Since 2021, five successive Top 14 sides have have been crowned Champions Cup winners and any side looking to challenge that status quo needs a fast start There was a time when the European Cup had an overwhelmingly Irish flavour. The organisers’ headquarters were in Dublin and between 2006 and 2012 either Munster or Leinster lifted the trophy five times in seven seasons. Everyone else was forced to scrabble around for the last few uneaten Tayto crisps in the bag. And now? The tournament, officially known these days as the Investec Champions Cup, has tilted so far towards France you can practically smell the garlic. Admittedly its HQ is now in Switzerland for tax reasons but, financially and on the field, the balance of power lies squarely with les grands chefs of the Top 14. Since 2021, there have been five successive French winners and on three occasions in that time, the Challenge Cup has also disappeared across the Channel. Continue reading...

Australian eco community is a sanctuary for native animals and a showcase of sustainable living Bill Smart has never heard the word “solarpunk”. But the softly spoken 77-year-old lights up when given the definition from Wikipedia: a literary, artistic and social movement that envisions and works towards actualising a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. Solar refers not just to renewable energy but to an optimistic, anti-dystopian vision of the future. Punk is an allusion to its countercultural, do-it-yourself ethic. Continue reading...

Frenchman’s epiphany after a missed penalty at San Mamés in 2024 has led to a sensational 2025. Real Madrid are purring again Kylian Mbappé returned to the Cathedral where he experienced his epiphany in 2024, his resurrection born after hitting rock bottom, and delivered something like salvation. Exactly a year since he missed a penalty there, a bad moment he later said was a good one, the Frenchman was back at San Mamés on Wednesday night. Last time, he missed a second penalty in a week, an awakening accompanying failure; this time, he scored two goals in an hour and set up another, light let in through the dark again. As the Frenchman headed off the pitch early, Madrid 3-0 up against Athletic Bilbao with 15 minutes left, he embraced Xabi Alonso, who is still his manager. Continue reading...

More than 200 homes evacuated and police says officers acted on intelligence about materials More than 200 homes have been evacuated and a major incident has been declared in Derby as police arrested two people on suspicion of explosives offences. An evacuation zone was put in place as officers carried out a warrant at an address in Vulcan Street after receiving intelligence about materials, Derbyshire police said. Continue reading...

Defender will miss Real Madrid match against Man City Injury hurts slim hopes of making England squad Trent Alexander-Arnold is expected to be out for at least two months after a scan confirmed the Real Madrid full-back has torn his left thigh muscle. Alexander-Arnold was withdrawn just before the hour in a 3-0 win at Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday night having provided his first assist of the season, from which Kylian Mbappé scored the opening goal. He was making his fourth consecutive start since suffering an injury – also to his left thigh – against Marseille in September. Continue reading...

The Stand, Glasgow The one time Dancing On Ice contestant is hard not to like but his judgment of audience as ‘tepid’ is wide of the mark – they did well to get through such slim pickings ‘Just jokes and you don’t have to think.” That’s Josh Jones’s offer to comedy-goers, in his own words, and it’s fine in principle. But if there’s no food for thought, the jokes have to hit big. And tonight, they don’t. By the end, it’s clear even Jones doesn’t think he’s had a good gig, protesting to his audience that we’ve been the most “tepid” of his tour – and musing aloud about how little the Guardian critic will have enjoyed it. In fact, the Guardian critic enjoyed the Mancunian’s company well enough – camp and ebullient, he’d be hard not to like – but wished for a better show: for more substantial content, some structure, or for jokes that developed beyond first (or – credit where it’s due – sometimes second) base. What we get is a seemingly formless meander through the 32-year-old’s life, taking in his family, a stint on Dancing on Ice and the social climb that has taken him from a “bin fire” Manchester suburb to the fringes of well-heeled Cheshire. For that, he has a new relationship to thank, and there’s a fun routine here about the encounter between his “hugger” boyfriend and Josh’s very non-tactile dad. Another choice gag late in the show, about “bumming”, sharply contrasts his postcoital feelings depending on whether he’s played “bummer” or “bummee”. Continue reading...

Before Friday’s event we also examine a possible overall group of death and where geopolitics could meet football Croatia are the highest-ranked potential Pot 2 opponents (10th) and reached the final and the semi-finalis at the past two World Cups respectively but, with a maximum of two European teams in each group, drawing them would eliminate for England the possibility of facing Erling Haaland’s Norway, who are in Pot 3, or Italy, who are in Pot 4, if the four-time champions get through the playoffs in March. Continue reading...

The Pretenders star will take on your questions as she releases an album of duets The guest list on Chrissie Hynde’s latest album is testament to the high esteem she’s still held in: Debbie Harry, Brandon Flowers, kd lang and Dave Gahan among the big names queueing up to duet with her. To mark its recent release, she’ll be joining us to answer your questions. After leaving the US midwest and striking out for London in the mid-1970s – where she worked for the NME and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Sex – she shuttled between punk bands and couldn’t get anything off the ground until she formed the Pretenders in 1978. Continue reading...

University is already being investigated by police over ‘allegations of financial irregularities’ and has suspended three of its senior staff The University of Greater Manchester is being investigated by England’s higher education regulator amid mounting allegations of financial misconduct, bribery and bullying. The Office for Students will examine whether the former University of Bolton had “adequate and effective management and governance arrangements” in place as well as guidance that upheld public interest governance principles. Continue reading...

In a more reasonable, more compassionate country, we would thank Ali Faqirzada for how much he has done on behalf of his people and our own On 14 October, Ali Faqirzada – an Afghan refugee, a resident of New Paltz, New York, and a computer science student at Bard College – arrived for an interview at a federal immigration office on Long Island. He was applying for political asylum, a designation for which he was – and remains – a perfect candidate. In his native country, Faqirzada had assisted the American government and Nato with projects designed to improve the lives of Afghan women and help them get an education. But after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the ministry where he, his mother and sister had worked was bombed by the Taliban, and one of its employees was murdered. Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Continue reading...

The collaborative report said a lack of clear standards across borders creates confusion for big events like the World Cup and Olympics With the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup set to take place on Friday, a report examining the participation of athletes convicted of sexual offences at major sporting events has highlighted significant distrust of international sports governing bodies in how they deal with these situations. The report, titled No One Wants to Talk About It, is the result of interviews with elite athletes directly affected by sexual abuse and is intended to gauge attitudes around the eligibility and accreditation criteria for athletes with prior criminal sexual convictions and their participation at mega sporting events. Continue reading...

Legislation is needed to stop leftwing politicians ‘bringing drag queens and porn actors into schools’, minister says A restrictive sex education bill backed by Georgia Meloni’s far-right government and intended to crack down on “gender ideology and the woke bubble” has provoked fury in Italy. Italy is one of the few EU countries not to have compulsory sex education in schools despite evidence showing that comprehensive relationship and sex education helps to prevent violence against women and girls. Continue reading...

Broadcaster ‘absolutely gutted’ to be gazumped by Paramount but walked away from international rugby as it seeks to balance the books It has been a tough couple of weeks for TNT Sports, with the loss of three days of Ashes cricket due to England’s two-day defeat in Perth following on from some bruising rights negotiations. On the eve of the first Test, the Guardian revealed TNT had lost UK rights to the Champions League to Paramount+, with Sky Sports picking up the decent consolation prize of Europa League rights, while this week it emerged that TNT has also lost the rights to international rugby union with ITV having paid £80m for the inaugural Nations Championship. Continue reading...

Chris Whitty contrasts systematic approach in children and calls for more research into managing infections in elderly The medical profession must do more to prevent and manage infections in elderly people as the current methods are “hit and miss”, the chief medical officer for England has said. Writing in his annual report for 2025, Prof Chris Whitty said preventing and treating infections had led to “extraordinary improvements in life expectancy over the last 150 years”. Continue reading...

Leader will not ask Piastri for help against Verstappen McLaren to discuss all relevant scenarios in Abu Dhabi Lando Norris has said he would not want McLaren to have to use team orders to aid him in winning his first world championship at the season finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Both he and his teammate, Oscar Piastri, insisted they had not yet discussed the potential use of orders for the decisive grand prix. Norris goes into the 24th and final race of the season as favourite but still in a close, high-pressure fight with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Piastri, enjoying a 12-point lead on Verstappen and 16 on Piastri. Norris will take his first title if he finishes in front of both his rivals or claims third place or better. Verstappen would need to win and hope Norris finishes outside the podium places while Piastri would need to win and have Norris finish sixth or lower. Continue reading...

The guitarist for Booker T & the MGs defined the sound of original R&B, co-creating soul anthems and proving himself one of the most influential musicians of the 60s Steve Cropper, legendary guitarist for Booker T & the MGs, dies aged 84 Steve Cropper stood at the side of musical legends and toiled in the shadows of the studio, never a star. But his work with his fellow musicians and singers at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, established him as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 1960s. Actually, pretty much every rock icon of that fabled decade looked up to Cropper, who has died aged 84. The Beatles seriously considered recording at Stax, and the Stones covered songs he played on and emulated his crisp rhythm and lead guitar playing. As a jobbing musician in 1964, Jimi Hendrix drove from Nashville to Memphis to meet Cropper (they chatted about guitars and jammed), while Janis Joplin insisted her new band play Stax’s Christmas party so as to rub shoulders with Cropper and co. Across the world, garage bands played songs he had helped to shape. Continue reading...

The actor Paul Hilton brilliantly inhabits the character of a ranting working-class academic in this debut novel Some books feel so suited to the audio format that they could have been written with the voice in mind. All My Precious Madness is one of those. Mark Bowles’s debut novel, which won the audiobook fiction category at the inaugural British Audio awards (where, full disclosure, I was a judge), is a deliciously sweary monologue from a middle-aged malcontent. A sideways reflection on working-class identity and masculinity, the novel gives voice to Henry Nash, a man of little patience. Sitting in a London coffee shop and trying to write a monograph of his father, he rains judgment on the other patrons whose obnoxious phone calls he can’t help but overhear. An Oxford graduate turned writer and academic, Nash lives in a Soho flat where he has been known to furtively drop eggs on passersby who disturb him with their drunken racket. Continue reading...

The Nash Ensemble (Onyx) The chamber group’s all-Ravel CD is an impeccable farewell to its much-missed founder This all-Ravel recording by the Nash Ensemble was the final project of Amelia Freedman’s extraordinary 60 years as artistic director, and it’s a fitting farewell to the group’s much-missed founder, who died in July. It includes all three larger chamber works plus the composer’s own two-piano arrangement of his orchestral masterpiece La Valse: Alasdair Beatson and Simon Crawford-Phillips are a polished team in this, sounding wonderfully louche early on and then dispatching fistfuls of notes and long glissandos with seeming ease, all while catching the music’s increasingly sinister nature. The 1905 Introduction and Allegro was a commission from a harp manufacturer, intended to make their instrument sound good – which it duly does as played by Lucy Wakeford, although what is most striking is the way the seven instruments coalesce and separate to create kaleidoscopic textural interest. Indeed, as confirmed by their quicksilver, sometimes excitably fierce String Quartet and especially by their vibrant performance of the Piano Trio, it’s the attention to the details of colour and tone that really makes these performances take flight, the instruments combining to catch the dazzling light and intriguing shade that are such intrinsic features of Ravel’s music. Continue reading...

Climate Cabinet supports candidates in state and city races as the federal government ignores the climate crisis With a president who has called climate change a “hoax”, refused to send a delegation to international climate talks, and packed the federal government with former fossil fuel industry employees, this can feel like a dark moment for climate action in the US. But shifting one’s focus to local and state law makes for a very different outlook. Analysts have estimated that 75% of the commitments that the US made at the Paris climate agreement – which Donald Trump pulled the nation out of as soon as he took office – can be reached entirely without federal support. Continue reading...

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basic they scrimp on? Gok Wan talks Christmas shopping, regretful buys and coleslaw in the Filter’s new column • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Gok Wan is a multi-award-winning UK television presenter, designer, stylist, in-demand DJ, cook and author. His first TV series for Channel 4, How to Look Good Naked, catapulted him into the public eye and paved the way for a further seven series. He presents weekly on ITV’s This Morning and is the co-host of Magic FM Breakfast alongside Harriet Scott. Gok is an ambassador for JD Williams and the voice of two animated characters in Luo Bao Bei, which airs globally. Continue reading...

Move follows Guardian revelations of Israel’s mass surveillance of Palestinians using Microsoft cloud Irish authorities have been formally asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by the Israeli Defense Forces. The complaint has been made by the human rights group the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) to the Data Protection Commission, which has legal responsibility in Europe for overseeing all data processing in the European Union. Continue reading...

The box office smash of Halloween 2023 gets a shoddily made follow-up written carelessly and devoid of an actual ending The ghost-possessed family-restaurant animatronics of the Five Nights at Freddy’s movies lumber around with such heavy-footed gaucherie that it’s hard to figure out how they’re physically able to move from place to place as quickly as they’d need to for a proper killing spree. In what could be mistaken for a case of form following function, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 moves the exact same way. It’s so ostentatiously awkward that it constantly draws attention to its inept imitations of actions that other movies, even bad ones, intuitively understand – like making transitions between scenes or locations. For example, when faced with the need to isolate a mean science teacher (Wayne Knight) so that he can be vengefully murdered by one of the aforementioned animatronics, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 bafflingly cuts to him walking down a school hallway (during a science fair that has inexplicably run far into a Saturday evening), having a cell-phone conversation about how he needs to visit his office to retrieve his keys. The keys themselves, the location of his office, and the unseen person on the other end of the phone have no meaning in the greater story, not even nominally. They’re just a jumble of elements that the film-makers grasp at, under the assumption that it will add up to something that looks and sounds like a movie should. Continue reading...

The League One club have teamed up with sustainable sportswear brand Reflo to do their bit for the planet By The Football Mine When Gideon Kodua came off the bench and scored a 92nd-minute winner for Luton Town in their seven-goal thriller against Forest Green Rovers in the FA Cup last month, the impact was felt far beyond Kenilworth Road. The 4-3 win did not just take Luton into the second round of the competition, but it ensured that 8,000 trees will be planted in Uganda over the next few months thanks to an initiative by the sportswear manufacturer Reflo. As the kit supplier to both clubs, it was a dream cup tie for Reflo. They marked the game by pledging to plant 1,000 trees – and an extra thousand for every goal scored in the game. This is not the only tree planting Reflo has undertaken this season. “We created a third kit for Luton, which is a green kit,” says Reflo founder Ross McFadyen. “We plant a tree in Luton for every goal they score in that kit and those trees will be at Power Court, their new stadium.” Continue reading...

From Ewan Roy in Succession to Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons, here are 15 truly unforgettable characters who elevated their shows – when they eventually turned up Mike Hannigan was the only character to truly feel like a seventh Friend. He was the perfect match for Phoebe, a lightning rod for her kookiness and providing the solid family she’d never had. It wasn’t just the fact that he was played by Paul Rudd that managed to win over the viewers. His profile was nowhere near what it would later become, so the audience weren’t responding to star power in the same way they had, say, to Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck or Reese Witherspoon. Mike had to play the long game, put in the graft and win Phoebe’s trust, and won ours in the process. AJ, London Continue reading...

Party is investigating Ian Cooper as Labour MPs call for him to resign as leader of Staffordshire county council UK politics live – latest updates Nigel Farage has been urged to sack a Reform UK council leader accused of racism over social media posts including one saying a black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”. Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire county council, allegedly called Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, a “narcissistic Pakistani” and said migrants were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”. Continue reading...