Sen. Rand Paul’s annual Festivus Report reveals a jaw-dropping $1.63 trillion torching of taxpayer money in the last fiscal year. 

Americans consistently give low grades to Congress, but one issue that can prove a winner for both sides of the aisle is protecting kids from the potential harms of AI.

Editorial: As Trump talks peace deals and Putin digs in, Zelensky is playing a subtler game. His proposal for a referendum on Ukraine’s borders could reshape the negotiations – and expose who is really serious about ending the war

© AFP/Getty

Editorial: The purported cessation in hostilities on 10 October has not stopped the slaughter in the war-torn region, where 400 Palestinians have been killed since – but the promise of peace, however flawed, must not be allowed to fail

© AP

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justice

The record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.

Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency.

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© Photograph: Ina Sotirova/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ina Sotirova/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ina Sotirova/The Guardian

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at the impact of devolution on growing volatility of party political allegiance

Next year will be pivotal in British politics, and 7 May will be the point around which things pivot. Elections to local councils, the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Senedd will give millions of voters across the UK a chance to express party preferences. Their verdicts could imperil Labour and Conservative leaders. In Wales, Labour might be sent into opposition for the first time since devolution. Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are set to make substantial gains. At Holyrood, the Scottish National party (SNP) is on course for a majority. That would be an extraordinary defiance of political gravity for a party weighed down by nearly two decades of incumbency.

In England, both Labour and the Tories risk losing scores of councillors as their vote shares are gobbled up by the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Greens. Those results will be taken as evidence that Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch are failing as leaders. But it would be a mistake to filter the results only through that lens. The fragmentation of national allegiances began much longer ago.

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© Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

© Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

© Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

The fracturing multilateral order has led to a new age of insecurity. But acts of courage and solidarity can point the way to a better future

In one of his last sermons, the great Christian theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich asked: “Do we have a right to hope?” As an army chaplain to German forces during the first world war and a refugee from Nazi Germany, Tillich had witnessed first-hand some of the horrors of the 20th century. But his answer to the question he posed in 1965 was yes. Nobody could live without hope, Tillich told his Harvard audience, even if it led “through the narrows of a painful and courageous ‘in-spite-of’”.

Sixty years on, a similar spirit of defiant optimism is needed to navigate our own era of conflict and anxiety. The fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching, and dark political forces menace the social fabric of western liberal democracies. More widely, a fracturing multilateral order is delivering a more unstable and threatening world.

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© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy