‘She was like a deer in headlights’: how unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada

In holistic communities and midwifery deserts, women are turning to the Free Birth Society for information and unlicensed providers

When the holistic practitioner Emma Cardinal, 32, became pregnant in May 2023, she planned to have a home birth with midwives. Cardinal lives in a town in British Columbia with strong counter-cultural roots. “The community that I live in, home birth is something a lot of women prioritise,” she explains.

Then Cardinal stumbled across a podcast from the Free Birth Society (FBS). One episode in particular, she says, made an impact: “Unpacking Ultrasound With Yolande Clark.” In it, the Canadian ex-doula Yolande Norris-Clark falsely links ultrasounds to autism and ADHD and states that “ultrasound damages and modifies and destroys cells”.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘We’re your dream throuple!’ The Night Manager is back – and it’s even steamier

After a decade away, Tom Hiddleston is going undercover again as Jonathan Pine and this time he’s getting into an explosive, sexually fluid power threesome. It’s just what Le Carré would have wanted

For screenwriter David Farr, The Night Manager’s return is a dream come true. Literally. “Having not thought about the show for five years, a vivid image came to me in bed one night,” he says. “I saw a boy in a Colombian monastery, waiting for a black car to come over the hill. For some bizarre reason, I knew who those characters were. Suddenly, I was half-awake and the rest came flying out of me. I wrote it all down in case I forgot. In the morning, I looked at my notes and thought: ‘This is good, actually.’”

He’s not wrong. It’s a special drama that can leave a decade-long gap between series but still be welcomed back with widespread excitement. It’s testament to The Night Manager’s quality that its comeback is the first must-watch show of 2026.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:00 pm

It’s time to accept that the US supreme court is illegitimate and must be replaced | Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn

We need to remake the US high court so Americans don’t suffer future decades of oligarchy-facilitating rule

The justices of the US supreme court – even its conservatives – have traditionally valued their institution’s own standing. John Roberts, the current US chief justice, has always been praised – even by liberals – as a staunch advocate of the court’s image as a neutral arbiter. For decades, Americans believed the court soared above the fray of partisan contestation.

No more.

Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn teach law at Harvard and Yale

Published: December 19, 2025, 11:00 am

Your gift wrapping paper is trash – literally. Try these 7 sustainable ideas instead

From reusable tote bags to old artwork, here’s how the Filter US team is wrapping gifts sustainably and creatively

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Sure, I could buy another roll of flimsy wrapping paper that tears if I so much as breathe on it. No matter how carefully I line things up, I’m always cutting an inch too short and having to add to a sad pile of scraps.

But most of that wrapping paper heads to a landfill. If gift wrapping paper is foil, metallic or glittery, it can’t be recycled. And even though some wrapping paper is branded as recycled, that doesn’t mean it’s recyclable. Every year, Americans throw out an estimated 2.6bn lbs of wrapping paper – enough to cover 40 football fields.

Published: December 19, 2025, 8:15 pm

No more French ‘fashion police’: Emily in Paris costume designer relishes move to Rome

Costume designer Marylin Fitoussi says Italy understands the show’s wardrobe is ‘about breaking rules and having fun’

Netflix’s famously frothy romcom Emily in Paris has long divided critics and Parisians alike, but as it returns for its fifth season it seems to have won a presidential seal of approval. On Monday, Emmanuel Macron named the series’ creator, Darren Star (best known for Sex and The City), a knight of the legion of honour for boosting France’s cultural prominence and soft power through the show’s global success.

It is a long way from the initial backlash, which partly centred on the brash wardrobe of Emily Cooper, the American in Paris played by Lily Collins. Brightly coloured, print-heavy and over the top, the outre outfits were received as a personal affront by many Parisians, who even objected to her embrace of archetypal French chic.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:00 pm

I watched Stand By Me with Rob Reiner. Both film and man changed my life

I had watched the coming-of-age weepie over and over growing up so it was an overwhelming experience to sit down with its creator and see it again. It was a magical day and he was just as warm-hearted as his movie

Rob Reiner beams as he greets me. “You’ve seen Stand By Me 100 times?” he asks. I nod sheepishly. “Then you probably know it better than I do.” It’s August 2006, 20 years after Reiner’s coming-of-age weepie was first released, and I’m sitting in his office at Castle Rock Entertainment, the LA-based production company he co-launched in 1987. On the walls hang posters of Reiner’s beloved movies – This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Misery, A Few Good Men – but our attention is fixed on a modest TV as Stand By Me begins.

I’m here in Beverly Hills to write an anniversary article for a film magazine, but it’s also a pinch-me moment. As a teen, I’d watched Stand By Me on loop, identifying with the four protagonists – fragile, wannabe-writer Gordie (Wil Wheaton), tough-but-sensitive Chris (River Phoenix), wildcard joker Teddy (Corey Feldman) and put-upon Vern (Jerry O’Connell) – as they share their grief, insecurities and mistrust of adults.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:44 pm

US justice department releases long-awaited cache of Jeffrey Epstein files

Release of documents from DoJ investigation comes after Trump reverses and signs bill into law

• US politics live – latest updates

The Department of Justice has released a long-awaited and huge tranche of documents related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein’s case has captivated public attention for years, and been the subject of countless conspiracy theories – largely due to his connections to powerful and wealthy figures in the US and overseas.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:00 pm

Unaccompanied children being pressed to return to their countries by US border officials

Exclusive: federal document reveals children arriving as undocumented immigrants being threatened with detention

Border officials are pressuring unaccompanied children who arrive in the US as undocumented immigrants to quickly agree to return to their countries of origin, even if they express fear for their safety there – or else face “prolonged” detention and other consequences, a federal government document reveals.

The document, which emerged as an attachment in a court filing made by immigration attorneys, is understood to be presented or read to children within the first few days of them entering the US while they are still in the custody of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), before they can see any relatives in the US.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:00 pm

Trump strikes deal with US drugmakers to cut Medicaid medicine costs

Officials pledge ‘massive savings’ as companies agree to offer drugs at prices paid in other wealthy countries

Donald Trump and nine major pharmaceutical companies on Friday announced deals that will slash the prices of their medicines for the government’s Medicaid program and for cash payers, in his latest bid to align US costs with those in other wealthy nations.

Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, and Merck and Roche’s US unit Genentech have struck deals. Novartis, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi and GSK have also signed on.

Published: December 19, 2025, 8:14 pm

Congress members demand answers on price disparities at dollar-store chains

Guardian investigation sparks letter from 30 lawmakers questioning ‘how seriously’ Dollar General and Family Dollar prioritize ethics and affordability

Thirty members of Congress are demanding answers from Dollar General and Family Dollar, requesting internal documents about widespread disparities between shelf prices and register prices at the dollar-store chains’ 28,000 US stores.

The demand for answers – detailed in a letter sent on Friday to the CEOs of both companies – comes as the direct result of a 3 December Guardian investigation of the two national chains. The investigation found that Dollar General stores have failed more than 4,300 government price-accuracy inspections in 23 states since January 2022. Family Dollar stores have failed more than 2,100 price inspections in 20 states over the same time span.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:31 pm

Gaza no longer in famine but hunger levels remain critical, UN says

Monitor says almost one in eight people face food shortages as flooding and cold exacerbate humanitarian emergency

The famine in Gaza has ended as a result of increased humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory, the UN said on Friday, though it warned that levels of hunger and the humanitarian situation remained critical.

Almost one in eight people in Gaza still faced food shortages, the UN said, adding that persistent hunger had been made worse by winter flooding and the colder weather. Most people in Gaza live in tents or other substandard accommodation as Israel destroyed much of the housing and civilian infrastructure during its two-year war.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:58 pm

Investigators seek motive for shootings of MIT professor and Brown students

Suspect Claudio Manuel Neves Valente was found dead in New Hampshire storage facility after five-day manhunt

Investigators turned on Friday to the search for a motive in the murders of two Brown University students and a physics professor in Massachusetts in separate but linked attacks, after the prime suspect was found dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The body of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national and formerly very briefly a student at Brown, was discovered in a New Hampshire storage facility on Thursday night after a five-day manhunt.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:54 pm

Pro-immigrant pastor named bishop of Florida diocese home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate

Pope Leo named Rev Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, who has criticized US immigration policies, as bishop of Palm Beach

Pope Leo XIV on Friday named the Rev Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, now pastor of a predominantly Hispanic church in the Queens borough of New York City, as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida.

The diocese is home to the Mar-a-Lago estate of Donald Trump, whose get-tough immigration policies have drawn objections from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Published: December 19, 2025, 8:58 pm

Trump and top aides refuse to rule out war with Venezuela

President Nicolás Maduro orders Venezuelan navy to escort oil tankers after seizure by US forces

• What action is Trump taking against Venezuela’s oil industry?

Donald Trump and his top advisers have refused to rule out the potential for open conflict with Venezuela as Nicolás Maduro urged his navy to escort oil tankers defying the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.

In an interview broadcast on Friday morning, Donald Trump told NBC News that going to war with Maduro’s regime remains on the table. “I don’t rule it out, no,” he said in a phone interview with the network.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:12 pm

At least four people killed in mass stabbing in Taipei

Man, 27, from northern Taiwan reported to have fallen to his death in police chase after rampage through capital

At least four people have died in a rare mass stabbing incident in central Taipei after an attacker used smoke grenades to cause chaos as he went on a violent rampage through Taiwan’s capital. Several people were also injured.

The suspected assailant is among the dead after he fell from a building during a police chase through a busy shopping district on Friday evening.

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:32 pm

Santas and elves rob Montreal grocery store to ‘give food to the needy’

Group called Robins des Ruelles later said in statement stunt was intended to highlight cost of living crisis

Dressed in red suits and backed by masked elves, a group of Santas marched into a Montreal supermarket, loaded their bags with thousands of dollars worth of groceries and disappeared into the night.

The bandit Santas later released a statement saying the food would be distributed to the needy, and saying the Robin Hood-style stunt was intended to highlight the spiralling cost of living crisis that has pushed basic necessities increasingly out of reach for ordinary Canadians.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:06 pm

Why is Truth Social owner Trump Media merging with a fusion energy firm?

What we know about the deal with TAE Technologies so far – from why it is happening to what fusion energy is

Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, announced a merger on Wednesday with a company developing fusion energy technology.

TAE Technologies, an energy company founded in 1998, will join with Trump Media via a $6bn merger that it promises will propel it to build “the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant” next year.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:42 pm

Conservative legal group aims to export its rightwing Christian mission beyond US borders

Alliance Defending Freedom has ramped up its global spending on litigation and other campaigns to push its ultra-conservative Christian values

Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal advocacy group behind the overturning of Roe v Wade, has ramped up its global spending on litigation and other campaigns, in what appears to be an attempt to export what critics call its hard-right Christian theocratic values beyond US borders.

ADF and ADF International, a separate legal entity, spent a combined $10.9m on international grants and programs for the year ending June 2024, according to its most up-to-date public tax records, and appears to have increased by 70% year-on-year spending on Europe-related issues.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:42 pm

‘Like Maga disciples’: meet the Trump envoys raising eyebrows in Europe

US president has been blatant in his appointment of relatives, close friends and big donors – almost none of whom have diplomatic experience

When your goal is to “help Europe correct its current trajectory” because it is “weak”, “decaying” and facing “civilisational erasure”, your choice of highly trained operatives for the mission is plainly of paramount importance.

In Donald Trump’s case they include: a former burger magnate; his eldest son’s former fiancee; the owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team; a producer of Broadway musicals; PayPal’s co-founder; and a convicted felon who is also his son-in-law’s father.

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:07 pm

Trump’s EPA wants to weaken formaldehyde protections – this is what it could mean

EPA proposed undoing Biden-era policy on exposure to carcinogenic toxin in latest push to weaken toxin standards

Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to increase the levels of exposure to highly carcinogenic formaldehyde it considers safe. If successful, people would continue to be exposed to concerning amounts of the toxin in thousands of everyday products used across the economy, experts and advocates say.

Formaldehyde, a pungent colorless gas at room temperature, is found in a range of cosmetics, personal care products, home cleaners, craft supplies, leather goods, furniture, clothing, plastic, building materials and other everyday goods. During Joe Biden’s term, EPA scientists took a major step toward reining in the broad societal risk by issuing a finding that any level of exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer, and very low levels cause non-cancer health harms.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:30 pm

Revealed: how Toyota uses retro-style games and prizes to urge US workers to lobby politicians

Games such as Dragon Quest used to mobilize workers to back corporate goals including relaxing environmental rules

Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, is using retro-style video games to rally its US workforce behind its corporate goals, including lobbying to relax environmental rules, the Guardian can reveal.

Through an internal platform called Toyota Policy Drivers, employees can play games with names such as Star Quest, Adventure Quest and Dragon Quest, earning prizes by engaging with company messaging about policy and by contacting federal lawmakers using company-provided talking points.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:00 pm

The long-awaited release of the Epstein files | The Latest

The US Department of Justice is expected to release files relating to the disgraced late financier and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, this evening. The Trump administration is obliged to publish a massive archive of documents that could shed further light on Epstein’s misdeeds and his connections with key public figures – including Donald Trump  Jonathan Freedland joins Lucy Hough to discuss why it is such a big moment

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:32 pm

‘A black hole’: families and police say tech giants delay investigations in child abuse and drug cases

US law enforcement officers say Meta and Snapchat routinely delay or reject warrants. The companies disagree

Max Osterman was 18 when he connected with a drug dealer on Snapchat who used the handle skyhigh.303. Max would message him whenever he wanted to buy Percocet, and they would meet. After about a year, and just days after their last exchange, Max collapsed. The pills he ordered had been laced with fentanyl. He died from the overdose in February 2021 at his home in Broomfield, Colorado.

The dealer continued selling prescription painkillers until 2023, when he was jailed on two drug distribution convictions. When handing down the sentence, the judge said he was responsible for four deaths, yet he never faced charges for supplying the pills that killed Max.

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:00 pm

Trump’s health cuts leave ‘huge void’ in Buffalo, New York – and patients fearing lack of care

After a traumatic brain injury, Rita Buckley worries the skills she worked hard to regain will atrophy as the largest healthcare provider in the area closes clinics

After Rita Buckley slipped on a sidewalk, hitting her jaw so hard she broke four teeth and sustained a traumatic brain injury, she struggled to tell red and green apart. Turning her head could make her lightheaded or, worse, spark a devastating headache. She fought to remember basic daily tasks. Driving became impossible, as did the idea of continuing to work as a nurse.

But at Buffalo Therapy Services, a clinic near her home in the suburb of East Aurora, New York, Buckley felt hopeful. For more than a year, she worked diligently with the clinic’s cognitive and occupational therapists. They took her into the darkened staff room and flashed red and green lasers so she could relearn the difference. They taught her to write everything down, to help with her lack of short-term memory. They made a list of what she wanted to accomplish, and told her: “We’re not going to work on what you can’t do any more. We’re going to work on what you can do.”

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:00 pm

Are sweet potatoes healthy?

This holiday staple is also one of the world’s oldest crops – here’s what to know about adding sweet potatoes to your diet

Sweet potatoes can be roasted, mashed, fried and pied – you might have eaten them so often that they feel old hat.

In a way, they are – sweet potatoes count among the world’s oldest domesticated crops. Archeological evidence suggests they were cultivated in South America “more than 4,500 years ago”, says Michelle Johnson, a seed historian, journalist and self-described “sweet potato superfan”.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:00 pm

What will your life look like in 2035?

When AIs become consistently more capable than humans, life could change in strange ways. It could happen in the next few years, or a little longer. If and when it comes, our domestic routines – trips to the doctor, farming, work and justice systems – could all look very different. Here we take a look at how the era of artificial general intelligence might feel

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Best movies of 2025 in the US: No 1 – One Battle After Another

Leonardo DiCaprio is a former revolutionary searching for his daughter in Paul Thomas Anderson’s exhilaratingly audacious counterculture epic
• The best movies of 2025 in the US
• More on the best culture of 2025

Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural drama-thriller One Battle After Another, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, is a formal enigma that has perplexed, provoked and entranced, and the year ends with no definitive consensus as to its exact meaning. A rare naysayer is screenwriter and film-maker Paul Schrader, who commented tersely online: “Film-making at level A+, but try as I might I couldn’t muster up an ounce of empathy for Leo DiCaprio or Sean Penn. I kept waiting for them to die.”

But that’s why the film is gripping: there is indeed no empathy for its two unlovely leading males, and their mortality and vulnerability has a kind of unwinding, entropic energy. They are heading for disaster. And yes, the film-making is A+ or A++; it is supercharged with pleasure at its own audacity and expertise. It is moviemaking with a late-Kubrick elegance and a knowing theatricality, culminating in an exhilarating but also eerily strange car chase on an undulating freeway. This isn’t the same as style without substance, but it’s certainly a movie that can’t help put promote its self-aware style to equal status with its subject matter: a petty-tyrannical America of the present and future, and those who will grow old in resisting it from within.

