Trump’s ridiculous bullying of Canada is backfiring | Robert Reich

The US president’s need to assert dominance is igniting patriotism abroad and a backlash at home

What do bullies do when someone stands up to their bullying and punches them in the face? They look for someone weaker to bully who won’t punch back.

Presumably that’s why Donald Trump has now taken on Canada, after Iran punched back so hard in the cage match the US president began more than six months ago as to leave him humiliated and baffled.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:00 am

Messy, clever and can barely conceal its rage: is Furious the most outstanding TV show of the year?

The story of a serial killer taking revenge on the rich predatory men who abused her just earned a fantastic finale. With career-defining acting, daring Epstein parallels and super dark comedy, it’s a total must-watch

You could easily watch the first few minutes of Furious without knowing that it would turn out to be so special. It opens with a scene of pure horror: it’s Halloween night and a real monster is hiding among the pretend ones. A woman we come to know as Catherine Grace (an astonishingly good Lola Petticrew) is inside a man’s house, wearing a creepy kitten mask. The man is in bad shape, crawling on the floor, gasping for air and begging for his life. Catherine is alternately chirpy and tender with him, but eventually, she loses her patience with his pleading. She takes a syringe filled with fentanyl out of a pencil case decorated with sparkly stickers and jewels and finishes the job.

So far, so creepy crime drama, but Furious is already hiding in plain sight, because the monster is not who we think it is. What looks as if it will be a cat-and-mouse story, in which a tenacious FBI agent hunts a twisted serial killer, quickly rips up any expectations. We learn that Catherine was trafficked into sex work as a teenager, and is now making her way through a kill list of predatory and powerful men. Her life has been shaped by a conspiracy of abuse, violence, neglect and indifference. She has decided to take matters into her own broken hands.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:17 am

Freelancers are getting buried with ‘soulless’ AI slop cleanup: ‘It’s a shame we need to do it’

As more companies turn to AI, they’re hiring freelancers to clean up its mistakes rather than create original work

Lisa, a freelance graphic designer based in Spain, noticed a shift in her work after the release of ChatGPT in 2022. She went from receiving slow one-off jobs creating logos and packaging to an onslaught of requests asking her to fix versions that were generated by artificial intelligence – from sharpening fuzzy images for printing to turning flawed designs into usable files.

By 2025, Lisa, who asked not to be fully named to avoid solicitations, said 90% of her incoming logo and packaging design requests required cleaning up AI-generated content, work that accounted for 60% to 70% of her annual income. But the grind was exhausting. Clients lowballed her;' some AI-generated designs were so flawed that she had to recreate them from scratch and she worried about being complicit in AI-driven copyright infringement. By the end of the year, she began turning those jobs down.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:00 am

Mayday review – Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh set cold war bromance alight

An American fighter pilot teams up with a retired KGB officer for hijinks and hilarity in Soviet Russia

Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh star in this goofy but entertaining action-comedy bromance set in the cold war 80s, when it seemed every red-blooded young guy in America adored Top Gun and wanted to be a US Navy fighter pilot. It’s got some outrageous close-quarter fight scenes – and who knew Branagh could bust out martial arts moves? Is he going to follow Bob Odenkirk into an unexpected action movie career? The final sequences of automotive mayhem in and around Moscow might remind you of the heady days of Roger Moore as James Bond.

Reynolds is Troy Kelly (callsign “Assassin”), a supercool fighter pilot in 1987, who is always doing brave and brilliant stuff that isn’t in the rulebook, and cracking wise in the accepted Reynolds manner. But when his spy plane is shot down deep inside snowy and forested Soviet territory, Troy awakens from his coma to find himself in the log cabin of retired KGB man Nikolai Ustinov, cheerfully played by Branagh, who is a secret fan of all things American and obsessively rewatches Top Gun on samizdat VHS. He suggests to the stunned Troy that he simply stays in his cabin, watching the film with him, until the cold war is over.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:00 am

I thought I was too broken for sex. Here’s how I found pleasure again

I was forced to examine the idea of sexual pleasure after a tumor was removed from my spinal cord

Ten years ago, my right elbow started to hurt. The internet suggested I had tennis elbow, so I stopped playing tennis. Once the outer elbow pain moved inward, I changed my self-diagnosis to golfer’s elbow. I stopped lifting weights, competitive dragon-boating and bouldering.

For good measure, I consulted an occupational therapist about my nightly bullet-vibrator routine after reading that golfer’s elbow is common among construction workers who operate heavy-duty vibrating machinery. He listened closely and said he’d note VRI on my patient chart. I asked what VRI meant, eager to end my diagnostic journey. “Vibrator-related injury,” he responded. We busted out laughing.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:00 am

The deportation of Milo Yiannopoulos signals a rupture within Maga | Moira Donegan

The far-right provocateur helped galvanize a movement that no longer needs him. Now his imitators are claiming victory

It’s been a long, slow decline for Milo Yiannopoulos. From the vantage point of 2026, it’s easy to forget that he was once a big deal.

The British-born far-right provocateur, who was arrested by ICE in Louisiana and deported from the US this week, was among the first media figures to ride the “gamergate” controversy and ensuing rightwing populist wave that brought Donald Trump to office in 2016. An editor of the then ascendant Breitbart News from 2014 to 2017, Yiannopoulous was an early adopter of the media strategy of algorithm-optimized outrage bait, trawling the internet and consulting a large network of well-placed sources in search of stories he could use to fan the flames of online culture war discourses. He would write a story mocking a feminist, or fire off a tweet saying something racist about Muslims, and the ensuing firestorm of controversy would result in online arguments, media coverage, and his own promptly and decisively rising star. Rinse, repeat.

Published: September 2, 2026, 3:00 am

After the flood: human suffering on an unfathomable scale in Nepal’s worst-hit districts

Thousands remain missing and aid is hampered by treacherous conditions in communities almost wiped out of existence

Searching for the body of his wife in the mud, Dil Bahadur Shrestha lamented that he did not even have a shovel left. For now, he has been using his hands to try to find her as he picks through the ruins of his house.

On Wednesday morning last week, Jamuna Shrestha, his wife of 50 years, had been at home in Betrawati on the banks of Nepal’s Trishuli River, feeding her beloved chickens and goats.

Dil Bahadur Shrestha, who is searching for his wife of 50 years, Jamuna.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:42 am

Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’

Defence minister says he believes US backing could tip regional balance in favour of forced resettlement

Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime.

Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this
migration” during a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He said the Israeli government was “organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, by every way possible”.

Published: September 2, 2026, 11:20 am

Iran accuses US of ‘war crime’ after missile blast kills four people at wedding

Blast also injures 68 guests at the wedding in southern Iran, prompting fears of escalation in hostilities

Iran has accused the US of a war crime after a missile blast killed at least four people and injured 68 who were attending a wedding at a private home in a coastal city of southern Iran, as the fresh exchange of strikes prompted fears of a wider renewal of hostilities.

Iranian media said that the wedding ceremony was being held in a home in the city of Kuhestak, Hormozgan province, late on Tuesday when a US missile struck, with shrapnel and debris from the strike killing and injuring people.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:19 am

Suspect and two victims dead at apartment shooting in downtown Minneapolis

The city’s police department and mayor warn the public to stay away from the Loring Park neighborhood nearby

Two people were killed and the suspect was dead after a shooting at an apartment building in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

One shooting victim died at the scene. A second died after arriving at Hennepin county medical center, a hospital spokesperson said.

Published: September 2, 2026, 3:40 pm

Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ for US users after Trump order

Tech company submits to controversial Trump order to rename body of water amid US trade spat with Canada

Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.

The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:15 pm

Patagonia sues Trump over slashing of protected areas in Utah

President’s order strips nearly 3m acres of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, sacred tribal sites, of safeguards

Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has joined a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s decision to significantly reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, removing protections from nearly 3m acres.

In July, the president approved the reduction of the sites by 90%, clearing the way to open the land to oil and gas companies. He argued in his proclamations that doing so would allow lands to be “put to a higher-priority use” and that they contained critical minerals important to “resource independence …[and] national security”.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:51 pm

Epstein survivors urge billionaire Leon Black to cooperate with House panel

Black called on to comply with subpoenas and appear as required to clarify connections to convicted sex offender

More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have called on the billionaire Leon Black to appear before the House oversight committee in order to clarify his connections to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.

In a letter released on Wednesday, the survivors urged Black to comply with congressional subpoenas ahead of Thursday’s deposition before the House oversight committee.

Published: September 2, 2026, 3:03 pm

Clippers docked five first-round draft picks and fined $30m over Kawhi Leonard scandal

• Team circumvented salary cap rules to sign star

• Owner Steve Ballmer lands one-year ban

The NBA has handed down one of the biggest punishments in the history of the league to the Los Angeles Clippers after finding that the franchise circumvented salary cap rules when it courted Kawhi Leonard as a free agent.

