Exclusive: Blueprints describe a ‘case study’ community where residents submit biometric data to gain entry
The United Arab Emirates plans to fund “Gaza’s first planned community” on the ruined outskirts of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Palestinian residents there will have access to basic services like education, healthcare and running water, as long as they submit to biometric data collection and security vetting, according to planning documents and people familiar with the latest round of talks at the US-led Civil Military Coordination Center in Israel.
The planned city would mark the UAE’s first investment in a post-war reconstruction project located in the part of Gaza currently held by Israel. The wealthy Gulf state has contributed more than $1.8bn of humanitarian assistance to Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to UAE state media, making it Gaza’s largest humanitarian donor.
PM joins veterans in condemning claim that troops avoided frontlines and suggests US president should apologise
Keir Starmer has issued an unprecedented rebuke to Donald Trump for his “insulting and frankly appalling” remarks about British and other Nato troops in Afghanistan, and suggested he should apologise.
After a day of mounting outrage around the world over the US president’s claim that British and Nato troops who fought in Afghanistan avoided the frontlines, Starmer paid tribute to the 457 members of the armed services who lost their lives during the conflict.
Three suspects face attempted murder counts after Steven and Kimberly Meyer were shot at their Lafayette home
Five people have been arrested in connection with the recent shooting of an Indiana state judge as well as his wife at the couple’s home.
In a statement, police said three of the suspects face counts of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the 18 January shooting of Judge Steven Meyer and his wife, Kimberly, in Lafayette, Indiana.
Moscow repeats call for Ukraine to leave Donbas before first trilateral talks since start of invasion in February 2022
Ukraine, Russia and the US have begun three-way talks for the first time since Russia’s full-scale military invasion began in February 2022, but with the Kremlin maintaining its maximalist demands for Ukrainian territory, it is unclear whether Donald Trump will be able to broker a ceasefire even by putting heavy pressure on Kyiv.
The talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday are the highest-level known summit between the three sides since the beginning of the war, and come as Trump’s demands to take over Greenland have strained tensions among Ukraine’s western allies as the country endures a harsh winter with much of its civilian energy infrastructure damaged by Russian attacks.
Court says alleged abuse and trafficking offences occurred outside Spain, leaving it without jurisdiction
Spanish prosecutors have shelved a complaint brought by two women who have accused the singer Julio Iglesias of sexual assault and human trafficking, arguing the country’s courts have no jurisdiction as the alleged offences took place outside Spain.
Two female former employees who worked at Iglesias’s Caribbean mansions 10 days ago accused the veteran entertainer of sexual assault, saying they had been subjected “to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment”.
As a lightning government offensive leaves the Kurdish-dominated SDF reeling, the political horizon needs attention as well as security
In little more than a fortnight, a dramatic Syrian government offensive appears to have undone over a decade of Kurdish self-rule in the north-east and extended President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s control. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held around a quarter of the country and many critical resources – but were forced out of much of it within days. Though the SDF has effectively agreed to dissolution in principle, it has not shown it will do so in practice: a worrying sign for a fragile truce. A peaceful resolution is in everyone’s interests. Forcible integration by Damascus would risk breeding insurgency.
The US relied upon the SDF in the battle against Islamic State. But Donald Trump has embraced “attractive, tough” Mr Sharaa – a former jihadist who had a $10m US bounty on his head until late 2024. The US administration became increasingly frustrated at the SDF’s failure to implement last spring’s agreement to integration into the new army, apparently due to internal divisions. Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, wrote this week that the rationale for partnership with the SDF had “largely expired” because Damascus was ready to take over security responsibilities.
New studio album Britpop goes straight to No 1 in opening week, after Williams moved its release date to avoid a chart battle with Taylor Swift
Robbie Williams has scored his 16th UK No 1 album, surpassing a tally set by the Beatles in 2000 to become the all-time chart record holder.
Britpop, Williams’ homage to the lairy and zeitgeist-setting guitar music of the mid-1990s, went straight to No 1 in its first week of release. All but one of his studio albums have now reached the top – except 2009’s Reality Killed the Video Star, kept off the top by boy band JLS – plus three greatest hits compilations and his soundtrack to the biopic Better Man. Not counted in that tally are two other No 1 albums Williams recorded as a member of Take That.
There is a light at the end of the Beckhams’ hebdomadis horribilis: Victoria Beckham has the UK’s highest-selling single of the week with Not Such an Innocent Girl, originally released in 2001.
After her eldest son Brooklyn’s bombshell revelations about the rift with his parents, including his horrified account of his mother dancing “on” him at his wedding to Nicola Peltz in 2022, fans taking mater and pater Beckham’s side in the celeb gossip of the year showed their support by buying MP3s of Beckham’s debut solo single. (Her first effort without the Spice Girls, 2000’s Out of Your Mind, was a collaboration with Dane Bowers of Another Level.)
Dissenting voices were few and far between as the US president brought his smash-and-grab politics to the WEF
“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, was the darling of Davos this week as he rallied resistance to Donald Trump’s smash and grab politics and his voracious appetite for other countries’ wealth and land.
“Call it what it is,” he told delegates. “A system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion”. He urged “middle powers” to band together or be crushed, and was rewarded with a standing ovation.
President’s assertion that Nato troops were not on the front line in Afghanistan has sparked widespread anger
Keir Starmer’s allies have launched a “Stop Andy Burnham” campaign to prevent the Labour mayor from returning to parliament after the resignation of a Manchester MP triggered a byelection, Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Josh Halliday report in their overnight story.
In a good analysis, Jess explains why, if Burnham does decide that he wants to return to the Commons as MP for Gorton and Denton in Manchester, he faces a colossal challenge.
US president asks ‘whatever happened to global warming?’ Well, it could be making our winter storms worse
Donald Trump has erroneously cited an enormous winter storm that is set to deliver freezing temperatures and heavy snow to half of the US as supposed proof that the world is not heating up due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Trump, who has repeatedly questioned and mocked established climate science in the past, posted of the storm on Truth Social: “Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain – WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
From derailing meetings by telling fictional stories about serial killers to Davos, the president has left people confused and concerned
Donald Trump vowed to “plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars” during his inauguration speech last year, a bold promise that spoke to otherworldly achievements.
But during the first year of his second term, it is on the planet Earth where Trump has sought to plant the US flag. He has deployed troops to US cities, as waves of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents terrorize communities. Trump has ordered the invasion of Venezuela and the capture of its leader, is engaged in ongoing saber-rattling over Greenland, and has threatened historic US allies should they oppose his efforts to seize the autonomous territory of the Danish kingdom. He has amplified online claims that Nato is a bigger threat to the US than historical adversaries China and Russia.
Kanaan, a symbol of dining across religious and political divides, will shut its doors ‘probably in March’, say owners
An Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin conceived as an “island of peace” will close in the spring, but its Jewish and Arab owners say their dream will live on in a television series based on their unlikely partnership.
Kanaan, a decade-old casual eatery in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the German capital, gained an international profile for its message of “unity over hate” after the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas and the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Williams not ready and will miss next week’s first test
Lewis Hamilton has emphasised the scale of the challenge facing drivers and teams as Formula One enters a new season with a regulation reset which the British driver described as the biggest of his career, as his Ferrari team look to a new start after a disappointing 2025.
The Scuderia launched their new car, the SF-26, with Hamilton driving it at the team’s test track at Fiorano for the first time on Friday. He was optimistic, having been involved in the development of a Ferrari for the first time but acknowledged that a huge task lay ahead.
Bernard MacMahon’s film about the 70s giants took advantage of audience enthusiasm to make a major impact in cinemas – and it’s just the latest in a string of films about the era of classic rock
Bare-chested swagger, out of control hair, thunderous guitar riffs … the heroes of 1970s hard rock are back, and burning up the cinema box office. Becoming Led Zeppelin, a film about the British band that dominated the music industry in the 1970s, was the most successful feature documentary at the US box office in 2025, taking over $10m. (Taylor Swift’s The Official Release Party of a Showgirl grossed considerably more, with $34m, but as an album-promoting clipshow it is evidently in a different category.)
Despite breaking up in 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin remain one of the world’s bestselling music acts, with estimated sales of over 200m records and 14.9bn streams. The band were famously press-shy in their prime, but agreed to take part in Becoming Led Zeppelin, which focuses on their early years up to the release of groundbreaking second album, Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. And contemporary audiences have responded – especially to the film’s presentation on the giant Imax screens, where it recorded Imax’s best ever opening weekend for a music documentary and became the format’s highest-grossing documentary of 2025.
The US president took his bullying doctrine to Davos and hit a wall of opposition. If this creates a new western alliance against him, all to the good
The temptation is strong to hope that the storm has passed. To believe that a week that began with a US threat to seize a European territory, whether by force or extortion, has ended with the promise of negotiation and therefore a return to normality. But that is a dangerous delusion. There can be no return to normality. The world we thought we knew has gone. The only question now is what takes its place – a question that will affect us all, that is full of danger and that, perhaps unexpectedly, also carries a whisper of hope.
Forget that Donald Trump eventually backed down from his threats to conquer Greenland, re-holstering the economic gun he had put to the head of all those countries who stood in his way, the UK among them. The fact that he made the threat at all confirmed what should have been obvious since he returned to office a year ago: that, under him, the US has become an unreliable ally, if not an actual foe of its one-time friends.
Worker illegally provided classified information ‘related to national defense’ to journalist, justice department says
A federal grand jury in Maryland has indicted a Pentagon contractor whose alleged leaking of classified documents sparked an “outrageous” FBI raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home.
According to the justice department, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones illegally provided sensitive and secret information “related to national defense” to a reporter who it says then wrote and published at least five articles using it.
The US president has galvanised the Danish population against him, while Danes’ relations with Greenlanders are ‘under reparation’
For the past three weeks, 24 hours a day, Denmark has been consumed by discussions about whether or not Greenland, a largely self-governing part of the Danish kingdom, will be invaded by the US, the Danes’ closest ally.
“We got a wake-up call,” said Linea Obbekjær, 64, as she left a supermarket with her bike in Copenhagen’s sprawling Østerbro neighbourhood. “So we are thinking about what is important to us.” Many had been spurred by recent events to take action. “People want to do something,” said Obbekjær. “Not sit and look at the television, but go out and do something.”
It’s been another busy week for Gianni Infantino. The Fifa head honcho spent Sunday in Rabat looking slightly sheepish as he stood alongside Morocco’s Prince Moulay Rachid. After trying his best not to hand the Afcon trophy to Senegal’s players, Big G moved front and centre again to console Brahim Díaz and present him with the award for the worst penalty ever taken tournament’s top scorer. Having reassured Díaz that, as president of Fifa, he makes colossal errors of judgment all the time and nobody seems to mind, Infantino then jetted back to his Alpine lair to check on the chances of Morocco and Senegal meeting at the Geopolitics World Cup.
Thomas Frank ascribes Tottenham’s knack issues to being ‘cursed or something like that’, heedless of the traditional remedy of a judicious sacrifice” – Nick Coupland.
In search of the kacktor to end all kacktors, in 2016, Sammy Ndjock of Minnesota United gave Bournemouth a 2-0 lead with this gem that became an early entry for a gif when you type in ‘own goal’” – Dave Shelles.
I enjoyed learning about ‘Kacktor des Monats’ (yesterday’s letters). Perhaps Herr Arntz could advise us if the Germans have a term for ‘crappy football email of the day’?” – Michael Bland.
Just to say how chuffed I am that you chose my entry as your ‘letter o’ the day’ yesterday. Apparently Arnd Zeigler and his team were equally chuffed when I pointed out to them he had made it into Football Daily” – Holger H Arntz.
Not normally being one who fully reads, let alone bothers to write in response to owt written in your daily diatribe, yesterday’s edition has sparked my wrath and I’ve finally decided that I must concoct – with my left thumb – a ‘letter’. You quoted that well-known actor Timotheéeeeee Chalamet paying homage to the ‘English north-east accent’. Excited by the statement, hailing from Sunderland, I started to read … only to learn he was referring to the Hull accent. Since when has Hull been in the north east? Have you ever been further north than Leeds, or Manchester? Please learn some geography and realise that the north east starts (probably) north of the River Tees, passes the Rivers Wear and Tyne, and actually reaches the Scottish Borders. Within that magnificent region there are probably 10 distinct accents and not one ‘actor’ could master one of them, let alone all – take Vera as an example” – Kev Richardson.
Single malt prices soar, but scotch should be fun and affordable
We have Robert Burns to thank for perhaps the greatest poem about any dish ever – a poem so good that it inspires an entire nation to dedicate an evening of each year to eating haggis, even though most people find it kind of gross.
No? If the “Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race” were that delicious, we’d all be eating it all the time, surely? And yet Burns’ Address to a Haggis is enticing enough to dispel any such doubts just once a year. I especially like the bit about slitting it open so the bright entrails spill out: “And then, O what a glorious sight / Warm-reekin, rich!”
Wedding, 44, had been sought by the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for his role in overseeing what the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, called the “one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations” in the world.
Philip Young, who served on Swindon borough council, pleads guilty to offences against ex-spouse Joanne Young
A former Conservative councillor has admitted nearly 50 offences of drugging, raping and sexually assaulting his former wife over a period of 14 years.
Philip Young, 49, pleaded guilty at Winchester crown court to 11 counts of rape and 11 counts of administering a substance with intent to stupefy his former spouse Joanne Young, 48, who can be named as she has waived her right to anonymity
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