Fed chair accuses DoJ of threatening criminal charges over building renovation projects because central bank defied Trump’s interest rate demands
The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve, a significant escalation in Donald Trump’s extraordinary attack on the US central bank.
Powell said the Department of Justice had served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Friday, threatening a criminal indictment related to his testimony before the Senate banking committee in June last year, regarding renovations to the Fed’s historic office buildings in Washington DC.
Brock Purdy threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey late in the fourth quarter, San Francisco used a trick play on a TD toss from wide receiver Jauan Jennings, and the 49ers eliminated the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles with a 23-19 wildcard victory on Sunday.
The 49ers head to top-seeded Seattle next weekend for an NFC divisional playoff game. The NFC West rivals split the season series.
UK government starts contest to have deep-strike prototypes delivered within 12 months; heat-starved Kyiv under Russian attack again. What we know on day 1,419
Britain is to develop a new deep-strike ballistic missile for Ukraine, the government has announced. Under the project, named Nightfall, the British government said on Sunday that it had launched a competition to rapidly develop ground-launched ballistic missiles that could carry a 200kg (440lb) warhead to a range of more than 500km (310 miles).
“Nightfall missiles will be capable of being launched from a range of vehicles,” said the UK defence ministry (MoD), “firing multiple missiles in quick succession and withdrawing within minutes – allowing Ukrainian forces to hit key military targets before Russian forces can respond.”
Three industry teams would each get £9m to design, develop and deliver their first three Nightfall missiles within 12 months for test firings, said the MoD. Ukraine’s current ballistic missiles include Atacms, for which it relies on the US, and the self-developed Sapsan.
Russia was again attacking Kyiv early on Monday, the Ukrainian military said, sparking a fire in at least one district. Ukrainian air defences were at work against incoming targets, said Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration.
The renewed attack came as more than 1,000 apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital remained without heating because of a Russian bombardment on Friday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said that despite repairs the situation was “still extremely difficult”, particularly in border regions.
At the Vatican, Pope Leo offered prayers for the people of Ukraine, saying the “particularly serious” strikes on energy infrastructure were “hitting the civilian population hard, just as the cold weather is getting worse … I pray for those who are suffering and renew my appeal for an end to violence and for efforts to achieve peace to be intensified.”
Ukraine’s forces hit three drilling platforms operated by Russian oil company Lukoil in the waters of the Caspian Sea, the Ukrainian military general staff announced on Sunday. The strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue used to fund the war. Moscow meanwhile said a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh.
This year will see films such as Sinners, One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme and shows including Adolescence and The Pitt compete
It’s not an awards ceremony without a pregnancy reveal is it? Wunmi Mosaku, the British Nigerian star of Sinners is wearing a canary yellow bespoke gown and sheer veil by Matthew Reisman, and the colour is steeped in meaning. “In Yoruba, we say Iya ni Wúrà which means ‘mother is golden’”, she wrote in Vogue. Top tier stuff. More colour please.
Wanda Sykes is the first celeb I’ve seen on the red carpet tonight with a “Be Good” pin, which some are wearing in honor of Renee Good, the unarmed woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week, sparking national outrage. Others are wearing “ICE OUT” pins as part of an ACLU-endorsed protest of the Trump administration’s persecution of undocumented immigrants and larger $100m recruitment campaign aimed at expanding ICE presence in communities across the country.
An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote
The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness.
Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel, who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond.
I do not need to share Randa Abdel-Fattah’s views to believe that removing her is wrong. This is why I’ve withdrawn from Adelaide writers’ week
If there has been a bright red thread running through my career, it’s the importance of freedom of speech. It underpinned my life as a journalist and correspondent, became central to the campaign to get me out of prison in Egypt and, perhaps paradoxically, it is why I have reluctantly withdrawn from this year’s Adelaide writers’ week.
On Thursday the Adelaide festival board announced it had removed the writer and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the program, not because of anything she was proposing to say at the festival but because of things she said previously, reassessed in the aftermath of the Bondi attack.
