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Aryna Sabalenka breaks Jessica Bouzas Maneiro to 30 at the first attempt but the Spaniard bounces back immediately. Bouzas Maneiro pulls away to a 0-30 lead following a pair of unforced errors from Sabalenka, then takes the game to deuce and four break-back points – the third from a huge confidence booster with a sublime cross-court forehand winner. The world No 54 brings out a backhand winner to finally finish off the game and put the first set back on serve.

Jessica Pegula is up against Elise Mertens on Margaret Court Arena with the first few games quickly going to serve. Mertens leads the No 7 seed 2-1.

Government still working to verify reports of Melbourne man’s death after being captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine

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Australia would take “the strongest action possible”, including potentially expelling Russia’s ambassador, Anthony Albanese has warned, as the federal government scrambles to verify reports that Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins had been killed after being captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine.

Albanese said on Wednesday that any harm to Jenkins would be “absolutely reprehensible”, and demanded Moscow immediately confirm the condition of the 32-year-old Australian citizen, after reports overnight that he had died.

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Financial regulator alleges Musk later acquired shares of company at ‘artificially low prices’, stiffing shareholders

A US financial regulator has sued Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose his ownership of Twitter stock and later acquiring shares in the company at “artificially low prices”, stiffing other shareholders.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit against Musk late on Tuesday in Washington DC federal court for alleged securities violations. According to the suit, Musk did not disclose that he had acquired a 5% stake in the company in a timely manner, which allowed him “to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due”.

Gregory Rodriguez, 56, who faced 97 counts, convicted of crimes in one of state’s largest prison abuse scandals

Gregory Rodriguez, a former California women’s prison correctional officer, who was at the center of one of the state’s largest prison abuse scandals, was convicted of 64 sexual abuse charges on Tuesday.

The jury’s guilty verdict includes convictions for rape and sexual battery on behalf of 13 incarcerated women.

Assessment of the condition could face overhaul, but governments, companies and communities still have work to do

• Call to overhaul obesity diagnoses amid fears of over-reliance on BMI

Obesity is one of the world’s biggest health challenges, causing a mass of shorter, unhappier lives and a mounting burden on already overstretched healthcare systems.

There is no doubt that more people than ever before are living with excess body fat, and there is no doubt about the dangers of doing so. Obesity has the ability to harm every single organ in the body, and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and mental illness.

Lancet commission’s report calls for global shake-up and suggests looking at measures such as waist-to-height ratios and ill-health symptoms

• Reframing obesity may end the diagnosis debate, but the health challenges remain

Doctors are proposing a “radical overhaul” of how obesity is diagnosed worldwide amid concerns that a reliance on body mass index may be causing millions of people to be misdiagnosed.

More than 1 billion people are thought to be living with the condition that for decades has been diagnosed by measuring a person’s BMI (their ratio of height to weight) to estimate the amount of excess body fat they have.

Abuse allegations – which he denies – pile up against the shock rocker in this chilling documentary, not helped by some of the sexual comments he makes about pre-teens

Roll up, roll up – fun times are here again, especially for us ladies! Last week we had 2025’s first addition to the bulging files of true-crime stories, with the documentary series about rapist and serial killer Todd Kohlhepp (The Amazon Review Killer). Now we have the first documentary about a high-profile star claimed by multiple women to be a violent sexual predator long enabled by his fame, money and power to do exactly as he liked, to as many young women as he liked, without fear of consequence.

Marilyn Manson: Unmasked is a meticulously assembled three-part account of the shock-rock musician’s career and what was allegedly happening behind the scenes. All of which, I should say, is denied by Manson (real name Brian Warner) and on screen by his quietly terrifying lawyer Howard King, whose favourite expression seems to be “complete fabrication”.

• Bundesliga strugglers win 4-2 and add to Dortmund woes
• Milan recover to win at Como and Juventus draw again

Struggling Holstein Kiel scored three times in a dominant first half but had to survive a late comeback from Borussia Dortmund before beating the visitors 4-2, capped by a breakaway fourth goal into an empty net, in a second straight Bundesliga loss for the Ruhr valley club.

The result saw Dortmund, who had also lost 3-2 to Bayer Leverkusen on Friday, drop to eighth in the standings while piling more pressure on already-embattled coach Nuri Sahin.

It was just as West Ham imagined it when they spent more than £100m last summer. Lucas Paquetá as a false nine. Two left-backs on the pitch at the end. A defence so fragile that Alex Iwobi can score direct from two crosses. The new man in the dugout watching and wondering if life at the London Stadium is always this baffling.

