchange want to encourage investing, they should have milked this moment

There are three ways to view the FTSE 100 index hitting 10,000 points for the first time. One is to say round numbers are irrelevant. Since share prices are meant to go up over the long term, an index that was created in 1984 at a starting value of 1,000 was bound to get there eventually.

In any case, a pure value-weighted points measure doesn’t capture the dividends paid by component companies, which can add up to a material part of an investor’s return over time if reinvested. Nor is the Footsie guaranteed to stay above 10,000, obviously. Such “bah humbug” points are all reasonable.

It didn’t go very well for him last time, but the tech billionaire seems to have abandoned his plans for a third party and has renewed his bromance with the president

“You know, I’ve generally found that when I get involved in politics, it ends up badly,” Elon Musk mused on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast in November.

Oh, we know, Elon, we most definitely know. The world is still reeling from the tech billionaire’s little experiment in politicking last year. Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) slashed federal jobs, dismantled foreign aid programmes and left a trail of chaos in its wake. It’s not clear whether any taxpayer money was saved, but experts are warning a lot of lives will be lost. By one calculation, there could be about 14 million excess deaths across the globe by 2030 if the US fails to restore aid funding. Thanks, Elon!

University undergraduates are forming northern societies, but in other circumstances we find different ways to be ourselves

Of course they weren’t being mean, but each time my university friends jokingly echoed my Leeds-accented “no” with a noise that is perhaps best approximated as “nerhhh”, I found myself undergoing elocution conditioning. Within a year, the identifying characteristics of my accent had gone, replaced with a sort of unplaceable, vaguely northern voice. It didn’t matter that we were at university in Leeds, my home city, where most of the population had a stronger accent than me; it was novel – and apparently amusing – to those who had come from the south.

It’s now a familiar scenario. With an increasing north-south divide in university admissions, campuses in the north are teeming with southerners. That may be inevitable under the circumstances, but it can leave students from the surrounding areas feeling out of place only a few miles from where they grew up.

The Hungarian director’s films moved slowly like vast gothic aircraft carrier-sized ships across dark seas, giving audiences a feeling of drunkenness and hangover at the same time

• Béla Tarr, Hungarian director of Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies, dies aged 70

The semi-official genre of “slow cinema” has been around for decades: glacial pacing, unhurried and unbroken takes, static shooting positions, characters who appear to be looking – often wordlessly and unsmilingly – at people or things off camera or into the lens itself, mimicking the camera’s own calmly relentless gaze, the immobile silence accumulating into a transcendental simplicity. Robert Bresson, Theo Angelopoulos, Joe Weerasethakul, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso; these are all great slow cinema practitioners. But surely no film-maker ever got the speedometer needle further back to the left than the tragicomic master Béla Tarr; his pace was less than zero, a kind of intense and monolithic slowness, an uber-slowness, in films that moved, often almost infinitesimally, like vast gothic aircraft-carrier-sized ships across dark seas.

Audience reactions were often a kind of delirium or incredulity at just how punishing the anti-pace was, but – given sufficient investment of attention – you found yourself responding with awe, but also laughing along to the macabre dark comedy, the parable and the satire. A Béla Tarr movie gave you drunkenness and hangover at the same time. And people were often to be found getting despairingly drunk in his films.

In The Wizard of the Kremlin, Jude Law plays Russia’s president as a cool, reluctant leader, a strategist who got the job because he was young, athletic and a spy. This is a creation far removed from the man himself

Last year, speaking at the Venice film festival premiere of The Wizard of the Kremlin, based on a book about the rise of Vladimir Putin, actor Jude Law said he “didn’t fear any repercussions” over his portrayal of the Russian president. Law may be right, but not for the reason he thinks he is. The film aligns so closely with the mythologised version promoted by the Russian media that, domestically, it reads as a compliment rather than an affront.

The Kremlin and Russia’s pop-culture machine have long collaborated to craft a made-to-measure version of Putin that is far removed from the man himself: a political superhero without age or mistakes, a perfectly calculated strategist, a former spy reframed as a Russian James Bond who always knows more than he reveals.

The US president has been quite clear that Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Greenland are in his sights. We must believe him

As Venezuela’s skyline lit up under US bombs, we were watching the morbid symptoms of a declining empire. That may sound counterintuitive. After all, the US has kidnapped a foreign leader, and Donald Trump has announced that he will “run” Venezuela. Surely this looks less like decay than intoxication: a superpower high on its own force.

But Trump’s great virtue, if it can be called that, is candour. Previous US presidents draped naked self-interest in the language of “democracy” and “human rights”. Trump dispenses with the costume. In 2023, he boasted: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.” And this was no off-the-cuff remark. The logic of an oil grab, and much more besides, is laid out plainly in Trump’s recently published National Security Strategy.

The seizure of Venezuelan leader was induced by the prize of petroleum, but driven by spectacle, geopolitics and domestic politics

It’s all about oil. That was the reason Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader illegally abducted by US forces at the weekend, had given for Donald Trump’s fixation with his country. A better way to think about Venezuela is that oil was necessary but not sufficient. The presence of vast reserves made Mr Trump’s interest understandable – if Venezuela’s main export was bananas this would not have happened. But oil alone cannot explain the timing or scale of the move.

Venezuelan crude is extra-heavy as well as expensive and slow to bring online; it will not immediately transform US energy systems, nor rescue refineries that have already adapted to years without it. Instead, oil is the “prize” around which other agendas cohere. These include future profits for US firms; modest downward pressure on oil prices; depriving China of a meaningful ally in America’s backyard; putting pressure on Cuba; and US domestic political signalling in Florida. Each gain is small. But collectively Mr Trump could justify a high‑profile, theatrical – and unlawful – intervention even if the economic returns are incremental.

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.

Ministers promised a ‘change of approach’, but their new tax could tip weaker institutions over the edge

Education opens doors, and the expansion of higher education begun under New Labour means that millions of young people who would not previously have gone from school to university have now done so. From 336,000 places accepted in 1997, the total rose by 68% to 563,000 in 2022. In last year’s student experience survey, just 11% of undergraduates said that they regretted their decision to take a degree.

