Real Madrid’s superstar has overcome mental obstacles to hit a purple match, as Valladolid found out to their peril

You can’t just turn up on the first day and say: “hey you, pass me the ball,” Kylian Mbappé insisted, but that was then and this was now. And now he did almost exactly that, going around the pitch asking everybody where it was until someone said here and off he went, heading up the tunnel with it under his arm. It was still there 45 minutes later when he left the Estadio José Zorrilla on Saturday, messages from his teammates scrawled all over the yellow leather in black marker, dedicated to the man who had just led Real Madrid to a 3-0 victory over Real Valladolid: “Crack” – Fede Valverde. “Pressing Monster” – Luka Modric. “Congrats, my nine” – Jude Bellingham. And: “Ooh la la, brother” – Brahim Díaz.

“Grande, straight to Paris,” Rodrygo wrote. Instead, they were on their way back to Barajas, a 20-minute flight south. One former La Liga player carries a needle in his wallet after finding out the hard way that you can’t fly with an inflated ball on board but there are always exceptions and when Madrid embarked not long after midnight they were top, four points ahead of Atlético Madrid, temporarily 10 ahead of Barcelona. As for Mbappé, he was now Europe’s best striker this year, his eighth goal in 2025 having just completed a first hat-trick since arriving in Spain. “Here’s to many more, Kiki,” Fran García wrote, and no one doubts there will be.

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri borrows from Dorotea Tanning’s surrealist paintings for her runway show

The new year has its first new muse: “Punk Alice”. At Dior’s haute couture show in Paris, Lewis Carroll’s feisty heroine got a 21st century makeover. Imagine Alice, she of Wonderland fame, but in her Charlie XCX-inspired Brat era and with a wardrobe handmade by the finest seamstresses in Paris. There you start to get the picture.

A snowy white cross-backed lace pinafore dress was worn with a quivering black silk mohican headdress. Alice’s striped stockings were reimagined as lace-up leather gladiator boots. Her frothy skirt became a birdcage crinoline, her girlish ribbons were knotted dog collar-tight at the throat. In the front row, Pamela Anderson smiled beneath a dotted black veil, and Venus Williams was resplendent in tightly coiled braids. A fantastical landscape featuring lions in feather headdresses and plants that sprouted eyes as well as blooms was embroidered all over the walls a stage set in the garden of the Musée Rodin.

Farmers bring tractors in support of protest, in echo of fall of former president Slobodan Milošević

Serbian students have staged a daylong blockage of a major traffic intersection in Belgrade with the support of farmers, stepping up pressure on the president, Aleksandar Vučić.

The wave of student-led demonstrations began as a protest against government corruption after the collapse of a roof of a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad on 1 November, which killed 15 people.

Revisited: Ivor Perl and Susan Pollack were 12 and 13 when they were transported to Auschwitz. On the 80th anniversary of the concentration camp’s liberation, we revisit a podcast we published marking the 75th anniversary

This episode was first broadcast on 27 January 2020 to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

On 27 January 1945, Soviet soldiers entered the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in south-west Poland. The site had been evacuated by the Nazis just days earlier. Thus ended the largest mass murder in a single location in human history.

• School says it found no evidence to back claims
• Assistant Gators coach has also faced accusations

The University of Florida has cleared men’s basketball coach Todd Golden after a four-month Title IX investigation into allegations of sexual exploitation, sexual harassment and stalking.

The school released a statement on Monday saying no evidence was found and ended its investigation.

Sundance film festival: The star gives her all in Bill Condon’s uneven adaptation of the Broadway revision of a prison-set fantasy

There are certain things one expects from a prime-slot Sundance premiere. Crowd-pleasing character-based comedies, rural mood-over-plot dramas, provocative and probing documentaries; all tied together by the importance of an independent spirit, the reason the festival was birthed back in the late 1970s.

Sunday night then brought with it something a little more confounding: a splashy, Jennifer Lopez-starring, Affleck and Damon-produced adaptation of a Broadway musical combining Argentinian prison drama and technicolour song-and-dance setpieces. The inclusion of Kiss of the Spider Woman on a lineup that has been noticeably edging away from a reliance on A-list names raised a few eyebrows – wouldn’t this have been a better play at a more commercial showcase like Toronto? – but it brought a welcome sense of the unexpected to Park City, grit briefly replaced with glamour.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

Friedrich Merz, favourite to become next chancellor, will bring proposals before parliament despite possible need for support from AfD

Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s opposition conservatives, has vowed to bring proposals for an immediate change to the country’s asylum law before parliament this week, even if it ends up being passed with the support of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

Merz, who is expected to become Germany’s next chancellor, has been accused of shifting his position on the country’s “firewall” against the party with the proposed law change, which would aim to dramatically increase the number of deportations.

