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Four familiar faces return to troll an overstuffed nation with delicious-looking, butter-heavy sweet treatsLately, it seems like the Bake Off franchise has been put to substantial use by Channel 4. Since series 11 ended, we’ve had recaps and festive shows, seemingly by the week. The Great New Year Bake Off (Channel 4), the last of two seasonal specials, brings back Nancy, Rahul, Helena and Henry, all stellar parts of their respective years, to demonstrate that there’s plenty of heat in those ovens yet. This is a Now That’s What I Call Bake Off special, an opportunity to get the band back together once again.The Bake Off proved – that’s a bread pun, and I believe that having to point it out means it’s a successful one – to be a national tonic as the pandemic months dragged on. Everything that made it so eminently watchable, and everything that has given it this seemingly limitless lifespan, felt utterly right in 2020. It was kind, comforting and funny, and it spoke to our growing national appetite for chasing down flour and eggs, and attempting to whip up a cake or a biscuit, if not quite in the shape of the Louvre, then at least as something vaguely edible. It feels appropriate that it should take us into 2021, too. Continue reading...

US experts warn against plan to give different second jab if supplies run low

Readers respond to an article by Larry Elliott calling for those on the left to see the UK’s departure from the EU as an opportunity to rebalance the economyLarry Elliott is consistent in his criticism of the EU (The left must stop mourning Brexit – and start seeing its huge potential, 31 December). He points out the neoliberalism inherent in the core EU policies of free movement of goods, services, capital and people. He then extols the advantages for the UK of being freed from EU shackles to pursue its own destiny in the world.But aren’t we committed to chasing the same neoliberalism on a broader canvas? He says nothing of the EU’s social and political projects – health and safety, employment protection, social welfare, retirement rights and other programmes. He ignores the ambitions of a gradual rapprochement between nations that engaged in monstrous wars in the recent past. Brexit UK is moving backwards, self-condemned to continued national decline, as other countries find ways of developing at least some elements of a progressive agenda in a harsh and divided world.

Science fiction is just a bunch of loud noises, special effects and unbelievable plotlines, argues Alison Rourke. Shelley Hepworth tries to prove her wrong

Government is withdrawing critical support when it is most needed and has no proper plan for jobs, federal opposition saysThe Morrison government faces new calls to offer targeted support to businesses in the hardest hit parts of the Australian economy as the Coalition presses ahead with cuts to emergency wage subsidies from Monday.Labor has accused the government of withdrawing critical support from the economy at a time when Covid-19 outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria have sparked the return of tight domestic border rules and curbs on business activities. Continue reading...

Not-for-profit Women in Fisheries aims to get more women involved in male-dominated industrySuperstition among fishing crews has traditionally said that women on ships are bad luck – and it is among many of the reasons women in the fishing industry are in short supply.Now though, they are being urged to join Britain’s fishing fleet by the first UK company to emerge that is actively encouraging women to fish. Continue reading...

Financial pressure from Covid leaves zoo struggling to afford £1m-a-year lease

British embassy says ‘this should not be happening’ after airline staff claim pre-Brexit ID documents are invalidBritish residents flying home to Spain have been prevented from boarding a joint BA-Iberia flight to Madrid because the airline claimed their pre-Brexit residency papers were no longer valid, while others were deported back to Britain from Barcelona for the same reason.Max Duncan said the Iberia desk had refused to recognise his green card as proof of residence despite assurances by the British and Spanish governments that both the old foreign national identification (NIE) document and the new foreign ID card (TIE) remained valid. Continue reading...

Leighton Snook, 28, and 16-year-old who cannot be named will appear in court over death of Donald RalphA 16-year-old boy and a 28-year-old man have been charged with the murder of a pensioner who was strangled at his home.The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and the man, Leighton Snook, are due to appear at Colchester magistrates court on Monday accused of killing Donald Ralph, 83. Continue reading...

The virus has not only changed young people’s day-to-day lives but also their hopes and dreams for the future

South African man, now known as Justin, speaks for first time of friend Carlito Vale, who died after 430-metre fall, in Channel 4 documentaryA South African man who survived an 11-hour flight from Johannesburg to London after hiding in a plane’s undercarriage has told of the last words he exchanged with a friend whose body fell from the same British Airways flight as it came in to land at Heathrow.“He said: ‘We made it,’ and then I passed out with the lack of oxygen,” said the man, who was then known as Themba and who has spoken publicly for the first time about the desperate journey both men undertook in 2015. Continue reading...

