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3 min: Gyokeres picks up possession on the centre line and tries to round Keane, hoping to instigate a footrace. Clank! No way past. He goes over, demanding a free kick. He’s not getting one. Meanwhile here’s another, slightly less jittery, Arsenal fan in David Penney: “The only thing that gives me a small amount of confidence is that we have done most of the ‘hard’ away games now. I still expect every away game to be hard though.”

2 min: Everton are on the front foot immediately. Alcaraz has a look down the left but is forced to turn tail. Never mind, there’s still one heck of an atmosphere tonight on the banks of the Mersey, pre-festive cheer, Saturday night, da nee na na na, be my baby, etc.

Netflix’s 300 million global subscribers got just what they wanted: to see a former YouTuber knocked out brutally

George Foreman once said boxing is the sport to which all other sports aspire. Putting aside the breathtaking exhibitions of physical and psychological intensity it can produce, boxing has long been a refuge of the underclass, credited with changing the lives of the disenfranchised and impoverished. There are no barriers to entry. In that sense, it has always sold a democratic dream.

But boxing is, and has always been, the red-light district of professional sports, its flimsy guardrails making it a longtime haven for brazen criminals and the kind of grift and corruption that strains credulity. There are no barriers to entry. The idea that a sport which gave the world Don King, Frank “Blinky” Palermo and Park Si-hun v Roy Jones Jr could somehow be further debased is almost laughable.

Move comes days after Trump announces ‘blockade’ of sanctioned oil tankers and US seizes tanker

US forces on Saturday stopped a second merchant vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, according to two US officials, the Associated Press reported.

The move comes days after Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in to and out of the South American country and follows the seizure by US forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on 10 December.

Sometimes a game simply refuses to yield easy conclusions. Liverpool continued their gathering of momentum, a second straight win secured by goals from Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitiké, but whether they would have done so had proceedings not been skewed in the 33rd minute feels decidedly uncertain. That was when Xavi Simons received a very modern red card via a pitchside review for a clumsy challenge on Virgil van Dijk and ensured neither side could present an authentic impression of itself.

The fact this did not resemble Liverpool’s 6-3 rampage of 12 months ago may, for good or ill, speak volumes for how both teams have developed. Arne Slot would have been delighted to see the interval substitute Isak open the scoring, only to see his glamour signing sustain a nasty-looking injury in the process. Ekitiké seemed to have put matters beyond doubt but Richarlison’s late drive, a note of pride for Spurs, was a reminder of the champions’ lingering frailties. Another sending-off, this time for Cristian Romero in added time, ramped up the dysfunction.

Michaela Benthaus from Germany soared 65 miles above the Earth’s surface in 10-minute Blue Origin flight

A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers on Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.

Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user in space, launching from west Texas with Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged.

Lawyers also attempting to throw out two federal charges, saying US attorney general has ties to UnitedHealth Group

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione are attempting to avoid the death penalty and throw out two federal charges in the justice department’s case against him, arguing that attorney general Pam Bondi is biased because she used to work at a lobbying firm that represents UnitedHealth Group.

In court documents filed on Friday, Mangione’s lawyers said that Bondi has a “profound conflict of interest” because her former employer, Ballard Partners, a DC-based lobbying firm founded by the Trump donor Brian Ballard, counts UnitedHealth Group as one of its clients.

Writers, activists and politicians on the books they turn to for wisdom and perspective – and to restore their faith in human nature

Australia is mired in grief, anger and division over the horrific act of antisemitic terrorism in Sydney. The attack in Bondi has reverberated internationally, tragically bookending a year that already challenged humanity, hope and the future of the planet.

Indeed as 2025 ends it is defined by yet more abject and ignoble political, economic, technological and environmental derelictions of dire proportions.

The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail is officially extinct, but researchers have ‘high hopes’ that translocation will allow the population to thrive

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On a grey day in early June, a commercial plane landed at Norfolk Island Airport in the South Pacific. Onboard was precious cargo ferried some 1,700km from Sydney: four blue plastic crates with “LIVE ANIMALS” signs affixed to the outside.

Inside were thumbnail-sized snails, hundreds of them, with delicate, keeled shells. The molluscs’ arrival was the culmination of an ambitious plan five years in the making: to bring a critically endangered species back from the brink.

A desperate opposition may be tempted to stoop to gross opportunism, but we must not set one group of society against another

• Victims of Bondi beach shooting

• Ten minutes of terror: how the Bondi mass shooting unfolded in real time – video

The Bondi attack was an unutterably cruel event, all the more horrifying for being ours, and we can’t stop ourselves saying so. It is a sword that fell on the necks of two sets of Australians. Yet again, young Australian Jews will be asking parents why they are hated, and that is heartbreaking. In a different sense, so will young Muslims.

During their apparent sojourn in a Campsie B&B, the alleged terrorists could not have been confident of their own survival, but they must have been confident in producing a reaction. It is a matter of civic pride that a Muslim man accosted one of the gunmen and took a weapon from him; a matter of a small yelp of praise and gratitude amid the cruelty.

After meeting while hiking the Inca trail, Jenny and Jarod’s chemistry was extraordinary

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In 2011 I was in my mid-30s and had just arrived home in Kent after spending two years working and travelling abroad. I had a new teaching contract coming up in the Middle East, but there were delays with the construction of the school and I found myself with three months to spare. I decided to go and hike the Inca trail.

I booked with a tour provider and on the second night, as we all got to know each other, this tall, handsome Aussie with a huge smile caught my eye. Once we hit the road, my attraction to Jarod quickly grew and it didn’t take too long – or too many beers at altitude – before we shared our first kiss.

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Suspect killed himself after allegedly killing an MIT professor and two Brown University students

An autopsy report on the suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor in Massachusetts has shown that he died from by suicide two days before he was found in a storage locker on Thursday.

The New Hampshire attorney general’s report estimates that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national who had been living in the US, died on 16 December, the same day that his fellow countryman, MIT nuclear physics professor Nuno Loureiro died at a hospital in Massachusetts.

• Chisnall out despite hitting 11 180s in 3-2 defeat

• Dirk van Duijvenbode and Motomu Sakai bow out

Dave Chisnall was dumped out of the PDC world championship by Ricardo Pietreczko despite hitting 11 180s in an Alexandra Palace thriller. Chisnall, the No 21 seed, paid the price for double trouble and missed a match dart in the final set when it seemed the Englishman would complete a remarkable recovery.

Pietreczko capitalised on Chisnall’s poor finishing to win the first two sets, but the 2021 semi-finalist stormed back to level with some extraordinary scoring. Chisnall took a 2-1 lead in the final set with a 113 finish but then missed double 16 for a match-sealing 143 checkout.

Manchester City will be top on Christmas Day if Arsenal fail to win at Everton in Saturday’s late game. Even if that does not happen, there is a forbidding relentlessness to City that should scare Arsenal as they seek to end the sequence of three consecutive runners-up finishes.

Erling Haaland scored twice and Tijjani Reijnders once as West Ham were swatted aside, losing to City for the seventh time in a row after conceding at least three goals in the past six meetings.

Public exhibition, featuring billboard-sized portraits projected onto buildings, calls attention to Trump administration’s attacks on civil liberties

Each evening, drivers on the busy 101 freeway in downtown Los Angeles pass billboard-size portraits of Angelenos that flash across the side of a building with a simple message next to their faces: Am I Next?

Three Los Angeles institutions have teamed up to launch a response to federal immigration raids in the nation’s second-largest city, projecting illuminated images of everyday LA residents in support of the thousands of community members who have been detained this year.

Senior officials face criticism after review found systemic failings plunged hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt

Senior officials who oversaw a flawed benefits system that plunged hundreds of thousands of carers into debt are under mounting pressure over their “misleading” response to the scandal.

Prof Liz Sayce, the chair of a scathing review into the government’s treatment of unpaid carers, last week called for an overhaul of management and culture at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

⚽ Wolves 0-2 Brentford, Brighton 0-0 Sunderland
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Championship games (3pm unless otherwise stated)

Preston North End 1-1 Norwich City FT

Blackburn Rovers 2-0 Millwall FT

Southampton 1-1 Coventry City FT

Hull City v West Brom

Bristol City v Middlesbrough

Sheffield United v Birmingham City

Watford v Stoke City

Derby County v Portsmouth

Ipswich Town v Sheffield Wednesday

Charlton Athletic v Oxford United

QPR v Leicester City

⚽ Updates from the 5.30pm Premier League kick-off
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Liverpool: Curtis Jones has revealed Mo Salah apologised to the Liverpool squad for the fallout from his interview criticising the club and Arne Slot before hightailing it to Morocco for Afcon. Andy Hunter reports …

Tottenham Hotspur: Thomas Frank has asked for time and patience from Tottenham fans who are increasingly frustrated by his team’s stodgy performances. Whether or not he is given either could well hinge on the performance of his team in tonight’s match, whatever the result. David Hytner reports …

Spokesperson said ex-president, pictured in some photos released by justice department, cut ties with Epstein in 2005

A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.

“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X.

The Golden State’s clean energy use hit new highs in 2025. As the Trump administration abandons US climate initiatives, can California fill the void?

As officials from around the world met in Brazil for the Cop30 climate summit last month, the US president was nowhere to be found, nor were any members of his cabinet. Instead, the most prominent American voice in Belém was that of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.

During the five days he spent in Brazil, Newsom described Donald Trump as an “invasive species” and condemned his rollback of policies aimed at reducing emissions and expanding renewable energy. Newsom, long considered a presidential hopeful, argued that, as the US retreated, California would step up in its place as a “stable, reliable” climate leader and partner.

Teuta Hoxha says she remains determined despite growing fears for her health and five other prisoners staging protest

“A lot of the times it feels like you’re being suffocated. Lots of things change about you, the condition of your skin, you start to turn grey, both in terms of the hue of your skin but also you notice more grey hairs, everything manifests physically,” says Teuta Hoxha, 29, awaiting trial at HMP Peterborough. “There are days where it feels very, very heavy on the mind and on the shoulders. But from my end, and I think for my comrades, we remain strong mentally and determined.”

On Saturday, Hoxha will be on day 42 of her hunger strike with other Palestine Action-linked prisoners, amid increasing fears for their health. Most of the group are being held on remand over alleged criminal damage, aggravated burglary and violent disorder at a factory for the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit systems ​in Filton, near Bristol. Many have been taken to hospital, some on multiple occasions; the justice secretary, David Lammy, has refused to meet their representatives.

• Patrice Motsepe reveals change on eve of tournament

• Caf event held every two years since inception in 1957

The Africa Cup of Nations will be held every four years instead of every two from 2028, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) has announced. The tournament, which brings in an estimated 80% of Caf’s revenue, has been held every two years since its inception in 1957. Sunday marks the start of the 35th edition, hosted in Morocco with the home team taking on Comoros.

The Caf president, Patrice Motsepe, said the next finals, scheduled for 2027 in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, will go ahead and another tournament would be held in 2028, but after that it will be hosted every four years.

Eddie Howe is synonymous with tidiness, efficiency, time management and, above all, control. Given that there is nothing remotely slapdash, careless or wasteful about Newcastle’s manager, his team’s increasing penchant for losing often hard-won authority is proving the most puzzling of paradoxes.

Newcastle have developed a habit of throwing leads away this season and, 2-0 up thanks to a Nick Woltemade double, they were at it again.

The day was transformed in Australia’s favour by the batter’s failed swish, a perfect demonstration of talent being wasted and Test matches squandered

Tough on Harry Brook, yes. But we must also be tough on the causes of Harry Brook. No child is born playing performative reverse-hoicks with a Test match to be saved, just as most acts of cult-like behaviour have their roots in a smooth-talking cult-like instructor.

For England the beginning of the end of the age of Baz started when the disciples of Baz began to deny such a thing even existed; to insist that the buckle-up-and-enjoy-the-ride stuff didn’t actually exist at all, but was instead a creation of another, much worse cult, also known in this world as “the outside”.

Agency hit with legal threats and scathing outrage after Friday release includes limited, heavily redacted trove

• Analysis: Trickle release signals move to bury Trump ties

• Photos from the first batch of Epstein files

A book titled Massage for Dummies was seen among the partial files released yesterday by the Department of Justice. It is mentioned as one of the “gifts” Epstein gave to a “girl” whose name is redacted.

Various reports say Epstein would often request massages from his victims – for both himself and others in his circle.

Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”

The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.