Supporters serenaded Solskjær, Carrick and Fletcher among others at Burnley and staged a brief anti-Ratcliffe protest

“Jim can’t fix it,” the sign said. A dozen red letters nestled on a white background, a stark contrast in an away end at Burnley full of dark-coated figures in front of which they were held aloft. It was small, a couple of square metres of material, maybe. But the message to Sir Jim Ratcliffe was powerful. Remember your lane, Jim? Yeah, stick in it, pal.

As Darren Fletcher, in Manchester United blazer and red tie, strolled along the touchline, flanked by tracksuited his former teammate and friend Jonny Evans, the flag flew. And then it was gone. The protest was done.

The practice is ‘much more widespread’ than previously realised, researchers say, with serious environmental impact

The household burning of plastic for heating and cooking is widespread in developing countries, suggests a global study that raises concerns about its health and environmental impacts.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, surveyed more than 1,000 respondents across 26 countries.

State residents worth more than $1bn could face one-off, 5% tax to help fund education, food assistance and healthcare

A battle is brewing in California over a plan to tax billionaires – with tech titans divided over whether they should pay up, or flee the state.

Under a tax proposal that could be put to voters this November, any California resident worth more than $1bn would have to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.

PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, Xbox, PC; Square-Enix
This landmark role-playing game remains a revolutionary tour de force

At first glance, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, first released in 1997 and now available in newly remastered guise, does little to separate itself from other boilerplate fantasy fiction. There is a hero, Ramza – an idealistic nobleman with luscious blond hair who cavorts about the medieval-inspired realm of Ivalice in search of high adventure. But quickly, and with narrative elegance, the picture complicates: peasant revolutionaries duke it out with gilded monarchists; machiavellian plots plunge the kingdom into chaos. Ramza must navigate this knotty political matrix, all while experiencing his own ideological awakening.

There is a strong case to be made that Final Fantasy Tactics tells a better story than the landmark Final Fantasy VII (which saw Cloud Strife and a ragtag bunch of eco-terrorist pals taking on the shady megacorporation Shinra). And with our real-world political focus shifting from the looming threat of the climate crisis to the more pressing rise of fascism (though the two are inextricably linked), one can make the argument that Tactics is now also the more timely game.

• A league champion with Leeds, midfielder won 59 caps

• As Wales manager just missed out on 1994 World Cup

The former Leeds and Wales midfielder Terry Yorath has died at the age of 75 after a short illness, his family have said in a statement.

Born in Cardiff, Yorath played a big part in the Leeds team under Don Revie, winning the First Division title in 1974, before spells with Coventry, Tottenham and Bradford. He also won 59 caps for Wales.

Today’s rumours are riding the District line

Antoine Semenyo’s farewell goal for Bournemouth, before his move to Manchester City, sets off a chain reaction over who succeeds him. Ethan Nwaneri, who has struggled for game time at Arsenal, is wanted by a few suitors.

Bournemouth are very interested in a loan move for someone who was the next big thing not too long ago. And still can be, though the word is he still wishes to stay a Gunner and play his part in a title-winning team.

Vast swathes of the country’s trees have been killed off by droughts and infestations, in a trend sweeping across Europe. A shift towards more biodiverse cultivation could offer answers

Even the intense green of late spring cannot mask the dead trees in the Harz mountains. Standing upright across the gentle peaks in northern Germany, thousands of skeletal trunks mark the remnants of a once great spruce forest.

Since 2018, the region has been ravaged by a tree-killing bark beetle outbreak, made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves. It has transformed a landscape known for its verdant beauty into one dominated by a sickly grey.

• Reference to ‘lies’ deleted from his social media post

• ‘It should be other people coming out to speak,’ he writes

Cristian Romero has taken an apparent swipe at Tottenham’s board for staying silent amid the team’s struggles. The captain posted a strongly worded message after Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat at Bournemouth that initially appeared to accuse the hierarchy of telling “lies” before being edited to remove that incendiary reference.

What remained on Romero’s Instagram post, though, was what an apparent call for the Spurs directors to speak up. The players were again subjected to abuse by some of their fans after a latest loss that leaves Tottenham with five points from their past six matches, three of which have ended in defeat.

A federal enforcement operation ended with a woman dead and the facts contested. The NBA cannot treat state violence in a residential neighborhood as background noise

The SUV sat motionless against a tree on a south Minneapolis street, its engine quiet, angled as if it had simply run out of gas. Except the windshield bore a small shattered star, delicate and sharp, like a snowflake pressed into glass. Cold Minnesota air leaked through the fracture, settling over the still body inside. The car became a sealed room, a thin shell holding death in place, surrounded by the stuffed animals of the woman’s children.

In the street, witnesses screamed. Not in words, but in sounds that come before language, as reality breaks faster than thought.

• White-ball captain issues apology for October incident

• Latest revelation just hours after abject Ashes reversal

Harry Brook has issued a public apology for becoming embroiled in a late-night incident in New Zealand just before the Ashes, admitting his actions “brought embarrassment to both myself and the England team”.

A matter of hours after the 4-1 series defeat by Australia was confirmed in Sydney and shortly after the England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive, Richard Gould, launched a formal review into the tour – including into the behaviour of players – the growing sense of crisis around the team deepened.

This six-part adaptation of the bestselling 2020 novel about a murder investigation is twisty, absurd and bingeable. It’s great January viewing

A woman lies bloodied and twitching her last on the bonnet of a car parked deep in a wood. Another woman arrives home bloodied, gasping with fear and for wine, and starts scrubbing her hands before clearing her flat of – well, everything.

A female voiceover intones that there are two sides to every story. “Which means someone is always lying.” Absolute nonsense, obviously, but it sounds great and more importantly it confirms what we were hoping: that we are in the presence of a glossy, efficient adaptation of a bestselling thriller and it is time to switch off our brains and enjoy (unless you are the type who likes to try to solve the mystery before the characters do, in which case, Godspeed and let me know where you get the energy from).

Zara believes only slippers should be worn in the house, but Maya is against ‘barefoot living’. You decide who is putting their foot in it

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Maya covers our floors in dirt, germs and scuff marks. To me, it’s gross

Not every shoe fits neatly on the rack, and sometimes life is a mess and I just forget. That doesn’t make me lazy, or a bad housemate

More horrifying to a celebrity than any scandal is having the public believe they’re down on their luck. Just ask Mickey Rourke

It’s a tough time to be famous in Hollywood, what with dwindling respect levels for movie stars and the inability of anyone under 35 to recognise that George Clooney’s lips weren’t always that thin or that Brad Pitt, at one time, was a thing. Add to this a painful new pitfall for celebrities; not defending their unremarkable offspring from accusations of nepotism or explaining how big a role Ozempic has played in their new look, but rather the small, horrifying possibility that in the event of a bad year, some enterprising fan or assistant will whip up a GoFundMe for them.

Most of us know instinctively that there’s nothing worse for business than admitting that business is bad. Unless you’re a parent soliciting donations to fund your Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome, or have just committed an act of heroism and are rightfully in line for a reward, being the beneficiary of a whip-round by strangers is not a good thing at all. With this in mind, one can only sympathise with Mickey Rourke, the latest dwindling star to fall victim to an act of public charity, who this week was forced to issue an extremely Rourkian statement denying all knowledge of a fundraising appeal set up in his name by one of his manager’s enterprising young assistants.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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The musician’s elegant electropop marked him out as one of the ‘cool French dudes’, before an attempt to literally crash the Song Contest fell badly flat. Now back with an adventurous new album, he talks about the man who stole his identity and why he doesn’t care for ‘good taste’

A few years ago, a stranger stole Sébastien Tellier’s identity. The impostor – sporting the musician’s trademark sunglasses and beard – posed as the Frenchman at fancy parties, nabbed free clothes from Chanel (Tellier used to be an ambassador for the brand), and even held meetings with bosses from Hollywood studios (Tellier has dabbled in soundtrack work). “He [also] took a lot of drugs like ketamine in front of a lot of people,” Tellier continues with perfect nonchalance from his Paris home, sunglasses and beard present and correct. The crime was only rumbled when a confused woman got in touch to tell him she’d been partying with “Sébastien Tellier” in France only to see on Instagram that the real Tellier was playing a gig in Belgium.

This experience has been alchemised into pop gold via Copycat, a sparkly synthpop workout on his upcoming eighth album, Kiss the Beast. “My name you steal it / Hat and success,” Tellier croons for the song’s chorus over a chunky bassline, disco strings and synths that crackle and spark like fireworks. It’s typical Tellier, mixing the serious – things got so bad with the impostor that Tellier was briefly forced to show his passport at the school gates when collecting his two small children – with the playfully naive.

The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums

Trope, POV, backstory, character arc. In the 30 years since I was a student of that benign, pipe-smoking, elbow-patched man of letters Malcolm Bradbury, the private language of creative writing workshops has taken over the world.

What writers used to say to small circles of students in an attempt to help them improve their storytelling technique has become a familiar way, often parodic and self-knowing, of interpreting the grand and not-so‑grand narratives of our time. “Don’t worry about Liz Truss’s YouTube series – she’s just having a main character moment.”

On Ulva, in the Inner Hebrides, Banjo Beale and his husband are transforming a rundown mansion into their dream hotel, while another adventurous couple have created a charming bothy for hardier folk

Ulva House is a building site. There are workmen up ladders, hammering, plastering, but I leave my muddy walking boots by the door. There’s no central heating or hot water and Banjo Beale and his husband, Ro, have been camping out here for weeks, but he greets me, dazzlingly debonair, in a burnt orange beanie and fabulous Moroccan rug coat.

The 2022 winner of the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, who went on to front his own makeover show Designing the Hebrides, Banjo’s vibe is more exuberant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen than quizzical Kevin McCloud. His latest project with Ro, the transformation of a derelict mansion on the small Hebridean island of Ulva into a boutique hotel, is the subject of a new six-part series, airing on BBC Scotland. I’m here for a preview of the finished rooms.

Dozens of people were attending a funeral inside the church as the shooting happened, police said

Two people were killed and several injured in a shooting outside a church in Salt Lake City, Utah police said on Wednesday.

The shooting took place in the parking lot of a meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Welcome to the first Thursday news quiz of 2026. A brand new year, the opportunity for a clean slate, and yet somehow we present you with precisely the same old nonsense, served up with over-confidence and questionable judgment. Fifteen questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge await you, including the welcome return of the popular “Farther or nearer with Geordie Alan Shearer”. As always, there are no prizes, but we do like to hear how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz: No 229

The Trump administration is asserting control over Venezuelan oil, after seizing a pair of sanctioned tankers on Wednesday

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended plans to open up her country’s oil market to Washington, as Donald Trump’s vice-president JD Vance reiterated that the US would have complete control of the country’s supplies.

Rodríguez said on Wednesday that America’s attack to remove her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, put a “stain” on the countries’ relations, but added it was “not unusual or irregular” to trade with the US, adding that Venezuela was “open to energy relations where all parties benefit.”

• Solskjær remains the slight favourite for role

• Darren Fletcher will oversee Sunday’s FA Cup tie

Michael Carrick has edged closer to Ole Gunnar Solskjær in the bid to become Manchester United interim manager, though the Norwegian is still the slight favourite, the Guardian understands.

Omar Berrada, the chief ­executive, and Jason Wilcox, the ­director of ­football, will not make an ­appointment until interviewing both men face-to-face. With the ­current interim, Darren Fletcher, leading United to a 2-2 draw at Burnley on Wednesday, the interviews are expected to take place on Thursday and possibly ­Friday, if required.

Internet Watch Foundation warns Elon Musk-owned AI risks bringing sexualised imagery of children into the mainstream

Online criminals are claiming to have used Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool to create sexual imagery of children, as a child safety watchdog warned the technology risked bringing such material into the mainstream.

The UK-based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said users of a dark web forum boasted of using Grok Imagine to create sexualised and topless imagery of girls aged between 11 and 13. IWF analysts said the images would be considered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) under UK law.

The US president’s grotesque theatrics on the world stage are an opportunistic distraction from his falling domestic ratings

Of all the commandments for living under Donald Trump, the first is always this: don’t believe him. Nothing he says can be taken at face value; everything should be fed into a polygraph. Those of scrupulous courtesy can wrap it up in red ribbon, or uncork that aphorism about how the man must be taken seriously but never literally. All the same, scratch a Trump promise and underneath will glint a pretext. Scrutinise his grand plans and you find only shabby tactics.

The Manhattan Democrat turns into a Florida-dwelling Republican; the troll who demanded Barack Obama’s birth certificate will hem and haw over releasing the Epstein files. From real-estate deals to Trump University, all that this guy swears is solid gold soon settles into so much bullshit.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

Shift from ‘big 5’ imports to British fish such as sprats and sardines would help diets and the planet, say researchers

Supermarkets could help to support British consumers to move away from their reliance on mainly imported seafood – the “big 5” of cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns – to more sustainable, nutritious and locally caught fish such as sardines and anchovies, researchers say.

A study by the University of East Anglia (UEA), which confirmed previous research showing consumers did not eat the recommended amount of fish in their diet, suggests the UK could be overlooking a major opportunity to improve national health as well as bolstering local economies by embracing its own rich populations of nutritious small fish.

Human Rights Watch and Justice say recent legislative changes have had a chilling effect and should be repealed

The right to protest is under attack in England and Wales with laws trampling over human rights protections and more oppressive restrictions in the pipeline, two major reports have warned.

Both Human Rights Watch and the cross-party law reform organisation Justice say recent legislative changes have created a chilling effect on lawful protest and should be repealed. Their reports, simultaneously published on Thursday, also say that proposals for more curbs should be halted.