Worried about winter? 10 ways to thrive – from socialising to Sad lamps to celebrating the new year in April

The temptation is to sit at home and hibernate, but beating the winter blues can be done. Here’s how to embrace the coldest and arguably most beautiful season

Stephanie Fitzgerald, a chartered clinical psychologist, used to dread winter. Like many, she coped by keeping busy at work and hibernating at home, waiting for the cold, dark days to be over. But this approach wasn’t making her happy. So she sought out the science that would help her embrace the winter months, rather than try to escape them. In her resulting book, The Gifts of Winter, she writes: “I fell deeply in love with winter … It is a captivating and truly gorgeous season.”

How did she change her mindset – and can the 42% of us who say summer is our favourite season learn to love winter too?

Published: December 17, 2025, 5:00 am

We’re sunk when it comes to getting a Swim! refund

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.

Published: December 16, 2025, 7:00 am

Hackers access Pornhub’s premium users’ viewing habits and search history

ShinyHunters group reportedly behind the hack affecting data of 200m users thought to be from before 2021

Hackers have accessed the search history and viewing habits of premium users of Pornhub, one of the world’s most popular pornography websites.

A gang has reportedly accessed more than 200m data records, including premium members’ email addresses, search and viewing activities and locations. Pornhub is a heavily used site and says it has more than 100m daily visits globally.

Published: December 17, 2025, 1:16 pm

How to use the holidays to stop our ‘WhatsApp aunties’ falling for AI

Family members can be sweet and relentless but how can we aid our relatives in the age of new tech and device addiction

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I don’t want to sound dramatic but, a few weeks ago, something happened that has completely changed how I view online material. I fell for AI-generated content. For someone who is constantly squabbling with older relatives about how little they question what they see online, this was a profoundly unsettling and humbling experience. And it made me think about how, during this holiday period, we could all use this as an opportunity to approach those conversations with the “WhatsApp aunties” more sensitively.

From ‘WhatsApp Aunties’ to ‘AI Aunties’

Published: December 17, 2025, 1:02 pm

Ghost jobs, robot gatekeepers and AI interviewers: let me tell you about the bleak new age of job hunting | Eleanor Margolis

In my six months of looking for work, I’ve found that from fake ads to AI screening software, the search is more soul-destroying than ever

As I apply for yet another job, I look at the company’s website for context. I’ve now read their “what we do” section four or five times, and I have a problem – I can’t figure out what they do. There are two possibilities here. One: they don’t know what they do. Two: what they do is so pointless and embarrassing that they dare not spell it out in plain English. “We forge marketing systems at the forefront of the online wellness space” translates to something like “we use ChatGPT to sell dodgy supplements”.

But understanding what so many businesses actually do is the least of my worries. I’m currently among the 5% of Brits who are unemployed. In my six months of job hunting, my total lack of success has begun to make me question my own existence. Just like when you repeat a word over and over until it loses all meaning, when you apply repeatedly for jobs in a similar field, the semantics of the entire situation begin to fall apart like a snotty tissue. About one in five of my job applications elicit a rejection email, usually bemoaning the sheer number of “quality applicants” for the position. For the most part, though – nothing. It’s almost like the job never existed in the first place, and it’s possible that it didn’t.

Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva

Published: December 17, 2025, 11:00 am

Amazon in talks to invest $10bn in developer of ChatGPT

OpenAI seeking to strike latest deal in its efforts to pay for huge spending on datacentres

• Business live – latest updates

Amazon is in talks to invest more than $10bn (£7.5bn) in OpenAI, in the latest funding deal being struck by the startup behind ChatGPT.

If it goes ahead, the market valuation of OpenAI could rise above $500bn, according to The Information, a tech news site that revealed the negotiations.

Published: December 17, 2025, 12:17 pm

UK insists US tech deal not dead as Trump threatens penalties against European firms

Keir Starmer’s office claims UK still in ‘active conversations’ about deal for tech industries in both countries to cooperate

Downing Street insists the $40bn Tech Prosperity Deal between the US and UK that is on hold is not permanently stalled. The BBC reported on Tuesday evening that the prime minister’s office claimed that the UK remains in “active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government” about the wide-ranging deal for the technology industries in both countries to cooperate.

The agreement, previously billed as historic, was paused after the US accused the UK of failing to lower trade barriers, including a digital services tax on US tech companies and food safety rules that limit the export of some agricultural products. The New York Times first reported British confirmation that negotiations had stalled.

Published: December 16, 2025, 11:20 pm

Boost for artists in AI copyright battle as only 3% back UK active opt-out plan

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.

Published: December 16, 2025, 5:00 am

The best LED face masks in the UK, tested: 10 light therapy devices that are worth the hype

They claim to fix fine lines, blemishes and redness – but which stand up to scrutiny? We asked dermatologists and put them to the test to find out

• The best anti-ageing creams, serums and treatments

LED face masks are booming in popularity – despite being one of the most expensive at-home beauty products ever to hit the market. Many masks are available, each claiming to either reduce the appearance of fine lines, stop spots or calm redness. Some even combine different types of light to enhance the benefits.

But it’s wise to be sceptical about new treatments that are costly and non-invasive, and to do your research before you buy. With this in mind, I spoke with doctors and dermatologists to find out whether these light therapy devices actually work.

Best LED face mask overall:
CurrentBody Series 2

Best budget LED face mask:
Silk’n LED face mask 100

Published: December 17, 2025, 3:09 pm

‘Music needs a human component to be of any value’: Guardian readers on the growing use of AI in music

AI promises to have far-reaching effects in music-making. While some welcome it as a compositional tool, many have deep concerns. Here are some of your responses

AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms, and it seems to be here to stay. Last month, three AI songs reached the highest spots on Spotify and Billboard charts. Jorja Smith’s label has called for her to receive a share of royalties from a song thought to have trained its original AI-generated vocals on her catalogue, which were later re-recorded by a human singer.

With this in mind, we asked for your thoughts on music composed by AI, the use of AI as a tool in the creation of music, and what should be done to protect musicians. Here are some of your responses.

Published: December 17, 2025, 11:00 am

Musicians are deeply concerned about AI. So why are the major labels embracing it?

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.

Published: December 16, 2025, 10:00 am

Inside Fallout, gaming’s most surprising TV hit

With ​a blend of retro-futurism, moral ambiguity and monster-filled wastelands, Fallout became an unlikely prestige television favourite. Now there is something a bigger, stranger and funnier journey ahead

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The Fallout TV series returns to Prime Video today, and it’s fair to say that everyone was pleasantly surprised by how good the first season was. By portraying Fallout’s retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic US through three different characters, it managed to capture different aspects of the game player’s experience, too. There was vault-dweller Lucy, trying to do the right thing and finding that the wasteland made that very difficult; Max, the Brotherhood of Steel rookie, who starts to question his cult’s authority and causes a lot of havoc in robotic power armour; and the Ghoul, Walton Goggins’s breakout character, who has long since lost any sense of morality out in the irradiated wilderness.

The show’s first season ended with a revelation about who helped cause the nuclear war that trapped a group of people in underground vaults for a couple of centuries. It also left plenty of questions open for the second season – and, this time, expectations are higher. Even being “not terrible” was a win for a video game adaptation until quite recently. How are the Fallout TV show’s creators feeling now that the first season has been a success?

Published: December 17, 2025, 3:00 pm

Simogo Legacy Collection review – remember when phone games were this wonderful?

PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2; Simogo
A suite of iOS classics is lovingly preserved in this collection from the Swedish developer, early standard-setters of the meaningful smartphone game

Fifteen years ago in Malmö, Sweden, animator Simon Flesser and programmer Magnus “Gordon” Gardebäck left their jobs at the now-defunct games studio Southend Interactive to strike out on their own. Tired of the fussy nature of console development, the pair would stake their claim on Apple’s App Store, which in 2010 was regarded as one of the most exciting frontiers in games. Mashing their names together to form a portmanteau, Flesser and Gardebäck became Simogo, and a consistently wonderful and forward-thinking games studios was born.

Simogo Legacy Collection represents the Swedish indie studio’s first seven games, released across its first five years. Originally released for iPhone and iPad from 2010 to 2015, Apple’s constantly changing standards meant that Simogo, like all iOS developers, had to either regularly update their games to comply with the latest specifications, or see their games rendered unplayable. The only solutions are either to perpetually issue updates, or find a way to bring the mobile game experience to other platforms.

Published: December 17, 2025, 11:52 am

Beachy Head Woman may be ‘local girl from Eastbourne’, say scientists

Exclusive: DNA advances show Roman-era skeleton, once hailed as first black Briton, came from southern England

Beachy Head Woman, a Roman-era skeleton once hailed as the earliest known black Briton and who scientists later speculated could be of Cypriot descent, has now been shown to have originated from southern England.

The mystery of the skeleton’s shifting identity was finally resolved after advances in DNA sequencing produced a high-quality genetic readout from the remains.

Published: December 17, 2025, 10:14 am

MIT grieves shooting death of renowned director of plasma science center

Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, was shot multiple times at his home, and no details about a suspect or motive have been released

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) community is grieving after the “shocking” shooting death of the director of its plasma science and fusion center, according to officials.

Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, had been shot multiple times at his home in Brookline on Monday night when police said they received a call to investigate. Emergency responders brought Loureiro to a hospital, and the award-winning scientist was pronounced dead there Tuesday morning, the Norfolk county district attorney’s office said in a statement.

Published: December 17, 2025, 7:00 am

Plantwatch: Pitcher plant’s sweet nectar is laced with toxic nerve agent

Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing liquid on the rim of its pitchers that tempts its prey into a deadly trap

A carnivorous pitcher plant has recently been found to use a chemical nerve agent to drug its prey and lead them to a deadly end, being consumed in digestive juices at the bottom of the pitcher traps.

The pitcher plant Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing sweet nectar on the rim of its pitchers for visiting insects, particularly ants, to feed on to lure them into the trap. But the nectar is laced with a toxic nerve agent called isoshinanolone, which strikes at the ant’s nervous system, leaving it with sluggish movements, weakened muscles, and causing it to groom itself excessively. Eventually the prey falls upside down in spasms, with the nerve agent sometimes killing it outright. But apart from isoshinanolone, the nectar also contains three types of sugars that can all absorb water and make the rim of the pitcher especially slippery, so the prey is more likely to slide down into the pitchers.

Published: December 17, 2025, 6:00 am

New antibiotics hailed as ‘turning point’ in treating drug-resistant gonorrhoea

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.

Published: December 16, 2025, 5:00 am

What’s worse for us, sugar or sweeteners? – podcast

We all know eating too much sugar is bad for our health – but would we be better off replacing it with artificial sweetener? It’s a question Science Weekly listener Marion posed recently and, as Madeleine Finlay tells Ian Sample, the answer is complicated. She explains what the science says about sugar v sweeteners with the help of Prof Havovi Chichger, from Anglia Ruskin University, and Prof Jim Krieger, from the University of Washington’s school of public health

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Published: December 16, 2025, 5:00 am

The Divided Mind by Edward Bullmore review – do we now know what causes schizophrenia?

A brilliant history of psychiatric ideas suggests we are on the cusp of a transformation in our understanding of severe mental illness

In 1973, an American psychologist called David Rosenhan published the results of a bold experiment. He’d arranged for eight “pseudo-patients” to attend appointments at psychiatric institutions, where they complained to doctors about hearing voices that said “empty”, “hollow” and “thud”. All were admitted, diagnosed with either schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis. They immediately stopped displaying any “symptoms” and started saying they felt fine. The first got out after seven days; the last after 52.

Told of these findings, psychiatrists at a major teaching hospital found it hard to believe that they’d make the same mistake, so Rosenhan devised another experiment: over the next three months, he informed them, one or more pseudopatients would go undercover and, at the end, staff would be asked to decide who had been faking it. Of 193 patients admitted, 20% were deemed suspicious. It was then that Rosenhan revealed this had been a ruse as well: no pseudopatients had been sent to the hospital at all. Not only had doctors failed to spot sane people in their midst; they couldn’t reliably recognise the actually insane.

Published: December 17, 2025, 7:00 am

New flu strain putting severe pressure on healthcare across Europe, says WHO

At least 27 of 38 countries in WHO’s European region are reporting high or very high influenza activity, body says

• Europe live – latest updates

An intense surge in flu cases driven by a newly dominant virus strain is sweeping across Europe, placing healthcare systems in several countries under severe pressure, the World Health Organization has said.

The WHO said on Wednesday that at least 27 of the 38 countries in its European region were reporting “high or very high influenza activity”, with more than half of patients with flu-like symptoms testing positive in six countries including Ireland, Serbia, Slovenia and the UK.

Published: December 17, 2025, 12:38 pm

Study finds 10% of over-70s in UK could have Alzheimer’s-like changes in brain

Findings mean more than 1 million people could meet NHS criteria for treatment with anti-amyloid drugs

One in 10 people in the UK aged 70 and older could have Alzheimer’s-like changes in their brain, according to the clearest, real-world picture of how common the disease’s brain changes are in ordinary, older people.

The detection of the proteins linked with the disease is not a diagnosis. But the findings indicate that more than 1 million over-70s would meet Nice’s clinical criteria for anti-amyloid therapy – a stark contrast to the 70,000 people the NHS has estimated could be eligible if funding were available.

Published: December 17, 2025, 4:00 pm

Tuesday briefing: What polar bear DNA tells us about a warming Arctic

In today’s newsletter: As species across the world struggle to keep pace with global warming, ​how ​do we report the rare glimmers of hope without downplaying the accelerating ecological ​crisis?

Good morning. Amid the constant drumbeat of bleak news about the planet’s environment and the accelerating climate emergency, the occasional bright spot still emerges. One example came last week, when researchers published the first statistical evidence that polar bears are changing their DNA in response to a warming Arctic.

But is it really good news that human activity – the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of habitats – is forcing animals to alter their genetic makeup? The picture, as ever, is complicated.

Donald Trump | 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 at least $5bn in damages.

Australia | Australia’s national security agency Asio investigated one of the alleged Bondi shooters in 2019 over potential extremist links but decided he was not “a person of interest”, prime minister Anthony Albanese has revealed, despite two of the man’s associates being jailed.

International trade | The US has paused its promised multi-billion-pound investment into British tech over trade disagreements, marking a serious setback in US-UK relations.

Health | Resident doctors in England will go on strike as planned this Wednesday for five days, after they voted to reject the government’s latest offer to end the long running pay and jobs dispute.

Ukraine | Europe is ready to lead a “multinational force” in Ukraine as part of a US proposal for a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, European leaders have said.

Published: December 16, 2025, 6:50 am