Jos Leijdekkers, reportedly the son-in-law of African country’s president, was sentenced to 24 years in prison

One of Europe’s most wanted men, the Dutch crime boss Jos Leijdekkers, is hiding out in Sierra Leone, Dutch prosecutors have said.

The statement came after Dutch media published footage that appeared to show the violent drug trafficker at a New Year’s Day church service seated close to Sierra Leone’s presidential family. Sierra Leone’s information office said it was investigating reports that he was benefiting from high-level protection.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist calls fellow tech titan ‘super-smart’ but guilty of ‘overreach’

Bill Gates has labelled Elon Musk’s embrace of far-right politicians and attempt to interfere in the politics of other countries – including the UK – as “insane shit”.

Musk has in recent weeks launched a series of unfounded smears at British politicians for supposedly covering up a rape scandal over a decade ago. The UK is currently preparing a new online safety law that would restrict some of Musk’s businesses, including the social media site X.

Comments by Christine Lagarde seen as veiled warning to Donald Trump, who demanded Federal Reserve lower interest rates ‘immediately’

Political interference in central bank policymaking could harm plans to bring down inflation, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) has said.

In a veiled warning to Donald Trump, after the US president last week demanded the Federal Reserve “immediately” lower interest rates, the ECB president, Christine Lagarde, said meddling by politicians could lead to greater economic volatility and sharply rising prices.

The silence around my family’s collective trauma did nothing to prepare me for marriage – or divorce

I’m imagining myself teaching a class on grief.

“This,” I tell my young students, “is how you think your life will go.”

Wong Kim Ark’s fight to be recognized as a US citizen 127 years ago led to an expansion of the 14th amendment

• What is US birthright citizenship and what does Trump’s executive order do?

In 1898, at the height of anti-Chinese hysteria, a young cook won a landmark supreme court case that guaranteed citizenship to anyone born on US soil, regardless of race or ancestry. Millions of children from immigrant households have since become United States citizens as a result of his legal battle.

The constitutional right that Wong Kim Ark helped cement has come under growing assault from conservatives. Mere hours after being sworn into office for a second presidential term last Monday, Donald Trump signed a slew of executive actions to fulfill his campaign promises, the chief among which was ending birthright citizenship. In a sweeping directive, Trump directed federal agencies to refuse citizenship to children born in the US if neither parent is a citizen or permanent resident.

Dark Horse Comics has cancelled the Anansi Boys series after seven issues, following accusations of misconduct made against the author by multiple women

A US publisher of comics by Neil Gaiman has announced that it has cancelled plans to publish future works by the author who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.

Dark Horse Comics “takes seriously the allegations against Neil Gaiman and we are no longer publishing his works,” the company wrote in a statement on X.

Jannik Sinner faces an anti-doping appeal in April while Alexander Zverev was ambushed by a heckler over historic domestic abuse allegations

The tennis turned out to be one of the least interesting aspects of the men’s Australian Open final as the world No 1 Jannik Sinner predictably bulldozed Alexander Zverev, the No 2, to clinch his third grand slam and second consecutive victory in Melbourne Park. He did not face a break point in the match.

As Zverev, who had shed tears in the aftermath of his defeat, stood in front of the microphone to deliver his runner-up speech, a woman’s voice pierced the silence: “Australia believes Olya and Brenda,” she shouted, repeating the phrase twice more. Amid confused mutterings and some boos, the spectator was detained by security and evicted from the stadium.

The militia has made new territorial gains in a country that has one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises

The armed group M23 and Rwandan soldiers entered the centre of Goma on Sunday night after weeks of advancing on the main city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province. The advance risks sparking a broader war between Rwanda and DRC and has intensified a humanitarian crisis in the province.

Henrik Landerholm left behind documents at a hotel, a phone at an embassy and a notebook after a radio interview

Sweden’s national security adviser has announced his resignation as police opened an investigation after he inadvertently left classified documents at a hotel, one of a series of mishaps that Swedish media have revealed in recent weeks.

Henrik Landerholm, whose appointment two years ago sparked debate due to his longstanding friendship with the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, also left a notebook behind after an interview and left his phone at the Hungarian embassy, incidents particularly embarrassing given his sensitive national security role.

Council including defense and homeland security secretaries will report within 180 days on future of agency

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into whether there should be a radical shake-up of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the US government’s body for responding to natural disasters, after saying he supported its abolition.

In a new executive order, the returning president appointed a review council to examine the workings of the agency, which he accused of political bias and of denying aid to his supporters.

