A child is born: Italians celebrate village’s first baby in 30 years

Feted birth of bambina Lara in Pagliara dei Marsi highlights sticky national debate over country’s ‘demographic winter’

In Pagliara dei Marsi, an ancient rural village on the slopes of Mount Girifalco in Italy’s Abruzzo region, cats vastly outnumber people.

They weave through the narrow streets, wander in and out of homes, and stretch out on walls overlooking the mountains. Their purrs are a consistent hum in the quiet that has come with decades of population decline.

Published: December 26, 2025, 10:00 am

The secrets of the body clock: how to tune into your natural rhythms – and have a better day

Our circadian cycle doesn’t just affect our sleeping and waking, but our motivations, mood, behaviour and alertness. Whether you are a lark or an owl, here’s how to recognise your own rhythm

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It’s easy to hate clocks. Their unstoppable forward churn wakes us up and shames us for running late. They are a constant reminder that every enjoyable moment, just like life itself, is ephemeral. But even if we rounded up all our time-telling devices and buried them deep in the earth, we could never escape clocks. Because we are one.

We don’t need to have studied the intricacies of circadian rhythms to know that we are ravenous at certain times and not others, that the mid-afternoon slump is real, and if we party until 4am we’re unlikely to sleep for eight hours afterwards, because the body clock has no sympathy for hangovers. But to better understand this all-encompassing daily cycle is to truly know our animal selves.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:00 am

‘Bob Odenkirk called to check on me after he saw it’: Rhea Seehorn on the intensity of making hit show Pluribus

The star has hit the big time as a total grump in her new Apple TV drama – no mean feat, given how delightful she is. She talks Lego therapy, freaking out her Better Call Saul co-star and her frustration with the Guardian crossword

Rhea Seehorn has had a hell of a year. For years she had garnered a reputation as a great underappreciated talent, but that has all changed now thanks to Pluribus. A series about one of the only people on Earth not to have their minds taken over by an alien virus, Pluribus is not only critically adored, but recently became Apple TV’s most-watched show. And Seehorn is front and centre through it all. However, today she has bigger things on her mind.

“You gotta tell me how to crack the code,” she pleads before we’ve even said hello. “I’m an avid crossword puzzler, but I cannot beat the Guardian crossword. I cannot crack it, and I need to figure out what the problem is.”

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:00 am

‘It’s all about love’: how a Swiss photographer’s intimate honeymoon pictures caused a scandal

René Groebli took portraits of Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney and pioneered new modes of photography. But it was his tender, erotic pictures taken in a Paris hotel room in the 50s that really caused a stir

In 1952, two young honeymooners checked into a small hotel in Montparnasse. An everyday story in the City of Light, perhaps. But the Swiss photographer René Groebli and his wife, Rita Dürmüller, spent their time in Paris cocooned in their room producing a series of photographs – sensual, intimate, enigmatic – that would first shock then beguile viewers, works that can now be seen in a new exhibition in Zurich.

In the honeymoon pictures, Groebli’s camera traces Dürmüller’s movements – as a shirt drops from her shoulders, the turn of her neck – which, he explains, was a deliberate “artistic approach not only to intensify the depiction of reality but to make visible the emotional involvement of my wife and of me.” Dürmüller is often nude, but not solely, and never explicitly posed. It is clear that she is playing with her husband, that this is fun. And we explore their shared space: the bed curved like a cello, the windows with their opaque lace curtains. There is one graceful snap of Dürmüller hanging up her laundry like a ballerina at a barre.

Published: December 26, 2025, 7:00 am

Our king, priest and feudal lord – how AI is taking us back to the dark ages | Joseph de Weck

Since the Enlightenment, we’ve been making our own decisions. But now AI may be about to change that

This summer, I found myself battling through traffic in the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat told me to turn right toward a spot known for its fish soup. But the navigation app Waze instructed us to go straight. Tired, and with the Renault feeling like a sauna on wheels, I followed Waze’s advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A trivial moment, maybe. But one that captures perhaps the defining question of our era, in which technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives: who do we trust more – other human beings and our own instincts, or the machine?

Joseph de Weck is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:00 am

My weirdest Christmas: on Boxing Day I vomited in the sink – and began to suspect I had a mysterious condition

At first I thought my spinning head and nausea were symptoms of a hangover. But could they be connected to a documentary I had made on Havana syndrome?

Waking foggy-headed and with the room spinning on 26 December is surely not an uncommon condition. Who among us hasn’t felt the effects of overindulgence on Christmas Day?

These were my immediate thoughts when I rose in such a state in my parents’ house in Dublin two years ago. An hour later, the room continued its relentless swirl, nausea was building and it was becoming hard to stand. So far, so Christmas hangover. I remained in bed and waited for things to blow over. They didn’t. Gradually, family members stuck their heads into my childhood bedroom and wondered if everything was OK. I could only say that I felt quite strange.

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:00 am

Nigeria provided US with intelligence for strikes on Islamist militants, says foreign minister – US politics live

Yusuf Tuggar says strikes against group accused by Donald Trump of attacking Christian communities will be an ‘ongoing process’

• Explained: Why has Trump ordered strikes in Nigeria?

Nigerians across Sokoto state told of their shock at Christmas Day strikes by the United States.

Agence France-Presse spoke to people around Jabo town, who said that their area was sometimes a target of armed “bandit” gangs and jihadists, but was not a stronghold for the groups.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:25 pm

Zelenskyy to meet Trump soon as US continues to push for Ukraine peace deal

Meeting to follow flurry of talks among US, Russian and Ukrainian envoys, but Putin shows few signs of softening demands

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to travel to the US in the coming days for a key meeting with Donald Trump, as Washington continues to push for a possible peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow.

The Ukrainian president announced the visit on Friday in a social media post, saying he had received a briefing from Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, on new contacts with US officials.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:32 pm

US judge blocks Trump administration from deporting UK anti-disinformation campaigner

Imran Ahmed of Center for Countering Digital Hate files complaint against senior Trump allies

A US judge has blocked US authorities from detaining or deporting a British anti-disinformation campaigner who is among five European nationals targeted by the Trump administration because of moves to push back against hate speech and misinformation.

Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), filed a complaint on Thursday against senior Trump allies including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, in an attempt to prevent what he says would be an unconstitutional arrest and removal.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:24 am

How an ex-US Marine became vital in the fight against Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement

When Trump began deploying troops to US cities, Janessa Goldbeck’s Vet Voice Foundation was ready – now they’re preparing for what may be next

Whatever the worst case scenario, Janessa Goldbeck has probably imagined it. In 2023 the US Marine veteran consulted on a documentary that war-gamed a presidential candidate staging a military coup. Last year she advised local leaders on the hypothetical of troops being deployed to their streets for immigration enforcement.

Then Donald Trump won and Goldbeck’s nightmare came true.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

US voters linking climate crisis to rising bills despite Trump’s ‘green scam’ claims

New polling shows 65% of registered US voters believe global heating is affecting cost of living

Most Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.

