World news | The Guardian

The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen gold watch belonged to Isidor Straus, who along with his wife lost his life when ship sankA gold pocket watch that belonged to a man who died onboard the Titanic when it sank has sold for a record sum.The watch, which belonged to 67-year-old Isidor Straus, went for 1.78m at auction, the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia. He was given the watch - an engraved 18-carat Jules Jurgensen - as a gift on his 43rd birthday in 1888. Continue reading...

Chancellor admits economy feels stuck' for many as she signals intention to freeze income tax thresholds

Court papers show the island cautiously welcomed the oligarch - with London's approval - before Russia's invasion of UkraineFor decades the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey has played a big role in moving fortunes made in some of the world's most despotic countries into the west, attracting overseas oligarchs with a mix of low tax and high levels of financial secrecy.It is a secrecy that extends to Jersey's relationship with the UK government. As a crown dependency, Jersey has its own parliament, but belongs to the king. The relationship between the two jurisdictions remains something of a black box, with very little public information on how the big decisions are made, or to what extent Westminster is consulted. Continue reading...

Shades of green, pink and glitter accompany sold out screenings as Wicked: For Good's release prompts wave of themed dressing

Strongest cyclone to approach Darwin since Tracy in 1974 intensifies to category 4 as it moves towards northeast Kimberley coast

Pageantry and trillion-dollar promises reveal how Washington's loyalties may be tilting toward the GulfThe White House welcome bestowed on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was the most lavish of the Trump presidency, and a gaudily clear statement of its foreign policy priorities.It was billed as a mere working visit, but it was more extravagant than any previous state visit. The president greeted the prince on the south lawn, the White House's biggest stage. There were uniformed men on horses bearing flags and a flypast of fighter jets. Continue reading...

Despite Australia signing the Belem declaration, Albanese rejected suggestion Labor shouldn't develop new gas fields

US president signals potential room for adjustments after Zelenskyy says proposals force Ukraine to choose between national dignity and losing the USDonald Trump said on Saturday that his Moscow-drafted peace plan" was not my final offer", after a furious backlash from Ukrainians who described it as reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain's 1938 Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler.The US president told reporters during brief remarks at the White House: We'd like to get to peace. It should've happened a long time ago ... we're trying to get it ended, one way or the other we have to get it ended." Continue reading...

Industry experts welcome extra incentives but fear a consultation on a mileage tax sends mixed messagesDrivers will be able to claim government subsidies to cut the cost of buying a new electric car until 2030 under plans to be announced by Rachel Reeves at next week's budget.The chancellor will unveil an extra 1.3bn for subsidies for new electric vehicles (EVs) and a further 200m for charging points, as she attempts to prevent the market for clean cars drying up amid concerns about a new pay-per-mile tax. Continue reading...

European leaders say Washington's proposal needs major changes, as Macron warns G20 risks losing relevanceWestern leaders have said the US peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine will require additional work" at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, which Donald Trump boycotted.The draft plan, which was leaked this week, endorsed some of Russia's demands, such as handing over areas of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, limiting its military, and relinquishing its ambitions to join Nato. Washington has given Kyiv a deadline of Thursday to respond. Continue reading...

Readers share the impact of Guardian Australia's two-year investigation Broken trust, which underlined the shocking realities of domestic violence-related deaths'Guardian Australia's Broken trust series has uncovered allegations of policing failures before domestic and family violence homicides, and cases that were not adequately investigated.Over the course of the week, we revealed new information about the cases of Hannah Clarke and her children, Gail Karran and Kardell Lomas. Continue reading...

Higher education regulator investigates Catholic institute after comments by academics, including endorsing the White Australia policy

Experts warn US deal on lethal' aircraft presents issues for Australia that we've tried desperately to ignore with the Israelis'

Star turns are boosting ticket sales this season, including Islington show featuring MP's Wizard of Oz and Olivier winner's TotoWe're a third of the way through the fabulously camp production of Wicked Witches, a mashup of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, north London. Dor (formerly known as Dorothy) and Tin 2.0 need guidance on how to take down the Wicked Witch and save the borough of Oz-lington from a great blizzard.But wait! Who's that Facetiming? It's only Jeremy Corbyn, the wise Wizard of Oz-lington! The 200-person audience cheers and applauds the Islington North MP, who looks as if he's beaming in from the allotment. Continue reading...

Reform UK's leader refuses to answer questions about his abusive behaviour, claiming there's no evidence'. We talk to victims and witnessesNigel Farage has denied - albeit through a spokesperson - that he ever said anything racist or antisemitic when he was a teenager.The Guardian has spoken to 20 of his contemporaries while at Dulwich College in south London who say otherwise - more than half of them on the record. Continue reading...

