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Le Constellation bar fire in Switzerland: what we know so far

Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, after a fire at a bar in the Swiss Alps during a new year celebration at a luxury ski resort. The blaze ripped through the packed bar, Le Constellation, early on Thursday in Crans-Montana, one of the top-ranked ski destinations in Europe, which lies about 25 miles (40km) north-west of Zermatt. Swiss police believe about 40 people died, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. The victims are believed to come from several countries. Investigators said there was no indication of terrorism or arson. The victims could not be identified immediately because of the severity of their burns, the ministry added. Work is under way to identify the victims and inform their families but “that will take time and for the time being it is premature to give you a more precise figure”, the Valais canton police commander, Frédéric Gisler, said. “We are devastated,” he told a news conference after one of the worst tragedies in recent Swiss history. What happened? The fire raged through Le Constellation at about 1.30am (0030 GMT) as revellers in the packed bar were ringing in the new year. “The party was in full swing … music and champagne flowing freely,” a local resident told 24 heures, a Lausanne newspaper. Ambulances were parked outside the bar hours later and broken windows could be seen. Local media described a “smell of burning still in the air”. A tourist from New York filmed bright orange flames leaping from the bar, and told Agence France-Presse he had seen people running and screaming in the dark. A witness speaking to the French broadcaster BFMTV described people breaking windows to escape the blaze, some badly injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he had seen about 20 people scrambling to get out and likened the scene to a “horror movie” as it unfolded across the street. The head of the regional government, Mathias Reynard, said: “This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare.” How many people were hurt? Several dozen people are believed to have died and about 100 were injured in the blaze. Many of the victims were in their teens and 20s, officials said. Witnesses described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a small doorway. The hospitals in Valais canton were full and had declared a state of emergency, with the injured being transported to various hospitals across Switzerland. Helicopters and ambulances were sent to the scene to assist victims who were from several countries, officials said. The intensive care unit and operating room at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Rénard said. Lausanne University Hospital, which was treating the most severely injured among the victims, said the 22 patients in its care were aged between 16 and 26. What caused it? Investigators said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire as experts had not been able to go inside the wreckage. However, officials said there was no sign of terrorism or arson. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” said Beatrice Pilloud, the public prosecutor of the Valais canton. Officials called the blaze that raged through the crowded bar an “embrasement généralisé”, a firefighting term describing how a fire can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft. The municipality of 10,000 residents had banned New Year’s Eve fireworks owing to a lack of rainfall in the past month, according to its website. Two women later told BFMTV they had been inside when they saw a barman carrying a female server on his shoulders who was holding a lit candle in a bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and caused the ceiling to collapse, they said. A picture posted on social media showed a woman in a black dress holding a magnum of champagne in the basement of the bar. A large white flame could be seen coming from the top of the bottle. Unverified video footage showed the ceiling of the basement nightclub in flames as patrons fled the scene. Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report.

About 40 killed and 100 injured in fire at bar in Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana

About 40 people are believed to have been killed and 100 injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year’s Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, according to the Italian foreign ministry. Swiss police confirmed several dozen partygoers were dead. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, the ministry said. It confirmed arson was not responsible, with the blaze thought to be the result of an accident. “There has been an explosion of unknown origin,” Gaëtan Lathion, a police spokesperson in the canton of Valais in south-west Switzerland, told Agence France-Presse. “There are several injured and several dead.” He said the fire started at about 1.30am local time (0030 GMT) in a bar called Le Constellation, which is popular with tourists, as revellers rang in the new year. “More than a hundred people were in the building and we are seeing many injured and many dead,” he said. Video from the scene shows orange flames billowing from inside the ground-floor bar and lounge. Screams can be heard as well as loud music. Several people were seen collapsed outside the building, which is located in the centre of the Valais resort. Two women told the French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside Le Constellation when they saw a bartender carrying a female member of staff on his shoulders. She was holding a lit candle in a champagne bottle that set fire to a wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and collapsed the ceiling, they said. A photo showed a woman in a black dress in the basement of the bar, holding a magnum of champagne. A large white flame can be seen coming from the top of the bottle. One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door. Another witness speaking to BFMTV described partygoers breaking windows to escape the fire, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames. He likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street. The morning after the tragedy, two women held each other and wept in front of the police cordon outside Le Constellation, while mourners left flowers. The club itself, which is frequented by younger people and tourists, was surrounded by police tents. Shortly before 1pm a Swiss police forensics team entered the tents. Behind the building, an apartment block – also called Le Constellation – had smashed windows where firefighters had attempted to let the smoke from the blaze escape. Crans-Montana is a bustling resort town of about 10,000 people perched high in the Valais canton of the Swiss Alps, with a view across the valley to the famed Matterhorn mountain. Unlike nearby Verbier, which attracts a wealthy anglophone crowd, Crans-Montana is popular mainly with wealthy Europeans. But Le Constellation itself was more of a cheap and cheerful bar for younger people and tourists. Ulysse Brozzo, 16, an instructor at the ESS ski school, said several of his friends were in the club at the time. He said he had spoken to some who were safe, but had yet to hear from others he knew were inside when the fire broke out. A friend of a friend was in a coma at Sion hospital. “It’s a total tragedy,” he said. “There were hundreds of people inside.” The venue was set over two floors, he said, with a bar on the main floor and narrow stairs leading to a basement nightclub below, where he speculated it would have been possible for people to have become trapped and incapacitated from smoke inhalation. He said shisha pipes were available to smoke. “What people are saying is that the charcoal on the shisha could have spilled and caused the fire,” Brozzo said. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning, Mathias Reynard, the president of the Valais canton, said what should have been a moment of celebration “turned into a nightmare”. The police commander Frédéric Gisler spoke of “several dozen fatalities”, adding that he was devastated by the tragedy. “I can’t hide from you that we are all shaken by what happened overnight in Crans,” he told a press conference. “Our count is about 100 injured, most seriously, and unfortunately tens of people are presumed dead,” he said, adding that patients had been dispatched to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. “At the moment we are considering this a fire and we are not considering the possibility of an attack,” the prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said, adding that authorities had opened a full investigation. She said authorities were trying to get the bodies of the victims to their families. “A lot of resources have been put into forensics to identify the victims. These resources are intended to allow us to get the bodies to the families as soon as possible,” she said. Some of the victims are from other countries, said Stéphane Ganzer, the head of security for the Valais canton. The 22 injured patients being treated at Lausanne university hospital are reported to be aged between 16 and 26. General manager Claire Charmet said eight of them were resuscitated on arrival. They were now being treated in critical and specialised care units. “This will be a long and intensive process, lasting several weeks, perhaps even months,” she said. A reception centre and helpline have been set up for affected families, Lathion said. “We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is a internationally renowned ski resort with lots of tourists.” French media said Le Constellation was a well-known spot in Crans-Montana. It opened in 2015 and could accommodate up to 300 people inside, with another 40 on a heated terrace. The bar’s Facebook and Instagram pages appear to have been deleted and are unavailable. Its owners are reportedly a French couple, originally from Corsica. The owner of the Dédé clothing store, directly across the street from Le Constellation, said the venue was a popular destination for younger people – including the children of her friends, who would often drink there from as young as 14 years old. François, 17, a ski instructor who said he had often partied at the bar, said new year parties were known as being more lax in terms of checking the age of bar entrants. The town relies heavily on a largely European clientele who come to ski, eat in several Michelin-starred restaurants and shop at Moncler and Louis Vuitton stores. It has about 3,000 hotel rooms and 10,000 residents. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

More women reporting abuse in Norway as member of royal family to go on trial for rape

Staff at Norway’s largest women’s health organisation have seen a rise in the number of women reporting abuse and sexual assault at the hands of their partners ahead of the rape trial of a member of the royal family, saying they hope the case helps to “break taboos”. Marius Borg Høiby, the 28-year-old son of the Norwegian crown princess, is due to stand trial in February on 32 charges including four counts of rape, the domestic abuse of a former partner and the illegal filming of a number of women without their knowledge or consent. His lawyer, Petar Sekulic, has said that Høiby “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence”. His client would “present a detailed account of his version of events before the court”, he added. Høiby, whose mother is the crown princess, Mette-Marit, and whose stepfather is the crown prince, Haakon, Norway’s future king, could face 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of the most serious charges. May Britt Buhaug, the secretary general of the women’s public health organisation Sanitetskvinnene, said her staff had recorded a rise in the number of women reporting experiences of domestic violence and sexual assault, which they expected to increase further when the trial started. “Staff at our women’s health centres have seen an increase in women who make contact to ask for help and advice after experiences of violence and sexual assault. Media coverage of cases such as Høiby’s lower the threshold to ask for help. That women ask for help more easily is a positive effect. Openness breaks taboos,” said Buhaug. According to statistics from the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), one in 10 women in Norway have experienced serious violence from an intimate partner. Buhaug said: “Although tragic, it seems that this case can contribute to break the silence around intimate partner violence and rape.” Meanwhile, an explosive new book, which Høiby unsuccessfully tried to prevent from being published, claims he has personally sold drugs on the streets of Oslo. Høiby has denied the allegations. The negative headlines appear to have energised republicans. The king is Harald V, who has been the monarch since 1991 and is now 88. Because of the law of primogeniture used until 1990, it is his second child, Haakon, who is heir to the throne and not his elder child, Märtha Louise. Craig Aaen-Stockdale, the leader of the group Norge som republikk (Norway as a republic), said its membership had more than tripled in the last two years – largely, he said because of the accusations against Høiby. “In an otherwise democratic, egalitarian and liberal country the Norwegian royal family occupies a bit of a blind spot and has traditionally seen high levels of support. However, many Norwegians are now reconsidering their position on the royal family, who were previously viewed as a relatively harmless bunch,” he said. “The ongoing omniscandal has really tarnished the reputation of the younger royals, including the future heir. In a few years we may be in a situation where the head of state has a chronically ill wife [Mette-Marit recently said she would have to have a lung transplant] and a son in prison. That is not fair on anybody.” But Torgeir Pedersen Krokfjord, a co-author of the book White Lines, Black Sheep, which published the drug allegations, said the royal family remained popular among most Norwegians and had emerged relatively unscathed. “One can only imagine how it must have been for them to deal with all this through the years, while battling health issues at the same time,” he said. The royal palace and Høiby’s lawyer have been contacted for comment.

Israel allowing traders to bring into Gaza ‘dual-use’ items barred from aid organisations

Israel is running a parallel system of controls for shipments into Gaza, allowing commercial traders to bring goods into the territory that are barred for humanitarian organisations. Basic life-saving supplies including generators and tent poles are on a long Israeli blacklist of “dual-use” items. The Israeli government says entry of these items must be severely restricted because they could be exploited by Hamas or other armed groups for military ends. However, for at least a month, Israeli authorities have allowed businesses to transport multiple dual-use items into Gaza, including generators and metal pallets, which are more durable in winter rains and mud than wooden alternatives. These are now on sale in the open market in Gaza, according to military, diplomatic and humanitarian sources. They must pass through the same three tightly controlled Israeli checkpoints that currently bar shipments of these goods for aid organisations. “It seems highly improbable that the Israelis don’t know about them,” said one diplomatic source. “It’s very shocking that these things are able to enter through commercial channels.” The disparity limits the work of humanitarian organisations supporting Palestinians at a time of desperate need, while providing lucrative opportunities to commercial traders who can secure import permits from Israeli authorities. The American commander of a new US base in southern Israel has been briefed on such dual-use restrictions. Lt Gen Patrick Frank has discussed the controls with diplomats and humanitarians at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), which was established in October to monitor the Donald Trump-brokered ceasefire and plan for Gaza’s future. His views on the matter are not known. Israel has a long track record of exploiting access to Gaza to further its political goals, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that has been monitoring controls for 20 years. “On the surface the private sector [shipments of items on the dual-use list] can appear to be very confusing and an inconsistency,” she said. “But I see it as very consistent with their policy of trying to strengthen the hand of certain actors and weaken the hand of others.” Entry controls on items such as generators did not reflect “the inherent risk or danger of the item itself”, she said. “It’s a question of: whose hands is it in? Where is it? How is it being used?” Israeli restrictions have long made trade into Gaza particularly lucrative for those Palestinians and Israelis who can secure permits. Items on the dual-use list now sell for huge premiums inside Gaza. “The only way to get a generator right now is on the private sector,” said Sam Rose, acting director for Gaza for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “There’s a mark up on that.” “My understanding is that it is the business interests on all sides – Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian – with some of the security companies that enjoy Israeli protection also taking a cut alongside other criminal elements, all in all supporting the growth of an illegal economy,” Rose added. “What’s not clear to me is whether Hamas is getting a cut. I would assume so but have not seen any confirmation of this.” Ahmed Alkhatib, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said that when it came to commercial deliveries into Gaza, “You’re not just paying fees and taxes to Hamas in Gaza, you’re paying fees and taxes to merchants on the Israeli side. We all know that Gaza was and will always be a massive market for the Israeli economy.” Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry unit that controls access to Gaza, denied “preventing or delaying” aid shipments into Gaza or applying looser restrictions for commercial traders. “The policy governing the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip is approved by the political echelon in Israel and implemented by Cogat in a uniform manner vis-a-vis the UN, international organisations, donor countries, and the private sector,” a spokesperson said in a statement. For dual-use items, Israel “offers international organisations alternatives that allow and facilitate a humanitarian response”, the statement said, without providing any details. Spokesperson Shimi Zuaretz also said medical aid organisations had been given permits to bring generators into Gaza “over the last month”. The Israeli military referred questions about aid shipments into Gaza to Cogat. The US military declined to comment. The shipment controls are the latest instance of Israel weaponising aid for political and military goals in Gaza. Over the summer Israel caused a famine in parts of the territory by blocking food shipments for weeks, then allowing only a trickle of aid to enter, killing hundreds of people. Israel this week told 37 NGOs active in Gaza they would have to cease all operations within 60 days, unless they hand over detailed information on their Palestinian staff. Diplomats and humanitarian officials have said that stopping the work of the NGOs listed would have catastrophic consequences and put Palestinian lives at risk. “The EU has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be implemented in its current form,” the EU humanitarian chief, Hadja Lahbib, posted on social media. “IHL [international humanitarian law] leaves no room for doubt: aid must reach those in need.” “The reality is that the commercial sector can bring in what it wants [now],” said Rose. “Items not approved for humanitarian organisations, such as generators, are available commercially. So we have a two-tier system, which is undermining the UN-led system, which Israel is required to support as per international law.” US forces deployed to the CMCC arrived in October prepared to launch a major logistics effort to get aid supplies into Gaza. They were surprised and confused to find the biggest challenge was political, and began clashing with Israeli counterparts over some of the restrictions almost immediately, said multiple sources briefed on meetings at the base. An early confrontation was over tent poles. Shelter is a critical need as winter sets in because Israeli attacks have destroyed nine out of 10 Palestinian homes, but Israel deems metal tent poles needed for sturdy winter-proof tents “dual use”. US officers at the CMCC rapidly drew up a list of at least a dozen key humanitarian items they wanted removed from the dual-use list, with tent poles near the top. Weeks later Israel has not lifted restrictions on any of them. “It is clearly not security interests that are driving decision-making here,” said one western source. “The dual-use list is just another way to control what enters Gaza.” Restrictions on the type and quantity of goods allowed into Gaza long preceded the current war. Israel withdrew troops and settlers from the territory in 2005 but maintained effective control of the borders and used that to impose a blockade. “It has always been a form of control over the wellbeing of the population,” said the Gisha director, Hary. “Whether that’s the bare minimum of humanitarian standards we are looking at now, or in previous years in terms of economic life, construction, industry, development in technology and agriculture and innovation.” The dual-use list, which requires a security assessment and permits to import items to Gaza, has been a particular concern since it was introduced. It is sweeping in its scope, secret until an item is rejected and has been imposed arbitrarily. Older versions obtained by Gisha through legal action include categories such as “communications equipment” – so broad it could cover most modern electronics. Items barred on dual-use grounds over the last two years include solar panels, smoke detectors, crutches, wheelchairs and walkers. Aid groups have collaborated to compile an unofficial list of rejected items in an effort to limit the amount of time and money spent applying to import things that are unlikely to get approval. But it is time consuming. International pressure on Israel over the dual-use list has also flagged over the last two years, and even with the creation of the CMCC. Diplomats are concerned about spiralling violence in the West Bank and uncertainty about long-term plans for Gaza’s reconstruction, as aid groups are negotiating possible de-registration by Israel. The dual-use list is not the only bureaucratic obstacle limiting the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Some items are banned because Israel has decided they don’t address urgent humanitarian needs. This category includes paper and pencils to restart schools after two years without education for 600,000 children, and frozen beef and mutton to feed a malnourished population. Aid organisations have been limited to chicken while commercial traders have been able to bring in all kinds of meat. The limited number of crossings into Gaza and their hours of operation, as well as delays approving routes for convoys inside the territory – which is vital to ensuring they do not come under Israeli attack – all serve to slow the entry of vital supplies. Overall flows of aid into Gaza are well below levels agreed under the ceasefire, data provided by the Israeli military and analysed by the Associated Press showed. Food shipments have increased enough to stave off famine, but hunger is still widespread, UN-backed food security experts said last week. About 1.6 million people were expected to face “crisis” levels of hunger in the next four months and if the ceasefire broke down, the territory could slip back into famine. Winter weather and lack of shelter are exacerbating the impact of long-term malnutrition, particularly on young children. At least three have been killed by hypothermia this month, the UN said.

Thursday briefing: Thirty years of the Women’s prize for fiction – have male novelists been edged out?

Good morning, and happy new year! While there are many exciting celebrations in 2026, for me, none is more special than the 30th anniversary of the Women’s prize for fiction. Formerly the Orange, and then Baileys prize, this annual award for the best novel in English by a woman was founded in 1996 to rectify a glaring absence: the all-male 1991 Booker prize shortlist. Times have thankfully changed. The Booker hasn’t seen an all-male shortlist in 20 years, while sensations like Sally Rooney and Elena Ferrante have paved the way for stories centering the complexities of women’s lives. Today, heavyweights like Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, and Bernardine Evaristo share the spotlight with zeitgeist-capturing talents like Ottessa Moshfegh, Elif Batuman, Raven Leilani, and Megan Nolan. Together, they have ensured some of fiction’s most exciting developments are distinctly female-led. Yet, this success has sparked a heated debate: is the male novelist being pushed out? When David Szalay won the Booker last year for his novel Flesh, this newspaper noted that novels of “female interiority” have dominated the past decade, making stories about young men hard to find. But is that true? And what seismic changes have there been between now and when the Women’s prize was founded? Today, I speak to Catherine Taylor, a critic who has worked in the industry since 1992 and author of The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time. That’s after the headlines. In depth: ‘I had to ask permission to write my dissertation on Virginia Woolf’ Amid the 2021 Sally Rooney fervor, which followed the publication of her third novel, a question began to surface regarding the scarcity of young, male writers. A widely discussed article in Dazed asked where these writers had gone and what their absence meant for the publishing world. This was followed by a New York Times piece in 2024, exploring the “disappearance of literary men,” and, in 2025, this culminated in the announcement of a new literary press that would initially focus on male novelists, to find successors to the likes of Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. But in the early 1990s, when Catherine Taylor left university and moved to London to do a postgraduate degree, the situation was completely reversed. “All the books were written by Martin Amis,” she jokes. “It was very male-dominated. The atmosphere was about how there needs to be a redress on what was being commissioned, what was coming out and what was not being recognised.” She recalls specific successful female writers, citing breakout hits like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Rachel Cusk’s Saving Agnes. However, she notes that several other now well-known names, including Hilary Mantel and Beryl Bainbridge, faced difficulties gaining recognition at the time. It was a difficult time for women in literature. “When I studied English at university at the end of the 80s, the only female writers on my curriculum were two of the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, and Jane Austen. And I had to ask permission to write my dissertation on Virginia Woolf,” Taylor says. *** A slow-moving revolution So how did we go from a dearth of female authors 30 years ago, to women consistently on the bestseller list and winning the biggest literary awards? It was a slow process, Taylor tells me. “It wasn’t an overnight change,” she says, pointing to the work of the Women’s prize as being particularly effective at championing fiction writers, and nonfiction writers. “I remember being at a Women’s prize event 15 years ago, and a male literary editor, I’m not going to name him, said ‘this shortlist is almost good enough for the Booker’,” she tells me. “It was very patronising. When Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker prize with her novel Offshore in 1979, she was described as a ‘lady novelist’. It’s extraordinary to think about this happening throughout my adult life.” There was also an important evolution of publishing and commissioning, Taylor adds. “The Women’s prize, in terms of winners, was very white when it started out. But as it’s gone on, publishing and appetites have changed. Younger women are coming into publishing and commissioning the books that they want to read, which are much more representative of the world and of readers as well.” *** Female domination? While Taylor applauded the extraordinary efforts that have gone to rebalancing gender disparities in publishing, she pushed back on the idea that we have now reached a saturation point when it comes to women’s writing. “Twice as many men as women have won the Booker prize. Exactly twice as many. And when Samantha Harvey won the Booker prize in 2024, she was the first woman to win it in five years,” she says. “The last woman to win the prize solely was Anna Burns with Milkman in 2018. Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo [the first black woman to win the Booker] had to share the prize in 2019.” When we talk about who’s writing books, it is important to look at how many men and women actually read fiction. According to NielsenIQ BookData, women made up 63% of the fiction books bought in the UK in 2023. But they weren’t just picking up more novels, they were buying more books overall, constituting 58% of all book purchases in 2024. Men do come out ahead when looking at nonfiction, buying 55% compared to the 45% bought by women. In fact, research commissioned by the Women’s prize in 2024 showed that while women read books by women and men equally, men “overwhelmingly reject” books written by women in favour of male authors. The organisation said the research demonstrated that their mission was just as relevant today as it was when they were founded. *** The struggle continues When I asked Taylor what zeitgeisty novels written about women’s “interior lives” say about women today, she objected to the use of the word interior. “Nobody calls men’s writing interior or inward when they’re writing about male subjects,” Taylor says. “Why is it seen that women are writing domestic books?” she says. “Somebody described Samantha Harvey’s book Orbital as quiet. This is an extraordinary book about how human beings are interconnected and how they’re isolated, by using the situation that they’re in – they’re in space. You can’t really get more external.” Taylor’s own memoir, The Stirrings, was set in the 1980s when she was a teenager, and at the time she thought she was being quite explicit. But she has been so excited by how bold women’s writing is today. “I really love that women are writing about their desires and their needs and the way that they’re interpreting the world through the body and the mind,” Taylor says. She adds: “Men have used women in novels as objects or as subjects, but in a very one-dimensional way for as long as I have been reading contemporary fiction. Men have also used women’s novels as springboards for their own. I love Martin Amis’s writing. He’s an absolutely brilliant writer sentence by sentence, but I don’t think he would have written London Fields if he hadn’t read The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark. And I don’t think he would have written Time’s Arrow if he hadn’t read his stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard’s book The Long View.” Taylor says that after Howard’s death, some headlines reduced her to merely being “Martin Amis’ stepmother.” Her obituary in the Guardian echoed this sentiment, observing that she “suffered a certain condescension from literary editors as a writer of ‘women’s novels’.” It’s worth noting that Amis himself went on to credit both Howard and Jane Austen as hugely influential literary figures. “Why is it seen as interior when we’re talking about things that matter to us?” continues Taylor. “In a world where women and human rights are being rolled back daily, why can we not talk about all these things that have oppressed and continued to oppress and also interest us?” If you are reading this on the app, over the Christmas period the headlines and sport will not appear. To get the full First Edition experience in your inbox every morning please sign up here.

‘It’s a matter of time before a farmer is seriously injured’: on the trail of hare coursers in Wiltshire

A cold, bright afternoon in the Vale of Pewsey and a couple of brown hares were nibbling away in a field of winter barley. It was a tranquil scene in this tucked-away corner of the English West Country but tyre tracks cutting through the crop were a sign of the violence that takes place when night falls. This is one of the hotspots in Wiltshire for hare coursing, in which criminal gangs set dogs – usually greyhounds or lurchers – on the mammals. Typically, bets are placed on how many “turns” it will take for the hound to catch and kill a hare, with some chases livestreamed so that gamblers across the world can take part. Wiltshire police, one of the UK police forces leading the fight against the coursers, say hare coursing gangs are terrorising the countryside. “I fear it’s only a matter of time before a farmer or landowner here is seriously injured defending their property,” said Insp Andy Lemon, the tactical lead for rural crime in Wiltshire. He cautioned against farmers “taking matters into their own hands and hitting back”, saying: “We tell them: please don’t – call us. But the concern is that a farmer will lose it.” Over the past year, hare coursing and poaching offences rose by more than 20% in Wiltshire. Since January 2025, 30 people have been arrested over the offences – a 500% increase compared with 2024. But many more are not caught. Gang members travel from across the UK to Wiltshire, which offers particularly good country for the crime as once the autumn harvest is complete, expanses of open fields are exposed, leaving the hares little cover. “This is their playground,” said Lemon, who took the Guardian out to see some of the spots favoured by the coursers. “We think hare coursing is probably taking place somewhere in the county every day.” The areas the coursers like tend to be crisscrossed by paths, bridleways and byways, making good spots accessible to determined criminals with four-wheel drive vehicles. If they can get there in time, the force sends armed officers, drone operators and road traffic teams, but the offenders are good at slipping away. “When they go off road, it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Lemon. He suggested that while forces such as Wiltshire and Lincolnshire were actively tackling the coursers, the crime was taking place wherever there were hares. “Some police forces say they don’t have a problem. I think they do – they just don’t know about it.” One Vale of Pewsey farmer showed the Guardian the defences landowners were putting in place to try to keep the coursers away, including troughs filled with concrete and fallen trees placed across field gates. “But they find their way in,” he said. “They smash through gates and fences. They don’t care and in fact I think they get a kick out of being chased and getting away. There’s big money involved. They bet thousands of pounds and the dogs are worth tens of thousands. This is a crisis for us.” Another local farmer said his land was used for coursing 10 times in one month. “We’ve spent an absolute fortune on ditching and fencing, extra CCTV and lighting,” he said. “Every single night, I go out and drive the perimeter of the farm to make sure gates are still locked and fences are still up and there are no lights where there shouldn’t be lights. My wife has a bit of a moment every time I leave.” There have been some nasty incidents. One Wiltshire farm worker suffered leg and hand injuries when he was knocked to the ground by a car after confronting suspected hare coursers. A barn was set alight after one farmer chased off coursers and three cows were killed in a road accident after fencing was destroyed by suspected coursers as they accessed a field. A video was circulated – by coursers, apparently as a warning shot – of a farmer being surrounded at night by vehicles in his field. They circled him and rammed his car. Another Vale of Pewsey farmer said the success of conservation work to improve conditions for hares was one reason the crime was on the rise. “There’s been a rise in the number of hares – and with that has come an increase in hare coursing,” she said. “I’ve heard of some farmers thinking of shooting hares to stop hare coursing, which is so sad.” Philip Wilkinson, the police and crime commissioner for Wiltshire and Swindon and a board member of the National Rural Crime Network, said: “We’re being hammered, terrorised.” Wilkinson, who served in the British army for 32 years, is determined to clamp down on the coursers. “We will send out armed response teams, traffic [officers] – anybody. We’ll pile in to try and catch the buggers.” He said hare coursers were enmeshed in international criminal networks. He had watched coursing being livestreamed into China and had seen intelligence that many involved in the activity were also responsible for the theft of farm equipment, from tools to expensive vehicles, some of which was smuggled to eastern Europe. “What we’re seeing is the ends of the tentacles. If you swim upstream through those networks, if you go far enough, you get to China and eastern Europe. It’s all overlapped and linked.” Frequently, those who defy coursers find animal corpses dumped close to their homes or businesses. “A line of dead hares was put across the end of my lane,” said Wilkinson. “They’re sticking two fingers up at us.” But the impact is not just economic. It is a cruel sport to the hares and to some of the dogs. “You’re essentially testing the fitness of your dog against the fitness of a wild animal, the hare,” said David Bowles, the RSPCA’s head of public affairs. “And the end result is inevitably that the dog catches the hare and rips it to bits.” Hare coursing was outlawed in the Hunting Act 2004 and the ban has been stiffened recently with stronger sentences and more powers to seize dogs. Bowles said police forces such as in Wiltshire and Lincolnshire were working with organisations such as the RSPCA, the National Farmers’ Union and the Countryside Alliance. “I think you’re starting to see the first signs of the crackdown actually starting to work during 2025,” he said. Wiltshire council said it had seen an increase in the number of dogs associated with hare coursing that were being abandoned. In a three-month period in 2025, it collected 20 lurcher-type dogs. Some were underweight and injured, while only three were claimed by owners. Shortly after Lemon left the Vale of Pewsey on his way back to police headquarters in Devizes, his radio crackled. Dogs had been found in a car on Salisbury Plain. “Probably hare coursing,” he said. The daily hunt for the coursers was beginning again.

Australian man reportedly killed fighting with Ukrainian forces against Russia

The department of foreign affairs is trying to confirm the death of an Australian man who was reportedly killed while fighting with Ukrainian forces against Russia last month. According to multiple posts on social media, Russell Allan Wilson was killed on 12 December in the Donetsk region. The ABC reported that a friend of Wilson said he was killed during his final mission, and had been due to be married the week after his death. In one post on Instagram on 19 December, a man who identifies himself as a US army veteran said Wilson “chose to stay when it would have been easier to leave”. “He stood his ground in a place where freedom is paid for in blood, and he gave his life so others could keep theirs,” said the man, who has been contacted for comment. “Ukraine is freer today because of him – but the world is quieter without his laugh, his stubborn courage, his presence beside us. “We shared cold nights, exhaustion, fear we never spoke out loud, and a bond forged where words stop working. He was the kind of man you trusted with your life without thinking twice. The kind who showed up when it mattered. The kind you’re proud to call family.” Sign up: AU Breaking News email In a statement, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was “aware of reports that an Australian has died in Ukraine” and was seeking confirmation from local authorities. “The Australian government’s travel advice is do not travel to Ukraine.” Australian authorities are assisting Wilson’s family. Other social media posts referred to Wilson having served in the Australian military, and having been in Ukraine since 2023. He had reportedly been from Gosford, on the New South Wales Central Coast, but had also lived in Brisbane. At least eight Australians are believed to have died fighting in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. The former Melbourne teacher Oscar Jenkins, who was initially reported to have been killed, is the only Australian believed to have been captured as a prisoner of war. Weeks after he was reported to have been killed, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Russia had confirmed Jenkins was alive. Wong said he been subject to a “sham trial” and imprisoned. An Australian Ukrainian group has urged the Albanese government to intervene to have Jenkins included in planned prisoner swaps, warning he risks becoming a “forgotten” prisoner of Russia’s war.