General news

• Account closures and restrictions are angering racing punters but there is an answer

  08-12-2025 17:55 via theguardian.com
  The minimum bet rule model is there in Australia for all to see and the Gambling Commission should act nowRacing enjoyed its biggest win for many years in last month’s budget. The threatened harmonisation of duty rates for betting and gaming was not simply seen off, but routed, with the differential between the two rates significantly increased. As an added bonus, meanwhile, racing was excluded from the small rise in the duty rate for bets on football and other sporting events.Having celeb
  
  Read more

• From ‘odd’ Musk to ‘painful’ tariffs: key takeaways from interviews with Trump’s chief of staff

  17-12-2025 07:11 via theguardian.com
  Susie Wiles has spoken to Vanity Fair magazine in a series of 11 interviews that she has since dismissed as a ‘hit piece’The president’s chief of staff Susie Wiles has given her own, unvarnished thoughts about Donald Trump’s administration, in a series of interviews published by Vanity Fair magazine, revealing details and opinions that presidential aides usually save for memoirs long after they have left power.From calling out attorney general Pam Bondi over her handling
  
  Read more

• TV tonight: Mary Berry’s best ever tips for a Christmas feast

  17-12-2025 07:10 via theguardian.com
  Zoe Ball and Alison Steadman help the TV cook in the kitchen. Plus: what happened to Mozart’s musical prodigy sister Maria Anna? Here’s what to watch this evening9pm, BBC OneMary Berry celebrated her 90th birthday this year but she shows no sign of slowing down in the kitchen this Christmas. Pigs in blankets cassoulet, cherry and lemon millefeuille, and a pear and ginger steamed pudding are all on her menu, as she is joined by Alison Steadman, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey and Zoe Ball. Ber
  
  Read more

• Australia v England: Ashes third Test, day one – live

  17-12-2025 07:07 via theguardian.com
  Updates as the tourists seek to keep series hopes alive
  Ashes top 100 | Get the Spin newsletter | Email JamesRighto, time for the toss…“Morning Daniel, (it’s approaching 7am in Western Australia),” opens Karris Evans. “Fox Cricket noted an hour ago that Smith got a head knock in training this morning, so possible concussion has ruled him out.” Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• The best theatre, comedy and dance of 2025

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  A meet-cute between Humanity and Earth, a mod ballet and Nick Mohammed’s career-best standup set – our critics pick the best stage shows of the year10. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
  Staging a bestselling book that has already been adapted into a film starring bona fide national treasures (Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton) might have been daunting. But, in Chichester, Katy Rudd’s musical of a man’s Bunyanesque journey to visit a dying woman met that challenge with
  
  Read more

• The Anti-Sports Personality of the Year awards 2025

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  On Thursday night the BBC will honour the heroes. But here are the year’s best dark, devious and downright dumb sporting storiesAnother year, another raft of sporting cheating scandals for our annual anti‑Spoty awards. Where the BBC Sports Personality ceremony this week rewards the cream of athletic endeavour, the Guardian instead shines a light on the darkest corners of sporting skulduggery. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Putin thinks democracy is the west’s weakness. We have to prove him wrong | Rafael Behr

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The Russian strategy of exporting chaos to provoke extremism only works if liberals succumb to cynicism and despair I once spent an exasperating week showing a Russian friend around London. He insisted on seeing everything and admiring nothing. Museums, monuments, shops – all compared unfavourably with St Petersburg and Moscow. This got tiresome after a few days, so I asked my friend if there was anything at all about Britain that impressed him. “The stability,” he said without
  
  Read more

• Promise of seven-week driving test wait in Great Britain ‘unlikely to happen until 2027’

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Government efforts to recruit examiners fail again with average test slot wait now at 22 weeks, report saysPlans to cut the wait for a driving test to seven weeks by the end of the year will not be achieved until November 2027, an audit report has found.Only a net 83 more driving test examiners have been hired despite 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, with the average wait for a practical test now at 22 weeks across Great Britain, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). Continue reading
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Musicians criticise BBC Radio Scotland’s decision to axe specialist late-night shows

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Members of Franz Ferdinand, Del Amitri and more call for pause to schedule shake-up aimed at foregrounding ‘mainstream, easy-listening tracks’Musicians including Eddi Reader, Nadine Shah, Hamish Hawk and members of Franz Ferninand, Del Amitri, Idlewild and more have voiced disapproval at planned changes to BBC Radio Scotland’s late-night programming, claiming the changes will harm “career-igniting” opportunities for Scottish artists.The BBC has announced it will rep
  
  Read more

• Christmas dinner and festive treats up to 70% more expensive, reports Which?

