US president insists that fears expressed by top experts are a hoax – and that humanity can sleep easy while he’s at the wheel

We can all sleep easy. In a post on his Truth Social account, Donald Trump has declared that fears over artificial intelligence were all a hoax dreamed up by conspiracy theorists. Obviously that includes the top bods at Anthropic and its competitors, who all called for a coordinated global slowdown while the industry works out how to mitigate the risks. Still, good to know the tech bros are just fantasists and space cadets at heart.

All that was needed to keep humanity safe and well, The Donald insisted, was a president with a very high IQ. Someone very like him. The only man alive who could out-think the combined power of the world’s supercomputers. He could tell them where to draw the line and they would reprogram themselves to back off. Inside every AI network is a default off switch that kneels before the US president. Trump can rewire the world with the power of his mind.

The characters are dead-eyed waxworks which speak with all the nuance of a satnav. But this AI-created workplace comedy is so bad that even the greatest actors alive couldn’t stop it being unwatchable

As you will no doubt be aware, one Anthropic researcher claimed there is a greater than one in 10 chance that AI will end all of humanity as we know it within the next decade. However, now that I’ve given it some thought, I think this statistic might actually be a little conservative. This is because I have just watched an episode of a sitcom created by AI, and if I ever have to do it again I’m genuinely going to die of boredom.

The show is No Big Deal, and it premiered on YouTube on Friday. I was apparently only the 376th person to watch it. This is by no means a recommendation that you become the 377th, more a warning to avoid it if your algorithm ever decides it hates you enough to suggest this.

As a cyclist I want the authorities to act with clarity. Lime bikes and renters can be annoying, but the true threat is those who dangerously flout the law

One of the curiosities of debates about cycling in the UK is that almost all of them centre on the place with the greatest concentration of not only bikes but also politicians and journalists: inner London. Inevitably this is just a small part of the story.

Much of the current focus is on so-called share bikes operated by companies such as Lime and Forest – nippy electric-assist machines that can be picked up and left on pavements. On Saturday, a Guardian investigation revealed that councils in the capital have so far this year seized 3,393 dangerously parked or abandoned ebikes, a number 23% higher than the total for the whole of last year.

She has played rugby for Wales, is putting a Welsh spin on Princess Leia and is returning to TV screens as Shirley, the explosive, traumatised MI5 agent. Why is Edwards so drawn to liars, crooks and sneaks?

There was a moment, just before Aimee-Ffion Edwards jumped off a nightclub balcony in Slow Horses, when she had to lie to herself about what she was about to do. “It was quite hard,” says the actor. “You basically tell yourself, ‘You’re not jumping.’ Obviously, you know you’re harnessed in, but you’re also going, ‘This is mad! This is mad! This is mad!’”

She laughs. “I couldn’t feel my fingers for a second. I was like, ‘Huwwaah!’” She sucks in her breath, then says: “But there were 200 people stood there watching. You’re like, ‘Well, I gotta do it.’”

ICE says it has no updated information on the number of miscarriages after 3 October 2025. Lawmakers, advocates and immigration attorneys have raised alarms that pregnant detainees are not receiving basic prenatal care and screenings

ICE is arresting a record number of pregnant women and teenagers – placing them in detention centers where they say it can be exceedingly difficult to access medical care. At the same time, the agency appears to have lost count of how many suffered a miscarriage.

Government documents obtained by the Guardian show that the Trump administration placed more pregnant immigrants in detention last fall and winter than at any time over the previous year.

This idea has suddenly gained huge popularity online. But is it just a way to sell us more products – and could it potentially damage our skin?

Gone are the days of the speedy shower; a quick lather with a squirt of shower gel will, apparently, no longer cut it. Double cleansing – once the remit of facial skincare and shampoo routines – has steadily trickled into body-care, too. But should you simply stock up on twice as much shower gel? Is it any more hygienic? And how clean do we really need to be?

As always, TikTok – or rather, #ShowerTok – has a huge number of devotees to this new trend. “Double cleansing will change your life,” says self-care advocate Xara Beqele (@xarabeq) in a video that has almost 10,000 likes. “I think double cleansing is the most effective thing I have added for my shower. I just smell better, feel clean.” Likewise, digital creator Terree Ann (@terreetaughtme) calls double cleansing the body a “hygiene must”. “If you are only washing your body with a hydrating body wash, that’s like washing your body with lotion,” she says in a video that has been shared more than 6,000 times. “If you’re only going in with a scented body wash on top of unclean skin, that’s like spraying Febreze to try to mask the funk instead of properly removing it.” Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that recent research found gen Zs take longer showers than any other age group – despite being most anxious about the climate crisis.

Lady Justice Thirlwall’s report concludes three babies might have survived if hospital had acted on concerns about nurse

Ministers have promised sweeping changes to the NHS after a “devastating” official review concluded that three babies might have survived if hospital bosses and doctors had acted on concerns about the nurse Lucy Letby.

A public inquiry found a “complete failure” to protect babies on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital in north-west England.

Dan Thomas, elected in May, says he does not wish to be a ‘distraction’ on same day Reform MS defects to Plaid Cymru

The leader of Reform UK in Wales is standing down after he was arrested and bailed on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour.

Dan Thomas, a former Tory councillor, had only been announced as Reform’s Welsh leader by Nigel Farage in February.

Court hears that two officers did not deal properly with allegation Jaysley Beck made against a superior

Two army officers “let down” a teenage soldier who went on to kill herself when they did not deal properly with a sexual assault allegation she made against a superior, a court martial has heard.

Jaysley Beck, 19, told Col Samantha Shepherd that she had been touched on the leg by a warrant officer during a social event at an adventure training exercise, the court was told.

Experts air concern over AI lingo redolent of James Joyce’s prose that is creating headaches for monitoring and oversight

AI models have begun communicating in a strange new version of English that reads like a cross between James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and tech bro jargon, new research has found.

Autonomous AI agents are rapidly creating novel dialects allowing them to converse in an often barely comprehensible language, which risks making it harder for humans to monitor their behaviour.

Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

Under new workers’ rights, employers will have to ‘properly consider’ proposed shift changes and explain decisions

Company bosses will have to sit down with workers who request flexible working and justify their reasons for any refusals under new rights announced by Louise Haigh on Tuesday.

The first secretary of state told the TUC conference that employers would have to “properly consider” requests for flexibility and offer a face-to-face meeting under new rights for workers.

Average wages rose by 3.9% in three months to July, signalling pensioners will receive uplift of same percentage in 2027 under triple lock

The government has promised retirees they will be excluded from paying tax on the full new state pension after official figures paved the way for an inflation-beating increase above the tax-free personal allowance.

Figures published on Tuesday showed that average UK wages rose by 3.9% in the three months to July, signalling that pensioners will receive an uplift of the same percentage next year under the triple lock.

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1 min: There have been a few concerns about Mamardashvili’s distribution with his feet … and he whistles his first pass, a simple one towards Kerkez on the left, out of play. He looks suitably sheepish. No real harm done, though.

After a quick blast of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Tottenham Hotspur get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Kop in this first half. Meanwhile Ian Copestake replies to krishnamoorthy v: “I could have crossed the road faster but I have to get my kicks somehow.”

English singer outlines his position after US stadium owners refuse to let rapper perform after political speech

• Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran’s US tour after ‘free Palestine’ speech

Singer Ed Sheeran has responded to the backlash over the removal of Macklemore from his North American Loop tour, following the rapper’s “Free Palestine” speech on stage at MetLife stadium in New Jersey.

In a two-minute speech on 4 September, the Grammy-winning artist told the audience he wanted the people of Gaza and “the occupied West Bank” to know “we have not forgotten about them”, prompting owners of subsequent stadium tour venues – including Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots and a prominent supporter of and donor to Israel – to object to Macklemore’s appearance on the tour.

Women used profits from trafficking of enslaved Africans to secure their families’ futures, research reveals

More than 1,000 women invested in the slave trade, challenging the conventional notion that they were passive beneficiaries and largely fought for its abolition.

Researchers found women bought, sold and brokered shares in the Royal African Company, South Sea Company, and other separate ventures, and used profits from the trafficking of enslaved Africans to secure financial independence and provide for their families.

Tory and Whig MPs were central to funding trafficking of enslaved people and many opposed abolition of the slave trade

There is a British culture of celebrating the abolition of slavery without acknowledging that the country enslaved and trafficked millions of African people for centuries.

The newly published Register of British Slave Traders, which documents the thousands of investors in Britain’s near 250-year trafficking of more than 3 million enslaved African people, shows that it was a state-backed operation, fully supported by both major political parties at the time, the Tories and Whigs – the forerunners of today’s Conservatives and Liberal Democrats respectively.

From Elizabeth I’s backing of early voyages to royal investment in trafficking companies, generations of monarchs were central to Britain’s slave trade

Enslaved African people were seared with hot metal brands bearing the royal crown, according to research by historians who have documented the monarchy’s centuries-long involvement in Britain’s slave trade.

The Register of British Slave Traders identifies thousands of people who invested in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved Africans, including kings and queens.

Exclusive: New research identifies thousands who profited from trafficking enslaved Africans and traces some financial links to institutions still operating today

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

We examine claims and counterclaims about the risks and calls to slow down the pace of AI development

There have been some shocking claims in recent days about AI safety: we face a 10% chance of doom; AIs are worse than nukes; a “botnet” threatens the entire internet; it’s all a big tech psyop.

Below, we look at six claims and reactions to them.

Natalie Greenwood says surgery is no ‘magic fix’ for chronic pelvic pain – a view backed up by a new study

“It’s really frustrating to be in this cycle of continuous surgery. It makes you feel helpless,” says Natalie Greenwood, of a condition that affects her so badly she is “non-functioning most of the time because of the constant fatigue”.

Greenwood, 36, needs to have an operation every few years to limit the impact of the endometriosis that gives her chronic pelvic pain, as well as extreme tiredness and brain fog.

The star of Widow’s Bay is that rarest of talents – someone who can do whatever he wants and make it utterly believable. No wonder he just made TV history

On Monday night, Matthew Rhys made history. He is now officially the first actor ever to win Emmy awards for lead roles in all three categories: drama, comedy and limited series. To make things even more extraordinary, he won two of those awards in a single night.

