Who is Steve Witkoff? The American property developer turned loyal envoy to the US president has had a friendship with Donald Trump dating back to a late-night encounter in a New York deli.
Now Witkoff is key to Trump’s efforts to secure a deal to end the war in Ukraine – and earlier helped broker the ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.
In Indonesia, 3.2 million people have been affected by the floods, while 2,600 have been injured and 472 people remain missing
The death toll from flooding and landslides across Indonesia’s Sumatra island has risen to 631, the country’s disaster agency said, as one million people were evacuated from high-risk areas.
Heavy monsoon rains and tropical cyclones have devastated parts of Asia this week, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Southern Thailand, killing more than 1,160 people across the region, destroying infrastructure and inundating towns.
Exclusive: Swedish carmakers push to retain target as Germany lobbies to help its own industry by softening cutoff date
As the battle lines harden amid Germany’s intensifying pressure on the European Commission to scrap the 2035 ban on production of new petrol and diesel cars, two Swedish car companies, Volvo and Polestar, are leading the campaign to persuade Brussels to stick to the date.
They argue such a move is a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks in the German car industry, adding that it will not just prolong take up of electric vehicles but inadvertently hand the advantage to China.
Labour backbenchers have been cheering it as a win for the most vulnerable in socety. In fact it was aimed at the bond markets
The charge is a grave one: that Rachel Reeves has just lied to Britons, spooking them into paying billions in extra taxes that she can splash out on higher benefits. However hyperbolic, this isn’t the usual Westminster sparring; this time, someone might get hurt. A week ago, critics of Reeves and Keir Starmer were, rightly, calling their budget “chaotic”. Today, it’s denounced as lies, and Kemi Badenoch is demanding the chancellor quit.
It’s an accusation that demands straightforward answers, so let me give mine. Did the chancellor tell lies? On the available evidence, no. There were no whoppers, no falsehoods, no porkies. But despite Starmer’s comments yesterday, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see here and we can all move along. Reeves did mislead the public about the factors shaping her decisions. Was it all to funnel cash to “benefits street”, as the Tories claim? No, and the figures prove it.
Reeves has sustained another hit to her reputation but, if facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch should call off her lynch mob. Perhaps the resignation yesterday of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chief, Richard Hughes, over the leak of its own documents will quench SW1’s thirst for blood.
Roast turkey breast is often dry and overcooked, so why not give everyone a leg instead and serve it with a traditional Irish potato-and-cabbage side?
We often braise chicken and rabbit legs at Cafe Cecilia, because all the preparation and cooking can be done ahead of time, and it’s then just about heating them gently to serve. For Christmas, I often employ much the same process for turkey legs – it’s a lovely way to eat them. Serve with colcannon, although basmati rice, boiled new potatoes or roast carrots would also go great.
Independent reviewer says need to protect against online threats is now as important as need for robust armed forces
The UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws has criticised the government’s latest national security strategy for failing to take online threats more seriously, despite Keir Starmer claiming it would result in “a hardening and sharpening of our approach” in the face of Russian menace.
Jonathan Hall KC said it was “a very surprising omission” that the 2025 national security strategy did not focus more on online risks, including from terrorists and hostile states, which he said were now a “major vector of threat”.
After I was paralysed in a climbing accident, I discovered how inconsiderate, illogical and incompetent many wheelchair providers can be
I was lying on my back in an east London hospital, sometime in August 2023. I don’t know what day it was, exactly; by that point I’d mostly given up caring. My phone rang. I managed to answer, even though I had largely lost the use of my hands. (Luckily, a member of staff had left it lying on my chest.) Also, I wasn’t feeling great. In the early stages of coming to terms with the fact I was paralysed, I had just been informed that the doctors wanted to drill a hole directly into my guts, inserting a plastic tube to drain away my urine, effectively making my penis redundant. It was proving quite a lot to take in.
Conch-shell trumpets discovered in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia make tone similar to french horn, says lead researcher
As a child, Miquel López García was fascinated by the conch shell, kept in the bathroom, that his father’s family in the southern Spanish region of Almería had blown to warn their fellow villagers of rising rivers and approaching flood waters.
