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Re the players that have made it to Afcon, this is a handy explainer of the extent to which Premier League teams will be affected.

Some of the names not featuring at Afcon are remarkable, and feature some of the most talented footballers from the continent. The main reason for this is that their nation has not qualified (for example, Ghana), but there have also been omissions from squads that have made it (unexpectedly Ivory Coast’s Simon Adingra, who was voted the best young player at Afcon 2023, providing a fine assist for the winner in the final) and there has even been an unexpected retirement on the eve of the tournament (Nigeria’s William Troost-Ekong, who was voted the player of the tournament at the last Afcon).

After being held for 24 hours, the men say they had been driving to a holiday rental when they were detained by police

Seven men with suspected links to Islamic extremism have been released from police custody after their dramatic arrest on a street.

The Victorian-based group were travelling in convoy through south-west Sydney, potentially to the scene of the shooting massacre at Bondi neach, when tactical police rammed their cars and took them into custody on Thursday.

• Forward thought to favour move to Liverpool

• Release clause understood to be a bit less than £65m

Manchester United are vying with Liverpool and Manchester City to sign Antoine Semenyo from Bournemouth in early January, with Ruben Amorim having first expressed an interest in the 25-year-old last summer. The forward is thought to favour joining Liverpool, with City his second choice, so United’s head coach faces a fight to convince him.

Semenyo, who scored in Monday’s 4-4 draw at Old Trafford, has a release clause understood to be slightly less than £65m, with the sum including loyalty money and agent payments. It has to be triggered early next month, the Guardian understands. Tottenham are also interested but appear to have a slim chance of landing the former Bristol City player.

Hollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment?

If you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Prime’s breakout YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be familiar with the plight of Henley and Luca. The star-crossed lovers of a short-form video series called Loving My Brother’s Best Friend – plot self-explanatory – have made waves on TikTok with yearning stares and “I/we can’t do this” drama that echo the many fan edits of beloved TV couple Belly and Conrad. But whereas The Summer I Turned Pretty explored its central tension over 40-minute episodes on streaming, Loving My Brother’s Best Friend, produced by a short-form company called CandyJar, distilled its appeal to its barest essences: sexual tension hook, escalating line and cliffhanger sinker, all within two-minute “episodes” on your phone. Without even meaning to or really wanting to, I watched the first 10 chapters (of 44) in one 15-minute gulp – and I’m not the only one.

Hollywood is hoping that you, too, will be hooked. Though Loving My Brother’s Best Friend may not look like a typical Hollywood product – in fact, it resembles some mix of teen show, soap opera and amateur fan-cam edit – the industry is investing heavily in the future of series like it: low-budget, mobile-only “microdramas” with episodes between 60 and 90 seconds. These shows, also known as “verticals” for their phone orientation, have already become widely popular in China, where mobile screens dominate entertainment even more than in the US. In just three years, revenue for serialized short-form drama in China rose from $500m in 2021 to $7bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $16.2bn by 2030. The global microdrama market for 2025 is estimated at anywhere from $7bn to 15bn – and booming, with nearly triple revenue growth for microdrama companies outside China in the past year.

Experts say José Antonio Kast able to ‘reactivate a dormant Pinochetism’ and warn more education needed on ‘horrors of dictatorship’

Confident in his popularity, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet called a plebiscite in 1988 asking the population whether they approved extending his 15-year-long bloody rule for a further eight years.

A young José Antonio Kast, then a 22-year-old law student, joined the yes campaign, saying in a TV advert that he was convinced the regime was acting “for the direct benefit of all of us young people”.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basic they scrimp on? Jo Malone CBE talks Tiffany jewellery, M&S underwear and Ikea at Christmas in the Filter’s new column

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Jo Malone CBE grew up in south-east London and left school at 13 to care for her mother. She is the founder and creative director of the luxury fragrance brand Jo Loves. She previously founded, and sold, Jo Malone London and left the brand in 2006.

In 2023, Jo moved to the Middle East to seek out adventure. She created a new company in the region and launched a drinks business, Jo Vodka, in 2025.

Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in lead

More carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.

Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO₂ levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.

The Safekeep author on her secret childhood reading, falling in love with Elizabeth Strout and why she keeps coming back to Zadie Smith

My earliest reading memory
I had a children’s encyclopedia on the shelf above my bed – orange and brown, the cover old flaking plastic – but I retain nothing of what I read. I do remember a book of dirty jokes I was obsessed with at the age of eight. I was convinced it was off limits to me (it wasn’t) and so I waited until my parents were at work to shamefully steal it from the bookshelf. One time, my mother found it under my pillow and I was mortified. I recall her being confused and putting it back with a mumbled “I don’t judge” as she left the room.

My favourite book growing up
hat must have been one of Thea Beckman’s novels, most likely Hasse Simonsdochter. Beckman was the author for young adults in 80s and 90s Netherlands.

As AI generated ever more pop slop, reflective songwriting by artists from Clipse to CMAT drew its power from its very humanity

The most acclaimed albums of 2025 make for impressively eclectic listening. Surveying them does not reveal much in the way of obvious musical trends. There’s very little similarity between Rosalía’s heady classical approach to pop on Lux and Lily Allen’s conversational disclosures on West End Girl. You could broadly group CMAT’s Euro-Country, Bon Iver’s Sable, Fable and the Tubs’ Cotton Crown together as alternative rock but they don’t sound anything like each other. And the year’s best-of lists are sprinkled with albums that brilliantly defy classification: Blood Orange’s Essex Honey leaps from old-fashioned indie to Prince-y funk; on Black British Music, Jim Legxacy sees no reason why UK rap can’t coexist with distorted guitars, pop R&B and acoustic bedroom pop.

But it’s hard not to notice how similar they are thematically: a large swathe of the Guardian’s albums of the year seem consumed by loss. There are straightforward explorations of failed relationships: for all its religious imagery, there’s a prosaic breakup at the heart of Rosalía’s Lux, while West End Girl’s lurid detailing of the collapse of Lily Allen’s marriage kept the tabloids in headlines for weeks. There are albums about more literal grief: a mother’s death informs Blood Orange’s Essex Honey and the Tubs’ Cotton Crown; Jim Legxacy references his late sister, while the brothers in august rap duo Clipse have seldom sounded as vulnerable as they do describing the deaths of their parents on their rightly heralded comeback Let God Sort ’Em Out. Euro-Country both memorialises a close friend on Lord, Let That Tesla Crash, while its title track examines the wave of suicides provoked by the Irish financial crisis of 2008.

This twist-packed, star-strapped take on the reality juggernaut became the year’s most addictive show. It was a masterclass in suspense, camp and chaos

• The 50 best TV shows of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

For narrative twists, unforced comedy and high-profile casting, The Celebrity Traitors knocked most televised dramas into a cocked hat, or a fashion cape. We were all swept up, from teens to the retired, magistrates and retail workers, even non-gameshow fans. The show became the national conversation in a way TV pundits no longer thought possible. It was lightning in a bottle. Which would be a cool way of murdering someone.

Why was it perfect TV? On the face of it, it’s a simple format that balances banter and tension, fun games and insidious group dynamics. Bucking the streamer “dumping” model, the BBC drip-fed episodes until we were slavering. Their ace, of course, is Claudia Winkleman – impeccable outfits, iconic hair, sly presenting style. I saw so many Winklemen at Halloween parties this October it was like Being John Malkovich with bangs. But this year the show surpassed even its own standards.

Manar al-Houbi’s family had been denied entry despite a scholarship covering their living costs, but other students remain stranded

The UK government has finally evacuated Manar al-Houbi, the Gaza student who won a fully funded scholarship to pursue her PhD at the University of Glasgow, along with her family from the war-ravaged territory this week.

In October, the Guardian highlighted Houbi’s desperate battle to get her family evacuated after they were denied entry to the UK, despite her scholarship and visa permitting her to bring them.

