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Arsenal v Wolves: The final Premier League match of the day sees first meets worst as the league leaders host bottom of the table at the Emirates Stadium. Mikel Arteta has insisted Gabriel Jesus will not be sold and can be his first-choice No 9 after Jesus made his injury comeback as a second-half substitute in the 3-0 win against Club Brugge on Wednesday following 11 months away.
The Brazil international, 28, brings an extra dimension to Arteta’s frontline but he has just 18 months to run on his contract.
No, I don’t consider that [selling him], especially with the situation that we have right now.
Gabriel has a lot to offer to the team and he’s proven that straight away in the first minute that he was available to play. He’s put so much to be in this position again and now the focus is to be with us.
I’ve been trying and learning all the moments and all the challenges, but every single week that we play, the numbers are not amazing for us, but we have been breaking so many of those numbers as well, it’s been incredible.
I love this type of challenge. I love it, because if the club didn’t achieve it in the past, there is a reason and right now, we can change the story. Simple as that.
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© Composite: Getty Images; Guardian Design
© Composite: Getty Images; Guardian Design
© Composite: Getty Images; Guardian Design
With Trump championing Pete Rose and pressuring MLB’s commissioner, the Hall of Fame vote became a referendum on power, memory and whether integrity still matters
Since mid-May, when Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Pete Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration and explained his specious reasonings behind it, last week’s Hall of Fame vote by the 16-member Classic Era committee carried with it a certain air of inevitability for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, the two greatest players currently not enshrined in Cooperstown.
Rose was championed by Donald Trump, who used his populism to demand the Hit King finally be allowed into the Hall, an honor denied Rose since 1989 when baseball placed him on the permanently ineligible list for betting on games when he managed the Cincinnati Reds. After Rose died in September 2024, Trump then won the presidency five weeks later and immediately increased the pressure on Manfred to end Rose’s 36-year banishment – despite the absence of any evidence suggesting Rose was any less guilty in death of gambling on the sport than he had been alive. Nevertheless, Manfred acquiesced to Trump, and in 2027, for the first time, Pete Rose will be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame.
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© Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Argentinian makes 20-minute appearance in Kolkata
Supporters climb fence and hurl objects from stands
Lionel Messi’s tour of India kicked off on a chaotic note on Saturday as fans ripped up seats and threw them on to the pitch after the Argentina and Inter Miami forward’s brief visit to the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, the ANI news agency reported.
Messi is in India as part of a tour during which he is scheduled to attend concerts, youth football clinics, a padel tournament and launch charitable initiatives at events in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.
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© Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
Colm Tóibín, Robert Macfarlane, Elif Shafak, Michael Rosen and more share the novels, poetry and memoirs that make the perfect gift
I love giving books as presents. I rarely give anything else. I strongly approve of the Icelandic tradition of the Jólabókaflóðið (Yule book flood), whereby books are given (and, crucially, read) on Christmas Eve. Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain is the one I’ve given more often than any other; so much so that I keep a stack of four or five to hand, ready to give at Christmas or any other time of the year. It’s a slender masterpiece – a meditation on Shepherd’s lifelong relationship with the Cairngorm mountains, which was written in the 1940s but not published until 1977. It’s “about the Cairngorms” in the sense that Mrs Dalloway is “about London”; which is to say, it is both intensely engaged with its specific setting, and gyring outwards to vaster questions of knowledge, existence and – a word Shepherd uses sparingly but tellingly – love.
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© Composite: Getty Images
© Composite: Getty Images
© Composite: Getty Images
While UAE-backed forces are accused of mass killings in Sudan, the NBA is deepening its partnership with the controversial Gulf state. This is what sportswashing looks like
As paramilitary fighters from the brutal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overran the largest city in western Sudan – carrying out mass executions, rapes and ethnic cleansing with weapons supplied by the United Arab Emirates – the NBA’s annual in-season tournament, the Emirates NBA Cup, tipped off on Halloween night, proudly sponsored by the very same Gulf state.
The tournament is the most visible example of the NBA’s expanding partnership with the UAE – a partnership that includes annual preseason games in Abu Dhabi, a lucrative sponsorship deal with Emirates airlines, and plans for a new NBA Global Academy at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus.
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© Photograph: Jesse D Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jesse D Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jesse D Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images
Exclusive: A trio of candidates have been interviewed by the PM, but he could still decide to directly appoint someone else
Keir Starmer is poised to choose a new ambassador to Washington from a shortlist of three as relations with the US are tested over Ukraine and Donald Trump’s attacks on European leaders.
The prime minister held interviews with three finalists for the role this week, the Guardian has learned, with Downing Street preparing to make an appointment before the end of the year.
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© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
The former British Vogue editor reflects on his early years in London, the importance of celebrating diversity and why he takes comfort in the younger generation
When Edward Enninful was scouted on the tube travelling through London in 1988, it changed his life. The Ghanaian teenager, newly arrived in Britain, was drawn into the capital’s creative scene of the 90s – as a model, then stylist and, by 18, the fashion director of i-D magazine.
“It was the height of the YBA [Young British Artists] movement – Jay Jopling, Tracey Emin. I met Kate [Moss] at a casting,” he recalls. “Then Naomi [Campbell] for a cover, and I knew we’d be great friends. We all hung out across disciplines. Friday rolled into Saturday into Sunday. I miss that rawness.”
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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Plenty is up in the air as the Ashes tourists escape the Sunshine Coast goldfish bowl, but sharks are circling for next week’s third Test
All being well, England’s cricketers should land in South Australia on Saturday. Those on the port side of the plane will have spotted the mighty Adelaide Oval during their descent. Although at 2-0 down in this Ashes series, a visual cue as to what is at stake next week is hardly needed.
The mini-break spent licking wounds in Noosa generated headlines and interest but was hardly unprecedented as modern tours go. Among the reaction was Alex Carey recalling how Australia’s players scattered after the third Test on the 2023 Ashes tour and he personally visited Edinburgh.
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© Photograph: Philip Brown/Getty Images
© Photograph: Philip Brown/Getty Images
© Photograph: Philip Brown/Getty Images
Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes
Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.
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© Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian
© Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian
© Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian
Russian airstrikes on Kyiv, floods in Indonesia, the IDF in Gaza and the Nutcracker in Nairobi: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
My reduced vision badly affected my ability to appreciate films and art, but the stripped-back staging and immediacy of the play gave me back my sense of self
I began to notice my sight deteriorating in my 40s, but not just in the way that you expect it to with age. I had night blindness and blind spots in my field of view. At 44, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition that causes the retina cells to die. I had always been a very visually oriented person: I was a practising architect, and someone who loved to read, draw, go to the cinema and visit art exhibitions. So when black text disappeared on a glaring white page, films became impossible to follow and artworks only took shape once explained to me, I questioned who I would be without my vision.
Around the age of 50, I had a particularly stressful year: I got divorced; dissolved my business; started a new job; moved house; and my dad died. As my life fell off a cliff, so did my eyesight, so that by 2015 my field of vision had decreased to only 5-10 degrees (a healthy average person’s is about 200 degrees). I was registered blind, but for a long time I lived in denial, not telling anyone how much vision I had lost. At work, feeling vulnerable and like I could lose my job, I presented as fully sighted, a daily performance that became exhausting. I was in survival mode, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, hoping I wouldn’t get found out. I refused to see myself as disabled, and resisted using a white stick, but once I eventually did, I found people saw my disability before they saw me. I felt a total loss of identity. And I stopped doing the cultural things that once brought me joy.
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© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
Release of 43-second video comes as senior church figures speak out against dangers of Christian nationalism
The Church of England has released a video in response to a Christmas carols event on Saturday being organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson amid calls from a growing number of senior church figures to challenge Christian nationalism.
In the 43-second video, Christmas Isn’t Cancelled, posted on the church’s YouTube channel, more than 20 people from the archbishop of York to schoolchildren speak about the “joy, love and hope” of Christmas. The message is “a simple reminder that Christmas belongs to all of us, and everyone is welcome to celebrate”, the C of E said.
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© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
From demon, equal and encyclopedia to The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Inflation adjusted, what is the highest-grossing film of all time?
2 What was revamped in 1279, 1560, 1696, 1816 and 1971?
3 Dorothy Parker “fwowed up” in a 1928 review of which children’s classic?
4 Native to South America, what is the world’s largest bird of prey?
5 Which fabric is protected by the orb certification mark?
6 The Almanach de Gotha is a directory of what?
7 Which amusement park was opened in Vienna in 1766?
8 What British term for rare US R&B 45s was coined by Dave Godin?
What links:
9 Năstase; Connors twice; Tanner; McEnroe twice?
10 Menevia, c600; County Down, c460; Lydda, c303; Patras, c60?
11 Choral by Beethoven; The Great by Schubert; From the New World by Dvořák?
12 Reverend Joy Carroll Wallis; hotelier Donald Sinclair; US military surgeon Richard Hornberger?
13 Demon; equal; encyclopedia; eon; fairy; medieval; primeval?
14 The Tour of Life in 1979 and Before the Dawn in 2014?
15 Charles X’s sword; Corot’s The Road from Sèvres; Empress Eugénie’s tiara; Mona Lisa?
© Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
© Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
© Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Palestinians who have worked the ‘breadbasket’ area for generations face being replaced by Israeli settlers
The death knell for the Palestinian village of Atouf, on the western slopes of the Jordan valley, arrived in the form of a trail of paper, a series of eviction notices taped to homes, greenhouses and wells, marking a straight line across the open fields.
The notices, which appeared overnight, informed the local farmers that their land would be confiscated and that they had seven days from the date of their delivery, 4 December, to vacate their properties. A military road and accompanying barrier was to be built by Israel right through the area.
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© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
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