Fascinating article rethinking prehistoric human–wolf relationships. 🐾 scitechdaily.com/5000-year-ol...

Does anyone else spend this time of year having no bloody clue what day of the week it is?

Trump doesn't believe in anything. He's a fake Christian because he knows he can get votes from the religious right and it annoys 'the liberal elite' he hates because they despise him. #c4news

Amazing story www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #c4news

Amazing story www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #c4news

I had to try it, of course, and very nice it was too. Red, white and green for Wales and Christmas and I suppose Christmas in Wales

The left getting football, the monarchy, and the Pope in the national divorce was not the obvious outcome.

Putin is out to destroy the UK and Europe. If we don’t accept that, we’re doomed. Some Boxing Day cheer from me in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social www.thenewworld.co.uk/luke-mcgee-p...

At heart of the approach are 39 questions at five months old aimed, in part, at measuring traits such as excitability, anxiety and focus. In German shepherds, only about 15 to 20% of the variation is believed to be down to genes. (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a... By @rhysblakely.bsky.social

Interesting. Some of the great pictures he took as well. (£) www.thetimes.com/sport/cricke...

People with vision problems tell Meta they like to use its glasses to read emails at work, or to describe signage while out. One said he had been able to read his own post for the first time. (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a... By @tomwhipple.bsky.social

From 18 months ago, a good tribute to the great footballer, and by all accounts good guy, John Robertson. (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Forty years ago the birds were shot to avoid plane tragedies. But after rescuing his first snowy owl in 1981, Smith changed their fate by rescuing and safely releasing the birds. His protocol eventually took off at airports nationwide in 2013. (£) www.thetimes.com/us/news-toda...

Tesfaye Megra Bedada is the project co-ordinator for The Donkey Sanctuary, a British charity that runs the free clinic in Addis Ababa with local vets for Ethiopia’s ten million-strong donkey population (£) www.thetimes.com/world/africa...

When everything is a trend nothing is a trend, so @rhymerrigby.bsky.social checks out the vibes. (£) www.thetimes.com/business/eco...

From me: 25 moments that have shaped the 1st quarter of the 21st century www.independent.co.uk/voices/uk-po...

Proposal By An American City Planner In The 1960s For The Inner City of Amsterdam In The Year 2000 More about the plan: brilliantmaps.com/amsterdam...

Mystery of Roman soldiers’ big shoes www.thetimes.com/comment/regi...

Wake up during the night. Check score. Yes. England on top. Wake up in the morning. England battered and Australia leading. It's been a hard winter.

These are the arguments that I keep seeing repeated by apologists for Putin. Often made by those who would consider themselves on the left and bizarrely claim some sort of moral superiority.

It is again time to post the real tree my dad put up in the late 80s

“Miss, do you agree with the sign?” “Absolutely not. My great niece was 4 months pregnant and her fetus had no skull. And because of men involving themselves in women’s bodies she was forced to deliver the fetus… there’s a reason God created medicine.”🔥 #ForcedBirthNation

Denmark’s MP is mocking Trump’s idea of “buying Greenland”

"any criticism of the election can lead to a minimum sentence of three years in prison, and even the death penalty" Another reminder that elections are not the same thing as democracy www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Incidentally, I am absolutely not Team Cromwell, but justice compels me to point out that it was Cromwell who allowed Jews to resettle in England and to openly practice their faith, and I doubt he’d have had much time for this lot.

It's really important to talk to real human beings in real life, and NOT ONLINE, and to always reflect, question, and learn. If you are never challenged on anything, you will just end up thinking something as obviously ridiculous as this, is okay and normal rather than fuel for a horror novel.

My only and best higher ed idea is that Britain needs to find a way to offer university courses to retirees

Resistance in Altai, environmental protests in Bashkortostan and the shadowy influence of an occult healer espousing reptilian conspiracy theories. In the final Regions Calling newsletter of 2025, we wrap up the year in Russia's regions:

26 December 1899 | A German Jehovah’s Witness, Marta Proppe, was born. In #Auschwitz from 12 November 1942 No. 24418 She was transferred to KL Gross-Rosen. She survived. One of at least 387 Jehovah’s Witnesses imprisoned in Auschwitz.

Ukraine has launched a huge counter attack north of Pokrovsk. They’ve liberated Suhketske, Suvorove and the Krasnolymanskaya Mine as well as large portions of Rodynske.

And trumpet patriotism while actually hating this country.

We've always had these dead-eyed socipaths around. It's just a few years ago they were ignored and now they're "senior fellow" at places funded by evil millionaires + going on podcasts with a brain-rotted ex-PM.

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent sheep I have met on walks. You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

A lovely Christmas Day walk in some amazing light.

'In his own 'spirit of Christmas', Mr Trump told a ten year old that he wanted to make sure that 'we're not infiltrating a bad Santa into our country' and he corrected a little girl who said she didn't want coal in her stocking.' @krishgm.bsky.social on #c4news

As Popes go, Leo seems another decent man. Second in a row. #c4news

Recently got a new iPhone (17 pro). Whenever I try to watch embedded videos in BlueSky, they pop up to fill the screen, then at some point freeze, leaving me no way to exit back to the BlueSky feed. Has this happened to anyone else? What could be the problem?

60% Americans favour tighter gun controls; 12% want them relaxed. In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott has vowed to transform the state into a “second amendment sanctuary”. He signed into law a ban on red flag laws and legalised sawn-off shotguns. (£) www.thetimes.com/us/american-...

For more than four millennia, the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Khufu’s boats lay buried. First boat was reconstructed in private and put on public display in 1982. Now, in world first, the public has been invited to watch the assembly of the second vessel. (£) www.thetimes.com/world/middle...

Zelensky appears to wish for Putin’s death in Christmas Eve speech (£) www.thetimes.com/world/russia... Who could blame if he did mean that. Death, rape, families and society ripped apart, misery, destruction all for one vicious, nasty, thieving billionaire's vanity.

The Times obituary for the creator of the first commercial Christmas card and founding director of the V&A was published on April 20, 1882. (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie... Interesting man and life. And interesting to compare the style then to now.

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate. Here is an apostate's present. Read it as and when. open.substack.com/pub/jonathon... PS this pic is of a great, but paradoxically lean French eater; my subject A.J. Liebling was a great US one, but much, much fatter.

"Socioeconomic status (SES) — not IQ or psychopathology — showed the strongest associations with both resting-state functional connectivity and cortical thickness in the ABCD Study." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I lost my job, my kids have measles, and there’s no toys under the Christmas tree this year. But at least now there aren’t any black wise men in my town’s manger display.

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google. My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence! go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

If you’re lonely today and want someone to talk to in the U.K.: • Call Samaritans 116 123 – 24/7 • Text SHOUT to 85258 – free, 24/7 text support • 55+: The Silver Line 0800 470 8090 – friendship and listening, 24/7 • Under 19: Childline 0800 1111 or chat online We are here on bluesky too🩷

Just a reminder: you are NOT unusual, weird, or unlovable if you have: - no one to see on Christmas Day, - no presents, or - no contactable relatives. Very few people live the idealised version on TV. Those of us who live differently—whether by choice or trauma—matter as much.

25th December 2025 08.36

Perhaps it was the rebellious spirit of the town which drew the author of that Slate article, David Farley, to make a whole documentary about it for National Geographic, which is one of the best things I’ve watched this year