From demon sheep to the year’s most intense watch … it’s been another amazing year of television. Our countdown of the very best continues
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests, and has been tortured in prison

A boxing champion in prison in Iran is thought to be at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected by the country’s supreme court.

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, from Mashhad in north-east Iran was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests in 2019 and accused of supporting an opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK). He has spent five years in prison, where he has been tortured and put in solitary confinement.

Long Island receives 21cm of snow, while a tornado tears down decorations near Málaga

Heavy snow fell in parts of New England this week. New York’s Central Park received a few centimetres of snow, while 21cm (8.5in) was dumped in parts of Long Island. This is the earliest New York has experienced snowfall since 2018.

New York narrowly missed out on widespread snowfall a few weeks ago. The low-pressure system tracked ever so slightly to the north of New York, enabling the warmer air to edge in. Meanwhile, upstate New York and other parts of New England were on the colder side of the system and received significant snow accumulations.

Investigation centres on pair’s movements outside the GV hotel, where they stayed throughout their time in the country

One of the alleged Bondi beach shooters visited a firearms shop during his visit to the Philippines, local police have revealed as they investigate what the pair did in the weeks before the mass shooting.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed stayed in a hotel in Davao City for four weeks before returning to Australia on 28 November, only two weeks before they allegedly killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukah celebration in Sydney on Sunday.

We should have stayed in bed, recovering. Instead, we ploughed ahead with our cliff-jumping boat tour and found ourselves stranded in choppy waters …

It was probably the fish stew. We got it from a street food vendor on Ko Phi Phi, Thailand’s most party-centric island, and I remember it being absolutely delicious. Fifteen hours later, my wife and I were lying on the bare boards of a long-tail boat, rocking gently in the waves, huddled together under a blanket and regretting every single choice we’d made that Christmas Day. As the song says, we can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible.

Thailand is a fantastic place to go for Christmas: it’s hot, the people are lovely, and there are plenty of fairy lights but not too much Cliff Richard. Ko Phi Phi is more of an acquired taste – it’s the sort of place you buy heavily diluted vodka by the bucket – but we were very much making the best of it. The night we arrived, in 2014, we watched a bunch of farangs (foreigners) flail away at each other in oversized boxing gloves, some of them chugging beers between rounds. For the big day, we decided to push the boat out: the limestone rock formations around the islands are a popular spot for deep-water soloing, where you climb up a cliff face with no rope and then leap (or fall) into the clear blue sea below. We hired a guide, had a light supper and hyped ourselves up for an unforgettable festive morning.

Huge archive – set to shed fresh light on Epstein’s misdeeds – legally obliged to be released before midnight deadline

Speculation surrounding the affairs of Jeffrey Epstein is expected to reach a defining moment of revelation on Friday with the much-anticipated publication of files relating to the disgraced late financier and sex trafficker.

After months of delay and stalling, the Trump administration is legally obliged to publish a massive archive of documents that could shine fresh light on Epstein’s misdeeds and his connections with key public figures, including Donald Trump himself.

Exclusive: Ancient forests and turquoise rivers of the Cochamó Valley protected from logging, damming and development

A wild valley in Chilean Patagonia has been preserved for future generations and protected from logging, damming and unbridled development after a remarkable fundraising effort by local groups, the Guardian can reveal.

The 133,000 hectares (328,000 acres) of pristine wilderness in the Cochamó Valley was bought for $78m (£58m) after a grassroots campaign led by the NGO Puelo Patagonia, and the title to the wildlands was officially handed over to the Chilean nonprofit Fundación Conserva Puchegüín on 9 December.

From astonishing docs and biopics to madcap adventures and emotional sucker punches – our critics pick the best from a spectacular year on the silver screen

• Read the UK cut of this list
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Fifa’s lack of concern for African football’s key money-spinner has led to inadequate preparation time

With the hosts, Morocco, taking on the island nation of Comoros in the Africa Cup of Nations opener in Rabat on Sunday, there is no mistaking the excitement across the continent. Football is akin to a religion among Africa’s largely young population, with 60% of its 1.5 billion people under the age of 25.

