Downing Street gives no date for when the agreement of 30 days of visa-free travel will come into force

For more context on today’s Starmer-Xi meeting, China is the world’s second-biggest economy and Britain’s third-largest trading partner – to which it exports £45bn of goods and services a year – so it is no surprise the UK has turned to Beijing in its search for economic reliability.

As the Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar reported earlier today, the UK does not rank among the top 10 of China’s trading partners but the Beijing leadership has spied a political opportunity to improve links with one of Washington’s closest allies at a time of deep uncertainty in the transatlantic alliance.

• Sabalenka powers into final with brutal 6-2, 6-3 win

• World No 1 penalised for mid-point grunt in first set

Aryna Sabalenka has dared officials to penalise her again for grunting after she rumbled over the top of Ukrainian Elina Svitolina in the Australian Open semi-final on Thursday to reach her fourth straight final at Melbourne Park.

The world No 1 suppressed Svitolina’s mid-match momentum in a 6-2, 6-3 victory in just 77 minutes on Rod Laver Arena thanks to a dominant display of power tennis.

Manchester mayor takes aim at House of Commons briefing culture and says he will continue to call out liars

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Westminster insiders “do not get a licence to lie”, said Andy Burnham on Thursday, in an angry swipe at the political briefing culture in the House of Commons.

After a week of political antagonism over the Labour party’s national executive committee’s decision to block Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection next month, the Manchester mayor said he would call out liars in Westminster in the aftermath of the dispute.

Killings involving knives or sharp implements dropped by 23% year on year, ONS figures show

The total number of homicides in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since records began after a dramatic drop in killings involving a knife or sharp implement.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show 499 homicides were recorded by police in the 12 months to September 2025, a drop of 7% year on year from 539. These are the lowest overall homicide figures since records were first recorded in 2003.

As the superstar K-pop boyband prepare for their first album in three years – after its members completed their military service – we count down the best of their toothsome pop

At the start of their career, BTS were marketed as a cross between a Korean idol band and a blinged-out rap act: “Our life is hip-hop,” offered band member Suga early on. No More Dream is actually far tougher-sounding than you might expect: the vocals growl, the backing blares, the double-bass sample that drives the intro is great.

Dr Mark Hyman, who claimed he reduced his biological age by 20 years, brought on as a contributor

Among the new hires at CBS announced by Bari Weiss is a doctor who has claimed that he has reduced his biological age by 20 years with therapies including cold plunges; that cod liver oil can treat autism and that conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia can be reversed with the kind of nutritional supplements he also sells on his online store.

Dr Mark Hyman, who has been called a “germ theory denialist” by medical author Harriet Hall, and has been brought on as a contributor in Weiss’s revamping of CBS’s news division. He is perhaps the most prominent exponent of so-called “functional medicine” (FM), an alternative medicine that oncological surgeon David Gorski has described as “pure quackery”.

Pan Europe found several pesticide residues in 85% of apples, with some showing traces of up to seven chemicals

Environmental groups have raised the alarm after finding toxic “pesticide cocktails” in apples sold across Europe.

Pan Europe, a coalition of NGOs campaigning against pesticide use, had about 60 apples bought in 13 European countries – including France, Spain, Italy and Poland – analysed for chemical residues.

From baked beans with a Gujarati twist to billowing Yorkshire pudding with bramley apples, Guardian readers share the dishes that have connected their families across the generations

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A few years ago, I bought my mother a notebook for her recipes. It was a weighty, leather-bound affair that could act as a vault for all the vivid stews, slow-cooked beans and many other family specialities – the secrets of which existed only in her head. Although the gift has basically been a failure (bar a lengthy WhatsApp message detailing her complex jollof rice methodology, she still has an allergy to writing down cooking techniques or quantities), I think the impulse behind it is sound and highly relatable. Family recipes are a form of time travel. An act of cultural preservation that connects us deeply to people we may not have met and places we may not have visited.

Those realities shine through in this week’s gathered compendium of heirloom recipes submitted by readers. Baked beans given a Gujarati twist. An Atlantic-hopping riff on spinach and feta pie. A billowing yorkshire pudding with sticky bramley apples in its base. All of these preparations, particularly when a recipe for anything is a mere tap away, point to the power of human connection and the ingenuity of domestic chefs. And perhaps the best thing about ancestral culinary approaches is that they can be passed from one clan to another, living on even as they are adapted and evolve.

Canada has reached a tentative deal for 30 belugas in an amusement park to be shipped to four aquariums in US

• ‘It’s heartbreaking’: how 30 captive beluga whales have become pawns in row over animal cruelty

Before boarding the plane, the travellers will be given a dose of Valium to calm their nerves. For some, it will be the first time they’ve flown. Others have logged thousands of miles over the Pacific Ocean. Like most weary and anxious passengers, they will be offered minimal personal space on board and food isn’t included in their fare.

But for these jet-setters, the tight quarters and minimal refreshments aren’t meant to maximize airline profits: they’re meant to keep them safe.

