The big news from a Malian perspective is the absence of key midfielder Amadou Haidara, who is suspended after being sent off late in their goalless draw with Comoros for a dangerous tackle. Aliou Dieng comes in to partner Yves Bissouma in the engine room.
Tensions between the US and Venezuela exploded on 3 January when US forces launched strikes across Caracas and other parts of the country, and Donald Trump announced that they had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flown them out of the country
Zia Yusuf announces plans for mandatory sentences with no parole, as party targets grooming gangs
Child rapists would be jailed for life if Reform UK wins the next election, its head of policy has said.
Under plans announced by Zia Yusuf on Saturday, the party would introduce mandatory whole-life orders for offenders convicted of the crime, making them ineligible for parole, as part of a crackdown on grooming gangs.
Brighton snapped a six-match winless run with a comfortable home victory over second-bottom Burnley.
Georginio Rutter gave Brighton a first-half lead before Yasin Ayari doubled the advantage early in the second period. Loum Tchaouna came close to halving the deficit, but Scott Parker’s struggling side remain six points adrift of Nottingham Forest in 17th after their wait for a league victory stretched to 11 games.
This was the latest West Ham humiliation of the season, and possibly Nuno Espírito Santo’s last. They became the first team to lose to Wolves at the 20th time of asking, allowing the Midlands club to double their points tally in the process and bring hope of not being the worst team in Premier League history, while leaving the Hammers four points adrift of safety.
Former Wolves head coach Nuno has already been sacked once this season and a ninth game without victory will increase the pressure on a man who was more popular with the home fans, who celebrated first-half goals from Jhon Arias, Hwang Hee-chan and Mateus Mané, than the away end at Molineux. West Ham failed to get a shot on target against a team without a clean sheet prior to Saturday, who had secured three draws and nothing else in 19 matches, to put them in danger of falling below Derby’s record low of 11 points, although if the Hammers continue to play like this they might only finish three better off.
More than half of therapists who work with men with addiction have noticed a rise in out of control porn use over the past year, according to new data.
Experts are urgently calling for a national strategy on pornography as a total of 53% of therapists surveyed by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) said they had seen a rise in people seeking help for problematic pornography use that was interfering with their life or driving them to seek out more extreme content.
As they were jolted from their beds just before 2am on Saturday, many Caracas residents sought an innocent explanation for the racket that had interrupted their sleep: an exploding air conditioning unit, a tropical thunderstorm, an earthquake. Or perhaps a festive display of pyrotechnics over Venezuela’s mountain-flanked capital.
“I thought it might be fireworks,” Carlos Hurtado, a resident of the 23 de Enero housing estate on the city’s westside, recalled of the moment he was woken by a mysterious sequence of rumblings and explosions.
Damage to cables means tens of thousands will be without electricity until Thursday amid freezing temperatures
Tens of thousands of homes in Berlin will be without electricity until Thursday as authorities struggle to repair power cables seriously damaged in a suspected arson attack, officials have said.
Some households may also be without heating as the outage has affected local systems at a time when the German capital is blanketed in snow and temperatures are hovering around freezing.
Nicolás Maduro, a former bus driver and union activist, rose from humble origins to rule Venezuela for 13 years and eight months before being unceremoniously ousted on Saturday by US special forces who seized the 63-year-old leader and flew him out of the country.
For years Maduro had accused the US government of seeking to undermine the supposed socialist revolution that his late mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez, ushered in in 1999. Now in the custody of US authorities, he will face indictment on narcotics charges and a potentially long prison sentence.
Elsewhere in the Premier League: Wolves have finally won their first match of the season, scoring three without reply against sorry West Ham at Molineux. In news to make those of us who remember his Leeds United debut as a 16-year-old feel truly ancient, James Milner celebrated his 40th birthday by helping Brighton to a 2-0 win over Burnley, while Aston Villa got back to winning ways by beating Nottingham Forest 3-1 at Villa Park in today’s early kick-off. Wolves remain 12 points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table but today’s results mean life is looking a lot less bleak for Rob Edwards’ side now than it did first thing this morning.
Arttu Välilä scored at 2:11 of overtime and Finland stunned the two-time defending champion United States 4-3 on Friday night in the world junior hockey quarter-finals.
Last year in the final in Ottawa, Ontario, the Americans had beaten the Finns 4-3 in overtime. “Got to give credit to the US,” the Finnish captain, Aron Kiviharju, said. “That’s a hell of a team, full of great individuals and a well coached team. But I said we wanted that revenge from last year, and I think we kind of earned it tonight.”
Donald Trump has announced that US forces 'captured' the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and have flown them out of the country. The US has carried out an overnight strike across the region with explosions rocking the capital, Caracas, before dawn
Suspected offences include homicide by negligence, causing bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence
The two managers of a bar where a blaze on New Year’s Day killed at least 40 people have been placed under criminal investigation, Swiss prosecutors have said.
French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti owned and managed the Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, which was crammed with young new year’s revellers when a blaze began at about 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) on Thursday, killing about 40 people and injuring more than 100.
The novelty of eating at a diner owned by the richest person in the world seems to have worn off in just a few months
Less than six months since it opened, Elon Musk’s Tesla Diner has the feel of a ghost town. Gone is the Optimus robot serving popcorn, gone are the carnivore-diet-inspired “Epic Bacon” strips, gone are the hours-long, hundred-person lines wrapped around the block. Even the restaurant’s all-star chef, Eric Greenspan, is gone. The Hollywood burger-and-fries shop seems like a shell of the bustling eatery it was when it opened in late July.
On a balmy Friday afternoon in December, the parking lot for Tesla car charging was, at best, half full. Inside what the company describes as a “retro-futuristic” diner, a handful of people trickled in, ordering burgers and hotdogs or asking for merch. The upstairs deck, AKA “Skypad”, was vacant except for a pair of employees stringing holiday lights. More staff was busy at work, buffing fingerprints off the chrome walls and taking out the trash, than there were customers. The diner was spotless.
Aston Villa continue to surpass expectations as they bounced back from defeat by Arsenal to cement their place in the top three with an 11th straight home win. Ollie Watkins celebrated his 250th appearance for the club with his fourth goal in three games and John McGinn added two more after the interval.
Villa’s ability to score out of next to nothing epitomises their season. They managed this game superbly, inflicting a fourth straight defeat on Nottingham Forest, but if the league table was made up of their expected goals difference they would have started this weekend in 15th place.
Hardly anyone expected 2026 to be a year of peace, and it was barely three days old when the worst fears were confirmed.
The overnight strikes on Venezuela – and the abduction of its leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife – have driven another truck through international law and global norms. But that is not even the most concerning thing about it.
Whenever this ends – with the answer surely “imminently” – Celtic’s supporters will not be the only ones to look back with outright bemusement. Wilfried Nancy’s appointment as the manager of a team who were serious operators in the Champions League a matter of months earlier will go down as one of the most bamboozling episodes in the history of Scottish football.
Nancy used his Friday press conference to plead for time and context. He railed against the media, who presumably continue to err by highlighting his woeful record. By Saturday afternoon, he was wandering down the tunnel as a beaten man. Nancy’s position is untenable. He cannot be the only Celtic employee who exits, such is the scale of calamity. The simple solution for Celtic would be to call Martin O’Neill, who presided over seven victories out of eight while in pre-Nancy caretaker charge. The 73-year-old retains capacity to revive Celtic’s fortunes. Crucially, unlike Nancy, O’Neill has the experience and wherewithal to comprehend this unusual football environment.
A bit more on Pablo Felipe, West Ham’s new signing.
Position: Striker
Age: 22
Nationality: Brazil
Signed from: Gil Vicente (Portugal)
This season: 14 games, 10 goals
Form (last 6 games): 6 goals, 1 assist
The intensity levels are better. There’s more of a confidence and belief but that’s only going to come from more results and more performances and being more consistent with what we do. There are certainly certain things that we’ve improved on, but it’s a difficult league, and we came in at a difficult moment, so it was always going to be hard to instantly get those results. I said to the lads after the [United] game that we need to get that performance level at home. That’s the most important thing for us now.
The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflict
The overthrow and reported capture by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, ignores sovereign territorial rights, and potentially creates an anarchic situation inside Venezuela itself.
It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
New documents reveal numerous missed opportunities as experts and victims condemn US authorities’ failures
Over the course of two decades, Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly appeared on law enforcement’s radar for sexual misconduct involving teen girls and young women. And over this same period of time, Epstein avoided serious and meaningful punishment for his crimes.
The US justice department’s recent disclosure of long-secret investigative files related to Epstein has once again raised the question of why he wasn’t interdicted sooner, despite numerous reports of misconduct. The issue has been the subject of many conspiracy theories, often focusing on the idea that Epstein – who lived at the center of a network of powerful people – enjoyed some form of protection.
From squats and lunges to the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, physiotherapists share advice on how to maintain strong knees and avoid pain
Of all the lower body joints, the knee is probably the one most likely to send you to the physiotherapist.
“It carries most of the weight of the body, and being a hinge joint, it means that it doesn’t have a nice socket structure,” says physiotherapist Dr Jillian Eyles, from the University of Sydney. “It relies on the ligaments and the joint capsules and the muscles around it to really stabilise the joint, and it’s fairly easy to injure compared to another joint that’s more supported.”
From therapy to running and conversing with strangers, we asked experts what the basics are of starting anything new
The hardest part of any new habit or activity is starting it. Do you need special equipment? How do you know if you’re doing it right? What are the basics, and how do you take your practice to the next level?
In the series How to start, we ask experts to break down how to start, well, anything – including running, dating, cooking and lucid dreaming.
Figure out what you enjoy by checking out a variety of books from the library, but don’t force it. If you’re not enjoying a volume, put it down and move on to the next.
Start with short books and whichever medium – physical books, ebooks or audiobooks – works best for you.
Make reading fun and sociable by sharing books with friends, or joining a book club.
Think about your dreams more – way more. Start by keeping a dream journal and recording your dreams every day.
Cultivate the intention to lucid dream. While you’re awake, think: “The next time I have a dream, I’m going to figure out it’s a dream,” says Dr Ken Paller, professor of psychology at Northwestern University.
The Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB) and Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (Mild) techniques can be effective ways to try to lucid dream – but don’t try it more than two to three times a week as they can be tiring.
You don’t need to teach a dog as many commands – some trainers call them cues – as they might think. Two cues – “sit” and “come” – are essential for minimizing behavioral issues and recall.
Besides basic safety commands, think about training functionally.
There’s no need to spend hours on training. Sessa says she usually suggests her clients work with their dogs for no more than 10 to 15 minutes a day.
Begin in a plank position, with your hands and toes on the ground and feet set wide or narrow. Lower yourself until your body is almost touching the ground, keeping your elbows at a 45-degree angle. Then push yourself back up.
Make sure to maintain correct form, with a line from head to heels, and don’t rush through reps.
Make sure you have the basic tools for cooking: a chef’s knife, a cutting board, a a nonstick pan, baking sheets and spatulas.
Quality spices and pantry staples can improve your cooking. Stock up on good kosher salt, fresh black pepper, olive oil, a neutral oil (like canola oil or avocado oil) for high temperature cooking, a couple of vinegars, bags of rice and some beans.
Watch a knife skills class (many are free online) to master essential techniques.
Try recipes that will teach you core cooking skills, like a lentil soup, to learn how to time sauteing and simmering; or a three-egg omelet, to learn heat control.
Cleansers: Start and end your day with a gentle cleanser.
Moisturizers: For all skin types, moisturizers heal and protect the skin.
Sunscreen: No matter the weather, always apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen – at least SPF 30 or higher.
Alternate running and walking. Run for short periods, then walk to recover – this makes the workout more manageable. Over time, you can increase the period of time running, and aim to take fewer walking breaks.
Avoid running too fast or too much. Keep a conversational pace, where you can talk and run at the same time and be sure to take time off as your body adjusts to the new routine.
Get good running shoes. Buying in-person is best, especially if you can visit a running store where you can get properly fitted and try a wide variety of shoes.
Don’t push yourself to run as long and far as you can. It can be draining and lead to injury.
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