Join our live coverage as we cross the globe to enter the new year
Sydney is the self-appointed “world capital of new year’s eve” and arguably rightly so. As always, eyes will be on the Opera House at 13:00 GMT when fireworks will light up the sky in spectacular fashion. But there are also huge crowds out in Melbourne to see off the year in style.
Thousands of people are expected to descend on Melbourne this evening to celebrate NYE. There will be two 7 minute firework displays and light shows tonight, first a family one at 9.30pm for young children, and the main one at the stroke of midnight.
Next head of Cern backs massive replacement for world’s largest machine to investigate mysteries of the universe
Mark Thomson, a professor of experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge, has landed one of the most coveted jobs in global science. But it is hard not to wonder, when looked at from a certain angle, whether he has taken one for the team.
On 1 January, Thomson takes over as the director general of Cern, the multi-Nobel prizewinning nuclear physics laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva. It is here, deep beneath the ground, that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest scientific instrument ever built, recreates conditions that existed microseconds after the big bang.
The challenges and strains have been almost too much to take. But in 2025, words of depth and courage have been an antidote to numbness
I once saw a young glassblower in Istanbul, still new to his craft, shatter a beautiful vase while taking it out of the furnace. The artisan master standing by his side calmly nodded and said something that I still think about. He told him: “You put too much pressure on it, you kept it unbalanced and you forgot that it, too, has a heart.”
The year we are leaving behind has been plagued from the start by a series of social, economic, environmental, technological and institutional challenges, all happening with such speed and intensity that we are yet to fully comprehend their impact on our lives, let alone on future generations. As the overwhelming strain of domestic and geopolitical changes continues to build up, I cannot help but remember the man’s words. Too much pressure. Unstable, uncertain and replete with deep inequalities. This could well be the year we forgot that the Earth, too, has a heart. It definitely feels like the year when the world was broken.
Rejuvenated by his goal on Saturday and free from injuries that have disrupted his season, Arsenal’s captain led their destruction of Villa
When Arsenal really needed Martin Ødegaard, the captain finally rediscovered his magic touch. Gabriel Magalhães had just opened the scoring against Aston Villa after a first half in which Mikel Arteta’s nervous side were struggling without the influential Declan Rice. Then it happened.
Jadon Sancho was waiting to receive a pass from Youri Tielemens inside Villa’s half but, before the forward knew it, Ødegaard had pinched the ball and was haring towards Emiliano Martínez’s goal. A jink back on to his left foot fooled Tielemens and allowed Ødegaard to play through the perfect through ball for Martín Zubimendi to score the crucial second. It was the fifth goal or assist that Zubimendi has contributed to since he joined in the summer – the joint-best return of his club career – and the Spaniard’s impact was rightly hailed by a delighted Arteta. “Credit to his teammates as well, how easy they make it for him,” said the Arsenal manager in a nod to Ødegaard.
Forty-seven men killed by states operating death penalty – almost double last year’s number
US executions have surged in 2025 to the highest level in 16 years, as Donald Trump’s campaign to reinvigorate judicial killings, combined with the US supreme court’s increasing refusal to engage in last-minute pleas for reprieve, have taken a heavy toll.
A total of 47 men – they were all male – have been killed by states operating the death penalty in the course of the year. That was almost double the number in 2024, amounting to the greatest frenzy of capital punishment bloodletting in America since 2009.
Gabonese FA president was voted on to Caf exco in 2023
Caf chief allegedly failed to act on reports of sexual abuse
The general secretary of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), Veron Mosengo-Omba, ignored a recommendation that Pierre-Alain Mounguengui was ineligible for election to its powerful executive committee because he had been accused of covering up widespread sexual abuse in Gabonese football, it can be revealed.
Mounguengui, the president of the Gabonese football federation (Fegafoot), has been accused of failing to act on reports of sexual abuse and rape of young footballers in a series of stories that were first published by the Guardian in 2021. He has denied the allegations and there is no suggestion Mounguengui has been accused of sexual abuse himself. Although he has not yet been formally charged, Mounguengui spent six months in custody awaiting a decision from the authorities in Gabon and was visited by the Caf president, Patrice Motsepe, with a final ruling on his case still pending almost four years on.
Despite reviews of the district as a raucous tourist trap, improved policing has restored safety and an eclectic vibe
When Ireland redeveloped a swathe of central Dublin in the 1990s, the idea was to create a version of Paris’s Left Bank, a cultural quarter of cobbled lanes, art and urban renewal.
Planners and architects transformed the run-down Temple Bar site by the River Liffey into an ambitious experiment that drew throngs of visitors and won awards.
