Rare red weather warnings issued for Scotland and Northern Ireland; more than 700,000 homes without power in Ireland

• People in the UK and Ireland: how have you been affected by Storm Éowyn?

Irish meteorological service, Met Éireann, has published a map of wind observations at 7am across Ireland.

Additionally, in its post on X, the weather service noted the maximum gusts and highest mean speeds recorded at 7am. You can see those below:

This is highly unusual, this means between 7am and 2pm tomorrow there is a likelihood of widespread disruption, danger to life and damage to buildings, and our strong advice and the advice of the PSNI is to stay at home if at all possible.”

Vote on Sunday will see extension of Lukashenko’s 30-year stranglehold on power

Tsikhanouskaya, the head of the exiled Belarusian opposition, spoke with Reuters earlier this week.

Here is what she said:

“What in the democratic world you call elections has nothing in common with this event in Belarus. Because it’s mostly like a ritual for dictators, when they are reappointing themselves.”

• Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
• Read Football Daily | Rumour Mill | And mail John

The wider sense is that the Champions League format has been a success. Did Uefa get this one right? Inbox is open for thoughts.

The Liverpool manager, Arne Slot, has been on the mic. And his dad’s been on the blower.

Maeve thinks Richard should chip in more as he’s home all day while she’s in the office. Richard says a 50/50 split is fairest. You decide which of them is on a power trip
Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m in the office four days out of five, while Richard works at home and racks up the energy bills

There has been the odd awkward incident – sometimes if I’m pulling a tight jumper over my head, I’ll accidentally knock my nose off

I hated my nose when I was younger. I thought it was huge and pointed, and when I was little, classmates called me Concorde. As an adult, my husband would jokingly duck when I turned round. But other than it not being the neat little stub nose I dreamed of, it never caused me any problems.

In 2012, while out on a walk near my home in Redditch, Worcestershire, my dog, Cece, jumped up at me, knocking my nose. It was sore, but not broken. A few days later, though, it was still painful and had started to swell.

(Music to Grow Seeds By)
The Pittsburgh composer moves between soporific light and dissonant shade on this plant-inspired meditative journey

In 1976, composer Mort Garson released Mother Earth’s Plantasia, an album of early electronic ditties designed to help listeners’ house plants grow. Though its horticultural facility is questionable, it became a cult classic among record collectors, beloved for its sweet, jaunty music as much as its concept. Propagation is also the raison d’être of Music to Grow Seeds By, a new cassette label that pairs a packet of seeds with a release. For its second instalment, the delphinium elatum takes centre stage, providing the inspiration and part of the production process for Pittsburgh-based sound artist Davis Galvin, who used the perennial’s lilac petals to make marks that then formed part of a score.

Joining the dots between ambient, new age and dub, Prism is a slow-building, meditative record that ebbs and flows without pause, more soundscape than standalone tracks. But an uncanniness lies beneath the calm. Opener Sipes’ Vista hinges on a deep, oscillating synth lead, which builds into a tangle of mutating low-end frequencies. The subterranean flurry comes to a head on the second track, Humidity 14, where hissing static cuts through the atmospheric textures. Later, it’s more subtle: a loungy guitar riff in Grasshopper (Solo) is scattered with barely audible mutterings, weird glitches and found sounds from walks around California and Mexico City. The dissonant layers add a disorienting edge to an otherwise soporific listen.

The relentless skill challenges of caring for his newborn baby reminded developer Nicholas O’Brien of his day job. He explains how turning it all into a game helped him cope

I don’t remember much from the first weeks of parenthood – a colicky baby and extreme sleep deprivation will do that to you – but I do vividly remember one night with my baby son when absolutely nothing I did seemed to help him. I walked him around: he screamed. I tried to feed him: he screamed. I put him down: more screaming. So it went for a couple of hours. I remember thinking: this is like a text adventure video game where none of the answers are right.

Game designer and college teacher Nicholas O’Brien had similar thoughts. His first child was born during the Covid-19 pandemic in New York City, and he and his partner were trapped at home, on the endless merry-go-round of menial baby-care tasks. It was getting to him, like it gets to all new parents. “I didn’t have a lot of social or emotional outlets besides my partner,” he tells me. “I felt like I needed to create something about how I was feeling, work my way through it by making something.”

Three really is the magic number if you want to enhance your silhouette

Do you know about the rule of thirds? I didn’t. How did I not know about it? Anyway, I do now and I am obsessed. And you will be, too. So listen up.

The rule of thirds is a simple trick that makes you look better, by tweaking your proportions. It is failsafe, it is free, it works on everybody. If you are average height, it makes you look taller. I always wanted to be taller. In fact, in my heart, I believe that I am 5ft 10, like Cindy Crawford, although on the outside I am only 5ft 5½. I’ve never got to the bottom of this mystifying mix-up, but the rule of thirds is a more effective solution than high heels. And it doesn’t just make you look taller, it makes you look better. If you are already tall it makes you look leggier, and whatever height you are it enhances your silhouette, giving you a more supple, fluid line.