In an interview with this newspaper at the weekend, Prof Shitij Kapur, the vice-chancellor of King’s College London, stressed that one consequence of this increased access has been that degrees no longer confer a virtually automatic graduate job. His likening of a degree to a visa – or a “chance” rather than a guarantee – was striking, and he is right that the increased difficulties of graduates in finding suitable work must be taken seriously. Along with rising student debt and the less favourable terms now attached to loans, this tighter graduate job market explains why, having reached Tony Blair’s target of 50% in 2017, the proportion of young people now going to university has since fallen.

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.

Rev Canon Dr Rob Kelsey on how Victorian engineers can inspire us to make structural changes in animal welfare and Jennifer Jenkins on children’s food choices. Plus a letter from Sheila Cole

As a vegan of nearly 40 years, I agree with much of what Dean Weston says about animal welfare (Letters, 30 December). But as a former civil engineer, I cannot overlook the massive category mistakes in his assertion that the government’s animal welfare strategy “treats animal suffering the way Victorian engineers treated cholera. Add a valve here, a filter there, and never question the sewer itself.”

Victorian engineers did not “treat” cholera, but were arguably more effective than the medical profession in dealing with the disease. They reduced the prevalence of cholera precisely by constructing adequate sanitation. “The sewer itself” was the solution, not the problem.

After Robert Reich wrote about the US going ‘off the rails’, Tony Rowlands and Kate Purcell respond from a British angle

Robert Reich’s account of how the holy writ of corporate profit has bought about the near disintegration of US society will be familiar to students of UK political history (Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us, 29 January).

I grew up with the capitalism of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, in a society where the NHS worked, our industry and transport remained a vibrant reflection of British pride and ingenuity, the population were housed, and rents and mortgages were within the reach of ordinary wage earners.

We should take AI risks seriously, but doing so requires conceptual clarity, says Prof Virginia Dignum. Plus letters from John Robinson and Eric Skidmore

The concern expressed by Yoshua Bengio that advanced AI systems might one day resist being shut down deserves careful consideration (AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer, 30 December). But treating such behaviour as evidence of consciousness is dangerous: it encourages anthropomorphism and distracts from the human design and governance choices that actually determine AI behaviour.

Many systems can protect their continued operation. A laptop’s low-battery warning is a form of self-preservation in this sense, yet no one takes it as evidence that the laptop wants to live: the behaviour is purely instrumental, without experience or awareness. Linking self-preservation to consciousness reflects a human tendency to ascribe intentions and feelings to artefacts and not any intrinsic consciousness.

US imperialism | Trump’s actions in Venezuela | Roosevelt’s big stick | Tony Blair Institute | Citizen’s arrest | Fifa peace prize | Triumph of evil

Phil Ochs, who died 50 years ago this year, released a song called Cops of the World in 1966. Suffused with Ochs’ sardonic wit, it ridiculed US imperialism and disregard for international law. It captured the zeitgeist then, and sadly is even more relevant now.
Mike Pender
Cardiff

• The G8 was a discussion forum for leaders of major industrialised nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, US), until it became the G7 in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea. After Donald Trump’s acts against Venezuela and threats against Denmark and Greenland, is it time for a G6?
Denis Jackson
Glasgow

In Manchester United’s brave new world coaches are more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still to blame if it arrives cold

Turns out he could survive losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994‑95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

West Ham are drifting towards the most gutless of relegations. The London Stadium was half empty on another dismal night, encapsulating the apathy gripping this miserable club, and it is hard to see a way out for Nuno Espírito Santo’s accident prone side after a combination of ­misfortune and dismal defending left them seven points below Nottingham Forest in 17th place.

There was a disallowed goal for Crysencio Summerville when West Ham were leading 1-0 at the start of the second half. Nuno had charged around his technical area, a big grin spread across his face, but he was watching in despair moments later. Forest replied straight away, Nicolás Domínguez heading in an opportunistic equaliser, and they boosted their survival hopes when a clumsy attempt at a clearing punch from Alphonse Areola sparked the video assistant referee review that ended with Morgan Gibbs-White scoring the winning penalty in the 89th minute.

• Last 16: Côte d’Ivoire 3-0 Burkina Faso

• Algeria break DR Congo in extra time to reach last eight

Amad Diallo scored one goal and created another to continue his excellent form in Morocco as the defending champions Côte d’Ivoire eased past Burkina Faso 3-0 in their Africa Cup of Nations last-16 game in Marrakech on Tuesday.

Côte d’Ivoire will face the seven-time winners Egypt in a heavyweight quarter-final in Agadir on Saturday, a repeat of the 2006 decider where the north African side triumphed on penalties after a 0-0 draw.

• Resolution has been delayed by packed fixture schedule

• Manager says defender may be sold for the right price

Oliver Glasner expects to decide in the coming weeks whether he will sign a new contract at Crystal Palace and has said Marc Guéhi could be sold this month if his “threshold” is met.

Glasner is the bookmakers’ early favourite to be the permanent replacement for Ruben Amorim at Manchester United. The Austrian’s contract expires this summer and the ambitious 51-year-old is understood to be open then to joining United or another big club.

The club are in a decent position but there is dissatisfaction with the ownership and the new head coach must not get caught in the crossfire

The way Chelsea are run will come as no surprise to Liam Rosenior. He has longstanding relationships with three of the five sporting directors and will know from his time at Strasbourg, who are part of the same ownership, that the head coach’s best chance of surviving is not to make the mistake of rebelling against the structure.

Rosenior will have to show more political savvy than Enzo Maresca, who talked himself out of the job last week. Yet given the 41‑year‑old is familiar with the working conditions at BlueCo, the investment vehicle that owns Chelsea and Strasbourg, his biggest challenge is unlikely to be managing upwards. Rosenior will know where to train his focus and not to rock the boat. Crucially, he does not inherit a team in crisis. Chelsea are fifth and earned a creditable draw at Manchester City on Sunday; despite the rancour of Maresca’s final days, this is not a situation that calls for a major rebuild.

Our cartoonist on a typically sedate start to 2026 at two of the Premier League’s biggest football ‘projects’

• But this cartoon | David’s favourite work of 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

Neil Harvey, 97, the last surviving Bradman Invincible, blasts the Bazball experiment from his La-Z-Boy armchair

Twenty‑five kilometres north of the SCG, the world’s oldest living Test cricketer is sitting in his La-Z-Boy armchair and watching the Test. Neil Harvey was once the youngest of Bradman’s Invincibles; now he’s 97, his old cricketing buddies gone. His body is a little worn around the edges, but mentally he’s astute.

Harvey was Australia’s sweetheart, the second youngest of six brothers, a dashing left-hander, who stalked the covers and hunted at slip. During a 15-year Test career, he cut and shimmied to more than 6,000 runs at an average of 48, making his mark with 153 in his second Test. He was a regular at the SCG, attending every Test from 1949 up until four years ago, when, in the words of his son Bruce he “gave up public appearances” and he has very fond memories of the place.

Duo begin 2026 again troubled by physical problems and hoping this will finally be the year things change

From the moment news of Great Britain’s planned team for the United Cup was announced in October, jokes began to fly. On paper, it was a dream. Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, the top tennis players in the country and figureheads of a new generation, finally united on the same side of the court.

However, recent history has shown that things are never straightforward with Britain’s two greatest hopes. Both players have had to navigate injuries and physical problems in their young careers, so to some fans and onlookers the real question was which player would withdraw first. Draper won that race, but on the first day of the 2026 season neither player was physically prepared to take to the court.

Administrators should emulate departing correspondent’s unflinching take on the game and preserve its spirit

He never won an international cap nor played a single minute of professional rugby. So why did a national newspaper devote four and a half pages of its sports section to celebrating him at the weekend? There have been generational British & Irish legends who spawned less coverage than Stephen Jones in recognition of the latter’s 42-year stint as rugby correspondent of the Sunday Times.

Just think about that for a second. Forty-two years of journalistic thunderbolts and lightning, some of it very, very frightening for those in the firing line. One or two world heavyweight champs have landed fewer career knockout punches than our mate Steve dished out in print every week. If you were to compare his writing to one of the players he most admired, it would probably be Martin Johnson: direct, unflinching to the point of obstinacy, fiercely committed to the sport he adored. When individuals of that calibre step aside, they leave a sizeable hole.

Mass demonstrations against compulsory service law have been taking place as Israel’s military tries to solve its manpower shortages

A mass ultra-Orthodox Jewish rally against military conscription turned deadly in Jerusalem on Tuesday, when a teenage boy was crushed and killed after a man driving a bus hit the crowd.

The Israeli police said they detained the driver and are investigating.

Democrats hold hearing to examine impact of January 6, while protesters commemorate attack on Capitol grounds

Congressional Republicans were largely silent on the fifth anniversary of the January 6 insurrection on Tuesday, even as Democrats sought to use the occasion to condemn Donald Trump and a small group of protesters convened on the grounds of the US Capitol in solidarity with those who carried out the attack.

Democrats, who are in the minority in Congress after fruitlessly hoping that the well-documented violence would cause voters to reject Trump for good, seized on the anniversary to decry the president as a threat to democracy, and accuse Republicans of acting as his accomplices.

Heba Muraisi having muscle spasms and Kamran Ahmed losing hearing, with both ‘well into critical phase’

Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners taking part in a hunger strike have shown an alarming deterioration in their health as one of them has entered the third month of refusing food, supporters have said.

Heba Muraisi, 31, who is on day 65 of her hunger strike, is said to be suffering from muscle spasms and breathing problems, while Kamran Ahmed, on day 58, has reported intermittent hearing loss.

Nationwide protests continue to grow as rights groups accuse authorities of cracking down on demonstrators

Iranian security forces have clashed with protesters staging a sit-in at Tehran’s grand bazaar, firing teargas and expelling demonstrators as the nationwide protest movement continued to grow in its 10th day.

The violence on Tuesday at a location that carries historical symbolism as an activist hub during the country’s 1979 revolution comes as rights groups accuse authorities of cracking down on protesters.

Cost-saving plan to transfer Antwerp museum’s entire collection to another city described as ‘simply insane’

Prominent artists have spoken out against an “arbitrary reshaping” of Belgium’s museum landscape, as the Flanders region seeks to cut public spending by dismantling the country’s oldest contemporary art museum and transplanting its entire collection to another city.

At a press conference in Antwerp on Tuesday, the directors of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), which was founded in 1985, decried what they called the “flagrant illegalities” of the museum sector shake-up, which is due to be debated in Belgium’s parliament on Friday.

‘Everybody loses’ if production supercharged in country with largest known oil reserves, critics say

Donald Trump, by dramatically seizing Nicolás Maduro and claiming dominion over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, has taken his “drill, baby, drill” mantra global. Achieving the president’s dream of supercharging the country’s oil production would be financially challenging – and if fulfilled, would be “terrible for the climate”, experts say.

Trump has aggressively sought to boost oil and gas production within the US. Now, after the capture and arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, he is seeking to orchestrate a ramp-up of drilling in Venezuela, which has the largest known reserves of oil in the world – equivalent to about 300bn barrels, according to research firm the Energy Institute.

Every year a Chinese-dominated flotilla big enough to be seen from space pillages the rich marine life on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned part of the South Atlantic off Argentina

In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.”

Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the distant-water fishing fleet – are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea.

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.

Exclusive: From solar subsidies to meat taxes, minority rightwing voices appear to drown out the consensus

“There may have been a silent majority in favour of windfarms and higher petrol taxes, but if there was, these people were mighty quiet. Essentially, all I ever heard from was people objecting to them.” That was the view of a former UK MP who took part in new research that reveals how significantly British and Belgian politicians underestimate the public’s support for climate action.

From solar power and energy efficiency to meat taxes and frequent flyer levies, the politicians consistently failed to appreciate people’s appetite for policies that tackle global heating. The misapprehension has real world consequences: those politicians were less willing to vote for or speak up for those policies, according to the study.