The league has stripped the team of five first-round draft picks, giving the team no natural pick in the draft from 2029 through 2033.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:52 pm

Public given rare access as Thomas More painting goes under microscope

Visitors to Nostell in West Yorkshire will get to see cutting-edge research into work considered the only faithful copy of Holbein masterpiece

A spectacular, internationally important painting of Thomas More and his family is to have its secrets explored as the public look on.

The open heritage science project, scheduled to begin on Thursday, is a UK first and will deploy techniques used at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam during its famous public restoration of Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch.

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:00 pm

Justice department orders US states to expand how they report undocumented immigrants

New DoJ opinion says entire state government has duty to report, not just agencies responsible for welfare programs

The US Department of Justice has ordered states to expand how they report undocumented immigrants to the federal government, according to a legal opinion from Tuesday that reverses a policy that has been in place for nearly 30 years.

Under the new opinion, issued by the department’s office of legal counsel, any state that takes federal money through support schemes for low-income Americans, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), must now report undocumented immigrants across its entire state government, not just through the specific welfare office that runs the program.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:02 pm

JD Vance says he’s doing ‘God’s work – and if that leads to the end times, OK’

Vice-president says on evangelical podcast he would feel ‘not shocked if the antichrist was walking among us’

JD Vance has said he is “doing as much of God’s work as possible” and that he is OK “if that leads to the end times”, which he says “are coming”.

The US vice-president made the comments during a Monday podcast interview with Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old evangelical host with over a million YouTube followers and videos featuring sensationalist headlines including “Preaching the gospel in Chicago’s deadliest neighborhood” and “Debating a ‘gay’ pastor”.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:55 pm

Democratic party infighting engulfs center-right over House rules vote

While leaders focused on Hasan Piker, two of the party’s more conservative members salvaged a GOP measure that was poised to fail

House Democratic leaders have spent the past few weeks waging a bitter campaign against their own left flank over a leftwing streamer. On Tuesday, it was the party’s center-right who blindsided them.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, announced late on Tuesday that he had asked the Democratic caucus’s committee on caucus rules to consider punishing the retiring Jared Golden of Maine and Blue Dog Coalition leader Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington after the pair sided with Republicans on a procedural vote that had appeared doomed.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:39 am

The $1 Trump coin: legal tender, depending on what you mean by legal

Various laws and 250 years of tradition prevent the likeness of living people from appearing on currency. Donald Trump and Scott Bessent don’t want you to worry about that

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

Two hallmarks of Donald Trump’s second-term: the president’s enthusiasm for putting his name and face on things, and his cavalier approach to established law.

Today the president is once again combining both those interests, as the government releases a $1 coin bearing his image, an item of currency that scholars say should be illegal, but which is happening anyway. How many times have you heard that in the last 18 months?

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:50 am

The place that never freezes: the Arctic habitat where global heating threatens more ice, not less

The race to study the North Water between Canada and Greenland before it changes has led to a bold plan for an Inuit-run protected area

Electric-blue meltwater sprays up under Terry Noah’s snowmobile as he races across sea ice extending out from Canada’s northernmost public community: Grise Fiord in Nunavut, a hamlet of 144 people closer to Murmansk in Russia than the Canadian city of Toronto. The bay’s cliffs loom higher and higher like stone icebergs as he approaches his destination across the bay.

Noah pulls his sled carefully over a seal’s breathing hole, about the circumference of a basketball. Using a custom-made winch, he lowers a submersible instrument into the sea below the ice.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:00 pm

Temperature check: alarm as prediction markets lean into weather and climate bets

Climate experts warn that US Kalshi and Polymarket users are ‘gamifying disasters’ as they bet on events like heatwaves and daily temperatures

Online prediction markets, saturated by money staked on sport, crypto and politics, have now set their sights on a promising new area of growth: betting on the future livability of the planet itself.

The rise of gamified predictions on the unfolding climate crisis, and shorter-term weather forecasts, has been underscored by a new deal that allows Kalshi, a leading online financial exchange, to access data from the Weather Company, owner of the Weather Channel, to verify weather-related betting outcomes.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:00 am

‘It’s a fever dream right now’: sailors of USS Abraham Lincoln voice joy after arriving in Thailand

Shore leave in Pattaya, known for its red light district, comes after reports of deteriorating living conditions onboard the vessel during record stint

At Pattaya’s Hard Rock Cafe and hotel, the city’s mayor and police officials, along with women in traditional Thai dress, waited to greet the sailors who were arriving in civilian clothes, bags slung over their shoulders, off the buses.

The USS Abraham Lincoln’s crew of 5,000 had not been on shore for nearly nine months, a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea.

Published: September 2, 2026, 4:48 am

‘It always comes around’: fans react to conviction in Tupac Shakur’s murder 30 years later

Rapper’s supporters reflect on ‘astonishing’ events leading to Duane Davis being found guilty over 1996 fatal shooting

A criminal conviction this week in the murder of Tupac Shakur, the first since the rapper was gunned down in 1996, sent shock waves through his sea of fans who have waited three decades for answers.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former California gang leader, was found guilty of murder on Monday for the role he played in orchestrating the fatal shooting of Shakur.

Published: September 2, 2026, 4:59 am

Federal judge tosses Trump lawsuit over trans athletes in California school sports

Justice department cannot force state to ban trans girls from women’s sports, in major win for LGBTQ+ rights

A federal judge has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit challenging California’s policy of allowing transgender youth to play on sports teams that match their gender, a major loss for Donald Trump and the Department of Justice.

The justice department had been fighting for a year to force California to ban trans girls from women’s sports, with the president directly singling out one trans track and field athlete in online attacks and regularly mocking trans athletes in his speeches.

Published: September 1, 2026, 5:33 pm

Los Angeles villa that was hub for German exiles fleeing Nazis reopens after narrow wildfire escape

Spectacular Villa Aurora, which was nearly destroyed in last year’s fires, leading the recovery as Pacific Palisades emerges from a dark chapter

A hillside villa that served as a cultural hub for German writers and artists fleeing the Nazis and narrowly escaped destruction in last year’s Los Angeles wildfires reopened its doors to the public this weekend, marking the latest milestone in the city’s slow recovery from one of the darkest chapters in its history.

Hundreds of friends of the Villa Aurora, a 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house that has taken on a second life as a cultural center with a fierce commitment to artistic freedom, international dialogue and democracy, crowded into the house on Sunday to mark the resumption of speaker events and artistic residencies.

Published: September 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Hungry bears are wandering into US homes and shops in record numbers – video

Experts say more bears are wandering into humans' homes and shops in search of food, due to drought-driven food shortages across the US west

Published: September 1, 2026, 11:16 am

‘I don’t chase the dollar. I never did’: the astonishing hidden life of Mr T

He grew up in the ghetto, became a global superstar – then gave it all up. Why did he step away from the spotlight?

Mr T explains why he’s late, but he wants to make one thing clear – this is not an apology. “You caught me in my devotion, and nothing comes before God. So I won’t say I apologise for the delay. I just want you to know that God comes first in all my life. For allowing my success, I give God the glory.”

He is here to discuss a new Netflix documentary, Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool. At 74, he rarely gives interviews. But when Mr T decides to talk, he really does talk. What Mr T thinks, Mr T says. And I’ve never heard anyone trash the very thing they’re here to promote quite like Mr T does today.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:00 pm

The opposite of ‘damsels in distress’: how TV fell in love with female gangsters

The ruthless female characters of The Gentlemen, Beef and Peaky Blinders bring new depth to the evil matriarch stereotype

Television loves a gangster story – and apparently so does the Duchess of Sussex. This week, Netflix’s The Gentlemen – Guy Ritchie’s latest addition to the gangster canon, which stars Theo James as a distractingly handsome aristocrat who becomes embroiled in the world of organized crime – returns for its second season. And in August, the show hit the headlines after rumors that Meghan was reportedly in early talks to join its third season when she and Prince Harry made their highly unexpected return to the UK.

At first, Meghan’s potential role seemed like a random pivot for the former Suits star, who now seems far more at home holding a jar of her Montecito-made jam than brandishing a gun. But really, these casting rumours are indicative of a wider shift in the traditionally machismo-fueled gangster genre, where it’s now more common to see women stealing the spotlight – and calling the shots.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:00 am

Was Paul Mescal being ‘not masculine enough’ the reason Gladiator II flopped?

Mescal’s nuanced performance in Ridley Scott’s belated sequel has been blamed by some for the film’s box office underperformance. May I suggest Jason Statham for Gladiator III?

As you may be aware, The Dog Stars has not been particularly well received. Reviews have been lukewarm to poor and in its opening weekend, Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic thriller came in fifth, after Spider-Man and The Odyssey (both of which have been out for ever), the sixth Insidious movie and a Looney Tunes film that originally wasn’t even going to be released.

