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“You mentioned second-bottom Newport’s visit to leaders Bromley – just above them there’s a ding-dong in my old stamping ground of Shrewsbury, with fourth-bottom Town hosting third-bottom Bristol Rovers in the first (of what may be many) big relegation six-pointer of 2026,” writes Jeremy Boyce. “I’m predicting a festive 0-1 and the second managerial departure of 2026 (Michael Appleton). Cheers!”

Full time in the early kick-off, and it’s finished Blackburn 0-2 Wrexham. Sam Smith opened the scoring before Ollie Rathbone smashed in an early goal-of-the-year contender for the visitors, who climb to eighth in the table.

Sheldon Whitehouse, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, remains undeterred and determined to press on with his investigation

“That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.”

Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at 11am on Thursday 18 December. Two hours later, his words proved prophetic. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, announced on X that the Kennedy Center board had “voted unanimously” to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.

In the dead of winter, it can be hard to keep your alertness up when it gets darker. Here are a few good habits that will help you stay productive

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It is an all-too-familiar scenario: you reheat a bowl of last night’s noodles for lunch, devour it, then return to your desk and gradually droop over the course of the afternoon, to the point at which you are battling to keep your eyes open. Or perhaps you struggle with energy on waking up; or, after a busy start and strong coffee first thing, you begin to fade mid-morning. Or, like me, after dinner in the winter months, you are completely lethargic.

How common are such peaks and troughs in our energy levels? “If you’re having an active day, then you will naturally get tired because we are human, we’re not machines,” says Dr Linia Patel, a dietitian and nutritionist. “Getting tired at the end of the day, before you go to bed, is perfect. But getting tired at your desk is not great.” Chronic tiredness is something to see a doctor about, says Patel, as it could be a symptom of illness.

Historic trawler and floating lighthouse among East Yorkshire city’s attractions as it gears up for tourism boost

A combination of a world record-breaking trawler, a floating lighthouse and a dizzying array of maritime objects that include a stuffed polar bear called Erik are all helping to make Hull one of the top 25 places in the world to visit in 2026.

The East Yorkshire city is on the verge of completing an ambitious £70m transformation, which, supporters believe, will propel it into becoming an international tourist destination.

South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause

Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths.

Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.

⚽ Premier League updates from the 5.30pm GMT kick-off
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Welcome to the Gary McAllister Derby, as almost nobody knows it!

Liverpool’s Premier League title defence might already be up in smoke, but maintaining their current position of fourth come the end of this season is still absolutely essential to the club. Those Alexander Isak instalments are not going to pay themselves.

Le français fait partie du top dix des langues les plus difficiles à apprendre. Grammaire, conjugaison et vocabulaire riche la rendent aussi belle que complexe. Parfois, un même mot désigne une chose et son contraire, c’est ce qu’on appelle l’énantosémie.

Ukraine has not commented on attack on cafe and hotel that comes despite ‘productive’ ongoing peace talks

A Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the New Year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russian officials said, as tensions between the two nations continue to spike despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.

Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday. He said that one of the drones carried an incendiary mixture, sparking a blaze.

From Agatha Christie doing the dishes to the cancer surgeon inspired at the theatre, an idling brain suddenly seems able to join the dots

If you really want to solve a problem, try doing nothing about it. Fold some laundry. Stir a risotto. Go for a run, watch a film, try to entertain someone else’s baby: anything that involves pottering about in an undemanding yet still vaguely engaged way, which absolutely couldn’t be classed as work but isn’t totally vegetative either. It may not be the productivity hack any go-getter wants to hear, but it’s surprising how often a spell of aimless noodling around frees an otherwise overworked human brain to make the kind of lateral mental leap that helps everything fall into place. And I’m not just saying that to justify a New Year’s Day spent lying hungover on the sofa, ploughing through the last of the Christmas cheese.

For the eminent cancer surgeon Michael Baum, it was a night off with his wife at the theatre that allowed him to suddenly join the dots. After watching a scene in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia where one character explains chaos theory to another, Baum had his own personal eureka moment: what if this mathematical concept, used to describe complex systems that may seem haphazard but have a hidden underlying pattern to them, could also explain the otherwise puzzling way in which cancer grows and spreads? The result of that one stray thought as the interval curtain rose was an innovation in chemotherapy, and a gratifying rise in survival rates.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist