Minister’s comments come days after Boris Johnson warns Russia of ‘significant consequences’It is highly unlikely that Britain or its allies will send troops to defend Ukraine if it is invaded by neighbouring Russia, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said.US intelligence claims that Russia has stationed about 70,000 troops near the border of Ukraine and has begun planning for a possible invasion as soon as early next year. Continue reading...

This is the final episode of Red Summers, a 360 video series by artist Bayeté Ross Smith covering the untold American history of racial terrorism.After the first world war, Black laborers moved to northern towns like East St Louis, Illinois, trying to escape Jim Crow in the south. In 1917, members of the White American Federation of Labor went on strike – and the company responded by hiring Black workers.Angry white workers began attacking Black people in the city. Eventually this leads to white mobs firebombing houses with Black families inside, while others outside waited to shoot and kill them. Historians estimate between 39 and 150 Black people were killed in the East St Louis riots.Just months later, another race riot in Houston broke out after member of the all-white Houston police department arrested a high-ranking soldier in an all-Black army regiment – a group that had recently returned from war. Only the Black soldiers were penalized Continue reading...

The Pogues frontman on vanity, a horrible heckle and why he became a vegetarianBorn in Kent, MacGowan, 63, won a scholarship to Westminster school, but was later expelled. In 1982, he became frontman of the Pogues; the band’s albums include Rum Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace with God. MacGowan co-wrote the song Fairytale of New York, which he performed with Kirsty MacColl; released in 1987, it remains a festive classic. He has launched his own line of merchandise on his website. He lives in Dublin with his wife, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke.Which living person do you most admire, and why?

One tray or pan is all you need for these three dishes: braised cod with winter tomatoes, fennel and caperberries; a baked basmati dish with lots of oniony punch; and parsnips roasted with black pepper and parmesanOne-pot or one-pan cooking is great for all sorts of reasons. Not only does it save on the washing-up, but it also leads to really tasty dishes, because all the different flavours have the time to come together and really mingle, rather than meet for the first time on the plate. Which makes it a win-win particularly right now, what with all the hosting we’ve got to come.UK readers: click to buy these ingredients from OcadoUK readers: click to buy these ingredients from Ocado Continue reading...

Actor’s achievements helping others embrace deaf identity and pursue passions on own termsAmid all the noise, glitter and razzle-dazzle, the most iconic moment of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing took place in complete silence. The music paused for several seconds while deaf actor Rose Ayling-Ellis and her dancing partner Giovanni Pernice continued to glide elegantly across the floor.

In November, Guardian writer Tim Jonze joined half a million others taking part in National Novel Writing Month. Could he get to the end – and would it be any good?The story goes that Peter Cook was at a party in the 1980s when a friend came up to him and declared that he was writing a novel. “Oh really?” the comedian replied. “Neither am I.” Many of us think we have a novel inside us, if only we had the time to write it without work, childcare and Wikipedia articles about the world’s most unusual deaths getting in the way. Some of us even give it a go: painstakingly crafting 600 words or so, before tweaking it repeatedly, fiddling with the font for a bit and then throwing the laptop out of the window.That person was me. I could never get beyond a few hundred words because whenever I read back the faux-literary waffle I’d put on the page I’d think, “Well, that’s clearly not as good as Cormac McCarthy,” and give up. Earlier this year I took a sabbatical from work and decided to use that time to write a novel, seriously this time. I was amazed by how much I got done: I cleared out the cellar, sorted the garden and watched two seasons of Succession. But the novel never got beyond the planning stage. Clearly, I needed a kick up the arse. Continue reading...

If Omicron threatens to disrupt your plans, don’t panic – here’s a guide to making the best of it

He has made a career out of winding people up in everything from The Office to his Golden Globes speeches – but is the comedian’s bark worse than his bite?Ricky Gervais’s assistant leads me past a huge, empty room to the top floor of an office above a shop on a swanky London high street. Gervais is sitting behind a desk at his computer in another huge, empty room, and looks as if he’s just squatted the place. There is nothing that suggests this is his office, except for the branded mugs sitting on his desk; one shows his face, the second says Tambury Gazette, the fictional newspaper where Gervais’s character, Tony, works in his hit Netflix series After Life.As soon as he sees me, he swings his legs off the floor and on to the desk. I expect him to say, “Right, shoot”, as his fabulous fictional creation David Brent might have done, but he reins himself in. It’s 20 years since Gervais made his name with The Office, and it’s often been difficult to know where Brent ends and Gervais begins. Continue reading...

