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Manchester derby buildup, a big day for Frank and Nuno, and more – matchday live

  • News, buildup and discussion before day’s action

  • Post a question for Jamie Jackson BTL | Email us here

Manchester City then. They’re having quite the January window, aren’t they?

First Antoine Semenyo and now, seemingly, Marc Guéhi. The latter has not yet completed his move from Crystal Palace, so obviously won’t play in the derby today, but only the final formalities remain before he joins Pep Guardiola’s super-squad.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

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Greenland and Denmark set for anti-Trump protests – Europe live

‘Hands off Greenland’ rallies have been organised in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense and Nuuk

During a wide-ranging 45-minute nearly uninterrupted address in the White House East Room on Friday, Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that do not “go along” with his plans to annex Greenland.

Though his comments on the matter were brief, it was the second time this week the president used the threat of tariffs – he had previously said that he would impose a 25% tax on imports to the US from countries that do business with Iran amid a brutal crackdown by its regime that has left thousands dead and imprisoned tens of thousands.

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© Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

© Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

© Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

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Damien Martyn declares ‘I’m back!’ after leaving hospital following meningitis

In a social media post, the former Australia batter revealed he had been given a ‘50/50 chance of surviving’ and thanked medical staff and well-wishers

Damien Martyn has declared he is back after overcoming a meningitis scare, which he said took his life out of his hands.

In a heartfelt post on his social media accounts, the former Australia batter said he was given a 50% chance to live after battling the disease, which causes an infection and swelling of fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord. The 54-year-old was put into an induced coma on 27 December and was fighting for his life in a Gold Coast intensive care unit until he woke eight days later.

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© Photograph: AAP

© Photograph: AAP

© Photograph: AAP

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‘There is a moment of clarity that life would be better without alcohol’: what we can learn from addiction memoirs

After losing her father to alcohol addiction, author Sophie Calon turned to writing – and found clarity, connection and hope in other stories of relapse and recovery

On the night of Boxing Day 2021, my dad’s body was found near a Cardiff hostel. His death, at 55, was as sudden as it was not. For years, alcoholism had been changing the shape of his heart.

He died less than a mile from his old office; top law firm, equity partner. Four miles from our once tight-knit home in a leafy neighbourhood. He had lost both his family and his job in 2019. Raised in Barry, working class, he had been proud of the beautiful life he had built for us. Others thought he “had it all”. He was widely adored, but drinking made him volatile. He was homeless and often behind bars in his final two years.

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© Photograph: The Outrun Film Ltd/Roy Imer.

© Photograph: The Outrun Film Ltd/Roy Imer.

© Photograph: The Outrun Film Ltd/Roy Imer.

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The hill I will die on: Stag and hen dos should be fun, not bankrupting endurance tests | Liam Pape

Multi-day benders that deplete your mates’ annual leave and wallets are a no-no. Keep it cheeky, cheap and – crucially – enjoyable

A stag or hen do should be a straightforward, fun night celebrating a good friend moving into a new chapter of their life. Instead, thanks to films such as The Hangover and Bridesmaids, as well as the general Americanisation of what a “bachelor” or “bachelorette” party should be, we’ve ended up with too many overindulgent, wildly inconvenient and quite frankly underwhelming send-offs to our friends who are getting married.

Somewhere along the way, they’ve morphed into three-day tests of stamina and disposable income. Groomsmen bankrupting themselves on long weekends in Vegas that are billed as obligatory for anyone who wants to keep calling themselves a friend. Injuries sustained during ill-advised human pyramids on Spanish beaches. Weddings called off after drunken lapses of judgments in strip clubs. To add insult to injury, in 2023, a survey by Aviva found the average person spends £779 attending a stag or hen in the UK – and that goes up to £1,208 when it’s held abroad. Consequently, they’ve become gruelling and – crucially – not even fun any more.

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

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Rory Stewart: ‘A superpower? Indifference to social media abuse’

The former Tory MP and The Rest Is Politics host on a dinosaur he’d bring back to life, being thin-skinned and hating his bandy legs

Born in Hong Kong, Rory Stewart, 53, served as Conservative MP for Penrith and The Border from 2010. He was secretary of state for international development when he launched an unsuccessful bid to become Tory leader in 2019. Later that year, he resigned from the party to stand as an independent in the London mayoral elections. He co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Politics and is the author of prize-winning and ­bestselling books including The Places in Between and Politics on the Edge. His latest is Middleland. He is married with two children and lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
I become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone.

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ken McKay/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ken McKay/Shutterstock

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Emma Raducanu says late-night opener ‘makes no sense’ in swipe at Australia Open

  • British No 1’s first game follows men’s match on Sunday

  • ‘I’m just trying to focus and turn it around for tomorrow’

Emma Raducanu has criticised the Australian Open’s “very difficult” scheduling but remains focused on her game after being lined up to compete in a late-night slot on the opening day.

Raducanu will play her first-round match against Mananchaya Sawangkaew on Sunday night, leaving the British No 1 with minimal time to adjust to the conditions at Melbourne Park after competing in Hobart. With the Sunday start, the Australian Open’s first round is now split across three days, so Raducanu’s first match could have been played on Monday.

