European stocks have hit a record high today, ending a strong year on the front foot.
The pan-European Stoxx600 index has risen by over 0.2% this morning to 590.65 points, a new peak.
The Euro area and UK economies proved more resilient in 2025 than we anticipated. US tariffs weighed on exports and real GDP growth in Q2 and Q3, but domestic demand has generally been more robust than we anticipated.
As a result, Euro area and UK GDP growth, while still underperforming the US this year, have turned out higher than in our forecast at the end of 2024.
When developers began circling Espíritu Santo island in the 1990s, a private conservation effort saw them off. But today the Unesco site faces a new threat: mass tourism
On a clear day over the Sea of Cortez, Espíritu Santo looks untouchable. Turquoise water laps at the shores of the island’s rocky coves; whale sharks cruise past snorkellers; seabirds caw over ancient cliffs. The pristine island and its Unesco-protected surroundings – informally called “Mexico’s Galápagos” – are a cocoon of biodiversity.
Yet an increase in tourist numbers has led to growing unease among the island’s longstanding stewards, as environmentalists report a decline in the area’s marine life and call for stricter regulations.
My wonderful new wife is everything I have always looked for in a woman. The issue is that she is openly and proudly bisexual. When we first became involved, she even joked that she didn’t want me getting mad when it was time for her to visit her friend on girls’ trips. A threesome with a bisexual woman has always been my fantasy. She even gave me permission to go online and find a “unicorn” for us. But when I set up a meeting, she didn’t seem to want to follow through with it, so I stopped looking. Recently, on holiday, she made a sexual comment about a girl in a bikini, so I again brought up the idea of a threesome. But she said she might have grown out of that phase of her life and just wants to be with me. She also said that adding another person would ruin the marriage, and I worry that things might change between us if we get together with another girl. I am at a loss as to what to do. If she is truly bisexual, I am worried that if those desires are not met, she may pursue them without me. My only rule is that if she is with a girl, I am also present. Most guys would love my situation – am I making this harder than it is?
Donald Trump should defy Benjamin Netanyahu and realise renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme are a better bet and more likely to succeed owing to stronger support in the region for a successful outcome, the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Araghchi, says in a Guardian article. He also suggests Trump’s Republican base want a deal and not further unnecessary wars.
Araghchi was writing a day after Netanyahu held talks with Trump in the US in which Israel’s calls to consider fresh attacks on Iran were discussed alongside the Gaza peace plan.
As 007 makes his gaming return, you can climb a mountain in Cairn, play a scaredy-cat in Resident Evil, and play a criminal couple in GTA VI
Live your mountaineering fantasies and brave the elements in a wonderfully illustrated climbing game. You must carefully place climber Aava’s hands and feet to make your way up a forbidding mountain, camping on ledges and bandaging her fingers as you go. Like real climbing, it is challenging and somewhat brutal.
• PC, PlayStation 5; 29 January
While Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year achieved his dream of dragging the US into a military confrontation with Iran, it came at a steep and unprecedented cost for Israel. Seeing Netanyahu beg Donald Trump to be bailed out from a quagmire, a rising number of Americans openly acknowledge that Israel is not an ally but a liability. In September, the US’s Arab allies also reached the conclusion that we Iranians have always underscored: Israel’s recklessness is a threat to all.
This reality is paving the way for whole new relationships that may transform our region. The US administration now faces a dilemma: it can continue writing blank cheques for Israel with American taxpayer dollars and credibility, or be part of a tectonic change for the better. For decades, western policy towards our region has been mostly shaped by myths originating from Israel. The war in June was momentous for a number of reasons, including how it exposed the cost for the west of mistaking mythology for strategy. Israel and its proxies claim a “decisive victory”, with Iran left weakened and deterred. Yet our vast strategic depth – the country covers an area the size of western Europe, and has a population 10 times that of Israel’s – meant that most of our provinces were untouched by Israel’s aggression. In contrast, all Israelis experienced the might of our military. The narrative of invulnerability – central to Israel’s myth-making machine – has been shattered.
Seyed Abbas Araghchi is the Iranian foreign minister
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Allrounder has shown enough glimpses to suggest he is the complete package but has again failed to impose himself on a series during the Ashes
Bazball might be dead, or at least on its last legs, but before its demise it appears to have bewitched cricketing prodigy Cameron Green with its high-risk, at times mindless aggression.
Some of the young allrounder’s premeditated shots during the Ashes have made England wunderkind Harry Brook look like their unpretentious former opener, Geoff Boycott.
Khalil Dawas was thought to have been recruited from Israeli jail but large parts of his story remain shrouded in mystery
On Tuesday 14 October, Hamas handed over four bodies to Israel as part of an exchange of the dead under the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire.
Israeli forensic experts soon confirmed the identities of three of the bodies, but they said that one did not belong to them. Hamas insisted that the fourth man was an Israeli soldier.
When Elon Musk vowed late last year to lead a “department of government efficiency” (Doge), he claimed it would operate with “maximum transparency” as it set about saving $2tn worth of waste and exposing massive fraud.
Today, with Musk out of the White House, Doge having cut only a tiny fraction of the waste it promised, and dozens of lawsuits alleging violations of privacy and transparency laws, much of what the agency has done remains a mystery.
When the people of Waddington teamed up to broadcast self-written soap operas, horoscopes and magic tricks, little did they know it would be the most successful channel in the world – despite the chaos behind the cameras
‘What a cock-up!” Those were the words that ended the first broadcast on the world’s tiniest TV station. Hours earlier, four young locals had been wrangled into being live presenters at their quiet village Sunday school. Despite dead air and awkward line delivery, it was the poor transmission quality that made the stars – Michelle Hornby (31), Jonathan Brown (27), James Warburton (25) and Deborah Cowking (21) – apologise and cut the inaugural broadcast. But Cowking, not realising they were still on air, slipped past the censors and summed up the evening’s vibe perfectly: chaotic, amateur and unrelentingly British.
This was The Television Village – a first-of-its-kind social experiment from 1990 that had the Lancashire village of Waddington “watch, make and become” television. For a short spell in the early 90s, the Ribble Valley was worth a fortune, as Granada Television shipped £3m worth of cutting-edge TV equipment to the rural hills of north-west England. Hidden cameras were set up in villagers’ living rooms to record viewing habits, day and night. Meanwhile, Channel 4 filmed the entire thing for a six-part documentary series. All of this was to monitor how people would react when the number of channels made the leap from four up to 30 – offering everything from sport, film and even porn, with villagers having access to terrestrial, cable and satellite channels, including from Europe and the US.
It was the end of a fabulous decade, when spontaneous, unpredictable parties seemed not just possible but typical. A new millennium was dawning. What could possibly go wrong?
‘We wish you peace,” said Tony Blair as the clock struck 8pm. It was New Year’s Eve 1999, a Friday night, and I was on the banks of the Thames. Britain’s fresh-faced prime minister – only two years into the job – was giving a gimmick called The British Airways London Eye its first spin. The Eye was physically unremarkable and harrowingly slow, but it didn’t matter because it only had a five-year lease and definitely wouldn’t still be around a quarter of a century later, littering the skyline.
It was the end of the 90s and, as the Thatcher/Major doldrums whizzed out of view like the subplot of Sliding Doors, we maintained a Bridget Jones-like innocence and entrusted the future to guys like Blair, Peter Mandelson and Bill Clinton, who didn’t seem like (respectively) warmongers, abuse excusers or sex pests.
It’s a ridiculous time to be male – and that’s good news for a new genre of social media comedy poking fun at the shifting notions of masculinity
“I’m gonna miss toxic masculinity,” says the comedian Kiry Shabazz. “I feel like it’s going to be in a museum someday.”
In the ensuing standup routine, Shabazz describes a fight with a friend who, like him, is “doing the work” to be a better person. He called the friend several unprintable names while acknowledging: “I’m only calling you that because culturally that’s how I know how to express myself.” The friend’s reply to the torrent of insults: “I hear you and I receive that.” The whole thing, Shabazz says, made him “miss the good old days, when men handled beef like men”.
Move could feasibly allow Russian missiles to reach European targets faster from Belarus, its neighbouring ally that also shares a border with Nato countries Poland, Lithuania and Latvia
Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has echoed Donald Tusk’s optimistic tone regarding talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
He posted to X to confirm there had been “another round of consultations” with “European and Canadian partners”. It is not clear who was in the meeting.
Peace is on the horizon, there is no doubt that things have happened that give grounds for hope that this war can end, and quite quickly, but it is still a hope, far from 100% certain.
Aspirant Americans tell of exclusions from ceremonies by sudden policy introduced on ‘security’ grounds
The occasion should have been marked by the joy of reaching the destination of US citizenship following the long odyssey of immigration.
Instead, the ceremony at Boston’s Faneuil Hall – renowned as a “cradle of liberty” for its role as a protest hub in the run-up to the American revolution – felt like a nightmarish end of the road for some aspirant new Americans who had turned up full of hope.
Brother Dong is one of a growing band of Chinese volunteers who are lending their support to Ukraine
Are you looking for a way to stay sane in an environment that has been torn apart by war? Then perhaps what you need is a bubble tea.
That is the philosophy guiding Brother Dong, a Chinese-German volunteer in Ukraine. The 52-year-old former officer in China’s People’s Armed Police drives once a month from his home in Frankfurt to collect a haul of tapioca pearls from a warehouse in Berlin. From there he drives across Poland to reach Ukraine.
PDC hot favourite was jeered during quarter-final victory
‘It definitely fuelled me up and it made me play better’
Luke Littler admits he lost his head when reacting to the hostile crowd during his fourth-round PDC World Darts Championship win over Rob Cross and still has some learning to do.
The 18-year-old was booed and jeered as he beat Cross 4-2 to book his place in the quarter-finals at Alexandra Palace. Littler let the emotion out after throwing the winning darts, running around the stage gesturing to the crowd, who had wanted Cross to win.
A screening tour, a New Year’s re-release, a documentary, an incoming director’s cut … will we ever be rid of this historic misfire?
