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George RR Martin joins forces with the makers of Dark Souls, ghosts take over in Japan and a Nintendo sequel you could be playing all year• More cultural highlights of 2022(Xbox One/Series S/Series X, PlayStation 4/5, PC) The long-awaited fantasy epic from Dark Souls’ creators FromSoftware, with narrative input from George RR Martin. It combines a huge, detailed open world, inhabited by everything from dragons and wolves to trolls and patrolling soldiers, with the developer’s signature heart-in-mouth, swords-and-sorcery combat. An intriguing world to discover alone, or with other players. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Reports of hit squad members living freely casts further doubt on Saudi claims that justice has been servedAt least three members of a Saudi hit squad convicted by the kingdom of murdering Jamal Khashoggi are living and working “in seven-star accommodation” inside a government-run security compound in Riyadh, according to a source connected to senior members of Saudi intelligence.The assassins are believed to be staying in villas and buildings run by Saudi Arabia’s State Security agency – far from the walls of its infamous prisons. The source has spoken to two witnesses who claim to have seen the men. They said family members frequently visit the men, who are able to use a gym and workspaces on the site. Continue reading...

Noisy gatherings of untested people are perfect for spreading virus, says leading immunologist

Vaccinations, housing, mixed toilets: can two strangers find common ground over dinner?

Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?And now, the end is near. Not of the Thursday quiz, but of 2021. It will be good to bid farewell to this cursed year, and to look forward to an equally dismal 12 months the way things seem to be going. Never mind. In the meantime, here are 15 questions to tease and entertain you. The quiz master is away and will not be able to join you in the comments today, but you will still have the challenge of a hidden Doctor Who reference, the saintly Kate Bush, the ever-popular anagrams, and the wrath of Ron from Sparks to face. Have fun – and have a happy new year!The Thursday quiz, No 36If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and you wouldn’t want to be sent to bed early on New Year’s Eve. Continue reading...

The front of the heritage-listed building in Canberra sustains extensive damage, with police yet to make any arrestsThe Aboriginal Tent Embassy has condemned the actions of protesters that led to a deliberately lit fire burning the doors of Canberra’s Old Parliament House.Protesters have been outside Old Parliament House for more than a week and had begun a traditional smoking ceremony on Thursday. Continue reading...

How book-loving communities on social media are helping authors break barriers to become bestsellersTalia Hibbert was rewatching a Spider-Man film and eating a meal in her living room when she received life-changing news. Her romance novel Act Your Age, Eve Brown, which she wrote at the beginning of the pandemic, had entered the New York Times bestseller list.The lighthearted romantic comedy, published this year, follows the escapades of a young black British woman who crashes into the life of an uptight B&B owner. Continue reading...

Victoria’s case numbers have also come in and 5,137 new Covid-19 infections have been detected. That’s quite a jump from 3,767 yesterday.Sadly, 13 lives have been lost overnight. Continue reading...

Lee Jae-myung aims to counter North Korea threats and pledges to restart stalled talks between Pyongyang and WashingtonSouth Korea’s ruling party presidential candidate said he will seek US support to build nuclear-powered submarines to better counter threats from North Korea and proactively seek to reopen stalled denuclearisation talks between Pyongyang and Washington.In an interview with Reuters and two other media outlets, Lee Jae-myung also pledged to put aside “strategic ambiguity” in the face of intensifying Sino-US rivalry, vowing pragmatic diplomacy would avoid South Korea being forced to choose between the two countries. Continue reading...

Alf Dubs, Stephanie Shirley and Erich Reich call for safe and legal paths for refugees in Europe to find safetySurviving members of the Kindertransport have urged the government to reopen safe routes for refugees in Europe, especially children, trying to reach the UK or risk more tragedies occurring in the Channel.Alf Dubs, Stephanie Shirley and Erich Reich, who all arrived in the UK between 1938 and 1939 as child refugees on the Kindertransport, an initiative set up to rescue nearly 10,000 Jewish child refugees before the second world war, said the UK was losing its moral authority in the world and urged the government to change tack. Continue reading...

From music icons to housebound families, from climate activists to bike repairers, from comedy giants to asylum-seeking cricketers, we look back at the great portraits taken by Guardian photographers Continue reading...

Paris Hilton’s disgusting dishes! Martin Freeman as a bad dad! A history of swear words! Here’s another chance to discover the incredible shows of the year you may have missed“The sci-fi murder mystery doctor dramedy Earth needs now!” That was the US marketing blurb for Resident Alien, a plucky attempt to turn the show’s audacious genre-mashing into a marketing angle. While it certainly has a lot going on – an alien crash-lands in small-town Colorado and attempts to evade detection by hijacking the identity of a big-city doctor – it only took a few episodes for me to realise why I was enjoying it so much. This story of a fusspot out-of-towner clashing with the rhythms of a town full of curious eccentrics is a spiritual descendant of 1990s fish-out-of-water touchstone Northern Exposure, complete with snowy setting and covetable local bar. Continue reading...

Goodbye England’s Rose was included in 1997 service after dean of Westminster urged ‘boldness’Westminster Abbey originally anticipated that Elton John would sing Your Song at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, rather than Goodbye England’s Rose, his reworking of Candle in the Wind, newly released records show.An early order-of-service draft included the lyrics of Your Song, although it was mistitled Our Song. A second draft, sent for approval to Buckingham Palace by the dean of Westminster Abbey, Dr Wesley Carr, substituted Candle in the Wind. Continue reading...

Prosecutors hailed the verdict in the Manhattan trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British former socialite found guilty of sex trafficking in connection with her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of teenage girls. Maxwell's lawyers said they were disappointed with the decision and had started working on the appeal process

Aid collapse after Taliban took control means just 2% of people have enough to eat, UN saysIn his seven decades, Mehrajuddin has been a police commander, a fighter for the mujahideen, a district governor and a prosecutor, and even briefly worked in Europe. Until this year, he has never struggled to feed his family.Now they have just one meal a day, hard discs of stale bread soaked in water until they soften to mush. “All the family are starving,” he says bluntly as he waits at a food distribution centre in Kabul for a handout of lentils, rice, flour and oil. “I even worry about dying, because if it happens tomorrow, how will my family pay for my funeral?” Continue reading...

Sheer scale of cases means the impact on an already fatigued health system ‘could be enormous’, report says

Indonesia will now take in the refugees adrift on a stricken boat, instead of towing it into Malaysian watersIndonesia on Wednesday said it will let dozens of Rohingya refugees come ashore after protests from local residents and the international community over its plan to push them into Malaysian waters.At least 100 people, mostly women and children, aboard a stricken wooden vessel off Aceh province were denied refuge in Indonesia, where authorities said on Tuesday they planned to push them into Malaysian waters after fixing their boat. Continue reading...

Four people are named and shamed – a banned practice – in city of Jingxi; WHO warns of ‘trade-off’ as countries cut back on isolation periods

Eurotunnel operator issues warning to UK nationals after update to Covid travel rules by French government

Tremors felt for several minutes in the NT capital after magnitude 7.3 quake struck in the Banda SeaParts of the Northern Territory have been rocked by an overnight earthquake that hit off the coast of Indonesia.The magnitude 7.3 quake struck about 3.55am ACST on Thursday, according to Geoscience Australia. Continue reading...

NHS on ‘war footing’ as small-scale ‘Nightingale’ facilities being created at eight sites

Case figures include delayed data from Northern Ireland; Spain cuts quarantine despite record rise in cases

In a Manhattan courtroom, four of Maxwell’s accusers painted a powerful story of sexual abuse

Reports cost of RAT kits soaring as federal government considers calling in consumer watchdog

Dictator who died in 1975 stamped out mention of Spanish civil war, sexuality and anti-Catholic viewsA Spanish association has called for an investigation into the enduring legacy of censorship during the Franco regime after it emerged that censored versions of books and films are still circulating more than four decades after the dictator died.Emilio Silva, the president of Spain’s Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, sounded the alarm earlier this week after he stumbled upon a different version of the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life on television. Continue reading...