Perhaps unexpectedly, people are now casting around looking to assign blame for the failure. In the lead up to the film, Josh Brolin said that he almost left the project due to Scott’s lack of rehearsal time. Perhaps there’s also a prosaic explanation, in that The Dog Stars is such a vague title for a film that audiences didn’t know if they were going to watch a survival thriller, a military movie or a cartoon about some singing puppies. But the most exciting theory concerns the film’s casting. Jacob Elordi plays the lead, but this came about late in the day. When the project was first announced, the role was to be played by Paul Mescal, who at the time was fresh from starring in Scott’s Gladiator II.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:36 am

Samsung's Frame Pro isn't just a gorgeous TV, it opened my eyes to art

The design-forward TV delivers a performance that few in the category can – while attracting compliments as wall decor

• Can’t hear what’s playing on TV? It’s not your ears, it’s the flat screen. These affordable soundbars can help

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When they are screening blockbusters, huge TVs are cinematic portals to another world. When they’re off, huge TVs are hideous black mirrors. Samsung has always understood this home decor landmine and aimed to defuse it in 2017 with The Frame, the first-ever “art TV”: a television disguised as a framed painting.

As a female tech editor who spent years appraising the banal designs of 1990s tech, I can palpably remember how thrilled I was to see this innovative melding of form and function, which seemed like a novel luxury at the time. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and Samsung’s pricey niche concept has gone decisively mainstream, with competition from LG, Hisense, TCL and even Amazon.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:45 pm

Transforming toxic: a new vision for urban waterways takes shape in Brooklyn – in photos

Designers are rethinking one of New York City’s most polluted sites with climate adaptation and community benefits

The Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian’s coverage is editorially independent

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:00 am

‘A crisis of authenticity’: the truth about food influencers

Instagrammers have upended the British restaurant scene, and amassed followings in the millions. But has their moment already passed?

In 2017, two aspiring YouTubers going by the name Topjaw published a video posing the London foodie’s most important question: what to eat in Chinatown? They enlisted the help of longtime Instagrammer Kar-Shing Tong (better known by his username @ks_ate_here), who took them on a lovingly curated loop of the neighbourhood. Cantonese siu mei duck at Four Seasons, Chongqing-style handmade noodles at the now defunct Little Wooden Hut, and Barshu on Frith Street, where they decadently cracked a whole crab for the camera. Any of the 100,000-odd viewers who watched it at the time would be well served by its responsible (if unspectacular) recommendations. But in retrospect, the video may be of more interest to historians. In its unassuming and rapidly cut seven minutes, you can almost see the tectonic plates of the food world begin to shift.

Tong is the elder statesman: the @ks_ate_here account began in the social media dark ages, first on Twitter then on an Instagram that was dominated by static photography. He’s in his element in the video, dutifully explaining the history and technique behind the dishes. He is relaxed and affable in front of the camera, but in his own work he doesn’t show his face often – it just wasn’t the style. Topjaw is something different. Nine years ago, it was still embryonic: host Jesse Burgess sweating profusely at any hint of chilli, cameraman Will Warr unable to use chopsticks. But the formula was there. The constant checking in to see if what they’re eating truly is “the best”. Even doubled over from the heat of a spicy fish soup, Burgess’s eyes always find the camera. He holds out food for inspection and addresses the imagined viewer. The audience is out there. “KS has 40,000 Instagram followers! 40,000!” Burgess says, pointing at Tong with aspirational glee.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:00 pm

The September reset is real. I’m about to become a better person, flaxseed by flaxseed | Emma Brockes

Small changes are what I’m aiming for – 10-minute workouts, cleaning out my handbag. Then I’m less likely to have failed come October

Are you a January resolutions or a September reset person? The latter has always felt more propitious to me, light of the exhaustion of Christmas and with the weather still on our side. Last week, when the Pavlovian response to buying new stationery (for my kids) kicked in, I found myself following a rote impulse to sort my life out by replacing the bag in the vacuum cleaner and committing to an unsustainable course of personal change. This is it! The beginning of a new way of life, driven by sharp pencils and the crispness of autumn.

I mean, it won’t last. But while most of us have read enough advisories cautioning against new year resolutions as durable, somehow September still promises the earth. I can’t shake it. As soon as the breeze picks up and the leaves start to turn, I feel my pilot light ignite – and the urge to sign up to unaffordable personal training sets in. It feels like an ancient response. I’m not writing this while leaning on a dry stone wall or managing my sheepdogs, but still; the sensory changes brought in by autumn surely activate latent energies in all of us. If you can avoid pumpkin spice and survive the costume search for Halloween, September triggers good feelings of renewal via the psychic memory of our serf forebears bringing in the harvest.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:00 pm

Trump admin spends billions to deport Black and brown people while doubling dollars for white ‘refugees’ | Heba Gowayed

‘Where the wealthiest country in the world allocates money has always been a question of political will over political way’

The United States once led most other nations on resettling refugees from all over the world. But in the fiscal year 2025- 2026, except for three people from Afghanistan, all of the 10,258 people admitted through resettlement were white South Africans.

But admitting en masse the beneficiaries of South African apartheid, while simultaneously cancelling temporary protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians, and making a spectacle of detaining and shackling them, is just the tip of the racist iceberg: the Trump administration is reportedly using this moment to double the initial resettlement support that refugees receive to $4,500 per person.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:27 am

Trump’s threat against an NBC journalist is an attack on reality | Margaret Sullivan

The president’s call for the FCC to scrutinize Kristen Welker’s innocuous remarks is a sign of desperation

With his approval ratings tanking, the crucial midterm elections looming, and his war with Iran turning into a quagmire, Donald Trump has entered full freak-out mode.

It’s not hard to tell. Just look at what happened this week when he lashed out at Kristen Welker, the well-respected host of NBC’s Meet the Press, and one of the best-known journalists in the nation.

Published: September 2, 2026, 4:00 am

I was once ashamed to admit I’d been strangled nonconsensually during sex. Now I’m speaking up to save women’s lives | Hannah Ferguson

Young men are being taught that acts with the potential to kill are erotic. The Albanese government must urgently regulate big tech and criminalise pornography depicting strangulation

Last week, a 16-year-old girl was found unresponsive in a home on Sydney’s northern beaches. She was airlifted to hospital and died two days later. New South Wales police are investigating her death as the result of a sexual strangulation act. Sources told the ABC the deceased may have experienced a seizure following asphyxiation, and that officers were told the sex was consensual.

While that investigation has yet to run its course, speaking generally, strangulation during sex is not a new phenomenon or conversation. Just a few years ago it was relatively taboo to criticise this normalisation of violence in sex – it was often framed as “anti-kink” to raise concern about this dangerous act that is increasingly depicted in mainstream pornography.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:00 am

The Guardian view on Israeli settlements: Britain can no longer look away | Editorial

International law, European action and UK public opinion point the same way. Britain should stop helping to sustain Israeli settlements economically

In the Commons this week, the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, appeared to have accepted the principle of a trade ban between the UK and Israeli settlements, which Britain says are illegal under international law. This is long overdue. The test now is whether his promised “comprehensive reset” deserves the name. Stopping settlement-produced goods at the border is not enough. Britain should prohibit its companies from sustaining settlement activity – by financing, constructing, insuring, advertising – in territory whose occupation it regards as unlawful. The ban must have teeth.

The UK can no longer ignore the violence and pressure exerted on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israel’s government, military and settlers. There have been more than 1,400 settler attacks so far this year, according to the UN, against a record 1,800 registered in 2025. An election campaign has only made matters worse. Last month, Israel issued tenders for 1,234 homes in the 3,401-unit E1 development east of Jerusalem. The country’s ministers gave the green light for the controversial settlement – long condemned for effectively bisecting the West Bank – expressly to “erase” the idea of a Palestinian state, the creation of which the UK officially supports.

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

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:29 am

Columbia’s Michael Zheng comes full circle as Americans advance at US Open

• Former Ivy League star wins US Open debut

• Shelton and Tiafoe advance to third round

• Pegula cruises past Kenin in 56 minutes

Michael Zheng spent years making the long trek from northern New Jersey, first by bus across the Hudson River to the Port Authority bus terminal and then nearly the full length of the No 7 subway line, all for the opportunity to train at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. On a rainswept Wednesday afternoon in Queens, the destination was the same but the purpose had changed entirely.

The 22-year-old American wildcard and two-time NCAA champion from nearby Columbia University brushed aside Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to win his rain-interrupted US Open debut, providing one of the more unlikely highlights on a busy day for the home contingent in New York.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:59 pm

Jordan Chiles announces comeback bid for third Olympics at LA 2028

• Olympic champion targets third Games in LA

• Michael Jordan narrates announcement video

• Chiles joins Lee and Carey on comeback trail

Jordan Chiles is returning for a run at her third Olympics, ⁠announcing Wednesday she intends to compete in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

Chiles shared ⁠her decision ⁠in ​a video narrated by basketball legend Michael Jordan.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:03 pm

Balogun pulled out of Everton move over handling of his medical, claim Monaco

• Thiago Scuro suggests Merseyside club responsible

• Monaco chief executive defends keeping Camara

Folarin Balogun pulled out of a £40m move to Everton because of how he was treated over his medical, according to Monaco’s chief executive, Thiago Scuro, who also defended the late decision not to sell Lamine Camara to Chelsea.

Balogun signed a deal sheet shortly before 11pm on deadline day to allow Everton to complete his transfer only to reject the move shortly after. Everton had renegotiated the structure of the fee with Monaco after discovering an issue with the USA international’s medical and failing in attempts to sign Joshua Zirkzee or Tammy Abraham on loan.

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:46 am

Premier League money has lost all meaning amid chaotic spectacle of excess | Barney Ronay

The transfer window has broken all rational rules and limits, leaving us to marvel and, ultimately, pick up the bill

There was a research study a few years back into a key period in the life of the TV show Location, Location, Location. You know the one. Half an hour of mid-morning drift. Hosted by two people whose common quality is they both look as if the minced essence of Wellington boots, the Volvo XC40 and the phrase “picky bits” has been reconstituted into human shapes, then sent out to judge people for buying houses.

The big reveal was always the bit where they came back a year later and saw how much the value had shifted. Because all conversations about houses are, in the end, an excuse to talk about money. Oh wow, it’s gone up by £20,000. You are good. Oh no, you’re now bankrupt and your flat looks like a hostage cell with fairy lights. Unlucky. You are bad.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

Tiger Woods handed five-year driving ban after no-contest plea over crash

• Woods pleads no contest to reduced charge

• Charges stemmed from March rollover crash

Tiger Woods pleaded no contest to reckless driving on Wednesday morning as part of an agreement with Florida prosecutors that reduced a DUI charge stemming from his rollover crash in March.

The 50-year-old was adjudicated guilty of willful and wanton reckless driving, a second offense, during a hearing in Martin County court. Under the agreement, Woods was fined $1,000 and had his driver’s license suspended for five years. Prosecutors had originally charged him with driving under the influence with property damage.

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:25 am

US cyclist Ezra Caudell hospitalized with ‘multi-system trauma’ after Philadelphia crash

• 19-year-old remains hospitalized after Sunday crash

• Caudell receiving care for ‘multi-system trauma’

• Lotto-Intermarché yet to update on Milan Menten

American cyclist Ezra Caudell remains hospitalized with “multi-system trauma” after being seriously injured in a crash during Sunday’s Philadelphia Cycling Classic, his team said on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old Modern Adventure Pro Cycling rider was involved in a collision with Belgium’s Milan Menten of Lotto-Intermarché early in the men’s race. Caudell was knocked unconscious in the crash and both riders were taken to local hospitals for treatment, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:50 am

Dream team or stuff of nightmares? Rams’ bold moves could go either way

LA added Myles Garrett and brought Aaron Donald out of retirement to create the NFL’s most menacing defense. A Super Bowl trip still isn’t a guarantee

Last Saturday night, NFL Network premiered the 2025 edition of America’s Game, the annual NFL Films-produced documentary on the reigning Super Bowl champions, this time starring the Seattle Seahawks.

Less than 24 hours later, the Los Angeles Rams announced that they had lured Aaron Donald out of retirement and signed him to a one-year, $20m contract that could reach $30m with incentives.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:00 am

The Raygun documentary ducks a big question about the Olympic fame of a ‘dorky white academic’

Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly finds warmth and humor in Rachael Gunn’s ordeal, but never fully reckons with what her notoriety meant for breaking

Early in Netflix’s new documentary, Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly, Australian B-girl Rachael Gunn, recounts a session she had with her sports psychologist prior to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Right before the Olympics, I went to my therapist, panicked,” she says. Her therapist asked her what was the worst thing that could happen. And she said, “The whole world could laugh at me.” Her therapist responded: “Do you think that’s reasonable?” Cue Gunn’s hysterical laughter.

Published: September 1, 2026, 9:00 am

Lindsay Clancy jurors sent home for the day after twice failing to reach verdict

Jury to return for more deliberations on Thursday in case of mother accused of murdering her three children

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The jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial was dismissed for the evening on Wednesday without reaching a verdict, after nearly 30 hours of deliberations over five days.

Addressing the 12-member jury – made up of nine women and three men – Judge William Sullivan said: “I know it’s been a long day.”

In the US, the national maternal mental health hotline is 1-833-852-6262. In the UK, the Pandas foundation offers support via WhatsApp on 07903 508334. In Australia, the national maternal and perinatal mental health hotline is 1300 726 306

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:49 pm

London’s first self-driving taxis for hire hit the streets

Wayve robotaxis added to Uber app and will have human in front ready to take over if needed – but only 15 cars licensed

Londoners are now able to hire self-driving taxis for the first time, after rides in Wayve’s autonomous vehicles were added to the Uber app on Thursday.

The chances of landing a robotaxi on request immediately are slim, with only 15 vehicles so far licensed. That contrasts with the more than 100,000 private hire vehicles in the capital – roughly the same number of Uber customers who have registered to take autonomous rides.

Published: September 2, 2026, 10:00 pm

Dutch central bank moves 86 tonnes of gold to UK from US and Canada, citing ‘geopolitical unrest’

Bank says gold reserves held in London could be traded more easily and the move will allow it to respond more rapidly in a ‘crisis situation’

The Dutch central bank says it has moved 86 tonnes of its gold reserves out of the US and Canada to London, citing “increasing geopolitical unrest”.

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) said gold reserves held in London could be traded more easily than those held in New York and Ottawa.

Published: September 2, 2026, 4:47 pm

Ukraine war briefing: ‘Shameful’ – Zelenskyy furious after shootout between Kyiv’s spy services

Only shoot at Russian occupiers, president says, after three officers wounded in clash; Patriots could take years to make, says Rubio. What we know on day 1,653

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:26 pm

US prosecutors refuse to say if they secretly obtained Don Lemon’s phone records

Experts have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy

Federal prosecutors have declined to say whether they secretly obtained phone records for the journalist Don Lemon using an unusual administrative summons, his lawyers said in a Monday court filing, highlighting concern about a controversial legal authority the government has claimed to gather information as it charged Lemon and dozens of others with civil rights crimes in connection to a January protest at a church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

In January, officials served Verizon with an administrative summons for a log of Lemon’s phone records between 19 December and 20 January. The subpoena did not come from a grand jury, as is typical in criminal investigations, and also was not a court-approved search warrant. Instead, it was a unilateral request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which said it was requesting the information under 19 USC 1509 – an obscure law that gives the department power to investigate records related to customs issues. Experts say the government is abusing that authority to gather records on journalists, activists, unions, non-profits and online critics, and have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:47 pm

US medical groups urge people to get flu and Covid shots in counter to Trump guidance

Top medical groups band together to ease confusion from Trump administration’s changing immunization advice

Leading US medical groups are urging people to get updated flu and Covid-19 vaccinations this fall, banding together on Wednesday to issue shot guidelines – and highlight the science behind them – saying they hope to ease confusion caused by the Trump administration’s changing advice.

Flu vaccinations are beginning and the latest coronavirus shots are starting to arrive after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this year’s updated versions last week. Winter also brings another vaccine-preventable risk called RSV.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:14 am

Tumbler Ridge mass shooting victims file 30 new lawsuits against OpenAI

The company says it prioritizes safety, but suits allege its ChatGPT bot induced shooter to carry out attack in Canada

OpenAI faces 30 new lawsuits filed on behalf of victims of the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting.

The suits, filed on Wednesday, allege the company’s ChatGPT chatbot induced the shooter to carry out the attack in rural Canada in February, in which eight people were killed and dozens more wounded – most of them children.

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:22 am

Pennsylvania officer charged in killing of college student who went to wrong house

Police officer who fatally shot unarmed 22-year-old Glenwood Pysher IV faces voluntary manslaughter charge

A Pennsylvania police officer was charged on Tuesday with voluntary manslaughter for last week’s fatal shooting of a college student who was looking for his friends late at night and went to the wrong house.

Police body-camera video reviewed by investigators showed the officer yelled: “Drop to the ground,” then: “Stop or I’ll ...”. Before he finished the sentence, he fired two shots at the man who was unarmed and had his hands in the air. He hit 22-year-old Glenwood Earl Pysher IV twice in the chest, killing him.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:29 pm

Police chief in Mississippi town where 1-year-old was killed has been fired

Senatobia, where white officer shot and killed Kohen Wiley, terminates chief who reportedly used racist slurs in texts

Late Tuesday, the city of Senatobia, Mississippi fired its police chief, Harold Vanderford, after it was reported that Vanderford regularly used racist slurs against Black people in his text messages. The town, which is about 40% Black, made national news earlier this year after a white officer fatally shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black baby, while responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart. Officers fired into a vehicle, shooting the driver and killing the toddler, who was being held in his mother’s arms.

Though Vanderford submitted a resignation letter earlier on 1 September, the city’s board of aldermen unanimously voted to reject it and to terminate the officer instead. Vanderford’s firing came just under a week after the city wrote in a statement that, despite the messages, he would “continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief”.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:10 pm

Pop-up camps help US children find normalcy after wildfires: ‘ambulance chasers for good’

Providers like Project:Camp offer emergency education and care to families in Washington state as climate change brings more destructive weather

One week after evacuating from the wildfires that devastated parts of this eastern Washington city, Mareesha Backman handed over her youngest son to a stranger and took her first deep breath of relief.

Spokane public schools was hosting what has become a growing part of disaster response: a day camp for children of survivors. Backman showed up that first day feeling “stunned”, she said: hot, poorly showered and underslept. Thanks to the camp’s volunteers, she was able to go to a doctor’s appointment, run errands and simply sit in the air-conditioned quiet of a friend’s home.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Global heating will hit at least 1.8C, UN warns, and there are ‘no good outcomes’

But scientists say the world could get back to 1.5C through deep, rapid emissions cuts and removing carbon from the atmosphere

Global heating will reach at least 1.8C under even the most optimistic future, well beyond the Paris agreement goal of 1.5C, according to a UN report that warns every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion.

The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years.

Published: September 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find

Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.

Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.

Published: September 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

Forest Service chief faces scrutiny over logging ties as Trump plans to scrap protections

Rollback of ‘roadless rule’ expected to benefit companies US Forest Service chief, Tom Schultz, previously lobbied for

Donald Trump this month announced plans to rescind a landmark rule that has protected old-growth forests in the US for 25 years. If finalized, the rollback is expected to benefit the companies that Tom Schultz, chief of the US Forest Service, represented in his previous roles as a timber industry lobbyist and executive, according to research by consumer advocacy non-profit Public Citizen.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, more commonly known as the “roadless rule”, was adopted in 2001 to limit development in roughly 45m acres of national forest. Industry interests and Republican representatives have long lobbied for the rule’s rescission, which would open up those swaths of untouched land to road construction, drilling and logging.

Published: September 1, 2026, 4:00 am

Uber to cut 3,300 corporate jobs in management overhaul

Company says it is slashing 10% of its workforce to make operations ‘simpler and faster’

• Uber drivers launch European class action over ‘soulless’ and ‘scary’ AI algorithm

Uber plans to cut its global workforce by about 10% as part of a major restructuring, slashing about 3,300 corporate jobs.

The boss of the US-based ride-hailing app, Dara Khosrowshahi, told staff Wednesday that the changes would create a “simpler and faster” business by cutting layers of management and merging teams. Uber also plans to ask more employees to work in the office.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:45 am

New York law requires hairdressers to learn how to work with all hair types

New law requires cosmetology classes to give instruction on all hair types from the kinkiest to the straightest

As of 1 September, a new law in New York state requires hairdressers studying cosmetology to be trained to work with all hair types.

“This is about equal access to service,” assembly member Michaelle Solages, who sponsored the law, said in a statement earlier this year. “No New Yorker should ever walk into a salon and be turned away or receive substandard care because of their hair texture. Now, with the adoption of this legislation, they won’t have to.”

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:38 am

Blackout risk rises as heatwave stresses largest US electric grids

US energy department warns of potential for outages in PJM Interconnection, serving 67 million from DC to Chicago

The risk ⁠of power outages ⁠is expected to ​escalate across a broad swath of the United States on Wednesday as intense heat will test the capacity of electricity supplies ⁠serving millions of homes and businesses from the midwest through the mid-Atlantic.

The US Department of Energy warned of the potential for heightened blackout risks in ⁠the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, which serves 67 million people in ​a territory stretching from Washington DC to ‌Chicago.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:16 am

Maltese tycoon found not guilty of involvement in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder

Yorgen Fenech cleared on both charges he faced over 2017 killing of journalist that prompted global outrage

One of Malta’s richest men has been found not guilty of involvement in the murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The verdict, which is expected to be appealed against by the prosecution, came as a blow not only to the victim’s family, but to the politicians and campaigners who regard the case as a landmark action in the fight to protect press freedom in Europe.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:26 pm

Bayeux tapestry loan symbolises ‘entente amicale’ between France and UK, says King Charles

Monarch tells Emmanuel Macron at the British Museum in London that the two nations will share a future ‘woven together’ by history and shared values

The loan of the Bayeux tapestry was “the best possible symbol” of the “entente amicale” between France and the UK, King Charles said, as he visited the famous embroidered masterpiece at the British Museum in London.

Though the tapestry recounts a conflict, “here it is today, nearly 1,000 years later, as a precious symbol of trust, at a time when trust seems sadly to be in short supply between nations,” he said.

Published: September 2, 2026, 11:58 am

Russian airspace becoming unsafe for commercial airlines, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine president says aviation industry needs to take account of growing number of Ukrainian drones in Russia

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared that Russia’s airspace is becoming unsafe for commercial airlines, as Vladimir Putin promised to increase strikes against Ukraine’s energy facilities in the run-up to winter.

The Ukrainian president said there was no intention to directly threaten civilian flights, but the growing number of attack drones being flown into Russia by Ukraine would have to be “taken into account” by the aviation industry.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:52 am

Swedish minister defends strict post-Brexit removals of Britons

Minister says Sweden has ‘fulfilled its commitments’ amid criticism of ‘unjust’ decisions such as case of Joyce Thomas

The Swedish government has doubled down on its position on removing and deporting British citizens on the grounds they were late to apply for permission to stay after Brexit.

The migration minister, Johan Forssell, issued a robust defence of the Swedish migration agency’s implementation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement on Wednesday in response to a question from an MP about the case of Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old British widow who has been ordered to leave the country after 21 years.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:59 am

‘Intoxicating mix of humour, high camp and danger’: Tim Curry remembered

Guardian readers share memories of actor best known for roles in The Rocky Horror Show and Stephen King’s It

I first saw him in the 1978 series Will Shakespeare, where he played Shakespeare alongside Nicholas Clay. Two very classy actors who, whatever the value of the programme, made me want to know more about the man and his work. Tim Curry always had a glorious glint in his eye which drew you in as if you were the only person who understood. Margaret Carradus, Lancaster

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:27 am

Joey Ramone smiling! And having fun! At the beach! Roberta Bayley’s best photograph

‘Joey didn’t surf. And he didn’t like this photo. He said, “You made my legs look thin.” Like it was my fault he had skinny legs’

The first band I ever saw were the Beatles, on 19 August 1964 at the Cow Palace Arena near San Francisco. I was 13. I remember every 29 minutes of it: 17,000 screaming girls making a deafening din and thousands of flashbulbs going off at once, lighting up the entire stadium. I’d been a Beatlemaniac since seeing a clip of them at the London Palladium on the Jack Paar show, then live on the Ed Sullivan show. I bought magazines with them in and wondered what kind of person took the photographs. So my first forays into photography were taking photographs of photographs of the Beatles with the primitive family Kodak.

When I was 15 I took a very basic photography class, but later, after three years of college, I dropped out, sold my Nikon and went to England. I started dating Ian Dury, then after we broke up, a friend gave me a one-way ticket to New York where I started going out with Richard Hell, whose band Television played CBGBs every Sunday night. Richard and I split up on good terms, and he asked me to take pictures of him. My first was the famous fake blood photo of the Heartbreakers, the band he formed with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan from the New York Dolls. Richard suggested captioning the poster “Catch them while they’re still alive” because they had a nefarious reputation.

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:46 am

Ink review – Danny Boyle turns the birth of the Sun into a lurid tabloid frenzy

Venice film festival
Jack O’Connell is terrific as editor Larry Lamb in James Graham’s tale of Rupert Murdoch, Page 3 and the newspaper that transformed Fleet Street

Danny Boyle presents us with a lurid, violent and thumpingly unsubtle movie full of Dutch angles, cartoony shocks and gargoyle closeups. It’s a chapter in the prehistory of modern media, adapted by James Graham from his 2017 stage play, filled with shame and fear and self-hate. It is in fact the story of the Sun newspaper, and how Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) bought the ailing minor title in the late 60s and hired a tough Yorkshire newspaperman, Larry Lamb, to turn it into a raucous and gleefully vulgar circulation powerhouse.

Ink summons up the energy and frenzy of tabloid papers of the era, but also – and not entirely intentionally – how strangely depressing they were. Audiences used to the super-rich anomie of the Roy family from TV’s Succession might find all this very unsexy. This is a world of officer-class Fleet Street execs having expense-account meals at Rules and the Savoy Grill in pinstripe suits, smoking and drinking and impassively writing salary offers on paper napkins and silently passing them across to each other. Meanwhile, the other ranks of journalists and print unions are covered in sweat and ink.

Published: September 2, 2026, 11:24 am

Fall 2: Deadpoint review – silly seat-edge sequel can’t reach heights of the original

There are just about enough hand-over-mouth moments to please thrill-seekers in this B-movie follow-up but eyerolls soon prevail

There was plenty of silliness but also plenty of suspense in 2022’s modestly successful don’t-look-down thriller Fall, a surprisingly well-made micro-budget marvel that ultimately found its audience on Netflix. While certain elements, such as the no-name leads and increasingly hokey script, might have made it seem like yet another churned out low-rent original for the streamer, it boasted more genuine thrills than we’ve come to expect there or really anywhere during this quantity over quality time for genre movies.

A sequel was financially inevitable (the original cost just $3m) but narratively questionable, given that the self-contained survival tale did not lend itself to the elasticity of a franchise. So here we are with Fall 2: Deadpoint, a palm-sweating formula regurgitated with only moderately jolting results. The first film saw two young women trying to get over the loss of a loved one by, naturally, climbing up an abandoned TV tower. So now the sequel has two young women trying to get over the loss of a loved one (who died in the first film) by, naturally, attempting a sky-high plank walk on the side of a mountain in Thailand. History then repeats itself when chaos strikes, this time courtesy of a rockslide, and our heroines have something more than grief to worry about.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Late Fame review – Willem Dafoe superb as ever as twilight-years bohemian getting a second chance

Samy Burch’s adaptation of an Arthur Schnitzler novella sees Dafoe’s ageing poet embraced by a younger cohort of capricious hipsters. It’s smart, literate and affecting

There’s a marvellous tenderness and generosity to this elegant tale of autumnal regret; an intimate movie acted with effortless grace by Willem Dafoe. In fact, this is yet another of his almost numberless performances of intelligence and self-possession. Screenwriter Samy Burch has adapted a novella by Arthur Schnitzler, which has been directed by critic turned film-maker Kent Jones (who in 2015 made Hitchcock/Truffaut, a documentary that I very much admired). Their movie finds a new variation on the Schnitzlerian theme of life’s lost opportunities for love, lust and success, and how, as mortality’s shadow closes in, one might be tempted to risk everything for a last chance at worldly triumph.

The main character here is a distant cousin – though a wiser cousin – to the doctor in Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle or Dream Story, filmed by Kubrick as Eyes Wide Shut. Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, an old guy in New York who works in the post office, sorting mail, perhaps without the means to retire, living solo in a small but book-filled room in a humble walkup, drinking and playing pool with his buddies in the evening. One day, Saxberger is astonished to be accosted by a dandyish young hipster outside his apartment building; this is Meyers (played by Edmund Donovan), who knows something about Saxberger that nobody else does. Saxberger was once a talented young poet in the 70s New York bohemian scene and Meyers has found his long since out-of-print volume of poems, entitled Way Past Go. He declares Saxberger a neglected genius that he, and his similarly callow and excitable literary friends, are going to take up.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:00 am

Turning Point: Generation 9/11 review – nothing about that day has lost its power to shock or harrow the soul

The attacks changed the world as we know it – and now, 25 years on, this heartbreaking Netflix film shares 9/11 recordings and memories from the bereaved that stop time in its tracks

It is 25 years since two planes, sent by Osama bin Laden as the head of the terrorist organisation al-Qaida, flew into the North and South Towers that comprised the World Trade Center, killing almost 3,000 people and changing the world as we know it.

I’m old enough to remember the day itself – I was a trainee lawyer in London and we watched the news unfold on a conference room television – which means I am also old enough to remember the world before it. But a quarter of a century on, it is taught in schools as a historical event. Can you believe it? No, because if you experience such a convulsive moment – even at the distance of being a television viewer in a different country – time bends around it and normal chronology becomes meaningless ever after. But that is only our perspective.

Published: September 2, 2026, 12:00 am

‘Everything countercultural is doomed, isn’t it?’​ Sofie Royer, the bracingly brilliant pop star pondering life’s big questions

Referencing Tarkovsky and French theory, the Austrian-Iranian singer is writing some of today’s wittiest music – though she’s ‘too pop for the art world, too indie-darling for the mainstream’

You wait ages for a brilliant pop song about film-making and then two come along at once. Following on from Charli xcx’s Camera comes Actress by Sofie Royer, with lyrics referencing rotoscoping, call sheets, screenplays, establishing shots, cinéma verité and more. “When the dust settles on your heart / I’d like to audition for the leading part,” she purrs over pumping disco, screwball-funny as she stacks up the metaphors to woo some Letterboxd-brained beau. “My mise-en-scène is flawless, don’t you know I’m quite adored / I’ll win you over in 35mm 4K-restored.”

It’s a typically smart and witty number from a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and, as it happens, aspiring actor, whose erudition and taste light up one of the best albums of the year, the forthcoming Before/After. Its lead single Cowboy Mouth is a recreation of a Sam Shepard play in song; another song makes a catchy funk-pop chorus from the word “sesquicentennial”. Her music is cosmopolitan enough to sit Italo disco next to new wave and garage rock, and across her discography there’s a big cast of cultural figures from Andrei Tarkovsky to Kenneth Anger, Luigi Mangione to Ivy Wolk, knowingness offset by her keen sense of humour.

Published: September 2, 2026, 5:08 am

From petrol pump attendant to Dylan-feted rocker and Judd Apatow muse: the delightfully unlikely life of Graham Parker

Fifty years ago Parker was hailed as rock’s next big thing, but he picked a different path: cult records, a Hollywood diversion, an aversion to stardom. Ahead of a UK tour, he looks back at his strange trajectory

To say Graham Parker enjoyed a swift rise to fame is an understatement. He played his first live show with his most famous backing band, the Rumour, in October 1975, at the Newlands Tavern, a pub in Nunhead, south-east London. By the start of the following year, he had a record deal and was in the studio recording his debut album, Howlin’ Wind. The buzz around him was such that the sessions were interrupted by the arrival of a succession of stars – Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott among them – intrigued to hear what the fuss was about: a petrol pump attendant from Surrey who sang like Van Morrison and had written a set of smart, sharp, literate songs in between filling up cars.

The record arrived in April 1976 to vast critical excitement, a lot of it occasioned by the album’s closing track, the reggae-influenced, attitude-laden Don’t Ask Me Questions. After Howlin’ Wind came out, followed in October by Heat Treatment, things ratcheted up another notch. Parker turned up in Australia to discover the media waiting for him and a press conference arranged in the airport: they had taken the amount of music press coverage Parker was receiving to mean he was “as big as Bruce Springsteen, which was insane”. Low down on a festival bill topped by Bob Dylan, he found himself backstage collared by the headline act, eager to tell Parker how much he loved his work. There also exists a photo of Parker in Los Angeles, with, of all people, Michael Jackson, but their meeting was apparently less successful. “I said to him: ‘Michael, great to meet you, I did a version of [Jackson 5 hit] I Want You Back recently.’ And he just sort of said: ‘Ooh.’ So that,” he laughs, “was the full extent of my conversation with Michael Jackson.”

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It’s more freaky, more balls to the wall’: how alt-country won over a new generation

From Waxahatchee and Florry in the US to Brown Horse and Little Grandad in the UK, a wave of young songwriters are reinvigorating the subgenre’s earnest emotion and twang

‘It’s so important to talk about this before it’s gone,” says Francie Medosch, singer, guitarist and songwriter of the band Florry, “because it’s really a flash in the pan.” The flash she means is a brief moment where it feels as though on both sides of the Atlantic, scores of exciting indie bands are playing something that, without slavish copying, has plainly drawn inspiration from alt-country, the music that emerged in the US in the late 1980s and early 90s, when former punks such as Uncle Tupelo – featuring future Wilco co-founder Jeff Tweedy – and the Bottle Rockets picked up picked up fiddles, banjos and acoustic guitars.

In the UK, Brown Horse and Vegas Water Taxi have the weeping pedal steel, in the former case tied to something very heartland and in the latter paired with a very English indie sensibility. Westside Cowboy and Little Grandad both borrow from the spiky rootsiness of early Wilco, while Wyatt play slacker country rock. Over in the US, where there’s always going to be more of this sort of thing, you can point to the current indie-rock holy trinity of Waxahatchee, Wednesday and MJ Lenderman, plus Florry, Ratboys, Thomas Dollbaum, Fust, SG Goodman, Lily Seabird, Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band and more.

Published: September 1, 2026, 3:14 am

The Bridge by Colm Tóibín review – betrayal and survival in the High Pyrenees

Deep sorrow mingles with illicit desire in this potent novella, the follow-up to a 2006 story about an isolated family in the Catalan mountains

Twenty years ago, Colm Tóibín published a steadily desolating novella set in the high villages of the Catalan Pyrenees. A woman walks out of her house and her life, starts along the mountain road and disappears in the snow. Her son Miquel, failing to find her body, waits through the dark months for the thaw. A Long Winter, which appeared in a standalone volume and then as the final story in the 2006 collection Mothers and Sons, followed Miquel through dramatically extreme circumstances and patient endurance. It was told with the most restrained prose ever likely to be employed for a son’s view of vultures circling a corpse.

Now, in The Bridge, a single year has passed in Miquel’s life and he is eking out an existence with his hurtful, unyielding father. The sheep are grazing their high summer pastures; a side hustle smuggling contraband brings in a little much-needed cash. In the bare conditions of the lonely farm, any warmth of feeling is a kind of contraband smuggled in by night; love between men is doubly illicit. The grave tenderness that grows between Miquel and his father’s maltreated servant Manolo gives The Bridge its emotional centre. These young men salve the emptiness with a few quiet words and touches. We sense their youthful beauty and resilience, their suppleness in a place of fixity.

Published: September 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings by Jared Diamond review – how to change the course of history

The author of Guns, Germs and Steel falters in this flawed study of whether individuals really make a difference

Early in this book, Jared Diamond proudly introduces “what I term ‘the Hamlet test’”, which helps decide whether prominent individuals really make a difference, or whether others might have done just as well. Among William Shakespeare’s contemporaries on the Elizabethan stage, he explains, were “Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster. But not even their best plays remotely approach in quality Hamlet and Shakespeare’s other masterpieces.” It follows, for Diamond, that Shakespeare was indeed “uniquely talented”: “We can be confident that no Elizabethan other than Shakespeare could have written a masterpiece like Hamlet if Shakespeare hadn’t done so.”

One obvious problem with this is that Marlowe was stabbed to death in a pub in Deptford in 1593 at the age of 29, having already written the absolute bangers Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine, as well as – so it is now thought – co-writing the Henry VI trilogy with the up-and-coming Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself did not begin to compose his major tragedies, including Hamlet, until he was a decade older. So we can’t rule out the possibility that, had Marlowe lived another 10 years, he would have matched or even exceeded his colleague’s genius. Scholars widely agree that Hamlet and Shakespeare’s other masterpieces were possible only thanks to the outsized influence of Marlowe.

Published: September 2, 2026, 1:00 am

The man who shaped Trump: book sheds fresh light on ruthless Roy Cohn

American Scoundrel tells story of McCarthy attack dog, mob lawyer and Trump mentor – will the president be thumbing its pages?

Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark have written a book Trumpworld doesn’t want you to read. Published on Tuesday, American Scoundrel is a propulsive, horrifying biography of Roy Cohn, the New York mob lawyer whose extraordinary life charted, as the book’s subtitle has it, a “Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump”.

“I told my publicist to reach out to any of the Fox News hosts and reporters, to Joe Rogan, Steve Bannon,” Bird said. “We haven’t gotten a peep, other than Joe Rogan. He said he looked at the galleys, and he got back to my publicist and said, ‘I’m not interested.’ I’m kind of surprised. This is a serious biography of the president’s mentor, whom he publicly admires and says he still misses.”

Published: September 1, 2026, 4:00 am

Emily Wilson to retranslate the Odyssey from scratch

Wilson, whose 2017 English translation of Homer’s epic poem inspired Christopher Nolan’s box office hit, is revisiting it after criticising the film adaptation

Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English, is to retranslate the ancient Greek epic poem from scratch less than a decade after the publication of her acclaimed version.

The announcement comes after Wilson attracted controversy this summer with a scathing assessment of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film adaptation of the Odyssey, which she slammed for its “abysmal” writing and lack of sex scenes.

Published: September 1, 2026, 8:09 am

Grand Theft Auto VI is a phenomenon – but there is much more to the gaming world

As Rockstar’s blockbuster prepares to dominate the headlines, it’s time for the mainstream media to stop treating video games as a novelty that needs explaining

Predictably, the Grand Theft Auto VI “extended look” which premiered on Netflix last week was a success for all involved. The 30-minute preview scorched to No 1 on the viewing chart and even brought the site down for a few minutes as millions of gamers tried to watch what was, effectively, a very long teaser trailer. According to data collated by Eurogamer, more than 9,000 Twitch streamers covered the show leading to 5,227,798 hours of viewing there alone. And this was just the beginning of what will surely be two months of escalating hype – and unprecedented media attention.

Call me cynical, but I suspect the coverage of GTA VI in the media over the next few weeks will follow a familiar pattern. Mostly, it will be five-minute slots wedged in near the end of news bulletins in which games journalists, industry analysts and other pundits will be asked why the game is such a big deal, how much it cost to make and how much revenue it will generate. Perhaps a few will try to reignite the hoary old “violence in video games” debate, there will be presenters laughingly admitting they’ve not touched a game since Pac-Man, rolling their eyes and wallowing in their ignorance, in a way they never would while discussing any other art form. Somebody will venture the subversive view that “games are no longer just for kids”; somebody else will say “games make more money than films and music put together”. And that will be that, job done for another decade … or until there’s a funny story about Pokémon.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Star Wars Zero Company review – joyfully absurd heroics with a tight-knit team of misfits

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Bit Reactor
Split priorities between scripted and emergent story moments hamper an otherwise brilliant Star Wars-themed successor to XCOM

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term “emergent storytelling”, you’ve likely experienced some of the unscripted tales that can bubble up out of a game’s systems. Perhaps you’ve led a scheming dynasty in Crusader Kings, or watched a favourite hero succumb to madness in Darkest Dungeon. Maybe you’ve surrendered yourself to the infinite yarn-spinner that is Dwarf Fortress – or read about it from the mid-00s forums where users helped popularise the term “Let’s Play” by chronicling their games in descriptive posts. Or perhaps you’ve played Firaxis’ XCOM, the alien invasion tactics hit that several key members of Zero Company studio Bit Reactor had a hand in.

Zero Company hinges on a concept as simple as it is perfect: take the complementary class abilities, tough dice rolls, and permanent character deaths of XCOM, and house them in a sci-fi setting known for spaghetti western blaster duels, last stands and heroic sacrifices. As creative director Greg Foertsch puts it, “Star Wars is about loss.” Which losses you end up mourning in Zero Company depends on you.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:00 am

Cassandra Wilson, Grammy-winning jazz singer, dies aged 70

Mississippi-born Wilson, who worked across folk, pop, R&B and country, was once dubbed America’s best singer

Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer has died. She was 70.

Dubbed America’s best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was best known for her genre-bending voice, which expanded the boundaries of traditional blues-based jazz and worked effortlessly across folk, pop, R&B, country and beyond. At the heart of all her work was her idiosyncratic contralto, a soulful sound distinctly tied to her roots.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:47 pm

Quidditch, Muggles, magic: new Harry Potter trailer gives full look at TV show

HBO’s extended trailer reveals more details of JK Rowling’s wizarding world coming to screens this Christmas

The second official trailer has been released for HBO’s forthcoming TV adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Starring newcomer Dominic McLaughlin in the lead role, the new trailer gives an extended look at life at Hogwarts and the challenges that Potter and the gang face in their first year at the school.

Published: September 2, 2026, 9:23 am

‘He’s a good man’: George Clooney defends Mark Ruffalo in Paramount-Warner Bros merger row

‘I worry whenever big companies are consolidating,’ Clooney said at Venice film festival, supporting Ruffalo’s right to criticise the deal amid antisemitism accusations

George Clooney has defended Mark Ruffalo’s right to criticise the proposed $111bn Paramount takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, saying he is concerned about the consequences of further consolidation in Hollywood.

Speaking in Venice ahead of receiving the festival’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, Clooney said he supported Ruffalo’s “ability to speak freely” about the proposed merger, while expressing his own doubts about the deal.

Published: September 2, 2026, 8:08 am

The Eyes Wide Shut conspiracy theory: did someone cut a crucial 20 minutes from Kubrick’s final movie?

For years some have claimed a key part of the thriller was excised after the director’s sudden death – and that it provided clues to the real-life behaviour of rich predators. Now, his daughter has spoken out

Name: The Eyes Wide Shut conspiracy

Age: The erotic psychological thriller Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (married at the time, though that isn’t so important now) was released in 1999.

Published: September 2, 2026, 7:58 am

‘If he can make money in a tyranny, that’s fine by him’: Francis Fukuyama on Trump, democracy - and changing his mind

The political thinker became famous for declaring the triumph of liberal democracy. Thirty-seven years on, he explains what he really meant and why he made the rare journey from right to left

There are not many public intellectuals who can say they’ve been cited by Capt James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, but Francis Fukuyama is one of them. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, William Shatner’s character is in a reflective mood, and speaks to the Klingon chancellor. “Some people think the future means the end of history,” Kirk muses. “Well, we haven’t run out of history quite yet.”

When the film came out in 1991 and in the years that followed, you’d often hear comments like that. They were nods to a thesis so famous it hardly needed spelling out. It debuted in a 15-page essay written by Fukuyama, then a 36-year-old thinktanker, which was published in the National Interest, a right-leaning journal of US foreign policy, in the summer of 1989. There was a question mark in the title: it was called The End of History?. In book form three years later, it became The End of History and the Last Man. But these were subtleties that, as we shall see, got lost.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:00 am

A moment that changed me: I had a panic attack on public transport – and it led me to a horrifying secret

For a decade I lived with a fear so bad that I once tried to climb out of a tube carriage while it was in motion. Then a hypnotherapist told me to ask my parents one very important question

In 2000, I had been living in London for just over a decade and working at EMI Records for five years. I had moved to Brixton from Surrey – where space and peace were generally abundant – in the late 80s, and I’d noticed I was becoming increasingly anxious and claustrophobic, particularly on public transport.

As things got progressively worse, I had a string of distressing panic attacks. Every time, it felt like the world around me was closing in. Then, in July 2003, during my daily commute between Brixton and the South Bank, I had a panic attack so intense I tried to climb out of the tube carriage doors. Thankfully, other passengers held me back until we arrived at the next platform – but I knew the problem was no longer something I could ignore.

Published: September 1, 2026, 10:45 pm

Upgrade your at-home coffee game with these easy fixes

Ditch the daily Starbucks and level up your coffee skill with these upgrades that promise a smoother sip

• Drip or instant? Our blind taste test and the best instant coffees

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Coffee simply tastes better at a cafe – and if you have found yourself using this sentiment to justify dropping $10 on a latte each morning, you are not alone.

It does not have to be this way. To help you upgrade your at-home coffee game, we interviewed baristas, tested 10 milk frothers, tried every model of the AeroPress coffee maker and conducted our own blind taste test pitting instant against drip.

Published: September 1, 2026, 12:15 pm

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: swot up with these lessons in back-to-school dressing

September is the most fun time of year to shop, but it can also be dangerously seductive. Keep your wits about you with these tips

I used to love back-to-school shopping when my children were little. The miniature highlighter pens, the name labels, those pop-out pencil cases from Smiggle, even the intergenerational wrangling over when the price of a water bottle becomes unreasonable. I love the ceremony of new beginnings. The curtain-raising drama of it all.

Luckily for me, you don’t have to grow out of back-to-school shopping even though your children do, because in fashion September is considered the start of the new year. This is eminently sensible, because this time of year is a much better moment for a restart than January. The actual new year is dark and bleak and makes resolutions and projects feel intimidating rather than exciting. But right now, the evenings are still light, and while I’ve still got a bit of a tan pretty much anything feels possible.

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Gingers of America: portraits of people with ginger hair across the US

For his latest in a series of work photographing people with red hair, photographer Kieran Dodds interviewed and made portraits of hundreds of people with ginger hair, with widely varying backgrounds and heritage, across the US between 2024 and 2026. Dodds asked each interviewee the same question at the end of the interview: What unites the states? We hear some of the responses

• A new book of this work is available to preorder here

‘Although almost everyone featured in the project is ginger, it is not really about hair. It is structured around themes raised time and again in the conversations I had with portrait sitters, and which I reflected on during my travels in the states’ – Kieran Dodds

Published: September 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

Chasing Freedom: a poignant reflection on empire, education and parental expectations

Simukai Chigudu’s filmic memoir details the confines and conflicts of growing up in Zimbabwe during political turmoil.

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Last week, I finally managed to snatch one read out of the jaws of a hectic summer. On a series of very long-haul flights (highly recommended as a way to break reading droughts), I fell into the world of Simukai Chigudu’s Chasing Freedom: Coming of Age at the End of Empire. I finished the book just as I was landing in Nairobi, Kenya. In a daze, I stepped on to the tarmac in the chill of equatorial winter.

The book was about growing up in post-colonial Zimbabwe and navigating life between the ex-colonised and the ex-colonial power. But the account of Chigudu’s life also captured, in ways that sometimes left me breathless with the shock of recognition, what felt like a broader shared experience for those of us born to parents whose traumas we never understood. This week, I reflected on how Chigudu’s experience connects to that of a wider post-colonial African generation.

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:42 am

No eggs, no potatoes but ‘a lot of imagination’: how Spain cooked in war’s hunger years

Book recreates recipes from period following end of Spanish civil war when people faced food shortages

Few dishes are simpler to prepare than Spain’s signature dish of tortilla de patatas, which – aside from disputes about onions – requires nothing more than two basic ingredients and a pinch of salt. But where to begin if you have neither eggs nor potatoes?

That is the question the chef and food writer Berta Álvarez Acal sets out to answer in Recetas de Guerra (Wartime Recipes), a compilation of recipes covering the years of hunger after the end of the Spanish civil war in 1939.

Published: September 2, 2026, 2:00 am

Whisky galore – and now plenty more besides: exploring the Scottish island of Islay

Distilleries are the backbone of Islay’s economy and tourist trade. Thanks to their success, other businesses – from breweries and farms to restaurants and chocolatiers – are now thriving and adding to the island’s appeal

The Paps of Jura disappear into the mist as I pedal along the shores of Loch Indaal, and the rain cloud I’ve been racing finally catches up. I stash my hire bike at Port Charlotte youth hostel, quickly change and make it to Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen just before the downpour.

I’m soon warmed, by the welcome then by a bowl of creamy fish chowder. “We’ve plenty of fresh seafood just in,” is all the temptation I need to order the seafood plate. It’s a bowl for one, but a hungry one, and soon I’m picking and cracking my way through piles of fat langoustines and crab claws, with hot whisky-butter scallops and plenty of bread and butter.

Published: September 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

Four Maga defectors on what led them to walk away: ‘I’d been addicted to fear and rage’

Ex-Maga supporters unpack their role in bolstering Trump’s platform and share what brought them to the Leaving Maga non-profit support network

• Life after Maga: the group offering an ‘exit ramp’ for rightwingers questioning Trumpism

Since Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign a decade ago, “Make America Great Again” (Maga) has evolved from a slogan into an identity, one that claims to center conservative, “America first” values and relies on lies and conspiracy theories to stay afloat. And while Maga has survived impeachments, indictments and a lost election, some devotees are walking away – and doing so loudly.

Rich Logis, a former Trump campaign volunteer, left Maga in 2022, publishing a public apology to help others see that it was OK to challenge the movement. The overwhelming response led him to found the non-profit Leaving Maga, a network of support groups and meetups for people to unpack their role in bolstering Trump’s platform. Logis said he doesn’t persuade people to leave; he just gives them a place to land when they do. The group’s billboard campaign, now running in 27 states, is built around a simple message: “Having doubts? You are not alone.”

Published: September 1, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Demonic oppression’ and ‘girly convos’: the podcast wooing young women back to Christianity

Girls Gone Bible is on tour in the US, touting a regressive ideal of femininity through discussions of abstinence and mental health struggles

At first glance, the crowd gathering outside a music venue in Red Bank, New Jersey, could have passed for a group of sorority rush hopefuls – or Ella Langley fans on their way to the country star’s show. Most of them were under the age of 30. They wore cowboy boots, maxi sundresses and soft, bouncy blowouts, scrolling on their phones outside the doors as they waited for friends to arrive.

But one accessory gave them away: the Bibles they toted. These women were there to pray.

Published: September 1, 2026, 5:00 am

The year of Domhnall Gleeson: ‘No one talks about actors’ dedication. But I had a perm for five months!’

He started in the Harry Potter films and has since become ubiquitous, playing every type of character: romcom leads, evil villains, comical idiots. He even starred in a Taylor Swift video. So how does he stay so under the radar?

Domhnall Gleeson has got so much new stuff coming up, someone recently joked that this was the “summer of Domhnall”. Now the phrase is all over the internet, and Gleeson is mortified: “The worry is that somebody will say this to me now thinking that I believe it.” He doesn’t know where it came from – possibly his co-star Gayle Rankin on his new movie The Incomer. “It’s certainly not something I’m trying to push … but it would be great if it could be the headline.”

He’s in a good mood when we meet at a London hotel on a hot afternoon. You could say he’s good at interviews – charming, funny, garrulous, the perfect chatshow guest. He could just be acting, admittedly, but he seems to be a genuinely good-natured, grounded sort of guy.

Published: September 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

Back to school in Cuba and a volcanic eruption: photos of the day – Wednesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Published: September 2, 2026, 6:13 am