At first, it appeared to end with a whimper. After decades of talk, Francis Ford Coppola’s forever-gestating dream project Megalopolis debuted in movie theaters in fall 2024, and promptly flopped at the box office, grossing a paltry $14m worldwide against a budget around $120m, much of which was put up by Coppola himself. Not even a series of splashy Imax presentations, including some with a live-actor element, could entice more than a relative handful of curious cinephiles out of the house to witness Coppola realize his ambition of making a movie about a visionary, time-stopping architect (Adam Driver) and the decadent city only he can save with his brilliant blueprints.
Some of the movie nerds showed up to watch Driver speechify, to immerse themselves in digital evocations of a futuristic, Rome-New York City hybrid, and enjoy the eclecticism of a cast that also includes Laurence Fishburne, several members of Coppola’s family, SNL’s Chloe Fineman, a number of semi-canceled actors encouraged to ham with impunity, and Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum. A bunch of the movie’s original viewers had some fun making jokes on social media; a few mounted genuine defenses in the digital pages of Letterboxd and the like. But unsurprisingly, the movie did not figure into year-end awards consideration. After months-to-years of buildup, the movie left theaters within a few weeks, and was available to stream at home a little while later. For most movies, that’s a recipe for disappointed shrugs.
Champions have conceded 12 set-piece goals in league
Arne Slot expressed his dismay before Wolves game
Liverpool have parted company with their first-team set-piece coach, Aaron Briggs, in response to the weaknesses that have blighted Arne Slot’s side this season.
Slot has made no secret of his dismay with Liverpool’s set-piece failings at both ends of the pitch, and admitted they were holding back the Premier League champions before Saturday’s 2-1 win over Wolves.
We enter 2026 with radical uncertainty about the fate of the US – but also with the clarity that people have the power to determine what it will be
When we talk about opposition in politics, sometimes it’s just a policy disagreement – but in the current political crisis in the US, the opposition has become the opposite of the Trump administration in meaningful ways. It had to because this is not only a policy conflict.
Between the administration and the opposition are actual opposites of principle: among those committed to inclusion and those to exclusion; truth and lies; kindness and cruelty; the protection and destruction of systems that in turn protect the climate or public health.
“Perfection,” the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” The Little Prince author was talking about elegance in design, but it’s not a bad principle to apply to having a productive day. Rather than thinking about how many things you can cram in, perhaps it’s better to ponder how few you really need to do, and focus on doing them really well.
Where do you start? With a list, obviously. To the chronically overstressed, taking the time to handwrite all the stuff you already know you need to do can feel like a waste of time, but it’s always worth the effort. “You can’t prioritise tasks if you feel overwhelmed,” says Graham Allcott, the author of How to Be a Productivity Ninja, “but you can be totally overloaded and still not feel overwhelmed. The key to this is getting all the various things you have to work on out of your head so you can start to make sense of them. Get a piece of paper, and write on it all the things you need to make progress on, all the stuff that feels unfinished, everything you care about that isn’t done. It will take you longer than you think, but the very act of getting it all out of your head will help you get clarity, perspective and a sense of control.”
Mac Bauer’s racing activism has made ‘signal priority’ and traffic congestion a big talking point for the Canadian city
When Toronto’s streetcars hit a rare open stretch of road, the metallic grind gives way to an airy electric hum, and for a fleeting moment, there is a feeling that one is hurtling along the knife’s edge of the future.
Seconds later, the illusion shatters: the car grinds to a halt, at a stop – or more often, in traffic. As the city slips past the stalled riders, some notice a runner zipping by.
If the DNC isn’t open and transparent about why they lost, then how can we be sure they will learn their lesson this time?
The Democratic National Committee’s decision to block the release of its own autopsy report on the 2024 election is stunning but not surprising. Averse to unpleasant candor, the Democrats’ governing body functions more like a PR firm than a political organization devoted to grassroots capacities for winning elections. The party’s leaders pose as immune from critique, even if they have led the party to disaster.
Unwilling to depart from the party establishment’s culture of conformity, the DNC has remained under the Biden-Harris shadow throughout 2025. Release of an official autopsy might have shown that party leaders actually want to encourage public discourse about the missteps that enabled Donald Trump to become president again. But the DNC is proceeding as if there’s nothing to be learned from the tragic debacle of 2024 that its leaders don’t already know – and they don’t need to share their purported wisdom with anyone else.
Voter disenchantment: Losing 6.8 million voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 proved pivotal in the close 2024 election. Harris’s inability to mobilize those pro-Biden voters was a massive failure.
Biden’s betrayal: Biden’s stubborn decision to seek re-election, and his refusal to step aside until very late in the process, robbed Democratic voters of open primaries and undermined Democrats’ chances.
Abandoning the working-class base: With millions of Americans feeling desperate because of rising costs, the Harris campaign lost this Democratic base by bowing to corporate donors’ interests and failing to challenge the impact of corporate greed in escalating inflation.
The Gaza effect: Harris lost many voters – especially young people, Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans, with sizable consequences in Michigan and other swing states – due to her refusal to indicate any openness to shifting her policy position on Israel and Palestine.
Losing young voters: Extensive evidence shows a huge drop-off in Democratic support among young voters aged 18-29.
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