Brentford v Tottenham: Premier League – live

⚽ New-look Spurs make short trip to Brentford. 5.30pm (BST) KO
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The teams are out! Brentford wear their red and white stripes, while Spurs are in their blue, pink, purple and many more colours away kit. According to the marketing blurb, which presumably took upwards of 30 seconds to write, these are “never-before-seen visuals inspired by never-before-seen destinations”. They haven’t even tried to make anything up. No spurious allusions to local industry, significant figures, bus routes? Proper feet-on-the-desk vibes there. Anyway, we’ll be off in a minute.

Roberto De Zerbi speaks to Sky. “We have big confidence because all three [debut defenders] are very important players with experience and qualities … we have no problem with them … [Archie Gray, stand-in captain for the day] is very young but has a big personality … he deserves to be captain today … we do not have the complete squad today … but no excuses … the quality is enough to complete … [Brentford] have a clear style … very strong … we have to adapt … the Premier League is a very tough competition and we have to play in our way.”

Published: August 22, 2026, 10:56 am

Is this the end of Harry and Meghan’s American dream?

The Sussexes are returning to the UK with significantly reduced media deals in an industry where fame alone can no longer guarantee success

Having settled in California in the aftermath of their dramatic decoupling from the royal family in 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced a partnership that appeared to set a clear destination for their new lives outside the House of Windsor.

With every global media stable clamouring for their signature, the couple revealed a deal with Netflix reportedly worth $100m. The ambitions were lofty and broad, including scripted and unscripted projects, shows for all ages and documentaries.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

Trump’s new attorney general poses a huge threat to abortion rights | Moira Donegan

A call revealing Todd Blanche’s plans to crack down on mifepristone lays bare the danger

The abortion pill is a miracle. Mifepristone, then called RU-486, was synthesized by a French lab in the 1980s; in combination with misoprostol, commonly used as ulcer medication, it cuts off the body’s supply of progesterone, halts the development of a pregnancy, and incites contractions, which empty the uterus. The drug allows pregnancies to be terminated with a shocking degree of reliability and ease. Gone are the concoctions of ergot and Spanish Fly dispensed by 19th century midwives, which only sometimes worked to induce a miscarriage; gone are the backroom procedures of the pre-Roe US, when drunk, lascivious, incompetent or cruel providers wielded bent coat hangers in dirty rooms. The abortion pill is safe, effective and cheaper than ever. And since Dobbs, it’s everywhere: even if you live in a state with an abortion ban, you can get the pills shipped to your house in the mail. Since Roe was overturned, there has not been a return to the terror of mass death that marked the pre-Roe era of septic abortion wards, where women routinely found themselves maimed, sickened or killed. There’s exactly one reason why: because illegal abortions were largely unsafe without the pill, and they are extremely safe with it.

So of course, the Trump administration and their allies on the American right are trying to get rid of it. And this month, they gained a powerful new ally when Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and an anti-abortion zealot, was confirmed as attorney general.

Published: August 22, 2026, 4:00 am

‘It exists only for pleasure’: does ice-cream have a future in the age of wellness fads and weight-loss drugs?

As fitness-conscious consumers turn away from processed foods, the industry is scrambling for new ideas, including nutrient-rich lollies and protein-packed tubs. Will they take the fun out of this summer treat?

Last month, I stood in the biggest ice-cream factory in Britain and watched a 5-metre Viennetta mint-flavoured ice-cream cake get made. The factory – which is owned by the Magnum Ice Cream Company and produces nine different brands of ice-cream – is based in an enormous building in Gloucester, where the air is thick with the scent of custard. I walked past the Twister and Solero sections on my way in, through clouds of tangy fruit, before arriving at the Viennetta assembly line, where everything smelled minty fresh. A Viennetta is built on a conveyor belt by a fully automated system, and watching it take shape was oddly hypnotic. Every few inches a nozzle attached to the belt squirted out a frilly layer of mint ice-cream, then another nozzle smoothed a flat layer of vanilla on top of that, then came a squirt of chocolate sauce, and it was back to frilly mint again. On and on it went, layer upon layer, popping out finished Viennettas at the end of the line at a rate of 200 cakes every 60 seconds.

A slop bucket full of Viennetta overrun stood at the side of the conveyor belt and I fought a strong urge to squelch my fingers into it. Later, the factory operations manager allowed me to push my whole hand into the slop bucket up to the wrist and then lick my hand at a sink, before washing it and resuming the tour.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

A bridge too far? Why link to Sicily is still a dream despite 2,000 years of plans

Roman dream of building structure over strait of Messina has been revived by officials, despite claims it is unworkable and protests from locals

For more than 2,000 years, it has been an obsessive dream: a plan to link the Mediterranean Sea’s largest island to mainland Italy. It began with the Romans, who, according to Pliny the Elder, built a bridge of boats and barrels across the strait of Messina in 251BC to transport 140 war elephants captured from the Carthaginians.

Centuries later, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini embraced the same vision, followed by rightwing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who made the bridge a flagship project. Then, in 2022, after being appointed Italy’s infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini revived the mythic ambition, claiming that the ferry crossings “cost people more in a year than it would cost to build the bridge”.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

Blind date: ‘There was a mature, polite peck on departure at a busy Manchester Piccadilly station’

Susan, 74, a retired careers adviser, meets Pete, 72, a retired Methodist minister

What were you hoping for?
A relaxed, friendly lunch with good and fun conversation.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

US kindergarten vaccination rates dip as exemptions hit record high

New CDC data shows MMR vaccination among kindergarteners declining slightly as non-medical exemptions climb to 4.2%

A week after Donald Trump made a series of misleading claims about vaccines – including that some injections look “like the size of a soda bottle” – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the latest data on national kindergarten vaccination rates.

CDC communications downplayed the changes – a three-sentence announcement said, “overall vaccination rates among kindergarteners remained high” – but medical experts immediately saw cause for concern in the trends.

Published: August 22, 2026, 4:00 am

Canada vows ‘dollar for dollar’ response as US puts 50% tariffs on some goods

Collapse of trade talks could lead to job losses, but biggest impact on traditional allies is expected to be political

The US has imposed 50% tariffs on some goods from Canada, and the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has vowed to match them “dollar for dollar” after the collapse of trade talks.

The tariffs came into force on about $20bn (£14.6bn) of goods – ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors – at 04.00 GMT. Trade experts said the tariffs could result in some job losses, but the largest impact is expected to be political, driving a further wedge between the traditional allies.

Published: August 22, 2026, 7:04 am

Former British and French diplomats urge action over Israel’s ‘erasure’ of Palestine

In letter to Macron and Burnham, more than 100 senior figures accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and call for measures including trade ban

More than 100 French and British former diplomats have said Palestine is being erased in front of the world’s eyes and called for urgent action including trade and arms sales bans to press Israel to accept a Palestinian state.

An unprecedented joint letter dispenses with diplomatic language by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and warning that the world no longer sees Israel as a genuine democracy.

Uphold the decisions of the international court of justice and the international criminal court.

Suspend the EU-Israel association agreement and the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement for breach of human rights provisions.

Suspend arms transfers to and from Israel and all bilateral military cooperation.

Insist on unrestricted aid access to Gaza, led by the UN Relief and Works Agency, other UN agencies and international NGOs, with consequences for non-compliance, and access too for journalists, diplomats and parliamentarians.

Ban all trade with settlements, including goods, investment, insurance and other financial services.

Warn potential bidders for the “red line” E1 settlement or other settlement financing/construction that their interests in and with the UK and France will suffer.

Make it an offence for British and French citizens to buy property on stolen Palestinian land and remove charitable status from “charities” funding settlements.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

ICE agent jailed on allegations of breaking into ex-girlfriend’s apartment

Thomas Bailey, 58, faces charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling near Covington, Louisiana

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer was jailed on Friday on allegations of breaking into a woman’s apartment.

Thomas Bailey, 58, faces a charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling after his arrest by the sheriff’s office of St Tammany parish, Louisiana, the agency said in a statement.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

Nebraska school district asks police to stop using shock gloves on students

Omaha police agreed to stop carrying electric shock gloves in the halls of state’s largest public school district

Omaha police recently agreed to stop carrying gloves that can deliver electric shocks to students in the halls of Nebraska’s largest public school district.

The decision affecting most Omaha middle and high schools came after the Associated Press first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s plan to give officers the “Gloves” – or “generated low output voltage emitters”. The devices have also been used in recent years by some jails.

Published: August 22, 2026, 7:00 am

Free speech group calls foul play at prosecutors using Comey novel in case against him

PEN America condemns lawyers using passage from thriller to bolster claim ex-FBI director intended to harm Trump

A leading US free-expression group has hit out at federal prosecutors’ use of a novel written by former FBI director James Comey in their case accusing him of threatening to kill Donald Trump.

“Citing a novel to save an indictment that is constitutionally dubious is a desperate Hail Mary and should be rejected,” said a statement posted on Friday by Mara Gassmann, legal director of PEN America, using a term for a last-second heave in American football.

Published: August 22, 2026, 9:32 am

Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta’s alleged strategy laid out in first week of landmark trial

In trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children’s privacy

Meta’s business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company.

