Once upon a time in third-round games, the state of the lower league/non-league pitch would be thought of as The Great Leveller. And you could hope to throw in a bit of January wind and rain. But the Moss Rose turf looks in fine fettle and there’s barely a cloud in the Cheshire sky:
Manchester United manager Marc Skinner said on Arsenal:
It’s always who can take the big moments.
We’re going to maximise what we can. We’ve got to play our game effectively as what we’re really good at, but also understand that they can create magic moments and so can we.
We expect them to come out and be aggressive and apply themselves as they want to. Of course we see that they pride themselves on their defensive game, their intensity, their aggression.
They have specific qualities, they’ve added to their squad as well. So we’ll see how they start and finish the game tomorrow. We’ll have to be prepared for different scenarios, because depending on the personnel they might want to play, those players play to their strengths.
Surge in sales correlates with the growth in church attendances in England and Wales, research says
For Christian booksellers, the good news about Bibles sales has been few and far between. But in recent retail figures, there was a revelation.
Sales of the good book reached a record high in the UK in 2025, increasing by 134% since 2019 – the highest since records began – according to industry research. Last year, the total sales of Bibles in the UK reached £6.3m in 2025, £3.61mup on 2019 sales.
Blocking immigration will not make Trump’s America great again – for the US to shine, he must let it get browner
Here’s one reason Donald Trump seems perennially in a bad mood: he has probably figured out that the America he fantasizes about is out of his reach.
However many immigrants he manages to deport or prevent from entering the country, the white paradise he is promising his Maga base, free of Somalis, Mexican “rapists” and generally people from “shithole countries” – closer in hue to the America where he was born – is not his to offer.
Aligning itself with Washington and dismissing regional diplomacy has left the dual island nation isolated amid the Venezuela crisis
There is a saying in Trinidad and Tobago: “Cockroach should stay out of fowl business.” It captures a hard truth. Small states that stray into great-power conflicts rarely emerge unscathed. They are not players; they are expendables.
It’s a statement that frames the reality of where Trinidad and Tobago sits uneasily today.
Remote photography didn’t dilute the intimacy of this blissful moment in the Nevada sunshine
Sara Weir’s five children had just woken up and were roaming their home in Nevada when this shot was taken. It was 7am and photographer Kelli Radwanski was after the morning light; Weir had another child on the way and had hired Radwanski to capture their family life. All the kids were feeling playful, ready to show off their talents, silly faces and prize possessions. As the eldest son wandered into the frame, holding his pot-bellied pig, Radwanski captured the moment – while sitting in her office chair in Oregon.
“Remote photography was developed during the pandemic and a handful of us still use it as one of our primary art forms,” Radwanski says. “I used a special app that took over Sara’s phone camera, an iPhone 13, and the day before the shoot she showed me around her home from the phone, so I could seek out light and vignettes that would be compelling in telling their story. We used a tall standing tripod to hold the phone and I had Sara place it where I wanted it to go. It worked beautifully for moving all five of them in and out of scenes. I’ve photographed more than 500 people in 14 countries this way.”
Exclusive: Possible revision of guidance for prosecutors in England and Wales comes amid safety concerns from courts
Circumcision is to be classed as a potential form of child abuse under new guidance for prosecutors, amid concerns from judges and coroners about deaths and serious harms caused by the procedure.
A draft document by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on “honour-based abuse, forced marriages, and harmful practices”, classes circumcision as a potential crime alongside breast flattening, virginity testing, hymenoplasty and exorcisms.
Five parties issue joint statement after US president warns he would acquire the island ‘the nice way or the more difficult way’
Greenlanders “don’t want to be Americans” and must decide the future of the Arctic island themselves, politicians in the self-governing Danish territory have said, after Donald Trump warned the US would “do something whether they like it or not”.
The leaders of five political parties in the Greenlandic parliament issued a united statement on Friday night, soon after the US president reiterated his threats to acquire the mineral-rich island.
Experts note the blackout is unprecedented in its extent but also selective, allowing some government communications
Iran’s internet shutdown, now in place for 36 hours as the authorities seek to quell escalating anti-government protests, represents a “new high-water mark” in terms of its sophistication and severity, say experts – and could last a long time.
