It was another disappointing day for England as they mustered a poor total with Australia in a good position to secure the series on day one of the third TestOn the subject of England recovering from 2-0 down with three to play, senior players made the right noises pre-Test.Brollies down, covers coming off. We might have a toss soon. Continue reading...

This meticulous account of the Arab doctor who sheltered a Jewish girl in 1930s Berlin is a remarkable story of subterfuge and courageThe Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem honours 25,000 individuals who helped to save Jewish lives during the second world war. Among this roll call of the “Righteous among the Nations”, there is only one named Arab: Dr Mohamed Helmy. This remarkable book tells the story of Helmy’s life, in particular the years in which he helped a young Jewish girl, Anna Boros (later Gutman), evade the Nazis in the heart of Berlin from 1936 until the end of the war.Ronen Steinke, a political commentator at German broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung, has painstakingly pieced together these events from the state archive in Berlin, and from Gestapo correspondence, and interviews with the surviving relatives of Helmy and Gutman in New York and Cairo. His story, deftly translated by Sharon Howe, wears this research lightly. Steinke’s history sheds a light on what he argues is a deliberately forgotten world, the old Arabic Berlin of the Weimar period, centred around the grand mosque in the Wilmersdorf district, which was “open, progressive and far from antisemitic” and which welcomed Jewish luminaries, including Albert Einstein and philosopher Martin Buber, to its cultural events. “It is a perception shared by many Muslims in western countries that the Holocaust was nothing to do with them, that Muslim migrants played no part in that history,” Steinke writes. “This book is evidence to the contrary.” Continue reading...

From France to Ukraine, the continent faces many challenges during 2022The recent barrage of threats from Vladimir Putin is no longer solely to do with Ukraine. Russia’s president has steadily broadened the scope of his demands to encompass defence and security arrangements in Europe as a whole. Even if current tensions on Ukraine’s borders do not ultimately result in open conflict, this deliberate escalation bodes ill for 2022.What Putin wants, in effect, is to turn the clock back to the 1990s, before former Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland and ex-Soviet republics such as Estonia joined Nato. If he had his way, he would probably reconstitute the Soviet Union, whose demise he mourns. This bitter old KGB spy never accepted cold war defeat. Continue reading...

Leadership hopefuls told to block new limits in England as scientists model curbs on bars and cafes

Physical distancing will be required in public places and there will be new limits on indoor gatherings from Boxing Day

The killings come amid escalating violence in the region, where a four-year Islamist insurgency has resulted in thousands of deathsAuthorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country’s desert north this week.A column of civilian fighters from the homeland defence volunteers (VDP), a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum province, authorities said on Saturday. Continue reading...

Virgin and Amazon bosses do well in our awards for business brass neck, but there are also nods to big oil, big money – and a powerful whiff of MuskEvery Christmas, Observer Business Agenda casts its eye over the year that was, seeking to spotlight the business luminaries whose deeds might otherwise have gone unrecognised. At first glance 2021 looked awfully similar to 2020 – a pandemic, various lockdowns and a new wave of infections to round it all off – but it soon became clear that there were still candidates worthy of special recognition. Continue reading...

Party calls for ban as Boxing Day meetings prepare to go aheadLabour has demanded the outlawing of trail hunting on public land, as Boxing Day meets prepare to go ahead.Several licences have been granted by the government for the meetings, despite a growing movement among public bodies to refuse permission for them to take place on their property. Continue reading...

Six days, 10 questions a day. How much can you remember about the news, culture and sport events of 2021 in Australia and overseas? Continue reading...

Luke Henriques-Gomes’s grandfather was one of 44 refugees to arrive in 1975 on the only RAAF plane ever hijacked. The official response still staggers him. Head of news, Mike Ticher, introduces this little known story

Agents step in after incident involving two small boats in early hours of morningUK authorities have rescued 67 people who were attempting to cross the Channel on Christmas Day.Border Force agents took a group of people to Dover in Kent in the early hours of Saturday, after an incident involving two small boats. Continue reading...

The Queen paid tribute to Prince Philip and encouraged the nation to see the joy in simple things in her yearly Christmas Day address. The monarch acknowledged the impact of the Covid Omicron variant, having cancelled her regular festive trip to Sandringham. Instead she was spending Christmas at Windsor Castle, joined by Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, in the Queen's first Christmas without the Duke of Edinburgh since his death.In the broadcast, recorded in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, the Queen said she had drawn great comfort from the 'warmth and affection' shown in the tributes to the duke’s life Continue reading...

Observer investigation uncovers new trafficking gateway to the west after 500 migrants found in shocking conditions in SerbiaWhen construction began to great fanfare in 2019, the Linglong car tyre factory outside of Belgrade was heralded as the jewel in the crown of Serbia’s burgeoning strategic partnership with China.Two years later, 500 Vietnamese construction workers were allegedly found last month working in conditions of forced labour with their passports confiscated and living in cramped and degrading conditions. Continue reading...

Police say suspect was carrying an offensive weapon and royal family have been informedAn armed man was arrested after attempting to break into Windsor Castle where the Queen was celebrating Christmas with her family.Police said the intruder was carrying an offensive weapon but did not break into any buildings on Saturday morning. Continue reading...

Monarch speaks of the death of Prince Philip, and encourages the nation to see the joy in simple thingsThe Queen looked back on a year marked by personal, as well as national, grief in her Christmas Day message – the first since the loss of her husband – yet strived to strike a more hopeful tone for the year to come.As a second year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic drew towards its end, the 95-year-old monarch said she could understand the feelings of all those who have lost loved ones, having been bereaved herself in April. Nevertheless, she looked forward becoming the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum jubilee – 70 years on the throne – in 2022. Continue reading...

On my way to have painful medical tests, I felt dejected. Then I saw a giant dollop of whipped cream with a cherry on top in Trafalgar SquareMost people were keen to leave 2020 behind but had I known what was coming in 2021, I might have chosen to stay there. From the first days of January I started to experience extended bouts of dizziness – a feeling that the ground was moving beneath me, with bursts of tinnitus, nausea and head pressure thrown in.One thing I can tell you about near constant dizziness is that it’s not the ideal state to be in if you are trying to homeschool a four-year-old, entertain a stir-crazy one-year-old and hold down a full-time job. As for fun activities: just looking at a playground roundabout was enough to send me spinning out. Continue reading...

A sunny new world beckons for Neo and Trinity in this self-aware but smart fourth instalment of the sci-fi classicThomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is the designer of The Matrix, a popular video game set in a virtual reality. His bosses have ordered a sequel; at an ideas meeting, his colleagues throw around a few ideas. PVC. Guns. Trans allegory. There is much winking and nudging in Lana Wachowski’s follow-up to the groundbreaking sci-fi films she co-created with her sister Lilly. Wachowski understands that in the 20 years since, their legacy has been boiled down to a catalogue of memes with lucrative franchise potential. Yet her newest chapter manages to be self-aware (at times overly so) without being entirely cynical.Those foggy on the details of the trilogy’s plot will benefit from the exposition-heavy first act. Plagued by memories of his past, Anderson – also known as Neo – must once again choose whether to take the red pill offered by hacker Bugs (Jessica Henwick, whip-smart), and wake up, or continue to swallow his current reality. Carrie-Anne Moss’s Tiffany, a motorcycle mechanic and mother of two whom Neo remembers as Trinity, has a choice to make too. The romance between them has always been the molten core of the Matrix films; their power as a duo is what drives the story forward. Continue reading...

The actor, 57, on having a breakdown, aiming high and moving through life gentlyMy first memory is cycling to the top of the path outside my childhood home, on a yellow kids’ bike with fat grey tyres. I turned on to the road and said aloud: “I’m me, doing this, now.” I was heading away from the home and people I loved, off on my own adventure.The love I felt as a child was unconditional, especially from my mother. I loved Dad deeply, but was wary of him. It was idyllic, our gang of kids playing out on a Salford council estate. My children are middle-class Londoners, but I sit on the porch and let them play in the street just like I did. Continue reading...

Do you know what Demi Lovato thinks about aliens? What new role The Rock has been cooking up? Put your knowledge to the test Continue reading...

A new translation of Felix Salten’s 1923 novel reasserts its original message that warns of Jewish persecutionIt’s a saccharine sweet story about a young deer who finds love and friendship in a forest. But the original tale of Bambi, adapted by Disney in 1942, has much darker beginnings as an existential novel about persecution and antisemitism in 1920s Austria.Now, a new translation seeks to reassert the rightful place of Felix Salten’s 1923 masterpiece in adult literature and shine a light on how Salten was trying to warn the world that Jews would be terrorised, dehumanised and murdered in the years to come. Far from being a children’s story, Bambi was actually a parable about the inhumane treatment and dangerous precariousness of Jews and other minorities in what was then an increasingly fascist world, the new translation will show. Continue reading...

Pontiff looks to soothe global conflicts ranging from family feuds to threats of war in his speechPope Francis has used his Christmas Day message to call for dialogue on the world stage as he looks to resolve conflicts ranging from family feuds to threats of war.The pontiff listed tensions in several countries in Asia, Europe and Africa as he delivered his Urbi et Orbi address, and called on individuals and world leaders to talk rather than dig in their heels. This aversion to discourse, he said, has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Shetland and eastern Scotland get snow, with more forecast to fall later in the day in southern HighlandsShetland and parts of eastern Scotland have woken up to a white Christmas, the Met Office confirmed.As of 7am on Christmas Day, the weather agency said there had been snowfall, with more forecast for later in the day in the southern Highlands. Continue reading...

Hannah Ingram-Moore is encouraging those who are missing a loved one over Christmas to reach out for supportThe daughter of Captain Sir Tom Moore has encouraged people to not grieve alone if they are missing a loved one over Christmas.Hannah Ingram-Moore, whose father died in February, has said people “don’t need to” go through grief alone, and encouraged them to reach out for support if they need it. Continue reading...

Human rights group says burnt bodies of dozens killed by the military found near Hpruso townMore than 30 people, including children, have been killed and their bodies burned in Myanmar’s conflict-torn Kayah state, according to a local resident, media reports and a local human rights group.The Karen Human Rights Group said it found the bodies of internally displaced people killed by the military that rules Myanmar near Mo So village of Hpruso town on Saturday. Continue reading...

In Peru’s remote villages, farmers have used diverse crops to survive unpredictable weather for millennia. Now they are using this knowledge to adapt to the climate crisisIn a pastoral scene that has changed little in centuries, farmers wearing red woollen ponchos gather on a December morning in a semicircle to drink chicha, made from fermented maize, and mutter an invocation to Pachamama – Mother Earth – before sprinkling the dregs on the Andean soil.Singing in Quechua, the language spread along the vast length of the Andes by the Incas, they hill the soil around plants in the numerous small plots terraced into a patchwork up and down the Peruvian mountainside. Continue reading...

The Six Feet Under actor on ​challenging roles, working with Guillermo del Toro​ and being recognised at funeralsAmerican actor Richard Jenkins, 74, has been a screen regular since the 70s, but his big breakthrough came in 2001 playing deceased funeral director Nathaniel Fisher in the TV series Six Feet Under. He went on to receive an Oscar nomination for best actor in The Visitor (2007) and won an Emmy in 2015 for his role in the drama series Olive Kitteridge. Jenkins has worked with directors including Woody Allen, Kathryn Bigelow, the Coens and Mike Nichols, and next month can be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. His latest project is playwright Stephen Karam’s film of his own one-act play The Humans – set in a newly rented, unfurnished apartment in New York’s Chinatown – in which Jenkins plays a man contemplating the state of his life at a family Thanksgiving.You live in Providence, Rhode Island, where you’ve worked a lot in theatre, right?

Despite living in the UK for more than 30 years, there are a handful of popular staples I have doggedly refused to eat. So I take the plunge with prawn cocktail crispsI like to think I have an adventurous palate. I eat many things that commonly upset people – shellfish, snails, coriander – without complaint. I don’t have any allergies and I am highly lactose tolerant.As an American who has lived in the UK for 30 years, I can only think of a few British foodstuffs I won’t touch, among them baked beans, Marmite and prawn cocktail crisps. But can I really consider myself adventurous if I’m not willing to give these three a go? Continue reading...

In Time, the actor known as Game of Thrones’ Ned Stark had to show the terrors of prison … mostly by sitting in silence. He talks religion, looking rough – and the role he played that would not be made nowAcross three Sunday nights last summer, Sean Bean was remarkable. BBC One’s Time saw him play a teacher jailed for killing someone while drunk-driving. With Jimmy McGovern’s script often leaving him silent and alone in his cell, he painted an astonishingly affecting portrait of the regret and terror of a previously respected professional banged up with veteran criminals – and he frequently did so using expressions alone.How is it to try to grab the audience entirely through looks? “As you get older, it’s sometimes a bit easier!” says Bean, 62, with a laugh. “When I started out, I used to count up how many lines I had and want some more. Now, it’s: ‘Oh, fuck, do I have to remember all that?’ So I don’t mind silence.” Continue reading...

How much gourmand gossip did you absorb?

Nearly 6,000 readers have donated towards causes that will help communities affected by the climate crisisAn incredible £500,000 has been raised for climate justice good causes by generous Guardian and Observer readers, in the space of just over a fortnight since the launch of the 2021 charity appeal.Nearly 6,000 people have so far donated to the appeal, which will be shared between four charities: Practical Action, Global Greengrants Fund UK, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and Environmental Justice Foundation. Continue reading...

The director of America’s art museum aims to ‘listen to people whom museum directors don’t always hear’Donato Bramante’s Tempietto in Rome. The Parthenon in Athens. Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The Barcelona pavilion in Spain. The Guggenheim museum in New York. And the White House in Washington.All have been turned into architectural birthday cakes by Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, as gifts for her architect husband. “I’m not a cook so they’re not pastry masterpieces,” says the 55-year-old, who used carrots for the minarets of the Hagia Sophia mosque in Turkey. “They sort of amuse me.” Continue reading...

Dr Arnold Monto says he watched as a vaccine was developed both faster and more effectively than any dared to hope – but says it’s unlikely to give ‘permanent protection’It is very likely that in the “Before Times,” few Americans knew that independent experts advised the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and that the FDA usually took their advice.Less than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, that quickly changed. Continue reading...

Archbishop of Canterbury to say pandemic has shown our capacity for compassion and generosity

People still missing despite major rescue effort as smugglers switch to more perilous route from TurkeyAt least 16 people have died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing to at least 30 the combined death toll from three accidents in as many days involving migrant boats in Greek waters.The sinkings came as smugglers increasingly favour a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, which avoids Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that for years were at the forefront of the country’s migration crisis. Continue reading...

My snowy getaway with a new boyfriend was full of promise – until we arrived at a place unencumbered with luxuries such as heat, lighting or a chemical toiletThe first weekend away. An auspicious landmark in any relationship, but especially with the new boyfriend still living at home with his parents and me 200 miles away in thin-walled student digs with seven sharp-eared housemates. Such was the allure of privacy, I didn’t ask any questions. “My mate’s got a place in north Wales we can have for the weekend,” he said. “No one will bother us.” I thought it sweet and funny to call him Danno, and told him to book it.It was February 1988. Our relationship was just days old. In the sharp slant of a winter setting sun, we headed off in my Mini, him (6ft 3in) in concertina folds. We were too young, too hooked up on the promise of adventure and what I will euphemistically call romance to bother with boring old weather forecasts. Continue reading...

Residents are banned from leaving the city and non-essential workers can only leave home to buy foodThe Chinese city of Xian has reported an increase in daily Covid-19 infections and local companies have curtailed activity as the country’s latest hotspot entered its third day of lockdown.Xian, home to 13 million people, detected 75 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms on Friday, its highest daily count of the year and reversing the previous day’s decline, official data showed on Saturday. Continue reading...

Concerns a tropical low will strengthen as it moves south towards the west of DarwinThere is concern a tropical low brewing off northern Australia may reach cyclone intensity west of Darwin on Boxing Day.A severe weather warning was issued for parts of the Northern Territory’s Arnhem district early on Christmas morning. Continue reading...

NSW reports 6,288 cases, Victoria 2,108, Queensland 765 and South Australia 634 as tens of thousands forced into isolation

Passengers returning home for festive season face worldwide disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffedPassengers travelling over the Christmas holiday have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 4,500 flights, according to a flight tracking website.A surge of cancellations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights. Continue reading...

Three-week operation by troops from Niger and Nigeria targeted area that has become a bolthole for Boko Haram and Isis-linked militantsSix soldiers and at least 22 jihadists have died in fighting in the Lake Chad region of central AfricA, a joint force deployed to the area said on Friday.The force described the operation, conducted by troops from Niger and Nigeria backed by fighter planes, as a “success” and said it had benefited from “decisive support by American partners”. Continue reading...

Moon Jae-in, her successor, has freed Park from 22-year sentence three months ahead of presidential electionSouth Korea’s disgraced former president Park Geun-hye has been pardoned by her successor, Moon Jae-in, in a special amnesty that could influence voters in a presidential election that is just three months away.Park has been serving a 22-year sentence following her impeachment in 2017 and conviction for corruption and abuse of power, after a scandal that exposed webs of double-dealing between political leaders and conglomerates. Continue reading...

Brisbane braces for a downpour, Darwin is on cyclone watch, Perth to endure 43C, and other capitals in for a warm and partly cloudy day

Daily hospitalisations in England up by more than 40% in a week at same time as more staff on sick leaveNHS leaders have voiced alarm at a major rise in the number of hospitalisations due to Covid-19 after 1,171 people with the disease across the UK were admitted in a 24-hour period that set another record number of daily cases.The latest government figures showed 122,186 cases of coronavirus had been recorded as of 9am on Friday. Another 137 people died within 28 days of testing positive. Continue reading...

Merseyside police took 54-year-old into custody after £70,000 theft from Alder HeyA man has been arrested on suspicion of burglary after 100 iPads worth £70,000 were stolen from a children’s hospital.Police were called after a report that the devices were taken from an outdoor container at Alder Hey children’s hospital in West Derby, Liverpool, on 19 November. Continue reading...

Thousands of people affected by Covid have had to physically separate from loved ones. Here’s how some hope to stay connected

Some of Australia’s most prominent researchers nominate the most surprising, important and inspiring scientific developments of the past 12 monthsWith all of the worrying news emerging from the fields of health and science this year, some of the incredible advances that occurred may have been overlooked. But there have been many weird and wonderful feats in the world of research.Life-saving tests, treatments and vaccines were developed and rolled-out – including those led by Australian doctors – and a world-first malaria vaccine for children was endorsed by the World Health Organization. A new species of dinosaur was discovered in south-west Queensland, adding to our understanding about how they evolved. We learned from Nasa that the much-feared asteroid, Apophis, won’t hit Earth for at least 100 years, so that’s a relief.The development and the success of RNA-based vaccines has had enormous global impact during the past year. There’s enormous short-term success but it also opens up a lot of potential long-term opportunities in delivering RNA as a vaccine for emerging diseases and also as a means of developing new therapeutics to treat a whole range of disorders.To get a new type of vaccine out there requires very big clinical trials because a crucial thing with a vaccine, of course, is safety.Antarctica is a bellwether for climate change impacts, with recent evidence of ecosystem collapse and that a major ice shelf in west Antarctica may fail within the decade.So for me, this year’s most exciting advance is not a discovery but solid investment in future Antarctic science, heralded by the arrival of Australia’s new icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, the most advanced polar research vessel in the world, and the initiation of not one, but three new university-based Antarctic research initiatives.”From my point of view, the origins of Sars-CoV-2 has been the big story.Knowing from where viruses and pandemics start is crucial to understanding the interactions between humans and animals, and how this is influenced by human behaviour, industrialisation, and climate change.In both my personal and professional roles, it’s incredibly difficult to look past the incredibly rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in terms of amazing scientific advances over the last couple of years.But, in my other life I’m a wannabe astronaut, and I am completely astonished by Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter, which has made 18 successful flights on a whole other planet in 2021!I think the most important finding that came out in 2021 is a study relating to ocean conditions around the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which locks up in total about seven metres of global sea level. Lose the WAIS and hundreds of millions of people worldwide would be displaced. The WAIS is known to be the most vulnerable component of the Antarctic ice sheet system and uncertainty about future melt rates is one of the biggest unanswered questions in polar climate science.The published ocean measurements were taken adjacent to Thwaites Glacier, which is the most rapidly changing outlet of the WAIS. Using an autonomous underwater vehicle, the study documents the first ever temperature, salinity and oxygen measurements at the Thwaites ice shelf front. The measurements revealed warm water impinging from all sides on what are known as ‘pinning points’ of the glacier – these are critical to ice-shelf stability. Continue reading...

Mirabella was editor of the magazine from 1971 to 1988 and was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashionGrace Mirabella, the editor of American Vogue throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, has died aged 92.Mirabella was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashion. She succeed the more whimsical and bohemian Diana Vreeland as editor in 1971 and remained in the role until 1988. Continue reading...

The American author was not only brilliant but also generous and kind to younger writers, writes Emma BrockesThere is that famous photo of Joan Didion, taken in Malibu in 1976, in which she leans on a deck overlooking the beach, cigarette in hand, scotch glass at her elbow, and regards her family – John Dunne, her husband, and their then 10-year-old daughter, Quintana – through lowered, side-long eyes. Like other iconic photos of Didion from the period, she is at one remove from the group, off to the side and in this case, looking not at the camera but at her family as they look at the camera. It’s the pose Didion perfected, in life as in art, and when news of her death at the age of 87 broke on Thursday, it was a shock to see another frame from that sequence surface online. In it, Didion, eyes fixed forward, smiles broadly at the camera in the conventional style – a rare glimpse behind the persona.The paradox of Didion was not unusual among writers, whose confidence is often born of a million anxieties. But her ability to operate outside herself – to measure the gap between inside and out and slyly mock any effort to conceal it – was unparalleled. She was, famously and by her own account, diffident, brittle, runtish, prone to migraines, afraid of the telephone, and as she wrote in the preface to her 1968 collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, “bad at interviewing people”, apparent deficits that, in Didion’s hands, were of course precisely what permitted her entry to places her rivals – particularly the blow-hard men of 1960s journalism – couldn’t reach. Continue reading...