It is said to be harder to make friends as you age. But I found that a mix of apps and other tools, as well as a happy attitude, led to a world of potential new pals

Tonight, Rachel, Elvira and I will meet for dinner. A year ago, none of us knew the others existed. Six months ago Rachel and Elvira were strangers until I introduced them. But now, here we are, something as close to firm friends as is possible after such a short time.

If you’ve ever consumed any media, you would be forgiven for thinking that life after 35 is a burning wasteland of unimaginable horrors: the beginnings of incessant back pain, an interest in dishwasher loading, the discovery that you’re ineligible for entire industries billed as “a young person’s game”, and, apparently, an inability to make friends.

• Cars failed to meet minimum skid wear measurements

• Loss of points places title within reach of Max Verstappen

McLaren have held their hands up and issued an apology to their drivers after their breach of Formula One regulations led to the disqualification of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the two leading title contenders, from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and put the F1 drivers’ championship within the grasp of the reigning champion, Max Verstappen.

The race was won by the Red Bull driver but Norris took a strong second and Piastri fourth. However, four hours after the race and following an investigation by the FIA, both were disqualified after the skid blocks on the floor of their cars were found to have been worn down below the 9mm limit defined in the rules.

Held back by Covid and then phased out by AI, Britain’s so-called Neets are desperately seeking a secure future. Who will offer them hope?

Another week, another set of sobering economic numbers. Last Thursday, the Office for National Statistics published its latest quarterly estimate of the number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are so-called Neets – people not in education, employment or training. As usual, experts have warned that figures extracted from the UK’s flawed labour force survey should be taken with a pinch of salt. But there was still universal agreement about the huge issues the figures highlighted, and the hundreds of thousands of young people, 946,000, if the stats are to be believed, who are living on the UK’s social and economic edge.

The government has announced its latest review of all this, led by the New Labour veteran Alan Milburn, who will apparently focus on the relevance of disability and mental health. This week, moreover, Rachel Reeves is reportedly going to make the predicament of Neets one of the big themes of her budget. As ever, mood music is being provided by parts of the media that tend to specialise in the kind of condescension and generational loathing recently crystallised by a Daily Mail headline that might easily have been coughed out by ChatGPT: “Sicknote youths to dodge clampdown: Pledge to stop benefits for the workshy won’t include those with anxiety”.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

Did the talks succeed or fail? The verdict must take account of the geopolitical minefield they took place in

Cop30 in Belém wrapped up on Saturday night more than 24 hours later than planned, and with an Amazonian rainstorm thundering down on the conference centre. The UN structure just about held, as it has done these past three weeks despite fire, savage tropical heat and blistering political attacks on the multilateral system of global environmental governance.

Dozens of agreements were gavelled through on the final day, as the most collective form of humanity worked to resolve the most complex and dangerous challenge that our species has ever faced. It was chaotic. The process very nearly collapsed and had to be rescued by last-ditch talks that went on into the early morning. Veteran observers told me the Paris agreement was on life-support.

Struggling with gift ideas? The Guardian’s expert columnists are here to help, with everything from Yotam Ottolenghi’s favourite pans to the only nail polish brand Sali Hughes uses
• 305 best Christmas presents for 2025

Are you in the festive spirit yet? Or, just, well…a bit stressed? This time of year can feel overwhelming, but who better to calm the panic of Christmas gift shopping than the Guardian’s cohort of expert columnists?

Want to know which M&S cardi fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley has had her eye on that gives “very posh”? Or the chocolate bars chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi is obsessed with? Beauty expert Sali Hughes has got the gifts to make Gen Z’s squeal with excitement, while Gynelle Leon selects the perfect present for the person in your life who prefers gardening to a night out.

Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to America has a precedent: the Maga evangelical perversion of Jesus’s message of radical love to one of hate and aggression

Trumpism’s most revealing and defining moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it. Then, after nationwide protests against his rule, he posted on social media an AI video of himself wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet labeled “King Trump”, which proceeded to bomb American cities and Americans with a graphically vivid load of human poop.

He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and this week a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – really, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with the government. And no one – not Richard Nixon, not Andrew Jackson, not Warren Harding, not anyone – would have imagined boasting about defecating on the American citizenry. Even the worst American leaders were willing to maintain the notion that they represented all the people; Trump has managed to turn America’s idea of itself entirely upside down. And he has done it with the active consent of an entire political party. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, when asked about the poop video, for once did not bother lying that he had not seen it. Instead he said: “The president uses social media to make the point. You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media.”

Planned overhaul of editorial guidelines committee would dilute influence of Tory board appointment Robbie Gibb

The BBC is planning to overhaul the way it investigates editorial concerns, in a move that will dilute the influence of a Conservative figure accused of trying to sway its political impartiality.

A new deputy director general post is also expected to be created to aid Tim Davie’s successor as director general, after concerns that the task of overseeing the corporation has become too big for one person.

Document omits some of Washington’s pro-Russia points and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected

European countries proposed a radical alternative Ukraine peace plan on Sunday that omits some of the pro-Russia points made in the original US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected.

The counter-proposal emerged as US, Ukrainian and international negotiators met in Switzerland. The 28-point US document leaked last week demands Ukraine hand over territory to Russia, limits the size of its army and agrees not to pursue the Kremlin for alleged war crimes.

Tributes paid to ‘culinary visionary’ who was early celebrity proponent of using local and seasonal ingredients

Tributes have been paid to the pioneering chef and restaurant proprietor Skye Gyngell, who has died aged 62.

The Australian was an early celebrity proponent of using local and seasonal ingredients and built a garden restaurant from scratch, the Petersham Nurseries Cafe in Richmond, south-west London, which went on to win a Michelin star.

Year-long investigation into multimillion-dollar business exposed serious concerns, from dangerous medical claims to FBS-linked stillbirths

• Full story: How the FBS is linked to baby deaths around the world

The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a business run from North Carolina that promotes the idea of women giving birth without midwives or doctors present.

It is led by Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, ex-doulas turned social media influencers who have gained a global following through the FBS podcast, which has been downloaded millions of times.