Paul Doyle pleaded guilty to 31 offences after more than 134 people including children injured

A powerful victim impact statement from Emily Wright, a 29-year-old woman whose foot was injured in the attack, has been read to the court.

She said:

I have been diagnosed with PTSD and suffer persistent symptoms that affect my day-to-day functioning.

I relive the moment of the collision repeatedly, especially the terrifying image of my pram being struck and taken by the car, with my six-month-old baby inside.

Even hearing the Liverpool accent, which I associate with police calls and the location of the incident, can trigger anxiety and physical symptoms like dizziness and a racing heart.

I do not live locally so the accent is now tied exclusively to traumatic memories.

High court rules whole cooked cool-down chickens should be subject to standard 20% tax rate for hot food

• Business live – latest updates

The UK supermarket chain Morrisons faces a £17m tax bill after losing a lengthy court battle against HMRC over the charging of value added tax (VAT) on rotisserie chicken.

The high court has ruled that whole cooked cool-down chickens should be subject to the standard 20% VAT rate for hot food.

Ukrainian president speaks in Dutch parliament ahead of crucial EU meeting on use of frozen Russian assets

Commenting on Berlin talks, Zelenskyy says he held “really intensive” talks with US counterparts in Germany, “working in a great detail on documents that could stop the war and guarantee security.”

But he says “every single detail matters,” adding that nothing in the proposed peace deal should be allowed to “become a reward for Russia’s aggression.”

I truly hope that the next time I address your parliament it will be with gratitude for a peace that has been achieved.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

ING’s UK economist James Smith has spotted that government hiring is no longer supporting the jobs market.

He writes:

Companies – especially in retail and hospitality – have been shedding workers this year, partly because of earlier tax and minimum wage hikes. Hiring surveys remain weak.

Until recently, that was helpfully offset by resilience in government hiring, but that appears to be changing. Public sector employment has also now fallen for three consecutive months, judging by those payroll numbers.

Arda Güler, Nick Woltemade and Rafael Leão are among the first 30 players as we start our countdown to the list, updating through the week

• Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

• 2024 edition | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

Flight logs reveal three British women onboard who were allegedly trafficked by convicted sex offender, according to BBC

Nearly 90 flights linked to Jeffrey Epstein reportedly arrived at and departed from UK airports, some with British women onboard who allege they were abused by the convicted child sex offender.

Analysis by the BBC found three British women who were allegedly trafficked appear in Epstein’s records of flights in and out of the UK and other documents related to the late disgraced billionaire.

In the UK, close to half of 25-year-olds now live with parents who, in many cases, would expect their nest to have long since emptied. How does this change families, for good and bad?

If life had worked out differently, Serena would by now be coming to terms with an empty nest. Having brought up seven children, she and her husband might even have been enjoying a little more money and time for themselves. But as it is, three of their adult children are now at home: the 23-year-old finishing his degree; the 28-year-old, a teacher, saving for a house deposit; and the 34-year-old, after a mental health crisis. At 63, Serena comes home from her job as a social worker to a mountain of laundry, and a spare downstairs room requisitioned as a bedroom.

Having a houseful is “really good fun”, she says, and makes life richer and more interesting. But it took a while to get used to partners staying over – “I’m not a prude, but you don’t necessarily want to be part of that life for your children, do you?” – and lately, she has felt the lack of an important rite of passage. “I’ve become old and I never really felt it, because I’ve been in that parent mode for such a long time,” she says. “It’s suddenly hit me that I didn’t have that transition that often happens, with kids who leave when you’re in your 40s and 50s – that just hasn’t happened. It’s odd.”

It can work wonders on aphids but won’t conquer tough infestations such as mealybugs – and be careful not to scorch the leaves

The problem
Few things test a plant-lover’s patience like a pest infestation. The internet is full of DIY advice, and one of the most popular tips is to mix washing-up liquid with water and use it as a pest spray. It’s cheap, easy and always within reach. But it’s not without risk.