As the blackout kicked in, 90% of internet traffic to Iran evaporated. International calls to the country appeared blocked and domestic mobile phones had no service, said Amir Rashidi, an Iranian digital rights expert.
Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the Brisbane International final for the third year in a row after defeating Karolina Muchova 6-3, 6-4. The world No 1 clinched her fourth match point at Pat Rafter Arena to advance to Sunday’s final against Marta Kostyuk, who beat the fourth-seeded Jessica Pegula 6-0, 6-3.
It was Kostyuk’s third win in a row over a top-10 opponent. She came into the match with only one win in five previous matches against the American.
On Friday, in a rematch of last year’s Australian Open final, Sabalenka broke Madison Keys in five straight service games on the way to a 6-3, 6-3 win. Last year at Melbourne Park, Keys beat Sabalenka for her first Grand Slam singles title.
Although three match points slipped away amid a late flurry of pressure from the Czech player, Sabalenka sealed victory when a Muchová shot sailed long.
“I always try to stay in the present,” Sabalenka said. “I worked really hard and each match against her is just another opportunity to get the win and I’m super happy that today was the day when I was able to get the win. She is such a great player and I always enjoy battles against her.”
This weekend promises a Hollywood showdown with films including Sinners, Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another up for major awards
After a year that was notoriously close to call (did anyone initially see Anora emerging as the ultimate victor?), this awards season feels a little easier to scope out. Paul Thomas Anderson’s idiosyncratic activism caper One Battle After Another has so far dominated, becoming only the fourth film ever to win best film at both the New York and Los Angeles film circles then the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics. But how far can it go?
It leads this weekend’s Golden Globes with nine nominations but the comedy categories also feature Marty Supreme, now riding high at the box office, and its inescapable leading man Timothée Chalamet. Then on the drama side we have Sinners and Hamnet, two very different films solidifying two very different awards narratives. Here’s how I think it might all play out on Sunday:
The poet on running across a minefield, being bewitched at a bus stop, and his 88th birthday celebrations
Born in Liverpool, Roger McGough, 88, worked as a teacher before forming the Scaffold with John Gorman and Mike McGear in the 1960s; they performed poetry, sketches and comic songs and had a No 1 hit with Lily the Pink. McGough hosts Radio 4’s Poetry Please and has published more than 100 poetry books for adults and children, including Collected Poems 1959-2024. He has four children and lives in London with his second wife.
When were you happiest?
Last Sunday when all the family came round to celebrate my 88th birthday. (Or was it Saturday. Or the week before, perhaps?)
Why spoil perfectly crisp, clean bedding with dusty old accessories that have been used by hundreds of strangers? Yuck
Picture the scene: you enter a lovely clean hotel room. There are newly laundered crisp sheets and fluffy fresh towels. But as you sit on the bed, the cushions let out a cloud of dust and you realise the bed is covered with an unwashed bedspread that has been sat on by every other guest who has ever visited this room. It’s usually slung across the bottom of the bed, so lots of them have probably put their feet on it, too.
I hate decorative cushions and throws on hotel beds. The first thing I do on seeing them is remove them with the tips of my fingers and shove them in the wardrobe. Doesn’t everyone?Due to the often impressive efficiency of hospital corners on the bed, removing the throws can be a challenge, frequently resulting in wresting the entire duvet off the bed so I can discard the offending bedspread. And don’t get me started on when everything reappears on the bed the next day, and I have to begin my weird ritual all over again.
Although the Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for several months, not everyone has made the leap to the new machine and there is still much to enjoy on the original console in 2026 (and beyond). From timeless Mario adventures to cutesy shooters to chasm-deep role-playing quests, here are 15 games no Switch owner should be without.
Stranded upon sodden islands that dot the submerged plains of outback north-west Queensland, encircled by fresh water and with grass growing before their eyes, tens of thousands of cattle are dying of thirst and hunger.
“It sounds completely absurd,” grazier Angus Propsting says. “But they are actually perishing because they are not drinking, even though they are surrounded by water.”
News and buildup to today’s FA Cup third-round action, weather disruptions and more
The big transfer news has already begun today as England international and two-time Euros winner Georgia Stanway has announced she is leaving Bayern Munich at the end of the season.
In her announcement on social media she said it was a difficult decision to leave Bayern and thanked the club and fans.
Claudia Winkleman is among high-profile women again popularising the trouser style once favoured by hippies
In fashion currently, trouser shape firmly sit in two camps – skin-tight, as with the revival of skinny jeans, or ultra oversized and baggy. But, perhaps, there is a third way. Enter – once again – the flare.
The trouser shape, first popularised in the 70s and flirted with briefly five years ago, is back again in 2026. Resale app Depop says there has been a 30% increase in the searches for the style this month alone.
From Jorge Luis Borges to George Orwell and Margaret Atwood, novelists have foreseen some of the major developments of our age. What can we learn from their prophecies?
This year marks 100 years since the first demonstration of television in London. Elizabeth II sent the first royal email in 1976. The first meeting of the Lancashire Association of Change Ringers took place in 1876. All notable anniversaries. But I’m going with 2026 as the 85th anniversary of a great short story: Jorge Luis Borges’s The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). It’s about chance, labyrinths and an impossible novel. Ts’ui Pên, an ancestor of the narrator, sets himself the task of writing a novel with a cast of thousands:“an enormous guessing game, or parable, in which the subject is time”. In most novels, when a character reaches a fork in the path, they must choose: this way, or that way. Yet in Ts’ui Pên’s novel, all possible paths are chosen. This creates “a growing, dizzying web of divergent, convergent, and parallel times”. The garden of forking paths is infinite.
It’s often said that Borges’s story foreshadows the multiverse hypothesis in quantum physics – first proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957, then popularised by Bryce DeWitt in the 1970s as the “many worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics. In a 2005 essay, The Garden of the Forking Worlds, the physicist Alberto Rojo investigated this claim. Did the physicists read Borges? Or did Borges read the universe? It turned out that Bryce DeWitt hadn’t known about Borges’s garden. When Rojo questioned Borges, he also denied everything: “This is really curious,” he said, “because the only thing I know about physics comes from my father, who once showed me how a barometer works.” He added: “Physicists are so imaginative!”
The US president is weaponising tech, but his tariffs and Brexit provide a surprising opportunity to gain back digital control of our lives
It’s been 25 years since I started working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an American nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting human rights on the internet. I’ve found myself in dozens of countries working with activists, politicians and civil servants to untangle the complex technical questions raised by the internet, andevery one of our discussions ended in the same place. “OK,” they’d say, “you’ve definitely laid out the best way to regulate tech, but we can’t do it.”
Why not? Because – inevitably – the US trade rep had beaten me to every one of those countries and made it eye-wateringly clear that if they regulated tech in a way that favoured their own people, industries and national interests, the US would bury them in tariffs.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of dozens of books, most recently Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It
Brainless moments, moral victories and tough lessons were abundant during a series that still provided plenty of drama
Player of the series Travis Head was the boxing kangaroo at the top of the Australia order. But this one goes to the other animal on the baggy green crest, Mitchell Starc bounding in like an emu, slicing through England during the live bit, and playing all five to finish with 31 wickets at 19 apiece. Elite.
Move comes after governments and regulators from Europe to Asia have condemned the AI tool and some have opened inquiries into sexualised content
Indonesia temporarily blocked Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot on Saturday due to the risk of AI-generated pornographic content, becoming the first country to deny access to the AI tool.
The move comes after governments, researchers and regulators from Europe to Asia have condemned and some have opened inquiries into sexualised content on the app.
Human rights groups say ‘at least 60 arbitrary arrests’ have occurred for celebrating the US military operation
Authorities in Nicaragua have arrested at least 60 people for reportedly celebrating or expressing support for the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, a human rights watchdog group and local media outlets said Friday.
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and his wife, vice president Rosario Murillo, are staunch allies of Maduro, who was captured by US military personnel in Caracas last Saturday and taken to New York to face trial on drug and weapons charges.
Some experts have voiced fears a tech meltdown could hit our savings and pensions – here’s how to protect yourself
The new year has started as 2025 ended – with share prices booming amid warnings from some that the growth is being driven by overvalued technology stocks. Fears of an “AI bubble” have been voiced by people from the governor of the Bank of England to the head of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
Even if you have not actively invested in technology shares, the chances are you have some exposure to companies operating in the sphere. Even if you do not, a collapse could take down other companies’ values.
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