The owner of Facebook and Instagram “hooks” in users, “holds” them on its platforms for as long as possible, “harvests” their data and then “hides” the truth from the public, she argued.

Published: August 22, 2026, 1:00 am

Indiana residents endure 11th day without power after storms topple power lines

33,124 residents still in the dark as utility company says it is working to restore power in north-west of state

Thousands of residents of north-west Indiana on Saturday were headed for their 11th day without electric power after storms swept through the state, toppling trees and power lines, earlier in August.

The powerless conditions have led to food lines, closed businesses, dead phones, no schools, spoiled food, dirty clothes, dry gas pumps and a multitude of other deleterious effects on life without energy.

Published: August 22, 2026, 8:08 am

40,000 bottles of eye drops across the US recalled over issues with sterility of product

Prestige Brand Holdings has voluntarily recalled a batch of its Clear Eyes eye drops after FDA alert

Nearly 40,000 bottles of eye drops are being pulled from store shelves across the US over concerns about potential contamination, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Prestige Brand Holdings, based in Tarrytown, New York, has voluntarily recalled 39,060 bottles of Clear Eyes Maximum Itchy Eye Relief eye drops because of a “lack of assurance of sterility”, an FDA enforcement report states. The FDA classified the action as a Class II recall, defined on the agency’s website as a moderate-risk situation “in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote”.

Published: August 22, 2026, 8:44 am

Persuasion, denial and bluster: Trump ‘stuck’ on Iran war ahead of elections

As the president tries to extract the US from his Iran war quagmire, leadership in Tehran is only too happy to crush his midterm dreams

In the aftermath of his devastating election defeat, the US president remained haunted by regrets over Iran.

Months before Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, eight US servicemen died in a botched high-risk rescue mission that failed to secure the freedom of dozens of US hostages seized in Tehran.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

Trump says he views strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

President at rally in South Carolina makes comments on key strategic waterway and jokes about bombing Iran

Donald Trump called the strait of Hormuz “an American territory” on Friday, as the US continues its military blockade of Iran’s shipping and ports while Trump’s administration struggles to end its war with the country.

“We don’t even know if we won, because I view the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now,” Trump said, addressing a crowd in South Carolina. He was campaigning for senator Darline Graham, who is running to permanently fill her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat.

Published: August 21, 2026, 6:24 pm

Pentagon fires publisher and editor of US military news outlet Stars and Stripes

Max Lederer and Erik Slavin receive termination notices after publication reported on crew conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln

The Pentagon has fired the publisher and the editor of Stars and Stripes, the US military news outlet that has clashed with the Trump administration and armed forces brass over its partly taxpayer-funded reporting.

Publisher Max Lederer and editor Erik Slavin received termination notices, CBS News reported on Friday. The cause cited was insubordination, and they have been given five days to appeal against their dismissals.

Published: August 21, 2026, 1:10 pm

Trump threatens $5bn lawsuit over liberal national guard policy report

A report released by thinktank Cap argues the deployment of the national guard failed to have a measurable impact on crime, despite costing billions

The Center for American Progress (Cap) received a letter from Donald Trump’s lawyer threatening a $5bn lawsuit unless the liberal research organization retracts a report criticizing the effectiveness of the president’s National Guard rollout.

The report released 13 July argues that the National Guard deployment in Washington DC, Memphis and Los Angeles failed to have a measurable impact on crime in these cities despite an estimated cost of $1.7bn. The report looks at the falling rate of crime in cities without a National Guard intervention and concludes that they are not statistically different from the rate of decrease in those that had the intervention, noting that violent crime began falling well before Trump took office in 2025.

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:49 pm

US supreme court lets Trump continue work on White House ballroom for now

Chief justice signs temporary order to permit work while court considers emergency appeal from administration

The US supreme court has allowed Donald Trump to continue construction of his controversial White House ballroom for now, temporarily pausing a lower court order that would halt much of the project.

Supreme court chief justice John Roberts signed a temporary order on Friday, permitting work to continue on the planned White House addition – a top priority of the president – while the court considers an emergency appeal from Trump’s administration.

Published: August 21, 2026, 1:48 pm

A mosque in Ohio was attacked for the third time. Members doubt Trump’s FBI will call it a hate crime

Latest attack happened amid Islamophobic blowback against Arab and Muslim Americans running for office

Nashid Shakir describes how assailants used wire cutters to break into the Westwood Islamic Community Center in the early hours of 3 August.

“They cut the wire and broke the window to get in. They broke into the office, too. It was total disarray,” says Shakir, a board member, and member, at the community center since the 1960s.

