50 minutes ago ‘Let’s see who will be leaving’: Georgia’s presidential standoff nears crunch point

Georgian Dream government threatens pro-west president with jail if she refuses to leave office on SundayAll eyes in Georgia are fixed on the elegant 19th-century Orbeliani Palace in Tbilisi, where a defining moment looms. Who will occupy its halls on 29 December?On Sunday, Georgia’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, is supposed to hand over the keys to her successor, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former football player turned far-right politician who is backed by the ruling and increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream (GD) party. Continue reading...

Politics

52 minutes ago Australia’s Scott Boland strikes late to heap pressure on India in fourth Test

Fourth Test, day two: Australia 474; India 164-5Tourists trail by 310 after run-out and Boland’s doubleIndia suffered a damaging run-out and Scott Boland took two wickets to leave the tourists in trouble at 164 for five at the end of day two of the fourth Test, after another Steve Smith century helped Australia post 474.Smith, having scored a drought-breaking 101 in the drawn third Test in Brisbane, reprised his role as India’s tormentor-in-chief by scoring a record 11th century against the nation on the way to 140 at the MCG. Continue reading...

Events

69 minutes ago Noah Lyles answers Usain Bolt question as Olympic champion makes clear statement

US star Noah Lyles is getting closer and closer to sprint GOAT Usain Bolt's best times on the track, but insists he cannot call himself the 'fastest man on earth' just yet

Sport

70 minutes ago Welsh Grand National 2024 start time, TV channel, confirmed runners and riders and latest odds

The annual Grand National takes place in Chepstow

Politics

98 minutes ago Netanyahu warns Yemen airstrikes will continue after WHO chief caught up in airport attack – Middle East crisis live

Head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was at Yemen’s international airport when it was hitThe Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.The strikes on shipping by the Houthis, who have also launched missiles at Israel, have prompted retaliatory strikes by the US and Britain. Here is an extract from our explainer on the group:The Houthis are a Yemeni militia group named after their founder, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, and representing the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam.They emerged in the 1980s in opposition to Saudi Arabia’s religious influence in Yemen. Continue reading...

Events

1 hour ago Arsenal XI vs Ipswich: Predicted lineup, confirmed team news and Bukayo Saka injury latest for Premier League

Gunners will be forced into reshuffle in attack after injury blow

Politics

1 hour ago Nowhere to go on New Year's Eve? Our pick of the best London clubs to hit on the last night of 2024

Still haven’t organised a solid New Year’s Eve Plan? Here’s a handpicked list of the best club nights to ring in 2025

Events

1 hour ago Week in wildlife in pictures: a seasonal robin and newborn lion cubs in Bedfordshire

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

Politics

1 hour ago Meet the Party Jean – the answer to your New Year’s Eve prayers | Jess Cartner

If you can’t be bothered with an LBD, opt for a classic that’s casual but shouts party pizzazzThere is a moment about halfway through Christmas dinner when the cracker hats have slipped askew, shoes been kicked off under the table and belts un-notched, that marks the official end of the season of Making An Effort. A frenzied month of putting on mascara in the work loos and shivering on the way home because you are wearing your fancy coat instead of your warm one is over, up in flames along with the Christmas pudding brandy. Time to breathe out, shift into a lower gear, adjust to the sacred interlude of cheese and telly, half-eaten chocolate reindeers and gap-toothed jigsaws that is Twixmas.So it can feel a little tricky, a few days later, to go full jazz-hands for New Year’s Eve. But that’s what we are doing. Continue reading...

Politics

1 hour ago ‘I had to make the vampire as scary as possible’: Nosferatu’s Robert Eggers on how folklore fuelled his film

The director of the latest movie in the bloodsucker tradition explains why he went back to the Transylvanian source for his version of one of cinema’s enduring adaptationsWe are all drawn to archetypal stories. Fairytales, folktales, fables, myths: we tell them over and over again because they always have meaning in our lives. We can always see reflections of ourselves in Hansel and Gretel, Oedipus and King Lear. They can mean different things at different stages of our lives and be interpreted in different ways by individuals sitting in the same audience.Bram Stoker’s Dracula is among them. It one of the most influential novels of the turn of the last century and, along with the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Jesus Christ, among the most adapted works in cinema history. Continue reading...

Politics

1 hour ago White British people aren’t under threat from multicultural Britain – they are part of it | Kieran Connell

Reform would have you believe that multiculturalism is an act of exclusion. In fact, the opposite is the caseAs the dust settled on last summer’s English riots, I found myself taking part in a radio discussion on the question: has multiculturalism failed? It was a depressing response to events that were themselves deeply depressing: an all-too-vivid reminder of how acute Britain’s problems with racism and Islamophobia continue to be. Yet the radio discussion also showed how multiculturalism acts as a scapegoat when it comes to concerns about issues such as immigration and community cohesion. For decades now, multiculturalism has functioned as Britain’s bogeyman.There was opposition to the term almost as soon as it began to gain traction in the late 1970s and 80s. Initially, multiculturalism was associated with policies that some local councils introduced to address inequalities in education. What this meant in practice was things such as an expanded religious education curriculum, t...

Events

1 hour ago You be the judge: should my daughter stop spending so much on beauty products?

Denise says Marsha is obsessed with her appearance and is wasting her money. Marsha says times have changed. You decide whose argument lacks foundationFind out how to get a disagreement settled or become a jurorWhy does a 19-year-old need to use £200 night cream? Plus she already wants ‘baby Botox’Kids now have 10-step skincare routines. Mum doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under Continue reading...

Events

1 hour ago Teacher creates ingenious exam question to find cheaters and catches 14 students

A teacher who became fed up with students using their mobile phones to find answers and cheat on university exams came up with a devious way to catch them out - and failed the pupils who fell for it

Society

2 hours ago Outnumbered’s Hugh Dennis makes prostate cancer plea after Christmas special storyline

Outnumbered star Hugh Dennis has urged men to check their risk of prostate cancer following the beloved BBC sitcom’s 2024 Christmas special storyline.

Politics

2 hours ago The high street shops and retailers that fell into administration in 2024

The cost of living squeeze has continued to make life tough for retailers - who have faced rising costs at a time when consumers have less money in their pockets

Politics

2 hours ago Hubris by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe review – learning from the Neanderthals

Why did we succeeded when other hominins didn’t, and can lessons from our evolutionary past help rein in our destructive impulses?In an institute in Germany, scientists are growing “Neanderthalised” human brain cells in a dish. These cells form synapses and spark as they would have done in a living Neanderthal as she (they are female cells) foraged or breastfed or gazed out of a cave mouth at dusk. That is the spine-tingling opening gambit of a book co-authored by one of the directors of the institute, Johannes Krause, and the information that sets it apart from a host of popular science books that attempt to predict humanity’s future based on our evolutionary past.A mere 90 genetic differences distinguish modern humans, Homo sapiens, from Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis. That’s paltry, given the roughly 20,000 genes that make up the human blueprint, and not all of them affect the brain. Yet those 90 differences could explain why Neanderthals died out, s...

Politics

2 hours ago Devils, drunks and divas: Tristram Kenton’s opera pictures of the year

Our photographer selects his favourite images of the opera productions he has shot in 2024; from Rossini in a deli to an athletic rake• All pictures: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian Continue reading...

Politics

2 hours ago Can Europe switch to a ‘wartime mindset’? Take it from us in Ukraine: here is what that means | Oleksandr Mykhed

Nato’s warning reached me as I braced for a missile attack in Kyiv – where we’ve learned how to survive in the era of Russian hybrid warfareDay 1,024 of the invasion. Kyiv, 7am. Friday the 13th. In a former life, someone would have observed that this is a day that portends bad luck. But in a country where shelling is a daily occurrence, it has become irrelevant. I wake up to the sound of an app on my phone warning me of an increased missile threat. While my partner and I are hiding in the corridor, I read the news that the Nato chief, Mark Rutte, has called on members of the US-led transatlantic alliance to “shift to a wartime mindset”.With the first bang of the air defence system, a thought strikes me: for those who have not already been living with it for nearly three years, how would you explain this mindset? What is this wartime thinking? Continue reading...

Events

3 hours ago Sydney to Hobart yacht race: sailors killed in double tragedy named ahead of ‘challenging night in the Bass Strait’

Roy Quaden, 55, and Nick Smith, 65, dead after being struck by booms on yachts Flying Fish Arctos and BowlineGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastTwo sailors on separate Sydney to Hobart yachts, Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline, have died at sea on the first night of the race. They were fatally struck by booms – a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail – on their respective boats amid wild weather conditions that forced line honours favourite Master Lock Comanche to withdraw, among mass retirements.The incident aboard Flying Fish Arctos occurred about 30 nautical miles east-south-east of Ulladulla on the NSW south coast, with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) receiving a mayday call just before midnight.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Events

3 hours ago Sailors killed in double Sydney to Hobart tragedy named ahead of ‘challenging night in the Bass Strait’

Roy Quaden, 55, and Nick Smith, 65, dead after being struck by booms on yachts Flying Fish Arctos and BowlineGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastTwo sailors on separate Sydney to Hobart yachts, Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline, have died at sea on the first night of the race. They were fatally struck by booms – a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the mainsail – on their respective boats amid wild weather conditions that forced line honours favourite Master Lock Comanche to withdraw, among mass retirements.The incident aboard Flying Fish Arctos occurred about 30 nautical miles [55.5kms] east-south-east of Ulladulla on the NSW south coast, with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) receiving a mayday call just before midnight.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Events