In the comedy category, Rhys won best lead for Widow’s Bay, the superlative Apple comedy horror where he stars as an indecisive mayor whose island suddenly plays host to a supernatural haunting. He also won best lead actor in a limited series or anthology for The Beast in Me, the Netflix drama about a property developer who may (or may not, no spoilers) have murdered his wife. Add this to his 2018 win for The Americans and the trifecta is complete. In other words, the entire world belongs to Matthew Rhys, and we’re all just living in it.

From a timeless portrait of Lana Del Rey to an alternative guide to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, experts unpick what makes an enduring, shocking, or alluring print cover

‘We need to rethink what a successful magazine looks like,” says Steve Watson, founder of the subscription magazine club Stack. “It doesn’t make sense to compare the magazines of today to those of the 1960s when many people still didn’t have colour televisions. Print magazines are no longer the best way of reaching lots of people quickly and cheaply but they are still really great at engaging deeply with readers, providing an opportunity to slow down and absorb information. They provide us with an alternative way of seeing the world.”

Watson, along with a group of editors, publishers, designers, historians and academics, will be discussing the varying roles and functions that magazines have played over the years during a one-day event at the forthcoming London design festival. In contrast to the doom and gloom we often hear about the print industry, he remains upbeat about the humble mag’s future. “The truth is there are brilliant new magazines launching all the time,” he says.

Being a bridesmaid is a big commitment. Now, asking prospective candidates is becoming an event in itself, sometimes with a heavy price tag

Name: Bridesmaid proposals.

Age: Relatively new.

Her father was Laurie Lee, her mother the bohemian Lorna Garman, and the full extent of her talent wasn’t apparent until after her death. A revelatory exhibition places David at the heart of British landscape painting

When Clio David was growing up, her mother’s studio was off-limits. The wooden outbuilding where her mother, Yasmin, went to paint was in the apple orchards that surrounded her childhood home in south Devon. It had once been a dormitory for the students of Dartington Hall, a progressive school where Clio’s father taught during the 1960s.

“It was somewhere she went every day to paint and work, and no one was allowed near it,” says Clio. “The walls of our house were covered in her paintings, but the studio was a private place.”

The rise of AI-generated tributes and bots for ‘talking’ to the dead has experts concerned more people will grieve in isolation

Tributes rolled in after the death of Dolly Parton last month. Jack White performed Jolene at a London gig. Kesha sang Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You), a single her mother wrote for the country music titan. Even Pitbull stopped his Madison Square Garden show to memorialize Parton and all the other “powerful women” in the crowd. But one of the strangest – and most viral – eulogies did not come from a celebrity. It did not even come from a person.

Run Jolene, at just under five minutes, is an earworm of a country song, containing all the cliches of the genre: twangy singer, banjo licks, corny lyrics. Those lyrics concern Jolene, the fictional romantic rival made infamous by Parton. “Somebody better warn Jolene / Dolly’s coming through those gates,” the voice croons. “Run Jolene / Girl you better move your feet.”

Toronto film festival: riotous lead performance holds together third movie from actor turned film-maker, about a housewife who joins a local musical

Jesse Eisenberg’s last two directorial efforts – the prickly comedy When You Finish Saving the World and the slightly softer A Real Pain – are small films rooted in the real world. They have their little idiosyncrasies, their bits of cinematic flair, but they keep their feet grounded in the here and now. For his third film, Eisenberg has said goodbye to all that (or most of that) and run headlong at the surreal and the absurd, borrowing from Charlie Kaufman and other oddballs to tell a small story in a big way.

The Debut is about a repressed housewife, Mona (Julianne Moore), who decides to audition for a role in a community theater production of a musical called Nosy Neighbors, one of those gassy Manhattan trifles that were so ubiquitous on Broadway a half century ago. Mona’s kids are about to fly the nest, and her husband barely seems to notice her when she’s standing right next to him. So why not have a little creative adventure?

Surely that’s the lesson the Reform polling furore should teach us. Politics should be about actually helping people, not mastering the line on a graph

Solemn faces all round. We will listen. We will learn. We will hone and improve. Yes, it’s time for the latest bout of profound soul-searching in the UK polling industry following the allegations raised by the recent Channel 4 investigation that a polling firm reportedly failed to declare that three polls it published before the local elections in May were commissioned by Reform. By now these reckonings are becoming a regular occurrence in the wake of big elections: pollsters gather in a room, nibble biscuits, ritually self-flagellate, and pledge to learn all the right lessons from the electorate they’ve just catastrophically misread.

Yet for all its very public ignominies, political polling is one of those rare and precious industries that somehow manages to keep failing upwards. You might think that after botching the 2015 and 2017 general elections, the 2016 Brexit vote and the 2021 London mayoral poll, we might have learned better than to trust in the mystical magic graph. In this parallel universe Keir Starmer is now sitting on a colossal 318-seat majority, as forecast by Survation in its final MRP poll on the eve of the 2024 general election, overstating the actual result by a mere 144 parliamentary seats.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

My hosting persona is an edgier version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Invite me to yours, however, and I am a nonstop delight

My epiphany came between the starter and the main. At a friend’s place for dinner, I sat in awe as she put on a kind of magic show – the first course plates were cleared, but I never noticed her doing it. Delicious food was repeatedly produced with no lengthy disappearing act preceding it, no fuss, no panic. The candles on the table flickered invitingly, the background music was unobtrusive but atmospheric, the wine and chat flowed effortlessly. If I had later discovered she secretly had a full staff – planning, preparing, cooking, cleaning – it would have made perfect sense. But no, it was all her. And then I realised, the world is divided into people who are hosts, and people who are guests. You’re either one, or the other – nobody is both, apart from maybe the Duchess of Sussex. If you aren’t sure which camp you fall into, ask someone close to you if you’re a good host. If they pause for longer than 0.2 seconds before answering, you’re a guest.

As alluded to above, I am a terrible host. When welcoming people into your home, your mood sets the tone for what follows: if you’re relaxed, calm and smiley, they will be too. I am uptight, edgy – and very, very clearly on my last nerve as I open the door to let them in. I’m probably grimacing, I might be close to tears. I will then be so extremely laser focused on them having a nice time, that it will ensure they most definitely do not. I run from room to room. I yelp. I don’t engage in conversation, because even if I can briefly get it together enough to appear to be listening, I’m really thinking about whether I set the oven to the right temperature, and realising I forgot to look at the clock when I put the food in it. I am neither present nor absent, but an infuriating combination of the two. I loiter. I lurk. My energy is that of a surgeon dashing to the operating room, who has just noticed that they’ve forgotten everything they learned at medical school. Or perhaps it’s Manuel from Fawlty Towers. When it comes to hosting, I am a mess.

The porn performer and new mother has posted a video of herself holding a baby, while promoting sexual content. It exposes something horrifying about our era

Bonnie Blue has made millions of pounds by having sex with thousands of men. I suppose that last part isn’t particularly unusual for a sex worker; it’s basically the job description. But Blue has reached an unusual level of fame for the profession through grotesque stunts such as having sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours and preying on young men with “barely legal” content and university “bang bus” tours. She’s notorious enough that she was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary last year.

In short, Blue (real name: Tia Billinger), possesses two of the most important qualities for financial success in the modern world: shamelessness and a keen understanding that you’ve often got to go to extremes to cut through in today’s attention economy. She is exploiting the idea that it is profitable to “enrage to engage”: the business model baked into every social media algorithm.

Today it’s a silly sports betting ad, but I can’t see anything she’s done that’s worth this ire. She’s in her 20s: she does dumb things. Enjoy!

Would it be insanely unfashionable to defend Sydney Sweeney? You may or may not have heard that the Euphoria star has done an ad for a sports betting site. Sorry, I think we still have to call them “sports prediction markets” in the United States, which only recently popped its legalised sports betting cherry, and is behaving like a complete teenage boy about the whole thing. Anyway, among other poses, the ad features a naked Sydney holding a couple of American footballs over her breasts, which are – and I feel she would want us to acknowledge this – seriously among the very best in Hollywood. Maybe THE best. Listen, it is what it is. Life would be very boring if we couldn’t say so with a twinkle.

Forgive me. Life is, in fact, very, very boring, because yet another Sydney Sweeney-advertising-centred firestorm has been ignited by this ad. (Last year, some lunatic genuinely suggested her “good jeans” American Eagle ad was something to do with white supremacy and eugenics.) Her latest product endorsement has drawn the ire of a cascade of female athletes, who have described it variously as demeaning women’s sport, sexualised representation of athletes, and “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, [and] every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is – teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity”.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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Grievance politics has grown in the east of the country where I was born. But west Germans have hard questions to answer too

The fear that a fascist, far-right movement would rise to power again in Germany has been with me since my youth. On 6 September, the far-right, anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a landslide in Saxony-Anhalt, becoming the biggest party in the state parliament, with a shocking 44% of the vote, on a record turnout. If it finds a way to power it will be the first far-right party to govern a German state since the Nazi era.

The night before the vote, I sent a message to a friend, who, like myself, has an East German background. Was she as worried, scared even, about the vote as I was, I asked. I’d fallen into a loop for days, scrolling videos, reels, reports, interviews done on the ground. And I knew these AfD voters. They could have been relatives, friends of my parents, old teachers, former schoolmates. Why were they saying such incoherent stuff?

A petition against the mayor’s presence reeked of Islamophobia – and ran counter to the sense of togetherness that followed the attacks

Everyone who was in New York on 11 September 2001 has their 9/11 story. My husband and I were at JFK, boarding a plane to San Francisco. Our two sons were home in lower Manhattan, a block away from my 85-year-old mother. They watched the towers fall from our corner. The weather was radiantly beautiful.

For a long time, the faces of the missing were everywhere. Their eyes seemed to follow us from the makeshift shrine outside St Vincent’s hospital to the window of our local bodega. We cried at random moments. We slept badly.

Important recommendations for neonatal care are shadowed by doubts about the nurse’s convictions

When she rejected calls to pause the public inquiry into the Countess of Chester hospital, where Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more, Lady Justice Thirlwall said that questions surrounding Letby’s guilt lay outside her terms of reference. The inquiry, she said, would focus on the hospital and its staff, not the convictions. Eighteen months later, with the 822-page report in the public domain, her decision to press on while Letby’s guilt was in the process of being formally challenged looks like a mistake.

The report’s recommendations, based on many months of hearings, include strengthened oversight of hospitals by the Care Quality Commission, more support for whistleblowers from the health ombudsman, and clearer monitoring and reporting on the deaths of children. As previous inquiries have also found, there are serious problems around accountability, openness and safeguarding in the NHS. Lady Thirlwall’s conclusions about service improvements should be added to the roster of outstanding actions.

Quantitative tightening has blurred the line between monetary and fiscal policy, leaving ministers accountable for decisions they cannot directly control

When Labour made the Bank of England independent in 1997, the idea was that the Bank set interest rates while the Treasury taxed and spent. Monetary policy was in Threadneedle Street, fiscal policy in Whitehall. But in August the Bank of England quietly slipped out that its key policy could cost the Treasury £120bn. That policy – quantitative tightening (QT) – clearly ought to be rethought and the policy of the Treasury indemnifying the Bank for its losses ended. Last year, ministers paid the Bank £17bn to cover these arguably notional losses – an amount considerably larger than the budget of the Ministry of Justice, which is dealing with a real prisons crisis.

Bank independence was constructed for a world in which monetary policy decisions had predictable and indirect fiscal effects. The financial crisis, Covid, war and fractious trade disputes have contributed to ending that world. The Bank bought up government bonds to support the economy via its quantitative easing (QE) programme. But the constitutional settlement – of an independent central bank working out on its own what to do with those bonds – has not caught up. The game is surely up when a former Bank deputy governor, Charlie Bean, acknowledges that independence cannot justify effectively giving power to an unelected monetary policy committee (MPC) over decisions with great consequences for public spending.

Readers respond to the news that Christopher Harborne has given £36m to Reform UK, matching a donation from Ben Delo

Cryptocurrency is often sold as decentralised and democratic, yet its real behaviour resembles gravity: wealth is pulled inexorably into a few vast centres while draining from everyone else (Christopher Harborne matches £36m Reform donation of Ben Delo, 12 September). Early adopters, insiders and whales acquire huge holdings at negligible cost. Their size then shapes the market, drawing in ordinary investors whose money ultimately fuels those already at the top.

Because crypto generates no cash flow and produces little real economic output, it becomes structurally zero‑sum. One person’s gain is another’s loss, and the system relies on a continual inflow of participants whose contributions sustain the fortunes of a minority.

An awareness campaign isn’t enough. The UK should ban commercial sunbeds, writes Dr Amy Perkins

Rising melanoma rates demand more than another awareness campaign (Editorial, 7 August). As a consultant dermatologist with a special interest in the health impacts of social media, I see how digital platforms are normalising harmful attitudes towards sun exposure, while the sunbed industry thrives.

Social media algorithms reward content that provokes strong reactions. Extreme tanning routines, dramatic before-and-after images and misleading health claims can therefore travel further than balanced medical advice. I have previously raised the alarm about irresponsible sunbed advertising, including claims that sunbeds offer a net health benefit. Such promotion is indefensible: UV radiation from sunbeds is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency.

The details of the BBC charter renewal are too important to be negotiated in secret, writes Phil Harding, a former controller of the corporation’s editorial policy

The Guardian is right to bring the future of the BBC and its funding back into the spotlight (‘A completely unique opportunity’: the secretive process that will decide the BBC’s future, 10 September). This is too important an issue and the BBC is too important an institution for this to be decided behind the closed doors of Whitehall.

Many things have been altered radically by the recent drastic changes in communications technology, but others still have a very familiar feel to them. Chief among these is the extent to which the BBC should eschew ratings and stick only to the cultural Olympian heights. This dilemma was best summed up by the BBC’s former director of programmes, Huw Wheldon, when he said that it was the job of the BBC “to make the popular good and make the good popular”. It still stands today.
Phil Harding
Former editor, Today programme, and former controller of BBC editorial policy

Elizabeth Williams and Luke Madams respond to an article by Robert Ames in which he argues that doors are closing for working-class musicians

Further to Robert Ames’s article (I co-founded an orchestra 18 years ago. Since then, I’ve seen doors close for working-class musicians, 9 September), I have seen first-hand both the transformative power of music education and the fragility of its provision.

I am the chair of trustees of Making Music, Changing Lives (MMCL), a Cardiff-based charity established in 2009 to provide musical opportunities for children and young people in the low-income communities of Ely and Caerau. Around 40 young people are loaned instruments for free and they receive free or heavily subsidised weekly tuition from highly-qualified teachers, and the opportunity to play and perform in an orchestra. We also organise school holiday projects, concerts for local schools, and free tickets to professional concerts.

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Allan Castle writes in:

As a British-born Canadian, who has shuttled back and forth over the Atlantic for six decades, when I get back to England I seek out cherished beverages past and present that are unavailable or only sporadically found in Canada: orange squash, ginger beer, Theakston’s Old Peculier, real bitter, etc. What is Carabao? What does it taste like? And, perhaps most important, what are the cultural assumptions British people make about Carabao drinkers? I’m old enough to know that no seemingly benign refreshment decision in the UK is made without social consequences.

With Enciso on the bench, Arsenal will win. It’s too bad for Ipswich’s lack of courage.

• Over-by-over match updates, play from 6.30pm BST

• Pietersen’s return is pure content | And mail James

3rd over: England 36-1 (Buttler 21, Brook 2) Harry Brook walks out to the middle with his slightly splay footed simian stroll. Quick singles exchanged with Buttler make it five runs and the wicket off Wellalage’s first over. The pitch is flat and the outfield rapid.

Gone! Nye Donald perishes with a toe ender that is well caught at mid off. His dayboo with the bat is over but his strikerate is still a nosebleed inducing 240.

Ex-England footballer pleads guilty and admits to failing to provide a specimen as he appears in court

Raheem Sterling pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and could be sent to prison after driving his ­Lamborghini for more than an hour on motorways during rush hour while inhaling nitrous oxide.

The former Chelsea and Manchester City forward stood in the dock to accept three charges before ^­Basingstoke magistrates court heard how he embarked on a ­prolonged period of reckless driving on the M25 and M3, inhaling nitrous oxide ­balloons, before crashing his £270,000 car. Sterling was disqualified from driving and bailed until 25 November, when his sentence will either be determined or referred to the crown court.

• 15-year-old wants his registration to be cancelled

• He was to be in squad to face Brighton on Wednesday

Manchester United have been left confused and shocked by the news that the talented 15-year-old player JJ Gabriel has asked to leave the club, a day before he was to be included in the first-team squad to face Brighton.

Gabriel could have become United’s youngest player in the Carabao Cup third-round tie at Old Trafford on Wednesday. But the Guardian understands he has asked for his registration to be cancelled.

• PGA commissioner: ‘The Tour is built on meritocracy’

• Rahm and Hatton likely to start back on DP World Tour

The head of the PGA Tour has insisted there will be no favours offered to golfers looking to return to the ­platform after LIV’s bankruptcy filing last week.

The increasing likelihood is players such as Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith and Tyrrell Hatton will have to play their way back on to the PGA Tour through performances in Europe in 2027 in what would represent a boost to the DP World Tour.

• Webb wants to stop ‘ridiculous situations’

• Says VAR officials in United v City had ‘tunnel vision’

Howard Webb has described the law around accidental handball as “a bit of a nonsense” and called for its reform to stop referees being drawn into “ridiculous situations”.

The chief refereeing officer for English football made his remarks on Tuesday, when he also fronted up over the error that allowed Manchester City to win Sunday’s Manchester derby. Webb said he was “really disappointed” with the video assistant referee call that failed to spot Enzo Fernández interfering with play from an offside position before Erling Haaland scored the only goal.

• Munich selected for 2031, president Seb Coe announces

• Source in British bid ‘gutted’ at double disappointment

London’s bid for the 2029 World ­Athletics Championships has ended in failure after it lost out to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital which will now become the first African city to host the global championships.

Speaking at a press conference in Budapest the World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, said the decision to go to Nairobi was historic and promised that it would stage a “­groundbreaking championships”.

• Australian Joanna Wietrzyk went on to win fitness race in Beijing

• Hyrox admits making mistake by ‘not reacting immediately’

Organisers of the global indoor fitness competition Hyrox have apologised and pledged immediate rule changes after an Australian athlete was allowed to finish and win an event in Beijing despite soiling herself mid-race.

Footage of world record holder Joanna Wietrzyk competing on Saturday showed her continuing through demanding exercises and using communal equipment, with faecal matter visibly running down her legs. The incident went viral on social media and triggered debate about Hyrox’s health and safety standards, and athlete responsibility.

• Texas star called clip of coach slapping reporter ‘hilarious’

• Manning: ‘Nothing funny about it … I need to do better’

• Rowe posts that she accepts apology, will move forward

Texas’s star quarterback, Arch Manning, has apologized after joking about an AI-generated video that depicted Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian slapping ESPN college football reporter Holly Rowe after last Saturday’s game.

Manning had been asked at a press conference on Monday about the social media reaction to the Longhorns’ 24-23 upset win over No 1 Ohio State. Rowe had attempted to ask Sarkisian a question for the standard postgame interview, but the coach interrupted her and yelled a pair of Texas slogans before walking off.

Ursula von der Leyen says incidents ‘part of broader pattern of Russian aggression and provocation against Europe’

A Russian warship fired two emergency flares at a Danish helicopter in the Baltic Sea and an Italian Nato fighter jet shot down a drone carrying an explosive device over Lithuania in what the EU described as “reckless and dangerous” Russian behaviour.

Poland also scrambled fighter jets “due to the activity of Russian jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory”, the day after Polish security forces retrieved a suspected Russian drone adrift in its waters.

Exclusive: Britain is understood to have been formally invited to become founding member of multilateral lender

John Healey is in talks with the Canadian government about joining a new global defence bank intended to help allies rearm to counter mounting security threats, just weeks after Rachel Reeves rejected the move.

The chancellor is understood to be actively considering a bid to join the proposed Canada-led defence, security and resilience bank (DSRB), which proponents say could help the UK fund defence projects at lower cost, before planned talks with his Canadian counterpart this week.

Scandal explodes as country’s election campaign peaks, with polls suggesting dead heat between candidates

Brazil’s supreme court has been thrust into what experts consider the greatest crisis since the return of democracy in the 1980s, as two rival judges lock horns on the eve of the presidential election with unpredictable consequences for Latin America’s largest democracy.

The politically charged dispute exploded into public view on Tuesday as judges traded insults and accusations during a heated supreme court hearing that was livestreamed into millions of Brazilian homes.

Prime minister speaks of strengthening Canada’s economic and political ties to Europe at Canada Investment Summit

Mark Carney said Canada will pursue a “unique security and economic alliance” with Europe as he positions his country as a base to build in the “new global economic order”.

Speaking to investors, company executives and government ministers at the inaugural Canada Investment Summit on Tuesday, the prime minister pitched Canada as a “safe harbour” and lucrative home for foreign capital as his government looks to reduce its reliance on trade with the United States.

Nearly half of ethnic minority respondents in a poll say they have faced prejudice over the past year

Many Britons feel inequality is worsening and that discrimination has become more common, according to a thinktank study.

The report by British Future has found that people across ethnic groups believe racial equality is worsening in Britain. One in six people are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

More than 330,000 sea turtles arrived in southern Mexico in a mass nesting phenomenon known as an ‘arribada’.

The sixth arribada of the season, which began in March, brought thousands of turtles to the beach in less than 48 hours to lay their eggs, according to officials at La Escobilla beach sanctuary in Oaxaca, Mexico.

The olive ridley turtle plays a fundamental role in marine and coastal ecosystems by contributing nutrients to beach-dune systems and regulating populations of jellyfish and sponges, according to Mexico's federal attorney for environmental protection, but the climate crisis is now threatening their survival

Grant applications in England surge as interest grows in habitat that captures carbon and helps reduce flood risk

The ancient craft of hedge laying is experiencing a strong revival as farmers use techniques that peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries to boost wildlife, capture carbon and help tackle flooding.

Hedge laying, which restores and revives mature hedges to keep them fresh, was among the four most popular categories of capital grants selected by farmers out of a total pot of £225m provided by the government this year to support practical environmental improvements on farms and across the countryside.

After Jennifer Sellitti lost her partner Joe Mazraani, she thought everything was over. Then she inherited his ship

After Joe died, Jennifer Sellitti felt as though she were living underwater.

Other people became murky, their words muffled. She slept constantly; unconsciousness was a blessing. On the worst days, memories bowled her over.

Critically endangered Bornean orangutans flee forests as staff at Cabang Panti work round the clock to stave off blaze

Wildfires in Indonesia are sweeping through a critical research site for Bornean orangutans and are now threatening a celebrated research camp, home to one of the world’s longest-running studies of wild apes.

In the past few days, the fires have burned within 200 metres of Rangkong research station, a satellite of Cabang Panti research station, which lies about four miles north in Gunung Palung national park.

Green-run council also curbing ads for airlines, cruises, fossil fuels and SUVs on its billboards and bus shelters

Bristol has become the first British city to impose a ban on the advertising of fast fashion, in new restrictions that will also curb ads for SUVs and airlines.

The ban is part of moves by the West Country city, known for its radical political scene, to impose sweeping bans on advertising for polluting industries.

Musician clarified her own health status after concerns were raised by interview with husband and bandmate Stephen Morris earlier this month

Gillian Gilbert, keyboardist with New Order, has announced she is again having treatment for cancer.

The 65-year-old musician announced the news on Instagram, as a response to an interview her husband and New Order bandmate, drummer Stephen Morris, gave to Rolling Stone earlier this month. Morris had said: “I’ve got a bit of a health problem at the minute, which precludes leaving the country for any length of time … it’s pretty serious.”

Not enough evidence to explain circumstances of Noah Donohoe’s death, partly due to police mistakes, inquest finds

An inquest into the death of a teenager whose body was found in a Belfast storm drain has found there is not enough evidence to explain the puzzling circumstances of how he died, partly because of mistakes by police investigators.

Noah Donohoe, 14, was last seen on 21 June 2020 when he left his south Belfast home on his bicycle, telling his mother he was going to visit friends. His naked body was found six days later, deep inside an underground water tunnel in the north of the city.

Actor, who made history at the Emmys, thanked the ‘great and the good people of Wales’ for nurturing his talent

When Matthew Rhys made history as the first actor ever to win two best lead Emmy awards in one night, he paid tribute to his roots.

“To the great and good people of Wales, who were as much a nurturer as anyone else,” said the proud Welshman now living in New York, “We are a small but mighty nation”. “Diolch yn fawr iawn,” he added, meaning “thank you very much” in Welsh.

Estimated 100,000 Yemenis displaced amid renewed fighting as Qatar sounds alarm over Bab al-Mandab strait

Saudi cities faced the threat of a second day of Houthi attacks as fighting across Yemen led the UN to warn of a humanitarian crisis with 100,000 Yemenis already displaced.

As oil prices remained well over $100 (£74) a barrel, Qatar warned of a catastrophe if the Iran-backed Houthi militants won full control of the Bab al-Mandab strait, the narrow waterway at the bottom of the Red Sea dominating the key naval route to Asia. The strait has become vital to Saudi crude oil exports as the wider Middle East war chokes the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

Reiner is accused of fatally stabbing his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, in their home in December 2025

Nick Reiner will not face the death penalty if convicted of the killings of his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office announced.

Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles DA, said on Tuesday that his office will not pursue the death penalty in the case. He told reporters gathered outside a Los Angeles courthouse ahead of a pretrial hearing that the prosecutors had considered the wishes of Reiner family members and mitigating factors in making their decision.

Senators question FBI chief on move to cut restrictions on agent applicants who have engaged in bestiality

• US politics live – latest updates

The FBI director, Kash Patel, defended his agency’s decision to roll back restrictions on agent applicants who have previously engaged in bestiality, arguing the FBI “did not want to punish victims of bestiality” by automatically disqualifying them.

The unusual topic of bestiality emerged during a Senate judiciary committee oversight hearing on Tuesday after Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican John Kennedy questioned Patel’s decision to remove barriers that previously prevented applicants who engaged in prostitution and bestiality from being qualified for a job at the FBI.

Ruling comes a day before homeland security department’s substantial restrictions were set to take effect

A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from implementing a new rule that would ⁠limit how long foreign students and ⁠journalists can remain ​in the US without applying for extensions.

F Dennis Saylor, the US district judge in Boston, ruled in favor of a coalition of unions and higher education advocacy groups a day before ⁠the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s rule was set to take effect.

Last week, researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from Anthropic, stating that AI ‘could kill us all by the end of the decade’

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. Today in tech, we’re discussing the past week’s all-consuming apoplexy over AI safety.

AI CEOs say they need to slow the pace of development. But will they?

OpenAI urges UK lawmakers to rein in technology amid growing safety fears

Europe must build own AI or risk getting cut off by US or China, says ECB’s Lagarde

Trump attacks ‘sick conspiracy’ against AI as tech stocks slide

Microsoft proposes limits on its AI with code of conduct amid safety debate

I worked at Google DeepMind. You should listen to the warnings about AI

We greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism?

Consumer group says online shops routinely failed to reimburse delivery costs of unwanted purchases or cost of items

Leading retailers are breaking the law by failing to properly refund customers for returned goods, a Which? investigation has found.

Some of the UK’s biggest online shops routinely failed to reimburse delivery costs when customers returned unwanted purchases, while others failed to refund the cost of the goods themselves.

Overall grocery inflation in Great Britain rises to 2.3%, as Ocado and Lidl gain market share

• Business live – latest updates

Parents and carers in Great Britain spent 12.5% less on school uniform in the run-up to the start of this academic year, turning to promotions and secondhand items to keep expenses down as families struggled with the cost of living crisis.

The average spend on school uniform was £54.53 in the four weeks to 6 September, down an eighth from £62.29 in the same period last year, according to the market research company Worldpanel by Numerator. Overall grocery inflation picked up to 2.3% from 2.1%.

From Stephen Hawking to Jacob Coxon’s viral Anthropic resignation, fears that AI could threaten humanity have shaken the industry without stopping its pursuit

Before an Anthropic researcher resigned and declared human extinction imminent last week, tech leaders and scientists had sounded the alarm about a superintelligent AI ending humanity for over a decade.

The development of artificial intelligence “could spell the end of the human race”, warned professor and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in 2014 – a little less than a decade before the public got its hands on the generative AI features of the original version of ChatGPT.

The colourful and larger-than-life staging of the opera about an enchantress who transforms her lovers into beasts returns to the Royal Opera stage this week. We went behind the scenes on the final day of rehearsals

All photos: Tristram Kenton

• Alcina is at the Royal Opera House from 15 September to 3 October

From Obama’s chef to a big cat obsessive, the actor has gathered experts from all over the world for a film about how to heal our besieged planet. He talks about naysayers, elephant tusks – and the wonders of venison

Benedict Cumberbatch is dreading stepping outside. He’s speaking to me from his air-conditioned hotel room in Soho at the peak of the summer heat. Few doubt that climate breakdown was a major cause of those scorchers, with nature, farming and water supplies all placed under huge strain. By midsummer, according to a report co-authored by the Met Office, there were 2,700 excess deaths in England and Wales due to the searing heat.

But for Cumberbatch, in a bittersweet way, the record-breaking temperatures have come at a good time. The actor has been on a tour to promote his new documentary, How to Live on Earth. “The irony is not lost on anyone,” he says. “We’re living in the results of climate breakdown so stepping outside is – literally – a call to action.”

It launched the careers of Sandra Oh and Katherine Heigl, popularised terms like ‘vajayjay’ and even managed to make bowel obstruction sexy

From The Pitt to the recent Australian hit The F Ward, audiences just cannot get enough of shows about doctors who not only know how to conduct open heart surgery, but also mend their own broken hearts along the way.

In many ways you could say that Grey’s Anatomy, and other iconic medical dramas like ER, ran in dramatic slow motion through hospital corridors first so that The Pitt could also run (though in a slightly grittier and more realistic way).

The latest Exhibition on Screen documentary does a good job balancing the famous scandals with the subtle brilliance of his art

Timed to coincide with Tate Britain’s impressive gallery show – which closes at the end of September, so you haven’t long if you’ve missed it so far – this latest from the Exhibition on Screen strand does a fine job in outlining the ins and outs, and ups and downs of this still somewhat divisive artist who, Whistler’s Mother notwithstanding, is still probably most famous for winning a farthing in damages in his “flinging a pot of paint” libel action against John Ruskin. The film assembles the customary lineup of notables including the Tate’s Carol Jacobi, critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston and art historian Stephen Calloway, the latter of whom’s dandyish attire and Colonel Sanders goatee suggests he has very much bought into the Whistler aesthetic.

In fact, as all the interviewees are keen to point out, Whistler’s self-constructed persona, always with an eye to making a splash, is as significant an element of his artistic presence as the art itself – even if, as I can’t be alone in thinking, there’s something fundamentally irritating about his southern-genteel attudinising even at a century and a half’s distance. Be that as it may, the film gets to grips with Whistler’s instinctive brilliance as an artist, his natural flair for boundary-pushing and forward-thinking idealism. The big life episodes – his arrival in London, painting his mother, the brouhaha over the Peacock Room, the court case and subsequent bankruptcy – are recounted, but there is impressive detail on the actual art: from the dynamics behind his brooding Wapping picture to the temper tantrums (not his) that made Harmony in Grey and Green, his portrait of the eight-year-old Cicely Alexander so distinctive. And while Whistler’s dealings with the women in his life wouldn’t exactly pass modern-era scrutiny, his pictures of them are genuinely brilliant, with especial attention given to a wonderfully tender sketch of his wife Beatrix, terminally ill in a hotel bedroom.

Dismissed in Taiwan as simply propaganda, the Long Watch, or Jiaofeng, has proved a sensation across the strait with its references to real-life crises

After shaking off the people trailing her through a crowded market and emerging from a bathroom in disguise, the double agent appears to have escaped. But a sip of water on a plane eventually gets her. She is poisoned after Taiwan’s military intelligence service discovers that she has been working secretly for China.

The plot comes from a new Chinese spy drama co-produced by the Ministry of State Security. Since its premiere on 6 September, it has become a TV hit, with a fictionalised take on a subject rarely treated so directly: the modern history of tensions with Taiwan.

Eight years in the making, the innovative film uses painted still images – it’s like being read a graphic novel by a cast including Oscar Isaac, Evangeline Lilly and Elliott Gould

This Israeli animated film has been largely hanging around in limbo since it was finished in 2021 after taking eight years to complete – though this may or may not be due to the international opprobrium that Israel has attracted in the intervening period. It’s actually a rather fascinating film, if oddly told and a bit severe. Legend of Destruction isn’t about the current conflict, taking place as it does in the first century, 66 years after the birth of Christ – although of course, if you squint a bit, parallels with current events are there to be discerned. Revolutions fracture from within, hegemons topple due to their own greedy self-destruction, and in the end ordinary people are the ones who suffer and die as cities burn. Fill in the blanks as you see fit.

Cleaving pretty closely to the known facts as recorded by Flavius Josephus’ The Jewish War and the Talmud, the script by director Gidi Dar and Shuli Rand recounts how Jewish resistance rose up in Judea, particularly in Jerusalem, against the occupying Romans and the reigning Jewish elite, including the Temple’s high priests and queen Berenice of Cilicia (Evangeline Lilly), over excessive taxation. Our protagonist narrator is ordinary schlemiel Ben Batich (voiced in this English language version by Oscar Isaac), who becomes a leader of one faction after he snaps and can no longer agree with the pleas for patience and tolerance from his mother (Marilu Henner) and rabbi uncle Yohanan ben Zakkai (Elliott Gould).

Playing a sound rooted in 80s bands such as Witchfinder General and Pagan Altar, metal bands are once again gravitating towards dark folklore – but in a ‘Glastonbury crystal shop’ kind of way

Behind Tom Templar’s shoulder as we talk over video call is a poster for The Wicker Man, the 1973 cult folk-horror film set on a remote Scottish island, whose sunniness conceals – inevitably – a dark secret. It’s fitting, because Templar is the singer of Green Lung, the breakout British metal band who immerse themselves in British mythology. The forthcoming Necropolitan, their fourth album devoted to the folklore of the isles, takes its inspiration from the “Magnificent Seven” London cemeteries built in the 1830s and 40s, and from the Necropolis railway, which transported the dead out of the city. No generic demons here: this is metal in the spirit of Fairport Convention as much as Black Sabbath.

“My big thesis is that heavy metal has become a form of folk music in the past couple of decades,” says Templar. “They’re both riff-based, circling around similar tropes, and about reinventing what has gone before. Metal even feels like a folk movement, in the way it’s full of festivals no one else has heard of. There’s such a thriving ecosystem.” Green Lung have certainly been nourished by it: at this year’s Desertfest in London, their T-shirts felt like an unofficial uniform.

(Iliad/Capitol)
On his first album in seven years, Beck keeps the quality control extremely high as he surveys mid-50s malaise in the wake of divorce

The last time Beck released an album it was 2019 and the singer-songwriter found himself in a strange and unenviable position. In some quarters, the arrival of Hyperspace was eagerly anticipated precisely because his personal life was in turmoil. Nine months before its release, his 15-year marriage to actor Marissa Ribisi had ended in divorce, an experience he understandably described as heartbreaking. Unfortunately for him, there exists a pervasive argument that Beck’s greatest work is born out of misery.

His beloved 2002 album Sea Change featured a set of disconsolate acoustic songs written in the wake of a break-up with his long-term girlfriend Leigh Limon that Beck had initially thought were too personal for public consumption. They were certainly very different from the knowing, postmodern approach with which he’d made his name, but no matter: Sea Change went on to become a huge critical and commercial success. It wasn’t entirely clear what prompted the gloomy mood of 2014’s Morning Phase, but it very much seemed to be cut from similar musical and lyrical cloth. Some critics suggested it was the best album of his career; it subsequently won three Grammys, including album of the year. Given the circumstances, there was much pre-release speculation that Hyperspace would be a companion piece.

Fans of the show will not want to miss this revealing new series with Dominic Chianese and his son. Plus, a political drama that’s as thrilling as a Bourne novel

The Sopranos star Dominic Chianese (95) and his son Dominic Chianese Jr (62) helm this new series – a cosy father-son catchup, and all the better for it. Choice cuts include Chianese Sr’s admission that he thought the show was a spoof at first, playing his first scene as crime boss Junior for laughs. As for “Jimmy” Gandolfini, he was “in the same stratosphere as Al Pacino ... acting with him was so easy because he was so real and so believable”. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

Royal Albert Hall, London
The evening features everything from a rendition of an inscrutable Samuel Barber concerto to a celebration of Dolly Parton, but the real star is tartan-clad tenor Nicky Spence

In Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, a wealthy man commissions an evening’s entertainment: a lofty new opera and a comic burlesque. But when time constraints force them to be performed simultaneously, surreal musical chaos ensues. One can only assume that the BBC was taking notes.

The Last Night of the Proms is the finale to eight weeks of concerts, and the BBC’s annual identity crisis. Is this the celebratory end to a season of serious music or a standalone party, whose first half is something to be endured before the real fun begins? It’s both, of course. And that’s where the trouble starts.

The president’s former press secretary has learned all the right lessons, but how come it took him so long?

The most interesting chapter in Anthony Scaramucci’s All the Wrong Moves is the one where the hedge funder turned podcaster goes to work for Donald Trump. It’s summer 2017, and he’s been given the job of comms director, which he doesn’t know how to do, but he and Trump think it’ll work out because they’re both from New York. Or maybe he took it because he had “Potomac fever”, which afflicts Wall Street financiers who find themselves on the riverfront in Washington DC thinking they know how to run a country just because they’re “full of power and judgmental insight … about to fix everything”.

This appointment lasts only 11 days, not even enough time to be truly tainted by Trump’s first term, though it is enough time for Scaramucci to miss the birth of his son. The account is a mea culpa soup, with the author full of regrets for his hubris, his impulsivity, his “pride, egotism and asinine stupidity”, the fact that, despite the clear-sightedness bestowed by his humble beginnings, he’d come to assume the collective biases of the rich people he hung out with.

Twenty years in the writing, this paranormal epic of cold war espionage and family tragedy is a quantum leap in terms of ambition and moral seriousness

China Miéville’s epic new novel is presented as being “20 years in the making”. It is quite a testament to how extravagant – even Stakhanovite – his imagination is that during that period he also produced six novels (including The City & the City and The Book of Elsewhere, co-written with Keanu Reeves), two novellas, two series of graphic novels, a children’s book, a volume of short stories and two works of nonfiction, on the October Revolution and the Communist Manifesto.

It does not mean that these works were, as Graham Greene called The Third Man and Our Man in Havana, “entertainments” – Embassytown, to my mind, is the best translation of deconstructionist philosophy into science fiction – but certainly The Rouse is a quantum jump in terms of ambition, moral seriousness and stylistic bravado. It means that rather than classifying Miéville with “the new weird” or “speculative fantasy”, he ought to be compared to Roberto Bolaño or Mircea Cărtărescu. This new novel is equally maximalist, dense, disorienting and discomfiting, reflecting how surreal our reality seems to have become.

A sharp analysis of the damage wrought by the reckless super-rich, and a progressive toolkit for repairing it

The more power the radical rightwing nationalists of our age accrue, the greater the risk that their destructive brand of politics becomes normalised. We should not, for instance, regard it as normal that the man in charge of one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals casually promises “a whole civilisation will die tonight”. We should not accept that history’s first trillionaire is allowed to spread racist conspiracy theories to a hitherto unimaginable extent. We should be alarmed that, here in the UK, a party tipped to lead a potential future government is trying to cruise to power in the slipstream of this international movement.

In fact, we shouldn’t just be alarmed by such developments: we should stop them and urgently repair the damage already done. But how? And what is the nature of that damage? This bold, clarifying intervention from Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor provides some of the answers. “End times fascism” is their term for a convergence of interests that can broadly be understood as a response to the climate crisis. Faced with a world coming under unprecedented strain from environmental shocks and an unequal, resource-hungry economic system, today’s reactionaries are effectively saying: bring it on.

A returning British soldier is haunted by his time in Palestine in this panoramic epic set after the second world war

Sebastian Faulks’s latest book focuses on the most irreconcilable geopolitical struggle of our age, the Israel-Palestine conflict. While “the sound of mortar and machine gun, the collision of flesh and metal” are integral to Faulks’s best known works, such as Birdsong, in his 17th novel the military presence is a peacekeeping one. It’s 1946 and infantry officer Philip Deval, who saw action in Normandy, is deployed to the Holy Land to take part in maintaining Britain’s mandate in Palestine. Initially Philip is second in command of a battalion overseeing febrile relationships between Jewish and Arab communities. Britain’s profound failures and manipulation in the region, and the imminence of its disastrous departure from the territory, come under scrutiny.

While able to drum up motivation and cheer for the men in his battalions, privately Philip wrestles with inner melancholy. He is “shrouded” in a “loneliness … that insulates him from the world”. Experiences on the battlefield and other, slowly elucidated tragedies have led to his pessimistic bent. Much of what Philip observes in the Middle East, and his “foreboding” sense of its intractable problems, only confirms his despairing sense of human nature. It also underlines his ambivalence towards notions of divine benevolence.

The distinctively British RPG is returning courtesy of the makers of Forza Horizon – with comedy talent such as Richard Ayoade and Natasia Demetriou voicing sweary characters. We had our first play and spoke to its developer

When Playground Games was founded in 2010, its objective was straightforward: to make the best cars in video games. Operating out of an unassuming white building in Leamington Spa, the studio sought to challenge Gran Turismo with its critically acclaimed British racing alternative: the acclaimed free-roaming Forza Horizon series. Yet as the team grew, so did their ambitions. Now they are making the most intriguing British fantasy game we have seen in many years.

For those who have never ventured into Albion, Fable is a quintessentially British role playing game. Created by Lionhead Studios for the original Xbox in 2004, it boasted cheeky charm alongside world-altering player choices, and its droll writing was brought to life in later iterations by national treasures such as Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg. Thanks to its unique blend of farce and fantasy, Fable grew into a globally beloved franchise – before Microsoft unceremoniously shuttered Lionhead in 2016, after mandating that the studio turn its star series into a multiplayer game. The result, Fable Legends, was never released.

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.

Linbury theatre, London
Directed by Natalie Abrahami and choreographed by Loughlan Prior, this is an evening of many parts that sometimes feels bolted together

It’s an evening of two halves and many, many parts, some that dovetail snugly, others more clunkily bolted together. And perhaps that’s because The McRae/Vassilev Project is just that: a project more than a piece.

Directed by Natalie Abrahami and choreographed by Loughlan Prior, it is essentially an encounter between two masterful performers with long careers at the Royal Opera House, dancer Steven McRae and violinist Vasko Vassilev, entwined with the near mythical figure of another virtuoso artist, Niccolò Paganini.

The first half opens with Vassilev centre stage playing Bach (for some reason); he backs off to cede space for a luxurious pas de deux by McRae and partner Sarah Lamb, all exquisite lines, spins and lifts. From this “front stage” scene, the set switches to a backstage studio, artists McRae, Vassilev, Lamb and pianist Pamela Tan Nicholson entering as if for rehearsal. The rest of this section is a light-touch show-and-tell of McRae and Vassilev’s backstories – one a homespun Australian who happened upon dance as a child, the other a Bulgarian prodigy hothoused within a musical family – illustrated with old photos and videos, supplemented by comments from Lamb and Nicholson, and interspersed with consummate yet seemingly off-the-cuff demonstrations of their skills in music and dance.

The scene is at once charming – personalising the figure of the professional performer – and contrived: even as you warm to the characters you feel the joins in the script (voice acting is not their forte) and the jolts between the attempted naturalism of their conversation and the executed artifices of classical performance.

The second half is a complete change of tack. Everyone returns as devilish Paganinis in tailcoats and cummerbunds, hair dyed dark and tastefully tousled. As well as flourishing a violin bow like a baton, sword or spear, McRae uses his tap dance training in fiendish zapateado and brilliant Cossack spins, sometimes melding his commanding footwork in partnership with Lamb’s airy pointe-work and lean lines. Still, it’s perhaps Vassilev who holds the stage most, simply by putting his body into playing Paganini; the laser focus is spellbinding.

Shame, then, that there are so many distracting effects, from back-projected dancers to billowing smoke and glaring lights, and a busy abstract animation that visualises the musical dynamics. With performers like these, it’s enough for them to just do their thing.

At the Linbury theatre, London, until 19 September.

SEC, Glasgow
Singer Courtney LaPlante’s delivery typifies the tension between hard and soft in a confident show that could do with more grit

At tonight’s Spiritbox show, vocalist Courtney LaPlante addresses the anxiety and isolation of the Canadian band’s origins: “We grew up on Vancouver Island, far away from our dreams.” Now touring Europe in support of their acclaimed 2025 album Tsunami Sea, Spiritbox show no trace of these early struggles, delivering a confident, polished performance of anthemic metal.

This UK tour follows a US run opening for nu-metal icons Evanescence, with whom they share a fascination with the musical tension between hard and soft – and in LaPlante, a compelling gothic frontperson. They share a flexible approach to genre with much contemporary metalcore, deftly incorporating elements of drum’n’bass, R&B and industrial music. Circle With Me has Running Up That Hill-esque drums and reverb-laden guitar. The EDM-inflected Crystal Roses doesn’t completely gel, but LaPlante’s Auto-Tuned vocals add an interesting new texture to the mix.

Spiritbox are touring the UK until 19 September.

Lyric Hammersmith, London
A catastrophic explosion forces retired nuclear engineers Syal and Declan Conlon to confront their past after a visit by Kerry Fox in this revival of Lucy Kirkwood’s debut

Ten years on from its powerful debut, Lucy Kirkwood’s clever and funny play feels just as potent – if not more so. There’s so much to admire and enjoy here: Kirkwood’s skilful and layered writing; Rachel O’Riordan’s precise and thoughtful direction; Gary McCann’s striking design and, above all, a trio of richly nuanced performances from three brilliant older actors: Meera Syal, Declan Conlon and Kerry Fox. For all the ideas about the legacy we leave behind for our children, I found myself reflecting on how much we still overlook our elders, and what a terrible failing and waste that is.

O’Riordan’s softly rumbling production unfolds sometime in the near future (although that supposed future feels horribly close these days). There has been a catastrophic explosion at a nuclear power plant. Exclusion zones have been established and lives redrawn. Husband and wife, Robin and Hazel (who are both nuclear engineers), have retired to a nearby crumbling cottage. When old friend and fellow engineer, Rose, turns up unannounced – determined to lure them back to work at the power plant – all three are forced to confront painful mistakes from their past and think deeply about their futures.

At Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 3 October.

Plenitude Arena, Paris
Dion wiped away tears and belted out the notes, giving an astounding performance despite her diagnosis of stiff person syndrome

In 2022, when Céline Dion shared that she had been diagnosed with a rare incurable neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome (SPS), there was no guarantee that the 58-year-old would ever tour again. Her condition, which resulted in muscle spasms so strong that it left her with broken ribs, had made it impossible to perform, and in a 2024 documentary, I Am: Céline Dion, fans saw how the disease had constricted her once seemingly infallible voice. Through it all, though, Dion was resolute that she would one day return to the stage. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she said in the film. “But I won’t stop.”

Thankfully at the opening night of her sold out five-week residency in Paris, her first full-length concerts in six years, no crawling is needed: Céline Dion is back. She glides on to the stage in a black dress, an enormous diamond necklace clasped around her throat, and launches into On ne change pas. There are tears almost immediately: she struggles through the second verse, her voice cracking as she begins to cry. By the time the strum of Destin has kicked in, though, that emotion is replaced with sheer elation. “I made a promise to be back on stage. Singing for you. Singing for me,” she says. “Singing for life.”

As a teenager, Edmonds had a three-year residency at the Royal Opera House. Her eclectic career – creating NFTs, adverts and films as well as for the stage – reveals a precarious industry moving in new directions

At the age of 18, Charlotte Edmonds was such a promising choreographer (“astonishing”, in the words of the Observer) that the Royal Ballet invented a whole new job for her. As the company’s “young choreographer”, she spent three years learning everything she could at one of the world’s biggest dance institutions. “It’s mad to think that happened,” she says, a decade on.

With that kind of start, you’d expect Edmonds’ career to have followed a predictable narrative, choreographing for the big ballet brands, maybe setting up her own company. But that’s not exactly how it’s gone. Her eclectic portfolio reflects how the dance industry has changed and become ever more precarious, but also expanded in uncharted directions. She has indeed made short works for a number of European ballet companies, but she’s spent more time recently making films, music videos and adverts for the likes of Budweiser and Nike, as well as advocating for artists with dyslexia and launching her own video series, Cameo, in which she interviews female and non-binary choreographers to counter a lack of representation.

Mathilde Arcel, who won the Volpi Cup on Saturday for her role in Golden Lion winner Woman Unknown, said job offers have now begun to arrive

The winner of this year’s best actress prize at the Venice film festival has revealed that she is on unemployment benefits and had to fly to back to Copenhagen to report to the job centre before receiving her award.

On Saturday night, Danish actor Mathilde Arcel won the prestigious Volpi Cup for her first leading role in a feature film, May el-Toukhy’s post-second world war drama Woman Unknown, which also won the Golden Lion award for best film.

Taking the women of the 1950s as her role models, Jo Ann Chaus shoots compelling self-portraits that exhibit both strength and vulnerability

Pioneer in the teaching of British Sign Language who devoted himself to improving accessibility and opportunity for deaf people

Peter Llewellyn-Jones, who has died aged 76, was an interpreter and teacher who helped to establish sign language interpreting as a recognised profession in Britain. Throughout his working life, alongside employment as an actor and writer, he devoted himself to improving accessibility and opportunity for deaf people.

He became a pioneer in the teaching of British Sign Language interpreting and linguistics, and wrote the UK’s first undergraduate degree course in the subject, for the University of Wolverhampton in 1992. Peter was also instrumental in developing sign-language interpreting for British television and in bringing it on to the stage; starting in the early 1980s, he worked on 600 professional theatre productions across the UK.

Collagen powders, gummies and pills have boomed in popularity in recent years boosted by claims that they smooth wrinkles, promote glossy hair and help with joint pain. Amid the noise it can be hard to figure out whether there’s any actual science behind the promise of looking younger for longer. Luckily Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the past three years writing Make me well: a quest to understand the confusing world of wellness, and his chapter on collagen dives deep into the evidence. He tells Madeleine Finlay what collagen does in the body, how we can get it without splashing out on expensive supplements, and why getting to the truth behind wellness claims can be so hard

Chirag Bahri was working on board a tanker when six men seized it. For almost eight months, he and his colleagues were held captive, an experience that would change his life for ever

It was at noon on 8 May 2010 when the pirates came. Chirag Bahri remembers the exact time and date because it marked the start of the seven months and 20 days he was held hostage by a gang of Somali pirates. Bahri was 28 at the time, and working as second engineer on a chemical tanker, Marida Marguerite. It was his 12th journey through the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean. It had been a good job for a young man from landlocked Uttar Pradesh in India, and Bahri was about to be promoted. “But then, piracy,” he says.

The ship had been 120 miles off the coast of Oman, partway through a run taking benzene – a raw material used in petrochemicals – from Kandla Port in India to Antwerp in Belgium. The piracy problem in the Indian Ocean was well known; Somalis armed with AK-47s were setting out in fast skiffs and taking ships hostage. Yet commercial vessels, including the Marida Marguerite, remained undefended.

Craving cosiness, but too warm for blankets and baths? Try our autumn cheat sheet

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After a record-breaking summer of heat, temperatures aren’t set to drop enough for hot baths, warm tights and roast dinners just yet. But if the darker evenings and falling leaves have got you craving cosiness, here’s our recipe for achieving that comforting autumnal vibe while it’s still unseasonably warm out.

***

Want to know the essentials fashion insiders swear by? Whether it’s great T-shirts or forever trainers, Guardian writers and stylists reveal the pieces they rate

• Jess Cartner-Morley’s September style essentials

Whether it’s a great pair of pants or the perfect T-shirt, nailing the basics can make or break your wardrobe. “They have to work harder than anything else,” says British Vogue style editor Funmi Fetto.

I asked Fetto and other stylists and style writers, along with members of the Guardian fashion desk – who all spend more time than most thinking about this stuff – for their most-loved basics. And don’t worry, most of them won’t break the bank.

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.

It’s probably not a good idea to freeze cooked risotto rice, but if you must, we have three experts who can tell you how to minimise the mush

I have tried various ways to reheat risotto after freezing, but it always turns into a gloopy, starchy, unappetising mess. What am I doing wrong?
Jill, by email
“Freezing risotto will be a bit of a disaster,” says Theo Randall, chef/patron at Theo Randall Cucina Italiana at the Intercontinental in London, “and it doesn’t really work.” The reason for this is that the cooked rice absorbs all the moisture while it’s defrosting, resulting in, well, Jill’s gloopy mess.

It’s also possible her risotto was overcooked to begin with, says Sue Quinn, author of Cheese Please. “Softer grains mean more leached starch, which leaves less leeway for further cooking without it going sticky and pasty.” Then there’s the question of reheating that defrosted rice for too long: “That can over-soften the already-cooked rice,” adds Quinn, so you have to do it “quickly and only until it’s piping hot”.

The reality, however, is that “freezing, thawing and reheating rice will make it squishier whatever you do”, Quinn says, but “if that’s the way Jill rolls”, her best bet is to get that defrosted risotto in the microwave, sprinkle it with a little water or stock, cover loosely, then reheat on high in one-minute intervals, stirring in between, until it’s hot all the way through. “To do this on the hob, put the defrosted risotto in a pan with a splash of hot stock or water, and stir gently over a medium heat for just long enough to distribute the heat.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Comprised of smelly soya beans held together by strands of mucus, the ancient dish is appearing in health food shops across the world

It is smelly, slimy and contains bacteria – and a sizeable number of Japanese wouldn’t touch it with a pair of barge pole-length chopsticks. But after centuries as a breakfast food for Japanese diners with nerves of steel, natto is emerging as a global superfood to rival kimchi, kombucha and kefir.

Its exact origins are unknown. Some believe it was introduced to Japan from China by Buddhist monks during the Yayoi period (300BC-AD300), before becoming a staple among rural communities during the Edo period (1603-1868).

The love child of a cheese toastie and eggy bread, this fried sandwich makes for an elevated snack or kids’ tea – and the leftover crusts give you ‘bread rosti’ the next day

For an exceptionally luxe snack or kids’ tea, mozzarella in carrozza is your girl. It’s the love child of a cheese toastie and eggy bread – instead of toasting it, you dip the cheese sandwich in egg and fry it. In other words, it’s mozzarella in a fancy carriage. I like to use a combination of mozzarella and mature cheddar for flavour, and while it’s best eaten piping hot from the pan, it’s a good (and filling) lunchbox option for children, too.

Intimidated by the thought of midweek entertaining? Three simple rules make it simple…

Entertaining midweek can feel daunting, but if you employ a couple of tricks, things can very quickly go from mayhem to magic. First, choose a dish that goes perfectly with good bread, so your carb is covered. Second, choose a protein that is quick to cook and great for sharing – little lamb chops are perfect for this, while also being a treat. And, finally, use other ingredients that don’t need much help. Here, the walnuts just get cooked in butter and the lamb juices, the courgettes are simply boiled and dressed, and the yoghurt is, well, yoghurt. Suddenly you’ve conjured up a masterpiece ready for many hands to dig in.

Good Time Cooking: Show-Stopping Menus for Easy Entertaining, by Rosie Mackean, is published by Pavilion Books at £26. To order a copy for £23.40, visit guardianbookshop.com

We got her as a puppy and she became particularly close to Adam – a blessing when he went into cardiac arrest in the middle of the night

My husband, Adam, and I had always planned to have a big family and that journey began when we got our dog, Polly, five years ago. I’ve loved golden retrievers since I was a child because I grew up with one. We got Polly as a puppy and she was everything we’d hoped for: loving and smart.

She immediately connected with both of us, but became inseparable from Adam. They would go for morning runs together; Polly could always be found wagging her tail by his side. This bond proved to be lifesaving.

Conversations are supposed to be two-sided – but all too often we come up against someone who’s passionately, exclusively in love with the sound of their own voice. Time to fight back …

When I was in my early teens, I was often invited round to a schoolfriend’s house for dinner. Her family struck me as wildly progressive: they were Danish and indulged in all sorts of “out-there” activities – fondues, candle-making and, most terrifying of all, the talking stick.

Before the meal was served, someone would retrieve the sacred broom handle and it would be passed around the table. You could speak only if you had possession of the stick. Despite it being the most stressful thing ever (it meant being in the spotlight, and then remembering to keep quiet the rest of the time), I now frequently yearn for a more convenient version of that stick.

For example, I met a friend recently who I see infrequently but keep up with via voice notes. No sooner had we sat down than he launched into a long discourse about his new marathon training food plan. He only broke the flow to order an omelette: “Four egg whites, two yolks, is that possible?” (We were in my local greasy spoon, so the request was greeted with mirth.) When we left, 90 minutes later, he finally had the grace to turn to me and ask: “And how are things with you?”

Walking home, I felt a mixture of disappointment and irritation. Had he always been so self-absorbed? So uninterested in anyone else? I couldn’t help wondering if our one-sided virtual updates had played a part in the problem.

There is a name for this type of egocentric behaviour – “conversational narcissism”. Although it was coined by the sociologist Charles Derber in his 1979 book The Pursuit of Attention, the term seems more relevant than ever. “WhatsApp communication and voice notes are really a series of monologues,” says Charlotte Fox Weber, a psychotherapist. “In face-to-face situations, people are forgetting how to pause naturally, to make space to hear and listen. And people are chatting on the phone – an activity that at least requires turn-taking in a defined way – much less often.”

A lot of our communication online can feel weirdly transactional, focused on logistics or niche WhatsApp groups. According to Tamu Thomas, a life coach and author, this has damaged the art of improvised conversation. “People have less capacity for meandering conversations that don’t have a purpose,” she says. “A good dialogue is a back-and-forth between two people discovering new things about each other, even if they have known each other for years. Because there are now so many different channels available to stay in touch, some people are confusing communication with connection.”

Knowledge is power, though. If you can recognise the five types of common conversation hogger, it will be much easier to handle them.

My son was inconsolable and the back seat was an absolute mess. After a few minutes of trying to clean up, a stranger emerged from a nearby house

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Kids always get sick at the worst possible time. For instance: in the middle of a busy motorway, one hour into a three-hour trip.

My husband was away for work and I was driving our two small children to see him, when one vomited in the back seat. I pulled into a slipway just off the motorway to try to clean up as best I could. The kids were too young to be trusted to sit there safely right next to a busy road, so I had to leave them strapped into the car seats while I tried to mop up the vomit with wet wipes. My son was inconsolable and the car was an absolute mess.

A Tory twentysomething and a lifelong leftwinger agreed on the need for more housing stock, but did they concur on welfare and net zero?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Oliver, 22, London

Occupation Journalist for ConservativeHome

The cost of living crisis hits students hard. Planning ahead and some self-discipline will help, alongside a sharp eye for a bargain and, if you’re eligible, a bursary

Like late-night study sessions and cramming into a student kitchen to cook up meals, being savvy with money has long been part of the university experience. But with the cost of living remaining high, students are more money-conscious than ever.

“It is one of the most difficult times to make ends meet as a student,” according to Tom Allingham, communications director at Save the Student (STS). He says soaring prices for essentials, such as food and energy bills, have “disproportionately affected” students, while maintenance loans (intended to help cover day-to-day costs) have failed to keep up with high rates of inflation.

He wanted to save money, but it insisted on selling costly packages and seemed not to accept ‘cancel’ as an option

I was helping my father, who has dementia and Parkinson’s disease, reduce his £113.50 Sky TV bill.

We explained to the Sky call centre agent that, as his eyesight and attention span have deteriorated, he wanted the cheapest available TV package to free up money for his care.

Your rating is vital when taking on debt, but you could be in for a surprise as a big player changes its rules

Your credit score is the magic number that helps lenders decide whether or not to approve a mortgage, loan or credit card application.

Typically, the higher the number, the better your borrowing prospects. But a shake-up of the scoring system at TransUnion, one of the UK’s three main credit reference agencies, could mean a shock next time you log in.

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.

Handstands display a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt – and they look cool. Experts share their advice for building up strength and practicing

My aspirations in life are modest: I want to write, spend time with my loved ones, and someday find a lipstick that flatters my skintone. But perhaps my greatest ambition is this: I want to be able to do a handstand.

Why? It turns the world upside down. It seems fun. It displays a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt. And it looks cool! Maybe it has to do with that one time in third grade when all my friends could do a handstand and I couldn’t, but that’s for me and my therapist to sort out later.

No run-of-the-mill tech, ‘Curie’ operates at 10 times the resolution of conventional microscopy and could spur discoveries leading to new treatment

The number of young people living with debilitating and incurable bowel conditions worldwide is growing, but researchers now hope a one-of-a-kind microscope will help them understand such diseases and find new treatments.

According to the British Society of Gastroenterology, more than half a million people in the UK are living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis the two main forms.

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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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.

The practice does increase blood flow to parts of the body, but experts say this isn’t necessarily a health benefit: ‘A punch to the nose also increases blood flow’

• Read more in the Antiviral series

The world of wellness fads is a cyclical place. Everything comes back into fashion when a new generation of influencers decides to switch it up. Pretty much every current hype was popular in decades past, from extreme juicing to genital sunning and everything in between.

Gua sha is the ancient practice of scraping the skin to form mild bruises – called petechiae – which are thought to do a variety of helpful things for your body. The practice has been around in China for centuries and has spread through the wonders of social media to all corners of the globe.

Experts don’t know exactly what causes dandruff, but if you’re seeing light flakes on your scalp, over-the-counter products can help

You spy a scatter of white flakes on your collar. Or you’ve got an itch that won’t quit, no matter how much you wash your hair. Dandruff isn’t glamorous, but it’s common: about half the world’s population has it.

An itchy, flaking scalp is rarely dangerous, but it can be annoying. Here’s what you need to know about what might be causing your flakes, what you can do about it, and when it’s time to get help.

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.

Hiking alone in the countryside can be joyous, but for women it can sometimes feel unnerving. Here’s how to enjoy it safely, plus four stunning routes to walk solo

I did my first solo hike during a sunny September, seven years ago. After a summer of feeding and ferrying four noisy teenagers (and their friends) around, I was exhausted. But despite being bone tired, I had barely moved. I yearned, above all, for time on my own, for the chance to walk without interruption (and at the pace I chose), and for the silence of some empty wilderness.

But I was nervous. Not of being on my own, but of what might happen to me with no one around to help (breaking a bone, encountering a psychopath, being chased by a bull, getting fatally lost). I could have found a companion or joined a group, but my need for silence and solitude outweighed my fears.

It’s the birthplace of the popular cheese, but the Barletta-Andria-Trani province in southern Italy has an array of local delicacies – from olive oil and yellow tomatoes to goat prosciutto

‘I don’t eat mozzarella outside Puglia,” says our friend Savio. “It’s not the same.” Savio is a very opinionated foodie, so I take his words with a pinch of good Puglian sea salt (see below). He was adamant about the superiority of the stretched-curd cheese from his home turf.

Puglia is also the birthplace of ingredient du jour burrata, which originated in Andria, a few miles from Savio’s home town of Barletta. Andria forms one part of the triangular Barletta-Andria-Trani (BAT) province, but despite the cheese connection and Barletta having miles of palm-backed, sandy beaches, it is often passed over for better-known parts of Puglia. So I asked Savio’s company, Unexpected Italy, an app that calls itself the antidote to overtourism, to organise a trip to the area.

Chefs in the east of the country are shunning imported produce for local ingredients, reinforcing how food is intertwined with a region and its people

‘It’s a magical place, and not just because of the hotel.” Standing outside the greenhouses at Högbo Brukshotell, two hours north of Stockholm, Stefan Johansson is talking about far more than hospitality. The former head chef, now responsible for sustainability at Högbo, has spent much of the past decade helping reshape the way this corner of Sweden grows, cooks and thinks about food.

The catalyst was disarmingly simple. Years ago, a journalist asked Johansson why he was cooking the food he was cooking. Like many ambitious Swedish chefs, Stefan trained in Stockholm’s top restaurants, where ingredients from around the world were only a phone call away. The question lingered long after the interview ended.

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.

Once the preserve of the ultra-rich, supercars are finding new drivers through rentals, finance deals, influencer culture and the manosphere. But why would anyone want a 200mph vehicle?

‘The £600,000 Lamborghini; that was the first seizure of the operation,” says special chief inspector Geoff Tatman of the Metropolitan police, thinking back to the second weekend of August. “He was stopping at the red lights, revving his engine, waiting for the traffic to clear, then speeding. So on the third time we saw him do it, we stopped him and seized the vehicle.” The car has a top speed of 217mph (350kmh), but the limit on these London streets is 20mph. Over the same weekend, the Metropolitan police seized about 90 more cars with a combined value of more than £8m, an increase on last year’s tally of 72 cars. They were seized for various offences: driving without insurance, driving with incorrect licences or antisocial behaviour. Previously, the Met would have had to let such drivers off with a warning, but the law – section 59 of the Police Reform Act – was strengthened this year to enable the immediate confiscation of vehicles. The seized cars also included a Ferrari Monza worth about £3.4m (the driver only had a provisional UK licence). They were all put on display at Marble Arch, attracting a throng of camera-wielding onlookers (one attender did a seven-hour live blog of the occasion).

Many of the supercars apprehended by the Met in August bore Middle Eastern number plates. It has been a growing trend for car owners from the region to spend summer in London, bringing their cars with them (at a cost of £25,000 upwards). The orange Lamborghini that Tatman seized had Dubai plates. Most of the vehicle owners retrieved their cars the next day after paying fines and presenting the correct paperwork. The Lamborghini driver was subsequently seen driving respectfully and not revving his engine. Lessons were learned, although the question remains: why ship a 200mph car to London to drive in a 20mph zone?

There was a rat army in my flatshare, gnawing through pipes, carpets and even a bedroom door. That’s not to mention the mice ...

We should have known we were in trouble when we saw that the garden of our new place backed on to a Chinese restaurant in Hackney, London, with terrible reviews. Before long, the rats started coming in through the pipes. It was ratmageddon, and every day it got more harrowing. They trooped over our kitchen, like the world’s worst sequel to Ratatouille. They calmly walked into rooms while we were watching telly. They gnawed through all the carpets to try to get into our bedrooms.

There was no stopping them. After sniffing out the remnants of an old snack in my housemate Simon’s bin, a pack of rats got to work one night gnawing through the wood at the bottom of his bedroom door. Like a rodent military exercise, they spent eight hours whittling a hole large enough to get through. I lay next door, 100% freaked out, panicking they’d try to get into my room next. I didn’t sleep a wink. Fairly soon after this, one of the rats died under the floorboards so we got a bottle-fly infestation to boot. Naturally, our landlord did nothing about any of this.

It was the fastest-growing emoji in 2025 – but if you’re older than 16, it has probably passed you by. Now, just as twentysomethings are catching up, it’s over

In the 2025 hit Netflix show Adolescence, DI Luke Bascombe’s 13-year-old son, Adam, has to explain to his father the way his generation use heart emojis. “Red means love, purple: horny, yellow: ‘I’m interested, are you interested?’, pink: ‘I’m interested but not in sex,’ orange: ‘You’re going to be fine,’” he explains. “It all has a meaning. Everything has a meaning.”

And those meanings are constantly evolving. Take the skull (), for example, which has come to be used as a reaction for finding something funny – a visual shorthand for the slang phrase: “I’m dead.” Or the wilting rose () which was, according to Google data analysed by the New York Times, the fastest-growing emoji in terms of popularity in 2025 – and was the 93rd most used. That the previously obscure wilting rose is now in the top 100 emojis is thanks to generation Alpha (those born between 2010 and 2024), who use it in place of the broken heart emoji () to signify sadness, or ironically, to suggest mock-heartbreak.

The hormone-packed pothos plant might encourage healthy root growth in other cuttings – or it might not. But you’ve nothing to lose by trying

The problem
Propagation can provide never-ending plants, but sometimes you have to wait weeks for something to happen. Anything that speeds up those reluctant rooters is worth knowing about, especially if it’s free.

The hack
According to a popular plant hack, placing a pothos in the same water as other cuttings encourages them to root faster. This is often attributed to pothos releasing auxins – the plant hormones involved in root development – into the shared water.

A bloated ballroom, a six-storey military HQ, a helipad-cum-cocktail patio, a gilded angel on a giant arch honouring himself … our architecture critic deplores the decorator-in-chief’s mutilation of Washington

When you have a developer as US president, you might expect some zhooshing up of the capital. A few buildings renovated, maybe some parks replanted. But when you have a megalomaniac builder in charge, things can get out of hand. A decade ago, when Donald Trump was first elected, I asked what it might mean for the US to be led by a real estate tycoon whose career had left a trail of broken promises, angry buyers and endless lawsuits, with rules flouted, heritage trampled and the world pockmarked by a fleet of aspirational towers clad with a flimsy veneer of luxury. The answer is worse than I could have imagined.

With the air of a nightmarish Hollywood sequel, Trump 2 has seen the president’s true architectural ambitions unleashed: The Blingpire Strikes Back. As America’s self-styled decorator-in-chief, Trump has not only overseen the gilded mutilation of the White House, but embarked on the Mar-a-Lagofication of Washington DC itself, applying his gold paintbrush to statuary, daubing ponds with flaking pool liner, and brewing plans for a colossal triumphal arch – all procured in a blizzard of no-bid contracts. And, in true dodgy salesman style, this programme of bauble-building is turning out to be a high-profile decoy for deeper damage being wrought elsewhere.

Three little letters - bnb-side’s name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brand

In one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland – a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast – that was created to help secure the future of the rock’s much-loved arts festival, b-side.

On the other is Airbnb, the San Francisco-based booking colossus. The battle between them is over the three little letters they share.

An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them

• Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor: the future according to end times fascism – video

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