President, who has led country in an increasingly repressive direction since 2013, has failed to provide proof he won vote

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has been sworn in for a third term despite domestic outrage and a chorus of international condemnation at his alleged theft of last year’s election.

“This is a great victory for Venezuelan democracy,” the 62-year-old autocrat boasted during a sparsely attended oath-taking ceremony in Caracas that the leaders of most democratic nations boycotted.

Markets appear to be fretting over sustainability of tax and spending plans and whether UK is heading for ‘stagflation’

Rachel Reeves intended to spend January burnishing her reputation on the global stage with trips to Beijing and Davos, and flipping the focus from her £40bn tax-raising budget to Labour’s plans to rekindle economic growth.

Instead, the chancellor was reduced to watching anxiously, as a sell-off swept through government bond markets, and sterling came under intense pressure as a result.

Measures targeting Russian energy sector attempt to leverage peace deal for Ukraine in Trump administration

The Biden administration on Friday imposed its broadest package of sanctions yet targeting Russia’s oil and gas revenues in an attempt to give Kyiv and the incoming administration of Donald Trump leverage to reach a deal for peace in Ukraine. The move is meant to cut Russia‘s oil revenues for the war that started in February 2022, and has killed or wounded tens of thousands and reduced cities to rubble.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the timing of the was chosen because “oil markets are in a fundamentally better place” and the US economy is better positioned to absorb any market disruption.

So-called department of government efficiency charged by Trump to help effect radical government shake-up

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have already dispatched emissaries across the US government ahead of their mission to slash public spending as joint heads of Doge (the department of government efficiency), a non-governmental body body ordered by Donald Trump to help realize his goal of a radical government shake-up.

The two tech billionaires have already sent aides to more than a dozen federal agencies as they look to identify possible cuts, according to the Washington Post.

‘Now we have to make sure there’s not a second, financial tragedy that follows the physical catastrophe,’ says consumer advocate

• California wildfires – live

California homeowners who lost everything in this week’s devastating Los Angeles-area fires now have to battle their insurance companies to recover the value of their homeowners’ policies – if they are lucky enough to have insurance at all.

With estimates of the economic damage from the fires now reaching $52bn-$57bn, consumer advocates and veterans of past disasters say homeowners can expect weeks or months of paperwork to prove that they have lost what they say they have lost, if not also pressure from claims adjusters and a whole class of disaster professionals to make a quick settlement for less than they are entitled to under their policies.

A negroni-style premix that you can prep ahead so it’s ready to rustle up on a Friday night

This premix is brilliant for a crowd, and it’s also a celebration of every right-thinking bartender’s favourite garnish: the glorious maraschino cherry. Fabbri makes the best, but if you can’t find those, Luxardo is a good alternative.

Max and Noel Venning, Three Sheets, London W1

World’s largest aircraft lessors and insurance firms battle over compensation for jets stranded after Ukraine invasion

Sitting in a nondescript building near the high court in Dublin, about 40 cloaked barristers have gathered almost daily since June last year. At stake is €2.5bn (£2.1bn) worth of aircraft stranded in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

Behind multiple screens and a mountain of warehouse boxes they are fighting to determine who should pay for the losses – the aircraft lessors or the several insurance companies, including Lloyd’s, AIG and Chubb.

The director said the long-planned follow-up to the 2004 hit, which is due to start filming next year, will contain ‘some crazy stuff’

Mel Gibson says that he is going to cast a de-aged Jim Caviezel in his long-planned sequel to The Passion of the Christ, and that the film will be an “acid trip”.

Gibson was speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and when asked who “the next Jesus” was going be, Gibson replied that he was aiming to use Caviezel, who had played the lead role in the first film in 2004, in a story about Jesus’ resurrection. Asked how he would handle the 20-year time gap for a story that is supposed to take place three days after the events depicted in Passion of the Christ, Gibson said he would use de-ageing techniques that are “so good now”.

With brutishly fast zombies, raw action and most importantly an over-the-shoulder viewpoint, the influence of Capcom’s horror game can still be felt

It is an interesting quirk of video game history that one of the greatest ever horror titles debuted on the Nintendo GameCube, a toylike console better known for the cutest titles in the Zelda series and Animal Crossing. But in 2002, Capcom revealed five exclusives to boost the beleaguered platform – and among them was Resident Evil 4, technically the 13th title in the franchise, which on its release three years later would be considered its zenith. It was an exciting new lease of life for the survival horror genre.

Not that you’d guess all this from the game’s extraordinarily pedestrian setup. Six years after the fall of the Umbrella Corporation smouldering cop Leon Kennedy has been dispatched on a mission to retrieve the US president’s kidnapped daughter, who has been spotted in a tiny village in rural Spain. For some reason best known to the Secret Service, he’s going in alone.

Brandon, 28, and Christine, 27, became close friends when they worked together at a Covid testing lab. Now they live in different countries, but make time to continue their friendship

When Brandon and his boyfriend moved to London from Wales in April 2021, there wasn’t much going on. With the city under lockdown, he took a job in a Covid lab at Gatwick Airport. “I was processing PCR tests for people who were travelling,” he says. “I didn’t know anyone in London except my boyfriend, but luckily the team I was working with were great.”

In June, they were joined by Christine, a biology graduate who lived in London and had transferred from the PCR testing lab at Heathrow. “When I arrived, they seemed like a tightknit team, so I was a bit anxious about fitting in,” she says. “But Brandon was super friendly and that drew me to him straight away. I really wanted to be his friend.”

• Ex-Hull and Bradford forward has stage two dementia
• ‘Just got to keep smiling and trying to help people,’ he says

The former Premier League forward Dean Windass has been diagnosed with dementia at the age of 55, it has been revealed.

The Hull and Bradford City player, who scored the goal that took Hull to the Premier League, has stage two of the condition, but joked with social media followers that he was “glad they found a brain”.

In March 2022, the largest theatre in Mariupol – while in use as a bomb shelter for 1,000 people – was hit by a Russian air strike. A re-enactment based on survivors’ testimonies has been moving audiences to tears

The play opens with the usual pre-show request for audiences to switch off their mobile phones before the curtain rises, but along with this come warnings – and instructions for how the audience should evacuate the auditorium in the event of an air raid.

That is because Mariupol Drama, a play based on the real experiences of a Ukrainian theatre company during the Russian invasion of the titular city, was written and staged in the midst of war. It re-enacts the horrifying moment on 16 March 2022 when their theatre was bombed by Russian forces, even though it had by then been turned into an evacuation shelter for almost 1,000 people.

Fiscal crisis, corruption claims, shenanigans and legal threats. This feels like the week old-style politics sat on a grenade

The worst-timed foreign visit by a politician this week was LA mayor Karen Bass deciding to attend the inauguration of the president of Ghana. The second worst might be Rachel Reeves’s decision to push ahead with her China bridge-building trip against a backdrop of market turmoil, soaring UK borrowing costs and the inevitability of rising food prices. But look, maybe have no fear. The chancellor has apparently told all her cabinet colleagues to “cease anti-growth measures” – amazing – and also to come up with specific plans to boost economic activity. I am already picturing her opening the bits of paper from the hat. “Right, I’ve got 20 for ‘build an effing time machine’ and one that just says ‘Pass’. Sorry, Lammy – this isn’t Celebrity Mastermind.”

As for auto-satirical lowlights further down the ministerial ladder, do keep your eye on anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq. The very regrettable lesson of the past few years in UK politics is that no matter how bad things seem, they can always take on a rosy glow in light of what comes after. The premiership of David Cameron seemed less foolhardy once we were living through the premiership of Theresa May. The premiership of Theresa May seemed less chaotic once we were living through the premiership of Boris Johnson. The premiership of Boris Johnson – well, lettuce not be too hasty. But contemplating the Siddiq situation, was it really so bad that Chris Grayling once gave a ferry contract to a firm with no ferries, considering that these days the anti-corruption minister could have three London properties she’s tied to investigated by the National Crime Agency’s international corruption unit? Siddiq has distanced herself from her deposed aunt’s authoritarian regime in Bangladesh – but not, it seems, from the properties given or made available to her by people with close links to that regime. Either way, we are asked to have full confidence in Keir Starmer’s assertion that he has full confidence in her.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

A heap of drama beckons in NFC as the 14-3 Vikings meet LA, while in AFC a pair of underdogs attempt to stage heists

What the Chargers need to do to win: The league’s stingiest defense cannot afford the complacency that allowed Tampa Bay to rain 40 points down on them in December. The Chargers’ stats look good – they gave up the fewest touchdowns (31) in the regular season, including 18 on 39 red-zone drives, a league-leading efficiency mark of 46% – but would be even better without a few aberrations. Handily, the away day will not faze them considering their 6-3 record on the road this season. LA should take care of an underpowered Houston offense if they can forget about their wildcard shocker against Jacksonville two years ago.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

President-elect claims historic case was ‘despicable charade’; judge says ‘unconditional discharge’ does not ‘reduce the seriousness of the crime’

• Trump avoids punishment and calls case ‘terrible experience’

The prosecution team has entered judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom, along with Emil Bove, a lawyer for Donald Trump.