About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:30 pm

Pig organ transplants could one day be superior to human ones, says expert

Surgeon leading xenotransplantation trial aimed at solving shortage of human organs says edits can lessen risk of rejection

A leading surgeon behind a clinical trial of transplanting pig kidneys into living humans has said they could one day be superior to those from human donors.

Dr Robert Montgomery, the director of NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute, said the first transplant of the trial had already been carried out, with another expected to take place in January. Six patients are initially expected to receive the pig organs, which have been gene-edited in 10 places to reduce rejection by the human body.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

Japan’s cabinet approves record defence budget amid escalating China tensions

Japanese strike-back capabilities and coastal defences to be boosted while Beijing accuses Tokyo of fuelling a ‘space arms race’

Japan’s cabinet has approved a record high defence budget as tensions with China continue to spiral, with Beijing this week accusing Tokyo of “fuelling a space arms race”.

The draft defence budget for the next fiscal year – approved on Friday – is more than ¥9tn ($58bn) and 9.4% bigger than the previous budget, which will end in April. The increase comes in the fourth year of Japan’s five-year program to double its annual arms spending to 2% of GDP.

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:16 am

Brown shooting suspect: gruelling academic climate may have taken mental toll, say ex-classmates

Cláudio Valente and one of victims, Nuno FG Loureiro, both studied at notoriously challenging Técnico in Lisbon

As investigators in Massachusetts work to piece together a motive for the murders of two Brown University students and an MIT physics professor, former classmates of the suspected gunman and one of the victims have been asking if the roots of the tragedy lie in their shared experience at a top university in Portugal.

The suspected gunman, Cláudio Valente, and one of those killed, Nuno FG Loureiro, studied at the prestigious and notoriously challenging University of Lisbon engineering and technology school, known locally as Técnico, both graduating in 2000.

Published: December 26, 2025, 8:00 am

Unpublished ‘Tupperware erotica’ novel prompts fierce contest for TV rights

Interest in Wet Ink by Abigail Avis is part of a trend for works by female authors among streamers and production companies

A much-hyped novel about a housewife who uses Tupperware parties to secretly smuggle erotic stories to her friends and neighbours is causing a stir in the television world, igniting a fierce bidding contest over the right to adapt it for the small screen.

Wet Ink, a novel by the 33-year-old London-based author Abigail Avis, is not scheduled to be published until the spring 2027, but industry insiders said a fierce auction between six major production companies had already taken place for the TV rights.

Published: December 26, 2025, 8:36 am

‘Loyalty over all’: Trump was once known for constantly switching out his staff. Not anymore

President’s professed satisfaction with his cabinet may be a reflection of how difficult it would be to get a replacement confirmed

For more than a decade he built his brand on two words: “You’re fired!” And in his first term in the White House, Donald Trump did not hesitate to show his staff the door, often via an abrasive tweet.

But since resuming the US presidency in January, Trump, the former host of the reality TV show The Apprentice, appears to have become an uncharacteristically bashful boss, more disposed to hiring than firing.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:00 pm

‘Not the charmed industry it once was’: can Hollywood find its comeback story?

After the writers’ and actors’ strikes, the pandemic, and structural shifts in technology, LA’s trying to find its footing in a changed industry

The veteran Hollywood cinematographer Bruce McCleery knows all about Los Angeles’s struggles to maintain its dominance in the entertainment industry, because for most of the past 16 years he has lived on the road, never short of work but unable to land a major job within striking distance of his home and family in southern California.

It’s an increasingly common experience for many successful professionals in Hollywood who are hired by studios and production houses still largely based in Los Angeles, but do the actual work in Atlanta, or Toronto, or London, or Budapest.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘Cocaine, gold and meat’: how Colombia’s Amazon became big business for crime networks

Armed groups have moved in to the space left by the Farc after the civil war, cutting down rainforest to control land and build thousands of kilometres of smuggling routes

High above the Colombian Amazon, Rodrigo Botero peers out of a small aircraft as the rainforest canopy unfolds below – an endless sea of green interrupted by stark, widening patches of brown. As director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), he has spent years mapping the transformation of this fragile landscape from the air.

His team has logged more than 150 overflights, covering 30,000 miles (50,000km) to track deforestation advancing along the roads, illicit crops and the shifting frontiers of human settlement. “We now have the highest road density in the entire Amazon,” says Botero.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:00 pm

Conservative and Christian? US right champions psychedelic drugs

Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSD

For half a century, psychedelics largely belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, one of the most politically consequential psychedelic drugs in the US – ibogaine – is being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans, and big tech billionaires.

Many of them see ibogaine, an intense psychedelic derived from a central African rootbark, as a divine technology. In fact, some pointedly do not refer to it as a psychedelic, given the apparent baggage of the term in some circles.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:00 pm

My big night out: I danced alone in a nightclub – and realised I could make my own good time

I had gone out with friends to mark the end of university, and one by one they disappeared. With the music throbbing, I learned I could be comfortable in my own company

Between the ages of 16 and 21, the big night out wasn’t just a hobby, it was a calling. Getting together with friends, getting drunk, being blasted by music, meeting new friends in the smoking area, getting more drunk, somehow making it home eight hours later – these were things I excelled at, the precious moments where I could try to lose myself and avoid the anxiety that inevitably came with daybreak.

The escapism wasn’t just selfish fun. It felt like a necessary avoidance of reality, which for me consisted of having a mother with a terminal illness who would die when I was 19, leaving me at university to cope with my grief. Going out, dancing and chatting rubbish to friends was one way to survive.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:00 pm

What happened next: The We Do Not Care Club – how a funny, furious feminist movement began

Melani Sanders was frazzled and sleep-deprived, and wondered whether other menopausal women were going through the same thing. So she put her feelings on camera. The answer was immediate ...

If you’re a woman of a certain age with a phone, you’ve probably seen one of Melani Sanders’ We Do Not Care Club posts. In a fleecy dressing gown with reading glasses hanging off her like Christmas tree baubles, a sleep mask wonkily on her forehead, Sanders stares deadpan at the camera. “We are putting the world on notice that we simply do not care much any more,” she says. She uncaps a highlighter with her teeth, spitting the lid out of shot, then starts flatly listing stuff members of the We Do Not Care Club, her virtual community of menopausal women, don’t care about. “We do not care we have to go to therapy weekly; you are probably the reason we are there.” “We do not care if we asked you the question 13 times. We do not remember the answer; say it again.” “We do not care if you realise we are not wearing a bra: this, my friend, is freedom.”

Sanders laughs when I show her over Zoom (she’s in West Palm Beach, Florida) the highlighter tucked into my bra strap in her honour. Since she first suggested starting a “we do not care club” on 13 May 2025, it has become more than a series of brilliantly funny videos about how the midlife hormonal rollercoaster leaves women bereft of fucks to give. It is a worldwide sisterhood of 2.2 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on TikTok. But when Sanders, 45, sat frazzled and sleep-deprived in her car, fetching the supplements that kept her (somewhat) sane since entering surgically induced perimenopause, she was wondering if she was alone. Pre-hysterectomy, she was a perfectionist, running her home, family and life with military precision; no more. Her sports bra was skew-whiff; her hair dishevelled. “I said: ‘Melani, you really just don’t care any more … Is it just a me thing? I just hit record.’”