The hack
A diluted detergent solution is said to break down the waxy coating of soft-bodied pests, dehydrating them on contact. It can work wonders on aphids, spider mites and thrips, killing them quickly without the need for harsh chemicals. But household detergents weren’t made for plants. The wrong formula or a heavy hand can cause serious leaf burn, leaving behind residue that stresses your plant more than the pests did.

Joesley Batista is credited as a major force behind the reconciliation between Trump and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Six international airlines had suspended flights to Venezuela over the risk of possible US military strikes when an ultra-long-haul executive jet from São Paulo, Brazil, landed calmly in Caracas.

On board that flight on 23 November was the Brazilian meat tycoon Joesley Batista – twice jailed for corruption and whose companies have a long record of environmental violations. After a meeting with the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, he returned to Brazil the following day.

Companies such as Udio, Suno and Klay will let you use AI to make new music based on existing artists’ work. It could mean more royalties – but many are worried

This was the year that AI-generated music went from jokey curiosity to mainstream force. Velvet Sundown, a wholly AI act, generated millions of streams; AI-created tracks topped Spotify’s viral chart and one of the US Billboard country charts; AI “artist” Xania Monet “signed” a record deal. BBC Introducing is usually a platform for flesh-and-blood artists trying to make it big, but an AI-generated song by Papi Lamour was recently played on the West Midlands show. And jumping up the UK Top 20 this month is I Run, a track by dance act Haven, who have been accused of using AI to imitate British vocalist Jorja Smith (Haven claim they simply asked the AI for “soulful vocal samples”, and did not respond to an earlier request to comment).

The worry is that AI will eventually absorb all creative works in history and spew out endless slop that will replace human-made art and drive artists into penury. Those worries are being deepened by how the major labels, once fearful of the technology, are now embracing it – and heralding a future in which ordinary listeners have a hand in co-creating music with their favourite musicians.

Survey by world’s largest network for sexual and reproductive health shows devastation to services, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, and amplification of anti-rights voices

Cuts to US aid funding have directly led to the closure of more than 1,000 family planning clinics, new figures shared with the Guardian reveal.

Millions of people have been left without access to contraceptives or care, including those who have suffered sexual assault, as part of a “radical shift towards conservative ideologies that deliberately block human rights”, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

The Timothée Chalamet-starring comedy about a hustling table tennis ace has been voted one of the Guardian’s films of the year. Its writer/director talks ambition, American dreams and alien takeovers

• Why Marty Supreme is the No 5 film in the UK

Josh Safdie, 41, is best known for the films he has made with his brother, Benny – frenetic chancer yarns such as Uncut Gems, Good Time and Heaven Knows What.

Last year, the brothers split and shot separate movies loosely based on real life sportsmen. Benny made wrestling drama The Smashing Machine, starring The Rock; Josh a loose take on the life of Marty Reisman, a shoe-store clerk in 1950s New York, who aspires to table tennis pre-eminence but must hustle to fund his passage to championships in London and Tokyo.

The precarious, cruel but dazzling world of a foundling hospital is brought wonderfully to life by the author of Botticelli’s Secret

Joseph Luzzi, a professor at Bard College in New York, is a Dante scholar whose books argue for the relevance of the great Italian art and literature of the late middle ages and Renaissance to our own times. A great populariser and advocate of the humanities in public life, he has done for Dante what his Bard colleague Daniel Mendelsohn did for Homer in An Odyssey and other books.

This short volume tells the story of the Hospital of the Innocents in Dante’s home town of Florence, a building Luzzi has been fascinated by since encountering it in 1987 on his college year abroad. The Innocenti, as it is known, was the first institution in Europe devoted solely to the care of unwanted children. The first foundling, named Agata because she was left by its gates on Saint Agata’s Day 1445, had been nibbled at by mice.

US president alleges broadcaster ‘intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively’ edited his 6 January speech before march on Capitol

The BBC has vowed to defend the $10bn lawsuit filed against the corporation by the US president, Donald Trump.

