Open letter to Reform UK leader expresses ‘dismay and anger’ at his response to racism and antisemitism allegations

Nigel Farage has been told to apologise for his alleged teenage racism by 26 school contemporaries who have written an open letter telling of their “dismay and anger” at his response in recent weeks.

In a united challenge to the Reform UK leader, the alleged victims and witnesses condemn him for what they describe as his refusal to acknowledge his behaviour at Dulwich college.

Sydney man, 24, charged with 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act after waking from coma

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The alleged Bondi attacker who survived a shootout with police has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act in what investigators allege may have been “inspired by Isis”.

New South Wales police charged Naveed Akram, 24, on Wednesday, after he was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries on Sunday night.

Susie Wiles has spoken to Vanity Fair magazine in a series of 11 interviews that she has since dismissed as a ‘hit piece’

The president’s chief of staff Susie Wiles has given her own, unvarnished thoughts about Donald Trump’s administration, in a series of interviews published by Vanity Fair magazine, revealing details and opinions that presidential aides usually save for memoirs long after they have left power.

From calling out attorney general Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, to criticising Elon Musk over the dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Wiles has offered an unusually candid look inside the White House, after maintaining a low profile for much of Trump’s term.

A meet-cute between Humanity and Earth, a mod ballet and Nick Mohammed’s career-best standup set – our critics pick the best stage shows of the year

10. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Staging a bestselling book that has already been adapted into a film starring bona fide national treasures (Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton) might have been daunting. But, in Chichester, Katy Rudd’s musical of a man’s Bunyanesque journey to visit a dying woman met that challenge with lo-fi eccentricity and folksy songs with a foot-stomping spirit (composed by Michael Rosenberg, AKA Passenger). In the West End from 29 January. Read the review

Britain has had more than 1,600 recorded hours of sunshine this year after record-breaking spring

The UK has already had its sunniest year on record, the Met Office has confirmed, after the country battled droughts and sweltered in heatwaves.

Though the country is currently swathed in December gloom, the rest of the year brought vast amounts of sunshine.

The Russian strategy of exporting chaos to provoke extremism only works if liberals succumb to cynicism and despair

I once spent an exasperating week showing a Russian friend around London. He insisted on seeing everything and admiring nothing. Museums, monuments, shops – all compared unfavourably with St Petersburg and Moscow. This got tiresome after a few days, so I asked my friend if there was anything at all about Britain that impressed him. “The stability,” he said without hesitation. “You can feel the stability.”

That was a different world; the late 1990s. I don’t remember the year, but I remember knowing what my friend was talking about because I had felt the same culture shock in reverse when first visiting Russia.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing liquid on the rim of its pitchers that tempts its prey into a deadly trap

A carnivorous pitcher plant has recently been found to use a chemical nerve agent to drug its prey and lead them to a deadly end, being consumed in digestive juices at the bottom of the pitcher traps.

The pitcher plant Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing sweet nectar on the rim of its pitchers for visiting insects, particularly ants, to feed on to lure them into the trap. But the nectar is laced with a toxic nerve agent called isoshinanolone, which strikes at the ant’s nervous system, leaving it with sluggish movements, weakened muscles, and causing it to groom itself excessively. Eventually the prey falls upside down in spasms, with the nerve agent sometimes killing it outright. But apart from isoshinanolone, the nectar also contains three types of sugars that can all absorb water and make the rim of the pitcher especially slippery, so the prey is more likely to slide down into the pitchers.

Government efforts to recruit examiners fail again with average test slot wait now at 22 weeks, report says

Plans to cut the wait for a driving test to seven weeks by the end of the year will not be achieved until November 2027, an audit report has found.

Only a net 83 more driving test examiners have been hired despite 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, with the average wait for a practical test now at 22 weeks across Great Britain, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

Have a very chewy yuletide with this sumptuously layered meringue smasher that pumps pavlova up a level

I’m switching up my usual Christmas pavlova this year for a slightly different but equally delicious meringue-based dessert. Discs of pistachio meringue are baked until crisp, then layered with pistachio cream and cherry compote. The meringue softens a little under the cream as it sits, giving it a pleasingly chewy, cake-like texture. A very good option if you’re after a Christmas dessert without chocolate, alcohol or dried fruit.

