• Benn claims redemption against out-of-sorts rival

• Judges score it 119-107, 116-110, 118-108

Conor Benn, who has been through notoriety, shame and a chastening defeat, finally gained a large measure of sweet relief when he totally outclassed and beat up his diminished old rival, Chris Eubank Jr, over 12 one-sided rounds late on Saturday night. Benn came close to sealing the knockout he craved in the last minute of the fight when he twice dropped Eubank Jr heavily.

A shuddering combination from Benn had an initially delayed reaction but the right hand that smashed into the side of Eubank Jr’s head finally sent him toppling to the canvas. He rose to his feet but was soon down again as Benn threw punch after punch at his wilting and shrunken frame. Eubank Jr staggered to his feet just before the referee completed his count. The fight would surely have been waved over – but the last bell echoed above the bedlam.

Gwent police name victim as Lainie Williams and have charged Cameron Cheng, 18, a British national

A teenager has been charged with murder after a 17-year-old girl was killed in South Wales.

The girl, named as Lainie Williams, was pronounced dead at the scene, Gwent police said.

• Trooper exchanged words with Nyck Harbor

• LeBron James among critics on social media

A Texas trooper who had an altercation with South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor after his touchdown on Saturday was sent home from the game, according to the state’s Department of Public Safety.

Harbor scored on an 80-yard reception in the second quarter and ran into the tunnel after the score. As he and three teammates were walking back to the field, the trooper walked in between Harbor and another player and bumped into them.

Home secretary expected to change system to deny help to those who can work or who have assets

Shabana Mahmood is expected to announce changes to Britain’s asylum system on Monday in an attempt to quell rising fears about immigration.

The home secretary plans to amend laws that guarantee housing and financial support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.

The most extraordinary upshot of an extraordinary evening was that Scotland’s dream of qualifying automatically for the World Cup remains alive. Steve Clarke has Belarus to thank for that, their surprise draw in Denmark leaving Scotland in precisely the position they had sought before this clash with Greece. If Scotland beat Denmark in Glasgow on Tuesday, they will top this section.

The dust might just have settled on this preposterous fixture by then. Scotland trailed by three at one point before hauling themselves back into proceedings against a Greek team who finished with 10 men.

There are shades of Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives and everything Nicole Kidman has appeared in for the last five years. Put your brain aside, and enjoy

That its ultra-wealthy characters live in a place called Richford Lake tells you almost everything you need to know about the glossy new thriller Wild Cherry. Yes, it’s another entry in the increasingly popular eat-the-rich genre. Yes, it has shades of The White Lotus and everything starring Nicole Kidman for the past five years. Yes, most of the budget has gone to wardrobe, with any woman over the age of 30 apparently allergic to synthetic fibres and every actor seemingly cast primarily for her ability to carry off swagged silk and cashmere in warm beige tones. Yes, you should have bought shares in the colour camel years ago but it’s too late now. Yes, the insular community and soapy vibe suggests an ancestry that includes Desperate Housewives and Gossip Girl. Yes, in short, it’s trash with pretensions. But trash with pretensions is as fun a way to spend the long winter evenings as any, so why not set your brain aside and enjoy it?

We begin with the obligatory the-future-as-prelude scene, which here involves four women – two older, two younger – standing in a well-appointed bathroom in their underwear scrubbing blood off their hands. We then flashback to begin the six-part journey to finding out what the jolly heck is going on.

Hansen a revelation at fullback as Ireland dismantled the Wallabies

8 mins. A clumsy breakdown effort from Ireland on the restart allows the Wallabies to win the ball back. However, their attack on the 22 is in about three minds and none of them have a discernible plan, which leads to O’Connor spilling the ball after a big hit from Prendergast. Yes, Prendergast, you read that right.

6 mins. Ireland work back into the 22 and the pressure coming from the pace of the recycling forces Williams to drift offside. The ball is tapped by Gibson-Park and some quick hands find Hansen free under the posts to walk in.

• Benn dominates Eubank Jr by unanimous decision

• Reach out to Bryan via Bluesky or email

Buffer has just finished making the fighter announcements as 50 Cent remained in Eubank’s corner. A crackling atmosphere at Tottenham’s home ground. The waiting is over. The final instructions have been given by the referee, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!

Eubank Jr is now trained by Brian “BoMac” McIntyre who is always in the corner of Terence Crawford, the best fighter in the world by some distance. And so there was a little zing of excitement among the Crawford connoisseurs when the mighty Bud appeared on the giant screen as he moved around Eubank’s dressing room. He shook hands warmly with a beaming Eubank Sr before stopping to share a few words with Junior. Those moments will matter far more to the Eubank camp than the fact that Benn received a bigger cheer than they did when he was seen on the same big screen having his hands wrapped. Personally, I think that’s 1-0 so far to Eubank Jr/Crawford over Benn/the crowd.

One-time Maga loyalist diverges with Trump on issues including Epstein, so US president has withdrawn support

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Republican ally who previously fiercely defended Donald Trump and his Maga movement, said on Saturday she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced on Friday he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of the Georgia representative.

In a post on X, Greene said that “a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.

A tactically and technically adept Three Lions squad can take the handbrake off and prosper in North America next summer

Watching Micky van de Ven surge through the pretty much the entire FC Copenhagen team in the Champions League last week, two sensations occurred. The first was awe, that somebody so powerful and so quick would still have the composure to finish as he did. And the second was that this didn’t feel entirely fair. It was as though Gulliver had landed himself a deal in the Lilliput Premier League.

The same evening, Liverpool, who have at times struggled physically in the Premier League this season, bullied Real Madrid, their threat at set plays so marked that eventually it was the 5ft 7in Alexis Mac Allister who headed the vital goal. The following day, Newcastle swatted Athletic Bilbao aside, largely by being bigger than them: for the opening goal, the Spanish side’s defence appears to have looked at Dan Burn and decided there was no point even trying to mark him.

Africa CDC says at least nine cases have been detected of Ebola-like illness, which kills up to 80% of those infected

Ethiopia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in the south of the country, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said.

The Marburg virus is one of the deadliest known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period.

Wales laboured to a 1-0 win over international minnows Liechtenstein to keep alive their hopes of World Cup qualification.

Jordan James claimed his first Wales goal from close range after Liechtenstein’s assorted collection of full-time players, office workers and students had held out for over an hour. James wheeled away in delight with his obvious relief shared by 3,000 Wales fans filling three sides of the Rheinpark Stadion in Vaduz.

⚽ Updates from the Group C qualifier (7.45pm GMT)
⚽ Get in touch! Email Scott with your thoughts

Greece get the ball rolling. It’s far from a full house at the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis in Piraeus, home of Olympiacos. But it’s still noisy.

The teams are out! Greece in white with blue stripes, Scotland in blue with white stripes. Everyone looking real fine. We’ll be off once a Hymn to Liberty and a paean to a Flower have been sung.

After spying Tom Box at a punk gig, Kate Logan made a Dalek poster to capture his attention

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Long before we’d met, I had heard a lot about a guy called Tom Box. I knew he was an Australian living in the South Island of New Zealand. I was in Wellington, and there’d been a few occasions when I’d travelled to the South Island for raves or anarchist conferences where some of the folks had gone to Tom’s place – but I splintered off somewhere else.

Then one day, in 2007, I was at a punk gig when a mutual friend said, “Oh, do you know Tom Box? He’s over there. He’s just moved up to Wellington.” There in a sea of black-clad punks, jumping up and down at the front of the mosh pit, was this guy in a pale blue Star Trek uniform. To me, as a person unfamiliar with Star Trek, he looked like he was wearing pyjamas. This was my first vision of him, but we didn’t talk at all that night.

The American British author on pet peeves, the perils of fantasy dinner parties, and revisiting The Short History of Everything two decades later

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You did a whole book on Australia, and have travelled here a bit since – what’s the number one tip or recommendation you’d give someone coming for the first time?

Get out and walk! I mean, maybe not through the outback, but if you’re in any of the cities, walk. I do that wherever I go. And I love to just go off and explore without knowing where I’m going, without a map or any preconceived ideas. I think it’s the best way to discover a place, and it has the great virtue that if you turn a corner – say in Sydney – and there’s suddenly the Harbour Bridge, you feel as if you’ve discovered it. There’s a real feeling of exhilaration, I think, in that. But also, you discover little cafes and hidden corners and odds and ends.