In a complaint filed on Monday evening, Trump sought $5bn in damages each on two counts, alleging that the BBC defamed him, and that it violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

In an industry not exactly known for it, Reiner was an exceptionally nice guy. But he was too much of a showman to make a straight shocker. The result was rich, terrifying – yet cherished

• ‘Not a second of wasted time’: Rob Reiner’s golden run
• Meeting Rob Reiner was like a visit from Santa
• Rob Reiner’s five best films
• Hollywood in shock: ‘One of the greatest’

You can love a film without, apparently, ever having paid full attention to it. I realised this only recently when I came to understood something crucial about Misery, the 1990 psychological horror film adapted from the novel by Stephen King and directed by Rob Reiner. What are the chances, I used to think, that Paul Sheldon, the bestselling novelist kidnapped and tortured by unhinged superfan Annie Wilkes, came off the road right when she happened along? It didn’t occur to me that the reason she was there in the first place was because she was stalking him or even (a conclusion not supported by the text) that she caused the crash. You think and think about these films that you love – and they come up different every time.

Reiner’s main strength as a film-maker is what made news of his death particularly horrifying, which is to say the man’s warmth – a sense, widely felt by millions who knew him only through his movies, that at heart, and in an industry not exactly known for it, Reiner was an exceptionally nice guy. His movies were smart, sophisticated, knowing, but when I think about the hits he had across every genre, the defining characteristic for me is their absence of cynicism.

The best we can hope for is that Paul does not get seriously hurt. Joshua, Netflix and the sport itself should know better

Precisely 85 years ago, one of the most fearsome heavyweight boxers in history stunk out the joint. Joe Louis was in the midst of his “Bum of the Month club”: a staggering run of 13 world title defences in 29 months against an assortment of stiffs, wild men and colourful characters. And when he arrived in Boston on 16 December 1940, most believed that Al McCoy would rapidly become his next victim. Only it didn’t quite turn out that way.

“McCoy was expected to crumple under the first punch Louis tossed in his direction,” the New York Times’ correspondent wrote. “Instead, the wily New England veteran made Louis appear ludicrous at times. Adopting a crouching, bobbing, weaving style, McCoy was an elusive target for the paralysing fists of the titleholder.” After the messy contest was stopped at the end of the fifth, a storm of jeers rang out. Louis had won, but only his bank balance had been enhanced.

As green paper on corporation’s charter renewal is launced, what funding options might be under consideration?

Advertising. Subscriptions. A household levy. The government claims to be considering all options for funding the BBC. In reality, however, many industry insiders believe radical reforms will be dodged in favour of sticking to the licence fee model – perhaps for the last time.

Advocates for the licence fee have long argued it is the only model that allows the corporation to stick to its guiding “universality” principle – producing programming for everyone.

Lucile Hadžihalilović’s kaleidoscopic fable, starring Marion Cotillard as a haughty, damaged diva, is a cautionary tale about the perils of fantasy

• The best films of 2025 in the UK
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Lucile Hadžihalilović is a good bet for the most underrated director on the planet. She’s only made four features in 20 years, but with obsessive consistency each time: an exquisitely controlled hermetic world that exudes weird biological and psychological anxieties – from the pre-pubescent prep school of 2004’s Innocence, to the island hospital nurturing impregnated boys in 2015’s Evolution. These microcosms, governed by their own internal laws, seem to exist in some far-off arthouse realm indifferent to regular cinema.

But her new film, The Ice Tower, makes the coyest of glances towards commercial territory by rooting itself in Hans Christian Andersen. “Vast, immense, glittering like ice was the realm of the Snow Queen,” lullabies Marion Cotillard in the preamble; the story is the preferred bedtime reading of teenage orphan Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who escapes from her foster home, heads down the mountain, and stows away on a film production of the fairytale. The queen is being played by imperious diva Cristina van der Berg (who is played for us by none other than la Cotillard).

Centre with goal of inclusivity pursues a reassessment of the coaching and even the language of the sport

“Cricket is shit if you’re shit at cricket. But everyone has been shit at cricket. Even Ben Stokes. When someone threw a ball at him for the first time, he didn’t smash it six rows back. Ben Stokes was shit at cricket, and then he got good at cricket, and he got good quick enough to stay in it. Because anyone who’s crap at cricket for too long thinks, this is rubbish, let’s fuck off.”

Everyone wants cricket to be better. Everyone wants cricket to be more present in state schools, more open to those beyond its boundaries, less of a self-sustaining garden party. Or at least everyone says they do. Even the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has spent 30 years producing reports about how racist, sexist and elitist the game it oversees is, always with the same air of mild, patrician bafflement, as though this is all somebody else’s area of concern.

Early season chaos has given way to an approach based on solidity and utilising the squad’s attacking strengths

The table does not lie and Nottingham Forest were proudly fifth in the Premier League on Sunday night. Admittedly, the reality is they sit 16th but since Sean Dyche took over as manager only four teams have bettered their points tally, with a breezy win against Tottenham a further sign of revolution in action.

Considering the shambolic nature of the season before Dyche was appointed on 21 October, the fact Forest find themselves out of the relegation zone is impressive enough. They were 18th with five points after nine matches that included four defeats from Ange Postecoglou’s five league fixtures. It may have felt even sweeter for fans that the latest humbling handed out was against the Australian’s previous club.

The oil and gas industry must be legally bound to cut methane emissions. With climate tipping points approaching, time is running out

• Mia Mottley is the prime minister of Barbados

The timing is brutal. Just as the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris climate agreement this month, new evidence shows that the world is crashing through the main defence that was constructed against climate catastrophe.

The three-year temperature average is – for the first time – set to exceed the Paris guardrail of 1.5C above preindustrial levels. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2025 will join 2023 and 2024 as the three warmest since the Industrial Revolution, reflecting the accelerating pace of the climate crisis.

Mia Mottley is the prime minister of Barbados

It will come as little surprise that Italian cuisine has been added to Unesco’s cultural heritage list. Here are a select few of the country’s countless regional specialities

Last week’s announcement that Italian cuisine has been added to Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list came as no surprise to anyone familiar with that country’s obsession with food. Unesco called Italy’s cooking a “communal activity” in which “people of all ages and genders participate, exchanging recipes, suggestions and stories”.

It might have added people of all walks of life, too, because in Italy being a foodie is not the “preserve” of the chattering classes. I’ve heard building workers in a low-cost trattoria gravely discussing what starter and wine best complement a certain lunch dish, and a shabbily dressed nonna at Turin’s Porta Palazzo market enthusing over a variety of carrot available only at her favourite stall.

Nour AbuShammala has returned to her partly destroyed apartment in Gaza City. This is her story of multiple displacements, injury and devastation over the last two years

When 26-year-old Nour AbuShammala stepped back into her family’s apartment in Gaza City in October the rooms were gutted, the walls were damaged by bombing, and there was no water or electricity, but it was still home.

Since the outbreak of war in October 2023 she has been forced to flee six times. This is her story of relentless displacement, survival and loss, told using photography and videos provided by AbuShammala and satellite imagery of a ruined Gaza.

From tender coming of age stories to images that question the meaning of home, Ed Alcock’s photography blurs the personal with the political

Exclusive: David Dinsmore to advise ministers as they step up efforts to combat far-right rhetoric online

Keir Starmer’s Whitehall communications chief will address the cabinet on overhauling the government’s media strategy on Tuesday as ministers increasingly try to combat far-right rhetoric online.

David Dinsmore, a former editor of the Sun who was appointed permanent secretary for government communications in November, will speak to ministers about modernising the way they reach voters.

The number of ‘neets’ is skyrocketing in Britain, another Tory failure. Labour’s plans for apprenticeships and training funds will turn this around

• Pat McFadden is secretary of state for work and pensions

Neglect is a political choice, and one with deep human consequences.

That is what has struck me in the early months as secretary of state for work and pensions. Graph after graph, slide after slide, all pointing upwards, on young people out of work, on mental health issues among the population, and on the decision by default as much as design that the response should be benefits rather than changing lives.

Pat McFadden is secretary of state for work and pensions

A four-hour documentary observes life in a Paris squat and perilous Mediterranean crossings – but its non-narrative structure tests the limits of endurance and empathy

Egyptian-American film-maker Sam Abbas’s experimental documentary was made over four years and shows footage of African and South Asian immigrants making the treacherous journey up through Libya and across the Mediterranean to a Parisian squat. That’s a misleadingly linear description of the film; it’s actually cleaved into two parts which would seem back to front if we were following the stories of specific people. The first section observes life in the squat where the residents support each other as they face eviction threats and the bureaucracy of asylum-seeking, while the second part looks on as other people make the rough sea passage. Time is also spent aboard boats run by organisations such as Doctors Without Borders who seek to help the migrants.

All that might make this sound like any number of 21st-century documentaries (Fire at Sea, for instance) and dramas (Io Capitano) about immigrants crossing continents with deadly results. But this one is aggressively non-narrative, composed of a series of long static shots and still images that linger many beats longer than might seem necessary to get the point across. Body parts and faces, what looks like a fuse box, a child being delivered by a rough emergency C-section (gory stuff, be warned), someone’s phone showing text messages, water, sick people laid out like cordwood on a deck; it’s all a jumble of images, unexplained and raw, and sometimes barely visible in the low-lit conditions.

The Indigenous Canadian author brilliantly captures the interdependence of humans and the natural world, in a darkly satirical critique of colonialism

Noopiming, the first of Canadian writer-musician Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s books to be published in the UK, means “in the bush” in the language of the Ojibwe people. The title of this startlingly original fiction is an ironic reference to Roughing It in the Bush; or, Forest Life in Canada, an 1852 memoir about “the civilisation of barbarous countries” by Susanna Moodie – Simpson’s eponymous “white lady” – a Briton who settled in the 1830s on the north shore of Lake Ontario, where Simpson’s ancestors resided and she now lives.

That 19th-century settlers’ guidebook went on to be hailed as the origin of Canadian women’s writing; Margaret Atwood adopted the Suffolk-born frontierswoman’s voice in her 1970 poetry collection, The Journals of Susanna Moodie. Though she mentions Moodie’s book only in an afterword, Simpson’s perspective is different. For Moodie, extolling “our copper, silver and plumbago mines” in the extractivist British colony, the “red-skin” was a noble savage, and the “half-caste” a “lying, vicious rogue”. Yet, rather than a riposte to the toxic original, Noopiming – first published in Canada in 2020 and shortlisted for the Dublin Literary award in 2022 – sets about building a world on its own terms. The “cure”, then – the antidote to Moodie’s blinkered vision – is this book.

Notifications of cancellations at Rebecca Adlington and Steve Parry’s swimming school don’t mention form-filling process to get money back

Swim!, the nationwide swimming school set up by the Olympians Rebecca Adlington and Steve Parry, has cancelled a number of my child’s lessons recently, but makes it unnecessarily hard to get refunds.

Parents, who pay by direct debit, must specifically request a refund by filling out a form within 30 days. None of the text or email notifications of cancellations mention this. Consequently, I have ended up inadvertently paying for five cancelled lessons.

Colin the Caterpillar gets a tasty revamp. Plus: Romesh Ranganathan raps in New York City’s Union Square. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, ITV1
Marks & Spencer’s product development team are nothing short of miraculous, especially when it comes to party food. This year’s festive treats include fish-and-chip-inspired canapes and a “Christmas cracker” Colin the Caterpillar (think the classic Colin, just jazzier). Plus, the bestselling classic panettone gets a fresh update. Hollie Richardson

Chancellor’s claim to be helping trade met with disbelief in England and Wales amid soaring staff costs, energy bills and other overheads

Emma Harrison has begun to wonder how her business will survive in recent weeks. The managing director of the Three Hills pub in Bartlow, Cambridgeshire, is struggling to see how she will make a profit after examining the impact of her rising tax bill.

“I’m really terrified about this coming year,” Harrison says. “We’re a well-run pub, we’ve won lots of awards, but this is going to be really hard.”

Demands for oversight grow after inquiry calls sector an ‘unregulated free for all’ and families seek stronger safeguards

Ministers are expected to back calls to regulate England’s funeral industry for the first time, after a series of scandals over the handling of remains.

Bereaved families have called for a new investigatory body and rules governing professional qualifications after an official inquiry declared the sector an “unregulated free for all”.

In his 46 years of service, Nick Hulme has seen the best and the worst of the NHS. He issues a stark warning about its future

I catch him before he slips out of the NHS ahead of Christmas. After 46 years in the health service, no better time for an exit interview with a leading NHS trust chief executive, who has seen the best and worst of it. Nick Hulme is in brutal truth mode. He has one foot out of the door of his East Suffolk and North Essex NHS foundation trust, just as the resident doctors strike for the 15th time, amid a rampant flu crisis. But he’s off, his time is up.

“I can’t remember a time when the NHS was at such risk,” he says. Labour has put in more money and staff, productivity and activity has risen a bit, waiting times down a bit, yet waiting lists stay stubbornly high. “That’s dangerous ammunition for Nigel Farage and the Conservatives,” says Hulme, “a narrative for people who want to kill the NHS.”

Unless urgent action is taken life will be fundamentally altered for the ancient communities who live on its banks

As a leader of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world, Sheikh Nidham Kreidi al-Sabahi must use only water taken from a flowing river, even for drinking.

The 68-year-old has a long grey beard hanging over his simple tan robe and a white cap covering his equally long hair, which sheikhs are forbidden from cutting. He says he has never got ill from drinking water from the Tigris River and believes that as long as the water is flowing, it is clean. But the truth is that soon it may not be flowing at all.

A ruby-red, melt-in-the-mouth delight and an ice-cream encased in chocolate and marsala-drenched panettone – both to make ahead of time

While strictly speaking this is a zuccotto – that is, a dome-shaped cake filled with ice-cream and enrobed in chocolate – I take disproportionate pleasure in the fact that it looks very much like a Christmas pudding. Even more delightful is the knowledge that it can be made weeks ahead of time, and whisked out of the freezer and brought to the table as needed. There’s allo a wibbly-wobbly jelly with a soft melt-in-your-mouth set, rather than the more solid, gelatinous variety I so strongly associate with childhood tea parties. Plus, it has sparkling booze in it, which, of course, makes the whole thing feel very grown-up.

Ten years after I first followed the proposed route, I retraced my steps to see what life was like along the world’s most expensive, heavily delayed railway line

Ten years ago, I walked the route of HS2, the 140-mile railway proposed to run from London to Birmingham, to discover what lay in its path. Nothing had actually been constructed of this, supposedly the first phase of a high-speed line going north. The only trace was the furtive ecological consultants mapping newts and bats and the train’s looming presence in the minds of those who lived along the route. For many, it was a Westminster vanity project, symbolising a country run against the interests of the many to line the pockets of the few. People whose homes were under threat of demolition were petitioning parliament, campaigning for more tunnels or hoping the project would collapse before their farms, paddocks and ancient woodlands were wiped out.

The line, we were told a decade ago, would be completed by 2026. Like many of the early claims about the longest railway to be built in Britain since the Victorian era, that fact no longer stands. The fast train is running – very – late. The official finish date of 2033 was recently revised upwards. “The best guess is that it will begin with a ‘4’ when you can catch a train,” one well-informed observer told me. There’s similar uncertainty about its cost, but one thing is sure: it is catastrophically over budget. When complete, HS2 will almost certainly be the most expensive railway in the world. Nearly 20 years ago, HS1, the line from the Channel tunnel to St Pancras, was completed on time and on budget for £51m per mile (£87m in today’s prices). It was criticised for being twice as expensive as a high-speed route constructed in France. HS2 may cost almost £1bn per mile.

