Second highest annual number of irregular arrivals on record reached British shores in 2025
More than 41,000 people crossed the Channel in small boats last year, figures branded “shameful” by the Home Office have revealed.
The government said 41,472 people arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in 2025 – the second highest number on record after 45,774 made the journey in 2022.
Chris Powell is an election strategy analyst and advised the Labour party for more than 20 years
The next general election will be no ordinary democratic contest. Not the usual swing of the pendulum this way or that. It will be a key moment in the history of our democracy – and it could be less than three years away.
Be in no doubt: populists represent a new and terrifying threat to the kind of free elections and free society we cherish, but now take for granted.
Chris Powell is an election strategy analyst and advised the Labour party for more than 20 years. David Cowan, who co-authored this article, is founder of Forensics, a data and consumer research consultancy. They are co-founders of winningagainstpopulists.com
Abortion was seen as one of Democrats’ strongest issues in the 2024 election – new polls indicate that may be shifting
Up to seven states will vote on abortion rights this year. But recent polling indicates that Democrats may not be able to count onthe issue in their efforts todrive votes in the 2026 midterms, after makingabortion rightsthe centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the elections that followedthe fall of Roe v Wade.
In 2024, 55% of Democrats said abortion was important to their vote, according to polling from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). But in October of this year, just 36% of Democrats said the same. By contrast, abortion remained about as important to Republicans in both 2024 and 2025, PRRI found. PRRI’s findings mirror a September poll from the 19th and SurveyMonkey, which found that the voters who cared most about abortion are people who want to see it banned.
“I always think of these opponents for the Tony Yeboah goal,” emails Andy O’Shaughnessy. “I had started a job in Bristol and wandered into one packed pub - when Tony scored. Thirty years later it’s still iconic.”
England’s World Cup-winning coach says Ashes series has been ‘a disappointment’ and that a harder mentality in Australian youth cricket could be a factor
Trevor Bayliss will be among those watching the fifth Ashes Test at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground this Sunday. But even as the head coach responsible for delivering the World Cup in 2019, the majority of England fans who walk past him will probably do so without so much as a double take.
This was very much the Australian’s way when sporting the Three Lions on his training kit for five years – low key and forever dodging the spotlight under that wide-brimmed hat. Even crediting Bayliss for that World Cup – or the Ashes win in 2015 – cuts against his mantra that players alone deserve the glory. Coaches, he always stressed, are simply there to facilitate.
Nationwide protests against living conditions enter fifth day with security forces reportedly using live ammunition
The largest protests in Iran for three years entered a fifth day on Thursday amid reports of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces, with state-affiliated media confirming at least two people had been killed.
Although state media did not identify those killed, witnesses and videos circulating on social media appear to show protesters lying motionless on the ground after security forces opened fire.
British charitable trust that draws on OxyContin-maker fortune says it exempted names to protect reputations
Two charities that received a combined total of more than £1.1m from the British charitable trust run by the Sackler family were kept out of its latest accounts to protect their reputations from “serious prejudice”.
The trust, which draws on the Sackler fortune that came out of the US opioid crisis, gave £3.8m to arts, eduction and science bodies in 2024, according to its latest accounts, filed on New Year’s Eve.
Scot chasing third world title, 10 years after last triumph
Searle talks about playing through eye condition on oche
Gary Anderson returned to the World Championship semi-finals for the first time in four years after ending Justin Hood’s dream debut run.
The 55-year-old is enjoying a renaissance and is now just two wins away from lifting a third world title, 10 years after his last. If he can do so, he would become the oldest player to lift the PDC world title and join Michael van Gerwen in second place in the all-time list of champions.
Sheldon Whitehouse, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, remains undeterred and determined to press on with his investigation
“That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.”
Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at 11am on Thursday 18 December. Two hours later, his words proved prophetic. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, announced on X that the Kennedy Center board had “voted unanimously” to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
It is an all-too-familiar scenario: you reheat a bowl of last night’s noodles for lunch, devour it, then return to your desk and gradually droop over the course of the afternoon, to the point at which you are battling to keep your eyes open. Or perhaps you struggle with energy on waking up; or, after a busy start and strong coffee first thing, you begin to fade mid-morning. Or, like me, after dinner in the winter months, you are completely lethargic.
How common are such peaks and troughs in our energy levels? “If you’re having an active day, then you will naturally get tired because we are human, we’re not machines,” says Dr Linia Patel, a dietitian and nutritionist. “Getting tired at the end of the day, before you go to bed, is perfect. But getting tired at your desk is not great.” Chronic tiredness is something to see a doctor about, says Patel, as it could be a symptom of illness.
Historic trawler and floating lighthouse among East Yorkshire city’s attractions as it gears up for tourism boost
A combination of a world record-breaking trawler, a floating lighthouse and a dizzying array of maritime objects that include a stuffed polar bear called Erik are all helping to make Hull one of the top 25 places in the world to visit in 2026.
The East Yorkshire city is on the verge of completing an ambitious £70m transformation, which, supporters believe, will propel it into becoming an international tourist destination.
South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause
Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths.
Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.
Ukraine has not commented on attack on cafe and hotel that comes despite ‘productive’ ongoing peace talks
A Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russian officials said, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.
Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday. He said one of the drones was carrying an incendiary mixture that sparked a blaze.
From Agatha Christie doing the dishes to the cancer surgeon inspired at the theatre, an idling brain suddenly seems able to join the dots
If you really want to solve a problem, try doing nothing about it. Fold some laundry. Stir a risotto. Go for a run, watch a film, try to entertain someone else’s baby: anything that involves pottering about in an undemanding yet still vaguely engaged way, which absolutely couldn’t be classed as work but isn’t totally vegetative either. It may not be the productivity hack any go-getter wants to hear, but it’s surprising how often a spell of aimless noodling around frees an otherwise overworked human brain to make the kind of lateral mental leap that helps everything fall into place. And I’m not just saying that to justify a New Year’s Day spent lying hungover on the sofa, ploughing through the last of the Christmas cheese.
For the eminent cancer surgeon Michael Baum, it was a night off with his wife at the theatre that allowed him to suddenly join the dots. After watching a scene in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia where one character explains chaos theory to another, Baum had his own personal eureka moment: what if this mathematical concept, used to describe complex systems that may seem haphazard but have a hidden underlying pattern to them, could also explain the otherwise puzzling way in which cancer grows and spreads? The result of that one stray thought as the interval curtain rose was an innovation in chemotherapy, and a gratifying rise in survival rates.
President auctioned off portrait painted live onstage and said his new year’s resolution was ‘peace on Earth’
Donald Trump welcomed 2026 with a glitzy bash at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach where he auctioned off a freshly painted portrait of Jesus Christ for $2.75m and said his new year’s resolution was a wish for “peace on Earth”.
The portrait of Jesus had been painted onstage by artist Vanessa Horabuena who, the president said, was “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world”.
Complaint argues Trump administration denying coverage of gender-affirming care is sex-based discrimination
The Trump administration is facing a new legal complaint from a group of government employees who are affected by a new policy going into effect Thursday that eliminates coverage for gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programs.
The complaint, filed Thursday on the employees’ behalf by the Human Rights Campaign, is in response to an August announcement from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that it would no longer cover “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” in health insurance programs for federal employees and US Postal Service workers.
Company had hoped the virtual reality device would herald a new era in ‘spatial computing’
Poor sales have reportedly forced Apple to cut production of the Vision Pro headset that it had hoped would herald a new era in “spatial computing”.
The tech company also reduced marketing for Vision Pro by more than 95% last year, according to the market intelligence group Sensor Tower in figures first reported by the Financial Times.
Harvey/Rubin/Dennis/Williams/Talea Ensemble/Goren (Pentatone) This early work by Nadia Boulanger - better known as the influential teacher – was never performed and survived only in vocal score. Despite the best efforts of conductor Neal Goren and his hard-working cast it never quite coheres
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) is best remembered now as a hugely influential teacher, who spread the gospel of neoclassicism through several generations of composers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was also a conductor and organist, and at the beginning of her career, at least, had ambitions as a composer in her own right, which she largely abandoned in the early 1920s some years after the deaths of both her enormously talented younger sister Lili, and her mentor, the pianist and composer Raoul Pugno.
It was in collaboration with Pugno that Boulanger composed La Ville Morte, a four-act opera based upon a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio; it was scheduled to be premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1914, but cancelled after the outbreak of the first world war. The opera only survives in a vocal score, and for this first ever recording, taken from performances in New York last year, it has been minimally orchestrated for an ensemble of 11 players. The “dead city” of the title of La Ville Morte is Mycenae, and the tangled story of love, lust and ambition among a quartet of archaeologists takes place among the city’s ruins. Musically it references Wagner, Fauré and most of all early Debussy, but the work never quite convinces in any of those modes, and runs out of dramatic steam well before the short final act, despite the best efforts of conductor Neal Goren and his hard-working cast of four.
The ‘border adjustment mechanism’ aims to create a level playing field while also encouraging decarbonisation
The biggest shake-up of green trade rules for decades comes into force today, as companies selling steel, cement and other high-carbon goods into the EU will have to prove they comply with low-carbon regulations or face fines.
But a lack of clarity on how the rules will be applied, and the failure of the UK government to strike a deal with Brussels over the issue, could lead to confusion in the early stages, experts warned.
Extreme heat and drought has destroyed 70% of Jordan’s olive crop, endangering livelihoods of 80,000 families and a centuries-old tradition
Abu Khaled al-Zoubi, 67, walks slowly through his orchard in Irbid, northern Jordan, his footsteps kicking up dust from the parched earth beneath centuries-old olive trees. He stops at a gnarled trunk, its bark split and peeling from months of unrelenting heat.
He points out that the branches should be sagging under the weight of ripening fruit, but instead they stretch upward, nearly bare, with only a few shrivelled olives clinging to the withered stems.
“You mentioned second-bottom Newport’s visit to leaders Bromley – just above them there’s a ding-dong in my old stamping ground of Shrewsbury, with fourth-bottom Town hosting third-bottom Bristol Rovers in the first (of what may be many) big relegation six-pointer of 2026,” writes Jeremy Boyce. “I’m predicting a festive 0-1 and the second managerial departure of 2026 (Michael Appleton). Cheers!”
Full time in the early kick-off, and it’s finished Blackburn 0-2 Wrexham. Sam Smith opened the scoring before Ollie Rathbone smashed in an early goal-of-the-year contender for the visitors, who climb to eighth in the table.
The president is scrutinising studio deals, and was rewarded with the promise of a Rush Hour reboot. With Supergirl, Hoppers and a live-action Moana on the way, can Hollywood stand up to Trump?
It’s fair to say that Hollywood is in crisis, or at least in transition. Studios getting taken over, culture wars all over the place, and gen AI rearing its head. The last thing they need is an interventionist president determined to wage war on the entertainment industry, as well as no doubt extracting what value he can. Donald Trump, as we know, is very interested in the movie business: in his pre-politics days, he made dozens of appearances in films, as well as on TV. It seems very likely that he’s eyeing a place at Hollywood’s top table after he leaves office (presuming he does).
Perhaps that’s what is behind his most spectacular recent intervention: demanding, and getting, a fourth Rush Hour movie from the new owners of Paramount Pictures, the studio that was recently taken over by David Ellison, son of Larry, one of Trump’s key allies. Coincidentally, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is one of the funders of Paramount’s subsequent bid to derail Netflix’s takeover of Warner Bros, with Trump himself suggesting he might influence US corporate regulators to prevent the Netflix deal from going ahead. And of course, in the background, is Trump’s threat of non-specific “tariffs” on the film industry, ostensibly aimed at keeping movie production inside the US. But, arguably, this could also be a way of keeping Hollywood’s top executives nervous and pliable.
The Colla Indigenous people claim Rio Tinto’s plans to extract the key mineral will harm fragile ecosystems and livelihoods
Miriam Rivera Bordones tends her goats in a dusty paddock in the russet mountains of Chile’s Atacama desert. She also keeps chickens and has planted quince and peach trees and grapevines, which are watered by a stream winding down the hills towards the Indigenous community of Copiapó.
But now the huge British-Australian mining multinational Rio Tinto has signed a deal to extract lithium, the “white gold” of the energy transition, from a salt flat farther up the mountains, and she fears the project could affect the water sources of several communities in the area.
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