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:00 am

My weirdest Christmas: it was our first year in Sweden – but I insisted on having a big British celebration

When my family emigrated to Malmö, I wanted to stick to our traditions, but my husband was keen to embrace the local customs. Why were we butting heads?

It was 3pm on Christmas Eve and already getting dark. As I stripped off on a wooden pier over the Baltic Sea in Malmö, Sweden, my husband and five-year-old boy, bundled up against the harsh wind, chanted: “Go Mummy, go Mummy, go Mummy!” Just as I was about to heroically slither out of my final layer, a bearded, completely naked man, who can only be described as Viking-esque, ascended the wooden ladder from the sea, looked at me with horror and possibly hypothermia in his eyes and shook his head. I put my five layers of clothing back on and, feeling deflated, suggested we crack open the Thermos. I knew I had failed at Swedish Christmas.

My family and I emigrated to Sweden from the UK last winter, and while the days seemed impossibly short and dark, we were buoyed up by optimism, glögg (Swedish mulled wine) studded with almonds and raisins, and our new city, scattered with fairy lights. However, as the advent countdown began, a cold front harsher than the Baltic Sea swept through our cosy new home. My husband wanted to be “more Swedish than the Swedes”; I wanted some familiar traditions to pass on to my son. And so, December became a period of friendly but fierce negotiations.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘Like Kafka by way of Pedro Almodóvar’: 10 debut novels to look out for in 2026

A Pulitzer finalist is among the first-time novelists, in tales of love, a surreal prison, teen murder and a tradwife

Belgrave Road
Manish Chauhan (Faber, January)
An affecting tale of loneliness and love in Chauhan’s home town of Leicester, Belgrave Road tells the story of Mira, newly arrived in the UK from India following an arranged marriage, and Tahliil, a Somali cleaner who becomes her lunch partner, and her escape. By day, Chauhan is a finance lawyer; his debut novel follows his shortlisting in last year’s BBC short story competition.

This Is Where the Serpent Lives
Daniyal Mueenuddin (Bloomsbury, January)
The Pakistani-American writer’s 2009 story collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, was a Pulitzer finalist. Like his debut, hHis first novel is set in Pakistan, moving between bustling cities and agricultural estates, interrogating the country’s class dynamics through an epic portrait spanning six decades.

Published: December 26, 2025, 7:00 am

Nick Cave, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rami Malek, CMAT and more! The best Guardian portraits of 2025 – in pictures

Whether it was pop stars, athletes and Hollywood A-listers baring all or real-life heroes and fearless campaigners … Guardian photographers captured the people behind this year’s biggest stories and most revealing profiles

Published: December 26, 2025, 8:30 am

In Gaza we’re trapped in an endless maze of waiting – for peace, for the deaths to stop and for our lives to begin again | Aya Al-Hattab

A ceasefire was announced on 10 October. But despite ‘peace’ being on the lips of world leaders ever since, we Palestinians are still under siege and afraid

Here in Gaza we hear the word “peace” constantly – even more often than we hear the roar of warplanes or the thuds of shelling. It appears on television screens, in the statements of world leaders, in promises repeated again and again. Every country claims to want peace for Palestinians. Yet have we ever lived it for a single day? The truth is that we have not.

We are now living under a ceasefire, or at least that is what the US and the rest of the world have been telling us. But in Gaza, we haven’t felt it at all. It was announced on 10 October, amid great celebrations in Sharm el-Sheikh. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 360 Palestinians, including about 70 children, in Gaza. Because of the explosions I keep hearing, I am still afraid to leave the house. We are trapped in an endless maze of waiting: for the suffering to stop, for our lives to begin again and above all, for the death to end.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

The hill I will die on: Washing-up bowls are horrible and should be banned | Jason Hazeley

These unhygienic, offensive lumps of plastic do everything the sink does, and less. It’s time to get rid

When I was a kid, our TV was in a television cabinet. For those unfamiliar with this preposterous abomination, it was a box on legs into which the TV was placed to hide it. It was some sort of furniture hangover from the era of covering a piano’s ankles lest they cause lustful sweats to break out under the starched collars of young gentlemen.

The trouble is, a two-doored, TV-shaped-and-sized box in the corner of the room where the TV would usually be, cables trailing from its rear and armchairs angled towards it, was about as good a disguise as when a child lacking object permanence puts its hand up to its eyes and assumes the rest of the world can’t see it.

Jason Hazeley is a comedy writer who is partly responsible for TV untellectual Philomena Cunk

Published: December 26, 2025, 8:00 am

Dear Britain: things are bad, but America will recover from Donald Trump. Just give us three years | Jimmy Kimmel

When the president targeted me and my TV show, millions said no. So don’t give up on us – and always remember, we’re not all like him

I have no idea if you know who I am, but I was asked to deliver this year’s alternative Christmas message (which I’ve heard is a big deal) so I hope you do, but if not I host what you call a chatshow (we call it a talkshow) in what you call the colonies, I think? I honestly have no idea what’s going on over there.

I do know what’s going on over here though, and I can tell you that, from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.

Published: December 25, 2025, 6:00 pm

2025, the year of gifts and grifts: the Stephen Collins cartoon

Published: December 26, 2025, 10:30 am

Fat, fearless and over 50. Thanks to my TikTok outfit posts, I feel powerful and seen | Jen Walshaw

After a debilitating illness, they’ve given me a reason to get out of bed – and I now have TikTokers who love me back

After spending a large proportion of this year in hospital and coming out with a feeding tube, life felt completely upside down. I’d gone from running a busy home, juggling work, family and the everyday chaos that comes with it, to suddenly being ripped out of normality and forced to slow down in ways I never expected. When I finally returned home, I felt fragile – physically and emotionally. Getting dressed felt like climbing a mountain some days, never mind feeling remotely like myself.

So I decided to try something small but surprisingly powerful: I started sharing my “fits of the day” on TikTok, which basically means I started sharing my outfits. My most-liked video is a simple one of me in an unremarkable cord skirt, oversized collar blouse and knee-high boots.

Jen Walshaw is founder of muminthemadhouse.com

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Published: December 26, 2025, 10:00 am

Prescott leads Cowboys past skidding Commanders as Lions eliminated with loss

• Prescott ties Romo with fourth 30-TD season

• Lions eliminated after error-strewn loss to Vikings

• Broncos’ defense shines in win over Chiefs

Dak Prescott threw for 307 yards and two touchdowns, and the Dallas Cowboys blew most of an 18-point lead before squeezing past the Washington Commanders 30-23 Thursday.

Dallas (7-8-1) scored touchdowns on their first three possessions to go up 21-3. Although the Commanders (4-12) cut the gap to a touchdown on three different occasions, they couldn’t complete the comeback and absorbed their 10th loss in 11 games.

Published: December 25, 2025, 9:34 pm

NBA Christmas 2025: Spurs make it three wins over Thunder in two weeks

• Spurs beat Thunder for third time in two weeks

• Jokic’s 56-point triple-double powers Nuggets

• Anthony Davis leaves with injury in Mavericks loss

• Knicks rally from 17 down in fourth quarter to win

De’Aaron Fox scored 29 points, and the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder for their third win over the defending NBA champs in the past two weeks.

The Spurs also defeated the Thunder in an NBA Cup semi-final on 13 December and in San Antonio on Tuesday. The teams meet again on 13 January in Oklahoma City.

Published: December 25, 2025, 10:49 pm

I was there: Rory McIlroy’s Masters triumph was the ultimate moment

It felt like nothing would top Tiger Woods’s Masters win, but then the Northern Irishman completed his career grand slam on an extraordinary final day at Augusta

At 7am on 14 April in an Augusta rental home, Rory McIlroy awoke and immediately spotted a Green Jacket draped over a chair. “You think: ‘Yeah, that did happen yesterday,’” he says. “That.” McIlroy was now the sixth man to win all four of golf’s majors.

The detail of what lay around in the bedroom of my own Augusta billet is of no interest to anybody. That was, however, a memorable morning. I had previously and wrongly believed nothing would top Tiger Woods’s 2019 Masters win in respect of seismic reaction. Scores of messages from friends, colleagues, family members – umpteen of whom have no interest whatsoever in golf – had landed. Broadcast outlets across the world wanted my assessment of what had played out on Masters Sunday. Yeah, that did happen yesterday.

Published: December 25, 2025, 8:00 am

Liverpool praying for a golden sky after seven months of storms

Despair and disorder have engulfed the club since their title party, leaving all concerned in need of previous serenity

As Virgil van Dijk raised the Premier League trophy on a cool May afternoon at Anfield, the cap was sealed on a serenely glorious season for Liverpool. For sure there had been challenges en route to a 20th league title, but not many, and those that did arise were dealt with in a calm, orderly fashion. The ultimate prize had been captured with minimum sweat.

Cue the celebrations after a final‑day 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace: players and staff dancing on the pitch, supporters doing the same in the stands, and no sense this was as good as it was going to get for the just-crowned champions. It took less than 24 hours for everything to change and set in motion an astonishing seven‑month period in the history of a club where it was probably thought they had seen and done it all.

Published: December 25, 2025, 12:00 pm

John Robertson, Nottingham Forest and Scotland legend, dies aged 72

• Winger was described by Clough as ‘Picasso of our game’

• Scored in Scotland’s 1981 win over England at Wembley

John Robertson, the Nottingham Forest and Scotland legend, has died at the age of 72. Robertson was a hugely important part of the great Forest team that under Brian Clough rose from the second tier of English football to win multiple major honours, most famously back-to-back European Cups.

Robertson assisted the decisive goal in the first European Cup triumph in 1979 and scored the decisive goal in the second, contributions that mark him out as one of the most remarkable players in British football history. He earned 28 Scotland caps, notably scoring the winning goal in a Home Championship victory over England at Wembley in May 1981. Clough described him as “the Picasso of our game”.

Published: December 25, 2025, 1:52 pm

Epstein survivor calls for Mountbatten-Windsor to be ‘brought to justice’ in US

Marina Lacerda urges him to answer questions as Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer says anyone who accepted former royal’s denials ‘should be ashamed’

One of the victims of the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has called for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to answer questions in the US, while a lawyer for the former royal’s accuser said those who had previously believed his denials “should be ashamed of themselves”.

Speaking to the Guardian after the release of some of the Epstein files, the tranche of documents related to the disgraced financier, Marina Lacerda, an Epstein survivor, said Mountbatten-Windsor should be “brought to justice”.

Published: December 25, 2025, 2:18 pm

Cambodia accuses Thailand of launching strikes during border peace talks

Thai reports claim Cambodia carried out overnight attacks ahead of officials from both countries meeting for a third day of negotiations on Friday

Cambodia has accused Thailand of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas, even as officials from the two countries attend a multi-day meeting aimed at negotiating an end to deadly clashes.

The neighbours’ longstanding border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce and killing more than 40 people, according to official counts. About a million people have also been displaced.

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:56 am

Southern California sees third death from atmospheric river storm drenching region

Some parts of LA saw more than 11in of rain, with flooding, road closures and debris flows reported across the region

A strong rain and wind storm, carried by an atmospheric river from the Pacific, has been blamed for a third death in southern California as flooding, road closures and debris flows are reported across the region.

A flood watch was also extended through Thursday for almost all of the area, as more than 11in of rainfall was measured in some parts Los Angeles county as of Wednesday night and evacuation warnings were issued for mountain communities in San Bernardino county.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:25 am

‘Keeps your mind alert’: older Swedes reap the benefits of learning for pleasure

Retirees with ‘fantastic hunger for education’ taking part in university organised events in record numbers

Record numbers of Swedish retirees are enrolling in a university run “by pensioners for pensioners” amid increased loneliness and a growing appetite for learning and in-person interactions.

Senioruniversitet, a national university that collaborates with Sweden’s adult education institution Folkuniversitetet, has about 30 independent branches around the country which run study circles, lecture series and university courses in subjects including languages, politics, medicine and architecture.

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:00 am

‘Not for the people’: Myanmar junta prepares for elections designed to legitimise grip on power

Elections will be first since military seized power in 2021, but analysts say vote is far from a step toward democracy

Myanmar is preparing to go to the polls for the first time since its military seized power in a coup in 2021, but with its former leader behind bars, its most successful political party disbanded and roughly a third of the country either disputed or in rebel hands, few believe claims by its military rulers that its 28 December election will be “free and fair”.

“This is not for the people, this is for themselves,” says Pai, 25, who fled Myanmar after the military seized power. “They [the ruling junta] are looking for a way out of the trap they are [in].”

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:01 am

Weather tracker: Deep freeze grips Canada as US records warmest Christmas

Temperatures plunge below -50C in the Yukon, while swaths of US experience springlike weather

Northern Canada has been gripped by an intense and prolonged cold spell, with temperatures hovering between -20C and -40C for weeks. On Tuesday, Braeburn in the Yukon recorded -55.7C, its coldest December temperature since 1975.

Meanwhile, Mayo and Dawson endured 16 consecutive nights below -40C, with Mayo plunging to -50.4C on Monday. Whitehorse also recorded 10 nights when temperatures dropped below -30C.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:52 am

Country diary: Little rituals to help sparrows and wrens | Paul Evans

The Marches, Shropshire: Boxing Day has its own more violent customs between humans and animals. That’s not the world I choose to live in

The sparrows are a shuffling, chirruping shadow in the bushes, a static of anticipation. They are waiting for food, calling for it. They have not forgotten what the poet Emily Dickinson describes, in her poem Victory Comes Late, as “God keeps his oath to sparrows, / Who of little love / Know how to starve!” However, sparrows do seem to live in a much more vivid and emotional society than as mere victims of an indifferent nature that is economical at the expense of compassion.

