• American outlasts world No 1 7-6 (4), 6-3 in Riyadh
• Zheng Qinwen beats Barbora Krejcikova in first semi

When Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka stared each other down just a month ago in Wuhan, Gauff clearly had the edge as she methodically established a set and break lead. But then, out of nowhere, her serve spectacularly crumbled. Although she fought brilliantly until the end, she was torpedoed by an astounding 21 double faults .

Having already been a presence on the tour for half a decade, it is sometimes easy to forget that, at 20 years old, Gauff is still growing, still a work in progress. Throughout this week, Gauff has shown the results of some of that progress as she arrived in Riyadh with significant adjustments in her game and she has used them to play some of the best tennis of her career. On Friday, Gauff produced a brilliant performance against Sabalenka, the world No 1, to reach the final of the WTA Finals with a spectacular 7-6 (4), 6-3 win.

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Police say plans in place to deal with rise in border crossings as US president-elect pledges to remove 11m people

• Trump says deportation plan has ‘no price tag’

Canada is bracing for a surge of migrants to its southern border after Donald Trump doubled down on his pledge to conduct the largest mass deportation in American history.

On Thursday, Trump told NBC News there was “no choice” but to proceed in removing some of the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the United States.

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Gregor Bauld, 23, cleared of murder but admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility

A schizophrenic man who killed his mother outside their family home has been jailed for life, subject to a hospital order.

Gregor Bauld, who was 22 when he killed Christine Bauld, had delusions that his mother was the leader of a war tribe, the court heard.

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The gender gap among young people was predictably vast. But the numbers still defied expectations, as the political scientist Melissa Deckman explains

• A masculinity researcher on the Democrats’ ‘fatal miscalculation’

Long before voting closed in the 2024 elections, pundits predicted that young Americans would be riven by a canyon-wide gender gap. Those predictions turned out to be correct.

As a whole, Kamala Harris won voters between the ages of 18 and 29 by six points. But preliminary exit polling indicates that Donald Trump opened up a 16-point gender gap between young men and young women: 56% of men between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Trump while just 40% of their female peers did so.

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Campaign raises £5m in just a few weeks as community, local businesses and celebrities rally round

A Liverpool baby hospice has been saved after the city helped raise vital funds for a new home.

Zoe’s Place , a charity that cares for children with life-limiting conditions from birth to the age of five, was founded in Liverpool in 1995 by Prof Jack Scarisbrick. The name was chosen because Zoe means “gift of life” in Greek. The charity needed to raise £5m in a matter of weeks to find a new building to call home, while an extra £1.4m was needed to help the hospice stay open in the meantime.

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House of Commons and the speaker decline to comment on claim made by Reform UK leader at rally in Wales

Donald Trump has been invited to address the UK parliament next year, Nigel Farage has claimed, saying Britain must “roll out the red carpet” for the US president-elect.

The Reform UK leader said Lindsay Hoyle was an improvement on the previous Commons speaker, John Bercow, because he had already invited Trump to parliament next year. Farage told his Reform party’s Welsh rally: “I do think having Sir Lindsay Hoyle there as the speaker compared to that ghastly little pipsqueak Bercow that went before is an improvement.

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Force refers itself after two women complained about handling of inquiries into allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed

Scotland Yard has referred itself to the police watchdog over complaints from two women about the handling of investigations into allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed first made in 2008 and 2013.

According to the Metropolitan police, it has raised concerns about the quality of police response and, in the case of the 2013 investigation, how details came to be disclosed publicly.

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Yechiel Leiter, a rightwing publicist and government aide, is also a longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank

Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a hardline supporter of the war in Gaza and longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank as his ambassador to the US as Israel prepares for the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

Yechiel Leiter, an American-born rightwing publicist and former government aide who immigrated to Israel four decades ago, was announced as Israel’s next ambassador to Washington on Friday. His son, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces, was killed in fighting in northern Gaza last year.

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Jack Smith is ending his prosecution of Trump over efforts to overturn 2020 election and classified documents retention

• US elections 2024 – live updates

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump ’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election agreed to pause all proceedings in the prosecution on Friday, as special counsel prosecutors prepared to shut down the case following Trump’s election victory.

In a brief, one-page filing , prosecutors asked the presiding US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, to “vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward”.

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