Fiona Wood solves final conundrum to clinch victory and encourages other women to ‘give it a go’

A forensic accountant has become the first female Countdown champion in 26 years.

Fiona Wood prevailed in the series final on Friday after correctly identifying the conundrum word as “lassitude�, meaning a state of physical or mental weariness.

The shift from live TV to video platforms has made toy makers and sellers rethink products and where to sell them

Letters to Santa used to be filled with ideas from the Argos catalogue or adverts on children’s telly, but for today’s kids raised on “swiping and streaming� YouTube is their shop window – which is why some are asking for a plastic toilet this Christmas.

The stakes are high for the toy trade at this time of year as consumers spend about £900m on dolls, games and action figures, equal to a quarter of annual sales.

Presenter thanks listeners for ‘special intimate relationship’ and signs off with message of female empowerment

Zoe Ball’s final BBC Radio 2 show was a spectacle of laughter and tears, as the presenter was flooded with messages of support, including a surprise message from her son.

Saying that she hoped she “managed to bring some sunshine and light� to listeners when they most needed it, the radio presenter thanked all her listeners, saying: “It’s been a real privilege to keep your company through your morning manoeuvres. You’re just there and I’m just here having a chat with a mate. It’s such a special intimate relationship.

• Streamer has exclusive rights for 2027 and 2031 editions
• Netflix: ‘It’s about celebrating the rise of women’s sport’

Netflix has secured its first major deal in the football market after signing an exclusive broadcast rights agreement to show the 2027 and 2031 editions of the Women’s World Cup live to audiences in the United States and Puerto Rico.

The deal, which Fifa has described as a “landmark media rights deal in women’s football�, means the streaming platform acquire the rights to cover a football competition in full for the first time, and will include coverage in multiple languages. The 2027 tournament is being staged in Brazil from 24 June to 25 July 2027 and will involve 32 teams. The host of the 2031 competition is yet to be determined.

TV presenter’s death on Greek island in June probably due to heatstroke or a pathological cause, coroner finds

A coroner has recorded an open conclusion regarding the “unascertainable� death of the TV presenter Michael Mosley, who died on a Greek island after he went for a walk.

Crispin Butler, the senior coroner for Buckinghamshire, said Mosley’s death “was most likely attributable either to heatstroke (accidental) or non-identified pathological cause�.

The Booksellers Association spoke to staff who also highlighted James by Percival Everett, and everything from Chris Hoy’s autobiography to a book about fishing by a dog

This year’s Booker prize winner will be the Christmas No 1 bestseller, predict UK booksellers.

The Booksellers Association (BA) asked bookshop staff which book they think could reach the festive top spot, and Orbital by Samantha Harvey was the most popular response.

Exclusive: Tycoon rejects settlement offer from Gambling Commission linked to failed bid to run UK lottery

The media tycoon Richard Desmond is set for a courtroom showdown with the Gambling Commission that could cost good causes tens of millions of pounds, the Guardian has learned, after he rejected a settlement offer linked to his failed bid to run the National Lottery.

Desmond launched a high court challenge in 2022 after the commission awarded the 10-year National Lottery licence to the Czech operator Allwyn, rejecting bids from his Northern & Shell business, as well as the incumbent Camelot.

• Broadcaster is struggling with cashflow problems
• NFL has stopped showing matches on Fox in Mexico

The Premier League is in danger of losing a £100m TV contract after one of its Mexican rights holders, Fox Sports Mexico, failed to make payments owed for this season.

The Guardian has learned that the Premier League is considering its options, which include legal action, cancelling the contract and taking Fox Sports’s live games off air in Mexico until it is paid.

It’s back this Christmas … for the final time. But how did the naughty, surreal sitcom charm Britain so much that new episodes are a national event with viewing figures akin to a royal wedding?

The last time Gavin & Stacey was the centrepiece of the Christmas schedules, in 2019, 11.6 million people watched it, then annoyed each other for the rest of the night by shouting “Oh� and “What’s occurin’� in accents so far from Barry that search parties were sent out to find them. By the time catchup and streaming figures were included, that figure had grown to 17.1 million. Getting so many people to agree to watch anything together is now a feat so rare it’s usually reserved for football, royal weddings and lockdown announcements. But somehow, a comedy about a normal couple from different parts of the UK, and their slightly less ordinary family and friends, has become a momentous national occasion.

The last Christmas special bowed out with a cliffhanger, as Nessa told Smithy “I loves you, with all my heart,� then went down on one knee and proposed. Smithy’s shocked face, followed by a brutal cut to the credits, left everyone hanging. Now, five years later, at 9pm on Christmas Day, we will find out what he said. According to its writers and stars Ruth Jones and James Corden, this hour-and-a-half special really will be the last ever episode. In May, Corden shared a black-and-white photograph of him and Jones holding up the script, with “The Finale� very clearly right there in the title. (If that isn’t enough proof, on New Year’s Day BBC One is showing a documentary called A Fond Farewell, another title it will be hard to walk back.) “It’s all starting to get very emotional,� said Corden at the start of December.

Korean hellfest Squid Game arrived in 2021, and swiftly became Netflix’s biggest ever show. Now comes season two, darker and funnier than before. Its creator and star talk dental disasters – and what it’s like to be a Jedi

For Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, making the K-drama’s mega-hit debut season was like pulling teeth. Literally. The stress of single-handedly writing and directing the global phenomenon caused him to lose six gnashers.

With the feverishly awaited follow-up about to drop, how is his dental health this time? “I haven’t lost any teeth yet, look!� laughs Hwang over video call from Seoul, baring a full set to prove it. “Although I do feel the odd toothache, so I might visit the dentist soon. Maybe one or two will come out this time.�

Exclusive: Coalition of musicians, photographers and newspapers insist existing copyright laws must be respected

Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government’s plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms.

In a joint statement, bodies representing thousands of creatives dismissed the proposal made by ministers on Tuesday that would allow companies such as Open AI, Google and Meta to train their AI systems on published works unless their owners actively opt out.

More people are avoiding ‘boring’ or ‘depressing’ news for scrolling social media, but accurate reporting has never been more vital

The other night I broke a long-cherished habit. At home in time for the BBC News at 10, I could only manage a couple of headlines before I turned it off, flicking through the channels instead for something that would make me smile, a comedy or anything about dogs.

News of the torture and murder of a little girl, followed by reports from yet another seemingly intractable conflict, had turned me into one of the biggest threats to my own profession, if not democracy – I had become a news avoider.

Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist

Let’s hope the court does the right thing, and strikes down this potential censorship before it spins out of control

The US supreme court surprisingly decided, this week, to hear TikTok’s emergency appeal to its imminent ban in the United States. It may be the most important case at the intersection of the first amendment and national security in decades. Whether or not you see China as a nefarious threat, all Americans who care about free expression should worry about the precedent this case could set – and should want the TikTok ban overturned.

After a fifth circuit court of appeals ruling earlier this month, TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has until 19 January to either sell the popular video-sharing app or face a nationwide ban. The decision stems from Congress passing a law last year that essentially proclaims that if the government says a foreign-owned platform threatens national security, then it can force its sale or censor it.

Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation

With one post on X, Musk has the power to shut down the government of the most powerful nation in world history

Elon Musk holds no public office. He has never stood for election, passed scrutiny for appointment to public office, nor commanded a political force of any measure. He is, however, the latest star and favorite of Donald Trump, the US president-elect. So when Musk issues one of his off-the-cuff missives via his decrepit social network, X, Trump loyalists (almost all the Republicans) take him seriously.

Yet now, suddenly, Musk has the power to shut down the government of the most powerful nation in the history of the world and depose his party’s legislative leader, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican lawmaker from Louisiana.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018).

This article was amended on 20 December 2024 to note that Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the House speakership and did not resign, as stated in an earlier version.

Keira Knightley and Jamie Oliver are the latest stars to write children’s books, but too often famous names hide the talents of ghostwriters

There is nothing new about stars trying their hand at children’s fiction (Julie Andrews published Mandy back in 1971). But the announcement in October that Keira Knightley has written and illustrated her first children’s novel, billed as “a modern classic�, was met with anger among children’s writers who took to social media to joke that they wanted to become film stars. The written word can be a tricky thing to navigate for the untutored. Jamie Oliver was forced to pull his new title Billy and the Epic Escape after it was criticised for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and “trivialising painful histories� of First Nations people.

There is understandable frustration from other authors, who feel they are being crowded out of press coverage and bookshops. Sometimes it is unclear who is actually writing the titles. It is no surprise that many memoirs are ghostwritten – no one really thought Prince Harry toiled for months to write Spare. A celebrity’s life story belongs to them, after all, so it doesn’t seem so problematic that a professional writer is hired to tell it. But who owns an idea or fictional narrative?