It’s not too late: 20 last-minute gifts they don’t need to know you just thought of

From digital gifts and subscriptions you can send in seconds, to gifts from retailers with affordable same-day delivery, there are still plenty of ways to impress

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Spending weeks upon weeks hunting for the perfect gift for your mom, partner or teenage kids is all well and good – until you check the calendar and find yourself empty-handed and out of time. That’s OK – not every unforgettable gift needs to be custom-ordered in August. In fact, you still have plenty of enticing options, even for a gift that’s getting unwrapped tonight.

From subscriptions and digital gifts that you can order from your phone in minutes, to stores that offer delivery in hours, modern technology offers plenty of escape hatches for last-minute gifters. We’ve rounded up our favorites to find the right fit for anyone on your list.

Published: December 23, 2025, 8:15 pm

Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy | Margaret Sullivan

Weiss ought to cut her losses, green-light the piece, and try to start acting like an editor – not like a cog in the machine of authoritarian politics and oligarchy

One tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now, when it comes to Bari Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News, there is no longer any doubt.

A broadcast-news neophyte, Weiss has no business in that exalted role. She proved that beyond any remaining doubt last weekend, pulling a powerful and important piece of journalism just days before it was due to air, charging that it wasn’t ready. Whatever her claims about the story’s supposed flaws, this looks like a clear case of censorship-by-editor to protect the interests of powerful, rich and influential people.

The 60 Minutes piece – about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process – had already been thoroughly edited, fact-checked and sent through the network’s standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views.

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:30 pm

Bold docuseries or dull branding exercise? What The End of an Era really told us about Taylor Swift

Swift’s six-parter charting her Eras tour began with some riveting revelations – but the drama ebbed away, leaving another piece of mere product for fans

In the behind-the-scenes documentary series Taylor Swift: The End of an Era, the singer Florence Welch ascends to the stage to perform their duet Florida!!! to a crowd of 90,000 people. Welch later reflects on their duet at Wembley Stadium with a mix of awe and bemusement. “Taylor is my friend,” she says. “I know her as this very cosy person, and I came out of that lift and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s fucking Taylor Swift.’”

If Swift is a cosy person, The End of an Era – now complete, with its concluding episodes dropping today – is certainly a cosy watch; the sort of lighthearted, low-demand viewing that feels especially welcome in the lazy days leading up to Christmas and stretching towards the new year. Viewers will be familiar with the story. The Eras Tour was great, it tells us. It broke records, burst hearts and boosted the economy. We know she pulled it off. This is only a problem insofar as it means there is almost zero jeopardy in the series, which feels repetitive and thinly stretched over its six hour-long episodes.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:04 pm

‘More complicated than it needs to be’: how to start hosting parties

Worried about cost, planning – or whether anyone will show up? We asked experts how to bring back parties

Several months ago, staring down another empty weekend, a friend texted me. “Why is no one having parties?” she fumed.

Some people were, we agreed, but not nearly enough. Indeed, in January, the Atlantic’s Ellen Cushing declared that “America is in a party deficit”, quoting a 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics report that found only 4.1% of Americans attended or hosted a social event on an average holiday weekend. That figure was down a whopping 35% since 2004.

Timing: Daytime or night-time? How long will it last?

Menu: Will there be food? If so, does that mean a sit-down dinner, only appetizers or a buffet? Will you have caterers? “Less is more when it comes to food,” Rhinehart says. “Keeping the menu simple yet delicious goes a long way.”

Bar: If serving alcohol, which kinds? Which non-alcoholic beverages will you have available? Don’t skimp on ice, says Rhinehart: “You can never have enough!”

Kids: Are they invited, or is it an adults-only affair?

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:00 pm

Anaconda review – Jack Black and Paul Rudd charm in unusual meta-comedy remake

The 1997 creature feature gets a self-referential redo that works best when it allows its two stars to lean into silliness

Anyone rightly suspicious of comedies that try to make sure they have plenty of “heart” will rightly get their hackles up during the opening section of Anaconda, which sheds the skin of its 1997 horror-adventure namesake to reveal a self-referential goof on unnecessary reboots. After an absolutely woeful attempt at a horror-movie cold open where it becomes clear that director/co-writer Tom Gormican hasn’t the merest glimmer of talent for establishing mood, building suspense or even properly unveiling a crazy creature, the movie settles in for the true mission of any great broad comedy: uh, building pathos? After years as an aspiring film-maker, Doug (Jack Black) is succeeding-yet-languishing in his compromised hometown job as a wedding videographer. Meanwhile, his childhood bestie, Griff (Paul Rudd), is following the dream by working as an actor out in Los Angeles, but only just barely. We see him fired from a one-line role on a medical show because of his nerves, in a scene written for nagging sympathy first and comedy a distant second.

When the pair reunites for Doug’s birthday, Griff springs a post-party surprise: he has supposedly come into possession of remake rights to Anaconda, an eclectically cast creature feature that they loved as teenagers. Why not seize the opportunity by shooting their own version on a shoestring, and finally make movies together like they always dreamed? Despite a nagging feeling of responsibility to his family, Doug eventually warms to Griff’s idea, and their fellow friends Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) join the crew. Soon they’re on a boat in the Amazon, dealing with eccentric snake handler Santiago (Selton Mello) and mysterious boat captain Ana (Daniela Melchior).

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:00 pm

Newly released Epstein files include references to Donald Trump

Files also include details about Epstein’s relationship with Larry Summers and apparently fake letter to Larry Nassar

A newly released batch of the so-called Epstein files on Tuesday includes many references to Donald Trump, including a claim by a senior US attorney that the US president was on a flight in the 1990s with the now-deceased convicted child sex offender and a 20-year-old woman.

There is no indication of whether the woman was a victim of any crime, and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.

Published: December 23, 2025, 9:49 pm

US supreme court blocks Trump bid to deploy national guard to Chicago

In a 6-3 decision, the high court sided with a lower court ruling that blocked deployment of troops to the Illinois city

The US supreme court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send national guard troops to the Chicago area, in an important reining-in of the US president’s efforts to expand the use of the military for domestic purposes in historic moves against a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions.

The nation’s highest court denied the US justice department’s request to lift a judge’s order in October that has blocked the deployment of hundreds of national guard personnel in a legal challenge brought by Illinois state officials and local leaders, who had opposed any federalization of those troops to offer backup to immigration enforcement.

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:15 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Pope Leo expresses ‘great sadness’ at Russian rejection of truce calls

Pontiff calls for ‘day of peace’ on Christmas Day after huge Russian attack in Ukraine kills three and cuts power to several regions. What we know on day 1,400

Pope Leo XIV has called for a global truce on Christmas Day, expressing “great sadness” that “apparently Russia rejected a request” for one. “I am renewing my request to all people of good will to respect a day of peace – at least on the feast of the birth of our saviour,” Leo told reporters at his residence near Rome on Tuesday. Russia has repeatedly rejected calls for a ceasefire in its war on Ukraine, saying that would only give a military advantage to Kyiv. The pope said: “Among the things that cause me great sadness is the fact that Russia has apparently rejected a request for a truce.” Referring to conflicts in general, Leo said: “I hope they will listen and there will be 24 hours of peace in the whole world.”