To say they come to the feeding station sounds a bit grand for a small bird table, a few hanging fat balls and a scattering of seed and mealworms in a back yard in Oswestry. The first adventurers edge in, not just to explore the food source but to play in a space of subtle changes that have happened in their place. When the whole host, quarrel or ubiquity move in, there must be over 30 birds. The energy of their performance is contagious.

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:30 am

Staying at home could leave you exposed to indoor air pollution, study reveals

Secondhand tobacco smoke and routine tasks such as operating the stove shown to be biggest emitters of indoor pollution in UK homes

Christmas and New Year is a time when many people will be at home. Being indoors can give us a degree of protection from outdoor air pollution, but it can also trap pollution we produce inside our homes.

Risks from secondhand tobacco smoke are well known and the effect is perhaps best seen by comparison of health data before and after indoor smoking bans. A study of 47 indoor smoking bans in public spaces found hospital admissions for heart attacks decreased by an average of 12%, but people are less aware of other indoor pollutants and how to minimise them.

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:00 am

‘They’re scared of us now’: how co-investment in a tropical forest saw off loggers

Low-cost tech and joined-up funding have reduced illegal logging, mining and poaching in the Darién Gap – it’s a success story that could stop deforestation worldwide

There are no roads through the Darién Gap. This vast impenetrable forest spans the width of the land bridge between South and Central America, but there is almost no way through it: hundreds have lost their lives trying to cross it on foot.

Its size and hostility have shielded it from development for millennia, protecting hundreds of species – from harpy eagles and giant anteaters to jaguars and red-crested tamarins – in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. But it has also made it incredibly difficult to protect. Looking after 575,000 hectares (1,420,856 acres) of beach, mangrove and rainforest with just 20 rangers often felt impossible, says Segundo Sugasti, the director of Darién national park. Like tropical forests all over the world, it has been steadily shrinking, with at least 15% lost to logging, mining and cattle ranching in two decades.

Published: December 25, 2025, 3:00 pm

‘Not an enabler’? A glimpse behind the curtain at Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles

Are her recent candid remarks about Trump an attempt to distance herself from an increasingly unpopular president?

She was now one of the family. When Donald Trump addressed supporters in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in early December, he asked: “Susie Trump – do you know Susie Trump? Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles.”

The US president was referring to his chief of staff, who he said had persuaded him to return to the campaign trail ahead of the 2026 congressional midterm elections. But a week later, Wiles appeared at risk of becoming the family outcast.

Published: December 25, 2025, 4:18 pm

US labor unions gear up to fight against Trump’s ‘Billionaire First’ agenda

AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler says union ready to stand up for struggling Americans: ‘Which side are you on?’

Donald Trump has staged a year of “unrelenting attacks on working people,” according to the head of the largest federation of the labor unions in the US. Now they’re preparing to fight back.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said it was gearing up to challenge the US president’s “Billionaire First” agenda in 2026 – and drive candidates in key elections to stand up for “struggling” Americans.

Published: December 25, 2025, 11:00 am

Arkansas Powerball lottery player wins $1.817bn jackpot on Christmas Eve

It was the second-largest lottery windfall in US history, with a lump-sum cash payment option of $834.9m

A Powerball player in Arkansas won a $1.817bn jackpot in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve drawing, ending the lottery game’s three-month stretch without a top-prize winner.

Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than previously expected, making it the second-largest in US history and the largest Powerball prize of 2025, according to www.powerball.com. The jackpot had a lump sum cash payment option of $834.9m.

Published: December 25, 2025, 2:20 pm

Former Malaysian PM Najib Razak found guilty of abuse of power in latest 1MDB trial

Najib has been in prison since August 2022, when Malaysia’s top court upheld a corruption conviction. He denies wrongdoing

Jailed former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has been found guilty of abuse of power, in the biggest trial yet in the multibillion-dollar fraud scandal related to state fund 1MDB.

Najib had been charged with four counts of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering for receiving illegal transfers of about 2.2bn ringgit ($544.15m) from 1MDB. He has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Published: December 26, 2025, 7:54 am

King Charles calls for reconciliation and unity in Christmas message

Monarch urges people to draw strength from community diversity after a year marked by division and violence

King Charles has called for reconciliation after a year of deepening division, saying in his Christmas address that people must find strength in the diversity of their communities to ensure right defeats wrong.

The monarch cited the spirit of the second world war generation, which he said came together to take on the challenge that faced them; displaying qualities he said have shaped both the UK and the Commonwealth.

Published: December 25, 2025, 3:10 pm

Blood test could predict who is most at risk from common inherited heart condition

Exclusive: Scientists find a way to forecast hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which affects millions worldwide

Scientists are developing a simple blood test to predict who is most at risk from the world’s most common inherited heart condition.

Millions of people worldwide have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a disease of the heart muscle where the wall of the heart becomes thickened. It is caused by a change in one or more genes and mostly passed on through families.

Published: December 25, 2025, 1:00 pm

Israeli police arrest Palestinian man dressed as Santa Claus at Christmas party

Officers closed Christmas event in Haifa, confiscating equipment and also arresting a DJ and a street vendor

Israeli police arrested a Palestinian man dressed as Santa Claus during a raid on a Christmas party in Haifa, a civil rights monitor has said.

Israeli officers closed an event celebrating Christmas on Sunday, confiscating equipment, and arresting the Palestinian Santa Claus, as well as a DJ and a street vendor. In a video, police can be seen pushing the men to the ground and handcuffing them as bystanders watched.

Published: December 25, 2025, 12:12 pm

The Dominik Diamond alternative game of the year awards 2025

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

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

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

Published: December 26, 2025, 10:00 am

Tess and Claudia quit! Celia farts! It’s 2025’s most jaw-dropping TV moments

From shock Strictly news to shock flatulence, plus a roundup of the most hilarious news fails, here are the year’s wildest bits of television

One of the most critically acclaimed and most watched shows of the year was Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s staggering Adolescence. At the heart of the plot: why did an innocent-looking kid called Jamie (Owen Cooper) commit such a brutal murder? The third episode lifted the lid. As Jamie is interviewed by psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty), we see him slowly reveal that he’s not an innocent kid, but warped by misogyny and a twisted sense of entitlement. The episode was captivating in its acting, but it stayed with you: from Jamie’s sudden switch from vulnerability to manipulation, to the moment the camera zooms in on Briony’s face as she registers who Jamie really is. Horrifying.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:00 am

Stranger Things season five vol 2 review – the fact that this isn’t unbearable is a miracle

Yes, the kids are now 90% Adam’s apple. Yes, Winona Ryder has been unforgivably sidelined. And yes, some characters are trapped in a room filling with yoghurt. But despite our misgivings, this show still absolutely slaps

Listen, this isn’t the place for newcomers. Stranger Things has been around for almost a decade, and it has spent almost all this time building a mythology that has grown so unwieldy that trying to explain it would cost me my wordcount and my will to live.