Availability of chickens and ducks also expected to be tight, with 5% of the seasonal flock culled so farUK poultry producers are battling a bad season" of bird flu, with cases much worse than at this point last year, putting a squeeze on supplies of Christmas birds including turkeys, chickens and ducks.Two industry insiders said they expected supplies of all poultry to be tight ahead of the festive season, especially for organic and free-range birds, which are seen as the most vulnerable to infection. Continue reading...

London and the south-east said to be worst affected, with valuations often coming in at 10% below the agreed sale priceAn increase in property down valuations, with some homes being marked down by 10% or more by surveyors, is turning deals and lives upside down," mortgage experts claim.Some believe that uncertainty around the contents of the budget may be fuelling a rise in surveyors taking a cautious stance and valuing properties at less than the agreed price. Continue reading...

Agents claim it can increase their clients' profile and show off their human side. Is that your final answer?For Monty Panesar, it was answering that Germany played their home football matches in Athens. For David Lammy, it was saying Henry VIII's heir was Henry VII. And for actor Amanda Henderson it was responding with the name Sharon to a question about Greta Thunberg.Panesar's disastrous appearance on Celebrity Mastermind six years ago was used to taunt him this week by Australia's cricket captain Steve Smith. Continue reading...

Acquisition likely to trigger in-depth investigation by regulator after agreement between DMGT and Redbird IMIThe owner of the Daily Mail has struck a 500m deal to buy the Telegraph titles, in a move that will create a right-leaning publishing powerhouse.Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) has entered a period of exclusivity with RedBird IMI, which has been seeking a buyer since being forced to put the papers up for sale last spring, to complete the terms of the transaction. Continue reading...

US army secretary briefs ambassadors at nightmare meeting' in Kyiv on Friday after talks with Ukrainian leaderUS officials have told Nato allies they expect to push president Volodymyr Zelenskyy into agreeing to a peace deal in the coming days, under the threat that if Kyiv does not sign, it will face a much worse deal in future.The US army secretary Dan Driscoll briefed ambassadors from Nato nations at a meeting in Kyiv late on Friday, after talks with Zelenskyy and taking a phone call from the White House. No deal is perfect, but it must be done sooner rather than later," he told them, according to one person who was present. Continue reading...

Some teachers and pupils voice concerns about pilot programme after government's agreement with OpenAISecondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system.Next week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Royal College of GPs chair says surgeries desperate to hire more doctors but lack funding to do soGPs can no longer guarantee safe care for millions of patients because of a dangerous shortage of medics, Britain's top family doctor has said.Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), said surgeries were desperate to hire more doctors to meet soaring demand for care but could not afford to do so because of a lack of core funding. Continue reading...

On the border with Lebanon, communities have started to return and rebuild - even though some are in no hurry to returnNoam Erlich looks out over what was his beer garden. Beyond the disordered chairs and tables and the sign instructing neighbours and friends to pay whatever you like", the ridge falls away to fields, then a fence, then hills littered with the skeletal ruins of shattered Lebanese villages.The 44-year-old brewer is standing in front of the house his grandfather built when the Manara kibbutz was founded in the 1940s in the very far north of Israel. The building was hit repeatedly by missiles fired by Hezbollah during the conflict, which ended a year ago, and will now almost certainly be demolished, along with most of the neighbouring houses. Continue reading...

Washington state resident's backyard flock of domestic poultry had been exposed to wild birds, health officials saidA person in the US is believed to be the first human to die from a rare strain of bird flu, but state health officials said on Friday the risk to the public is low.The person in Washington state, an older adult with underlying health conditions, was being treated for a bird flu strain called H5N5 after becoming seemingly the first known human infected by the strain, according to a statement from the Washington State Department of Health.This article was amended on 22 November 2025 after the AP corrected its copy to remove a reference to the person's gender, which has not been released by health officials Continue reading...

Chernihiv residents say they are without power for 14 hours a day as they gather in invincibility points' to charge up and warm upValentyna Ivanivna showed off her new head torch. It was a present from her grandson, she said. Most evenings she wears it while doing household chores: cooking dinner, washing up and stacking plates. It's impossible to plan anything without power. You can't even invite people round for a cup of tea because the kettle won't work. It's stressful and exhausting for everyone," she explained.Ivanivna lives in Chernihiv, an ancient Ukrainian city known for its early medieval cathedrals. The border with Belarus and Russia is a short drive away, across a landscape of pine forests, villages with geese and the occasional wandering moose. In 2022, Russian troops invaded and occupied most of the oblast. They bombed and laid siege to Chernihiv, pulling out after six weeks and rolling north. Continue reading...

Twelve teachers also kidnapped from Catholic school amid threats from Trump to intervene over Christian genocide'Unknown gunmen have abducted 215 schoolchildren and 12 teachers from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, the second mass abduction in the country in a week.The latest kidnapping, in Papiri community in Niger state, came against the backdrop of Donald Trump's threat to intervene militarily to end a Christian genocide", which the Nigerian government has denied is happening. Continue reading...

US president demands that Kyiv accepts plan that would mean giving up territory to RussiaVolodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv accepts within days a US-backed peace plan" that would force it to give up territory to Russia and make other painful concessions.Trump confirmed on Friday morning that next Thursday - Thanksgiving in the US - would be an acceptable" deadline for Zelenskyy to sign the deal, which European and Ukrainian officials have said amounts to a capitulation". Continue reading...

The president hosted the mayor-elect at the White House - and seemed enamoured of his fellow New YorkerThe highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani - the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president's beloved home town - was hardly the combustible tete-a-tete many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared friendly, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.Neither revived their hot campaign trail rhetoric, in which they cast each other as diametrically opposed political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a 100% Communist Lunatic" and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani had assailed Trump as a despot" and pledged to be the president's worst nightmare". Here are five things that stood out from their surprising display of political bonhomie. Continue reading...

Two critically hurt after attack on walking trail in British Columbia as police and conservation officers search for bearEleven people were injured, two of them critically, when a grizzly bear attacked a group of schoolchildren and teachers on a walking trail in British Columbia, Canada.The attack happened on Thursday in Bella Coola, 435 miles (700km) north-west of Vancouver. The Nuxalk Nation said the aggressive bear" remained on the loose and police and conservation officers were on the scene. Continue reading...

Plibersek said those victims - Hannah Clarke and her children, Kardell Lomas and her unborn child, and Gail Karran - should have been kept safe'

Simon Case says voters will look elsewhere if chancellor cannot find solutions to tax, spending and debt problemsVoters will look elsewhere if Rachel Reeves does not use next week's pivotal budget to show that centre-ground" politicians can fix the UK's entrenched economic problems, the former head of the civil service, Simon Case, has said.Case told the Guardian that at the time of last year's general election, when he was still cabinet secretary, he believed Labour would be forced to break its manifesto promise to not raise taxes because of the state of the public finances. Continue reading...

The 52-episode Christian podcast was announced with a number of actors involved yet many claim they had no idea about itThe Fox News announcement of a new podcast series on Jesus Christ has turned into a bizarre holiday tale in Hollywood, as several actors attached to massive, 52-episode project claim their recordings date back 15 years and are being released without their prior knowledge.The new audiobook titled The Life of Jesus Christ Podcast, announced on Wednesday as part of a splashy rollout for the network's new Christian vertical called Fox Faith, purports to guide listeners through the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus Christ", with each episode introduced by Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt. Continue reading...

As most government business halted during the shutdown, immigration agents continued their raidsUS immigration officials arrested, detained and deported tens of thousands of people in operations nationwide during the federal government shutdown, new data reveals.The arrests have led to a marked increase in the number of people held in immigration jails, with more than 65,000 currently detained nationwide - the highest number of people in immigration detention ever. Continue reading...

Mohamed says decision to leave was after many false allegations and smears' against him and othersA second MP within a week has quit Your Party in acrimonious circumstances, throwing yet more doubt on the viability of the leftwing group co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.In a statement on X, Iqbal Mohamed, who was elected as the independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley last year, said his decision to leave was after many false allegations and smears" against him and others, which he did not explain. Continue reading...

Party's former leader in Wales admitted taking payments to make statements in favour of RussiaNigel Farage is facing calls to investigate and root out links between Reform UK and Russia after one of his party's former senior politicians was jailed for 10 years for accepting bribes from a pro-Kremlin agent.Keir Starmer said Farage had questions to answer about how this happened in his party. Nathan Gill, a former leader of Reform UK in Wales, admitted taking payments to make statements in favour of Russia. Continue reading...

Home Office ordered to reconsider case of Jeanell Hippolyte, whose father and brother were granted right to remainThe case of a woman who was denied indefinite leave to remain in the UK even though her father and brothers were granted the status under the Windrush scheme must be reconsidered by the Home Office, the court of appeal has said.Jeanell Hippolyte, a Saint Lucian national, originally came to the UK at the age of 17 in 2000, but left two years later to comply with immigration rules after her student visa expired. Continue reading...

