Thailand’s marriage equality laws come into force on Thursday, with hundreds of couples set to tie the knot in mass weddings in Bangkok

Tawach Chaweewong gets goosebumps just thinking about his upcoming wedding to his partner of almost eight years, Thanakorn Srikornthai. It will not only be a joyful celebration on a personal level, but also a historic occasion.

Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community has fought for decades for the right to equal marriage and, finally, on Thursday 878 district offices across the country will open their doors to same-sex couples to register and get married. It will make Thailand the first country in south-east Asia to recognise equal marriage, and only the third in Asia, behind Taiwan and Nepal.

Theatre Royal Bath
While this 1960 play has been overtaken by faster-moving tales of Tudor chicanery, Martin Shaw is compelling as Thomas More

Among the abounding villains and backstabbers of the Tudor age stands Thomas More, a good man who dared to take a silent stand against King Henry VIII. But Robert Bolt’s play shows that being good could be just as dangerous for one’s head.

This 1960 drama, which takes us through More’s last years, was immensely successful in its time, transferring to Broadway and adapted for film with Paul Scofield. Jonathan Church’s new touring production is smart and handsome but feels like an old-fashioned history play, creaky in parts though still an ultimately moving portrait of quiet heroism.

Hospital wards struggle to cope with rising cases of self-harm and eating disorders, the study warns

The number of children admitted to acute hospital wards in England due to serious concerns over their mental health has increased by 65% in a decade, with a particularly alarming surge in girls who have self-harmed, research reveals.

Doctors are treating almost 40,000 children with acute mental ill health in general wards every year, up from about 24,000 10 years ago. The increase is six times higher than the rise in admissions of children for all conditions (10.1%) over the same period.

Letter from Academy leadership also says show will ‘move away’ from live performances to celebrate songwriters

The Oscars will go on as planned in March, though with special accommodations to acknowledge to devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, according to a new update from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

A letter from the CEO, Bill Kramer, and president Janet Yang, sent to all members on Wednesday, confirmed that the ceremony will “celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires”.

Report reveals solar power generated 11% of Europe’s electricity, surpassing coal at 10%

Europe made more electricity from sunshine than coal last year, a report has found, in what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition.

Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%, according to data from climate thinktank Ember. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.

Forty-six Democrats joined Republicans to further bill requiring detention of undocumented immigrants for theft

The US House on Wednesday gave final passage to a bill requiring the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, sending the proposal to Donald Trump’s desk and giving the new president his first legislative victory as he presses his hardline immigration agenda on multiple fronts.

The House vote was 263 to 158, with 46 Democrats joining every present Republican in supporting the Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan national who was in the US unlawfully. The House vote came two days after the US Senate passed the legislation in a vote of 64 to 35, with a dozen Democratic members backing the bill.

“We will play and then we will see,” Carlo Ancelotti had said, so Real Madrid did their part and by the end of an ultimately easy night, life looked good again. The European champions started this match as the 22nd best team in the continent, somewhere towards the bottom of a table that keeps everyone guessing and supposedly on the edge of a catastrophe, and finished it six places higher and feeling as if they are among the favourites again. If, the coach was keen to stress, they can defend better.

Madrid had been defeated by Lille, Milan and Liverpool, but there was time still and a revival to come and now a 5-1 victory over Red Bull Salzburg in their penultimate game has lifted them back among the seeds for the playoff round. With one game to go, against Brest next week, and the team taking shape, it also leaves them a single point off the top eight. Two goals each from Rodrygo and Vinícius and another for Kylian Mbappé mean Ancelotti’s side still have a small chance of completing the first phase of this new format going straight through to the last 16, although seven teams still stand between them and that target.

After unveiling of Stargate, Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Satya Nadella of Tesla, OpenAI and Microsoft trade barbs

Major tech moguls had their claws out for each other on Wednesday, hissing at their rivals over enormous pledges to invest in AI that had been announced by Donald Trump the day before.

Trump announced Stargate, a $500bn project to be funded jointly by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, on Tuesday. During the announcement, the president was flanked by the leaders of those companies: Sam Altman, Larry Ellison and Masayoshi Son, respectively. Son is slated to be the chair of the project. All three are multibillionaires. Absent from the photo op was a representative from MGX, Abu Dhabi’s state AI fund, another principal investor.

Donald Trump signed executive order to rename body of water in honor of ‘American greatness’

The US Coast Guard (USCG) and the state of Florida have started referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America – a new label pushed by Donald Trump – despite the name of the body of water not yet being formally changed.

On Tuesday, following a flurry of executive orders signed by Trump on his first days in office, the USCG announced that it would deploy additional assets to multiple locations, including the “maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the ‘Gulf of America’”. Similarly, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, cited the new moniker in a winter storm executive order on Monday, saying “an area of low pressure [was] moving across the Gulf of America”.

It ought to have been over. In previous times it surely would have been. Erling Haaland had tapped in from close range shortly after Jack Grealish, on as a substitute, had broken the deadlock. There were 53 minutes on the clock and Manchester City looked ready to breathe life into their ailing Champions League campaign.

And yet the current edition of Pep Guardiola’s serial Premier League champions have come to lack the old certainties. They are vulnerable to high-tempo flurries from the opposition. The idea for them was to prove they were back, having moved on from that horror run of one win in 13 from the end of October. They had won four of their previous five.

Job done for Mikel Arteta. After the week he has had, the last thing the ­Arsenal manager would have wanted was another frantic finale to a home fixture. For much of this contest, after Declan Rice had fired the hosts in front after only 72 seconds, it seemed the Gunners may have to go the distance as they huffed and puffed but couldn’t find a second goal to see off a spirited Dinamo Zagreb side ­managed by their defensive master Fabio Cannavaro.

A collective sigh of relief greeted the second goal from Kai Havertz – his 14th of the season – when it came 20 minutes before the end, as ­Martin Ødegaard added a third late on to ­virtually ensure Arsenal will finish in the top eight and avoid the need for a playoff next month. With a warm‑weather training camp in Dubai lined up instead, after their early exit from the FA Cup, it could do Arteta’s weary squad the world of good in the long run.

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Celtic have the ball in the net, but it’s disallowed for offside, Maeda being caught a couple of yards clear. He finished it well, mind.

Arsenal roar into an early lead! And there’s a superb assist from Havertz, who has his back to goal as a left-wing cross reaches him and instead of attempting any fancy nonsense lays back to Rice, who with the benefit of facing in the right direction hammers in at the near post!

JD Vance, Mike Johnson and others had said those guilty of violence would be excluded before president changed tack

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Donald Trump’s allies have been forced to perform political summersaults over his pardons for more than 1,500 rioters convicted of attacking the US Capitol after saying beforehand that no clemency would be shown to those guilty of violence or attacking police officers.

The inauguration day pardons also threatened to trigger a revolt among Republican senators, several of whom bluntly condemned them without extending the criticism to Trump himself.

• Spanish club threaten legal action over defender
• Sierra Leonean missed training on Tuesday

Real Valladolid have accused Manchester City of advising their defender Juma Bah to break his ­contract and not train on Tuesday to force a cheaper move to the Premier League champions, with the Spanish club threatening legal action.

Bah, an 18-year-old centre-back, joined Valladolid in August and became the first Sierra Leonean to play in La Liga. The club say Bah has bought out his youth ­contract after refusing to sign a senior deal that would have made him more expensive.

• 52-year-old won plaudits as Lions defensive coordinator
• Glenn was a first-round choice for Jets as a player

The New York Jets and Aaron Glenn agreed to terms on making the Detroit Lions defensive coordinator their head coach on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. ESPN first reported that Glenn agreed to coach the Jets.

Glenn, who oversaw the Lions’ defense the past four years, beat out 15 other candidates for the job as the Jets went through an extensive search to find their next coach. And they ended up choosing one of their former players – a first-round draft pick in 1994 who now gets the chance to try to turn around the fortunes of the franchise 31 years later as its coach.

Félix ‘the Cat’ Bingui due to appear in Marseille court on multiple charges including money laundering

One of France’s most wanted suspected drug traffickers was due in court in Marseille after his extradition from Morocco.

Félix Bingui, known as “the Cat” and reportedly head of the notorious Yoda clan, was arrested in Casablanca last March.

• Top 32 clubs vote in favour of ending use of VAR
• Norway may join Sweden in resisting use of technology

Norway is on the verge of abolishing VAR from its domestic league after clubs in the country’s top two divisions recommended formally that it should be discontinued.

The decision by clubs in Norsk Topfotball, which represents the 32 sides in Norway’s Eliteserien and first division, marks the most significant step yet in a fierce debate over VAR’s future in the country. Now Norway is one step from joining Sweden, which has resisted introducing the deeply controversial technology so far, in staging games without its intervention.

Martin’s formal appointment as taoiseach blocked after day of ‘utter disgrace’ in Irish parliament

Ireland’s incoming prime minister, Micheál Martin, has accused opponents of a “subversion of the Irish constitution” after formal election to the role was cancelled amid chaotic scenes in the Irish parliament.

The outgoing taoiseach, Martin’s coalition partner, Simon Harris, called Wednesday’s events in Dáil an “utter disgrace [with] so many pressing issues” facing the country, as a spiralling row over the speaking rights of independent TDs torpedoed the first day of Martin’s new term in office.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemns ‘act of terror’ in Aschaffenburg that killed two people including toddler

A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested after a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.

With a month left in a campaign for snap elections dominated by debate on immigration and asylum policy, Scholz demanded authorities “explain immediately why the assailant was even still in Germany”.

Groups worked furiously before inauguration to settle refugees, before order to halt all arrivals on Wednesday

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Advocates warned the Trump administration’s abrupt announcement on Wednesday that it was canceling travel plans for refugees already approved for resettlement in the US puts lives in danger and has left families devastated.

Donald Trump followed an announcement on Monday that he was suspending the nation’s refugee resettlement program starting on 27 January with news on Wednesday that even those who had been approved for travel to the US before then have had their plans canceled. The decision has left US advocacy groups in turmoil, but hardly surprised.

Trump’s choice shows how his friends and their business interests benefit from policy positions in his administration

“What deeply interests me is the interests of America.”

Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of the Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and Donald Trump’s nominee to become the next secretary of commerce, was speaking to an audience of cryptocurrency enthusiasts last April.

President decrees end of DEI offices, roles and initiatives within 60 days and repeals civil rights-era equity policies

• US politics live – latest updates

All US federal employees working in diversity offices must be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening, the Trump administration has ordered, after instructing government agencies to shut down the programs.

“Send a notification to all employees of DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs,” said a US office of personnel management memo.

Thousands of refugees now stranded around the globe after undergoing lengthy process to be permitted to come to US

• US politics live – latest updates
• Trump to deploy troops to US-Mexico border in hardline immigration strategy

Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before a 27 January deadline suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.

Thousands of refugees are now stranded at various locations around the globe.

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It’s raining heavily in Paris. City will feel at home.

For clarity, PSG’s big-money €70m signing Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, is not cup tied. Napoli are not in any European competitions this season, which might be a factor in why they are currently top of Serie A. However, Kvaratskhelia is ineligible for PSG tonight because he wasn’t registered for the league phase back in September (because he was only bought this month). The Georgian can, however, be registered for the knock-out stage of the Champions League, should PSG make it.