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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

‘The 0.001%’: a quick visual breakdown of the world’s wealthiest people

About 56,000 people control three times as much wealth as half of humanity. Here’s one way to illustrate that

Cruising around on private jets, the ultra-rich are the world’s financial elite – but how many people actually occupy this exclusive wealth club? Could they all fit into a floating mega-yacht, or is the group much bigger, possibly the size of a dazzling mega-rich city?

Thanks to an inequality report out on Wednesday, we now have a snapshot of the size of the topmost layer floating above everyone else – the 0.001%.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

The 50 best movies of 2025 in the US

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

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

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Published: December 10, 2025, 11:55 am

US senator calls for insider trading inquiry over Trump donors buying $12m worth of shares

Co-chairs of LNG firm, who bought stock worth almost $12m each after meeting with Trump officials, deny wrongdoing

A senior Democratic senator is calling for an investigation into potential insider trading by fossil-fuel billionaires close to the Trump administration, after a Guardian investigation raised questions about an unusual share buying spree.

Robert Pender and Michael Sabel, the founders and co-chairs of Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) company headquartered in Virginia, bought more than a million shares worth almost $12m each, just days after meeting with senior Trump officials in March.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

US politics live: most Americans blame Trump for high prices, poll shows

New poll shows 55% of Americans hold Trump administration accountable for cost of living rises – a day after Trump makes false claims on economy

• Trump rails on affordability ‘hoax’ and flings racist attacks in rally-style speech

• Fact-checking Trump’s speech

Representative Haley Stevens, a Democrat from Michigan who is also running for Senate, announced today that she has filed articles impeachment against Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.

Stevens said that Kennedy has “turned his back on science and public health and on the American people”. In a video posted to social media a short while ago, she added that “families are less safe” since he started leading HHS.

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:00 pm

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

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

• US politics live – latest updates

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:36 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:00 am

Confessions of a Shopaholic novelist Sophie Kinsella dies aged 55

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:53 pm

Venezuelan Nobel peace prize winner misses ceremony but vows to continue struggle

Daughter delivers speech, with Nobel Institute saying María Corina Machado still expected in Oslo after journey of ‘extreme danger’

• Europe live – latest updates

Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has vowed to continue her struggle to free the country from years of “obscene corruption”, “brutal dictatorship” and “despair” as she was awarded the Nobel peace prize at a ceremony in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

The 58-year-old conservative has lived in hiding in Venezuela since its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of stealing the 2024 presidential election from her political movement. Despite fevered speculation that she would make a dramatic appearance at Wednesday’s event, having somehow slipped out of Venezuela, Machado was not present, although she was expected to arrive in Oslo in the coming hours.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:03 pm

Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%

• ‘The 0.001%’: a quick visual breakdown of the world’s wealthiest people

Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.

The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:00 am

Coordinated online attack sought to suggest Taylor Swift promoted Nazi ideas, research finds

Thousands of social media posts were traced to deliberate attempts to misrepresent the singer – and showed ‘significant user overlap’ with the campaign to attack actor Blake Lively

Analysis has found that a coordinated online attack sought to align Taylor Swift and her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, with Nazi and rightwing imagery and values, from accounts feigning leftist critique and designed to encourage outrage.

The AI-driven behavioural intelligence platform Gudea produced a report examining more than 24,000 posts and 18,000 accounts across 14 social media platforms between 4 October, the day of the album’s release, and 18 October. These posts accused Swift of sowing dogwhistle references in her lyrics and alleged that a lightning bolt-style necklace from her merchandise line – a reference to the album track Opalite – resembled SS insignia.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:52 am

Aryna Sabalenka says ‘not fair on women to face basically biological men’ in tennis

• World No 1 says ‘biological men’ have a ‘huge advantage’

• ‘She hit the nail on the head,’ says battle of sexes rival Kyrgios

Aryna Sabalenka has weighed into the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sport, the world No 1 saying it would be unfair for women to face “biological men” in professional tennis.

The Women’s Tennis Association’s (WTA) gender participation policy of its tour permits transgender women to participate if they have declared their gender as female for a minimum of four years, have lowered testosterone levels and agree to testing procedures. These conditions may be further varied by the WTA medical manager on a case-by-case basis.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:01 am

Tourists to US would have to reveal five years of social media activity under new Trump plan

Proposed plan would apply to tourists of all countries, including those not required to get a visa to visit the US

All tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), would also require any email addresses and telephone numbers visitors have used in the same period, and the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:34 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

Font of ‘wasteful’ diversity: Trump’s state department orders return to Times New Roman

Memo from Marco Rubio reportedly said cutting Calibri from official communication would ‘abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program’

US diplomats have been ordered to return to using the Times New Roman typeface in official communications, with secretary of state Marco Rubio calling the Biden administration’s decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.

The department under Rubio’s predecessor Antony Blinken switched to Calibri in 2023, claiming the modern sans-serif typeface was more accessible for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features and was the default in Microsoft products.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:48 am

Trump officials move to scrap Biden student-loan repayment plan

Education department announces plans to halt ‘illegal’ Save program as critics call news ‘devastating’ for borrowers

Donald Trump’s administration announced on Tuesday it had reached a settlement with several Republican-led states to end Joe Biden’s student loan repayment program, which has helped millions of borrowers repay their debt.

On Tuesday, the education department announced plans to halt what it called Biden’s “illegal” Save plan – the Saving on a Valuable Education income-driven repayment program which currently has more than 7 million borrowers.

Published: December 9, 2025, 11:07 pm

ICE is tracking pregnant women all the way to the delivery room: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:15 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:39 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:32 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:55 am

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

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

• Read more petty gripes

“Your experience matters to us, Ellen.”

“We’d love your feedback.”

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

Eurovision used to be a campy joy – but it has become a cynical way to whitewash war | Arwa Mahdawi

The song contest continues with its mission of ‘unity and cultural exchange’ by rolling out the red carpet for Israel, even though at least four countries have pulled out in protest

A new acronym emerged a couple of months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza: WCNSF. “Wounded child, no surviving family”. That acronym is unique to Gaza, experts like paediatrician Dr Tanya Haj-Hasan with Médecins Sans Frontières have said. Normally it’s rare for doctors to treat a child who has lost their entire family. But there has been nothing “normal” about the genocide in Gaza, where whole bloodlines have been wiped out and there are more child amputees than anywhere else in the world. Nothing normal about scores of doctors coming back from a landscape of rubble with reports of kids being deliberately targeted by Israeli snipers.

Despite a supposed ceasefire being in place, Gaza remains hell on earth. Essential medical supplies are not getting in and Amnesty International has said Israel is still committing genocide. (Israel has denied this, of course, just as it denies everything it is accused of.) But while traumatised orphans are now freezing in makeshift tent camps, there is a little heartwarming news: nothing is going to stop the Eurovision song contest from continuing with its mission of “unity and cultural exchange.” Eurovision will continue to roll out a blood-red carpet for Israel, even though at least four European countries (Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia) have now pulled out in protest. Because this is what unity looks like, folks!

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:00 am

The US is not just Europe’s unwilling ally, but an adversary steeped in far-right ideology | Cas Mudde

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Trump’s new national security strategy seeks to destroy liberal democracy as we know it

On the same day that Donald Trump received his made-to-order “peace prize” from his newest pal, Fifa president “Johnny” Infantino, his administration published an equally gaudy national security strategy. The relatively short document oozes Trump and Trumpism. It starts out with the typically modest claim that the president has brought “our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster”.

Even if the strategy mostly formalises the ongoing actions and statements of Trump and his administration, it should be heeded as a warning for the world, and Europe in particular.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

Received an unwanted gift? Here is your failsafe guide to how to respond | Polly Hudson

Remember the protocol everyone must follow: look convincingly happy and never say what you actually think about a disappointing present

To paraphrase George Michael, last Christmas my friend gave her sister-in-law a book. The sister-in-law opened it, immediately said, “Oh I’ve already got this,” and handed it back. If you just winced, you are correct.

Common decency dictates that you gratefully receive a jumper, making multiple exclamations of how thrilled you are, even if you’re wearing an identical one as you open it. The very next day, you give it away. That’s how it works, and why charity shops are inundated in December and January. This is the season of goodwill, not honesty – white lies are so festively appropriate, they’re the colour of snow. Ho-ho-hope you kept the receipt, said no one ever.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:55 pm

In what sense is Tommy Robinson a genuine Christian? None that I can see | Ravi Holy

The extremist, who is said to have converted in prison, is now planning a mass carol service. But look at his words and deeds: hardly Saint Tommy, is it?

Here’s a thought for the day: what kind of Christian am I, and what kind of Christian is Tommy Robinson? It needs addressing, and so it’s good, given the far-righter’s recent religiously contentious pronouncements – and ahead of his planned carol service this weekend – that my church is addressing it. That’s not to say the matter is simple.

Scroll back. When I told someone from the Pentecostal church, which I had attended in my 20s, that I was going to be ordained in the Church of England, she very graciously conceded that while, on the whole, it was a “dead church”, there might be one or two “real Christians” within it. More disturbingly, a senior Anglican cleric of the evangelical persuasion recently said something similar to me – and I was unclear whether he regarded me as being one of the chosen few.

Ravi Holy is rector of The United Wye Benefice in Canterbury, Kent, and a standup comedian

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:00 am

Trump’s crackdown on factchecker visas won't protect free speech | Margaret Sullivan

This isn’t about defending citizens. It’s about keeping the truth – and those skilled at protecting it – at a safe distance

Donald Trump’s war on the truth has taken many forms – spreading thousands of falsehoods, insulting journalists and suing news organizations.

