14 unexpected US gifts to give the men in your life this holiday season

From Crocs to indestructible wallets, we rounded up the best guy-approved gifts they won’t know how they lived without

• The 15 US gifts to give the women in your life

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Whether you have been together for years, just made it official, or maybe you’re just shopping for your brother, one thing remains certain: he is going to claim he doesn’t need anything. The special guys in our lives often default to what they’ve always used and loved, from threadbare T-shirts to melted spatulas.

This season, give him the gift of novelty. Introduce him to a new gadget he hasn’t thought of for his man-cave (yes, our respondents still have those). Show him that it’s OK to cry with a personalized keepsake commemorating your shared history. Introduce a little color into his life if his year has been a bit bleak.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:15 pm

Sean Duffy wants to bring ‘civility’ to air travel … so why is he doing pull-ups at the airport? | Arwa Mahdawi

Transport infrastructure in the US is a hot mess – and the guy in charge thinks ‘wellness spaces’ are gonna solve the problem

Sean “Dog” Duffy is a legend in the lumberjack world: a three-time world champion in the 90-ft lumberjack speed climb who is renowned for his prowess in mounting and rolling big bits of wood. Not just a lumberjack, Duffy also made waves on late-90s reality TV shows The Real World: Boston and Road Rules: All Stars. And now Duffy is parlaying his experience on Road Rules into his role as US transportation secretary.

Duffy has got a lot on his big lumberjack hands: transport infrastructure in the US is, to use the technical term, a hot mess. More than a third of the country’s bridges need major repair work or replacement. There has been little historical investment in railways and the country lags behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to high-speed trains. Meanwhile, there’s a chronic air-traffic-controller shortage, which was exacerbated by the recent government shutdown when a number of controllers, fed up with the dysfunctional system, took early retirement.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:07 pm

A dead whale shows up on your beach. What do you do with the 40-ton carcass?

A fin whale washed ashore in Anchorage and was left there for months. Then a self-described ‘wacko’ museum director made a plan

When a whale dies, its body descends to the bottom of the deep sea in a transformative phenomenon called a whale fall. A whale’s death jump-starts an explosion of life, enough to feed and sustain a deep-ocean ecosystem for decades.

There are a lot of ways whales can die. Migrating whales lose their way and, unable to find their way back from unfamiliar waters, are stranded. They can starve when prey disappears or fall to predators such as orcas. They become bycatch, tangled in fishing lines and nets. Mass whale deaths have been linked to marine heatwaves and the toxic algae blooms that follow.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:00 pm

All of the suspected drug boat killings are murders | Kenneth Roth

There is no rule of law if the president can deem anyone an enemy combatant and order them summarily shot

The largely supine Republicans in Congress had no apparent trouble as Donald Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of suspected drug runners off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. But suddenly they are up in arms because the Washington Post reported on 28 November about one incident, a double-tap strike, in which the US military finished off two survivors of an attack.

Tempted as I am to accept whatever it takes to spark some minimal scrutiny of these summary executions, I hope this unexpected opening prompts broader investigation of this entire series of murders, which have now claimed 87 victims in 22 attacks. As Democrats join in, there are some indications that this expanded scrutiny may be finally beginning.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:30 pm

The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one

The Free Birth Society was selling pregnant women a simple message. They could exit the medical system and take back their power. By free birthing. But Nicole Garrison believes FBS ideology nearly cost her her life. This is episode one of a year-long investigation by Guardian journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:54 pm

Film bro finds and ‘crash out cinema’: how Letterboxd became a review haven for the algorithm-averse

The platform’s esoteric watchlists and rating system appeal to cinephiles craving a different mode of discovery

I never thought I would use Letterboxd. The app’s premise of logging reviews of every film you watch felt like counting steps, and I generally prefer to exercise my pretension the old fashioned way – such as getting a BFA or frequenting art house cinema screenings where I am usually the only person under 50 in the theater.

But after I wrote about my feelgood movie for the Guardian – that would be Sullivan’s Travels, Preston Sturges’s perfect 1941 satire – I was swayed by two newsroom colleagues. “Hey Alaina, we heard you like movies,” one of them said. “What’s your Letterboxd?” I wanted to be part of the club, and signed up later that night. Now, I write thoughts on every movie I see, usually before I’ve even left the theater or closed out the streamer.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:00 pm

US forces seize oil tanker off Venezuela coast

Grainy footage uploaded to X by the attorney general shows US forces landing on the helicopter – in a major escalation of Trump’s pressure campaign

• US politics live – latest updates

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

The US president confirmed the operation on Wednesday, saying: “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela – a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:42 pm

Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter point amid apparent split over US economy

Divisive vote to lower rates highlights uncertainty in the Fed as economy absorbs major shakeups, including tariffs

The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year, as the embattled central bank appeared split over how best to manage the US economy.

The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has emphasized unity within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the board of Fed leaders that sets interest rates. But the nine-to-three vote to lower rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% was divisive among the committee that tends to vote in unanimity.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:23 pm

‘Coalition of the willing’ nations to hold call on ending war in Ukraine

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and others to discuss peace plan as US tries to push through peace deal

Leaders of the “coalition of the willing” group of nations will hold a video call on Thursday as chaotic American efforts to push through a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine reach a crunch moment.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his officials would hand over a revised version of a peace plan to US negotiators on Wednesday before the call with leaders and officials from about 30 countries.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:44 pm

Trump launches $1m ‘gold card’ visa scheme amid immigration crackdown

Wealthy immigrants will be able to buy residency, and $5m ‘platinum card’ will exempt holders from some US taxes

Donald Trump launched a new program that will allow wealthy foreign individuals to buy a US “golden visa” for $1m, and trailed a “platinum” version for $5m.

“A direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people. SO EXCITING! Our Great American Companies can finally keep their invaluable Talent,” Trump wrote on Wednesday on social media.

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:30 pm

Heavy rain in US Pacific north-west brings fears of further flooding

Rivers in Washington close to record heights as residents call floods ‘devastating’ and officials issue emergency alerts

Residents of the Pacific north-west are preparing for a round of heavy rain on Wednesday after an atmospheric river of moisture smacked the region a day earlier with rains that triggered mudslides and washed out roads and submerged vehicles.

In Washington, rain over the state’s watersheds and mountains are causing rivers to rise, potentially imperiling homes, livestock and lives in valleys from Mount Rainier to Mount Baker, the Seattle Times reported. Rivers, including the Carbon, Cedar, Elwha and Snohomish are forecast to rise close to record heights.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:33 pm

Texas and Florida sue FDA in latest effort to restrict abortion pill access

States’ attorneys general argue agency has failed to properly evaluate mifepristone’s safety since initial 2000 approval

Texas and Florida have launched the latest lawsuit seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, following the US Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of a new generic version.