• Anunoby scores 28 as Knicks rally to win NBA Cup

• Brunson earns MVP as New York beat Spurs in Vegas

• Knicks dominate fourth quarter to seal 124-113 win

OG Anunoby made five three-pointers and scored 28 points and the New York Knicks rallied in the fourth quarter to beat the San Antonio Spurs 124-113 and win the NBA Cup in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

NBA Cup MVP Jalen Brunson recorded 25 points and eight assists as the Knicks won their sixth straight game and 10th in their past 11 – though the tournament final doesn’t count toward the regular-season standings and stats.

• Midfielder has been subject of interest from Saudi Arabia

• ‘Loyalty is no longer seen the way it used to be’

Bruno Fernandes has claimed that Manchester United directors “hurt” him by wanting to sell him, and has criticised teammates “who don’t value the club” as he does.

Fernandes has been the subject of transfer interest over the past two summers. In the more recent window the Saudi Arabian club Al‑Hilal offered United £100m and the player a £700,000-a-week salary.

Researcher in Kerala rainforest sounds alarm after being told frogs had died after being handled by humans

A group of endangered “galaxy frogs” are missing, presumed dead, after trespassing photographers reportedly destroyed their microhabitats for photos.

Melanobatrachus indicus, each the size of a fingertip, is the only species in its family, and lives under logs in the lush rainforest in Kerala, India. Their miraculous spots do not indicate poison, as people sometimes assume, but are thought to be used as a mode of communication, according to Rajkumar K P, a Zoological Society of London fellow and researcher.

The temptation is to sit at home and hibernate, but beating the winter blues can be done. Here’s how to embrace the coldest and arguably most beautiful season

Stephanie Fitzgerald, a chartered clinical psychologist, used to dread winter. Like many, she coped by keeping busy at work and hibernating at home, waiting for the cold, dark days to be over. But this approach wasn’t making her happy. So she sought out the science that would help her embrace the winter months, rather than try to escape them. In her resulting book, The Gifts of Winter, she writes: “I fell deeply in love with winter … It is a captivating and truly gorgeous season.”

How did she change her mindset – and can the 42% of us who say summer is our favourite season learn to love winter too?

Students blame reliance on phones plus pressure of accommodation costs for lack of social life

More than two-thirds of students in UK university halls feel lonely or isolated, blaming accommodation costs and over-reliance on phones for limiting their social life.

One in three students in halls of residence – 33% – are lonely or isolated at university often, with another 37% feeling that way occasionally, according to a poll by Opinium commissioned by the student accommodation provider PfP Students.

On a frontline where Russia has made the most gains in recent weeks, drone pilots wonder how long they can keep up the fight

In a warm bunker, lined with wooden logs, it is Dmytro’s job to monitor and help the drone crews on the frontline. Perhaps a dozen video feeds come through to his screen on an increasingly hot section of the front, running roughly from Pokrovske to Huliaipole, 50 miles east of Zaporizhzhia city.

Dmytro, 33, is with the 423rd drone battalion, a specialist unit only formed in 2024. He cycles through the feeds, on Ukraine’s battlefield Delta system, expanding each in turn. The grainy images come from one-way FPV (first person view) drones; clearer footage, with heights and speed, from commercially bought Mavic drones; at another point there is a bomber drone, available munitions marked in green.

Growth in the US economy – and the president’s political survival – rest on AI. The EU must use its leverage and stand up to him

The unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe’s adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration’s national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe’s capitals. Cultivating “resistance Europe’s current trajectory in European nations” is now Washington’s stated policy.

But contained within this calamity is the gift of clarity. Europe will fight or it will perish. The good news is that Europe holds strong cards.

Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

The video game derived thriller series should be terrifying, but it’s often side-splitting. Its second outing adds excellent guest spots from Justin Theroux, Kumail Nanjiani and Macaulay Culkin

The west doesn’t get much wilder than in Fallout. The show takes place 200 years into a post-nuclear apocalypse where most humans are scratching out an existence in a stricken wasteland California of sand dunes, outlaw gangs and mutated monsters. Resources are scarce. Life is cruel. Death is a constant. It should be terrifying. Instead, it’s often hilarious.

A wicked sense of humour elevated the first season of Prime Video’s well-received, no-expense-spared adaptation of the long-running video game franchise. An early episode opened with one faction dumping newborn pups into an incinerator – in case you were wondering who the bad guys were – and those flashes of satirical glee gave Fallout an edge over gloomier post-apocalyptic shows such as The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.

Audit finds on average adults wait twice as long as children for assessment and more than 10 times as long to be treated

Adults with eating disorders in England are waiting up to 700 days for vital treatment, according to a report.

The stark figures were revealed in the first report of the National Audit of Eating Disorders (NAED), which looked at access to eating disorder services across the country.

Hanson has done more than any other politician to foster division in Australia. Her words to mourners after the horrific attack ring hollow

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Mourners crowded around a sea of flowers behind the Bondi Pavilion on Tuesday, quietly singing a traditional song of peace. Shalom, shalom, they whispered in unison, grief settling in like the grey clouds above.

The emotional intensity of the moment was suddenly broken by shouts: “Albo must go”, and then a rejoinder, “What did you do? You’re in the parliament too.” The singing stopped. Confused, I looked over.

In a joint statement with other close friends, including Albert Brooks and Martin Short, the comedians pay tribute to the Reiners after their deaths

US comedy luminaries Billy Crystal, Larry David, Martin Short and Albert Brooks have come together to remember their friend and peer Rob Reiner, hours after the director’s son was charged with the murder of his parents.

Nick Reiner, 32, has been in custody since Sunday evening, hours after his sister, Romy, reportedly discovered the bodies of Rob and Michele Reiner in their Los Angeles home. Police said the couple had suffered fatal stab wounds.

In successful challenge, X argued the video wasn’t excessively offensive and was an objective record of a ‘public event of historical and political significance’

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The Australian classification review board has overturned a decision to block Australians seeing footage of the shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on social media after Elon Musk’s X appealed against the ruling sought by the eSafety commissioner.

After Kirk’s death at Utah Valley University on 10 September, the eSafety commissioner applied to the board to have video of the shooting classified in Australia. The video was ruled to be “refused classification”, which allowed eSafety to serve notices on social media platforms ordering them to geo-block the posts from view for Australia-based users.

• Boxer hangs up gloves with remarkable 42-0 record

• Last fight was September domination of Canelo Álvarez

Undefeated world super middleweight champion Terence Crawford announced his retirement from boxing on Tuesday, hanging up his gloves three months after a career-defining victory over Canelo Álvarez.

The 38-year-old from Nebraska, who dominated Mexican legend Álvarez in Las Vegas in September to claim the undisputed super middleweight crown, announced his decision in a video posted on social media.

Giuffre’s family calls the success of her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, ‘bittersweet’ after her death in April

A posthumous memoir by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has sold 1m copies worldwide in just the two months after its release.

Publisher Alfred A Knopf announced on Tuesday that more than half the sales for Nobody’s Girl came out of North America; in the US, the book is now in its 10th printing after an initial run of 70,000 copies. Giuffre’s book, co-written by author-journalist Amy Wallace, was published in early October.

Development is latest in case in which carmaker accused of falsely marketing and overstating self-driving capabilities

A California regulator has put on hold an order to suspend Tesla sales in the state, the latest development in a case in which it accused the electric vehicle maker of falsely marketing and overstating self-driving capabilities.

The decision grants a reprieve to Tesla in a case that could force it to halt sales in its biggest US market.