City second after six straight Premier League wins
‘We have to improve but this mindset is better’
Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City have regained the energy that eluded them last season and lifted the “fog” that clouded a disappointing campaign. City finished without a major trophy for the first time since 2016-17, Guardiola’s first in charge, but are hunting a seventh Premier League title under him after six straight wins.
Rayan Cherki struck late on at Nottingham Forest on Saturday to maintain City’s impressive winning run, which extends to eight in all competitions. Second-placed City are two points behind leaders Arsenal, who host third-placed Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday. City do not return to action until Thursday, when they face high-flying Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
Forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing NHS trusts to better plan staffing and bed space
Hospitals in England are using articificial intelligence to help cut waiting times in emergency departments this winter.
The A&E forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing trusts to better plan staffing and bed space. The prediction algorithm is trained on historical data including weather trends, school holidays, and rates of flu and Covidto determine how many people are likely to visit A&E.
Our grim fascination with the doomed ship shows no sign of abating – so here’s a four-parter which makes it feel like you’re onboard. A truly intense watch
April 2026 will mark 114 years since the night that the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg, but our grim fascination with the disaster shows no sign of abating. There was, of course, a surge of interest in the Titanic in the late 90s – thanks to James Cameron’s Oscar-bothering blockbuster – and there has been a steady stream of documentaries, dramas and podcasts about its demise ever since, some more sensitive than others (among the less tactful offerings: the 2010 film Titanic II – directed by Dick Van Dyke’s grandson Shane – a cash-in about a replica ship ravaged by a tsunami). Occasionally, the subject matter lurches starkly from the past back into the present. In June 2023, five people died on board an experimental submersible made by the company OceanGate; its passengers had hoped to see the liner’s rusting wreckage up close.
Titanic Sinks Tonight is a part-documentary, part-drama series playing across four nights, its episodes constructed from letters and diaries written by those on board, as well as interviews the survivors would give in the decades after. On the strength of the two episodes released for review, there’s no denying that it sates our appetite for Titanic-themed content. However, in centring the words and memories of those who lived through the terror of that night, it restores much-needed agency to those people. It also does well to bring a sense of reality to events that can sometimes feel unreal on account of their ubiquity, and that uncanny valley of Titanic-themed media. Central to its success is the presence of experts such as historian Suzannah Lipscomb and former Royal Navy admiral Lord West, to sharpen the corners of the story that Hollywood has sanded down.
If Josh Tongue and Brydon Carse can repeat their MCG displays, this may be more than a marriage of convenience
What does it mean? How should we feel? What are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? For most of its combined 142 overs, watching England’s fourth Test victory in Melbourne felt like drifting in and out of a drunken sleep while trying and failing to follow the plot of a particularly gruelling action movie.
Why is this car chase happening? Why is The Rock defusing a torpedo inside a collapsing Maya temple? Why are they running to the top of the nearest generic tall building for this final, final, final showdown? Wait. Will Jacks is playing?
He’s just turned 55. He hasn’t won a major in seven years. He doesn’t practise anywhere near as much as he used to, wouldn’t do the Premier League even if he won the world championship, and secretly wouldn’t mind losing so he could get home to see the kids. And still. In this or any year, dare you count out Gary Anderson?
Over seven taut sets in which both players occasionally touched the hem of greatness, the 2015 and 2016 world champion edged out the rapid Jermaine Wattimena of the Netherlands, winning a nerve-shredding deciding set by five legs to three. The pace was pleasingly frenetic, the standard sublime, the cinema unrivalled. Remarkably it was exactly the same scoreline by which Anderson beat Wattimena in the same third round eight years ago. “I was getting palpitations, never mind flashbacks,” Anderson joked.
Balkan country will become 21st country to adopt EU currency, with policymakers hoping move will boost economy
Bulgaria is preparing to adopt the euro in January amid fresh domestic political turbulence and fears that Russia-aligned disinformation is deepening distrust of the new currency.
The Balkan country of 6.5 million people will become the 21st country to join the eurozone on 1 January, as policymakers in Brussels and Sofia hope it will boost the economy of the EU’s poorest nation and cement its pro-western trajectory.
An Australian cruise ship being investigated after allegedly leaving behind a passenger who died alone has run aground off the coast of Papua New Guinea with more than 120 people aboard.
The Coral Adventurer ran aground early on Saturday morning, about 30km from PNG’s second-largest city, Lae. The vessel’s operator, Coral Expeditions, said no one was hurt in the incident.
Liu De-wen operates at a sensitive space in Taiwan’s history, as Beijing demands reunification with the island
In the leafy back blocks of a military cemetery in northern Taiwan, Liu De-wen strides through a room holding rows and rows of shelves. He stops and stoops to the lowest row, opening a small, ornate gold door. He pulls out an urn, bundles it into his lap, and hugs it.
“Grandpa Lin, follow me closely,” Liu says. “I am bringing you back home to Fujian as you wished. Stay close.”
Snowy holiday season in the upper midwest and north-east comes as a cold front is expected to hit the south
A powerful winter storm was sweeping east from the Plains on Sunday, driven by what meteorologists describe as an intense cyclone that is expected to impact much of the US with a mixture of snow, ice, rain and strong winds.
“Part of the storm system is getting heavy snow, other parts of the storm along the cold front are getting higher winds and much colder temperatures as the front passes,” said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in College Park, Maryland. “They’re all related to each other – different parts of the country will be receiving different effects from this storm.”
Manager may have taken club as far as he can while Archie Gray offers hope to Tottenham and Thomas Frank
Perhaps it’s appropriate that the last Premier League game of the Christmas weekend shouldn’t be a thriller. You’ve spent four days eating and drinking, the belly is straining at the belt, work is looming on Monday and there’s a dreadful sense that the holiday is over and you’ll soon have to get back to mundane chores: defrosting the freezer, filing the tax return, shopping for real food that might actually have some nutritional value.
For neutrals, this was the ideal game for dozing through on the sofa. Very little happened, and almost none of what did was pleasing on the eye, with the possible exception of the two passages of play Tottenham put together that led to Richarlison scoring goals that were subsequently ruled out for offside. At the start of play it was ninth v 14th and in the first half especially, it looked like it. It was bitty, scrappy, ugly, and included many of the worst elements of Long Throw Britain.
Chiefs move to within a point of leaders Northampton
There is still a long way to go but Exeter would have settled for their current position back in the summer. Second place in the Prem table heading into 2026 with momentum building nicely is a very different story from last season’s grim struggle and, in front of a 15,000 capacity crowd, here was another example of exactly why they are a developing force.
While this was not quite as compelling as their pre-Christmas raid on Saracens, the Chiefs could conceivably have registered another half-dozen tries in the absence of Len Ikitau, their injured Wallaby centre. Another barnstorming display from No 8 Greg Fisilau set the standard and the whole side showed enough physicality and defensive hunger to leave the Tigers to survive on seasonal scraps.
The two most recent winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup were among the 11 runners for the Grade One Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Sunday but neither could match the strength and resilience of a resurgent Affordale Fury, as Noel Meade’s seven-year-old made his breakthrough at the highest level after an injury-plagued career to date.
Affordale Fury was the 150-1 runner-up in the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March 2023, but his career since has included breaks of 438 and 241 days and Sunday’s race was just his fifth chase start outside novice company.
Donald Trump has said talks to end the war in Ukraine are in their “final stages” as he sat down for a meeting on Sunday with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Florida, and insisted that Vladimir Putin was ready to make a peace deal.
Trump met Ukraine’s president outside his Mar-a-Lago residence and claimed both warring sides were close to an agreement. Hours earlier the US president held a lengthy phone call with Putin and said he would ring the Kremlin again once talks had concluded.
Steelers miss chance to win AFC North in defeat Drop Graham a line with your thoughts
Panthers 0-0 Seahawks 12:51, 1st quarter
After a Carolina punt they almost pick off Sam Darnold on their first play then the QB throws one in the dirt. On 3 & 10 the crowd get loud but Darnold hits his favourite target Jaxson Smith-Njigba for 13 yards and the 1st down. Phew.
4 min: A bit of an exciting start. Côte d’Ivoire have settled the quicker.
2 min: Off the post, I think?! Côte d’Ivoire head down the left, Konan swings a cross towards the back post and it looks like it glances off the upright and away from danger.
Hammonton police responded to a report of a midair crash that engulfed one helicopter in flames on Sunday morning
One person is dead and another has been left critically injured after two helicopters crashed in a southern New Jersey town.
Hammonton police chief Kevin Friel said rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11.25am. Video from the scene shows a helicopter spinning rapidly to the ground. Police and fire crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed one of the helicopters.
Manchester United are set to complete the signing of the Germany striker Lea Schüller on a permanent transfer from Bayern Munich.
Schüller, who has six months left on her contract, has been a prolific goalscorer for club and country, scoring more than 100 goals for Bayern and 54 times in 82 games for her country, and she will be seen as a marquee signing for the Women’s Super League side.
Republican senator Katie Britt also proposes AI companies be criminally liable if they expose minors to harmful ideas
US senator Bernie Sanders amplified his recent criticism of artificial intelligence on Sunday, explicitly linking the financial ambition of “the richest people in the world” to economic insecurity for millions of Americans – and calling for a potential moratorium on new datacenters.
Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democratic party, said on CNN’s State of the Union that he was “fearful of a lot” when it came to AI. And the senator called it “the most consequential technology in the history of humanity” that will “transform” the US and the world in ways that had not been fully discussed.
Eighteen months can be a very long time in football – especially if you are still a teenager.
After a mixed start to life in north London, Archie Gray could not have picked a better occasion to score his first Tottenham goal since joining from Leeds in the summer of 2024 than his 60th appearance. With Thomas Frank already showing signs of not being the first Spurs manager to have been overwhelmed by expectations, after a run of just one win in their previous eight Premier League matches, Gray’s scrappy header in the first half ensured a topsy-turvy year ended with a victory that lifts his side to within one point of Crystal Palace in the table.
Nick Kyrgios won 6-3, 6-3 against Aryna Sabalenka in an intriguing Dubai contest with celebrity interruptions
Nick Kyrgios won tennis’s latest Battle of the Sexes against Aryna Sabalenka in a dispiriting contest in Dubai that veered uneasily between exhibition, gimmick and outright circus.
The Australian, who has won only one competitive singles match since the end of 2022 and has slipped to 671 in the world rankings, was sweating heavily and breathing hard as early as the fifth game of the match. Yet to no one’s great surprise, the extreme power of his serve, combined with the spin and velocity of his groundstrokes, proved too much for the women’s No 1 player.
Authorities remove beam placed on Christmas Day to recreate Eisbach wave, which vanished in October
A row over the disappearance of a famous river surfing wave in Munich has escalated after authorities removed a beam inserted over Christmas to recreate the attraction.
The Eisbach wave on a side branch of the Isar River had been a landmark in the Bavarian city since the 1980s but it vanished in October after annual cleanup work along the riverbed.
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