The Times and The Sunday Times

14/12/2025

Andy Burnham still wants to return as an MP before May’s local elections, when a Labour collapse could trigger a leadership crisis for Sir Keir Starmer, allies have said.

The mayor of Greater Manchester is understood to have identified a seat after meetings with MPs and is already canvassing support for a leadership challenge, according to sources. One said there were a “number of potential options open to him” and he has identified one which is “nailed on”.

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14/12/2025

🔺 BREAKING: Multiple people are reported to have been shot after at least two gunman opened fire at Sydney’s crowded Bondi Beach early on Sunday evening local time.

Beachgoers and diners at restaurants were seen fleeing through Bondi’s streets.

Footage posted to X appeared to show two people firing automatic weapons from a pedestrian bridge. Unverified footage appeared to show multiple on the ground with some receiving CPR from bystanders. A large police and ambulance response is underway.

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14/12/2025

📹 WATCH: Who wouldn’t want to adopt this enormous dog?⁠
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Rescued animals can be challenging — they can reflect back whatever poor treatment they’ve endured before being given up — but Brody is clearly one of life’s bowl-half-full dogs.⁠
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Brody is the first Pyrenean mountain dog the charity has had to rehome since it was founded in 1971.⁠
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The pandemic didn’t help. The UK’s canine population exploded from about 10m to as much as 13m after March 2020. A dog isn’t just for lockdown.⁠
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“We got a lot of requests for help with separation anxiety because these dogs had never been left alone at home for the first year of their lives,” says Pickthall. “Then it was a lot of help with rehoming.”⁠

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14/12/2025

From an air fryer to a baby robe, cufflinks to a camera, everything in this gift guide is under £50. Our selections have everyone covered from the little ones to your furry family members. Happy shopping.

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14/12/2025

The finance director of the big UK company shook her head in disbelief. “We were hiring for 16 graduate trainees for my department,” she said. “Within five hours of opening for admissions, we had 3,500 applications. It was absolutely insane.”

So swamped were her colleagues with desperate university leavers’ CVs that by that afternoon they switched off the advertisement.

Welcome to the graduate job market in 2025, where applying for a job means joining a stampede akin to the annual Glastonbury ticket queue. What do the figures tell us, and why are graduates caught in the crush?

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14/12/2025

Two students were killed and nine others injured in a mass shooting at Brown University on Saturday, while the attacker remained at large throughout night.

The gunman, who has been described as a man dressed in black and “possibly in his 30s” by local police, opened fire inside a classroom on the first floor of the engineering and physics building on Brown’s campus in Providence, Rhode Island.

Students of the Ivy League college have been locked down on campus for hours on end as more than 400 law enforcement personnel were deployed to find the attacker.

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13/12/2025

🔺 BREAKING: The Ivy League college in Rhode Island sent an alert to students on Saturday evening, instructing them to run, hide or fight ‘as a last resort’

The Ivy League college in Rhode Island sent an alert to students on Saturday evening, instructing them to run, hide or fight ‘as a last resort’

13/12/2025

What books will you be gifting for Christmas this year?

Our deputy literary editor, Laura Hackett, tells you why Virginia Evans’s The Correspondent is her top choice.

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13/12/2025

Sunday Times analysis shows about a quarter of revenue from tickets will be used for staging other events as governing body criticised for ‘obscene’ pricing strategy

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13/12/2025

The Christmas shoppers were out in force in Northampton’s market square last week, with the smell of churros in the air and the ice rink glistening in the sunshine. Meanwhile, Sergeant Rodney Williams and Inspector Nicola Davis-Lyons were on the hunt for shoplifters. Bucking the trend of dilapidated town, boarded-up shops and tumbleweed high streets, Northampton is thriving.

“We’ve still got work to do,” admits Davis-Lyons. “But I do feel like we’re finally turning a bit of a corner.”

What’s behind this transformation? It is, shopkeepers say, largely down to a radical new system pioneered by police with Northamptonshire Business Crime Partnership to crack down on shoplifters. It is called Operation Elegance

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13/12/2025

Cambridge University could close its veterinary school, a year after after it was told by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) to make improvements following concerns about a range of issues from animal euthanasia to student welfare.

The veterinary school will close in 2032 if the recommendation, made last week by the council of the School of the Biological Sciences, is supported by the university’s general board and other decision-making bodies. The next meeting about its future is expected early in the new year.

Cambridge cited financial and strategic reasons for the proposed closure, saying there was no “viable long-term solution” to achieve “the sustainable delivery of clinical services”. Current students and those starting next October will be allowed to complete their degree but there will be no new intake for the following academic year. There are about 67 students in every year, and five people apply for each place for the degree course, which takes six years to complete

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13/12/2025

🔺 EXCLUSIVE: The Duchess of Sussex is understood to have deleted her estranged father’s phone number seven years ago

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