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A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 by Bill Bryson is out now through Penguin. The author is touring Australia and New Zealand in February 2026 with the live show The Best of Bill Bryson

A callow Australia side confirmed in defeat by Venezuela that the head coach needs his big hitters back before facing Colombia in New York

A day before Australian football looked to its past, Tony Popovic sent out a side to face Venezuela focused on its future. Nineteen years and 364 days ago, the Golden Generation defender had been part of the side that defeated Uruguay in a shootout to end 32 years of heartbreak and send the Socceroos back to the promised land. Two decades on, here he was in the dugout of Shell Energy Stadium, tinkering and experimenting before a sixth-straight World Cup for Australia.

Popovic had named an XI with three debutants – the most in 12 years – and a player in Nestory Irankunda that hadn’t been born when John Alosi scored that famous penalty.

Influential musician who created Americana hits had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia

Todd Snider, the influential alt-country singer-songwriter who created Americana hits such as Alright Guy, has died at 59.

His passing was shared through announcements on his official social media accounts. Although no cause of death was provided, his family shared on Friday that he had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia.

Once escapees from the pet trade, Los Angeles’s feral parrots have become a vibrant part of city life, and could even aid conservation in their native homelands

A morning mist hung over the palm trees as birds chattered and cars roared by on the streets of Pasadena. It was a scene that evoked a tropical island rather than a bustling city in north-east Los Angeles county.

“It feels parrot-y,” says Diego Blanco, a research assistant at Occidental College’s Moore Laboratory of Zoology, nodding to the verdant flora that surrounds us: tall trees and ornamental bushes with berries.

• England 33-19 New Zealand

• Borthwick’s side clinch a perfect 10 of successive wins

A perfect 10 wins in a row is a reliable indicator of a team on the rise. What England really craved, though, was a statement victory to underline just how far they have come in the past 18 months or so. And on a dull grey November afternoon they finally secured it, beating a disappointed New Zealand for the first time in south-west London for 13 long years.

They deserved it, too, storming back from 12-0 down to claim the kind of result that rewards all the painstaking hard work of the players and the management. There were four England tries in all, including two in the final half-hour from Fraser Dingwall and Tom Roebuck, as Steve Borthwick’s team become only the ninth England side to cut the All Blacks down to size.

⚽ Updates from the Group J qualifier (5pm GMT)
⚽ Get in touch! Email Niall with your thoughts

As Alan just mentioned, there are far more Wales fans than Liechtenstein ultras in the compact Rheinpark Stadion tonight. There are a few boos for the hosts’ national anthem – although it probably doesn’t help that it’s the same tune as God Save the King.

“Evening from Vaduz,” writes Alun Pugh. “Sweet Caroline being played by a tone deaf DJ, and being booed from three sides on the ground. Quite right too.” Reclaim it, I say – Sweet Caroline is for everyone (who’s had two to three pints).

From Texas and Iowa to Arkansas, faith leaders are wading into politics to counter the rise of Christian nationalism

He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.

Police believe device was deliberately planted near frontbench to disrupt proceedings, prompting heightened security in parliament

Police have arrested two men in connection with a mobile phone hidden in the House of Commons that was reportedly planted there to play sex noises during prime minister’s questions.

The phone was found near the frontbench during a routine sweep of the chamber. It is believed to have been intended to interrupt the keynote weekly showdown between Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch in September.

• Sinner beats De Minaur 7-5, 6-2 to reach third final in a row

• Alcaraz sinks Félix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-4 to make first final

The 2025 men’s tennis season will conclude with a final showdown between the two best players in the world after Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz reached the final of the ATP Finals.

Sinner continued his total dominance of the indoor season as the Italian held off an admirable early challenge from Alex de Minaur before bulldozing his path into the tournament’s final for a third consecutive year with a supreme 7-5, 6-2 win, a victory that extended his winning record against the Australian to 13-0.

Bangkok had earlier said it was suspending ceasefire, accusing Cambodia of laying landmines along the border

The US has put pressure on Thailand to recommit to a ceasefire with Cambodia, warning trade talks could be halted as Washington seeks to keep a Donald Trump-brokered truce agreement from falling apart.

Earlier this week, Thailand said that it was suspending the ceasefire deal, accusing Cambodia of laying fresh landmines along the border, including one it said wounded a Thai soldier on patrol, who lost a foot in the explosion.