In the lawsuit, filed late on Tuesday in federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, the states’ Republican attorneys general argue that the FDA has failed to thoroughly evaluate the drug’s safety and effectiveness since its initial approval in 2000 and disregarded the risks to the women who take it.

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:00 pm

Whoa, baby: San Francisco woman gives birth in Waymo self-driving taxi

Car company said team detected ‘unusual activity’ inside vehicle and called to check on rider and alert 911

Self-driving Waymo taxis have gone viral for negative reasons including the death of a beloved San Francisco bodega cat and pulling an illegal U-turn in front of police, who were unable to issue a ticket to a nonexistent driver.

But this week, the company behind the self-driving taxis is drawing attention to the happier news that a San Francisco woman gave birth in a Waymo.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:33 pm

Nasa loses contact with spacecraft orbiting Mars for more than a decade

Space agency is investigating after Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend

Nasa has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade, though the US space agency said it was trying to re-establish a communications link.

Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend. Nasa said this week that the spacecraft had been working fine before it went behind the red planet. When it reappeared, there was only silence. “Telemetry showed all subsystems working normally before it orbited behind [Mars],” Nasa said in a statement.

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:22 pm

Iceland becomes fifth country to boycott Eurovision 2026 over Israel

Iceland joins Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland in neither participating in nor broadcasting event

Iceland has become the fifth country to boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest after Israel was given the go-ahead to compete, deepening the crisis facing the competition.

The board of the national broadcaster, RÚV, voted on Wednesday not to participate, meaning Iceland will join Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland in neither participating in nor broadcasting the event, which is scheduled to take place in Vienna.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:35 pm

Trump continues to sow chaos and division after winning Fifa peace prize

The US president praised an autocrat, said Europe should ‘send back’ asylum seekers and compared Ukraine’s leader to a conman

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

Donald Trump may not have won a Nobel peace prize, but last weekend he was at least given something: the inaugural Fifa peace prize.

The Fifa prize’s existence was announced remarkably soon after the Nobel went to Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado. Gianni Infantino, the controversial Fifa president, has been toadying to Trump for years, so after he introduced the prize – in response to zero demand – it was little surprise that Trump got the trophy.

I have eyes. I have ears. I have, er, knowledge.

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:00 pm

A Democratic mayor for Miami is not just Trump backlash – it’s a seismic shift

Eileen Higgins’s win has reset the city’s political landscape in some ways not seen in 28 years, and in others not at all

• US politics live – latest updates

Miami’s new mayor, Eileen Higgins, hailed it as “a new day” for the city after the Democrat ended three decades of Republican rule on Tuesday night in a stunning election triumph.

In reality, the result is more of a seismic shifting of sands given the magnitude of her victory over the Donald Trump-backed Republican candidate, Emilio González, in the most populous city in Miami-Dade county, which the president won in 2024 by 12%.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:08 pm

Musk calls Doge only ‘somewhat successful’ and says he would not do it again

Speaking on a rightwing podcast, the billionaire said he would not go back and lead the job-cutting program again

Elon Musk has said the aggressive federal job-cutting program he headed early in Donald Trump’s second term, known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), was only “a little bit successful” and he would not lead the project again.

Musk said he wouldn’t want to repeat the exercise, talking on the podcast hosted by Katie Miller, a rightwing personality with a rising profile who was a Doge adviser and who is married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration deputy chief of staff.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:12 pm

Michigan Democrat moves to impeach RFK Jr, alleging ‘abuse of authority’

Haley Stevens accuses health secretary of undermining public health, but Republican-run House is unlikely to act

• US politics live – latest updates

A Democratic lawmaker from Michigan has introduced articles of impeachment against Robert F Kennedy, the US health secretary, accusing him of “abuse of authority and undermining of the public health”.

Representative Haley Stevens, who is currently running for Senate, formally introduced the articles on impeachment on Wednesday, several months after she announced that she vowed to file the articles.

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:21 pm

ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women, even during labor: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’

Pregnant immigrants in ICE monitoring programs are avoiding care, fearing detention during labour and delivery

In early September, a woman, nine months pregnant, walked into the emergency obstetrics unit of a Colorado hospital. Though the labor and delivery staff caring for her expected her to have a smooth delivery, her case presented complications almost immediately.

The woman, who was born in central Asia, checked into the hospital with a smart watch on her wrist, said two hospital workers who cared for her during her labor, and whom the Guardian is not identifying to avoid exposing their hospital or patients to retaliation.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:15 pm

Santa at war: ‘home’ town in Finland hosts Nato soldiers as Russian threat looms

Christmas tourists are noticing a growing military presence in Lapland, where Santa Park doubles as a bomb shelter

Billed as the official home town of Santa Claus, or joulupukki as he is known in Finland, the city of Rovaniemi offers every imaginable Father Christmas-related experience – from a visit to his “office” on the Arctic Circle to reindeer sleigh rides. He even has his own branch of the Finnish design house Marimekko.

But this Christmas season, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world coming in search of Santa, Finnish Lapland’s snow-covered capital is becoming an increasingly popular destination for international military visitors.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:39 pm

Gen-Zine: DIY publications find new life as form of resistance against Trump

Zines have made a resurgence as communities seek to share information on everything from ICE raids to local elections

On a cloudy Saturday afternoon, the Los Angeles central public library bustled with nearly 100 people making zines, small, DIY magazines made out of a single piece of paper. There was folding, laughing and helping with cuts. Titles like “Narcan 101,” “Free Palestine,” and “An American Zine,” filled with illustrations and tips, lined a table down the hall.

