Ho Chi Minh City launched its first metro line after 17 years of planning and delays, with thousands of excited residents flocking to ride the metro. The $1.7bn, 20km-project, mostly funded by Japanese loans, was initially approved in 2007 with a budget of $668m but faced major hurdles over the years. The metro aims to ease traffic congestion and pollution in the nine-million-strong city. The city was one of Asia’s last major urban centres not to have a metro, according to Nikkei Asia. The opening of Ho Chi Minh City’s (HCMC) first metro line generated a lot of excitement...

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is targeting a return to the Champions League as he attempts to keep in-form striker Alexander Isak and his fellow stars happy. Isak took his tally to 10 goals in 11 appearances with a first Magpies hat-trick in Saturday’s 4-0 Premier League victory at Ipswich to further enhance the reputation he has built since his £63million arrival from Real Sociedad during the summer of 2022. The 25-year-old has been repeatedly linked with a move away from St James’ Park with Arsenal among the touted destinations, and Howe knows he may have to fight to keep...

Denzel Washington can now add a new job to his resume after he was baptised and received his minister’s license in a ceremony in Harlem on Saturday (22 December). The 69-year-old Gladiator II star was baptised at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in New York City, where he was also presented with a minister’s license, which will allow him to be ordained in the future . During the ceremony, which was live-streamed by the church on Facebook, Washington opened up to the congregation about embracing his faith just days before his 70th birthday on 28 December....

Leading doctors have issued an emergency warning over a popular toy which could be given to children over Christmas . Water beads , often used as sensory toys for children or as home decor, have been linked to child deaths overseas and to “serious harm” to children in the UK, the The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM). Despite being marketed as toys, water beads could pose a serious danger to children as if swallowed, could expand inside a child and cause bowel obstruction – which needs surgery to remove. The beads start small, only a few millimetres wide,...

Some of the oldest Christmas carols were the pop songs of the Victorian age, an academic has said. Many festive traditions, from the Christmas tree to carols including Silent Night, O Little Town Of Bethlehem and Good King Wenceslas, and even eating turkey and Christmas pudding, date back to the reign of Queen Victoria and were described by author Charles Dickens . It is also the period when the first Christmas card was believed to have been sent – in 1843 – with that very card part of an exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Dr...

Ghost towns emerge like bleached reefs flanking each side of the long road north out of Damascus . Mile after mile of destruction flickers by as if on a loop: such a widespread level of devastation that it is almost unfathomable. Empty, bombed-out cities, towns, and villages – once bustling hubs of life – form the scars of 13 years of brutal and bloody civil war. Thirteen years of a leader, Bashar al-Assad , trying his hardest to bomb his population into submission . This is matched only by the industrial scale of killing that went alongside it, in...

There's a Christmas Day basketball game at Walt Disney World, featuring Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Wemby. An animated game, anyway. The real game takes place at Madison Square Garden , where Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs face the New York Knicks in a game televised on ABC and ESPN and streamed on Disney+ and ESPN+. The special alt-cast, the first animated presentation of an NBA game, will be shown on ESPN2 and also stream on Disney+ and ESPN+. Madison Square Garden is a staple of the NBA's Christmas schedule. Now it merges with a bigger home of...

This Christmas appears to have been “disastrous” for retailers as households battle with ongoing cost-of-living pressures, figures suggest. Retail footfall was 11.4% down on last year over the final full week before Christmas, according to Rendle Intelligence and Insights. Even on Super Saturday – the final Saturday before Christmas Day and typically the peak shopping day of the year – footfall was just 4.1% higher than the previous Saturday, and only 0.9% higher than the same Saturday a year earlier. Black Friday footfall was 5.5% higher than last year, suggesting consumers took the opportunity to buy discounted gifts then,...

For Charlotte*, Christmas lost its magic in her early twenties. Once a season of joy and security, it became a time marked by isolation, fear, and violence after she moved in with her boyfriend – a man she had fallen for just weeks earlier, charmed by his seemingly kind and charismatic demeanour. But the charm soon faded. Within months, he controlled every aspect of her life, barring her from seeing friends, limiting contact with her mother, and attaching a price to basic freedoms like going to work. The couple’s first Christmas together set the tone. While he visited his...

After the excess that is Christmas dinner , two things are inevitable: a nap, and leftovers. If you can’t bear the idea of repeating your exact festive lunch for days afterwards, it’s well worth using them up in new ways to keep things interesting – and minimise any potential food waste . But where to start? From festive sausage rolls to generous pies , these are three nifty ways to really make your leftovers sing after December 25… 1. Roast dinner sausage rolls Ingredients: (Makes 16) 2tbsp olive oil1 onion, finely chopped1 plump garlic clove, finely chopped1tsp dried mixed...

Si King has said “Dave Day”, a 30-mile motorcycle ride to celebrate the life of fellow Hairy Biker Dave Myers , gave him and their fans “permission” to start grieving. A new one-hour special called The Hairy Bikers : You’ll Never Ride Alone , documents the day which saw 46,000 motorcyclists take part, as well as the duo’s long career together and their many trips around the world. Myers died, aged 66 in February following a cancer diagnosis . Myers, who hailed from Barrow-in-Furness, first revealed his cancer diagnosis on Agony Uncles , the podcast he shared with King,...