However, in fairness, this new penultimate batch of episodes gives it a good try. The content of these new episodes can neatly be split into three categories. There’s action, which is high-octane and fun, and probably why you’re watching. Then there’s dialogue, which is less successful because it causes characters to stop moving and emote at each other, even though they should probably be concentrating on the imminent end of the world.

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:00 am

Michael Mann: ‘I make films for a large presentation’

As his epic crime thriller Heat turns 30, the director talks about pairing acting legends, his thoughts on AI and what’s happening with Heat 2

Hannibal Lecter’s first movie appearance was in 1986’s Manhunter, starring Brian Cox. It took director and writer Michael Mann just five weeks to adapt Thomas Harris’s novel Red Dragon for the screen.

But when it came to adapting his own work – Heat 2, co-authored with Meg Gardiner as both a prequel and sequel to his 1995 film Heat – Mann discovered the pain of self-editing. “I thought OK, 10 weeks, 12 weeks,” he reflects in a Zoom interview from Los Angeles. “Instead, it took like 10 months and it was arduous because I wanted the same effect as the novel, which required recombining events to fit within a two-and-a-half-hour timeframe. That selection became agonising to say the least.”

Published: December 25, 2025, 11:12 am

Sunny Nights review – Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden’s sassy Australian comedy is criminally good fun

Despite a comedic surface, this playful romp is fundamentally a crime story that is less concerned with plausibility than having a good time

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This very entertaining and sassy new series starring Will Forte and The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden joins a long line of productions about foreigners setting up shop in Australia. Things often don’t go well for outsiders attempting to make good down under – but unlike John Grant in Wake in Fright and, more recently, Nic Cage in The Surfer, American siblings Martin (Forte) and Vicki (Carden) don’t get psychologically pummelled by the sun. Their story is sun, for they are in Sydney to launch a spray tan business.

Created by Nick Keetch and Ty Freer and directed by comedy stalwart Trent O’Donnell (a reliable pair of hands, whose shows include Colin From Accounts, No Activity and Review with Myles Barlow), Sunny Nights initially presents itself as a frothy romp, buoyed by two funny imported leads and plenty of spritzy banter. It took me a little while to fully appreciate that, beneath the playful surface, this is fundamentally a crime story – one told with a disarmingly light comedic touch that nudges emphasis away from plausibility to sheer enjoyability.

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Published: December 25, 2025, 7:00 pm

The 10 best jazz albums of 2025

Jakob Bro’s Bill Frisell collaboration finally saw the light, Cécile McLorin Salvant drew on her teenage pop memories and Anthony Braxton looked back to 1985
• The 50 best albums of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

UK saxophonist, composer and bandleader Tom Smith was dropping clues to his distinctively contemporary take on jazz traditions as a BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year finalist in 2014 and 2016, and later as a leader of groups including the sax trio Gecko and the LGBTQI+ ensemble Queertet. But his powerful big band’s 2025 release, A Year in the Life, unveiled how exultantly Smith’s writing mingles orchestral influences from Maria Schneider and Carla Bley with slamming groovers from the big-band swing era, and a deep grasp of bebop chordal acrobatics, with raw and metallic guitar interventions thrown in.

Published: December 26, 2025, 7:00 am

‘We bonded over losing very good friends in our mid-20s’: the candid, shoegazey dream-pop of Snuggle

Heartbreak and humour combine in the Danish duo’s appealing blend of balladry, shoegaze and miminalist pop

From Copenhagen, Denmark
Recommended if you like Alex G, Dido, Astrid Sonne
Up next Playing Primavera and Roskilde in summer 2026

In the hands of Andrea Thuesen and Vilhelm Strange, the band name Snuggle feels more than a little ironic. The Danish duo’s debut album Goodbyehouse, released on the cultishly adored label Escho, derives from a period when the pair’s lives were in a state of major upheaval, and comfort was in short supply. “We had fun – you can hear humour a bit on the album – and we went through some tough times, existential crisis, and you can hear that too,” says Theusen over a video call from her home in Copenhagen.

Published: December 26, 2025, 10:00 am

Radu Lupu: The Unreleased Recordings album review – treasures from the vaults are a wonderful surprise

(Decca, six CDs)
This six-disc collection to mark the late pianist’s 80th birthday is full of treats and includes rare ventures into Chopin and Copland, along with Lupu’s legendary rendition of Bartók at Leeds in 1969

First, a personal declaration. Of the many hundreds of pianists I must have heard in more than 50 years of recital going, a multitude that has included many of the greatest names of the 20th century, none gave me more consistent pleasure or a greater sense of wonder than Radu Lupu. If ever a pianist’s appearance, especially in his later years, belied the character of his playing it was Lupu: that the intensely serious, heavily bearded figure who hunched over the keyboard in a way more appropriate to a seance than a recital could produce playing of such velvety tonal beauty was extraordinary enough; that such a beguiling sound world was allied to a mind of such penetrating musical intelligence sometimes seemed miraculous.

Lupu died in 2022, at the age of 76. He had retired from the concert platform three years before, and had ceased to make studio recordings some years before that. Decca, for whom he recorded exclusively for over two decades, released his complete recordings in 2015, and with that comprehensive box, one thought, the legacy would be complete. But now, to mark what would have been the pianist’s 80th birthday, the company has produced this wonderful surprise: six discs made up of unreleased studio sessions and BBC, Dutch and SWR radio tapes, dating between 1970 and 2002, of works that Lupu otherwise did not record.

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:00 am

The best old music we discovered this year

Strange folk, lost pop, disco oddities and, um, Dido – here are the forgotten tracks that became this year’s most replayed revelations
• The 50 best albums of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

I grew up listening to the Mamas and the Papas’ hits but had never heard their albums before this year. I had no idea anything as creepy as Mansions lurked within their sunny oeuvre. Its sound is ominous, its mood one of stoned paranoia, its subject rich hippies sequestered in the titular luxury homes, haunted by the sensation that the flower-power dream is going wrong.

Published: December 25, 2025, 2:00 pm

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan; The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace by RWR McDonald; Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino; Your Every Move by Sam Blake

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate, £9.99)
The award-winning Australian writer’s third adult novel begins with a lone woman, Rowan, washed up on a remote island between Tasmania and Antarctica. Shearwater is a research outpost, home to the global seed vault created as a bulwark against climate catastrophe and to colonies of seals, penguins and birds. For eight years, Dominic Salt and his children have lived there, but dangerously rising sea levels mean that they, and the vault, will shortly be evacuated. Dominic cannot understand why Rowan has ended up on Shearwater, and Rowan is mystified by the absence of the scientists and researchers, about whom the family are tight-lipped – and the island’s communication centre has been mysteriously sabotaged, isolating them still further. McConaghy writes beautifully about the natural world and expertly ratchets up the tension, as mutual suspicion increases and secrets are gradually revealed. This is a powerful read that encompasses not only grief, sacrifice and perseverance in the face of disaster, but also survival strategies and their concomitant moral dilemmas.

Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan (Sphere, £20)
When chaotic kleptomaniac Caitlin returns to her small Irish home town after the death of Kathleen, the mother from whom she has been estranged for many years, she’s pleased to be welcomed by the Branaghs, friendly neighbours she remembers from childhood. Less pleasant is being forced to confront past traumas, including the disappearance of her nine-year-old friend Roisin from a local wood 20 years earlier. Caitlin feels guilty about this, as does Roisin’s older sister Deedee, who is sure that Caitlin is still hiding something. Having joined the garda to find answers that never materialised, Deedee is drinking heavily, making poor decisions and jeopardising both her job and her relationship, and both women desperately need closure … This impressive, if bleak, debut is a slow-burning but well paced story of shame, guilt, misplaced loyalty and generational trauma, the conclusion of which, once one is in possession of all the facts, has a heartbreaking inevitability.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell audiobook review – the life and loss of the woman behind the Bard

The wife of William Shakespeare takes centre stage in a rich, sensitive examination of parental grief, sensitively narrated by Jessie Buckley

The jury is still out on the merits of Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, which arrives in cinemas next month, but there is no arguing with the quality of the source material. Maggie O’Farrell’s lyrical and immersive novel, which won the Women’s prize in 2020, imagines the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes Hathaway, and their grief over the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, from the plague in 1596. The book opens with the young Hamnet realising his twin sister Judith is unwell and searching for an adult to attend to her, while unaware that he is the one who is fatally ill.

Shakespeare – who is never named and instead referred to as “the husband” or “the father” – is depicted not as a literary superstar but a flawed man who is rarely home. The focus is on Hathaway, a free-spirited woman with deep connections to the landscape. The narrative shifts between her childhood, the early years of her marriage and the aftermath of Hamnet’s death, during which Shakespeare writes one of his greatest plays, Hamlet (records state that the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable in those days).

Published: December 25, 2025, 3:00 pm

Books to look out for in 2026 – nonfiction

Memoirs from Liza Minnelli and Lena Dunham, essays by David Sedaris and Alan Bennett’s diaries are among the highlights of the year ahead

Over the past year we’ve been spoiled for memoirs from high-wattage stars – Cher, Patti Smith and Anthony Hopkins among them. But 2026 begins with a very different true story, from someone who never chose the spotlight, but now wants some good to come of her appalling experiences. After the trial that resulted in her husband and 50 others being convicted of rape or sexual assault, Gisèle Pelicot’s aim is to nurture “strength and courage” in other survivors. In A Hymn to Life (Bodley Head, February) she insists that “shame has to change sides”. Another trial – of the men accused of carrying out the Bataclan massacre – was the subject of Emmanuel Carrère’s most recent book, V13. For his next, Kolkhoze (Fern, September), the French master of autofiction turns his unsparing lens back on himself, focusing on his relationship with his mother Hélène, and using it to weave a complex personal history of France, Russia and Ukraine. Family also comes under the microscope in Ghost Stories (Sceptre, May) by Siri Hustvedt, a memoir of her final years with husband Paul Auster, who died of cancer in 2024.

Hollywood isn’t totally out of the picture, though: The Steps (Seven Dials, May), Sylvester Stallone’s first autobiography, follows the star from homelessness in early 70s New York to Rocky’s triumph at the Oscars later that decade. Does achieving your creative dreams come at a price, though? Lena Dunham suggests as much in Famesick (4th Estate, April), billed as a typically frank memoir of how how her dramatic early success gave way to debilitating chronic illness. Frankness of a different kind is promised in More (Bloomsbury, September), actor Gillian Anderson’s follow-up to her bestselling 2024 anthology of women’s sexual fantasies, Want.

Published: December 25, 2025, 7:00 am

The video games you may have missed in 2025

Date a vending machine, watch intergalactic television and make the most out of your short existence as a fly. Here are the best games you weren’t playing this year
• The 20 best video games of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC
Have you ever wanted to romance your record player? Date Everything! offers players the chance to develop relationships with everyday objects around your house, in a fully voiced sandbox romp featuring over 100 anthropomorphised characters. Wonderfully meta; you can put the moves on the textbox, or even “Michael Transaction” (microtransaction – get it?) himself. Meghan Ellis

Published: December 25, 2025, 10:00 am

No pain, no game: how South Korea turned itself into a gaming powerhouse

Gaming was once compared to drugs, gambling and alcohol in South Korea. Now its gaming academies offer a chance to earn a six-figure salary – if you make the grade

Son Si-woo remembers the moment his mother turned off his computer. He was midway through an interview to become a professional gamer.

“She said when I played computer games, my personality got worse, that I was addicted to games,” the 27-year-old recalls.

Published: December 25, 2025, 12:05 am

It’s turkey time! The 12 worst films of 2025

This year has brought us some great movies – and also at least a dozen dire one-star disasters. Here are the Guardian’s critics on the pick of the year’s cinematic calamities

• Guardian readers’ best films of the year
• Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year
• More on the best culture of 2025

What we said: “Even the superest superfan of the legendary US TV comedy show Saturday Night Live is going to struggle with the unbearable self-indulgence and self-adoration of this exhausting film from director and co-writer Jason Reitman.” Peter Bradshaw
Read the full review

Published: December 25, 2025, 9:00 am

‘Pure magic!’ Farewell Tess and Claudia, the power couple who were Strictly’s life and soul

The trailblazing female duo’s days of effortlessly holding the BBC dance competition together are over. They open up on the joy of working together

For the past 21 years, there has been only one ever-present on Strictly Come Dancing. It’s not dancer-turned-judge Anton du Beke, who usually got knocked out of the contest early. It’s not the panel’s panto villain, Craig Revel Horwood, who might be the longest-serving judge but took sick leave after testing positive for Covid in 2021. It’s not even trusty band leader Dave Arch, who didn’t join until series four.

No, Strictly’s sole permanent fixture is Tess Daly. She took a few weeks maternity leave in autumn 2004 after giving birth to eldest daughter Phoebe but since then, the glitterball stalwart hasn’t missed a show, clocking up in excess of 500 episodes. It’s an astonishingly resilient record. Daly has been the linchpin of the ballroom behemoth since the very start. And now that she and co-host Claudia Winkleman have stepped down, it is truly the end of a TV era.

Published: December 25, 2025, 6:45 pm

‘A game changer’: these glass food containers transformed how I store leftovers

Don’t let loads of holiday leftovers languish in the fridge. These microwaveable glass containers from Anyday will help you waste less food – and cut back on dirty dishes

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When I cook for my family, I always pack up leftover food with the best of intentions, and remnants of a weeknight meal generally get eaten within a day or two. Holiday dinners, however, are an entirely different story.

