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It is time to roll out the red carpet in recognition of those that worked hard to keep customers at arm's lengthWhen the year began, I was a listening ear to Your Problems, my column for the Observer. Now I'm a Guardian consumer champion. Reinvention is always bracing. My old life was spent wrestling airlines, insurance firms and energy providers intent on plundering readers' piggy banks. My new life? Wrestling airlines, insurance firms and energy providers intent on plundering readers' piggy banks.It is a comfort in this era of seismic shifts to know some things remain constant. You can bank on energy firms to chill your marrow with billing psychodramas and phantom accounts. Meanwhile, certainty is still the business model of insurers: many would say you can be certain that if you damage your car, or yourself, your provider will look for a reason to stall over your claim. Continue reading......

Fed-up fans are questioning additional 'restoration' costs for new stadiums as well as a lack of transparencyGig-goers who bought tickets for Gorillaz at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June next year have been refunded some of their booking fee by the ticket seller Gigantic after the Guardian queried the pricing.A reader contacted us asking why he had been charged a £1 “restoration fee” for a concert at the £850m stadium in north London. The Gigantic website also listed the same fee for the recently built Co-op Live arena in Manchester. Continue reading......

With the snow line edging higher, 186 French ski resorts have shut, while global heating threatens dozens moreWhen Céüze 2000 ski resort closed at the end of the season in 2018, the workers assumed they would be back the following winter. Maps of the pistes were left stacked beside a stapler; the staff rota pinned to the wall.Six years on, a yellowing newspaper dated 8 March 2018 sits folded on its side, as if someone has just flicked through it during a quiet spell. A half-drunk bottle of water remains on the table. Continue reading......

Knight Frank says shopping centres and food stores lead revival as retail outperforms other commercial propertyShoppers shun UK high streets despite lure of Boxing Day salesUK retailers are investing more in bricks and mortar, with shopping centres and food stores leading a revival, according to research.Retailers and property investors are reallocating capital back into physical stores, according to the property group Knight Frank. Continue reading......

In an exclusive interview, the head of the TUC says a customs union with the EU could boost the UK's economyKeir Starmer should seek out a far closer relationship with Europe, including a possible customs union, the head of the TUC has said.Paul Nowak, TUC general secretary, said the British public recognised the need for a vastly improved trading arrangement and said it had become more urgent than ever because of the fickle nature of the relationship with Donald Trump's United States. Continue reading......

Consumer group Which? finds one in five people are unsure what to do with dud gifts after the festive periodMarmite-scented deodorant and already-worn pyjamas have topped the list of the most disappointing Christmas presents, according to research that found one in five Britons have received an unwanted gift in their festive haul.More than 2,000 members of the public were polled by the consumer group Which? in January about the gifts they received last Christmas, with 21% of those surveyed saying they had been given an unwanted or unsuitable present. Continue reading......

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justiceThe record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June's heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today's extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Contin...

If appeal fails, every person in the UK who made App Store purchases between 2015 and 2024 could be entitled to compensationApple is seeking to overturn a landmark £1.5bn court ruling on behalf of millions of UK customers, which found the company overcharged them for years in its App Store.The iPhone maker has applied to the court of appeal to challenge a verdict that campaigners heralded as the start of a “tidal shift against big tech”. Continue reading......

Najib found guilty of abuse of power over multibillion-dollar state funds scandal and adds to six-year prison term he is already servingJailed former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has been sentenced to an additional 15 years after he was found guilty of abuse of power, in the biggest trial yet in the multibillion-dollar fraud scandal related to state fund 1MDB.Najib's conviction substantially increases the six-year prison term he is already serving for a separate case related to the 1MDB graft scandal, one of the world's biggest financial frauds, which saw billions plundered from the now defunct sovereign wealth fund. Continue reading......

Footfall in central London down 7.7% on last year but Britain's retail parks buck trend with 6.9% riseFewer shoppers have headed to UK high streets in search of Boxing Day bargains, with central London suffering a significant decline in visitors as many decided to shun the traditional start of the sales.Footfall at the country's high streets and shopping centres fell on Friday morning, running slightly behind last year, according to figures from the monitoring company MRI Software. Across all UK retail destinations footfall slipped 0.3%. Continue reading......

