Taipei condemns exercise that Chinese army calls ‘a stern warning against “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and external interference forces’
China has launched live-fire military drills around Taiwan, in what it calls a warning to “separatist” forces in Taiwan and “external interference” by foreign parties.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the military wing of the ruling Communist party in China – said it had sent naval, air force and rocket forces to surround Taiwan on Monday morning.
South Australian police hold grave fears for a woman missing in the outback for 16 days and have renewed search efforts near where her car was found abandoned.
Trisha Graf was last seen in the early hours of Friday 12 December in the Roxby Downs area, 510km north of Adelaide.
Brigitte Bardot, hailed as the French Marilyn Monroe, was the first major film star to channel her glamour and fame into supporting France’s far right, who she backed for more than 30 years.
Up until her death on Sunday, Bardot had expressed her contentment at Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party’s rising share of the vote before the 2027 presidential race.
Authorities say they arrested a man, 23, for kidnapping teen in a Houston suburb as she walked her dog on Christmas
A Texas father used the parental controls on his teenage daughter’s cell phone to find and help rescue her after she was kidnapped at knifepoint while walking her dog on Christmas, authorities allege.
The 15-year-old girl at the center of a case, which quickly gained national attention in the US over the weekend, was reportedly kidnapped in the Houston suburb of Porter. Her parents said she took her dog for a walk and had not returned by the time she was supposed to, according to a statement from the Montgomery county sheriff’s office.
Families of Jewish Australians killed in the Bondi shooting have demanded that Anthony Albanese call a commonwealth royal commission to investigate antisemitism and questions about law enforcement issues surrounding the terror attack that claimed 15 lives.
In an open letter to the prime minister, relatives of 11 of the victims killed at the Bondi beach Hanukah event on 14 December say Jewish families feel unsafe at schools, at work, at home and in public spaces.
Doctors say they blocked his right phrenic nerve in procedure that took place after jailed former president was hospitalised last week for hernia operation
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro underwent “a phrenic nerve block procedure” on Saturday to treat his persistent hiccups, his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, said on social media.
The doctors treating Bolsonaro said later that they blocked the right phrenic nerve and scheduled a new procedure in 48 hours to block the left one.
Maye throws five as Patriots rout Jets, clinch mark
Zach Charbonnet ran for 110 yards and two touchdowns, and the Seattle Seahawks turned two third-quarter Carolina turnovers into TDs to beat the Panthers 27-10 on Sunday and close in on the No 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.
Sam Darnold threw an interception in the end zone but finished 18 of 27 for 147 yards with a touchdown for the Seahawks, who can wrap up the NFC West title and the top seed if the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams both lose or tie.
City second after six straight Premier League wins
‘We have to improve but this mindset is better’
Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City have regained the energy that eluded them last season and lifted the “fog” that clouded a disappointing campaign. City finished without a major trophy for the first time since 2016-17, Guardiola’s first in charge, but are hunting a seventh Premier League title under him after six straight wins.
Rayan Cherki struck late on at Nottingham Forest on Saturday to maintain City’s impressive winning run, which extends to eight in all competitions. Second-placed City are two points behind leaders Arsenal, who host third-placed Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday. City do not return to action until Thursday, when they face high-flying Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
Forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing NHS trusts to better plan staffing and bed space
Hospitals in England are using articificial intelligence to help cut waiting times in emergency departments this winter.
The A&E forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing trusts to better plan staffing and bed space. The prediction algorithm is trained on historical data including weather trends, school holidays, and rates of flu and Covidto determine how many people are likely to visit A&E.
Our grim fascination with the doomed ship shows no sign of abating – so here’s a four-parter which makes it feel like you’re onboard. A truly intense watch
April 2026 will mark 114 years since the night that the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg, but our grim fascination with the disaster shows no sign of abating. There was, of course, a surge of interest in the Titanic in the late 90s – thanks to James Cameron’s Oscar-bothering blockbuster – and there has been a steady stream of documentaries, dramas and podcasts about its demise ever since, some more sensitive than others (among the less tactful offerings: the 2010 film Titanic II – directed by Dick Van Dyke’s grandson Shane – a cash-in about a replica ship ravaged by a tsunami). Occasionally, the subject matter lurches starkly from the past back into the present. In June 2023, five people died on board an experimental submersible made by the company OceanGate; its passengers had hoped to see the liner’s rusting wreckage up close.
Titanic Sinks Tonight is a part-documentary, part-drama series playing across four nights, its episodes constructed from letters and diaries written by those on board, as well as interviews the survivors would give in the decades after. On the strength of the two episodes released for review, there’s no denying that it sates our appetite for Titanic-themed content. However, in centring the words and memories of those who lived through the terror of that night, it restores much-needed agency to those people. It also does well to bring a sense of reality to events that can sometimes feel unreal on account of their ubiquity, and that uncanny valley of Titanic-themed media. Central to its success is the presence of experts such as historian Suzannah Lipscomb and former Royal Navy admiral Lord West, to sharpen the corners of the story that Hollywood has sanded down.