The disgraced and despised British entertainer’s distinctive look is trending among some film fans on TikTok. Should somebody tell them what he did?

When British people think of Jimmy Savile, it isn’t typically as someone whose style to admire. But at screenings of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the latest film in the 28 Days Later franchise which was released this month, that does seem to be what some US filmgoers are thinking.

In the film, a murderous cult known as “the Jimmies” stalk the ruins of post‑apocalyptic Britain. Led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O’Connell, the sect are instantly recognisable for their cheap tracksuits, bleached blonde wigs and particular mannerisms.

The joy of the game is that big moments are rare – the climax of the UCL group phase felt like too much of a good thing

It’s half an hour after attempting to watch 18 football matches at the same time on the final match day of the Champions League group stage, so it’s still a little early to tell whether I think it was a brilliant night of football or not.

The information overload from a TV, laptop and phone means I may need a couple of weeks to really process it – by which time of course this will all be forgotten and we’ll be wondering whether one point from three Premier League games is enough for Thomas Frank to keep his job.

Mayor was a highly visible presence during icy blizzard and, unlike some of his predecessors, seemed to get things right

Winter storms have historically been a landmine for New York City’s mayors, with every inch of snow bringing the potential for public criticism over unglamorous issues such as plow deployment and salt distribution.

There’s a long history of experienced mayors getting it wrong. But Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected New York City leader, appears to have passed his first test with flying colors.

Trump loyalists are upset the administration has blamed Pretti’s shooting on him exercising his right to carry a gun

Gun rights groups have long been among Donald Trump’s most loyal allies. But following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the alliance is showing rare cracks.

In the days since the shooting, the movement has forcefully defended its stance that the second amendment is a means to keep Americans safe from government overreach and abuse and has stood fast in its fight to expand Americans’ right to carry concealed firearms in public and private spaces, even as Trump administration officials, and Trump himself, suggested otherwise.

In the winter of despair, it was a day of the vile and a night of the obscene

It was the worst of times and then even worse; it was the age of lies and then more lies; it was an epoch of preening and cowardice. In the winter of despair, it was a day of the vile and a night of the obscene. It was a tale of two films, one featuring the stark killing of a protester on a cold Minneapolis street and the other starring Melania Trump striking poses in a “documentary” shown at a private screening at the White House.

Throughout the day of Saturday, 24 January, videos of the killing by ICE agents of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital, on a street in Minneapolis were broadcast endlessly on TV news channels and seen by tens of millions online. The videos clearly showed Pretti with his phone in his hand, holding his hands up as he approached ICE agents who had pepper-sprayed a woman. He was coming to her aid, a Good Samaritan. The ICE agents instantly attacked him. One frame of a video shows one agent with his gun drawn, pointed at Pretti’s back as he fell hands still in the air. Agents appear to have shot him 10 times in five seconds.

Death of Kristen Galvan, who had disappeared at age 15, was confirmed after DNA matched with remains found in 2020

Kristen Galvan, a teen girl who went missing after being sex-trafficked in 2020, has been confirmed to have been murdered.

Galvan’s death was determined through a recent DNA testing of partial remains of a girl found under a bridge in Missouri City, Texas, three weeks after she disappeared at age 15, said Robyn Cory, her mother.

(Rough Trade)
The much-hyped LA singer – who has been compared to Tim Buckley, Elvis and more – certainly has a beautiful voice, though he can lean too eagerly on his influences

Scrolling back through Tyler Ballgame’s Instagram posts is a striking experience. Barely a year ago, they largely comprised flyers for – and cameraphone footage from – gigs in tiny Los Angeles bars, the kind that make as much virtue out of the fact that entry is free as of who’s playing: one bills his performance alongside a vintage clothes market and “tarot readings”. A support slot with a minor jam band called Eggy is a very big deal indeed; the news that he’s playing a show in London is greeted with disbelief: “What,” asks one baffled correspondent, “does London know of Ballgame?”

Things changed dramatically over the ensuing 12 months. Not long after his first trip to London, a video of him performing live at a Los Angeles bar called the Fable began circulating online. By the time he came back to the UK to perform at Brighton industry showcase the Great Escape, he had signed to Rough Trade. Critical hosannas began raining down on Ballgame: he has variously been compared to Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Jim Morrison and Tim Buckley.

Makers take a stand through ‘Melt the ICE’ red knit caps and sparkly nails – all while raising funds for those affected by immigration raids

In the nine years that Gilah Mashaal has owned Needle & Skein, a yarn store in the suburbs of Minneapolis, she has tried to maintain a rule that “nobody talks politics” in the shop. But amid the weeks-long occupation of the Twin Cities by federal immigration paramilitaries, Mashaal and one of her employees decided to turn one of their weekly knit-alongs into a “protest stitch-along”.

They didn’t want to return to the “pussy hats” that symbolized women’s resistance to Donald Trump in 2016, so Paul, their employee, did some research and came back with a proposal: a red knit hat inspired by the topplue or nisselue (woolen caps), worn by Norwegians during the second world war to signify their resistance to the Nazi occupation.

Holburne Museum, Bath
The feted photographer’s latest exhibition starts with images of ancient scultures depicting devotion and violence, before moving to war pictures and brooding Somerset landscapes

Few people have seen as much horror as Don McCullin. The feted photographer, now 90, witnessed major conflicts and disasters up close for decades. You can only imagine, through his widely published black and white pictures, how that might have affected him.

McCullin’s latest exhibition, Broken Beauty at the Holburne Museum in Bath, begins with four recent pictures of ruined Roman sculptures. These images – the white ruins photographed against black backgrounds so they float – are reminiscent at first of museum postcards, representations of representations that refer to ancient history and myths of fatal ambition, desire and domination. There’s a crouching Venus, her arms missing and head half-shattered. A hermaphrodite struggles to get away from a lascivious satyr. A headless Amazon and the Roman emperor Commodus, known for his uninhibited cruelty, are fighting on horseback. Their pockmarked surfaces and broken limbs suggest the collapse of the great empires, the fragility of ideals that are obliterated by time, like marble.

Channel 4’s baffling documentary consists of a lorryload of content creators flapping their hands while providing no new information or insight. A triumph of noise for noise’s sake

By now, the fallout from Brooklyn Beckham’s Instagram broadside against his parents has reached a point of total saturation. There have been news reports, memes, obsessive TikTok deep dives and newspaper thinkpieces covering the story from every conceivable angle. “Brooklyn Beckham is doing his best” said the New York Times. “It’s time to believe adult children when they speak out against their toxic parents,” said BuzzFeed. “The Beckham family feud is every mother’s worst nightmare,” said the Independent. And on it went.

So you have to respect Channel 4 for gazing out across this exhausting event horizon of a story and identifying a gap in the market. Until now, nobody has managed to turn the Beckham family drama into a shrill 30-minute primetime documentary where a lorryload of content creators flap their hands while providing no new information or insight. Thanks to Beckham: Family at War, that gap has been filled. Congratulations, everyone.

Shares in Ocado fall almost 10% after revealing Sobeys will close Calgary site that uses UK group’s delivery technology

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Ocado has revealed its Canadian partner is closing a warehouse that uses its robots and automation technology in another blow to the UK online delivery group’s business model. Shares in Ocado dived almost 10% on Thursday after it announced that Sobeys would be shutting the Calgary facility, saying it was “largely due to the Alberta grocery e-commerce market’s size and the rate of expansion being slower than originally anticipated”.

The decision came less than three months after Ocado’s US partner Kroger closed three warehouses, knocking almost a fifth off the UK company’s value.

Major powers have renewed diplomatic links while others seek deals to deport migrants. And all the while gender repression is getting worse

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has now issued its most extreme edict yet. It is already the only regime in the world where girls are excluded from secondary education. Now it has gone further, debarring all Afghan women from any contact with schools or education and doubling down on what has been rightly condemned as “gender apartheid”.

This latest wave of repression, which is likely to be classified by United Nations legal authorities as a crime against humanity, marks the victory of the extreme Kandahar clerical faction over Kabul-based government ministers. It is also the latest step in the plan of supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada to erase girls and women from public life.

Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

Analysis finds at least 150 channels on messaging app that are distributing AI-generated images and video

Millions of people around the world are creating and sharing deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has shown, as the spread of advanced AI tools industrialises the online abuse of women.

The Guardian has identified at least 150 Telegram channels – large encrypted group chats popular for their secure communication – that appear to have users in many countries, from the UK to Brazil, China to Nigeria, Russia to India. Some of them offer “nudified” photos or videos for a fee: users can upload a photo of any woman, and AI will produce a video of that woman performing sexual acts. Many more offer a feed of images – of celebrities, social media influencers and ordinary women – made nude or made to perform sexual acts by AI. Followers are also using the channels to share tips on available deepfake tools.

Cheers erupt at each killing blow in an arena facing extinction after a landmark court ruling

On the outskirts of Cartagena – far from the brightly coloured facades of the old city and the 500-year-old fortress walls overlooking the Caribbean – a crowd of about 300 people erupted into a roar. Given Colombians’ passion for football, it could have been the celebration of a goal.

But the cheers followed the bloody climax of bout in a cockfighting ring whose white padded walls were now splattered with blood.

Despite no criminal charges being brought against them, four officers have been detained since the MV Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, killing six workers

Several crew members of a ship that collided with a bridge in Baltimore almost two years ago are still being held in the US by federal authorities despite the fact that no criminal charges have been brought against them.

In the early hours of 26 March 2024, the MV Dali departed the port of Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka. While navigating the Fort McHenry channel, the 1,000ft-long Singapore-flagged cargo vessel lost power before striking the bridge. The impact resulted in the deaths of six people who were working on the bridge at the time.