General news

• Fifa urged to halt World Cup ticket sales after ‘monumental betrayal’ of fans - The Guardian

  11-12-2025 21:58
  Fifa urged to halt World Cup ticket sales after ‘monumental betrayal’ of fans  The GuardianWorld Cup ticket prices: Fifa's prices a 'monumental betrayal' says Football Supporters Europe  BBCWorld Cup 2026 tickets: FIFA urged to halt ticket sales over ‘betrayal’ of fans pricing plan  Sky SportsFootball fans condemn ‘betrayal’ over ‘extortionate’ World Cup ticket prices  Financial TimesWorld Cup 2026 ticket bal
  
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• Slot set for Salah talks; World Cup ticket prices a ‘slap in the face’ – football live

  12-12-2025 11:40 via theguardian.com
  ⚽ All the latest updates heading into the weekend’s action
  ⚽ Premier League: 10 things to look out for | Email JohnYet more Slot: “Alex [Isak] got a knock in the first half, so let’s see how he recovers from that today and if he is able to start tomorrow.It’s helpful in the upcoming weeks that we won’t play as many games as we did until now. I wonder if there are more teams that have played three games in seven days this season. We had to do it three tim
  
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• Republicans and Democrats can work together on healthcare, says Trump, as rise in premiums looms – US politics live

  12-12-2025 11:39 via theguardian.com
  President spoke at Congressional ball after Senate rejected two competing proposals to address imminent expiration of Obamacare subsidiesStriking an uncharacteristically bipartisan tone, the US president, Donald Trump said that Republicans and Democrats could work together on healthcare, as insurance premiums look likely to soar in January.Speaking at last night’s Congressional ball, Trump said: “I really believe we can work on healthcare together and come up with something that&rsqu
  
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• December cut to UK interest rates ‘nailed on’ after economy shrinks unexpectedly in October – business live

  12-12-2025 11:38 via theguardian.com
  Disappointing UK GDP report shows economy contracted by 0.1% in both September and OctoberToday’s GDP report also shows the economy only grew by 1.1% over the last year – a weak performance.The ONS says:GDP is estimated to have grown by 1.1% in the three months to October 2025, compared with the same three months a year ago. Over this period services grew by 1.5% and construction grew by 1.1%, whereas production fell by 1.3%.GDP is estimated to be 1.1% higher in October 2025, compare
  
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• What Christmas gifts do Santa Starmer and Elf Mahmood have in their sack? The Stephen Collins cartoon

  12-12-2025 11:30 via theguardian.com
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• ‘Cruel’ amendments are being used to thwart assisted dying bill, says lead MP

  12-12-2025 11:22 via theguardian.com
  Lords’ demand for 1,150 changes include many that are ‘unnecessary’ and likely to run down clock, says Kim LeadbeaterUK politics live – latest updatesMembers of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in a bid to scupper it, the MP leading the campaign has said.Kim Leadbeater said on Friday she believed that peers opposed to the bill were trying to block it by putting forward hun
  
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• Newport manager Christian Fuchs: ‘I’m pretty stubborn. If I see potential, I’m doing it’

  12-12-2025 11:05 via theguardian.com
  The former Leicester title winner on embracing his new challenge at the EFL’s bottom club, and what he learned from Ranieri and Tuchel“I would say that the odds of us turning the season around are lower than Leicester winning the Premier League, so they are in our favour, right?” Christian Fuchs is talking about his new life as manager of Newport County, the English Football League’s bottom club, and the task of staving off a descent into non-league. It is a challenge at
  
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• Weather tracker: Australia bushfires could be most dangerous since ‘black summer’

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Fires are burning across NSW, with Tasmania also facing an emergency, while in US, Washington state braces for floodsBushfires have been ravaging Australia, with more than 50 burning throughout New South Wales, destroying homes and resulting in at least one death. Nine blazes remained out of control on Monday as flames ripped through homes and critical infrastructure. Scorching temperatures – peaking at 41C in Koolewong – combined with fierce, erratic winds to spread the fires rapidl
  
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• Trump officials ‘conspiring to illegally intimidate’ non-citizens via new VA report, lawmakers say

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Congress members seek answers after Guardian revealed data to be shared for immigration enforcementMore than 20 members of Congress are demanding answers from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and homeland security officials after the Guardian revealed the VA is compiling a report on all non-US citizens “employed by or affiliated with” the government agency that will then be shared with other federal agencies, including immigration authorities.The lawmakers, led by I
  
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• Trans rights should be a private affair. A toxic debate does no one any favours | Simon Jenkins

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  The courts are a clumsy means to negotiate social relationships. Let organisations make up their own minds about inclusionTowards the end of her life, I was a friend of the writer Jan Morris. I had known her for many years and, much to my regret, had declined an offer to do her “tell all” interview when she transitioned. Jan presented herself as a woman and had undergone an operation. To me she was simply a remarkable woman. She touched, sometimes humorously, on embarrassing incident
  
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• Jonathan Coe: ‘I was a Tory until I read Tony Benn’

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  The author on getting hooked on Flann O’Brien, reassessing Kingsley Amis, and why his grandfather was outraged by Watership DownMy earliest reading memoryNot my earliest reading memory, exactly, but my earliest memory of reading with avid enjoyment: The Three Investigators mysteries, a series of kids’ books about three juvenile detectives operating in far-off California (impossibly glamorous to me at the time) under the benign direction of Alfred Hitchcock, of all people. I devo
  
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• Hightailing along high streets and raiding ponds: otters’ revival in Britain

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success storyOn a quiet Friday evening, an otter and a fox trot through Lincoln city centre. The pair scurry past charity shops and through deserted streets, the encounter lit by the security lamps of shuttered takeaways. Each animal inspects the nooks and crannies of the high street before disappearing into the night, ending the unlikely scene captured by CCTV last month.Unlike the fox, the ott
  
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• A Hollywood ending? Inside the final days of LeBron James in Los Angeles

  12-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  A new book explores how an all-time great and a world famous franchise handle the waning of a monumental careerIn a book about LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, it’s only fitting that one memorable scene involves a Hollywood star: Will Smith.Yaron Weitzman’s latest book is titled A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers. Suffice to say the plot thickens when Smith goes to the Lakers’ film room to speak to the team in 2022. Continue reading...
  
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• Nationwide fined £44m by watchdog for financial crime control failings

  12-12-2025 10:44 via theguardian.com
  Ineffective systems culminated in serious case of Covid fraud that left UK taxpayers £800,000 out of pocketNationwide has been fined £44m by the City watchdog over “weak” financial crime controls that culminated in a serious case of Covid fraud that left UK taxpayers £800,000 out of pocket.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined the building society for failures stretching over nearly five years. It said the lender had been aware that some customers were using p
  
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• Horror hit Paranormal Activity spawns a West End play – and even its director yelped with fear

  12-12-2025 10:35 via theguardian.com
  Inspired by the scary film franchise, playwright Levi Holloway and Punchdrunk maestro Felix Barrett are bringing the ‘bizarrely joyous’ world of terror to the stageMalevolent spirits be damned – theatres can be haunted simply by the memory of bad plays and perhaps unscary horror in particular. The last time London’s Ambassadors theatre aimed to give audiences the shivers, with The Enfield Haunting, it led to some frightfully poor reviews. But a couple of years later, this
  
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• Crypto mogul Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud

  12-12-2025 10:09 via theguardian.com
  Co-founder of Singapore-based Terraform Labs given more jail time by US judge than prosecutors soughtDo Kwon, the entrepreneur behind two cryptocurrencies that lost $40bn (£29.8bn) three years ago and caused the sector to crash, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud.The South Korean, 34, had pleaded guilty to two counts of US charges of conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud. Continue reading...
  
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• Star Wars, Tomb Raider and a big night for Expedition 33 – what you need to know from The Game Awards

  12-12-2025 09:56 via theguardian.com
  Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won nine awards, including game of the year, while newly announced games at the show include the next project from Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian StudiosAt the Los Angeles’ Peacock theater last night, The Game Awards broadcast its annual mix of prize presentations and expensive video game advertisements. New titles were announced, celebrities appeared, and at one point, screaming people were suspended from the ceiling in an extravagant promotion for a ne
  
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• Strikes could collapse flu-hit NHS amid worst crisis since Covid, says Streeting

  12-12-2025 09:10 via theguardian.com
  Health secretary urges resident doctors, who are to strike from 17 December, to accept his offer to end disputeWes Streeting has told resident doctors that strikes and a jump in flu cases over the Christmas period could be “the Jenga piece” that forces the NHS to collapse.The health secretary said the NHS faced a “challenge unlike any it has seen since the pandemic” and urged resident doctors to accept the government’s offer and end their action. Continue reading...
  
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• Women’s Super League to review TV slots in summer after concern over viewing figures

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Average 59,000 Sky viewers for last Saturday’s noon gameReview planned with main rights holders, Sky and BBCThe Women’s Super League will review its broadcast slots at the end of the season amid disappointment at some viewing figures during the first half of the campaign.An average audience of 59,000 watched live Sky Sports coverage of Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Liverpool last Saturday lunchtime, even fewer than the 71,000 people who watched Arsenal v Chelsea on Sky in the same noo
  
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• Week in wildlife: a baby echidna, a 600lb gator and an ‘unbearable’ bear

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Even Bazball’s implosion can’t shake Barmy Army’s crew of Ashes veterans | Emma John

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  If anyone knows how to weather a whitewash, it’s the merry band of England fans marking their 30th anniversary at their spiritual homeCourage, soldier. Ben Stokes’s England team may be heading into the third Ashes Test already 2-0 down, but not everyone in English cricket is fazed. There is one group tailor-made for this scenario, a crack(pot) unit who can lay claim to be the ultimate doomsday preppers. Have your dreams been shattered? Are you crushed beneath the weight of unmet expe
  
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• Donald Trump wants a Europe in chaos – a sure sign for Britain to shore up its democracy | Polly Toynbee

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  With the US threatening to support ‘patriotic’ parties here, we need better defences, starting with tough new rules about political donationsThe new threat is so dizzyingly bizarre that Europe, and especially Britain, is slow to believe it. The US declares itself our enemy. Europe emerges as its main adversary in the US national security strategy. Russia is its friend, not us. Everything that looked solid since the second world war is turned upside down; the land of the free becomes
  
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• Chess: Magnus Carlsen wins Freestyle Tour title despite defeat in final event

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Norway’s world No 1, 35, lost 0.5-1.5 to the US veteran Levon Aronian, 43, in Cape Town but was already sure of overall victory and a prize of around $500kNorway’s world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, was shocked by a 0.5-1.5 loss to the US veteran Levon Aronian in Thursday’s final of the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour in Cape Town, but still finished the overall winner of the five-event Tour.Freestyle chess is also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960. Pieces start randomly placed on the t
  
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• A cure for ‘bacon neck’: How to keep your T-shirts in top shape

  12-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Marlon Brando was a victim of it, even Princess Diana was caught out by a collar ‘curled like bacon in a pan’. Here are a few ways to avoid their fate• Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt is sometimes, amusingly, known as “bacon neck”, and it is the bane of my life: the loss of elasticity that results in a crinkly, ill-fitting collar. This undulating menace commonly befalls the classic crew-neck T-shirt or sweatshirt, but scoop,
  
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• ‘We walked in awe, gazing across the sea’: readers’ favourite travel discoveries of 2025

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  From Essex to Istanbul, and from a soul music bar to a dramatic mountain pass, our tipsters share their personal travel highlights of the yearMoments after stepping off the bus, I wanted to text my friend: “What have I done to you, why did you tell me to come here?” As I weaved my way through coach-party day trippers, my initial suspicions dissipated. I came to swim, but Piran offered so much more. Venetian squares provided a delicately ornate backdrop, while cobbled passageways hous
  
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• New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Concerns about power imbalance in franchise agreements amid claims over firm’s treatment of small-business ownersThe government will consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements in response to the “harrowing stories” of small business people running Vodafone stores.The move follows allegations of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn telecoms company, which were revealed by t
  
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• Joyride by Susan Orlean review – an extraordinary, curious life

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  An exuberant, inspiring memoir from the New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid ThiefIn 2017, 10 years after Susan Orlean profiled Caltech-trained physicist turned professional origami artist Robert Lang for the New Yorker, she attended the OrigamiUSA convention to take Lang’s workshop on folding a “Taiwan goldfish”. I was with her, a radio producer trying to capture the sounds of paper creasing as Orlean attempted to keep pace with the “Da Vinci of origami”
  
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• Guardian photographs of 2025 – own a fine art print

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Explore a curated selection of images by Guardian photographers from 2025. Available to buy through the Guardian Print Shop. Produced on premium heavyweight fine art paper, the prints are supplied with a Guardian Archive certificate of authenticityOrder your print here Continue reading...
  
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• Cosy cottages for sale at Christmas in England – in pictures

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Snuggle up under oak beams in front of a deep inglenook fireplace, stay warm with underfloor heating or enjoy your own wine cellar for festive entertaining Continue reading...
  
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• As the UK looks to invest in nuclear, here’s what it could mean for Britain’s environment

  12-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s newsletter:​ The government’s bid to speed up nuclear construction could usher in sweeping deregulation, with experts warning of profound consequences for nature• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWhen UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced last week that he was “implementing the Fingleton review”, you can forgive the pulse of most Britons for failing to quicken.But behind the uninspiring statement lies potentia
  
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