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Survey also reveals Britons' favourite festive film, views on tear-jerkers and family cinema tripsWhen Macaulay Culkin recently said he didn't consider Die Hard to be a Christmas film - wading into one of pop culture's most heated holiday debates - he was booed by a live audience.But it looks like the British people are behind the actor, with a survey revealing that Home Alone is the UK's favourite festive film, while Die Hard has officially been voted not a Christmas movie. Continue reading...

Move by firm, owned by US group Avis Budget, will remove access to shared fleet across London at end of yearThe world's biggest car-sharing company, Zipcar, has said it will close its UK operation, removing access to its shared fleet across London at the end of this year.The company, owned by the US car rental group Avis Budget, said it would suspend new bookings through its app after 31 December, pending the outcome of a consultation on possible redundancies. The UK operating company had 71 staff last year, according to its latest accounts. Continue reading...

US president sent a blunt message' to his South American counterpart, sources say

Disgraced and incarcerated music mogul claims footage in docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning was stolenSean Diddy" Combs has taken issue with a splashy new Netflix docuseries on his life and many legal troubles, that is executive produced by his longtime rival 50 Cent.The former Bad Boy Records executive and hip-hop star, currently serving a four-year sentence for prostitution-related charges, blasted Sean Combs: The Reckoning as a shameful hit piece", and accused Netflix of incorporating stolen footage. Continue reading...

A report by Lynelle Briggs says placements look like nepotism' and are undermining confidence in government

Iranian film-maker won Cannes film festival's Palme D'Or prize earlier this year for It Was Just an AccidentIran has sentenced the Palme d'Or-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and a travel ban over propaganda activities" against the country.The sentence includes a two-year ban on leaving Iran and prohibition of Panahi from membership of any political or social groups, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said, adding that they would file an appeal. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Richard Hermer, a senior Jewish minister, says Reform leader clearly deeply hurt' many people with his alleged behaviourThe UK's top law officer, one of the most senior Jewish government ministers, has urged Nigel Farage to apologise to school contemporaries who claim the Reform UK leader racially abused them while at school.The attorney general, Richard Hermer, said Farage had clearly deeply hurt" many people with their descriptions of his behaviour, and that his constantly changing" denials had been unconvincing. Continue reading...

Five days of strike action over jobs and pay to take place from 17 to 22 DecemberThousands of doctors in England are to go on strike again this month, in a dispute over pay and job security.The British Medical Association has announced that resident doctors - formerly known as junior doctors - will begin a five-day strike action that will run from 7am on 17 December until 7am on 22 December. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president says focus remains on security guarantees, maintaining sovereignty and territoryUK prime minister Keir Starmer is delivering a major economy speech this morning.You can follow all the key lines on our UK live blog with my colleague Andrew Sparrow, but there's a particular line of argument that will no doubt reasonate in Europe, too.Let me be crystal clear, there is no credible economic vision for Britain that does not position us as an open, trading economy.So we must all now confront the reality that the Brexit deal we have significantly hurt our economy and so for economic renewal, we have to keep reducing frictions. Continue reading...

An official confirmed nearly a dozen deaths, including a mother and her child, in Artibonite region over the weekendHeavily armed gangs attacked Haiti's central region over the weekend, killing men, women and children as they set fire to homes and forced survivors to flee into the darkness.Police made emergency calls for backup, asserting that 50% of the Artibonite region had fallen under gang control after the large-scale attacks targeting towns including Bercy and Pont-Sonde. Continue reading...

Millions of people affected by torrential rainfall in Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia's Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia

Undercover unit monitored Stephen Lawrence's family, as well as thousands of mainly leftwing political activistsTwo senior officers who supervised an undercover Scotland Yard unit spying on political campaigns were horribly and incredibly" racist, a whistleblower has told a public inquiry.Peter Francis, a former member of the unit, testified that one regularly used the N-word", while the other used a repertoire of explicit racist slurs. Continue reading...

MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London denies allegations and condemns flawed and farcical' trial

Avanti service was to have been axed from mid-December but would have still run because of needs out of EustonThe express Manchester-London 7am Avanti service will take passengers after all, after the rail regulator conceded defeat in the face of public outcry over a ruling that would have left it running as an empty ghost train" each day.The 7am train, the only service linking the cities in under two hours, was set to be axed from the passenger table from mid-December - but would, as the Guardian reported on Saturday, have kept running empty from Piccadilly each day so it could run morning trains back out of Euston. Continue reading...

Hundreds remain missing in Indonesia and Sri Lanka as rescue efforts continue after Cyclone Ditwah

Some foods can interact negatively with certain medication while medical moisturisers can make clothes more flammableChristmas might be a season of comfort and joy but health experts have warned of lurking dangers, ranging from the fire risk posed by skin creams to the possibility of festive foods interacting with certain medications.People using medical moisturisers known as emollient creams, often used for eczema and other dry skin conditions, should stay away from heat sources including candles and open flames because such creams can soak into fabrics and make them more flammable, according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Continue reading...

Exclusive: Legislation would prohibit deferrable, irreversible procedures until child can give informed consent, bringing state in line with ACT

PM says he is very supportive' of spending watchdog but breach was a massive discourtesy' to parliament

Authorities face growing criticism for detaining at least two civilians who have called for accountabilityAuthorities in Hong Kong have arrested 13 people on suspicion of manslaughter in relation to last week's devastating fire, as they face growing criticism from residents over the arrests under national security laws of at least two civilians calling for accountability.Emergency services continued to search through the seven towers of the Wang Fuk Court estate in Tai Po on Monday, days after the city's deadliest fire in 75 years. The death toll rose to 151 and is expected to rise further as the search continues. About 40 people are still missing. Continue reading...

US president says he will look into reports US military was told to conduct follow-up attack on suspected drug vesselDonald Trump said on Sunday he would look into reports that the US military conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack.The US president also said he wouldn't have wanted" a second strike on the vessel during the incident on 2 September - the first publicised operation in a series of attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington says are aimed at combatting the drug trade. Continue reading...

Existence of phrase - to describe content intended to make you angry - shows people are aware of manipulation tactics used online, says Oxford Dictionary publisherGood news for those who find their blood pressure rising as they scroll through their online news feeds: the Oxford English Dictionary's publisher has highlighted the term they might need to describe how they often feel, naming rage bait" as its word of the year.According to the Oxford University Press' analysis, use of the phrase has tripled in the past 12 months. Continue reading...

Consultancy's move to embrace artificial intelligence follows Disney's use of the term imagineers'

Company failed to protect thousands of people switching from analogue to digital landline, Ofcom rules

Yacht that Deirdre Sibly was sailing made distress call Wednesday evening and was later found with two deceased people on board

Exclusive: PM hits back at critics as he insists Rachel Reeves right to impose 26bn worth of tax rises at budget Keir Starmer: Labour is getting on with the job of economic renewalLabour's economic plan will take years to deliver in full, Keir Starmer has said as he tries to regain the narrative after a turbulent response to last week's budget.In an article for the Guardian, the prime minister hit back at his political opponents, insisting the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was right to impose 26bn-worth of tax rises. Continue reading...

TGA issues a separate warning for Mounjaro about risk of reduced effectiveness of contraception

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Reports highlight devastating impact of slashed funding, especially in parts of Africa, that could lead to 3.3m new HIV infections by 2030In Mozambique, a teenage rape victim sought care at a health clinic only to find it closed. In Zimbabwe, Aids-related deaths have risen for the first time in five years. In Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), patients with suspected HIV went undiagnosed due to test-kit stocks running out.Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV - particularly in sub-Saharan Africa - continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end, and are set out in a series of reports released in the past week. Continue reading...

Residents in Batn al-Hawa have all but given up hope and blame the Gaza war which, they say, has created an atmosphere of hate' towards themThe dome of the al-Aqsa mosque gleamed in the late afternoon autumnal sun as Zohair Rajabi looked out from his balcony towards the skyline of Jerusalem's Old City. Christian pilgrims spilled out of buses, while observant Jewish worshippers gathered outside the gate to the Western Wall.New flags now fly a few metres from Rajabi's home. Blue and white and bearing the Star of David, they mark where residents were evicted recently from their homes by Israeli police. After more than 20 years of activism, Rajabi knows his days in Batn al-Hawa, a predominantly Palestinian neighbourhood less than a mile south of the Old City, are almost certainly numbered. Continue reading...

Refugee Council says Home Office figures show safe and legal pathways are disappearing when most needed'The number of refugees allowed to settle in the UK under UN-facilitated schemes has dropped by more than a quarter in a year, according to figures released by the Home Office.Just 7,271 people were granted protection through refugee resettlement programmes in the year ending September 2025, about half of whom were Afghans whose lives were at risk after an accidental data breach by a UK defence official. Continue reading...

Blue Wiggle Anthony Field and Tree of Wisdom' appeared in now-deleted video from singer Keli Holiday

Detectives claim to have uncovered Sydney-based network involving online distribution of child sexual abuse material involving ritualistic or satanic themes

Whistleblower says chain of command failed to stop extrajudicial shootings, including of children, after alarm was raisedThe former director of UK special forces and other senior military officers tried to cover up concerns that SAS units were carrying out unlawful killings in Afghanistan, an inquiry has heard.A senior special forces whistleblower said the chain of command failed to stop extrajudicial shootings, including of two small children, after the alarm was first raised in early 2011. That failure allegedly allowed them to continue until 2013. Continue reading...

The prime minister is keen to change the conversation after the Tories called his chancellor's ethics into questionThe political fates of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are intertwined. Allies say that if one goes, the other is likely to follow.This is why, in the wake of the budget, the Conservatives have attempted to focus their response on the chancellor's personal ethics, accusing Reeves of lying about the rationale behind her record-breaking tax rises. Continue reading...

Algerian foreign minister says African countries and peoples continue to pay a heavy price for colonialismAfrican leaders are pushing to have colonial-era crimes recognised, criminalised and addressed through reparations.At a conference in the Algerian capital, Algiers, diplomats and leaders convened to advance an African Union resolution passed at a meeting earlier this year calling for justice and reparations for victims of colonialism. Continue reading...

Journalist and editor also led British Board of Film Classification and served as senior lay member of the Church of EnglandAndreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder of the Independent newspaper and a former president of the British Board of Film Classification, has died aged 88.Whittam Smith was also the first editor of the Independent and served as first church estates commissioner, the senior lay member of the Church of England, from 2002 to 2017. Continue reading...

Liverpool gathering lays bare bitter divisions within new party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah SultanaThe new leftwing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be called Your Party after a vote by members, but its weekend conference laid bare bitter divisions.Just over 37% of members voted for the name Your Party, provisionally adopted when it was launched earlier this year, to become permanent. The votes for others on the shortlist were 25.23% to be called For The Many, 25.23% for Popular Alliance and 14.19% for Our Party. Continue reading...

Former Labour leader announces official name at conference in Liverpool after vote by membersKemi Badenoch has reiterated her calls for the chancellor to resign on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, after accusing Rachel Reeves of breaking promises not to raise taxes.In this year's budget, Reeves froze tax thresholds for three years longer than previously planned, meaning that as wages rise more people will have to start paying income tax.The chancellor called an emergency press conference telling everyone about how terrible the state of the finances were and now we have seen that the OBR had told her the complete opposite. She was raising taxes to pay for welfare.The only thing that was unfunded was the welfare payments which she has made and she's doing it on the backs of a lot of people out there who are working very hard and getting poorer. And because of that, I believe she should resign.The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has written to the FCA (the Financial Conduct Authority). Hopefully there will be an investigation, because it looks like what she was doing was trying to pitch-roll her budget - tell everyone how awful it would be and then they wouldn't be as upset when she finally announced it - and still sneak in those tax rises to pay for welfare. That's not how we should be running this process. Continue reading...