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Price of turkey jumps as much as £15 compared with 2024, while chocolate has steepest mark-upShoppers are paying up to 70% more for Christmas chocolate treats compared with last year, while the price of a turkey has jumped by as much as £15, according to the consumer champion Which?The group analysed a range of ingredients for a typical Christmas dinner, as well as other typical festive treats including mince pies, sparkling wine and chocolates. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Benjamina Ebuehi’s pistachio and cherry meringue cake recipe | The sweet spot

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Have a very chewy yuletide with this sumptuously layered meringue smasherthat pumps pavlova up a levelI’m switching up my usual Christmas pavlova this year for a slightly different but equally delicious meringue-based dessert. Discs of pistachio meringue are baked until crisp, then layered with pistachio cream and cherry compote. The meringue softens a little under the cream as it sits, giving it a pleasingly chewy, cake-like texture. A very good option if you’re after a Christmas de
  
  Read more

• 2025 is UK’s sunniest year on record, boosting solar power

  17-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Britain has had more than 1,600 recorded hours of sunshine this year after record-breaking springThe UK has already had its sunniest year on record, the Met Office has confirmed, after the country battled droughts and sweltered in heatwaves.Though the country is currently swathed in December gloom, the rest of the year brought vast amounts of sunshine. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Bondi terror attack: Naveed Akram charged with 59 offences after 15 people killed at Hanukah celebration

  17-12-2025 06:54 via theguardian.com
  Sydney man, 24, charged with 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act after waking from comaFull report: Bondi terror attack Victims of Bondi beach shootingWhat we know so far about the Bondi terror attack Follow the latest live updatesThe alleged Bondi attacker who survived a shootout with police has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, after waking from his coma on Tuesday.New South Wales police charged Naveed Akram, 24, on Wednesday, after he wa
  
  Read more

• Worried about winter? 10 ways to thrive – from socialising to Sad lamps to celebrating the new year in April

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  The temptation is to sit at home and hibernate, but beating the winter blues can be done. Here’s how to embrace the coldest and arguably most beautiful seasonStephanie Fitzgerald, a chartered clinical psychologist, used to dread winter. Like many, she coped by keeping busy at work and hibernating at home, waiting for the cold, dark days to be over. But this approach wasn’t making her happy. So she sought out the science that would help her embrace the winter months, rather than try t
  
  Read more

• This is Europe's secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble | Johnny Ryan

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Growth in the US economy – and the president’s political survival – rest on AI. The EU must use its leverage and stand up to him The unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe’s adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration’s national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe’s capitals. Cultivating “resistance Europe’s current trajectory in European nations” is now Washington&rsq
  
  Read more

• ‘Magical’ galaxy frogs disappear after reports of photographers destroying their habitats

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Researcher in Kerala rainforest sounds alarm after being told frogs had died after being handled by humansA group of endangered “galaxy frogs” are missing, presumed dead, after trespassing photographers reportedly destroyed their microhabitats for photos.Melanobatrachus indicus, each the size of a fingertip, is the only species in its family, and lives under logs in the lush rainforest in Kerala, India. Their miraculous spots do not indicate poison, as people sometimes assume, but ar
  
  Read more

• ‘Lonely, terrifying and scary’: 70% of students in UK university halls feel isolated, poll shows

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Students blame reliance on phones plus pressure of accommodation costs for lack of social lifeMore than two-thirds of students in UK university halls feel lonely or isolated, blaming accommodation costs and over-reliance on phones for limiting their social life.One in three students in halls of residence – 33% – are lonely or isolated at university often, with another 37% feeling that way occasionally, according to a poll by Opinium commissioned by the student accommodation provider
  
  Read more

• Fallout season two review – this post apocalyptic thriller is absolutely hilarious

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  The video game derived thriller series should be terrifying, but it’s often side-splitting. Its second outing adds excellent guest spots from Justin Theroux, Kumail Nanjiani and Macaulay CulkinThe west doesn’t get much wilder than in Fallout. The show takes place 200 years into a post-nuclear apocalypse where most humans are scratching out an existence in a stricken wasteland California of sand dunes, outlaw gangs and mutated monsters. Resources are scarce. Life is cruel. Death is a
  
  Read more

• East of Zaporizhzhia Ukraine’s drone crews face endless battle to hold the line

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  On a frontline where Russia has made the most gains in recent weeks, drone pilots wonder how long they can keep up the fightIn a warm bunker, lined with wooden logs, it is Dmytro’s job to monitor and help the drone crews on the frontline. Perhaps a dozen video feeds come through to his screen on an increasingly hot section of the front, running roughly from Pokrovske to Huliaipole, 50 miles east of Zaporizhzhia city.Dmytro, 33, is with the 423rd drone battalion, a specialist unit only form
  
  Read more

• Adults in England with eating disorders wait up to 700 days for treatment, report finds

  17-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Audit finds on average adults wait twice as long as children for assessment and more than 10 times as long to be treatedAdults with eating disorders in England are waiting up to 700 days for vital treatment, according to a report.The stark figures were revealed in the first report of the National Audit of Eating Disorders (NAED), which looked at access to eating disorder services across the country. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Trump orders blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela

  17-12-2025 03:39 via theguardian.com
  Move comes amid escalating campaign against Maduro as Venezuelan government condemns ‘grotesque threat’Donald Trump has ordered “a total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.The move comes amid an escalating campaign by the Trump administration against Maduro that has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two do
  
  Read more

• Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with murder of parents

  17-12-2025 03:36 via theguardian.com
  Nick Reiner, 32, charged after Rob Reiner and wife Michele Singer Reiner found dead at Los Angeles home on SundayNick Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, the acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner and the photographer Michele Singer Reiner, authorities announced on Tuesday.The 32-year-old, who is being held without bail, has been in custody since Sunday evening, hours after his sister reportedly discovered the couple’s bodies in th
  
  Read more

• Virginia Roberts Giuffre: Epstein accuser’s memoir sells 1m copies in two months

  17-12-2025 03:14 via theguardian.com
  Giuffre’s family calls the success of her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, ‘bittersweet’ after her death in AprilA posthumous memoir by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has sold 1m copies worldwide in just the two months after its release.Publisher Alfred A Knopf announced on Tuesday that more than half the sales for Nobody’s Girl came out of North America; in the US, the book is now in its 10th printing after an initial run o
  
  Read more

• A visual guide to the historical maps and temples at the heart of the Thailand-Cambodia conflict

  17-12-2025 03:00 via theguardian.com
  Border conflict has roots in colonial maps and long-standing ‘sibling rivalry’Thailand and Cambodia have been locked in a border dispute for more than a century, which exploded again in the summer of 2025. Peace efforts have had mixed results and fighting continues.A historical dispute over lines drawn on colonial maps is often used as a pretext for simmering nationalism. The two countries have had what one historian called a “sibling rivalry” for decades, fanned by compe
  
  Read more

• The rural towns fighting for survival as New Zealand grapples with a growing exodus

  17-12-2025 02:12 via theguardian.com
  Ruapehu is emblematic of question facing New Zealand: how to prevent rural regions – and the country at large - from hollowing outFor generations, two centres of gravity in New Zealand’s central Ruapehu region had enough pull to entice people to the area and keep them there: the mountains and the mills.Mount Ruapehu, the country’s largest active volcano, lured people to its snowy slopes for work and play, while the local mills – run by the region’s largest employer,
  
  Read more

• Ukraine war briefing: Peacekeepers could repel Russian forces under ceasefire plan, says Merz

  17-12-2025 01:44 via theguardian.com
  German Chancellor says this remains a far-off prospect; Zelenskyy says negotiations on peace deal could soon be finalised. What we know on day 1,393Under post-ceasefire guarantees provided by the United States and Europe to Ukraine, peacekeepers could in certain circumstances repel Russian forces, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told ZDF public television in an interview, adding that this remained a far-off prospect. Pressed by interviewers for details on the possible security guarantees floate
  
  Read more

• Marshall Islands launches universal basic income scheme offering cryptocurrency - in world first

  17-12-2025 01:40 via theguardian.com
  Quarterly payments of $200 to be offered via stablecoin or traditional currency in a scheme designed to ease cost of living pressures in the Pacific nationThe Marshall Islands has introduced a national universal basic income (UBI) scheme that offers payments via cryptocurrency, alongside more traditional methods, which experts say is the first scheme of its kind in the world.Under the program, every resident citizen of the Marshall Islands will receive quarterly payments of about US$200 as part
  
  Read more

• Wes Streeting and resident doctors urged to agree to mediation to end strikes

  17-12-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Health bosses say mediation urgently needed to break deadlock as resident doctors prepare to strike from Wednesday Exasperated NHS bosses have urged Wes Streeting and the British Medical Association to agree to independent mediation to end industrial action by resident doctors, who will begin their latest strike on Wednesday.The health secretary and the doctors union have been told to embrace the idea in order to urgently break the deadlock in their increasingly bitter dispute that he
  
  Read more

• Stephen Fry launches campaign to boost reading for pleasure

  17-12-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  The Hay festival president is asking readers for book recommendations that will ‘entice the most reluctant reader’ to help combat the decline in leisure readingHay festival president Stephen Fry is backing the organisation’s new campaign to collect recommendations for the most pleasurable books to entice new readers, in a bid to combat falling literacy rates in the UK.The Pleasure List campaign, run in partnership with the government’s National Year of Reading 2026, will
  
  Read more

• Gerwyn Price thrives off crowd support to ease through at PDC World Championship

  17-12-2025 00:44 via theguardian.com
  Price cruises to 3-0 victory against Adam GawlasDanny Noppert rallies to beat Jurjen van der VeldeGerwyn Price romped to a 3-0 win against Adam Gawlas to ease into the second round of the world championship on Tuesday.Price, who was roared on by the the crowd at Alexandra Palace, bagged six 180s before closing out the win with his second 120 checkout of the evening. Despite missing 17 of his 26 attempts at doubles, he scored a 96.44 average to set up a second-round meeting with Wesley Plaisier.
  
  Read more

Follow @generalnews_UK on Twitter!