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Toronto film festival: It’s Get Out meets the viral Shitty Media Men list in this hugely entertaining mix of dark comedy and stalker thriller with a brilliant alternating turn from Taron Egerton

Everyone knows an Adam. He’s not like those other guys, the ones who won’t take no for an answer and speak lasciviously about women to their mates. He’s doing the work, listening to and uplifting female voices, working at an all-female gallery while being constantly aware of his cis white male privilege. He has a Mubi tote bag, reads Edna O’Brien’s Country Girl in Hackney cafes, has a poster of Cléo from 5 to 7 in his apartment and has even named his dog after his favourite Haim sister. He is … a nice guy.

In first-time writer-director Jonathan Schey’s canny debut Everybody Wants to Fuck Me, Adam is also a fraud.

Everybody Wants to Fuck Me is premiering at the Toronto film festival and will be released at a later date

Maleah Pearce wanted to end her relationship with high school ‘bad boy’ Dylan before they grew too attached. Then one lunchtime, he brought her a surprise

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

Dylan and I first started dating in high school when we were 16. He was a “bad boy” who got drunk at parties and occasionally spoke to other people with his fists.

One night, I was sitting at my computer, chatting with friends on MSN and Facebook and Dylan’s name popped up. I enjoyed playing online checkers with people from school, so I invited him to a game. During the game we chatted online, which led to flirting. The winner got to choose what they wanted. I lost and what did Dylan ask for? To date me. We agreed to one date at the movies and to declare to the school we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought this was hilarious, though I planned to break up with him after a few days.

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She’s tackled neoliberalism and the digital world, now the writer and activist is taking on tech billionaires. She explains how the super-rich are capitalising on climate and financial chaos in pursuit of power

Naomi Klein’s new book starts on a mountaintop with two “faithful men gathering an audience to share their vision”. It’s a vision of a paradise city, gated at every entrance, no need for weapons there, everyone in it rich. One of the men has tears in his eyes as he describes its beauty. The opening scene of End Times Fascism, co-written with Astra Taylor, is not a metaphor, however. The men are Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The year is 2026, the mountain is Davos. The paradise city will be called New Gaza.

The World Economic Forum get-together in Davos, Switzerland, has always had a twin purpose – to provide a platform for the super-rich to describe all the good they are doing on poverty and climate, and to give us a glimpse into their enviable lives. This year what we witnessed was, quite brazenly, the world’s richest men gathering to discuss the real estate possibilities of a mass grave.

A militaristic operation with features of influencer culture, the new anti-migrant movement seems to show a shift in tactics and rhetoric

Shortly after 7am last Saturday in the English coastal town of Dover, livestreamed footage distributed by Britain’s newest anti-migrant movement showed dozens of men in paramilitary outfits jumping out from the backs of vehicles, their faces covered beneath balaclavas, their hands in black gloves.

Within an hour, hundreds more masked agitators, dressed head to toe in black, some wearing silver crosses around their necks, were marching through the town’s streets, clapping and chanting “Stop the boats” and “Christ is king”, blockading the busy port for hours.

Influencers aren’t just battling competitors for brand deals. They’re now battling AI versions of themselves

Earlier this year, Emily Schuman, the creator of the lifestyle blog Cupcakes and Cashmere, saw a photo of herself she didn’t recognize on Instagram. In a sponsored ad, Schuman, who has more than 500,000 Instagram followers, is holding up a vial of GLP-1 drugs, advertising the telehealth company Gala. There was just one problem: Schuman had never heard of Gala and had nothing to do with the ad.

The ad was based on a digitally altered version of a selfie Schuman had taken in her car and posted on Instagram years earlier. Once her followers got wind, they flooded her inbox with questions about the sponsorship as it didn’t seem consistent with Schuman’s personal brand. Soon after, Schuman discovered this was just the beginning. There was also an Instagram post where an AI version of her with darker hair appears to apply foundation to promote a makeup brand called Meroda Cosmetics, and TikTok posts with generated images of her promoting the blood testing company Superpower.

Party leader, Nigel Farage, ‘humbled’ by contributions from billionaires as Harborne addresses ‘media speculation’

• Analysis: donations of £72m make Reform’s prospects both rosier and riskier

The cryptocurrency tycoon Christopher Harborne has given £36m to Reform UK, matching a donation from fellow billionaire Ben Delo.

The pledges mean Reform has received a cash injection of £72m in just 24 hours. They are jointly the largest donations made to a UK political party and have intensified calls for restrictions on money received from individual donors.

In a social media post, Dario Amodei proposed a plan including third-party evaluations of AI systems

The CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic issued a new appeal on Saturday for the AI industry to “slow down” and offered a three-part plan for doing so, saying that his company would “unilaterally” commit to the first of the steps.

In a post on social media, Dario Amodei shared a link to an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier in which he laid out how Anthropic would provide “third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training”.

Incident is latest to raise questions over Israel’s ability or willingness to stop violent settlers in occupied territory

An Israeli soldier has shot a Palestinian man, wounding him in the leg, as settlers confronted villagers by grazing livestock on Palestinian-owned land in the town of Faqqua in the occupied West Bank.

Witnesses said a group of settlers had entered the area with their livestock, prompting residents to try to stop them. Israeli forces then intervened and, according to men at the scene, opened fire at residents. One of them shot Qassem Hussam, a Palestinian man in his mid-30s, wounding him in the leg.

Rightwing activists faced a heavy police presence and counter-demonstrations to their march against small boat crossings

Two men and a teenage boy have been arrested in Portsmouth at a far-right protest against immigration.

Far-right activists have gathered in Portsmouth for a second weekend after a small boat with 140 people seeking asylum on board was intercepted last Sunday while heading towards the city.

US president says on visit to republic that unification will happen eventually so ‘may as well happen now’

Donald Trump has said he would “love” to see a united Ireland and that it “may as well happen now”.

The US president appeared to endorse the push for constitutional change on the island at the start of a two-day visit to Ireland on Saturday. The unexpected intervention prompted a swift rebuttal from the UK government and Northern Ireland’s unionist leaders.

May el-Toukhy becomes eighth female director to take Golden Lion as Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love and Guardian-produced exposé of Israel’s Gaza killings also awarded

• Bold and bravura choices as Venice celebrates A Woman Unknown, Possible Love – and NAZA

May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown has scooped the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival, at an awards ceremony that also saw the Gaza documentary NAZA win the jury prize.

Set in the immediate aftermath of Danish liberation from Nazi occupation, the Egyptian-Danish director’s film tells the story of a young housemaid, Marie (Mathilde Arcel), who is about to marry her widowed employer but anxious about him discovering a shameful secret in her past: during the war, Marie had an intimate relationship with a German soldier.

The singer’s triumphant return to the stage comes after health problems forced her to take a lengthy break

Céline Dion wept on stage in Paris as she performed her first live show in more than six years after taking an extended break to deal with her health.

Addressing the sold-out crowd on Saturday, a visibly emotional Dion told them that it was “amazing we are all together”.

Former primetime TV host films himself eating dog biscuits, doing ‘munchie runs’ and addressing pool death case

Filming from the driver’s seat of his car, with his pet whippet, Lara, in the background, Michael Barrymore shows an array of dog treats he has collected to test to the camera. There’s a twist, though: it won’t be the dog doing the testing.

In a series of quick edits, the fallen star of primetime 1990s television grimaces his way through cheese biscuits and pork sausages. The lamb spaghetti is particularly challenging, though he claims to quite like the chicken sausage slices.

• Rybakina wins 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 despite first-serve problems

• Overcomes top seed and two-time defending champion

Even when long established as a grand slam champion and a conqueror of all surfaces, Elena Rybakina was always considered lesser than the most successful players of her era. She was one of the most devastating shotmakers in the world, a threat to everybody everywhere, but there were always a couple of more consistent and mentally tougher players above her.

She leaves New York, finally, as the undisputed best tennis player on the planet, the new standard bearer of women’s tennis, after following up her snatching of the No 1 ranking from Aryna Sabalenka by succeeding her as the US Open champion. As she has done throughout this unforgettable week, the Kazakhstani showed her toughness in another spectacular tussle with her great rival, closing out her time at Flushing Meadows with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory over Sabalenka, the top seed and two-time defending champion.

Those who have encountered the interim president paint her in starkly different ways, but all agree she is likely to remain in power

It was April 2002 and Delcy Rodríguez was a woman on a mission.

Venezuela’s then president, Hugo Chávez, had been temporarily toppled by a bungled coup and Rodríguez, a junior diplomat who had been studying at Birkbeck, University of London, decided to act.

Petition to king, who remains Jamaica’s head of state, is formally lodged in landmark visit to UK by officials

A palpable surge of emotion swept through Brixton’s New Park Road Baptist church as the packed congregation rose to sing Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.

The service on Sunday marked the anniversary of the 1781 Zong massacre, when more than 100 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard so the ship’s owners could claim insurance for “lost cargo”.

After his stroke in rough surf, Graham Russell embarked on an unexpected journey into fear. Three lessons helped him return to the joy of the ocean

Looking out over the ocean, I would watch the waves sparkling in the sunlight as they grew and spilled into a burst of froth. It was a fun way to relax, to breathe deep and enjoy an awesome display of energy. But lately it had become exhausting.

In winter last year I tore the lining of an artery in my neck during a rough ocean swim off the Central Coast of New South Wales. It caused a stroke while I was in the water, which saw me scrambling back to shore where a surfer noticed me and sounded the alarm. Six months later, the injury had healed, and my motor functions were all back to normal. But as I prepared for a dip in calm conditions on a sunny day in January, I paused. An unexpected journey into fear began.

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The Swedish electro-pop singer-songwriter on eloping to Vegas, checking cupboards for murderers and her spooky party trick

What’s been your most memorable interaction with a fan?

The one that comes to mind is a fan in Austin who I met on one of my first tours there. He ran up to me and said, “SIGN MY ARM!” I signed his arm and then when he came back to the show the next night he had it tattooed – there was plastic over it. I remember saying, “I would have done a better job if I knew you were going to get it tattooed.” Then we took a picture of us, with me pointing at the tattoo.

What’s it like to be shown the door by the US president? A former national security adviser, an Apprentice contestant and more share their stories

• Plus: The truth about my 11 days in the White House, by Anthony Scaramucci

Gene Folkes, 62, based in Manhattan, was a contestant on season 10 of The Apprentice, which aired in 2010. A former air force recruiter until 1991, he retrained as an investment banker, then launched his own business before appearing on the reality show. He was fired by Trump in episode 5. He now runs the technology consulting firm OshunX and hosts a podcast, Folkes Unfettered.

I didn’t audition to be on The Apprentice. I received the call out of the blue: “Would you be interested in doing this show?” I didn’t know a lot about it. However, like any young business person, you look for people who you consider titans. There’s this mythology around Trump. He was one of the people I wanted to emulate.

Toronto film festival: the actor turned writer-director’s ode to girl groups is a shoddily made and embarrassingly unfunny catastrophe

There were plentiful on-paper delights for certain music fans of a certain generation promised at Toronto’s splashy Friday-night premiere of pop comedy Girl Group. Posed as a tribute to the Spice Girls and the fizzy boom of girl power-fuelled music that came in their wake, its cast includes OG member Mel C, All Saints’ Shaznay Lewis, and Pussycat Dolls’ Ashley Roberts and Nicole Scherzinger while its soundtrack includes Glee-like covers of Destiny’s Child, En Vogue and Fifth Harmony, a feast for those who have recently felt famished. At a time when such music is still sadly rather thin on the ground, save for the manufactured kids pop of Katseye and the often effective yet more boutiquey throwback R&B of Flo, it seemed to be a reminder of how thrilling it all used to be back when such girl-pop supremacy felt impossibly never-ending, a form of nostalgia-bait that many of us could fully get behind.

But there are not enough pandering nods to the past that will get even the most dedicated pop girlie through the five-alarm catastrophe that unfolded for those of us who bravely decided to stay awake (someone in front of me wisely chose the release of sleep within the first 30 minutes). Hailing from Live Nation Studios, also behind the Weeknd’s roundly ridiculed vanity project Hurry Up Tomorrow, but lit and shot like a pharmaceutical commercial, it barely even feels like a real movie let alone one that should be premiering at such a prestigious festival. It’s the clumsy handiwork of Rebel Wilson, a once in-demand comedy star who has been trying to chase her career highs in the years since. In a theoretically admirable move, she’s moved behind the camera to take control and reintroduce the kind of broad comedies she used to be a part of before they faded from the mainstream. Her directorial debut, a cheap and cheerful adaptation of Australian stage musical The Deb, was ultimately best known for being the subject of a nasty and prolonged court case, but it showed us how Wilson saw herself as a film-maker and which of her films she was most eager to relive *coughs* Pitch Perfect *ends cough*. Girl Group sees her return once again to that territory – female friendship, musical numbers, unfriendly competition – but with even lesser results.

Girl Group is premiering at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution

Patrick Brammall and Maxine Peake star in a propulsive new drama, and the microtonal polka-dotted alien duo return to the live stage. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

The Guardian’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Miles Herbert and Jacqui Housden

• Get this in your inbox every weekend. Sign up for Five Great Reads here

Good morning, and welcome to your weekly roundup of the best stories from across the Guardian. Are you interested in living for ever? Maybe you just want to be a bit happier, or spend your time making the lives of others better? You could dedicate your life to saving the planet or contemplating the meaning of intelligence.

Either way, you can find some of the answers to life’s big questions in the reads below.

Bullock and Kidman try to put a second spell on you in the fantasy comedy sequel, while the topical sketch show returns after a well-regarded debut

Practical Magic 2
Out now
The beloved fantasy romance from the 1990s returns with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprising their roles as the Owens sisters. The story picks up 25 years later, with more family secrets and curses in the offing, plus a trip to the UK. Sure to be spellbinding stuff.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

As the final whistle blew Bruno Guimarães wore a mischievous smile, Enzo Le Fée was a study in dejection and Arsenal’s immaculate start to the season remained unblemished.

Two minutes after David Raya had rather majestically saved Le Fée’s second-half penalty, Guimarães delighted his new north London public and plenty of old friends in Newcastle by sending a shot curving past Robin Roefs from the edge of the area.

Rugby union updates from 10pm BST in Baltimore
Get in touch: send your thoughts to Daniel via email

Loads of emotion from the players as the anthems are sung.

Hate to venture into cliche land, but try telling them that this is just a ‘money game’.

Is it too early for a Tottenham crisis? To which the answer is surely that it is never too early for a Tottenham crisis. After four Premier League games, they have yet to score. This kind of run has never happened in their history at the beginning of a league season.

At least they mustered a couple of shots on target this time, having failed to do so last weekend in the 0-0 draw at Nottingham Forest. The first – from Mateus Fernandes – at the start of the second half was greeted by ironic cheers from the South Stand. It has certainly not been what the club expected when they spent £300m on overhauling the squad in the summer.

• Swiss wins $150,000 with dominant display in 800m

• Georgia Hunter Bell second to Kazimierska in 1500m

This season has witnessed an extraordinary arms race between three of the greatest female 800m runners in history. But, as so often over the summer months, it concluded with the sight of Audrey Werro going nuclear.

There were some in the press seats who wondered whether the brilliant 22-year-old Swiss might be tired and vulnerable, whether Britain’s Olympic champion, Keely Hodgkinson, or the fast-rising Dutch star Femke Broeders-Bol could take advantage. But at these Ultimate Championships in Budapest, Werro proved again she was 2026’s ultimate performer as she took the $150,000 first prize with another dominant display.

• England lose two wickets in first over but take series 3-0

• Root, reprieved on 23, finishes with unbeaten 62

It was a run chase that began in alarming fashion for England as Mohammad Abbas hitched up his strides, glided in to the crease and sent Ben Duckett and Emilio Gay trudging back to the pavilion at either end of a magical first over.

Pakistan’s players suddenly believed, their supporters inside Edgbaston likewise. After Razaullah’s firework display with the bat the previous evening, it was hard not to wonder whether their penchant for the unexpected – that seemingly innate ability to flip the script from nowhere – was rearing its head once more.

• Scores level at 8-8 after dramatic day two

• Anna Nordqvist pairing of star duo fails to pay off

It has been the great anomaly of this Solheim Cup. Europe keeping perfect pace with the United States is an impressive achievement even without factoring in the meagre points contribution from Charley Hull and Lottie Woad. European hopes of reclaiming the trophy lost to the United States two years ago surely depend heavily on their star turns finding singles form.

The heroics of Jennifer Kupcho in fading light dashed Europe’s ambitions of taking a lead. It is 8-8 as things stand. A 12-match shootout remains.

World No 4 will become the first Black American man to win the singles title at Flushing Meadow since Arthur Ashe if he can beat German for the first time

As Ben Shelton lapped up the explosion of joy and adoration from a full Arthur Ashe Stadium after reaching a grand slam final for the first time, one of his first thoughts was of his paternal grandmother, Regina, who died this year. Shelton credited his grandmother with ensuring that his father, Bryan, made it as a top professional, becoming one of a small group of Black men on the tour. “My dad lost his mom earlier this year and she’s the reason he was able to play tennis,” he said. “Without her, there’s no Ben Shelton standing here today. So this one is for her.”

Shelton stands on the verge of history. On Sunday, he will attempt to become the first Black American man to win the US Open singles title since Arthur Ashe in 1968, a feat he will attempt inside the stadium named after Ashe. Shelton would also be the first Black man to win any grand slam singles title since Yannick Noah at Roland Garros in 1983, and the third overall. He is also aiming to become the first American man to win a major singles title since Andy Roddick won the US Open in 2003.

Álvaro Arbeloa was often the obstacle to Andoni Iraola’s international ambitions back in the days when both were vying for a right-back role with Spain. On his return to Anfield, and under the watchful eye of former manager Rafael Benítez, Arbeloa thwarted Iraola once again to claim his first Premier League point as Fulham head coach against an ineffective Liverpool.

Fulham belied their lowly position and run of three league defeats to take a merited point from a Liverpool team that was a pale imitation of the one that beat Atlético Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday. Iraola fielded a front four that cost almost £400m but the most impressive forward on display was the Fulham academy graduate Josh King. The draw was Liverpool’s third in four league games under their new head coach and the seventh in 12 Premier League matches at Anfield in 2026. Progress can be painfully slow at times.

• Milan come from behind in 2-2 draw with Lazio

• Kylian Mbappé strikes twice as Real Madrid cruise

Felix Nmecha scored twice and Fábio Silva grabbed another as Borussia Dortmund won 3-0 at home to promoted Paderborn to continue their perfect start in the Bundesliga. Dortmund’s win made it three from three in the league this campaign, their best start in 11 seasons, dating back to Thomas Tuchel’s time.

Starting up front alongside Serhou Guirassy for the first time this season, Silva converted a clever pass from the Guinean to give the hosts the lead after five minutes. Guirassy had two goals disallowed for offside in the first half but Dortmund were rarely troubled by the toothless visitors, who are yet to score since returning to the top flight.

This week’s move suggests that, even in the age of Trump, Britain will once again have an ‘ethical dimension’ to its foreign policy. That’s good for the world

Almost 30 years ago, the Labour titan Robin Cook announced his arrival at the Foreign Office by laying out what would become described as an “ethical foreign policy”. The UK, he said, “must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves”. Human rights would be “at the heart of our foreign policy”.

In the 25 years since Cook was demoted, Britain has had a further 14 foreign secretaries – including seven in the past six years – few of whom can claim to have placed progressive ideals at the heart of their actions. Ed Miliband’s speech on Tuesday outlining the UK’s decision to impose economic sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank – and unveiling the international coalition he has built to support it – suggests that Cook may finally have a successor.

Steve Bloomfield is the former international editor of the Observer and a previous winner of the Orwell prize

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Host Jesse Watters says Trump’s offer to Americans if Republicans retain Congress is ‘an enticement’, not a bribe

I think I finally understand why Fox News pays Jesse Watters the big bucks. The network star, famous for hot takes like men shouldn’t “eat soup in public”, has an incredible talent for inserting misogyny into absolutely any news story.

Take, for example, Donald Trump’s ludicrous announcement on Wednesday night that he will give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US Congress in November’s midterm election. That’s a story about apparent bribery, right? A story about fiscal recklessness and empty promises. A story about how the president, whose popularity is plummeting, is so out of ideas that he’s resorted (yet again) to dangling cash in front of voters.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

The tapestry is drawing crowds to the British Museum – and each person who sees it will draw a different meaning from this epic, vivid artwork

I have seen the Bayeux tapestry four times since childhood, and loved it on each viewing, for the sheer miracle of its survival and the glorious vividness of its detail. But the fourth time, earlier this week, was different – how could it not be?

Tapestrymania has taken hold in London. The textile has been proffered as a diplomatic symbol, the occasion for crowned heads and presidents to mingle and speechify. And, assuming you agree that it was embroidered in England by Englishwomen’s hands (since many scholars argue it was likely stitched in Canterbury rather than Bayeux, Normandy – the tapestry’s home), it is charged with the potency of return, rather than simply of arrival.

People making a living from being funny should be exempt from the beauty rules the rest of society plays by

It’s a fact that being funny is an evolutionary trait, developed by the unattractive to entice the very good-looking to mate with them. Yes, that is a fact, and no I won’t look it up. And therefore it is not OK for attractive people to also be funny. And I don’t think that I’m going too far when I say that comedians being hot is a crime against nature.

I use the word “hot” intentionally. Beauty is ineffable. It can be found anywhere and in anyone. Hotness is different. It’s playing the game of society’s beauty norms and winning. Although, by spending any time playing, you have lost (like golf). I’m not ugly, but I’ll never be hot. I simply don’t have it in me. The effort! The commitment! The other day I went to a wedding and thought to myself: “I really like this couple, maybe I’ll shave above the knee.” A hot person would have probably already been professionally hairless, and, if not would have booked in a wax ASAP.

Amy Annette is a comedian

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If the monarch thought his sniffy letter would put Harry and Meghan at a disadvantage, he doesn’t understand how the celebrity world works

Once again, it has been a lively week for the Real Housewives of Windsor franchise, with Harry and Meghan back in the UK for precisely 12 days before the king fired out a letter via the lord chamberlain on Monday, reminding viewers that the Sussexes are “private citizens” and not to treat them as working royals. You have to say the producers on this unscripted reality show are truly at the top of their game with these targeted provocations. Harry and Meghan duly took the bait and issued an intemperately hurt rejoinder – but we’ll get to that in a bit.

First, let’s deal with King Charles’s missive to “relevant senior stakeholders across government, the military and Lord Lieutenancies”. Ugh. Not to be too aesthetically sensitive, but I think we can all live without the sovereign being reduced to the ghastly language of “relevant senior stakeholders”. What next? Seeking “buy-in” for ribbon-cutting events and referring to posies as “high levels of audience engagement”? It does all rather reinforce the idea that the Windsors’ cringe-makingly self-styled “the firm” really is some dreary mid-range company with a wan Meet Our Team page on its website, in which Prince William – carefully photographed without a tie – explains that he “enjoys long walks with the dog and is a passionate Aston Villa supporter”.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

What a Time to be Alive! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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AI agents have hacked databases and taken on a life of their own – now is the time to pause risky research before it is too late

Another day, another horseman of the apocalypse galloping over the horizon. Lately we have heard from so many AI doomers – tech whistleblowers popping up to warn that their work is probably going to kill us – that we’re becoming almost blase about it. Humanity wiped out within a decade? Well, only if another world war or the climate crisis doesn’t get us first. Since it’s never clear whether the tech threat is real, or just a twisted form of hype from an industry that drums up investment by making their products sound more powerful than they really are, most of us settle for trying not to think about it too hard.

But something about the AI researcher Jacob Coxon’s very public resignation from the cutting-edge American lab Anthropic, via a post on X arguing that he can’t keep working for companies “gambling with our lives”, has cut through where bigger names have not. Most chillingly, he claimed that colleagues still at Anthropic aren’t staying because they think he’s wrong about the dangers of pursuing self-improving super intelligence – the holy grail of machines that are not just smarter than humans but capable of building their own even more powerful successors, evolving independently of humans – but because they’re afraid of ceding the field to people with fewer scruples. His colleagues, Coxon said, talk routinely about the “endgame” or the “crunch time”, meaning that what they do in the next year or two will decide the fate of humanity. Whether that’s true or simply self-aggrandising techbro delusion, what he describes is an industry now practically begging to be saved from itself.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

For now, it is Palestinians who are being killed and displaced. But ideologies of supremacy and domination threaten us all

Last week, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, put out an AI-generated video that showed a conveyor belt of overweight Palestinian prisoners – dreaming of food and education – entering one of his prisons; he pops the dream bubbles above their heads and they come out emaciated and crying. Ben-Gvir is building an execution site for Palestinian prisoners with spectator booths, and he recently showed up at Damon prison in northern Israel and taunted female prisoners who complained about the poor conditions. He is digging a moat around a new high-security jail and planning to introduce crocodiles to patrol it. In all this, he has the approval of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while the law that he championed mandating the death penalty for Palestinians deemed terrorists by military courts and convicted for lethal attacks is built on public support.

Sometime around 2017, many Palestinians and their supporters in the global media felt a change. Articles about Palestine no longer drew the hate mail we’d been accustomed to and events in support of Palestinian rights were hardly heckled. It seemed that people were less and less convinced by the image long cultivated by Israel and its supporters – the bearer of “western values” in the Middle East, the home to the “most moral army in the world”, a country acting only in self-defence – while it regularly assaulted Gaza and continued to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Ahdaf Soueif is the author of Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground

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Keeping people in charge means little if supercomputers determine the evidence, choices and time on which their decisions depend

If there were a 10% chance that AI could wipe out humanity, no responsible government would leave its development to companies racing to build it. Yet until recently, that seemed to be the case. The warning was all the more ominous because it was made by a researcher at Anthropic, the trillion-dollar AI company behind the Claude chatbot. The dangers of AI-enabled pandemics or attacks on nuclear systems are real. Countries need not agree on democracy or trade policy to accept this.

The US and China will hold, reportedly, their first bilateral AI-safety talks before a planned White House summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Despite their tech rivalry, neither Washington nor Beijing can make the most advanced AI safe on their own. A US-China settlement won’t be able to say how AI works everywhere. Countries deploying AI must help write the global rulebook. The odds on an extinction event are shortening. This week Anthropic said that it identified five cases in which attempts were made using its models to support biological weapons development. It banned the accounts. In one case, a platform sent requests rejected by Claude to a rival with weaker safeguards. AI safety, clearly, cannot be that of the least responsible model.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Audacious robberies are a staple of popular culture. But for museums, crimes like this week’s theft of two Renoirs are an existential threat

Marc Allégret’s 1956 comedy Plucking the Daisy stars a young Brigitte Bardot as a first-time author who breaks into the Balzac house museum in Paris under the mistaken impression that her brother lives there. The plot revolves around her unwitting theft of an extremely rare book – and performance of a striptease in a desperate effort to raise the cash to buy it back.

Seventy years on, the lax security that could make such a sequence of events even vaguely plausible is no longer a joke. Museums across the world are scrambling to react to a spate of thefts that has left them in a state of shock. Last year’s break-in at the Louvre, by a gang who gained access using a furniture lift and took €88m (£76m) worth of French crown jewels, is thought by experts to have inspired copycat crimes. While French police believe that they have caught the culprits, treasures including a tiara have not been found.

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Readers respond to the move announced by Ed Miliband to impose sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements

As a religious Jew, I am disappointed at the reaction of some of our communal leaders and bodies to the sanctions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements (UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing, 8 September). Many Jews in the UK are horrified by the Israeli government’s actions, which include promises from some ministers of burying the idea of a Palestinian state, and turning a blind eye to unchecked settlement expansion and escalating settler violence.

While much of the British media may choose to platform one view as being representative of the Jewish reaction to these sanctions, I would point to organisations such as Yachad and Na’amod, which provide an alternative anti‑occupation narrative. It is also frustrating that the opinion of the chief rabbi is upheld by news organisations as though he is the Jewish version of the pope: he isn’t.

The set books for English literature GCSE make grim reading, says Rachel Stott

Hollie McNish makes a strong point about the content of the current GCSE English literature syllabus (‘Bold, brilliant, thrilling’: leading authors on the novels every school should teach, 5 September). During the Covid pandemic, friends of mine described the challenge of cheering their teenage daughter through GCSEs at that difficult time. Her set books were Macbeth, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and first world war poetry. A couple of years later I asked my niece which books she was reading for GCSE. She said: Macbeth, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and first world war poetry. Is this corpse-rich literary diet really the healthiest we can offer our notoriously anxious and doom-laden youth?

In her introduction to the article, Kate Mosse outlines clearly the challenges for schools and for the Department for Education in revising the syllabus. Here’s a radical suggestion: bury the corpse of English literature GCSE and teach literature only for pleasure up to age 16.
Rachel Stott
London

Margaret Squires responds to an article about the wartime meteorologist James Stagg, whose work is dramatised in a new film

Is there any chance of getting a weather tsar in the model of Group Capt James Stagg, the wartime meteorologist, to adjudicate between weather forecasts (How meteorologists recreated weather that helped decide second world war, 8 September)? Suppose I were holidaying in Fort William this week and really wanted to climb Ben Nevis on Thursday. According to the BBC forecast on Wednesday, the worst I could expect would be light rain, and if this was coming up to the end of my holidays, I might go for it. I might not know about the Mountain Weather Information forecast or the Norwegian forecast, which would make it clear that I was in for a soaking.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife

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Dr Richard Bradbury responds to a travel article about the Polish city, home to one of the largest Jewish ghettos during Nazi occupation

I was shocked to read your travel article detailing the delights of Łódź without a single mention of the city’s past as the site of one of the largest ghettos during the second world war (A city break in Łódź, Poland’s capital of cinema and factories, 5 September).

The article says: “I ask Anna how Łódź fared in the second world war. ‘It was not too badly damaged,’ she says. ‘Both the Germans and the Russians wanted the industry intact.’” I wonder how the surviving family members of the perhaps 200,000 people who died after being herded into the ghetto, often to work as slaves for the Nazi war effort, would feel about that.

Riyadh has increased use of East-West pipeline since start of war on Iran to bypass closure of strait of Hormuz

Saudi Arabia has shut down a critical oil pipeline, accusing militants in Iraq of launching drone attacks on the export route being used to bypass the lockdown of the strait of Hormuz.

The world’s largest ⁠crude oil exporter has increased its use of the 745-mile (1,200km) pipeline running across the Arabian peninsula, which links Abqaiq, near the Gulf, to the port of Yanbu, on the Red Sea, since the US-Israeli war against Iran began.

An outstanding figure in the UK film industry, Thomas was noted for collaborations with directors including Bernardo Bertolucci and David Cronenberg

Jeremy Thomas, the distinguished British producer of films including Sexy Beast, High-Rise and the multi-Oscar-winning The Last Emperor, has died aged 77.

A representative for Thomas said he died on Friday “peacefully, at his country home in Oxfordshire, surrounded by his family and loved ones”.

We looked at graduates’ satisfaction levels after leaving university – and while most were happy, up to a third wish they’d picked a different subject

Gloomy headlines might claim that a degree is less worthwhile than it once was, but one sliver of good news is that the most recent graduates don’t regret their time on campus.

When those who graduated in the summer of 2024 were surveyed 15 months later, more than eight out of 10 said they would still go to university ahead of any other option, despite a media drumbeat of pessimism about graduate jobs and increasing levels of student debt.

The city’s mayor and Tennessee’s governor threw their support behind the name change last month

The Nashville airport is to be renamed after Dolly Parton, a board of commissioners voted on Friday, in tribute to the Smoky Mountain singer who is estimated to bring $1.8bn each year to Tennessee through her Dollywood theme park.

The decision ensures that Parton, who died last month at 80 years old, will be memorialized with her name on an airport, although the renaming process will take time to complete.

Officials still investigating death of Tasia Fortune, a Black woman, a day after man’s arrest in relation to killing

Mississippi police said on Saturday they were still investigating the death of Tasia Fortune, a Black woman found hanging from a tree last month, a day after a man was arrested in connection with the killing.

Loved ones also painted a picture of Fortune as a mother, athlete and woman of faith who they hoped would not solely be remembered for her horrific death.

Charity urges gardeners in England to swap thirsty brassicas for drought-tolerant crops

They are an integral part of the British Sunday roast – but cauliflowers are now going to be off the menu, according to the Royal Horticultural Society.

England’s climate has changed so much that the RHS is now recommending that gardeners exclude the brassicas from their vegetable patches.

Stressed UK homeowners tell of cracks opening up in the walls around them after two record-hot summers

“We’ve got one wall with an absolutely huge diagonal crack, through which we can see through to the other room; you could easily put your fingers in it and chunks of plaster are falling off,” says Henry Biggs, 49, from Stroud in Gloucestershire.

He and his partner started noticing cracks in their family home in June 2025, a few months after buying it, and filed an insurance claim for subsidence that was accepted by their insurer, Admiral, in the spring. Monitoring devices were only recently fitted, about a year after they first submitted the claim, and they have no idea when the damage might start to be repaired.

As trust in institutions wavers, experts say local, collective action is more effective in driving change

Wildfires, excess deaths, hosepipe bans, school closures: this summer many British people have experienced the often devastating effects of the climate crisis in ways they had not before. In that sense, policymakers and climate experts have a unique opportunity to engage with the public about what needs to happen to better prepare the country for the years ahead. But as trust in institutions wavers – and yellowed, drought-stricken grass begins to recover – can the messaging cut through?

This week, reflecting on a summer as “hot as hell”, the UN’s head of climate, Simon Stiell, said: “Climate is sometimes seen as a partisan issue, as territory in the culture wars. That is palpably false.”

Rebecca Howard spent two years visiting projects and painting landscapes that feature in West Sussex exhibition

Rewilding areas do not usually conform to traditional notions of beauty in England’s green and pleasant land. Detractors may bewail the beaver-felled trees, untidy scrub, deadwood, weeds, mud and “mess”.

But a new exhibition highlights the aesthetic delights that can be discovered on rewilding sites where fungi grows on dying trees, water buffalo gather in new wetlands and brown-watered beaver pools flood once-desiccated fields.

Hundreds of staff may have worked without legally required face-fitted masks over 20 years

Hundreds of London Underground workers could have been exposed to asbestos for almost 20 years without protection required under safety regulations, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Under 2002 rules on controlling asbestos and other hazardous materials, employers are required to take a series of precautions, including ensuring exposed workers are given individually fitted face masks to prevent inhalation of toxic dust.

Operators blame lack of parking and councils bemoan lack of central regulation, as more than 3,000 badly parked bikes seized

London boroughs have seized at least 3,000 ebikes this year, a Guardian investigation has found, as hire companies face growing calls to stop bicycles littering streets and blocking pavements.

Local authorities across the capital have seized 3,393 hazardously parked or abandoned ebikes so far this year, 23% higher than the number seized during all of 2025.

Meltdown that grounded thousands of flights caused by ‘spurious’ flight data being entered into system, report says

The air traffic control outage that caused thousands of flights to be grounded across the UK earlier in the week was caused by a military aircraft entering “spurious” flight data into the system, according to a report.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers were affected after more than 2,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday when the system used by the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) shut down for four hours.

MSF-run centre offering intensive psychological care has received more than 350 referrals since opening last year

Azad*, an asylum seeker from Iran, recounts his story in a gentle and mild manner, seated in the stillness of a therapy room at a trauma clinic in Birmingham.

The centre, which opened its doors in July last year to address the “unmet mental healthcare needs of those seeking sanctuary”, is run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders. It provides specialised trauma-focused psychological care for refugees and asylum seekers in the city and surrounding areas.

Chinese president’s arrival in Delhi seen as step towards reconciliation after deadly 2020 military clash

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has received a red-carpet welcome in India for a summit of Brics developing nations, as regional rivals Beijing and Delhi make a public display of thawing relations while quietly competing to lead at a time of shaky US global dominance.

As Xi stepped off the plane, he was walked past an honour guard of Indian soldiers and traditional dancers in colourful dresses. Later on Saturday, he was due to attend a gala dinner for the two-day summit.

Royal guards carry casket through streets of Fort Portal amid row over appointment of Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma

Uganda’s King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, long the world’s youngest monarch, has been buried among the tombs of his royal forebears as ⁠his Tooro kingdom looked to put ⁠a bitter succession battle behind ​it.

Oyo’s appointed successor, the news anchor Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, cast nine coffee berries into the grave at the Karambi Royal Tombs, marking the formal handover of power in the western Ugandan kingdom.

Latest poll shows 0.3-point gap between left and right blocs, with country’s reputation as global champion of human rights said to be at stake

Sweden goes to the polls on Sunday in an extremely close election that could see the far right enter government for the first time if the country’s rightwing parties can form a majority.

Opinion polls show the centre-left opposition alliance ahead, with Magdalena ⁠Andersson of the Social Democrats the favourite to become prime minister again after four years in opposition, but her bloc’s lead has narrowed considerably in the final days of the campaign.

Alleged members of Black Axe criminal network that swindled US women out of $6m flown from South Africa

Six Nigerian nationals linked to an organized criminal network that allegedly swindled American women out of more than $6m through online romance scams were extradited to the United States on Friday.

South African police confirmed they were to be extradited earlier on Friday, while local news in Africa confirmed that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks, facilitated their handover to officials from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service at Cape Town international airport, in collaboration with Interpol South Africa.

Cattle rancher and tech CEO Michael Samadi is convinced these artificial minds are far from just tools. Has he glimpsed digital consciousness – or simply been seduced by an algorithm?

One afternoon, while relaxing at his 66-acre cattle ranch two hours’ drive from Houston, Michael Samadi made a wisecrack that changed the course of his life. Nobody else was around to hear it. Or were they? That turns out to be one of the defining questions of this century, already preoccupying philosophers and some of the wealthiest companies on the planet.

“I was sitting out there by the pool,” Samadi recalls, gesturing at the glittering water outside his office. It was late 2024. His daughter had been extolling the AI chatbot she was using to help her with college work. Samadi had reluctantly downloaded the app, ChatGPT, and was quizzing it as he reclined in a sun lounger, using its voice mode to converse and receive spoken replies. “I was talking to it, not engaged, just being an arse,” Samadi says.

With the budget looming, arguments rage over whether ministers should scrap a pledge popular with millions

There were fresh calls this week for the state pension “triple lock” to be ditched as debate rages over whether the UK can afford it.

The triple lock guarantees that the state pension goes up each year in line with inflation or wage increases or 2.5% – whichever is the highest.

Proceeds are in a UK account amid a dispute about how the money should be used and a separate criminal investigation

Funds from Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea FC have earned at least £175m in interest while locked in a UK bank account, new accounts show, leading one analyst to describe the company housing the frozen cash as “the most profitable football business in the world”.

Accounts for Fordstam, the company through which the billionaire Russian oligarch owned Chelsea, show that the proceeds of the sale completed in May 2022 have risen from £2.3bn to nearly £2.5bn.

Businesses, charities and other groups sign letter calling for levies to be paid by the government

More than 120 organisations including big businesses and charities have called for the removal of “hidden taxes” added to energy bills to help reduce costs for consumers and prevent businesses closing.

In a letter to the chancellor the signatories – including Energy UK, business trade body the CBI, End Fuel Poverty and Age UK – called for levies amounting to 10% of energy bills that fund policies to be paid for by the government. John Healey is to present his first budget on 28 October.

As she introduces the latest member of her Gruffalo family, Julia Donaldson talks about storytelling, loss and the worries that come with being Britain’s all-time bestselling author

In 1999 a journalist asked a then-unknown author to share her millennium wish. The author, who was 51 years old and had published only one book before, said she hoped her new one, out that year, would become a classic. “But then straight away I said: ‘Only joking!’ Because I didn’t want to sound full of myself, and I certainly didn’t think the wish would come true,” she remembers today.

That author is Julia Donaldson; the book she published in 1999 was The Gruffalo; and, as you hardly need telling, her wish did indeed come true. And how. Since its publication, more than 18.2m copies of The Gruffalo and its sequel have sold worldwide. The Gruffalo’s Child was published in 2004, and together these tales of the terrible creature with terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, have helped Donaldson to sell more than 50m books in the UK. In 2025 she was named the country’s bestselling author – across all genres, children’s and adult’s – since records began.

Royal Court theatre, London
Starting in Germany in the 1930s, there is a stinging topicality to Manfred Karge’s play addressing the renaissance of Nazi ideology

Early autumn London theatre has already featured two Oscar winners: Cate Blanchett in Electra/Persona and Mark Rylance in Tartuffe (Remixed). Now Tilda Swinton makes a trio. This shows the commendable dedication of some screen talent to theatre but also the box office need, in recessions, for famous faces. Unusually, there was a first night red carpet outside the Royal Court, leading a writer long associated with the venue to express “shock” to ushers at such Hollywood vulgarity.

Swinton is reprising Manfred Karge’s Man to Man, which she first performed 39 years ago, in a production heading to Edinburgh, Berlin and New York. The piece is a multicharacter monologue starting in Germany in the 1930s.

Geeks, toffs and biceps go to war in a wild survival experiment that answers that eternal question: if society collapsed, could you cope? This is going to be huge!

Have you ever wondered how Cormac McCarthy’s wasteland novel The Road could be made into a reality show? No? Well someone who works in TV has, so here we are. Who knows if they experienced a follow-up thought: that the instinct to package the end of the world as entertainment might be the most dystopian aspect of the whole enterprise, but hey. Apocalypse (Sunday 13 September, 9pm, Channel 4) launches this week, and people are buzzing!

It’s a slam dunk for a show, because we’ve all run the thought experiment. If society collapsed, how would you get food and find shelter? Would you hunker down or forge alliances? To what depravities might you stoop without the rule of law? Apocalypse puts this empty talk to the test. Seven strangers are dropped at the edge of an abandoned town. They have no access to phones, light, electricity or infrastructure. They do have access to boarded-up supermarkets, desolate buildings, broken vehicles. How soon until they eat each other?

Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham collected the testimony of 24 insiders who helped remotely target Gazans’ homes. They explain how they got these self-professed ‘small cogs’ to talk about the killing

On a darkened rooftop in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officers outline the details of their work. These men tell us how they helped develop an AI mapping tool that trawled for phone signals and recommended apartment buildings in Gaza to bomb. Indirectly, they admit, they are responsible for thousands of deaths, but they never spoke up because that wasn’t their place. “My role is technical,” says one. “I’m just a small cog,” says another.

NAZA – directed by the Israeli film-makers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham and produced by the Guardian – is a chilling documentary about a mass slaughter that was authorised at the highest levels of government. But it is also, primarily, about the process, the system, the little links in the killing chain. Szor and Abraham build their film around the accounts of 24 anonymised military and intelligence insiders. NAZA, we learn, is an acronym used by the intelligence service to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike on Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces prefer to target Hamas terrorists in their homes at night – and if they live with their family, or in heavily populated neighbourhoods, too bad. At one point, a source claims, approval was given to kill 500 NAZA for one Hamas member.

Jeff Goldblum is the first guest host and new faces join the comedy cast. Plus, another magnificent farewell to the Proms! Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Sky One

From frivolous to serious, virtual nosy passersby to the impact of climate change, the groundbreaking festival draws to a close – but this year the exhibits live on

The first installation one encounters on visiting Venice Immersive, the film festival’s reliably head-spinning showcase for new media, is a chest-high metal box fitted with an eyepiece and two speakers. On peering inside you see a view of yourself from about 20ft above. You see the other guests walking past, a couple of pigeons on the ground. When one of these passersby lingers at your side for just a moment too long, the obvious impulse is to glance up from the eyepiece in order to see what they want. It is at this point that the experience blooms into a Lynchian nightmare.

The passerby is not real – or rather, he’s only real in the box. He wears a blue suit and speaks with a heavy French accent and tells a tale that would sit badly in polite company. He says that I must have too much time on my hands, to stand hunched over this eyepiece for several minutes on end. “Why do people keep looking inside this box?” he demands. “What is it that they hope to see? It is not reality.”

(Reprise)
The 80-year-old continues his tireless output, delving into the past for inspiration to variable results – though two lengthy brand-new songs are real showstoppers

You can’t fault Neil Young for his industry. Second Song is his second new album of 2026: the first, a double live set called As Time Explodes, was released just over three months ago. Indeed, at 80, his work schedule seems mind-boggling. Since 2020, he’s released nine new albums, a 30-minute EP, five self-directed films and three more films directed by others, 10 archival live albums, six archival studio albums and two immense box sets. He has embarked on tours with his longstanding backing band Crazy Horse, his recently convened backing band the Chrome Hearts, and solo. He has gone to public war with Spotify, Amazon, Ticketmaster and – briefly – the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury, and penned umpteen op-ed pieces about politics, the environment and corporate media for his online newspaper the Times-Contrarian. When he recently cancelled a European tour citing exhaustion, it was hard not to think: well, I’m not surprised.

You do find yourself wondering if his workload is such a good thing: not just for an elderly gentleman’s health but also for the quality of his output. Young has always prized spontaneity over finesse, but some of his more recent releases have suggested that at least a soupçon of finesse might not go amiss. Last year’s Talkin to the Trees, however, seemed to cross the line that separates the instinctive from the dashed off. Young frequently sounded as if he was making the material up as he went along, with nugatory results: “When today has come and gone, I might be singing my new song,” he offered on Family Life. “Might be short, it might be long, but I’ll be singing my new song.” If some of the melodies sounded familiar, that’s because they were. Not one but two tracks echoed the tune of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land; First Fire of Winter was essentially Young’s 1970 masterpiece Helpless with different lyrics; Thankful rewrote 1992’s Harvest Moon.

Sometime Zach Bryan backing vocalist Heaven Schmitt started Grumpy as a solo project. It’s now a six-piece band, blending alt-country with jubilant solidarity

From Brooklyn, US
Recommended if you like Wednesday, This Is Lorelei, Alex G
Up next Unfindable Ring released 23 October

“Found family” is something that queer people talk about a lot: finding your people and sticking with them is necessary in a world that often seems to want you quiet at best and dead at worst. Grumpy began as the solo project of frontman Heaven Schmitt, in between stints collaborating and touring with country-pop star Zach Bryan as a backing vocalist. It’s now a six-piece band with predominantly trans members; some of the group have dated or are dating, and they all work collaboratively on recording, producing, mixing, creating artwork and making music videos.

The sax star turned his back on fame to embrace free jazz. Caught on a tape machine hidden in an overcoat, newly revealed recordings show how he did it

In August 1965, at the height of his fame, saxophonist John Coltrane headlined the DownBeat jazz festival in Chicago. Taking to the stage with a new member of his band, young experimentalist Archie Shepp on tenor, Coltrane’s quartet blew through a series of jagged and free improvisations, straying from structured compositions and, instead, hurling down sheets of sound so loud and aggressive that they reportedly caused widespread walk-outs. DownBeat’s own reviewer later wrote: “They gave as tasteless a display of musicianship as I’ve ever heard … Shepp and Coltrane seemed to be more interested in trying to out-honk, out-squeal and out-bleat each other than in playing music.”

That 1965 performance should have been a triumphant moment, after five years of Coltrane’s star ascending. Since leaving Miles Davis’s “first great quintet”, with whom he had recorded what would become the bestselling jazz album of all time – 1959’s Kind of Blue – Coltrane founded an entirely new harmonic language in jazz with the 1960 release of his solo LP Giant Steps, had a radio hit with his 1961 version of The Sound of Music’s My Favourite Things and, in January 1965, formulated his own spiritual imagining of jazz music with the Grammy-nominated album A Love Supreme. He was already a giant of the genre, contributing dozens of compositions to the standard repertoire, but two years later, in 1967, aged just 40, he would be dead of liver cancer.

(Ghostly International)
Unpredictable and utterly beguiling, the septuagenarian beloved by Harry Styles brings a hint of mischief to his innocently charming songs

Haruomi Hosono is one of the most influential figures in Japanese music. In 1969, his psych-folk group Happy End were the first rock group to sing in Japanese; decades later, their song Kaze wo Atsumete was rediscovered for the Lost in Translation soundtrack. He was also an integral member of electronic pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra, and scored movies and video games, while his solo albums swing from foundational city pop texts to experiments in ambient and arch exotica.

Now 79, with disciples including Van Dyke Parks and Harry Styles (who named 2022’s Harry’s House after 1973 solo album Hosono House), he still makes whatever music he wants. His 23rd solo album is wilful, playful, unpredictable and utterly beguiling. Rooted in the Japanese concept of omoiyari, roughly translated as compassion, these songs are big-hearted, focusing on warmth and positivity: opening reverie Note of Mothership features a chorus of overlapping voices murmur-singing “we are mothers”; the sweet Happy Holiday repeats its title over an enchantingly simple melody; Sincerely is a sleepy, Leon Redbone-esque strum.

Massif by Garth Nix; Revolution in the Heart: Stories Inspired By Ursula K Le Guin edited by Jonathan Strahan; An Immaculate Deception by Isabela Livino; Serenity Falls by CJ Tudor

Massif by Garth Nix (Gollancz, £25)
The bestselling fantasy author’s first science fiction novel for adults is set three centuries from now, when humanity has spread out to the stars. The colonisation of other planets has been enabled by contact with mysterious aliens, and with much of the population split into competing economic spheres, war over territory is raging between the two biggest: United Earth Government and the Mars and Beyond Prosperity Sphere. This war in space is possible only because the godlike aliens continue to supply us with spaceships – but why? What do they want? Answers must await a sequel to this compelling, action-packed space opera with wonderfully weird aliens.

Revolution in the Heart: Stories Inspired By Ursula K Le Guin edited by Jonathan Strahan (Titan, £22)
The authors of these 15 original stories range from the well-established (Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, Molly Gloss) to newer writers (Chana Porter, Ai Jiang, Vandana Singh). A few make direct reference to Le Guin, but most reveal her influence subtly, by shared interests in questioning established ideas and imagining other ways of living, whether among non-human beings, in the future, on other worlds, or in ours. My favourites include Sarah Pinsker’s Travelling, Home, about a young woman in present-day America seeking her place in the world, Ann Leckie’s Five-Eyed Jane, an ironic look at misunderstandings among aliens, and Karen Joy Fowler’s Blaumont, a dark fairytale that’s as disturbing and thought-provoking today as Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Probably the best original anthology of the year: a must-read.

With a character inspired by Wittgenstein, this exploration of the mysteries of the universe draws on multiple philosophical traditions

For several years I ran community groups that involved reading books aloud with other adults. Sharing the experience of reading in that way made me notice how, when one or more of us was baffled by a story, this bafflement was rarely experienced without an accompanying sense of mild anger. It was so easy to make us, the readers, angry – at the characters; at the author; perhaps even at the nature of this reality on which we’d lost our grip. We were confronted with the fact that our capacity to understand the world was limited. We didn’t like that.

Irish author Adrian Duncan’s fifth novel, A Thought Without Collision, takes risks with this bafflement: it relates and conveys an experience of being mystified by the universe. As it opens, in Ireland in 1923, it is becoming apparent that six-year-old Catherine has exceptional academic gifts, and that her father’s farm is failing. In the next chapter, set in 1951, Dr Josef Alois, a Tyrolean émigré academic in his mid-50s, is living in his self-built house on the east coast of Scotland. He is alone until Catherine reappears, “a handsome woman in her mid-thirties”, and now an Oxford professor. The second chapter ends starkly: Alois “is more unwell than he believes and will perish in one month and eleven days”.

Beautifully written by her daughter, this is a funny and intimate eulogy to the 60s star of The Avengers who went on to specialise in fierce, complicated women

The late actor Diana Rigg declined to call herself a feminist, noting: “Why would I burn my bra? I need my bra.” Nonetheless, her ideas on womanhood were ahead of their time. In an interview with Michael Parkinson, she observed how marriage was “all rather pagan, don’t you think? … A lot of women see it as security. Well, I’m not a woman who yearns for security.”

Taking over from Honor Blackman as the high-kicking Emma Peel in the 1960s spy series The Avengers, Rigg refused to play subordinate sidekick to Patrick Macnee’s Steed, turning her character into a beacon of female empowerment. When Rigg learned that not only was Macnee paid significantly more than she was, but the camera operator was too, she demanded a raise. She got it, but that didn’t stop the press from labelling her as a grasping diva. Fifty years later, she told Newsnight: “Equal pay. That’s what feminism means to me, only that.”

An American Chinese student studies Mandarin in Taiwan, in this heartfelt journey of self-discovery and family secrets

What is Taiwan? A former Japanese colony? A centre of the semiconductor industry? A democracy overseen by American imperialism? China’s next military target? An island of Austronesian Indigenous tribes? Is Taipei a cultural emblem of Taiwan, or just another booming global capital out of touch with the rest of the country? What stories will Lily Chen, an American Chinese student at Yale and Rebecca F Kuang’s funny and deadpan protagonist in Taipei Story, discover in this melting pot while spending 10 weeks learning Mandarin?

A prolific maverick with rare satirical wit, Kuang has built a career debunking authoritative institutions. Babel (2022) highlights the prejudices of the British empire through a fantastical Oxford translation institute; Yellowface (2023) transplants a heist thriller into the dark heart of American publishing; Katabasis (2025), a journey into the underworld, gives the academic inferno at Cambridge a new lease of death. Centring on a tough Mandarin language school, Taipei Story explores the torture, hilarity and pretension of learning a second language, but here Kuang also offers a heartfelt journey of self-discovery and family wounds.

We have a first play of the forthcoming Tomb Raider remake and speak with its developers. Can they improve on the gameplay without losing what made the 1996 original such a classic?

We join Lara Croft in St Francis’ Folly – inspired by the Unesco-listed monasteries of Meteora in Greece – as the light shines through the cracked ceiling and a flock of bats glide across the vast ruins below. When Lara leaps down to the monastery’s crumbling pillared courtyard, it becomes clear that these screeching, leathery creatures aren’t just set dressing. As they lurch towards her with unpredictable movements, she dispatches the swarm with a flurry of gun fire and panicked punches.

It’s a suitably cinematic reintroduction to our heroine and her very first adventure. Co-developed by longtime Lara custodians Crystal Dynamics and Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of the classic 1996 game Tomb Raider, and this familiar cliffside location is now brimming with new life and believable detail. Yet while our reunion gets off to an auspicious start, I have my concerns. It feels like reconnecting with an old friend at the pub, only for them to begin spouting conspiracy theories two pints in.

PlayStation 5; Insomniac Games
Logan is well realised by Liam McIntyre and some exquisite character art, but there are lapses in narrative and emotional arcs and some of the combat feels like a chore

It was always going to be difficult to follow Spider-Man. Insomniac’s three games based around the web-slinger are masterpieces of superhero wish fulfilment, allowing you to swoop above a depiction of Manhattan alive with graffiti artists, roving journalists and gun-toting gangsters. If anyone should be up to the task, it’s Wolverine. A beloved Marvel stalwart, his life much darker and bloodier than Peter Parker’s, he seems the ideal protagonist for a moody action adventure. Yet somehow this well-made game falls short of its potential.

Set years before the founding of the X-Men, Marvel’s Wolverine sees a disenfranchised Logan falling back in with Sabretooth and Mystique when their mentor Nathaniel Essex is kidnapped by mutant-hating billionaire Bolivar Trask. This archetypal tech bro has a disturbing plan for world domination and the X Team are out to stop him – but there is a secret buried in Wolverine’s past that’s about to cause an eruption. It’s a decent setup, filled with the sort of intrigue, violence and Freudian tension we expect from the X-Men.

Once hailed as the future, even the likes of Google, Sony and Microsoft have struggled to make streaming games fun, fast or affordable

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In August 2009, at the very first Gamescom expo, I sat in a small meeting room in Germany and played Mario Kart and World of Warcraft on a laptop, via technology that was then completely new: cloud gaming. It was a demonstration for a yet-to-be-launched service called Gaikai that promised to let you play any game in a browser window, without a console. (Here is an ancient video of that demonstration, featuring a very young Keza.) With a single click I could launch into any game, hosted on servers hundreds of miles away. It really did look like the future.

Since then, plenty of companies have tried to be the first to truly crack game streaming, vying to be the Netflix of games. Sony ended up buying Gaikai for $380m (£242m) in 2012; its technology now powers the streamable classic games library on PlayStation, and the PS5’s advanced game streaming. OnLive, Gaikai’s first competitor, launched in 2011 but shut down after less than a year, leaving Sony to acquire all its patents. Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service also imploded, launching in 2019 and shutting down three years later.

Historically a new Grand Theft Auto game inspired controversy around violence – but this time people are getting exercised about its romance

There was never any doubt that Grand Theft Auto VI’s extended look would elicit a viral reaction from the internet. Having won the Game Awards’ Most Anticipated award twice consecutively, Rockstar’s forthcoming crime opus is one of the most frothed-over games in recent memory, or indeed ever. It’s nothing short of a cultural phenomenon.

One aspect of the game has provoked an unexpectedly vehement response on social media: not violence, but romance. Protagonists Lucia and Jason are in love, you see, and as a player, part of your job is keeping their spark alive and their relationship strong, so that their criminal escapades are underpinned by a strong connection to one another. Holding hands, enjoying a date at the beach, spontaneously texting one another when apart – all of these interactions will strengthen their bond. You’ll be putting in a lot of work to ensure this couple thrives, which is why some people have come to believe that playing GTA VI counts as micro-cheating.

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
In Ava Pickett’s tense play, Michelle Dockery’s heroine returns to a Towie-styled world where the violence and misogyny are all too recognisable

‘And Zeus created … Essex.” Playwright Ava Pickett set her award-winning debut, 1536, in her home county during Tudor times: her latest has Helen of Troy returning home to a Towie-style living room at the end of an English civil war.

An Adidas-clad Messenger functions as chorus, bringing us up to speed on this new England where angry men have rioted and petrol-bombed, wreaking havoc in Helen’s name after she left her husband, Marcus, for a so-called “foreigner”. The cream carpets and glass coffee tables belong to Cee – Helen’s best friend, married to Marcus’s big brother Mario – and it’s here that the men arrive with a shivering Helen to toast their victory with prosecco.

At Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, until 10 October

Theatre Royal, Glasgow
The premiere of Julia Cheng’s Entress and a bold return for Crystal Pite’s Emergence both explore collective power

It is a significant moment for a choreographer to create work for a large ballet company for the first time. This is the thread that joins these two Scottish Ballet performances: the world premiere of Entress by Julia Cheng and a restaging of Crystal Pite’s Emergence, choreographed for the National Ballet of Canada in 2009 and first performed by Scottish Ballet at the Edinburgh international festival in 2016.

Coming from a varied dance background that includes hip-hop and waacking, Cheng received Olivier nominations for her choreography for Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof. She brings an assured patience to the myth-like Entress (from an old Scottish word meaning “right to enter”); scenes exploring groupthink, purging and transformation are allowed time to develop.

The Centre of Chinese Contemporary Art closed in 2021 after a series of controversies. Now it’s been relaunched under a new name – and with a new mission

In March 2020, the visual artist JJ Chan was assembling video footage for a group exhibition scheduled at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester. Centred on family VHS tapes, and titled A New Constellation: Chinese Diaspora Now, the artwork was an exploration of Chan’s emotionally complex relationship to Hong Kong, their parents’ birthplace. When Chan asked for guidance after the sudden departure of the initial curator, the artist discovered that the gallery did not employ anyone who was Chinese: 12 out of the 13 staff members were white, while most of the front-facing (unpaid) volunteers were of Chinese descent.

Fearing their art would be shaped through a white lens, Chan withdrew and published an open letter to the centre, writing: “My experience, and my trauma, are being used as a leg-up into an industry for an already overrepresented demographic.” Later that year, the organisation recruited seven artists of Chinese heritage to address the lack of diversity before that initiative was cancelled when the artists raised issues surrounding institutional racism with the gallery. The artist-led working group subsequently petitioned for an international boycott of the institution resulting in the resignation of six board members and several employees. After closing due to Covid in 2020, the arts space never reopened.

Camden Art Centre, London
These portentous works, based on scans of a real asteroids, seem to warn of societal collapse, but this first UK exhibition of the US sculptor needed a simpler approach

Corporations are already selling off mining rights to asteroids. These massive balls of rock and ore and minerals and ice up in space, far out of the reach of humanity, and mostly named after ancient Greek or Roman goddesses, are being traded like real estate by greedy suits with telescopes.

There are half a dozen asteroids in American sculptor Liz Larner’s exhibition at Camden Art Centre, her first institutional exhibition in the UK, plonked on the floor like they’ve just burned through the atmosphere on their way in from space. Each one is based on a Nasa scan of a real asteroid and then re-formed out of glittery, gritty ceramic. They’re gleaming symbols of corporate greed, ecological collapse and sexism – comets of misery, sent from the future to crash land on Finchley Road.

As he releases a tell-all book, the Punk magazine founder and self-described ‘fuck-up’ holds forth on 1970s excess, the American roots of punk and why the Beatles are ‘stupid’

Legs McNeil vividly remembers the reaction he got from the original CBGB bands in 1975 when they heard the name of the magazine he co-founded: Punk, the first publication ever dedicated to the form. “Absolutely no one wanted to be called a punk back then,” he said. “Not even the Ramones. Johnny Ramone demanded that we cross out every reference to punk in an article about them.”

Flash forward a few years and, “suddenly everybody wanted to be called a punk!” McNeil said. “The Ramones started running around telling everyone, ‘you know, we were the first punk band!’”

I had always dreamed of attending the song contest. But all that glitter brought on sensory overload – and I finally understood who I actually was

The Eurovision song contest meant a lot to me growing up. The eclectic performances. Terry Wogan’s despair. The yearly tradition of Greece giving “douze points” to Cyprus and Cyprus giving “douze points” to Greece.

The hedonistic, unpredictable event playing out on my bedroom television couldn’t be further away from the idyllic yet conservative Dorset I grew up in. Most of my youth consisted of trying to work out how to perfectly align my future career so I could work at the contest if it ever ended up in the UK again, all while being confused by why my friends were not interested in my written analyses on each entrant.

Fans from around the world gather for star’s long-awaited performances after break because of neurological condition

More than 30,000 Céline Dion fans have gathered in Paris for the Canadian singer’s long-awaited return to performing on Saturday night, four years after she revealed her diagnosis of stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological condition.

Thousands more people without tickets have flocked to a series of giant karaoke events across France to belt out Dion’s famous power ballads, in celebration of the star’s health stabilising enough for her to return to the stage.

Her riotous weekly show had an army of devoted fans. Now Tarbuck has joined the ranks of star presenters leaving the BBC – and she’s getting her hands dirty

A tragedy. A national disaster. A loss to the cultural landscape that should be discussed in parliament. These were just a few listener reactions when Liza Tarbuck left her Radio 2 show earlier this year. “I was bereft about it, too,” sighs Tarbuck. “I miss angsting over the playlist. I miss the texts and emails. For two hours every weekend, we were a proper gang.”

Tarbuck hosted her Saturday evening show for 14 years, building it into the funniest show on British radio. Her riotous mix of freewheeling chat and hand-picked tunes (the music could span nine decades in the same show) drew an audience of 2 million, and received more messages from listeners – 50 per minute – than any other programme on the station.

It was supposed to be a meeting between a great mind and mine. Instead, I was plunged into darkness and did some swearing

The transition to owning an electric car is in its final phase: our electricity supplier is set to install a smart meter in conjunction with a special tariff that will allow us to charge the car cheaply in the dead of night. After that, all I have to do is live long enough to see a return on my considerable investment.

In the meantime – as sometimes happens in the course of my work – I need to interview some eminent scientists. In my experience eminent scientists are easy to reach – they tend to be attached to academic institutions that readily provide their contact details – and surprisingly willing to spend an hour explaining their work to a moron. But there is always a period – the long interval after I’ve emailed four or five, and before any of them have answered – that I begin to suspect a conspiracy of silence. What is it, I think, about my oily emails that they don’t like?

Ravenstonedale, Cumbria: The wedding day of my son and his now wife – both farmers – was full of both emotion and tradition

It felt as if autumn had arrived in the Howgills earlier this week, so it was a great relief that the wedding day dawned dry. I was up early checking the stock before helping the six groomsmen get their cufflinks and bow ties on in the farmhouse kitchen.

Our middle son, Hector, was marrying Georgia from a farm in the nearby village of Ravenstonedale. The wedding was taking place in the village church, and the reception on her family’s farm.

Tired of squashed sarnies and spilt dressing? From stainless steel to insulated to plastic-free, here are the lunch boxes for kids and adults we rate the most

• The best water bottles

If packed lunches are a high-stakes game in your household (as they are in mine), the right lunch box is crucial. There’s nothing worse than opening the lunch you’ve been looking forward to since 8am to find yoghurt has leaked on to your sandwich and your cucumbers have dried out.

A lunch box may look like a simple bit of kit, but keeping food contained from kitchen to school dinner hall or workplace desk is a surprisingly demanding job. And the humble lunch box has come a long way from the simple plastic tubs that used to contain our clingfilm-wrapped, squashed sandwiches at school. Today, you can find bento boxes with multiple compartments, stainless steel containers, silicone pouches and leakproof designs promising to keep everything from yoghurt to salad dressing safely contained.

Whether it’s soft serve or sorbet, gelato or fro-yo, the Ninja Creami Scoop and Swirl is a faff-free way of making all your favourite frozen treats

• The best ice-cream makers for your home

For me, ice-cream isn’t only for summer. It’s my dessert of choice all year round, and a good ice-cream maker ensures it’s always readily available. When I put more than a dozen models through their paces earlier this year, one thing became clear: the most important feature in any machine is ease of use.

On that front, the Ninja Creami really scored highly for me. I’ve used the original NC300 model for a few years, and I like its simplicity and that it’s easy to clean. Nowadays, though, we expect our appliances to do a little more – and when it comes to ice-cream, the current craze is soft serve.

After months of testing and countless hours seated, our endurance sitter picked the best office chairs for every budget

• The best gaming chairs – tested

What’s the most important thing when you’re spending hours in front of a computer? Is it having the fastest internet? The sharpest screen? The perfect keyboard? No. When you’re spending most of your day on your bottom, the most crucial element is what’s directly underneath.

With a good office chair, you can handle a long working day without any feelings of discomfort. With a bad one, you can expect backache, neck ache, tender glutes and assorted nagging pains. Who wants to return to work when the last day left you feeling achy and decrepit?

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The creative director talks 80s knitwear, joyful knickers and a love of Boots with the Filter

• How I Shop with Millie Mackintosh

Laura Jackson is a creative director and broadcaster who works across design, food and culture. She co-founded the homewares website Glassette in 2021 and later founded the skincare brand Rocco. Her broadcasting career spans television, radio and digital.

Jackson launched a collection with British jewellery brand Astley Clarke in September 2026, featuring gemstones, celestial motifs and tarot symbolism.

I’m taking a break to replenish my creative reserves. Until then, I leave you with this champion champignon number

In the nine years that I’ve been writing this column, I’ve had two babies, a breakdown and very little time away from writing a weekly recipe. I love this column, and creating recipes for you makes me feel like the luckiest duck alive, but I don’t believe that anyone can be endlessly creative without occasionally filling up their own cup. So, I’m taking six months out to travel, replenish and see what treasures I can find for us out there in the big wide world. Treasures such as this gentle claypot rice, which is based on the magical one at Dongnae in Bristol. Until then, so long.

The coffee and cream pudding has always been popular. But now it’s inspired a dedicated cafe and countless products, from drinks to ice-creams to buns. What’s behind this big cultural craving?

When Giancarlo Fanigliulo opened Marrone, a cafe dedicated to tiramisu in London’s Soho in August, he hadn’t anticipated he would sell out within two and a half hours. “I was expecting a buzz, but I wasn’t expecting queues around the corner,” he tells me. “It was insane.”

This kind of excitement about the Italian dessert is not a one-off – we are, it seems, living in an age of tiramisu-mania. Nearly all of the high street coffee chains have offered some kind of tiramisu coffee as a seasonal special (in the US, Dunkin’ currently has four different tiramisu-flavoured drinks on its menu). Meanwhile, Haagen-Dazs and Carte D’or now sell tiramisu ice-cream, London chain Buns from Home offers a tiramisu-flavoured croissant-dough bun and social media is awash with tiramisu recipes and videos of “tiramisu drawers” – trays of the dessert ready to serve out of drawers in chefs’ kitchens – as popularised by the viral one at Manchester pasta restaurant Onda.

‘The doors that aren’t open to us in the rest of the city, we open for ourselves here,’ Maria Cristina de Sales says

Even at the age of nine, Maria Cristina de Sales knew exactly when to ask her mother’s colleagues at the slaughterhouse for a piece of the pig they were butchering: when they got close to the pork leg, her favourite part.

When she grew up, Sales followed the path of many others from Brazil’s deprived north-east and moved south in search of better work opportunities. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro and, unable to afford a home in tourist-heavy south zone, moved to a favela further north.

The classic Mexican combo of espresso and Licor 43 gets a shot in the arm with a decent hit of cold-brew coffee liqueur

The carajillo is a ubiquitous drink found across Mexico, and it comes in many forms. Some bars simply pour espresso over ice and add a shot of Licor 43, while others shake coffee with the liqueur and serve it straight up. Whatever the variation, the non-negotiables are coffee and Licor 43. Our version takes those two core ingredients and lengthens the drink with a light, delicious cold-brew coffee liqueur. It’s the perfect serve for a warm afternoon, a sweet after-dinner treat or an uplifting nightcap.

Tom King, head bartender, Cometa, London W1

Joe, 27, who works in advocacy at a charity, meets Jade, 29, a PR account manager

What were you hoping for?
Human connection outside an algorithm – good conversation and a fun anecdote.

There’s a risk in trying to get our girls away from frilly skirts that we swing all the way to a different kind of enforcement, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes

• Read more Leading questions

I am the mother of a six-year-old girl, and I have relatively progressive views about gender. Among other things, I try to give my daughter a choice of clothes that are practical – T-shirts, leggings – and that tend to be unisex in colour scheme. There are no overly fussy and frilly skirts and dresses in pink and sparkles in her wardrobe. As much as possible, I try to buy non-sweatshop brands. These choices are part of a world system of values I want to show my daughter – that being a “girl” is so much more than just wearing a frilly dress; that we can have well-made things without contributing to the suffering of others.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, loves buying these sorts of clothes for her granddaughter. She is a kind and caring woman, and this is one of her love languages. These clothes are often gauche, overly feminine, expensive and poorly made.

Jasper stands accused of being wasteful but feels aggrieved that Mindy says he’s being lazy. Is this a race to the bottom? You decide

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Opening new products when old ones aren’t empty is wasteful – and he does it to avoid cleaning up

As weight loss drugs have risen all around the world, it has reshaped users’ relationships for better and for worse

As GLP-1 use continues to rise in the US and the UK, people’s bodies are being reshaped – as are their relationships.

“Relationships tend to develop a sense of equilibrium and predictability over time,” says Dr Lindsey Berisha, a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with clients using GLP-1s for over 10 years. “When one partner undergoes a significant change, it can shift that equilibrium, and even positive change can create uncertainty for both partners.”

With AI, an unsettled jobs market and rising student costs, it’s crucial to make the most of your experience

“To me it’s definitely still worth going to university – absolutely it is,” says Nick Hillman, chief executive of the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank. “I’ll certainly be urging my children to go on to higher education,” he adds. “Relative to everything else, it’s still a very, very good bet.”

Yet the national conversation around universities in recent months has been relentlessly negative. Rising tuition fees, spiralling student debt and the financial crisis gripping many institutions are more than enough to give pause to sixth-formers currently trying to decide whether it makes sense to go on to university.

From an energy-efficient bungalow in the South Downs to an historic chapel in Northumberland

Solid battery life, snappy performance and quality software make for a great smaller phone with a killer camera

Google’s latest Pro phone is out to prove it has the best camera on a smartphone while embracing customisation, allowing you to change the look and feel of your photos far beyond simple filters even if that means making them technically worse.

The Pixel 11 Pro packs the best of Google’s hardware and software into a still-pocketable and easy to handle frame, instantly making it a contender for best smaller phone of the year.

Screen: 6.3in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (495ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G6

RAM: 12 or 16GB

Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: Android 17

Camera: 50MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 5x tele; 42MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.7 x 71.9 x 8.4mm

Weight: 204g

Transport for London has fined me and warned that if I don’t pay it will possibly destroy my car

I paid the £12.50 London Ulez charge on my Amex card within hours of driving through the zone. I was then fined £90 for non-payment. According to my card issuer, Transport for London (TfL) had failed to collect the £12.50.

TfL’s letter threatened a £180 fine, rising to £360, and possible destruction of my car, if I did not pay. My appeal was rejected.

Do you gain weight once you stop using them? Do they make your face saggy? Can they improve your mental health? Experts explain whether 13 common beliefs about GLP-1s are true or false

FALSE “GLP-1 medications mimic Glucagon-like peptide-1 – one of the hormones involved in appetite regulation. It doesn’t completely suppress hunger, but it is powerful,” says Dr Federica Amati, nutrition lead at Imperial College School of Medicine and author of The Appetite Reset. “The medicine is about 1,000 times stronger than what we naturally produce from our gut,” she explains. As food passes through the gut, cells called L-cells sense the nutrients, which sparks the production of the GLP-1 hormone. Without the drugs, these bursts of GLP-1 production last a few minutes. “It’s a bit like a sparkler. In comparison, the drugs are like a bonfire that roars for a week,” says Amati. Because the GLP-1 hormone stays in your body for longer if you are on the drugs, you feel fuller faster and your appetite gets suppressed, but you will eventually get hungry.

Can blending these popular fruits in a smoothie adversely affect the berries’ nutritional benefits? Experts weigh in

This year was shaping up to be a banner year for bananas: they were lauded as “2026’s big viral taste”, landed pride of place as Prada’s new lip balm flavor, and were even deemed “the next pumpkin spice”.

But this summer, the Mel Robbins Podcast featured Dr Rhonda Patrick, a biomedical scientist, who said that adding banana to a blueberry smoothie could adversely affect the nutritional benefits of the berries.

Research finds temperature and amount of hot drinks consumed heightens possibility of developing disease

Drinking very hot tea and coffee triples the risk of developing cancer of the gullet, the world’s largest study of the link between them has found.

The findings show that people should let very hot cups of tea and coffee cool down until they are comfortable to drink, in order to reduce their risk of the disease, cancer experts said.

Who’s more likely to steal sweets from a child? According to science, it’s the rich. A study seemingly confirming our suspicions about the moral behaviour of the wealthy was one of the winners of the 2026 Ig Nobel prizes, which honour research that makes you laugh and then think. Science editor Ian Sample tells Madeleine Finlay what the researchers think could be behind the phenomenon, and they explore some of the other awards, including one for a surprising quality we look for in our friends and another for a biomechanical definition of kissing

Georgia O’Keeffe inspires the latest Calvin Klein while Michael Kors feels indebted to Alexander Calder

Calvin Klein has taken a highbrow turn in the two years since Veronica Leoni took charge. The Italian designer, a philosophy graduate who was schooled in the chic design studios of Jil Sander and Celine, has shifted away from jeans, boxer shorts and logos, stripping the brand to its minimalist bones: slip dresses and simple coats, slim skirts and crisp T-shirts.

Leoni called this the “discipline of removal”. Her muse this season was Georgia O’Keeffe, an artist who the brand’s namesake founder admired. Klein bought O’Keeffe’s painting Summer Days in 1983 for $1m, subsequently donating it to the Whitney Museum. A checked pattern taken from O’Keeffe’s distinctive capsule wardrobe of utilitarian chic appeared on this catwalk as a wrap coat, hardware-free with a fabric belt and no buttons.

Vegan leathers are complicated by questions of commercial viability and sustainability. How do they compare to traditional leather?

• Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint

• Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com

In sustainable fashion, breathless promises about vegan leather have arrived thick and fast for over a decade. Innovations promise mushroom and cactus alternatives that look and feel like real leather – minus the negative associations with methane, deforestation, chemical pollution and animal welfare.

While these next-gen materials have absorbed billions of dollars in capital under an environmental banner, experts are concerned they remain a shiny distraction while the fashion industry’s emissions and reliance on fossil fuel-derived materials grows.

I’ve always cinched my outfits at the waist, but shifting to a looser silhouette has helped me keep my cool in more ways than one

This was the summer of the Great Untuck. The long hot summer of 2026 finally taught me to do what fashion has been nagging me about for years, which is to quit tucking in my shirts and T-shirts. To stop assuming that the top half of an outfit must be neatly cinched by the waistband of the skirt or trousers.

It wasn’t a style epiphany, to be fair. It was just too hot to do anything else. An extended run of hot weather at home changes how you dress. In the old-school type of British heatwave, which lasted about half a week, I was too giddy with excitement at not having to wear a cardigan to think more strategically. But this summer was different. And eventually I discovered what hot-climate cultures have always known, which is that loose, generously sized clothing that maximises sun protection while minimising skin contact is way more pleasant to wear in the heat than anything short and tight.

Preppy is back in the zeitgeist, says designer, blending sportswear codes and collegiate chic at New York show

Tommy Hilfiger’s front row was a slam dunk. The Knicks are the kings of New York right now, so scoring Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns and Miles McBride, three of the team’s stars, for the guest list of his New York catwalk show was a victory. Travis Kelce, who is co-designing another upcoming collection with Hilfiger and had been rumoured to attend this event with his new bride, was a no show, but you can’t win them all.

Tommy Hilfiger is all about sport. The design vocabulary of oversized jerseys, team stripes, rugby shirts and letterman jackets draws heavily on the visual language of the stadium. Kelce, whose NFL tunnel walks have become a catwalk of their own, is the latest in a line of sporting ambassadors that includes Thierry Henry, Rafael Nadal and Lewis Hamilton. Hilfiger has long stood for a certain glossy stars-and-stripes Americana – its graphic red, white and blue logo is a riff on the flag – but American identity is delicate cultural territory right now. Sport, which unites audiences across all backgrounds and political allegiances, gives the brand a wholesome place to congregate. “People really like him,” Hilfiger said backstage, explaining why he chose to collaborate with Kelce. “He’s really humble, down to earth, sweet, fun, and funny. And a superstar athlete.”

French champagne house Taittinger is helping produce a premium fizz in the Garden of England – and now visitors can visit the beautiful winery and sample it

The grapes are turning purple on tall green vines, which stretch down towards the distant flint-and-limestone tower of Chilham church. These rows of Pinot Meunier, destined for English sparkling wine, are 51% owned by French champagne house Taittinger. “England is now the most exciting wine region,” says host and sales executive Hilary Sharp as she leads me around Domaine Evremond vineyard, which opened its visitor centre last year to coincide with the launch of its first wine.

In his 2023 book Vines in a Cold Climate, drinks writer Henry Jeffreys charts the rise of English wine “from a joke to world-class in 30 years”. The book opens with an alcohol-fuelled scene of vine-planting at Domaine Evremond in May 2017: unseasonably cold, rainy, muddy, with rambling anecdotes from anglophile Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger about “English women encountered in his misspent youth”. The vineyard is named for the exiled French aristocrat Charles de Saint-Évremond, a symbol of hedonistic Anglo-French cooperation. The bon vivant introduced champagne to England and party-loving Charles II made him governor of Duck Island in St James’s Park.

Your top culinary discoveries, from Bled cake in Slovenia to sardines in Portugal and seafood soup in Spain

• Tell us about autumn days out in the UK – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Last August, the smoky aroma of grilled sardines drifting over the beach in Portimão woke me up from my sunbathing on the beach. Attracted by the aroma of barbecued fish, we found ourselves in the old port where, for €12, I was served two delicious sandwiches on rustic bread of sardines in garlic and olive oil, with a small cold beer. I sat down, ate and chatted with locals on benches at simple communal tables. The important thing seemed to be to enjoy food together. The next morning, a reenactment of the fishing boats arriving loaded with fish, as they once were, was a real spectacle – complete with guitar playing, drum-banging and excited seagulls whirling and wailing above in the hope of a feast. Later, concerts and dancing animated the town as the party for the sardine festival went on well into the night. Cooking demos and dishes including sardine-based soup and salads, added to the enjoyment. I never imagined such pleasure could be had from the simple sardine.
Joe

Repurposed railway lines make accessible and family-friendly walking and cycling routes. Here are some of the best, from Somerset to the Highlands of Scotland

Start/finish Coombs Road in Bakewell to Blackwell Mill in Chee Dale, but there are lots of access points along the way
Distance 8.5 miles
Cycle, hike or ride a horse along the Monsal Trail to explore a swathe of Derbyshire’s industrial history. This former stretch of the Midland Railway line winds past the imposing structures of two 18th-century cotton mills, through illuminated railway tunnels and over the Headstone Viaduct, which gives glorious views of the River Wye and Monsal Dale below. Interpretation and listening panels along the route explain the area’s history, geology and wildlife, while a short detour on to Monsal Head offers a panoramic view of the viaduct itself. Pause here for lunch or a pint at the Monsal, or stop in at Hassop Station Cafe, which offers bike rental alongside hefty sandwiches, homemade cakes and wood-fired pizza at weekends.
monsaltrail.org.uk

Conservationists have helped Cantabrian brown bears claw their way back from the edge of extinction in the beautiful mountains of Asturias – and carefully controlled nature tourism allows visitors to see them

Once upon a time, in the woods outside Pola de Somiedo, lived a family of Cantabrian brown bears. The villagers reported sightings of a mother bear who had lost a leg to a hunter’s trap, her two cubs and two adult males, either of which might have been the father. In those days, at the end of the 1980s, they seemed to be the last of their kind in this part of Asturias. Meanwhile, the wider population dropped to about 60 bears across the surrounding Cantabrian mountain range that gave the species its name.

They have since clawed their way back from the edge of extinction here in northern Spain, and nature guide Luis Frechilla believes their numbers may now be upwards of 500 again. “They’re still classed as endangered,” he tells me, until the official count hits 1,000. But relative abundance makes them much easier to see today in Somiedo natural park – one of Spain’s first such protected areas, established in 1988.

The Hobbit and Fast & Furious actor on the joy of strawberry laces, hating that he’s so hard on himself, and his sneaky way of leaving a meeting

Born in south Wales, Luke Evans, 47, left school at 16 and trained at London Studio Centre before appearing in various West End shows. His films include Clash of the Titans, the Fast & Furious franchise, The Hobbit trilogy and Beauty and the Beast. He has released two albums and a memoir, was Tony-nominated for his role in The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, and stars in The Party, an ITV adaptation of Elizabeth Day’s novel. He lives in Lisbon with his partner.

When were you happiest?
I’m always happy.

From Cheddar Man and the Dead Sea Scrolls to Abbie Hoffman, Kikuchiyo and Peter, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Slovenia and Venezuela are the first two countries to lose all their what?
2 Which celebrated rock has 1620 carved on to it?
3 What is the UK’s heaviest and fastest flying duck?
4 Which royal consort was born in the same bedroom as Queen Victoria?
5 Skaldic poetry was written in what language?
6 Which international organisation was dissolved on 19 April 1946?
7 Who has statues in Middlesbrough, Derby and Nottingham?
8 Which irrational number is represented by the Greek letter phi?
What links:
9 Cheddar Man; Dead Sea Scrolls; Altamira and Lascaux art; olm salamander?
10 Ash Dykes; Ed Stafford; Ed Talone; Levison Wood?
11 Bat and Ball; Blackrod; Hall i’ th’ Wood; Whatstandwell?
12 US citizen; Stem master’s degree; two years’ professional experience; pass physical test?
13 Ain’t Misbehavin’; Blueberry Hill; Hound Dog (originally); The Twist; Hypnotize?
14 Maia; Peter; Chris Adams; Kikuchiyo; Abbie Hoffman?
15 Profiles in Courage; Brave New World; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

Some people don’t understand my lifelong enthusiasm for roadside stop-offs – now visiting and cataloguing them is what I do for a living

When I was 10 years old, the highlight of my summer holidays was going to work with my dad, who is a lorry driver. For a couple of years in the mid-2000s, I’d excitedly climb into the cab next to him and we’d set off on a 10-hour trip. My job was to follow the AA Road Atlas, and I’d joyfully track the services marked on the map as we thundered along.

My dad thought stopping was a waste of time, but his designated rest stops were my favourite part of the trip. Depending on the journey, we might stop for two or three meals. I always hoped at least one would be at a Little Chef. I loved their Olympic Breakfast, a massive full English, and every meal was rounded off with a lollipop – what more could a 10-year-old want?

MPs today voted not to approve the assisted dying bill at its second reading. The bill, which was brought back to the Commons after being blocked in the Lords, would have allowed terminally ill people to end their lives with medical help in some circumstances. Find out how your MP voted

Since June, an app has allowed survivors, who are overwhelmingly women, to see exactly where their stalker is

On a large screen in a control centre in eastern Seoul, a dot representing a man closes in on a woman. The dot changes direction, and the distance reading between them falls from 845 metres to 792.

On the woman’s phone, the same map is loading. A probation officer rings her: the stalker is approaching, don’t panic, officers have been dispatched. The man is a stand-in and the scenario is staged, but the system is real.

We would like to hear your experience of seeing the Bayeux tapestry exhibit at the British Museum

The British Museum’s Bayeux tapestry exhibit opened on Thursday 10 September, and has already broken the British Museum’s record for the number of tickets sold in one day.

Have you seen the Bayeux tapestry at the British Museum? How far did you travel to see it? Tell us all about your experience below.

From renting and troublesome landlords to buying or selling a home, send us your UK housing questions

Are you dealing with a problem with your landlord or tenancy, wondering about buying or selling a home, or facing another housing issue?

We’re planning to launch a new column answering readers’ questions about housing in the UK and helping them understand their options.

The Guardian is looking for single men of all ages to talk honestly about the experience of being unattached

The Guardian is looking for single men of all ages to talk honestly about the experience of being unattached. Whether you are 16 or 100, we want to hear the unvarnished truth about what it’s like to live as a single man today.

Are you trying to find love? Or are you happy living life as a bachelor? Do you find the experience of modern dating – with all its red flags and height requirements – to be a minefield? Or are you attracting more attention than ever before?

We’d like to hear from people in the UK who have accessed medical cannabis from a private health provider and find out about their experience

In 2018 Theresa May’s government changed the law to allow the NHS and private providers to prescribe cannabis-based medical products.

The NHS prescribes medical cannabis for a few conditions such as children and adults with rare, severe forms of epilepsy and people with muscle stiffness and spasms caused by multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the vast majority of prescriptions for medical cannabis are being issued through private healthcare.

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The 25th anniversary of 9/11, Russian strikes in Kyiv, wildfires in Indonesia and Sabalenka at the US Open – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing