Leaders struggle to square welcome for ejection of Maduro with support for international law

• Venezuela crisis: latest updates

European leaders emerged divided and torn as they tried to welcome the ejection of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, but still uphold the principles of international law that did not appear to allow Donald Trump to capture Nicolás Maduro, let alone declare that the US will run Venezuela and control its oil industry.

Europe tried to focus on the principle of a democratic transition, pointing out that the continent had not recognised Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela since what were widely regarded as fraudulent elections in June 2024.

The deaths came as the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement, detaining a record number of people

From Los Angeles to Nevada, younger people are preserving a longstanding tradition one lyric at a time

Deep in the heart of Los Angeles’s Koreatown, just a few doors down from H Mart and a K-pop music superstore, an American flag hangs over the entrance of a saloon called Eastwood.

The western-themed bar would normally be cranking Luke Bryan while customers play skee-ball, line dance and get bucked off their mechanical bull named Gucci. But tonight, the music is low and the loudest sounds come from the clacking of vintage mechanical typewriters. About 30 people in the bar are drafting poems about horses, sunsets and Stetson hats – which are plentiful atop the heads in the crowd.

Heck, they thought they killed me back in 15

flew me out in a chopper, covered me with a sheet.

After his heart stopped beating for 40 minutes, the former lawyer experienced weeks of hallucinations. The visions he experienced during his recovery set him on the path to a new career

On the evening of Monday 1 February 2021, during the third Covid lockdown, my wife Alexa and I sat down on the sofa to have sausages and chips in front of the TV. The children were tetchy, and we were worn out from trying to home-school them while working from home, me as a lawyer in the music industry and Alexa as a charity fundraiser. But at least, Alexa said to me, we had made it through January.

Then I started making strange noises. “Are you joking?” she asked. Then, “are you choking?”

Considered one of world’s finest trade union buildings and famous for its ‘pitmen’s parliament’, Redhills was built on a grand scale

Outside the impressively grand, Edwardian baroque building in Durham are two wooden benches, each dedicated to men who died too young.

They were, the inscription reads, both “sacked and victimised” during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. Yet they’re in grounds that look as if they might have been owned by rich, exploitative mine owners.

• Ducksch double edges Birmingham to 3-2 home victory

• QPR ease past bottom side Sheffield Wednesday

Marvin Ducksch scored twice as Birmingham ended their seven-game winless streak with a 3-2 victory over Championship leaders Coventry.

The former Germany international grabbed a goal in each half as fortunes ebbed and flowed in a derby fixture that delivered drama from the first whistle until stoppage time when visiting defender Bobby Thomas was dismissed. Birmingham led three times but were pegged back twice by Frank Lampard’s side, who have now won just twice in their last eight outings.

• Spinazzola and Rrahmani goals earn 2-0 away win

• Sevilla slump to 3-0 home defeat against Levante

First-half goals from Leonardo Spinazzola and Amir Rrahmani helped Napoli claim a 2-0 victory at Lazio on Sunday in a heated contest that featured three red cards.

Victory moves Napoli back to one point behind Serie A leaders Milan, who won 1-0 at Cagliari on Friday. Inter sit third but can reclaim top spot with victory at home to Bologna later on Sunday.

This story will be updated

London predicted to be the first UK city to go diesel-free, largely because of the ultra-low emission zone

Battery electric cars are poised to overtake diesels on Great Britain’s roads by 2030, according to analysis that suggests London will be the first UK city to go diesel-free.

The number of diesel cars on Great Britain’s roads in June had fallen to 9.9m in June last year, 21% below its peak of 12.4m vehicles, according to analysis by New AutoMotive, a thinktank focused on the transition to electric cars. Electric car sales are still growing rapidly, albeit more slowly than manufacturers had expected.

The 34-year-old posts emotional video saying the girls will ‘fight all the odds’ after spinal muscular atrophy diagnosis

The former Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson has said her twin babies will “fight all the odds” after being diagnosed with a rare genetic condition that means it is unlikely they will ever be able to walk.

The 34-year-old singer and her fiance, Zion Foster, welcomed their twins Ocean Jade and Story Monroe Nelson-Foster in May, after they were born prematurely. In an emotional Instagram video posted on Sunday, Nelson revealed the girls had been diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1).

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

Few of the near 40,000 that flooded the Elland Road terraces would have cared to admit it given the depths at which one of English football’s most intense rivalries runs, but it was hard to argue that this was anything but a well-earned point apiece that serves the intentions and ambitions of both Leeds and Manchester United well.

On first glance, a draw away at a relegation-threatened, newly-promoted side does little in terms of oozing positivity. But given the fact Ruben Amorim selected a starting lineup with nine defensive-minded players and the visitors were facing a Leeds side now on their longest unbeaten run in the Premier League since 2001, they will view this as a point gained.

Technocrat must accommodate US demands while shoring up a regime that is hated by many Venezuelans

• US attacks Venezuela – live updates

In her first speech as Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez lambasted the US and pledged fealty to Nicolás Maduro. But the Trump administration has made a cold calculation: she will bow to Washington.

Rodríguez is a political veteran who served as Maduro’s vice-president and oil minister and defended the regime against accusations of terrorism, drug-running and election-stealing, yet for now she is Donald Trump’s favoured option to lead Venezuela. “She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said.

• Craven Cottage kick-off delayed by 15 minutes

• Morocco v Tanzania at 4pm (GMT) | Email Tom

With Portsmouth v Ipswich postponed, a win for Middlesbrough will see them go up to second in the Championship and six points behind Coventry.

That Birmingham v Coventry game was a wild ride. Five goals, one red card and at the end of it the league leaders lose their second game in three.

I was running an hour late and couldn’t think clearly. I was in despair that I might miss my plane home

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Twelve years ago, I was in Queanbeyan to see a specialist for my chronic health condition. I was headed home to Queensland early the next morning and had set my alarm to wake me for the taxi I had ordered to the airport. But when I woke up, I realised that I had forgotten to allow for daylight savings. I was now running an hour late to the airport, with no taxi to get me there.

I ordered another taxi and made my way out to wait in front of the motel, in despair that I might miss my flight. I stood on the dark footpath and spoke on the phone to my sister in Queensland about how I had missed my taxi and how unwell I felt. My health condition can affect my ability to think clearly, and I was telling her how my brain just wasn’t working that day. Then the taxi arrived – phew. Except, as the driver told me when I opened the door to get in, it wasn’t for me.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions ponders the online world – from what’s despicable to what’s indispensable

• This week’s question: can you really fake it to make it?

The internet has turned fringe belief into mainstream politics and policy – from authoritarianism to vaccines. With democracy itself threatened, is it time to go back to a previous world of landlines, letters and face to-face-contact, audiotapes and Ansaphones? What would we miss about the online world that is worth the risk to liberal culture and basic freedoms? Should we turn the internet off? Mees Visser, Groningen, the Netherlands

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

AI safety expert David Dalrymple said rapid advances could outpace efforts to control powerful systems

The world “may not have time” to prepare for the safety risks posed by cutting-edge AI systems, according to a leading figure at the UK government’s scientific research agency.

David Dalrymple, a programme director and AI safety expert at the Aria agency, told the Guardian people should be concerned about the growing capability of the technology.

Joseph on sussing the school system at the age of four, an awkward audition for the National Youth Theatre, and why he loves his ‘horrible’ Peep Show character

Born in Willesden, north-west London, in 1964, Paterson Joseph is an actor and writer. A graduate of Lamda, he worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company before moving into TV and film, with roles including Alan Johnson in Peep Show and Keaty in The Beach. He published his award-winning debut novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, in 2022. His children’s book, Ten Children Who Changed the World, is out now. Joseph is a judge for the debut fiction category of the 2025 Nero Book Awards. The winners will be announced on 13 January.

This was taken by my sister Glenda, who had decided she wanted to get into hair and makeup. She was pulling together a portfolio and used me as a guinea pig, something my sisters had done since I was small. I was going for that slightly curmudgeonly old man expression, but it came out more like a smirk.

In 2025 the Doncaster-born singer-songwriter has earned two UK No 1s, three Grammy nominations and the respect of rock’s greats – and he says it’s all down to putting fans first

In November, Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud, received three Grammy nominations. The news that he had become the first British artist in history to be nominated that many times in the awards’ rock categories came as a suitably striking finale to what, by any metric, was an extraordinary year for the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

In June, his fourth studio album, Idols, entered the UK charts at No 1, outselling its nearest competitor by 50%. The same month, the annual festival he curates and headlines, Bludfest, drew an audience of 30,000 to The National Bowl in Milton Keynes. In July, he played at Back to the Beginning, the farewell performance by Black Sabbath, whose frontman Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days after the gig. On a bill almost comically overstuffed with heavy metal superstars paying tribute – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, Slayer – his rendition of Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad Changes unexpectedly stole the show, appearing to win him an entirely new audience in the process: the crowd at the gig skewed considerably older than the gen Z fans Harrison traditionally attracts.

Power cuts and fuel shortages likely to rise after loss of key ally, while Trump administration’s warnings cause concern

• US attacks Venezuela – live updates

• ‘Naked imperialism’: how Trump intervention in Venezuela is a return to form for the US

Dr Ifraín Pérez had been checking the news on his phone since the early hours. All day, the capture of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, had been the main subject of conversation in his neighbourhood in Havana. “It’s really pretty unpleasant news – for Cuba and the world,” he said late on Saturday.

Pérez, 62, served twice in Venezuela as part of Cuban medical missions, from 2005 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2016. “I’m worried because I know many Venezuelans. I have a great affinity with that people because of what I lived through with them,” he said.

The US president used largely fictitious charges to seize control, but can’t know how Venezuelans will react. He may also overstep now as regards Iran

During his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump pledged to end “forever wars”, abandon “nation-building” interventions and focus instead on reviving a US economy that, in his telling, had been deindustrialised by a floodtide of imports. Though Trump’s electoral victories cannot be attributed to any one thing, his “America first” narrative certainly struck a chord.

But Trump’s use of force to seize the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, his full-bore support for Israel’s demolition of Gaza and his bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations show that he’s no less willing than his predecessors to resort to military interventions.

Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Roll up, roll up for the yummiest start to the day with this tantalising TexMex mishmash of refried beans, eggs, potatoes. But just what goes in, and what should be left out?

Breakfast tacos should not be confused with tacos eaten for breakfast. Of course, they often are eaten for breakfast, but the stuffed flour tortillas eaten on both sides of the southern US border are quite different from the tacos mañaneros of central and southern Mexico, the rich, corn-based tacos de canasta (“tacos in a basket”) or the smoky beef barbacoa that Monterrey-born Lily Ramirez-Foran recalls being her dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast. Instead, Texas Monthly explains, breakfast tacos “marry the key elements of an American morning – scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes – with the Mexican staples of salsa, cheese, refried beans … genius.”

Although they’re originally a Mexican creation, according to José R Ralat, the magazine’s taco editor (what a job title!), these $3 treats are now so popular north of the border that they’re the subject of regular taco wars, mostly between those who claim Austin as their spiritual home (often blow-ins, according to their fiercest critics), and those who know that no single city can take the credit. The fillings may vary, from pork chops to chilaquiles and beans to cheese, but Ralat maintains that all should be salty, soft and, above all, comforting, and told the Washington Post a few years ago that “the greatest breakfast taco is the one made at home”. Which, if you live 5,000 miles from the Mexican border, is good news indeed.

Misinformation from the Trump administration is cited as fuelling Canadians’ concerns over childhood vaccinations

Canadian officials and public health experts are warning that US health and science institutions can no longer be depended upon for accurate information, particularly when it comes to vaccinations, amid fears that misinformation from the Trump administration could further erode Canadians’ confidence in healthcare.

“I can’t imagine a world in which this misinformation doesn’t creep into Canadians’ consciousness and leads to doubt,” said Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist and professor at McMaster University in Ontario.

Prime minister gives clearest sign yet that government is seeking to further deepen Britain’s links with Brussels

Closer ties with the EU single market are preferable to a customs union, Keir Starmer has said, in his clearest sign yet that the government is seeking to further deepen links with Brussels.

The prime minister said the UK should consider “even closer alignment” with the single market. “If it’s in our national interest … then we should consider that, we should go that far,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

Revenues may be rising rapidly, but not by nearly enough to cover the wild levels of investment under way

The US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”. The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming obvious. In 2026, a reckoning with reality for AI represents a growing economic risk.

Ed Zitron, the foul-mouthed figurehead of AI scepticism, argues pretty convincingly that, as things stand, the “unit economics” of the entire industry – the cost of servicing the requests of a single customer against the price companies are able to charge them – just don’t add up. In typically colourful language, he calls them “dogshit”.