But the timing of this Afcon, to be played over the Christmas and New Year period in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier and Fez, has never happened since the tournament began in 1957, igniting a storm of anger throughout the African football community.

A hotel’s worth of rich guests cut off by snow, a dead body, the mafia and some supernatural antics … there’s a banquet of melodrama to feast on in this soapy foreign-language series

The snow is crisp and even, up in the Italian Alps: how lucky the protagonists in the new Walter Presents series Stranded are to be spending Christmas at a four-star spa resort in the beautiful Vanoi Valley! The welcome is warm, the hot chocolate is decadent and the hotel building, bedecked with giant baubles, looks like a greetings card painting. But wait! Threatening music? Characters staring anxiously into space, because they clearly have a big dark secret? A guest in a witness protection programme, and another who recognises her as the witness in the forthcoming trial of his secret mafia brother? Attenzione! This Italian-made Green, Red and White Lotus might not be such a paradise. Bad stuff is about to go down.

Specifically, this is several thousand tons of snow and the side of a nearby mountain. One avalanche later and, with frozen rocks blocking the tunnel that’s the only access to the valley – which we know on account of someone driving through it earlier and remarking “This tunnel is the only access to the valley” – everyone in the hotel is stuck there for the festive season, cut off from the outside world. Who lives? Who dies? Who chills in the bar with a grappa and a plate of carne salada, patiently waiting for help to arrive? Nobody, is the answer to that last question – they’re all too busy with their shady hidden agendas.

The Norwegian world No 1 will compete at Doha next week, a year after he was penalised for wearing jeans in New York

One year ago, the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, and the global chess body, Fide, were at loggerheads after the Norwegian was penalised for wearing jeans at the World Rapid in New York. The 35-year-old also agreed to share the World Blitz crown despite a rule requiring an outright winner.

Relations worsened further when Fide opposed Carlsen’s wish for the new Freestyle circuit winner to be called a world champion, he announced that he was “done” with Fide.

Leonardo DiCaprio is a former revolutionary searching for his daughter in Paul Thomas Anderson’s exhilaratingly audacious counterculture epic
• The best films of 2025 in the UK
• More on the best culture of 2025

Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural drama-thriller One Battle After Another, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, is a formal enigma that has perplexed, provoked and entranced, and the year ends with no definitive consensus as to its exact meaning. A rare naysayer is screenwriter and film-maker Paul Schrader, who commented tersely online: “Film-making at level A+, but try as I might I couldn’t muster up an ounce of empathy for Leo DiCaprio or Sean Penn. I kept waiting for them to die.”

But that’s why the film is gripping: there is indeed no empathy for its two unlovely leading males, and their mortality and vulnerability has a kind of unwinding, entropic energy. They are heading for disaster. And yes, the film-making is A+ or A++; it is supercharged with pleasure at its own audacity and expertise. It is moviemaking with a late-Kubrick elegance and a knowing theatricality, culminating in an exhilarating but also eerily strange car chase on an undulating freeway. This isn’t the same as style without substance, but it’s certainly a movie that can’t help but promote its self-aware style to equal status with its subject matter: a petty-tyrannical America of the present and future, and those who will grow old in resisting it from within.

Rejoining Erasmus should just be a first step – as the economic evidence piles up, the need for closer ties with Europe could not be clearer

Month by month, Labour is bringing us closer to Europe. This week, the UK announced it is rejoining the Erasmus+ youth exchange programme. This will open the door beyond the many young people who attend university – its remit includes FE students, apprentices, and youth and school groups. A whoop of excitement greeted the announcement, with opportunities for those involved in education, training, culture and sport, and a commitment to maximise take-up by disadvantaged young people. Widening experience, encouraging adventure: Erasmus+ may help cure Britain’s monolingual handicap and the catastrophic decline in language courses. Last year in the UK, less than 3% of A-levels were in languages.

This all eludes Europhobes such as Andrew Neil, who posted on X that “extra taxes now being inflicted on working people will be used to finance some ‘study’ in Barcelona for gap-year yahs from affluent families”.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist