Who’s propping up the bar with quizmaster Keir Starmer? Answers below (no cheating now!)

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Spotted all the famous faces? See how you did …

1 Sydney Sweeney’s on the bar there, in her denims. Does this mean she is a eugenicist? No, it doesn’t. Are you OK?

As two beloved presenters stand down, speculation is rife over who may take up the ‘very sparkly baton’

After more than two decades with Strictly Come Dancing, Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly are approaching their last tango.

The much-loved presenters will present the show’s live final on Saturday night and make their last appearance together for the Christmas Day special.

Our resident big cheese munches his way through 10 sets of crackers so you don’t have to make a snap decision

I’m treading dangerous ground critiquing classics such as Jacob’s cream crackers and Carr’s table water biscuits, some of Britain’s most nostalgic family foods. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of comfort eating, especially at Christmas, but both are also symbols of our industrial food culture: bland, beige and unadventurous. That said, maybe they’re just the ticket as a neutral vehicle for transporting cheese to the mouth.

The bottom-of-the-range crackers tested here were strikingly homogeneous: they’re essentially generic cardboard cut-outs made with commodity flour, palm oil and a plethora of raising agents. Food safe, yes, but firmly in ultra-processed food (UPF) territory. However, once the price gets up to about £2.50 per 100g, everything changes: restaurant-quality sourdough crackers, flavour-packed flatbreads and some classy products that are genuinely nourishing, minimally processed and traceable.

The actor on impersonating Elvis, her stint as a magician’s assistant on a cruise ship, and having eyes like currants

Born in Hertfordshire, Sarah Hadland, 54, attended Laine Theatre Arts college in Surrey. From 2009 to 2015, she played Stevie in the Bafta-nominated sitcom Miranda, and her other television work includes Horrible Histories, Waterloo Road, W1A, The Job Lot and Daddy Issues. This Christmas, she appears on The Festive Pottery Throwdown and The Celebrity Apprentice, and stars as the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Marlowe theatre in Canterbury. She lives with her child in London.

What is your earliest memory?
I remember putting on my sister’s dungarees – they were purple and flared – to do an Elvis impression and my family laughing, and thinking: “Oh, this is good.”

A social housing victory at the ‘luxury’ Battersea power station development shows the power of grassroots politics – and holds a lesson for all of our cities

What happens when international capital arrives on your doorstep and threatens to devour your home? The residents of the housing estates surrounding Battersea power station in London, including the Patmore where I was raised, faced that prospect when, in 2012, a consortium of Malaysian investors bought the derelict power station, decommissioned since 1983, for £400m.

Two years earlier, David Cameron had launched the Conservative manifesto in the ruined power station. He promised to increase foreign investment into the UK, and so the international investors came and bought the thing and much more. Over the years, Battersea and the adjacent Nine Elms area was refashioned as a playground for oligarchs and other international elites. The US embassy arrived, a world-first glass sky pool was commissioned, and when Battersea power station shopping centre opened in 2022, it came with Rolex and Cartier stores, luxury private members’ clubs and apartments with multimillion-pound price tags.

Jewish voices say an attack of this kind was entirely predictable given the surge in antisemitic attacks in Australia since 2023

The sun rises early at this time of year, hitting the south of the beach first before chasing the shadows north, the gradual retreat of the darkness to the light.

Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, was being celebrated here on Sunday evening, when the darkness came brutally roaring back.

• Third Test, D5: Australia, 371 & 349?, bt England, 286 & 352 by 82 runs

• England show grit in Adelaide but fall short as hosts wins series 3-0

The England supporters on the hill in front of the heritage-listed scoreboard never gave up and, to their credit, neither did their team. But in the end, despite losing Nathan Lyon to a hamstring injury, it was Australia who prevailed by 82 runs to win this Ashes series with two Tests to spare.

Needing just 11 days of play to claim an unassailable 3-0 lead, Pat Cummins and his men equalled Steve Waugh’s sides in 2001 and 2002/03 for the fastest Ashes wins. This one, sealed after England’s attempt to chase down a record 435 ended at 352 all out, comes with an extra dollop of relish.

Lawyers argue ‘cumulative disruption’ regulations were quashed in May and should therefore not be used

The Metropolitan police have been using powers they no longer have to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, according to legal experts.

Based on evidence obtained by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates, legal experts said officers had imposed restrictions on at least two protests based on their “cumulative disruption” since their power to do so was quashed by the court of appeal in May.

Senior officials face criticism after review found systemic failings plunged hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt

Senior officials who oversaw a flawed benefits system that plunged hundreds of thousands of carers into debt are under mounting pressure over their “misleading” response to the scandal.

Prof Liz Sayce, the chair of a scathing review into the government’s treatment of unpaid carers, last week called for an overhaul of management and culture at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Unknown gunmen wound 10 others in Bekkersdal with victims ‘randomly shot’ in the street, police say

Unknown gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 10 others in an attack at a township outside Johannesburg, police said on Sunday, in the second mass shooting in South Africa in December.

The motive for the attack at Bekkersdal, 40km (25 miles) south-west of Johannesburg, was not clear, police told Agence France-Presse.