A massive Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine has killed three people and cut power to several Ukrainian regions two days before Christmas and as the country enters a period of very cold weather, report Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer. Russia sent more than 650 drones and more than 30 missiles into Ukraine in the attack, which began overnight and continued into Tuesday morning, local officials said. At least three people were killed, including a four-year-old child. Poland scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace during the strike, the country’s army said. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram: “A strike before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety … Putin cannot accept the fact that we must stop killing.”

Ukraine struck Russian oil and gas infrastructure, hitting a petrochemical plant in southern Russia’s Stavropol region. Regional governor Vladimir Vladimirov said a fire had engulfed the industrial area, while footage on Russian media channels showed towering flames there.

The attacks came after weekend talks in Miami involving Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in separate meetings, which Witkoff called “constructive” but that showed no apparent breakthroughs. Zelenskyy said he was briefed on the state of the talks on Tuesday and that “several draft documents have now been prepared”, including an outline for ending the war, options for Ukraine’s future security guarantees and plans for the country’s postwar reconstruction.

Ukraine pulled out troops from a town in the east after fierce battles, the military said on Tuesday. Kyiv had to withdraw the forces from Siversk, a town in the embattled Donetsk region on the way to two last strongholds held by Ukraine. Russia announced the capture of Siversk almost two weeks ago. The Ukrainian army said that “to preserve the lives of our soldiers and the combat capability of our units, Ukrainian defenders have withdrawn from the settlement” of Siversk, adding that fighting was still ongoing on the outskirts.

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant’s director has said. Sergiy Tarakanov told Agence France-Presse that fully restoring the shelter could take three to four years and warned that another Russian strike could cause the inner shell to collapse. “If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby – for example, an Iskander [short-range ballistic missile], God forbid – it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area,” he said in an interview conducted last week. “No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat.”

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:41 am

At least two people dead in Philadelphia nursing home explosion

Five additional people unaccounted for after partial building collapse at Silver Lake center in Bristol Township

An explosion at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia collapsed part of the building and has left at least two people dead, and five others unaccounted for. The exact number of those injured and trapped inside has yet to be announced, authorities said.

The electric company Peco said in a statement that crews responded to reports of a gas odor at the site around 2pm. “While crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility,” the statement said. “PECO crews shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility to ensure the safety of first responders and local residents.”

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:27 am

Trump administration bans US veterans agency from providing abortions

Department of Veterans Affairs says justice department found procedure not to be legally sound

The Department of Veterans Affairs can no longer provide abortions to veterans, including in cases of rape or incest, following a Department of Justice memo that found last week that the practice was not legally sound.

The ban follows months of efforts by the Trump administration to roll back a Biden-era policy that, for the first time, permitted the VA to counsel veterans and their families about abortion, as well as offer the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when a veteran’s pregnancy imperiled their health. In August, the administration filed paperwork to officially roll back the policy, which had helped the VA’s network of 1,300-plus healthcare facilities – which treat nearly 10 million veterans each year – expand access to abortion, especially in the wake of the US supreme court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.

Published: December 23, 2025, 8:42 pm

Ben Sasse, ex-Republican senator, says he has terminal pancreatic cancer

Sasse, who is 53 and voted to impeach Trump, says he has ‘metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer’

• US politics live – latest updates

Ben Sasse announced on Tuesday that he has terminal stage-four pancreatic cancer. The former Republican senator revealed his diagnosis in a post on X, calling it a “death sentence”.

“Friends - This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,” he wrote.

Published: December 23, 2025, 4:31 pm

Former EU commissioner and activists barred from US in attack on European tech regulators

State department accuses group of pressuring tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints through regulation of disinformation

The state department has barred five Europeans from the US, accusing them of leading efforts to pressure tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints, in the latest attack on European regulations that target hate speech and misinformation.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans – who include former European Commissioner Thierry Breton – have led “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:54 am

TikToker arrested for alleged hit-and-run of pedestrian during livestream

Known as Tea Tyme, Tynesha McCarty-Wroten arrested over 3 November death of Darren Lucas in Zion, Illinois

The social media creator who allegedly hit and killed a pedestrian as she hosted a livestream while simultaneously driving through a Chicago suburb has been arrested, according to authorities.

Known best to her online followers as Tea Tyme, Tynesha McCarty-Wroten was arrested Tuesday for her role in the 3 November death of 59-year-old Darren Lucas, said Lt Paul Kehrli of the Zion, Illinois, police department.

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:21 am

A Florida official wants to cancel a sold-out Christmas drag show. The queens are performing anyway

A Drag Queen Christmas, featuring artists from RuPaul’s Drag Race, will stop in Pensacola despite the state attorney general’s efforts to stop it

A drag queen Christmas tour has become an annual holiday tradition in Florida – and in recent years, so has the ensuing backlash.

Now in its 11th year, A Drag Queen Christmas, featuring performers from RuPaul’s Drag Race, will stop in the Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola on Tuesday night, despite state officials’ best efforts to cancel the show for what they claim is an “anti-Christian” performance at a city-owned theater.

Published: December 23, 2025, 8:32 pm

The valet, the burnt toast, and the trip to Peru: evidence that suggests Andrew link to Ghislaine Maxwell emails

Documents released in relation to Jeffrey Epstein contain emails between Maxwell and an individual signing off as ‘A’ and ‘The Invisible Man’

Emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and an individual signing off as “A” are among the largest dump yet of documents released by the US Department of Justice in relation to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

While “A” – who also refers to themselves as “The Invisible Man” – is not explicitly identified in the emails, they include key details that corroborate the suggestion that they are Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was then still a working royal known as Prince Andrew.

Published: December 23, 2025, 6:01 pm

‘Gunboat diplomacy on steroids’: US signs security deals across Latin America

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro warns Trump administration may ‘destabilise the entire region’ amid rising tensions

While all eyes are on the four-month-long US military campaign against Venezuela, the White House has been quietly striking security agreements with other countries to deploy US troops across Latin America and the Caribbean.

As Donald Trump announced a blockade on oil tankers under sanctions and ordered the seizure of vessels amid airstrikes that have killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the US secured military deals with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago in the past week alone.

Published: December 23, 2025, 12:59 pm

‘Haunted and cursed’: Lake Lanier has a deadly reputation. A darker tale hides beneath the surface

After years of fatalities and bizarre incidents, the Georgia reservoir has spawned countless ghost stories. Are they merely legend or the after-effects of a history steeped in racial trauma?

Kile Glover was the entertainer in the family, the pride of his stepfather, the R&B superstar Usher. He sang, he danced – he burned CDs of his own music, styled the covers with self-made art and was otherwise expressing his creativity in internet videos before it was trendy. “He would’ve been a YouTube sensation by now,” says his mother, the celebrity stylist Tameka Foster. But that future was thwarted on a family trip to Lake Lanier, just outside his Atlanta home town, in July 2012.

Kile was only 11 when he was struck by a speeding jetski while tubing and knocked unconscious. Foster, on the island of Saint Martin at the time, managed to get to Kile’s hospital bedside within hours thanks to Usher sending a private plane – an olive branch that came amid a bitterly public custody battle over their two younger sons. As Kile lay on life support, Foster passed the time Googling for information about Lake Lanier. She is still horrified by what she learned.

Published: December 23, 2025, 3:00 pm

Timothée Chalamet’s unhinged Marty Supreme promo tour is fun – but what really sells a film in 2025?

The actor has been doing it all to sell his 50s-set ping-pong epic but, as a year of A-list flops shows, there’s no formula for guaranteed success

On 15 November, without prior announcement, one of the defining comedies of the year was posted to Timothée Chalamet’s Instagram account. Captioned only “video93884728.mp4”, the 18-minute video at first appeared to be a leaked Zoom call in which the Oscar-nominated actor pitched marketing ideas for the movie Marty Supreme to bemused staff at the indie production house A24. It might take a few minutes, and at least one shock interjection of “schwap!” from the very serious-seeming star, to realize that it’s a joke. Well, sort of – the meta video, in which an egomaniacal Chalamet proposes they “highlight international cooperation” by painting both the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower a “very specific shade orange”, satirizes the tedium of movie marketing desperate to get people in seats, while also introducing a harebrained marketing strategy that’s unabashedly thirsty to get people in seats.

The “leak” heralded an unconventional and extremely committed press campaign for Josh Safdie’s 50s-set ping-pong epic that has turned movie marketing – so often formulaic, cloying or apathetic – into eye-catching performance art. “Movie marketing is trying to be passive, trying to be chic,” Chalamet says in the video, for which he wrote the script. “We’re not trying to be chic.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:51 pm

‘It’s sad we have to do this’: the US citizens carrying passports out of fear

Across the US, people have been carrying their passports amid reports of ICE detaining citizens. Five people explain what living this reality is like

Across the United States, citizens say they have started carrying their passports with them through their daily activities as widespread immigration raids create a pervasive climate of fear, and reports of citizens being detained circulate in the media.

The Guardian talked to people living this reality.

Published: December 23, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘I’ve waited for this movie my whole life’: Guardian readers’ best films of 2025

From the surreal fairytale The Ice Tower to the revenge western Tornado, our readers share the films that had the biggest impact on them this year

• The 50 best films of 2025

• Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year

• More on the best culture of 2025
  

I still can’t get over Sinners. It’s what the cinema was made for. It looked amazing; its sound was so rich and textured; and the juke joint dance sequence was a genuine WTF surprise that could have been grim but was utter genius. And if you haven’t seen it, please stay for the scene that comes mid-credits: it has to be my favourite five minutes of film all year. Michael, Manchester

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:05 pm

My big night out: I raced for the train with my bladder bursting – and it was the start of a disastrous journey

If the train had had a single working toilet I would have been fine. Ditto if it had been the fast route. But I was on the slow train to Derby and knew I was in trouble ...

I had been visiting my boyfriend in London for the weekend. He was a hard-up student and I was still at sixth-form, but beer was pretty cheap in 2000, so we had been out for a few pints. Now we were racing to St Pancras so I could get the last train home to Derby.

I legged it through the station and made it on to the train with seconds to spare. No time for the loo, but I’d relieve myself on the train. Or so I thought.

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:00 pm

After more than a decade of tragedy, Christchurch emerges as New Zealand’s most ‘vibrant city’

Christchurch now at the centre of the country’s fastest-growing region as lower house prices, job prospects and thriving cultural scene entice people to the city

From 2010, New Zealand’s second-largest city, Christchurch, became inextricably linked with crises. The city, which had been known for its gardens, gothic architecture and monochromatic culture was rocked by a decade of tragedy – devastating and fatal earthquakes, wildfires and a terrorist attack on two mosques that killed more than 50 people.

But in recent years, the city of crises has taken a surprising turn – shrugging off its once-conservative reputation and rebuilding from tragedy to become one of New Zealand’s most appealing cities.

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:13 am

Is Susie Wiles an innocent bystander in Trump’s White House? | Sidney Blumenthal

As chief of staff, she has stifled her temptation to intervene time and time again

Susie Wiles has the gimlet eye of an alcoholic’s daughter. She is always on edge, vigilant to the slightest movement, fearful of sudden danger, and has learned to withdraw herself from the chaos in order to survive. She is keenly observant, sees through people around her who are not drinkers to decipher their underlying motives that might flare into unexpected menace, and practiced in passive aggression of which her interview with Vanity Fair is a classic case study.

Wiles defines herself as the child of a raging drunk and it is through that singular lens of her formative experience that she defines her current boss. “I make a specialty of it,” she told the writer Christopher Whipple for his Vanity Fair profile of the Trump White House chief of staff in one of the eleven interviews she granted him. Donald Trump, she stated, “has an alcoholic’s personality,” though he does not drink. She didn’t stop there, but elaborated that “high-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.” Trump, she said, “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

Saying Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality” reveals Wiles’ personal understanding about a megalomaniacal celebrity who fosters pandemonium around himself without any care for others. Her father, Pat Summerall, the great football placekicker and the play-by-play broadcaster of National Football League games on CBS for 40 years, was the original bad daddy. “Alcoholism does bad things to relationships, and so it was with my dad and me,” she said. She remembered him as a mostly absentee father and so drunk he “wouldn’t recognize” his granddaughter, which Wiles thought “horrifying.” Alcoholism, she said, is a “disease that clouds your judgment,” and no one, however smart they think they are can “out think addiction.” In 1992, Wiles and her mother staged an intervention to take him to the Betty Ford Drug Rehab Center. She gave him a letter reading, “Dad, the few times we’ve been out in public together recently, I’ve been ashamed we shared the same last name.” That is what she means when she says someone has an “alcoholic’s personality.”

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:49 pm

My daughter was in the Brown University library, hiding under the desk | Sarah Ruhl

This normalization of gun violence in the US – who is it serving? Why can we not collectively make this not normal again?

On her first day of fourth grade, wearing her magenta spectacles, my daughter Anna arrived to the Big School where she couldn’t reach the drinking fountains. She was small for her age, in terms of stature, though she had big ideas.