While this may sound like a scene from the 1980s or 1990s – when zines were popular as a countercultural form of expression – this was a workshop in modern-day Los Angeles, where immigration raids and federal threats have left residents restless and scared.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

Sounds like activism: musicians who fight for change – in pictures

Photographer Janette Beckman and curator Julie Grahame have organized a one-time fundraiser for the ACLU that showcases images of musicians who have recorded protest songs or are known for their activism. Forty-three photographers have donated images of 50 artists, from John Lennon to Nina Simone to Bad Bunny, and 100% of the profits will go towards the ACLU and their efforts to protect equality, freedom and rights. In addition to the images there is a playlist of songs for the fundraiser.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:55 pm

Ella McCay review – James L Brooks returns with a sorry mess of a movie

Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Albert Brooks, Rebecca Hall and Woody Harrelson are among the stars lost in the writer-director’s baffling misfire

Ella McCay, a new comedy drama written and directed by James L Brooks, feels like a relic, and not just because it’s set, seemingly arbitrarily, in 2008. Broadly appealing, well cast, neither strictly comic nor melodramatic, concerning ordinary people in non-IP circumstances, it’s the type of mid-budget adult film that used to appear regularly in cinemas in the 90s and aughts, before the streaming wars devoured the market. Even its lead promotional image, turned into a life-size cardboard cut-out at the theater – Emma Mackey’s titular Ella in a sensible trench coat, balancing on one foot as she fixes a broken block heel – recalls a bygone era of films like Confessions of a Shopaholic, Miss Congeniality or Little Miss Sunshine, that would now go straight to streaming.

To be clear, I miss these types of movies, and want to see more of them. I want to see a lighthearted but realistic portrait of a 34-year-old woman serving as lieutenant governor of an unnamed state that is, judging by the college football paraphernalia and the vibe, probably Michigan. I want to still believe in the possibility of smart and sentimental popcorn fare whose low-stakes drama insists on the inherent inconsistencies and decency of people. I especially would like to say that Ella McCay is an admirable final salvo (or so) for Brooks, the 85-year-old writer/director/producer whose prolific career includes both iconic sitcoms (The Mary Tyler Moore show, Taxi and the Simpsons), and now-classic films (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets).

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 pm

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘What a child he is’

Late-night hosts discussed a planned UFC fight on the White House lawn for Trump’s 80th birthday and his empty reassurances on the economy

Late-night hosts dug into Donald Trump’s back-pedaling over footage of the controversial Venezuela boat strikes and a White House UFC fight for his 80th birthday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:42 pm

Calibri: is this really the world’s wokest font?

It was the Windows typeface for 17 years – and adopted by the Biden administration for its readability for those with visual impairments. But Marco Rubio has ruled that Calibri lacks ‘decorum’

Name: Calibri.

Age: 19.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:00 pm

Nicola Jennings on Donald Trump and the ‘civilisational erasure’ of Europe – cartoon

Continue reading...

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 pm

Quentin Tarantino needs to stop criticising films and start making them again | Peter Bradshaw

Trolling wokesters, disparaging Paul Thomas Anderson, insulting Paul Dano … the controversial director plays to type with his list of the top 20 best films of the 21st century

Did Quentin Tarantino just put Paul Dano into the alpha league of the world’s most loved and admired movie actors?

His recent insults aimed at Dano counterprovoked a flood of defensive praise, with Daniel Day-Lewis, Dano’s costar in There Will Be Blood, publicly endorsing it. But was Tarantino’s pronouncement just bluster and flex? Will he end up casting Dano in his next film – a turnaround like Donald Trump making nice with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after pretty much threatening him with nuclear war? Or are we witnessing a kind of midlife emotional crisis in the heart of one of the most brilliant directors of his generation? I speak as a superfan with reservations.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:32 pm

Look behind the pomp of Putin’s New Delhi visit. The India-Russia relationship has weakened | Chietigj Bajpaee

Modi voiced words of respect, but he is resisting an anti-western, anti-Ukraine stance, despite the foreign policy contradictions

• Dr Chietigj Bajpaee is senior fellow for south Asia at the thinktank Chatham House

The rhetoric and optics of the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to India last week allude to the strength of the bilateral relationship: Narendra Modi greeted Putin at the airport with a hug, and the leaders shared a car journey (echoing the “limo diplomacy” when Putin and Donald Trump met in Alaska earlier this year). In his remarks, Modi referred to Putin as “my friend” and the India-Russia relationship as a “guiding star”, built on “mutual respect and deep trust” that had “stood the test of time”. This was Putin’s 10th visit to India since he assumed power 25 years ago, and his 20th meeting with Modi since the latter became prime minister in 2014.

However, there is a gap between the symbolism and the substance of this relationship. While Putin pledged “uninterrupted fuel supplies” to India, the country’a companies are buying less Russian oil in the face of US tariffs and sanctions. Russia and India concluded a string of memorandums of understanding in areas from migration and mobility to health and food security, maritime cooperation, fertilisers, customs, and academic and media collaboration. But the anticipated announcements on major defence deals did not happen. India has not concluded any major defence deals with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This has been fuelled by delays in the delivery of several platforms and spare parts as Moscow has prioritised its own defence needs. This is a trend that predates the war in Ukraine as New Delhi has sought to diversify its defence imports and strengthen its domestic production.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

Haaland seals Manchester City win at Real Madrid to leave Alonso on brink

For Xabi Alonso, the slide towards the abyss has looked sudden from the outside. Everything was fine at the beginning of November, results for Real Madrid excellent. Since when precious little has gone his way. The manager desperately needed something here. When this latest game eluded him, it was easy to fear the worst. Time is not a commodity afforded to men in his position.

Alonso has now won twice in eight matches in all competitions and the pain was deep, the frustration given an extra twist by the reality that his players did put it in for him. They were unable to bend the occasion to their will. The margins were against them.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:05 pm

Michigan fire coach Sherrone Moore over ‘inappropriate relationship’ with staff member

• Michigan football terminate Moore with cause

• Coach accused of inappropriate relationship

• Wolverines now scramble before Citrus Bowl

Michigan fired football coach Sherrone Moore on Wednesday after finding evidence of an “inappropriate relationship with a staff member”, a stunning end to his short, up-and-down tenure that saw the Wolverines take a step back on the field after winning the national championship.

“This conduct constitutes a clear violation of university policy, and U-M maintains zero tolerance for such behavior,” athletic director Warde Manuel said.

The announcement did not include details of the alleged relationship. Moore, who was 8-5 in his debut season and 9-3 this year, did not return a message seeking comment left by the Associated Press. He signed a five-year contract with a base annual salary of $5.5m last year.

College football’s winningest program is suddenly looking for a third coach in four years, shortly after a busy cycle that included Lane Kiffin leaving playoff-bound Ole Miss for LSU.

Moore, the team’s former offensive coordinator, was promoted to the lead the Wolverines after they won the 2024 national title to succeed Jim Harbaugh when he returned to the NFL to lead the Los Angeles Chargers. The 18th-ranked Wolverines (9-3, 7-2 Big Ten) are set to play No 14 Texas on 31 December in the Citrus Bowl.

Moore, in his second season, was suspended for two games in 2025 as part of self-imposed sanctions for NCAA violations related to a sign-stealing scandal. The NCAA added a third game to the suspension, which were to keep Moore off the sideline for next year’s opener against Western Michigan.