The hours he spent getting that “characteristically potent sound out of it” paid off last year when the archaeologist, musicologist and professional trumpet player pressed his lips to eight conch-shell trumpets. Their tones, he says, could carry insights into the lives of the people who lived in north-east Spain 6,000 years ago.
Exclusive: Letter says L&Q appears to have systematically failed in its duty to provide adequate standard of living
UN experts have said that one of England’s biggest social landlords appears to have systematically failed to ensure the habitability of its rental properties.
In a letter to the UK government, they cite the case of a disabled tenant, Sanjay Ramburn, 55, who they say lived with his family of five in an L&Q group property in Forest Gate, east London, for several years with no electricity. They experienced four ceiling collapses, as well as severe damp and mould that affected their health.
Are you feeling festive? If not, here are some great and unexpected shortcuts, from fish pie to ‘intermittent wrapping’ to watching a seasonal film every day of December
If I haven’t wrapped up warm and wobbled around in circles, it isn’t Christmas. I can measure out my life in London’s ice rinks. Broadgate Circus in the early 00s, because it was cheapest and I was skint. Several seasons of Skate at Somerset House with my ex, because it was our “romantic” Christmas tradition (actually, he hated skating). This year, I’ll be mixing old and new: Hampton Court Palace, where people have been skating since the 1800s, and the inaugural Skate Leicester Square. As long as there’s a mug of something mulled afterwards, I’m happy. Rachel Dixon, travel writer
Years ago, a regrettable ex-boyfriend bought me a merman Christmas tree ornament so bizarre that it short-circuited my brain, unleashing something primal within me. Ever since, I have scoured department stores, gift shops and the darkest reaches of the internet for more mermaid baubles, like some kind of gay Gollum. I now have more than a hundred, including a flautist mermaid, several Santa Claus mermen and (my favourite) a merperson who is somehow also a pig and a ballerina. Unboxing my treasures at the start of December is both the first gladdening sign that Christmas is upon us and – arguably – a cry for help. Joe Stone, lifestyle editor, Guardian Saturday magazine
After being incarcerated for murdering her partner, Ruth Kamande studied the legal system to understand her own case. Now she is fighting to reform Kenya’s laws
It is a cool, overcast morning in Nairobi, and Ruth Kamande is in front of a computer, deep in concentration. Next to her is a thick red hardback book entitled Laws of Kenya. Kamande, 30, a diminutive figure in a stripy black and white tunic dress, graduated with a University of London LLB law degree in 2024, and works with incarcerated women. Her office, a small light and airy room that she shares with about 10 others, is in Lang’ata maximum security women’s prison where she is serving a life sentence for murder.
“I used to admire lawyers very much,” she says. “It impressed me when I saw them in movies fighting big cases, but also for people in society who are marginalised. I didn’t know that one day, in very difficult and unusual circumstances, I would become one.”
Kamande, a prisoner at Lang’ata maximum-security women’s prison in Kenya, has successfully helped other incarcerated women win cases
Artificial intelligence can execute tasks in seconds that once took humans hours, if not days to complete. While this may be great for productivity, some researchers are concerned that our increasing use of AI could be impacting our ability to tackle difficult problems and think critically. To find out where the science stands, and how worried we should be about the potential of AI to change how we think, Ian Sample hears from Madeleine Finlay and Sam Gilbert, professor of neuroscience at University College London
Justice secretary expected to announce plans to tackle backlog of cases as he says system has been pushed to brink of collapse
A “courts emergency” that will surpass 100,000 outstanding cases without radical reforms is leaving victims waiting years for justice, David Lammy has said as he prepares to face MPs over plans to drop thousands of jury trials.
The justice secretary proposed last week to reduce the 78,000 outstanding cases in England and Wales by allowing jury trials only for serious crimes such as murder, rape and manslaughter.
He was a Latin American president accused of colluding with some of the region’s most ruthless narco bosses to flood the United States with cocaine.
“[Let’s] stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” the double-dealing politician once allegedly bragged as he lined his pockets with millions of dollars in bribes and turned his country into what many called a narco-state.
WHO urges countries to make drugs such as Mounjaro more accessible to people and asks drugs companies to lower prices
Weight loss drugs such as Mounjaro offer huge potential to tackle soaring obesity globally but are currently only available to one in 10 of those who need them, the World Health Organization has said.
