Russia said its latest nuclear-capable missile system has been deployed in Belarus, a day after Moscow claimed that Ukraine had carried out a large-scale drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence.
Footage released by Russia’s ministry of defence showed the new Oreshnik missile trundling through a snowy forest. Soldiers were seen disguising combat vehicles with green netting and raising a flag at an airbase in eastern Belarus, close to the Russian border.
A power outage in the Channel tunnel has disrupted thousands of journeys ahead of the new year celebrations, with all passenger and vehicle trains suspended for several hours while engineers raced to repair the fault.
As Eurostar foot passenger departures for the continent were first delayed, then cancelled, the halls of St Pancras International station in London filled with stranded travellers awaiting updates. At Folkestone in Kent, tailbacks formed as drivers hoping to catch the shuttle faced seven-hour delays.
In a statement shared on Instagram, Nguyen says she faced a ‘tsunami of harassment’ after the all-female spaceflight
Amanda Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American astronaut who was part of the all-female Blue Origin spaceflight, has opened up about her depression after she experienced a “tsunami of harassment” after the trip, in which she became the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.
Nguyen, 34, was part of April’s historic 11-minute flight, whose crew included pop star Katy Perry, broadcast journalist Gayle King, and journalist and wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez. The flight was heavily criticized for its environmental impact and critics questioned its purpose and use of resources.
A 3-2 series scoreline may make it hard to change coach but you don’t reward a failure of planning because the players clawed a bit back when it was too late
There’s a good origins-story-style video in the Sky Sports masterclass archive. Filmed at Edgbaston in 2016, it shows the blue-sky brothers, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key, back when the world was still young, looking sharp and chiselled, laughing and joshing on the outfield, and nominally discussing how to bat in T20 cricket.
And yes, the chemistry, well, the chemistry is overpowering. It almost feels like a romantic intrusion, the viewer cast as gooseberry. This is Coldplay kiss-cam energy. This is like watching Bacall and Bogart fall in love on screen. You know how to whistle don’t you, Keysey? You just put your lips together and enter into a transcendent game state.
RNLI tells people to consider their health, cold water effects and weather conditions after disappearance of two swimmers on Christmas Day
People planning on welcoming the new year by braving the British weather for a swim in the sea have been warned of the dangers after the disappearance of two swimmers on Christmas Day.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution said the effects of cold-water shock combined with weather conditions pose a risk to anyone entering water that is 15C or below. At this time of year, the average sea temperature around the UK and Ireland is 6C to 10C.
President calls for talks with leaders of demonstrations caused by decline in currency and living standards
Iran’s government has called for dialogue with protest leaders after the country’s largest demonstrations in three years over a plunging currency and declining living conditions.
Protests started on Sunday after Iran’s currency fell to a record low against the US dollar, causing traders and shopkeepers to close their stores in downtown Tehran. This was accompanied by mass protests in the capital as well as in major cities, including Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad.
Mamdani to take oath of office on New Year’s Eve in Gilded Age subway station beneath city hall
While tens of thousands of New Yorkers will be in Times Square for countdown to 2026, the city’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has said he will be sworn into office in an underground midnight private ceremony at an abandoned subway station built during the Gilded Age.
Mamdani, 34, plans to take the oath of office on New Year’s Eve in a disused subway station beneath city hall which acts as turnaround for the local 5 train. The unusual choice of venue for the ceremony, Mamdani said, is symbolically resonant of the “inauguration of a new era”.
Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today, how US foreign policy has dramatically – and alarmingly – turned towards Latin America and the Caribbean
Donald Trump is not generally noted as a student of history. Yet over the past year, his decisive reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Americas has revived a playbook dating back two centuries, to the fifth president, James Monroe. Now the 47th is doubling down. An anti-interventionist is having second thoughts. Remarks that sounded at first like bad jokes or random outbursts from the presidential id have become more sinister through repetition or accompanying actions. Only a fool would take all of Mr Trump’s comments literally – but they should certainly be taken seriously.
He has refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state. He threatened to seize the Panama canal. He has imposed swingeing tariffs on key partners, and says he might abandon the Canada-Mexico trade pact signed in his first term. He has meddled outrageously in elections in Honduras and Argentina, and sought to interfere with Brazilian justice. He imposed sanctions on Colombia’s president in October. He has launched deadly attacks on alleged drug boats in international waters – extrajudicial killings that the administration has sought to legitimise by arbitrarily designating traffickers as terrorists – and threatened military strikes on Mexico, Venezuela and any other country he blames for drugs consumed in the US.
Debutant continues stunning run to reach quarter-finals
‘I’m not used to it. I usually get hate messages. It’s mad’
The underdog Justin Hood reeled off a record 11 consecutive doubles en route to a stunning 4-0 win over Josh Rock in the last 16 of the PDC World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace.
The 32-year-old debutant continued his stunning run in the tournament and missed his first double when he threw for the match at 2-0 up in the fourth set. He stepped back to take out the match on a 119 finish in the following leg, guaranteeing a career-best payday of at least £100,000 and taking him closer to his dream of opening a Chinese restaurant.
Dispute has potential to create civil war in south of Yemen and spill over into neighbouring countries
Tensions between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia over the future of Yemen and the imminent possibility of the declaration of an independent southern state have reached boiling point with Saudi Arabia in effect accusing the UAE of threatening its future security.
The dispute has the potential to create a civil war within the south of Yemen and also spill over into other disputes including in Sudan and the Horn of Africa where the two countries often find themselves backing opposite sides. Yemen could yet become only one theatre in which the two vastly wealthy Gulf states vie for political influence, control of shipping lanes and commercial access.
Growing numbers of institutions now offering lifelong careers support as older alumni seek help to change jobs
University careers advisers are used to steering fresh-faced students towards the labour market – but they are now increasingly seeing graduates in their 40s and 50s looking for help to revive their careers.
More UK universities are now giving their graduates lifelong access to campus careers services, including advice with job applications and interview preparation as well as helping to find new opportunities for those who feel stuck.
Nikola Jokić is only going to miss a few weeks, which is surely cause for the Denver Nuggets to take a giant sigh of relief.
The Nuggets’ superstar center has been diagnosed with a hyperextended left knee, the team said Tuesday, adding that the three-time MVP will be re-evaluated in four weeks.
Frigid temperatures in Great Lakes, north-east and midwest as tens of thousands face power outages and icy travel
A wild winter storm brought strong winds, heavy snow and frigid temperatures to the Great Lakes and north-east on Tuesday, a day after a bomb cyclone barreled across the midwest and left tens of thousands of customers without power.
The storm hit parts of the Plains and Great Lakes on Monday with sharply colder air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain, leading to treacherous travel. Forecasters said it intensified quickly enough to meet the criteria of a bomb cyclone, a system that strengthens rapidly as pressure drops.
Symptoms of the virus include diarrhea and vomiting and it infects about 684 million people globally every year
Norovirus is the term for a family of about 50 strains of virus that all share one miserable endpoint: copious time in the bathroom. Every year, an estimated 684 million people globally come down with it.
Norovirus is a kind of infectious gastroenteritis, “an inflammation of the bowel and the colon that can cause diarrhea” and vomiting, explains Dr Ambreen Allana, an infectious disease physician based in Texas.
Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warns against granting legal rights to cutting-edge technology
A pioneer of AI has criticised calls to grant the technology rights, warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed.
Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain them.
After years of worrying that running or sneezing would leave me needing fresh underwear, a quick, minimally invasive procedure changed my life
Some of my earliest memories feature my mother’s leotard-encased body bouncing to Jane Fonda with abandon. A similar carefree fluidity prevailed a decade later, as her feet struck hard-packed sand on a shorebreak jog. Twelve-year-old me panted alongside, so desperate to be made in her image that I tolerated heated cheeks and shaking quads. Their trembling barely subsided during the one stop we made, for her to wade into the waves and pee.
But it got easier to keep up after she gave birth to my youngest brother, with her squatting in the bushes every 10 minutes or so. Soon, even that wasn’t enough to staunch the flow. She gave up and switched to hiking. “I should have done more Kegels,” she quipped.
Archives reveal options considered by Tony Blair’s government for dealing with Zimbabwean dictator in 2004
The Foreign Office cautioned against UK military intervention to overthrow the former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in 2004, advising it was not a “serious option”, recently released documents show.
Policy papers show Tony Blair’s government weighed up options on how best to handle the “depressingly healthy” 80-year-old dictator, who refused to step down while the country descended into violence and economic chaos.
Despite the WI explicitly warning they were “wary of anything that smacked of capital P politics”, Blair’s aides were critical of his first draft and bombarded him with additions to inject more policy.
Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it
In the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.
This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling.
Raphael Onyedika scored twice to help Nigeria through with a 100% record against 10-man Uganda, who are out
6 min: Uganda have started well here. Mutyaba, wearing the No 10 shirt, is popping it around with a lot of confidence.
4 min: An early booking for Calvin Bassey, who rugby tackles Ikpeazu to the ground, with the Uganda striker threatening to run through on goal. That is going to be some tussle – Bassey and Ikpeazu are both absolute units. From the resulting free-kick, Mato wastes the chance for Uganda with something that was neither a cross nor a shot.
Despite Charles’s welcome openness about his cancer, polls show declining support for the monarchy. To survive, the royals now need to lift the curtain on their finances
Anna Whitelock is a professor of the history of modern monarchy at City St Georges, University of London
This year, as King Charles gathered with the royal family for their traditional Christmas at Sandringham, he had much to reflect on. Certainly, the news that his cancer treatment will be scaled back has come as a welcome personal relief, but it will also present opportunities for further overseas travel next year, likely to include a state visit to the US to mark the 250th anniversary of its foundation.
It has been a year that has seen the king grow into the role of a silent but effective diplomat, navigating Donald Trump’s visit while demonstrating the UK’s support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Overseas trips have included a historic visit to the Vatican to pray publicly with the pope, and successful visits as head of state to Canada – shortly after Trump had suggested it might become the US’s 51st state – and to Australia. Moreover, the king has hosted the biggest number of inward state visits to the UK for almost 40 years. For his use of the monarchy’s soft power to support UK foreign policy and strengthen international relations, Charles has won plaudits.
Anna Whitelock is a professor of the history of modern monarchy at City St Georges, University of London
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