I went to pick her up that afternoon, the first day of school, and I looked eagerly at all the young faces streaming out the door, but no Anna. The high schoolers flooded out, then the middle schoolers. Still no Anna. I started to get that mother panic vibration thing in my belly and I called the lower middle school office.

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, essayist, teacher, mother of three and Brown University graduate. Her most recent book is Lessons from My Teachers, from preschool to the present. Her collaboration with A Great Big World, the musical Wonder, is at American Repertory Theater in Boston through February

Published: December 23, 2025, 11:00 am

Now that phones alter our photos without us knowing, how do we know what’s real? | Isabel Brooks

Comparing the pictures taken with my camera’s automatic software to those taken with a ‘zero-processing’ app, the results are shocking. Is this a good idea?

I was flicking through a photo album at my grandma’s when I came across a picture of my mum as a child. I took a photo and sent it to her, but on my phone screen, it looked brighter and more vivid than the physical version in my hand.

Adding an Instagram filter is something I would now only do ironically. But is my phone increasing the contrast or making other tweaks without my knowledge? To find out, I downloaded an app with a “zero-processing” feature that claimed to take photos without any software alterations. When comparing the photos my camera takes automatically to the photos taken with this app, the results were shocking. The so-called “raw” photos that lack processing had subtle, muted colours, softer edges – a little grainy – while the processed photos were gorgeous and crisp like the inside of a marble. Why were they so different?

Isabel Brooks is a freelance writer

Published: December 23, 2025, 3:00 pm

Bad blood between the Beckhams at Christmas might seem trite. But here’s why it’s important | Jason Okundaye

It’s celebrity catnip, but beyond the headlines this is also a tale of family dysfunction. At this time of year, so many people know about that

There is not one saga I have been more invested in this year than the Beckham family feud. In case you are not as shamelessly showbiz-pilled as I am, this is a drama that parses like something between the parable of the prodigal son and Catherine de Medici’s tension with her daughter-in-law Mary, Queen of Scots.

It seems that, after years of a trying in-law dynamic, relations between the Beckham family and their first-born, Brooklyn, and his wife, the heiress Nicola Peltz, have soured. Brooklyn has been repeatedly and conspicuously absent from all the family group shots on Instagram and, most notably, mum Victoria’s Netflix documentary, and dad David’s 50th birthday celebrations and knighthood ceremony (and if you know how long Dave’s been auditioning for that honour, you’ll know that this was the biggest indicator of catastrophe).

Published: December 23, 2025, 11:00 am

When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control | Rafael Behr

The US economy is pumped up on tech-bro vanity. The inevitable correction must prompt a global conversation about intelligent machines, regulation and risk

If AI did not change your life in 2025, next year it will. That is one of few forecasts that can be made with confidence in unpredictable times. This is not an invitation to believe the hype about what the technology can do today, or may one day achieve. The hype doesn’t need your credence. It is puffed up enough on Silicon Valley finance to distort the global economy and fuel geopolitical rivalries, shaping your world regardless of whether the most fanciful claims about AI capability are ever realised.

ChatGPT was launched just over three years ago and became the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Now it has about 800m weekly users. Its parent company, OpenAI, is valued at about $500bn. Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, has negotiated an intricate and, to some eyes, suspiciously opaque network of deals with other players in the sector to build the infrastructure required for the US’s AI-powered future. The value of these commitments is about $1.5tn. This is not real cash, but bear in mind that a person spending $1 every second would need 31,700 years to get through a trillion-dollar stash.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Published: December 23, 2025, 6:00 am

Arrizabalaga is Arsenal’s shootout hero at expense of Lacroix and Crystal Palace

This competition may not be Mikel Arteta or Oliver Glasner’s top priority this season but that didn’t stop their sides from producing a spectacle full of blood and thunder.

It was one-way traffic for Arsenal in the first half but they found Crystal Palace’s second-string goalkeeper Walter Benítez in an inspired mood as he kept his team in the contest with some fine saves.

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:39 pm

NWSL proposes $1m salary cap breach to keep players like Trinity Rodman in US

• Proposal meets with resistance from players union

• Guardian rankings will be among criteria for exception

The NWSL introduced a new “High Impact Player Rule” on Tuesday that allows teams to exceed the salary cap by up to $1m to help attract and retain star players. The rule goes into effect on 1 July 2026.

One of the first players who could potentially benefit from the new rule is Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, who reportedly has received lucrative offers from teams in Europe.

Published: December 23, 2025, 9:12 pm

Draymond Green leaves court after heated exchange with Kerr during Warriors win

• Head coach and forward clash during huddle

• Pair have won four NBA championships together

Warriors forward Draymond Green had a heated exchange with his head coach, Steve Kerr, in a third-quarter huddle during Monday night’s win over the Orlando Magic before leaving the court and heading to the locker room to calm down.

“We got into it obviously and I took the timeout just because I thought we lost our focus there a little bit,” Kerr said. “We had it out a little bit and he made his decision to go back to the locker room to cool off and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Everything is private. I’ve got nothing further to add.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:42 am

Brooks Koepka quits LIV Golf after three years but PGA Tour return uncertain

• The 35-year-old joined Saudi-funded tour in 2022

• ‘Brooks is prioritising the needs of his family’

Brooks Koepka, the five-time major champion, has become the first player to defect from LIV Golf, a significant blow to the league funded by Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund and raises questions whether the PGA Tour will find a way for him to return.

The 35-year-old American has made the decision in order to spend more time with his family. He joined the rival tour in 2022 and won five events over four seasons – he was also the first LIV player to win a major at the 2023 PGA Championship.

Published: December 23, 2025, 11:29 pm

Zvonimir Boban: ‘If I didn’t do this it would be a betrayal of every value I have lived for’

The Croatia legend on his return to Dinamo Zagreb, his fall out with Uefa and the ‘shameful’ actions of Gianni Infantino

An afternoon mist is descending over Stadion Maksimir, enhancing the severity of its dramatic, precipitous angles. In a building across the way, Zvonimir Boban is explaining what brought him back. We are eating squid ink risotto in one corner of a room now configured as Dinamo Zagreb’s canteen; diagonally opposite is the spot where, fighting through the club’s youth system, a young arrival from Dalmatia used to sleep. “Emotionally it’s the biggest story of my life, this one,” Boban says, memories of this former dormitory leaping into his mind’s eye. “Where, if not here?”

He has, in some shape or form, been almost everywhere else. Boban has burned brightly but briefly in each of his various lives as a football administrator. The sport would look different were it not for his influence in senior roles at Fifa and Uefa across the past decade. Almost two years have passed since his high-profile resignation from the latter and there was always the sense Boban, opinionated and deeply principled, had further rungs to climb.

Published: December 23, 2025, 8:00 am

Ravens head NFL with six Pro Bowl nods despite season of struggle

• Broncos, 49ers and Seahawks also have six selections

• Vikings, Saints and Jets have zero Pro Bowlers

Six Baltimore Ravens players have been selected for this season’s Pro Bowl Games despite the team almost certainly missing the playoffs. The Ravens lead the league in Pro Bowl nods, alongside the Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks.

Baltimore’s Pro Bowlers are fullback Patrick Ricard, wide receiver Zay Flowers, center Tyler Linderbaum, linebacker Roquan Smith, safety Kyle Hamilton and punter Jordan Stout. However, they are 7-8 this season and have only a 9% chance of making the playoffs according to Next Gen Stats.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:03 pm

Manchester City favourites to sign Antoine Semenyo after Chelsea withdraw interest

• Manchester City in advanced talks over £65m winger

• Bournemouth winger has release clause in January

Manchester City are in pole position to sign Antoine Semenyo after Chelsea cooled their interest in the Bournemouth winger.

Liverpool and Manchester United have also been pushing for Semenyo, whose contract contains a £65m release clause that becomes active for the first two weeks of January, but it is believed that the 25-year-old’s preference is to join City. The clause is made up of a £60m fixed fee and £5m in add-ons. Nothing has been agreed yet.

Published: December 23, 2025, 9:51 pm

Brock Purdy throws career-high five touchdowns as 49ers roll over Colts

• Purdy throws career-high five TD passes

• McCaffrey stars again in versatile role

• Rivers’ return can’t halt Colts’ slide

Brock Purdy threw a career-high five touchdown passes and Dee Winters returned an interception of Philip Rivers’ final pass 74 yards for a score to lead the San Francisco 49ers to a 48-27 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Monday night.

Purdy was 25 of 34 for 295 yards with one interception, plus his five TD throws. Christian McCaffrey rushed 21 times for 117 yards and caught six passes for 29 yards and two scores. George Kittle had seven receptions for 115 yards and one TD.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:24 am

US economy grew strongly in third quarter, GDP report says

GDP rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% over the third quarter, far higher than expected

The US economy surged over the summer, the commerce department announced on Tuesday in one of the final snapshots of the nation’s finances to be released in 2025.

Gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of the value of goods and services – rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% over the third quarter, far higher than expected and its fastest rate in two years.

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:16 pm

American woman accused of killing her two children extradited to US from UK

Kimberlee Singler was arrested in London in 2023, a week after her daughter, 9, and son, 7, found dead in Colorado

An American woman accused of killing two of her children after a Colorado judge demanded she comply with a custody order has been extradited from Britain, where she was arrested, to the United States to face charges.

Kimberlee Singler was arrested in Kensington, west London, by officers from the UK’s National Crime Agency in December 2023, a week after her nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son were found dead in their home in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Published: December 24, 2025, 12:56 am

60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online

Segment that Bari Weiss had removed provides in-depth look at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo prison

A 60 Minutes episode investigating a brutal prison in El Salvador, which CBS News’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, pulled from the air on Sunday, appeared online on Monday after appearing on a Canadian TV app.

The segment, which runs for nearly 14 minutes and was viewed by the Guardian, provides an in-depth look at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot) prison in El Salvador. It opens with footage of the mega-prison and shows detainees being shackled upon arrival in El Salvador.

Published: December 23, 2025, 8:53 pm

Libya’s army chief dies in plane crash in Turkey

Libyan PM says Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad died after aircraft lost radio contact above Ankara

The Libyan army’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, has been killed in a plane crash after leaving Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

The prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government confirmed on Tuesday evening that Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad had died and that four others were on the jet with him.

Published: December 23, 2025, 11:46 pm

Myanmar’s first election since the 2021 coup: everything you need to know

The ruling junta says the heavily restricted polls are a return to democracy but critics are wary

Five years after Myanmar’s junta ousted the country’s last elected government, triggering a civil war, voting is set to begin this week in national elections.

The junta claims the vote is a return to democracy, but in reality the one-sided and heavily restricted poll has been widely condemned as a sham designed to keep the generals in power through proxies.

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:00 pm

Canada bill targeting refugees feared to signal new era of US-style border policy

Bill C-12 includes many changes around border security along with new ineligibility rules for refugee claimants

Canada’s Liberal government is pushing through sweeping new legislation targeting refugees that observers fear will usher in a new era of US-style border policies, fueling xenophobia and the scapegoating of immigrants.

Bill C-12, or Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act, includes many changes around border security along with new ineligibility rules for refugee claimants.

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:24 pm

Russell Brand charged with further sexual offences including rape

The former entertainer, 50, faces one count of rape and one of sexual assault of two more alleged victims

Russell Brand has been charged with further sexual offences, including one count of rape, the Metropolitan police have said.

The 50-year-old former entertainer has been charged with one count of rape and one of sexual assault of two further alleged victims.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:19 pm

Washington state officials warn of toilet rats after floods: ‘Try to stay calm’

Tips include flushing rat, squirt soap into toilet or if the rat is too large close toilet lid and call pest control experts

Residents in Washington state have been told to be aware of unwanted festive visitors before Santa comes down the chimney – rats coming up from the toilet.

Health officials in Washington warned that recent flooding in the state “may sweep rodents into the sewer systems”. In a Facebook post, the Seattle and King county public health department wrote: “If a rat visits your toilet, take a deep breath and follow these tips,” before outlining the steps to take if a rodent emerges from your commode.

Published: December 23, 2025, 4:38 pm

Scientists create replica human womb lining and implant early-stage embryos

Studying chemical chatter as tiny balls of cells embed could shine a light on early pregnancy and glitches that lead to miscarriage

Researchers have created the lining of a womb in a dish, which promises to shed light on the mysterious early stages of human pregnancy and the glitches that can lead to miscarriage and medical complications.

In laboratory experiments, early-stage human embryos donated from couples after IVF treatment successfully implanted into the engineered lining and began to churn out key compounds, such as the hormone that results in a blue line on positive pregnancy tests.

Published: December 23, 2025, 4:00 pm

‘This is the Costco of energy, man!’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewables

The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rival

Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, warned early of the dangers of climate changes and he has been campaigning and writing ever since. His most recent book, Here Comes the Sun, takes a look at the soaring potential of renewable energy

Is your latest book a more optimistic take on this world?

Published: December 23, 2025, 12:51 pm

Something gnawed your oak tree? Sink hole in your road? How Zurich’s beaver hotline is reassuring residents

As the number of the semi-aquatic creatures soars so can tensions. But the Swiss have a tried and tested system to calm the neighbours and restore harmony

“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.

The caller is one of 10 new people getting in touch each week at this time of year. Beavers, nature’s great engineers, can unleash mayhem during winter as they renovate their lodges and build up their dams. For people, this can mean flooding, sinkholes appearing in roads and trees being felled. A single incident can clock up 70,000 Swiss francs (£65,000) in damages.

Published: December 23, 2025, 9:00 am

Three inmates captured in Florida after escaping jail near Atlanta

Inmates’ escape from DeKalb county jail discovered during routine security check early Monday

Three inmates who escaped from a jail east of Atlanta, including one who was being held on a murder charge, have been apprehended in Florida, a member of a federal fugitive taskforce confirmed.

Eric Heinze, assistant chief inspector with the US Marshals Service Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, declined to share further details ahead of a news conference planned in Atlanta later on Tuesday.

Published: December 23, 2025, 3:31 pm

Once hailed as heroes, Afghans fear deportation under Trump

The very same immigrants welcomed to the US after risking their lives to fight the Taliban now fear detention or worse

Ali was 25 and a pilot for the Afghan air force, just like his father before him; he arrived at the special mission wing 777 airbase in Kabul around 11am one day in August 2021.

The moment he stepped through the gates, he sensed something was wrong.

Published: December 23, 2025, 3:00 pm

Mauritanian immigrants in Ohio face deportations home, where abuses persist

A growing group has found community around Cincinnati. Trump’s ICE crackdown threatens to send them back to Mauritania, rife with human rights problems

Musician Khalidou Sy recalls the night his concert was shut down before he was taken away by the Mauritanian police and jailed for five days.

While he was never given a reason for his detention, in his show Sy criticized the lack of electricity available to the Mauritanian public and called on the authorities to make a change.

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:00 pm

‘An air of repression’: Cop City case hangs over heads of 61 defendants

US government continues holding on to huge amounts of seized personal property, from diaries to cellphones

Georgia’s historic racketeering case in connection with opposition to the police training center known as Cop City is still hanging over the heads of 61 defendants, drawing into focus the state’s continuing possession of hundreds of cellphones, laptops and personal items.

The state’s case is believed to be the largest ever leveled against a protest or social movement using Rico, a law created to go after the mafia and usually associated with organized crime but here deployed against a largely environmental and criminal justice-focused movement.

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:00 pm

Gibraltar’s chief minister made ‘sinister’ interventions to protect friend from police

Inquiry finds Fabian Picardo was ‘grossly improper’ to protect James Levy from a search warrant

The chief minister of Gibraltar made a series of “grossly improper” and “sinister” interventions to interfere in a live criminal investigation in order to protect his friend, mentor and business partner from the consequences of a search warrant, a public inquiry has found.

The retired England and Wales high court judge and inquiry chair, Sir Peter Openshaw, concluded that Fabian Picardo acted to protect James Levy KC when police were at Hassans law firm, where Levy was a senior partner, with a search warrant.

Published: December 23, 2025, 6:29 pm

‘It looks very haphazard’: doubts cast on reports claiming alleged Bondi shooters may have met IS in the Philippines

Former jihadi says if Naveed and Sajid Akram had no links to terror group, it would be near impossible to meet with its representatives in the Philippines

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A former jihadi who claims to have knowledge of how the Islamic State works in the Philippines says he believes it is unlikely the alleged Bondi gunmen met with the group when they “haphazardly” travelled to the country before the attack.

Authorities have confirmed the alleged father-and-son terrorists, Naveed and Sajid Akram, travelled to the Philippines on 1 November and flew out of the country on 28 November – weeks before the massacre at the Chanukah by the Sea event.

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:00 pm

Greta Thunberg arrested in London over ‘Palestine Action prisoners’ placard

Two other people held on suspicion of criminal damage after protest at insurance company’s offices

Greta Thunberg has been arrested in London after taking part in a protest holding a sign expressing support for Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers.

The Swedish activist, 22, arrived after a protest had begun outside the offices of an insurance company in London. She sat down with a sign saying “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:15 pm

Bolsonaro supporters ‘cancel’ Havaianas flip-flop brand over television ad

Son of jailed former Brazilian president says spokesperson for ‘national symbol’ sandals is ‘openly left wing’

Leaderless since its figurehead was jailed for attempting a coup, Brazil’s far right has found a new nemesis: the flip-flop brand Havaianas, which has been “cancelled” by Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters over a television advert.

The controversy stems from the actor Fernanda Torres – the star of I’m Still Here, the Brazilian film that won an Oscar for best international feature – saying in the ad that she hoped audiences would not start 2026 “on the right foot”, but “with both feet”.

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:02 pm

Avengers: Doomsday – first official trailer for new Marvel film released online

Steve Rogers is back … in the 90-second trailer that is now online for all to see

The first official trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has been released online, in the run-up to the next outing from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The brief 90-second trailer shows Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America riding along a rural road on a motorbike, entering a house and picking up his superhero uniform, then holding a sleeping baby. A title then announces: “Steve Rogers Will Return in Avengers: Doomsday.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:23 pm

‘It contains the greatest song ever about an ice cream truck’: readers’ favourite albums of 2025

The beautiful despair of Cameron Winter, the perfectly imperfect life of Lily Allen, the maximalist R&B of Dijon and more: here’s what our readers have had on heavy rotation
• The 50 best albums of 2025

The production is uniquely rhythmic and layered, the instrumental performances are all pretty bulletproof, and Cameron Winter’s writing is just ridiculously good. He is able to show us beauty and despair, and the beauty in despair and the despair in beauty. The best track to me is Islands of Men, which builds over this hypnotic instrumental while Winter sings about isolation and self-illusion. Other highlights would be the title track and Half Real, which feels like a dizzy, intoxicated folk song. Geese are the next big thing. Freddie, 18, Surrey

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:00 pm

It’s a Wonderful Life – the fart-along version! What Christmas TV insiders really watch every year

From a show so bananas it could blind people to a classic cartoon that guarantees tears – stars behind the best festive treats on telly reveal what they tune into without fail

Christmas is a time steeped in traditions. And one big tradition that exists in many of our homes over the period revolves around TV: rewatching old favourites, hunkering down for that special you’ve been dying to see or sitting in a post-lunch fugue with a beloved family film. And, as we published last week, there’s a bounty of Christmas telly to get stuck into this year.

But what about people involved in making TV? What do their Christmas viewing habits look like? Here, a variety of actors, writers, directors and comedians – many of whom may be popping up on your screens this year – share their Christmas TV favourites.

Published: December 23, 2025, 4:00 pm

The Devil’s Backbone review – rich, rousing ghost story is early gothic gem from Guillermo del Toro

Executed with trademark technical flair and empathy, this part-horror, part-fairytale set in a haunted orphanage from 2001 is one of the director’s best

He’s a household name now after The Shape of Water and his new Frankenstein, but 25 years ago Guillermo del Toro was a virtual unknown, still bruised from the Harvey Weinstein-produced Hollywood flop Mimic. But, as this overlooked follow-up attests, he was always a class act. In fact, this is one of his best: a rich, rousing ghost story shrouded in trademark gothic gloom but executed with technical flair and a good deal of empathy.

