The Guardian Articles

Aviva has agreed to buy rival insurer Direct Line for £3.7bn, with up to 2,300 job cuts planned as the companies aim for £125m in cost savings.

FTSE 100 member Aviva, the UK’s largest insurer, said on Monday it will offer the equivalent of £2.75 for each Direct Line share …

A mysterious, dilapidated and exquisitely painted Spanish chapel into which knights on horseback may have ridden centuries ago to receive a wet and most unusual blessing could be on the verge of salvation after a decades-long campaign by local heritage groups.

No one knows much about the crumbling and semi-subterranean …

It only took one drive to see the difference. The Falcons smoked the Giants 34-7 on Sunday behind a commanding performance from their rookie quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

It was Penix’s first start after the team ejected on the Kirk Cousins experience, with the Falcons

expected to …

If the only thing getting you through a mountain of present-wrapping is a mug of tea or coffee, be of good cheer. Researchers have found people who consume those drinks have a slightly lower risk of head and neck cancers.

There are about 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases …

Davy Russell’s wife, Edelle, sometimes brings out a skeleton that resembles his battered body during her anatomy classes at school. The skeleton looks as if it has contracted measles because it is covered in red dots, with each dot marking a bone that Russell broke during his 21 years as …

Greece is facing a refugee “children’s emergency” as the number of unaccompanied minors reaching the country rises and concern grows over a lack of “safe zones” to host them.

Large numbers of children arrived in 2024 along a new trafficking route from Libya to Crete, prompting NGOs to urge Greek …

The UK economy had zero growth between July and September and is expected to have stagnated over the entire second half of 2024, undermining Keir Starmer’s promise to reboot growth.

In an unexpected downgrade as Labour comes under pressure over its economic management since taking power in July, figures from …

As is traditional for the final column of year, we look ahead to all that the following twelve months will bring us.

Numerically speaking, of course.

2025 will be the only time this century that the year is a square number.

• 44

  2

  = 1936

• 45

  2

  = 2025

…

Two investigative journalists who a tribunal ruled

were unlawfully spied on by police

In a landmark judgment, the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) found last week that the Police Service of Northern …

Good morning. After the fall of Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, Syria’s de facto government inherited a failed state. The task for rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is formidable: rewrite the constitution, bring the country’s disparate armed factions to heel, persuade international partners that …