Relatively positive results are a ‘first (and early) step in the right direction’, analysts say

• Davos day four live – latest updates

Burberry has recorded a 4% drop in sales over the Christmas quarter, but expects to recover from losses made in the first half of its financial year after a strong performance in the US.

The fashion retailer’s shares rose by as much as 15% on Friday as it posted a fall in retail sales for the three months to 28 December, which was much better than the 12% drop analysts had expected.

Pyongyang said to be planning to increase support despite high casualties among estimated 11,000 already sent

North Korea is preparing to send more soldiers to fight in the Ukraine war, military officials in South Korea have said, despite reports of heavy casualties among troops from the communist state who have already been sent to the battlefield.

The claim that Pyongyang could be planning to increase its support for the Kremlin came as Donald Trump suggested he would attempt to rekindle his relationship with Kim Jong-un, describing the North Korean leader as a “smart guy” in an interview with Fox News.

The stress of seeing the destruction of their homeland sent rates of mental illness soaring in Jordan’s Jerash camp – and the ceasefire has brought scant relief

• Photographs by Alaa Atwah

Among the hills of northern Jordan, three miles west of the Roman ruins of Jerash, a sprawling settlement is home to more than 40,000 Palestinian people. Set up as an emergency shelter to accommodate 11,500 Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Jerash camp – known locally as Gaza camp – was intended as a temporary solution.

The initial clusters of tents have since evolved into a more permanent settlement, where generations of refugees have grown up. Jordan hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the world and most of the 2.3 million living there have been granted citizenship.

(Columbia)
The debut album from the British star finds him rapping rings around even high-profile guest stars as he asserts his place at hip-hop’s high table

The business of reviewing the debut album by Central Cee entails a level of security you seldom encounter in 2025: no information is provided beyond the tracklist. His record label seems at a loss to tell you who produced it, there are no lyrics to clarify the knottier moments of the rapper’s famously torrential flow; the details of some of the guest artists – the owner of the Billie Eilish-esque voice on Now We’re Strangers, or the potent soul vocal on closer Don’t Know Anymore – is also apparently classified. But perhaps security isn’t really the point: artists who are really concerned about pre-release leaks just drop their albums unannounced. The whole palaver seems more about promoting the idea that Can’t Rush Greatness is a very big deal indeed.

Well, of course it is. If some of the claims regarding Central Cee’s success and its spoils on Can’t Rush Greatness sound suspiciously like the lily being gilded – Does he really employ a private chef? Is it correct, as guest Skepta proudly claims on Ten, that he’s among the 10 biggest rappers in the world? – he’s still, unquestionably, the dominant name in UK rap. Private chef or not, the home counties pile that Can’t Rush Greatness says Oakley Neil Caesar-Su now calls home must be running out of wall space for the number of platinum discs he’s amassed over the last four years. Moreover, Central Cee has done the one thing no one really expected a British rapper to do, and succeeded in the ice-to-eskimos business of breaking America. “Nobody else from London’s gone Hollywood,” he swaggers on CRG, as you might if you had thus far scored three platinum US singles. It’s an achievement not entirely without precedent, although you’d have to go back 35 years, to the handful of US hits scored by Monie Love, to find a British rapper who achieved anything even remotely comparable.

Bridges collapse and houses and cars buried in thick mud after intense rainfall triggers landslides in central Java

Heavy rain across Indonesia has caused major flooding. On Java, the country’s main island, flooding caused a landslidethat has killed more than 20 people, with several more missing. The landslide was triggered by particularly intense rainfall in the mountainous area close to Pekalongan in the central part of the island, leading to bridges collapsing and houses and cars being buried in the thick mud. Indonesia is vulnerable to flooding and landslides during its rainy season from November to April. However, the climate crisis appears to be increasing the intensity of the rainstorms, worsening the flooding, as well as allowing them to occur outside the usual season. Last May, 67 people died after torrential rain caused flash floods in West Sumatra.

In stark contrast, a winter drought has been affecting parts of Pakistan. Eastern areas of Punjab province, where crop farming is the main activity and source of income, have received rainfall more than 40% below the average in the last four months. Agriculture accounts for nearly 25% of the country’s GDP and employs nearly two in five workers. Many farmers are being forced to switch careers as the climate crisis brings increasingly unreliable rainfall during the winter months.

• Manager called team ‘maybe the worst’ in club’s history
• Minority owner unconcerned by comments’ effect

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has no concern that Ruben Amorim describing his Manchester United team as maybe the worst in the club’s history will cause the players to lose faith in the head coach and adversely affect performance.

United are 13th in the Premier League with 26 points and a -5 goal difference before travelling to Fulham on Sunday for the late game. Ratcliffe’s view is that the squad understand Amorim has a fierce desire to win and can be passionate and that his outburst will soon be forgotten.

Rolling coverage of the final day of the World Economic Forum, and the latest economic and financial news

Larry Fink then explains that the US economy has a major advantage over Europe – the deep foundations of its capital markets make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital.

That allows the US to change direction and modify faster than another other economy in the world.

I believe it is probably time to be investing back into Europe, focusing on it.

• Djokovic: ‘There is a chance’ 2025 is Melbourne swansong
• Alexander Zverev criticises fans who booed his opponent
• Sinner v Shelton – Australian Open semi-final live

Ten-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic said he didn’t know if this would be his last appearance at Melbourne Park after he retired from his semi-final due to a groin injury just one set into Friday’s eagerly awaited contest against Alexander Zverev.

The 37-year-old was booed off the court by some sections of the Rod Laver Arena audience in behaviour widely condemned by current and ex-players.

The first time you came into my hospital, shards of glass shredding your tiny body, I saved you. The second time I failed

As news of the ceasefire ripples my way, my memory mocks me. Your face glides into focus from my mind’s abyss, where I had buried it.

You come into my emergency room at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza during the early morning hours. Your chubby cheeks blush with the night’s cold, heavy eyelashes dripping tears into the basins under your eyes. I save you this time. I do my job. Shards of glass stemming from an explosion caused by an Israeli airstrike shred your tiny arms and legs. I clean the wounds and stitch you up without even a modicum of pain relief. A niche torture for both of us. “Follow up in five days for suture removal post penetrating injury from secondary blast,” I write on your chart.

Seema Jilani is a paediatric specialist. She has worked in Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt and the Balkans. Her radio documentary, Israel and Palestine: The Human Cost of the Occupation, was nominated for the Peabody award

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

• UK broadcaster waiting to see impact across season
• All 36 teams to play simultaneously on matchday eight

The jury remains out on Uefa’s new Champions League format, according to TNT Sports, with the UK rights holder reserving judgment on whether an expanded league system has “landed as people hoped”.

With a vastly expanded fixture list and an eight-match league stage, the Champions League has been criticised for its complexity and lack of jeopardy. Anticipation is building, however, for the final round of 18 matches set to be played simultaneously on Wednesday.

Chelsea are signing the USA defender for a world-record $1.1m but the big gap to the rest of the pyramid is unhealthy

When Chelsea broke the British transfer record to sign the Colombia striker Mayra Ramírez for €450,000 (£380,000) last January, the thought of that fee more than doubling in the space of a year might have sounded like a fanciful rate of inflation to some. But to those involved in the fast-evolving world of women’s football transfer fees, this week’s smashing of the $1m (£810,000) barrier has been on the cards for a while.

With Chelsea understood to have agreed personal terms with the highly acclaimed United States defender Naomi Girma for her world-record-breaking $1.1m transfer from San Diego Wave, the prospect of the first £1m move is surely now a mere inevitability, and the rise in prices certainly will not stop there. Indeed, it could already have been comfortably smashed for a winger or a No 9. Girma is arguably the best defender in the world – Emma Hayes labelled her the best defender she had “ever seen” – but she is, nonetheless, a defender. If a centre-back can attract a seven-figure transfer fee, what would the WSL’s top goalscorer Khadija Shaw be worth, or the Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmatí?

The 18-year-old Indian world champion was losing his first-round game in the Netherlands but his Dutch opponent, Anish Giri, blundered fatally when short of time

Gukesh Dommaraju played and won his first competitive game as world champion last weekend, but only after surviving a close brush with disaster. The 18-year-old Indian, who captured the crown last month from China’s Ding Liren, defeated Anish Giri in the opening round of Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”, after the Netherlands No 1 failed to spot the winning tactic featured in this week’s puzzle.

Gukesh arrived in Amsterdam on an overnight flight at 9am, with the game starting five hours later. He was delayed by attending a ceremony where India’s President, Droupadi Murmu, presented him with the nation’s highest sporting honour, the Khel Ratna award, which includes a $29,000 prize. The award has previously been won by India’s first world chess champion, Vishy Anand, as well as by the cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.

Have you been following the big (and small) stories in football, tennis, cricket and beyond?

(Swims Int/Warner)
The soft-alpha streaming sensation behind Lose Control returns with more of the same Motown and Stax pastiches, with the odd diversion into soft rock

While Brat summer grabbed the headlines as 2024’s defining musical movement, a straighter, more masculine, less lurid green development was rumbling in the background. Defined by American men with big voices, big emotions and big streaming numbers, it gave the world Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things (1.7bn streams on Spotify alone), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (1.3bn) and Teddy Swims’ Lose Control (1.4bn). While the messy Brat defined a summer, the soft-alpha era is seemingly here for the long term.

The most interesting of the trio is Swims, a heavily tattooed former frontman of a post-hardcore band who now sings retro soul as if auditioning for Mark Ronson’s band circa 2007. This sequel to 2023’s Part 1 (home to US chart-topper Lose Control) continues to churn out immaculately crafted Motown and Stax pastiches, with Funeral and the mellower Your Kind of Crazy built on warm piano trills, loping drums and stacked backing vocals. Alongside stomping opener Not Your Man, they highlight Swims’ occasional lyrical shortcomings: in his world, women are unknowable, often wicked tricksters who are just too damn easy to love.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world