Moore will now miss that game for another reason.

He previously deleted his entire 52 message text thread on his personal phone with former staffer Connor Stalions, who led the team’s sign-sealing operation for the program. The texts were later recovered and shared with the NCAA.

Biff Poggi, who filled in for Moore when he was suspended earlier this season, will serve as the team’s interim coach.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:15 pm

‘Dadgummit, let’s freaking go’: 44-year-old grandfather Rivers could start for Colts

• Injuries have ravaged Colts quarterbacks

• Rivers last played in NFL in 2020

The Indianapolis Colts have not ruled out starting Philip Rivers at quarterback after luring the grandfather out of retirement amid an injury crisis.

The Colts lost starter Daniel Jones for the season after he tore his achilles on Sunday, while their first-round pick in 2023, Anthony Richardson, is out with a broken orbital bone he suffered in October. With backup Riley Leonard dealing with a knee injury, the Colts turned to the 44-year-old Rivers, who retired at the end of the 2020 season. Rivers, who has been a high school coach since his retirement and recently welcomed his first grandchild, played for the Colts in his final season after a long stint with the Chargers.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:41 pm

Mets all-time home run leader Pete Alonso reportedly agrees $155m deal with Orioles

• Slugger to sign five-year deal with Baltimore

• Mets fans also saw closer Edwin Diaz leave team

For the second day in a row, the New York Mets have seen a beloved star agree to terms with another team.

Pete Alonso, the Mets’ all-time leader in home runs, has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $155m contract with the Baltimore Orioles. The news comes a day after the Mets’ long-term closer, Edwin Díaz, reached a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:40 pm

NHL warns top players will not show up for Winter Olympics if venue is unsafe

• Construction delays have beset ice hockey arena in Milan

• ‘If the ice isn’t ready, we’re not going,’ NHL deputy warns

The NHL says it is “disappointing” that the main ice hockey venue for the Winter Olympics will not be ready until the new year – and warned that its top players will not show up unless the ice is shown to be safe.

The men’s and women’s tournaments are expected to be among the highlights of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games with the NHL stars showing up for the first time since 2014.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:15 pm

‘Hating soccer is more American than apple pie’: the World Cup nobody wanted the US to host

Glitzy draws, OJ-era chaos, grass laid over AstroTurf and a host nation that barely cared – the 1994 World Cup arrived amid suspicion and slapstick. Yet it became a watershed that would alter US sport and global football politics alike

“The United States was chosen,” the columnist George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times in 1994, “because of all the money to be made here, not because of any soccer prowess. Our country has been rented as a giant stadium and hotel and television studio.” Nobody could seriously doubt that. The USA had played in only two World Cups since the second world war and hadn’t had a national professional league for a decade. And that meant there was a great deal of skepticism from outsiders, even after Fifa made it clear there would be no wacky law changes to try to appeal to the domestic audience: Would anybody actually turn up to watch?

But there was also hostility in the United States. A piece in USA Today on the day of the draw told Americans they were right not to care about the World Cup, what it sneeringly described as the biggest sport in “Cameroon, Uruguay and Madagascar”. “Hating soccer,” wrote the columnist Tom Weir, “is more American than mom’s apple pie, driving a pickup or spending Saturday afternoon channel surfing with the remote control.”

Excerpted from The Power And The Glory by Jonathan Wilson, copyright © 2025 by Jonathan Wilson. Used with permission of Bold Type Books, an imprint of Basic Books Group, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:00 am

Nick Sirianni slams ‘ridiculous’ calls to bench Jalen Hurts amid Eagles’ skid

• Sirianni backs Hurts amid turnover slump

• Fans booed as Eagles dropped third straight

• QB change talk ‘ridiculous’, Sirianni says

Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni moved quickly on Wednesday to shut down the rising speculation around Jalen Hurts’ job security, calling talk of a potential quarterback change “ridiculous” despite his team’s three-game losing streak and their franchise star’s sudden dip in form.

Hurts committed five turnovers – four interceptions and a lost fumble – in Monday night’s 22-19 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers, punctuating one of the ugliest outings of his career. The final mistake, an interception near the goalline in overtime, sealed another deflating loss for an Eagles side that has averaged just 16 points across the past five games. The 8-5 Eagles have not won since 10 November.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:17 pm

‘A different type of game’: USMNT veterans on how to handle World Cup pressure

In 2010 and 2022, the US faced heightened emotions from the lead-in to the tournament itself. As hosts next year, little will change

The draw is done. The schedule is set. For the US men’s national team, all that’s left, aside from playing the games, are the emotional highs and lows. After the draw, US head coach Mauricio Pochettino referenced a “competitive stress” factor triggered by the World Cup. He said the friendlies against Belgium and Portugal in March are intended to simulate that stress so that it doesn’t surprise his players when the spotlight of the World Cup arrives.

With the margins always thin at a World Cup, earning results that mitigate that pressure could prove to be the difference between the USMNT crashing out just when they capture the undivided attention of the nation, or enduring and soaring to a best-ever finish.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:00 am

Big 12 commissioner says Notre Dame comments after CFP snub ‘totally out of bounds’

• Fighting Irish AD has attacked ACC this week

• Miami won selection ahead of Notre Dame

Big 12 Conference commissioner Brett Yormark said Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua was “totally out of bounds” for his comments on the Atlantic Coast Conference this week.

Notre Dame have a football scheduling alliance with the ACC and are a full member of the conference in other sports. Bevacqua has claimed the ACC damaged Notre Dame‘s chances at making the College Football Playoff, instead campaigning for Miami’s inclusion.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:06 pm

Wrong voters, wrong message: progressives’ autopsy lays bare Kamala Harris failures

RootsAction report finds Harris courted moderates instead of working-class Democrats – and Gaza stance did not help

Kamala Harris lost last year’s US presidential election because she chased the wrong voters with the wrong message, ultimately demobilising the very base that she needed to win, according to an autopsy by a progressive grassroots advocacy group.

The vice-president focused on courting moderate Republicans over motivating core Democratic working-class, young and progressive voters, a misstep compounded by her failure to break from Joe Biden on Gaza, says the report by RootsAction.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:00 am

No arrests or suspects in mass shooting at toddler’s birthday party in Stockton

California officials predict months-long investigation into 29 November killing of four people, including three children

More than a week after a mass shooting at a toddler’s birthday party in Stockton, California, killed four people and injured 17 others, law enforcement has yet to make arrests or name any suspects. It may take investigators months to figure out what led to the tragedy, authorities said.

