Soap-based injuries, bleak festive deaths, Hugh Bonneville vomiting blood: we look back on 15 years of highs and lows as the frothy period drama comes to an end with its final spin-off film Prepare for stiff upper lips to wobble. Clutch monogrammed hankies for period-appropriate eye-dabbing. After 15 years on our screens, the Downton Abbey saga is about to hop in its vintage Rolls and drive off into the soft-focus sunset. The third and final film spin-off, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, is released this Friday, accompanied by a forelock-tugging farewell ITV documentary. For six series, Downton bestrode the Sunday night schedules like a Grade II-listed colossus. Writer Julian Fellowes’s upstairs-downstairs creation followed entitled aristos and their salt-of-the-earth servants at a fictional country pile. Sure, the dialogue was clumsy, the plots soapy and the historical exposition clunked like a stately home’s antique radiators. Yet somehow, it didn’t matter. Continue reading...

Andy McDonald, a shadow cabinet minister under Jeremy Corbyn and under Starmer until 2021, said Peter Mandelson ‘should go immediately’ Good morning. Keir Starmer knew that Peter Mandelson had had a long and close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him ambassador to Washingon. He also knew that Mandelson has been a scandal magnet for most of his career. But he was not appointing him archbishop of Canterbury. He calculated that Mandelson would be the right person to forge a good relationship with the immoral plutocrat narcissist now running America (also an old friend of Epstein’s), and by all accounts Mandelson has done this very successfully. But, as Rowena Mason reports in her overnight story, Starmer is now under pressure to ditch the ambassador because new revelations about his relationship with Epstein have made it increasingly hard to defend – not least because Mandelson continued to support him in private even after he was facing charges for child sex offences. [Mandelson] should go immediately. His position is completely and utterly untenable and him staying on in post is causing the government and the Labour party further damage. I’m afraid if he doesn’t do the right thing and resign today then the prime minister should sack him … Angela Rayner did the right thing. She was under pressure for an inadvertent failure to pay tax. This is of a completely different scale. This speaks about morality and judgement, and Peter Mandelson’s position just is totally untenable, and he needs to act and take responsibility for his failures and withdraw from the political scene immediately. It’s 100%. People have got their heads in their hands over this and I haven’t spoken to anybody who is offering any glimmer of support for Peter Mandelson. It is widespread revulsion that we, by association, being in the same party, are being brought under the microscope for something that he has done. He’s got to take responsibility for his actions and bring this to a close. There’s got to be a moral compass. There are women who have been so fundamentally damaged by the behaviour of Epstein and his associates, and, in honour of them, we’ve got to put down a marker and say this is wholly and utterly unacceptable. And the consequences that flow from somebody having to fall on their sword will be the consequences, and we will deal with it. Continue reading...

UK’s ambassador to US urged financier to ‘fight for early release’ after charges of procuring child for prostitution The British ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, told Jeffrey Epstein to “fight for early release” and wrote: “Your friends stay with you and love you,” when the disgraced financier was facing charges of procuring a child for prostitution, according to leaked emails. The emails, first published by the Sun after circulating in Washington DC, will put further pressure on Lord Mandelson after he admitted on Tuesday that more “very embarrassing” details of his friendship with Epstein were likely to emerge but insisted he had never seen any “wrongdoing”. Continue reading...

The UK ambassador, fondly referred to as ‘Petie’ by the late financier and sex offender, stayed in contact with Epstein well after allegations about him came to light Mandelson: more ‘very embarrassing details of Epstein friendship to come Ever greater detail is emerging about Peter Mandelson’s closeness to Jeffrey Epstein, not least in a US court document listing a series of emails in which the late financier and sex offender refers to Lord Mandelson fondly as “Petie”. The contact spans 2009 to 2011, after Epstein was convicted of child sex offences. There is, however, other evidence that the pair’s closeness was well established by then. Continue reading...

Students, health workers and the children of gilets jaunes protesters among those at ‘Block Everything’ rallies At 7am on the eastern edge of the busy Paris ring road at Montreuil, Jess, a 35-year-old hospital neurologist, had joined protesters attempting to stop traffic in order to show her anger at the French government. “Inequality is rife in France and this is the only way to be heard,” she said. Pushed back with teargas by riot police, Jess, who asked for her real name not to be published, said she was scared by police tactics, but felt it was crucial to be on the streets. Continue reading...

Issa al-Hasan, 27, who contacted Islamic State handler prior to attack, acted out of ‘treacherous and base motives’ A Syrian man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for a 2024 stabbing attack in western Germany in which three people were killed and 10 others injured. Issa al-Hasan, 27, who arrived in Germany as a refugee after travelling through Turkey and the Balkans in 2022 and had been a member of the Islamic State militant group, had acted out of “treacherous and base motives”, the court in Düsseldorf said. Continue reading...

Ellison’s shares in the technology giant Oracle are currently valued at $389bn (£287bn), just ahead of Musk’s $384bn (£283bn) fortune US tech billionaire Larry Ellison has overtaken Elon Musk as the world’s richest person after shares in Oracle, the business he co-founded, rocketed in early trading on Wednesday. Ellison’s wealth has surged after the company, in which he owns a stake of 41%, reported better than expected financial results. Continue reading...

Survey puts Democratic nominee at 43% and independent Andrew Cuomo at 28%, in line with recent polling Zohran Mamdani continues to hold a commanding lead in the race for New York City mayor, with a new poll released on Wednesday showing the Democratic nominee 15 points ahead of former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate. The new poll, conducted by Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill, shows Mamdani with 43% support among New York City registered voters, compared with 28% for Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June. Continue reading...

This year’s Sydney Contemporary art fair will premiere Photo Sydney, a space dedicated to contemporary photography. The fair is on show from 11-14 September at Carriageworks Continue reading...

Striker ‘will never advise a child of mine’ to go into football Mpabbé still in dispute with PSG a year after leaving Kylian Mbappé has admitted the football world would have “disgusted” him long ago if he did not have a passion for playing the game. The France and Real Madrid forward also said he would never encourage a child of his to follow in his footsteps. In a long and occasionally bitter interview, Mbappé told L’Équipe: “I’m fatalist about the world of football, but not about life. Life is wonderful. Football is what it is. Continue reading...

Pair tipped for greatness before world championships Coe says ‘you have to marvel’ at Hodgkinson comeback Keely Hodgkinson could end her career as one of the greatest of all time while the 17-year-old Australian sprinter Gout Gout is the real deal, Sebastian Coe has predicted on the eve of the world championships in Tokyo. Coe won two Olympic 1500m gold medals, broke nine world records and has known most of track and field’s biggest stars in the past 50 years. So his words carry extra weight, particularly when it comes to the 800m, the event in which he held the world record for 18 years. Continue reading...

The formidable Vogue boss said Meryl Streep’s subtle performance as a fictional fashion editor ‘had a lot of wit’ – adding that she attended the premiere wearing Prada without knowing its theme Anna Wintour, the outgoing editor-in-chief of Vogue, has addressed Meryl Streep’s performance as a formidable glossy fashion-mag editor widely perceived to be based on her in the 2006 comedy The Devil Wears Prada. Based on the novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, who previously worked as Wintour’s assistant, the film starred Anne Hathaway as an aspiring reporter who secures a post as a lackey to the ice-cold editor of fictional publication Runway. Continue reading...

Extensive meetings in 2022 between Lewis, then vice-chair of AP, and Johnson were not disclosed in transparency records The publisher of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, is facing fresh questions over his independence after a cache of leaked files revealed he gave extensive support to Boris Johnson as a secret political adviser when Johnson was prime minister. The files shed light on how the media executive, who at the time was vice-chair of the Associated Press news agency, worked behind the scenes with Johnson as his premiership was engulfed by a series of scandals. Continue reading...

Actor promoting his directorial debut California Schemin’ at the city’s film festival is reported to have been punched by another drinker The actor James McAvoy was assaulted in a bar in Toronto, it has been reported. According to People magazine, McAvoy was “sucker punched” by another visitor to Charlotte’s Room bar on Monday evening, two days after the premiere of his directorial debut, California Schemin’, at the Toronto film festival. Continue reading...

Tesla’s board is dangling a gargantuan payout in front of its chief. Is it a manipulative ploy or a desperate stunt? Bribery is generally unethical and often illegal, but also quite effective. When my four-year-old is acting up and ignoring my increasingly desperate pleas for her to get dressed, leave the playground or do something else very important, I have, on occasion, resorted to desperate promises of ice-cream. Obviously, I know it’s counterproductive to respond to suboptimal behaviour with sugar-based bribes. But sometimes you are exhausted and just need a short-term win. The ice-cream always delivers. It seems trying to motivate a four-year-old is not much different from trying to keep a petulant 54-year-old tech mogul in line. On Friday, Tesla’s board of directors rolled out a pay package proposal for CEO Elon Musk that could, if he plays his cars right, turn the billionaire into the world’s first trillionaire. In a section of Tesla’s latest stock market update that began: “Yes, you read that correctly”, the board outlines everything Musk has to do to get his hands on that performance-based trillion. Which, to be fair, is a lot. Tesla needs to reach a market cap of $8.5tn, eight times its current value, in 10 years to get Musk the payout. Many analysts believe Tesla is already overvalued, so this is no small task. Continue reading...

Only two debut albums – including the ‘token’ jazz release – feature among this year’s list of nominations for the coveted UK and Irish music prize A raft of familiar names fill this year’s list of Mercury prize nominations, with only two debuts among the 12 shortlisted albums. In Limerence, the first full-length by the Scottish folk songwriter Jacob Alon, and Hamstrings and Hurricanes, the first by Welsh jazz musician Joe Webb, will compete with the likes of Pulp’s comeback album More, folk godfather Martin Carthy’s Transform Me Then Into a Fish and the UK’s biggest-selling new album of the year so far, People Watching by Sam Fender. The list is split 50/50 between male and female or mixed acts. The solo female artists on the list tend to the iconoclastic: Irish pop star CMAT’s acclaimed third album Euro-Country, Leeds jazz musician Emma-Jean Thackray’s Weirdo, FKA twigs’ Eusexua and PinkPantheress’s mixtape Fancy That. As for bands, as well as Pulp, the Irish band Fontaines DC (Romance) and London four-piece Wolf Alice (The Clearing) appear. Continue reading...

Labour’s massive election victory already feels long ago. The PM needs to build a new electoral alliance – and quickly Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more Keir Starmer doesn’t see himself as the leader of a coalition government. With 399 MPs and a working majority of 156, why should he? One reason is that those numbers mark a high tide of anti-Tory feeling that receded as soon as Rishi Sunak’s rotten administration was swept away. Voters from diverse places with disparate grievances embraced Starmer’s promise of change, often uncertain what it meant in practice. They needed reasons to be glad of the choice they had made and haven’t found them. Support for the government has tanked as a result. Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Instead of recognising that social media harms mental health and democracy, the former deputy PM and Meta executive repeats company talking points Nick Clegg chooses difficult jobs. He was the UK’s deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, a position from which he was surely pulled in multiple directions as he attempted to bridge the divide between David Cameron’s Conservatives and his own Liberal Democrats. A few years later he chose another challenging role, serving as Meta’s vice-president and then president of global affairs from 2018 until January 2025, where he was responsible for bridging the very different worlds of Silicon Valley and Washington DC (as well as other governments). How to Save the Internet is Clegg’s report on how he handled that Herculean task, along with his ideas for how to make the relationships between tech companies and regulators more cooperative and effective in the future. The main threat that Clegg addresses in the book is not one caused by the internet; it is the threat to the internet from those who would regulate it. As he puts it: “The real purpose of this book is not to defend myself or Meta or big tech. It is to raise the alarm about what I believe are the truly profound stakes for the future of the internet and for who gets to benefit from these revolutionary new technologies.” Continue reading...

This brilliantly slippery beast of a drama pits an adult son’s girlfriend against his mother in all-out war. Robin Wright is excellent as the parent with an … interesting dynamic with her child. Yikes! ‘This one’s different,” a son says to his mother when she teases him about his latest girlfriend. Clever, he says. Stunning, ambitious, funny – “you remind me of her”. Something flickers across Mummy’s face. “She reminds you of me?” she says, and it is not really a question. Welcome, friends, to The Girlfriend, an adaptation of the excellent psychological thriller by Michelle Frances, and an answer to the question many of us have surely pondered – just how much of an incest vibe can one get away with instilling in a shiny prestige miniseries, and can anyone get Robin Wright to star and make the whole thing disturbingly credible? Continue reading...

He is one of the worst sexual predators in history – and she agreed to be his lawyer. But why? The woman who was called ‘the devil’s advocate’ explains all This time last year, Béatrice Zavarro, a then unknown lawyer from Marseille, drew herself up to her full 1.45-metre (4ft 8in) height, and addressed the figure in the dock: “It’s you and me against the world.” That man was Dominique Pelicot. Over the next three months and 17 days, the court would learn that for almost a decade he had drugged his wife, Gisèle, and invited more than 50 men into their bedroom to rape her while she was unconscious. Continue reading...

Warplanes scrambled after warning from Ukraine; Poland to seal border over Russian and Belarus’s ‘very aggressive’ Zapad war games. What we know on day 1,295 Warplanes were scrambled early on Wednesday after Ukraine’s air force warned that Russian drones had entered Nato-member Poland’s airspace. “Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” Poland’s operational command said. The Ukrainian air force said drones were heading west and threatening the city of Zamosc in Poland. Ukrainian media reported that one was heading towards the western Polish city of Rzeszow, and said airports were being temporarily closed. Poland will close its border with Belarus on Thursday as a result of the “very aggressive” Zapad military exercises taking place in Belarus involving Russia, Donald Tusk has announced. The Polish prime minister said it was also a response to a growing number of provocations from Russia and Belarus. Separately, Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, warned that “we do not trust Vladimir Putin’s good intentions.” Nawrocki continued: “While waiting, of course, for a long-term peace, permanent peace, which is necessary to our regions, we believe that Vladimir Putin is ready to also invade other countries.” The US Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal challenged Congress and Donald Trump to adopt a bipartisan bill imposing “scorching” secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil like China, India and Brazil. The long-proposed bill is co-sponsored by Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator. “I believe the president should be supportive,” Blumenthal told NPR on Tuesday. “The time has come for action. The president’s been mocked and played by Putin, and I think the president ought to be furious that Putin has stalled and stonewalled in this way. And about this bill, there are 85 co-sponsors, evenly divided – Democrat and Republican – which I think shows the level of support in the Congress for these kinds of sanctions.” Trump said on Sunday he was ready to impose further sanctions targeting Russia, but appears now to be stipulating that the EU must do so at the same time. The EU has already enacted 18 rounds of sanctions and is preparing a 19th round, which it has said should include more secondary sanctions targeting countries helping Moscow. A US official told Agence France-Presse that on Tuesday Trump raised with European representatives the possibility of tariffs of between 50% and 100% on Russian oil customers. Officials also discussed the issue of immobilised Russian government money as the EU sanctions envoy, David O’Sullivan, led a delegation to Washington. Trump dialled in for discussions on Tuesday alongside Ukraine’s prime minister, a US official said. Also involved in talks were Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and officials from the US trade representative’s office and state department. A Russian strike killed 24 elderly people collecting their pensions on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said. “A brutally savage Russian airstrike with an aerial bomb on the rural settlement of Yarova in the Donetsk region,” said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. At the very moment when pensions were being disbursed.” Prosecutors announced a war crime investigation. The Ukrainian military said the Russians had dropped a glide bomb – a heavy bomb fitted with wings so it can fly rather than falling straight down. There was no immediate comment from Moscow or the Kremlin. Ukraine’s air defences were responding to a Russian drone attack on Kyiv early on Wednesday, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital posted online. Members of the European parliament in Strasbourg have accidentally passed a motion criticising the EU for a failed “militaristic strategy” in Ukraine. The amendment from an MEP from Germany’s radical left was nodded through by party floor chiefs who later admitted making a mistake – delighting populist groupings like Italy’s Putin-friendly Five Star Movement. Continue reading...

Talking about the welfare bill in front of the cameras, the Conservative leader rages against her inner futility The sign behind the podium read: “The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP, leader of HM opposition.” It felt like a reminder. Not just to the handful of Conservative loyalists who had bothered to turn up for the speech at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London. But to Kemi herself. Badenoch and her party are on the verge of an existential breakdown. Every week they seem to slide further and further into irrelevance. The question is no longer whether the Tories can present themselves as a credible government in waiting in four years’ time; it’s whether they will have become extinct by then. And whatever happens, Kemi will almost certainly not still be around as leader. Continue reading...

Figures including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and the UK ambassador to US, Peter Mandelson, apparently contributed Democratic politicians have released a 238-page scrapbook given to Jeffrey Epstein as a present on his 50th birthday, with contributions attributed to high-profile figures including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and the current UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson. Much of the book seems to be a collection of flattering and celebratory letters – often highly sexualised – from people who knew Epstein. They include photos of him embracing women in bikinis whose faces were redacted, and others showing scenes featuring wild animals having sex. Continue reading...

Navy top carries the slogan ‘USA Ryder Cup 2025’ Social media erupted after item went on sale online The United States team has made an early Ryder Cup faux pas after an ­official T-shirt appeared on sale, ­featuring a silhouette which bears an uncanny resemblance to Europe’s Rory McIlroy. What on earth was wrong with Scottie Scheffler? McIlroy is the leading name on the European roster to face the US at Bethpage on the final weekend of September. Social media erupted after the item appeared on the US element of the official Ryder Cup shop. Costing $65 (£48), the navy Ralph Lauren T-shirt carries the slogan “USA Ryder Cup 2025”. The golfer performing a follow through as the backdrop is almost certainly McIlroy albeit the Northern Irishman shrugged off the bizarre matter at Wentworth on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a teen detective in a world of high school drug rings and two-bit thugs, Johnson’s first film is a fine showcase of his now-trademark thrills, chills and twists Find more from our Stream team series here Before Benoit Blanc, there was Brendan Frye. At first glance, the teenaged gumshoe at the heart of Brick doesn’t share much with the gentleman sleuth from Knives Out, Glass Onion and the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) styles himself as a lost Agatha Christie character, while Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a jaded teen who spits Dashiell Hammett dialogue before starting fights he can’t win. Continue reading...

ICC hearing takes place in absence of Ugandan rebel leader accused of murder, rape, torture and sexual slavery An international criminal court hearing into charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Ugandan fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony has begun with accounts of atrocities allegedly committed by his Lord’s Resistance Army. The ICC’s first in-absentia hearing will confirm charges but cannot progress to a trial in Kony’s absence. The warlord faces 39 counts, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement and torture, allegedly committed in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005. Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report Continue reading...

Cow | Deer gets ‘between the ears’ of animals, creating mouse noises with polystyrene balls and comparing wild creatures with industrialised ones. So if there’s no dialogue, what did its writer do? Director Katie Mitchell reveals all ‘I’m really into cow farming,” says Katie Mitchell. It seems an unexpected interest for one of Europe’s most rigorous, eco-conscious theatre directors. But she was “brought up in the 1970s self-sufficiency movement, in the Brecon Beacons”, and now has “a little place in Wales, opposite a cow farm”. Mitchell is talking dairy farming in a dressing room in London’s Royal Court theatre. We’re sitting with sound artist Melanie Wilson and playwright Nina Segal, her collaborators on a radical wordless project, Cow | Deer, which goes “between the ears” of its title characters. Tucking into Ottolenghi takeout during a rehearsal break, they describe how they are putting animals at the play’s centre and making sound its medium. Continue reading...

Former PM’s private office forwarded business proposal from peer to owner of X in June 2024, leaked files suggest Boris Johnson contacted Elon Musk on behalf of the Evening Standard owner, Evgeny Lebedev, as part of an attempt to get the US tech billionaire to support the ailing newspaper, leaked files suggest. Johnson’s private office, which is taxpayer-subsidised, emailed an executive close to Musk in June 2024, forwarding a business proposal from Lord Lebedev. Continue reading...

In his reverse-chronology play about a married couple dealing with an affair, Harold Pinter asked the audience to find meaning in unspoken words I didn’t see Harold Pinter’s Betrayal on stage until after I’d read it. I’m pleased about that – it means I’d “seen” it for myself first. The play is about a married couple, Robert and Emma, and the affair that she has with his best friend, Jerry. It has a reverse chronology, starting in the present day when the affair is over and ending years earlier as it begins, and shows what each of them knows or doesn’t know over the course of that time. I immediately thought: this is how I want to write. I loved its spareness and economy. How taut the language was. Unspoken words filled the room, giving it energy and unpredictability and drama. It showed me how much you can leave for the actors to work out and play with. How much the words matter, but the silences, too. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: a new film follows women who claim to have been abused by a former Jesuit priest A complicated stain on Pope Francis’s legacy is further explored in Nuns vs the Vatican, a sensitive and unsettling documentary following women whose sexual abuse allegations were long ignored by the Catholic church, and the broader system that protects and enables predators within. Nuns, which is directed by Emmy winner in Lorena Luciano and executive produced by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay and premiered at the Toronto film festival on Saturday, largely centres around Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, who are among dozens allegedly victimized by Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit priest currently awaiting canonical trial for sexual, spiritual and physical abuse. Continue reading...

He promised to break the mould, but with his hubristic disdain for left and right – and for voters – the president has entrenched instability In his 2016 manifesto Revolution, the then-presidential candidate, Emmanuel Macron, accused France’s “fossilised political apparatus” of dangerously paving the way for Marine Le Pen’s rise to power. “The political class and the media are a band of sleepwalkers who refuse to see what is coming their way,” he wrote, “so we see the same faces and we hear the same speeches.” He pledged to throw away the old playbook and gather behind him “progressive reformers who believe that the destiny of France is to embrace modernity.” The fresh face of pro-EU liberalism swept to power the following year on a promise of radical change to bring France into the 21st century. Jules Darmanin is a French journalist Continue reading...

Seven boss handed bill by federal court after backing the disgraced former soldier in action against Nine Newspapers Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Seven West Media’s chair, Kerry Stokes, has been ordered to pay $13.5m in legal costs to companies who were unsuccessfully sued for defamation by disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith. On Tuesday, a federal court registrar ordered that Australian Capital Equity Pty Ltd (ACE), Stokes’ private company, pay costs fixed at almost $13.3m, and a further $225,000 in relation to the costs assessment, bringing the total bill to $13.5m. Continue reading...

From turning up in person for all of three minutes a series, to beaming in skits via iPad, reality TV hosts are going absolutely minimal effort. Nice work if you can get it To watch BBC One’s new reality series Stranded on Honeymoon Island is to be hit with a barrage of questions. To be fair, the main question is, “Weird, I thought I was watching BBC One, but this is clearly an ITV2 show. Does this mean my television is broken?” However, the more pressing one is probably, “Where’s Davina?” To look on iPlayer, Stranded on Honeymoon Island – in which a bunch of strangers get married to each other and are then shipped off to a remote island with only each other for company – is absolutely a Davina McCall show. There are five figures on the show’s thumbnail, but four of them are pushed back into the middle distance, while McCall looms heavily in the foreground, towering over everyone else like a preternaturally delighted Godzilla. And that would be fine … were McCall actually part of Stranded on Honeymoon Island. Continue reading...

Eldest son has the succession Rupert craved after agreeing a payout to his siblings far higher than previously offered As a keen rock climber, Lachlan Murdoch knows a thing or two about the importance of clinging on to perilous terrain. After the toughest ascent of his life – rising to the top of his father’s business empire – he has finally ensured that his place at its summit is assured. The deal Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son has struck with his oldest siblings Prudence, Elisabeth and James will mean they give up their shares in the family business, handing Lachlan the long-term control that he and his father craved. Continue reading...

Gordon Brown calls for change to rules as he and other ex-leaders say they do not use allowance for commercial work Three former prime ministers have said they do not use a taxpayer subsidy for their private office for any commercial work after the Guardian revealed Boris Johnson appears have done so. One of them, Gordon Brown, said that rules should now be changed to require former prime ministers to publicly declare their business interests. He said there should be a crackdown on the jobs taken by former ministers. Continue reading...

Global Sumud Flotilla says one of its vessels was hit by drone at Sidi Bou Said port in Tunisia, sustaining fire damage Israel issues large-scale evacuation order for Gaza City ahead of expanded offensive – Middle East crisis live A flotilla carrying aid for Gaza and pro-Palestinian activists has published a video showing one of its boats being struck by a flaming object at Sidi Bou Said port in Tunisia. The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) said the boat had been hit by a drone and that it sustained fire damage to its main deck and below-deck storage, though all six passengers and crew were safe. Continue reading...

Campbell: ‘Stokes is back training but it’s very steadily’ Shoulder injury had cast doubt on Australia readiness Durham’s head coach, Ryan Campbell, says the England captain, Ben Stokes, will be ready for the Ashes in Australia later this year after returning to training following a shoulder injury but cast doubt on whether he could lead the team in all five Tests. The 34-year-old sustained the problem during the draw against India at Old Trafford in July, causing him to miss the fifth and final Test at The Oval. He had been expected to be out for around six or seven weeks. Continue reading...

Thornberry joins Bridget Phillipson and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in having said she will stand Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has confirmed that she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader. In a statement on social media, she says: I’m running for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. We fought hard for a Labour government. But we’ve made mistakes and must listen. We do have to accept that we have to have a discussion about what members don’t like and what voters don’t like, and what’s gone wrong. It’s very important to note that a load of Labour members and voters are unhappy about the handling of the situation in Gaza, the winter fuel allowance, the welfare cuts. The Labour party is a broad church and, actually, when we are able to have debates, when we are able to bring forward different views, it actually makes us better. It makes us more appealing to the electorate and, more importantly, it’s what the Labour membership wants to see. One homogenous view is not going to get us anywhere. It hasn’t got us anywhere at the moment. We are currently haemorrhaging votes to the Lib Dems, to the Greens, and ultimately all we seem to want to do at the moment is chase down Reform. We cannot do that. We only have three days to consider who it is that’s going to be put forward to the membership to be deputy leader of the party, and that is not in the strong tradition of Labour party democracy, and it’s that tradition that makes our party strong. It is absolutely unfair and I don’t think it’s what the membership want. Ultimately, it’s their deputy leader. It’s about them and they should have the right to choose from a range of people. Continue reading...

Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness He’s back, baby! Dan Brown’s first novel in nearly a decade reunites readers with the world’s only professor of symbology, Robert Langdon – a man whose most distinctive quality of character is teaming a loafer-and-turtleneck combo with a Mickey Mouse wristwatch. Do we learn more about Langdon? Not much. He is still so world-renowned that, as doesn’t happen for most academics, fancy hotels monogram his slippers for him. His password for most things is Dolphin123, because he’s good at swimming. He is too old-fashioned to like texting or videogames, and just a little prudish. He has never seen When Harry Met Sally, but has “heard about the famous ‘sex scene’”. At this stage, everything that needs to be said about Brown’s sentence-by-sentence ineptitude as a prose writer has been said. Fear not: he’s still hopeless. It may be counted as a metafictional joke that in a novel where a favoured adjective like “elegant” can appear in two consecutive sentences, where bells are said to “blare”, and where we’re asked to parse “The elevator doors rumbled open, and Langdon felt an instantaneous surge of relief to see open air, but that emotion was instantly dampened by disappointment”, both the dedicatee and a minor protagonist are editors at Penguin Random House. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: the actors play off each other beautifully in an intimate London-set comedy drama about art, commerce and the mess in-between It seems like Steven Soderbergh might have developed a late case of anglophilia, the retirement-teasing director situating himself in London for three films within the last two years. The first was a needless, throwaway Magic Mike sequel, but then this spring he gave us the delicious spy caper Black Bag, a juicy riff on both John le Carré and Agatha Christie that dared to imagine a monogamous and supportive marriage as the epitome of sexiness. Unlike Woody Allen, who cursed us with a string of London-set clunkers after Match Point (Cassandra’s Dream, a film that cast Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor as cockney brothers, easily the most heinous), Soderbergh seems to be sticking around for reasons other than a nice holiday, his second offering of 2025 also feeling notable. It’s a quieter project than his last, a delicate two-hander closer to an intimate stage play, but it finds him playing in yet another unexpected part of the sandpit, a director thrillingly seeking new challenges. Like that film, it seems inspired more by storytelling than simple technique (unlike the fantastic Covid-set surveillance thriller Kimi or the hard-to-love ghost story Presence) and again he’s reunited with a screenwriter he’s previously worked with before. Like the frequent Soderbergh collaborator and Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, writer Ed Solomon has also mastered the art of taking a blockbuster cheque. His credits include Charlie’s Angels, Men in Black, Super Mario Bros and, more recently, the Now You See Me movies, but his first film with Soderbergh was 2021’s ensemble crime drama No Sudden Move, and he’s brought another smaller, more character-driven story his way. The Christophers is a talky, at times incredibly funny, comedy drama with plot reversals that make it feel like it’s on the verge of a thriller. It doesn’t end up there, at least not strictly, but it’s unpredictable enough to never make us entirely sure just where it’s heading. The Christophers is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution Continue reading...

Eldest son will now be what Rupert Murdoch has described as ‘protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Lachlan Murdoch, now flying solo without the constraints of his more progressive siblings, has taken control of his father’s global media empire, securing the future of the Australian stable of newspapers, magazines and news channels. An Australian resident who raises his two children with his wife, Sarah, in the affluent Sydney suburb Bellevue Hill, Lachlan is committed to the Australian business which includes Sky After Dark’s lineup of rightwing pundits. Continue reading...

Longlisted for the Booker, this capacious story of love, work and family set between India and the US is both dizzyingly vast and insistently miniature On a trip to see his grandparents in the Indian city of Allahabad, journalist Sunny Bhatia flicks through the morning papers, and is immediately at sea: what can the convoluted sentences before him – “TTIM files complaint against MSL at JM Rastra. MP(LTTK) holds GL Mukti strike to blame for Vasudev debacle. BORS reverberates in KLM(U) case” – possibly mean? His bewilderment at an India he cannot decode is, equally problematically, mirrored by the incomprehension he experiences in New York, where he occupies a junior role at the Associated Press. Fortunately, there are other more readily accessible stories: a woman sold at a cattle fair in Rajasthan, and a retired railway clerk in Mysore who has grown his fingernails so long that they reach across the room and oblige his family to attend to his every physical need. They do not mind, the clerk tells Sunny when he interviews him over the phone, because they understand his determination to do something that nobody else has done: “The point is not about having longer fingernails than anyone; what is important is that I am firing up the younger generation to be ambitious. If I can do it, I tell them, I who used to have no discipline, then you can also reach your dream of fame.” Continue reading...

The hard right doesn’t speak for most voters. The progressive cause is not yet lost, but there is an urgent need for energy, purpose and clarity Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more Labour has just one overriding task. Forget all the other missions and milestones: Britain faces a peril that was beyond imagining a short time ago. Saving the country from Nigel Farage is the urgent, patriotic duty of this government; it is vital that it prevents an extremist, racist, authoritarian takeover which would be against the will of the overwhelming majority of the population. Nothing else matters more. The Labour government has come adrift. It lacks direction and purpose. Its many welcome policies are missing any thread to make sense of them. Now a new role and function have arrived, uninvited. It’s not a political choice but an obligation when the country is under attack from a poisonous enemy. Electoral malfunction risks gifting unrepresentative power to a nativist, xenophobic, divisive, anti-democratic, utterly mendacious party which spouts contempt for knowledge, science and expertise, let alone community and compassion, and calls it “common sense”. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The UK prime minister’s drop in approval is among the lowest on record – both at home and abroad By his own admission, Keir Starmer has focused intently on foreign affairs since entering No 10, mediating between Europe and the US. But a year after his election, the British prime minister is standing out on the global stage for another reason: his approval rating at home is among the lowest of any western leader. Continue reading...

Case centred on claims that he had not properly served a sentence for corruption and abuse of power, which was handed down in 2023 Thailand’s most prominent political figure Thaksin Shinawatra has been jailed by the supreme court for one year, a major blow to the former leader. The case centred on claims that he had not properly served a sentence for corruption and abuse of power, which was handed down when he returned to the country from self-imposed exile in 2023. Continue reading...

There are still many things to love here, but the cracks are well and truly appearing. Too many moments feel laboured … and Meryl Streep should be kept away from comedy In the mid-90s, Bonnie and Terry Turner created a TV sitcom about a group of aliens (led by John Lithgow as their self-regarding High Commander) on a research mission to Earth. As they attempted to integrate into human life by posing as an ordinary family, gentle, charming hilarity ensued for six seasons – an unexpectedly long time, and 3rd Rock from the Sun became known as “the show they couldn’t cancel”. The fondness everyone felt for it endured past the show’s technical peak and kept it on our screens until the commercial inviability became too stark and/or the actors’ interest in participating waned. It was a rare pocket of sentimentality in the otherwise ruthless world of television programming. Only Murders in the Building is in all respects a much better show than 3rd Rock. It manages to fold in a cosy whodunnit, social media satire, zippy one-liners, sight gags, physical comedy and intergenerational friendships and commentary. An undertow of melancholy is ameliorated by optimism as its trio of main characters bond over their love of true-crime podcasts, then start their own, forging connections with the assorted misfits in the apartment building they live in, and the wider world. But as the fifth season begins, the memory of 3rd Rock begins to come back to me more strongly. Continue reading...

The 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic, starring Colin Firth, has its own fan group, has inspired university courses and was even featured in the Barbie movie. What’s behind its enduring appeal? I was born in the wrong century – or so my mother says, while I protest from my writing bureau, wax seal in hand, ready to dispatch an Austen-style letter to a friend. But as I put out the candle flame with my antique snuffer, I wonder if she might be right. For me, the past has always felt like home – I grew up on a literary diet of classic fiction, seasoned with a love of my Regency hero, Jane Austen. So when the BBC dramatisation of her most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice, first aired in 1995, it was manna from heaven for me, especially as an A-level English literature student. My pre-binge-era classmates and I delighted in the weekly suspense. We chattered of Mr Darcy’s intense looks, so sizzling they could fry an egg; laughed over the unfiltered comments of a dramatic Mrs Bennet; hummed that glorious title music on repeat. It played in my head whenever I sauntered around the open fields of my local Kent countryside. I felt like – nay – I was Elizabeth Bennet. Continue reading...

The 55-year-old actor has been playing Emcee in Cabaret, which will now shut a month earlier than planned Billy Porter is “recovering from a serious case of sepsis”, forcing the early closure of Broadway’s revival of Cabaret in which he played a leading role. The show’s producers announced on Sunday that Porter “is recovering from a serious case of sepsis” that will prevent him from returning to the stage. Continue reading...

Company accused of manipulating virtual reality research as senator attacks Meta’s ‘disgusting web of lies’ A group of six whistleblowers have come forward with allegations of a cover-up of harm to children on Meta’s virtual reality devices and apps. They say the social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and offers a line of VR headsets and games, deleted or doctored internal safety research that showed children being exposed to grooming, sexual harassment and violence in its 3D realms. “Meta knew that underage children were using its products, but figured, ‘Hey, kids drive engagement,’ and it was making them cash,” Jason Sattizahn, one of the whistleblowers who worked on the company’s VR research, said in a statement. “Meta has compromised their internal teams to manipulate research and straight-up erase data that they don’t like.” Continue reading...

Family announces Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, will secure control of business The succession battle at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has ended. The family announced on Monday that Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, will secure control of the Murdochs’ sprawling media empire that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Times in the UK, with his three oldest siblings receiving an estimated $1.1bn each for their shares in the business. Continue reading...

Head of US border patrol says operations will start back up in city after temporary restraining order reversed US immigration officers are ramping up immigration sweeps in Los Angeles again after the supreme court reversed a temporary restraining order that banned the Trump administration from stopping people solely based on their race, language or job. In a post on Twitter/X, Greg Bovino, the head of US border patrol in Los Angeles, called the temporary restraining order “very poorly” written and “the worst” he’s ever seen. He also said that border patrol would be starting operations back up again today. Continue reading...

This box-ticking exercise from the maker of the exceptional Mare of Easttown has bloody shootouts, bags of fentanyl and bodies – but very soon it becomes inescapably boring Do you feel it? There is a ripple in the firmament, a vibration in the foundations, a bracing of the cosmos … yes, Mark Ruffalo is preparing to Act again. This time, he stars in crime drama Task, created by Mare of Easttown’s Brad Inglesby, as a former priest turned FBI agent nursing a great sorrow in the suitably grey environs of suburban Philadelphia. Tom Brandis ends every day in a drunken semi-stupor and begins every morning with prayer and a head-dunk into an ice-filled sink. Do you think we might be in for a meditation on guilt, sin and the possibility of redemption? Yes, I wearily agree. So. Brandis is taken off the desk duties he has been assigned since his great sorrow. This is evidently connected to the sentencing hearing for a third-degree murder conviction he is due to attend next week, where his daughter Emily may be giving a family impact statement – but we will have to wait just long enough for it to feel outright manipulative before we get the full explanation of who killed who and how. Brandis is assigned to a new taskforce to investigate a series of armed break-ins at drug houses owned by the Dark Hearts biker gang, in the hope that arrests can be made before Philly is consumed by a turf war. He has three youngsters to help him: the charmingly arrogant, Catholic-raised Anthony (Fabien Frankel); the supremely competent Aleah (Thuso Mbedu); and the supremely incompetent Lizzie (Alison Oliver). Their single characteristics allow Brandis to prove his priestly credentials (God-talks with the lapsed Anthony), his generosity of spirit (this middle-aged man is not threatened by youthful ability!) and patience (I would return her to Quantico instantly, bearing a large label that read “Not fit for purpose”) and not much else. Continue reading...

Attaullah Baig, fired this year, said he had warned Mark Zuckerberg engineers had unaudited access to user data WhatsApp’s former head of cybersecurity filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that parent company Meta disregarded internal flaws in the app’s digital defenses and exposed billions of its users. He says the company systematically violated cybersecurity regulations and retaliated against him for reporting the failures. Attaullah Baig, who served as head of security for WhatsApp from 2021 to 2025, claims that approximately 1,500 engineers had unrestricted access to user data without proper oversight, potentially violating a US government order that imposed a $5bn penalty on the company in 2020. Continue reading...

Sergio Busquets escapes punishment despite punch Post-final brawl involved Miami and Seattle players Major League Soccer has suspended striker Luis Suárez three league games for his role in the mass brawl between his Inter Miami side and the Seattle Sounders after the Leagues Cup final. Suárez was at the center of the confrontation, first putting Sounders midfielder Obed Vargas in a headlock before being dragged away. Later, TV cameras caught Suárez yelling at, and spitting on, Sounders security director Gene Ramirez. Sounders team psychologist Steven Lenhart, himself a former MLS player who was known for confrontations and physical play, has also had his credential revoked for the remainder of the 2025 season. Lenhart was among a large group of Sounders players and staff who joined the melee along with Inter Miami players and staff. Continue reading...

Italian has dominated against all opponents except one but rivalry with Spaniard has prompted him to plan big changes In the 90 minutes between Jannik Sinner’s defeat by Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open final and his post-match debrief, his mind had already shifted. Rather than dwelling on the pain of losing his US Open title and No 1 ranking, he was thinking about the future. Sinner felt his game was too predictable, even one-dimensional, compared with Alcaraz, whose deep toolbox of shots left him uncomfortable and unable to find rhythm on the court. As a result of that discomfort, Sinner made a decision. The 24-year-old resolved to make significant changes to his game in pursuit of becoming a better, more complete tennis player and keeping up with his rival, even if he might suffer in the short term. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s new chief secretary has been out and about trying to calm the storm after Angela Rayner’s exit Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic! Over the weekend the newly promoted Darren Jones, Keir Starmer’s very own Keir Starmer tribute act, was out and about on the airwaves trying to convince everyone – himself included – that the government was not in crisis. What do you mean, chaos, he said time and again as the questions kept on coming. Each time sounding slightly more chippy. He’s not a man who takes kindly to even a hint of mockery. Darren takes Darren extremely seriously. Continue reading...

The French president will have to choose a new prime minister after resistance to austerity budget unites left and far-right in opposition Europe live – latest updates As the French president, Emmanuel Macron, faces a crucial moment on the international stage this month, with the recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN assembly and diplomacy over Gaza and Ukraine, he has once again been shaken by a damaging political crisis at home. The centrist prime minister, François Bayrou, was toppled on Monday night in a parliamentary confidence vote, leaving Macron scrambling to appoint his third prime minister in a year, and the fifth since his second term as president began in 2022. Continue reading...

Crowe and Malek are hugely watchable but this ultimately fails to deliver an authentic version of events If the Nuremberg trials were political theatre, writer and director James Vanderbilt leans into the spectacle of it. His new movie Nuremberg, about the show put on for the rest of the world to indict Nazi war criminals, is packaged like old-fashioned entertainment. There are movie stars (chiefly Rami Malek and Russell Crowe) with slicked-back hair, trading snappy barbs and self-important monologues in smoky rooms, meanwhile the gravity of the moment tends to be kept at bay. All the bureaucratic and legal speak around fine-tuning an unprecedented process, where one country prosecutes the high command of another, goes down easy in an Aaron Sorkin sort of way. It is riveting when its urgency is defended by an actor as great as Michael Shannon. It is all so watchable, to a fault, especially when dealing with the unspeakable. There’s some rhyme and reason to the director’s approach. Vanderbilt (who wrote the screenplay for David Fincher’s Zodiac, a masterpiece about the impossible pursuit for truth) has made a movie about two figures so narcissistic, opportunistic and caught up in the showmanship that they leave very little room for the gravity of the moment to sink in. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: Conclave director Edward Berger makes a less cohesive follow-up with an over-stylised adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel sold by a killer central performance It was easy to understand why Edward Berger’s name was being bandied around in relation to the reinvention of 007, the director having shown himself to be more than capable of both extravagantly staged action (his Oscar-winning breakout All Quiet on the Western Front) and knife-edge intrigue (his Oscar-winning follow-up Conclave). He dismissed speculation at the time (with some mild annoyance) and the job has since landed at the feet of Denis Villeneuve – but his latest, China-set gambling drama Ballad of a Small Player, adds flashy bombast to his résumé and helps to explain why even though he might have passed on Bond (and recently Ocean’s too), he’s in development on a Bourne. Berger is a canny commercial director, confidently switching between genre, language and location, the kind of able film-maker studios are desperate to entrust a franchise with, but I hope he’s sparing with the time he chooses to spend under the studio thumb. Ballad of a Small Player, an operatic adaptation of the Lawrence Osborne novel, is not quite him at his best – it is far more bark than bite – but it’s made with such force and finesse and is so distinctively separate from his other films that I look forward to seeing what other non-sequel journeys he chooses to take us on in the future. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: The two stars are knockouts in Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker ending Maggie O’Farrell’s lauded 2020 novel Hamnet is a dense and lyrical imagining of the lives of William Shakespeare’s family, full of interior thought and lush descriptions of the physical world. It would seem, upon reading, near impossible to adapt into a film. Or, at least, a film worthy of O’Farrell’s so finely woven sensory spell. Film-maker Chloé Zhao has attempted to do so anyway, and the result is a stately, occasionally lugubrious drama whose closing minutes are among the most poignant in recent memory. Zhao is a good fit for the material. She, too, is a close observer of nature and of the many aching, yearning people passing through it. But she has previously not made anything as traditionally tailored and refined as this. The humbler dimensions of her films The Rider and Nomadland are missed here; Hamnet too often gives off the effortful hum of prestige awards-bait. Continue reading...

President calls Hanks ‘woke’ in vitriolic post after US Military Academy calls off ceremony with little explanation US politics live – latest updates Donald Trump launched a vitriolic attack against Tom Hanks for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after one of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed without much explanation by West Point last week. On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni association of the US Military Academy (or West Point) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has played numerous military characters and also has a long history of advocating for veterans. Continue reading...

His account kept being deactivated, even though he had spent thousands of dollars to use the social media site for advertising. Just one of the perils of sharing a name with the world-famous tech billionaire ... Name: Mark Zuckerberg. Age: Unknown. Continue reading...

Carlos Alcarez in Barbie pink, Naomi Osaka crowned with rosebuds – tennis is becoming a hot ticket in the fashion world. And this time it is emerging not heritage brands dominating play It has been one of the breakout stories of the US Open: not the surprising second-round exits, nor the at-the-net spats, but the freshly shorn head and Barbie-pink tank top of the winner, Carlos Alcaraz. The outsize reaction to the Spanish phenomenon’s new look is the latest example of the final grand slam of the year attracting attention not just for sporting prowess, but for the style moments it serves. Take, for instance, former champion Naomi Osaka, who crashed out to Amanda Animisova in Thursday’s semi-final, but not before sparkling under the night lights in a custom Nike indigo zip-up jacket embellished with Swarovski crystals, worn over a bubble-hem minidress. For her opening match, she wore a rose headpiece. (Also present throughout Osaka’s tournament: a series of bejewelled Labubu dolls, created by accessories line A-Morir, with monikers including “Billie Jean Bling” and “Andre Swagassi”.) The getup was “really elaborate”, Osaka admitted in a press conference, but it’s the kind of statement outfit her fans have come to expect and appreciate. Continue reading...

‘I wanted something more interesting than a key change. So when someone walked by the studio with a husky, I said, “Do you want to howl with your dog?”’ I wrote I Feel Just Like a Child when I was 18, but it wasn’t until I was 23 or 24 and making the Cripple Crow album that it made sense to record it properly. As a teenager I’d thought of myself as an old blues guy and demoed it on an unplugged electric guitar as a slow blues. When we recorded it for Cripple Crow I’d found my musical family, people like [producer-musicians] Andy Cabic from Vetiver, Noah Georgeson and Thom Monahan. Along with the likes of Joanna Newsom and Adam Green from Moldy Peaches, we were doing a sort of anti-folk that was labelled “freak-folk”. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: The four-time Oscar nominee is as strong as ever playing a teacher in a shocking situation, but the film can’t quite rise to her level Though criminally underpaid and disrespected, teachers are nonetheless held to rigidly high standards of care, compassion and rectitude. They are to be exemplary stewards of our children, while unflinchingly enduring the battering of parents, administrators and outside agitators. Which is why it’s often so compelling, in a dark and squirmy way, to watch them break bad on film. We have, of course, seen plenty of ill-advised (or illegal) sexual relationships between teacher and student, in myriad movies and TV programs. Beyond that hoary trope, though, we’ve observed with alarm the drug-addled overstepping of Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson; we’ve been guiltily thrilled by the obsessive opportunism of The Kindergarten Teacher; we’ve pried nosily into the shifty criminality of Hugh Jackman in Bad Education. These stories all present a grimly alluring vision: carefully maintained professionalism giving way to baser impulse. Continue reading...

Pacific Islands Forum 2025 faces bumpy start with China, the US and Taiwan uninvited from discussions, as Pacific leaders gather in Solomon Islands Climate change, rising seas and China’s push for influence are set to dominate talks at the Pacific Islands Forum in Solomon Islands this week, in a meeting already marked by geopolitical tensions. The lead up to the forum has already been fraught with tensions after Solomon Islands prime minister Jeremiah Manele excluded external partners – including China, the US and Taiwan – from discussions. Continue reading...

Bille Brown theatre, Brisbane festival The refugee family’s fight against deportation to Sri Lanka and the successful grassroots campaign to bring them home made headlines for years – but this play widens a story often focused on trauma Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Even if you don’t know their name, you’ve probably heard of the Nadesalingams: the family of Tamil refugees living in the small Queensland town of Biloela, whose dramatic seizure by border police in 2018, incarceration on Christmas Island and fight against deportation to Sri Lanka made national headlines. Back to Bilo, premiering as part of Brisbane festival, dramatises this story and the successful grassroots campaign by members of the Biloela community to bring the family home, using the words of the people involved as well as news and documentary footage. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...

New No 1 dropped just one set on way to his sixth grand slam title ‘This tournament I saw that I can play really consistent,’ he says Carlos Alcaraz described his US Open title run as the best tournament of his career after he defeated his rival Jannik Sinner 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in New York to win his sixth grand slam title. Alcaraz’s victory caps off an incredible five-month run for the 22-year-old, who has reached the final of his last eight tournaments, winning six titles including the French Open and US Open. While many of Alcaraz’s previous triumphs included numerous five-set battles and dramatic comebacks – such as his recovery from triple match point down to defeat Sinner over five sets in Paris – this was by far the most efficient tournament of his career. Alcaraz dropped just one set in his seven matches and he lost his serve just three times in the entire tournament. Continue reading...

England head coach hails ‘box office’ Jofra Archer Stokes and Wood ‘progressing well’ after injuries Brendon McCullum has ramped up the Ashes hype ahead of this winter’s trip to Australia, describing England’s pursuit of the urn they last won a decade ago – and have brought back from the Antipodes just once since 1986-87 – as “the biggest series of all of our lives”. England returned to international action last week for the first time since a thrilling five-Test series against India concluded in early August, and though they lost to South Africa over three one-day internationals that run ended with a historic, one-sided victory in Southampton on Sunday. A spellbinding performance in that game from Jofra Archer, who took four wickets for 18 runs – “There was an ‘ooh’ or an ‘aah’ every single over,” he said afterwards – set imaginations racing with thoughts of what the injury-prone seamer might achieve in more high-profile assignments to come. The first Ashes Test starts in Perth on 21 November. Continue reading...

Wolff warns that managing drivers may get trickier Piastri: ‘Protecting the people around us is important’ Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have both insisted that protecting their teammates was central to McLaren’s use of team orders at the Italian Grand Prix and that they were focused on long-term success that would be fostered by doing the right thing, despite criticism after they were instructed to switch places at Monza. The Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, however, also noted McLaren’s adherence to such strongly held principles of fairness for their drivers may yet cause them serious headaches later in the season if Norris and Piastri end up toe-to-toe for the title. Continue reading...

(Def Jam) Part two of Bieber’s seventh album adds very little: it’s largely bland pop with glimpses of quality thanks to a buzzy supporting cast including Dijon and Bakar Justin Bieber’s Swag II adds 23 tracks to his already over-stuffed Swag project, and it’s not just the title that lacks imagination. Like its predecessor, released just two months ago, Swag II unites a buzzy team of producers and writers known for freshening up R’n’B and hands them a precisely curated Pinterest board: Dangerous-era Michael Jackson, D’Angelo’s lush arrangements, Jai Paul’s glitchy, retro-futurist sonics and the sun-bleached textures of current collaborators Mk.gee and Dijon. But with unadventurous songwriting, the result is (another) album that’s all vibe and voguish production, and very little substance. Opener Speed Demon reheats Bieber’s “is it clocking to you” meme for the second time across both albums, albeit with a bright, funky bravado and a memorably bonkers chorus about “checking these chickens”, AKA leaving his critics in the dust. But for a song bragging about ambition, it lacks adrenaline – like many of Swag II’s safe, repetitive tracks. Continue reading...

Spain announces raft of measures designed to increase pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to end Gaza war Middle East crisis – live updates Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has stepped up his scathing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “exterminating a defenceless people” by bombing hospitals and “killing innocent boys and girls with hunger”. Speaking on Monday morning to announce a raft of measures designed to increase the pressure on Netanyahu to stop the military campaign, Sánchez said that while the Spanish government would always support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself, it felt compelled to try to “stop a massacre”. Continue reading...

(Sony) Jade Thirlwall offers a wild ride through electroclash, Eurovision drama and emotive synth-pop – albeit one she can’t quite maintain for a whole album Last month, the indefatigable Vice magazine published a piece on the “summer of British chaos”, documenting a scene of deranged social media provocateurs existing at the crispiest fringes of our nation’s cooked identity. Writer Clive Martin defined these graven images of the algorithm as being regionally specific, lurid, rowdy, funny and hedonistic. As a former member of Little Mix, a girl band put together via public vote on The X Factor, Jade Thirlwall might not seem like the likeliest bedfellow of this unhinged movement. But the South Shields pop star’s debut solo single, last year’s Angel of My Dreams, dodged focus-grouped smoothness to present a sublimely whacked-out, thoroughly British pop vision that felt like spinning through someone else’s for you page and realising they exist in a markedly different universe from your own. It started with a wound-up sample of Puppet on a String, exploded into a falsetto-spiked power ballad, then grinding electroclash paired with a withering rap, then sped through each mode again, variously at double and half speed. Its wild energy was fuelled by contradiction: Gucci glamour paired with lines such as “If I don’t win, I’m in the bin”. And while Jade dissed Syco and X Factor boss Simon Cowell (“selling my soul to a psycho”), the song’s vaulting soundclashes defying his bland vision of pop, Angel was also her love letter to the toxic paramour of fame: a status that might be easier to sustain with more conventional fare than whiplashing Sandie Shaw into growling synths. It was crackers and brilliant: no former boy- or girl-bander has come close to making such an arresting reintroduction since – and I mean this as the highest possible praise – Geri Halliwell burned bright through a short-lived fit of dadaist genius. Continue reading...

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort films is an ode to Gurinder Chadha’s 2004 spin on the Austen classic We’ve never been short of Jane Austen film adaptations. In fact, it seems a new one arrives every decade – two were announced recently, including Netflix’s spin on Pride & Prejudice. Yet, one adaptation has been shamefully overlooked: Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice. A cross-cultural, British-and-Bollywood-meets-Hollywood take on Austen’s most famous novel, the film is pure joy – a riot of original musical numbers, colourful costumes, chaos, culture clashes and, of course, romance. Continue reading...

The Coconut Children by Vivian Pham is one of six literary adaptations to be staged at the Sydney theatre next year, alongside The Birds, A Room With a View and the Craig Silvey bestseller Runt Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Vivian Pham hadn’t seen even a single contemporary Australian play before her own was commissioned by Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre. Now the 24-year-old’s debut play, The Coconut Children, based on her novel of the same name, is not only set to premiere on one of Australia’s most prestigious main stages but, with a cast of 12 (including Boy Swallows Universe’s HaiHa Le and Heartbreak High’s Gemma Chua-Tran), it’s the largest production of Belvoir’s 2026 season. “In some ways, it’s the major work,” says Belvoir artistic director Eamon Flack. Pham, who has concurrently been working on a film adaptation of her novel, says she has relished discovering “the particular magic that can only happen in theatre”. Continue reading...

Former minister Louise Haigh pitches in with call for ‘economic reset’ as reports suggest candidates will have only four days to secure MP nominations Good morning. The Labour party has had 18 deputy leaders in its history, but only two of them have also served as deputy PM and one of those, Angela Rayner, resigned last week. In the reshuffle that started on Friday, Keir Starmer in effect decoupled those posts, appointing David Lammy as deputy PM (as well as justice secretary). Labour said there would be an election for a new deputy leader to replace Rayner and today the timetable for that election will be set. There is no guarantee that the winner will even have a job in government. Elections are, by definition, divisive, and the easiest option for Keir Starmer would be for Labour MPs to coalesce behind one consensus candidate. Under the rules, an MP needs the support of 20% of the PLP (80 MPs) to be nominated and so it is possible that this could happen. Anyone perceived as a “rebel” candidate might struggle to reach this threshold. Ministers, and cabinet ministers, are free to stand. If Lammy were to stand, and win, he could re-unite the deputy PM and deputy leader jobs, but there is a strong sense in the party that the deputy leader should be a woman, and should represent a seat outside London, and Lammy does not seem interested. At this point there is no obvious favourite, but Annabelle Dickson and Bethany Dawson have a good guide to potential candidates in their London Playbook for Politico. Deputy leadership candidates will only have four days to collect the 80 MP nominations they need, it is being reported. Labour’s national executive committee will reportedly set 5pm on Thursday as the deadline for nominations, with the ballot taking place between 8 and 23 October – with the election over well before the budget, which is taking place on 26 November. Richard Burgon, one of the leading figures in the leftwing Socialist Campaign group in parliament, and a candidate for deputy leader in 2020, has accused the party of a stitch-up. In a post on social media last night, he said: I’ve been warning about attempts to fix the deputy leadership election – and what I’ve heard is now being proposed is the mother of all stitch-ups. Just a couple of days to secure MPs’ nominations! This is a desperate move to keep Labour members’ voices out of this race and to dodge serious discussion on what’s gone wrong over the last year – from the positions on disability benefits cuts, on winter fuel payments, on Gaza and more. This outrageous timetable shows a leadership that’s unwilling to listen and to learn the lessons needed if we’re to rebuild support and stop Nigel Farage. Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary and a potential candidate for the deputy leadership, has published on the New Statesman’s website what amounts to a pitch for the job, demanding “an economic reset” and “a decisive break with the fiscal rules and institutional constraints that hold back renewal”. It is a serious intervention, and, by implication, a damning critique of Rachel Reeves, the chancellor. Here is an extract. There is a democratic argument at the heart of this as well. A Labour government with a landslide majority in parliament cannot – and should not – be stopped from delivering the change we clearly set out in our manifesto simply because of assumptions made by the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility]. If we let unelected institutions dictate the limits of change, we betray the people and communities who put their trust in us. And if mainstream politics can’t deliver proper renewal, populists like Nigel Farage will fill the void. Britain’s economy is broken not just in outcomes but in architecture. Unless we rewrite the rules, we risk managed decline dressed up as moderation. Continue reading...

Head coach considers more long throws and high balls England play Serbia on Tuesday after Andorra victory Thomas Tuchel is prepared to use long throws and high balls from the back in his pursuit of World Cup glory. The England manager, whose team face Serbia in Belgrade on Tuesday in their toughest assignment of qualification, talked last week of wanting to streamline and simplify his approach. Tuchel is coming to terms with the realities of international football and the limited amount of time he has with the players. He has worked to instil short-passing patterns but, as he reflected on how some old‑fashioned qualities were making a comeback, he declared being open to adding a more unreconstructed dimension. England got both of their goals from lofted crosses on Saturday in the 2-0 victory against Andorra at Villa Park. The first cross was ­deli­vered from an inside-right ­position by Noni Madueke and led to an own goal from Christian Garcia. The ­second was from a much wider ­position on the same flank. It was sent over by Reece James and headed home by Declan Rice. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: The two stars do their share of heavy lifting in Derek Cianfrance’s intermittently effective comedy drama about a deceitful prison escapee There’s considerable movie star charm powering Roofman, a mid-level comedy drama set in the mid-2000s and starring two actors who were stars around that time. It’s also reminiscent of a film that would have been released then too, a brief glimpse of a Blockbuster Video store making it easy to imagine picking this one up for a rainy afternoon rental. On those terms, it’s perfectly watchable, engaging enough to keep us from pressing stop, if not quite enough to make us want to press rewind once it’s over. It’s based on the stranger-than-fiction tale of Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, an ex-military father-of-three who just can’t quite find his place in the civilian world. His old army buddy Steve (Lakeith Stanfield) reminds him of his particular skill for observation, urging him to put it to good use. Instead, after disappointing his daughter once again with an underwhelming birthday present, he decides to use it for something less well-advised, robbing not one but 45 McDonald’s, going in through the roof and making enough to give his family the life they deserve. Continue reading...