Pontiff tells politicians and religious heads they must persevere with peace efforts despite facing highly complex, conflictual' situationPope Leo has urged political leaders in Lebanon to make peace their highest priority in a forceful appeal as he is visiting the country, which remains a target of Israeli airstrikes, on the second leg of his first overseas trip as Catholic leader.Leo, the first US pope, arrived in Beirut on Sunday from a four-day visit to Turkey where he said that humanity's future was at risk because of the world's unusual number of bloody conflicts, and condemned violence in the name of religion. Continue reading...

Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played Sam in Richard Curtis's film, thinks streaming ushered in genre's declineIf modern romcoms aren't sweeping you off your feet any more, you're not the only one wondering where the magic went.Romantic comedies are just not as good as they used to be, according to one of the stars of Love Actually. Continue reading...

Kernewek submitted by government for part III status under European charter for regional or minority languagesThe Cornish language is due to be given the same status as Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic after the government submitted it for greater protections under a European charter.Kernewek, spoken as a first language by 563 people according to the last census, has been recommended by the government for part III status under the European charter for regional or minority languages, the highest level of protection available. Continue reading...

Ludwig Minelli, whose work had lasting influence on Swiss law, dies just days before his 93rd birthdayThe head of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas has ended his life through an assisted death, the group has said.Ludwig Minelli, who founded the group in 1998, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday, Dignitas said. It added: Right up to the end of his life, he continued to search for further ways to help people to exercise their right to freedom of choice and self-determination in their final matters' - and he often found them." Continue reading...

Pressure grows on Pedro Sanchez amid series of claims involving his family, party and administrationTens of thousands of people have attended an anti-government demonstration in Madrid to demand a snap general election as the country's socialist prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, tries to weather a series of corruption allegations involving his family, his party and his administration.Sunday's protest, called by Spain's conservative People's party (PP) under the slogan, This is it: mafia or democracy?", was held three days after one of Sanchez's closest erstwhile allies, the former transport minister Jose Luis Abalos, was remanded in custody by a judge investigating an alleged kickbacks-for-contracts scheme. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Long waiting times affected 386,849 patients in England during September, data analysis showsHundreds of thousands of people in England are not getting tests for killer diseases because of widespread delays that doctors fear will harm patients.A total of 386,849 people in September had been waiting more than six weeks for a diagnostic test for cancer, heart problems and other serious conditions, according to an analysis of NHS waiting time data by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR). Continue reading...

US president favours Nasry Tito' Asfura of rightwing National party, as polls show three candidates are neck-and-neckHondurans have begun voting in an election held amid threats by Donald Trump to cut aid to the country if his preferred candidate loses.Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to swing right after years of leftwing rule. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Separate research also shows number of young children having suicidal thoughts has risen at alarming' rate

Documents reveal comments by Det Insp Mark Thompson were attempt to flush out killer's supporters

More than 100 lawyers have accused the Ministry of Justice of ignoring the legal profession's objectionsMore than 100 lawyers who wrote to the Ministry of Justice expressing significant concerns about plans to severely restrict jury trials say representations by the legal profession are being ignored.The government is expected to formally announce the changes, which have caused deep division among the judiciary and senior lawyers, as soon as next week. Continue reading...

Request is submitted weeks after Donald Trump called on Isaac Herzog to pardon Israeli prime ministerBenjamin Netanyahu has asked Israel's president for a pardon for bribery and fraud charges and an end to a five-year corruption trial, arguing that it would be in the public interest".Isaac Herzog's office acknowledged receipt of the 111-page submission from the prime minister's lawyer, and said it had been passed on to the pardons department in the ministry of justice. The president's legal adviser would also formulate an opinion before Herzog made a decision, it added. Continue reading...

MPs warn axing FCDO's migration and conflict directorate amid staff cuts risks undermining peace work and expertiseThe Foreign Office has been warned that a plan to axe its dedicated unit on emerging conflicts and refugee crises is a real error" that undermines UK security" as the department grapples with swingeing cuts.The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's (FCDO) migration and conflict directorate, which employs about 100 civil servants, is being abolished at the end of this year and its work subsumed by the rest of the department. Continue reading...