Anticipation for the promise a new year brings is, in 2025, heavily tempered by trepidation about what Donald Trump’s second term will look like. For the big story of our first edition of the new year, diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour surveys how the world from Moscow to London, Tehran to Beijing and Brussels to Kyiv is gearing up for 20 January. Whether they be populists or hard-headed foreign-policy realists, it is clear that leaders are prepared to talk back to Trump in his language of power. Equally true is that despite the incoming White House administration’s preference to concentrate on America first domestic issues, the war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East and tensions with China force themselves to the forefront of Trump’s agenda and are unlikely to be solved in either his first day, week or month in office. As the year unfolds, Guardian Weekly will continue to help you make sense of Trump’s return and the biggest global issues of 2025.
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Five essential reads in this week’s edition
1 Spotlight | Air disaster compounds South Korea’s troubles
A major fatal air accident is a tragedy for any nation but as Justin McCurry and Raphael Rashid report, the Jeju Air crash has come against a continued background of political division and instability.
2 Science | Time’s paradox
A timely exploration by Miriam Frankel of recent research has found out about the factors that make life drag or fly by. And, importantly, what you can do to help reset your inner clock to a more satisfactory tempo.
3 Features | The millennium bug that didn’t bite us
A quarter of a century ago, doomsayers thought the world would end as we clicked over to a new century due to malfunctioning computer systems. But, Tom Faber reports, the much-feared bug was always going to be a damp squib.
4 Opinion | Uneasy parallels between the McCarthy era and Trump 2.0
Richard Sennett reflects on how postwar paranoia about the ‘enemy within’ changed his family and what it can teach Americans when a similarly anti-liberal administration is in power.
5 Culture | Another side of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan shuns discussion of his early years, so how did James Mangold, the director of a new biopic, and his creative team approach their script – and what happened when Dylan asked for a meeting? Alexis Petridis finds out.
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What else we’ve been reading
Samuel Smith pubs divide opinion – they have a reputation for cheap drinks, ban mobile phones and laptops, only sell their own drinks and say they will throw out any customers caught swearing. Mark Blacklock profiles Humphrey Smith, the company’s wealthy chair, and asks why the Yorkshire family brewery has let so many of its pubs sit empty for years. Anthony Naughton, assistant editor
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Other highlights from the Guardian website
• Audio | How the Guardian reported 2024 – podcast
• Video | Black summer: five years later, Cobargo is still rebuilding
• Photo essay | Warmth amid absence: life of Romanian children whose parents work abroad
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