Experienced envoy is considered best person to help guide Labour government during potentially fraught period

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The British ambassador to Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, is to be asked to stay in post as Donald Trump takes power, ahead of a complex shuffle of UK security and diplomatic jobs in the new year.

Pierce, with her deep knowledge of the Republican party, is considered to be the best person to help guide the Labour government during what could be a perilous transition from the Biden to Trump administrations.

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A lot of people say they just don’t care about ‘politics’, and I’m sure that would make for an easier life. But Kamala Harris was right: we must carry on the fight

With wailing woe in the small hours, many of you shared that wrenching despair when the US election result extinguished hope. Beyond reason, beyond reckoning, a nation that was once the beacon of the democratic world has knowingly elected a dangerous, racist demagogue, a “pussy-grabbing” criminal who tried to overthrow the government, a wild conspiracy spreader, a squalid, reckless beast of fathomless vanity and corruption. Caligula, Commodus, Nero, Domitian … This is the way a civilisation dies: by suicide not murder.

Donald Trump could now command both houses of Congress and the supreme court, with no steadying countervailing instinct for national self-preservation. “America first” means no allies, no “special relationships”, tariffs for all. Encourage Russia to “ do whatever the hell they want ”, Nato be damned. He will send in the military to force mass deportations of millions of migrants . He threatens the justice system with revenge, with protesters and opponents branded “ the enemy within ”. This democratically elected self-described “dictator” can do whatever he wants. And the tides will carry this poison across the Atlantic, invigorating Europe’s hard right from Nigel Farage to Viktor Orbán, Geert Wilders to Marine Le Pen, the Alternative für Deutschland to the Sweden Democrats.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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Experts say many don’t know what to do now that Trump can carry out vow to run biggest deportation ‘in US history’

Fear is rippling through undocumented communities across the US as Donald Trump prepares to take the White House, promising record deportations after an election campaign filled with hate speech against migrants and a first term marked by anti-immigration crackdowns.

In the final run-up to the presidential election, Areli Hernandez traveled to Phoenix to talk to voters about what mass deportations and, for many, a new form of family separation could mean for millions.

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Event has brought new drama each week, and stars such as Robbie Coltrane, to city’s West End since it began in 2004

“I couldn’t imagine it not being here,” says Diane Carroll, who has worked at the ticket desk for A Play, a Pie and a Pint at the Òran Mór in Glasgow since it opened its doors in 2004. As she assists those who are queueing for the show it becomes clear what they have come early for: a cart of fresh, steaming pies makes its way down to the venue with them.

A Play, a Pie and a Pint, a lunchtime theatre event in the historic building in the city’s West End, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

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Analysis of 19m flights between 2019 and 2023 reveals 50% rise in emissions, condemned as ‘gratuitous waste’

Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50%, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed.

The assessment tracked more than 25,000 private jets and almost 19m flights between 2019 and 2023. It found almost half the jets travelled less than 500km and 900,000 were used “like taxis” for trips of less than 50km. Many flights were for holidays, arriving in sunny locations in the summertime. The Fifa World Cup in Qatar in 2022 attracted more than 1,800 private flights.

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Pollution is affecting the climate, biodiversity, ecosystems, ocean acidification and human health, according to analysis

Plastic pollution is changing the processes of the entire Earth system, exacerbating climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and the use of freshwater and land, according to scientific analysis.

Plastic must not be treated as a waste problem alone, the authors said, but as a product that poses harm to ecosystems and human health.

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The Handmaid’s Tale has risen more than 400 places on bestseller charts since Wednesday with a similar rush for copies of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Books about democracy, dystopia, tyranny, feminism and far-right politics rapidly climbed bestseller charts in the wake of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, set in a totalitarian society in which women are forced to reproduce, moved up more than 400 places, and is currently third in the US Amazon Best Sellers chart.

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Narratives matter in economics, and we must acknowledge the circumstances the government faces and give credit where due

Given the tone and content of much of the coverage in the British press, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Labour government’s first budget in 14 years was a bust, and that is putting it nicely. Yet this is more than unfair. It obfuscates four important aspects of the budget, sidelines three lessons for the future and undermines today’s good news from the Bank of England.

In the run-up to the budget on 30 October, I was among those warning that the announcements from the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, would “ please almost no one ” and that they should not be assessed “according to their ability to meet all the demands that have been placed on them”.

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The Purple One and Orange Crunch are both lighter and now the same shape as the Caramel Swirl

First they ditched the plastic wrappers, then they introduced paper tubs . But for many, changing the shape and size of some of the nation’s favourite Quality Street chocolates was a step too far.

Nestlé announced the shape changes to the Purple One and Orange Crunch in March, but shoppers realised they were lighter too. They are both now the same shape as the Caramel Swirl.

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