Photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer capture the families, farmers and fishers who have been forced to leave their homes by extreme weather – and the landscapes they left behind. Introduction by Dina Nayeri

In 2009, Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer set out to document the people suffering the first shocks of the climate crisis. They had just returned from China, where rapid, unregulated development has ravaged the natural landscapes. Back home, though, the debate still felt strangely theoretical. “In 2009, you still had people who denied climate change,” Braschler recalls. “People said, ‘This is media hype.’” So the couple, working with the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva and supported by Kofi Annan, began The Human Face of Climate Change, a portrait series that showed the people on the frontline of a warming world.

Sixteen years later, climate change is no longer up for debate; the urgent discussions now revolve around solutions. Braschler and Fischer, too, have shifted their focus. “This is going to be one of the central issues for humanity,” says Braschler, “and we want to make sure that people know that the major effect of climate change will be displacement.”

Venues promoting destruction as stress relief are appearing around the UK but experts – and our correspondent – are unsure

If you find it hard to count to 10 when anger bubbles up, a new trend offers a more hands-on approach. Rage rooms are cropping up across the UK, allowing punters to smash seven bells out of old TVs, plates and furniture.

Such pay-to-destroy ventures are thought to have originated in Japan in 2008, but have since gone global. In the UK alone venues can be found in locations from Birmingham to Brighton, with many promoting destruction as a stress-relieving experience.

US descendants of Harris Neck’s Gullah Geechee families seek the return of ancestral land seized for a wartime airfield

A once thriving Black community along the Georgia coast called Harris Neck is now covered with greenery. During its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area boasted a school house, general store, firehouse and seafood processing plants, and supported 75 Black households on 2,687 acres. The inhabitants were Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of formerly enslaved west Africans, who remained on the Sea Islands along the south-east US where they retained their distinct creole language and culture following the civil war.

In 1942, though, the community was leveled to the ground when the federal government kicked the families off of the land using eminent domain to build an army airfield. For nearly 50 years, the descendants of the Harris Neck community have fought to regain their ancestral land through peaceful protests and lobbying local and federal governments to no avail.

• North Melbourne 9.2.56 defeat Brisbane 2.4.16 in grand final

• Roos create history with first perfect VFL/AFL/AFLW season

North Melbourne have completed a perfect season and become the first AFLW team to win back-to-back premierships with a 40-point win over the Brisbane Lions in the grand final.

Ash Riddell starred in the Kangaroos’ 9.2 (56) to 2.4 (16) triumph at a sold-out Ikon Park on Saturday night, the league’s best-and-fairest winner breaking yet another record with 39 disposals.

Tooth was delighted to capture one of Antony Gormley’s statues on Crosby beach – the dog was an unexpected bonus

Twenty years ago, 100 cast-iron, lifesize sculptures were erected across Liverpool’s Crosby beach. Sculptor Antony Gormley – also the man behind Gateshead’s Angel of the North – had created the figures several years previously, and London-based Roger Tooth had for years wanted to visit the Another Place installation and see them for himself. “I was in Liverpool with my wife and friends for a weekend away, and Sunday was an arty day,” Tooth says. “We began at Walker Art Gallery, and ended with a Guinness in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms. In between we headed the two miles outside the city to the statues. Seeing the rusting figures, all facing the sea amid the moving sands, was stunning.”

This was October 2025 and Storm Amy was in full effect. Tooth notes that it was blowing the sand around, and possibly also this dog. “I was taking a closeup of one of the sculptures when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small white dog bounding towards me,” he says. “I was amazed that an iPhone (and I) could freeze the dog in mid-air.”

The conflict is neither a clear-cut defeat nor a feel-good victory, but an in-between outcome that contains profound elements of each

No one should be satisfied with the unjust peace that Ukraine may be forced to accept. The aggressor would be rewarded with territory and other concessions from the victim it has brutalized. Yet the horrified reaction in Washington to recent peace proposals is troubling in its own right.

The Trump administration’s recent 28-point plan, roundly denounced in Congress and the commentariat as a “capitulation” to Moscow, actually offered Kyiv a remarkable strategic outcome. Under its terms, Ukraine would face no meaningful limit on its peacetime military, despite Russian attempts to impose draconian restrictions since 2022. (The only requirement, a cap of 600,000 personnel, probably exceeds the number of active-duty forces Ukraine would maintain anyway.) Moreover, Ukraine would receive a substantial security guarantee from the United States and Europe – the strongest in history, even if short of a Nato-style commitment.

Stephen Wertheim is Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

Biden earmarked billions for former coal communities in Appalachia – and his successor came and took it away

For a moment, Jacob Hannah saw an unprecedented opportunity to make Appalachia great again.

In 2022, the Biden administration earmarked billions of dollars to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities. The objective was to lay down building blocks for the region to transition from extractive industries like coal and timber to a hub for solar and other advanced energy technologies, with a view to long-term economic, climate and social resilience.

• Chicago rush for 281 in fifth straight win

• Philly fans boo as offense unravels again

• Hurts’ tush-push fumble turns game

Kyle Monangai rushed for 130 yards and a touchdown, D’Andre Swift ran for 125 yards and a score, and the Chicago Bears finished with 281 yards on the ground to win their fifth straight game, 24-15 over the reeling Philadelphia Eagles on Friday night.

Led by rookie coach Ben Johnson, the surprising Bears (9-3) are alone in first place in the NFC North heading into a 7 December showdown at Green Bay.

• Updates from the Kangaroos v Lions women’s decider

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Q1: 16 mins remaining: North Melbourne 0.0.0 – Brisbane 0.0.0

The Lions begin the game just as the would have wanted by winning the first centre clearance and locking the ball forward. The Kangaroos defence looks impenetrable from about 30m out.

Account of visit to Gaza by French professor describes Israeli military attacks on security personnel protecting convoys

A historian who spent more than a month in Gaza at the turn of the year says he saw “utterly convincing” evidence that Israel supported looters who attacked aid convoys during the conflict.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, entered Gaza in December where he was hosted by an international humanitarian organisation in the southern coastal zone of al-Mawasi.

In the wake of the deadly Washington DC shooting, Trump claimed immigrants are ‘destroying everything America stands for’. Here’s what the data shows

Donald Trump’s hateful, falsehood-filled rant on Thursday blaming immigrants for crime, “social dysfunction” and economic hardship is refuted by a wide range of immigration statistics, which show clearly that immigrants dramatically bolster the US economy and commit crimes at far lower rates than people born in the US.

On Thursday evening, Trump condemned immigrants in a broad and vicious invective, painting them as “illegal and disruptive populations” and attacking “those that hate, steal, murder and destroy everything that America stands for”. He vowed to block all migration from “third world countries” to allow the “US system to fully recover”.

The singer on going solo, bringing back George Michael, and why a dog made her rethink motherhood

Born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, 39, was in the duo Slow Club. After 10 years, she went solo as Self Esteem and received Mercury prize, NME and Brit nominations for her second album, 2021’s Prioritise Pleasure. This year, she won the Ivor Novello Visionary award and released a book and album, both called A Complicated Woman. In March, she stars in David Hare’s Teeth ’n’ Smiles at the Duke of York’s theatre, London. She lives in London with her partner.

When were you happiest?
Five to 10, when I was just playing out and I didn’t realise I was a girl. Before my boobs came in, basically.

A harrowing US podcast documents a community’s struggle against immigration raids – and warns us about herd mentality

Earlier this year, the Trump administration reversed the convention that nobody would be snatched by immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, by a school, church or hospital. Since then, teachers have reported classrooms a third empty, as parents are too scared to send their kids in – volunteers walk them there and back.

In the Rogers Park area of Chicago, a group of citizens are organising to resist such immigration raids. Sometimes, it’s simple non-violent tactics, such as slowing officers down by walking in front of them. Last month, 50 people rushed to a church, where the congregation was trapped, having got word that there were ICE agents waiting outside. Maybe their most evocative tactic is whistles – coded blasts for when a convoy is suspected to be ICE agents, a different code when it’s confirmed. They have numerous accounts of undocumented migrants warned off driving right into a raid, which is galvanising, but they also see and hear dismaying things all the time: vehicles standing empty, one door open, not robbed, merely relieved of their drivers; landscape gardeners arrested off ladders. Earlier this month, the Protect Rogers Park group got 1,500 calls in a day.

• News and discussion as we build up to the day’s action

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Paris Saint-Germain head to Monaco in Ligue 1 today and the hosts’ confidence has been low. The lack of confidence within Sébastien Pocognoli’s side was clear on Wednesday, when Monaco drew 2-2 with Pafos in the Champions League, twice letting the lead slip.

The eight-time French champions have won only one of its past five matches across all competitions, with Pocognoli saying he is still struggling to find the right formula since replacing Adi Hütter in October.

We have too many variations in character and it’s up to me to bring that under control. I’ve been working on it for a month. I’m trying to understand [the team], push it and stimulate it, it’s something that takes time.

Vitinha is growing and the team also. He’s so special, so different. I’m very happy for him because he deserves that. He works so hard, shows such personality.

[Pedri] will play some minutes, but [won’t be in the starting] lineup. If it’s possible, then he will come on in the second half. We’ll see. [Araújo] has a stomach virus, and he’s out for today and also for tomorrow.

I missed [Raphinha]. I see him as one of the most important players in our team … he also has the hunger and the will to show how good he really is.

I really appreciate what I see in training. We’re focused, we have a lot of quality. And of course, players coming back now, Pedri is back … Raphinha, Marcus [Rashford] from the cold he had. We nearly have everyone.”

I was also a player and maybe sometimes I did not show the right reaction. But it’s emotion.

The next step for Lamine must be to show, again, it’s not about this match, forget it. Alavés is now the important thing and he has to show his best level.

Welsh government grants used to fund football club even though it is owned by wealthy movie stars

Wrexham AFC has risen meteorically through the English football leagues thanks to the deep pockets of Hollywood movie star owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Yet the club has also had £18m in help from other, unwitting backers: Welsh taxpayers.

The club has received almost £18m in nonrepayable grants from the Welsh government via the local council, according to UK government state aid disclosures – far in excess of the direct aid listed for any other football club in Britain.

Democracy, birds and hangover cures – famous fans put their questions to the visionary author

After the ­phenomenal global success, not to mention timeliness, of the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2017, Margaret Atwood has been regarded as “a combination of figurehead, prophet and saint”, the author writes in her new memoir Book of Lives. Over 600 pages this “memoir of sorts” ranges from her childhood growing up in the Canadian backwoods to her grief at the death of her partner of 48 years, the writer Graeme Gibson, in 2019, with many friendships, the occasional spat and more than 50 books (including Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and the Booker prizewinning The Blind Assassin and The Testaments) in between.

The author, who turned 86 last week, always likes to take the long view, often from a couple of centuries’ distance. As Rebecca Solnit notes below, she now has a long view of our times. Age and the freedom of being a writer (as she says, she can’t get sacked) make her fearless in speaking out.

More than 300 people killed on Indonesia’s Sumatra island with 162 reported dead across Thailand

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in south-east Asia reportedly climbed past 460 on Saturday as clean-up and search-and-rescue operations got under way in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swathes of the three countries this week, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded, many on rooftops awaiting rescue.

There have been many good points – challenging orthodoxies and Ben Stokes talking openly about male emotions – and even when it was bad, it was unignorable

The Life Cycle of a Cult
1. The Big Idea. A charismatic leader or leaders propose a new and transcendent idea that promises a panacea for alienated and vulnerable people.

So here we are then. They’re getting ready to storm the compound down in Brisbane. The gunships are circling. Smoke is rising from the out-houses. A lone figure, naked, shivering, the words HIGH RELEASE POINT smeared across his chest in chicken blood, has come staggering through the lines and is being led away under a blanket towards an inconclusive loan stint at Derbyshire.

Enzo Maresca’s young side face league leaders Arsenal on Sunday on a high but have moved on from the emotional swings of old

The worst way for Chelsea to respond to their demolition of Barcelona would be to believe the hype. The problem is that emotions in football swing from one extreme to another, as the people running things at Stamford Bridge have quickly come to appreciate.

They have faced plenty of ridicule for their alternative approach since buying the club from Roman Abramovich three years ago, so perhaps they are entitled to be a little sceptical now that Chelsea are being praised for their transfer strategy and talked up as potential title challengers before hosting Arsenal on Sunday.

Troubled times at Carrington as the club proud of producing the next generation of stars is in flux under fresh leadership

The standards of Manchester United’s academy have “really slipped” in recent years, according to Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The club is renowned as one of the world’s best schools for young players, so the words of the man at the top of the football operation will have stung those trying to create the next generation of stars.

The academy is in flux after Nick Cox, its long-time leader, left in September to become technical director at Everton. His replacement, Steve Torpey, joined from Brentford and is an ally of United’s director of football, Jason Wilcox. The pair worked together at Manchester City and the introduction of another former employee from there implies a literal blueprint is being followed.

It may not be as glamorous as Monaco, but it was on the raceway where a seven-year-old Norris first caught the eye of motor sport trainers

Monaco, Las Vegas, Singapore. The list of pitstops on Lando Norris’ road to the top of Formula One is like a luxury travel agent’s catalogue.

So when I was asked to trace the young man’s journey ahead of a weekend in which he could become the first British champion driver since Lewis Hamilton, my hopes were high.

Dawn Butler leads calls for humanitarian visas and fee waivers for vulnerable relatives of UK nationals affected by storm

British MPs have joined campaigners calling for more aid and humanitarian visas for Jamaicans to enter the UK after Hurricane Melissa demolished parts of the country, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into a humanitarian crisis.

The UK has pledged £7.5m emergency funds to Jamaica and other islands affected by the hurricane, but many argue that the country has a moral obligation to do more for former Caribbean colonies.