As with his later breakthrough Pan’s Labyrinth, it’s part-horror, part-fairytale, with children at its centre. The setting is a middle-of-nowhere boys’ orphanage in 1930s Spain, a leftist sanctuary from Franco’s fascists during the civil war. Newcomer Carlos (Fernando Tielve) must find his feet in this semi-surreal realm, with an unexploded bomb in the middle of the courtyard, some kindly adults (one-legged Marisa Paredes and kindly doctor Federico Luppi), some not-so-kindly adults (aggressive caretaker Eduardo Noriega), and junior bullies to win over. There’s also a ghost in the mix: a pale-faced boy named Santi, whose death no one seems to want to discuss, and to whose empty bed Carlos is ominously assigned.

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:00 am

The 10 best global albums of 2025

Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with mournful minimalism, Mohinder Kaur Bhamra’s 1982 album of Punjabi disco makes a comeback and Venezuelan-Guatemalan duo Titanic serve up ecstatic tracks
• The 50 best albums of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

A 40-minute suite of continuous, repetitive drumming might not sound like the most accessible music but south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar’s latest album, There Is Beauty, There Already, turns this concept of insistent rhythm into strangely alluring work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language throughout the record’s 10 movements, channelling Steve Reich’s phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing and anchoring each in the repetition of a continual, thrumming refrain. As the album continues, the refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial rhythm, drawing us further into Korwar’s percussive world the longer we listen.

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:00 am

What to read in 2026: recommendations from booksellers and publishers in Abuja, Nairobi and Brighton

A snapshot selection of some of the best African and black diaspora writing from 2025 – and some to look out for next year

From the richness of Nigeria’s modern literary scene, to the thriving publishing ecosystem of Kenya and the booming creativity coming from black British and African American writers, we asked an African publishing house, a UK bookshop dedicated to black authors and Nairobi’s oldest bookshop for some recommendations on what to read in the coming year.

Published: December 23, 2025, 12:00 pm

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen review – why was my mother so cruel to me?

The American author uses fiction to explore the life of her Chinese mother as she seeks to understand the violence that marked their relationship

At first glance, the protagonist of Gish Jen’s latest novel seems like many of the other Chinese American immigrants Jen has portrayed so astutely in her decades-long career. Loo Shu-hsin is born into privilege in 1924 – her father is a banker in the largely British-run International Settlement of Shanghai – but her life is marked by her mother’s constant belittlement. “Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk,” she’s told, after speaking out of turn. “With a tongue like yours, no one will ever marry you.” Her only solace in the household is a nursemaid, Nai-ma, who vanishes one day without warning – a psychic wound that lingers even as she grows up, emigrates to the US and enrols in a PhD programme.

In one striking way, however, Loo Shu-hsin is different from Jen’s previous protagonists: she happens to be Jen’s own mother. Bad Bad Girl is in part a fictionalised reconstruction of Jen’s mother’s life, in service of a searching attempt to excavate their troubled relationship. “All my life, after all,” Jen writes, “I have wanted to know how our relationship went wrong – how I became her nemesis, her bête noire, her lightning rod, a scapegoat.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 9:00 am

Capitalism by Sven Beckert review – an extraordinary history of the economic system that controls our lives

The Harvard professor provides a ceaseless flow of startling details in this exhaustively researched, 1000-year account

In the early 17th century, the Peruvian city of Potosí billed itself as the “treasure of the world” and “envy of kings”. Sprouting at the foot of the Cerro Rico, South America’s most populous settlement produced 60% of the world’s silver, which not only enabled Spain to wage its wars and service its debts, but also accelerated the economic development of India and China. The city’s wealthy elites could enjoy crystal from Venice and diamonds from Ceylon while one in four of its mostly indigenous miners perished. Cerro Rico became known as “the mountain that eats men”.

The story of Potosí, in what is now southern Bolivia, contains the core elements of Sven Beckert’s mammoth history of capitalism: extravagant wealth, immense suffering, complex international networks, a world transformed. The Eurocentric version of capitalism’s history holds that it grew out of democracy, free markets, Enlightenment values and the Protestant work ethic. Beckert, a Harvard history professor and author of 2015’s prize-winning Empire of Cotton, assembles a much more expansive narrative, spanning the entire globe and close to a millennium. Like its subject, the book has a “tendency to grow, flow, and permeate all areas of activity”. Fredric Jameson famously said that it was easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. At times during these 1,100 pages, I found it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism.

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:00 am

Terminator 2D: No Fate review – the least bad Terminator game in a long while

PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox; Bitmap Bureau/Reef Entertainment
Arcade specialists Bitmap Bureau ply their craft in this retro remake of James Cameron’s action film. But Terminator 2D is at its strongest when colouring outside the director’s lines

Like Arnie’s pulverised cyborg at the end of T2, the Terminator franchise has lumbered on long past the point of being properly functional. Every film since Judgment Day has been a disappointment or an outright disaster, and its video game spinoffs haven’t fared much better. While some half-decent ones have emerged, such as 2019’s Terminator: Resistance, there hasn’t been a great Terminator game in about 30 years.

So it makes perfect sense for Terminator 2D: No Fate to attempt to fix our broken future by travelling back to the past. Developer Bitmap Bureau appeals to the series’ heyday by retelling the story of Judgment Day through a medley of retro 80s and 90s playstyles. The result is a charming and frequently thrilling action throwback, though ironically it is at its strongest when it strays furthest from James Cameron’s film.

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:00 am

Call of Duty’s Vince Zampella was a video games visionary

Zampella created the template for multiplayer shooters that is still used today, and his cinematic and epic military, sci-fi and Star Wars games thrilled and moved millions

• Vince Zampella dies aged 55 – news

On Sunday, Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty video game series, died in a car crash in Los Angeles at the age of 55. Though best known for that series of blockbuster military shooters, Zampella touched a huge number of lives – not only the hundreds of people who worked at the game development studios he led under Activision and EA, but the millions of people who played the games that bore his imprint.

A lifelong gamer, Zampella had a Pong console as a child, then an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64. He told IGN in 2016 that his favourite game from childhood was Donkey Kong: “I would spend hours at the arcade playing it.” Zampella’s first job in the industry was at GameTek in Miami, which specialised in video-game versions of popular US quizshows. He described his role on the small team as: “producer slash customer services slash tester – whatever needed to be done.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:12 pm

‘I wouldn’t answer Stephen Graham’s calls’: Erin Doherty on dreams, danger and ghosting Adolescence’s creator

She won an Emmy for her electric performance in the Netflix smash hit, but the casting process wasn’t exactly hiccup-free. The actor opens up about a year of success, struggle – and how she nearly became a footballer

For a while, Erin Doherty ignored Stephen Graham’s calls. Not deliberately, she stresses with a laugh. “I’m just really bad at my phone. I’m such a technophobe, and he knew that,” she says. They had made the Disney+ show A Thousand Blows together, in which Doherty plays an East End crime boss in Victorian London, and Graham had talked about an idea he wanted to dramatise, about a teenage boy who is catastrophically radicalised by online misogyny. A couple of months after they’d wrapped A Thousand Blows, Graham and his wife and producing partner, Hannah Walters, kept trying to get in touch. “I was getting voice notes from him and Hannah being like, ‘Erin, pick up your phone!’” Doherty’s girlfriend told her to ring him back and Graham offered her the role in Adolescence. She said yes on the spot, without reading the script.

