Head coach’s gameplan exploded in his face again against Australia. South Africa are next … do the players trust it?

One of the all-time great Wallaby Test victories has left England up a gum tree of their own making. Clearly Australia deserve huge praise for Saturday’s spectacular ram raid, topped off by a record for points scored in this fixture at Twickenham. For the home side, however, a recurring failure to close out big games is now the subject of mounting scrutiny.

Scoring five tries and 37 points, for instance, should be enough to win any Test match. But only last March England scored 31 points in Lyon and still lost to France. Yet another disturbing pattern is emerging, this time around their defensive solidity. It makes for cracking entertainment for neutrals, less so for those England fans who still have any hair left to pull out.

Dariel Vasquez died when tree fell on him as he battled major brush fire along the New York-New Jersey border

A New York parks employee died battling one of a number of wildfires in New Jersey and New York amid dry conditions that have prompted air quality warnings in both states, authorities said on Sunday.

The Eastern Dutchess county fire and rescue said the New York state forestry service reported that the worker died when a tree fell on him Saturday afternoon as he battled a major brush fire along the New York-New Jersey border, officials said.

Shooting at Tuskegee University is fourth reported at homecoming events in US within the last three weeks

One person was killed and 16 others were injured when gunfire erupted at Tuskegee University in Alabama on Sunday, the fourth reported shooting at homecoming events across the US within the last three weeks.

The Tuskegee shooting occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning. The person who was killed was not affiliated with the university, and their parents have been notified, according to the university.

• Fritz keeps his cool to beat angry Medvedev
• Get in touch! Share your thoughts with James

*Sinner 1-2 de Minaur

Rallies elongating, there’s been plenty of debate about the weight of the balls this year and how they are conducive to even longer rallies. Time for Sinner to feel some pressure as de Minaur gets him to 30-30 and then forces the error to carve out the first break point of the night! He’s got it, Sinner approaches the net but plonks a backhand into the tramline. de Minaur has an early break! Game on.

• Updates from the 8pm GMT start in Bridgetown
• Get in touch! Share your thoughts with Tanya

Out come the players, Archer is drying his hands in the dust – and off we go.

Terrance Hinds has just been handed his first West Indies cap at the ripe age of 32. And very pleased he looks too.

There were people on the pitch, Chelsea substitutes to be precise, the joy of everyone connected to the club overflowing. Pedro Neto had produced the equaliser with a vicious low drive from distance and if it did not turn out to be the statement victory that Enzo Maresca and his players wanted – a first against a so-called Big Six rival – they could see the merit in a battling draw.

For Arsenal, this was a better performance than some of those of late and yet it was not the result that Mikel Arteta had called for, the one to silence the noise that has built around his club. It was another example of them losing the lead in a big game – after the draws against Manchester City and Liverpool – and it meant they have not won in four Premier League games, a sequence that has yielded two points. They are now nine behind the leaders, Liverpool. Is it too much to recover?

• Scotland 15-32 South Africa
• Springboks hold off stubborn hosts at Murrayfield

Not much arguing with this. Scotland threw everything at this match, setting their beloved stadium on a roar time and again, but four tries to none tells its own story. And a familiar one at that. South Africa, ­without ever really seeming to play much more than within themselves, were just too strong.

The image of a lusty puncher failing to land a single blow came to mind, as the Springboks held a swinging Scotland at arm’s length, rarely too troubled, for all their opponents’ fire and enthusiasm. Time and again either side of half-time, Scotland broke out, but they could not quite score a try, let alone four of them. Eben Etzebeth, the only Springbok forward to play the whole match, was the icon, huge, commanding and, at times, laughing in his opponents’ faces.

A snap election triggered by Olaf Scholz will be crucial in shaping Europe’s response to last week’s events in the US

Spying a possible silver lining to events in the US, some commentators have speculated that the re-election of Donald Trump may at least concentrate minds among mainstream European leaders. Faced with a rapidly emerging new world order, and with homegrown far-right movements making the political weather, their response has at times appeared sluggish and unconvincing. Perhaps the shock of Trump 2.0 will finally convey the fierce urgency of now.

The sudden collapse of Germany’s fractious SPD‑led coalition government, as the US election verdict became clear, certainly points to a quickening of the political tempo. Olaf Scholz is a famously cautious, meticulous politician, with a reputation for equivocating. Not last week. In summarily sacking his finance minister, Christian Lindner, and triggering the exit of the Free Democratic party (FDP) from the government, Chancellor Scholz launched a sequence of events that will lead to snap elections in the spring, or even earlier.

Verse’s connection to nature can inspire awareness and hope amid the climate crisis, offering clarity beyond data

Poetry has a big debt to nature, its muse and source of metaphor for centuries. As the UN climate conference begins, it is time to pay it back. Poetry must give nature a voice to express its dire predicament. “I will rise,” declares the furious river in the Scottish makar Kathleen Jamie’s poem What the Clyde Said, After Cop26 – just as the River Xanthus in Homer’s Iliad rose in revenge against Achilles for filling it with so many bodies.

Ms Jamie’s poem appears in a new anthology, Earth Prayers, edited by the former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. “We are in the age of anthropogenic climate breakdown, possibly the Age of Grief,” Ms Duffy writes in the foreword. The 100 poems, ranging from classics such as Matthew Arnold’s 1867 Dover Beach to #ExtinctionRebellion by Pascale Petit, remind us not just of the beauty of the natural world, but its fragility.

