On Monday night, the US military said it attacked three more boats believed to have been smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing eight people

• US military says eight killed in strikes on three boats in eastern Pacific

Across the pond today, Keir Starmer’s office has said that any legal action against the BBC was a matter for the broadcaster but the UK government supported its independence.

It comes after Donald Trump finally filed his lawsuit demanding damages worth up to to $10bn for the way a BBC Panorama documentary – which aired over a year ago – edited a speech he gave to supporters on 6 January 2021 before they attacked the US Capitol.

Investigators say latest studies of wreckage reveal no sign to back up alternative theories of a collision or an explosion

• Europe live – latest updates

The sinking of the Estonia ferry more than 30 years ago was caused by the failure of its bow section, not an explosion or collision as claimed by some, authorities have said, in a report aimed at finally closing the case on Europe’s worst civil maritime disaster since the second world war.

“The MV Estonia sank as a result of the collapse of its bow construction,” Estonian, Swedish and Finnish investigators said. “There is, therefore, no reason to start a new full-scale … investigation of the accident.”

The Zen-like US representative from Minnesota has had the highest level of death threats of any congressperson because of the president’s attacks

“That’s Teddy,” said Tim Mynett, husband of the US representative Ilhan Omar, as their five-year-old labrador retriever capered around her office on Capitol Hill. “If you make too much eye contact, he’ll lose it. He’s my best friend – and he’s our security detail these days.”

The couple were sitting on black leather furniture around a coffee table. Apart from a sneezing fit that took her husband by surprise, Omar had an unusual Zen-like calm for someone who receives frequent death threats and is the subject of a vendetta from the most powerful man in the world.

Region struggling with drought now threatened by energy-hungry facilities – but some residents are fighting back

The sign outside Tom Hermes’s farmyard in Perkins Township in Ohio, a short drive south of the shores of Lake Erie, proudly claims that his family have farmed the land here since 1900. Today, he raises 130 head of cattle and grows corn, wheat, grass and soybeans on 1,200 acres of land.

For his family, his animals and wider business, water is life.

• Keeper saved two penalties in Euro 2025 final

• Hampton also helped Chelsea to domestic treble

Hannah Hampton has won the Fifa Best women’s goalkeeper 2025 award, completing a global goalkeeper award double after she received the Ballon d’Or ceremony’s equivalent prize for keepers in September.

Hampton, 25, saved two penalties in the European Championship final as England beat Spain in July. The Fifa Best award for this year takes performances between 11 August 2024 to 2 August 2025 into account, and therefore acknowledges not only Hampton’s shootout heroics but also her helping Chelsea win a domestic treble of major trophies last season.

• Dispute related to contract before exit for Real Madrid

• Court sided with player amid accusations of betrayal

A Paris labour court has ruled Paris Saint-Germain must pay more than €60m to Kylian Mbappé in a dispute over unpaid wages and bonuses linked to the end of his contract before his 2024 move to Real Madrid.

Lawyers argued last month before the Conseil de prud’hommes. The court sided with the player amid accusations of betrayal and harassment surrounding the breakdown of their relationship. PSG had been seeking €440m from Mbappé, citing damages and a “loss of opportunity” after he left on a free transfer. However, the court’s ruling can be appealed and is unlikely to end the dispute.

The director’s incredible versatility and talent meant that he could reduce to tears with anguish or laughter, effortlessly pivoting from comedy to courtroom drama, romcom to rock mockumentary

Obviously The Shining remains the greatest Stephen King adaptation ever made, but Stand By Me is the one I love beyond all measure. It’s the warmest, the saddest and the funniest, too: a lovely, grubby ode to the joys of misspent youth. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12,” remarks small-town adventurer Gordie Lachance, who sets off with his pals to find a dead body in the woods. “Jesus, does anyone?”

Since 2008, struggling communities have been told they are in competition with migrants. Only a model that gives them hope will halt the populists

How much does Europe’s future resemble its gruesome past? That question was already pressing before Donald Trump retook the White House, and turned support for the European far-right “patriotic” parties into US policy. That is, of course, what his newly published National Security Strategy means, committing the US to “cultivating resistance” in European nations against the supposed “civilisational erasure” represented by immigration.

With or without US interference, far-right authoritarianism is now an entirely plausible European future, unless there is drastic change. After all, it is already the US’s present reality. American exceptionalism once held that such an outcome was impossible in the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic, with its system of separation of powers and no history of despotism. Yet the country is now ruled by a self-styled king, centralising executive power, weaponising the justice system, attacking civil society and neutralising the media.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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Our cartoonist on exorbitant World Cup ticket prices and peace breaking out on Merseyside

• David’s favourite cartoons of 2025 | Buy one here

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

Mia Tretta has advocated for gun-violence prevention since being shot as a high school student in California in 2019

As federal and local authorities in Providence, Rhode Island, continue searching for the person who killed two Brown University students and injured nine others on Saturday, campus members and the broader community are grieving and dealing with a shattered sense of safety.

But for 21-year-old Brown University junior Mia Tretta, it’s familiar territory.

I am in awe of the children and their parents as they live through raids. How can you call an operation targeted when it blankets a city in fear?

There is snow on the ground, but for some Chicago families, this is a moment of unfreezing. ICE is still out there, but Commander Gregory Bovino and his strike force have moved on. After months, Operation Midway Blitz has quieted.

In places like the elementary school where I am principal, some parents who were hiding are poking their heads out doors. Children holding their breath since September are beginning to exhale.