The bioscience startup has attracted billions in investment – and a flurry of criticism, but founder tells the Guardian plans to bring back the woolly mammoth will not be derailed
Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in 2025, the American entrepreneur Ben Lamm sold much of the world on the idea that death did not, after all, need to be for ever.
This was the year the billionaire’s genetics startup, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that disappeared at the end of the last ice age, by tweaking the DNA of grey wolves. According to the company, it had also edged closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back from the dead, with the creation of genetically engineered “woolly mice”.
Whether you go for an easy jog or actively limit your screen time, studies show there are tried and tested ways to wind down and be sure of a good night’s sleep
After a hard day at work, the last thing you want to do is fritter away your precious downtime slumped on the sofa in a dazed doomscroll. Yet, in the absence of a better plan, it happens with depressing ease. How we spend the hours between shutting down the laptop and slipping under the duvet affects sleep quality, mood and how restored we feel the next day. So, how can we reclaim those lost evenings?
According to Jason Ellis, a professor of psychology at Northumbria University and director of the Northumbria centre for sleep research, establishing a regular end-of-day routine sends a signal to your brain that you are making a shift between work mode, and rest and recreation. “It’s about putting the day to bed before you go to bed,” he says. Gretchen Rubin – an author, podcaster and creator of the Happiness Project – agrees. “Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life,” she says.
It was a tough year (again) and we met it all with a shrug
It’s the end of another year, which means a deluge of dire looks back on the various atrocities of the last go around the sun. As is my duty, I have to add to the pile. But does it all have to be quite so sad? Do we have to dutifully trawl through the muck to find some elusive meaning to what we’ve been forced to endure? Unfortunately, yes. It was a tough year (again) and we met it all with a shrug. As we’ve all been made punishingly aware, Dictionary.com’s word of 2025 is “6-7,” a viral meme slogan which is technically two words. Pretty cheeky of the Dictionary to cheat on their own assignment.
How tragically emblematic of the year we just witnessed. We’re all too apathetic to even complain about getting swindled by a gaggle of word snobs. “Apathy” would have been a better choice for word of the year, considering how we’ve collectively shrugged at every dispiriting development of the last 12 months. Nicki Minaj popped up at the Turning Point USA conference to kiki with Erika Kirk and the most I could muster was “I guess she’ll do a concert at the Trump-Kennedy Center soon.”
Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
‘I was reading my book and this boy, man, attacked me, and I did fight back,’ queen tells BBC’s Today programme
Queen Camilla has spoken for the first time about how she was “so angry” when she was physically assaulted on a train as a teenager.
Camilla described the incident in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, during which she also praised the courage of the racing commentator John Hunt and his daughter Amy, whose family were murdered at their home.
Analysis shows obscure and barely used choices, drawn from online slang, do not stand the test of time
If you have seen a news story declaring 2025’s chosen “word of the year” in recent weeks, you might be forgiven for asking yourself: what, another one?
Depending on which dictionary you turn to, the chosen term this year was either Collins’s “vibe coding”, “parasocial” from Cambridge Dictionaries or their Oxford University Press rival’s “rage bait” – with many other selections besides.
Country’s six-month stint at helm begins with defence, migration and Ukraine still at top of agenda
Cyprus says it will bring “a new approach to the table” when it assumes the EU presidency on Thursday, as defence, migration and Ukraine continue to top the agenda at a time of acute geopolitical uncertainty.
As one of the 27-member bloc’s smaller member states, Cyprus will tackle its six-month stint at the EU’s helm with discipline and dedication but also “a different mindset”, the Cypriot foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, said.
Our selection panel’s votes have been counted to reveal the best men’s Test side from the last 12 months
Sharpen your pencils and swallow your marmalade on toast before you read on, everyone, it’s time for the Guardian’s annual men’s Test XI of the year (here’s the women’s team from last week). This year’s 13-person selection panel included Ali Martin, Vic Marks, Tim de Lisle, Adam Collins, Rob Smyth, Jonathan Liew, Tanya Aldred, Taha Hashim, Daniel Gallan, Emma John, Simon Burnton and James Wallace. Everyone taking part picked and submitted their own XI in the days after Australia’s victory in the third Ashes Test at Adelaide (statistics are from 1 January 2025 up to and including this match). When the votes were added up, Earth’s combined side to play Mars looked like this:
Travis Head: 759 runs at an average of 42. Votes (out of 13): 10 The E and the D in the end of England’s Ashes chances. The series took an early turn when Head volunteered to open the batting in the fourth innings of the first Test, and turned in the sort of innings England’s batters only spoke about playing. They had 205 runs to defend, which (easy to forget this bit) everyone reckoned ought to be enough on a tricky pitch but ended up looking pitifully inadequate. Ben Stokes flapped, and England’s fragile attack, which had bowled so well in the first innings of that same match, were smashed. The damage was so bad that some of them were still looking for their lines and lengths in Adelaide three weeks later, when Head scored the century that killed their last faint chance of winning the Ashes.
From the phenomenal Vince Gilligan show Pluribus to horny, life-changing ice-hockey drama Heated Rivalry and much more … here are Guardian readers’ shows of the year
(Disney+) It’s embarrassing to say about a product released by the Disney Corporation within the Star Wars brand, but it’s by far the most searing and narratively sound portrayal of the creep of totalitarianism I’ve seen on-screen in years. Airtight character work, pitch-perfect action and the ideal moment to tell an inherently political story about the hope of truth and resistance against an endless barrage of falsehoods and atrocities. Eoin, London
Exclusive: Officers described a culture of silence and lack of support during police-on-police complaints
Police officers fear reporting colleagues for wrongdoing because they do not believe they will be supported for breaking a culture of silence, a new survey has found.
Almost half of officers think their complaints against fellow officers are mishandled, the survey seen by the Guardian found. It was carried out by the Police Federation (PFEW), which represents 140,000 rank and file officers across England and Wales.
Hydrated skin and some trips to the gym – I’ll be embracing better beauty habits next year
I’m not given to making new year resolutions, but by coincidence I have recently made a number of pledges to adopt better beauty habits. I believe that even someone in this job, who already moisturises and UV protects religiously, can still find areas for improvement.
Once again, I have pledged to drink more (or indeed some) water. After decades of tea dependency, I never find myself thirsty in the way others describe, and so force myself to hydrate only for the sake of my skin (to which it makes a noticeable difference) and well, aliveness. To this end, I’ve bought one of those ridiculously enormous mugs influencers drain several times daily, and hope to make my way through perhaps one by bedtime.
US-made device planned by end of year hit by recent government shutdown affecting shipments
Trump Mobile, the phone company launched by Donald Trump’s family business, has pushed back plans to deliver a $499 (£371) gold-coloured smartphone by the end of the year.
The Trump Organization licensed its name to launch a mobile service and the device in June, in the latest monetisation of his presidency by a family business empire now run by Trump’s sons.
As the millennial superstars near the end, an international generation reshapes the league. The question is whether an American can still carry the crown
That the NBA is reckoned in seasons is apt. To measure a legacy this way is as much existential as it is symbolic. Martin Heidegger argued that time is not something we pass through, but the condition of our being – less a pathway than a pressure. Heavy stuff, yes, but the NBA has always operated under similar weight.
The millennial superstars who stabilized the league for two decades are now entering their twilight: LeBron James (who turned 41 on Tuesday), Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Chris Paul. In their wake comes something genuinely new. For the first time, the league’s next dominant generation is unmistakably international. The NBA’s gen Z elite now emerge from Slovenia, Serbia, Greece, Canada and France.
A vivid account of the creation of one of literary modernism’s greatest achievements
In a 1924 letter to André Gide, Thomas Mann said he would soon be sending along a copy of his new novel, The Magic Mountain. “But I assure you that I do not in the least expect you to read it,” he wrote. “It is a highly problematical and ‘German’ work, and of such monstrous dimensions that I know perfectly well it won’t do for the rest of Europe.”
Morten Høi Jensen’s approachable and informative study of The Magic Mountainpositions Mann as a writer who was contradictory to his core: an artist who dressed and behaved like a businessman; a homosexual in a conventional marriage with six children; an upstanding burgher obsessed with death and corruption. Very much the kind of man who would send someone a book and tell them not to read it.
PM Sanae Takaichi joins petition asking for better facilities for women to match improved representation
Nearly 60 female lawmakers in Japan, including the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, have submitted a petition calling for more toilets in the parliament building for women to match their improved representation.
Japanese politics remains hugely male-dominated, although the number of women in the parliament rose at the last election – and Takaichi became the first female prime minister in October. This is reflected by there being only one lavatory containing two cubicles for the lower house’s 73 women to use near the Diet’s main plenary session hall in central Tokyo.
Aston Villa have a decision to make about Harvey Elliott, Brentford have money to spend and Burnley and Everton need goalscorers
A busy summer with the arrival of more than £250m in reinforcements has proved to be invaluable given the number of injuries that have hit Arsenal, particularly in defence. But that also makes any more expensive incomings unlikely in January, especially after the timely return of the influential Gabriel Magalhães this week. A loan signing or two could be on the cards, however, with Arsenal not having filled either slot so far after bringing in Neto from Bournemouth and Raheem Sterling from Chelsea last season. Mikel Arteta could do with more cover at right-back and must also decide whether to allow Ethan Nwaneri to go on loan with the 18-year-old having made only three starts in all competitions. Ed Aarons
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