Try as I might to prepare a reasonable spread when I host, I usually end up making or ordering too much of everything. At Christmas, this means I’m often left with more than half of a ham or turkey, a mountain of mashed potatoes and a smattering of other side dishes and desserts. In the past, I would stuff what was left of each item into the biggest air-tight container it required, then cram them all into my fridge, full-well believing my kids and I would live off of those leftovers for the better part of a week.

The best glass food storage containers: Anyday 2-Cup Glass Round Dish Multipack

Published: December 25, 2025, 3:15 pm

The joy of leftovers – what to cook in the calm after Christmas

From cheeseboard pies to spiced-up veg and one last sweet flourish, this is how to eat, waste less and savour the lull between Christmas and New Year

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At this time of year, I like to stay home, shut off from the world and do as little as possible for as long as possible. Eat all the food, embrace all the leftovers and be creative with whatever’s in the kitchen. After the big day, I like to turn leftovers into some sort of pie: they’re forgiving and malleable and work with whatever you have hanging about. This leftovers pie from Tom Hunt and this turkey and ham pie from Felicity Cloake are great places to start. You could absolutely make your own pastry, as Tom does, or use shop-bought if you want to keep things as simple as possible (I always store a few rolls of pastry in the fridge over Christmas for precisely this reason). If it’s cheese that you have in abundance, meanwhile, then Rosie Birkett’s decadent-sounding lazy cheeseboard tart is a perfect way of using up the odds and ends of any remaining festive fromage.

As well as comfort food, I also find I need a change of pace after the 25th; I start craving spice and less hearty meals, too. Yotam Ottolenghi’s Boxing Day fried rice with garlic and spring onion sauce is the perfect way to be resourceful with leftover roast veg, as is Meera Sodha’s Christmas veg penang curry, a real treat of a dish that I enjoy year-round, and especially after the indulgence of December. Nigel Slater’s roast parsnip and stilton soup with beetroot crisps is another great addition to your leftovers repertoire, not least because it is a recipe that needs very few ingredients, very little work and is immensely adaptable. If I don’t have beetroot kicking around, I just leave it out. And if I have leftover comté instead of stilton, I’ll chop and stir that in instead.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:00 am

Experience: I cycled the length of the UK on a wooden bike

With no plans, I set off from John O’Groats to travel down south to Dover. Friends and family didn’t think I’d last a mile

Since coming to England from Ethiopia eight years ago, I’ve lost parts of my cultural identity. I was stuck in a monotonous, isolated routine studying for a biochemistry degree at Imperial College London, without the family-centred lifestyle I was used to. Back in Ethiopia, I’d be surrounded by my aunt, grandparents, friends.

So this year, I took 12 months out and moved to my uncle’s house in Leeds. The change helped me try new things, like cycling: as a child, I had never ridden a bike. I bought one in a charity shop. My friends told me that it was made for a 10-year-old and donated an adult-sized bike to me.

Published: December 26, 2025, 5:00 am

You be the judge: my partner is obsessed with our home’s water consumption. Should he stop?

Peter is waging war on the water company but Winnie feels his policing of usage is overbearing. You decide whose argument gets flushed away

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Peter nags me not to flush the toilet after a wee, which is gross. I’m not up for being monitored

Everyone lets these water firms do what they like. It’s time to fight back. So we need to cut our usage

Published: December 25, 2025, 8:00 am

The pioneering light boxes helping Orkney islanders avoid seasonal affective disorder

Wintering Well boxes to counter effects of low light on mental health are ‘super popular’, says island librarian

“Boxes of light” are being used to help people who struggle with low winter mood while living in one of Scotland’s darkest communities as part of a wider research initiative to support the million-plus sufferers of seasonal affective disorder across Britain.

Residents of the Orkney Islands have been able to borrow a Wintering Well Box from their library since the clocks went back in October, with the kits already proving “super popular” according to Sue House, an assistant librarian at Orkney Library – the oldest public library in Scotland and coincidentally an online sensation, thanks to its goofy social media presence.

Published: December 26, 2025, 12:00 pm

Now is the time to be bold and give your garden a reshuffle

The best plots are the ones that dare to change, and the start of a new year is the perfect time to move around your plants

Something I’ve noticed in gardens that have been tended by the same person – or people – is that the best ones never stay the same. People who truly love their plots shuffle things around all the time, with the same confidence and curiosity as those restless interior design lovers who change their curtains twice a year with the clocks.

The longest I’ve ever had a plot is five years, but even in that time I feel as though I made several different gardens. The suck-it-and-see approach of lifting something that isn’t terribly happy has been a stalwart of mine since I started container gardening on a tiny balcony.

Published: December 26, 2025, 11:00 am

Helen Goh’s recipe for an espresso martini pavlova bar | The sweet spot

A selection of meringues, boozy cherries, coffee mascarpone and whisky caramel to mix and match until Big Ben strikes and beyond

Your favourite cocktail is now a DIY pavlova party! Pile crisp coffee meringues high with espresso cream, boozy cherries, a drizzle of whisky caramel and a flicker of edible gold leaf, then shake, spoon and sparkle your way into the New Year. A few tips: arrange the toppings in glass bowls or on tiered trays for a beautiful display, add labels for fun and, if it’s sitting out for a while, keep the whipped cream chilled on ice.

Published: December 26, 2025, 6:00 am

Inside the US’s psychedelic church boom, where taking drugs is legal

Religious groups using banned drugs are increasingly testing the limits of faith and law – and winning

The Church of Gaia in Spokane, Washington, has all the makings of a traditional place of worship: regular gatherings, communal songs and member donations – except they also serve ayahuasca, a psychedelic substance that can induce nausea and, at times, projectile vomiting.

“This is a purely spiritual practice,” said Connor Mize, the ceremonial leader of the Church of Gaia. “It’s not a thing you do just for fun.”

Published: December 25, 2025, 1:00 pm

Into the void: how Trump killed international law

The rules-based global order, its institutions and value system face a crisis of legitimacy and credibility as the US turns away

‘The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”.

In 2025, western leaders appeared convinced they – and we – were living through one such transitional period, as the world of international relations established after the second world war crashed to a halt.

Published: December 25, 2025, 1:00 pm

How effective is protesting? According to historians and political scientists: very

From emancipation to women’s suffrage, civil rights and BLM, mass movement has shaped the arc of US history

Trump’s first and second terms have been marked by huge protests, from the 2017 Women’s March to the protests for racial justice after George Floyd’s murder, to this year’s No Kings demonstrations. But how effective is this type of collective action?

According to historians and political scientists who study protest: very. From emancipation to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to Black Lives Matter, mass movement has shaped the arc of American history. Protest has led to the passage of legislation that gave women the right to vote, banned segregation and legalized same-sex marriage. It has also sparked cultural shifts in how Americans perceive things like bodily autonomy, economic inequality and racial bias.

Published: December 25, 2025, 2:00 pm

An icy vlogger and Boxing Day dips: photos of the day – Friday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Published: December 26, 2025, 1:03 pm