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:00 pm

Jimmy Kimmel on a tumultuous year: ‘Don’t know what the American way even is any more’

Late-night hosts reflected Trump’s combative year-end message after a tumultuous start to his second term

Late-night hosts reflected on a rollercoaster 2025 and Donald Trump’s combative, primetime year-end address to the nation.

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:41 pm

What’s the nicest thing a stranger has done for you? This year more than 50 people gave me their answer

While every story has been unique in loveliness, I’ve found that many share a similar pulse

• Read our kindness of strangers series here

Earlier this year, I had a phone call with a woman named Debbie about one of her toughest days as a parent. While she was carting her two sick toddlers to buy medicine, one abruptly vomited across the floor of the local shopping mall. A passing stranger stopped, grabbed a roll of paper towel from the display in front of the chemist, and sopped up the mess – then went inside to pay for what she’d used, insisting on footing the bill. It was a small but lovely act that spoke to the decency of other people.

Working as a journalist often involves speaking to people on, or about, the worst day of their life. But for the past year I have had the tremendous pleasure of interviewing Australians (and the occasional Briton) about something very different – the acts of kindness they’ve received from a total stranger. Guardian Australia asked readers to send in these stories, and we have been publishing them in our weekly Kindness of Strangers column.

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Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

For a prime minister struggling in the wake of Bondi terror, standing up to the gun lobby is smart politics

Restoring a feeling of safety for Australian Jews will take extraordinary effort. As well as stamping out antisemitism, the work should start with a national approach to managing guns

The shock and grief that already hung over Australia this week after the Bondi beach shootings has only been compounded by the funerals for the victims.

Members of Melbourne’s Jewish community gathered on Thursday to mourn Reuven Morrison. The 62-year-old met his wife, Leah, at Bondi after immigrating from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. He died there on Sunday night, having thrown a brick at one of the gunmen, trying to slow the deadly attack on joyful Hanukah celebrations. His unjust death betrays the reason Morrison chose to move across the world.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

Avengers: Doomsday trailer – as the hype builds, has Marvel got lost in the multiverse?

Marvel has put the first official trailer for the new Avengers meetup before random screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Recordings of it have leaked online – but many questions still remain

Is anything real any more? For the last few weeks there have been rumours that Marvel is about to drop the first official footage for its forthcoming superhero epic Avengers: Doomsday, ahead of screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash. And it makes a sort of sense: the latest instalment of James Cameron’s 3D mega-project about blue aliens and colonial shame is clearly a visual spectacle, so why not lure fans of Captain America and Thor into cinemas by dangling the promise of a Doomsday trailer in front of them? In a world in which everyone expects everything to be online instantly, could the most radical experiment be to put this thing in cinemas?

If it once seemed like a good idea, it increasingly looks less so. There are rumoured to be multiple Doomsday trailers in circulation, to be ushered in ahead of select screenings of Fire and Ash. But several appear to have leaked online already, which means most Avengers superfans are now getting their first glimpse of the new movie through a prism of phone footage and compression artefacts. Audiences at early showings of Cameron’s film, meanwhile, have reported not seeing any Avengers trailer, though some insist they definitely saw something, briefly.

Published: December 19, 2025, 3:15 pm

At the dark end of a brutal year, I’m grateful to these heroes for showing us the light | Jonathan Freedland

From the Bondi beach rescuers to the women taking on the police, great acts of courage offer hope even in the bleakest times

Some traditions are getting harder to maintain. Among them, my own custom of devoting the last column before Christmas to reasons to be hopeful. In recent years, amid war and bloodshed, that task has been especially challenging – and this week was no exception.

It began with the news from Bondi beach, where 15 people were gunned down and dozens more injured, most of them Jews celebrating the festival of Hanukah. That came just two-and-a-half months after the deadly attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. To be a Jew at the end of 2025 is to fear that to gather together, whether at moments of joy or sorrow, is to take a mortal risk. That even to do relatively ordinary things together has become a matter of life and death.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and the author of The Traitors Circle: the Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them

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.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:32 pm

I’m on hunger strike in a British prison. This is why | Amu Gib

Our demands are simple – and they start with stopping the flow of arms to Israel

• Amu Gib is an activist currently being held at HMP Bronzefield

Amu Gib is one of several prisoners on hunger strike who are awaiting trial for alleged offences relating to Palestine Action. Gib is being being held at HMP Bronzefield. Their charges relate to an alleged break-in at RAF Brize Norton this year. This article is based on interviews with Ainle Ó Cairealláin, host of the Rebel Matters podcast, and the writer and researcher ES Wight on days 18 and 33 of the strike.

We began our hunger strike on 2 November: the anniversary of the Balfour declaration, when Britain planted the seeds of the genocide that we are witnessing today.

An HMP Bronzefield spokesperson said: “We cannot provide information about specific individuals; however, we can confirm that all prisoners are managed in line with the policies and procedures governing the entire UK prison estate. This includes specialist multi-agency processes, led by the government, to assess individual risks and security status. However, if any prisoner has specific complaints, we encourage them to raise them directly with the prison, as there are numerous channels available for addressing such concerns.”

Amu Gib is an activist currently being held at HMP Bronzefield

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.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:37 pm

As a child, our family Christmas photo was an annual trauma. As a parent, I understand it now | Sean Szeps

In our house, the Christmas photo still exists. But it follows a very different set of rules: Keep it quick, keep it casual, and if it’s not funny … what’s the point?

In my family, Christmas isn’t just a holiday … It’s an obsession. And my mother? She’s the matriarch of mistletoe.

Every December, our home transformed into a living snow globe. We didn’t just buy ornaments, we made them. We didn’t watch Christmas movies, we lived them. We’d cut down our own trees, hand-string popcorn garlands and spend full afternoons debating the correct angle of the angel on top of the tree.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

The Guardian view on the rise of romantic fiction: finally getting the respect it deserves

Jilly Cooper, Joanna Trollope and Sophie Kinsella all changed the genre. A new generation of novelists are doing the same and sales are soaring

At last, the perception of popular fiction by women as “silly novels by lady novelists”, as George Eliot sniffily put it back in 1856, is changing. Next year, the British Book Awards will recognise romantic fiction for the first time. The recognition is long overdue.

This welcome news came in the same week as the deaths of two doyennes of the form, Joanna Trollope and, at just 55, Sophie Kinsella, only a couple of months after the loss of national treasure Dame Jilly Cooper. Between them these publishing power houses produced more than 100 books, sold millions of copies, and inspired hit films and TV series, most recently last year’s star-studded adaptation of Cooper’s 1985 Riders.

Published: December 19, 2025, 6:29 pm

LA Angels settle lawsuit with family of late pitcher Tyler Skaggs over fatal overdose

• Angels reach confidential settlement after civil trial

• Skaggs died in 2019 from fentanyl-laced pills

• Parties arrive at settlement while case with jury

The Los Angeles Angels on Friday settled a lawsuit over the drug overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

The decision to settle was reached after a two-month civil trial in Southern California over whether the Angels should be held responsible for Skaggs’ 2019 death after he snorted a fentanyl-laced pill provided by the team’s communications director, Eric Kay.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:07 pm

The 100 best male footballers in the world 2025

Ousmane Dembélé becomes our seventh winner as he beats Lamine Yamal into second and Vitinha into third on our list of the best players on the planet

• Premier League dominates list | How every judge voted | Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

• 2024 edition | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:04 am

NFL playoff race: sepia-toned Bears v Packers rivalry takes center stage

Chicago can edge closer to sealing the NFC North in a sepia-toned Soldier Field showdown that headlines a pivotal week in the NFL playoff race

Another week as the NFL winds up for the postseason offers a fresh look at contenders building for the Super Bowl. Jacksonville v Denver, yes please. Baltimore v New England, bingo. Pittsburgh v Detroit, hmm … OK. Still not satisfied? The strange lights of Saturday night over in the NFC North should do the trick with a sepia-toned showdown between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field. A win for either and a Detroit defeat confirms a playoff slot while victory for the Bears gets them close to sealing the division (even in defeat the Packers still will be ahead for the seventh seed). The gaping hole left by Micah Parsons in Green Bay’s defensive front may have Chicago fans edging to the side of expectation that their Bears can put together a deep playoff run if home-field advantage is on their side.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:07 pm

Mohamed Salah apologised to Liverpool squad for outburst, reveals Curtis Jones

• Liverpool teammate discusses fallout from interview

• ‘He apologised to us … That’s the man that he is’

Curtis Jones has revealed Mohamed Salah apologised to the Liverpool squad for the fallout from his interview criticising the club and Arne Slot.