Police leaders defend position after being recalled to give further evidence in second hearing to home affairs committee

Police chiefs facing scrutiny over a decision to ban fans of an Israeli football team from attending a match in Birmingham have insisted the move was not politically influenced.

West Midlands police (WMP) leaders defended their position at the home affairs committee on Tuesday after being recalled to give further evidence over the decision to ban fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a Europa League match against Aston Villa on 6 November.

Problem at water treatment centre left 24,000 Tunbridge Wells homes without drinking water for two weeks

A failure at a water treatment centre that left tens of thousands of Kent households without water was foreseen weeks before it happened and could have been stopped, the regulator has said.

Twenty-four thousand homes in the Tunbridge Wells area were without drinking water for two weeks from 30 November last year due to a failure at the Pembury water treatment centre.

Songsmith’s comments come after his brother Liam stoked rumours Oasis had been courted for the role

Noel Gallagher has said that he would “absolutely” write the theme song for the next James Bond film if asked, saying that doing so would be an honour.

Speaking to TalkSport, the Oasis songwriter revealed that while there had not been any contact between himself and the producers of the franchise, he would leap at the opportunity to contribute music for the film, adding that he thought the theme songs the series was known for should be made by British artists.

European media giant aims to emulate success of sports podcast network Goalhanger, founded by Gary Lineker

The YouTube media business co-founded by Gary Neville has been bought by one of Europe’s biggest commercial radio companies, in the latest sign of the streaming platform’s increasing influence in sports broadcasting.

Global, which already owns the likes of LBC and podcasts including The News Agents, has taken a majority stake in The Overlap, co-founded with Scott Melvin by the former Manchester United defender, who remains one of the channel’s most prominent figures.

Federal law required majority of documents to be released by 19 December, but only 125,575 pages have been published

The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.

The department conceded that only 12,285 documents, totalling 125,575 pages, relating to the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been published to date, despite a federal law requiring the vast majority to be released by 19 December.

Nicolas Féraud says he does not know why bar in Crans-Montana had not been inspected annually, as required by law

Authorities in Crans-Montana have said safety officers had not inspected the bar that caught fire in the Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve, killing 40 mainly young partygoers and injuring more than 100, for the past five years.

“Periodic inspections were not conducted between 2020 and 2025. We bitterly regret this,” the mayor of the town, Nicolas Féraud, told a press conference in the town on Tuesday, five days after the disaster at Le Constellation bar.

Doug Ford’s move comes after Diageo announced plan to shutter Ontario whisky plant and move operations to US

Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, has warned rye drinkers they will need to “stock up” if they want to keep consuming Crown Royal, as he promised to make good on plans to banish the Canadian whisky brand from his province.

Ford has since September been locked in a simmering feud over tariffs and economic nationalism with the multinational spirits maker Diageo. This week, he renewed his threats to wield the power of the province’s liquor control board – one of the largest buyers of alcohol in the world – to banish Crown Royal.

But some argue new ‘Smart Play’ technology undermines the Danish construction toy’s gift for harnessing a child’s own imagination

It may be time to retire that hyperspace zoom noise you perfected while playing with Lego spacecraft. No longer must you “pshww-pshww” to convince your playmate their enemy space station has been doomed by your lasers. “Smart” bricks, with play-sensitive miniature speakers, are being added to the arsenal of the Lego enthusiast in a move the Danish toy giant believes will combine creative play with technology without the need for a screen.

The smart bricks – in the shape of a normal two-by-four Lego brick – are being launched in three Star Wars-themed sets and are powered by a custom-made chip smaller than a single Lego stud. When installed in Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fighter, they make the required “woosh” noises, depending on how the player twists and turns the craft through the air. The hard-to-impersonate bleeps and blips of the droid R2D2 are also replicated.

Jensen Huang also announces at CES new, more powerful Vera Rubin chips that will arrive later this year

The billionaire boss of the chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has unveiled new AI technology that he says will help self-driving cars think like humans to navigate more complex situations.

The world’s most valuable company is to roll out the new technology, Alpamayo, which is designed to help self-driving cars handle tricky situations such as sudden roadworks or unusual driver behaviour on the road, rather than just reacting to previous patterns.

Former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo says progress to AGI is ‘somewhat slower’ than first predicted

A leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions unchecked AI development leading to the creation of a superintelligence, which – after outfoxing world leaders – destroys humanity.

Nicolás Maduro’s seizure by US reopens question of who controls country’s reserves held in the UK

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Deep under London’s streets, thousands of miles from Caracas, Nicolás Maduro’s seizure by the US has reopened a multibillion-dollar question: who controls Venezuela’s gold reserves at the Bank of England?

After the ousting of Maduro, global attention has largely focused on the South American country’s vast oil wealth – believed to be the largest reserves of any nation in the world. However, Venezuela also has significant gold holdings – including bullion worth at least $1.95bn (£1.4bn) frozen in Britain.

The Twelfth Night Reunion gathers some of the grandest names in British theatre, including Simon Callow and Stephen Fry, to explain why Shakespeare’s play continues to bewitch audiences

Many of us decline into our dotage. Actors slip into their anecdotage. Two of the best programmes in the rather arid TV Christmas schedules featured Judi Dench touchingly reminiscing about her love of Shakespeare. The great dame is also one of the glittering ensemble in The Twelfth Night Reunion, a one-off event conceived and hosted by Gyles Brandreth and recorded at the Orange Tree in Richmond, London, a year ago, where a group of actors share their memories of the play.

Now available on YouTube, it is like an upmarket version of The Graham Norton Show with two heart-stopping moments.

The Twelfth Night Reunion is on YouTube

From much-anticipated sequels to music mockumentaries to auteur returns, the next 12 months offers up a wide variety of intriguing new movies

• Doomed lovers, high heels, and The Odyssey: more films to get excited about this year

• The 50 must-see TV shows for 2026

I doubt very much that 2026 will see anything in the Marty Supreme league, but here’s hoping one of the most bizarre side-steps of the decade turns out as interesting as it hopes. Short of Christopher Nolan signing on to the new Mr Men movie, I didn’t think much would throw the industry a loop as when Greta Gerwig decided to follow up bubblegum blockbuster Barbie with …… a Narnia movie. More specifically, Gerwig – previously a skilled purveyor of achingly hip alt-indie comedy with Lady Bird, Frances Ha and Damsels in Distress – is restarting the Narnia series, which had got through three of CS Lewis’s series before Netflix took over the rights. To my mind, though, The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis’s origins/prequel to the Wardrobe/Caspian/Dawn Treader narrative, is the most interesting of the entire Narnia canon, with its Edenic fall, “deplorable word” and mystical apple. We know some of the cast: Emma Mackey is the future White Witch, Carey Mulligan the terminally ill mother of one of the main kids, and Daniel Craig might be Aslan or mad inventor Uncle Andrew – or both, or neither. All eyes will be naturally be on Gerwig, but I have confidence she will pull it off in style. Andrew Pulver

Chloé Zhao’s film version of Maggie O’Farrell’s myth-making novel powerfully reimagines the agonising loss of a child as the source of Hamlet’s grand stage drama

‘The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears …” This is Francis Bacon’s essay Of Parents and Children; maybe they were more secret in his day than ours. This kind of secrecy and revelation is part of Chloé Zhao’s deeply felt romantic fantasy about the origin of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. It locates the play’s beginning in the imagined anguish of Shakespeare and his wife Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway at the death of their son Hamnet at the age of 11 in 1596, a few years before the play’s first performance.

The nearness of the names is not supposed to be some monumental Freudian slip; there is linguistic evidence that the two could be used interchangeably. The movie is inspired by Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel of the same name – Zhao co-wrote the screenplay with O’Farrell – as well as the 2004 essay The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet by literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt. This film succeeds, not because it solves the mystery, but because it deepens it still further. It is contrived and speculative, but ingenious and impassioned at the same time.

There is a need for speed in this new version of the classic quizshow. Plus: the best biscuit to dunk in your cuppa. Here’s what to watch this evening

7.30pm, ITV1
A not entirely necessary fast-paced spin-off of the famous quizshow. Put simply: each question needs to be answered within 15 seconds by whichever of the episode’s six contestants is in the hot seat. There are more specific rules involved that are best explained by host Jeremy Clarkson as he speeds the first game on. Hollie Richardson

Gaudy, plastic and tactile, the series’ second film sums up its manifesto: watching souped-up vehicles drive irresponsibly loudly

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In a 2003 episode of SBS’s The Movie Show, co-hosts Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, stalwarts of the Australian critical landscape, review 2 Fast 2 Furious. Surprising, perhaps, is Margaret’s animated declaration that the film turned her into an “absolute fanatical revhead”, but even funnier is David’s suggestion that he can’t see the Fast and Furious franchise continuing for much longer.

Of course, it’s easy to laugh now: “You naive fool, David – they made eight more, not including the spin-off!” But such ironclad inevitability wasn’t always certain. The first four films were essentially a quartet of reboots – franchise jump-starts that rehashed stories of infiltration and assimilation in the world of street racing. Despite the slew of sequels that resist any sane naming convention, including Fast & Furious, The Fate of the Furious, F9 and Fast X, it’s 2 Fast 2 Furious that has a reputation as the franchise’s ugly duckling, a minor cross-country detour. In actuality, this detachment from the larger enterprise is the film’s strength.

Sex tapes, pottery shards, a man biffed over the head on his private island … this crime drama based on Elizabeth George’s hit novels fires off every Chekhov’s gun imaginable. Plus it has an unusually buff posho. Strap in!

He is a Balliol man, a suave toff in a suit as sharp as his cheekbones. Unusually buff for a posho, but that is because he is played by Leo Suter, who was Harald Hardrada in Vikings: Valhalla until about 10 minutes ago and evidently still has protein shakes to use up.

She is a working-class Norfolk lass (“Swaffham High, Swaffham Tech”) in sturdy boots and a utility vest who is in the last chance saloon, job-wise, because of her habit of mouthing off to her bosses. She is played by Sofia Barclay, best known as Dr O’Sullivan in Ted Lasso but not getting to use her comedy chops here, because you mustn’t be funny in front of Balliol men. They find it damn confusing and have to be taken off for a lie down.

Barbican, London
On what would have been Alfred Brendel’s 95th birthday, some of the world’s greatest musicians performed in a relaxed and joyous celebration of an outstanding musician and benevolent mentor

Pianist, poet and polymath, at once one of music’s most rigorous intellectuals and most mischievous minds – Alfred Brendel, who died in June, was an artist of fruitful contradictions. This marathon concert, on what would have been his 95th birthday, celebrated them with warm affection.

The music reflected Brendel’s own passions, skewing towards the classical repertoire. It began with Haydn’s Representation of Chaos from The Creation; but the evening’s punchlines came later. The orchestra, an ad hoc group of Brendel’s colleagues, proteges and friends, included leading orchestral and chamber musicians – and, in the case of Brett Dean, a composer reverting to his former viola-player persona. They were enthusiastically responsive to Simon Rattle’s conducting, leaning in to surges of sound or dropping back to the softest pianissimos.

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.

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.

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Ever since my father presented me with a copy of The Unicorn, beautifully translated into my mother tongue, I have been an ardent admirer of Iris Murdoch’s. I went on to read all of her novels, plays and poetry with great enthusiasm. Before Christmas, I returned to her penultimate novel, The Green Knight, having remembered very little of it. Yet from the very first page, I was reminded why I have always loved her work so deeply: the prose is rich, precise, disciplined and meticulously detailed; the many characters are so vividly rendered that none appears two-dimensional; each experiences and processes reality in a way that feels distinct and unmistakably individual; and the pacing of events feels perfectly judged. Although the novel is threaded with philosophical reflections on goodness and love, these never feel laboured or artificially imposed. Rather, they emerge naturally as an integral part of the novel’s dense and intricate tapestry.

Young women drawn to ‘morally grey characters’ are driving a boom sparked by TikTok, Instagram and online friendships

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In a packed room in Sydney, an excited crowd riffles through stacks of stickers and bookmarks searching for their favourite characters. Another group flicks through racks of clothing, pulling out T-shirts that say “romance readers club” and “probably reading about fairies”.

A poster on the wall, with tear-off tabs, invites visitors to take what they need: a love triangle, a love confession mid-dragon battle, a morally grey man or a cowboy.

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From Duolingo to GDP, how an obsession with keeping score can subtly undermine human flourishing

Two years ago, I started learning Japanese on Duolingo. At first, the daily accrual of vocabulary was fun. Every lesson earned me experience points – a little reward that measured and reinforced my progress.

But something odd happened. Over time, my focus shifted. As I climbed the weekly leaderboards, I found myself favouring lessons that offered the most points for the least effort. Things came to a head when I passed an entire holiday glued to my phone, repeating the same 30-second Kanji lesson over and over like a pigeon pecking a lever, ignoring my family and learning nothing.

This quietly satirical speculative novel tells a story of metamorphosis, but feels insulated from real ecological crisis

In the book-length essay Death By Landscape, Elvia Wilk gives a potted history of fiction in which humans turn into plants. There is Daphne, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, who is so afraid she will be raped by Apollo that she begs her father to transform her into a laurel tree. More recently, in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, brutalised Yeong-hye refuses food and takes root. Wilk argues that, in these stories and others, “a woman implants herself in despair, but also protest”.

Rhett Davis’s Arborescence – an even-tempered, quietly satirical speculative novel – tells a story of cross-species transformation at scale. The narrator is a man, Bren, who at the outset is dismissive of unverified reports of “people standing around believing they’re trees”. His partner, Caelyn, is curious and undaunted. She drags him out for a hike. “I’m not sure I like forests,” he complains. “I don’t like that part of The Lord of the Rings at all. It’s really terrifying.”

New mind-bending puzzlers, landmark RPGs and furry multiverse adventures await you as the PlayStation 5 enters its sixth year

Entering its sixth year, the PlayStation 5 has built up a formidable library of epic adventures, button-pummelling shooters and even the odd cutesy platformer. So whether you’ve owned the machine for years or only just entered the current console generation, here are 15 titles we think you should have in your PlayStation collection.

‘There was no animation software in those days. So I videotaped my brother David running, jumping and climbing in a car park’

Programming was very open back in the 1980s. You had to teach yourself, either from magazines, or by swapping tips. When you wrote a video game, you submitted it on a floppy disk to a publisher, like a book manuscript. In my freshman year at Yale university, I sent Deathbounce, an Asteroids-esque game for the Apple II computer, to Broderbund, my favourite games company. They rejected it, but took my next effort, Karateka, a side-scrolling beat-’em-up.

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

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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

Barbican Hall, London
In a programme of early 20th- and 21st-century music, it was in the contemporary works that the new cohort of teenagers were most impressive

It’s rare to hear an orchestra’s first public performance. It’s even rarer when that performance takes place barely a week after the players first met. But that’s the seemingly impossible ask for the teenagers of the National Youth Orchestra, whose annual cycle begins in earnest just after Christmas, building up to a three-city UK tour before term. It’s a bracing start to the year for anyone whose post-festive achievements have been largely sofa-based.

Indeed, 2026’s Shimmer programme is less festive glow than urban heat-haze, inviting us into the sun-bleached Spanish streetscapes of Debussy and Ravel, wriggling with dances, festivals and life.

Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London
A revival of the Wicked composer’s 70s medieval-quest musical brings magic and joy but malevolence is missing

Once upon a time, long before Wicked became a musical and two movie blockbusters, its composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz wrote this eccentric picaresque about the restless son of the Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne. Schwartz was 24 when it became a Broadway hit in 1972 but many of the evergreen lyrics reveal an old soul. “Cats fit on the window sill, children fit in the snow,” observes its eponymous hero. “So why do I feel I don’t fit in anywhere I go?”

Pippin’s framing as a musical erected by a band of travelling players fits this fringe venue well. The stage is sparsely decorated and the arriving performers offer a ramshackle narrative conjured from – and constantly on the verge of vanishing into – thin air, thanks to tricks from magic consultant Martin T Hart in a production directed and choreographed by Amanda Noar.

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.

When the Canadian comedian first arrived in the UK, she says she was instantly poor. But her career soon began to take off. She discusses provocation, perfectionism and telling people her secrets

‘Especially in this country, I think you needed me. You didn’t realise it but you needed me, to lift some of your own shame.” Katherine Ryan, the 42-year-old Canadian comedian who has made her home in the UK for nearly 20 years, has brought her newly minted fourth child, Holland, to the Guardian offices and the baby is lying in a little blanket-nest on the table. Ryan whips off her breast pumps so they don’t make an annoying sound, but I hadn’t noticed the noise, as I was distracted by how adorable the baby is. The first thing you notice is the awesome capability of this woman, who can fully beam maternal love while crafting sequential thoughts in whole sentences, and never get distracted by anything.

The second thing you notice is what she’s famous for – a natural, unaffected ballsiness, a rejection of artifice and contradiction. When she sprang on to the UK alternative comedy scene in 2008, her provocation was that she was very good-looking and didn’t pretend not to know it. “Trying to be glamorous or pretty was seen as man-pleasing,” she recalls of the early 2010s, “which was the opposite of what a funny person would do. It was a trend to be self-deprecating. If you went on stage in a glamorous outfit with your little push-up bra and heels, like, ‘I think I’m stunning,’ that would be seen as really off-putting, but I did it because that’s what I liked.”

Netflix’s big-screen release of the Stranger Things finale is estimated to have made over $25m at the US box office, the latest example of event cinema proving popular

It was a lucrative holiday period at the North American box office these past two weeks, with titles like Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Housemaid, Marty Supreme, Anaconda and Zootopia 2 bringing a welcome diversity of hit movies after an underwhelming fall. But during that period, the biggest single-day gross posted by any release wasn’t really a gross – or a movie. It was the series finale of the Netflix TV show Stranger Things.

Netflix made a deal to put the feature-length episode in theaters simultaneously with its streaming debut, and estimates put the numbers for the 24 hours’ worth of shows, beginning at 8pm on New Year’s Eve and continuing throughout New Year’s Day, around $25m. That’s bigger than any single day of Avatar: Fire and Ash after its opening weekend. In fact, if the Stranger Things release banked over $30m, as some estimated, that would make it the second-biggest 24 hours for any release in December, beaten only by Avatar 3’s opening day.

From a thriving miniature city inside a Cairo cemetery to a goat sacrifice in Nigeria, the photojournalist’s eye-opening images are celebrated in a new book

•Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

He’s written screen smashes like Dune and Killers of the Flower Moon. As Eric Roth plunges into theatre, he talks about classic westerns, being sacked by Robert Redford – and why writing for Martin Scorsese is a dream

Eric Roth chuckles into his bristly silver beard when I refer to him as the new kid on the block, but that doesn’t make it any less true. His debut play, an adaptation of the 1952 western High Noon, is about to receive its world premiere, and the fact that he turned 80 last year is neither here nor there. “Maybe I’m the old new kid on the block,” he concedes from his home in Los Angeles. His baseball cap bears a picture of a typewriter, as though there could be any doubt that he has writing on the brain.

Admittedly, Roth is more experienced than the typical first-timer. Behind him lies not so much a hinterland of a career as an imposing mountain range, all of it in movies. He won an Oscar in 1995 for writing Forrest Gump: he’s the one you can credit (or blame) for lines such as: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

Taking umbrella testing to the extreme; organisational hacks for the new year; and Jess Cartner-Morley’s January essentials

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How naive I was, during the car journey to Mam Tor, to wonder whether it would be windy enough for testing umbrellas on this Peak District hill’s 517-metre summit.

It was blowing a gale – or more accurately, a “near gale”, if weather apps are to be believed – and the three of us who rendezvoused at the triangulation point could barely stand in one place.

Jess Cartner-Morley’s January style essentials: from posh slippers to French-Girl hairpins

‘Will save on money and arguments’: 21 home organisation hacks for shared households

The best concealers: eight favourites for camouflaging blemishes and dark circles – tested

‘Extraordinary – a great alcohol alternative’: the best supermarket kombuchas, tasted and rated

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.

See how quickly giving up treats will help you hit a target – and a trick that can speed it up

• New year money: 26 tools and apps to help you sort your finances in 2026

As Tuesday marks the official end of the Christmas season, it is time to start thinking about those new year resolutions in earnest.

Savings are at the heart of many people’s pledges – whether it’s building up an emergency fund to cover disasters, or putting money aside for a short- or long-term goal. Cutting down on unnecessary spending is another popular promise.

They can hurt more than broken bones or pancreatitis. But with the right drugs and therapies, relief is possible from this debilitating and often misunderstood condition

It was a dreary Monday morning in September 2016, and I was working as a teacher, trying to settle a new year 7 class, when a sharp pain bloomed behind my right eye. It was followed by quick jolts, like electric shocks. As each class came and went, the pain eased and then returned with greater intensity. Four times that day I left a teaching assistant with worksheets and ran to the school bathroom to douse my face with cold water. I took ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin, but the pain remained unbearable.

The headaches appeared repeatedly that autumn, and again in spring, and soon formed an annual pattern. September and October were the worst, then February and March. I could predict the routine: aura in the shower, early twinges on the train, full-blown agony in class by 9.30am. In late 2019, a GP finally referred me to a neurologist and I was diagnosed with cluster headaches.

Top tips from a roster of experienced curry-makers, from adding a dollop of yoghurt to experimenting with pastes

I want to make more vegetarian curries, but most call for a tin of coconut milk and I’m trying to cut down on saturated fats. What can I use instead?
Jill, via email
Coconut milk brings silkiness and sweet richness to curries, and also mellows spices, so any substitute will likely change the nature of the dish. That said, if you really want to avoid the white stuff, Karan Gokani, author of Indian 101, would simply replace it with vegetable stock. Another easy swap (if you’re not averse to dairy) is yoghurt, says John Chantarasak, chef and co-owner of AngloThai in London, which is handy, because “that’s normally hanging about in the fridge”.

Not all curries involve coconut milk, however, and it’s these that perhaps offer a better solution to Jill’s conundrum. “Once you get past that idea, you go into two realms,” says Sirichai Kularbwong of Thai restaurant Singburi in London, by which he means wet and dry curries. The latter involve frying curry paste (“usually containing dried chillies”) and seasoning with fish sauce (“in Jill’s case, a vegan fish sauce”), tamarind and sugar. “The consistency of the sauce is never thin, and you pair it with root vegetables and flat beans, and eat alongside rice,” he adds. Meanwhile, a favourite wet curry that doesn’t call for coconut milk is gaeng om, made with “a simple curry paste of garlic, chillies and lemongrass boiled with good veg stock and seasoned with vegan fish sauce”. Veg-wise, to that base you’d typically add pumpkin, mushrooms, maybe pak choi.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Served with mustard aïoli, crisp chickpeas and a quick-pickled red onion and parsley salad, these root veg fritters make a satisfying dish that’s ideal for a weekend brunch

I’m a sucker for a rösti, and I truly believe it makes the best breakfast, brunch – or any meal, really. This one leans into the amazing varieties of root vegetables we have at our disposal, and it is especially stunning when layered and presented with all of the other elements: a bold mustard aïoli, crisp curried chickpeas, and an easy parsley and red onion salad that is quick-pickled to provide an acidic finish to a satisfying dish.

