General news

• Do your new year’s resolutions fit the temper of the times? | Fiona Katauskas

  29-12-2025 23:57 via theguardian.com
  Some things just aren’t resolvable ...See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...
  
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• Sarina Wiegman an honorary dame as Lionesses and Red Roses get honours

  29-12-2025 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Leah Williamson made an OBE; four Lionesses are MBEsTorvill and Dean now a dame and a knightSarina Wiegman has been awarded an honorary damehood after guiding England to back-to-back European titles, in a new year honours list dominated by the Lionesses and England’s victorious women’s rugby union team.The Red Roses’ World Cup success on home soil has led to the captain, Zoe Aldcroft, the vice-captain, Marlie Packer, and the head coach, John Mitchell, named OBEs, while Megan Jo
  
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• Idris Elba knighted in new year honours list also featuring Torvill and Dean

  29-12-2025 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Meera Syal also made dame while England women’s football and rugby winners feature prominentlyThe actors Idris Elba and Meera Syal have been made a knight and a dame in the new year honours list, with top awards also going to the ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.The former head of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, was also made a dame and there were knighthoods for Patrick McCabe, a former UN official responsible for clearing unexploded bombs in Gaza; Tristram Hunt, the former L
  
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• ‘Dreams are free’ for Aston Villa as Unai Emery targets latest Arsenal success

  29-12-2025 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Manager reflects on lessons learnt from past seasonsThird-placed Villa visit leaders Arsenal on TuesdayUnai Emery said “dreaming is for free” as Aston Villa prepare to face Arsenal knowing victory on Tuesday would cement their place in the Premier League title race and that January arrivals could enhance their chances of staying the distance. Emery warned Villa must learn lessons from 2023-24, when they also had 39 points from their opening 18 matches but ended up finishing fourth.De
  
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• UK households urged to place 9 items in cars before Thursday

  29-12-2025 23:01 via express.co.uk
  The advice from the weather agency comes as harsh winter conditions are forecasted for the start of the new year.
  
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• Iconic London New Year's Eve firework spot closed due to cost-cutting

  29-12-2025 22:39 via express.co.uk
  The popular vantage spot will be shut and police are urging revellers to avoid the area.
  
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• MasterChef Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions review – John Torode leaves the kitchen at last

  29-12-2025 22:00 via theguardian.com
  In this Christmas special, four previous MasterChef winners compete for the ‘ultimate’ accolade. Grace Dent is a joy, while Torode bows out in a … very maverick way indeedSo. Farewell then, John Torode. You were the co-presenter of MasterChef and Celebrity MasterChef. Until you weren’t. But first, and finally, there is this: the second of two festive specials in which we watch the Australian peering at potatoes while pretending we don’t know the BBC chose not to re
  
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• Marjorie Taylor Greene says she was ‘naive’ for believing Trump is man of the people

  29-12-2025 21:55 via theguardian.com
  Greene gives lengthy interview with New York Times days before stepping down as congresswoman for GeorgiaMarjorie Taylor Greene, now just days away from stepping down as a congresswoman for Georgia, has said in her latest mea culpa interview that she “was just so naive” for believing that Donald Trump was a man of the people.In a lengthy interview with the New York Times that examines her break with the president after years of devotion, Greene explained that a series of minor ruptur
  
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• Couple's sickening joke after beating and burning their baby to death on Christmas Day

  29-12-2025 21:55 via express.co.uk
  The 10-month-old was found to have suffered more than 130 injuries before his death on Christmas Day
  
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• Ipswich stun leaders Coventry to breathe life into Championship promotion race

  29-12-2025 21:32 via theguardian.com
  Ipswich narrowed the gap on the Championship’s top two with an impressive 2-0 win at Coventry, ending the leaders’ unbeaten home record this season. Jack Clarke opened the scoring after 72 minutes and Wes Burns’ first goal since April 2024 doubled the visitors’ lead 11 minutes later.Kieran McKenna thought his side fully deserved their victory. The Ipswich manager said: “In the first half there was a real confidence, a composure. We took the game on, controlled the g
  
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• Goals of the year 2025: dazzling skills, acrobatics and sublime strikes

  29-12-2025 21:00 via theguardian.com
  From jaw-dropping tricks to scorpion kicks, flicks, solo efforts and more – enjoy our pick of 2025’s best goalsThe very definition of top bins: James Edmondson pops one right in the stanchion at Slough Town to help Macclesfield Town into the third round of the FA Cup. Continue reading...
  
