US markets buoyed by sustained rise in tech stocks as investors largely shrug off concerns over Trump tariffs Wall Street finished 2025 near record highs on Wednesday, as ballooning tech valuations and hopes of lower interest rates helped stock markets defy a year of economic uncertainty. The benchmark S&P 500 rose 16.4% over the course of the year, closing at 6,845.50 on New Year’s Eve in New York, as investors largely shrugged off geopolitical uncertainty and the frenzy around artificial intelligence continued. Continue reading...

‘Worst 48 hours’ comment and league form are problems Palmer substitution and Bournemouth result were booed Enzo Maresca will be in danger of losing his job as Chelsea’s head coach if he cannot improve results before the end of January. The Italian, who was booed by home supporters during the disappointing 2-2 draw with Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, is under mounting pressure after a poor run of form, and a series of self-inflicted wounds have raised doubts over his position. Chelsea have one win from their past seven league games and although Maresca is set to be in charge for Sunday’s trip to Manchester City his position is increasingly uncertain. Concern over the 45-year-old’s decisions during games and away from the pitch have grown in recent weeks and there can be no guarantee that Maresca will survive beyond the end of January if he proves incapable of reversing the slump. Continue reading...

Costs for Strand Larsen high, with Wolves wanting £40m Gil Vicente’s Pablo has nine goals in Portuguese top flight West Ham are in advanced talks over a deal for the Gil Vicente forward Pablo after having second thoughts about bidding for the Wolves striker Jørgen Strand Larsen. Nuno Espírito Santo, whose side are at major risk of relegation from the Premier League, wants attacking reinforcements and club sources indicated on Tuesday that an opening offer for Strand Larsen was being prepared. However, there is a scattergun feel to West Ham’s recruitment and they have developed cold feet over the finances around Strand Larsen. Wolves want £40m for the Norwegian, whose wage demands are high. Continue reading...

Government should have appointed an envoy to carry out checks on activist in citizenship row, says Emily Thornberry The government could have avoided “embarrassing failures” in the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah by having a special envoy deal with complex cases involving Britons detained abroad, Emily Thornberry has said. The chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee criticised “serious shortcomings” in information sharing, which she said could have been resolved by having a dedicated official carry out background checks. Continue reading...

Green party leader says he could see potential for political partnership with Labour under Andy Burnham The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has said he would refuse to work with Keir Starmer but could work with Andy Burnham, Starmer’s potential rival for the Labour leadership, to keep Reform out of power. Polanski said he would not enter a political partnership with Labour under the current prime minister, but would consider it if the mayor of Greater Manchester took the helm. Continue reading...

Just eight billionaires accounted for a quarter of the gains, led by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Larry Page The richest 500 individuals in the world added a record $2.2tn to their wealth in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with just eight billionaires accounting for a quarter of the gains. The gains increased their collective net worth to $11.9tn, bolstered by billionaire Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory and booming markets in cryptocurrencies, equities and metals. Continue reading...

England scrum-half returned from injury to a side on the crest of a wave and will hope to catch Steve Borthwick’s eye Harry Randall and Bristol enter the new year with high hopes. The scrum-half has returned to fitness ahead of schedule after hamstring surgery and marked his 150th Bears appearance in the win against Newcastle last Saturday. Pat Lam’s side approach the Prem encounter with Sale at Ashton Gate on Friday after five straight victories, sitting fourth in the table, their attractive style having clicked. A fresh assault on the playoffs looks likely. Continue reading...

⚽ Afcon updates from the 7pm GMT kick-off in Marrakech ⚽ Live scores | Tables | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Niall The group stages of Afcon 2025 come to a close tonight, with top spot in Group F still up for grabs. Côte d’Ivoire are looking to hold off Cameroon to join the other big names finishing first in their group: Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria. In order to do that, the Elephants need to match or better Cameroon’s result against Mozambique in tonight’s game. It helps that Gabon are already out, although pride is at stake after that unexpected 3-2 defeat to the group outsiders on Sunday. Continue reading...

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today, the challenges facing the voluntary sector as it attempts to cope with an ongoing funding crisis Speaking in a parliamentary debate on the voluntary sector, not long after Labour’s huge election victory, the party’s former MP Jeff Rooker evoked the many ways charities hold Britain’s social fabric together. Every week in his local area, he told fellow peers, a group named Hands Together Ludlow gives food and support to dozens of desperate people, enables others to access benefit entitlements, runs a “shed” workspace that doubles as a place to meet and talk, and rescues individuals overlooked by agencies delivering social services. Volunteers such as these, Lord Rooker observed, “keep society going”. Few would disagree. The Guardian’s Christmas charity appeal showcases similarly vital work being undertaken up and down the country. Yet heading into 2026, this vast network of voluntary organisations faces formidable headwinds and an ominous financial crunch. The prolonged impact of austerity, the pandemic and an ongoing cost of living crisis mean that demand for their services continues to rise. But state funding – both from central government and hollowed-out local authorities – has become more and more inadequate, and charitable giving has declined to the lowest level since tracking began. Fewer people are volunteering, and costs are dramatically up – not least as a result of the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions, which kicked in last April. Continue reading...

Judge said newly unsealed government documents show ‘some evidence’ of vindictive prosecution by DoJ A newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmar Ábrego García reveals that high-level justice department officials pushed for his indictment, calling it a “top priority”, only after he was mistakenly deported and then ordered returned to the U.S. Ábrego García, originally from El Salvador, has pleaded not guilty in federal court in Tennessee to charges of human smuggling. He is seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution is vindictive – a way for the Trump administration to punish him for the embarrassment of his mistaken deportation. Continue reading...

Food Standards Agency issues product alert for still and sparkling 750ml bottles of Waitrose No 1 Deeside mineral water Waitrose customers are being urged to return and not drink large bottles of Deeside mineral water over fears they could contain shards of glass. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued a consumer alert over the still and sparkling 750ml bottles of Waitrose No 1 Deeside Mineral Water because of the possibility of glass fragments, making them unsafe to drink. Continue reading...

Readers respond to criticism by senior planners of the government’s building drive, citing a lack of ambition and insufficient social housing The government’s renewed enthusiasm for building new towns may make for bold headlines, but it risks missing the people who need housing most. Even senior planners involved in the postwar new towns programme have warned that the current proposals lack ambition on social housing and may not reach those in greatest need (Key figures in creation of Milton Keynes criticise UK’s new towns plan, 25 December). Other analyses suggest that new towns have historically contributed only a small proportion of the homes required and are unlikely to deliver at the scale ministers claim. Instead of pouring resources into speculative new settlements, we should focus on the towns and cities we already have – places with infrastructure, identity and communities that are being steadily hollowed out. Across the UK, redundant land, vacant upper floors, derelict retail units and brownfield sites offer enormous potential for affordable, well‑located homes. This approach would deliver housing faster and more sustainably, and in ways that strengthen existing communities rather than displacing them. Continue reading...

Graham Hadibi-Williams says current debate on reparations is one of theory rather than justice. Plus Abhishek Kalyankar on India’s colonial experience Kenneth Mohammed’s article rightly highlights the growing moral case for reparations, but like many pieces on this subject, it fails to address the practical “how” (In the Caribbean and Africa a reparations movement is growing: so why is Britain pretending otherwise?, 25 December). While the refrain that “no one alive today owned slaves” is indeed tired, the question of who finances reparations remains a massive hurdle that advocates consistently underanalyse. Take my family: I am of English heritage and my husband is of north African colonial descent. While his family faced appalling historical injustices, my ancestors were Lancashire miners and cotton mill workers. Though their industry was built on the back of slave labour, they lived in poverty. Today, as a nurse and a social worker in London, we struggle with the cost of housing, living and a sluggish economy. Continue reading...

Readers hark back to the Ambridge soap’s previous outings around the country Taking The Archers on the road isn’t exactly new (The Archers ‘live theatrical experience’ to tour UK, 26 December). Ask any fan who attended their excellent roadshow in Battersea Park during the mid-1980s. Devised as a harvest festival event under canvas, a number of the Ambridge soap’s stars were involved, notably a singing Eddie Grundy, and Sid Perks, one-time landlord of the Bull, who hosted a quiz. It was especially memorable for me and my late wife because we won a fresh cabbage. Quentin Falk Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire • This is not the first time the cast of The Archers have gone on tour. In the 1980s, they were at a country theatre (possibly the Mill at Sonning in Berkshire), after which they transferred the show to Battersea Park in London. Also, in the 1950s, a professional production toured the UK, although not with the radio cast. I saw it at the Harrow Coliseum in about 1953. It was a little more explicit than the radio show, with the occasional swearword. The plot was about a holiday camp opening near Ambridge, about which the Dan Archer character protested by saying “bloody campers!” Michael Darvell Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire Continue reading...

Christmas Day TV | Merlin bird app | Pamela Stephenson Connolly | Spirit of disco | Official dogging site | New Invention If the list of most watched TV programmes on Christmas Day tells us anything, it’s surely that if a particular programme is made hard to avoid by running it on all the most popular TV channels (and GB News), it’s probably going to get the biggest audience. Not that nearly 7 million people actually chose to watch it (King Charles’s annual message is most watched TV show in UK on Christmas Day, 26 December). Tony Green Ipswich, Suffolk • My favourite examples of the Merlin bird app making mistakes (Report, 27 December) are when it identified the peacocks at my local arboretum as ospreys, and when a siren went past on a nearby road and the app confidently told me it was a peregrine falcon. Ingrid Warren Oxford Continue reading...

Protests against deteriorating living conditions have widened to include criticism of way country is being governed Alborz, a textile merchant in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, decided he could no longer sit on the sidelines. He closed his shop and took to the streets, joining merchants across Iran who shuttered their stores and students who took over their campuses to protest against declining economic conditions. The sudden loss of purchasing power pushed Alborz and tens of thousands of other Iranians into the streets, where protests are now entering their fourth day. Students have paralysed university campuses, traders have shut down their stores and demonstrators have blocked off streets in defiance of police. Protests have spread from the capital, Tehran, to cities across the country. Continue reading...

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Trumpeter who contributed to Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames and later became a member of Aswad The trumpeter Eddie “Tan Tan” Thornton, who has died aged 94, made the melodies and cadences of his native Jamaica a subtle undercurrent of London’s swinging 60s music scene. As a member of Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames, Thornton contributed to the brass section’s bright and forceful fanfares that helped Getaway top the British charts in June 1967, a year after his furious trumpet was part of the driving counter-melody on the Beatles’ Got to Get You into My Life. Widely admired for his musical adaptability and for his dependable and easygoing personality, Thornton collaborated with some of the era’s greatest talents, including the Animals, Sandie Shaw and Jimi Hendrix (who lodged with him in London for a time). He played on the Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow and on the Small Faces’ eponymous second album, whose bittersweet closing number, Eddie’s Dreaming, was inspired by Thornton’s longing for Jamaica. He subsequently became an important part of the British reggae scene, notably in the horn section that helped Aswad to achieve greater fame. Continue reading...

Begum’s lawyers argue she was child trafficking victim when she travelled to live under IS in Syria in 2015 The European court of human rights has questioned the UK government over its 2019 decision to remove Shamima Begum’s British citizenship. Lawyers in Europe have asked how Begum’s treatment complies with the UK’s responsibilities to victims of trafficking. Continue reading...

Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris agreement. It is also a decade since another key moment in climate justice, when a state was ordered for the first time to cut its carbon emissions faster to protect its citizens from climate change. The Urgenda case, which was upheld by the Netherlands’ supreme court in 2019, was one of the first rumblings of a wave of climate litigation around the world that campaigners say has resulted in a new legal architecture for climate protection. Over the past 12 months, there have been many more important rulings and tangible changes on climate driven by legal action. Continue reading...

Novelist whose stories set in Britain and India combined realistic domestic detail with myth and magic Over the course of three decades, Sara Banerji, who has died aged 93, wrote 10 novels combining realistic domestic detail with myth and magic, and sudden violence with a quirky humour. In the first, Cobweb Walking (1986), the child Morgan is able to walk on cobwebs: Sara’s storytelling made the surreal real, bringing a fresh voice to fiction by interweaving fantasy with the absurdities of everyday life. The absence of a father is a theme in several of the novels, her own British army veteran father having died during her teens. In Cobweb Walking, Morgan loses her widowed father to another woman. Fatherless Alice is central in the blackly comic Shining Agnes (1990). In Absolute Hush (1991), the pubescent, unpredictable twins George and Sissy and their beautiful mother live in a grand moated house next to an army camp, their father missing in action, with incest, infidelity and comedy combining in a heady, surprising mix. Continue reading...

Bomb disposal specialists attend scene to assess items and several properties evacuated, say Lancashire constabulary A 16-year-old boy has been arrested after explosive material was found at an address in Blackpool. Lancashire constabulary said a number of properties had been evacuated as a precaution after officers found “a quantity of items of concern” at about 11.30am on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Greater Manchester police ignored claim ‘Offender J’ among men who had abused 12-year-old, paperwork shows A grooming gang suspect who had escaped investigation because of a string of police failings went on to attempt to murder his wife, a Guardian investigation can reveal. The man, named only as Offender J in paperwork seen by the Guardian, is alleged to have taken part in the gang–rape of 12-year-old Samantha Walker-Roberts in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in 2006. Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

Happiness research has found we get more joy from active, challenging experiences than from passive consumption. So go somewhere new, grab the karaoke mic and leap out of your comfort zone • Sign up here to get the whole series straight to your inbox ‘It’s nice to have a night out that doesn’t revolve around drinking,” says the person next to me as we put the finishing touches to our lino prints of pomegranates, wintry trees, the anime character Totoro (mine) and a martini-drinking cat, which we’ve spent our Friday evenings crafting. There has been wine, but it wasn’t central to the evening – a small block of clay and some inks were. It’s a different kind of night out from going for dinner and, possibly, having one too many, which is the formula plenty of us fall back on. At best that can be fun and nurturing, but at worst you find yourself on the bus home feeling hollowed out and en route to a hangover. So how else can we let our hair down? Continue reading...

Electric vehicle maker also predicts future sales will miss Elon Musk’s ambitious targets Tesla has taken the unusual step of publishing sales forecasts that suggest that 2025 deliveries will be lower than expected and future years’ sales will be well below targets set by its chief executive, Elon Musk. The US electric vehicle maker published figures from analysts suggesting it will announce 423,000 deliveries during the fourth quarter of 2025, in a new “consensus” section on its investor website. That would represent a 16% decline from the final quarter of 2024. Continue reading...