Reports said Tobyn Salvatore, 19, was grandson of Denis and Mary Fell, found dead in their home on Boxing DayA teenager has appeared in court charged with murdering a couple found dead in their home on Boxing Day.Denis and Mary Fell, both aged 73, were found dead at their house in Raeburn Rigg, Livingston, West Lothian, at about 11.40pm on Sunday. Continue reading...

Paperwork and Covid culminate in another year of headaches for food and wine producersFor more than two decades, Unexport has shipped millions of kilograms of produce annually from farms in the southern Spanish region of Murcia to clients in the UK. Brexit has transformed the relatively straightforward process into a bureaucratic nightmare, yielding border waiting times of up to 10 hours for lorries laden with lemons and lettuce, said Domingo Llamas, its president.Given the damage already inflicted by the UK’s exit from the bloc, plus the coronavirus pandemic, he sees the final implementation of thrice-delayed checks as just “one other thing” to manage. Continue reading...

Body of revered anti-apartheid figure to be displayed for extra day ‘to accommodate more mourners’The body of archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered South African anti-apartheid fighter who died at the weekend aged 90, will lie in state for two days before his funeral on New Year’s Day, his foundations have said.The lying in state was initially scheduled to last just one day – Friday – but has been extended to include Thursday “to accommodate more mourners”, said the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. Continue reading...

Above-average temperatures for time of year could result in previous record of 14.8C being surpassedThis New Year’s Eve could be the mildest on record with temperatures as high as 15C, the Met Office has said.The prediction comes after parts of the UK had a white Christmas, with snowfall in Yorkshire and Scotland. Continue reading...

Once a ‘reluctant environmentalist’, Rehman is key figure in movement that links climate crisis with racial, economic and social justiceAsad Rehman, who emerged as a key figure among the coalition of activists who took to the streets during last month’s climate summit in Glasgow, admits to being “somewhat of a reluctant environmentalist”.Tucking into his lunch in a cafe in east London, Rehman – the director of the charity War on Want – says having cut his teeth as a young, working-class man fighting the National Front in his home town of Burnley during the 70s and 80s, he initially saw the environment movement as remote and largely irrelevant to the causes he was championing. Continue reading...

Damian Hinds says more people may have been radicalised online after being forced to spend more time indoors

Anglican archbishop who fought against apartheid in South Africa and led the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation CommissionIn 1948, when the apartheid regime was voted into office in South Africa, Desmond Tutu was 17. It was not until the late 1960s, as the future Anglican archbishop of Cape Town approached 40, that the concept of black liberation caused him to widen his horizons, and it was only in the mid-70s that he aligned himself with the liberation struggle.Tutu, who has died aged 90, developed late in this respect because at first he was wholly a man of the church. He never wanted to enter politics: “No, I’m not smart enough. I can’t think quickly on my feet. I also think it’s a very harsh environment. I’m a crybaby … not tough enough for the hurly-burly of politics,” he claimed, perhaps disingenuously. Continue reading...

Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90

Emma Barnett and Anita Rani shook up Woman’s Hour, commercial radio wooed sixtysomethings, and Barack and the Boss got chatting on Spotify

Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90. Tutu, described by foreign observers and his countrymen as the moral conscience of his nation, died in Cape Town on Boxing Day.Excitable, emotional and charismatic, Tutu won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the controversial and emotional hearings into apartheid-era human rights abuses. This is his life, in his own words Continue reading...

Described as South Africa’s moral compass, Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid Nobel peace prize-winning activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, and retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, has died aged 90. An uncompromising foe of apartheid, Tutu worked tirelessly but non-violently for its downfall Continue reading...

Groups from the continent are going elsewhere, tour operators say, deterred more by passport and visa rules than the pandemicPost-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits. Continue reading...

