Country is facing epidemic of diabetes and obesity, but experts say widespread and unregulated use of weight loss drugs could put patients at risk

India’s leading doctors have warned of the dangers of an unregulated boom in weight loss injections, and emphasised they are not a magic pill to solve the country’s growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity.

Demand for appetite-suppressing drugs such as Mounjaro, Wegovy and Ozempic has surged since they were introduced into the Indian market this year.

Beatriz Bernal’s pioneering novel features brave, chivalrous women who ride dragons and her adapter wants his illustrated version to reach young readers

Sixty years before a gaunt and deluded nobleman from La Mancha was overdosing on tales of derring-do, visiting his madness on those around him – and single-handedly rewriting the rules of fiction – the deeds of another heroic knight had already made literary history.

Though completely eclipsed by Don Quixote, Cristalián de España, which was first published in 1545, has a unique claim to fame. Its 800 pages, bristling with swords, sorcerers, dragons and damsels, make up the earliest known work by a female Spanish novelist.

At a Barbados beach barbecue, I attempted to attract the attention of handsome Dwayne. I ended up with drenched hair and no sunglasses or bikini top

Christmas in Barbados is different. Forget snow and scarves – we do Christmas in flip-flops, sweating through church services and pretending to feel festive because there’s tinsel on a palm tree. Everyone’s singing Mary’s Boy Child as if they’re auditioning for Caribbean Idol, and someone’s auntie is halfway through a bottle of Mount Gay before 11am.

But my weirdest Christmas was when I was about 19 – that magical age when you’re convinced you’re grown, but you still have braces. My mum had taken me “back home” to spend the holidays with family. I was excited because 1) I needed a break from university, 2) I could finally escape the British winter, and 3) I was ready to find a husband.

From retailers to banks, carmakers to councils, the bold pledges for carbon-neutral economies are being watered down or scrapped

Almost a year since Donald Trump returned to the White House with a rallying cry to the fossil fuel industry to “drill baby, drill”, a backlash against net zero appears to be gathering momentum.

More companies have retreated from, or watered down, their pledges to cut carbon emissions, instead prioritising shareholder returns over climate action.

Arm in arm along the shoreline, locals observed two minutes’ silence in ‘cathartic’ effort to unite the community

• Victims of Bondi beach shooting

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

As he stood silently facing the waves on the Bondi shoreline, arm in arm with nearly 1,000 other lifesavers, Lockie Cook let himself feel the pain of the community’s most traumatic week in living memory.

“I feel like that guard’s just dropping,” he said.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor appears to have his head near one woman’s lap as he poses reclined on his side

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor appears to be pictured reclining across the legs of five people with his head near a woman’s lap in the latest document dump related to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In the undated image, which is a photograph of a picture in a photo frame, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell appears to peer down and smile at the former duke, who is smiling with his eyes closed.

After speculation actor was actually underground MC, pair join on remix to EsDeeKid’s 4 Raws

It’s been arguably the most popular musical meme of the year: is masked Liverpudlian rapper EsDeeKid actually Hollywood actor Timothée Chalamet in disguise? Now the speculation has been put to bed, with Chalamet jumping on an unexpected remix of EsDeeKid’s track 4 Raws.

Chalamet posted a clip of a video for the track to his social media, rapping alongside EsDeeKid in a series of scenes, from a cramped kitchen to a housing estate.

• Joshua drops Paul four times in sixth-round knockout

• Britain’s Dubois defends 135lb title with masterclass

• Baumgardner, Dubois win as women’s champions shine

• Paul v Joshua is old logic in a louder digital age

• Get in touch! Email Bryan with your thoughts

The Kaseya Center is filling up nicely as Alycia Baumgardner and Leila Beaudoin move into the back end of their scheduled 12-rounder. There are a few pockets of empty seats in the upper and lower bowls, but it should be pretty close to a sellout in the end.

Down in the high-rent district, a small army of celebrities and influencers have started occupying the ringside seats as the main event draws closer. Among the more notable … the five-time major champion Rory McIlroy, fresh off last night’s Spoty gong across the pond.

Anthony Albanese said he would ‘support whatever action the NSW government takes’

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Anthony Albanese has backed a royal commission into last weekend’s terror attack at Bondi beach, after the NSW premier called for a full “comprehensive look” at the deadly shooting.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday the premier, Chris Minns said the state needed a royal commission to investigate the mass shooting that killed 15 people.

‘Most transparent’ administration has slow-walked and stonewalled – the incomplete release smells of a cover-up

• Epstein documents release – live updates

The disappointment was palpable. In February, a group of 15 rightwing influencers visited the White House and paraded binders labelled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1”, only to discover that they contained precious little that was new.

Ten months later, it was the world’s turn. Amid huge global anticipation on Friday, the US justice department released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Richard Branson are among the people who appear in the thousands of documents released by the US justice department on Friday

Jewish voices say an attack of this kind was entirely predictable given the surge in antisemitic attacks in Australia since 2023

The sun rises early at this time of year, hitting the south of the beach first before chasing the shadows north, the gradual retreat of the darkness to the light.

Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, was being celebrated here on Sunday evening, when the darkness came brutally roaring back.

Tourists chase 435-run target with series on the line at Adelaide Oval
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68th over: Australia 276-4 (Head 142, Carey 57) Carse’s first ball is short and wide and thumped to the boundary by Carey. A diving stop by Smith saves any further blushes and that’s all Australia can milk from the over.

67th over: Australia 272-4 (Head 142, Carey 53) Stokes has the ball. Hair swept back and regal. Running in to the strains of the Barmy Army’s Jerusalem. On the ball. Just one single from it.

Ro Khanna, who co-wrote Epstein Transparency Act with Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, says two main documents missing

• Full report: Long-awaited cache of Epstein files released

• Photos from the Jeffrey Epstein files

• FBI notes detail grim demands Epstein made for procurement of underage girls

Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said more files will be released by the justice department on a rolling basis.

He said in a post on X that “additional responsive materials will be produced as our review continues, consistent with the law and with protections for victims”.

Interview from 2019 reveals specific preferences for recruitment, including age and race

• Epstein files release – follow live

Investigative notes describing Jeffery Epstein’s detailed demands of the people he sent to procure children for his sexual predation are among the documents released by the Department of Justice on Friday.

They cast a grim spotlight on the actions of Epstein and those around him amid their efforts to procure young women and underage girls for the late disgraced financier. They were part of a long-awaited release of documents from Donald Trump’s justice department, which has been slammed for being only a partial release and heavily redacted.

Attacks come after two US soldiers and interpreter killed as Trump says US inflicting ‘very serious retaliation’

The US military launched airstrikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday in retaliation for an attack on US personnel, two US officials said on Friday.

The attacks come after Donald Trump vowed to hit back after an attack last weekend in Syria by a suspected Islamic State member.

Club remain bemused by head coach creating speculation he has issues with the hierarchy who want to avoid drama at all costs

One of the theories doing the rounds this week is that Enzo Maresca is behaving like someone who wants to be sacked. He has stumbled into a fight he cannot win. It did not go down well with Chelsea when Maresca lobbed a grenade into the mix by talking about not being supported enough after last Saturday’s humdrum win against Everton and it is hard not to read his refusal to defuse the situation since then as the stance of a man daring his bosses to act.

Chelsea remain bemused by their head coach creating speculation that he has issues with the club’s hierarchy by saying that the 48 hours before the Everton game had been his worst since joining the club. Sources say the outburst even caught people close to Maresca by surprise. Confusion reigns. It does not help that Maresca has publicly and privately rejected repeated opportunities to explain the source of his discontent, leaving it open for outsiders to assume that the Italian’s issues are with Chelsea’s hierarchy.

• Spaniard approaches sixth anniversary in charge

• Arteta ‘has to earn the right to be here tomorrow’

Mikel Arteta has conceded his long-term future at Arsenal is dependent on winning silverware as he prepares to celebrate his sixth anniversary in charge.

The Spaniard was appointed on 20 December 2019 and led Arsenal to the FA Cup a few months later but that remains his only major trophy since replacing Unai Emery. Arteta will mark six years in the job against his former club Everton on Saturday night – the same opponents Arsenal faced a day after he was announced as their manager. He watched that game from the stands before officially beginning his role the next day.

Dane wants time but before Saturday’s match against Liverpool, faithful are frustrated by stodgy performances

There are plenty of well-known checkpoints in the life cycle of a Tottenham manager and we have reached one with Thomas Frank. It is the pleading for time bit. “If nobody gets this, nobody will be able to turn this around,” he said after last Sunday’s 3-0 Premier League defeat at Nottingham Forest. It is not a “quick fix,” he added. And nobody was about to disagree.

Frank is veering towards another – the one where it is as if he wants to scream, to release the inner hurricane that he referenced in Nottingham. Is anybody seeing what he is seeing? In other words, the immense difficulties that he faces.

Analysts see ‘global construction frenzy that shows no signs of slowing’ amid surge in demand from AI boom

A new report finds that investment in the worldwide data center market reached $61bn this year, setting a new record atop the wave of the artificial intelligence boom.

The analysis by S&P Global, first reported by CNBC, documented what the market intelligence firm called a “global construction frenzy that shows no signs of slowing”, to build out the massive real estate, hardware, and energy requirements driven by insatiable demand from AI companies. S&P pegged 2024’s investment in the data center market at $60.8bn, just below the 2025 number.

Decision from state supreme court on deal once worth $56bn and now worth some $139bn overturns ruling that prompted angry Musk backlash

Elon Musk’s controversial $56bn pay package from Tesla was reinstated by the Delaware supreme court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the vast compensation deal as “unfathomable”.

The reinstated pay package could be worth as much as $139bn today, according to the New York Times. The decision comes less than two months after Tesla shareholders approved a new plan that could be worth $1tn to Musk, already the world’s richest person, in a decade’s time. Musk’s fortune currently stands at an estimated $600bn.

• Angels reach confidential settlement after civil trial

• Skaggs died in 2019 from fentanyl-laced pills

• Parties arrive at settlement while case with jury

The Los Angeles Angels on Friday settled a lawsuit over the drug overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

The decision to settle was reached after a two-month civil trial in Southern California over whether the Angels should be held responsible for Skaggs’ 2019 death after he snorted a fentanyl-laced pill provided by the team’s communications director, Eric Kay.

Photos included in tranche of documents as Democrats accuse Trump officials of failing to comply with law

• Photos from the first batch of the Jeffrey Epstein files

• Epstein documents release – live updates

The Department of Justice on Friday released a long-awaited and huge tranche of documents detailing its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a major development in the lengthy saga that turned into one of the biggest political setbacks Donald Trump has suffered since his re-election last year.

While significant portions of the files are redacted, those that were viewable included images of Epstein socializing with an array of prominent figures, including entertainers like Michael Jackson, Chris Tucker and Diana Ross, and the entrepreneur Richard Branson. Bill Clinton appears in several photos, including one in which he is in a swimming pool along with Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The images also show former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

From the Bondi beach rescuers to the women taking on the police, great acts of courage offer hope even in the bleakest times

Some traditions are getting harder to maintain. Among them, my own custom of devoting the last column before Christmas to reasons to be hopeful. In recent years, amid war and bloodshed, that task has been especially challenging – and this week was no exception.

It began with the news from Bondi beach, where 15 people were gunned down and dozens more injured, most of them Jews celebrating the festival of Hanukah. That came just two-and-a-half months after the deadly attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. To be a Jew at the end of 2025 is to fear that to gather together, whether at moments of joy or sorrow, is to take a mortal risk. That even to do relatively ordinary things together has become a matter of life and death.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and the author of The Traitors Circle: the Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them

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