PM says Burnham doing really good job' as Manchester mayor and urges colleagues not to brief against each otherKeir Starmer has attempted to dampen the latest round of speculation about his leadership, insisting that one of his potential rivals, Andy Burnham, is doing a really good job as mayor of Manchester" and warning colleagues not to waste their time briefing against each other.The prime minister gave his backing to Burnham on Thursday night as he travelled to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, after the Greater Manchester mayor repeatedly failed to rule out challenging Starmer for his party's leadership during interviews on Thursday. Continue reading...

It would be expedient for Reform to take Labour's advice and disavow Putin talking points'

Viktoriia Roshchyna died aged 27 after a year in extrajudicial detention at a jail notorious for torture

Chancellor says We can't just carry on like this and muddle through. We have to make some decisions to get on a different path'Prime minister Keir Starmer had a bilateral meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the G20 summit on Friday.The two leaders discussed the 11-hour flight from London to Johannesburg in brief remarks in front of reporters, according to the PA news agency.Energy bills are still far higher than five years ago, on top of sky-high mortgages and rents and prices in the shops.

Just one in 13 early career GPs work full-time, NHS figures show, with job stress and childcare significant factorsMuch of the health secretary's plans to reinvent the NHS hinge on moving services from bed-blocked, overstretched hospitals to neighbourhood health centres" where possible, and to general practice.However, while Wes Streeting hopes to make it easier for patients to see their doctor, thousands of GPs have been dramatically cutting back their surgery hours in recent years. Continue reading...

The EPBC Act has emerged as a key test, with the government hoping to score a political milestone while the Liberal leader needs to prove her authority

Campaign group says it will pursue all legal means to ensure personal accountability for grave betrayal'Covid-bereaved families have called for Boris Johnson to lose access to public funds and said they will pursue all legal options for personal accountability after a damning report into his handling of the pandemic.The families said they want all privileges Johnson receives as a former prime minister, including his ministerial pension, his place on the privy council and access to the public duty costs allowance, to be withdrawn. Continue reading...

Ahmad Mulakhil changed his plea at Warwick crown court, admitting to the single charge of rape of a child under 13A man has pleaded guilty to the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Warwickshire, in a case that prompted anti-asylum protests in Nuneaton.Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, of no fixed abode, changed his plea at Warwick crown court on Friday, admitting to the single charge of rape of a child under 13 on 22 July. Continue reading...

Texans planned to utilize unhoused US people to take over Gonave and fulfill rape fantasies', justice department saysThe Department of Justice has alleged that two Texas men plotted a murderous coup d'etat on the island of Gonave, the largest in Haiti, for the purpose of carrying out their rape fantasies".The two men, 21-year-old Gavin Rivers Weisenburg and 20-year-old Tanner Christopher Thomas, have been accused of plotting to take the island by force, utilizing the homeless population of Washington DC, then killing all the men on the island and using the women and children as sex slaves", according to an announcement by the US attorney's office of the eastern district of Texas on Thursday. Continue reading...

Energy price cap for average dual fuel bill will increase to 1,758 a year, from 1,755 in the current quarter

Thinktank says internet flooded with disinformation by Russia-aligned Pravda network, which many websites treat as credibleHundreds of English-language websites - from mainstream news outlets to fringe blogs - are linking to articles from a pro-Kremlin network flooding the internet with disinformation, according to a study released by a London-based thinktank.The study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found that in more than 80% of citations it analysed, the websites treated the network as a credible source, legitimising its narratives and increasing its visibility. The disinformation operation - known as the Pravda network - was identified by the French government last year. Continue reading...

As she prepares to deliver her budget next week, Reeves speaks of pressure of being UK's first female chancellor

Morale is completely lost,' say workers as Trump administration strips some programs and transfers othersDonald Trump's bid to gut the US Department of Education makes no sense", according to workers inside the federal agency, who accuse the administration of trying to make their lives as difficult and traumatic as possible".Three employees inside the department spoke to the Guardian, with one warning that morale has been completely lost", 10 months after Trump returned to the White House. All requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Continue reading...

Shawny Williams, who tried to reform Vallejo police department, says threats to his safety led him to resignThe embattled former police chief of Vallejo, a San Francisco Bay Area city that has attracted national attention over police violence, has said that he endured a steady procession of racist remarks from colleagues and online harassment and threats that ultimately led him to resign.By the time Chief Shawny Williams tendered his resignation in 2022, he said he had received a slew of threats - at his office, at his home, and in his email inbox. Most demanded he step down. But even after resigning, the threats still came by mail to his home and a second property he owned outside the state. Continue reading...