The Week

A suspected phone scammer was arrested by German police last week, after being led into a trap by an 85-year-old he had tried to con. The pensioner had received a call, ostensibly from a relative in urgent need of financial help. Smelling a rat, he told the caller he’d get the money together in cash and gold coins, while his daughter rang the police – who were waiting at the pick-up spot. The advice of British police is not to try to catch scammers, but to hang up and report them. Researchers in northern Canada have documented a rare case of a polar bear mother adopting a cub. The team from the conservation group Polar Bears International (PBI) had placed a GPS collar on the female in the spring; then,…

What happened The squeeze on Venezuela Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of oil tankers subject to US sanctions heading to or from Venezuela. He accused Maduro’s government of using “stolen” oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”. Referring to the US deployment to the region of a dozen warships and more than 14,000 troops, Trump wrote that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”. Oil prices jumped in the wake of Trump’s blockade order, which came days after US forces had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Since September, the US military has killed around 100 people in more than two dozen…

What happened The Government announced that Britain will rejoin the EU’s Erasmus youth exchange programme in 2027. Costing the UK £570m in its first year, this will enable British students to study in the EU as part of their courses (and vice versa), without paying extra tuition fees. Ministers say that the scheme, which will also be open to apprentices and further education students, could benefit 100,000 Britons in 2027. The UK left the programme in 2020 when Boris Johnson, then PM, deemed it poor value for money; he replaced it with the cheaper, more globally oriented Turing scheme. Student groups hailed the decision to rejoin as a “huge win”. Brussels and the UK also committed to finalising a new food and drink trade deal next year, and to further…

Controversy of the week The Russian threat “The drumbeats prophesying war are getting louder,” said Adam Boulton in The i Paper. In the past fortnight, we’ve had two stark warnings about the growing threat from Russia: from the new head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, who says our two countries are already in a “space between peace and war”; and from the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, who claims that Europe and Russia must prepare for a conflict on a scale not seen since the days of “our grandparents and great-grandparents”. The evidence of Moscow’s hostility is “everywhere”, said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Daily Telegraph. The Kremlin’s spy vessels “prowl our waters”, mapping the undersea cables that underpin our economy and security. Cyberattacks from Russian sources have become “routine”. Drones…

Mountain rescue volunteers have warned that they are being “overloaded” by calls from inexperienced climbers who have been inspired to tackle dangerous routes by social media influencers. Llanberis Mountain Rescue, which covers Snowdon and the surrounding area, says that of its 22 emergency call-outs last month, seven were to rescue young men (under 24) who were attempting the perilous Crib Goch scramble that features in thousands of TikTok posts, owing to its knife-edge ridge and dramatic views. More than a quarter of dog owners plan to serve their pet a full Christmas dinner. Crufts advises that this should be specially prepared, as leftovers are likely to be too rich and salty for dogs, and possibly toxic.…

Christian Turner, who was named the UK’s new ambassador to Washington. Unlike the last ambassador, Lord Mandelson, who was forced to step down over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, Turner is a career diplomat. Susan Boyle, the retired Scottish singer who made her name on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, after Hollywood star Timothée Chalamet named her as one of the greatest Britons of all time. The actor, 30, said he remembered Boyle’s audition, in which she sang I Dreamed a Dream, “like it was yesterday”. “She dreamed bigger than all of us,” he said. “Who wasn’t moved by that?” Extraordinary odds, after a couple from Brecon scooped £1m on the Lottery, for the second time. Richard Davies, 49, and Faye Stevenson-Davies, 43, won their first million on the EuroMillions in…