The British billionaire founder of Virgin Atlantic said he was ‘heartbroken’ by loss of wife and partner for 50 years Joan Templeman, the wife of British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, has died at the age of 80. Branson announced her death on Tuesday in a post on social media, saying he was “heartbroken to share that Joan, my wife and partner for 50 years, has passed away.” Continue reading...

Trump’s defense secretary orders US Navy secretary to investigate ‘potentially unlawful comments’ made by Kelly – key US politics stories from 25 November 2025 The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, escalated attacks by Trump administration chiefs on Arizona senator Mark Kelly on Tuesday by ordering the secretary of the US navy to investigate “potentially unlawful comments” made by Kelly in a social media video with other lawmakers. Hegseth’s order came in the form of a memorandum to John Phelan asking the Navy secretary to review Kelly and a group of fellow Democrats’ comments in the video last week that sought to remind serving soldiers and intelligence officers that they have the right to refuse unlawful orders. Continue reading...

Watchdog says force being applied ‘inconsistently, disproportionately, and without adequate justification’ Home Office contractors are over-using restraint in immigration detention centres and failing to tackle the toxic culture behind bars, according to the findings of a new watchdog report described as “deeply concerning”. By Force of Habit: How the Use of Force in Immigration Detention Has Lost Sight of Necessity and Dignity was published by the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB), which examines conditions in prisons and immigration detention centres. The findings revealed force being applied inconsistently, disproportionately, and without adequate justification, which it said undermined the dignity and welfare of highly vulnerable individuals. Continue reading...

Kitching and Sims strike late for league leaders Southampton’s Eckert makes it four out of four Late goals from Liam Kitching and Ellis Simms helped Coventry extend their advantage at the top of the Championship table with a 4-2 win over Middlesbrough. The Sky Blues landed two early blows in the opening 15 minutes, going ahead through Simms’ stunning top-corner strike and Kitching’s header. Continue reading...

Lead singers in bands fare better than solo artists, but fame – rather than lifestyle or job itself – seems to be major factor For those who hanker for the limelight, be careful what you wish for: shooting to stardom as a lead singer really does raise the risk of an early death, researchers say. Their analysis of singers from Europe and the US found that those who rose to fame died on average nearly five years sooner than less well-known singers, suggesting fame itself, rather than the lifestyle and demands of the job, was a major driver. Continue reading...

Serhou Guirassy scores twice in 4-0 victory Juventus off mark with late winner Borussia Dortmund ended a three-match winless run with a decisive 4-0 triumph over 10-man Villarreal, powered by a double from Serhou Guirassy. The Guinean striker broke the deadlock in stoppage time before the break, heading home from a corner and he made it 2-0 early in the second half. Continue reading...

Astrophysicist Prof Tomonori Totani says research could be crucial breakthrough in search for elusive substance Nearly a century ago, scientists proposed that a mysterious invisible substance they named dark matter clumped around galaxies and formed a cosmic web across the universe. What dark matter is made from, and whether it is even real, are still open questions, but according to a study, the first direct evidence of the substance may finally have been glimpsed. Continue reading...

Newcastle cannot complain they were not warned. Eddie Howe had cautioned his players that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was “as good as ever’ and would need to be “controlled” but ultimately they proved powerless to prevent the 36-year-old transforming both the match and Marseille’s Champions League ambitions. While Aubameyang fulfilled the soaring expectations of a raucously loud audience at this stupendously designed, wonderfully atmospheric arena, Howe’s team started well but ended up mugged in the manner of naive tourists who had wandered into the wrong arrondissement of this beguiling yet sometimes brutal city. Continue reading...

The jeers when Lamine Yamal trudged off with 10 minutes left said it all. It was billed as an epic showdown between two of the best young players in the world but in the end it was barely a contest. Lamine Yamal was shoved to the margins by Marc Cucurella, who could not have done a better job in neutralising the Barcelona winger, and was powerless to stop himself being left in the shade by Chelsea’s boy from Brazil. This will go down as the night when Estêvão Willian proved that he is the real deal. There have been flashes from the 18-year-old Brazilian since he joined Chelsea from Palmeiras for £52m last summer but nothing quite on this level. Continue reading...

You had to go back to September 2018 for the last time Manchester City lost a Champions League group match at home, when Pep Guardiola was in the stands due to a ban, and Nabil Fekir’s winner gave Lyon a 2-1 victory. Guardiola stood down all but one of the team that lost at Newcastle United and witnessed Bayer Leverkusen end a 23-match run in the type of off-colour display reminiscent of last season. Continue reading...

Hakyung Lee was found guilty of murdering her children and concealing their remains in a storage locker A mother who murdered her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases stored inside a rented locker has been sentenced to life imprisonment in New Zealand. Hakyung Lee, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea, was found guilty earlier this year of killing her children in a crime that has become known as the “suitcase murders”. Continue reading...

Steve Witkoff told Yuri Ushakov in October phone call that peace would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told a senior Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg. In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically. Continue reading...

Manager says ‘I’m 1000% sure I know how to build a team’ Frank insists continuity under Arteta has helped Arsenal Thomas Frank has given a robust defence of his credentials at Tottenham, saying he was entirely convinced of his ability to rebuild the club and lead it to success. The manager is under mounting pressure after Spurs’ 4-1 derby humiliation at Arsenal on Sunday, a result that extended a troubling run. Tottenham have won three of 11 matches in all competitions since the end of September and it has been as much about the lack of spark and identity in many of the performances. It was especially so against Arsenal when Frank set up in a 5-4-1 formation and watched his team fail to lay a glove on their rivals. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Dulwich college contemporaries ‘rubbish’ Reform UK leader’s suggestion alleged racist taunts not intended to hurt Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedgui Three more school contemporaries who claim to have witnessed Nigel Farage’s alleged teenage racism have rejected the Reform UK leader’s suggestion that it was “banter”, describing it as targeted, persistent and nasty. One former pupil, Stefan Benarroch, claimed that people emerging from a Jewish assembly at Dulwich college had been in the sights of Farage and others for taunts while a second, Cyrus Oshidar, described as “rubbish” the claim that the Reform leader did not act with intent to hurt. Continue reading...

The president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, said all 24 of the girls kidnapped last week had been rescued All 24 schoolgirls held by assailants after a mass abduction last week from a school in north-western Nigeria have been rescued, the country’s president announced on Tuesday. A total of 25 girls were abducted on 17 November from the Government Girls Comprehensive secondary school in Kebbi state’s Maga town, but one of them was able to escape the same day, the school’s principal said. The remaining 24 were all saved, according to a statement from the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, though no details were released about the rescue. Continue reading...

Chancellor’s fiscal statement billed as decisive moment for fate of Starmer government as she tries to fill £20bn spending gap Rachel Reeves will promise to tackle Britain’s cost of living crisis and deliver fiscal stability in Wednesday’s budget, which is billed as a decisive moment for the fate of Keir Starmer’s beleaguered government. The chancellor will say she will do what is needed to shore up the economy as she raises billions of pounds worth of taxes to help offset lower than expected growth forecasts. Continue reading...

Dysfunctional DWP failed to notify some carers that they were accruing enormous debt for years, Liz Sayce’s damning report reveals Full story: Ministers urged to apologise after review finds systemic failures led to carer’s allowance crisis Of all the devastating passages in Liz Sayce’s 146-page criticism of the government’s failing carer’s allowance system, one above all leaps out. It describes how some felt so “overwhelmed”, ashamed and criminalised they considered killing themselves. One even investigated whether their fine would be cancelled if they died, only to find the government would still chase their family. Continue reading...

This four-year experiment has produced exhilarating cricket – it is worth seeing the whole thing through before casting judgment Travis Head’s latest masterpiece is three days old, the postmortems are complete and England supporters have done their pained vox pops in Australia. And somehow we’re still more than a week out from the second Ashes Test. It’s a hefty gap bound to be filled by rage, moving from the defeat in Perth to the preparation for a pink‑ball affair in Brisbane. England’s first-stringers could pass the time with a day‑night knockabout against a prime minister’s XI in Canberra. Instead, as planned, it will be a Lions side that plays this weekend, joined by Josh Tongue, Matt Potts and Jacob Bethell, unused squad members in Perth. It is understandable why this has annoyed many, why Michael Vaughan’s soundbite – that it would be “amateurish” not to play the fixture – carries some substance. Continue reading...

Now that my former classmate has finally spoken about the allegations of his behaviour at school, I feel compelled to address his points directly I had thought my Dulwich days were well behind me and that I’d never again have to think about the antisemitic taunts I suffered from Nigel Farage at school. Then at some point in the late 2000s, a friend sent me a YouTube video of the then Ukip leader haranguing EU commissioners. The instant I saw Farage, my blood froze. All I could think of was his 13-year-old self sidling up to me, growling the words “Hitler was right” and other odious remarks (“To the gas chambers”, “Gas them – ssssssssss”) which he now refers to, rather quaintly, as banter. The verb “trigger” is perhaps overused, but it’s the only word I can think of to describe the stomach-churning emotions I felt in that moment I laid eyes on him again on YouTube. Peter Ettedgui is a Bafta- and Emmy-winning director and producer. Continue reading...

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⚽ Champions League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off ⚽ Live scores | Tables | Sign up to Football Daily | Mail Scott Chelsea make five changes to their starting XI after the 2-0 win at Burnley on Saturday. Moisés Caicedo, Estêvão, Alejandro Garnacho, Wesley Fofana and Malo Gusto come in for João Pedro, Andrey Santos, Liam Delap, Jamie Gittens and Tosin Adarabioyo, all of whom drop to the bench. Barcelona have plenty of goals in their starting XI. Ferran Torres leads the way with nine so far this season, while Robert Lewandowski has eight, Fermín López seven, and Lamine Yamal six. Marcus Rashford (six) and Raphinha (three) must make do with the bench. Continue reading...

Liverpool on run of six defeats in seven league matches ‘You would never have expected us to have lost so much’ Arne Slot has admitted he feels guilty about Liverpool’s “ridiculous” slump, one no on at the club envisaged, and said he must prove himself to everyone at Anfield on a daily basis. Slot is dealing with the worst run of his managerial career after Nottingham Forest inflicted a sixth defeat in seven Premier League games, and eighth defeat in 11 matches in all competitions, on the champions on Saturday. Cody Gakpo described the 3-0 reverse at home to Sean Dyche’s team as a “kind of embarrassment”. Continue reading...

⚽ Updates from the 8pm GMT kick-offs around Europe ⚽ Live scoreboard | Table | And sign up to Football Daily Wesley Fofana, Moises Caicedo, Alejandro Garnacho, Malo Gusto and Estevao all come into the Chelsea side. Out go Tosin Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap. Lamine Yamal starts for Barcelona; Marcus Rashford is on the bench. Continue reading...

Ex-president to start serving term in 12 sq metre bedroom in police base in Brasília after time for appeals elapses Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been ordered to start serving his 27-year sentence in a 12 sq metre bedroom in a police base in the capital, Brasília, after his conviction for plotting a coup. The far-right populist, who governed Latin America’s largest democracy from 2019 until 2022, was handed the punishment in September after the supreme court found him guilty of leading a criminal conspiracy to stop his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power. Continue reading...

The DWP’s punitive approach to benefit overpayments has caused unnecessary suffering The callous treatment of thousands of carer’s allowance claimants reflects appallingly on the priorities and leadership of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and throws doubt on its capacity to learn. Liz Sayce’s independent review of the overpayments scandal exposed by the Guardian makes it clear that this benefit, which is mostly claimed by older women, was frequently an afterthought for officials. While Labour has begun to make improvements, there is still no single senior civil servant with overall responsibility for solving problems that have been in the public domain for years. Labour deserves credit for ordering this review, and for raising the earnings threshold so that claimants can now earn £196 a week after tax before losing the allowance, which is paid to people who spend at least 35 hours a week caring for a disabled relative. But ministers and officials have a great deal more work to do. Detail of how outstanding debts totalling £250m will be dealt with has not been announced. Reform of the benefit’s cliff-edge design – which means that claimants whose earnings exceed the limit lose their entire weekly allowance – has yet to be proposed, let alone introduced. Then there is the issue of whether hundreds of people who were taken to court at the DWP’s urging, and prosecuted for fraud, should have their convictions wiped, or receive some form of compensation. 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. Continue reading...