Bove has taken a seat at the defense table.

Justices hear arguments after app’s Chinese-based parent company ByteDance asked justices to review case

TikTok maintains it is not controlled by the Chinese government. It’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, but TikTok operates separately with headquarters in Singapore and the US. TikTok says its user data in the US is handled by the company Oracle.

Justice Samuel Alito asked TikTok’s lawyer if the company was owned directly by the Chinese government would he make the same arguments.

The chances are you’ve already got most of the ingredients for these sweet treats in the kitchen cupboard, so you’re ready to get baking

The start of a new year feels like a good time to have a proper clear-out of my kitchen cupboards. After a frantic festive season, I like to take stock of what I’ve got and get creative with my store-cupboard staples. I had two large opened bags of oats and even more bottles of golden syrup, so naturally a batch of flapjacks was the only answer. You very possibly have all these items in your cupboards already, so have a rummage and give them a go.

Think you always know what your mate is thinking? Forever making elaborate plans together? You might be doing your friendships more harm than you realise, say these experts

“It’s very British to joke and tease to show affection, but it can tip over into being unhealthy,” says the friendship coach Hannah Carmichael. Her online community, Friendshift, coaches adults to build authentic friendships and navigate social situations. “At the heart of every healthy relationship is the ability to show up fully as ourselves,” she says.

Economy adds 256,000 jobs in December, with Biden boasting of 16.6m jobs created during presidency

The US labor market expanded strongly in the last jobs report of the Biden administration, according to new data released on Friday.

The number of new jobs added to the economy accelerated to 256,000 in December, up from 227,000 in November, soaring past expectations. The labor market last month was bolstered by new jobs in healthcare, retail and government.

• Frankfurt may consider €60m-plus bid for forward
• City also preparing £33m bid for Palmeiras’s Vítor Reis

Manchester City are considering testing Eintracht Frankfurt’s resolve to keep their highly rated forward Omar Marmoush with a formal bid while also monitoring the Lens centre-back Abdukodir Khusanov and preparing an offer of €40m (£33m) for Palmeiras’s teenage defender Vitor Reis.

While Frankfurt’s official stance is that Marmoush is not for sale, it is understood the club, currently third in the Bundesliga, may countenance a €60m-plus (£50m-plus) offer for the 25-year-old Egyptian, who has scored 18 goals and provided 12 assists in all competitions this season.

To solve the climate crisis, power must flow away from the billionaire class

When I feel uncertain, I find it’s helpful to write down things I know to be true. Fossil fuels are causing irreversible planetary overheating. Overheating threatens essentially all life on Earth. Oil and gas executives knew this but they chose to systematically lie and block a climate transition. They continue to make this choice.

I choose to focus my energy on the climate crisis because a habitable planet is a prerequisite for everything worth fighting for, and because the prospect of losing a planet feels horrific and sad to me in a primal way that I can’t express with words. I’m also simply in love with the Earth. But planetary overheating is really just the most geophysical symptom of extractive colonial capitalism – “billionairism” – a system designed to pump wealth from the poor to the rich, creating billionaires, the healthcare crisis, the housing crisis, genocide, hierarchies like racism and patriarchy, and a great deal of suffering.

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

• Spurs midfielder knocked himself out in EFL Cup semi
• Will miss three games, including north London derby

Rodrigo Bentancur has been given the all-clear to return to playing after he serves a 12-day concussion protocol. The Tottenham midfielder sparked concern when he collapsed to the turf in his club’s 1-0 Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg win over Liverpool on Wednesday night.

Bentancur was taken away on a stretcher after eight minutes of treatment and was assessed in hospital. The neurological tests have revealed nothing more serious than concussion.

Here are some of the more curious health hacks circulating on the social media platform – and what the evidence says

The deluge of improbable health hacks on TikTok can only mean it’s the start of a new year. Here we look at some of the more curious tips and the evidence, where there is any, behind them.

Justice rules against ordinances in counties and towns on Texas border that sought to limit access to mifepristone

The New Mexico supreme court late on Thursday ruled against several local ordinances in the state that aim to restrict distribution of the abortion pill.

In a unanimous opinion, the court said the ordinances invaded the legislature’s authority to regulate reproductive care.

How long does it take to change a habit? It varies, but one paper suggests it takes an average of 66 days. We ask writers to change one thing in their lives within that timeframe … and tell us if it works

• Read more in the 66 days to change series
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Not even a year ago, I would have called myself crazy for giving up sugar, even for 66 days. But the truth is I eat way too much of it and it can’t be good for me.

I’ve eaten cake for breakfast on more than one occasion and can easily finish a packet of biscuits in a day. I have a soft spot for baked goods, kindled by the many bakeries and cafes in my neighbourhood. If I go to bed without eating something sweet I feel as though something’s missing.

Experts recorded 45 entanglements off Australia’s east coast in 2024 – but believe that’s ‘the tip of the iceberg’

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At least 45 whales were entangled by fishing ropes and line on the east coast in 2024, and experts are calling for better management of fishing gear in Australia to prevent marine suffering.

Dr Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist at Griffith University, said the issue of preventing whale entanglements was “largely ignored in Australia”.

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Summer holidays are a time of memory-making. We asked Guardian writers and contributors to share some of the summer holiday photos that transport them back to a simpler time

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It had always been Harriet’s dream to get married more than mine. I’ll never forget us as little girls on summer holidays, stretched out on twin beds, poring over her magazine cutouts of white wedding dresses, multi-tiered cakes and overflowing bouquets.

We would muse what our husbands’ names would be and how many children we would have. They would be born at the same time, so they could grow up together as best friends. Just like we had.

Photographer Adam Lampton discusses capturing the vice, cash and sheer excess of the special administrative region of China – a place built on contradictions

“I am not a huge gambler,” says Adam Lampton. “The first time I went to Macau, fresh out of grad school, I didn’t have any money to spare – it all went on camera film. People take it all very seriously, so I was too intimidated to sit down and be the white guy who didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

As a non-gambler in Macau, the American photographer would have been an oddity – most tourists go there to “play”, hoping Lady Luck glances their way. The former Portuguese colony, now a special administrative region of China, is the world’s gambling mecca. Located on China’s south-east coast, just across the water from Hong Kong, Macau’s gambling revenues often put the US’s “Sin City” in the shade. The Macau government expects its gaming revenues to hit about $27bn in 2024, while declining Nevada looks set to fall below 2023’s record $15.5bn.

Mother and newborn saved from inflatable boat off Canary Islands, on a route on which thousands have died

The call that would lead to one of the most poignant images of the humanitarian emergency in the deadly waters off the Canary Islands came at 4am.

In the early hours of Monday, the Las Palmas command centre of Spain’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Marítimo, told Domingo Trujillo, the captain of the search-and-rescue vessel Talía, that a small inflatable boat, packed with people, was adrift 97 nautical miles (180km) off the coast of Lanzarote. Among those onboard, they added, was a woman who was due to give birth at any moment.

Have you been following the big (and small) stories in football, cricket, motor racing, golf, tennis and rugby?

Sarah Silverman and others file court case claiming CEO approved use of dataset despite warnings

• Business live – latest updates

Mark Zuckerberg approved Meta’s use of “pirated” versions of copyright-protected books to train the company’s artificial intelligence models, a group of authors has alleged in a US court filing.

Citing internal Meta communications, the filing claims that the social network company’s chief executive backed the use of the LibGen dataset, a vast online archive of books, despite warnings within the company’s AI executive team that it is a dataset “we know to be pirated”.

Those who lived in regions with firefighting training areas earned about 1.7% less later in life, research shows

Early life exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” could affect economic success in adulthood, new first-of-its-kind research suggests.

The Iowa State University and US Census Bureau working paper compared the earnings, college graduation rates and birth weights of two groups of children – those raised around military installations that had firefighting training areas, and those who lived near bases with no firefighting training site.

In 1989, an on-camera head to head triggered the then PM’s demise. Harriet Walter, Steve Coogan and James Graham discuss their gripping take on the bombshell broadcast

It was the interview that destroyed Thatcher. Three days after the furious resignation of her chancellor Nigel Lawson in October 1989, she went on TV for a 45-minute interview with an unlikely confidant of hers – Brian Walden, the Labour MP turned ITV journalist. She was ready for him, but she also trusted him: it wasn’t their first rodeo together. It was, however, emotionally intense.

“I think so many of his questions are beseeching,” says James Graham, the celebrated writer of Sherwood and Brexit: The Uncivil War, who has turned it into new drama Brian and Maggie, starring Steve Coogan as Walden and Harriet Walter as Thatcher. “Just say that you get it. Just say that you were wrong, just say that you’re not flawless. And if you do that, grab my hand and I’ll save you.” Saving her is the opposite of what happened.

Refugees tell of attacks on darker-skinned people and non-Arab groups by Rapid Support Forces and its allies in Darfur

Husna Ibrahim Arbab had already lost her son in the early days of Sudan’s civil war – burned to death in his tent after it was set on fire – when she was apprehended by militia aligned with the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group while fleeing west towards the border with Chad.

A bullet flew by close to her head, the 24-year-old said. Five male relatives were separated from the group she was travelling with, taken to a creek, and shot in the chest.

Trump and Maga allies are using the fires to attack leaders like Newsom – possibly foretelling power struggles ahead

If ever a situation cried out for elevating national unity over political divisions, the dystopian scenes emanating from the Los Angeles fires surely qualified.

The catastrophe that has left at least 10 people dead as of Friday morning, more than 1,000 structures destroyed and forced thousands fleeing their homes would – in an ideal and less polarised America – spur humane empathy and solidarity in place of tribal partisanship.

• Eight-year agreement deepens Qatar’s role in the sport
• Inaugural Nations Championship is in London next year

Qatar Airways has agreed a deal worth up to £80m to become title sponsors of the new Nations Championship in a move that underlines rugby union’s determination to follow other sports in securing investment from the Middle East.

It was revealed in October that Qatar had been chosen to stage the second finals series of the Nations Championship, in 2028, and the national airline has now come on board as headline sponsors. The eight-year deal will cover the qualifying matches and finals series for the first four editions of the new competition running from 2026 until 2034.

(Domino)
The Scottish art rockers’ sixth album benefits from an infusion of fresh blood, but can’t maintain the standards of the first few songs

A sparkling 2015 collaboration with Sparks aside, Franz Ferdinand’s career has felt like an exercise in diminishing returns, each successive album slightly less interesting than its predecessor. Seven years on from the paradoxically titled Always Ascending, their sixth set finally bucks that trend. Part of that could be down to an infusion of fresh blood, with frontman Alex Kapranos and bassist Bob Hardy the only surviving members of the original lineup.

From the opener Audacious on, it’s clear that revitalisation rather than reinvention is key, with Kapranos’s distinctive, arch delivery very much retaining centre stage, and the penchant for a big chorus undimmed. Indeed, there’s a long-absent freshness to the first few songs, which simply fizz with ideas: The Doctor possesses a manic energy; the standout Hooked deserves to fill dancefloors. But that early charge isn’t sustained and there’s a distinct sag to the middle of The Human Fear, the likes of Tell Me I Should Stay (its bassline’s unlikely nod to Oxygène-era Jean-Michel Jarre aside) and Cats (seemingly an act of watered-down auto-pastiche) distinctly less engaging. A comeback that’s only fitfully pleasing.

If time management is all life is, asks the author and narrator, why do we treat it as such a depressingly narrow-minded affair?

The title refers to the time most humans spend on Earth, assuming they live until their 80s. When the author Oliver Burkeman first made the calculation, he felt unexpectedly queasy at our “insultingly” short lifespans. He also began thinking about how we manage our time.

“Arguably, time management is all life is,” he notes. “Yet the modern discipline known as time management is a depressingly narrow-minded affair, focused on how to crank through as many work tasks as possible, or on devising the perfect morning routine, or on cooking all your dinners for the week in one big batch.” But what is the point of all that “doing” when life is so short?

Never trust a hippy selling pine-flavoured butter. Plus, a watch that finally explains it all

The AFSCA (Belgium’s federal agency for ensuring food supply chain safety – but of course you knew that) has been forced to issue a warning to the good people of Poirot’s homeland not to eat their Christmas trees. This is after the city of Ghent – an environmentalism hotspot in northern Flanders – posted tips on how to recycle their obsolete festive conifers into food, including using them to make pine-flavoured butter.