12/22: Face the Nation

This week on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," a deal was finally reached to fund the government, but was last week's Capitol Hill chaos preview of what's to come in 2025? Reps. Tony Gonzales and French Hill join to discuss. Plus, exit interviews with Sen. Joe Manchin and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

‘There’s no such thing as normal’: 13 essential lessons about sex – from 20 years of Sexual Healing

The Guardian’s sex advice columnist has answered countless questions over the last two decades. As the column ends, here’s what has struck and surprised her

People find it so hard to talk about sex, so if someone takes the time to sit down and write a question, then send it to the Guardian for me to answer, I always regard that as a great privilege. In the 20 years of writing the column, I have been reminded how many people are still out there, living their lives in quiet desperation about something that’s really troubling them sexually. Often the solution is more education; they just need to learn something, or be helped to be more open about a problem.

So many people grow up without the message that sex is healthy and important for a person’s quality of life, and they feel guilty every time they have sex, or think a sexual thought. They haven’t been able to enjoy sexuality and discover who they really are. Sometimes, it’s not the sexuality that is causing someone’s problem, it’s societal notions – prioritising monogamy, for instance – that makes life difficult. One of the things I would have liked to have addressed more was sexuality when people have serious disabilities or illness. Many people think they can’t continue to be sexual beings, and often that idea is pushed by people around them – that, to me, is tragic.

What happened next: the man who saved the last phone box in his village

When BT earmarked the kiosk for closure in January, Derek Harris began to campaign. The fight gave him purpose at a difficult time in his life

• ‘I don’t want it to die’: one man’s battle to save the last phone box in his village

The caller display flashes up: “Derek in the K6” it reads. On the line is Derek Harris, ringing from the red phone box he saved for his village. When he saw, on the agenda for the parish council meeting, that BT had earmarked it for closure, Harris knew he had to fight it. “It’s fighting for what is valuable, cherished,” he told me when I went to meet him in February, sitting over coffee in a cafe near Sharrington, the Norfolk village that has been his home for more than 50 years, and the phone box for longer. It’s a K6, for Kiosk No 6, designed in 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

For a few weeks, Harris, then 89, became a media star. One of the criteria for keeping a phone box in use is that at least 52 calls have to be made from it in a year (fewer than 10 had been made in 2024). As the campaign picked up speed, one day a queue of people made more than 230 calls from the K6. Harris sparked a national conversation about the continuing need for kiosks in an age of mobiles. Behind the scenes, he was a tenacious activist, sending constant emails to his MP, councillors, and of course, BT. Some of them included photographs he had taken of BT vans whose engineers were working nearby, as proof the phone box could be easily maintained. In March, BT decided to reverse its decision.

Two new subtypes of MS found in ‘exciting’ breakthrough

Exclusive: Scientists uncovered biological strands using artificial intelligence and hope discovery will revolutionise treatment

Scientists have discovered two new subtypes of multiple sclerosis with the aid of artificial intelligence, paving the way for personalised treatments and better outcomes for patients.

Millions of people have the disease globally – but treatments are mostly selected on the basis of symptoms, and may not be effective because they don’t target the underlying biology of the patient.

Homeland Security agents in Minneapolis investigating "rampant fraud"

Homeland Security agents were in Minneapolis on Monday "conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud," Secretary Kristi Noem said.

"Bomb cyclone" hits Midwest, takes aim at East Coast. Maps show forecast.

A powerful winter storm system moving across the northern United States could become a "bomb cyclone" over the Northeast region.

Trump not worried by China’s simulated attack on Taiwan, he says, as live-fire drills enter second day

US president says Chinese leader didn’t notify him of the large-scale military drills, which continued with live missile launches into the Taiwan Strait

• Taiwan-China tensions – explained in 30 seconds

Donald Trump has said he is not worried by China’s live-fire military drills surrounding Taiwan and that he has a great relationship with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who “hasn’t told me anything about it”.

The US president made the comments one day into the surprise attack simulation launched by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday, and which continued into Tuesday with live missile launches into the Taiwan Strait.

Australian cruise ship stuck off PNG ‘detained’ amid investigation into why it ran aground

Coral Adventurer, separately being investigated for allegedly leaving behind passenger who died on Lizard Island, ordered not to leave PNG waters

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A cruise ship that ran aground off Papua New Guinea has been “detained” out of concern it’s unseaworthy “due to potential damage”, amid an investigation into how it became stuck on Saturday morning.

The Coral Adventurer remained stuck on a reef off the north coast of Papua New Guinea, about 30km from PNG’s second-largest city, Lae, on Tuesday, as efforts to refloat it continue.

Meta acquires intelligent agent firm Manus, capping year of aggressive AI moves

Meta Platforms has acquired Manus, a Singapore-based developer of general-purpose AI agents, capping a year of massive spending on artificial intelligence.

National Guard deploying to New Orleans as city marks 1 year since terror attack

The Guard members will stay through Carnival season, when residents and tourists descend on the Big Easy to partake in costumed celebrations and massive parades before ending with Mardi Gras.

Khaleda Zia, first female Bangladesh prime minister, dies aged 80

Zia’s archrivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation

Former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia, whose archrivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation, has died, her political party said on Tuesday. She was 80.

“The BNP chairperson and former prime minister, the national leader Begum Khaleda Zia, passed away today at 6am, just after the Fajr (dawn) prayer,” the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) said in a statement.

12/25: CBS Evening News

Rescues underway as historic storms unleash flooding, mudslides across California; Holiday cookie box deliveries make spirits bright

Transcript from closed hearing for Charlie Kirk murder suspect released

A Utah judge has ordered the release of a transcript from a closed-door hearing in October over whether the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk must be shackled during court proceedings.

Photos show motorcycle collection tied to Olympian-turned-alleged-drug-kingpin

Authorities in Mexico have seized a large collection of motorcycles believed to be owned by Ryan Wedding, the former Olympian wanted for allegedly running a major drug trafficking operation.

Viral video prompts fraud probe at Minnesota day care centers

While many of the Minnesota day care centers in the video were cited and fined for safety violations, investigators previously found no evidence of fraud.

Shaq offers to cover expenses for 7-foot-3 police recruit after he fell short on exam

After completing the police academy earlier this year, 7-foot-3 Jordan Wilmore fell short of passing the state exam by one point. NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal learned about his story and offered his support. Jericka Duncan reports.

Georgia execution paused over questions about clemency process

Stacey Humphreys​, 52, was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in the 2003 shooting deaths of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta.

How a viral video prompted investigations into alleged fraud at Minnesota day cares

As Homeland Security agents were in Minnesota conducting what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called a "massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud," many of their targets came not from tips from the FBI, but from a video posted on social media over the weekend. CBS Minnesota's Jonah Kaplan reports.

Woman says she held pilot's hand after helicopter crashed outside her home

Two pilots have died of their injuries after their helicopters crashed over New Jersey. CBS Philadelphia reporter Ray Strickland spoke to a woman who says she comforted one of the pilots after the chopper crashed outside her home.

Massive winter storm generates life-threatening conditions across U.S.

A colossal winter storm is generating life-threatening weather across a big stretch of the U.S. and delivering blizzard-like conditions to the Midwest. Rob Marciano has more.

Anthony Joshua’s camp confirm two of his close friends died in car crash

• Two members of Joshua’s team died in Nigeria crash

• British former boxing champion sustained minor injuries

The British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua has issued a statement after he was injured in a car crash in Nigeria on Monday morning which killed two of his close friends.

The former world heavyweight boxing champion was taken to an undisclosed hospital after his car hit a stationary vehicle at about 11am on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Ogun state police commissioner, Lanre Ogunlowo, said. The driver of Joshua’s vehicle was also injured, he added.

Luke Littler forced to battle the boos in tense win at PDC World Championship

• Littler’s missed doubles cheered in win over Rob Cross

• Champion denies being bothered in unconvincing style

They say you either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain. At a feverish and hostile Alexandra Palace, the same crowd that cheered Luke Littler on as a 16-year-old boy now jeers him to victory as an 18-year-old man. The character arc has come full circle; the heel turn complete. He is three matches from retaining his world title, and remains the overwhelming favourite to do so. But from this point, he’s going to have to do it on his own.

As he finally skewered the winning dart to beat the spirited Rob Cross 4-2, he spun around to rebuke the audience that had done everything in its power to rattle him, from cheering his missed doubles to singing for Michael van Gerwen instead. “NOW WHAT?” he screamed at the sea of rented fancy dress, once and then twice. The heckling continued, surged even, and had still not abated by the time Littler gathered for his stage interview.

What would it take for me to feel safe wearing a kippah after Bondi? | Glen Berman

Jewish safety after Bondi will only be found by tackling radicalisation across Australia head on

What would it take for me to feel safe wearing a kippah (a Jewish head covering) on a daily basis? This is a question I have been asking myself since 14 December. Which is not to suggest that I felt safe – or maybe comfortable is a better adjective – being Jewish in public before the Bondi massacre, but is to say that the question has suddenly become far more urgent.

I do not feel safe wearing a kippah because I fear that to many Australians this would be interpreted as a sign that I support Israel. I do not want people to make assumptions about my politics based on my appearance. And, more prosaically, in terms of my fear, I do not want to be shouted at when I’m going to the shops. I do not feel safe wearing a kippah because all of my life I’ve overheard non-Jewish people sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories. Greedy, cheap, power hungry, in control of the media. A host of conscious and unconscious biases inform how people react to Jews – to wear a kippah is to invite these reactions.

Beyoncé is now the fifth billionaire musician, Forbes reports

Grammy-winning artist joins husband Jay-Z and artists like Taylor Swift following the success of Cowboy Carter tour

Beyoncé is now a billionaire, according to a report from Forbes – becoming the fifth musician to obtain the status.

The Grammy award-winning artist, 44, has joined the world’s wealthiest people following the success of her Cowboy Carter tour, which grossed more than $400m in ticket sales, and an additional $50m in merchandise sales. Her previous Renaissance world tour brought in about more than $579m.

Trump threatens to 'knock the hell' out of Iran if they build weapons

President Donald Trump threatened further military action against Iran during a Monday meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hamas will have ‘hell to pay’ if it fails to disarm, Trump warns after Netanyahu meeting

Israeli prime minister said he will award Trump with Israel prize, highest civilian honor, while visiting Mar-a-Lago

Donald Trump has warned that Hamas will have “hell to pay” if it fails to disarm while offering full-throated support to Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting with the Israeli prime minister in Florida.

In a bravura display of mutual admiration, Netanyahu announced that the US president would be awarded the Israel prize, the country’s highest civilian honour, which since its inception in the 1950s has never before been given to a non-Israeli person.

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

Some things just aren’t resolvable ...

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

Victim in Christmas shooting in Southfield never called 911, police say

Police investigating the Christmas Day deaths of two people at an apartment complex say neither the victim nor her friend ever called 911, despite a history of domestic violence in the victim's relationship.

Idris Elba knighted in new year honours list also featuring Torvill and Dean

Meera Syal also made dame while England women’s football and rugby winners feature prominently

The 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 Labour MP and now director of the V&A, for services to museums; and Roy Clarke, creator of the sitcoms Last of the Summer Wine, Open All Hours and Keeping Up Appearances.

California's Ro Khanna faces Silicon Valley backlash after embracing wealth tax

A proposal to tax California billionaires at 5% of their wealth could land on the California ballot in November.

Jordan James completes double over Derby to lift sour mood at Leicester

Doing a December double over Derby may have offered Leicester fans some festive cheer but it is unlikely to brook the festering resentment against a board whose treatment of staff over Christmas has only exacerbated the ill will around the King Power Stadium.

First-half goals from Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Jordan James sandwiched Rhian Brewster’s equaliser to earn Martí Cifuentes, the manager, some respite after successive defeats. Leicester are four points off the playoff zone going into Thursday’s visit to Sheffield United but there are still plans for fans to boycott next Monday’s televised game with West Brom.

Afcon roundup: Morocco outclass Zambia to storm into last 16 while Mali squeeze through

• Morocco 3-0 Zambia | Mali 0-0 Comoros

• South Africa and Egypt through, Angola face nervous wait

The Morocco forward Ayoub El Kaabi netted a double and the midfield maestro Brahim Díaz added another as the Africa Cup of Nations hosts turned in a convincing performance in outclassing Zambia 3-0 on Monday to top Group A.

El Kaabi powered home an early headed goal and then scored with one of his trademark bicycle kicks while Díaz netted for the third successive game as Morocco swept their opponents aside to finish on seven points, ahead of second-placed Mali on three.

Aston Villa defy gravity again as winning run rolls on at Chelsea | Jonathan Wilson

Villa keep coming from behind, keep winning by the odd goal and keep confounding the numbers. At some point it must stop – but not yet

It can’t go on. It makes no sense that it goes on. And yet it goes on.

Aston Villa went into Saturday’s Premier Leage game at Chelsea having won 10 games in a row, looking to match a record set in 1897 and 1914. For an hour there seemed no chance they would achieve it, as Chelsea outplayed them, took the lead and could have had several more. But Chelsea are vulnerable with a lead, especially at home, and Villa have developed a baffling habit of winning away games having gone behind.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email [email protected], and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Case dropped against TikTok streamer who was shot by US immigration agents

Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who livestreams LA breaking news, was accused of ramming car into federal officers’ vehicles

A federal judge has dismissed an indictment against a Los Angeles TikTok streamer who was shot by an officer during an immigration enforcement operation and accused of assault against a federal agent, citing constitutional violations.

Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator who streams local breaking news, was accused in October of ramming his car into immigration agents’ vehicles after they surrounded him during an operation. Body-worn camera footage obtained by the Los Angeles Times shows that an agent fired his gun during the incident, shooting Parias in the elbow. A ricochet bullet also hit a deputy US marshal in the hand.

These 9 states are cutting income taxes in 2026. See where.

Income tax cuts are taking effect in multiple U.S. states on Jan. 1, 2026, a new analysis says.

GM's record stock performance beats Tesla, Ford and other automakers in 2025

General Motors' stock is having its best year since the company's reemergence from bankruptcy in 2009.

Softbank to buy data center firm DigitalBridge for $4 billion in AI push

Japan's SoftBank on Monday said it has agreed to buy data center investment firm DigitalBridge for $4 billion.

10-year Treasury yield dips as investors assess interest rate outlook for 2026

The moves come as traders digest the latest economic data and assess the Federal Reserve's monetary rate path.

US pledges $2bn in new UN model for delivery of humanitarian assistance

Gaza not covered in announcement and will be handled on separate track, says US state department official

The United States on Monday pledged $2bn in assistance to tens of millions of people facing hunger and disease in more than a dozen countries next year, part of what it said was a new mechanism for the delivery of life-saving assistance following major foreign aid cuts by the Trump administration.

The US slashed its aid spending this year, and leading western donors such as Germany also pared back assistance as they pivoted to increased defense spending, triggering a severe funding crunch for the UN. The billions of dollars in assistance pledged by Washington on Monday will be overseen by the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, the state department said, under what it described as new model of assistance agreed with the UN that aims to make aid funding and delivery more efficient and increase accountability for the spending of funds.

Goals of the year 2025: dazzling skills, acrobatics and sublime strikes

From jaw-dropping tricks to scorpion kicks, flicks, solo efforts and more – enjoy our pick of 2025’s best goals

The 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.

OpenAI hiring for head safety executive to mitigate AI risks

The company's investment in safety prevention comes amid growing concerns over the potential harm of artificial intelligence.

Zelenskyy accuses Russia of trying to sabotage peace talks with ‘typical Russian lies’

Russia’s claim it foiled drone attack on Putin residence shows ‘they do not want to finish this war’, Ukrainian president says

Volodymyr 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 said Russia was “at it again” and using “dangerous statements” to undermine “diplomatic efforts” with the US to end the conflict.

FIFA president defends World Cup ticket prices, saying demand is hitting records

The FIFA President addressed outrage over ticket prices for the World Cup by pointing to record demand and reiterating that most of the proceeds will help support soccer around the world.

George Clooney and wife Amal granted French citizenship

The actor said privacy laws protecting children from paparazzi were a key factor in the family’s decision

George 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.

12/29: Face the Nation

This week on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Dr. Leana Wen discusses the bird flu outbreak and what health policy could look like in the new administration. Plus, philanthropist and author David Rubenstein joins.

Three memories of cricket in 2025

More moments to savour, following reviews of 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024

Peter Moores grew up in Macclesfield, a northern town that would not feel out of place in Surrey. Maybe that upbringing bred his ability to fit in, find a way to communicate and always be of one’s place, regardless of where that place may be.

At least 13 people killed and 98 injured in train derailment in Mexico

Train accident in Oaxaca is likely to raise criticisms about public works projects from the previous administration

At least 13 people were killed when a train derailed in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, in an accident which is likely to revive opposition criticisms of the speed and dealings with which the country’s government builds its flagship public works projects.

The incident took place on the Interoceanic Train, which was built to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, creating an alternative rail cargo route to the Panama canal intended to drive development in the region.

The Guardian view on antibiotics: recent breakthroughs are great news, but humanity is losing the bigger race | Editorial

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 change

During 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 – if we didn’t find new ways of working. She was right.

Since 2017, just 16 antibiotics have gained widespread regulatory approval – mostly close relatives of medicines already in use and so unlikely to evade resistance for long. The development of new ones is a slow and unprofitable business, curative medicines being less lucrative than ones treating longer-term conditions. And the scientific outlook remains bleak.

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.

Good news you may have missed in 2025

The bad news from the past year (and there was a lot of it) drowned out much of the GOOD news that made smaller headlines. David Pogue reports on some of 2025's best underreported stories.

‘Let them’, creatine and fibermaxxing: the biggest wellness trends of 2025

Here’s what you need to know about the supplements, procedures and hacks everyone’s discussing

• Tell us: share your experiences of traveling with friends

Staying up to date on wellness trends can be tough. What if you get sat next to an energy healer at a dinner party? What are you going to talk about? Raw milk is already sort of passé.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are the wellness trends everyone was discussing in 2025, and what you need to know about them.

More than 3,000 migrants died trying to reach Spain in 2025

Tighter border controls caused arrivals to decline sharply but forced people on to more dangerous routes, activists say

More than 3,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea over the past year, a sharp fall from the previous 12 months.

However, activists cautioned that the drop reflected tighter border controls that have forced migrants to take increasingly dangerous routes.

Face the Nation: Wen, Bhave, Rubenstein

Missed the second half of the show? The latest on... the bird flu and the economy.

Actor accusing Tyler Perry exchanged texts with him years after alleged assault

Actor Mario Rodriguez alleged in the lawsuit filed last week in California that Tyler Perry sexually assaulted him during encounters between 2014 and 2019.

Germany’s far-right AfD invited to join Munich Security Conference 2026

Move comes after party’s exclusion for last two years was lambasted by JD Vance at this year’s event

The Munich Security Conference (MSC) has invited lawmakers from Alternative für Deutschland to join its annual gathering of top international defence officials in February after shutting out the far-right party for the last two years.

The reversal, which was confirmed by organisers, came after the US vice-president, JD Vance, lambasted the AfD’s exclusion in a blistering speech at this year’s event in which he accused Germany of stifling free speech by sidelining the anti-migrant, pro-Kremlin party.

The perfect commute: how to turn a frustrating chore into fun – and better fitness

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

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For 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 much scope for joy, but there are things we can do to make them more enjoyable, productive and healthier. It’s worth putting some thought into this, because commuting can increase stress, reduce capacity for exercise and encourage us to consume extra calories in on-the-go snacks.

The former lawyer turned time management coach Kelly Nolan suggests starting with a commute audit to assess its true impact. “Begin by blocking it out on a calendar. Creating a visual representation of how much commuting takes out of your day gives an accurate picture. It’s not just about how much free time you have left, it’s about seeing how commuting affects other activities in your life.”

As the US media floundered this year, I couldn’t help but think: ‘Thank God I’m at the Guardian’ | Moira Donegan

Other outlets have asked their writers to compromise, but the Guardian has never – and would never – ask me to pull a punch

• Funded by readers, the Guardian’s fierce independence is guaranteed. Please help us reach our year-end fundraising goal in these final crucial hours

It 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 major news outlets and platforms. The Murdochs are squabbling over Fox. Jeff Bezos has remade the Washington Post in his own image. The pharmaceutical magnate Patrick Soon-Shiong places a thumb on the scale at the Los Angeles Times, and the Trump-aligned Ellison family has taken over Paramount and CBS, and spent the final weeks of this year making hostile takeover bids for CNN owner Warner Bros. The influence of these billionaire personalities has often reshaped their organizations’ newsrooms and editorial boards, directing investigations and particularly opinion sections towards ownership’s pet projects and preferred policies.

From chess to a medical mystery: Great global reads from 2025 you may have missed

We published hundreds of stories on global health and development each year. Some are ... alas ... a bit underappreciated by readers. We've asked our staff for their favorite overlooked posts of 2025.

Many Filipino healthcare workers in the US live in fear of ICE: ‘This is my place of work. I should feel safe’

Filipinos make up a large percentage of the healthcare workforce, which includes undocumented people

In the Philippines, she spent three years providing end-of-life care for a family’s grandmother. When the grandmother died, family members told the healthcare worker to arrange her own way to the United States, where they operated home healthcare facilities.

In California, they promised, she would have a place to stay and a stable job. They would look after her just as she had cared for their grandmother.

Authorities reveal new details in D.C. pipe bomb plot investigation

New court filings from the Justice Department reveal more details about what Brian Cole, the man accused of placing two pipe bombs around Washington, D.C., on the eve of Jan. 6, 2021, allegedly told investigators. Scott MacFarlane has the latest.

Why haven’t Trump’s tariffs crashed the US economy? | Jeffrey Frankel

Effects on inflation and employment have not been as bad as feared – but could still materialise with full force in 2026

When 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 could not do much to counteract it.

Trump did raise tariffs to shocking levels, violating international agreements and blowing up the Republican party’s oft-professed commitment to free trade. In terms of severity and disruptiveness, Trump’s 2025 tariffs went far beyond the already harmful tariffs of his first term, and even beyond the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. According to the Yale Budget Lab, the average effective tariff on US imports rose from 2% to 18%, the highest level since the 1930s, this year. Add to that the uncertainty caused by frequent and inexplicable policy changes, and large adverse effects on inflation, employment and real incomes appeared all but inevitable.

‘This will be a stressful job’: Sam Altman offers $555k salary to fill most daunting role in AI

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 and biological weapons.

Adelaide heatwave and a giant horse: photos of the day – Monday

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

Is anything open on Christmas Day 2025? See which businesses are operating.

Most major retail stores and grocery chains are closed on Christmas Day, with some exceptions.

The U.S. offers Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee for now, Zelenskyy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States is offering his country security guarantees for 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan.

Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first

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 European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish.

‘A gift that cannot be sold’: the Palestinian family fighting to save their West Bank farm

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, Nassar did something even more extraordinary. He re-registered the deed under each successive administration – the British mandate, then the Jordanian government, and finally, after 1967, under Israeli occupation.

‘It’s like you’re sitting in front of an oven’: surviving the summer in one of Australia’s hottest towns

When the hot winds hit Roebourne, as many as 16 people pile into Yindjibarndi elder Lyn Cheedy’s home – one of the few with air conditioning

Few places are more exposed to extreme weather than Roebourne, a tiny cyclone-prone town on the Western Australian coast, where public housing residents endure 50C heat without air conditioning.

Lyn Cheedy, a Yindjibarndi elder, takes her grandson to the pool most afternoons.

What to know about travel delays amid severe weather

Travelers are dealing with delays and cancellations on Monday as severe weather hammers the U.S. Shanelle Kaul has more.

Winter storm over Great Lakes and Northeast could turn into bomb cyclone

A winter storm over the Northeast and Great Lakes regions might turn into a bomb cyclone. Rob Marciano breaks down the latest as severe weather continues to slam the U.S.

‘Why should we pay these criminals?’: the hidden world of ransomware negotiations

Cybersecurity experts reveal what they do for high-profile clients targeted by hackers such as Scattered Spider

They call it “stopping the bleeding”: the vital window to prevent an entire database from being ransacked by criminals or a production line grinding to a halt.

When a call comes into the cybersecurity firm S-RM, headquartered on Whitechapel High Street in east London, a hacked business or institution may have just minutes to protect themselves.

ChatGPT, cooking and Christopher Walken: how parents got their kids to love reading in 2025

Fewer children are reading for fun - but parents are trying everything from AI to dramatic voices to keep them engaged

It’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 nationwide, and undergraduates cannot read full books any more.

Even storytime – a comfy couch, a cardboard book, a kid’s rapt attention as their parent reads them a story – is an endangered activity. According to an April report from HarperCollins UK, parents have lost the love of reading to their children, with fewer than half of gen Z parents calling the activity “fun for me”. According to the survey of 1,596 parents of children aged zero to 13, almost one in three found reading “more a subject to learn” than an experience to enjoy. Only a third of kids aged five to 10 frequently read for fun, compared with over half in 2012.

Men’s transfer window January 2026: all deals from Europe’s top five leagues

All the latest Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A deals and a club-by-club guide

• Women’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

My big night out: I woke up on a llama farm in Germany – hungover and lying beside a naked punk

At 20, I went on a European road trip for the summer, where a chance encounter in Cologne taught me the importance of friendship

The 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, every hour.

I was 20, on a European road trip, chugging around in an older man’s van in 2014, perpetually hungover.

Women’s transfer window January 2026: all deals from world’s top six leagues

Every deal in the WSL, NWSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, Première Ligue and Serie A Femminile as well as a club-by-club guide

• Men’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

‘The most culturally Iranian of all Iranians died so far from Iran’: the towering legacy of Bahram Beyzaie

Beyzaie, who has died aged 87, wove myth, folklore and classical Persian literature into stories that defend against a regime which sought to obliterate them

One 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 portraits of the supreme leaders of the theocratic regime.

The symbolism – the ideological ruin; cinema and the future – was too striking for something so accidental, particularly given that Beyzaie’s theatre and cinema are intricate mazes of carefully constructed and overlapping allegorical moments.

Trump says Ukraine peace is closer. And, how funding cuts affect anti-poverty groups

Trump and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled momentum on peace talks after a meeting yesterday. And, anti-poverty groups address challenges they are facing that impact Americans who need help.

‘He has come back from the dead’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a coma during Covid pandemic

In documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the actor and his family revealed that doctors told them to ‘prepare yourselves for the worst’

Chevy Chase suffered “near fatal” heart failure which led to him being placed in an induced coma during the pandemic in 2021, according to a new film about the American actor and comedian.

As documented in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of films such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon movies, who hosted the Oscars twice, spent a total of five weeks in hospital.

Nearly half of Americans believe their financial security is getting worse, poll finds

Exclusive poll: Americans are also increasingly blaming the White House for their financial woes

Twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian, and they are increasingly blaming the White House.

The poll, conducted by Harris, will be a further blow to Donald Trump’s efforts to fight off criticism of his handling of the economy and contains some worrying findings for the president.

Nearly half (45%) of Americans said their financial security is getting worse compared to 20% who said it’s getting better.

57% of Americans said the US economy is undergoing a recession, up 11% from a similar poll that was conducted in February.

‘A total knockout!’ The best television you never watched in 2025

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 year

In 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 about four sisters in the 70s who discover that their dad has been having a lifelong affair. It was so good, in fact, that it might even be the most beautiful show they’ve ever released. Talk about selling yourself short. Watch it on Netflix.

‘Cities need nature to be happy’: David Attenborough seeks out London’s hidden wildlife

Attenborough, 99, enthuses about tube-riding pigeons, foxes, parakeets and others in Wild London for the BBC

Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.

Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.

Tell us: have you changed your career plans because of the risk of an AI takeover?

Did you decide not to pursue your dream profession or did you have to retrain? We would like to hear from you

AI will affect 40% of jobs and probably worsen inequality, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

What has your experience been of trying to future-proof your career? Have you retrained or moved jobs because your previous career path is at risk of an artificial intelligence takeover?

Influx of cheap Chinese imports could drive down UK inflation, economists say

As Trump’s tariffs take effect, Britain is likely alternative destination for cars, telecoms and sound equipment

• Business live – latest updates

The UK is poised for an influx of cheap Chinese imports that could bring down inflation amid the fallout from Donald Trump’s global trade war, leading economists have said.

After figures showed China’s trade surplus surpassed $1tn (£750bn) despite Washington’s tariff policies hitting exports to the US, the Bank of England said the UK was among the nations emerging as alternative destinations for the goods.

From data center spas to servers in space: How the energy crunch is reshaping cloud computing

Data centre developers and designers are starting to get creative.

Japanese town reeling from year of record bear encounters

Bears are becoming a growing problem in some of Japan’s urban areas as they are forced to venture further in search of food

It came as no surprise, least of all to the residents of Osaki, that “bear” was selected as Japan’s kanji character of the year earlier this month.

The north-eastern town of 128,000 people is best known for its Naruko Onsen hot springs, autumn foliage and kokeshi – cylindrical dolls carved from a single piece of wood. But this year it has made the headlines as a bear hotspot, as the country reels from a year of record ursine encounters and deaths, with warnings that winter will not bring immediate respite.

The secrets of a great sex life: how to keep the flame alive in the bedroom

Sex is an appetite like any other and there is much you can do to make it a priority, from making sure you find the time for it to building your confidence and maintaining intimacy throughout the day

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If you have sex, chances are, you’ll have a good day. But scheduling it makes it feel like a chore. And unlike any other chore or fitness enterprise, you conceive it more as self-indulgence than self-improvement, and as such, even if you’re already in a relationship, it’s hard to find that chin-out determination to get it done. Yet sex is an appetite like any other, a necessity like any other, a nourishment like any other. If you let it go dormant the effect on your relationship might be as if one or both of you are on a permanent diet – and also lonely. That might be fine for both of you, but for many of us, sex is a thing worth prioritising.

At its core, before you introduce any other domestic obstacles, it’s a two-person job, so you have to be attuned to one another; you can’t just decide unilaterally. To take this in ascending order of hurdles; if you’re a childless couple, the main block is going to be each other – not being in the same mood at the same time, not being in the house at the same time. This is true for your entire relationship, not just sex; I once interviewed a fertility doctor, who described working with a couple, trying to find an appointment time for when one was ovulating and both were in the country. They scrolled through several weeks before they managed it. “I felt as if I was beginning to get to the bottom of why they couldn’t conceive,” she said.

'Raising questions' isn't enough. The best films of the year took a stance

Now is not the time for subtlety, nostalgia or neutrality on screen.

Poem of the week: The Man in the Wind by Anne Stevenson

This haunting poem depicts an elusive, dangerous figure of overwhelming destructive power

The Man in the Wind

The man in the wind
who keeps us awake tonight
is not the black monk of the wind
cowering in corners and crevices,
or the white face under the streetlight
stricken with the guilt of his noise,
or the great slapping hand of the wind
beating and beating the rainy alleyways
while the torturer proceeds with the interrogation
and the prisoner’s risen voice
bleeds over cymbals and timpani.

Mine in South Korea to offer U.S. new source of a critical war metal

China dominates the supply of critical minerals such as tungsten, but a U.S. push for alternative sources has found one, deep inside a South Korean mountain.

‘Pure euphoric escapism’: why Adventureland is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their most rewatched comfort films is an ode to the charming 80s-set comedy

While casting his knockout quasi-biopic The Social Network, film-maker David Fincher must’ve really dug how eventual Mark Zuckerberg portrayer Jesse Eisenberg handled being dumped on screen. A year before the award-lassoing Facebook drama, which led to an Oscar nomination for Eisenberg, the actor agonised through the dreamy foreground of Adventureland as reluctant carny James Brennan.

The parallels between Fincher’s and Greg Mottola’s movies begin and end with their opening unceremonious separations, yet an admittedly romantic logic does allow me to soak in the notion that the great directorial mind behind such zingers as Zodiac and Gone Girl also found solace in this cinematic time machine.

Arc Raiders review – pure multiplayer pleasure

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Embark Studios
The breakout hit, which has players coming together (or turning on each other) to battle intimidating robots in an apocalyptic future, is worth the hype

Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios – so, a game where you deploy into a map full of other players and do as much shooting and looting as you can before making an escape. This is my first real go at the genre, and it’s excellent. It has smooth, only occasionally cumbersome combat, sound design that scratches the brain just right and robotic enemies that genuinely terrify. And it satisfies my constant need to sift through my inventory and rifle through every drawer.

But I have to keep my head on a swivel: Arc Raider’s player v player element means I can get jumped for my precious cargo by a malicious rival at any moment. And also, the knowledge that this game was made with the help of generative AI voice acting makes me slightly ashamed of how much I enjoy it. I play every game sheepishly looking over my shoulder (and my character’s) in case someone in-game takes my sought-after blueprint, or someone in real life kicks down my door to call me a hypocrite.

Why the quarter-zip trend is about much more than jumpers

Young men swapping Nike Tech fleeces for quarter-zips are all over TikTok, as well as staging IRL meetups worldwide. What’s behind the growing movement centring a once unremarkable garment?

As I’m wearing a quarter-zip jumper and sipping on an iced matcha, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s my last day of term before the school holidays. The giveaway is it’s a Saturday in London’s Soho, and I’m surrounded by 20 or so young men between the ages of 13 and 21 who are all here for London’s first ever “quarter-zip meetup”.

Organised, rather bizarrely, by sibling rappers OKay the Duo, the meetup is the latest manifestation of a growing tongue-in-cheek trend for quarter-zips and matcha that has taken over TikTok globally. Previous meetups have taken place in Houston and Rotterdam.

Teens are having disturbing interactions with chatbots. Here's how to lower the risks

Teen use of AI chatbots is growing, and psychologists worry it's affecting their social development and mental health. Here's what parents should know to help kids use the technology safely.

Electric vehicles had a bumpy road in 2025 — and one pleasant surprise

A suite of pro-EV federal policies have been reversed. Well-known vehicles have been discontinued. Sales plummeted. But interest is holding steady.

Weather tracker: Polar wind set to end warmth in US south and midwest

Spring-like weather experienced by many Americans to end, while heavy snow in Japan brings deadly conditions

A week of extremes in the US as Arctic air plunges southwards across many states, sweeping away record-breaking warmth from last weekend. With low pressure in the west drawing up warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, much of the south and midwest basked in spring-like weather this weekend with temperatures widely an extraordinary 15-20C above normal for late December.

This week, however, most people will ditch their summer clothes for hats and scarves as a ridge pressure builds across the west, allowing for a polar air mass to dive southward, bringing freezing temperatures and the risk of snow.

Many farmers are going into 2026 on the brink

President Trump says 2026 will be better for American farmers, thanks in part to $12 billion in new federal "bridge payments." But optimism remains hard to come by in farm country.

Stork of Hope review – Belarusian Holocaust drama paints a flattering portrait of its citizens

Cliche-ridden, excessively sentimental and lacking in historical rigour, this film is an act of nationalist self-soothing

Nothing says happy Hanukah like a Holocaust-themed movie, especially if it ends on a feelgood note of survival and reunion after a run of tragic deaths and lashings of suffering. But this Israeli-Belarusian co-production is so excessively sentimental, cliche-riddled and arguably hypocritical considering its provenance, it’s not easy to forbear.

It opens in contemporary Tel Aviv with an elderly man named Ilya receiving news he can barely believe is true: someone dear to him from his childhood is alive. This prompts Ilya to tell his grandsons for the first time about what happened to him during the second world war. Desaturated cinematography then unfolds his story in flashback, showing young Ilya (Andrey Davidyuk) and his little brother Sasha as preteen Jewish boys living in Minsk with their parents, just as the war starts. Dad goes off to the front and is never seen again; the brothers and their mother are soon rounded up by the Nazis, represented by one German actor (Jean-Marc Birkholz) who keeps cropping up throughout to ruin life for Ilya. It’s as if the production didn’t have enough budget to afford a second German-speaking actor or (charitably) because the film-makers are making some kind of symbolic point about the banality – or in this case indistinguishability – of evil. I suspect the former is the case.

The English House by Dan Cruickshank review – if walls could talk

A deep dive into the creation of eight buildings from the 1700s to the 1900s tells some very human stories

History used to be about wars and dates, but to the architecture writer and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank, it’s more about floors and grates. In his new book, he takes a keen-eyed tour of eight English houses, from Northumberland to Sussex, dating from the early 1700s to exactly 100 years ago, and ranging from an outlandish gothic pile to one of the first council flats. In Cruickshank’s pages, classical influences from Rome and Greece give way to a revival of medieval English gothic and the emergence of modernism.

He is particularly interested in who commissioned and built his chosen dwellings, and how they got the job done. It’s a new spin on the recent fashion for historians to explore the homes of commoners, as opposed to royalty and aristocrats, in order to tell the life stories of their occupants. This probably began with the late Gillian Tindall, who wrote a highly original book about the various tenants of an old house by the Thames next to the rebuilt Globe theatre. That was followed by several series of A House Through Time, fronted by Traitors star David Olosuga.

Tom Jenkins’s best sport photographs of 2025

The Guardian sport photographer selects his favourite images he has taken this year and recalls the stories behind them

This is a selection of some of my favourite pictures taken at events I’ve covered this year, quite a few of which haven’t been published before. Several have been chosen for their news value, others purely for their aesthetic value, while some are here just because there’s a nice story behind them.

‘Seeing all the work that goes into DIY scenes changed my life’: the bitterly optimistic indie-rock of Prewn

Like her forebears Fiona Apple and Giant Drag, Izzy Hagerup puts a distinctly twisty take on indie-rock, and is unafraid of dark emotional truths

From Chicago
Recommended if you like Wednesday, Fiona Apple, Giant Drag
Up next European/UK tour kicks off in May

A word that Prewn, AKA Izzy Hagerup, often uses to describe her music is “dissociation” – the disconnected emotional state embodied by many of the Chicago-born musician’s songs. It’s not an impression anyone would be left with from listening to her bitter, potent take on indie-rock. Hagerup’s guitar lines snake as they thrash; her balladry is grimy and expansive, steered by febrile vocals that recall mid-period Fiona Apple and the drone of the cello she played as a kid. Unexpected moments lurk, such as the shadowy slip into trip-hop on recent single Dirty Dog.

Is it true that … you’re more likely to get sick when you’re stressed?

Stress releases hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which can suppress your immune system – but chronic concerns are more of an issue than short-term worries

‘Stress has a well-established effect on your immune health,” says Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London. “But stress is a very broad phenomenon. You can feel stressed watching a horror movie, or you can experience long-term stress, like going through a divorce.”

Short-term stress can temporarily affect your immune system. “The number of immune cells in the blood changes,” says Davis. “But it returns to normal within about an hour, so it’s unlikely to have any major impact.”