From Hannah Hampton to Lando Norris, our experts give their view on why each nominee is a worthy winner
No sporting event in 2025 gripped England quite like the Lionesses’ Euros success and that euphoria would not have happened without Hannah Hampton’s saves. Long before Hampton dived the correct way to stop two Spain penalties in the final, including one from the world’s best player Aitana Bonmatí, she had produced heroics, without which the team would have flown home disappointingly early.
Marcona almonds from Spain, walnuts, dark chocolate, Agen prunes from France and a few decades of love go into this sumptuous, boozy frangipane tart
A recipe box was rifled through, but, alas, much like shopping for a present last minute, nothing leapt to the fore. Out of the corner of an eye I spied an old folder of pudding menus, all stained and tattered. A wonder at how this might have escaped notice was soon dispelled – unsurprising, really, given the usual state of my desk and shelves – and the page on which it fell open revealed the scribbles for a midwinter pudding menu. And, just like that, as if the scent rose from the page itself, came a memory of an almond, chocolate, walnut and prune tart being lifted from the oven, all mahogany hued and with a few bubbles bursting from the pieces of chocolate among the prunes peeking out.
My appetite for almond tart has never waned; be it in a restaurant kitchen or at home, an almond tart is nigh-on inevitable. When I was younger, almond tarts were often made with ready-ground almonds and usually invigorated by a drop or two of almond essence, because they were often shy of flavour. But then bags of whole marcona almonds from Spain began to arrive, and quickly usurped any notion of baking with any other almond. Shaped like teardrops and almost milky in colour, delicate, buttery and freshly ground, these almonds imbue a tart with a superb quality and flavour. The benefit of not having to blind bake a tart case balanced the need to bake the tart on a rack sat in a tray to catch any butter and almond oil-infused tears released while baking.
Jeremy Lee is chef/co-owner of Quo Vadis in London, and author of Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many, published by HarperCollins at £30. To order a copy, visit guardianbookshop.com.
As his 1981 film is rereleased, the director talks about his Oscar-winning fable about an actor’s Faustian pact with the Nazi party – and its new relevance
At the 54th Academy Awards, in 1982, Chariots of Fire was imperial, and Katharine Hepburn broke records. Less remembered today is a darkly brilliant European film about a stage actor in Nazi Germany that went home from the ceremony with the best international feature prize. Mephisto, directed by István Szabó, was the first ever Hungarian film to do so.
“The moment took me by surprise,” remembers Szabó, 87, four decades later. “I didn’t expect it.” Visibly elated on the live broadcast as he took to the stage, Szabó today says that he “knew this award wasn’t just mine, but also Brandauer’s”, meaning the film’s electrifying lead actor, and the largely Hungarian crew “who contributed with their talent to the making of the film”.
As country prepares to host Africa Cup of Nations, families and rights groups tell of police brutality, with hundreds still held
The arbitrary detention of hundreds of gen Z protesters in Morocco and alleged “horrific” beatings have been condemned by human rights groups, as the country prepares to host the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday.
A wave of youth-led demonstrations swept across Morocco in late September and early October – the biggest since the 2011 Arab spring – in protest at underfunded healthcare and education.
Primetime speech – delivered with shouty spirit but no cheer – betrayed a figure dogged by a cost of living crisis and the looming release of the Epstein files
It will go down in history as the “Bah! Humbug!” address.
Surrounded by Christmas trees and garlands before a fireplace, Donald Trump on Wednesday gave a convincing rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge, the elderly miser who despises Christmas and blames everyone but himself.
The molluscs are decimating food chains in Switzerland, have devastated the Great Lakes in the US, and this week were spotted in Northern Ireland for the first time
Like cholesterol clogging up an artery, it took just a couple of years for the quagga mussels to infiltrate the 5km (3-mile) highway of pipes under the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL). By the time anyone realised what was going on, it was too late. The power of some heat exchangers had dropped by a third, blocked with ground-up shells.
The air conditioning faltered, and buildings that should have been less than 24C in the summer heat couldn’t get below 26 to 27C. The invasive mollusc had infiltrated pipes that suck cold water from a depth of 75 metres (250ft) in Lake Geneva to cool buildings. “It’s an open invasion,” says Mathurin Dupanier, utilities operations manager at EPFL.
Mathurin Dupanier indicates the water cooling systems that were blocked by the invasive quagga mussels. Photographs: Phoebe Weston/the Guardian; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
In the 50 years since equal rights for women were enshrined in UK law, the campaigners have been reduced to caricatures, or forgotten. But their struggle is worth remembering
Celia Brayfield was at her desk in the Femail section of the Daily Mail’s Fleet Street office when an editor called her over. It was July and Wimbledon had started. “He said: ‘We want you to go down and get into the women’s changing rooms and report on lesbian behaviour.’ One didn’t normally swear at that time but I declined. That was the attitude then,” she told me.
From the late 1960s until the early 70s, Brayfield was one of a small group of female journalists working on women’s pages in newspapers. “We were dealing with everyday sexism on an unbelievable scale,” she said. “You learned to wear trousers or take the lift because if you took the stairs someone would try to look up your skirt. But then you couldn’t go to a lot of press conference venues in trousers. In the Savoy, for example, women in trousers weren’t allowed.”
Panto season is upon us, and for the performers, anything could happen. Actors recall their most excruciating moments – from a panic attack while dressed as a cow, to dripping blood while in flight as Peter Pan
When panto goes wrong, the show must always go on. And there is a lot that could go wrong: malfunctioning pyrotechnics, panic attacks, chafing thighs, broken props, broken bones, bruised egos – and that’s before you get live animals involved. Missed cues and forgotten lines are small potatoes by comparison. So with panto season once again in full swing, we speak to seasoned professionals about the exhausting, error-laden, explosive truth behind the most “magical” season of the year.
Adam Buksh played The Genie in Aladdin at Howden Park Centre, Livingston, West Lothian, in 2013
It was halfway through the show when Aladdin got trapped in the cave. Our version was based on the original story, One Thousand and One Nights (not Disney’s), in which Aladdin possesses two magical entities: a powerful Genie of the Lamp (me) and Scheherazade, Genie of the Ring. I was on stage with Aladdin and Scheherazade, using my magic to smash the ring and break the evil sorcerer’s curse. For dramatic purposes, we used a handheld pyrotechnic which was similar to a little lighter with a wheel flint, but made of metal. I would use it to break the ring and free Aladdin from the cave.
From Quality Street to Toblerone to the Terry’s classic, festive treats are becoming more of a luxury – and it’s not just down to the price of cocoa
You’re right – it is smaller. The Terry’s Chocolate Orange on shop shelves this Christmas weighs 12g less than it did this time last year. That’s a decrease in size of 8% – not as big a cut as when the product lost 10% of its mass in 2016, but a further whittling away of a favourite Christmas treat.
Prices have been going up too, although it’s been a series of increases. Figures from market researchers Assosia show that across the big four supermarkets, the full price of a cChocolate oOrange has increased from £1.24 in December 2022 to about £2.25 today – a rise of 81%. If you factor in the size reduction, you’re actually paying 96% more.
Pressure is growing on member states to back a €90bn loan for Kyiv ahead of a Brussels summit
European leaders are being urged to decide whether to use Russia’s frozen assets to fund Ukraine’s defence at a time of unprecedented pressure from the US.
At a critical summit in Brussels on Thursday, EU leaders will be asked to make good on a promise to find urgently needed cash for Ukraine, with Kyiv under pressure to cede territory as Russia ekes out advances on the battlefield.
The hard right and far right are the political winners from the migration ‘crisis’, but only because centrist parties keep legitimising them
For a decade, Europe has remained suspended in a perpetual state of migration crisis. While the Greek word krisis refers to an exceptional moment that disrupts the normal order of things, since 2015 it has become an enduring condition in contemporary Europe. That year, 1 million people sought refuge in Europe, fleeing wars and persecution. In the ensuing decade, the issue of migration has been so thoroughly weaponised that one can hardly remember a time when it was not considered a crisis.
The idea of a permanent state of emergency does not reflect a reality whereby Europe genuinely cannot cope with new arrivals. Rather, it reflects the fact that there are simply too many who profit from manufacturing a sense of crisis.
Dr Maurice Stierl is a migration and border researcher at the University of Osnabrück, Germany
Alleged gunmen behind Bondi beach terror attack travelled to the Philippines last month, raising questions for investigators about why they went
Confirmation by authorities that the alleged gunmen in the Bondi beach terror attack, Sajid and Naveed Akram, travelled just weeks ago to the southern Philippines has sparked questions about why they went and if there are any links to reported violent Islamist extremism in the region.
Authorities in the Philippines said the father and son arrived in Manila on 1 November, where they visited the city of Davao, on the island of Mindanao. Their activities in the country’s south are being investigated and it is still too early to draw any conclusions. They flew back to Sydney on 28 November.
US alt-rock band announce they are finally parting ways, following fisticuffs, accusations and lawsuits
US alt-rock band Jane’s Addiction has announced they are parting ways after a tumultuous 15 months of fisticuffs, accusations and lawsuits.
The veteran Californian group, who have a history of drama, dust-ups and bust-ups, prematurely terminated the US leg of their reunion tour in September last year after an onstage altercation in Boston between frontman Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro led to blows and, ultimately, a $10m lawsuit.
Arnett won 1966 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his Vietnam War coverage for the Associated Press
Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world eyewitness accounts of war from the rice paddies of Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq, has died at 91.
Arnett, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his Vietnam War coverage for the Associated Press, died on Wednesday in Newport Beach, California, and was surrounded by friends and family, said his son Andrew Arnett. He had entered hospice on Saturday while suffering from prostate cancer.
Official response to lawsuit filed by victims’ relatives admits FAA and army failures played role in Washington DC crash
The US government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the army played a role in causing the collision in January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people in the deadliest crash on American soil in more than two decades.
The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of the victims’ families said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated procedures about when to rely on pilots to maintain visual separation that night. Plus, the filing said, the army helicopter pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the airline jet makes the government liable.
Announcement comes day after Trump said a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela
The US military carried out a lethal strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing four people, according to defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
In a post on Twitter/X, Hegseth wrote: “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. A total of four male narco-terrorists were killed, and no US military forces were harmed.”
Hate speech laws will be expanded to directly target “hate preachers” under a new push to stamp out antisemitism, as Anthony Albanese concedes more could have been done to combat anti-Jewish sentiment ahead of the Bondi beach massacre.
The home affairs minister will also be granted powers to cancel and reject visas of people who spread “hate and division” under a five-point plan announced on Thursday, after days of intensifying pressure on the prime minister to do more to address antisemitism and radicalisation after Sunday’s terrorist attack on a Hanukah celebration.
From 1 January, contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – part of a carrot-and-stick approach by the government to increase births
China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993.
Arsenal secured a seeded spot for the Women’s Champions League knockout playoffs with a comfortable 3-0 victory away at OH Leuven. Olivia Smith, Beth Mead and a Saar Janssen own goal helped Renée Slegers’ team end the league phase in fifth place.
Slegers was delighted with her side’s maturity in front of a raucous crowd at the Den Dreef as they earned their fourth win of the campaign against the plucky hosts.
The consensus is that today and tomorrow will be the best days to bat. England need to go huge, because they won’t fancy chasing too many against Nathan Lyon on day five.
“As the cliche has it, it’s a crucial first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh hour,” writes Gary Naylor. “Are Australia bringing 871 Test wickets into an already winning team or imbalancing their attack with a couple of rusty bowlers? Are England Bazball zealots or pragmatic pros? Did 2006 happen at all? Feels like the opening credits of an episode of Soap.”
Forecast is slightly cooler than the record 1.55C reached in 2024, but 2026 set to be among four hottest years since 1850
Next year will bring heat more than 1.4C above preindustrial levels, meteorologists project, as fossil fuel pollution continues to bake the Earth and fuel extreme weather.
The UK Met Office’s central forecast is slightly cooler than the 1.55C reached in 2024, the warmest year on record, but 2026 is set to be among the four hottest years dating back to 1850.
As we head into the so-called silly season – that sun-drenched summer of drinks and parties, barbecues and socialising – there’s a shadow looming over the festivities.
The five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld was left stunned after falling to a straight-sets defeat by Switzerland’s Stefan Bellmont in their first-round clash at Alexandra Palace.
Bellmont produced the performance of his career to become the first Swiss player win a match at the World Darts Championship. The 36-year-old from Cham hopes that his success will inspire a wave of darts enthusiasts in his home country.
Chelsea clinched an automatic place in the Women’s Champions League quarter-finals by coming from behind to stun Wolfsburg and avoid having to contest February’s playoffs.
Sam Kerr won the game with her 20th Champions League goal, heading in Johanna Rytting Kaneryd’s cross. Chelsea survived a late scare when the German side struck the crossbar in the 94th minute, but will now contest the last eight in March.
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