If Josh Tongue and Brydon Carse can repeat their MCG displays, this may be more than a marriage of convenience
What does it mean? How should we feel? What are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? For most of its combined 142 overs, watching England’s fourth Test victory in Melbourne felt like drifting in and out of a drunken sleep while trying and failing to follow the plot of a particularly gruelling action movie.
Why is this car chase happening? Why is The Rock defusing a torpedo inside a collapsing Maya temple? Why are they running to the top of the nearest generic tall building for this final, final, final showdown? Wait. Will Jacks is playing?
The 2024 world champion won but faced an unexpected test against a man whose game had basically been in hibernation for three years
Everyone says they want a good solid test at this stage of the tournament. Keep the skills sharp, keep the mind keen. But how big a test? How tough? How many beats per minute? How much spinal fluid do you want to shed? How close do you really want to get to smelling the paint on the exit door?
Luke Humphries reckons he got it about right here, and for now we will have to take his word for it. But the outpouring of emotion we saw at the conclusion of his 4-2 win over Gabriel Clemens was a measure of just how thoroughly the 2024 world champion had been rattled by a man whose game had basically been in hibernation for the past three years.
Balkan country will become 21st country to adopt EU currency, with policymakers hoping move will boost economy
Bulgaria is preparing to adopt the euro in January amid fresh domestic political turbulence and fears that Russia-aligned disinformation is deepening distrust of the new currency.
The Balkan country of 6.5 million people will become the 21st country to join the eurozone on 1 January, as policymakers in Brussels and Sofia hope it will boost the economy of the EU’s poorest nation and cement its pro-western trajectory.
An Australian cruise ship being investigated after allegedly leaving behind a passenger who died alone has run aground off the coast of Papua New Guinea with more than 120 people aboard.
The Coral Adventurer ran aground early on Saturday morning, about 30km from PNG’s second-largest city, Lae. The vessel’s operator, Coral Expeditions, said no one was hurt in the incident.
Liu De-wen operates at a sensitive space in Taiwan’s history, as Beijing demands reunification with the island
In the leafy back blocks of a military cemetery in northern Taiwan, Liu De-wen strides through a room holding rows and rows of shelves. He stops and stoops to the lowest row, opening a small, ornate gold door. He pulls out an urn, bundles it into his lap, and hugs it.
“Grandpa Lin, follow me closely,” Liu says. “I am bringing you back home to Fujian as you wished. Stay close.”
Snowy holiday season in the upper midwest and north-east comes as a cold front is expected to hit the south
A powerful winter storm was sweeping east from the Plains on Sunday, driven by what meteorologists describe as an intense cyclone that is expected to impact much of the US with a mixture of snow, ice, rain and strong winds.
“Part of the storm system is getting heavy snow, other parts of the storm along the cold front are getting higher winds and much colder temperatures as the front passes,” said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in College Park, Maryland. “They’re all related to each other – different parts of the country will be receiving different effects from this storm.”
Manager may have taken club as far as he can while Archie Gray offers hope to Tottenham and Thomas Frank
Perhaps it’s appropriate that the last Premier League game of the Christmas weekend shouldn’t be a thriller. You’ve spent four days eating and drinking, the belly is straining at the belt, work is looming on Monday and there’s a dreadful sense that the holiday is over and you’ll soon have to get back to mundane chores: defrosting the freezer, filing the tax return, shopping for real food that might actually have some nutritional value.
For neutrals, this was the ideal game for dozing through on the sofa. Very little happened, and almost none of what did was pleasing on the eye, with the possible exception of the two passages of play Tottenham put together that led to Richarlison scoring goals that were subsequently ruled out for offside. At the start of play it was ninth v 14th and in the first half especially, it looked like it. It was bitty, scrappy, ugly, and included many of the worst elements of Long Throw Britain.
Chiefs move to within a point of leaders Northampton
There is still a long way to go but Exeter would have settled for their current position back in the summer. Second place in the Prem table heading into 2026 with momentum building nicely is a very different story from last season’s grim struggle and, in front of a 15,000 capacity crowd, here was another example of exactly why they are a developing force.
While this was not quite as compelling as their pre-Christmas raid on Saracens, the Chiefs could conceivably have registered another half-dozen tries in the absence of Len Ikitau, their injured Wallaby centre. Another barnstorming display from No 8 Greg Fisilau set the standard and the whole side showed enough physicality and defensive hunger to leave the Tigers to survive on seasonal scraps.
The two most recent winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup were among the 11 runners for the Grade One Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Sunday but neither could match the strength and resilience of a resurgent Affordale Fury, as Noel Meade’s seven-year-old made his breakthrough at the highest level after an injury-plagued career to date.
Affordale Fury was the 150-1 runner-up in the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March 2023, but his career since has included breaks of 438 and 241 days and Sunday’s race was just his fifth chase start outside novice company.
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