Residents report homes shaking from 3.3-magnitude quake that British Geological Survey says was centred just off the coast of Silverdale, Lancashire A 3.3-magnitude earthquake shook homes in north-west England late on Wednesday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported. The quake struck shortly after 11.23pm and was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District, including the towns of Kendal and Ulverston, within 12 miles of the epicentre. Continue reading...

How festive favourites The Muppet Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life were made. Plus: are Bunny Munro and son nearing the end of the road? Here’s what to watch this evening 8pm, Sky Arts “No cheeses for us meeces.” The Muppet Christmas Carol, in which Michael Caine starred with a straight face opposite Kermit the Frog, and It’s a Wonderful Life, which bombed at the box office when it was first released in 1946, are the two greatest festive films of all time (no arguments, please). Author Ian Nathan delves into the stories of how they were created, to kickstart a seasonal series about perennial holiday classics. Hollie Richardson Continue reading...

Advertising expert questions origins of slogan selected by Brisbane Games organisers who hail its ‘significant symbolism’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast If you typed the words “believe, belong and become” into a Google video search on Thursday morning, the first return may have been a sermon by TJ Mauldin, the lead pastor of the First Baptist church of Tifton, Georgia. Directly below the bearded and blue-jeaned pastor’s video under that alliterative banner, you may have clicked through to a sermon by West Florida Baptist church’s Mike Brown, who had those three b-words emblazoned on a snug-fitting black T-shirt. Continue reading...

In the 21st-century imbalance of power, Europe and Nato have neither the arms nor the wealth to impel Russia or the US to take its peace settlement seriously The failure of this week’s peace talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff fits into a now well-established pattern of standoffs on Ukraine during Trump’s second term. But the dynamic that produced these talks may be becoming more entrenched. The US and Russian interests driving the process have not changed, while the conflict on the ground is intensifying. The lack of progress this week means there will be another attempt to end the war soon, and perhaps another after that, until, one day, there is some kind of US-backed deal to halt the conflict on terms broadly favouring Russia. The geopolitical algorithm driving this effort is too consistent to ignore. It has been repeated ever since Trump re-entered the White House in January. On the campaign trail, Trump had claimed he could stop the war in a day. That was never going to happen. But from 12 February onwards, when Trump first talked directly to Putin about Ukraine, the intention and approach have not altered. There is no reason to suppose they will do so now. Indeed, Tuesday’s impasse may spur them on again. Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The controversy over flags has faded from the national agenda – but street by street, late at night and with ingenious equipment, their raising and removal is the subject of a roiling dispute over local identity The Christmas lights have gone up in Stirchley. A multifaith mix of stars and swirls add a festive air to the lamp-posts along the main street of this south Birmingham suburb. Stirchley is a modest kind of place, sandwiched between better known (and better off) areas such as Bourneville and Moseley, but there is plenty of evidence here of the lively community spirit that last year resulted in the area being named the best place to live in the Midlands. Posters in shop windows along Pershore Road advertise a knitting group, a neighbourhood winter fair and the local food bank, while in the former swimming baths, now a community hub, friendly flyers for coffee mornings and choirs are stacked. Continue reading...

Pesticide Action Network Europe study finds average concentrations 100 times higher than in tap water High levels of a toxic “forever chemical” have been found in cereal products across Europe because of its presence in pesticides. The most contaminated food is breakfast cereal, according to a study by Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN), with average concentrations 100 times higher than in tap water. Continue reading...

Sequins shed, pollute and rarely get worn. From peplum to ribbons, here are the festive alternatives that bring all the glamour and none of the damage • Jess Cartner-Morley’s December style essentials Halloween hadn’t even happened this year when my local supermarket began proudly displaying its festive womenswear. Almost exclusively spattered in sequins, it looked much the same as the previous year’s party offering and was already reduced by 50% by – wait for it – 11 November. For £9 you could pick up a black sequin vest a mere two weeks after it was available at an already worryingly low full price. Judging by the sale and well-stocked rails, the items didn’t appear to be in demand, and with so many identikit sequin garments in existence (more than 500 black sequin vests at the same price and under on Vinted at the time of writing in the UK), what’s the point of producing more every year? Continue reading...

Discussions are ‘taking longer than expected’, which may mean regulator is tearing chunks out of creditors’ proposal A good 20 months have passed since the shareholders of Thames Water declared they wouldn’t be putting another penny into the “uninvestable” company and would rather take a thumping write-off of their investment. So surely, you’d think, we must be nearing the endgame in the attempt by the creditors – the people who lent money to Thames – to rescue the company via a debt write-down and a recapitalisation with new equity. After all, the 100-odd class A bondholders have been negotiating with Ofwat, the regulator, since June. Indeed, they started work on their proposal six months before that, in case the original preferred bidder, the US private equity group KKR, took fright at the political heat on Thames, which is what happened. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Senior minister raises ‘significant concerns’ over one of UK’s biggest property managers A senior minister has said he has “significant concerns” about one of Britain’s biggest property managers after dozens of residents complained of high charges, slow repairs and aggressive debt collection techniques. It is the latest sign of growing anger in Westminster over the behaviour of FirstPort, which manages properties on behalf of 1 million people, and other leasehold management companies. Continue reading...

Pace of area’s temperature rise, outpaced in US only by Alaskan Arctic, apparently increased in past five years The US region called New England is widely known for its colonial history, maple syrup and frigid, snow-bound winters. Many of these norms are in the process of being upended, however, by a rapidly altering climate, with new research finding the area is heating up faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. The breakneck speed of New England’s transformation makes it the fastest-heating area of the US, bar the Alaskan Arctic, and the pace of its temperature rise has apparently increased in the past five years, according to the study. Continue reading...

Artist who once draped Barbican in brightly coloured fabric says he is humbled by recognition in ArtReview rankings The Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has become the first African to be named the most influential figure in the art world in ArtReview magazine’s annual power list. Mahama, whose work often uses found materials including textile remnants, topped the ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations as chosen by a global judging panel. Continue reading...

Reports of escaped wallabies are on the rise, especially in southern England. But how easy is it to spot these strange and charismatic marsupials – and why would a quintessentially Australian creature settle here? It was about 9.30 or 10 on a dark, late November night; Molly Laird was driving her pink Mini home along country lanes to her Warwickshire cottage. Suddenly, the headlights’ beam picked up an animal sitting in the road. “I thought it was a deer at first,” Molly tells me. “But when it moved, its tail wasn’t right, and it was hopping. It took me a while to realise, but I thought: that’s a kangaroo!” Molly’s next thought was: “I’m going insane,” closely followed by, “No one’s going to believe me.” So she got out her phone and filmed it. Later, she posted the video on social media, where she was told it was likely to be not a kangaroo, but its smaller cousin, the red-necked wallaby. Continue reading...

New film is based on TV series inspired by The Office, whose lead character is said to resemble the chancellor He’s the middle-manager who talks as if he’s the CEO, a beacon of workplace inclusivity in his own head but a bigoted chauvinist as soon as he opens his mouth. And listening to him creates a mix of familiarity and embarrassment-by-proxy that turns out to be surprisingly pleasurable. Ricky Gervais’s cringe-making general manager of a soul-destroyingly dull Slough-based paper merchant stopped being a regular presence on British TV over two decades ago, but the many comedic characters that he spawned across the globe have outlived him. Continue reading...

Nootka lupins, introduced in the 1940s to repair damaged soil, are rampaging across the island, threatening its native species It was only when huge areas of Iceland started turning purple that authorities realised they had made a mistake. By then, it was too late. The Nootka lupin, native to Alaska, had coated the sides of fjords, sent tendrils across mountain tops and covered lava fields, grasslands and protected areas. Since it arrived in the 1940s, it has become an accidental national symbol. Hordes of tourists and local people pose for photos in the ever-expanding fields in June and July, entranced by the delicate cones of flowers that cover the north Atlantic island. Continue reading...

Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire It is a drizzly October afternoon and I am sitting in a rural Lancashire pub drinking pints of Moretti with London’s leading snail farmer and a convicted member of the Naples mafia. We’re discussing the best way to stop a mollusc orgy. The farmer, a 79-year-old former shoe salesman called Terry Ball who has made and lost multiple fortunes, has been cheerfully telling me in great detail for several hours about how he was inspired by former Conservative minister Michael Gove to use snails to cheat local councils out of tens of millions of pounds in taxes. Continue reading...

Inaugural prize expected to be handed to Donald Trump but ‘process’ for choosing future winners to be proposed by controversial tycoon’s committee It was the timing that set off the first alarm bells. With Donald Trump brooding over missing out on the Nobel peace prize, and shortly before Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body, Fifa, was due to meet the US president in Miami, an announcement was made. In a press release and a post on his personal Instagram account last month, Infantino said Fifa would launch its very own peace prize, to be awarded each year to “individuals who help unite people in peace through unwavering commitment and special actions”. Continue reading...

It borders Brazil, but French Guiana is now a remote outpost of the EU. It is home to Europe’s only spaceport, some of the most biodiverse forest on the planet and a military mission that is testing the limits of western power Above me, a ceiling of rough wooden branches and tarp. To my right, an officer in the French Foreign Legion types up the daily situation report. In front of me a French gendarme named David is standing in front of a table full of large assault rifles, pointing out locations on a paper map. A generator hums. All around us, splotches of forest dot the hundreds of islands that make up the archipelago of Petit-Saut, a watery ecosystem three times the size of Paris. Except Paris is 7,000 kilometres away from where I am, in Guyane, or French Guiana, a department of France in South America, just north of the equator. Continue reading...

Seizures and warrants involve Chinese-Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, who heads US-sanctioned Prince Group, and Cambodians Kok An and Yim Leak Thailand has seized assets worth more than $300m, including shares in a major regional energy company, and issued arrest warrants for 42 people in a high-profile push against regional scam networks, officials said on Wednesday. Parts of south-east Asia, including the border areas between Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, have become hubs for online fraud, with criminal networks earning billions from illegal compounds where trafficking victims are often forced to work. Continue reading...

Overnight camping was banned and motorists were told to plan their journey as New Zealand finally joined the flatpack family “I’ve been waiting 25 years for this,” says Annie Sattler. A quarter of a century after she emigrated from Germany, and seven years since the store was first announced, Sattler was prepared to wait just a few hours extra to be among the earliest through the doors of Ikea’s first outlet in New Zealand. Continue reading...

Nine-country poll finds half of people believe risk of war with Russia is high and three-quarters want to stay in EU Nearly half of Europeans see Donald Trump as “an enemy of Europe”, rather more rate the risk of war with Russia as high and more than two-thirds believe their country would not be able to defend itself in the event of such a war, a survey has found. The nine-country poll for the Paris-based European affairs debate platform Le Grand Continent also found that nearly three-quarters of respondents wanted their country to stay in the EU, with almost as many saying leaving the union had harmed the UK. Continue reading...

Brisbane start: 2pm local/3pm AEDT/4am GMT Ashes top 100 | Get the Spin newsletter | Email Martin The plot thickens at the Gabba with one of Australia’s heroes of the first Test, Travis Head, heading into the middle for a sighter of the pitch with pads on and bat in hand. I promised the conjecture would continue and especially over whether Pat Cummins would be injected into the Australia XI after impressing in the nets in Brisbane. But if being left out of the squad was the first sign that the fast bowler would have to wait a little longer before playing a part in this Ashes series, Steve Smith inspecting the pitch alongside coach Andrew McDonald – rather than the formal Test captain – could be the strongest pointer yet. Continue reading...

Police say number of dead may still be revised as ‘suspected human bones’ found during search require forensic testing The death toll in Hong Kong’s apartment complex fire has risen to 159 as officials ordered all scaffolding mesh in the city to be removed by Saturday. The blaze that last week engulfed Wang Fuk Court in the city’s northern Tai Po district has become the world’s deadliest residential building fire since 1980. Continue reading...

Trump’s comments come after an hours-long meeting at the Kremlin between US envoys and Vladimir Putin failed to achieve a breakthrough Analysis: the Ukraine peace deal has stumbled yet again over an inevitable obstacle: Putin The path ahead for Ukraine peace talks is unclear, Donald Trump has said, after what he called “reasonably good” talks between Russian president Vladimir Putin and US envoys which nonetheless failed to achieve a breakthrough After their hours-long meeting at the Kremlin on Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were set to meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday. Continue reading...

The Northern Irishman’s appeal was clear at the Australian Open with queues forming at the crack of dawn to catch a glimpse of the golf star Organisers didn’t have to wait long to feel the full impact of Rory McIlroy’s appearance at the Australian Open on Thursday. Two thousand fans were waiting outside at Royal Melbourne at 6.30am, eager to get to the 10th tee for the Northern Irishman’s first swing at Australia’s premier tournament in a decade. Agitation was building. Time was ticking. Scanning all those barcodes might take half an hour or more. And so on a warm and windy workday in Australia’s biggest city, the gates were flung open. Rory mania had begun. Continue reading...

Ban due to take effect next week, but Meta has started deactivating accounts already Australia social media ban explained: everything you need to know Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Facebook and Instagram began shutting down half a million accounts of users under 16 years old on Thursday as the deadline for Australia’s social media ban looms. The under-16s social media ban is due to take effect from 10 December, but Meta alerted users last month that it would begin shutting down accounts from 4 December. Do you know more? Email josh.taylor@theguardian.com Continue reading...