As investigators parse through the aftermath of the shooting, they have found at least 50 shell casings and believe at least five firearms were used in the attack, San Joaquin sheriff Patrick Withrow told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:12 pm

Former Bolivian president Luis Arce reportedly detained by police

Ally claims former Mas president ‘illegally kidnapped’ and suggests arrest linked to fund for Indigenous Bolivians

Bolivia’s former president Luis Arce was reportedly detained and taken to police headquarters on Wednesday.

His former presidency minister, María Nela Prada Tejada, posted a video on social media saying she had received information from “unofficial sources” that Arce had been “illegally kidnapped” by police.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:16 pm

Humans made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests

Groundbreaking find makes compelling case that humans were lighting fires much earlier than originally believed

Humans mastered the art of creating fire 400,000 years ago, almost 350,000 years earlier than previously known, according to a groundbreaking discovery in a field in Suffolk.

It is known that humans used natural fire more than 1m years ago, but until now the earliest unambiguous example of humans lighting fires came from a site in northern France dating from 50,000 years ago.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:00 pm

Judge blocks Trump administration’s deployment of national guard troops in Los Angeles

Judge ordered the guard, deployed to the city in June, returned to the control of the California governor

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A US judge on Wednesday morning blocked the deployment by the federal government of national guard troops in Los Angeles and ordered the guard returned to the control of the California governor, a court filing showed.

The Trump administration is being challenged in federal court over its authority and rationale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to the city earlier this year.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:16 pm

AfD responds to Trump ‘erasure’ claims with call for nationalist revival in Europe

Continent’s other nationalist parties wary of echoing sentiments of US president due to his unpopularity

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has responded to US claims that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” by saying it backs efforts for a nationalist revival on the continent – but other nationalist parties in the EU are far more cautious.

“The AfD is fighting alongside its international friends for a conservative renaissance,” the party’s foreign policy spokesperson, Markus Frohnmaier, said on Wednesday, adding that he would meet Maga Republicans in Washington and New York this week.

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:19 pm

Tony Dokoupil to serve as anchor of CBS Evening News

After top editor Bari Weiss made outreach to anchors at other networks, CBS News decided to go with an internal candidate

One of Bari Weiss’s top priorities as editor in chief of CBS News has been to chart a future for the network’s sagging evening news broadcast, which has languished behind its competitors on NBC and ABC. On Wednesday, Weiss promoted Tony Dokoupil, the co-host of the network’s morning show, to serve as the next anchor of CBS Evening News starting 5 January.

In her first few weeks on the job, Weiss expressed interest in a handful of top anchors from rival networks, including Bret Baier and Dana Perino at Fox News, but both are locked into long-term contracts. Looking internally, Dokoupil, 44, was seen as a strong contender, along with Norah O’Donnell, who anchored the show from 2019 to 2025.

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:06 pm

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

In 2023, court had ruled in favor of 16 plaintiffs that officials violated their constitutional right by promoting fossil fuels

The young Montanans who scored a landmark triumph in the lawsuit Held v Montana are calling on the state’s highest court to enforce that victory.

In a groundbreaking legal decision in August 2023, a Montana judge ruled in favor of 16 youth plaintiffs who had accused state officials of violating their constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings in late 2024. But state lawmakers have since violated her ruling, enshrining new laws this year that contradict it, argue 13 of the 16 plaintiffs in a petition filed on Wednesday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:08 pm

EU proposes loosening rules on AI gigafactories in green rollback

Latest package in dismantling of environmental rules also suggests repealing hazardous chemicals database

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Datacentres, AI gigafactories and affordable housing may be exempt from mandatory environmental impact assessments in the EU under a proposal that advances the European Commission’s rollback of green rules.

The latest in a series of packages to cut red tape calls for permitting processes for critical projects to be sped up and reducing the scope of environmental reporting rules for businesses.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:18 pm

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

Scientists issue urgent warning about chemicals, found to cause cancer and infertility as well as harming environment

Scientists have issued an urgent warning that some of the synthetic chemicals that help underpin the current food system are driving increased rates of cancer, neurodevelopmental conditions and infertility, while degrading the foundations of global agriculture.

The health burden from phthalates, bisphenols, pesticides and Pfas “forever chemicals” amounts to up to $2.2tn a year – roughly as much as the profits of the world’s 100 largest publicly listed companies, according to the report published on Wednesday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake

Kolahoi is one of many glaciers whose decline is disrupting whole ecosystems – water, wildlife and human life that it has supported for centuries

From the slopes above Pahalgam, the Kolahoi glacier is visible as a thinning, rumpled ribbon of ice stretching across the western Himalayas. Once a vast white artery feeding rivers, fields and forests, it is now retreating steadily, leaving bare rock, crevassed ice and newly exposed alpine meadows.

The glacier’s meltwater has sustained paddy fields, apple orchards, saffron fields and grazing pastures for centuries. Now, as its ice diminishes, the entire web of life it supported is shifting.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:00 am

US health officials re-examine RSV shots despite documented safety and efficacy

The FDA is reviewing RSV vaccines, which have drastically lowered infant hospitalizations, a spokesperson confirmed

US regulatory officials are re-examining the safety of RSV shots despite no published reports of safety issues – a move that could lead to the removal or limitation of shots that have dramatically lowered hospitalizations among babies.

It’s the latest move from US health officials under Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to limit access to shots and to undermine public trust in the safe and effective products.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

Immigrant students experience more bullying as ICE raids cause ‘culture of fear’, says survey

In survey, US school principals describe ‘climate of distress’ and declines in student attendance amid crackdowns

Immigrant students across the US have experienced increased bullying, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdowns causing declines in attendance and a “culture of fear” among immigrant students in public schools, according to a new survey of high school principals.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (Idea) conducted a “nationally representative” survey of more than 600 principals about the toll of raids and deportations, and how schools were responding.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

Oklahoma man allegedly holds up liquor store with ‘old timey musket’

Local police say Dyllon Redfern, 24, brandished a derringer from the 19th century after being asked for his ID

The single-shot, percussion-style pistols known as derringers have almost certainly not been used in violent crimes since the 19th-century old west in the US – but police allege that a robber clad in pajama pants brandished one of those weapons at an Oklahoma liquor store recently.

Dyllon Redfern, 24, stands accused of going into Primo’s Wine and Spirits in Tulsa on the night of 5 December but being turned away from buying anything because he did not have his identification. Store employees later told Tulsa police that Redfern, who was in pajama pants and a hooded sweatshirt, left and came back with what they described as an “old timey musket”, pointed the gun at them and demanded cash as well as their IDs.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

Brad Lander to challenge Dan Goldman for New York congressional seat

Outgoing comptroller and progressive ally of Zohran Mamdani launches primary bid for Congress

Brad Lander, the outgoing comptroller of New York City and a former candidate for mayor, announced on Wednesday that he is running for the US Congress in a challenge from the left to fellow Democrat and representative, Dan Goldman – with the backing of the city’s progressive mayor-elect.

Lander will run in the Democratic primary contest next year for a liberal district in lower Manhattan and north-west Brooklyn.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:02 pm

Meghan accuses Daily Mail of ethics breach over reporting from father’s bedside

Paper criticised over coverage of Duchess of Sussex’s attempt to contact Thomas Markle after surgery

The Duchess of Sussex has accused the Daily Mail of breaching “clear ethical boundaries” by reporting from the bedside of her estranged father, following his claims he had not received his daughter’s messages.

Thomas Markle appealed to Meghan to see him in a Mail on Sunday interview at the weekend, after he underwent serious surgery in the Philippines.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:27 pm

‘It’s a breach of trust’: fear and frustration over countries’ push to return Syrians home

Syrians who have rebuilt their lives abroad face uncertainty over their futures amid hardening of attitudes

Tears of joy streamed down Abdulhkeem Alshater’s face as he joined thousands of other Syrian nationals in central Vienna last year. The moment they were marking felt like a miracle: after more than five decades of brutality and repression, the Assad regime had fallen.

A day later, however, the ripple effects of what had happened 2,000 miles away in Syria were laid bare. A dozen European states announced plans to suspend asylum applications from Syrians, in a show of how western states are increasingly treating refugees as transients. As the fall of Bashar al-Assad collided with politicians’ quest to be seen as taking a hard line on migration, the lives of Syrians around the globe were plunged into uncertainty.

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:46 pm

‘Already had a profound effect’: parents react to Australia’s social media ban

We asked you to share your views on your children’s use of social media and how the ban is affecting your family. Here is what you told us

For some parents, social media sucks up their children’s time and steals them away from family life, instilling mental health issues along the way. For others, it provides their children with an essential line to friends, family, connection and support.

When Australia’s social media ban came into effect on Wednesday, millions of under-16s lost access to their accounts and were prevented from creating new ones.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:28 pm

Louvre thieves evaded police with 30 seconds to spare, investigation finds

Report found avoidable security failures including broken CCTV and lack of coordination at museum, hearing told

• Louvre robbery in video, photographs and maps

The thieves who stole crown jewels from the Louvre in October evaded police with just 30 seconds to spare due to avoidable security failures at the Paris museum, a damning investigation has revealed.

The investigation, ordered by the culture ministry after the embarrassing daylight heist, revealed that only one of two security cameras was working near the site where the intruders broke in on the morning of Sunday 19 October.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:49 pm

The 50 best movies of 2025 in the US

From astonishing docs and biopics to madcap adventures and emotional sucker punches – our critics pick the best from a spectacular year on the silver screen

• Read the UK cut of this list
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Published: December 10, 2025, 11:55 am

The hidden life of Matthew Perry: ‘He would say: I need to stop and get help’

The actor’s publicist and manager worked with him for more than 30 years, before his death in 2023. They discuss the man behind the headlines – and why they are continuing his mission to help others struggling with addiction

Watch the third season of Friends, writes Matthew Perry in his memoir, and you can see how thin he had become by the end of it. “Opioids fuck with your appetite, plus they make you vomit constantly,” he writes. Look again, and yes – his fragile wrists emerge from a shirt that looks as if he has borrowed it from someone far larger, his trousers hang off him – and it’s unbearably sad now, with the knowledge that addiction would kill Perry nearly 30 years later, at the age of 54. At the time, most people watching probably wouldn’t have noticed, dazzled instead by Perry’s sharpness and immaculate comic timing as Chandler Bing, the show’s dry wit. He was having to take 55 Vicodin pills a day – an opioid - just to function and avoid terrible withdrawal symptoms, but he was never high while he was working, he writes in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, which came out in 2022. He just had to make it to the end of the season so he could get help. Had the series lasted for more than its 25 episodes, he thought it would have killed him.

That was the first time Perry went into rehab. He was 26, and one of the biggest stars in the world. There would be more than 65 attempts to detox from drug and alcohol addiction over the next decades until his death in 2023. Last week, a doctor was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for supplying ketamine in the lead-up to Perry’s death (though not the ketamine that killed him); three others who have pleaded guilty will be sentenced in the coming months.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Salman Rushdie lead 2026 Sundance lineup

The festival says goodbye to both founder Robert Redford and its longtime home of Park City, Utah, with a selection of provocative documentaries and starry new films

New films starring Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Salman Rushdie will all receive their world premieres at next month’s Sundance film festival.

The festival will be held for the last time in Park City, Utah, before it moves to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027. Over the years, it has been home to the first screenings of films including Get Out, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Blair Witch Project, Past Lives, Napoleon Dynamite, Precious and Little Miss Sunshine.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 pm

‘The bullying can’t go on’: the film-maker following Filipino fishers under siege by China

Baby Ruth Villarama’s documentary Food Delivery depicts those struggling with the superpower to retain their trade. The director describes capturing their boats getting rammed by the Chinese coast guard

During a televised debate in 2016, populist presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte made a typically belligerent statement that he himself would jetski to Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and plant a Philippine flag there. Duterte claimed that he was ready to die a hero to keep the Chinese out of the bitterly contested maritime territory.

“That made millions of Filipino workers and fishers vote for him because of that one promise,” says film-maker Baby Ruth Villarama. As her new Oscar and Bafta-contending documentary Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea reveals, it wasn’t a promise Duterte kept. “He would make excuses that the jetski has broken down. Eventually there was an official pronouncement that it had just been a campaign joke. From then on, the fisherfolk were really enraged.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:47 pm

Simon Cowell: The Next Act review – the billionth take on his one idea

This Netflix show starts off feeling like a documentary, and winds up as another attempt to recreate The X-Factor. It really cannot be overstated how much of a rehash this boyband contest is

Ladies and gentlemen, the most cynical bait and switch of the year has finally arrived. To the casual viewer, Netflix’s new series Simon Cowell: The Next Act may appear to be yet another quasi-unvarnished authorised documentary series.

And that would make sense, because those things are everywhere at the moment. Everyone from David Beckham to Robbie Williams to Charlie Sheen has made one, allowing a film crew into their lives to offer just enough grit to fool people into thinking they are watching anything other than a heavily sanitised publicity project. And, really, who deserves one of these more than Simon Cowell?

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:01 am

Margot Robbie in red latex, Kate Bush impersonators and a pint of Emily ale: my crash course in Brontëmania

As Wuthering Heights gets a raunchy Hollywood remake, our writer takes a pilgrimage through Haworth, the village where its author lived – and finds her spirit still electrifying the cobbled streets and windswept moors

It’s a crisp afternoon in Haworth, West Yorkshire, and I’m drinking a pint of Emily Brontë beer in The Kings Arms. Other Brontës are on tap – Anne is a traditional ale, Charlotte an IPA, Branwell a porter – but the barman says Emily, an amber ale with a “malty biscuit flavour”, is the most popular. It’s the obvious choice today, anyway: in a few hours, Oscar-winning film-maker Emerald Fennell will be at the Brontë women’s writing festival in a church just up the road, discussing her adaptation of Emily’s 19th-century gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.

The film, to be released just before Valentine’s Day next year, is already scandal-ridden. It all started with Fennell’s casting of Hollywood stars Jacob Elordi and Margot (“Heathcliff, it’s me, it’s Barbie”) Robbie causing uproar. An erotic teaser trailer full of tight bodices, cracking whips and sweaty bodies had the same effect. But heads were really sent spinning by reports of a scene with a public hanging and a nun who “fondles the corpse’s visible erection”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

The 50 best albums of 2025

From a pop star who will drag you to the club to a UK rapper like none before her, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 30 Guardian music writers
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Published: December 10, 2025, 1:58 pm

Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy review – fear and loathing in New York

This sharp, bleak debut satirises the current cultural moment through the life and loves of a cynical young writer

There is a long tradition of stories about artists that are also about the question of how to represent life in art; novels about artists with toxic female friendships are more unusual.

Enter Anika Jade Levy’s slim and sharp debut Flat Earth, which shares its title with a film made by a woman whom Avery, the narrator, identifies as her best friend. Frances is a rich and beautiful twentysomething who becomes a “reluctant celebrity in certain circles” after her film, “an experimental documentary about rural isolation and rightwing conspiracy theories” in the modern-day United States, premieres to critical acclaim at a gallery in New York. Avery, meanwhile, is struggling to write what she describes as “a book of cultural reports”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:00 am

As AI floods our culture, here’s why we must protect human storytelling in games

Buying the Zombies, Run! studio wasn’t part of ​my plan, but a post-apocalypse ​game with stories that make people feel seen pulled me in

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A few days ago, I clicked a button on my phone to send funds to a company in Singapore and so took ownership of the video game I co-created and am lead writer for: Zombies, Run! I am a novelist, I wrote the bestselling, award-winning The Power, which was turned into an Amazon Prime TV series starring Toni Collette. What on earth am I doing buying a games company?

Well. First of all. Zombies, Run! is special. It’s special to me – the game started as a Kickstarter and the community that grew up around it has always been incredibly supportive of what we’re doing. And it’s special in what it does. It’s a game to exercise with. You play it on your smartphone – iPhone or Android – and we tell stories from the zombie apocalypse in your headphones to encourage you to go further, faster, or just make exercise less boring. Games are so often portrayed as the bad entertainment form, but I made a game that fundamentally helps people to be healthier.

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:00 pm

Beyoncé, Venus Williams and Nicole Kidman to co-chair Met Gala with Anna Wintour

Co-chairs will preside over gala theme of Costume Art, with Beyoncé attending for first time since 2016

The co-chairs of the Met Gala, which is held every year on the first Monday in May in New York City, have been announced as Beyoncé, Venus Williams, Nicole Kidman and, of course, Anna Wintour.

The gala is known as “fashion’s biggest night out” or “the Superbowl of fashion”, and it will be Beyoncé’s first time in attendance since 2016, when she wore Givenchy to attend a Met Gala themed Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:49 pm

‘Nnena Kalu was ready for this – nobody else was’: how her Turner prize victory shook the art world

As the first learning-disabled artist to win the UK’s most prestigious art award, Kalu has smashed a ‘very stubborn glass ceiling’. Her facilitator reveals why her victory is so seismic – and the secrets of her party playlist

The morning after the Turner prize ceremony, the winner of the UK’s most prestigious art award, Nnena Kalu, is eating toast and drinking a strong cup of tea. Everyone around her is beaming – only a little the worse for wear after dancing their feet off at the previous night’s party in Bradford, and sinking “a couple of brandies” back at the hotel bar. I say hello to Kalu, offer my congratulations, and admire the 59-year-old’s beautifully manicured creamy pink nails. But the interview is with her facilitator, Charlotte Hollinshead, who has worked with the artist since 1999. Kalu has limited verbal communication skills; she has learning disabilities and is autistic.

As for Hollinshead, she is struggling to encapsulate the enormity of the win: for Kalu herself; for ActionSpace, the organisation that has supported her for 25 years; and for the visibility and acceptance of artists with learning disabilities within the wider art world. “It’s unbelievably huge,” she says. “I have to think back to where we started, when there was absolutely no interest whatsoever. I’d sit at dinner parties with friends in the art world. Nobody was interested in what I did, or who we worked with. We couldn’t get any exhibitions anywhere. No galleries were interested. Other artists weren’t interested. Art students weren’t interested. We have had to claw our way up from the very depths of the bottom.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:22 pm

Russell Crowe says makers of Gladiator II did not ‘understand what made the first one special’

The actor has criticised the creative team behind the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic, saying it lacked the moral core that defined the original Oscar-winning film

Russell Crowe has said that the makers of Gladiator II did not “understand … what made that first one special”.

In interview excerpts posted on social media by Australian radio station Triple J, Crowe said that the Gladiator sequel, which starred Paul Mescal and was released in 2024, was let down by “the people in that engine room not actually understanding what made that first one special”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:23 am

Confessions of a Shopaholic novelist Sophie Kinsella dies aged 55

The ‘queen of romantic comedy’ has died 18 months after announcing her brain cancer diagnosis

Madeleine Wickham, known for writing the bestselling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic under her pen name Sophie Kinsella, has died aged 55.

Wickham, dubbed “the queen of romantic comedy” by novelist Jojo Moyes, wrote more than 30 books for adults, children and teenagers, which have sold more than 45m copies.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:53 pm

Get the cheap wine glasses: how to spend less on a dinner party in the US – and impress people more

With goods such as a nice crémant and some tinned fish, you can host a lovely dinner without breaking the bank – here’s how to start

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

Chelsea Fagan thinks we should all be hosting more. “We are losing the act of casually having people in our lives and in our homes,” the writer said. “I think young people now have an idea of entertaining that it’s something that only fancy or rich people do.”

