“Yes, sometimes the underdog comes out on top,” writes Matt Dony. “But sometimes, despite 18 months of preparation and unprecedented feelgood vibes, the underdog loses 4-1. Anyway. I’m no expert, but from what I have seen, Rosenior seems like a good bloke. I wish him good luck. He’s likely to need it in the Chelsea set-up.”
Too soon, Dony, too soon. And if I somehow live to the year 2126 after embracing a lifestyle of green tea and 12 cold showers a day, it’ll still be too soon.
I’m really excited and proud to be head coach of this football club. It’s felt like three weeks, not three days and I’m really looking forward to the game. Hopefully we put in a really good performance.
[On making eight changes] We’ve got a very good squad. We have a lot of games in a short space of time and we want to compete in every competition. I’ve got faith in every player in this group. Hopefully it’s the right decision tonight.
Celtic win 4-0, equalling biggest victory of the season
Bowie scores equaliser as Hibs and Motherwell draw 1-1
Martin O’Neill warned Celtic could be in trouble if they do not strengthen their squad despite resuming his supervision of the team with a 4-0 victory over Dundee United. A dominant display seemingly banished concerns there might be lasting damage from Wilfried Nancy’s brief but torrid tenure, when Celtic lost six out of eight games.
O’Neill returned to oversee a first clean sheet since his final game in caretaker charge and equal the two biggest wins of the Premiership season, which also came under his watch. Two first-half goals in five minutes, from Yang Hyun-jun and Arne Engels, sent Celtic on their way, with substitute Benjamin Nygren and Daizen Maeda scoring after the break. “We played really well,” said the 73-year-old. “It was nice to see players performing well, playing with confidence, and it was just nice to win.”
The comedian and actor on her favourite Bond film, revisiting the Death Star canteen and escaping the red carpet with Brad Pitt
When you started performing your one-woman Hamlet, how much did you labour over your delivery of the play’s most iconic lines, such as “To be or not to be”?
The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt very at home. I thought, “That’s unusual – I should be quaking in my boots!” I just felt very at ease and happy to be there. But the first time I performed “to be or not to be” on stage, there was a sense of – aren’t bells supposed to ring here? Isn’t there supposed to be a klaxon?
Eddie sits at a cafe dressed in a turtleneck and blue beret. “On a scale of 10-10, rate how good I look,” the caption to his post reads.
The socialite’s page is full of candid content: enjoying a doughnut at a popular Melbourne brunch spot, relaxing in a chic robe and celebrating a paid “staycation” at the Hyatt House in Melbourne, adorned in a leopard print outfit.
The first time Jake and I crossed paths was at a circus festival in Bathurst. It was 2010 and I was in my last year of high school. Aspiring circus troupes from across the country had gathered to showcase their acts. It felt like all eyes were on Jake’s group from Adelaide, they were incredibly talented. I definitely remember him – I even took one of his workshops – but didn’t think much more of it.
I left my home town, Ulladulla, not long after, trained at the National Institute of Circus Arts and launched a freelance acrobatic career in Melbourne. Meanwhile Jake’s troupe had become a company. Gravity & Other Myths was on the ascent, touring internationally, so when a position came up for a flyer I didn’t hesitate to apply.
Kiran’s* husband was more than 10,000km away from the home she shared with her in-laws in a village in northern India. But despite the vast distance, he watched her constantly through cameras which beamed into a screen in his Brisbane home.
“He would say: ‘I can always see what you do’,” she recalls through an interpreter.
From the best exercise moves to how many steps you really need to aim for a day, experts weigh in on how to maintain hip health throughout your life
When Elvis the pelvis gyrated and thrust his way across national television screens, audiences were delighted and censors were scandalised. But physiotherapists were probably standing up in their seats cheering at the display of such healthy and limber hip movements.
Hips are a key weight-bearing joint, yet we rarely give them the amount of love and attention they deserve.
Rob Smethurst’s resurrection of a troubled but proud club is timely reminder that football can still be the people’s game
From extinction to the impossible dream of becoming the greatest FA Cup giantkillers of all, Macclesfield’s story reminds that community will forever be football’s greatest asset. As fans celebrated victory over the holders, Crystal Palace, many took their time to peel away from the stadium. Not too long ago, many feared they may never return to Moss Rose.
Macclesfield Town FC, 1874-2020 was the etching on the gravestone of the club that died, mourned quietly by a town that had slowly lost touch with events at the shambling football ground on its southern tip, pretty much the last stop before the long drive to London begins.
Aaron Ramsdale was Newcastle’s hero as they edged past Bournemouth into the FA Cup fourth round on penalties. The on-loan Southampton keeper saved from Evanilson, Álex Jiménez and Bafodé Diakité to seal a 7-6 shootout win after a pulsating encounter had ended 3-3 after 120 minutes on a bitterly cold afternoon. However, Eddie Howe was counting the cost, with Tuesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at home to Manchester City in mind.
Marcus Tavernier had taken the tie to penalties with an equaliser in the second minute of stoppage time at the end of extra time seconds after Harvey Barnes thought he had won it for the much-changed Magpies. The hosts had led through a Barnes goal, but trailed 2-1 after Alex Scott and David Brooks scored in quick succession before Anthony Gordon’s late spot-kick.
Strikers Victor Osimhen and Akor Adams grabbed second-half goals as Nigeria powered to a deserved 2-0 victory against Algeria in Saturday’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final to set up a meeting with the hosts Morocco in the last four.
Osimhen steered home a long cross from the left by Bruno Onyemaechi two minutes into the second half as Algeria’s goalkeeper Luca Zidane made a bizarre jump to try to stop the effort but ended up getting his angles wrong and conceding an easy goal.
After 52 minutes, joy for Antoine Semenyo on his Manchester City debut. Rayan Cherki’s pirouette presaged him threading the ball in behind Exeter’s defence for the wideman to run in and beat Joe Whitworth to cap a memorable display. A little later Semenyo was replaced to an ovation and, from his seat in the stands, the suspended Pep Guardiola, in a flat cap and winter coat, approved, too.
Tijjani Reijnders’ curled finish, Nico O’Reilly’s flicked header, an 18-yard shot by another debutant, Ryan McAidoo, and Rico Lewis’s second completed City’s goal-plunder, while the substitute George Birch, 19, smashed home a memorable first Exeter goal for their consolation.
USDA notified state’s governor of decision, citing inquiries into alleged fraud by local non-profits and businesses
The Trump administration announced it is suspending $129m in federal benefit payments to Minnesota amid allegations of widespread fraud in the state.
The secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins, shared a letter on Friday on social media that was addressed to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, notifying them of the administration’s decision and citing investigations into alleged fraud conducted by local non-profits and businesses.
Exclusive: US vice-president ‘sympathetic’ to concerns over Grok-generated pornography, says deputy PM
JD Vance, the US vice-president, has agreed that it is “entirely unacceptable” for platforms such as X to allow the proliferation of AI-generated sexualised images of women and children, David Lammy has told the Guardian.
The deputy prime minister said Vance, usually known as an AI enthusiast, expressed concern about how the technology was being used to fuel “hyper-pornographied slop” online when they met in Washington on Thursday.
12 min: Algeria are getting a foothold in the game now. The midfield four string together a few passes neatly before the Nigeria defence cut it out.
9 min: There’s more early pressure from Nigeria. Frank Onyeka meets a cross on the volley but he struggles to hit it with any conviction. Algeria clear the ball off the line.
Hopes that tougher sanctions and lower oil prices could derail Putin’s war effort underestimate how far the Kremlin has rewired its economy
Pacing inside the Kremlin last weekend, as news feeds churned out minute-by-minute reports of Donald’s Trump’s Venezuelan coup, Vladimir Putin may have been wondering what it would mean for the price of oil.
Crude oil has lubricated the Russian economy for decades – far more than gas exports to Europe – and so the threat of falling oil prices, prompted by US plans for control of Venezuela’s rigs, will have been a source of concern.
Disillusioned with the revolution after 68 years of US sanctions and a shattered economy, one in four Cubans have left in four years. Can the regime, and country, survive the engulfing ‘polycrisis’?
Hatri Echazabal Orta lives in Madrid, Spain. Maykel Fernández is in Charlotte, in the US, while Cristian Cuadra remains in Havana, Cuba – for now. All Cubans, all raised on revolutionary ideals and educated in good state-run schools, they have become disillusioned with the cherished national narrative that Cuba is a country of revolution and resistance. Facing a lack of political openness and poor economic prospects, each of them made the same decision: to leave.
They are not alone. After 68 years of partial sanctions and nearly 64 years of total economic embargo by the US, independent demographic studies suggest that Cuba is going through the world’s fastest population decline and is probably already below 8 million – a 25% drop in just four years, suggesting its population has shrunk by an average of about 820,000 people a year.
Bears score nine tries to clinch place in the last 16
Noah Heward scores a hat-trick in Pretoria
Bristol ran riot in a remarkable first half to secure their place in the Champions Cup knockout phase with a 61-49 victory over the Bulls in Pretoria. The South African hosts fielded 10 Springboks in their starting XV in the hope of registering a first win of the group campaign yet were still swept aside at Loftus Versfeld.
Bristol started like a freight train, running in three tries inside the opening 10 minutes and seven in total to build a interval 47-28 lead. Noah Heward crossed twice and there were also touch downs for Benhard Janse van Rensburg, Max Lahiff, Kalaveti Ravouvou and Kieran Marmion.
The New York mayor’s popular moves on rent and free childcare defied rightwing predictions of a far-left hellscape
Rightwing politicians and media issued grave warnings about Zohran Mamdani.
The election of the democratic socialist would, according to some, cause a spike in crime, and a reduction in freedom, prompting rich people to flee the city and leading to, in the words of one conservative thinktank, “collapse, dependency, and political repression” in the manner of “Venezuela” and “Cuba”.
Space agency said crew of four will leave ISS next week with goal of touching down in California on 15 January
Nasa has announced when it will commence its first medical evacuation from the International Space Station after an astronaut fell ill with a “serious” but undisclosed issue.
The US space agency announced on social media on Friday night that it will aim to have the crew leave the station no earlier than 5pm EST on Wednesday, 14 January, with the goal of them landing near California early on Thursday morning, 15 January, “depending on weather and recovery conditions”.
Funding was paused because health department said benefits were going to people in country illegally
A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot block federal money for childcare subsidies and other programs aimed at supporting low-income families with children from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now.
The states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York argued that a policy announced on Tuesday to freeze billions of dollars in funds for three grant programs was having an immediate impact on them and creating “operational chaos”. In court filings and a hearing earlier on Friday, the states contended that the government did not have a legal reason for withholding the money from them.
Demonstration follows similar actions in Poland, France and Belgium as EU states approve accord
Thousands of Irish farmers are protesting against the EU’s trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur, a day after EU states approved the treaty despite opposition from Ireland and France.
Tractors streamed into the roads of Athlone, in central Ireland, for the demonstration, displaying signs bearing the slogan “Stop EU-Mercosur” and the EU flag emblazoned with the words “sell out”.
By almost every metric it will go down as the biggest and most seismic FA Cup giantkilling in the competition’s history, with 117 places in the English football pyramid separating Crystal Palace and Macclesfield. Somehow, the star-studded Premier League team who compete in Europe were overwhelmed and deservedly beaten by their sixth-tier hosts, becoming the first cup holders to lose to non-league opposition since 1909.
The fact Palace included three of their cup winning side, in Adam Wharton, Chris Richards and captain Marc Guéhi – who all struggled – just emphasised the scale of the upset. Even Oliver Glasner admitted it was a “David against Goliath story”.
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