European progressives must tackle housing crisis to beat far right, say researchers
Housing costs in major EU cities increased by about 50% between 2015 and 2023 alone. View image in fullscreen Renters’ protest banners in Berlin in 2024 proclaim ‘Don’t displace us’ and ‘Affordable housing for all’. “Our research shows that, after the mid-1990s, Social Democratic control of local councils simply no longer translated into more social housing,” Vinæs Larsen said. “The political effort to expand social housing effectively disappeared.”This, he said, reflected changes in “who mostly lives in social housing, and who votes Social Democrat”. But he also cited possible solutions, such as higher social housing rents – as long as they are still cheaper than private ones.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 09:10 UTC
Odermatt wins super-G at Copper Mountain as Kilde’s return leaves Shiffrin in tears
Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt started the World Cup super-G season with a Thanksgiving win at Copper Mountain on Thursday, while Aleksander Aamodt Kilde reduced fiancée Mikaela Shiffrin to tears by making his comeback after nearly two years out. It denied Austria a clean sweep, with Raphael Haaser a further 0.05 back in third and Stefan Babinsky in finishing fourth. Odermatt, the defending overall champion, has won the crystal globe for the season-long title in super-G for the past three years. She later took a photo of Kilde with Odermatt, who was congratulating the Norwegian on his return to competition. It was a 47th World Cup victory for Odermatt, and his 16th in super-G.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 21:38 UTC
Pope Leo warns of risk from ‘piecemeal’ world war in first overseas trip
A new world war is being fought “piecemeal” and is endangering the future of humanity, Pope Leo has warned, as he arrived in Turkey for his first foreign trip since becoming head of the Catholic church. Recalling a description of the world’s conflicts by his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, Leo said “a third world war is being fought piecemeal”. View image in fullscreen The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pope Leo attend a welcoming ceremony in Ankara on Thursday. View image in fullscreen Pope Leo attending a wreath-laying ceremony at Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara. View image in fullscreen Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Turkey’s culture and tourism minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, after disembarking from his plane in Ankara.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 21:30 UTC
Field of Dreams-like shrine to cricket built ‘from bud to bat’ – photo essay
View image in fullscreen Above: Newstead and Hepburn meet in a Castlemaine & District Cricket Association match at the self-made ground at Cricket Willow. Cricket Willow was opened in 1999, in time for Ian’s 50th birthday, and has been filling up with miscellaneous – mostly cricketing – items ever since. “They host functions here and, with all the history, I really don’t know whether there’d be anything else like it.”Will Cricket Willow bat on? View image in fullscreen Ian Tinetti stands with a bat at Cricket Willow in Shepherds Flat. These days, the families are fracturing as young people move away, and the conversation turns to the fate of Cricket Willow.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 17:54 UTC
Gopichand Hinduja
Gopichand Hinduja, listed at his death aged 85 as the richest man in Britain, was one of four brothers who took their father’s Indo-Iranian trading business and turned it into a vast international conglomerate. Gopichand worked closely with SP, head of the family until his death in 2023, when Gopichand took over as chair. View image in fullscreen Gopichand, left, Prakash, centre, and Srichand Hinduja outside a court in New Delhi in 2001, after a hearing on the ‘Bofors affair’. Born in India, Gopichand was in fact the third of five sons of Parmanand Hinduja and his wife, Jamuna – Girdhar, the eldest, died in 1963. More outgoing than the publicity-shy SP, Gopichand was happy to front for the company.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 02:05 UTC
Study claims to provide first direct evidence of dark matter
Nearly a century ago, scientists proposed that a mysterious invisible substance they named dark matter clumped around galaxies and formed a cosmic web across the universe. What dark matter is made from, and whether it is even real, are still open questions, but according to a study, the first direct evidence of the substance may finally have been glimpsed. Scientists have searched for dark matter particles ever since, but so far ground-based detectors, space-based telescopes and vast machines such as the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have drawn a blank. To search for potential dark matter signals, Totani analysed data from Nasa’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which detects the most energetic photons in the electromagnetic spectrum. The signal “closely matches the properties of gamma-ray radiation predicted to be emitted by dark matter,” Totani told the Guardian.
Source:The Guardian
November 26, 2025 18:31 UTC
World Cup 2026 draw to adopt tennis-style system for the four top seeds
Spain, Argentina, France and England – the top four in descending order – are to be split into different brackets in the 48-team finals tournament, with the aim of preventing Spain from facing Argentina, or England from playing France, before a possible final. The seedings leave England and France in line each to play one of Spain and Argentina in the semi‑finals. Fifa said the pathways would be drawn randomly, meaning it would not necessarily be Spain (No 1) v France (No 3) and Argentina v England. after newsletter promotionQuick Guide The four pots for the World Cup draw Show Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, US, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany. One day after the draw, on 6 December, Fifa will announce the match schedule for the finals tournament.
Source:The Guardian
November 26, 2025 17:46 UTC
Cyril Ramaphosa closes G20 summit after US boycott and handover row
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, closed the G20 summit in Johannesburg by banging a gavel, having rejected a US proposal for him to hand over to a relatively junior embassy official for the next summit in Florida in a year’s time. South Africa presented the two-day event as a triumph for multilateralism but it was marred by a boycott by the US, which has repeatedly accused South Africa of discriminating against white-minority Afrikaners, a claim that has been widely discredited. South Africa had offered to arrange for an equivalent “junior” diplomat to formally hand the G20 presidency to the US at the foreign ministry. South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, told reporters: “From us, the ball has moved. Putin is wanted by the international criminal court, to which South Africa is a signatory.
Source:The Guardian
November 24, 2025 06:24 UTC
Penny Wong says Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be upheld amid global backlash to Trump plan
Foreign minister Penny Wong has warned any peace plan for Ukraine must not hand new territory to Vladimir Putin, amid furious international backlash to Donald Trump’s proposal. The US president’s plan prompted a furious response from Ukrainians at the weekend, before the country’s European allies released an alternative plan during talks in Geneva. That plan omits some of the pro-Russia provisions included in the original, US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected. On Monday, Wong echoed that call and said a resolution to the nearly four-year war was needed. It also rules out a European peacekeeping force and sanctions for Russian war crimes.
Source:The Guardian
November 24, 2025 06:06 UTC
Ukraine war briefing: Russian drones kill four in Kharkiv as officials discuss proposal to end war
A Russian drone strike on the major Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed four people and wounded 17 on Sunday, its mayor said. Four people have died,” Igor Terekhov said, reporting the evening strike in a message on Telegram. The attack came as US, Ukrainian and European officials were in Geneva to discuss a proposal to end the nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine. The emergency services said the drone strike on two districts of Kharkiv had caused fires and the destruction of buildings. US secretary of state Marco Rubio said high-stakes talks in Geneva were “very worthwhile” and constituted the most productive day in “a very long time”.
Source:The Guardian
November 24, 2025 03:23 UTC
Ukraine war briefing: Macron says without deterrence in Ukraine plan, ‘Russians will come back’
Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that Russia would “betray” its promise and “come back” if Ukraine was forced to reduce its army, as proposed under Donald Trump’s plan. He also said any plan “requires broader consultation” and had to allow for peace for Ukrainians and “security for all Europeans”. US senators critical of the plan said Saturday that US secretary of state Marco Rubio told them the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians. Ukrainian and American officials will meet in Switzerland on Sunday for talks to discuss the plan, after Washington sent Kyiv the plan. “If Ukraine loses this war and possibly collapses, it will have an impact on European politics as a whole, on the entire European continent.
Source:The Guardian
November 23, 2025 12:36 UTC
‘Horribly wrong’: US veterans condemn Trump’s politicization of military
“I think the American people should say, ‘Wait, what, who’s looking out for the service members here?’ Not the Dems. What is unusual now is the heightened anxiety among service members who normally operate without questioning the legality of typical orders. Facing a questionable order, a service member’s first responsibility is to get clarification from their chain of command, she said. Kevin Courtney, an attorney with the Military Law Center and a former Marine captain, warns that the current political discourse around unlawful orders puts junior service members in a dangerous position. “The reason the public honors veterans and service members so highly and puts them in high regard is because they represent all of America.
Source:The Guardian
November 23, 2025 12:31 UTC
Trump blasts Ukraine for ‘zero gratitude’ as Germany says deal to end war unlikely to be reached by Thursday deadline – as it happened
From 3h ago 14.36 GMT Trump says Ukraine's 'leadership' has expressed 'zero gratitude' In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president Donald Trump said the Ukrainian “leadership” has “expressed zero gratitude” for US efforts to bring an end to Russia’s war. Ukraine “leadership” has expressed zero gratitude for our efforts, and Europe continues to buy oil from Russia. The Ukrainian president wrote: There is an understanding that the American proposals may include a number of elements based on Ukrainian perspectives and critical for Ukrainian national interests. Share3h ago 14.26 GMT Germany 'sceptical' a deal to end war in Ukraine can be reached by Thursday German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said he is “sceptical” a deal on Ukraine can be reached by Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline. View image in fullscreen German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is “sceptical” a deal on Ukraine can be reached by Thursday.
Source:The Guardian
November 23, 2025 12:10 UTC
Four ways AI is being used to strengthen democracies worldwide | Nathan E Sanders and Bruce Schneier
His new party, Team Mirai, is also an AI-enabled civic technology shop, producing software aimed at making governance better and more participatory. This is not AI replacing human journalists; it is a civic watchdog organization using technology to feed evidence-based insights to human reporters. Switzerland has recently released the world’s most powerful and fully realized public AI model. AI technology is not without its costs and risks, and we are not here to minimize them. Bruce: There is a real chance that AI technology will distribute power.
Source:The Guardian
November 23, 2025 12:04 UTC
‘The public has been lied to’: secretly made documentary insists that aliens exist
But there’s a reason why Farah gravitated towards Elizondo (who also serves as an executive producer on the film). “None of them would ever want to participate in a big commercial documentary,” Farah explained. “But that begins to ramp out of control,” he notes, leading to a lack of transparency that might give US adversaries a head start by analyzing UAP technology. The geopolitical arms race to reverse engineer UAP technology is, what Farah came to see, one of the biggest reasons behind the alleged cover-up. He says this race escalated when the US found out that other countries, like Russia, were capturing and retrieving UAP technology.
Source:The Guardian
November 23, 2025 12:04 UTC