Venezuelan pro-democracy campaigner María Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite an unprecedented – and public – campaign for the accolade by Donald Trump, the Norway-based prize committee chose Machado, Venezuela’s main opposition leader, in recognition of her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”.

Who is María Corina Machado?
Born in Caracas in 1967, she is the co-founder of Súmate, an organisation that promotes free and fair elections. In 2010, she was elected to Venezuela’s National Assembly but was expelled four years later after being accused of plotting to overthrow incumbent autocrat Nicolás Maduro – charges that the International Foundation for Electoral Systems called “unfounded”.

She was banned from running for president in 2024 by Venezuela’s Supreme Court. After Maduro declared victory in an election widely condemned by observers, she has lived largely in hiding, making only a few, brief public appearances, due to the threats to her safety posed by the Maduro regime.

Who chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner?
The winner is chosen by the Norwegian Nobel Committee: five adults elected by Norway’s parliament, the Storting. Each member is elected for a six-year term, and can be re-elected.

Nominations for the prize can only be submitted by qualified nominators, who include members of national governments, heads of state, officials with international peace organisations and university professors. Former recipients can also submit nominations – but nobody can nominate themselves.

How do they decide on a winner?
This year, there were 338 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize by the January deadline and, in March, the committee prepared a shortlist.

On Monday, the committee convened beneath a portrait of founder Alfred Nobel to share “coffee and pleasantries”, said the BBC. Proceedings always begin with a “reading of the criteria for the prize, enshrined in Nobel’s will from 1895”, before debate gets underway behind closed doors.

“We discuss, we argue; there is a high temperature,” committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes told the broadcaster. “But also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year.”

The photo booth made its first appearance in 1925, on the streets of New York City. Far from just providing passport photos, these booths played a surprisingly significant part in social history. And now, they’re enjoying a revival among young people.

‘Gorgeous’ quality
The photo booths that sprang up in the 1920s were totally unlike existing commercial photography: they “offered everyone the chance to pose without being under the watchful eye of a photographer”, said The Independent. This was significant for same-sex and interracial couples; “behind the drawn fabric”, they were “free to kiss” and, unlike many US states at the time, photo booths “never enforced segregation”.

By the 1950s, they were a “common feature at fairs, shopping centres and train stations”, said culture site Meer. Their simplicity and low cost made them a democratic institution. “Anyone could step behind the curtain, alone or crammed in with friends, put their money in the slot and strike a pose.” Photo-booth snaps were “loved by everyone” from John Lennon and Yoko Ono to John and Jackie Kennedy. Andy Warhol used them for a “famous series of self-portraits”.

Despite the “gorgeous” quality of the prints, the rise of the digital camera and smartphone displaced the analogue photo booth, and it “gradually disappeared entirely”, said The Independent.

‘Curtained privacy’
But now, “restored by dedicated experts”, analogue photo booths are “reappearing in cities across the world”, where they are “enjoying a resurgence of interest and delight”, said Meer. 

A 1970s photo booth in New York’s Lower East Side has been “drawing long lines” of people who “yearn for a more physical media”, said The New York Times. It’s another example of how younger generations “often feel nostalgic for a time they never experienced”, flocking to various forms of “physical media that some say forces them to slow down and be present”.

“When life is sad or uncertain, we need to feel love,” said The Independent, and that’s when “we crave silliness and joy most”. The “antique charm, curtained privacy and non-judgemental gaze” of photo booths still offers the chance to “experience delight for just a few pounds”.

Pallbearers carry the coffin from Manchester Cathedral after the funeral of British boxer Ricky Hatton. The former boxing world champion was found dead at his home in Hyde last month, at the age of 46.

Oli Scarff / AFP / Getty Images

Norfolk: Old Hall, South Burlingham
A remarkable Grade II Tudor manor house – partially restored by the late poet Peter Scupham and his wife Margaret Steward – with a wealth of period features. 6 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, 3-bed self-contained annexe, outbuildings, garden, parking. £1 million; Inigo.

Dorset: Bridge Cottage, Lower Bockhampton
A charming Grade II cottage in the heart of Thomas Hardy country, and reputed to have featured in several of his works, including Under the Greenwood Tree. 3 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £600,000; Symonds & Sampson.

Cornwall: April Cottage, St Ives
An enchanting Arts and Crafts house built in the 1920s and set within the grounds of Talland House, the summer residence of the Stephen family and their children Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, swimming pool, garden, parking. £1.375 million; Stags.

Wiltshire: Heytesbury Park, Heytesbury
A penthouse flat in an impressive Grade II Georgian house once the home of Siegfried Sassoon. 3 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, recep. £850,000; Strutt & Parker.

How the CCP duped Britain
Elizabeth Lindley on UnHerd
“A quiet and insidious transformation is underway in Britain,” writes Elizabeth Lindley. “Under the nose” of Keir Starmer, “the Chinese Communist Party is courting elites”, seeking to soften our defences and “hollow democratic norms from within”. It wants to build a “mega-embassy” in London, “an ideal perch” for its intelligence officials. If our government approves these plans, that decision would “mark the end of Britain’s reputation as a defender of liberty”.

The Tories need to stop apologising for my mini-Budget
Kwasi Kwarteng in The i Paper
“I was at the heart of, and partially responsible for”, the 2022 mini-Budget and the ensuing “drama and chaos”, writes former Conservative chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. I’ve made “my fair share of apologies” and “the current Tory front bench seems to be still apologising”. But “playing defence all the time is not the right way forward.” The Tories “need a positive vision” and they won’t find it if they “adopt a perpetual pose of defensive cringing”.

National Taiwan day is a moment to remember there is no modern world without this beacon of democracy
Lubov Chernukhin in City A.M.
Taiwan’s National Day today reminds us that “this small island has quietly become one of the most vital players” on the global stage, writes British philanthropist Lubov Chernukhin. Despite Chinese intimidation, Taiwan commands “an outsized share of the world’s most advanced chip manufacturing”, a “silicon shield” that protects and ensures it prospers. And Taiwanese “democracy is strong”, proving that “independence is not defined by what others say, but by what a people build for themselves”.