This ended up being a game that West Ham tried very hard not to win, even though they led 2-0 and 3-1 after a host of comical errors from ­Fulham. As it was, all that mattered for ­Graham Potter was taking the points and finding logic in the puzzle.

Lawyer for Northern Ireland MP Sorcha Eastwood said posts were made the day after Commons debate on violence against women and girls

A Northern Ireland MP has launched legal action against the self-styled misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother over social media posts made in the past week.

A lawyer for Sorcha Eastwood, an MP for the Alliance party, said the posts were made on Friday, the day after she had told MPs that she was a “survivor of abuse” and had received rape threats.

Kevin Winters, one of Northern Ireland’s best-known solicitors with a series of cases against the state in relation to deaths during the Troubles, confirmed he was acting for the MP.

“We are instructed to issue legal proceedings against Andrew and Tristan Tate over their continued publication of social media postings on 10 January 2025,” he said.
“We can confirm service of correspondence on today’s date to their solicitors. In light of the sensitivities of the issues engaged, we have no further comment at this stage.”

The posts that prompted Eastwood to launch the legal action were made on social media the day after a debate on violence against women and girls in the House of Commons.

Eastwood’s lawyer did not provide details of the claim but Tate’s timeline shows he commented on Friday on posts she had made in October about male role models. During the Commons debate she revealed that a member of the public had “came up and said they wanted to rape” her during a school visit she was leading at Stormont.

Just when it seemed nothing was dropping for Liverpool in a capti­vating contest, Arne Slot turned to his substitutes’ bench midway through the ­second half and exhibited his seemingly golden touch. Kostas Tsimikas and Diogo Jota entered, the former teeing up the latter at a corner to equalise ­courtesy of their first touches and keep ­Nottingham Forest, who continue to take great pleasure at gatecrashing the title race, at arm’s length. Even if it was an imperfect night for Liverpool, it felt a significant takeaway. Jota’s header was Liverpool’s first effort on target and the first goal Forest had conceded in more than 500 minutes.

For Forest, this is simply a ride supporters do not want to step off. At the final whistle their players were greeted with applause from all four corners of a throbbing stadium. This was another ­resounding display under Nuno Espírito Santo, another impressive step in an ­extraordinary season and a point lifts them to ­second, six points behind the pacesetters, who also have a game in hand. On this evidence, Forest may prove Liver­pool’s fiercest challengers, especially with both Chelsea and Manchester City dropping more points.

A high-budget series set in the Outer Hebrides – it’s hard to believe it’s taken this long, given how popular subtitled TV is. It’s a good, solid series, even if the plot stretches credulity

It is difficult to imagine An t-Eilean being made even 10 years ago. It is billed as the UK’s first ever “high-end” Gaelic drama series, which means, I think, that it was expensive to make (a report last year put it at £1m for each of its four episodes). The title translates as The Island, and it is set mostly on the Western Isles, which makes it breathtakingly beautiful and means that everyone is in possession of a good solid coat. An t-Eilean exists thanks to renewed interest in and support for the speaking of Gaelic and, with subtitles no longer being seen as a barrier to enjoyment, has a strong shot at winning over an audience far larger than the 60,000 or so fluent speakers in Scotland.

Local businessman and boy-done-good Sir Douglas Maclean (Iain Macrae) is one of the richest men in Scotland, having outgrown his humble beginnings as “the proud son of a bin man”, and he and his family now live in a baronial mansion on the shoreline of Harris. The Macleans and their more loyal members of staff appear to lord it over the local people, some of whom are their tenants, and there is a distinct tension brewing between rich and poor. When Sir Douglas and his wife, Lady Mary, are attacked at home, there is one obvious suspect, and no shortage of potential others who might have been eager to dole out his comeuppance.

An t-Eilean aired on BBC Alba and is on BBC iPlayer now.

From title challengers to top-four contenders to reviving the undercur­rent of dissatisfaction with the club’s direction, quite the recent slide for Chelsea. Thomas Tuchel, on an ­England scouting visit, will have seen few of the players he left behind in 2022. He will, though, have been reminded of the permanent jeopardy of the Chelsea manager.

Previously the safe pair of hands guiding the Chelsea project, Enzo Maresca’s cachet is wobbling after five winless games. Chelsea paid for a combination of callowness and profligacy against a bare‑bones Bournemouth. “The game was completely in our control,” Maresca said. “And it’s something we need to improve.”

When Brentford spurned their first couple of chances Thomas Frank showed his approval and encourage­ment with applause. But they kept ­missing them: by the end of the first half he was burrowing his head into his hands; by the time Yoane Wissa somehow shot into Nathan Aké with the goal at his mercy and 20 minutes remaining he was prostrate, forehead pressed into the turf in supplication. Maybe someone was listening.

Phil Foden had opened the scoring moments earlier, and shortly afterwards he tapped in a second after Savinho’s shot was saved. If at that moment Brentford looked beaten they did not feel it, and with one final heave the pendulum swung: three minutes later Mads Roerslev’s volleyed centre found Wissa all alone on the edge of the six-yard box to pull a goal back, and in stoppage time ­Christian Nørgaard headed Keane Lewis-Potter’s right-wing cross just beyond the grasp of Stefan Ortega.

Deal negotiated through Catholic church will involve ‘gradual’ release of 553 political prisoners, says Havana

The Biden administration has notified Congress that it will remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in a deal the country’s communist government said would involve the “gradual” release of 553 political prisoners.

The deal, which administration officials said was negotiated through the Catholic church, was announced on Tuesday, just five days before Biden exits the White House and Donald Trump is inaugurated as the country’s 47th president.

Officials seeking to detain suspended president used ladders to enter compound after being blocked at entrance gate

South Korean investigators seeking to arrest suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol have entered his official residence as they try to execute a new warrant over insurrection accusations related to his 3 December declaration of martial law, an official from the joint force trying to detain him has said.

“We don’t know the exact number of people who are in the residence but there are prosecutors,” an official from the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) probing Yoon’s failed martial law decree told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Authorities piece together timeline of radicalization of Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the US army veteran behind the attack

Before plowing a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans and killing 14 people, the man who carried out the Islamic State group-inspired attack had researched how to access a balcony on the city’s famed Bourbon Street and looked up information about a similar attack at a Christmas market in Germany, the FBI said.

Nearly two weeks after Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s rampage, the FBI continues to uncover new information detailing the extensive planning by the 42-year-old US army veteran who scouted out the area multiple times in the months leading up to the attack. Authorities have also been piecing together a timeline of his radicalization.

President-elect vows creation of agency as soon as he takes office in further push for regime of taxes on foreign imports

Donald Trump has said he will create an “external revenue service” as soon as he returns to the White House next week, adding further substance to his campaign vow to establish a new regime of tariffs on foreign imports.

“I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources,” the president-elect posted on his Truth Social network on Tuesday.

‘Global head of soccer’ at an energy drink brand seems a world away from the rough and tumble of the touchline

Flanked by Formula One cars bearing the appropriate livery, Jürgen Klopp cracked open a can of Red Bull and started talking. Product placement has always come naturally to the energy drink brand and here, on home turf, little fanfare was spared in putting a shiny new asset front and centre. This moment had been well over two years in the making but now their head of global soccer could broadcast his mission statement to the world.

These were jarring surroundings in which to see Klopp, champion of the raw and the real, begin his new career. Hangar-7, an events space overlooking the runway at Salzburg airport, lets the public inspect a fleet from a selection of Red Bull’s more daredevil sporting endeavours. The lines are smooth, the Alpine light clear, the corporate self-assuredness pervasive. It could not have felt further from the rough and tumble of the touchline at Liverpool or, even less, Dortmund.

Former Labour minister’s family background is indelibly bound up with Bangladesh

When Keir Starmer became the Labour leader in 2020, Tulip Siddiq described him in her local paper as a “good friend through thick and thin”.

On Tuesday, she found out where the limits of that friendship lay after the prime minister accepted her resignation from the government after weeks of revelations about Siddiq’s closeness to her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh.

RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, rockets to top of US app stores, along with ByteDance’s Lemon8

New users have piled in to the Chinese social media app RedNote just days before a proposed US ban on the popular social media app TikTok, as the lesser-known company rushes to capitalize on the sudden influx while walking a delicate line of moderating English-language content.

In a live chat dubbed “TikTok Refugees” on RedNote on Monday, more than 50,000 US and Chinese users joined the room. Veteran Chinese users, with some sense of bewilderment, welcomed their American counterparts and swapped notes with them on topics such as food and youth unemployment. Occasionally, however, the Americans veered into riskier territory.

Catherine provides update after visit to thank staff at hospital where she was treated

The Princess of Wales has visited the hospital where she was treated for cancer to thank staff and meet patients, as she expressed her “relief” at being in remission.

During a poignant unannounced visit to the Royal Marsden in London, described by palace aides as an important moment in her “personal journey”, Catherine recalled her shock at her own diagnosis – and urged patients to keep positive and do “the things that give you joy”.

Environmental Protection Agency officials warn of toxic PFAS found in sewage often spread on pasture

Harmful chemicals in sewage sludge spread on pasture as fertilizer pose a risk to people who regularly consume milk, beef and other products from those farms, in some cases raising cancer risk “several orders of magnitude” above what the Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable, federal officials announced on Tuesday.

When cities and towns treat sewage, they separate the liquids from the solids and treat the liquid. The solids need to be disposed of and can make a nutrient-rich sludge often spread on farm fields. The agency now says those solids often contain toxic, lasting PFAS that treatment plants cannot effectively remove. When people eat or drink foods containing these “forever” chemicals, the compounds accumulate in the body and can cause kidney, prostate and testicular cancer. They harm the immune system and childhood development.

Industry-funded research and exaggerated claims litter arguments against stricter regulation

• Cost to clean up toxic PFAS pollution could top £1.6tn in UK and Europe

Efforts to restrict the production of plastic “forever chemicals” that could threaten public health have been met with a large-scale coordinated attack by the multibillion pound industries that make and use them.

Industry-funded research and exaggerated claims litter the arguments made by the fluoropolymer industry against stricter regulation, a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 experts across 16 countries can reveal.

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“To lose on that day was hard to take,” said Liverpool’s head coach of his side’s surprise defeat at the hands of Forest at Anfield. “Now, looking back and seeing where they are in the league, it is not such a shock result as it felt then. They had a good game plan and made us play a poor game. We have to do better. We have to look into the details.”

“We are here to compete against all of the teams and I think we are doing well, but nothing changes in our approach, which stays the same,” said the Forest boss of tonight’s opponents. “We know what we can do and how we want to do things. We know each other, our strengths and weaknesses. So let’s play the game.”

Hamas and Israel ‘in final stages’ of agreement, with Gazans still reeling from fresh deadly airstrikes

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Hopes rose across Gaza on Tuesday that the war that has devastated the territory, killing more than 46,000 and displacing millions, was finally over.

Amid widespread reports that Hamas and Israel were in the “final stages” of agreeing a ceasefire agreement, residents of the embattled territory expressed mixed emotions: hope and fear for the future but pain and grief for the past 15 months.

Some in No 10 wish they had thought a bit more about how it looked before giving job to niece of ousted Bangladesh PM

The warning signs were always there. When a photo of Tulip Siddiq standing alongside Vladimir Putin and her aunt, the now ousted leader of Bangladesh, emerged in 2015, alarm bells rang within the Labour party.

At the time, Siddiq was the Labour candidate for the marginal seat of Hampstead and Kilburn. Yet she brushed aside concerns over her presence at the signing of a billion-dollar arms deal and nuclear power project at the Kremlin two years earlier.

Helen Pitcher resigned from the CCRC saying she had been ‘scapegoated’ over Malkinson’s case

Andrew Malkinson has called the former head of the miscarriage of justice watchdog “shameless” as she resigned from the job saying she had been “scapegoated for entirely legitimate decisions” taken over his case.

Helen Pitcher handed in her resignation as chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) on Tuesday afternoon after learning that an independent panel had concluded by a majority of two to one that she was no longer fit to be chair.

Private efforts to combat wildfires are not just for the superrich – many work for insurers seeking to minimize the policies they’d have to pay out

• California wildfires: live updates

When a wildfire started spreading through the Pacific Palisades last Tuesday morning, employees of Wildfire Defense Systems, which provides “loss intervention services” to insurance companies, were already nearby, Dave Torgerson, the company’s founder, said.

Once they arrived at the scene, the private company’s workers stood back for a while, waiting for the government firefighters to complete the most urgent life-saving efforts. When they got clearance from public fire officials, they started their job, which focuses on protecting insured homes and businesses, Torgerson said.

Democrats outraged as Republicans seek to take advantage of temporary majority before special house election

Democrats in the Minnesota house of representatives refused to show up to start a legislative session on Tuesday in an unprecedented move designed to boycott attempts by Republicans to take advantage of a temporary majority in the chamber.

The house came out of the November election tied 67-67, and top leaders from both parties started to work out a power-sharing agreement that presumed a tie. But a judge late last month declared that a newly elected Democrat did not live in his heavily Democratic district.