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• Claudia Winkleman to host new BBC chatshow

  29-12-2025 21:00 via theguardian.com
  Strictly and Traitors presenter and ‘true national treasure’ will front The Claudia Winkleman Show from springShe has ruled the Traitors castle and waltzed out of the ballroom on Strictly Come Dancing. Now Claudia Winkleman is taking up residence in one of television’s most traditional settings – on the chatshow sofa.The BBC has confirmed that the presenter, who has become one of its most prized assets after fronting two of its most successful programmes, is to host The C
  
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• Anyone who drinks water every day issued warning - ‘not safe'

  29-12-2025 20:58 via express.co.uk
  Bottled water should not be drunk every day, researchers have said.
  
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• Zelenskyy accuses Russia of trying to sabotage peace talks with ‘typical Russian lies’

  29-12-2025 20:35 via theguardian.com
  Russia’s claim it foiled drone attack on Putin residence shows ‘they do not want to finish this war’, Ukrainian president saysVolodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of trying to sabotage peace talks and preparing to bomb government buildings after the Kremlin said it had foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence.Zelenskyy described the claim as “typical Russian lies” following his two-hour meeting on Sunday with Donald Trump in Florida. He
  
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• George Clooney and wife Amal granted French citizenship

  29-12-2025 20:06 via theguardian.com
  The actor said privacy laws protecting children from paparazzi were a key factor in the family’s decisionGeorge Clooney has been granted French citizenship, along with his wife Amal Clooney and their two children, according to an official decree in France’s government gazette.The publication confirms an ambition Clooney alluded to early in December when he praised French privacy laws that keep his family shielded from paparazzi. Continue reading...
  
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• Police watchdog launches investigation after man shot dead by officers in Norfolk

  29-12-2025 20:02 via theguardian.com
  Man in his 60s, believed to be a driver involved in two-vehicle collision in Thetford, shot after leaving sceneThe police watchdog has launched an investigation after a man in his 60s was shot dead by officers in Norfolk.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was examining what led police to fire twice after two vehicles crashed into each other in Thetford on Sunday evening. Continue reading...
  
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• No 10 defends campaign to release Abd el-Fattah despite his ‘abhorrent’ tweets

  29-12-2025 20:01 via theguardian.com
  MPs reject calls to strip British-Egyptian activist of UK nationality over social media posts from a decade agoDowning Street has defended its campaign for the release of a British-Egyptian activist and its decision to welcome him to the UK despite his “abhorrent” tweets a decade ago.Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who arrived in London on Boxing Day after the British government successfully negotiated his release, said he apologised “unequivocally” for his posts after opposition par
  
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• Ex-boxing champ Joshua hurt in crash, two killed - ESPN

  29-12-2025 19:54 via news.google.com
  Ex-boxing champ Joshua hurt in crash, two killed  ESPNAnthony Joshua crash: Steve Bunce on fatal car accident in Nigeria  BBCNigeria footballers send 'strength' to grieving Anthony Joshua  ESPN‘Stay strong, champion’: boxing world offers condolences to Anthony Joshua  The GuardianAnthony Joshua car crash: British heavyweight champion will need time after deaths of Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, says Andy Scott  Sky Sports
  
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• Abd el-Fattah citizenship row shows shift on questions of national identity

  29-12-2025 19:47 via theguardian.com
  Activist was entitled to UK passport but for a rising number of voters Britishness is something you are born withNumber of people who say Britons must be born in UK is rising, study showsWhat does it mean to be British? That question is increasingly at the heart of our national political debate. And it has become a more urgent one this week as the Conservatives and Reform UK call for the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah to be stripped of his UK citizenship over racist and offensive t
  
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• The Guardian view on antibiotics: recent breakthroughs are great news, but humanity is losing the bigger race | Editorial

  29-12-2025 19:30 via theguardian.com
  Our magic bullets are increasingly rare and ineffective. The golden age of discovery is over and the way we develop and use drugs needs to changeDuring her tenure as director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan used to say that all of the “easy” antibiotics had already been found. Her point was that in responding to the urgent threat of antibiotic-resistant infections, we would struggle to find new medicines – or preserve the ones we have &
  
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• The Guardian view on the National Year of Reading 2026: time to start a healthy habit for life | Editorial

  29-12-2025 19:25 via theguardian.com
  A Children’s Booker prize, library cards for newborns and a major campaign – initiatives to encourage a love of books in children are a cause for celebrationReading to children from a young age leads to greater happiness, educational success, empathy and social mobility – no wonder the government wants to encourage everyone to do it more. To this end, next year has been decreed the National Year of Reading 2026. It couldn’t be more timely.Reading is in crisis. Picking up
  
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• Number of people who say Britons must be born in UK is rising, study shows

  29-12-2025 19:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Research finds ‘worrying’ surge in support for hard-right narratives on national identityThe number of people who believe “Britishness” is something you are born with has almost doubled in two years, according to research that warns of a rising tide of ethno-nationalism in Britain.Although a majority of the public still believe being British is rooted in shared values, a growing proportion see it as a product of ethnicity, birthplace and ancestry, according to
  
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• We must take control of AI now, before it’s too late | Letters

  29-12-2025 18:45 via theguardian.com
  Anja Cradden proposes ways of managing tech companies before we reach crisis point. Plus letters from Mike Scott and Gerry Rees “When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control”, says the headline on Rafael Behr’s article (23 December). I think it’s more likely that when the AI bubble bursts, the creators of the crisis, along with other wealthy economic actors, will be in the rooms with the politicians telling them how to “rescu
  
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• When swiping up doesn’t get you far | Letters

  29-12-2025 18:44 via theguardian.com
  Readers describe the digital habits that are hard to break when interacting with the physical worldSpeaking of odd habits as a result of using technology (Letters, 25 December), I once passed a bus shelter where a mother was waiting with her young child. The shelter had a huge poster of a new mobile phone and the toddler was leaning out of its buggy and desperately swiping the screen of the phone, presumably in the hope of getting cartoons.
  Ron Bailey
  Newcastle upon Tyne• I r
  
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• Key factors in the unstoppable rise of fascists in Germany | Letters

  29-12-2025 18:44 via theguardian.com
  Dr Jens Holst on why voters are drifting towards the right, Ahmed Dirie on arming ourselves against Fascism 2.0 movement, and Paul Gander on the role of the state and the mediaAs important and accurate as Tania Roettger’s portrayal is, it unfortunately fails to mention key factors in the unstoppable rise of fascists in Germany (In Berlin, I took an evening class on fascism – and found out how to stop the AfD, 24 December).It is not only the unbearable pandering of conservatives and r
  
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• Missing Texas teen in "imminent danger" as search continues - BBC

  29-12-2025 18:36 via news.google.com
  Missing Texas teen in "imminent danger" as search continues  BBCBody found during search for Texas teen who went missing on Christmas Eve, sheriff says  CNN'I only ask God to please bring her back home': Search underway after CLEAR Alert issued for missing San Antonio teen  kens5.com‘We’re not going to stop’: Bexar County community unwavering in search for missing 19-year-old  KSATNew video may show Texas teenage girl who's been missing s
  
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• No Drama This End brings back glory days for Nicholls – and it’s Cheltenham next

  29-12-2025 18:32 via theguardian.com
  Hot favourite makes all in Grade One Challow HurdleMinella Yoga doubles up on sparkling day for trainerDays like these were once almost a weekly experience for Paul Nicholls, as he strung together one title-winning season after another, so the 14-time champion will have taken particular pleasure from his double on Monday as No Drama This End, in the Grade One Challow Hurdle, and Minella Yoga both emerged as contenders for the Cheltenham festival in March.The Challow has often been an early provi
  
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• From Adolescence to the manosphere: has 2025 been the year of the boy?

  29-12-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  Much attention was paid to the problem of misogyny, but focus was also placed on issues such as paternity leave and mental healthThe prime minister said it was a “really hard watch”, while a British police force said it should be a “wake-up call for parents”. The Netflix drama Adolescence – which tells the story of a 13-year-old boy arrested for killing a female classmate – was hailed from the school gates to the Houses of Parliament for shedding a spotlight o
  
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• Cryptocurrency slump erases 2025 financial gains and Trump-inspired optimism

  29-12-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  Last few months of the year have seen $1tn in value wiped from the market, despite all-time-high price of bitcoinAs 2025 comes to a close, Donald Trump’s favorable approach to cryptocurrency has not proven to be enough to sustain the industry’s gains, once the source of market-wide optimism and enthusiasm. The last few months of the year have seen $1tn in value wiped from the digital asset market, despite bitcoin hitting an all-time-high price of $126,000 on 6 October.The October pri
  
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• Letter: Brigitte Bardot obituary

  29-12-2025 17:38 via theguardian.com
  A year before her breakout role as an international sex symbol in And God Created Woman (1956), Brigitte Bardot made a rare trip to Britain to co-star with Dirk Bogarde in the second of the “Doctor” comedy film series, Doctor at Sea. She played a cabaret performer stranded on a cargo ship who is first discovered by Bogarde, as Dr Simon Sparrow, taking a shower.As I recounted in my 1987 book, The Golden Gong, filming was, with characteristic British modesty, to take place from the oth
  
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• Nicola Jennings on Keir Starmer’s 2026 – cartoon

  29-12-2025 17:23 via theguardian.com
  Continue reading...
  
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• The perfect commute: how to turn a frustrating chore into fun – and better fitness

  29-12-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  It is never enjoyable to be stuck in traffic or pressed up against a stranger’s armpit. But there are ways to make the most of your commute. You could even use it to write that novel• Sign up here to get the whole series straight to your inboxFor many of us, the idea of “the perfect” commute might sound laughable. If we travel to an office, it’s likely to involve either peak-time public transport or stressful traffic. You might not expect that either of those offers
  
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• As the US media floundered this year, I couldn’t help but think: ‘Thank God I’m at the Guardian’ | Moira Donegan

  29-12-2025 16:49 via theguardian.com
  Other outlets have asked their writers to compromise, but the Guardian has never – and would never – ask me to pull a punchFunded by readers, the Guardian’s fierce independence is guaranteed. Please help us reach our year-end fundraising goal in these final crucial hoursIt might be most generous to characterize the behavior of major US media organizations since 2024 as negotiating between competing incentives.On the one hand, billionaires have consolidated their ownership over
  
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• Report: Xbox & PlayStation Could Delay Next-Gen Consoles Due To RAM Price Increases - Pure Xbox

  29-12-2025 16:20 via news.google.com
  Report: Xbox & PlayStation Could Delay Next-Gen Consoles Due To RAM Price Increases  Pure XboxNew Report Says PS6 And The Next Xbox Could Be Delayed Thanks To AI  ForbesMemory shortages could push PS6 release beyond 2027  MashableCurrent generation consoles could potentially see another price hike, AI said to be at the root of the problem this time  EventHubsNieR Producer Takes Over Dragon Quest Franchise and Promises Surprises for its 40th Anniversary
  
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• SoftBank to acquire DigitalBridge for $4bn in move to deepen ties to AI

  29-12-2025 16:05 via theguardian.com
  Acquisition would further expand SoftBank’s investments in artificial intelligence as it tries to center itself in the boomSoftBank Group will acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group in a deal valued at $4bn, the companies said on Monday, as the Japanese investment firm looks to deepen its AI-related portfolio.The acquisition would expand SoftBank’s exposure to digital infrastructure as the Japanese conglomerate is positioning its portfolio to focus on artificial
  
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• ‘Will save on money and arguments’: 21 home organisation hacks for shared households

  29-12-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Whether you’re cohabiting with flatmates or family, cut down on communal living confusion with these clever tips and tricks, from colour-coded towels to fridge organisers• How to update your rental home on a budgetBetween clashing routines, different cleanliness standards, and that one person who always “forgets” to take the bins out, keeping a shared household running smoothly – whether that’s family or flatmates – isn’t easy.After years of living
  
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• Why haven’t Trump’s tariffs crashed the US economy? | Jeffrey Frankel

  29-12-2025 15:49 via theguardian.com
  Effects on inflation and employment have not been as bad as feared – but could still materialise with full force in 2026When Donald Trump took office last January, most economists feared what would happen if he raised tariffs. The expectation was that, as the new duties drove up prices of consumer goods and inputs – affecting households and companies, respectively – surging inflation and falling real incomes would follow. This would be a supply shock, so the US Federal Reserve
  
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• ‘This will be a stressful job’: Sam Altman offers $555k salary to fill most daunting role in AI

  29-12-2025 15:44 via theguardian.com
  New head of preparedness at OpenAI will face unnerving in-tray amid fears from some experts that AI could ‘turn on us’The maker of ChatGPT has advertised a $555,000-a-year vacancy with a daunting job description that would cause Superman to take a sharp intake of breath.In what may be close to the impossible job, the “head of preparedness” at OpenAI will be directly responsible for defending against risks from ever more powerful AIs to human mental health, cybersecurity a
  
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• Adelaide heatwave and a giant horse: photos of the day – Monday

  29-12-2025 15:37 via theguardian.com
  The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• The very next day, you gave it away … how to get rid of an unwanted Christmas gift without getting caught| Eleanor Limprecht

  29-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  When a friend found out the painting she’d given me had made its way to a charity store, I wanted to dig a hole in the earthAs the recipient of an unwanted gift, is it necessary to pretend you like it? This is what most of us are trained to do as children; for some it was our first experience of being instructed to lie.“Thank you,” I might have said to my grandmother, “for this frilly, itchy lace-trimmed dress identical to the one you gave my sister. I love it.” Con
  
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• Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first

  29-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the
  
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• I knew all about the NHS’s challenges and flaws. But then as a patient, I saw the love and the magic | Anne Perkins

  29-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  There is something about the care and professionalism to be seen on a ward that defies abstract analysis: a reminder of what it is to be humanI watched Nye, the National Theatre’s hit show about Aneurin Bevan, the former Labour MP for Ebbw Vale and his fight to found a national health service, twice. Both times it left me feeling a bit queasy. Bevan is a mighty working-class hero. Probably no other minister, even in that 1945 government of heroes, would have had the vision, the muscle or t
  
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• ‘A gift that cannot be sold’: the Palestinian family fighting to save their West Bank farm

  29-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  For more than three decades, the Nassars have battled Israeli efforts to reclassify their property as ‘state land’In 1916, Daher Nassar, a Christian Palestinian farmer living south of Bethlehem, made a move considered more than unusual at the time. He bought a 42-hectare stretch of farmland on the slopes and valleys of Wadi Salem, and formally registered the purchase with the Ottoman authorities, who then ruled the region.A few years later, after transferring the title to his son, Na
  
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• My big night out: I woke up on a llama farm in Germany – hungover and lying beside a naked punk

  29-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  At 20, I went on a European road trip for the summer, where a chance encounter in Cologne taught me the importance of friendshipThe clock that ticks at 6am on a Saturday morning at a llama farm in rural Germany, when you wake up hungover next to a naked punk, ticks much more loudly than any other clock. In this case, it was a proper rustic European clock – none of your chrome or plastic nonsense – wooden and ancient, with little figurines which bustled around inside it, on the hour,
  
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• Drinks ideas to get your NYE party fuelled

  29-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Stop stressing about 31 December, keep things simple and go with a flow of prosecco, lambrusco or maybe even a Korean soju …Oh, you thought it was all over? After all the carolling, gifting and tree-ing (not to mention the eating and drinking) of the actual Christmassy bit, it feels almost cruel to have to do it all again, and on – in my opinion – one of the most stressful nights of the year: New Year’s Eve.If you’re not paying over the odds and going out, with lon
  
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• ChatGPT, cooking and Christopher Walken: how parents got their kids to love reading in 2025

  29-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Fewer children are reading for fun - but parents are trying everything from AI to dramatic voices to keep them engagedIt’s been a tough year for our brains. Merriam-Webster dictionary editors chose “slop” as 2025’s word of the year. New York Magazine recently dropped its “Stupid Issue”, with a cover story exploring America’s collective “cognitive decline”. There are big problems in the humanities: reading test scores are down for students nat
  
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• ‘The most culturally Iranian of all Iranians died so far from Iran’: the towering legacy of Bahram Beyzaie

  29-12-2025 13:54 via theguardian.com
  Beyzaie, who has died aged 87, wove myth, folklore and classical Persian literature into stories that defend against a regime which sought to obliterate themOne of the last messages I sent to the great Iranian stage and screen writer-director Bahram Beyzaie was a recent photograph, taken by a friend, of the interior ruins of Tehran’s oldest cinema, Cinema Iran. There, on one of the walls, hung posters of Beyzaie’s 1988 film Maybe Some Other Time, positioned above and below the torn p
  
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• Gloucestershire woman and two children killed in Boxing Day house fire

  29-12-2025 13:26 via theguardian.com
  Children’s father tried to break into bedroom from outside to rescue them but was beaten back by flamesA woman and two children aged seven and four died in a fire in the early hours of Boxing Day after their father, a serving police officer, desperately tried to save them.The officer smashed his way out of the stone cottage in the Cotswolds and tried to break into his children’s bedroom from the outside to rescue them but was beaten back by the flames. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘A total knockout!’ The best television you never watched in 2025

  29-12-2025 13:00 via theguardian.com
  From the most beautiful show Netflix has ever made to a thriller about a menopausal hitwoman and a dazzling documentary set in outer space, here are some TV gems that may have passed you by this yearIn a bizarre move, Netflix released this series by Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda – the Palme d’Or winner renowned for movies such as Shoplifters and Nobody Knows – with absolutely no fanfare this year. But Asura was a total knockout – a rich and sumptuously shot drama abou
  
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• Heavy snow forecast for parts of UK as weather warning issued

  29-12-2025 12:39 via theguardian.com
  Yellow warning for parts of Scotland and amber cold health alert in place for north-east and north-west EnglandHeavy snow showers are on the way across parts of the UK as a weather warning has been issued by the Met Office.A yellow warning for snow and ice has been issued for parts of Scotland from 6am on New Year’s Day until midnight on 2 January. Continue reading...
  
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