In 2025 the Doncaster-born singer-songwriter has earned two UK No 1s, three Grammy nominations and the respect of rock’s greats – and he says it’s all down to putting fans first

In November, Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud, received three Grammy nominations. The news that he had become the first British artist in history to be nominated that many times in the awards’ rock categories came as a suitably striking finale to what, by any metric, was an extraordinary year for the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

In June, his fourth studio album, Idols, entered the UK charts at No 1, outselling its nearest competitor by 50%. The same month, the annual festival he curates and headlines, Bludfest, drew an audience of 30,000 to The National Bowl in Milton Keynes. In July, he played at Back to the Beginning, the farewell performance by Black Sabbath, whose frontman Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days after the gig. On a bill almost comically overstuffed with heavy metal superstars paying tribute – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, Slayer – his rendition of Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad Changes unexpectedly stole the show, appearing to win him an entirely new audience in the process: the crowd at the gig skewed considerably older than the gen Z fans Harrison traditionally attracts.

Lucy Morville, from Burnley, thought most students would be from the north and felt ‘culture shock’ surrounded by southerners

Like many students from the north, Lucy Morville says she felt “culture shock” at being surrounded by southerners when she arrived at university. But she said the shock was even greater because it wasn’t what she expected when she enrolled at the University of York.

“I hadn’t travelled much down south before university, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re all from London and Cambridge.’ It was such a shock to me,” she said.

With 2025 but a distant memory, it’s time to get stuck into a huge year of entertainment. To help with this daunting task, we’ve provided a handy, alphabetised guide to the big releases and trends coming in the next 12 months, from AI’s continued rise to a whole lot of Zendaya

Bad news: the intellectual property equivalent of The Terminator is here to obliterate the concept that the mug who actually wrote something matters somewhat. Better news: cinemas are fighting back against AI with films anxious about the new tech, including Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (13 February), in which a man apparently from the future (Sam Rockwell) wants to warn people about an incoming AI hellscape, followed by The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (title says it all really), from the film-makers behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, in March. Then, later in the year, Luca Guadagnino unveils Artificial, his biopic of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Catherine Bray

Other firms are taking advantage of Tesla’s sales slump, while technological advances mean that glitches are being left in the rear-view mirror

In another era, before Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed its name to X to mark the spot of its descent into barbarism, honed Grok, a generator of far-right propaganda, swung behind Donald Trump and made what appeared to be a Nazi salute, I already knew he was a wrong ’un. The year was 2019, and I was test-driving a Tesla; while I was ambling off the forecourt, the PR told me jauntily that the windscreen was made of a material that would protect the driver from biohazards. I hit the brakes. “You what? What kind of biohazard? Like, a war?” She misconstrued me, thinking I intended to go and find some toxic waste site to see if it worked, and said: “I’m not sure it’s operational in the press fleet.”

That wasn’t my question: rather, what kind of a world was Tesla preparing for? One so unstable that an average (though affluent) private citizen would do well to prepare for a chemical weapons attack? What model of consumption was this, that the rich used their wealth to prepare for the mayhem their resource-capture would unleash, while the less-rich prepared slightly less well? Was Musk trying to bring to market the apocalypse planning that elites had already embarked on? Because if he was, then it was possible that he was not a great guy. And that turned out to be correct.

A psychotherapy trainee and a retired software engineer bonded over living abroad, but did they agree on gentrification, second homes and mental health?

Rupert, 36, Worthing

Occupation Psychotherapy trainee

A fantasy figure for men and women, a victim of press intrusion, a defender of animals … the French actor was also a mouthpiece for racial hatred whose views grew uglier over time

Brigitte Bardot inspired many fantasies, from the wanton, panting reveries of assorted French auteurs in the 1950s and 60s, to the perky-nippled bust created in 1969 as a model for Marianne, the embodiment of the French Republic itself.

With her death on 28 December, another more contemporary Bardot illusion was shattered. The singer Chappell Roan, responding to Bardot’s passing at 91, posted a photo of the actor in her beehived prime on Instagram, saying she had inspired her song Red Wine Supernova and writing": “Rest in peace Ms Bardot.”

Washington keeping 15,000-strong military presence in Caribbean in case interim president hinders US objectives

• US politics live

The prospect of the United States seizing direct control of Venezuela appeared to recede on Sunday after the shocking seizure of President Nicolás Maduro – but US officials said Washington was keeping a 15,000-strong force in the Caribbean and might make a fresh military intervention if Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, did not accommodate their demands.

While Rodríguez kept up a defiant tone in public, the substance of conversations she had had in private with US officials was not clear.

US president says operation in Colombia ‘sounds good’ and elections in Venezuela will happen at the ‘right time’

• Top Republicans backpedal from Trump claim that US will run Venezuela

Keir Starmer also told the BBC that he thinks we are living in a more “volatile” world than we have been for “many, many years” and said global affairs have much more of a “direct impact” on the UK than they have in a long time, citing the effects of military conflicts and the climate crisis.

Asked if Donald Trump is worsening global turmoil, Starmer dodges the question and speaks about the so-called special relationship between the UK and the US.

The relationship between the US and the UK is one of the closest relationships in the world. It is vitally important for our defence, for our security, for our intelligence.

It is my responsibility to make sure that relationship works as the prime minister of this country, working with the president of the United States. Not only have I stepped up to that responsibility, I have made it my business and I do get on with President Trump.

The operation to capture the Venezuelan president and his wife involved at least 150 aircraft, months of surveillance – and reportedly a spy in the government

It took the US two hours and 28 minutes to snatch President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the small hours of Saturday morning, an extraordinary display of imperial power that plunges 30 million Venezuelans into a profound uncertainty. But it was also months in the planning.

Critical to Operation Absolute Resolve was the work of the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. From as early as August, their goal was to establish Maduro’s “pattern of life”, or as Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, described it, to “understand how he moved, where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets”.

Stockpiling not partying is the priority for Venezuelans who say they fear crackdowns by the regime the US left in place

There was a whirlwind of emotions on the streets of Caracas on Sunday, 24 hours after the first-ever large-scale US attack on South American soil and the extraordinary snaring of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Uncertainty,” said Griselda Guzmán, a 68-year-old pensioner, fighting back tears as she lined up outside a grocery store with her husband to stock up on supplies in case the coming days brought yet more drama.