I want be a single mum, but feel envious of peers with partners | Annalisa Barbieri

It is good that you are getting expert counselling, but seeking support from other solo mums might be helpful too

I am a very lucky person who has a huge amount to be happy and grateful for. But although I have many excellent friendships, I have had very few romantic relationships. I am now 36 and after 10 years of giving dating a real “go”, I have decided to become a single mum by choice. This has been a very positive decision for me and I am excited about the journey.

During a pre-screening psychological counselling session, the psychologist spoke about the grief many women in my shoes experience as a result of not having the family they’d hoped for. Although I was aware of this and have worked extensively on self-acceptance with my own therapist, I now feel deep sadness and regret at being unable to have formed a relationship with someone who wanted to have children with me. In my friends and colleagues groups, this sets me apart from most women my age. I am envious of the companionship and support my peers receive from their partners.

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:00 am

All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches

From Vietnam to the Balkans, Donald Trump’s family has launched a global dealmaking blitz since his re-election

A crusading prosecutor in the Balkans comes under pressure to drop a big case. Vietnamese villagers learn they are to be evicted. A convicted crypto kingpin in the Gulf receives a pardon.

All have one thing in common: they appear to be connected to the Trump family’s campaign to amass riches around the world. Since Donald Trump’s re-election a year ago, warnings that his use of presidential power to advance personal interests is corroding American democracy have grown ever louder. What is less understood – and perhaps even more dangerous – is the damage this is doing everywhere else.

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:00 am

The 23 most unique and thoughtful gifts under $10 in the US

These presents punch above their price point, making them perfect for Secret Santas, White Elephants or stocking stuffers

• The 163 best holiday gift ideas for 2025, vetted by the Guardian US staff

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A genuinely good holiday gift under $10 is kind of a unicorn: elusive but thrilling to come across. In the single digits, you risk foregoing quality, even though that nice neighbor or coworker deserves something better than a dusty candle found near the CVS checkout line.

I’m here to tell you the rumors are true: you can give a thoughtful gift under $10. In this gift guide, Filter staff and contributors recommend inexpensive treats that feel like they should cost more than they do. They’re all things that really make life a bit easier or more joyful – for example, a sauce that transforms Tuesday-night dinner, a sleep mask that upgrades red-eye flights and a passionately recommended lineup of toys picked by kids, for kids. Read on for our 23 holiday gifts that punch above their price point.

Published: November 29, 2025, 3:15 pm

Trump keeps insulting female journalists | Arwa Mahdawi

Trump has a disconcerting tendency to attack the press – but especially female reporters, whom he holds in particular ire

There was a time when it would have been a scandal for the president of the United States to call a journalist “ugly” or a politician “retarded”. Now it’s just another day in America. During a holiday when many Americans were gathering with family and reflecting on what they were grateful for, Trump was crouched over his keyboard slinging insults at his perceived enemies.

On Thanksgiving day, for example, Trump posted a rant on Truth Social about immigration. He called Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, an ableist slur, and then made an Islamophobic jab at “the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab”.

Published: November 29, 2025, 3:03 pm

As Epstein files release looms, questions abound on what happens next: ‘Possibilities are endless’

People implicated in the late sex offender’s crimes could face criminal charges or, at the least, social ostracism

As the clock ticks toward the congressionally mandated deadline of 19 December by which Donald Trump’s justice department must release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, there is intense speculation about the contents of these documents – but also questions as to what happens when they are released.

The US president on 19 November signed a bipartisan bill requiring that the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, disclose these documents to the US public within 30 days. Given that other tranches of materials related to the disgraced financier included damning correspondence with high-profile individuals, many expect that still more names of the rich, famous and powerful will be named.

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:00 pm

The Russia-Ukraine peace deal is not a loss. Nor is it a victory | Stephen Wertheim

The conflict is neither a clearcut defeat nor a feelgood victory, but an in-between outcome that contains profound elements of each

No one should be satisfied with the unjust peace that Ukraine may be forced to accept. The aggressor would be rewarded with territory and other concessions from the victim it has brutalized. Yet the horrified reaction in Washington to recent peace proposals is troubling in its own right.

The Trump administration’s recent 28-point plan, roundly denounced in Congress and the commentariat as a “capitulation” to Moscow, actually offered Kyiv a remarkable strategic outcome. Under its terms, Ukraine would face no meaningful limit on its peacetime military, despite Russian attempts to impose draconian restrictions since 2022. (The only requirement, a cap of 600,000 personnel, probably exceeds the number of active-duty forces Ukraine would maintain anyway.) Moreover, Ukraine would receive a substantial security guarantee from the United States and Europe – the strongest in history, even if short of a Nato-style commitment.

Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School

Published: November 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Venezuela denounces ‘colonialist threat’ as Trump orders airspace closed

President made declaration in a social media post, after FAA last week warned airlines of ‘worsening security situation’

The Venezuelan government has responded defiantly to the heightened pressure by the US government, including Donald Trump’s recent statements on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety.

In a statement, the Venezuelan government said Trump’s comments are a “colonialist threat” against their sovereignty and violate international law. The government also said it demanded respect for its airspace and would not accept foreign orders or threats.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:47 pm

Ukrainian naval drones strike two Russian oil tankers in Black Sea

Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia with attack on empty vessels on way to load up with oil for foreign markets

Ukrainian naval drones hit two tankers operating under sanctions in the Black Sea as they headed to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, an official said on Saturday, as Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia’s vast oil industry.

The two oil tankers, identified as the Kairos and Virat, were empty and sailing to Novorossiysk, a major Russian Black Sea oil terminal, the official at the security service of Ukraine told Reuters.

Published: November 29, 2025, 11:46 pm

Anger mounts in Hong Kong over apartment fires as Beijing warns against ‘anti-China disruptors’

Police on Saturday detained one person who was part of a group that launched a petition demanding accountability

Anger over a deadly blaze at a Hong Kong high-rise apartment complex simmered on Sunday as Beijing warned against attempts to use the disaster to disrupt the city, while people across the financial hub continued to mourn for the more than 128 victims.

Police on Saturday detained one person who was part of a group that launched a petition demanding government accountability, an independent probe into possible corruption, proper resettlement for residents, and a review of construction oversight, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Published: November 30, 2025, 3:21 am

At least four killed in shooting at child’s birthday party in northern California

San Joaquin County sheriff’s office says children were among the victims in possible ‘targeted’ attack on a banquet hall in Stockton

Four people have died after 14 people were shot at a family gathering in northern California on Saturday night, police said.

Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff’s office, said children and adults were among the victims of the shooting at Stockton.

Published: November 30, 2025, 5:36 am

Japan ‘One Piece’ singer stopped mid-performance as Japan-China relations sour

Axing of Maki Otsuki performance in Shanghai the latest in a spate of cancelled cultural events involving Asia’s two biggest economies

Japanese “One Piece” singer Maki Otsuki was forced to halt her performance on stage in Shanghai, her management said, one of the latest events hit by a diplomatic spat between Tokyo and Beijing.

Otsuki, known for the theme song of the popular anime, had been slated to perform for two days from Friday at the Bandai Namco Festival 2025 in the Chinese city.

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:17 am

Convincing evidence Israel backed aid convoy looters in Gaza, historian says

Account of visit to Gaza by French professor describes Israeli military attacks on security personnel protecting convoys

A historian who spent more than a month in Gaza at the turn of the year says he saw “utterly convincing” evidence that Israel supported looters who attacked aid convoys during the conflict.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, entered Gaza in December where he was hosted by an international humanitarian organisation in the southern coastal zone of al-Mawasi.

Published: November 29, 2025, 10:00 am

White House launches website to excoriate media for ‘biased’ stories

Trump administration lists reporting it objects to in latest escalation of attacks on US journalism

The White House rolled out a new section of its official website on Friday that publicly criticizes and catalogs media organizations and journalists it claims have distorted coverage.

At the top of the page, the text reads: “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.” The feature names the Boston Globe, CBS News and the Independent as “media offenders of the week”, accusing them of inaccurately portraying Trump’s remarks about six Democratic lawmakers who released of video encouraging military members to not follow illegal orders.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:50 pm

Rising Tide protest: climate activists stop three ships from entering world’s largest coal port in Newcastle

Australian campaigners demand Albanese government cancel planned fossil fuel projects and tax existing operations at 78%

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Activists say they have blocked two more coal ships from entering the Port of Newcastle on the fourth day of the Rising Tide protests, bringing the total number of ships turned around by campaigners this weekend to three.

Thousands of people have gathered at Rising Tide’s annual climate protest at the world’s largest coal port. The blockade began on Thursday and will continue until Tuesday.

Published: November 30, 2025, 3:48 am

Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter

• Tom Stoppard: a life in pictures

• Michael Billington: ‘A brilliant dramatist who always raised the temperature of the room’

The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88.

On Saturday, United Agents said Stoppard died at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family. They paid tribute to the “brilliance and humanity” of his work and “his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit and his profound love of the English language”.

Published: November 29, 2025, 8:03 pm

They tried to overturn the 2020 US election. Now, they hold power in Trump’s Washington

Those who tried to overturn the 2020 election now occupy key federal roles, shaping rules and sowing doubt for 2026

The people who tried to overturn the 2020 election have more power than ever – and they plan to use it.

Bolstered by the president, they have prominent roles in key parts of the federal government. Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who helped advance Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020, now leads the civil rights division of the justice department. An election denier, Heather Honey, now serves as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the Department of Homeland Security. Kurt Olsen, an attorney involved in the “stop the steal” movement, is now a special government employee investigating the 2020 election.

Published: November 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Experts say strict new FDA protocol for vaccine approval is ‘dangerous and irresponsible’

Lead FDA vaccine regulator announced new approval process after claiming Covid vaccine had killed 10 children

The leading vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a far stricter course for federal vaccine approvals, following claims from his team that Covid vaccines were linked to the deaths of at least 10 children.

Experts suggest the announcement will make the vaccine approval process significantly more difficult.

Published: November 29, 2025, 5:04 pm

JD Vance, Trump Jr, DeSantis? Possible Republican contenders for 2028 run

Next nominee faces enormous task of leading a party that has been entirely reoriented around Trump

Donald Trump hasn’t stopped joking about running again for the White House in 2028, even as he acknowledges it is “pretty clear” he is constitutionally ineligible for a third term. Whether intended as a taunt or a threat, his musings are a reminder that, even barred from the ballot, Trump is likely to remain a central figure in the campaign to succeed him.

The next Republican nominee faces the potentially enormous task of leading a party that has been entirely reoriented around Trump into a post-Trump era. Here’s a look at the Republicans best positioned for a White House run.

Retiring Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem

Health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin

Georgia governor Brian Kemp

South Carolina senator Tim Scott

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley

Utah governor Spencer Cox

Published: November 29, 2025, 10:00 am

‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival

Biden earmarked billions for former coal communities in Appalachia – and his successor came and took it away

For a moment, Jacob Hannah saw an unprecedented opportunity to make Appalachia great again.

In 2022, the Biden administration earmarked billions of dollars to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities. The objective was to lay down building blocks for the region to transition from extractive industries like coal and timber to a hub for solar and other advanced energy technologies, with a view to long-term economic, climate and social resilience.

Published: November 29, 2025, 11:00 am

How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’

At a time when distrust of big tech is high, Silicon Valley is embracing an alternative ecosystem where every CEO is a star

A montage of Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, and waving US flags set to a remix of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasts out as the intro for the tech billionaire’s interview with Sourcery, a YouTube show presented by the digital finance platform Brex. Over the course of a friendly walk through the company offices, Karp fields no questions about Palantir’s controversial ties to ICE but instead extolls the company’s virtues, brandishes a sword and discusses how he exhumed the remains of his childhood dog Rosita to rebury them near his current home.

“That’s really sweet,” host Molly O’Shea tells Karp.

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:18 pm

Bread, diapers and hope: how Trinity church feeds New York’s hungry

US families queue for groceries, hot meals and baby supplies as demand at Trinity’s Compassion Market soars

On a chilly morning in Lower Manhattan this month, the line outside Trinity Commons, a modern extension of New York’s historic Trinity church, stretched on past the end of the block.

Hundreds of people were standing in the 44F cold, many with young children, waiting to get their turn for the Compassion Market food bank.

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:00 pm

Brain damage, blindness and death: the global trail of trauma left by methanol-laced alcohol

Methanol, a cheap relative of ethanol, is entering the supply chain, causing thousands of deaths around the world

For Bethany Clarke, poison tasted like nothing. There was no bitter aftertaste, no astringent sting at the back of the tongue. If anything, she thought in passing, the free shots she and her friends were drinking at a hostel bar in Laos had probably been watered down – she wasn’t detecting a strong vodka flavour through the veil of Sprite she had mixed it with.

All in all, Clarke remembers drinking about five of those shots, sitting with her best friend, Simone White, and a crowd of others at the hostel’s happy hour. CCTV footage shows the group laughing in the warm air of the open bar in the town of Vang Vieng, green and red lights dancing over their shoulders.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

Rage rooms: can smashing stuff up really help to relieve anger and stress?

Venues promoting destruction as stress relief are appearing around the UK but experts – and our correspondent – are unsure

If you find it hard to count to 10 when anger bubbles up, a new trend offers a more hands-on approach. Rage rooms are cropping up across the UK, allowing punters to smash seven bells out of old TVs, plates and furniture.

Such pay-to-destroy ventures are thought to have originated in Japan in 2008, but have since gone global. In the UK alone venues can be found in locations from Birmingham to Brighton, with many promoting destruction as a stress-relieving experience.

Published: November 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Can you have a community without craic? Scholars of Ireland’s pubs warn of declining numbers

Two new books analyse what makes the ‘perfect pub’ and both come to a sobering conclusion: Irish pubs are in trouble

Like triple-distilled whiskey, Irish pubs appear to have timeless appeal. They are staple setting in films, books and plays, draw tourists to Ireland, replicate themselves around the world and induce social media quests for the perfect snug and the perfect pint.

Scholars have now bestowed academic imprimatur on this cultural treasure status by examining – and celebrating – pubs through the lens of history, sociology, architecture, psychology, design, art and literature.

Published: November 30, 2025, 5:00 am

Hangovers and skullets: welcome to schoolies week 2025

The rite of passage for many Australian teenagers at Surfers Paradise has changed since the first party at Broadbeach in the 1970s

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It’s 9pm on Friday at Surfers Paradise and a DJ on the main beach is playing a club mix of Reel 2 Real’s I Like to Move It as teenage boys wearing sunglasses shuffle enthusiastically on the sand.

This is the last night of schoolies and it’s going to be large. The evening’s official costume theme is “good, evil, iconic”, which is open to wide interpretation. Someone is dressed as the Lorax, another as a Christmas tree.

Night falls over the beach

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:00 pm

Fran Lebowitz: ‘Hiking is the most stupid thing I could ever imagine’

The US author and orator on leaf blowers and Labubus, the weirdest thing she has done for love and struggling with contemporary novels

I would like to ask your opinion on five things. First of all, leaf blowers.

A horrible, horrible invention. I didn’t even know about them until like 20 years ago when I rented a house in the country. I was shocked! I live in New York City, we don’t have leaf problems. We have every other kind of problem. When I was a kid, we had leaf raking. Which is quiet. Leaf blowers are the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. First of all, they are incredibly noisy. And second of all, 10 minutes after you use it, that big leaf blower in the sky blows them all back. It’s a very stupid invention.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 pm

‘We need to speak collectively’: can parliament solve the problem of ‘deprivation bingo’ in the UK’s seaside towns?

Labour knows it needs to win over the ‘sea wall’ cohort of coastal voters in the next election. But as anger over inequality grows, time is running out

It is a lovely sunny autumn day in Ramsgate on Britain’s Kent coast, and quintessential seaside chippy Peter’s Fish Factory is doing a roaring lunchtime trade. Across the road, at the entrance to the town’s pier, local MP and chair of the newly reformed coastal parliamentary Labour party (PLP), Polly Billington, is having her photo taken.

In between shots she shows us the community art project that adorns the fence along the entrance to the pier. It is made up of pictures, drawn primarily by local children and young people, of the 65 little ships that set sail earlier this year from Ramsgate to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation.

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Desire in one of its rawest forms’: what do we know about limerence?

For everything from pop music to poetry, overwhelming infatuation offers inspiration and storylines. But when might this tip over into something a little less healthy?

For months after her relationship ended, Anna* couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Each morning she’d wake with a jolt of grief; an intense, almost physical feeling that morphed into thoughts of him that consumed nearly every waking hour.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 pm

Don’t filter your dates by age and hobbies, ask them how they shop | Polly Hudson

Big deal-breakers are all very well, but the seemingly small things often tell in the end. How do they feel about sell-by dates? Will they walk out of a bad film? Not asking will come back to haunt you

A friend of mine once declined a date with a kind, funny, clever man because she hated his shoes. When she relayed this to our group of twentysomethings, it didn’t warrant comment or discussion, because it was such a rational decision, which we all would have made. I mean, come on – you can’t go out with someone with bad trainers, can you?

Fortunately for the continuation of the human race, today’s daters appear to be a little less fastidious. A recent report on relationships by the dating app Plenty of Fish not only failed to mention footwear, but showed that people are keen to skip the small-talk phase, so weighty conversation topics such as life goals and dealbreakers are now brought up straight away.

Published: November 30, 2025, 5:00 am

What Rosa Parks can teach us about resistance today | Jan-Werner Mueller

Rosa Park’s story is about courage. But, lest one forget, it is also a story about breaking the law

It was 70 years ago when four African Americans were sitting in the fifth row of a bus in Montgomery. As one white man had to stand towards the front, the driver asked the four to get up and move towards the back of the bus. Three did; one did not – the rest is history. Or so many American kids might think when they first read the story of Rosa Parks in school.

It is a story of courage, but, lest one forget, it is also a story about breaking the law. And the question for us today is what civil disobedience means in an era when the federal government is signaling its readiness severely to punish even perfectly legal dissent.

Published: November 29, 2025, 8:58 pm

What Chicago's fight against ICE can teach us all about how to resist oppression | Zoe Williams

A harrowing US podcast documents a community’s struggle against immigration raids – and warns us about herd mentality

Earlier this year, the Trump administration reversed the convention that nobody would be snatched by immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, by a school, church or hospital. Since then, teachers have reported classrooms a third empty, as parents are too scared to send their kids in – volunteers walk them there and back.

In the Rogers Park area of Chicago, a group of citizens are organising to resist such immigration raids. Sometimes, it’s simple non-violent tactics, such as slowing officers down by walking in front of them. Last month, 50 people rushed to a church, where the congregation was trapped, having got word that there were ICE agents waiting outside. Maybe their most evocative tactic is whistles – coded blasts for when a convoy is suspected to be ICE agents, a different code when it’s confirmed. They have numerous accounts of undocumented migrants warned off driving right into a raid, which is galvanising, but they also see and hear dismaying things all the time: vehicles standing empty, one door open, not robbed, merely relieved of their drivers; landscape gardeners arrested off ladders. Earlier this month, the Protect Rogers Park group got 1,500 calls in a day.

Published: November 29, 2025, 10:00 am

What could be putting young women off marriage? It really isn’t that much of a mystery | Naoise Dolan

Survey data suggests more and more girls can’t imagine getting married, while their male counterparts are keener. That disparity holds a clue

According to recent data, marriages in England and Wales are down by nearly 9% after a post-pandemic spike, while civil partnerships have risen by almost the same percentage. This downward trend is also reflected in the US. The Vatican has piped up in defence of the institution, releasing a 40-page doctrinal note, Una Caro (One Flesh): In Praise of Monogamy: Doctrinal Note on the Value of Marriage as an Exclusive Union and Mutual Belonging. Sworn celibates would not be my personal first port of call when seeking relationship advice, but to each their own – exclusively and indissolubly, if the Catholic church is to be believed.

Among the younger crowd, gendered expectations about marriage are changing, at least according to a survey by the University of Michigan, which found that only 61% of high-school girls want to be married one day, compared to 74% of the boys. Perhaps this is behind the burgeoning genre of opinion pieces in which a rightwing man complains that women don’t want to date him. Often enough, he is an avowed libertarian, leaving it a mystery why he does not simply accept the workings of the free market.

Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer and the author of Exciting Times and The Happy Couple

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: November 29, 2025, 7:00 am

Messi to meet Müller in MLS Cup with Inter Miami set to host Vancouver Whitecaps

• Tadeo Allende hat-trick leads Miami to 5-1 win over NYC

• Early Vancouver goals sink expansion San Diego FC

• MLS Cup matchup repeats Concacaf semi-final

Lionel Messi will play for another trophy. Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets clearly aren’t ready to begin their retirements, either.

Tadeo Allande scored three goals – Alba and Busquets, a pair of longtime Messi teammates who will retire when this season ends, had the assists on his first two – and Inter Miami topped New York City FC 5-1 on Saturday night for the Eastern Conference title and a berth in the MLS Cup final.

Published: November 30, 2025, 1:56 am

Tete and Wilson’s fast start earns Fulham victory at struggling Spurs

A Tottenham Hotspur manager’s lot is so rarely a happy one. In short order, Thomas Frank is running through the gamut of his predecessors, from hope to disappointment to what now resembles hopelessness. Demolition by Arsenal had already created a sticky wicket. A decent midweek showing in Paris, though another defeat, had barely increased the credit rating. Losing to Fulham, a team with a previous away record as miserable as Spurs’ home form, intensified the pressure. That Frank was appointed by the departed stewardship of Daniel Levy is to be noted; fresh ownership regimes tend to be trigger-happy with inherited managers.

Should such a decision be made, and it still seems a premature outcome considering Frank made slow starts at his previous clubs, Marco Silva, linked previously on a couple of occasions, would be a live contender. By six minutes in, Silva was cavorting on the sidelines with his Fulham staff. His team were 2-0 up and the home fans were baying for blood. By the final whistle, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium emptied, the mood was even lower, Frank’s outlook even bleaker.

Published: November 29, 2025, 10:06 pm

Piastri pips Norris to Qatar GP pole after victory in sprint race closes title gap

• Norris slips up in final lap to give rival advantage

• Max Verstappen third on grid; Hamilton 18th

Oscar Piastri knew going into the weekend of the Qatar Grand Prix he would have to be at his best to keep his world championship ambitions alive and, with a battling performance, he did exactly that, by claiming victory in the sprint race and then pole position for the grand prix at the Lusail circuit.

Both were significant but pole was crucial in the tense title fight with his McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who lines up alongside him on the front row of the grid, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who starts from third, with the three contenders set to go head to head into turn one on Sunday.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:38 pm

Organizers admit ‘no plan B’ if hockey arena not ready for 2026 Olympics

• New 16,000-seat venue running behind schedule

• Test events pushed to January with no backup option

• First Olympic hockey game still set for 5 February

There is no backup stadium if the main ice hockey arena for the Milan Cortina Winter Games is not ready on time.

Construction on the arena that is set to welcome NHL players back to the Olympics for the first time in more than a decade is behind schedule and its completion is going right down to the wire.

Published: November 29, 2025, 8:33 pm

Foden grabs win for Manchester City but Donnarumma riles Leeds’ Farke

When Phil Foden struck the winner in the second minute of added time Pep Guardiola’s leap was laced with relief at Manchester City’s pursuit of Arsenal still being live. They are back up to second, four points behind the Gunners, who travel to Chelsea on Sunday. This was Leeds’s fourth straight league reverse but the fight shown augurs well for Daniel Farke’s job security.

City had spurned a two-goal interval advantage after Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a half-time substitute, terrorised the hosts. The 28-year-old scored in the 49th minute, then claimed the penalty that led to Lukas Nmecha’s 68th-minute equaliser, rattling Josko Gvardiol enough for him to scythe the striker down.

Published: November 29, 2025, 5:14 pm

Catarina Macario brace powers USA women past Italy in Orlando friendly

• Macario scores twice in 3-0 US victory

• Moultrie nets again as hosts start fast

• Dickey keeps clean sheet in fifth US cap

Cat Macario scored two goals and the United States defeated Italy 3-0 on Saturday night in a friendly match at Inter&Co Stadium.

It was the first of two friendlies between the teams, with the second scheduled for 1 December in Fort Lauderdale.

Published: November 29, 2025, 4:24 am

The NBA Cup last eight is set: Heat v Magic, Knicks v Raptors, Suns v Thunder, Spurs v Lakers

• Knicks oust champs as NBA Cup quarter-finals set

• Orlando, Toronto top groups with perfect 4-0 marks

• Thunder v Suns, Magic v Heat headline last-eight ties

The NBA Cup quarter-final field was set on Friday night, with Miami travelling to Orlando and New York going to Toronto on the Eastern Conference side, and an Oklahoma City v Phoenix rematch and San Antonio facing the Los Angeles Lakers in the West.

And the defending Cup champions will not have a chance to go back-to-back in Las Vegas.

Published: November 29, 2025, 4:40 am

Wrexham AFC receives £18m from government despite Hollywood backing

Welsh government grants used to fund football club even though it is owned by wealthy movie stars

Wrexham AFC has risen meteorically through the English football leagues thanks to the deep pockets of Hollywood movie star owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Yet the club has also had £18m in help from other, unwitting backers: Welsh taxpayers.

The club has received almost £18m in nonrepayable grants from the Welsh government via the local council, according to UK government state aid disclosures – far in excess of the direct aid listed for any other football club in Britain.

Published: November 29, 2025, 9:26 am

Chicago Bears run riot over reeling Eagles on Black Friday for fifth straight

• Chicago rush for 281 in fifth straight win

• Philly fans boo as offense unravels again

• Hurts’ tush-push fumble turns game

Kyle Monangai rushed for 130 yards and a touchdown, D’Andre Swift ran for 125 yards and a score, and the Chicago Bears finished with 281 yards on the ground to win their fifth straight game, 24-15 over the reeling Philadelphia Eagles on Friday night.