Salah was omitted from Liverpool’s Champions League win against Inter having accused the club of throwing him under a bus in response to a poor run of results. The striker also claimed his relationship with Slot had broken down and that he had earned his position in the team after eight phenomenal seasons.

Published: December 19, 2025, 6:53 pm

Boxing was the original attention economy – Paul v Joshua is old logic in a louder digital age

Millions will tune in to watch the brash YouTuber get his comeuppance – the fight will likely go on as long as Joshua decides to let it

An undersized loudmouth disruptor arrives in Miami for a no-hope fight with one of history’s most destructive heavyweights, exploiting every available lever of new media to amplify his delusions of grandeur to mass audiences. There are mounting concerns for his mental and physical wellbeing, with doctors, commentators and former fighters openly questioning his soundness of mind and wondering whether he might end up in hospital – or worse. The oddsmakers have made him an 8-1 longshot, a price that feels almost charitable given the epic scale of the mismatch. The buildup revolves less around the favorite than around the smaller man’s mouth: his noise, his presence, and the creeping suspicion that spectacle may finally have outrun sense.

Cassius Clay wound up shocking the world back in 1964 when he made Sonny Liston quit on his stool after six rounds at the Miami Beach Convention Center. But it’s right here, on the eve of Friday night’s scheduled eight-round showdown between Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua at the nearby Kaseya Center, where those curious rhymes with the past come to a screeching halt.

Published: December 18, 2025, 5:42 pm

Seahawks overturn 16-point deficit to stun Rams in overtime and clinch playoff berth

• Darnold hits Smith-Njigba for winning OT TD

• Seahawks erase 16-point fourth-quarter deficit

• Seattle move ahead of Rams atop NFC West

Sam Darnold connected with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a touchdown in overtime, then hit a wide-open Eric Saubert for the winning two-point conversion, and the Seattle Seahawks rallied from a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit to stun the Los Angeles Rams 38-37 on Thursday night and take a one-game lead in the NFC West.

“It was something we talked about throughout the season and particularly for this game because of the playoff situation,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said. “You know, you play for the tie and lock up a playoff seat, but I just felt great about our play and I trusted our guys.”

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:51 am

Dom Taylor kicked out of World Darts Championship after failing drugs test

• Adverse finding came from test before tournament

• Player suspended in advance of disciplinary process

Britain’s Dom Taylor has been suspended from the World Darts Championship after failing a drug test, the Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) said on Friday, handing opponent Jonny Clayton a free pass to the third round.

The DRA, the governing body of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), said Taylor returned an adverse analytical finding from a test conducted on 14 December, one day before the tournament got under way at Alexandra Palace.

Published: December 19, 2025, 6:12 pm

Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

Ngumoha could step up for Liverpool, injury-hit Newcastle need to bounce back and Parker feels the heat

• Top scorers: check the latest Premier League standings

Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League and Newcastle 12th but the gap between them is only six points. It dictates that, given Eddie Howe’s ambitions of qualifying for the Champions League via the league, this is a pivotal fixture. How Newcastle’s manager must hope Enzo Maresca’s recent cryptic hints about potential discord behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge somehow help to undo the visitors on Tyneside, cutting the aforementioned gap in half. If off-pitch harmony endures at St James’ Park, Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian ownership will, nonetheless, be keen to see Howe and his players make further amends for last Sunday’s ignominious defeat at Sunderland. Falling nine points behind Chelsea may not be well received in Riyadh. Howe might have been tempted to start with a back five but with Tino Livramento the latest victim of a defensive injury crisis, he only possesses sufficient fit personnel to staff a four-man rearguard. Assuming Howe sticks with his preferred 4-3-3 it will be intriguing to see whether he drops a winger and fields Yoane Wissa to Nick Woltemade’s left in attack. Or does he opt for a potentially more fluid 4-2-3-1 with Woltemade as the No 10 and Wissa at No 9? Louise Taylor

Newcastle v Chelsea, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Bournemouth v Burnley, Saturday 3pm

Brighton v Sunderland, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v West Ham, Saturday 3pm

Wolves v Brentford, Saturday 3pm

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:00 am

Alex Ferguson claims Manchester United could be 10 years from winning title

• ‘We will not take that long,’ says Amorim in response

• Amorim criticises sense of ‘entitlement’ at United

Sir Alex Ferguson has stated it could take Manchester United another “10 or 11 years” to win the title, prompting Ruben Amorim to publicly disagree with the club’s most successful manager.

Ferguson won 13 of United’s 20 league titles, the last in 2013, and was asked when a 21st may be added to the trophy cabinet.

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:46 pm

Ukraine attacks Russian ‘shadow’ tanker off Libyan coast

Reportedly critical drone strike is first in Mediterranean since full-scale invasion began as maritime conflict grows

• ‘There are hundreds’: tracking Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tankers

Ukraine says it has attacked a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker with aerial drones 1,250 miles (2,000km) from its borders, in the first such strike in the Mediterranean Sea since Moscow’s full-scale invasion nearly four years ago.

Friday’s strike off the coast of Libya, which reportedly caused critical damage, took place on the day of Vladimir Putin’s annual end of year press conference in which he said Russia would respond to recent Ukrainian attacks on shadow fleet tankers.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:37 pm

Alleged Bondi beach gunman visited firearms shop during Philippines visit, local police say

Investigation centres on pair’s movements outside the GV hotel, where they stayed throughout their time in the country

One of the alleged Bondi beach shooters visited a firearms shop during his visit to the Philippines, local police have revealed as they investigate what the pair did in the weeks before the mass shooting.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed stayed in a hotel in Davao City for four weeks before returning to Australia on 28 November, only two weeks before they allegedly killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukah celebration in Sydney on Sunday.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:13 am

Visa and Mastercard to pay $167.5m to settle lawsuit over ATM fees

Class-action lawsuit accused the two companies of conspiring to keep ATM access fees artificially high

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to pay a combined $167.5m to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to keep ATM access fees artificially high. The proposed settlement was filed on Thursday in the federal district court in Washington and requires a judge’s approval.

The accord would pay potentially millions of ATM users who were charged an unreimbursed access fee to withdraw cash from independent, non-bank ATMs. Visa would contribute about $88.8m and Mastercard about $78.7m to a settlement fund. The money would be distributed to eligible customers with qualifying ATM transactions made since October 2007.

Published: December 19, 2025, 3:25 pm

Woman and secret lover who plotted to kill her husband in Wales jailed

Michelle Mills and Geraint Berry sentenced to 19 years each for conspiring to murder Christopher Mills

A woman who plotted with her secret lover to murder her husband so they could start a new life together has been jailed for 19 years.

Michelle Mills, 46, and Geraint Berry, 47, planned to kill Christopher Mills so they could continue their affair, and Berry recruited Steven Thomas, also 47, to help carry out their attack on 20 September last year.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:20 pm

Sony collars Snoopy in £340m deal to take control of Peanuts franchise

Japanese conglomerate raises to 80% its stake in firm that owns the intellectual property created by Charles Schulz

• Business live – latest updates

Sony has taken control of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts franchise including Snoopy and Charlie Brown in a deal worth C$630m (£340m).

The Japanese conglomerate has bought 41% of Peanuts Holdings, which owns the intellectual property Schulz created, from the Canadian children’s entertainment company WildBrain.

Published: December 19, 2025, 11:54 am

Iranian boxing champion at imminent risk of execution as retrial request rejected

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests, and has been tortured in prison

A boxing champion in prison in Iran is thought to be at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected by the country’s supreme court.

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, from Mashhad in north-east Iran was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests in 2019 and accused of supporting an opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK). He has spent five years in prison, where he has been tortured and put in solitary confinement.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:45 am

‘I can’t think of a place more pristine’: 133,000 hectares of Chilean Patagonia preserved after local fundraising

Exclusive: Ancient forests and turquoise rivers of the Cochamó Valley protected from logging, damming and development

A wild valley in Chilean Patagonia has been preserved for future generations and protected from logging, damming and unbridled development after a remarkable fundraising effort by local groups, the Guardian can reveal.

The 133,000 hectares (328,000 acres) of pristine wilderness in the Cochamó Valley was bought for $63m (£47m) after a grassroots campaign led by the NGO Puelo Patagonia, and the title to the wildlands was officially handed over to the Chilean nonprofit Fundación Conserva Puchegüín on 9 December.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:00 am

Food becoming more calorific but less nutritious due to rising carbon dioxide

Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in lead

More carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.

Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO₂ levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:00 am

Week in wildlife: honeymooning owls, an otter on the razz and a magical frog

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: December 19, 2025, 8:00 am

As the US invests in fossil fuels, young climate activists push back in the courts

In this week’s newsletter: A generation is using the legal system to demand accountability for climate harm

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Rikki Held grew up on her family’s ranch in Montana, watching the land transform amid the climate crisis. The Powder River, which runs through the property, has sometimes dried up during drought, leaving crops and livestock without water. At other points, rapid snowmelt and heavy rains have caused flooding and eroded riverbanks, making the land difficult to use.

Two years ago, the 24-year-old and a group of other young people won a groundbreaking legal victory, intended to prevent those impacts from worsening. In August 2023, a judge ruled in favour of plaintiffs in Held v Montana, in which 16 young people accused the state of violating their constitutional rights by promoting planet-warming fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings late last year, but plaintiffs say lawmakers have since passed new laws that violate that ruling. So last week, they filed a new petition calling on the supreme court to enforce their earlier win, one of several youth-led constitutional climate lawsuits filed in the US this year.

‘A shift no country can ignore’: where global emissions stand, 10 years after the Paris climate agreement

The trauma after the storm: Hurricane Melissa leaves trail of emotional devastation across Jamaica

Synthetic chemicals in food system creating health burden of $2.2tn a year, report finds

Montana youth activists who won landmark climate case push for court enforcement

More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows

Youth-led US climate activists widen focus to fight authoritarianism

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Why did Donald Trump Jr turn up in a tiny British enclave looking for money?

Meetings in Gibraltar are the latest twist in worldwide campaign that is enriching the US president’s family

One Friday in November, armed police blocked off the road that runs beside Gibraltar’s medieval city walls to clear the way for a convoy of blacked-out BMWs. The vehicles pulled up at the offices of Hassans, a law firm.

The British enclave in the Mediterranean is a hub for the international ultra-rich, and Hassans counts many of them as clients. But few as highly placed as that day’s visitor: Donald Trump Jr, the man running the family business while his father is in the White House.

Published: December 19, 2025, 6:00 am

US strikes two more alleged drug boats, bringing death toll to over 100

US military declares five alleged drug traffickers killed in Pacific Ocean

The US military said it killed on Thursday five more alleged drug traffickers aboard two vessels in the Pacific Ocean, bringing the divisive campaign’s death toll to over 100.

The Trump administration has carried out such strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September but has provided no evidence that the boats are involved in drug trafficking, prompting debate about the operations’ legality.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:38 am

TikTok signs Trump-backed deal to avoid US ban

Joint venture will take over part of app’s US operations, including data protection, algorithm security and content moderation

• Business live – latest updates

• US politics live – latest updates

TikTok has reached a deal to form a joint venture that will allow it to continue operating in the US, five years after Donald Trump threatened to ban the social media platform over privacy and national security concerns, a move that further strained relations with China.

ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, has signed a deal with Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX that will allow it to retain control of its core US operations.

Published: December 19, 2025, 11:31 am

Trump signs $1tn annual US defense bill without fanfare

National Defense Authorization Act authorizes record $901bn in spending, $8bn more than Trump requested

Donald Trump on Thursday signed into law a nearly $1tn annual defense policy bill, despite provisions inserted by Congress providing new aid to Ukraine and reining in his ability to dial down US involvement in the defense of Europe.

The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes a record $901bn in annual military spending, $8bn more than Trump requested.

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:31 am

‘It’s rather rude’: Truss accused of trying to poach members of rival Tory club

Former prime minister allegedly wandering 5 Hertford Street to find members for her Mayfair club a street away

For Tory grandees licking their wounds and plotting their return after their disastrous 2024 general election performance, the opulent, fire-lit rooms of the exclusive club 5 Hertford Street are a sanctuary.

But in recent weeks, their long lunches have been rudely interrupted by Liz Truss, who has been accused of wandering the premises in search of members to poach for her own rival operation, just one street away, which asks “founding members” for an eye-watering £500,000.

Published: December 19, 2025, 3:34 pm

The week around the world in 20 pictures

The Bondi beach terror attack, the Brown University shooting, ICE in Chicago and a fallen Statue of Liberty: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:01 pm

The Com: the growing cybercrime network behind recent Pornhub hack

Criminal ecosystem is made up of mostly male native English language speakers aged from 16 to 25

Ransomware hacks, data theft, crypto scams and sextortion cover a broad range of cybercrimes carried out by an equally varied list of assailants.

But there is also an English-speaking criminal ecosystem carrying out these activities that defies conventional categorisation. Nonetheless, it does have a name: the Com.

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:34 pm

Chile’s far-right president taps into support for Pinochet that never went away

Experts say José Antonio Kast able to ‘reactivate a dormant Pinochetism’ and warn more education needed on ‘horrors of dictatorship’

Confident in his popularity, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet called a plebiscite in 1988 asking the population whether they approved extending his 15-year-long bloody rule for a further eight years.

A young José Antonio Kast, then a 22-year-old law student, joined the yes campaign, saying in a TV advert that he was convinced the regime was acting “for the direct benefit of all of us young people”.

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:00 am

The 50 best albums of 2025: No 1 – Rosalía: Lux

On her monumental, maximalist opus, the dazzlingly audacious Spanish singer balanced pop and classical, experimentation and accessibility

• The 50 best albums of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

On paper, Lux reads more like a particularly tricky bonus round on University Challenge than the new album by a pop artist whose previous single was a collaboration with Lisa from Blackpink. Split into four distinct movements and sung in 13 languages, Lux is a head-spinning, classical music-adjacent opus exploring feminine mystique, religious transcendence and corporal transformation, often via the prism of various female saints. The dissolution of a relationship – grounded and laid bare on Lily Allen’s West End Girl, 2025’s other dissection of heartbreak – is shot heavenwards here, buffeted by the constant presence of the London Symphony Orchestra and the input of Pulitzer prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw among a scroll-sized list of collaborators. Its audacity alone makes the efforts of Rosalía’s pop peers look pretty laughable.

The fact that Lux manages to transcend scholarly chin-stroking and dry Wiki deep dives is near miraculous, and the credit is solely Rosalía’s. While this isn’t her first album to alchemise the past and present – see 2018’s El Mal Querer and its heady flamenco-R&B hybrid – the stakes are far higher on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. What elevates her fourth album, outside its multilayered melodies, rich compositions and engrained drama, is the playfulness at its heart. Like Björk during her 90s peak, there’s a sense of wonderment to Rosalía’s voice that sweeps you up into its tornado. Even when she’s tearing your heart in two, as on La Yugular’s blossoming balladry, or the ascension to heaven on the closing Magnolias, you want to be right there with her.

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

And the 2025 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year

Now the Guardian’s Top 50 countdowns, as voted for by the whole film team, have announced their No 1s, here are our chief critic’s personal choices – in no particular order

• The 50 best films of 2025 in the UK
• The 50 best movies of 2025 in the US

The time has come once more for me to present my “Braddies”, a strictly personal awards list for films on UK release in the year just gone and, as ever, quite distinct from this paper’s collegiate best-of-year countdown. These are my top 10 lists for best film, director, actor and supporting actor, actress and supporting actress, directorial debut, cinematographer, screenplay and film most likely to be overlooked by the boomer mainstream media (or MSM).

As we look back over the last 12 months, there can be no doubt of the villain of 2025: Tilly Norwood, the female AI star. Launched in October, she is a smilingly bland and really very convincing non-human being who will work uncomplainingly and cheaply without ever storming off to her trailer. Like everyone else, I deplored the horrible simulation and opined that she is part of the AI-isation of movies that has been happening for some time now – without AI.

Published: December 19, 2025, 3:00 pm

Television in titbits: the rise of the billion-dollar microdrama industry

Hollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment?

If you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Prime’s breakout YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be familiar with the plight of Henley and Luca. The star-crossed lovers of a short-form video series called Loving My Brother’s Best Friend – plot self-explanatory – have made waves on TikTok with yearning stares and “I/we can’t do this” drama that echo the many fan edits of beloved TV couple Belly and Conrad. But whereas The Summer I Turned Pretty explored its central tension over 40-minute episodes on streaming, Loving My Brother’s Best Friend, produced by a short-form company called CandyJar, distilled its appeal to its barest essences: sexual tension hook, escalating line and cliffhanger sinker, all within two-minute “episodes” on your phone. Without even meaning to or really wanting to, I watched the first 10 chapters (of 44) in one 15-minute gulp – and I’m not the only one.

Hollywood is hoping that you, too, will be hooked. Though Loving My Brother’s Best Friend may not look like a typical Hollywood product – in fact, it resembles some mix of teen show, soap opera and amateur fan-cam edit – the industry is investing heavily in the future of series like it: low-budget, mobile-only “microdramas” with episodes between 60 and 90 seconds. These shows, also known as “verticals” for their phone orientation, have already become widely popular in China, where mobile screens dominate entertainment even more than in the US. In just three years, revenue for serialized short-form drama in China rose from $500m in 2021 to $7bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $16.2bn by 2030. The global microdrama market for 2025 is estimated at anywhere from $7bn to 15bn – and booming, with nearly triple revenue growth for microdrama companies outside China in the past year.

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:03 am

‘Criminally below the radar’: readers on their best underrated Christmas films

After Guardian writers picked their favourite lesser-known festive movies, readers shoutout Klaus, The Ref and more

I thought a real modern hidden gem is All Is Bright starring Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti as two down-on-their-luck Christmas tree sellers. It’s perfectly played by both, with Rudd putting in, not his usual “puppy dog everyone wants to be your mate” role but a sarcastic turn, complementing Giamatti’s Christmas grinch. More a black comedy (by Hollywood standards), it’s an excellent film. Andyouwillknowme

Published: December 18, 2025, 10:04 am

‘Why isn’t everyone talking about Domhnall Gleeson?’ Irish actor wins first Hollywood award

The US-Ireland Alliance will give the actor the Oscar Wilde award at the event’s 20th anniversary in Los Angeles in March

After a varied career in which he has played a psychopath, a romcom heart-throb, an intergalactic warlord and a plucky newspaper editor among others, Domhnall Gleeson has won his first Hollywood award.

The US-Ireland Alliance announced that Gleeson will receive the Oscar Wilde award at the event’s 20th anniversary in Los Angeles in March in the run-up to the Oscars. It honours a body of work rather than a particular performance.

Published: December 18, 2025, 2:47 pm

The 50 best albums of 2025

Topped by Rosalía’s multilingual, ultra-ambitious Lux, here are the best albums of the year as voted for by 30 Guardian music writers
• More on the best culture of 2025

***

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

Add to playlist: the bullish confidence and versatility of JayaHadADream and the week’s best new tracks

A breakout star of the underground rap scene shows vulnerability and wit in her genre-bending tracks

From Cambridgeshire
Recommended if you like Manga Saint Hilare, Kojey Radical, Little Simz
Up next Happiness from Agony out now

“One of the coldest writers but man don’t say it ’cause I’ve got vagina,” JayaHadADream raps on her recent track Bug, calling out those who underestimate her talent – and laying bare her lyrical confidence. In a fertile underground rap scene, the Jamaican-Irish, Cambridge-via-Nottingham artist has cut through thanks to her command and vulnerability, as well as a sharp eye for bullshit. The track Main Characters (featuring Big Zuu), also from her recent mixtape Happiness from Agony, is a critique of the fake love and hollow posturing that saturates the music industry.

Published: December 19, 2025, 12:00 pm

A Mind of My Own by Kathy Burke audiobook review – an honest and hilarious memoir

The no-nonsense comic actor and author further cements her status as a national treasure with her trademark gobby one-liners

A lot of terrible things happen to Kathy Burke in her memoir, though you won’t find her mired in self-pity. Burke was a toddler when her mother died from stomach cancer, meaning she has no memory of her. In the Islington council flat where she grew up, she shared a bedroom with her alcoholic dad who would give up booze only to fall off the wagon and, at his worst, became violent. When a stranger on the estate called her ugly in front of her friends, she cannily deflected the insult with laughter. “I’m the best dancer at the ugly bug ball though,” she hooted, and did a little dance.

Burke would find her tribe on London’s punk scene and, in her teens, got the acting bug and a place at London’s Anna Scher Theatre school. This put her on the path to a brilliant and varied acting and writing career that saw her appearing in comedy sketches with Harry Enfield and French and Saunders, being called a genius by Peter Cook and taken by Luc Besson’s private jet to collect the prize for best actress at Cannes film festival for Gary Oldman’s 1997 film Nil By Mouth. There, much to her chagrin, she found herself “accepting a bellini cocktail from Harvey fuckface Weinstein”.

Published: December 18, 2025, 3:00 pm

The 50 best albums of 2025: No 2 – CMAT: Euro-Country

Furiously angry and uproariously witty, the Irish singer’s third album was a high-water mark for pop, inspiring a TikTok dance craze and a triumphant set at Glastonbury

• The 50 best albums of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

The making of CMAT’s third album was a fraught business. Holed up in New York, writing and recording the follow-up to 2023’s Crazymad, for Me – which, despite critical acclaim and a Mercury nomination, was pronounced unsatisfactory by the singer herself – Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson suffered what sounds like a pretty terrifying breakdown. “I started actually hallucinating,” she said earlier this year. “I didn’t realise for the first two months that was what was happening, but I basically imagined the entire apartment I was staying in was crawling with insects … I went to the doctor and showed him my bites, and he said: ‘Those are stress hives; you’re mental.’”

One assumes that wasn’t exactly what he said, but you get the gist. And yet, despite its author comparing its recording to “a toxic relationship”, Euro-Country does not sound like it was challenging to make. On the contrary: it sounds like the supremely assured work of a songwriter whose powers have reached a new peak. It is, by turns, poignant, moving, furiously angry, uproariously funny and packed with incredible tunes. It strides confidently away from the country-infused style she minted on her 2022 debut If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, into territory that touches on jazz (Janis Joplining), raging alt-rock (The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station) and soul-kissed pop (Running/ Planning; Take a Sexy Picture of Me) without losing the essence of what made her successful in the first place.

Published: December 18, 2025, 2:00 pm

Yael van der Wouden : ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy cured my fear of aliens’

The Safekeep author on her secret childhood reading, falling in love with Elizabeth Strout and why she keeps coming back to Zadie Smith

My earliest reading memory
I had a children’s encyclopedia on the shelf above my bed – orange and brown, the cover old flaking plastic – but I retain nothing of what I read. I do remember a book of dirty jokes I was obsessed with at the age of eight. I was convinced it was off limits to me (it wasn’t) and so I waited until my parents were at work to shamefully steal it from the bookshelf. One time, my mother found it under my pillow and I was mortified. I recall her being confused and putting it back with a mumbled “I don’t judge” as she left the room.

My favourite book growing up
That must have been one of Thea Beckman’s novels, most likely Hasse Simonsdochter. Beckman was the author for young adults in 80s and 90s Netherlands.

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:00 am

Making Mary Poppins by Todd James Pierce review – the musical brothers behind the movie magic

Bob and Dick Sherman take centre stage in this well-researched account of how Walt Disney created a classic

Like many kids of the VHS generation, I must have watched my taped-off-the-telly copy of Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) well over 100 times. I probably knew every frame as well as Walt Disney himself, who invested 20 years in bringing it to the screen.

The culmination of his live action achievements, Mary Poppins remained the project Walt was most proud of. A sophisticated, multi-Oscar-winning musical that proved the House of Mouse was about more than just cartoons, its box office success enabled him to expand his Florida ambitions for Disney World resort and shore up the company’s financial future.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen review – a prescient classic of cryogenics

This resurrected Danish novel about a man who is ‘frozen down’, awaking in an Orwellian dystopia two decades later, is inventive, funny and all too timely

In the Danish author’s uncannily prescient novel, first published in 1969, the year is 1973 and Bruno works as a fiction editor for a popular weekly magazine; his talent for generating story ideas makes him indispensable to his authors. Invited for dinner at the home of one of them, Bruno finds himself seated next to a woman named Jenny, a struggling ballet dancer with a gloomy aspect and no sense of humour. Bruno is drawn to her nonetheless, and finds himself inventing stories about her. The following day, he is admitted to hospital to undergo tests: a small lump on the side of his neck has raised some concerns. Bruno cannot help feeling the two events are somehow connected.

It comes as little surprise to Bruno when he learns he has cancer. The doctor in charge of his case, Josef Ackerman, offers a choice: he can either undergo the gruelling and fallible radiotherapy currently prescribed for his disease, or he can become a pioneer in a new, radically experimental treatment programme in which patients are “frozen down”, remaining in a state of suspended animation until such time as medical science has advanced sufficiently to offer a cure.

Published: December 18, 2025, 7:00 am

The 20 best video games of 2025

A family classic reborn in a wide open world, a satirical adventure through teenage life and a mystery puzzler for the ages – our critics on the year’s best fun
• More on the best culture of 2025

Ivy Road/Annapurna Interactive; PC, PS5, Xbox
An arena warrior on a losing streak takes refuge in a vast forest where she discovers the joy of working in a cosy teashop. From this simple premise comes a joyful game of mindfulness and social interaction, as Alta learns how to serve up witty conversation and decent hot drinks. Colourful and highly stylised, it is a thoughtful study of burnout and recovery.

Published: December 19, 2025, 6:00 am

Karts, cakes and karaoke: the eight best party games to play with family this Christmas

Whether your household is in the mood for singing, driving, quizzing or shouting, here are our top choices for homely holiday fun

Multiplayer hand-to-hand combat games are ridiculously good fun and there are plenty to choose from, including the rather similar Gang Beasts and Party Animals. I’ve gone for this one, however, which lets everyone pick a cake to play as before competing in food fights and taking on mini-games such as roasting marshmallows and lobbing fruit into a pie. If you ever wished that the Great British Bake Off was ever-so-slightly more gladitorial, this is the game for you.

Published: December 18, 2025, 11:00 am

Chase Infiniti: ‘My parents freaked out more than me when I said I was acting opposite Leonardo DiCaprio’

The breakout star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (the Guardian’s No 1 film of 2025) on learning karate, her love of car chases – and how she got her name

You could hardly ask for a better movie debut than Chase Infiniti’s in One Battle After Another, even if the 24-year-old actor was very much thrown in at the deep end. As Willa, the teenage daughter of former revolutionaries, she was called on to do shoot-outs, car chases, karate, and to hold her own against heavyweights like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall. “My whole life has literally changed in the last six months,” she says.

Tell us how you got this role? Was there a giant karate tournament where you had to defeat all your rivals?
No, thank God. I did six months of auditioning for the film while I was working on my first project, Presumed Innocent. So I was in California when I sent in my first self-tape. And about a month after that, the casting director called me and was like: “Hey, Paul Thomas Anderson would love to do an in-person callback, and it’s going to be a chemistry read with Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall.” And so after that, I had in-person auditioning, callbacks, chemistry reads and camera tests, and then I had four days of intensive karate training, private lessons and group classes. Paul came to watch the final one, and then after that, he told me I’d got the part.

Published: December 19, 2025, 8:00 am

Grief inspired so much of the year’s best music – and that’s something AI won’t ever feel

As AI generated ever more pop slop, reflective songwriting by artists from Clipse to CMAT drew its power from its very humanity

The most acclaimed albums of 2025 make for impressively eclectic listening. Surveying them does not reveal much in the way of obvious musical trends. There’s very little similarity between Rosalía’s heady classical approach to pop on Lux and Lily Allen’s conversational disclosures on West End Girl. You could broadly group CMAT’s Euro-Country, Bon Iver’s Sable, Fable and the Tubs’ Cotton Crown together as alternative rock but they don’t sound anything like each other. And the year’s best-of lists are sprinkled with albums that brilliantly defy classification: Blood Orange’s Essex Honey leaps from old-fashioned indie to Prince-y funk; on Black British Music, Jim Legxacy sees no reason why UK rap can’t coexist with distorted guitars, pop R&B and acoustic bedroom pop.

But it’s hard not to notice how similar they are thematically: a large swathe of the Guardian’s albums of the year seem consumed by loss. There are straightforward explorations of failed relationships: for all its religious imagery, there’s a prosaic breakup at the heart of Rosalía’s Lux, while West End Girl’s lurid detailing of the collapse of Lily Allen’s marriage kept the tabloids in headlines for weeks. There are albums about more literal grief: a mother’s death informs Blood Orange’s Essex Honey and the Tubs’ Cotton Crown; Jim Legxacy references his late sister, while the brothers in august rap duo Clipse have seldom sounded as vulnerable as they do describing the deaths of their parents on their rightly heralded comeback Let God Sort ’Em Out. Euro-Country both memorialises a close friend on Lord, Let That Tesla Crash, while its title track examines the wave of suicides provoked by the Irish financial crisis of 2008.

Published: December 19, 2025, 10:00 am

‘I enjoy fame. It’s very exposing and raw – though you pay a price’: Addison Rae, the Guardian’s artist of the year

In just two years, Rae has gone from star TikTok dancer to being Grammy-nominated for best new artist. She reflects on her critically acclaimed debut and how she’s learning to reclaim and relinquish control

No one in pop has had a year like Addison Rae. She may not be the biggest star – that remains Taylor Swift – or even the most commercially successful breakout act. But the dreamy dance-pop haze of her debut album, Addison, made her into an artist’s artist, loved by the likes of Charli xcx and Lana Del Rey – the leftfield pop acts who paved the way for someone like her. Like a pre-Brat Charli, or perhaps Sky Ferreira, the 25-year-old is the pop connoisseur’s choice, justly earning comparisons to Del Rey, her fellow Louisiana girl Britney Spears and Ray of Light-era Madonna, while knowing her way around her R&B and Jersey club. She’s up for best new artist at next year’s Grammy awards – and with Addison and its knowingly anaesthetised single Headphones On placing in the Guardian’s top five albums and tracks of 2025 respectively, she’s our artist of the year.

So it’s crazy to flick back just two years to when Rae wasn’t just a flop, but a punchline. In 2021, she released her debut single Obsessed, a perfectly average Benny Blanco-produced single that attracted disproportionate hatred because Rae was then just a TikTok star whose breezy dance videos had made her the platform’s fifth most-followed figure. The song flopped. Two years later came the AR EP: featuring a Charli guest verse – she asked to feature on a leaked demo that she loved – it made Rae a cult favourite. Last summer, she returned the favour, guesting on a remix of Charli’s Von Dutch: “While you’re sitting in your dad’s basement … Got a lot to say about my debut!” Rae taunted.

Published: December 18, 2025, 12:00 pm

Film-maker Mstyslav Chernov: ‘I kept seeing Ukraine as a victim of this invasion – I wanted to tell another story’

The documentary-maker on new film 2000 Meters to Andriivka (the Guardian’s No 2 film of 2025), being on the Oscar circuit with 20 Days in Mariupol and filming on the frontline

Adrian Horton: I know you were showing your prior film, 20 Days in Mariupol, to western audiences when you began working on this film. What brought you back to the frontlines?
Mstyslav Chernov: What brought me back was not speaking to the audiences, even, but just coming out of Mariupol, we were so devastated and so scarred by what happened. And then we went off to Bucha, where we saw more war crimes. And then I went to Kharkiv, my home town, which was bombed every day, just as Mariupol was. So even when we were starting to edit 20 Days in Mariupol, I was already looking for a story that would be, in a way, a response to that feeling I had, of devastation and helplessness. I kept seeing Ukraine as a victim of this brutal invasion, and I wanted to tell another story which would have an opposite direction – to show some sort of agency, some sort of strength and response to that violence, when Ukrainians push back.

AH: And that was when Mariupol was already out? What was that dissonance like for you – being on the Oscar circuit, then filming on the frontlines?
MC: That was when the theatrical release started in July. It was the same time as Barbie and Oppenheimer, and it was the same time when we had dozens and dozens of Q&As for the wider public. It was when the first receptions and red carpets started. But of course, at the same time, the frontline was on fire. Ukraine was fighting this counteroffensive. And I would go from those places in the United States, in the UK, in Europe, these beautiful, peaceful cities, back to Ukraine – fly to the border, get a car, get a train, get another car, get in a trench. And in that trench, I would see a world that was so different. It would be like another planet, or 100 years backward in time. That collision of two worlds – I just tried to express it. I tried to comprehend it, how we live in a world where both war and peace and humanity and violence exist. And so 2000 Meters to Andriivka naturally became a film about distances, not just about the reality of war, not just about the humanity of people who are pinned down in those foxholes. But also about the distance between Europe and Ukraine, between Ukrainian society and people in the trenches. Hopefully that comes through.

Published: December 18, 2025, 9:35 am

Sleep masks, mug warmers and mini projectors: the products our readers flocked to in 2025

We recommended hundreds of products in 2025, but these 11 really struck a chord with Filter US readers

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By now, Spotify users have had time to sit with this year’s Wrapped results. If you were disappointed that your “top artist” was the white noise you rely on to fall asleep or that your “listening mood” was “pink pilates princess”, you aren’t alone.

The good news: you apparently have better taste in products. We’ve put our own spin on Spotify’s infamous tradition by looking back at the products Filter readers bought the most this year, and you made us proud.

Published: December 18, 2025, 8:15 pm

Experience: I won the lottery for 15 minutes

My heart skipped a beat. I felt quite light-headed. Finally, the moment I dreamed of had arrived

I can’t remember the first time I played the lottery – I was probably quite young. I’m an optimist. If you don’t play, you can’t win, and somebody has to win the big prize. Why not me? To me, winning would mean freedom – leave my job, have no debts and do exactly as I pleased.

I live in Norway, and every few weeks I’d buy a lottery ticket. I’d occasionally win 100 kroner (£7.50), which just covered the cost of the ticket. It kept the dream alive, though.

Published: December 19, 2025, 5:00 am

How ‘showgirl’ became the sparkling look of 2025

This year, the once-vanishing symbol of Las Vegas glamour was reborn in the wardrobes of Gen Z superstars

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After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes created by the American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Now, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.

Published: December 19, 2025, 7:00 am

I’m over useless skincare. But how can I take care of my face?

Enter what I call ‘no-skincare skincare’ – things that support the skin without disturbing it

Hi Ugly,

I used to love skincare, but after reading your articles and noticing how many useless products get produced, I lost faith in it.

Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’?

How should I be styling my pubic hair?

How do I deal with imperfection?

My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done

I want to ignore beauty culture. But I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t look a certain way

Published: December 18, 2025, 5:00 pm

How do I talk to my conservative grandsons who dismiss my politics as fuzzy thinking? | Leading questions

You could try showing them the depths of what they don’t know, says advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Knowing what they’re missing could be a path to mutual respect

• Read more Leading questions

How do I talk to grown grandsons who have different political beliefs and dismiss mine as fuzzy thinking, since I am old?

They are conservative and believe they “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”. They didn’t. They had parents and family and help with university. They are lovely men and kind to me, but I cannot converse with them on the issues of the day.

They have had setbacks, but nothing that makes them realise how very difficult life can be. I want to tell them that they cannot always control life, and also that I disagree with them. What can I say?

The reader’s letter has been edited for length

Published: December 18, 2025, 2:00 pm

You be the judge: should my husband stop calling all sweet things ‘buns’?

Parveen doesn’t know if she’s getting a sponge cake or a burger bap, but Joe thinks she needs to embrace his northern-isms. You decide who is sweet and who is sour
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Joe says ‘buns’ covers all sweet things in the north, but I worry he’ll bring me home a burger bun

Regional differences in language are all part of the fun – plus, surely sugar is sugar?

Published: December 18, 2025, 8:00 am

Move over Bluetooth: wired headphones are back – and suddenly cool again

From celebrity endorsements to digital fatigue, the once-obsolete white wire has become a fashion statement and a quiet act of opting out

With white-wired headphones endorsed by celebrities including Lily-Rose Depp, Paul Mescal, Bella Hadid and Apple Martin, a growing number of people are breaking away from wireless listening.

For inspiration, there is the Instagram account @wireditgirls, or a Balenciaga campaign featuring the model Mona Tougaard reclining bed, wired headphones in place.

Published: December 19, 2025, 4:02 pm

In this fractured and frightening world, one mantra my parents gave me calls me

All of us belong to different tribes that give us identity and meaning, but this lesson tells us we are more than our different tribes

Last week, a family member passed away. While we came together to celebrate the tremendous impact of his life, death always hurts.

Death also always makes me contemplate three things:

Published: December 19, 2025, 2:00 pm

My weirdest Christmas: my wife and I got food poisoning in Thailand – then made a very bad decision

We should have stayed in bed, recovering. Instead, we ploughed ahead with our cliff-jumping boat tour and found ourselves stranded in choppy waters …

It was probably the fish stew. We got it from a street food vendor on Ko Phi Phi, Thailand’s most party-centric island, and I remember it being absolutely delicious. Fifteen hours later, my wife and I were lying on the bare boards of a long-tail boat, rocking gently in the waves, huddled together under a blanket and regretting every single choice we’d made that Christmas Day. As the song says, we can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible.

Thailand is a fantastic place to go for Christmas: it’s hot, the people are lovely, and there are plenty of fairy lights but not too much Cliff Richard. Ko Phi Phi is more of an acquired taste – it’s the sort of place you buy heavily diluted vodka by the bucket – but we were very much making the best of it. The night we arrived, in 2014, we watched a bunch of farangs (foreigners) flail away at each other in oversized boxing gloves, some of them chugging beers between rounds. For the big day, we decided to push the boat out: the limestone rock formations around the islands are a popular spot for deep-water soloing, where you climb up a cliff face with no rope and then leap (or fall) into the clear blue sea below. We hired a guide, had a light supper and hyped ourselves up for an unforgettable festive morning.

Published: December 19, 2025, 9:00 am

How to eat, drink and be merry – while pregnant – at Christmas

Some traditional treats may be off the menu, but there are plenty of alternatives for a festive feast

For a festival with childbirth at its religious heart, it is perverse how much of our traditional Christmas spread isn’t recommended for pregnant women. Pre-pregnancy, this was not something I’d clocked. I was the soft cheese supremo, canape queen – at my happiest with a smoked trout blini in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. Then one day in October, two blue lines appeared on a test result and everything started to change: my body, my future and most pressingly my Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong: no present under the tree can match the gift I’ve got in store. But as a food writer who loves this season, I can’t think of a worse time to be nauseated, exhausted and forbidden by the NHS to eat, drink or do my favourite things to eat, drink or do in winter. I have no alternatives for saunas, skiing and hot baths. I do, however, know enough chefs, bartenders, retailers and producers to create a Christmas feast that is full of wonder, joy and within the NHS guidelines.

Published: December 18, 2025, 11:00 am

Ordinary Americans are fighting back against ICE: ‘We’re going to outlast them’

As Trump carries out his mass deportation operation, residents are banding together to block raids and distribute groceries

A year into his second term, Donald Trump’s pledge to stage the “largest deportation operation in American history” has already made an indelible mark on the nation.

Nearly 300,000 people have been deported, and a record 65,000 people are being held in detention centers. Aggressive raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, sometimes with the backing of federalized national guard units, have terrorized immigrant communities from Charlotte to Chicago, New Orleans to New York. Enabled by a supreme court ruling that “effectively legalized racial profiling”, immigration enforcement has separated families, forced targeted individuals to miss work, school and doctors appointments, and caused communities to cancel festivals and gatherings.

Published: December 18, 2025, 2:00 pm

Canada’s population drop reflects souring of attitudes to immigration

A country known for welcoming newcomers has reversed policy as immigration becomes increasingly a partisan issue

• Canada sees large drop in population amid international students crackdown

Standing in Canada’s House of Commons in 2023, the then-prime minister, Justin Trudeau, gave an impassioned speech on the value of welcoming newcomers.

“Canadians know that immigration is one of our greatest assets. It helps us compete,” he said. “If we want to boost our economic success significantly, we need to boost immigration.”

Published: December 18, 2025, 1:09 pm

‘We wanted to take action’: US toy company fights back over Trump tariffs

Learning Resources is suing the administration, claiming the president’s tariffs are illegal – and millions of dollars are on the line

The conveyors whir in the massive warehouse, boxes gliding at fast clip, filling up with toys ready to be shipped out for holiday gifts across the country. They make their way to shipping trucks, nearly full with hundreds of boxes by the afternoon of a recent Thursday.

The 364,000 sq ft warehouse in the suburbs outside Chicago is just one of Learning Resources’ investments in the US. The company and its affiliated brands employ more than 500 people. They make about 2,000 different products, mostly educational toys such as children’s binoculars, cash registers and learning games.

Published: December 18, 2025, 12:00 pm

Indian Christmas and the Nutcracker in Mexico: photos of the day – Friday

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

Published: December 19, 2025, 1:39 pm