It is hoped the institution can help foster new bonds in a fractured nation, but such optimism will be a stretch for some

It was a night at the museum like no other. As the staccato sound of firecrackers and explosions rang out across Martyr’s Square in the heart of Tripoli, for once it was not Libya’s militias battling it out for a larger stake in the country’s oil economy, but a huge firework display celebrating the reopening of one of the finest museums in the Mediterranean.

The National Museum of Libya – housing Africa’s greatest collection of classical antiquities in Tripoli’s historic Red Castle complex – had been closed for nearly 14 years due to the civil war that followed the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall. Its ceremonial reopening came at the climax of a lavish show compressing Libya’s rich history and attended by diplomats and Arab celebrities, with a full-size Italian orchestra, acrobats, dancers, arches of fire and lights projected on to the fort. It did not lack for circus drama or cost, peaking with a billowing Ottoman sailing ship arriving high above the port on wires to be greeted by an angelic-appearing Libyan woman.

Liz Kendall faces pressure from campaigners as she tells parliament there is no clear consensus on issue

A campaign fronted by popstars including Elton John and Dua Lipa to protect artists’ works from being mined to train AI models without consent has received a boost after almost every respondent to a government consultation backed their case.

Ninety-five per cent of the more than 10,000 people who had their say over how music, novels, films and other works should be protected from copyright infringements by tech companies called for copyright to be strengthened and a requirement for licensing in all cases or no change to copyright law.

Our cultural aversion to superficial answers leaves ‘Wie geht’s?’ sounding like a trick question. Perhaps it is time to let our guard down

In the early autumn, over pizza and wine, I had a conversation with a dear friend. He’s Turkish. We were in Ayvalık, a small town on Turkey’s Aegean coast, talking about cultural imprints, when he suddenly paused and looked at me. “You know what?” he said. “Whenever I ask you how you are, you never really answer. You go into a meta space immediately – talking about politics or about bigger things that worry you – but you never say how you actually are.”

I’ve been thinking about his observation ever since, debating in my mind whether it was true – and I’ve recently reached the conclusion that, unfortunately, he was right.

Carolin Würfel is a writer, screenwriter and journalist who lives in Berlin and Istanbul. She is the author of Three Women Dreamed of Socialism

First new treatments for sexually transmitted disease in decades approved by US Food and Drug Administration as number of cases worldwide surge to 82m

The first new treatments for gonorrhoea in decades could be a “huge turning point” in efforts to combat the rise of superbug strains of the bacteria, researchers have said.

Gonorrhoea is on the rise around the world, with more than 82m infections globally each year and particularly high rates in Africa and countries in the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region, which reaches from Mongolia and China to New Zealand. Cases in England are at a record high, and rates in Europe were three times higher in 2023 than in 2014.

A game of solitaire accompanied by a nasty note, dog food for someone who just lost a puppy … Secret Santa is supposed to be fun, but when it’s not, it can lead to all kinds of trouble

Susanna Beves was a young teacher working at an international school in Germany when she opened a gift that would put her off Secret Santas for ever. The present itself, a solitaire game, “would have been quite nice in the normal circumstances,” she says. But it was accompanied by a note: “It told me that it had been chosen for me because I was single and lonely and likely to remain so, as I had no friends.”

“It was the most awful thing,” Beves, now 57, remembers. When she opened the gift, in a room full of 60 staff members, “I just wanted to cry,” she says. “Everybody was there and everybody was opening their gifts. So I knew that the person who’d written that note was in the room with me.”

Hampstead theatre, London
The actor gives a skilful performance in the late playwright’s 1995 meditation on love and literary posterity, directed by Jonathan Kent

A fortnight after West End playhouses dimmed their lights in tribute to Sir Tom Stoppard, Hampstead theatre’s stage lights rise on a revival of his 1995 play Indian Ink, originally intended to mark 30 years since the play’s premiere.

The first production after a playwright’s death is always poignant but, in this case, it is startlingly so: Indian Ink concerns literary posterity. About Flora Crewe, an Edwardian poet who travelled to India, critics get most things wrong, a crassness represented by Eldon Pike, an American academic, editing Crewe’s correspondence and planning a biography that Stoppard makes clear will be disastrously false and gossipy. (He was much luckier with Hermione Lee.)

• Liverpool great understood to be recovering well

• Club thank hospital for giving ‘the best care possible’

Ian Rush has been released from hospital having spent two days in intensive care last week with flu.

The former Liverpool and Wales striker was admitted to the Countess of Chester hospital with breathing difficulties and taken into intensive care. He responded to treatment and was able to go home on Monday, and is understood to be recovering well.

• ‘We have talent at the back,’ says head coach

• United took lead three times in draw with Bournemouth

Ruben Amorim insisted he does not need to strengthen Manchester United’s defence despite ­conceding four goals in a frantic draw with Bournemouth.

A breathtaking contest had United take the lead three times and featured three late second-half goals from minutes 77 to 84 starting with Bruno Fernandes’s free-kick. This made it 3-3 after United first went ahead just before the quarter-hour through Amad Diallo.

Police investigating claims Sajid and Naveed Akram received ‘training’ overseas before Sunday’s attack

• Full report: Bondi terror attack

• Victims of Bondi beach shooting

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

• Follow the latest live updates

The father and son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack appear to have been inspired by Islamic State, the Australian prime minister says, as police confirmed they were investigating why the pair travelled to the Philippines last month.

The New South Wales police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, on Tuesday alleged Naveed Akram, 24, and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, had recently travelled to the Philippines, which was confirmed by authorities in Manila.

US Southern Command says boats were ‘engaged in narco-trafficking’

The US military has launched a fresh round of deadly strikes on foreign vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics, killing eight people.

The US Southern Command posted footage of the strikes on social media on Monday, announcing it had hit three vessels in international waters.

President accuses corporation of ‘intentionally, maliciously and deceptively’ editing speech in Panorama broadcast

Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the BBC over its editing of a speech he made to supporters in Washington before they stormed the US Capitol in 2021, requesting up to $10bn in damages.

The US president alleged the broadcaster “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” edited his 6 January speech before the insurrection, in an episode of Panorama just over a year ago.

US president says he feels ‘so badly’ about Lai’s conviction and has spoken to the Chinese leader about it

Donald Trump has said he wants Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release Jimmy Lai as he voiced sadness over the Hong Kong media mogul’s conviction on national security charges.

“I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump told reporters on Monday, without specifying when he asked Xi.

• Veteran batter’s omission means Josh Inglis retains spot at No 7

• Travis Head to open as Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon return to side

Usman Khawaja could be facing the end of his international career after being overlooked for the third Ashes Test. Pat Cummins, who will return to captain Australia after what he called an “aggressive” rehabilitation from his back injury, has just about kept the door ajar for the opener.

Cummins is one of two changes for the hosts as they look to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in this Ashes series. Nathan Lyon makes a comeback on his former home ground, with Brendon Doggett and Michael Neser the bowlers to miss out despite the latter’s five-wicket haul in Brisbane.

Opposition claims SIR process being used to disenfranchise minority groups to benefit Narendra Modi’s government

India’s political opposition has warned that democracy is under threat amid a controversial exercise to revise the voter register across the country, which critics say will disenfranchise minority voters and entrench the power of the ruling Narendra Modi government.

An debate erupted in India’s parliament last week over the special intensive revision (SIR) process, which is taking place in nine states and three union territories, in one of the biggest revisions of the country’s electoral roll in decades.