Michaela’s husband is away 14 hours a day amid Trump’s ban on remote work, the threat of layoffs is ever-present and their health premiums are set to multiply

Michaela felt a sharp pain shoot from her hip while she bent over to water some plants in early May 2025. Then she fell over and couldn’t get back up.

Her husband called an ambulance and she spent the night in a hospital, where, at 57, she found out she had a mass on her spine. It was metastatic breast cancer.

The Guardian's Jonathan Liew visits the World Darts Championships at Alexandra Palace to explore how the game went from the working men's clubs to the world stage, what the next 10 years looks like, and how it continues to have a ever-developing cultural impact around the world

• Germany international not part of Hammers’ plans

• Ward-Prowse and Guilherme could also be offloaded

Milan are preparing a loan deal for Niclas Füllkrug, who is available after a disastrous spell at West Ham. The Germany striker has toiled since moving to the London Stadium for £27.5m in the summer of 2024 and is not part of Nuno Espírito Santo’s plans.

Füllkrug, who has failed to score in nine appearances this season, was again left out of the matchday squad when Nuno’s struggling side lost 3-2 at home to Aston Villa on Sunday. The 32-year-old has not started since 4 October and his signing is regarded by West Ham as one of the worst mistakes made by their former technical director Tim Steidten.

We would like to hear about your television highlights of the year. Share your thoughts now

The Guardian’s culture writers are compiling their best TV shows of the year – and we’d like to hear about yours, too.

What was your top TV show of 2025, and why?

We want to hear about the best film you have seen this year. Share your favourite now

We would like to hear about your favourite films of 2025. Was it a tantalising thriller, a comedy that had you rolling in the aisles, or a horror that gave you goosebumps? Which film released in 2025 tops your list?

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The actor looks back on his first foray as producer as the Oscar-winning drama reaches its 50th anniversary

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at 50: the spirit of rebellion lives on

His early career was defined by the Vietnam war with early roles in political films such as Hail, Hero! and Summertree. So it felt natural for Michael Douglas, just 31, to make his first foray into producing with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a tale of one man raging against the system.

Fifty years since its release, Douglas is struck how Cuckoo’s Nest resonates anew in today’s landscape. “It’s about as classic a story as we’ll ever have and it seems timeless now, with what’s going on in our country politically, about man versus the machine and individuality versus the corporate world,” the 81-year-old says via Zoom from Santa Barbara, California.

The president continues to preach austerity and hate to people struggling to make ends meet. No wonder voters are turning on him

Trump gave what was billed as a “Christmas speech” in rural Pennsylvania this past week that began with his “wishing each and everyone one of you a very merry Christmas, happy New Year, all of that stuff” and boasting that now, under his presidency: “Everybody’s saying ‘merry Christmas’ again.”

He then claimed – contrary to the experience of nearly everyone in the crowd – that he had gotten them “lower prices” and “bigger paychecks”. He also asserted that anyone having difficulty making ends meet should just cut back on buying stuff. “You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils … Every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two,” he said, adding: “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice. You don’t need 37 dolls.”

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Exclusive: Seven-country survey finds strong opposition to increasing migration and support for deportations

Many Europeans mistakenly think most migrants are in their country illegally, according to a poll that found overwhelming opposition to any increase in migration and strong support for a significant reduction in numbers, including deportation.

Pluralities or majorities of between 44% and 60% of respondents polled in a survey by YouGov in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said they thought “many” or “somewhat” more migrants were staying illegally than legally.

The assorted items that I would class as rubbish sold within five minutes – and I have never wanted so much to engage in dialogue with a buyer

We have a lot of differing opinions about Vinted activity in my household. My son thinks [sic] “old people have a massively inflated idea of how much things are worth”, so he would never flog anything on my account, lest he get tainted with oldness. It was hard to know where to start on this argument, between “maybe we just have nicer stuff”; “the worth of everything is determined by the price people will pay for it, in a citizen economy”; and “I am not old”.

My daughter, conversely, is happy to funnel her wares through me, which is how I arrived at peak Vinted, its very spirit in a single item: I posted a bag of random tat for £2. It sold within five minutes.

President claims broadcaster ‘intentionally, maliciously and deceptively’ edited 6 January speech before Capitol attack

The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump filed against it.

In a complaint filed on Monday evening, Trump sought $5bn in damages each on two counts, alleging that the BBC defamed him, and that it violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

US says talks with Ukraine in Berlin have resolved 90% of difficult issues – but no sign Putin willing to compromise

• Europe live – latest updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says proposals negotiated with US officials on a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine could be finalised within days, after which American envoys will present them to the Kremlin.

After two days of talks in Berlin, US officials said on Monday they had resolved “90%” of the problematic issues between Russia and Ukraine, but despite the positive spin it is not clear that an end to the war is any closer, particularly as the Russian side is absent from the current talks.

Arda Güler, Nick Woltemade and Rafael Leão are among the first 30 players as we start our countdown to the list, updating through the week

• Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

• 2024 edition | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

Flight logs reveal three British women onboard who were allegedly trafficked by convicted sex offender, according to BBC

Nearly 90 flights linked to Jeffrey Epstein reportedly arrived at and departed from UK airports, some with British women onboard who allege they were abused by the convicted child sex offender.

Analysis by the BBC found three British women who were allegedly trafficked appear in Epstein’s records of flights in and out of the UK and other documents related to the late disgraced billionaire.