The $10bn Trump-approved sale to Taipei triggers Beijing sanctions against firms such as Boeing and Northrop GrummanChina's foreign ministry has hit US defence companies, including Boeing, with sanctions after Donald Trump approved a large package of arms sales to Taiwan.The ministry said on Friday that the measures – against 10 individuals and 20 US firms including Boeing's production hub at St Louis in Missouri – freeze any assets the companies and individuals hold in China and bar domestic organisations and individuals from doing business with them. Continue reading......

Exclusive: Imran Ahmed says US companies are 'corrupting the system' of politics by seeking to avoid accountabilityA British anti-disinformation campaigner told by the Trump administration that he faces possible removal from the US has said he is being targeted by arrogant and “sociopathic” tech companies for trying to hold them to account.Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), is among five European nationals barred from the US by the state department after being accused of seeking to push tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints. Continue reading......

Many victims and families advising inquiry's legacy project are highly suspicious of idea of Postal Museum exhibitionVictims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have dismissed a planned exhibition on the affair at the Postal Museum as a PR stunt that they are refusing to endorse.The inquiry into the wrongful convictions of hundreds of post office operators announced in September that it was working with the Postal Museum as part of a legacy project to commemorate the devastating impact of the scandal. Continue reading......

Elon Musk's net worth increased by nearly 50% to $645bn with founders of Google and Amazon also seeing huge wealth gainsA stock market boom in artificial intelligence companies has added more than half a trillion dollars to the wealth of America's tech barons in the past year, data shows.The top 10 US founders and bosses of some of the world's largest technology companies saw their finances swell to nearly $2.5tn, up from $1.9tn, in the year to Christmas Eve, according to figures from Bloomberg. Continue reading......

New polling shows 65% of registered US voters believe global heating is affecting cost of livingMost Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University. Continue reading......

After the writers' and actors' strikes, the pandemic, and structural shifts in technology, LA's trying to find its footing in a changed industryThe veteran Hollywood cinematographer Bruce McCleery knows all about Los Angeles's struggles to maintain its dominance in the entertainment industry, because for most of the past 16 years he has lived on the road, never short of work but unable to land a major job within striking distance of his home and family in southern California.It's an increasingly common experience for many successful professionals in Hollywood who are hired by studios and production houses still largely based in Los Angeles, but do the actual work in Atlanta, or Toronto, or London, or Budapest. Continue reading......

Viewers hoping to cut bills driving switch from once-normal advert-free subscriptions now charging a premiumThe number of UK streaming subscribers on packages that include commercials has overtaken those on higher-priced ad-free plans for the first time, in a milestone for British television.The change marks a turning point for an industry that used to reject the idea of interrupting viewing with ad breaks as a relic of broadcast TV – a view championed in particular by Netflix.AppleSkyTescoSainsbury'sIndeedSubwayGoogleParamountMcDonald'sBT Continue reading......

There was no shortage of fun and video games in the Diamond household in the last 12 months. Which ones did we play so much our thumbs hurt? And which one saved my soul? Let the ceremony begin …• The 20 best video games of 2025So, how was 2025 for your household? Was it really all as good as you pretended it was on Facebook? Full of A-grades for the kids and riotous themed fancy dress birthday parties for the grownups? Or was it a sea of disappointment with only occasional fun flotsam? And was any of it actually real, or are we all now seven-fingered AI slop beings with Sydney Sweeney's teeth?I have gathered my thoughts (and the Diamond household) together, whether they wanted to or not, to reflect on the most important thing in any given year: which video games we enjoyed the most. Without further ado: Continue reading......

As part of the Guardian's Against the tide series, readers aged 18 to 30 share what they love about living in their coastal town, the challenges and why they often choose to leaveMegan, a 24-year-old from the Isle of Wight, is very familiar with saying goodbye. She decided university wasn't for her and remembers how, one by one, she waved off her friends who left the island to study. Many never came back. Continue reading......

Secondhand tobacco smoke and routine tasks such as operating the stove shown to be biggest emitters of indoor pollution in UK homesChristmas and New Year is a time when many people will be at home. Being indoors can give us a degree of protection from outdoor air pollution, but it can also trap pollution we produce inside our homes.Risks from secondhand tobacco smoke are well known and the effect is perhaps best seen by comparison of health data before and after indoor smoking bans. A study of 47 indoor smoking bans in public spaces found hospital admissions for heart attacks decreased by an average of 12%, but people are less aware of other indoor pollutants and how to minimise them. Continue reading......