Responses range from conciliation to retaliation, including cutting off electricity and halting the purchase of US liquor

Canada’s provincial premiers are sharply divided on how to prepare for US trade tariffs, less than a week before Donald Trump takes office with a threat to dramatically reshape the relationship between the two countries.

Canadian officials have sought to defuse the crisis with personal appeals to the president-elect, multimillion-dollar advertising sprees and targeted threats, but the country remains gripped by uncertainty over how Trump’s tariffs might take effect. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the incoming US administration is weighing hiking tariffs by 2%-5% a month to avoid spiking inflation.

• Pitcher played for Orioles and Cubs during career
• Mother found left-hander’s body at Arizona home

The former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Brian Matusz died at the age of 37 after an apparent drug overdose, according to police documents.

The Orioles announced Matusz’s death last week. According to a report by the Phoenix Police Department obtained by the Baltimore Banner, Matusz’s body was found by his mother, Elizabeth, on 6 January after she went to check on him in his home. A lighter, straw and a small square of aluminum foil, often used for ingesting drugs, were near his body. The report says police are not treating the death as suspicious.

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Exclusive: ‘Grotesque’ footage shows previously undocumented incidents on day PM Sheikh Hasina fled country

Bangladeshi police killed or injured at least 20 unarmed protesters in two previously undocumented incidents during the demonstrations that engulfed the country last year, according to newly examined video footage.

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), a rights group that documents alleged abuses, has analysed video footage of two incidents in Dhaka on 5 August – the day that Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country – and found evidence that officers deliberately targeted peaceful civilians.

Parliament unanimously agrees on three-month extension of security measures after gang warfare kills six last week

Escalating violence in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) has caused the country’s government to extend emergency security measures declared in December, after a week of bloody gang warfare that left at least six dead.

Late on Monday evening, the T&T parliament unanimously agreed on a three-month extension of a state of emergency announced on 30 December after police said they received intelligence about an imminent gang war.

• Michael Lewis, of Denton, Texas, arrested over messages
• Judge rebukes 55-year-old after interruptions

A man charged with stalking and harassing basketball star Caitlin Clark was rebuked after becoming disruptive during a court appearance on Tuesday.

Michael Lewis, of Denton, Texas, was arrested on Monday at a hotel in Indianapolis, where Clark plays for the Indiana Fever, after allegedly sending threatening messages to the WNBA star, some of which were sexual in nature.

Trump’s win scuppered inquiry, but special counsel’s report says president-elect would probably have been convicted

A special counsel report detailing Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday and concluded that the president-elect would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020.

However, Trump’s victory in November’s US presidential election scuppered the investigation.

François Bayrou said France must look global powers ‘face on’ in reference to Donald Trump’s return to office

The French prime minister has said the country must stand firm in the face of figures such as Elon Musk, who represents a “new world disorder”.

In his first policy speech to parliament on Tuesday, François Bayrou, a veteran centrist, said there was “a new world disorder, that threatens all equilibrium and all rules of defence. There are a certain number of people who embody this without complex, such as Elon Musk.”

Region faces ‘extreme fire risk’ warnings and ‘significant risk of rapid fire spread’ as official death toll expected to rise

• California wildfires: live updates

As forecasters warn of another “particularly dangerous weather situation” across northern Los Angeles, residents braced for new wildfire evacuation orders, even as the official death toll from last week’s fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades was still expected to rise.

Los Angeles, and parts of Ventura county to the north, faced “extreme fire risk” warnings through Wednesday, with officials warning of “significant risk of rapid fire spread” due to the Santa Ana winds – which have gusts of up to 75mph – and low humidity. The “particularly dangerous weather situation” designation is used very rarely, and was designed by meteorologists to signal “the extreme of the extremes”.

Families seek justice after a raid on Balata camp in the West Bank resulted in the death of an 80-year-old woman and another civilian

The ambulance pulls up on a narrow street at the Balata Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus in the West Bank, seemingly no different from one of the many emergency vehicles that drive in the area every day. But then five armed Israeli soldiers emerge from the vehicle, going on to take part in a raid that results in the death of two civilians, including an 80-year-old woman, in an incident that Israel’s army admitted constituted “a serious offence … [and] violation of existing orders and procedures”.

The Guardian has reviewed video captured by a surveillance camera, spoken with witnesses and a survivor of the military operation, conducted by the IDF on 19 December 2024 using a hospital vehicle with Palestinian licence plates. It was described by rights groups as a “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the use of medical vehicles to carry out military attacks that result in injury or death of people.