Ferment: Simple Ferments and Pickles, and How to Eat Them, by Kenji Morimoto, is published by Pan Macmillan at £22. To order a copy for £19.80, visit the guardianbookshop.com

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

An inviting combination of bright, warming flavours, all in a single tin

A brilliant, warming 30-minute traybake, all in one tin. I love the combination of roast sweet potatoes with crumbled feta and a bright, fresh pesto; adding butter beans to the mix brings another hit of protein, as well as getting more legumes into your diet – win-win! A jar or tin of chickpeas would work just as well, if that’s what you have in, and feel free to substitute the parsley for other soft herbs, should you wish.

Bored, lonely and emerging from lockdown, a less-traditional relationship was just what I was looking for

We were just two midlifers in our 50s who met back in 2020 using a popular dating app. Bored, lonely and emerging from lockdown we jumped at the chance for an outing. We had our first date at a trendy, dimly-lit Japanese restaurant and bar in Sydney’s Surry Hills. By our second lychee martini, we became aware of some mutual connections that we knew and discovered that we had actually grown up in the same place.

There was an immediate feeling of familiarity and a shared sense of humour that clicked without effort. We were in no rush for anything too serious. In fact, it would take another five outings, including antique-trawling for some 70s-inspired crockery, before things would develop into more of a romantic connection.

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

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.

The firm that is holding the files has gone out of business, and complaining may take months

My dad died in July in harrowing circumstances. Our probate application was close to being finalised by our solicitor.

Then this month we received an email from the solicitor, Samuel Phillips Law, to say it had ceased trading. No explanation was given.

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.

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.

The boundaries between work and leisure are being blurred, but it’s vital for your health to learn how to turn off. Whether you do your job from home or not, here’s how to reset and reclaim your private time

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Marilyn Monroe once said: “A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.” Only these days, you can. The march of technology, the rise of hybrid and remote working, and an increasing culture of presenteeism (working longer than contractually required, or when sick) have blurred the boundaries between work and leisure.

Research by Business in the Community (BITC), a UK-based responsible business network, shows that 55% of employees feel pressed to respond to calls or check emails outside work, while high workloads drive two in five to work overtime. Yet switching off from work when you aren’t working (psychological detachment, to give it its scientific name) is vital not just for your health, but for productivity.

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.

Water bottles are the ‘perfect environment for bacteria to grow’ – as we’ve seen from the horror pics on social media. Follow these steps to stay clean

Environmentally friendly and convenient, reusable water bottles are on the rise. But on social media, people seem confused about how to clean them, and post horrifying pictures of mold growing inside.

Water sourced from a municipal water supply is likely very clean, explains Kelly Reynolds at the University of Arizona, who studies water quality and disease transmission.

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.

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.

This 14-mile section of the Sandstone Trail crosses an ancient landscape of hills, woods and ridges, bookended by two fine old inns

Deep in the heartland of rural Cheshire, there’s a wind-scoured ridge of sandstone that hides a two-storey cave known as Mad Allen’s Hole. Here, on the flanks of Bickerton Hill, it is said that in the 18th century a heartbroken man called John Harris of Handley lived as a hermit for several decades.

As locations to weather the storm of romantic trauma go, this – I mused as I stood above it on a crisp winter’s day – certainly takes some beating. Offering a panorama of nine counties of England and Wales from its entrance, I could spy the white disc of Jodrell Bank Observatory glistening in the sunlight, while the peaks and troughs of the Clwydian range appeared like a watermark in the distance.

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.

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.

Inkpen, Berkshire: The felted mouse choir, the sleeping fawn … a lot of it has meaning to us. At least the greenery goes up in a blaze of glory

By the time you read this, we’ll be taking down the Christmas decorations. I don’t like to let them go. I love the mischief of the days and nights over Christmastide. They sit outside ordinary time, disappearing and extending of their own accord. I enjoy the historical ambiguity over when Twelfth Night falls: the 5th, or this night? I don’t want to be pressed by traditions or superstitions, making up my own ways to say goodbye to the festive period – yet still, I’m wary of them.

We used to cut our tree from the estate we lived on, but in recent years we’ve chosen one from Willis Farm, high on the downs, where they’re grown sustainably, with wildlife in mind. Ours is a colourful tree. Each bauble has meaning and I’m sorry to see them go. Some are from childhood; a treasured wooden goose, and a beaver nestled in a walnut shell, came from a Christmas shop in Banff, Alberta, bought on a day off from ranching in 1989.

Repurposing old potting mix can be good for the plant and the planet – but how do you know whether to re-use or replace?

The problem
Repotting often leaves you staring at a pile of old potting mix and wondering: “Should it go in the bin, the garden, or back into another pot?” Reusing soil feels thrifty and sustainable, but tired potting mix can contain compacted roots, harbour pests and be drained of nutrients. So how do you know when to refresh and when to replace?

The hack
Old soil isn’t always bad soil. Most potting mixes lose structure and nutrition over time, but they can often be revived with a bit of care. If the mix smells musty, contains mould or has signs of fungus gnats, it’s best to discard it. But if it’s dry, healthy and crumbly, you can usually bring it back to life.

We are often so busy and yet when the opportunity arises to do nothing, we can find it uncomfortable. Here’s how to lean into boredom – and unlock the imagination

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On a rainy afternoon last weekend, plans got cancelled and I found myself at a loose end. Given that I’m someone who likes to have backup plans for my backup plans, my initial response was panic. Now what? I wandered aimlessly from room to room, grumpily tidying away random items.

Noticing for the first time in weeks that most of my houseplants were critically ill, I decided to give them a spa day. I moved the worst cases to a south-facing windowsill and painstakingly removed the (many) dead leaves. For good measure, I organised a triage box containing plant food, a mister and a watering can. I might have got carried away and ordered a “beautifying leaf shine” too.

The solution to today’s puzzle

Earlier today I set the following puzzle, a pre-commemoration of World Logic Day on January 14. Here it is again with the solution.

Middle management

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

Most people join social movements to try to change the world, but many also find community and a greater sense of purpose

When Lani Ritter Hall’s beloved husband of more than 40 years, Gus, died in 2022, she felt a bit unmoored. Taking care of him had been the thing that got her out of bed in the morning, and with him gone, the 76-year-old felt she’d lost her purpose.

That is, until she found organizing.

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”.

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.”

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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