Daily infection numbers jump in North America and Australia, while French prime minister likens spread of Omicron variant to ‘lightning’

Readers are encouraged to donate via other means after annual phone calls to journalists are hit by rise in Covid casesThe annual telethon for the Guardian and Observer’s charity appeal has been cancelled due to the rise in Omicron cases and renewed advice from the government to work from home.The 2021 charity appeal is focused on the fight for climate justice, supporting four charities that fight to protect the rights and livelihoods of communities hit by extreme weather events caused by the climate emergency.Donations can be made online by credit card, debit card or PayPal, or by phone on 0151 284 1126. We are unable to accept cheques. Continue reading...

It’s been a year bookended by travel restrictions, but our writers still found plenty of fabulous destinations, both at home and abroadI spent September travelling around Sicily alone, mostly on foot, and I wanted to flop on a beach before going home. I settled on Cefalù on the north coast, because of its rare combination of sandy beach and medieval town – and it was love at first sight. I had heard that the tiny town gets unpleasantly packed in summer, but by late September there was just a lively buzz. Cefalù seemed a distillation of everywhere else I had been: Sicily in miniature. I gazed up at the mosaic-bright Christ Pantocrator in the twin-towered Arab-Norman cathedral. I came face to face with Antonello da Messina’s enigmatic Portrait of an Unknown Man, a masterpiece in the unassuming (and empty) Museo Mandralisca. I climbed La Rocca, a huge crag that looms over the town, to a fourth- or fifth-century temple and ruined castle. Continue reading...

2021 provided a glut of memoirs, deep dives and tell-alls about American politics in an age of Covid and attacks on democracy itself. Which were the best – and most alarming?If in recent years American politics books have been noted mainly for ephemera, in 2021 the winds of history began to blow open the doors – occasionally to devastating effect. The advent of a new administration loosened tongues and made documents more readily available as some sought redemption, justification or simply fame.Such books illustrate the truth that one cannot keep a thing hidden and generally share certain characteristics that convey the ring of truth. They report bitterly angry outbursts by Donald Trump, staff reeling from dysfunction, chaos and the pressures of a campaign in a pandemic. They frequently recount interviews with Trump himself. They contain sufficient profanity to make sailors blush. Continue reading...

Admirers of vilified aristocrat say they hope series will allow her to be ‘seen in a different light’It took the judge more than three hours to read out his damning judgment at the end of one of the longest, most expensive and toxic divorce cases of the 20th century.Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll, was, he declared with contempt, “a highly sexed woman” who was not “satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite”. Continue reading...

NSW’s 2,482 new Covid cases the worst total of any Australian state or territory since pandemic began; Queensland records 31 cases

US ‘deeply troubled’ by the bill, which tightens foreign ownership rules, arguing it will weaken press freedomPoland’s parliament passed a media bill that detractors say aims to silence a news channel critical of the government, in an unexpected move that will stoke concern over media freedom and reopen a diplomatic dispute with the US.Critics say the legislation will affect the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by US media company Discovery Inc, to operate because it tightens the rules around foreign ownership of media in Poland. Continue reading...

Rosie, 22 charity worker meets Ella, 24, civil servantRosie on EllaWhat were you hoping for?

Instructing our kitten to use the cat flap was hard enough … even before it was terrified by two foxes having very loud sexIt is a frosty morning and I am standing in the kitchen in bare feet, holding the door open for the cat. The cat dips its head low, studying the world across the threshold.“Faster, pussycat,” I say. The cat sniffs at the cold air swirling in from the garden, but does not move. I begin to close the door very slowly, in a bid to create a shrinking decision window. In the space of two months the kitten has grown into a tall-eared, spooky-looking thing that I sometimes find standing on my chest staring down at me in the dead of night, its nose a millimetre from mine. It doesn’t fear the dog or the tortoise, but it’s still pretty wary of outside. Continue reading...

Half of UK adults receive booster vaccine; Ireland will also face 50% capacity limit on events

Makeshift vessels got into trouble attempting to make crossing from France to the UKMore than 130 people have been rescued after their makeshift vessels became stranded in the Channel as they tried to reach Britain from France, French authorities said.Two navy vessels and two lifeboats brought the 138 refugees back to shore after authorities were informed on Thursday that “many boats trying to cross the Channel were in trouble”. Continue reading...

People left without basics such as toothpaste and sanitary products after Home Office axed supportThousands of trafficking victims who had government support payments removed in the midst of the pandemic are entitled to back payments that could run into millions of pounds, following a high court ruling that found the policy to be unlawful.Its decision came after the Home Office removed financial support in July 2020 for trafficking victims who had claimed asylum and were being accommodated in hotels. Continue reading...

PC Harry Chandler’s dismissal comes after chat found during IOPC search of another officer’s mobile phoneA Metropolitan police officer has been dismissed for using a racial slur in a mobile phone message to a colleague.The slur was revealed during an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) regulator into the sharing of photographs of the murder scene of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in Wembley, north London, in June 2020. Continue reading...

Critics describe Sunday’s vote as ‘illegitimate’ as Beijing tightens its crackdown on dissent and pro-democracy movement is wiped outDays before Hong Kong’s legislative council election, 15 months after it was supposed to be held, former legislator Ted Hui is on the phone from Adelaide railing against the government. In the southern Australian city he is far from the Hong Kong warrants for his arrest and instead in a place where, unlike many of his former colleagues, he can speak freely.“For the Hong Kong people there are not many choices now but to accept illegitimate elections. The parliament is going to be a rubber stamp for Beijing and this election carries no democratic element at all.” Continue reading...

The singer entered the plea to ‘avoid the inconvenience’ of a high profile court trial. Neither will do jail time or pay any finesBritish rock icon Rod Stewart and his son have pleaded guilty to battery in an assault case stemming from a New Year’s Eve 2019 altercation with a security guard at an exclusive Florida hotel.Court records released on Friday show that the singer and his son, Sean Stewart, 41, entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of simple battery. Continue reading...

Sharon and Darren Greenham charged with manslaughter of George Arthur Hinds after blast caused by severed gas pipeA couple has been charged over the death of a two-year-old boy in a gas explosion.Sharon Greenham, 51, and Darren Greenham, 44, are accused of the manslaughter of George Arthur Hinds. Continue reading...

Social media groups are buzzing with display ideas, and one woman says she’s been ‘pandemic decorating’ since July

My mother, Clare Royce Spaventa, who has died aged 87, was an economist who worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome and then as a researcher at Cambridge University. When marriage led to a new life in Italy, she chose to focus less on her promising career for the benefit of her family.Fiercely intelligent, Clare was one of the few women of her generation to be admitted to Cambridge, where she read economics (1952-55). She went on to Stanford, then to work for the FAO in Rome around 1958, before returning to Cambridge as a researcher. It is during this second time there that, through Amartya Sen, she met Luigi Spaventa, also an economist. They decided to get married in great haste, in 1962 – there was no internet then, and phoning and travelling were extraordinarily expensive. Continue reading...

Sperm Positive launched in New Zealand in 2019 in an effort to reduce the stigma faced by HIV-positive peopleOlivia and Amy are sitting outside in the shade, trying to escape from New Zealand’s early-summer humidity. Amy, 10 months old, burbles happily in the background as her mother talks. She is healthy, happy, and oblivious to her status as a world first: one of a handful of babies born from the first sperm bank for HIV-positive donors.The bank, Sperm Positive, launched in New Zealand in 2019, in an effort to reduce the stigma faced by HIV-positive people – and raise awareness that with treatment, the virus was undetectable and untransmissible. It grabbed international headlines when it was launched, but has been more than a publicity gimmick. Two years on, the bank is bearing fruit. Continue reading...

EU law on medicines may be rewritten and UK has climbed down over ECJ. Here’s what we know

Brussels remains mistrustful of British government, which objects to ECJ being final arbiter of EU law

Chair of cross-party watchdog tells PM there are signs ‘security is no longer a priority for the government’Boris Johnson has been accused of spending too little time on protecting Britain’s national security in a highly critical letter sent directly to Downing Street by the chair of a cross-party watchdog.The chair of the national security committee, the former Labour foreign secretary Dame Margaret Beckett, writes: “We are deeply troubled by the persistent signs that our nation’s security is no longer a priority for the government”. Continue reading...

Global experts fear countries with older and more vulnerable populations may have different experience of Omicron variant

You need to talk about your feelings of guilt and insecurity so you can start to forgive yourselfI’m 26 years old, and have been having a really hard time in the past few months due to a breakup I brought upon myself.Last year I started a long-distance relationship with a girl. I loved her, but felt I was constantly struggling with my emotions and honesty due to my insecurity. This caused me to be needy, desperate and always seeking some sort of validation from her, and we had a few breaks because of this. Continue reading...

Frank Thomson (not his real name) worked as safeguarding locum in 2018 but left after feeling unsafeFrank Thomson* has been a social worker for more than a decade, but describes a short stint in Bradford council’s child safeguarding team as “without exaggerating, the scariest place I’ve ever worked in”.This week, the spotlight has turned to the troubled social work department after the murder of Star Hobson, a 16-month-old toddler, who was beaten to death by her mother’s partner last September. On Wednesday, Savannah Brockhill, 28, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder; Frankie Smith, 20, Star’s mother, received an eight-year sentence for causing or allowing her death. Continue reading...

Contentious security guarantees Moscow is seeking include a ban on Ukraine from entering NatoRussia has put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it says it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including many elements that have already been ruled out.The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering Nato and a limit to the deployment of troops and weapons to Nato’s eastern flank, in effect returning Nato forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion. Continue reading...

Aspiring artist also found guilty of attempting to murder mother while being locked down with couple in Dorset

Should a polymath professor be expected to defer to the politicians on public health guidance?Conservative MPs have been taking out their frustration on England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, for what they see as his promotion of “lockdown by stealth”. Chief among them is the American-born Joy Morrissey, who said Whitty should “defer” to politicians like her.In a now deleted tweet, Morrissey, who is on the government payroll as a parliament aide, said: “Perhaps the covid unelected public health spokesperson should defer to what our ELECTED members of parliament and the prime minister have decided. I know it’s difficult to remember but this is not how democracy works. This is not a public health socialist state.” Continue reading...

Concerts, parties and weddings booked to coincide with annual homecoming of overseas Nigerians

Twenty-seven people are feared dead after a fire swept through a mental health clinic in the Japanese city of Osaka, the local fire department said.The blaze is being treated as suspected arson, the Kyodo news agency said, quoting police sources saying that a man who appeared to be in his 60s had been seen carrying a paper bag leaking an unidentified liquid

PM says he hears what voters are saying, but blames media for focusing on politics and politicians

Latest updates: Boris Johnson says he ‘accepts the verdict’ and ‘understands people’s frustrations’ after thumping defeat

The only indigenous people left in Europe are struggling to keep their way of life as the Arctic warms up

With his teenage neuroses and gawky vulnerability, Spidey isn’t your ordinary superhero, but despite the dodgy wrist action he still resonates with armies of fansNot a spider – and not a man – but the most powerful teenage kid in pop-culture history. Spider-Man is the lonely, sensitive, adolescent underdog whose high-school miseries and humiliations, combined with his secret superheroic triumphs, have been comic-book crack for generations of fascinated fans and a gateway drug to the Marvel world itself.He first appeared in Marvel Comics almost 60 years ago: the orphaned young science prodigy, Peter Parker, bitten by a radioactive spider at an educational exhibit. (Like Godzilla, Spider-Man is a product of the nuclear age.) He acquires the proportionate strength of a spider, a tingly “spider sense” for danger, and the ability to climb up walls. He designs his own body-hugging web-motif costume and web-shooting wrist modules and becomes a superhero, battling people such as the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. But he is somehow unable to reveal his secret to his high-school crush Mary Jane Watson and, as humble Parker, gets bullied by the high-school jock Flash Thompson who – ironically – fan-worships Spider-Man. So Spider-Man’s victories coexist with despair and depression: he fails to save his Uncle Ben, killed by a street criminal, and his entire superhero career is driven by that primal scene of failure and guilt – a Rosebud of wretchedness. Continue reading...

The singer swears by it, it’s all over Instagram, and it has boosted the worldwide rosé market. What is the £19 bottle’s secret?

Famed for portraying bad guys in Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, the Spaniard opens up about his marriage to Penélope Cruz, his formidable mum, and his hopes for his kidsThe bad news is that, at the last minute, my interview with Javier Bardem is changed from being a face-to-face encounter to one conducted by the less risky means of video chat (damn you, Omicron!) But the good news is this means I get to snoop around Bardem’s home in Madrid, where he Zooms me from, and which he shares with his wife, the actor Penélope Cruz, and their two children, Leonardo, 10, and Luna, eight. OK, I don’t actually see the whole house, but he does give me a panoramic view of his study while his kids shout and play outside.“You can see my little bookcase here,” Bardem says, picking up his laptop and giving me the grand tour. “And my map of the world. It’s very chaotic.” Continue reading...

Brazilian president plans to reveal identities despite health officers receiving death threats

Nobel laureate faces two years in jail after being sentenced for incitement and breaching Covid regulationsMyanmar’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has appeared in court wearing prison uniform, a source with knowledge of the court proceedings said.The Nobel laureate, 76, was sentenced by a court this month to four years in jail for incitement and breaching coronavirus regulations. Her sentence was later reduced to a two-year term of detention in her current, undisclosed location. Continue reading...

Twenty-seven-year-old held on suspicion of child neglect after death of two pairs of twin boys in blaze in SuttonA 27-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of child neglect after two pairs of twin boys died in a house fire in south London, the Met police said.The London fire brigade (LFB) said eight fire engines and about 60 firefighters were sent to Collingwood Road, Sutton, shortly before 7pm on Thursday in response to reports of a fire. Continue reading...

As the climate crisis causes drastic food and water shortages in the north-east, pastoralists and their livestock are being pushed to the brink

Mark Drakeford defends return to nightclub closures and office social distancing from 27 December