Fagan co-founded The Financial Diet, a media company centered on personal finance. She’s proven you can throw a dinner party in nearly any scenario: on weeknights, in small spaces, even when your guests are all introverts. And, she says given how lonely and polarized people in the US are, bringing people together is as important as ever. Her new book, Having People Over: A Modern Guide to Planning, Throwing, and Attending Every Type of Party, is a call to invite people over – and make it a lovely time without breaking the bank. (Hint: shop secondhand whenever possible.)

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:15 pm

A moment that changed me: my train crashed – and then I heard a little girl crying

I waited for the carriage to roll over and burst into flames, but the sound of a child brought me out of my trance, and showed me how important it is to look outwards in a crisis

The moment I knew I was about to die came a couple of years into my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My best friend, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to catch up with an old university friend who had recently moved there for work. Thrilled to see each other, and basking in the prospect of the party weekend ahead, we chatted nonstop as we made our way by train from York.

We stashed our bags – full of essentials such as bottles of wine and my new pair of black clogs – above our heads and settled down in a cosy two-seater. About 50 minutes into our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. Then came another, this time impossible to ignore. A woman screamed as our carriage was thrown up into the air in what felt like slow motion. Suddenly, Helen and I were somehow on our feet in the middle of the aisle, hugging each other. Head down, eyes screwed shut, I waited for the carriage to roll over and burst into flames, as I’d seen in films. I remember thinking about our families and friends getting the news. Then I heard the little girl crying.

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:55 am

How neurodivergent households design ‘a home that knows your brain’

From dark, sound-proofed rooms to clever storage solutions, families with autism and ADHD are finding inspired ways to adjust their environments

In the middle of Cherie Clonan’s bright Melbourne home sits a room in total darkness “for our son to retreat to”, she says. “It’s all black in there. You wouldn’t believe it’s the same home!”

The space, lined with sound-blocking panels, is a sanctuary for her autistic son: a quiet cocoon for decompressing after school. “He loves to go in there to game online with his mates,” Clonan says.

Diagnosed autistic at 37, Clonan lives in a weatherboard cottage with her husband, Chris, and her two neurodivergent teenagers. Since buying the house five years ago, she has been reshaping it around their needs. “Our family’s split half-half – 50% sensory-seek versus sensory-avoidant,” she says. “I chase light. I love light-filled everything. But my son really is the opposite.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

1 Granary: the influential platform holding the fashion establishment to account

Olya Kuryshchuk’s publication is a rare – and increasingly powerful – voice advocating for the people behind the scenes in an industry that loves a star. Its new awards celebrate the ‘teams who never get to walk a red carpet’

At the Fashion awards – a lavish event at the Royal Albert Hall this month – Jonathan Anderson was named designer of the year for a third time for his work at his own namesake brand and Dior, Anok Yai was named model of the year and Delphine Arnault, the CEO of Dior and scion of fashion’s wealthiest family, gained a special recognition award for her work supporting new talent through the LVMH prize. Think of it as fashion paying tribute to its biggest stars.

Since the night, there has been praise for the British Fashion Council’s new CEO Laura Weir but also criticism. The anonymous Instagram account boringnotcom, which often shares strong opinions on the industry, wrote: “As predicted, the same names got rotated and won the fashion awards … how utterly boring.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:00 am

My petty gripe: why do we have to review everything now? | Ellen Smith

I don’t really believe that companies would love my feedback, nor that my opinion matters to them. So why do they keep asking for them?

• Read more petty gripes

“Your experience matters to us, Ellen.”

“We’d love your feedback.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

Rudolph at the Christmas market: cute festive attraction or damaging reindeer’s health?

Keeping reindeer in pens for public enjoyment can cause them physical and mental harm, charities warn

With their fluffy coats, big brown eyes and reputation as Santa’s helpers, reindeer are a common and popular attraction at Christmas markets around the UK.

But being stuck in a pen and approached by hordes of adoring fans is harming the mental and physical health of Rudolph and his brethren, animal charities have warned.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:33 pm

How to use a spent tea bag to make a boozy, fruity treat – recipe | Waste not

Save a used teabag to flavour dried fruit, then just add whisky for a boozy festive treat

A jar of tea-soaked prunes with a cheeky splash of whisky is the gift you never knew you needed. Sticky, sweet and complex, these boozy treats are wonderful spooned over rice pudding, porridge, yoghurt, ice-cream or even panna cotta.

Don’t waste a fresh tea bag, though – enjoy a cuppa first, then use the spent one to infuse the prunes overnight. Earl grey adds fragrant, citrus notes, builders’ tea gives a malty depth, lapsang souchong brings smokiness, and chamomile or rooibos offer softer, floral tones. It’s also worth experimenting with other dried fruits beyond prunes: apricots, figs and/or dates all work beautifully, too.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

The Christmas vibe shift: forget beige – the Home Alone look is all the rage

This season calls for a tartan bow the size of a dinner plate, traditional baubles on the tree and a host of wooden nutcracker soldiers. ‘Ralph Lauren Christmas’ has gone viral, and gen Z has fallen hard for nostalgia and the 1990s

It is December, which everyone knows is the time to get your Christmas on. So what is it to be this year? An ironic wreath made from brussel sprouts? Oh-so-zeitgeist decorations in the shape of Perelló olive tins or Torres crisp packets? Or are we thinking a minimalist all-white theme?

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. My front door wreath – it went up two weeks ago because I’m a Christmas superfan – is huge and trad, with a tartan bow the size of a dinner plate. There are wooden nutcracker soldiers the size of toddlers by the fireplace. When I put my tree up this weekend, it may well collapse under the weight of old-fashioned round baubles.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

‘The patriarchy runs deep’: women still getting a raw deal in the workplace as equality remains a dream

Women work longer and per hour earn a third of what men are paid, in figures that have changed little in 35 years, UN report shows

“Gender inequality is one of the most entrenched and significant problems of our time,” says Jocelyn Chu, a programme director at UN Women, responding to the stark figures contained in this year’s World Inequality report, which labels gender inequality a “defining and persistent feature of the global economy”.

Women work longer and earn just a third – 32% – of what men get per hour, when paid and unpaid labour, such as domestic work, are taken into account. Even when unpaid domestic labour is not included, women only earn 61% of what men make, according to the report.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:00 am

A snow patrol, Dior dresses and Storm Bram: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:45 pm