Led by rookie coach Ben Johnson, the surprising Bears (9-3) are alone in first place in the NFC North heading into a 7 December showdown at Green Bay.

Published: November 29, 2025, 4:09 am

Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown

Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications

Vast swathes of Europe’s water reserves are drying up, a new analysis using two decades of satellite data reveals, with freshwater storage shrinking across southern and central Europe, from Spain and Italy to Poland and parts of the UK.

Scientists at University College London (UCL), working with Watershed Investigations and the Guardian, analysed 2002–24 data from satellites, which track changes in Earth’s gravitational field.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

At least 500 killed in south-east Asia floods and landslides

More than 350 people killed on Indonesia’s Sumatra island with 162 reported dead across Thailand

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in south-east Asia reportedly climbed past 500 on Saturday as clean-up and search-and-rescue operations got under way in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swathes of the three countries this week, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded, many on rooftops awaiting rescue.

Published: November 29, 2025, 9:17 pm

US halts all asylum decisions after national guard shooting

Trump administration says decisions paused until government can ensure ‘every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible’

The Trump administration has announced it is halting all asylum decisions in the wake of the national guard shooting in Washington DC, according to a senior immigration official.

Joseph Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a post on X on Friday that asylum decisions would be paused “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible”.

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:23 am

Ukraine war briefing: two killed and dozens wounded as Russia launches another overnight attack on Kyiv

Blasts heard in capital from midnight and residential buildings hit as Zelenskyy’s closest ally resigns amid anti-corruption probe. What we know on day 1,375

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Published: November 29, 2025, 3:21 am

Sri Lanka death toll from floods and landslides reaches 153

Another 191 missing after heavy rains from Cyclone Ditwah while almost 78,000 evacuated to temporary shelters amid rescue operations

Torrential rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have killed 153 people across Sri Lanka so far, with another 191 still missing, the country’s Disaster Management Centre (DCM) said on Saturday.

The DMC director general, Sampath Kotuwegoda, said relief operations were under way with 78,000 people moved to nearly 800 state-run welfare centres after their homes were destroyed by the week-long heavy rains.

Published: November 29, 2025, 4:39 pm

Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, marries partner Jodie Haydon

The PM becomes the first Australian leader to celebrate a wedding while in office with a private ceremony followed by a reception at his official residence, the Lodge

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The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has married his partner, Jodie Haydon, in Canberra, making him the first Australian leader to tie the knot in office.

The ceremony took place on Saturday afternoon at Albanese’s official residence, the Lodge, witnessed by a small group of close family and friends, including Albanese’s son, Nathan, and Haydon’s parents, Bill and Pauline.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:36 am

Airbus issues major A320 recall after mid-air incident grounds planes, disrupting global travel

Immediate software change on ‘significant number’ of jets to result in disruption to half the worldwide fleet

Airlines around the world cancelled and delayed flights heading into the weekend after Airbus announced on Friday that it had ordered immediate repairs to 6,000 of its A320 family of jets in a recall affecting more than half of the global fleet.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the main certifying authority for A320 aircraft, issued the instruction on Friday night as a precautionary action, saying that “safety is paramount”.

Published: November 29, 2025, 10:17 am

Northwestern University agrees to pay US government $75m to restore research funding

Agreement will also end series of investigations of university over school’s alleged failure to fight antisemitism

Northwestern University has agreed to pay $75m to the US government in a deal with the Trump administration to end a series of investigations and restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding.

Donald Trump’s administration had cut off $790m in grants in a standoff that contributed to university layoffs and the resignation in September of Northwestern’s president, Michael Schill. The administration argued the school had not done enough to fight antisemitism.

Published: November 29, 2025, 2:42 pm

‘The admin’: why it’s not easy to rename streets called after Prince Andrew

Councils consult on removing former prince’s name as residents report ‘embarrassment’ and ‘smirks’ when giving their addresses

Streets named after Andrew, formerly known as Prince but now plain Mountbatten-Windsor, can be found from Broadstairs to Belfast to Birmingham. Roads, avenues, terraces, lanes, crescents, closes, drives and ways are all afflicted – to the dismay of some residents.

In Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, Prince Andrew Way, celebrating Mountbatten-Windsor’s 1986 marriage to Sarah Ferguson, will be purged after Mid and East Antrim council passed a motion, described by one councillor as “sad but necessary”, to rename. A public consultation is under way.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

Water shortages could derail UK’s net zero plans, study finds

Tensions grow after research in England finds there may not be enough water for planned carbon capture and hydrogen projects

• Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown

Tensions are growing between the government, the water sector and its regulators over the management of England’s water supplies, as the Environment Agency warns of a potential widespread drought next year.

Research commissioned by a water retailer has found water scarcity could hamper the UK’s ability to reach its net zero targets, and that industrial growth could push some areas of the country into water shortages.

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:00 am

With his restless imagination, Tom Stoppard showed us a mind on the move

The questing Czech-born playwright gave us plays that explored arcadias, utopias and affecting notions of home

• Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

• Tom Stoppard – a life in pictures

• Where to start with Tom Stoppard: from Brazil to Leopoldstadt

Tom Stoppard’s breakthrough play opened on a bare stage, with two characters in the middle of nowhere tossing a coin. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, notoriously mix-uppable minor characters from the lower reaches of the Hamlet cast list, meet actors on the road to Elsinore, face the haughty Danish court, board the ship that takes them to their unwitting deaths – but they don’t really go anywhere, except in their puzzled, playful minds. They are always on the road to nowhere, a long way from home. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and they’re the only ones who don’t know it.

Some writers create a dramatic territory so identifiable you could type it into a satnav. Harold Pinter’s grubby suburbia, David Hare’s deceitful establishment, Caryl Churchill’s unmoored dystopia. Home in Stoppard is a fitful notion: often historically and geographically exact, but rarely found in the same place twice. He is hardly an autobiographical writer, but the biography gives a clue. Born Tomáš Straussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia in 1937, he wasn’t even two years old when, as the Nazis invaded, his family left the country. Then came Singapore and Darjeeling and, after his mother’s second marriage, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Bristol. Later came tours behind the iron curtain in support of dissident artists with Amnesty and PEN. Stoppard was the image of the cosmopolitan intellectual, a restless, rootless imagination. But where do his plays feel at home?

Published: November 29, 2025, 5:47 pm

‘If I was American, I’d be worried about my country’: Margaret Atwood answers questions from Ai Weiwei, Rebecca Solnit and more

Democracy, birds and hangover cures – famous fans put their questions to the visionary author

After the ­phenomenal global success, not to mention timeliness, of the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2017, Margaret Atwood has been regarded as “a combination of figurehead, prophet and saint”, the author writes in her new memoir Book of Lives. Over 600 pages this “memoir of sorts” ranges from her childhood growing up in the Canadian backwoods to her grief at the death of her partner of 48 years, the writer Graeme Gibson, in 2019, with many friendships, the occasional spat and more than 50 books (including Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and the Booker prizewinning The Blind Assassin and The Testaments) in between.

The author, who turned 86 last week, always likes to take the long view, often from a couple of centuries’ distance. As Rebecca Solnit notes below, she now has a long view of our times. Age and the freedom of being a writer (as she says, she can’t get sacked) make her fearless in speaking out.

Published: November 29, 2025, 9:00 am

‘It has made me live life more’: Jessie J on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

Endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, suicide and gaslighting … they are all laid bare on the singer-writer’s new album. But just as she finished recording it, she got a shock diagnosis. She explains why it’s made her determined to be in the moment

You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler having struggled to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

My cultural awakening: Thelma & Louise made me realise I was stuck in an unhappy marriage

One line from Ridley Scott’s classic movie was the shove I needed to walk out on my husband after years of his controlling behaviour

It was 1991, I was in my early 40s, living in the south of England and trapped in a marriage that had long since curdled into something quietly suffocating. My husband had become controlling, first with money, then with almost everything else: what I wore, who I saw, what I said. It crept up so slowly that I didn’t quite realise what was happening.

We had met as students in the early 1970s, both from working-class, northern families and feeling slightly out of place at a university full of public school accents. We shared politics, music and a sense of being outsiders together. For years, life felt full of promise. When our first child arrived, I gave up my local government job to stay at home. That’s when the balance between us shifted.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 am

​The Guide #219: Don’t panic! Revisiting the millennium’s wildest cultural predictions

​In this week’s newsletter: The turn-of-the-2000s produced a frenzy of cultural crystal-ball gazing​. Two decades on​ those bold forecasts reveal as much about us as they do about the era itself

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I love revisiting articles from around the turn of the millennium, a fascinatingly febrile period when everyone – but journalists especially – briefly lost the run of themselves. It seems strange now to think that the ticking over of a clock from 23:59 to 00:00 would prompt such big feelings, of excitement, terror, of end-of-days abandon, but it really did (I can remember feeling them myself as a teenager, especially the end-of-days-abandon bit.)

Of course, some of that feeling came from the ticking over of the clock itself: the fears over the Y2K bug might seem quite silly today, but its potential ramifications – planes falling out of the sky, power grids failing, entire life savings being deleted in a stroke – would have sent anyone a bit loopy. There’s a very good podcast, Surviving Y2K, about some of the people who responded particularly drastically to the bug’s threat, including a bloke who planned to sit out the apocalypse by farming and eating hamsters.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 am

Naughty or nice? The best sexy gifts in the UK for Christmas

Our sex expert unwraps her favourite risque Christmas gifts – from cheeky stocking thrillers to mini massagers and toys

• The best self-care gifts for Christmas

Giving a sexy present requires careful consideration. If you proffer a heavy-duty vibrator, piece of bondage gear or other bit of “serious” kit, the recipient may feel obliged to use it with you straight away so as not to look ungrateful – even if they’re secretly a tad intimidated, or aren’t ready to get freaky before the leftover turkey’s been turned into stir-fry.

I advise bundling risque gifts with softer playthings such as a bath bomb (try Lush’s Sex Bomb), or a massage candle (I love Neom’s treatment candle).

Published: November 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Preparing for (nuclear) winter: the Becky Barnicoat cartoon

Continue reading...

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

Blind date: ‘I hadn’t been on a date for nearly 15 years and it showed’

Sarah, 53, a psychologist, meets Russell, 61, a behaviour officer

What were you hoping for?
A romantic connection. Failing that, getting to know someone I might not otherwise have crossed paths with.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

‘When I saw what I captured I felt a Muybridge-like joy’: Roger Tooth’s best phone picture

Tooth was delighted to capture one of Antony Gormley’s statues on Crosby beach – the dog was an unexpected bonus

Twenty years ago, 100 cast-iron, lifesize sculptures were erected across Liverpool’s Crosby beach. Sculptor Antony Gormley – also the man behind Gateshead’s Angel of the North – had created the figures several years previously, and London-based Roger Tooth had for years wanted to visit the Another Place installation and see them for himself. “I was in Liverpool with my wife and friends for a weekend away, and Sunday was an arty day,” Tooth says. “We began at Walker Art Gallery, and ended with a Guinness in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms. In between we headed the two miles outside the city to the statues. Seeing the rusting figures, all facing the sea amid the moving sands, was stunning.”

This was October 2025 and Storm Amy was in full effect. Tooth notes that it was blowing the sand around, and possibly also this dog. “I was taking a closeup of one of the sculptures when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small white dog bounding towards me,” he says. “I was amazed that an iPhone (and I) could freeze the dog in mid-air.”

Published: November 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Meera Sodha’s recipe for Christmas aubergine and rice timbale | Meera Sodha recipes

A stunning but simple festive vegetarian centrepiece for the whole table to enjoy

Last year I wrote about how I lost my food fandango, got it back, and now simplify matters, especially in the kitchen. This means I no longer do feasts with lots of elements, even at Christmas, but I still adore a showstopper, especially one that the whole table, irrespective of dietary requirements, can enjoy together. This year’s offering is such a centrepiece, an aubergine timbale (timbale means drum) packed to the gunnels with vegetables, rice, nuts, fruit, spices and, should you wish it (you should), one of the finest cheeses to come out of Normandy: Boursin.

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

How big is an elephant’s brain and why are cacti spiky? The kids’ quiz

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 am

What links Marc Almond and chemist John Farrow? The Saturday quiz

From Charon, Styx and Nix to Dr Fink and Bobby Z, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which famous portrait is claimed to be of Magdalena van Ruijven from Delft?
2 Charon, Styx and Nix are satellites of which body in the solar system?
3 What type of passport was abolished in 1996?
4 Which Commonwealth capital was built by the Knights of St John?
5 Which African-born influencer is the most followed person on TikTok?
6 Whose Book of Household Management was a Victorian bestseller?
7 Which Devon racecourse is the southernmost in Britain?
8 Whose backing band included Wendy & Lisa, Dr Fink and Bobby Z?
What links:
9 Derwent; Dove; Etherow; Goyt; Wye?
10 Luton Town; Oldham Athletic; Preston North End; QPR?
11 Crucifixion; assassination of Abraham Lincoln; signing of Belfast agreement?
12 Ani Mikheeva; Bella Baxter; Evelyn Quan Wang; Tammy Faye Bakker?
13 Lift; drag; thrust; weight?
14 Singer Marc Almond; comedian Thomas Derbyshire; chemist John Farrow?
15 Golden (English); stone (German); royal (French and Spanish)?

Published: November 29, 2025, 7:00 am

A Black Georgia community uprooted in 1942 still fights to go home

US descendants of Harris Neck’s Gullah Geechee families seek the return of ancestral land seized for a wartime airfield

A once thriving Black community along the Georgia coast called Harris Neck is now covered with greenery. During its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area boasted a schoolhouse, general store, firehouse and seafood processing plants, and supported 75 Black households on 2,687 acres. The inhabitants were Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of formerly enslaved west Africans, who remained on the Sea Islands along the south-east US where they retained their distinct creole language and culture following the civil war.

In 1942, though, the community was razed to the ground when the federal government kicked the families off of the land using eminent domain to build an army airfield. For nearly 50 years, the descendants of the Harris Neck community have fought to regain their ancestral land through peaceful protests and lobbying local and federal governments to no avail.

Published: November 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Six great reads: the Beatles’ ‘eras’, lost living rooms, and the Free Birth Society

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the past seven days

Published: November 29, 2025, 6:00 am

‘We had to swim to safety. I didn’t think we would make it out alive’: the people fleeing climate breakdown – in pictures

Photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer capture the families, farmers and fishers who have been forced to leave their homes by extreme weather – and the landscapes they left behind. Introduction by Dina Nayeri

In 2009, Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer set out to document the people suffering the first shocks of the climate crisis. They had just returned from China, where rapid, unregulated development has ravaged the natural landscapes. Back home, though, the debate still felt strangely theoretical. “In 2009, you still had people who denied climate change,” Braschler recalls. “People said, ‘This is media hype.’” So the couple, working with the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva and supported by Kofi Annan, began The Human Face of Climate Change, a portrait series that showed the people on the frontline of a warming world.

Sixteen years later, climate change is no longer up for debate; the urgent discussions now revolve around solutions. Braschler and Fischer, too, have shifted their focus. “This is going to be one of the central issues for humanity,” says Braschler, “and we want to make sure that people know that the major effect of climate change will be displacement.”

Published: November 29, 2025, 12:00 pm