Since it was screened on Netflix in March, Adolescence has had nearly 150m views. It sparked a huge cultural conversation; it was shown in secondary schools and its creators were invited to Downing Street. Did they have any idea it would become such a phenomenon? “No, and I’m not sure you’re supposed to,” says Doherty when we speak. She is chatty and down-to-earth, even in the year her career went stellar. As well as starring in A Thousand Blows, her role in Adolescence – as Briony Ariston, a psychologist – won her an Emmy for best supporting actress. “But you do know when you’re a part of something that’s good and deserves to be seen, and we knew that about it. I think because it came from such a genuine place, a place of real purity and rawness, it [fed into] the making of it. From day one, it had that electricity.”

Published: December 23, 2025, 2:00 pm

A tent, an electric stove and -40C temperatures: the chefs who cook ‘on ice’ in Antarctica

During the southernmost continent’s darkest, coldest days, scientists and researchers turn to food for comfort

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Throughout his career, Al Chapman has spent several months cooking “on ice” – that is, in Antarctica. During the summer of 2021-22, the chef was one of three kitchen crew stationed at Scott Base, New Zealand’s only Antarctic research station. The dining hall was the hub of social activity, serving breakfast, morning tea, lunch and dinner for up to 85 people at its peak. It’s like working in a restaurant, Chapman says – one where you can sometimes see penguins from the kitchen.

Speaking of penguins: Chapman is adamant they aren’t eaten, unlike in the early days of Antarctic exploration. Not just because they’re protected under the Antarctic treaty, or that starvation is no longer a serious concern; Chapman says it’s important to serve food people like, especially when they’re working in such an isolated part of the world, in extreme conditions.

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Published: December 23, 2025, 2:00 pm

My weirdest Christmas: I sat on a desk chair watching the strangest film I’ve ever seen

Away from our families, my flatmate and I hung out in his bedroom, Christmas lunch on our laps, watching a poorly written, jarringly inappropriate movie

In 2022, I was living in a flat in north London above a chicken shop, with two flatmates and a cockroach infestation (what did we expect, said the landlord, living above a takeaway?). My flatmate was from Lithuania, and was due to go home in January, and our other flatmate, his girlfriend, was away for Christmas. I’d been home to Canada the month before, so for Christmas Day itself it was just the two of us.

I bought a small chicken to roast, and served it with stuffing I’d brought back from Canada – it’s the same concept as the stuffing in the UK but somehow fluffier and with more texture – and some pasta. I made brussels sprouts, trying to recreate a dish I like from a restaurant in my home town by cooking them with bacon, maple syrup, parmesan and a mayonnaise drizzle. It wasn’t very nice. We had some prosecco that my flatmate had won in a competition, even though neither of us really liked prosecco. It felt like we should, because it was Christmas.

Published: December 23, 2025, 12:00 pm

What happened next: the Coldplay kiss cam couple

They went mega-viral as the couple who were caught canoodling on a live screen. Cue plot twists and months of public intrigue

On 16 July 2025, Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot went to a Coldplay concert in Boston. You know this, I know this, my pop-culture-averse neighbour Norma knows this. Millions of people around the world are intimately acquainted with what happened that fateful day: the co-workers were caught cuddling and then jumping apart in horror on Coldplay’s kiss cam. Attention spans are short and fresh memes are minted daily. Unfortunately for Byron and Cabot, this wasn’t just another meme; the video of their shocked reaction contained all the ingredients of a viral moment with unusual staying power.

First, there was the format: the clip – uploaded on social media by a fellow concert-goer – was only a few seconds long and easy to recreate. Then there were the protagonists: Byron was the married CEO of software company Astronomer and Cabot was the head of HR. Inequality is at record levels and eat-the-rich narratives are everywhere; everyone loves the chance to hate on wealthy tech types.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:00 am

My weirdest Christmas: I spent three hours in a car with a screaming baby – and she completely changed my life

Her decibel level was almost operatic. But the sound of my first granddaughter wailing like an ambulance was the most beautiful I had ever heard

Just days before Christmas in 2018, I took a flight from New York City to visit my family in southern Italy. My wife, Elvira, and daughter Caroline had moved to a small town in the countryside a few years earlier, and I planned in due course to join the festivities permanently.

I’d made the trip before, once or twice a year since they moved, mainly to get the lay of the land. But this time was different. Caroline had recently had her first child and our first grandchild. And now, after making do with photos and videos, I was finally going to meet Lucia Antonia, all of 11 weeks old. Rarely in my life had I felt more giddy about an encounter in the offing.

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:00 am

‘An unsung alternative to the Cotswolds‘: exploring Leicestershire’s Welland valley

This hidden gem has country inns, canalside walks, a stunning viaduct, the historic town of Market Harborough – and not a tour bus in sight

It was a chilly Sunday in November 2000 when the gods chose to smile on Ken Wallace. The retired teacher was sweeping his metal detector across a hillside in Leicestershire’s Welland valley when a series of beeps brought him up short. Digging down, he found a cache of buried coins almost two millennia old. He had chanced upon one of the UK’s most important iron age hoards, totalling about 5,000 silver and gold coins.

More than 25 years on, I’m staring at Ken’s find at the civic museum in the nearby town of Market Harborough. The now gleaming coins are decorated with wreaths and horses. They’re about the size of 5p pieces, but speak of a wild-eyed age of tribal lands and windswept hill forts.

Published: December 23, 2025, 7:00 am

Houseplant hacks – are used coffee grounds good for plants?

They are sustainable, contain nutrients and may deter pests, but you need to use them sparingly

The problem
Coffee lovers often wonder if waste from their morning habit can feed their plants. The internet says yes; coffee grounds are packed with nitrogen and organic matter, in theory making them a natural fertiliser and pest deterrent. But can the dregs from your cafetiere really replace plant food, or will they do more harm than good?

The hack
Adding used grounds to your plant’s soil provides a nutrient boost and improves soil texture. Some also sprinkle them directly on to the surface of pots to deter pests. It sounds like a sustainable dream come true – recycling waste into nourishment – but it’s not quite that simple.

Published: December 23, 2025, 10:00 am

The best of the long read in 2025

Our 20 favourite pieces of in-depth reporting, essays and profiles from the year

Victor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist?

Published: December 23, 2025, 5:00 am

Floods, protests and Christmas decorations: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: December 23, 2025, 1:38 pm