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© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

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US House candidate buys nazis.us domain to redirect visitors to homeland security

Mark Davis, running in Florida, says he bought domain because Republican party had gone ‘full fascist’

A Florida congressional candidate says he bought the online domain nazis.us and set it up to redirect visitors to the US Department of Homeland Security, under whom federal agents have been carrying out brutal immigration crackdowns at the behest of the Trump administration.

Mark Davis, who says he is running as a Democrat for Republican Vern Buchanan’s seat in November’s midterms, took responsibility for the ploy in a Friday X post – as polling showed most Americans believe the killing of Minneapolis woman Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent demonstrated problems with the way ICE has been operating.

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© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

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New York Cosmos owner and Mediacom chairman Rocco Commisso dead at 76

Rocco Commisso, the outspoken owner of Italian soccer club Fiorentina and chairman of New York-based Mediacom Communications, has died. He was 76. Both Fiorentina and Mediacom announced Commisso’s death early Saturday without providing a cause. “After a prolonged period of medical treatment, our beloved president has left us, and today we all mourn his passing,” Fiorentina said....

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Alcaraz chases history at Australian Open despite split while women’s draw is open

Sinner is the Spaniard’s clear rival but Swiatek, Rybakina, Bencic, Gauff and others are in Sabalenka’s way

Everyone wants to know exactly why Carlos Alcaraz split up with Juan Carlos Ferrero. It was, by some margin, one of the most surprising coaching separations in the history of tennis, a decision that came with no clear warning immediately after the greatest season of Alcaraz’s career. The discourse has since ranged from his alleged determination to reside exclusively at home in El Palmar, Murcia and train in his home academy, to potential discontent at Ferrero’s absences from numerous tournaments last year.

The coach has offered his own perspective in interviews, repeatedly expressing his sadness at a split he did not want. Alcaraz, however, has opted for silence. His mandatory pre-tournament press conference at the Australian Open on Friday marked his first time publicly speaking about the split, and the 22-year-old offered as little information as possible on the reasons behind it.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

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How hard can it be to run 13 miles? With help from the pub, park and peas I am finding out | Barry Glendenning

Goaded by my colleague into a half-marathon, I can’t say I’m enjoying the training but I’m slowly improving, and at least Great Ormond Street benefits

My name is Barry and I’m a runner. As a clinically obese 52-year-old Irishman who regularly binge drinks (the NHS’s joyless definition, not my own), I would love to be able to say I took up running for health reasons but that would be a lie. Truth be told, I was railroaded into it by my Football Weekly associate Max Rushden, who publicly challenged me to run the London Landmarks Half-Marathon after I had belittled the efforts of a friend who completed it by asking: “How hard can running 13 miles be?” To cut an already short story shorter, in April I hope to plod from Whitehall, past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament across Westminster Bridge, along Victoria Embankment and on to Trafalgar Square in the company of more than 20,000 fellow runners, most of whom should finish in front of me if they have so much as a modicum of shame.

I will be running for Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity, not because of any particularly heartwarming or tragic link I have to this wonderful hospital, but because the bloke in charge of their fundraising heard the gauntlet being thrown down and asked me first. Presumably, that’s why he’s the boss. In return for the £25,096 raised thus far due in no small part to the astonishing generosity of the Football Weekly audience, the charity has sent me a 100% recycled polyester men’s turquoise running singlet bearing a teardrop-shaped logo in which a small and presumably unwell child is smiling and crying simultaneously. It’s 2XL, the biggest size they had available. I don’t think it’s supposed to be skintight.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Illustration: Gary Neill

© Illustration: Gary Neill

© Illustration: Gary Neill

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‘He’s taught me more about living than life itself’: on the road with Niki and Jimmy

At 17 Niki vowed to give her newborn son, born blind and profoundly disabled, the best life she could. Thirty years on she and Jimmy are travelling Australia in a Toyota Troopy, balancing hard-won freedom with constant care

Outside a supermarket in Exmouth, a small town 1,250km north of Perth, a man notices Niki carrying Jimmy on her back. She is 152cm tall and he weighs 45kg. “He should be carrying you!” the man says.

Strangers often misjudge Niki’s son, who is 30 but looks, she says, “like he’s eight or nine”. Jimmy is blind and has panhypopituitarism, a hormonal disorder that affects fewer than one in 100,000 Australians each year. This condition halted his development, leaving him unable to walk or speak, with severe intellectual disability.

Niki hoists Jimmy on to her back for a walk along the beach in Exmouth. She has always carried him

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© Photograph: Brook Mitchell

© Photograph: Brook Mitchell

© Photograph: Brook Mitchell

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Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump

The US president vowed to ‘end childhood cancer’. But his administration is dismantling the search for a cure and sending families scrambling for treatment

For seven years, Jenn Janosko cared for children with cancer on the ninth floor of New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital.

It’s the happiest sad place she knows.

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© Photograph: Danielle Villasana/The Guardian

© Photograph: Danielle Villasana/The Guardian

© Photograph: Danielle Villasana/The Guardian

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