Police say 37-year-old stabbed five people on Friday in broad daylight and possibly four others the day before

A 37-year-old man who police say stabbed five people in Seattle in broad daylight on Friday and possibly four others the day before made his first court appearance Saturday where a judge ordered him held on $2m bail.

“People who live in and travel to the Chinatown-International District deserve to feel safe and be safe,” said King county prosecuting attorney Leesa Manion after the judge found probable cause to hold him on five counts of first-degree assault.

Experts say new government could blunt regulation and appoint officials sympathetic to Musk’s brood of companies

Donald Trump owes his decisive 2024 presidential victory in no small part to the enthusiastic support of the world’s richest man. In the months leading up to the election, Elon Musk put his full weight behind the Maga movement, advocated for Trump on major podcasts and used his influence over X to shape political discourse. Musk’s America Pac injected nearly $120m into the former president’s campaign.

Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as “secretary of cost-cutting”. Musk, for his part, has joked he would be interested in serving as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) with a stated goal of reducing government spending by $2tn. Practically speaking, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk’s universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink.

• Coach will not be able to take opening training session
• United expect Portuguese to be granted a visa soon

Rúben Amorim is yet to be granted a visa despite starting his first official day as Manchester United’s head coach on Monday and will not be able to take an opening training session.

The 39-year-old Portuguese will travel to the club on Monday to begin his tenure but, while United expect the visa to be granted soon, it is unclear what duties Amorim can undertake until this occurs.

• Croatian’s final match was 3-2 home loss to Bologna
• Julián Alvarez scores winner for Atlético Madrid

Roma have sacked Ivan Juric after only 12 matches in charge. The Croatian became the second Roma head coach to be fired this season after the side’s 3-2 home defeat by Bologna on Sunday, their fourth loss in the last five league games which left them 12th in the Serie A table.

“We would like to thank Ivan Juric for his hard work these past weeks,” Roma said in a statement. “He handled a difficult environment with the utmost professionalism, and for that we are grateful. The search for a new head coach has already begun and an announcement will be made in the coming days.”

This article will be updated.

Gaza’s civil defence agency says 25 people killed, including 13 children, as Israel continues attacks in north of territory

Israeli warplanes carried out more strikes in northern Gaza on Sunday, reportedly destroying a home in the Jabaliya area that had been under siege for weeks, killing and wounding dozens, including many women and children.

The death toll is one of the biggest in a single strike so far in Jabaliya, where hundreds of people have died since a major Israeli operation in the area began last month.

• Russian earns a warning before temper on display again
• Fritz secures straight-sets victory in Turin opener

Taylor Fritz made a strong start to the ATP Finals in Turin with a straight-sets victory over an angry Daniil Medvedev. The American, who reached the semi-finals on his debut two years ago, produced a level-headed display to claim a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

The same could not be said for Medvedev, who earned a warning for smashing his racket after serving three straight double faults to end the opening set.

Total number of arrivals by small boats reaches 32,691 this year, up 22% on same time last year but fewer than in 2022

Nine boats carrying 572 people have been intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel, according to the Home Office.

The latest crossings come after Keir Starmer announced plans to tackle what he described as the “national security threat” of people smugglers, pledging an extra £75m and a new team of detectives.

Grey and misty weather has been a mainstay this month – but brighter skies should arrive soon

If things have felt especially gloomy this week, it is not just the politics.

The grey mist that seems to have descended is down to an outlier weather event that has been under way since the start of November, with some regions of England recording just a few minutes of sunshine this month.

City’s police chief says ‘incidents on both sides’ led to violent unrest as ‘around 40’ fined and released

Authorities have released details of the 62 people arrested after violent attacks took place around the football match between Amsterdam’s Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday night.

Violence after the game – described by the Amsterdam mayor, Femke Halsema, as “hit and run attacks” on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters by “boys on scooters” – provoked international horror.

The away end’s explosion of noise and limbs at full time left no question about what this meant to Ipswich. They had waited 22 and a half years for a Premier League win and the nagging thought remained, throughout nine minutes of added time, that they might fall just short yet again. But when Aro Muric saved from Dominic Solanke the outcome was virtually assured and what a feather in the cap this was for Kieran McKenna, whose superbly coached side will feel their season has liftoff now.

McKenna, beaming as he walked off the pitch, had done a number on the club where he started his career as a player and academy coach. It said everything about Ipswich’s performance, not to mention that of Tottenham, that the points went where they were deserved. The away side were excellent in the first half, picking their moments to attack and scoring well-worked goals through Sammie Szmodics and Liam Delap before hanging on once Rodrigo Bentancur’s header threatened to transform the picture. They saw the game out in relative serenity and, on this evidence, look a convincing top-flight proposition.

Eleven days after Manchester United routed Leicester under Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Carabao Cup here, the interim manager signed off with another easy-street win over the Foxes and so ends his four-game term unbeaten.

In all the Dutchman has three victories, and for this one he could thank Bruno Fernandes, who graced a 250th United appearance by scoring the first goal and causing enough trouble for the hapless Victor Kristiansen to bundle past his goalkeeper, Mads Hermansen, for the second.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world