Sam Parker’s grandfather taught him to love chess, a joy he rediscovered in the pandemic, along with a deeper understanding of its positive effects on mental and emotional healthMy grandfather was a man with a tut as loud as a dropped plate. He’d deploy it whenever you fell short in some way: a length of the pool finished too slowly; a garden bed not weeded well enough; a portion of vegetables left unfinished. But he softened over chess, a game he bequeathed to me over long sessions, played in our pyjamas by the fireplace. Across the board, his sternness would melt into a kind of pensive calm, the admonishments replaced with instructions and then a small smile when he saw the move that would win the game and send me to bed.He played chess all his life and was chairman of his local club right up until he entered the retirement home where he died, but I didn’t follow his example myself until some 25 years later. By then it was too late to thank him. Continue reading...

The Observer’s architecture critic pays tribute to a charismatic trailblazer whose courage and vision changed British architectural practice for goodOne way to understand Richard Rogers is as a man who wanted everything. He wanted beautiful new buildings, a fair and civilised society and success for himself and his friends and collaborators. He was generous and tough, romantic and political. He wanted to be in the middle of it all. Such wishes made for a lifetime of majestic achievement, an impact as great as any British architect has ever made.Two documents from his early life sum him up. When he was born, his cousin Ernesto Rogers, a fine Milanese architect, wrote him a letter: don’t eavesdrop behind the door of life, it advised, break through it. As a student at the Architectural Association in London, R got a damning report from one of his teachers. His drawing was bad, it said, his method of work chaotic, his critical judgment inarticulate. Continue reading...

A festive atmosphere added to the vital work as at least eight venues in England stayed open throughout the weekendSanta hats and Christmas jumpers added festive colour to the usual PPE for the “jingle jabs” NHS campaign in east London on Christmas Day.In one of at least eight vaccination centres open in England, volunteers decorated Redbridge town hall with Christmas-themed pictures and festive messages as they dealt with a fast-moving queue for booster jabs. Continue reading...

The pandemic caused chaos within global shipping and crew members from some of the poorest nations paid a high priceAmong the hundreds of thousands of seafarers left stranded by Covid-19, perhaps none have faced an ordeal as extreme as that of the i-Kiribatis.Last weekend, after a year-long odyssey across continents – shuttled between foreign nations and locked out of their homeland as waves of coronavirus closed down previously safe routes – that ordeal finally came to an end. Continue reading...

Alberto Garzón wants public to recognise impact of megafarms on the environment and change its eating habitsEating less meat will play a key role in helping Spain mitigate the effects of the climate emergency, slow the process of desertification, and protect its vital tourism industry, the country’s consumer affairs minister has said.Alberto Garzón said people in Spain needed to realise the huge impact that eating meat – particularly beef raised on industrial megafarms – had on the environment, and to change their eating habits accordingly. Continue reading...

Observer investigation finds officers without the usual certification used risky restraint techniques at Brook HouseSuicidal asylum seekers were subject to force by guards who the Home Office allowed to remain on duty despite being “effectively uncertified” in the safe use of restraint techniques, according to internal documents charting conditions inside one of the UK’s most controversial immigration centres.Experts say the department endangered lives last year by deploying custody staff whose training in the safe use of force had expired, as it detained hundreds of people who had crossed the Channel in a fast-track scheme to remove them. Continue reading...

The writer on hiking, overeating – and bedtime storiesHow are your Sunday mornings? Right now I’m in Edinburgh – my Sundays start in a hotel room, alone. Midweek, I’m up at 5.30am to make it on set. The first thing I do is text my wife Amanda in New Zealand with a message for my son. If I’m lucky with the time difference I can read him a bedtime story.Do you work? I love to write. On Sundays it’s a joy. It’s a gift that nobody else is working. It’s the day I have to really write – the best bit of the job – when most of my time is spent doing admin and emails. We’ve got three TV shows on the go, there’s a lot to do, but right now on Sundays I’m left to make things up, uninterrupted. Continue reading...

Silvio Berlusconi is among those waiting in the wings if the prime minister decides to leave the stage and forces an early electionItalians have been enjoying an unusual period of political harmony – Mario Draghi, the prime minister, brought decisive, competent leadership in the midst of the pandemic, and the economy is growing fast. But that could be thrown into jeopardy when parliament elects a new president in January.An opaque ritual described as being akin to the appointment of a new pope, the topic is dominating the political debate as the outcome could leave Italy with a predicament at a critical juncture: should Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief credited with restoring stability and confidence in the country, remain prime minister, or become president? Continue reading...

We met in a cafe and struck up an intense friendship - soon we were kissing for hours on park benches. Then he asked me to join him on a trip to IcelandThere was a strip of cafes and bars that ran alongside Tompkins Square park in the Lower East Side in New York and none of them minded if all you bought was a single coffee and sat all night long. So I did just that. It was the late 90s, I was 19 years old and I had never lived in a city before. I sat night after night in these cafes, reading books, watching people, drinking too much coffee. I didn’t really have anything else to do, I didn’t know anyone, so I’d sit and watch the East Village whirl around me.I wasn’t the only lonely kid, though. After a while I noticed another sitting night after night in Café Pick Me Up, a studious young man feverishly filling up notebooks. Café Pick Me Up was a cosy little place with a low pressed-metal ceiling, crammed full of tiny tables, with French cafe chairs and mellow lighting. If you were to write a romcom featuring a meet cute, you’d set it there. Continue reading...

Extract yourself from the role and life will get a whole lot betterThe question I am due to be the bridesmaid at my friend’s wedding. She’s been engaged for five years. The whole thing has had to be rearranged twice due to the pandemic and now it’s on for 2022.When she became engaged, I was one of her only mates. We had been teenage friends and used to go out drinking and partying. She started working and became sensible and ambitious, met her fiancé and settled down. I went to college, met a bunch of people I bonded with and we started to drift apart. She asked me to be her bridesmaid more than four years ago and I think it was because at that time there were not many other people she could ask. Continue reading...

Emporio Armani celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with an exhibition in Milan. Scarlett Conlon speaks to the man himself about casting Posh and Becks in that underwear ad and why he’s fiercely anti-nostalgic“As ever for me, the best ideas are the intuitive ones:” Giorgio Armani is musing on his era-defining casting of Posh and Becks in his advertising campaign for Emporio Armani underwear back in 2008. “In those years, David and Victoria were at the center of attention,” he recalls. “In the mirroring of their respective personalities, they embodied the moment: the metrosexual man, and the seductive woman with a fierce entrepreneurial outlook on things. And they both paid utmost attention to their physical appearance [so] having them in underwear looked like the right idea … and it took very little effort to persuade both.”Armani – or Mr Armani as the fashion industry unofficially-officially refers to him – is a man who is no stranger to having the right idea. Aside from his multi-billion-pound Giorgio Armani empire, his Emporio Armani brand for which he managed to get the world’s most-talked-about couple down to their pants for is case in point. Established back in 1981 as a more liberal multi-platform to complement his eponymous mainline after seeing “a gap in the market and hunger from younger people for something new and fresh”, he proudly marked its 40 anniversary this year with an exhibition in his native Milan chronicling its trajectory. Continue reading...

Pointless presenter opens up on lifelong affliction, saying at times it had left him feeling ‘directionless’The Pointless presenter Richard Osman has revealed he suffers from a lifelong food addiction, but is endeavouring to destigmatise the shame surrounding the affliction.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Osman told about the “difficult journey” his addictive behaviour had led him on. Continue reading...

This year’s appeal has already raised over £500,000. We report on an organisation supporting Indigenous communities against wealthy vested interestsJosé Méndez walked up the mountain behind his rural Ch’orti’ Mayan community of Corozal in eastern Guatemala. He pointed towards an abandoned home of the plantation owner who used to run this hillside. “Right outside that house they killed our three compañeros, the exact same day the county government recognised us as an Indigenous community with rights to the land.”Further up the mountain, in the mist of corn and coffee fields, Méndez shows off a large water reservoir that irrigates the community’s crops as well as small household gardens of nutritious and medicinal herbs. “This is what we sacrificed for. To recover our land and our water to have a chance to survive here.” Continue reading...