Next head of Cern backs massive replacement for world’s largest machine to investigate mysteries of the universe

Mark Thomson, a professor of experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge, has landed one of the most coveted jobs in global science. But it is hard not to wonder, when looked at from a certain angle, whether he has taken one for the team.

On 1 January, Thomson takes over as the director general of Cern, the multi-Nobel prizewinning nuclear physics laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva. It is here, deep beneath the ground, that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest scientific instrument ever built, recreates conditions that existed microseconds after the big bang.

It was New Year’s Eve and there had been fireworks, drinking and dancing. Amid it all, I felt ashen and cold. As I walked out, I felt my first surge of quiet liberation

We drove out along the coast one afternoon, to a fireworks shop a couple of towns along. It was late in the year, and the light was low and dismal, rain scudding the windscreen. In a couple of days’ time it would be New Year’s Eve, and then our small town would scatter itself to parties held in bars and houses and nightclubs, and out along the harbour. At midnight, there would be an amateur firework display on the roof of the old lido.

In the shop that afternoon, some of the fireworks sat behind a glass-fronted cabinet. They had names like Stinging Bees, Vendetta and Sky Breaker, and beneath each item was a small laminated caption: “One hundred shot roman candle firing high whistling bees,” read one. “Twenty-five secs of time rain salutes. Noisy,” read another.

For those not going out to celebrate, you can still party with Harry and Sally, play cards with Jack Lemmon and make merry hell at the Overlook Hotel

At the end of any especially troublesome year it’s always good to revisit The Apartment, Billy Wilder’s brilliantly bleak comedy of office politics and festive bad cheer. It memorably ends on the stroke of midnight as heartsick Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) abandons a drunken new year’s party to be with hapless, jobless CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon) instead. Is The Apartment suggesting that Kubelik and Baxter then live happily ever after? Probably not, because I’ve never been convinced that these two lovers are going to stay the course. They’re too mismatched and desperate; their wounds are still too fresh. What the ending gives us is the next best thing: a sudden sense of hope and freedom, with everything packed in boxes except for a bottle, two glasses and a deck of cards. Nothing to lose and nowhere to go. “Shut up and deal.” A clean break, a fresh start. Xan Brooks

The bioscience startup has attracted billions in investment – and a flurry of criticism, but founder tells the Guardian plans to bring back the woolly mammoth will not be derailed

Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in 2025, the American entrepreneur Ben Lamm sold much of the world on the idea that death did not, after all, need to be for ever.

This was the year the billionaire’s genetics startup, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that disappeared at the end of the last ice age, by tweaking the DNA of grey wolves. According to the company, it had also edged closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back from the dead, with the creation of genetically engineered “woolly mice”.

Cameo’s Candy is one of the all-time great funk records, but after a six-minute dance formation everyone is heading for the door

It’s that moment at a Black party you either love or hate. Cameo’s Candy, one of the all-time great funk records, comes on and everyone lines up to do the dance. Maybe you throw yourself into it, maybe you are a white friend who looks around in confusion, or maybe, like me, you just sigh in resignation.

The dance is a US import, beginning life as the electric slide in the mid-70s, and eventually becoming the Candy in Britain, thanks to its appearance at the end of the 1999 movie The Best Man. Since then, be it birthdays, christenings, Christmas, NYE – even funerals – you’re certain to see the dancefloor immediately fill and get into formation once the initial few chords are played.

Despite reviews of the district as a raucous tourist trap, improved policing has restored safety and an eclectic vibe

When Ireland redeveloped a swathe of central Dublin in the 1990s, the idea was to create a version of Paris’s Left Bank, a cultural quarter of cobbled lanes, art and urban renewal.

Planners and architects transformed the run-down Temple Bar site by the River Liffey into an ambitious experiment that drew throngs of visitors and won awards.

Join our live coverage as we cross the globe to enter the new year

Sydney is the self-appointed “world capital of new year’s eve” and arguably rightly so. As always, eyes will be on the Opera House at 13:00 GMT when fireworks will light up the sky in spectacular fashion. But there are also huge crowds out in Melbourne to see off the year in style.

Thousands of people are expected to descend on Melbourne this evening to celebrate NYE. There will be two 7 minute firework displays and light shows tonight, first a family one at 9.30pm for young children, and the main one at the stroke of midnight.

Exclusive: Greater Manchester police ignored claim ‘Offender J’ among men who had abused 12-year-old, paperwork shows

• ‘They thought we were problem children’: how grooming victims were failed in Oldham

A grooming gang suspect who had escaped investigation because of a string of police failings went on to attempt to murder his wife, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

The man, named only as Offender J in paperwork seen by the Guardian, is alleged to have taken part in the gang–rape of 12-year-old Samantha Walker-Roberts in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in 2006.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Government should have appointed an envoy to carry out checks on activist in citizenship row, says Emily Thornberry

The government could have avoided “embarrassing failures” in the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah by having a special envoy deal with complex cases involving Britons detained abroad, Emily Thornberry has said.

The chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee criticised “serious shortcomings” in information sharing, which she said could have been resolved by having a dedicated official carry out background checks.

Begum’s lawyers argue she was child trafficking victim when she travelled to live under IS in Syria in 2015

The European court of human rights has questioned the UK government over its 2019 decision to remove Shamima Begum’s British citizenship.

Lawyers in Europe have asked how Begum’s treatment complies with the UK’s responsibilities to victims of trafficking.