It’s clear he desperately wants to control the message received by the public, and to have his version of reality go unchallenged, whether that’s about a “rigged” election or the decreased price of eggs.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:00 am

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

• Fighting Irish AD has attacked ACC this week

• Miami won selection ahead of Notre Dame

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:06 pm

Liverpool players will not try to influence Salah on his future, says Szoboszlai

• ‘It’s going to be the club’s and his decision,’ midfielder says

• Curtis Jones insists squad firmly behind Arne Slot

Dominik Szoboszlai has said the Liverpool dressing room will have no influence over Mohamed Salah’s next move because only the player and the club can decide how their standoff ends.

Salah missed Liverpool’s valuable Champions League win at Inter on Tuesday having been left out of Arne Slot’s squad in response to his highly critical interview at Leeds. The 33-year-old could also be absent when Liverpool host Brighton on Saturday. He is due to report for Africa Cup of Nations duty with Egypt on Monday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

British Ice Skating to allow same-sex couples to compete in ice dance

• Same-sex teams cannot compete beyond national level

• GB follows national federations in Canada and Finland

Same-sex couples will be permitted to compete in ice dance in British events as of next season, including the national championships, British Ice Skating announced on Wednesday.

However, same-sex teams cannot compete beyond the national level, as the International Skating Union’s rules stipulate pair and dance teams must comprise one man and one woman.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:19 pm

20-year-old charged with attempted murder over shooting of Jets’ Kris Boyd

• Frederick Green allegedly shot NFL player in abdomen

• Boyd was on night out with Jets teammates

A Bronx man has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of New York Jets player Kris Boyd, police announced Tuesday.

The New York police department said Frederick Green, 20, was charged late Monday night. Police had revealed Monday that a “person of interest” was in custody but didn’t name them. It was not immediately clear if Green has an attorney. He also faces additional charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

Boyd was shot in the abdomen just after 2am on 16 November in midtown Manhattan. Boyd, his friend and two other Jets’ players, Irvin Charles and Jamien Sherwood, had left a club and were approached by a group of men who made fun of their clothing, police told reporters at a news briefing.

Published: December 9, 2025, 10:05 pm

Paul Pogba invests in Saudi Arabian camel racing team and aims to ‘elevate the sport’

• Footballer hopes to own world’s most expensive camel

• ‘I’ve watched my fair share of races on YouTube,’ he says

It is known as the sport of the sheikhs, with thousands of fans packing desert tracks to watch robot jockeys compete for huge prizes. Now professional camel racing has a new high-profile investor: Paul Pogba.

The Monaco midfielder said he had become a shareholder in the Saudi Arabia-based Al Haboob, the world’s first professional camel racing team competing across the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf, because he wanted to “elevate the sport on to a global stage”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:39 pm

Arteta fears Arsenal trophy hunt could be hindered by ‘dangerous circle’ of injuries

• Declan Rice ruled out of Club Brugge match with illness

• Max Dowman to miss several weeks with ankle injury

Mikel Arteta fears that Arsenal’s quest for silverware this season could be undermined by a “dangerous circle” of mounting injuries and an unforgiving fixture list that he believes are placing huge demands on his squad.

Arteta confirmed that Declan Rice has not travelled to Belgium for Arsenal’s Champions League meeting with Club Brugge on Wednesday because of illness, while Leandro Trossard and William Saliba are again unavailable.

Published: December 9, 2025, 8:22 pm

‘A generation lost at sea’: the desperate Rohingya falling prey to traffickers as they flee Bangladesh

Barred from work and school in Bangladesh, thousands of refugees are making the perilous voyage to Malaysia by boat – with some beaten en route to extort even more money

Majuma Begum stayed awake until 3am waiting for her son to return from the market before accepting he was not coming home. The next day he phoned to say he was on the Bangladeshi coast, waiting to begin a boat journey to Malaysia that she had desperately tried to stop him taking.

It was the start of weeks of worry for the 58-year-old, whose fears deepened when a boat carrying Rohingya refugees capsized near Malaysia in early November, killing dozens. She felt as though she could finally breathe again when he finally reached his destination.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

Eileen Higgins becomes Miami’s first Democratic mayor in 30 years

In stunning upset victory, Higgins also becomes first woman in post and first non-Hispanic candidate since 90s

Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami on Tuesday night in a stunning upset victory that reversed a run of recent Republican successes in Florida.

The election of Higgins, 61, a former county commissioner, also added to a string of Democratic wins across the country that have served to highlight the growing level of resistance to Donald Trump in his second presidential term.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:01 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:27 pm

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

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

• Louvre robbery in video, photographs and maps

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:49 pm

Daily killings in Mexico drop 37% under Claudia Sheinbaum, but experts say data is problematic

Government claims national security strategy is working, but analysts say figures don’t show rise in forced disappearances

The average number of daily killings per month in Mexico has dropped by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office last year, according to new government figures, but security analysts cautioned that homicide data may not indicate improved national security.

There was an average of nearly 55 murders a day in November compared with almost 87 when Sheinbaum assumed the presidency in September last year, the head of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, said during the president’s daily news conference on Tuesday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:08 pm

Italy first country to win Unesco recognition for national cuisine

Italian cooking added to ‘intangible cultural heritage’ list after campaign by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government

Unesco has officially recognised Italian cooking as a cultural beacon, an endorsement hailed by the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose government has put the country’s food at the heart of its nationalistic expression of identity.

The announcement, made on Wednesday during the UN cultural body’s assembly in Delhi, means Italian cuisine – from pasta and mozzarella to wine and tiramisu – will be inscribed on the coveted list of “intangible cultural heritage”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:43 pm

Elon Musk’s SpaceX ‘preparing for flotation that could value it at over $1tn’

Reports say space exploration company has begun talks about stock market listing that could raise more than $25bn

• Business live – latest updates

Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX is preparing to list on the stock market next year in a move that could raise more than $25bn (£19bn) and value the business at more than $1tn, according to reports.

SpaceX, which designs, builds and launches rockets, is said to have started discussions with banks about an initial public offering (IPO). It could join the stock market in about June or July, according Reuters, which cited an unnamed source familiar with the matter.

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:26 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 11:23 am

Jubilant Sykes’ son arrested after Grammy-nominated opera singer stabbed to death

The 71-year-old performer’s son Micah has been arrested on suspicion of murder, Santa Monica police said

Jubilant Sykes, the Grammy-nominated opera and gospel singer, has died aged 71 after being stabbed to death at his home in California.

His 31-year-old son, Micah Sykes, was arrested on suspicion of murder, authorities said on Tuesday.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:29 am

EU proposes loosening rules on AI gigafactories in green rollback

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

• Europe live – latest updates

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:18 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 6:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 4:00 am

US judge strikes down Trump order blocking wind energy projects

Federal judge declared January executive order unlawful, ruling in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general

A federal judge on Monday struck down Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of windfarms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated US law.

Judge Patti Saris of the US district court for the district of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s 20 January executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful.

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:16 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

Student killed in second shooting at Kentucky State University in four months

Additional student critically wounded on Tuesday, after 17 August shooting left two people with gunshot wounds

At least one student was killed and another was critically wounded in a shooting at a residence hall at Kentucky State University on Tuesday, and a suspect who is not a student at the school was in custody, officials said.

The shooting was the second in four months in the same area of the university.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:27 am

Man convicted of killing woman during home invasion executed in Florida

In state’s 18th execution this year, Mark Geralds, 58, given three-drug injection for 1989 stabbing of Tressa Pettibone

A man convicted of fatally stabbing a woman during a home invasion decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening in Florida.

Mark Allen Geralds, 58, was pronounced dead at 6.15pm following a three-drug injection at Florida state prison for the February 1989 murder of Tressa Pettibone.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:12 am

‘We call him ... unbearable’: California homeowner laments uninvited beast

The 550lb bear living under Ken Johnson’s home for two weeks is unmoved by ‘lure’, with caramel and cherry smells

A hefty 550lb black bear has laid claim to the crawl space under an Altadena home, marking the latest in a series of bear incursions into the Los Angeles community.

On 25 November, homeowner Ken Johnson noticed the bear leaving the crawl space and later contacted California’s department of fish and wildlife for assistance removing it from below his home. Despite sweet-scented lures and ammonia-towels, the bear has remained in place for more than two weeks.

Published: December 9, 2025, 11:20 pm

Zelenskyy ‘ready for elections’ after Trump questions Ukrainian democracy

Zelenskyy says he would hold wartime elections within months given help from allies and Ukraine’s parliament

• Europe live: latest news updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months, if Ukraine’s parliament and foreign allies will allow it, after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power.

Zelenskyy, clearly irritated by Trump’s intervention, said that “this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not people from other states, with all due respect to our partners”.

Published: December 9, 2025, 10:09 pm

UK joins call for Europe’s human rights laws to be ‘constrained’

Britain aligns with some of Europe’s hardline governments in calling for change to allow Rwanda-style migration deals

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK has joined some of Europe’s hardline governments in calling for human rights laws to be “constrained” to allow Rwanda-style migration deals with third countries and more foreign criminals to be deported.

Twenty-seven of the 46 Council of Europe members including the UK, Hungary and Italy have signed an unofficial statement that also urges a new framework for the European convention of human rights, which will also narrow the definition of “inhuman and degrading treatment”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:13 pm

Burkina Faso releases 11 Nigerian troops after ‘unauthorised’ plane landing

Military personnel told they can return to Nigeria after actions described as ‘unfriendly act’

Authorities in Burkina Faso have released 11 Nigerian military personnel held after a cargo plane from Lagos made an “unauthorised” emergency landing in its second largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso.

The breakaway regional Association of Sahel States (AES) said on Monday that the C-130 aircraft had entered Burkina Faso’s airspace without clearance, calling it an “unfriendly act”.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:51 pm

Teacher in Hungary facing criminal charges for organising Pride event

As Viktor Orbán tightens his grip in the country, rights organisations have called for the EU to intervene

A rights campaigner in Hungary has been placed under investigation and is facing potential criminal charges after organising a peaceful Pride march, in a case that campaigners have described as “unprecedented and dangerous” for the EU.

In early October, thousands flocked to the southern city of Pécs to take part in Pride. It was the fifth year that the march was held – the only other annual Pride gathering in the country besides that of Budapest – and was becoming a showcase of the city’s commitment to freedom, diversity and the coexistence of minorities.

Published: December 10, 2025, 5:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:47 pm

‘My beautiful house lay in ruins!’: how to build (and wreck) a Hollywood set – in pictures

Veteran set decorator Lauri Gaffin has spent a career dressing up films from indie classics to blockbusters. Her new photographic memoir takes us behind the scenes of this ever-changing job – and on the hunt for wolves’ penis bones

Published: December 10, 2025, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:01 am

Merv review – a dog steals the show in Amazon’s by-the-book Christmas romcom

Charlie Cox and Zooey Deschanel co-parent a depressed dog in a serviceable attempt to appeal to animal lovers during the festive period

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least in my social circles, that co-parenting a dog is a bad idea. Most will tell you: shared canine custody arrangements prevent exes from moving on. It’s a logistical headache. It causes fights. It’s annoying for all involved (and then some). And apparently, in a revelation worthy of a straight-to-streaming movie, it makes dogs depressed.

Not to minimize the mental health of dogs – I’ve listened to my mother boast about our family chihuahua’s “EQ” enough to know that man’s best friend has the capacity for great emotional sensitivity. (And the ability to convey it on command – for a truly outstanding performance of doggie depression, please see Bing the bereft great dane in 2024’s The Friend.) I have no doubt that a dog like Merv, a wired-hair terrier sort played by Gus the Dog in Merv’s eponymous Amazon movie, would struggle to adjust from life in a single family unit to split homes. Whether or not the ill-advised dog-sharing arrangement can sustain a whole Christmas romcom, however, is a dubious proposition.

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:00 pm

Growing pains: the struggle to make a must-see gen Z TV show

Hollywood is still trying to court younger audiences but this year’s crop of new comedies, from Adults to I Love LA, have yet to prove essential

This year, despite not particularly liking the show nor wanting to, I have thought a lot about the opening scene to Adults. The FX half-hour comedy about a group of recent college graduates in New York begins, naturally, on the subway; what seems like an over-studied portrait of early adulthood intimacy – tangled limbs, in-group references, aggressively relaxed banter – quickly devolves into a standoff between a creepy subway masturbator and the group’s instigator, Issa (Amita Rao), trying to out-masturbate him to make a wildly off point about feminism. “Is this the world you want?!?” she shouts at him, hand vigorously in pants.

The moment is intentionally off-putting, perhaps too much so – I’m as ripe as anyone for surprise, but found the try-hardness of this shock memorably irksome. Yet it’s also unintentionally revealing: this, it implicitly screams, is a show to get young people’s attention. A similar anxiety courses through the opening of I Love LA, HBO’s west-coast rejoinder to Adults that is similarly pitched as a zeitgeist-y take on the thrilling chaos of young adulthood. We meet Maia, played by creator and co-writer Rachel Sennott, mid-sex with her boyfriend, heedlessly determined to come before going to work, even if it means ignoring an earthquake.

Published: December 9, 2025, 10:03 am

All hail Avatar! How event movies are trying to bring back the box office blockbuster

Ahead of James Cameron’s latest Avatar sequel hitting the big screen, we look at how studios aim for ‘theatricality’ to get streaming film fans from sofa to cinema

If anyone still knows how to fill a movie theatre, it’s James Cameron. Having broken the all-time worldwide box office record in 1997 with Titanic and again 12 years later with Avatar, his work is the acme of big-screen spectacle.

His latest offering, Avatar: Fire and Ash, arrives in radically different circumstances. With several years now between us and the pandemic, it is clear that theatrical box office is likely not coming back to what it was: US total box office for 2025 currently stands at $7.6bn (down from $11.3bn in 2019); the worldwide haul is expected to be around $34.1bn, a 13% drop from pre-Covid times. All the more onus on Cameron’s hypertrophic Smurfs to bring in the box office cavalry at year’s end. And hopefully supply some further indications about the magic elixir needed to break the Netflix’n’chill stranglehold and get boots back in cinemas.

Published: December 9, 2025, 7:00 am

‘After almost destroying the world, our families are friends’: the thrilling podcast from JFK and Khrushchev’s relatives

Their relatives might have been on opposite sides of near-nuclear war, but the US and Soviet leader’s descendants have teamed up for an intimate BBC podcast. They talk humanity, hate – and why Trump is a ‘very limited’ man

In October 1962, the world came closer to destruction than at any other point in modern times. After a US surveillance plane discovered that Soviet nuclear missile sites were being built in Cuba, less than 100 miles from the US mainland, President John F Kennedy responded by ordering the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet to impose a naval blockade around the island. Almost two weeks of impossible tension followed.

The threat was clear. If Kennedy, or his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, fired on their enemy, a chain reaction of global nuclear strikes and counterstrikes would have followed, plunging humanity into all-out ruination.

Published: December 9, 2025, 12:57 pm

The 50 best albums of 2025

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

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Published: December 10, 2025, 1:58 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 9:00 am

American Canto by Olivia Nuzzi review – insufferable filler that sidesteps the real issues

The reporter’s alleged affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr raises a whole host of questions, few of which get answers in this pretentious memoir

Did he take me seriously?” Olivia Nuzzi wonders in the midst of her infamous alleged affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr. Nuzzi, then Washington correspondent for New York magazine, has just learned that she and the Politician, as she calls RFK Jr in her new book, may overlap during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Nuzzi, worried Donald Trump will catch on and start spreading rumours, convenes an emergency meeting with the Politician to strategise. RFK Jr – who has denied having an affair with Nuzzi – doesn’t see the big deal.

So, she agonises “Did he take me seriously?” and reflects that she had “little cause to consider the question before now.”

Published: December 9, 2025, 12:00 pm

It Girl by Marisa Meltzer review – how Jane Birkin became an icon

The unlikely story of an English girl catapulted to French fame – and a relationship with Serge Gainsbourg that resembled a piece of deranged performance art

Boarding a flight in 1983, Jane Birkin found herself wrestling with the open straw basket into which she habitually crammed everything from playscripts to nappies. As she reached for the overhead locker the basket overturned, spilling the contents on her neighbour. He turned out to be the chief executive of Hermès, the French luxury goods company, and immediately offered to make her a bag with internal pockets and a secure closure. Birkin sketched what she wanted on a sick bag and “The Birkin” was born: a slouchy trapezoid in finest leather complete with its own little padlock. These days a Birkin bag starts at around £10,000 while the original, made for Birkin herself, was auctioned this summer for £7.4m.

It is a tale that gets endlessly repeated thanks to its neat compression of the main beats of the Jane Birkin story. First, there’s the insouciance, the fact that the Anglo-French singer and actor never seemed to go after anything; rather, it came to her. Then there’s her lack of mortification at having her whole life upended on a strange man’s lap, nappies and all. Finally, there’s her refusal to feel overawed by her bounty. Birkin famously did not treat her Hermès bag with especial reverence, enthusiastically festooning it with charms, beads, stickers and ribbons. The trend for personalising your handbag with bits of tat was ubiquitous this summer, part of a wider revival of the Birkin aesthetic, comprising flared mid-wash jeans, peasanty cheesecloth blouses and ballet flats. You couldn’t avoid it if you tried.

Published: December 9, 2025, 9:00 am

On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle review – how to make a timeloop endlessly interesting

The hypnotic third novel in the hit Danish series grapples with the philosophical realities of being stuck on repeat in 18 November

The time loop story, in which characters repeatedly relive the same span of time, has become synonymous with the 1993 film Groundhog Day, but the idea has much older roots. In PD Ouspensky’s 1915 novel Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, the feckless Osokin is given the chance to live his life over again, only to find himself making all the same mistakes. Like Groundhog Day’s insufferable Phil Connors, Osokin can change nothing without changing himself.

Solvej Balle’s much-lauded series On the Calculation of Volume takes a very different approach. She first began working on the idea decades ago, several years before Groundhog Day was released. The film, she says, “helped me with research by trying out some of the roads I did not want to take”. The books, five so far with two more planned, have proved a literary sensation in her native Denmark, with the first three volumes together scooping the 2022 Nordic Council Literature prize, the highest literary honour in Scandinavia. This is the third to be published in English this year; the first was shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker prize.

Published: December 9, 2025, 7:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 3:00 pm

Skate Story review – hellish premise aside, this is skateboarding paradise

PC, PS5, Switch 2; Sam Eng/Devolver Digital
An exquisitely fluid game of tricks, grinds and manuals is framed by a story that uncovers the poignancy of the infamously painful pastime

Skateboarding video games live and die by their vibe. The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles were anarchic, arcade fun while the recent return of EA’s beloved Skate franchise offered competent yet jarringly corporate realism. Skate Story, which is mostly the work of solo developer Sam Eng, offers a more impressionistic interpretation while capturing something of the sport’s essential spirit. It transposes the boarding action to a demonic underworld where the aesthetic is less fire and brimstone than glittering, 2010s-era vaporwave. It is also the most emotionally real a skateboarding game has ever felt.

The premise is ingenious: you are a demon made out of “pain and glass”. Skate to the moon and swallow it, says the devil, and you shall be freed. So that is exactly what you do. You learn to ollie first, a “delicate, precise trick” according to the artfully written in-game text. Then come the pop shuvit, kickflip, heelflip and more.

Published: December 9, 2025, 10:00 am

Snakes alive! A boy with a serpent in the Appalachians: Hannah Modigh’s best photograph

‘I was told not to go to St Charles as it was too dangerous. I went and was struck by how free the kids are. They’re not afraid of the region’s rattlesnakes’

I visited the Appalachian mountains for the first time in my mid-20s, after deciding I needed to get away from my inner circle in Sweden to find my way into photography. I felt I had to be by myself, just responding to things happening around me and not thinking about my daily life.

America played a big part in my family history, and the Appalachians called to me in particular because at that time, around 2006, I’d been listening to a lot of bluegrass music. I wanted to get closer to people who lived in the place where it originated – music has always been a big inspiration for me. While driving in the mountains with no particular destination in mind, I met a social worker who told me: “Whatever you do, don’t go to St Charles.” She said something about it being too dangerous, which made me curious.

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

Bob Vylan to sue Ireland’s RTÉ for defamation over Glastonbury coverage

Legal action alleges Irish broadcaster defamed group by claiming they led antisemitic chants at festival in June

The British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have launched defamation proceedings against the Irish broadcaster RTÉ over its coverage of their performance at Glastonbury.

The legal action alleges Ireland’s national broadcaster defamed the group by claiming they led antisemitic chants at the festival last June.

Published: December 10, 2025, 12:11 pm

‘We are truly doomed’: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard despair at AI clone appearing on Spotify

Australian psych-rockers, who removed their music from Spotify in protest against the streaming service, lament the appearance of AI band King Lizard Wizard

Spotify has removed an AI impersonator of popular Australian rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard from the streaming service, with the band’s frontman voicing despair at the situation.

King Gizzard removed their music from Spotify in July in a protest against the company’s chief executive Daniel Ek, who is the chair of military technology company Helsing as well as a major investor.

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:43 am

Raul Malo, frontman of band the Mavericks, dies aged 60

The musician, who led the Grammy-winning band, had been receiving treatment for colon cancer

Raul Malo, the soulful tenor and frontman of the genre-defying, Grammy-winning band the Mavericks, has died. He was 60.

Malo died on Monday night, his wife, Betty Malo, posted on his Facebook page. He had been diagnosed with cancer. The frontman of the Mavericks had documented his health journey on social media since he disclosed in June 2024 that he was receiving treatment for colon cancer.

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:57 pm

The nine best eco-friendly holiday decor in the US to celebrate with less waste

We found reusable wrapping clothes, garlands made from invasive species, and solar-powered lights that you’ll want to use season after season

• Nine eco-minded gifts for Americans that actually make a difference

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The holiday season is a time for joy, togetherness and generosity, but it can also be a time for overflowing waste bins. According to Oklahoma State University, families tend to generate about 25% more trash during this season, and it’s easy to see how. From disposable gift wrap to novelty decor destined for the landfill by New Year’s Eve, short-lived festivities can unintentionally generate long-term trash.

But that doesn’t mean you need to endure a drab and joyless December in a cave: a few thoughtful swaps can make for magical holiday celebrations with less waste, and some of them even help communities in need. Here are nine sustainable purchases that can help fill the season with intention, and maybe even inspire those around you to do the same.

Published: December 9, 2025, 8:15 pm

The 20 best gifts in the US for people who love the outdoors, tested in nature by our expert

Wondering what to get the nature lover in your life? Our outdoor enthusiast curates the must-haves: Loop earplugs, Yeti Rambler and more

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

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

Whether you know someone who camps every weekend or just enjoys morning coffee outside, you already know: outdoorsy people can be particular about their gear. They want to stay both comfortable and safe in the elements – a reliable water bottle means no spills in the pack and a good headlamp keeps them on the trail and not in a ravine.

Outdoor gear can be intimidating and expensive, but I’ve pulled together a list of affordable yet reliable things that I’ve personally used as an outdoors lover. (I have also gifted many of these to family members who now use them often.) These are things I’ve dragged through mud, shoved into carry-ons and relied on when the weather turned. Whether your person camps, hikes, fishes or bikes, here are durable and practical gifts that make being outside easier and more fun.

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Unique gifts from indie businesses that beat predictable big brands

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:28 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘What to buy Dad for Christmas’: is retail ready for the AI shopping shift?

As shoppers ask ChatGPT for inspiration, brands scramble to ensure their products appeal to the bots calling the shots

• Consumer test drive: can AI do your Xmas gift shopping for you?

Christmas shopping – some love it, to others it’s a chore, and this year for the first time many of us will outsource the annual task of coming up with gift ideas to artificial intelligence.

While traditional internet search, social media – especially TikTok and Instagram – and simply wandering a local high street will still be the main routes to presents for most this year, about a quarter of people in the UK are already using AI to find the right products, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

Is it a good idea to have a hot toddy when you’re sick?

Experts weigh in on if the traditional remedy of whisky, honey, lemon and hot water can actually help your cold

The hot toddy has a reputation as a folk remedy for illness. And if you’re sick, a steaming cup of whisky, honey, lemon, and water can sound like a lot more fun than crackers and broth.

But what about the alcohol? Here’s what experts say about hot toddies and colds.

Published: December 9, 2025, 5:00 pm

The art of going ‘Instagram official’: how 10 celebrity couples shared their love with the world

Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are the latest A-listers to announce their relationship status online. But there are many ways to do it - from fancy dress to panicked deletions

As a mark of pure intent, going Instagram official has become a firmly entrenched dating marker. To post a picture of you and your new partner on Instagram – on the grid, mind you, not hiding behind the cowardice of a story – is to not only declare that you are in love, but also that you are confident enough in your future to share it with the world.

As such, Katy Perry’s decision to go Instagram official with Justin Trudeau is a classic of the genre. Long dogged by rumours that they might be together, Perry this week debuted a sanctioned image of them both. They are cheek to cheek. They are smiling, albeit in that slightly strained hurry-up-and-take-it way you do when someone decides to shoot a whole reel of photos. Katy Perry is pulling the exact same face she did when she stared into the camera that time she sort of went into space, which is how you know that it is really serious. Good luck to the pair of them.

Published: December 9, 2025, 5:23 pm

Parasite cleanses: why are so many people obsessed with intestinal worms?

Probably the most disgusting online trend of 2025, this has led to pictures of people’s excrement all over the internet. Please make it stop ...

Name: Parasite cleanses.

Age: The earliest written records of what were probably parasitic infections in humans are from Egyptian medicine, between around 3000 and 400BC.

Published: December 9, 2025, 3:53 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 8:00 am

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 2:33 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

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

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

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 10:00 am

‘There’s no longer a heartbeat’: the couple whose twins were stillborn – and the ‘birth keeper’ they blame

Soon-to-be parents hired a woman they believed would act as a licensed midwife. But she in fact belonged to a radical society that was linked to baby deaths around the world

• Read more of the Guardian’s investigations into the Free Birth Society

Ernesta Chirwa recalls the jarring moment the woman she presumed was her midwife said something unexpected. Caitlyn Collins was driving her to hospital after 6am, on 15 February 2022. “She said,” says Chirwa, who is 30 and lives in Cape Town, “Please don’t mention to the nurses that we were trying to have a home birth.”

Chirwa was in too much pain to speak – she was in active labour. But she remembers feeling surprised. “Why,” Chirwa recalls, “is she asking us not to mention that we were trying to have a home birth?”

Published: December 9, 2025, 10:00 am

‘We’re living in terror’: fears in southern Syria over Israel’s growing occupation

Residents say incursions and raids have increased since forces first entered country a year ago after fall of Assad

On the day Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, Abu Ibrahim and his family went to sleep wondering what sort of future awaited them in the morning. They woke in a panic, to the sound of gunfire and tanks.

The bullets announced the arrival of the Israeli military into the remote southern Syrian province of Quneitra on 9 December 2024. In the place of Assad militias who used to patrol the roads, bulky armoured personnel carriers filled with Israeli soldiers rumbled down the potholed streets, stopping to assure residents that they were there for their protection.

Published: December 9, 2025, 11:36 am

Walking into disaster: the narcotrafficking scandal that blew up the BVI

When the new premier of the British Virgin Islands said he needed an armed security detail, his chief of police knew trouble was on its way

Augustus James Ulysses Jaspert, Gus for short, arrived in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, on 21 August 2017, just two weeks away from catastrophe. Jaspert, who was in his late 30s, had recently been appointed governor by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of the Foreign Office in London. The BVI is an overseas territory of Britain, with only partial independence, and the governor effectively acts as a backstop to the locally elected legislature. For Jaspert, a career civil servant, it would be his first hands-on experience of governing – and his first time in the British Virgin Islands. Any trepidation was outweighed by the prospect of moving to the Caribbean. “If you’re sitting in an office in London and someone says, ‘Go to Tortola,’ you look it up on a screen and think, ‘OK, I can do that,’” Jaspert told me.

While Jaspert, his wife and two sons were settling into their new life, a tropical storm gathered over the Atlantic. At first, forecasters weren’t unduly alarmed, but in the first days of September, the storm transformed into something much worse. In the afternoon of 6 September, Hurricane Irma made landfall in Tortola, which is home to the majority of the BVI’s 30,000-strong population. Irma was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. It scalped buildings, blew out windows and removed entire floors from homes. Shipping containers smashed into the islanders’ fishing boats and the out-of-towners’ yachts.

Published: December 9, 2025, 5:00 am

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

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

Published: December 10, 2025, 1:45 pm