Peter Greste is a professor of journalism at Macquarie University and the executive director for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom
The defending champion Shaun Murphy is out of the Masters after a shock 6-2 defeat against China’s Wu Yize on the opening day of the 2026 tournament at Alexandra Palace.
Wu, the world No 13, dominated from the outset and won the opening three frames, recording a superb break of 137 in the second. Murphy, the top seed, rallied briefly but, with a highest break of only 49, could not get back into the contest.
Meta has deactivated more than half a million accounts for teenagers across Facebook, Instagram and Threads as a result of Australia’s under-16s social media ban, the company has announced.
Just over one month since the ban came into effect, Meta announced on Monday that between 4 December, when the company began deactivating accounts, and 11 December, 544,052 accounts Meta believed to be held by users under 16 were deactivated.
Multiple Torah scrolls were damaged after fire broke out early Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson
A suspect has been taken into custody after a historic synagogue in Mississippi was badly damaged in a fire that authorities described on Sunday as an arson case.
According to officials, the blaze broke out shortly after 3am Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson. No one was hurt in the fire.
A Victorian Muslim religious leader was punched in the face after he and his wife were allegedly forced from their car on a Melbourne freeway in what police allege was a racially motivated attack.
Police allege the pair were travelling along the South Gippsland Highway in Melbourne’s south-east at 7.40pm on Saturday when they were “racially abused” by three occupants of a small black hatchback.
Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah accused British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators
The UK has settled out of court by paying a “substantial sum” to a Guantánamo Bay detainee who was suing the government for its alleged complicity in his rendition and torture, according to the inmate’s legal team.
Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah have accused the British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators to put to him while they were torturing him at a string of CIA “black sites” around the world where he was held between 2002 and 2006.
Former midfielder ahead of Solskjær after interviews
Darren Fletcher admits he is in the dark over his position
Michael Carrick has emerged as the favourite candidate to be Manchester United’s interim manager for the rest of the season ahead of Ole Gunnar Solskjær after the interview process, with the club’s executive expected to finalise the decision on Monday.
While Omar Berrada, the chief executive, and Jason Wilcox, the director of football, are understood to have not made a formal offer, they are leaning towards Carrick, sources have informed the Guardian. This follows both Carrick and Solskjær having face-to-face discussions with the hierarchy. Berrada and Wilcox met Carrick on Thursday and Solskjær on Saturday at the club’s Carrington training ground.
Raphinha 36 73, Lewandowski 45+4; Vinícius 45+2, García 45+7
Football is wild sometimes, and this was one of those times. A night that didn’t always make sense but was a lot of fun ended with every player on the pitch inside the Barcelona penalty area and the ball dropping through the crowd to Raúl Asencio, standing there on the edge of the six yard box. The board had gone up with six minutes on it, those six minutes had passed and now here it was, his moment and another twist: the chance to somehow take the Super Cup final to a penalty shootout.
Instead, with the clock on 96.43 Asencio headed at Joan García. On his line, the goalkeeper grabbed the shot and held on hard; his team had done the same, two goals from Raphinha and another from Robert Lewandowski enough to take the trophy, goals from Vinícius Júnior and Gonzalo García not enough to take it from them. Whether they will be enough to keep Xabi Alonso in his job remains to be seem; Jeddah was supposed to be the final judgment but there may be those that judge Madrid’s reaction here reason for him to remain.
Man, thought to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow and had been skiing off-piste
A British skier has been killed by an avalanche in the French Alps.
The man, believed to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow after a 50-minute search, a statement from the La Plagne resort in south-eastern France said.
Even for the world’s best rugby player it is not all glamour. As he sniffed the damp air on a blustery, cheerless Sunday night in north London, Antoine Dupont must privately have been wondering if this was some sort of fiendish Anglo-Saxon conspiracy. Any similarity with the classic cathedrals and comforting familiarity of the Stade de France in next month’s Six Nations was conspicuously lacking.
For a defiant Saracens, though, this chilly, sodden evening delivered the most beautiful of outcomes and a result that transforms the mood of their previous flagging season. They fully deserved this rousing victory, two first-half tries from Rotimi Segun and a barnstorming display from man-of-the-match Tom Willis laying the foundations for the hosts’ best performance of the season which has sharply improved their Champions Cup knockout qualification prospects.
Quins score nine tries against much-changed opponents
Harlequins back? Or is this latest outrageous twist in the story of their inconsistency a case of same old, same old? First, it needs to be acknowledged that this was a comprehensive dismantling of a side who had not lost a game this season. This was hardly the Stormers’ first team, but an unbeaten squad is an unbeaten squad. God knows, they are beaten now.
The notion that Harlequins are one of the Premiership’s whipping boys was made to look absurd as they strutted the turf of the Stoop with supreme confidence and aplomb. Try after try followed, a hat-trick for Nick David with consecutive tries either side of half-time. But the star performers were legion here. Their eighth try (of nine) on the hour opened up a 54‑0 lead. How far away seemed the past few weeks, in which they have conceded nigh-on 150 points in three Premiership matches.
Manchester United’s hunt for trophies is over inside the second week of January after a ruthless Brighton took advantage of yet another loose defensive performance. This FA Cup third-round knockout means the 13-time winners have been dumped from the competition and the League Cup at the first opportunity for a first time since 1981-82.
By the end of May United’s season will stand at a total of 40 games – their lowest number in a complete campaign since 1914-15. If August’s Carabao Cup penalty shootout elimination at Grimsby was dire, this disappointment was as concerningly insipid, goals from Brajan Gruda and Danny Welbeck, one in each half, (probably) ending Darren Fletcher’s record as the interim manager as winless – this defeat following Wednesday’s draw at Burnley in the Premier League.
Stars from Bob Dylan to Brandi Carlile remember rock band co-founder as ‘beautiful human’ after his death at 78
The death of Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead co-founder, rhythm guitarist, vocalist and writer of much of the legendary psychedelic rock band’s songs, drew a chorus of tributes from fellow musicians and fans who described him as a “musical guru” and “the last actual hippie”.
Weir recently survived cancer but died from “underlying lung issues”, according to a statement posted on Saturday on Instagram.
Each week we cut through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.
At this time last year, I was a full-time student, throwing on the requisite leggings and an oversized sweatshirt for evening classes and late-night library sessions. This year, I’ve joined countless others in office life, zipping in and out of conference rooms and hopping on video calls for interviews and meetings. I love any excuse to shop, but many office-friendly pieces, including pricey blazers and crisp button-downs, are far outside my price range.
No more Venezuelan oil or money will flow to the communist-run island after Maduro’s fall, says US president
Donald Trump has told Cuba to “make a deal” or face unspecified consequences, adding that no more Venezuelan oil or money would flow to the communist-run Caribbean island that has been a US foe for decades.
As Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela and big beneficiary of its oil, braced for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as the South American nation’s leader, the US president ramped up his threatening language on Sunday.
One of the founding members of the Grateful Dead, brilliant guitarist and writer of many of the group’s key songs
Though perhaps not as instantly recognisable as the band’s guru-like lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, who has died from cancer aged 78, was an indispensable pillar of the Grateful Dead as guitarist, singer and songwriter.
Weir, Garcia and their bandmates first came together in San Francisco in 1965, and would become integral players in the psychedelia boom and the city’s summer of love in 1967, fuelled by the mind-expanding drug LSD.
Forget the magic of the FA Cup, for West Ham the reality of what is soon likely to be a Championship fixture – an indicator that life in the second tier will be no cakewalk. That QPR took them to extra time will do little for Nuno Espírito Santo’s standing, despite a first win since 8 November.
There were, though, positives to take in the performance of Taty Castellanos, the Argentinian striker who scored the Hammers’ winning goal. Have West Ham at last ended a search for a striker that has lasted almost as long as their London Stadium tenancy? They have looked everywhere.
There is a seriously charged atmosphere in Jacksonville. The jeers are popping off while Josh Allen picks up another 1st down with a 10-yard pass to Brandin Cooks on the right sideline. Before that a Bill and Jag were locking facemasks. Spicy.
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