Exclusive: data reveals hundreds of UK nests have been raided in the past decade amid growing appetite to own prized birds for racing and breeding

In the echoing exhibition halls of Abu Dhabi’s International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition, hundreds of falcons sit on perches under bright lights. Decorated hoods fit snugly over their heads, blocking their vision to keep them calm.

In a small glass room marked Elite Falcons Hall, four young birds belonging to an undisclosed Emirati sheikh are displayed like expensive jewels. Entry to the room, with its polished glass, controlled lighting and plush seating, is restricted to authorised visitors only.

Danish PM backed by regional leaders as Trump doubles down on claim that Greenland should become part of US

Meanwhile, at least two people were killed in a series of overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine, just a day before a high-level diplomatic summit in Paris on ending the war.

AFP reported that the strikes caused power outrages in some areas of the country, with backup systems activated to maintain water and heating supplies, the official said, as temperatures dropped to -8C.

Today’s fluff is here to neither manage nor coach

Not content with appointing a new head coach in the coming days, Chelsea are plotting a massive £135m move for Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior. The Brazilian is not too happy in the Spanish capital, by all accounts, and is yet to agree an extension to his contract which runs until June 2027. This trifling situation could open up the possibility of a sale, to avoid losing the winger for nothing in 18 months.

Adam Wharton would not be short of suitors if Crystal Palace allowed him to leave in the summer, especially if he makes an appearance at the World Cup. Real Madrid have an interest in the England midfielder, boosted by the potential Vinícius Jr loot, but they would face competition Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United. The latter three clubs would mean the 21-year-old could return to his native north-west.

• Fifth Ashes Test; day two: Australia 166-2, England 384

• Root makes 160 but hosts’ opener helps reduce lead to 218

The Richies were out in force on an eventful second day at the Sydney Cricket Ground, an entire block of supporters decked out in either cream, bone, white, off-white, ivory, or beige. Bathed in sunshine, flags fluttering over the two heritage-listed pavilions, the backdrop for Joe Root’s 41st Test hundred was absolutely marvellous.

This has not been the case for Root here over the years. In 2014 the SCG witnessed the one and only time he has been dropped by England. In 2018 he made scores of 83 and 58 not out here but ended up on a drip due to extreme heat, his side having crumbled to a 4-0 series defeat. Four years later came a duck and 24, England saving the Test to dodge the whitewash but his captaincy long since sunk.

These inventions trigger rage, but also optimism. Maybe they will make people think more critically about debate and democracy

It was my blue shirt, a present from my sister-in-law, that gave it all away. It made me think of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, the lowly bureaucrat in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella The Double, a disconcerting study of the fragmented self within a vast, impersonal feudal system.

It all started with a message from an esteemed colleague congratulating me on a video talk on some geopolitical theme. When I clicked on the attached YouTube link to recall what I had said, I began to worry that my memory is not what it used to be. When did I record said video? A couple of minutes in, I knew there was something wrong. Not because I found fault in what I was saying, but because I realised that the video showed me sitting at my Athens office desk wearing that blue shirt, which had never left my island home. It was, as it turned out, a video featuring some deepfake AI doppelganger of me.

Cameroon and hosts Morocco could soon be joined by Nigeria and Egypt at the business end of the tournament

For a decade or more, a familiar theme of Cups of Nations has been how the pyramid of African football has been growing little taller but much broader. African sides came no closer to really challenging at a World Cup, but the range of teams capable of beating the continent’s elite, of getting to the knockout stage of the Cup of Nations, was becoming more diverse. Perhaps, though, a new phase is beginning.

It’s dangerous always to read too much into the performance of one side at one tournament, but in Qatar in 2022 Morocco at last broke through the quarter-final barrier and became the first African side to reach a World Cup semi-final. And now, in the Cup of Nations Morocco are hosting, the traditional powers are reasserting themselves. There is yet to be a real surprise in the tournament and, halfway through the round of 16, the prospect is of the highest-powered list of quarter-finalists in history.

Nuno lets a golden opportunity slip, Viktor Gyökeres does everything but score and Benjamin Sesko struggles again

Calum McFarlane’s unexpected battle with Pep Guardiola brought back memories of the 2021 League Cup final, when Ryan Mason, Tottenham’s 29-year-old interim coach, faced the significant task of trying to outsmart one of the greatest managers in the game’s history. For Mason there was the added baggage of Spurs’ 13-year trophy drought; for McFarlane, making his senior management debut, it was Chelsea’s astonishingly bad recent record against Manchester City. Four and a half years have passed since Chelsea last beat Guardiola’s side, when Thomas Tuchel’s team triumphed in the Champions League final, and a draw on Sunday took that winless run to 12 matches. But Enzo Fernández’s injury-time equaliser, combining with the midweek upheaval at Stamford Bridge, made it a triumphant point, something Enzo Maresca didn’t achieve against City during his tenure. Taha Hashim

Match report: Manchester City 1-1 Chelsea

Match report: Fulham 2-2 Liverpool

Match report: Bournemouth 2-3 Arsenal

Match report: Leeds 1-1 Manchester United

Match report: Tottenham 1-1 Sunderland

Double world champion is 14 titles from darts legend’s record but talented youngsters or even Littler himself could stall his quest

Luke Littler looked up and down the rows of filled seats, the line of microphones pointed at his mouth, the expectant faces hanging on his every word. This has long been one of his least favourite parts of the job, a fact he scarcely bothers to conceal. Occasionally everyone has to sit and wait while he sends a text. He leaves as soon as he is legitimately able. But there is of course a silver lining: if he’s sitting in the hot seat, it means he’s won.

“Youse are probably all bored of seeing me now,” he said. “But I’m going to be here for many more years.” And frankly, while the going is this good, why not? A second world title in a row, a 10th major trophy in just 21 attempts, the first ever £1m prize in the sport. Barry Hearn wants to get that up to £5m within the decade on a wave of Saudi investment. He’s 18 years old. Nobody in the sport is remotely as good as him. The boy is fresh and the boy is hungry and the boy is greedy.

Respiratory infections are more common in winter, but it’s largely because we spend more time indoors in close contact with other people

Is spending too much time outside on chilly days to blame for coughs and runny noses? Not exactly. “Colds are more common in the winter, but it’s almost certainly correlation, not causation,” says John Tregoning, a professor in vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.

One marginal factor is that UV light can kill viruses. Sneezing outside in the summer, for example, may expose viral droplets to sunlight, which can deactivate the virus, while faster evaporation causes it to desiccate. But the main driver is behavioural: in colder months, we spend more time indoors with poorer ventilation and in closer contact with others.

Raise an eyebrow for World Logic Day

All days of the year host an annual celebration.

January 14 is a day of the year.

This intensely personal film follows Colombian director Inti Jacanamijoy’s grandfather to the ancestral lands of the Wayuu people

Spirituality and history collide in Inti Jacanamijoy’s debut documentary, shot among the rugged, enigmatic terrain of La Guajira, Colombia, the birthplace of his grandfather, José Agustín. Now in his 90s, the older man muses on the inevitability of death, all while looking back on his painful upbringing as a Wayuu Indigenous person. His voiceover, laid over the sight of lush forest and babbling brooks, recalls a cruel separation from his mother and his ancestral land, forced by Catholic invaders. This sense of fracture resonates throughout the family lineage. Jacanamijoy too speaks of his feelings of loss caused by generational trauma.

Against such emotional and geographical disconnects, the film looks to dreams – and even the afterlife – as a possible space for reconciliation and healing. José Agustín’s mother has long passed, yet he often sees her in his nocturnal reveries, filled with all-consuming longing. The film’s sensorial soundscape, which builds a symphony out of natural sounds, further enhancing this metaphysical atmosphere. It is as if the presence of José Agustín’s mother, along with the souls of other Indigenous people, are embedded on the land itself, despite the efforts of colonial occupiers to erase their culture. In a beguiling moment, as the old man envisions his own burial, the film conjures the imagined voice of his deceased mother, welcoming him into another realm of existence.

Diane Munday helped secure legal terminations in 1967 and, aged 94, is still calling for wider reproductive rights

When the 1967 Abortion Act cleared parliament, marking one of the most significant steps forward for women’s rights in history, Diane Munday was among the campaigners raising a glass of champagne on the terrace of the House of Commons.

“I’m only drinking a half a glass,” she told her colleagues at the time, “because the job is only half done.”

On a running pilgrimage in the land of my forebears I was blown away by the scenery – and even more so by the warmth of the people

As a long-distance runner, I had always wanted to use running as a means of travel, a way to traverse a landscape. I’d heard of people running across Africa, or the length of New Zealand, and the idea of embarking on an epic journey propelled only by my own two legs was compelling. I had just turned 50, and some might have said I was having a mid-life crisis, but I preferred to envisage it as a sort of pilgrimage – a journey in search of meaning and connection. And the obvious place to traverse, for me, was the land of my ancestors: Ireland.

Most summers as a child, my Irish parents would take us “home” to Ireland, to visit relatives, sitting on sofas in small cottages, a plate of soda bread on the table, a pot of tea under a knitted cosy. Having been there many times, I thought I knew Ireland, but, really, I knew only a tiny fragment.

Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner unite for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Michael Sheen launches Welsh National Theatre and Bridget Christie revs up for a return to the stage

‘You don’t have to be tortured to make great art,’ says founder of mental health support organisation Artist Wellbeing

From Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf, from Nina Simone to Amy Winehouse, the tortured-artist archetype looms large: private torment fuelling public brilliance.

But across opera, theatre, film and television, a growing movement is pushing back against what many now insist is a corrosive myth – the romanticised necessity of creative martyrdom.

Many shops closed after rush to buy essentials, as exiles held muted celebrations amid uncertainty about future

At the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, which spans the Táchira River, foot and vehicle traffic flowed as normal through the main border crossing between Venezuela and Colombia.

But a day after the extraordinary US capture and rendition of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, there was an air of uncertainty over what comes next.

Delcy Rodríguez adopts conciliatory tone as she stands in for Nicolás Maduro after Venezuelan leader captured by American forces and brought to US

• Tense calm spreads at border with Colombia after Maduro capture

• Analysis: European leaders appear torn in face of new world order

A UK minister would not be drawn into saying whether his government believes the US capture of Venezuela’s president was influenced by the country’s rich oil reserves.

Asked on Sky News why he thought Donald Trump had captured Nicolás Maduro and said America would “run” Venezuela, Home Office minister Mike Tapp said:

This is for Donald Trump to answer, and I think he has said in his press conference, which I watched with interest around narco-terrorism and that threat.

It’s not just the triumphalism in the White House. Leaders loth to oppose this gangsterism must think how that looks to Putin, Xi and in the UAE

I never thought it possible that you could look back on the Iraq war, and the foreign invasions of the “war on terror” in general, and feel some measure of nostalgia. For a time when there were at least concerted attempts to justify unilateral interventions and illegal wars in the name of global security, and even a moral duty to liberate the women of Afghanistan or “free the Iraqi people”.

Now, as the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, is in essence abducted and Venezuela taken over by the US, there is barely any effort to situate the coup in any reasoning other than the US’s interests. Nor are there any attempts to solicit consent from domestic or international law-making bodies and allies, let alone the public. The days of the US trying to convince the world that Saddam Hussein did in fact have weapons of mass destruction despite secretly having no reliable intelligence were, in fact, the good old days.

Batch-cook weekday breakfasts in advance, and you’ll always have something filling and healthy to kickstart your day

The saying goes that you should breakfast like a king, and I’ve long found that the key to making that happen during the busy work week is to batch-prepare breakfast at the weekend. As we start a new year, the focus is back on balance, and these dishes offer both nourishment and flavour, while also being ideal for making ahead. The overnight oats are a source of fibre, the muffins are high in protein and the pie is a source of both.

These hearty, warming dishes will brighten up the dark cold months – and remind you there is a world of flavours out there

You can’t get much more than this tender chicken by way of comfort and pure deliciousness

The 73-year-old Oscar-nominated actor was issued with an eviction notice in December

Mickey Rourke has turned to fundraising to pay the US$59,100 (£44,000, A$89,000) he allegedly owes in rent, after being sued by his landlord and facing eviction from his Los Angeles home.

The 73-year-old actor, who was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for his performance in the 2008 drama The Wrestler, has approved a GoFundMe page launched by Liya-Joelle Jones, a friend and member of Rourke’s management team. At time of writing, the fundraiser had raised US$33,000 of its US$100,000 goal.

Yulia Lemeshchenko was defiant and did not deny the accusations, saying she had decided to fight against Russian military aggression

At the beginning of autumn 2023, Yulia Lemeshchenko stopped appearing at the Kharkiv gym where she trained most days. A driven athlete, whose talent for weightlifting led her to become champion of Ukraine in 2021, her disappearance prompted confusion among her training partners.

Months later, she resurfaced in a Moscow courtroom, accused of plotting sabotage and assassinations in Russia on behalf of the Ukrainian security services. Prosecutors claimed Lemeshchenko had blown up power lines outside St Petersburg and had later travelled to Voronezh, where she was staking out a Russian air force commander with a view to killing him.

The US president’s fears about ‘woke’ Europe are laughable. He would feel right at home in today’s EU

I expected the EU to push back strongly against Donald Trump’s new national security strategy. Not only does it show contempt for the EU and its “weak” leaders, but it also targets European citizens and migrants with racist dog whistles and barely disguised Islamophobia. Yet instead of a rousing defence of the bloc’s commitment to human rights and equality, there have just been bland platitudes.

António Costa, the president of the European Council, denounced Trump’s plans to boost support for Europe’s far-right parties. But there was no public challenge to the racist logic underpinning his argument. Costa, who has spoken proudly of his mixed ancestry, could have made a convincing counterargument to the US president’s false premise that Europe was heading for “civilisational erasure” because of migrants and, by extension, millions of Europeans of colour.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

Trump has called on Venezuela’s interim leader to adhere to US demands as top Republicans scramble to answer questions about what happens next – key US politics stories from 4 January 2026

Proclaiming the US would “run” Venezuela after abducting its president and his wife, president Trump has now qualified his claim. Amid questions, including from top Republicans, Trump has now called on Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to accommodate US demands or face the possibility of a fresh military intervention.

Rodríguez, 56, who had on Saturday pledged fealty to ousted president Nicolás Maduro and condemned his capture as an “atrocity”, appears to be adhering to the US line.