Years were spent debating who would emerge as this generation’s greatest heavyweight. Tyson Fury ? Anthony Joshua? Deontay Wilder? All of that, just for a cruiserweight to enter their territory, cock a leg, and relieve himself. Oleksandr Usyk waltzed up to heavyweight and took the division’s undisputed titles – to end a 24-year wait for such a champion – by outthinking, outmanoeuvring and outboxing Fury and Joshua twice each. With his first victory over Joshua, in 2021, Usyk took the Briton’s unified titles; with his second, in 2022, he retained them. This year, he secured two more decision wins...

A fire that broke out at the front of a shop in Birmingham is “under control”, emergency services said. West Midlands Fire Service said it responded to the incident at Stratford Road, Sparkhill, shortly before 4.55am on Monday. The fire service said the blaze at the front of a retail store spread to shop signage and the bay windows of flats above. It added that there were no casualties or injuries after five people received checks from attending paramedics after leaving their properties. A witness said they thought the fire was caused by a car which was set alight...

Cadbury has said it is “disappointed” after losing its royal warrant. The chocolate firm is among the brands and products that have had their warrants withdrawn under the King, a list published by Buckingham Palace’s Royal Warrant Holders Association shows. The company had held the royal warrant for 170 years since 1854. Consumer goods firm Unilever , which owns Dove and Lipton, was also stripped of its warrant. The granting of royal warrants is a matter for the Royal Household Unilever spokesperson Earlier this year, Charles was urged by campaign group B4Ukraine to take warrants from companies “still operating...

Roman Kemp has temporarily replaced Jay Blades as the host of The Repair Shop’s annual Christmas special . Blades, 54, was axed from the BBC series after he was charged in September with controlling and coercive behaviour towards his estranged wife Lisa Zbozen. Blades has denied the allegations. The presenter worked on the series since its launch in 2017, in which he welcomes people who bring in their heirlooms to be restored by craftspeople situated at the repair workshop located in West Sussex. Kemp, the son of the Spandau Ballet bass player Martin and Pepsi And Shirlie singer Shirlie...

Kemi Badenoch has said her time as Tory leader has gone “as well as it possibly could” and that she will not be hurried into taking definitive policy positions. Despite a gaffe-filled first two months in the job , Ms Badenoch told BBC Radio 4 ’s Today programme “I was expecting it to be much worse”. “And one of the things that I’m really pleased about is that the party has sort of downed tools on the internecine warfare, and the actual being in parliament and seeing a real Labour government reminds everyone who the real opponent is,” Ms...

Nicholas Hoult and Bill Skarsgård share some of the chilling behind-the-scenes moments from the set of Nosferatu , Robert Eggers ’s retelling of the classic Gothic vampire horror. The film follows Thomas Hutter (Hoult) on his journey to Transylvania , where he encounters the enigmatic and terrifying Count Orlok (Skarsgård). Speaking to The Independent , Hoult described the intensity of the production: “The way Robert [Eggers] creates an atmosphere on set already feels like a very imposing place to be. Then you add this brilliant performance by Bill playing this terrifying character, and it’s a heightened reality that is very easy to be scared in.”

Boohoo has sold off its London head office for £49.5 million to help pay down its debts. The online fashion firm told shareholders on Monday it has sold the site, on Great Pulteney Street in Soho , to property fund Global Holdings UK. It comes three years after Boohoo bought the office building for £72 million. But the company put the site up for sale this summer after a downturn in sales and growing losses. As long-term investors in London’s West End office market, we are pleased to add another great building to our portfolio Josh Lawrence, Global Holdings...

We’re still a few days out from the start of the official Boxing Day sales, but retailers like Amazon , Argos , Currys and Boots are already offering big discounts across everything from air fryers to AirPods . To help you get a head start on the sale, or even grab some last-minute gifts, we’ll be rounding up all of the latest and greatest deals right here on our Boxing Day liveblog. Our expert team of IndyBest shoppers have covered the Boxing Day sales for years, so we know how to spot a good deal from a bad one. What’s more, we only recommend products we’ve tested and from brands we trust, so you can be sure the discounts we include are ones we’d go for ourselves. That’s enough blathering from us. Sit back, pop your slippers on, fire up Mariah Carey and let our expert-curated early Boxing Day deals wash over you like a tide of festive discounts. Read more: The best early Boxing Day deals we’ve spotted so far

Finding love in middle age after leaving a long-term marriage can be difficult to accept, especially when you think it will last forever. But for Olivier Award-winning actress Nicola Walker , 54, who stars as formidable family lawyer Hannah Defoe in BBC One’s The Split: Barcelona , wants people to take another chance on love when fate brings that opportunity along. “The Split: Barcelona conveys a hopeful message ultimately. I think there’s a lot of joy in it. I mean, there’s a lot of fear too. It is difficult to accept that a marriage that you thought would last...