Their proven effectiveness in helping people lose weight means the medications represent “a new chapter” in how health services can treat obesity and the killer diseases it causes, the WHO added.
Exclusive: Shot as he barricaded the synagogue, Yoni Finlay describes the assault – and the climate that allowed it to happen
It was just after 6am and Yoni Finlay woke early with nerves. It was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and the 39-year-old Mancunian was due to sing the dawn prayer, Shacharis, before hundreds of worshippers later that morning.
After practising his verse, Finlay buttoned up his white robes and headed to Heaton Park shul in north Manchester. He greeted familiar faces – exchanging a cheery hello with Bernard Agyemang, the security guard – then took a seat on the stage, the bimah, and said prayers.
New Zealand police allege 32-year-old ingested the 18-karat gold egg – a James Bond Octopussy locket – and say the object has ‘not yet been recovered’
A New Zealand man has been charged with theft after allegedly swallowing a Fabergé James Bond Octopussy egg pendant worth more than $33,500 (US$19,200).
Police were called to a central Auckland jewellery store, Partridge Jewellers, on Friday afternoon after staff reported a man had allegedly picked up the pendant and swallowed it, said Grae Anderson, the city’s central area commander.
Sanae Takaichi’s not-so-catchy remarks about everyone working like a horse did not go down well in a country notorious for its demanding work culture
It is not, perhaps, a word many people in Japan will want to hear as they prepare for the bonenkai office party season and some well-earned time off over the new year.
But the promise made by Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, that she would “work, work, work, work, and work” on behalf of her country has clearly struck a chord.
Like the narco-state, a ‘scam state’ refers to countries where an illicit industry has dug its tentacles deep into institutions and transformed the economy
For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.
So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.
The king and queen’s visit to the former colony is the first by members of the Dutch royal family in nearly five decades
The Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, vowed on Monday that the topic of slavery would not be off-limits as he visits former colony Suriname, where the practice ended just over 150 years ago.
The king arrived in the capital Paramaribo on Sunday with Queen Maxima, a week after the small South American country marked 50 years of independence from the Netherlands.
Amar Subramanya will replace John Giannandrea after firm has struggled to catch up with AI rollouts by competitors
Apple’s head of artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea, is stepping down from the company. The move comes as the Silicon Valley giant has lagged behind its competitors in rolling out generative AI features, in particular its voice assistant Siri. Apple made the announcement on Monday, thanking Giannandrea for his seven-year tenure at the company.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said his fellow executive helped the company “in building and advancing our AI work” and allowing Apple to “continue to innovate”. Giannandrea will be replaced by longtime AI researcher Amar Subramanya.
Norway’s most celebrated photographer made his name with calm, reflective images that sit at odds with his reckless life. Friends and family remember a paradoxical man
Norway has never looked as wet as in the photographs of the late Tom Sandberg. There are shots of drizzle and puddles, of asphalt slick with mizzle. A ripple of water appears to have a hole in it, a figure looms behind a rain-dappled window, a gutter glows after a downpour.
Shot in either bold chiaroscuro or gentle orchestrations of greys, these are pictures with the power to make the everyday seem dreamlike. But they are also uplifting, in a confusing kind of way, like being told to dress for sun even when the clouds are black.
Residents claim raw sewage and poorly treated effluent as result of Thames Water’s failings are threat to health
Communities across south-east England are filing the first coordinated legal complaints that sewage pollution by Thames Water negatively affects their lives.
Thames Water failed to complete upgrades to 98 treatment plants and pumping stations which have the worst records for sewage pollution into the environment, despite a promise to invest in them over the last five years.
Many uncertain about the future after losing everything in the country’s deadliest natural disaster for years
When the rains began, Layani Rasika Niroshani was not worried. The 36-year-old mother of two was used to the heavy monsoon showers that drench Sri Lanka’s hilly central region of Badulla every year. But as it kept pounding down without stopping, the family started to feel jittery.
Some relocated to a relative’s house, but her brother and his wife decided to stay behind to collect the valuables. As they were inside, a landslide hit the family home.
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