Government to use tax breaks and other financial incentives to encourage people to have more children Greece has announced drastic measures, including tax breaks and other financial incentives, to address a population decline that is on course to make it the oldest nation in Europe. The prime minister said the €1.6bn (£1.4bn) relief package had been dictated by one of the biggest challenges facing the Mediterranean nation : a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale. Continue reading...

Australian told to let Norris pass after pit-stop error Piastri has ‘no regrets’ after championship lead cut Lando Norris bullishly dismissed criticism of McLaren for using team orders at the Italian Grand Prix, saying the team would continue to do what they felt was right “no matter what people say”. His teammate Oscar Piastri, who ceded his place to the British driver, also maintained he had no regrets in agreeing to do so. The race was won by Max Verstappen for Red Bull, with the world champion enjoying enormous pace at Monza, while Norris and Piastri followed in second and third place. After Norris had held second almost the entire race, he dropped behind his teammate because of a slow pit stop caused by a wheel gun issue in the last laps and McLaren ordered the Australian to give the place back. Continue reading...

World No 2 edges out Lagergren at third extra hole ‘I’m so lucky I get to do this in front of these people’ Rory McIlroy savoured “a pretty cool year” after adding a second Irish Open title to his Masters win. The world No 2 completed the career grand slam with his triumph at Augusta in April, and on Sunday he added to that by winning his home open for the second time with a thrilling playoff victory against Joakim Lagergren. McIlroy had to eagle the 72nd hole just to take it to a playoff after Lagergren’s own stunning eagle at the 16th. After the first two extra holes were tied in birdie fours, Lagergren found the water hazard third time around to allow McIlroy to win it with two putts. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: the bombastic director’s second film about the music legend shows the singer at his most mesmerizing but the picture remains incomplete Baz Luhrmann now has two Elvis movies under his bedazzled belt. The first is his epic biopic starring Austin Butler and now he has unleashed another called EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, remixing archival material with never-before-seen footage from the singer’s residency in Las Vegas. What’s remarkable about them both, apart from the director’s obvious affinity for his subject’s showmanship, is his refusal across so many hours of jiggling and swivelling to meaningfully hold Elvis to account. Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 film acknowledged Elvis’s cultural appropriation: how his phenomenal success owed so much to the R&B, gospel and rock he grew up around and the racist institutions that put him on a pedestal while holding down the Black artists that birthed and gave that music its soul. The movie also painted Elvis as a bleeding heart for the Black community, projecting so much torment on the crooner over the injustices he witnessed, despite his refusal to say anything publicly – for the community he benefitted from – during the civil rights era. It was all the craven and exploitative Colonel Tom Parker’s fault, according to Luhrmann’s Elvis, depicting the leery and controlling manager (played by Tom Hanks) as the reason for the singer’s strict silence, and the root of so many sins. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is screening at the Toronto Film Festival and will be released at a later date Continue reading...

Singers took home two trophies each as Mariah Carey won a lifetime achievement award, in a night that largely celebrated female artists Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter triumphed at the MTV Video Music awards, taking home two moonman trophies each in a relatively muted show that once again largely celebrated female pop artists and legacy acts. Gaga, the most nominated artist of the evening with 12 nods, took home the first award at Long Island’s UBS arena, for artist of the year, winning over fellow superstars Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Beyoncé, all of whom were not in attendance. Continue reading...

Can two world-famous actors and auteur Simon Stone bring 19th-century Norway screaming into the modern world? They talk mean directors, bathtub revelations and reinventing Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea Entering the almost silent rehearsal room, I fear I’ve blundered into a private moment. The Lady from the Sea cast are seated in a tight circle and at least two of them have tears in their eyes. The quiet murmur of conversation suggests something heavy has just gone down. So I’m relieved when I realise they’re reading a scene – and stunned to discover the scene was written only yesterday. Simon Stone’s modern take on Ibsen’s play is still under construction, and he has had his actors together for less than a fortnight. “Most people really take six weeks to connect to scenes,” the Australian writer-director says during the lunch break. “Often an entire rehearsal process can be the slow marking out of stuff, and it takes until your first run-through to feel anything at all. We are connecting faster, because we’ve been talking about it so much.” Continue reading...

Prime minister faces criticism from Emily Thornberry, who highlights risk of ‘handing country to Farage’ Keir Starmer has been warned by senior Labour figures to stop making mistakes, before a battle over the party’s deputy leadership and amid fears the government could row back on workers’ rights. As candidates began to jostle to replace Angela Rayner, the prime minister faced public criticism from Emily Thornberry, a potential contender, who said further mistakes from Starmer could lead to having to “hand our country to [Nigel] Farage”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: A Second Life will feature My Bed and never seen before pieces that reflect on artist’s experience of cancer Tracey Emin will open her biggest ever exhibition at the Tate Modern next spring, showcasing her best artworks from a 40-year career. A Second Life will include some of Emin’s most famous works, including the headline-grabbing and Turner prize-nominated My Bed, from 1998, alongside never-before-seen pieces. Continue reading...

3rd ODI: England, 414-5, bt South Africa, 72, by 342 runs Jacob Bethell and Joe Root score centuries to set up rout What even was this? What does any of it mean? A game that might anyway have been considered meaningless by many, the final encounter of an already settled series, was rendered almost absurd by England’s towering margin of victory and the extraordinary, borderline nonsensical fashion in which it was decided. As Jacob Bethell, who marked it with the first century of his professional career, put it: “Very good fun, yeah. Not much else to say.” Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: The multi-hyphenate’s directorial debut has noble intentions in its timely class commentary but his brand of humour makes for an awkward fit The absence of big-screen comedies, once an almost weekly occurrence, has become such a widely complained-about issue that the rare novelty of one actually being made has turned into a marketing tool. Last month’s remake of The Naked Gun employed a campaign that directly addressed this problem, with an ad that played like a PSA about such a lack and why supporting one was of societal importance (the plea only mildly worked, with the film finishing with decent, but not quite decent enough, box office). At the Toronto premiere of Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, festival chief Cameron Bailey made reference to the now unusual sensation of laughing with an audience, and the actor-writer-director himself has been impressing upon people his desire to make a theatrical comedy in the billion-dollar wake of Barbie. He believes in its importance so why doesn’t the industry? A raft of recent green lights suggests that Hollywood is finally realising the demand is more than misty-eyed nostalgia but there’s still a certain unfair pressure on the few that are coming out to prove the genre’s commercial viability (Adam Sandler’s giant Netflix numbers for Happy Gilmore 2 just served to show where audiences have learned to expect their comedies to be). There are noble intentions to Good Fortune, in ways related to both the resurrection of the big-screen comedy and its of-the-moment through-line about the increasingly untenable class divide in America, but also not a lot of laughs, the idea of its existence more appealing than the experience of watching it. Continue reading...

London-born Italian, who died in 2006, built websites to spread Catholic teaching and is credited with two miracles A London-born Italian teenage computer whiz who died in 2006 age 15, has been declared the Catholic church’s first millennial saint during an open-air mass in a packed St Peter’s Square. Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia, built multilingual websites to spread Catholic teaching, later earning him the nickname “God’s influencer”. He was canonised by Pope Leo XIV alongside Pier Giorgio Frassati, another young Catholic activist, who died a century ago. Continue reading...

The archetype of this ideal man is Mr Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce. Maybe Swift is on to something How do you like your men? Yes, obviously, we shouldn’t be dismissively taxonomising a whole gender like boxed Barbies. But in the era of tradwives and nu-gen gold diggers, in which the manosphere remains alive and kick(box)ing, telling teenage boys lies about women, I reckon there’s a way to go before we reach reductive objectification parity. Does that make it OK? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes, a bit. So, returning to the question, my answer is “like my coffee”: small, strong, dark and highly over-stimulating, brewed by my sister’s boyfriend in Scarborough … No, hang on, this is falling apart. Regardless, my ideal man is wildly at odds with the zeitgeist and my husband needs to punch up his protein intake and stop having opinions, because the New York Times claims a new dream man has dropped and he’s “beefy, placid and … politically ambiguous”. Continue reading...

Toronto film festival: after Glass Onion underwhelmed, Rian Johnson’s self-aware, star-packed Benoit Blanc series makes a barnstorming return to form If Glass Onion wasn’t quite the deserving follow-up to Knives Out that many of us had hoped it would be (it was more focused on the bigger rather than better), it was at the very least a deserved victory lap. Writer-director Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit brought us back to the starry, slippery fun of the 70s and 80s, when films like this would be a dime a dozen and it was a surprise hit, making almost eight times its budget at the global box office. While Kenneth Branagh had seen commercial success already with his Poirot revival two years prior, his retreads felt too musty, and the actor-director too miscast, for the genre to truly feel like it was entering an exciting new period. Johnson’s threequel, Wake Up Dead Man, is the second as part of his Netflix deal (one that cost an estimated $450m) and arrives as the whodunnit genre has found itself close to over-saturation on both big but mostly small screen. Yet as many murders as there might have now been in buildings or residences involving couples and strangers of questionable perfection, nothing has quite captured that same sense of kicky, sharp-witted fun that Johnson had shared with us way back when. His first Knives Out film premiered at the Toronto film festival to one of the most buzzed audience reactions I can remember, a thrill I was able to feel once again as he returned to unveil his latest chapter, a rip-roaring return to form that shows the series to be confidently back on track and heading somewhere with plenty more places to go on the way. Continue reading...

By asking broadcasters not to show any protest against Donald Trump at Sunday’s final, the governing body has caved to fear while contradicting its own history of spectacle When the dust finally settles in the days after Sunday’s eagerly awaited US Open men’s final, the United States Tennis Association will issue its annual victory-lap press release. It will tout another record-setting Open: more than a million fans through the gates, unprecedented social-media engagement, double-digit growth in food and beverage sales, and hundreds of celebrities packed into suites from Rolex to Ralph Lauren. It will beam about growing the game, championing diversity and turning Flushing Meadows into a pop-culture destination. But for all the milestones the USTA is teeing up to celebrate, this year’s tournament will be remembered for a different kind of first: the governing body’s lamentable decision to ask broadcasters not to show dissent against Donald Trump. In making that pre-emptive concession, the USTA has committed an unforced error that can’t be undone: sacrificing credibility in order to shield a politician – any politician, regardless of party, ideology or affiliation – from the sound of public disapproval. Continue reading...

Many felt Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza docufiction was robbed when Jim Jarmusch’s latest took the top prize. Yet accusations of moral cowardice on the part of the jury are naive and unfair There are standing ovations and there are jury decisions. Jim Jarmusch’s droll, quirky, very charming film Father Mother Sister Brother got a mere six minutes for its standing ovation at Venice – though one day we’re going to have to introduce some Olympic-style standardisation to these timings. But it got the top prize, the Golden Lion, from Alexander Payne’s jury. Continue reading...

Utilita Arena, Sheffield The singer announces he is thrilled to begin his first tour since taking time off for his mental health, but is visibly nervous and at one moment breaks into tears Lewis Capaldi is a pop star known for his patter. But tonight, he warns the crowd he is feeling too overwhelmed to perform his usual funnyman routine. “I probably won’t say lots this evening because I don’t know what to say,” he says. “I’m just genuinely thrilled that this is still a possibility for me.” The 28-year-old being lost for words tonight is understandable. In 2023, Capaldi announced he was taking a hiatus from touring, after sharing his struggles with his mental health and his diagnosis in 2022 of Tourette syndrome. Having disappeared from the spotlight for the better part of two years, he made a triumphant return at Glastonbury earlier this summer for an unannounced and emotional set on the Pyramid stage. Tonight’s Sheffield show, however, marks the Scottish singer’s first headline performance since his extended break. “We’re back baby,” he tells the crowd at one point. Continue reading...

The celebrated US photographer was catapulted into America’s culture wars with her photobook Immediate Family. Now she’s written a book of ‘how not-to’ advice for artists Sally Mann is chatty and open about nearly any subject imaginable. The photographer easily gets carried off in conversation, finding it hard to resist sharing stories about anything from her friend’s mother who had a lobotomy, to the time the poet Forrest Gander happened to drop by unannounced (the moment turned into a lifelong friendship). A large-format camera at Sally Mann’s Lexington studio; tools and objects on a workbench; mask of a face Continue reading...

The prime minister increasingly looks like a man next to a burning house, offering to buy a new bookcase and rug Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more One hundred and twenty miles from Westminster, it felt like I had arrived at the perfect place to understand the meaning of Angela Rayner’s exit from the government: Reform UK’s brief conference, a giddy and surreal gathering of about 10,000 people in a hangar-like box on the edgelands of Birmingham. News of her resignation broke a couple of hours into the event’s first day, and the symbolism was glaring. Among midday pints, onstage pyrotechnics and a huge stand advertising the wonders of investing in gold, a party led by those bumptious public schoolboys Nigel Farage and Richard Tice was suddenly rejoicing in the departure of British politics’ most prominent working-class woman. The news, moreover, only boosted an atmosphere of energy and optimism, laced with a delighted surprise at what might be the UK’s defining political fact. We all know it: this new party has a tiny handful of MPs, no meaningful policy platform and a worldview that constantly blurs into conspiracy theory, but Reform UK is on course to either form or lead the next British government. Continue reading...

Every sitting day in our parliament, we watch politicians verbally attack each other with minimal constructive debate Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Predictably, debate over last weekend’s so-called “March for Australia” degenerated into a slanging match between the nation’s three major political parties in the chambers of parliament. Situation normal. Continue reading...

Little known about decision, although Hanks, who has advocated for military memorials, also voted for Biden In Forrest Gump, the title character, played by Tom Hanks, receives the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Lyndon B Johnson. In real life, it appears Hanks will no longer receive another military honor. Continue reading...

The Voice of Hind Rajab, a harrowing account of a Palestinian child’s death in Gaza, won the runner-up Silver Lion US indie director Jim Jarmusch unexpectedly won the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice film festival on Saturday with Father Mother Sister Brother, a three-part meditation on the uneasy tie between parents and their adult children. Although his gentle comedy received largely positive reviews, it had not been a favourite for the top prize, with many critics instead tipping the Voice of Hind Rajab, a harrowing true-life account of the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl during the Gaza war. In the end, the film directed by Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania took the runner-up Silver Lion. Continue reading...

Athletes are commonly thought to peak in their 20s. But some top sports stars are extending their careers across decades At this year’s US Open, when 45-year-old tennis great Venus Williams stepped on to the court to play in doubles, it was alongside a teammate who wasn’t even born when Williams won gold in the singles at the Sydney Olympics. Given that the peak performance age for a tennis player has traditionally been considered to be around the mid-20s, it was an extraordinary feat to be competing at a major, but Williams’ exceptional extension of her athletic career is increasingly common. Continue reading...

<p>Alcaraz won in Paris, Sinner took the title at Wimbledon – part three in New York could be another classic</p><p>On a tranquil evening in Manhattan last week, Carlos Alcaraz was making his exit from an Italian restaurant alongside his sizeable support team when he unexpectedly found himself staring at a familiar face. There, in a different part of the restaurant, sat Jannik Sinner quietly enjoying his own dinner. This was actually the second occasion during the US Open that Alcaraz and Sinner just so happened to be dining at the same restaurant at the same time. Neither player could hide their amusement as they greeted each other warmly.</p><p>Considering the frequency of their meetings on and off the court, it would not be unreasonable if Sinner and Alcaraz were starting to get sick of each other: “On court we like to see each other, because it means that considering our ranking, we are doing well in the tournament. Off court we bump into each other at times. I don’t know if we are happy or not,” joked Sinner.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/06/alcaraz-and-sinner-in-a-world-of-their-own-as-us-open-final-completes-slam-trilogy">Continue reading...</a>

<ul><li><p>Red Bull driver just 0.077sec quicker than McLaren rival</p></li><li><p>Dutchman’s flying lap beat record set by Hamilton in 2020 </p></li></ul><p>The beaming grin on Max Verstappen’s face showed what claiming pole position for the Italian Grand Prix meant to him and his Red Bull team. As records fell in a blur of speed at Monza, the world champion was perhaps the most unlikely victor after an impossibly tight contest.</p><p>The transformation since the 2024 Italian GP could not have been more stark. Over a tumultuous 12 months Verstappen has clung on to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/nov/24/max-verstappen-fourth-consecutive-f1-world-title-las-vegas-gp-race-report">seal his fourth title last season</a>, seen long-term Red Bull <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jul/09/christian-horner-sacked-by-red-bull-after-20-years-as-principal-at-f1-team">team principal Christian Horner be sacked</a> and the team comprehensively out-paced by McLaren. Here, they at last found a sweet spot that has been sorely lacking.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/06/max-verstappen-pips-lando-norris-for-italian-f1-grand-prix-pole">Continue reading...</a>

<p>The first lady wants to help children use AI. Perhaps instead she should ask her husband to stop gutting public education</p><p>“The robots are here,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/04/melania-trump-artificial-intelligence-schools">proclaimed</a> Melania Trump during an AI event at the White House on Thursday. It can be hard to parse the first lady’s poker face and expressionless voice, but this certainly wasn’t a statement of regret. Rather Trump, reading from a script encased in a very analogue binder, was taking it upon herself to help America’s children navigate AI, which she touted as the “greatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America”.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/06/melania-trump-week-in-patriarchy">Continue reading...</a>

Following Angela Rayner's resignation as deputy prime minister for breaching the ministerial code, Keir Starmer's government underwent an emergency reshuffle. Darren Jones, the new chief secretary to the prime minister, defended the reshuffle, asserting it demonstrated leadership and decisiveness rather than chaos. Jones stated that Starmer had been planning a broader reshuffle, but accelerated the process after Rayner's resignation. Jones dismissed claims of government instability and ruled out an early election. He also rejected suggestions that ministers were moved due to poor performance, affirming that the government would continue to deliver the same outcomes. A wider junior ministerial reshuffle is expected to follow. ### END

<ul><li><p>French champions’ coach to undergo surgery</p></li><li><p>Setback follows Ousmane Dembélé’s hamstring injury</p></li></ul><p>Luis Enrique broke his collarbone in a cycling accident on Friday and the Paris Saint-Germain coach was to undergo surgery, the French champions said.</p><p>The 55-year-old Spaniard, a cycling enthusiast, led PSG to their first Champions League triumph last season, and the team have won three straight games to open their Ligue 1 title defence.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/sep/06/paris-saint-germain-manager-luis-enrique-breaks-collarbone-in-cycling-accident">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Canadian First Nations actor who brought an effortless integrity and dry wit to his starring role in the hit film Dances With Wolves</p><p>The notion that Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning directorial debut Dances With Wolves (1990), set during the US civil war, was somehow radical or revisionist in its take on the western, tended to come from people who hadn’t seen many westerns.</p><p>It did depart from precedent in one respect, however, by using Native American and First Nations actors to play its Sioux and Pawnee characters, with much of the dialogue delivered in the Lakota language with English subtitles. The most impressive of these performers was Graham Greene, who has died aged 73.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/06/graham-greene-obituary">Continue reading...</a>

<p>From Falkirk to Aberdeen, the Scottish flag has become a contested emblem in protests around migration</p><p>After Friday prayers last week, Mahmooda Syedain and her husband went shopping for flags, specifically the national flag of Scotland, the blue and white cross of St Andrew.</p><p>The community activist lives in Falkirk, a former iron and steel town midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh where unemployment is rising, and where an anonymous two-floor building tucked behind the local Lidl store has become the focus of the largest asylum hotel protests in Scotland.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/06/reclaim-our-flag-saltire-cultural-battleground-tensions-asylum-housing">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Hollywood actor helps out at the Swan at Enford in Wiltshire as he and his neighbours fight to save their local</p><p>It was a pleasant surprise when a visitor to <a href="https://www.theswanenford.co.uk/">the Swan at Enford</a>, a thatched pub tucked away in the folds of the Wiltshire countryside, found themselves being served a pint by one of the UK’s most famous actors.</p><p>“They had come in off the main road and asked if it was my pub,” said <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/rupert-everett">Rupert Everett</a>, the star of films such as Another Country, My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Madness of King George.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/06/pint-pulling-rupert-everett-surprises-country-pub-punters-wiltshire">Continue reading...</a>

<p>The migration debate reflects deep uncertainties about the realities now facing these communities. That feels perilous to me</p><ul><li><p>Sign up for our new weekly newsletter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/2025/jun/26/sign-up-to-matters-of-opinion-a-weekly-discussion-from-our-columnists-and-writers">Matters of Opinion</a>, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more</p></li></ul><p>In 2016, on the day after the Brexit vote, my home town’s pub opened early and celebratory pints were drunk underneath union flags. I was in a rehearsal room in London surrounded by the shellshocked and outraged. The media I read on the tube home reiterated what I’d heard all day: these leave voters were ignorant and racist. My town <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/08/the-way-the-eu-treated-the-uk-opened-my-eyes-bolsovers-brexit">voted just over 70% for leave</a>. Three years later the constituency <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50777371">voted Conservative</a> for the first time in its history. In a recent council election it <a href="https://democracy.derbyshire.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=177">voted Reform</a>. There comes a time when the unthinkable becomes inevitable.</p><p>My town is in the East Midlands. Where it was once coal mining and manufacturing that provided work for many people, it is now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/23/have-working-conditions-improved-at-the-sports-direct-warehouse">a huge distribution warehouse for Sports Direct</a>. Many eastern European people have made Shirebrook<strong> </strong>their home and work at the warehouse. I have been thinking about towns such as mine – and there are many of them – with the recent outpouring of anger and xenophobia towards asylum seekers and migrants.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/06/english-working-class-migration">Continue reading...</a>

<p><strong>Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane<br></strong>International dance troupe’s power and lyricism on show in trio of works by Benjamin Millepied</p><p>Australia sees so little international contemporary dance – considered too far and too expensive a journey, with too small a dedicated dance audience to make it worthwhile. What does appear is mostly in Melbourne and Sydney. So it’s a curious coup for Brisbane festival to land the second visit to Australia by L.A. Dance Project – the troupe founded by the former New York City Ballet principal <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/may/11/benjamin-millepied-on-queering-romeo-and-juliet-in-france-they-called-me-woke">Benjamin Millepied</a> – after the Sydney Opera House’s presentation of his contemporary, genderqueer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/jun/06/benjamin-millepieds-romeo-and-juliet-suite-review-sydney-opera-house">Romeo and Juliet Suite </a>last year.</p><p>For this year’s Brisbane festival, L.A. Dance Project presented a trilogy of contemporary ballets – commissioned between 2013 and 2016 for the company’s key funder, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels – on the theme of gems. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. There’s precedent: NYCB founder George Balanchine’s landmark 1967 abstract ballet Jewels was inspired by the French jewellery company’s wares, with each of its three acts a tribute to a different precious stone.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/06/la-dance-project-gems-review-brisbane-festival">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Robin Wright has a steamy relationship with her son as he embarks on a new romance with Olivia Cooke. This drama is the perfect show – and I say this with love – for perverts</p><p>The thriller genre is amazingly malleable. You can start with an escaped monkey, a mystery corpse in frozen tundra, or just two women who can’t bear to be in a room together. You can make your own rules, as long as you do it with style, and take us somewhere surprising. Like using a tricycle to break into the Met Gala.</p><p>The Girlfriend (Prime Video, from Wednesday 10 September), is a great example. It takes a relatable premise – what if your mother and your partner don’t get on? – and pushes it to extremity. When privileged surgeon Daniel takes new girlfriend Cherry, played by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/02/olivia-cooke-game-of-thrones-prequel-star-i-had-to-grow-up-so-quickly">Olivia Cooke</a>, to meet his family, things are tense from the outset. Daniel’s mother, Laura, is extremely protective, and senses Cherry is hiding something. The women strain to remain outwardly polite while their real relationship grows into one of covert threats, secrets and lies, outmanoeuvring and betrayal. There are chills. But it’s also hot.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/06/the-girlfriend-warning-this-sexy-oedipal-thriller-may-be-too-shocking-for-vanilla-viewers">Continue reading...</a>

<p>When the TV presenter was offered a free health screening, she thought it was pointless: she was ‘the healthiest woman you’ve ever met’. But then came the shocking diagnosis. Now fully recovered, she’s re‑evaluating everything</p><p>It all starts with the coil. Of course it does. This is Davina, and Davina McCall doesn’t do personal by halves. “I loved the coil, but people always used to go, ‘I’m not getting the coil, <em>ugh.’ </em>I always wondered why it wasn’t more popular.” So, it was June 2023 and McCall was getting her preferred method of contraception replaced – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jun/08/davina-mccalls-pill-revolution-review-this-powerful-documentary-could-save-lives">on TV, naturally</a>, for a documentary. “I asked my children’s permission. ‘Can Mummy get her coil refitted on television?’ They all rolled their eyes, like: ‘God! Here she goes again.’”</p><p>Post-fitting, her friend Dame Lesley Regan, a gynaecologist, suggested that McCall have a health screening at the state-of-the-art women’s health clinic where she worked, in exchange for a talk she would give on menopause. To be honest, McCall says, she thought the idea ridiculous. “I was like: ‘Honestly, I don’t need that. I’m the healthiest woman you’ve ever met. I don’t go to the doctor, I have a good immune system, I eat well.’”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/06/davina-mccall-addiction-reality-tv-brain-tumour">Continue reading...</a>

<ul><li><p>Sinner defeats Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4</p></li><li><p>Italian joins Laver, Federer, Djokovic with slam feat</p></li><li><p>Alcaraz showdown will decide world No 1 ranking</p></li></ul><p>Jannik Sinner will meet Carlos Alcaraz for the US Open title after the defending champion survived an injury scare to repel a spirited challenge from Félix Auger-Aliassime in four sets at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The world No 1 prevailed 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in three hours and 21 minutes on Friday night, booking a third consecutive grand slam final against the Spaniard and underlining a rivalry that has already reshaped the men’s game.</p><p>The win made Sinner only the fourth man in the Open era, after Rod Laver, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, to reach all four major finals in a single season, and at 24 the youngest to do so. His streak of 27 straight victories at the hard-court majors equalled Djokovic’s best, with only Federer’s 36 still ahead. He has now reached five consecutive major finals, lifting trophies in Melbourne and at Wimbledon and standing one point from victory at Roland Garros before Alcaraz turned the match around. The No 1 ranking will also be on the line in Sunday’s final.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/06/jannik-sinner-felix-auger-aliassime-us-open-final">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 and built websites to spread Catholic message, to become first millennial saint</p><p>In a see-through safe carved into a wall behind the altar of a chapel in northern Rome lies a collection of relics of Carlo Acutis. These include a splinter from his wooden bed, a fragment of a jumper and a piece of the sheet used to cover him after his death. Locks of his hair are on display in other churches in the Italian capital and beyond.</p><p>Acutis, the London-born Italian who on Sunday will become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint, built websites to spread Catholic teaching, earning him the nickname “God’s Influencer” after his death, aged 15, from leukaemia.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/06/pope-prepares-to-canonise-london-born-teenager-nicknamed-gods-influencer">Continue reading...</a>

<ul><li><p>Spaniard aiming for third title in New York</p></li><li><p>Trump to attend first Open match since 2015</p></li></ul><p>Carlos Alcaraz said Donald Trump’s presence at the US Open final will be “great for tennis” as the US president prepares to attend his first match at Flushing Meadows in a decade.</p><p>The 22-year-old Spaniard reached Sunday’s final by beating Novak Djokovic in straight sets on Friday afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/06/jannik-sinner-felix-auger-aliassime-us-open-final">will face defending champion Jannik Sinner</a> for a sixth grand slam title and a third in New York.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/05/carlos-alcaraz-donald-trump-us-open-final">Continue reading...</a>

<p><strong>Toronto film festival:</strong> The rising star makes for a convincing boxer inside the ring in David Michôd’s by-the-numbers drama but flounders when outside</p><p>Even before Sydney Sweeney became better known for being in the centre of an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/05/sydney-sweeney-controversy">increasingly absurd culture war</a>, the unavoidable campaign to make her Hollywood’s Next Big Thing was showing signs of fatigue. The Euphoria grad, who gave a resonant performance in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/24/reality-review-word-for-word-replay-of-fbi-interrogation-is-uncannily-brilliant">Reality</a>, scored a sleeper hit with glossed up romcom <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/21/anyone-but-you-movie-review-sydney-sweeney-glen-powell">Anyone But You</a> but audiences were more impressed than critics, including myself (I found her performance strangely stilted). There was little interest from either side in her nun horror <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/20/immaculate-sydney-sweeney-review">Immaculate</a>, and earlier this summer her incredulously plotted Apple movie <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/10/echo-valley-review-julianne-moore-sydney-sweeney">Echo Valley</a> went the way of many Apple movies (no one knows it exists).</p><p>Post-thinkpieces, two of her festival duds (Eden and Americana) disappeared at the box office and she now arrives at Toronto in need of a win. And what better way to achieve that by going for an old-fashioned awards play, taking on the role of alternately inspiring and tragic boxer Christy Martin. It’s a role that’s already been buzzed about for months (Sweeney has been busy laying the standard “gruelling physical routine” groundwork) and at a time when movies about female sport stars still remain thin on the ground despite a swell of interest in them off screen, it’s a needed push in the right direction. But, as perfectly timed as this narrative might be, Christy just isn’t nearly good enough, a by-the-numbers slog that fails to prove Sweeney’s status as a one to watch.</p><p>Christy is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released later this year</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/05/christy-review-sydney-sweeney">Continue reading...</a>

<p><strong>Toronto film festival:</strong> adapted by Max Porter from his novella Shy and co-starring Little Simz, Emily Watson and Tracey Ullman this brutal but ultimately hopeful story is fiercely affecting</p><p>Producer-star Cillian Murphy and director Tim Mielants last collaborated on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/16/small-things-like-these-review-magdalene-laundries-cillian-murphy">superlative adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These</a>, and their new project together could hardly be more different: a drama suffused with gonzo energy and the death-metal chaos of emotional pain, cut with slashes of bizarre black humour. Max Porter has adapted his own <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/05/shy-by-max-porter-review-lyrical-study-of-troubled-youth">2023 novella Shy</a> for the screen and Murphy himself gives one of his most uninhibited and demonstrative performances.</p><p>Murphy is Steve, a stressed, troubled but passionately committed headteacher with a secret alcohol and substance abuse problem, in charge of a residential reform school for delinquent teenage boys some time in the mid-90s. With his staff – deputy (Tracey Ullman), therapist-counsellor (Emily Watson) and a new teacher (Little Simz) – he has to somehow keep order in the permanent bedlam of fights and maybe even teach them something.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/05/steve-review-cillian-murphy-is-outstanding-in-ferocious-reform-school-drama">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Singer had said he was open to offers for stake in former band although email address never appeared to work</p><p>In a sullen episode befitting some of his more gloomy lyrics, Morrissey, lead singer of the Smiths, has abruptly shut down an email address he was promoting to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/03/morrissey-puts-his-business-interests-in-the-smiths-up-for-sale-to-any-interested-party">sell his business interests</a> in the band.</p><p>The notoriously saturnine frontman blamed “disagreeable and vexatious characters” involved with the band for his sudden decision, and claimed he had endured decades of misery, in a <a href="https://www.morrisseycentral.com/messagesfrommorrissey/notice">post on Friday</a> on his website morrisseycentral.com.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/05/morrissey-the-smiths-email-address">Continue reading...</a>

<p>The Māori multimedia artist has helped shape contemporary New Zealand art, and with her exhibition in regional NSW she wants to ‘entice and mesmerise’</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/newsletters/2019/oct/18/saved-for-later-sign-up-for-guardian-australias-culture-and-lifestyle-email?CMP=cvau_sfl">Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email</a></p></li></ul><p>It’s a clear early spring afternoon and Ngununggula gallery, five minutes from Bowral in the southern highlands of New South Wales, shimmers as if dressed in sequins for Mardi Gras.</p><p>This is Belong, a work by the multimedia Aotearoa New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana, designed to draw the audience into Voyager: her gallery-spanning survey of evocative, immersive work, which opened on Saturday.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/sep/06/lisa-reihana-voyager-ngununggula-bowral-nsw-southern-highlands">Continue reading...</a>

<p>The Swede has has not necessarily become a fan of Irish football, as she sports a club jersey made with help from Fontaines DC</p><p>The humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza is a serious mission with an incongruous detail: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/greta-thunberg">Greta Thunberg</a> sporting a jersey of the Dublin football club Bohemians.</p><p>The Swedish activist wore the pale blue shirt during an earlier flotilla in June and again this week as vessels prepared to leave Barcelona.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/05/bohemian-fc-thank-greta-thunberg-for-wearing-their-kit-during-aid-mission">Continue reading...</a>

48Kg by Batool Abu Akleen; Paper Crown by Heather Christle; New Cemetery by Simon Armitage; Red Carpet by Steve Malmude, edited by Miles Champion 48Kg by Batool Abu Akleen, translated by the poet, with Graham Liddel, Wiam El-Tamami, Cristina Viti and Yasmin Zaher (Tenement, £17.50) This remarkable debut by a 20-year-old Palestinian, born and raised in Gaza, stands out among poetry of witness on the genocide there. It contains 48 poems, each representing a kilogram of bodyweight, with the book literally thinning as the pages turn. The final poem declares: “I die without a voice. / He skins me, flesh from bones. / Cuts me into forty-eight pieces. Distributes the parts in blue plastic bags / & throws them to the four corners.” Unlike the Muses who buried Orpheus’s dismembered limbs, the poem ends with the paramedic guessing “which of these bags / contain my flesh”. Written in Gaza between 2023 and 2025, Abu Akleen’s poems disassemble and painstakingly reassemble the body to interrogate injustice, death and grief. She creates a world where absurdity and reality, irony and humanity coexist – from the ice-cream man crying out “corpses for sale” while noting that “no grave buys them”, to death wanting to have a birthday party and picking “an arm the missile hadn’t shattered”. Abu Akleen self-translated 38 of the 48 poems, describing the process of translation as making “peace with death”, while writing in Arabic meant being “torn apart without … anyone there to recollect it”. The book articulates the vital linguistic bridge she establishes in the present between Arabic and English, and includes historical photographs of Gaza from 1863 and 1908 and the 2022 discovery of a fifth-century Byzantine mosaic, highlighting the city’s rich cultural history. Throughout 48Kg Abu Akleen transforms witnessed details into fragile interpretations: the “broken plates they make homes for their younger siblings”, the “moment War became a school”, and the “Ring Finger I lend to the woman who lost / her hand and her husband”. She notes that poetry gives “a form to feelings in order to understand them”, and these heartbreaking and risk-taking poems protest with uncompromising clarity and tenderness against continuing atrocities. Continue reading...

<p>The humanist historian brings objects to life beautifully, but falters when it comes to people and their beliefs</p><p>Domination tells the story of how a tiny local cult became one of the greatest cultural and&nbsp;political forces in history. Alice Roberts puts the case that the Roman empire lived on in a different form in the church.</p><p>It is not an original idea – after all the foundation prayer of Christianity says “thy Kingdom come” – but Roberts tells the story from the point of view of individual parishes and even buildings. It’s a revelation, like watching those stop-motion films of how a plant grows and blooms. There’s a section about how a Roman villa might transform into a parish, the long barn providing the footprint, the web of relationships providing the social connection, the very tiles and columns providing the building materials. I&nbsp;can’t think of anyone who writes better about the way objects can speak&nbsp;to us. There’s a passage here describing her joy on grasping what it means that an ordinary-looking clay lamp found in Carlisle is purple on the inside; there’s a beautiful afterword about the history of bells.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/05/domination-by-alice-roberts-review-a-brilliant-but-cynical-history-of-christianity">Continue reading...</a>