Net increase of 80,000 deaths a year projected in hottest scenario, with milder winters failing to redress balance

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more people in Europe by the end of the century, a study has found, with the lives lost to stronger heat projected to outnumber those saved from milder cold.

The researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would die each year as a result of “suboptimal temperatures” even under the most optimistic scenario for cutting planet-heating pollution. The hottest plausible scenario they considered showed a net increase of 80,000 temperature-related deaths a year.

• Tottenham are 15th after five points from 11 matches
• Manager aims to sign new forward in January window

Daniel Levy wants Ange Postecoglou to plot a course through the storm at Tottenham and the chairman continues to hope the return of key players from injury can help to save a dismal Premier League season.

Levy has few viable external options that could come in to replace Postecoglou right away, should he wish to make the managerial change. Internally, there would be Matt Wells, the senior assistant coach, and Ryan Mason, the assistant, who has twice previously stepped up to work as interim head coach.

Marathon Petroleum said a massive fire at its Louisiana refinery caused ‘no offsite impacts’. Reporting by the Guardian and Forensic Architecture raised doubts about this claim

• The huge US toxic fire shrouded in secrecy: ‘I taste oil in my mouth’

Oil giant Marathon Petroleum is fighting an expanded class action lawsuit fueled by an investigation by the Guardian and Forensic Architecture, which examined a massive toxic blaze at the company’s sprawling refinery in south-west Louisiana in 2023.

Parts of the oil refinery, the third largest in America, caught fire for over three days in August 2023 after a large storage tank containing the toxic and flammable hydrocarbon naphtha leaked for more than 13 hours unbeknownst to the predominantly Black low-income communities that surround the facility.

US president has already caused trouble abroad and at home with incoherent ideas about Middle East politics

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan is an idea that has long been circulated by the Israeli right.

Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.

Elon Musk’s company still imports large number of cars into Europe from its Shanghai factory

Tesla has filed a complaint against the European Commission after the imposition of tariffs by the bloc on its Chinese-made electric vehicles.

The EU announced its decision to impose tariffs on all imports of Chinese electric cars in June, alleging that the Chinese government had provided unfair state subsidies to manufacturers in order to win a dominant position in the emerging industry. EU leaders approved the tariffs in October.

Radio City Music Hall, New York

The actor and performer’s charmingly old fashioned one-man show saw him rattle through surprising list of showtunes and fan favorites

When Hugh Jackman returned to his signature role of the superhero Wolverine last year, it was half a flex and half a retreat. On one hand, Deadpool & Wolverine has since become Jackman’s biggest movie ever, with well over $1bn in global grosses, with audiences obviously relishing the revival of the character as much as Deadpool himself did. On the other, Jackman played this part for 17 years before hanging up his claws with the elegiac Logan; going back after that feels like an admission, on some level, that his movie-star career can’t function the same way without it. In turn, this makes Jackman’s stint of 2025 live shows – two dozen of them through October at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall, as well as a summer headlining gig at BST Hyde Park in London – part victory lap through the song-and-dance material he clearly loves, and part reassertion of his stand-alone star quality.

As the latter, it’s admittedly convincing – could many major other movie stars sell out multiple nights at Radio City doing a bunch of Broadway and Broadway-adjacent songs? Though Hugh Jackman: From New York, With Love isn’t a literal one-man operation – it employs a small group of back-up singers and dancers and even, on the Saturday evening show, a solo performed by the stage veteran Lauren Blackman – it rests entirely on Jackman’s shoulders. He clearly takes the responsibility seriously while attempting to wear it lightly; early in Saturday night’s show, he quickly outlined the shape of the approximately 110-minute program (“no encore, no interval”) and playfully showed off a handy guide to the locations of the Radio City bathrooms, encouraging people to step out as needed, rather than waiting for the right strategic moment. In other words, the atmosphere was more pop-crooner concert than Broadway revue. The setlist will seemingly change, at least slightly, from show to show, drawing from a pool of musicals that includes The Music Man, Oklahoma!, Les Miserables, The Boy from Oz, and the film sensation The Greatest Showman.

‘It wasn’t a hit at the time, but when it was later used in an advert, I got paid 100 grand. I was still using drugs and the money was gone in a year’

This song was triggered by meeting someone who had started hanging around our rehearsal rooms in King’s Cross, London. She was very Felliniesque and looked as if she had stepped out of 8 ½. She was an extremely eccentric character and one day she pulled a knife on another girl who was there. I was fascinated by her, not in a romantic way, but to observe, as a curiosity. At that age, 25, I was still into exploring the world and meeting different people you find fascinating or fall in love with. So in the song I used the analogy of exploring the universe. At the same time, I was exploring other things, but the song is not about drugs.