Squatters reportedly belonging to one family claim site of 5,000 year-old ruins was given to them in the 1970sIllegal squatters have invaded the ruins of the oldest city in the Americas, and made death threats against Ruth Shady, the celebrated Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the 5,000 year-old civilization.The threats came via telephone calls and messages to various workers at the archeological site at the height of Peru’s Covid-19 pandemic. They followed reports to the police and prosecutors about the invasions of the ancient ruins of Caral. Continue reading...

Adut Akech’s rise from Kenyan refugee camp to the international catwalk has been remarkable. She talks about her ‘fashion dad’ Edward Enninful and why she wants to see proper diversity in the fashion industryAll the best supermodels have fairytale origin stories. They are bullied at school: too tall, too flat-chested, too strange-looking. Boys prefer their more comely peers. They grow up believing themselves to be unlovable, even social outcasts. And then an outsider swoops in – perhaps at an airport (Kate Moss), in Primark (Jourdan Dunn), or McDonald’s (Gisele Bündchen). The scout plucks them from obscurity and drops them into a life of international travel, money and acclaim. Their self-doubt is sloughed away like dead skin. Bullies stand chastened. The supermodel triumphs.Moss and co don’t have anything on Adut Akech’s origin story. Their childhoods are the Pixar remakes of her Grimms’ fairytale. Akech was born as her mother fled civil war in South Sudan and raised in a refugee camp in Kenya. At seven, she moved with her family to Australia. When she arrived, she didn’t speak any English, “I was this tall, super-shy, awkward kid,” she says. “I had a weird name, and a gap tooth.” Continue reading...

Automatic expulsions after prison terms are leaving UK children without fathers, campaigners sayThe Home Office is refusing to review the forced separation of black British families caught up in the criminal justice system, a practice that campaigners say is systemically racist and legitimises child cruelty.Under a 13-year-old law, individuals who are not British citizens and receive a prison sentence of more than 12 months are automatically targeted for deportation. This policy has seen hundreds of people, mainly men, put on charter flights to Jamaica, leaving their British children behind in the UK. Continue reading...

Drug supply experiment falters as Netherlands plan for greenhouses stirs anxiety among local residentsA Dutch trial of state-regulated cannabis cultivation farms to supply coffee shops risks being derailed by an outbreak of nimbyism after locals protested about the location of one of the new facilities.The plans to take over greenhouses on the outskirts of Etten-Leur, a town in north Brabant, near the Belgian border, and replace blackberries with cannabis plants, triggered large local protests and a request by the local mayor for central government to block the scheme. Continue reading...

The acclaimed screenwriter recalls his life during the 1980s Aids crisis, and reveals why it is only now, with his new TV series It’s a Sin, that he feels able to tell a story that has haunted him for decadesThere are things I can’t say here. Men I dare not name. The first man I ever had sex with. A man I loved for three months in 1988. That hilarious friend I spent a mad week with in Glasgow. All of them dead, now. And they all died of Aids.But I can’t say their names because their families said they died of cancer or pneumonia. And they maintain that story to this day. Even now, I’ve had to change a few details in those opening sentences, just in case. The stigma and fear of Aids was so great that a family could go through the funeral, the wake and then decades of mourning without saying what really happened. Continue reading...

Ministers under pressure to say why attacks involving civilian casualties have been excluded from log of alleged humanitarian breachesThe government is under pressure to explain why a series of air strikes in Yemen, many involving civilian casualties, have not been recorded in its confidential log of alleged breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL).The existence of the database, which has been kept by the Ministry of Defence since 2015, emerged only when the government became embroiled in a legal challenge over its decision to grant UK arms manufacturers export licences to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. The challenge came amid claims the weapons were being used in breach of IHL. Continue reading...

OK, I only started last month and I don’t know how long I’ll manage it, but for now it’s making me glowWe all eat our words. “No way” sneakily turns into “OK, maybe”, then “yes”. You vow never, ever, to wear Crocs, then you see your smart friend in a yellow pair and British Vogue has named them the It-shoe of the winter season (true) and suddenly you’re weakening. My volte face is more extreme. I’ve joined the thousands who’ve taken up outdoor swimming during lockdown. I don’t much like swimming. I’m not good at it. I dislike casting clouts and favour a hot-water bottle all year.“You’ll need a bobble hat,” advised my aquatic mentor, suggesting a garment I haven’t owned since primary school. I am initiated into the secrets of neoprene, a fabric as alien as Chantilly lace. I arrive at the appointed hour (entry is strictly timed) looking like Nanook of the North. A hardy regular congratulates me on starting this habit mid-December in a pandemic. I glow. But then I am still fully clothed and have not yet set foot in the water (5.6C). Continue reading...

Gary Taubes argues persuasively that ‘those who fatten easily’ should abandon carbs altogetherThe investigative journalist Gary Taubes is known for his painstakingly researched and withering demolitions of the “eat less, move more” diet orthodoxy, but his latest book is personal. The Case for Keto is aimed at “those of us who fatten easily”. Taubes locates himself in this beleaguered group, “despite an addiction to exercise for the better part of a decade” and a diet of “low-fat, mostly plant ‘healthy’ eating”. “I avoided avocados and peanut butter because they were high in fat and I thought of red meat, particularly steak and bacon, as an agent of premature death. I ate only the whites of egg.” Yet still he remained overweight.Taubes started to shed those pounds when he realised that one-size-fits-all diet advice fails, among other reasons, because people are metabolically different. Some of us can eat fattening carbohydrates and sugar and get away with it; others can’t. Continue reading...

Supporters says charges against Zara Kay, who has had her passport confiscated, are ‘politically motivated’An Australian ex-Muslim women’s rights activist faces “politically motivated” charges in Tanzania, including for a tweet allegedly critical of the country’s president, according to her supporters.The Australian government is providing consular assistance to Zara Kay, 28, the founder of Faithless Hijabi, a group set up two years ago to support women who are ostracised or face violence if they leave or question Islam. Continue reading...

Some of our best-loved species are changing their breeding cycles and heading north in their fight for survival in a warmer worldLockdown has sparked a renewed interest in our garden birds, with millions of us enjoying watching them from our windows. But could some species – including the common and familiar great tit – vanish from Britain’s gardens by the end of the century?Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, working with the University of Oxford, have modelled how great tits are reacting to the climate crisis. Specifically, are the birds able to respond to the earlier emergence of the caterpillars on which they feed their chicks? Continue reading...

Many customers of Sydney bottle shop are considered to be close contacts and must isolate for 14 days. Follow latest updates

Wendy Simon says ‘alarming levels’ of new more transmissible variant means action is needed urgently

Tory Richard Drax, who represents South Dorset, has corrected a number of ‘errors and omissions’ in his parliamentary listThe Conservative MP Richard Drax has now added the plantation he has inherited in Barbados to the parliamentary register of members’ interests after the Observer revealed omissions and errors in his declaration.Three weeks ago, the Observer revealed that Drax, the MP for South Dorset since 2010, had taken control of the 250-hectacre Drax Hall Plantation, where his ancestors had a slave workforce from 1640-1836. We also revealed that he is the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons worth as much as £150m, although he and his family draw a tight veil over their finances. Continue reading...

Don’t equate your self-worth with your business success, says Mariella Frostrup. Rediscover your lust for life and your libido will returnThe dilemma My wife and I have had a good marriage, share interests and have wonderful children. I am 18 years older than her and recently retired from a successful career.We both had a high sexual drive, but for some years have been sleeping apart because I snore. Our sex life never really recovered and – to make matters worse – my desire has gone off a cliff. We have tried, but I usually can’t get a sustainable erection – even if I take Viagra. Continue reading...

Amid US tensions, Revolutionary Guards chief promises ‘reciprocal, decisive blow’ as he inspects forces on key island near Strait of HormuzThe head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, has vowed to respond to any “action the enemy takes” during a visit to a strategic Gulf island amid tensions with the US.Salami was speaking on Saturday, on the eve of the first anniversary of the US killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani in a Baghdad drone strike. Continue reading...

The 87-year-old is reportedly being treated at the Cedar-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles after contracting coronavirus

‘This is a rapidly scalable, customised technology that could quickly and feasibly be utilised around the world,’ Greg Hunt says

Some forecasters, buoyed by the success of big tech and vaccines, are predicting 10‑15% gainsThe new year is traditionally a time for looking forwards, for hopeful resolutions, for celebrating. But for economists and investors, the annual forecasts for 2021 might be something of a painful reminder of exactly how much they failed to foresee.The pandemic quickly made a mockery of all projections. An entertaining analysis of US chief executives’ statements during 2020 by data company Sentieo for the New York Times showed a 70,000% year-on-year rise in the use of “unprecedented”, while “humbled” tripled – perhaps code for “it wasn’t my fault, so you should still pay me the same”. To be fair, though, in March it really did feel like nobody had a clue what to do – even governments, who are meant to have “pandemic” firmly on their risk radars. Continue reading...

Official figures have missed £800bn of private assets, says thinktank, amid calls for wealth tax to fund Covid recoveryAlmost a quarter of all household wealth in the UK is held by the richest 1% of the population, according to alarming new research that reveals a historic underestimation of inequality in the country.The study found that the top 1% had almost £800bn more wealth than suggested by official statistics, meaning that inequality has been far higher than previously thought. Researchers said the extra billions was a conservative estimate and could well be more. Continue reading...

Greece reimposes Covid curbs after Christmas easing; just under 3 million Americans vaccinated so far as US death toll continues to rise; Israel vaccinates more than a million people

Amid confusion for lorry drivers in Kent, logistics firms call for greater transparency to help lessen disruptionMinisters are facing demands for more honesty and transparency over any logjams at the UK border in the wake of Britain’s exit from the EU, amid concerns that waves of disruption will last for six months.Several lorry drivers are understood to have been turned away at Dover for not having the right paperwork following the end of the Brexit transition period last week. It has caused concern among logistics and manufacturing companies that more severe problems could occur as trade flows increase later this month. Continue reading...

Unions advise teachers to stay away from schools and warn reopening plan is an ‘utter shambles’

One of four men found liable for the 1998 Omagh bombing, though he always denied being involvedThe former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt has died following a battle with cancer.McKevitt, who was one of four men found liable for the Omagh bomb, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a number of years ago. He was released from prison in 2016 after serving a 20-year sentence for directing terrorism and membership of an illegal organisation. Continue reading...

Britannia surveys a future out of the European Union Continue reading...

The Booker-winning author on what Russian short stories can teach us, late-life realisations and why he doesn’t like social mediaGeorge Saunders was born in Texas in 1958 and raised in Illinois. Before his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, won the 2017 Booker prize, he was best known as a writer of short stories, publishing four collections since 1996 and winning a slew of awards. In 2006, he was awarded both a Guggenheim and a MacArthur fellowship. His latest book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, draws on two decades of teaching a creative writing class on the Russian short story in translation at Syracuse University, where he is a professor. Saunders lives in California but was in the middle of a snowstorm in upstate New York when this interview took place via Zoom.What prompted you to turn your creative writing class into a book?

In the wake of Covid, doctors and designers are radically adapting their thinking about what a hospital can be and what it should deliverSt Mary’s hospital was slated for a £1bn redevelopment before the pandemic struck, with work due to start in 2027. The main emergency and specialist hospital serving north-west London will still get its upgrade, but it might look quite different now. “Covid-19 has dramatically changed things,” says James Kinross, a surgeon who works at St Mary’s and sits on its redevelopment planning committee.Before the pandemic, Kinross says, the committee’s goal was to improve the efficiency of existing care pathways; now it’s to rethink those pathways entirely. St Mary’s is a test case, but the shape of healthcare is being reconsidered everywhere and that has major implications for the way hospitals will look in future. Continue reading...

There isn’t a hint of white in designer Ms Pink’s homeLiquorice Allsorts, a pair of striped tights, the motion graphics from Top of the Pops and an X-Ray Spex album cover are just some of the surprising visual references that have inspired the kaleidoscopic home of Ms Pink and Mr Black – a creative duo.“It’s all to do with my punk background,” explains Ms Pink. “The whole punk ethic was DIY which, for me, has carried on into interiors. There’s never been a great plan,” she continues. “These interiors are really a buildup of references from my childhood and teenage years that have all just gradually emerged here in my home.” Continue reading...

Agreement in principle will allow territory to join the Schengen free movement areaSpain will have the last word on who can enter Gibraltar under the terms of the preliminary post-Brexit deal announced this week, Spain’s foreign minister has said, in an assertion that was swiftly challenged by Gibraltar’s chief minister.The agreement in principle – struck just hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only frontier marked by a hard Brexit – will allow the British overseas territory to join the Schengen free movement area with Spain acting as a guarantor. Continue reading...

Motorcycle bomber targets Turkish construction company, killed at least five people and injuring 14A suicide bombing in Mogadishu has killed at least five people, the Turkish health minister has said.The al-Shabaab group, which is linked to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday in the Somali capital in a post from its Shahada news agency. The group often targets Mogadishu with suicide bombings and other attacks. Continue reading...

PHE says it is reasonable to mix the two approved vaccines in exceptional circumstances

Up to 5cm of snow could fall, according to Met Office, which has issued yellow weather warning for snow and iceParts of northern England, the Midlands and Wales are due to get a covering of snow that could lead to tricky travel conditions.Up to 5cm of snow could fall, according to the Met Office, which has issued a yellow weather warning for snow and ice, which runs until 6pm on Saturday. Continue reading...

Manston airport officials say 4-metre hole on runway is man-made and not caused by water damageOfficials are investigating a possible sinkhole after a 4-metre cavity appeared on a runway at an airport in Kent being used as a makeshift lorry park.Reports emerged on New Year’s Eve suggesting that the hole may have been caused by water erosion, but a director of the company that owns Manston airport, in Thanet, said he believed the hole is man-made. Continue reading...

Partygoers from France and other countries had converged on hangar in Lieuron, Brittany

I’d chosen an unconventional partner, and we both bristled at gender stereotypes. But I had sensed a distance between us, and it wasn’t just new parenthoodToday I sat on a bench facing the sea and sobbed my heart out. I don’t know if I will ever recover. This is a note on my phone, written on 9 November 2017.I forgot about it for a couple of years, but I remember typing it as if it were yesterday. The gulls squawked and the sun dipped into the sea. I had been sitting there so long my hands were too cold to type. I put my phone into my coat pocket, and turned the buggy to face home. Continue reading...

Georgina George and Jamil Mungul credit UK Youth-supported programmes with helping them find a new direction

From starring opposite Hugh Grant aged 11 to joining the X-Men, does nothing faze the actor? Well, there was one scene for his latest role ...Preparing for his role as Emperor Peter III of Russia in the TV show The Great, Nicholas Hoult wondered if he should go for the accent. The 31-year-old had just finished filming The Current War, a movie in which he played the inventor Nikola Tesla, and it struck him he could, without too much effort, repurpose his Serbian into a passable Russian. Hoult is thoughtful, conscientious, and takes his job very seriously. “It didn’t flow in the right way,” he says, of his stab at Russian, and back he went to the drawing board, specifically to an exaggerated version of his own accent. “I don’t go the full public schoolboy, but I’m very posh – educated but childish.” A new comic antihero was born.Hoult is in London with his girlfriend Bryana Holly, an American model, and their two-year-old son Joaquin, in the midst of filming season two of The Great. It’s a terrific show, written by Tony McNamara – who also penned the Oscar-winning movie The Favourite, in which Hoult appeared alongside Olivia Colman and Emma Stone – and co-starring Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great. It’s riotously entertaining, and Hoult, as Peter III, is spoilt, impulsive, infantile and profane, a figure who will summarily execute or pardon on a whim. It is also very funny. Despite being a period piece, there is a vibe of The Thick Of It, mainly because of the amazing levels of swearing and Hoult’s indignant tyranny. His catchphrase – “huzzah!” – is the most benign thing about him. Continue reading...

Two people in Victoria to be fined $19,000 each for breaching health orders, as state records 10 new cases. This blog is now closed

From holidays and health to mobile phones, we explain what has changed for consumersBefore Brexit, UK citizens could travel, live, go on holiday and work anywhere in the EU without any special permits or visas. As of 1 January 2021 that is no longer the case.The Guardian’s Money team has spent the week poring over the many pages of documentation to explain how Brexit will affect you. Continue reading...