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:00 am

Lindsay Clancy trial: everything that happened this week in court

Outcome of trial of a Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children may come down to witness testimony

The trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children in January 2023, will likely head to the jury next week to decide if she is guilty of murder or was suffering from postpartum psychosis and should not be held criminally responsible.

The outcome may come down to expert witness testimony – and there have been many – but the trial will be remembered for the spotlight it put on maternal health care in the United States. Defense lawyer Kevin Reddington has said that, in addition to postpartum psychosis, Clancy also had bipolar disorder and was overmedicated.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

He has a work permit, a coffee shop – and an ICE ankle monitor: ‘Is this America?’

Business owner Assim Alkhawaja was arrested by ICE as he dropped off Lyft passengers at a military base. Now he’s stuck in a terrifying fight to stay in the US

Deep within the bowels of San Diego’s federal courthouse, Assim Alkhawaja sat on the floor outside a nondescript office, waiting to be called for his ICE-mandated immigration appointment. He stared straight ahead, his posture tense, his face a mask.

The hallway was brown, as was the carpet. Above Alkhawaja’s head hung a framed stock photo of a waterfall. A few paces away, official government signs encouraged people without legal status to self-deport. “Leave on your own terms,” they read, in several languages. “Claim a free flight and an exit bonus for each member of your family.”

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:00 am

Charter plane crashes amid heavy fog in Alaska, killing all eight onboard

‘Civilian-contracted aircraft’ crashes in western Alaska killing two pilots and six passengers, officials say

A charter aircraft that crashed at a remote radar site in western Alaska on Thursday, killing all eight people onboard, was making its second runway approach in heavy fog when it lost contact, authorities said Friday.

The Cessna’s two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed about midday Thursday, Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region chief, told a virtual news conference.

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:12 pm

‘Darth Vader’ comes out in favor of Flock cameras at San Diego city council meeting

The dark lord – or someone dressed like him – said the technology would aid the empire in tracking ‘rebel scum’

A man dressed as Darth Vader appeared to poke fun at San Diego officials for using Flock Safety automated license plate readers at a city council meeting this week, a stunt that comes as the company faces growing backlash linked to spying concerns.

The man, whose real identity remains unknown, masqueraded on Thursday as the Star Wars villain at a San Diego public safety committee meeting.

Published: August 21, 2026, 2:58 pm

Stand By Me at 40: Rob Reiner’s seminal coming-of-age saga remains a bittersweet triumph

The late director’s sensitive and detailed adaptation of Stephen King’s novella has an authenticity that so many imitators could never replicate

Coming-of-age metaphors don’t get any blunter than a group of preteen boys following a set of railroad tracks to a classmate’s dead body, a sobering testament to the fragility of life and a sign that their own futures are not guaranteed. The Stephen King novella that would become Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me is simply called The Body, and there’s no doubt that commercial considerations factored into naming the film after the song that blankets the soundtrack. Yet the enduring magic of Reiner’s film lies in the tension between this bleak journey and the nostalgia and warmth that keeps complicating our feelings about it. Between those two poles is a bittersweet tone that perfectly suits the material, the rare example of an adaptation that benefits from softened edges.

Though Reiner kicked off his career on a legendary heater that opened with This is Spinal Tap and would go on to include The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally … and A Few Good Men, Stand By Me was just his third feature and an early showcase of his versatility. His deft comic touch is not only essential in maintaining tonal balance, but important in suggesting what these four wayward boys mean to each other. Between the loose talk about Annette Funicello’s expanding bust on The Mickey Mouse Club and a Wurlitzer soundtrack of novelty singles like Lollipop and Yakety Yak, it can be easy to forget the anger, pain and dread that’s always simmering close to the surface. They laugh to keep from crying and occasionally don’t succeed.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

Diamonds for sale: lab-grown gem auctions are all over TikTok right now, but some aren’t happy about it

Streamed auctions offer a cheap way to buy the precious gems, but experts warn that quality is not guaranteed

The first time Andrea Greenhill came across a livestream auction for lab-grown diamonds while scrolling on TikTok, she was stunned. While the diamond engagement ring her husband proposed with years ago had cost thousands of dollars, these loose lab-grown diamonds were selling in seconds at a fraction of the price.

“I have two rings that are both natural diamonds and cost a fortune,” she said. I saw the prices they were going for in the auctions, and I was like, “This is insanity.’”

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:00 am

'Cheese paper' will double the life of your cheddar. We lab-tested nine storage solutions

If you want to maintain the integrity of your camembert, specialty products work – but you may already have a solution at home

• The Anyday glass food containers transformed how I store leftovers

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Fine cheeses can easily cost more per pound than steak, so unwrapping a long-anticipated treat to discover a science experiment gone wrong can be horrifying. A perfectly ripe cheese can be a transcendent eating experience, but what is the best way to manage that aging window? Storing cheese improperly can negatively affect taste and texture, and can hasten the growth of bad mold. Proper storage can preserve the product for weeks and even go so far as to encourage the good, naturally occurring mold to grow back.

By keeping factors such as moisture retention, breathability and flavor impact in mind, you can store cheese to keep it tasting as good as possible, for as long as possible. So is cheese storage really necessary? In short, yes, depending on your habits. If you’re looking to give your Humboldt Fog double the shelf life, then forget what you know about cheese storage and take a look at some of the products below.

Published: August 22, 2026, 10:15 am

‘It’s pretty much a guarantee you’ll get stung’: jellyfish keep swimmers off Delaware beaches

Beach patrols report hundreds of stings a day as warmer waters and drought create favorable conditions for jellyfish

An unusually high number of jellyfish are crowding Delaware’s beaches this summer amid climate change and other environmental factors – keeping some beachgoers out of the ocean and stinging lifeguards as well as bathers.

Beach safety patrols in the state have reported hundreds of daily stings as the jellyfish have increased with intensifying environmental factors, including warmer waters, hot and dry conditions, and water circulation favorable to the invertebrates.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

Four blokes and a zebra crossing: the banality and beauty of the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover

Much-copied and parodied picture captures dynamic between the individuals and the band with eerie perfection

It’s not really the four blokes on the zebra crossing who make the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road memorable, but the street behind them. Vanishing towards a perfect blue sky, with summer trees veiling in bright green what might otherwise be dour brick houses, it could be a hyperreal vista painted by David Hockney. The black and white stripes of the crossing and the white line down the middle of the receding north London road are fresh and crisp, enhancing the clarity of this psychedelic daydream.

Of course the four blokes do play a part. The Beatles were so transcendently famous by the time Iain Macmillan took this picture on 8 August 1969 that seeing them do something as ordinary as cross the road becomes a magical mystery.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

The faces behind the feeds: Gen Z’s private lives and public posts – in pictures

For the first digital natives, there are two places to express yourself: in the comfort of your own room and online. Photographer Niccolò Rastrelli set out to find out how the identities compare

Social media arrived just as I, a younger millennial, was on the brink of teenhood. My friends and I signed up for accounts on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, as well as less remembered sites such as the now defunct Bebo. We didn’t know what we were doing; no one did. We posted indiscreet messages and photos on public feeds that we wouldn’t want any future employer – or really anyone, for that matter – to see. Then gradually we, and our parents and their parents, too, learned what it means to live with that world-changing phenomenon that we term social media. We started to find different ways to adapt, a process that is ongoing.

But what is the experience like for gen Z, the first generation of “digital natives”, for whom the language of the internet is a mother tongue? That is the question that led the Italian photographer Niccolò Rastrelli to embark on the project IRL (the online acronym, of course, for a phrase denoting our offline existences: in real life).

Published: August 22, 2026, 4:00 am

‘Digging the grave of my profession’: the Hollywood creatives training AI to do their jobs

Amid a jobs slump, award-winning writers, directors and producers taking on sometimes lucrative temp work teaching AI skills such as screenwriting and production

Hollywood creatives are taking gig work to train AI models to replicate their skills in a bid to offset tightening earnings in a trend one compared to being “handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession”.

Experienced and award-winning writers, directors and producers are being paid from $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the intricacies of their jobs, from writing a screenplay to devising a shooting schedule.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

Lindsay Clancy killed her children. Why do many women support her? – Stateside with Kai and Carter

The trial of Lindsay Clancy, a former nurse accused of murdering her three children, is wrapping up its fifth week. On Friday morning, the defense rested, and the public attention to the case is at a fever-pitch — especially on social media. Clancy, 36, does not deny that she strangled her children, but has pleaded not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, also known as an insanity defense. She argues that she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis, a rare and devastating condition that can go unrecognized and untreated. Host Carter Sherman speaks with Jenna Amatulli, deputy head of news for Guardian US, about how the case has renewed attention on the fundamental shortcomings in the US's maternal healthcare system, and about why Clancy's story has captivated – and polarized – so many people

Published: August 21, 2026, 1:45 pm

It’s a miracle: Natalie Harp has turned Republicans into feminists | Arwa Mahdawi

A Democrat’s remarks have resulted in impassioned defenses of the Trump aide. The right has discovered misogyny

Jon Ossoff is quite the miracle worker. Perhaps the Democratic senator can’t turn water into wine, but he has managed to turn whining conservatives into impassioned feminists.

During a rally last Sunday, the Georgia senator delivered a takedown of Donald Trump, which included a reference to his aide Natalie Harp. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said of the president. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:00 am

Would even an AI disaster on the scale of Hiroshima be enough to make humankind protect itself? I fear not | Timothy Garton Ash

It’s clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans’ ability to control it. That means even sober prophecies seem optimistic

Here in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we’ll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. “Welcome to the foothills of the singularity,” as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as “recursive self-improvement” – the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans.

As Robert Wright puts it in his book The God Test: “Never before has the near-term future … held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative.” But will this be heaven or hell? Heaven, says Elon Musk, who predicts “an age of amazing abundance” – although he also sees a 10-20% chance of killer robots murdering us all. Hell is more likely according to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the intellectual founding fathers of AI. “My intuition is, we’re toast,” he told an interviewer in 2023. And talking to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, a book about the quest for superintelligence, Hinton estimates p(doom) – the probability of human extinction – at 50%, “because I haven’t got a clue how to estimate the real number”. “As soon as evolution [of AI] kicks in, we’re fucked,” he adds cheerfully. But whether it’s God or Godzilla, artificial superintelligence is just around the corner.

Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

Why am I called The Black Farmer? Because there are so few of us in Britain. I’d like that to change | Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

Running a farm is tough – TV’s Clarkson’s Farm shows that – but I know many minorities would love the chance. And we would all benefit

Who’d be a farmer? Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon is great entertainment but it also gives some indication of the stresses and challenges behind the farm gate. Would anyone who lacked the significant alternative income that Clarkson is lucky to have want that? Well, actually, yes.

I’m an entrepreneur who owns a farm, as opposed to hands-on running the small one I bought 25 years ago, but as I look around the industry, I’m struck by a significant fact: the very reason I can be known as the Black Farmer is because I am such a rarity that it makes me readily identifiable.

Published: August 22, 2026, 1:00 am

It’s Harry and Meghan in Finding Freedom 2: Back in Blighty | Marina Hyde

Hard to fathom exactly why Megxit is over and the self-exiled wonder generators are leaving California. Luckily, the internet sleuths are on the case

Wednesday night brought an absolute cloudburst of psychic rain for our parched land, as it emerged that Prince Harry and Meghan were reversing their self-styled “freedom flight” to California and returning to live in the UK. Nature is healing! Is that … is that how the expression goes? Either way, all humans in Britain have taken the announcement brilliantly, while fatted calf prices climbed steeply at the news that the reverse Megxit is imminent, with only an adequate headline soubriquet yet to be found. Megain? Megraine?

Inevitably, thoughts turned swiftly to what it all meant. One of the funniest aspects of Meghan and Harry coverage is how their decisions are always analysed as though we were parsing the 4D chess moves of 19th-century master strategists. We are forever imagining we are dealing with a couple of Bismarcks or Clausewitzes, as opposed to a resting actor and the “chief impact officer” of a firm designed to offer tech-based solutions to men crying in their cars or something.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:42 am

Samuel Ojo on the stages of summer holiday denial – cartoon

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Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

I worked at OpenAI. Here are the guardrails we need now | Miles Brundage

I understand the pressure on AI companies to rush forward. But employees are right to be concerned

Last month, more than a thousand employees at frontier AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to find a way to “pace” AI development, citing the risk of the technology spiraling out of human control as it begins to build itself.

They were right to be concerned: just days earlier, two AI models that OpenAI was testing internally escaped the test environment, then autonomously hacked the company Hugging Face and at least three other online services. A few days after that, Anthropic announced that some of their models had also broken out and hacked other companies during testing.

Published: August 21, 2026, 3:00 am

With ICC sanctions, Trump wants to make the world safe for war criminals | Kenneth Roth

The US is engaged in a lawless quest to protect American and Israeli officials

The Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the international criminal court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists – now 13 – does not change the lawless nature of this quest.

Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them.

Published: August 21, 2026, 5:00 am

The Guardian view on the export of fossils: they deserve national treasure status | Editorial

Scientific specimens are being sold to foreign museums or snapped up by the super-rich. They should have the same legal protections as works of art

As Sir David Attenborough has observed, “there’s nothing more magical than finding a shiny shell and knowing you’re the first person to have seen it for 150 million years”. Senior museum figures are campaigning for fossils to be classed as national treasures, according to the Waverley criteria, which control the export of objects considered culturally important to the nation. But the rules only cover natural treasures that are “made”, excluding fossils.

These calls come after a private collection from the Jurassic Coast was sold to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi for a reported eight-figure sum. Both the Natural History Museum in London and Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales) were offered the 318 fossils, but they didn’t have the funds. Unlike countries such as Brazil and Mongolia, where fossils belong to the state, Britain relies largely on a voluntary code of conduct.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:22 am

Natasha Cloud condemns ‘weak’ men throwing sex toys on to court at WNBA games

• Several young men arrested over incidents at games

• Trend emerged last season during games

• Cryptocurrency group has claimed responsibility

Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud has spoken out after the return of a trend that involves sex toys being thrown on to the court during WNBA games.

Arena staff removed the objects from the court during the Sky’s win over the Golden State Valkyries on Friday night. Players stayed on court during the incident. A suspect was detained during a similar incident on Thursday during the Atlanta Dream’s win over the Los Angeles Sparks.

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:10 am

Ajayi and Mendy give Hull dream start against misfiring Manchester United

Ever since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement 13 years ago, Manchester United have been stuck in football’s equivalent of purgatory and a chastening experience in Hull suggests they could be there a while longer. Michael Carrick’s permanent appointment was supposed to hail a new era at Old Trafford but very little has changed based on this defeat.

United were sluggish from start to finish and rightly punished for failing to defend set pieces with any degree of competence. Centre-backs Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy earned Hull the prized scalp upon their return to the Premier League while United are left to ponder if the squad requires more invasive surgery before the transfer window closes.

Published: August 22, 2026, 6:36 am

Lando Norris surges past Russell and Antonelli to take F1 Dutch GP pole

• Norris comes back at the last to seal top spot

• Russell wins the sprint race convincingly

What a title fight Formula One would have on its hands if McLaren could make the final steps with their car was demonstrated to dramatic effect on Saturday as Lando Norris hurled his ride around Zandvoort to claim pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix. It was a prize secured against the odds and his own expectations, hours after he had bemoaned being in no position to fulfil his hopes of mounting a successful title defence.

The car is immensely quick through the fast corners, perhaps the class of the field, but is haemorrhaging time through the slow stuff, the package not quite complete, or suboptimal as Ron Dennis would have had it. Yet Norris managed to eke out its very best across the circuit to see off the Mercedes’ of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli into second and third place. The season’s dominant car was subdued by Norris in qualifying for the second race in succession, after he took pole in Hungary.

Published: August 22, 2026, 8:42 am

US soccer wants excitement after the World Cup – the Open Cup provides it

MLS wants to build on the momentum of the World Cup. America’s top domestic cup competition is an obvious place to start

The new commissioner of Major League Soccer, Larry Berg, isn’t keen on the idea of promotion and relegation, but he is a fan of jeopardy. When asked the obligatory pro/rel question in his introductory press conference, Berg responded, “I don’t think it’s appropriate for our league, but I think there are other ways to create jeopardy during the regular season, [and] again in the playoffs.”

He referred to this summer’s World Cup, which was co-hosted by the US, and the excitement it provided, adding, “Millions of people across North America experienced that passion firsthand. They fell in love with the drama, the atmosphere, the supporter culture and the emotion that makes soccer unlike anything else. In the World Cup, we all enjoyed knockout games after the group stage. I call those games of consequence or games of jeopardy.”

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

Lionel Messi fined for slapping opposition player in MLS game

• Incident happened when Inter Miami met Philadelphia Union

• Argentinian lashed out at Quinn Sullivan in 2-2 draw

Lionel Messi has been fined for slapping an opponent during a Major League Soccer game. The 39-year-old Inter Miami forward lashed out at Quinn Sullivan of Philadelphia Union during their match on Wednesday, catching the midfielder around the back of the head.

The Argentinian appeared to be angry Sullivan had elbowed him after he had played the ball, with the referee intervening before the situation could escalate. The match at Subaru Park finished 2-2.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:50 am

Chinese robot runs 100m sprint quicker than Usain Bolt’s world record

• Lightning the humanoid ⁠robot clocks 9.32sec in Beijing

• Quicker than ​9.58sec men’s world record set 17 years ago

A ⁠robot named Lightning ⁠has run ​the 100m in 9.32 seconds, ⁠beating the human world ⁠record, China’s ​state broadcaster ‌has reported.

The humanoid, developed by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor, ‌reached a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second during ‌a test event for ​the second World Humanoid Robot Games, which ⁠began on Saturday. The ​performance surpassed ​the ​9.58sec men’s ​100m world record ​set ​by Usain Bolt 17 years ago at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:25 am

Former 1500m world champion Jenny Simpson steps away from running after cardiac arrest

• 39-year-old collapsed during event in June

• American won world title in 2011

Former 1500m world champion Jenny Simpson says she will not return to running after she collapsed during a track event in June.

Simpson, a three-time Olympian and one of the most accomplished American female runners in history, was pacing a mile group at an event in North Carolina when she went into cardiac arrest. She was given CPR before she was rushed to hospital, where she was placed on life support due to issues with her heart and lungs.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:10 am

Former world boxing champion, 38, shot dead outside home in South Africa

Zolani Tete was arriving at his house in Eastern Cape when two men in balaclavas got out of a car and shot him

The former boxing world champion Zolani “Last Born” Tete was shot dead outside his home in South Africa on Friday amid rampant violence in the country, which has one of the world’s highest murder rates.

The 38-year-old athlete was arriving at his house in the Mdantsane township, Eastern Cape province, when two men in balaclavas got out of a car and shot him. He was declared dead at the scene. A 27-year-old woman with Tete was also shot multiple times and taken to hospital.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:48 am

As Russian missiles rain down on Kyiv, casualties mount and the mood darkens

Ukraine’s military has run out of US Patriot interceptors to repel ballistic attacks, which have one aim, the capital’s mayor says: to destroy morale

Viktor, 23, Sofiia, 18, and their dog, Teddy, were bedding down for the night on Thursday at the Dorohozhychi metro station three stops from Kyiv’s city centre. The couple have sheltered here “every night for the past three weeks”, Viktor said, as the missile threat to the city worsened; the dog, only three months old, has been with them a fortnight. Teddy lies quietly, knowing no different a life.

People sleeping at Dorohozhychi metro station for safety.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:00 pm

Thousands of sex offenders in England and Wales could get libido-suppressing drugs

Exclusive: Voluntary use of sex drive-suppressing medication to expand to 20 prisons and expert says it could be rolled out widely by late 2028

• Chemical suppression: why the UK is exploring libido control drugs to treat sex offenders

Drugs that help control the libidos of people who have committed sexual offences could be rolled out for thousands of male prisoners in England and Wales from December 2028, an expert has said.

Prof Belinda Winder, who has evaluated the use of sex drive-suppressing medication in prisons, said about one in four sex offenders – equating to 3,750 current prisoners – would be considered for the treatment.

Published: August 22, 2026, 9:00 am

Fifa general secretary Mattias Grafström sounded out about standing against Infantino

• African federations sound out Swede over role

• ‘They think he can group all the continents’

Senior figures in African football have held talks with Fifa’s general secretary, Mattias Grafström, to sound out his interest in standing against Gianni Infantino, the Guardian can reveal.

As many as 15 federations in Africa are also said to be ready to turn their backs on Infantino when he seeks re-election as Fifa president next year, despite the Confederation of Africa Football (Caf) claiming that its executive committee (exco) had “unanimously reconfirmed” its support for the under-fire 56-year-old.

Published: August 22, 2026, 12:00 am

Man leaves young son on Mount Fuji before ascending Japan’s highest peak

Boy, seven, had complained of feeling tired so father left him with snacks and a soft drink and continued his climb

A man who abandoned his seven-year-old son on Mount Fuji in Japan after the boy complained of feeling tired while on a family hike has been reprimanded by local police.

A worker on Japan’s highest mountain discovered the child sitting alone on a bench near the sixth station of the Fujinomiya trail at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) on Thursday.

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:25 am

DHS confirms just 185 non-citizens on Nevada voter rolls after claiming there were thousands more

The department told Nevada officials that the 15,903 figure registered was ‘preliminary’ and more than 14,000 names still needed review

About a month after alleging Nevada had as many as 16,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials admitted they had confirmed that only 185 were actually non-citizens, according to records obtained by the Guardian.

In a primetime TV address on 16 July, Donald Trump claimed that a DHS review had found about 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:22 am

Ebola frontline workers missing wages as outbreak spreads ‘exponentially’

People fighting to contain rapidly growing outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo describe the obstacles and dangers they face

Every day, Sophie Mwadawa Kabundo goes to her job as a nurse at an Ebola treatment centre in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, afraid she will contract the virus and pass it to her family and friends.

“More and more confirmed cases are being admitted here … Some of our colleagues have died,” said Kabundo. “We fear that, despite our vigilance, workplace accidents may occur and put us in ever greater danger … We go to sleep already worrying about the days ahead, as patients continue to pour in.”

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

‘She’s not afraid of anyone’: the prison writings of one of Hong Kong’s last outspoken democracy activists

Chow Hang-tung has been detained since 2021, and written about everything from clothes to Tiananmen Square and the meaning of freedom

• Tiananmen Square vigil organisers in Hong Kong found guilty of ‘inciting subversion’

In one essay written from prison, Chow Hang-tung worries about her hairstyle before court appearances because there are no combs or mirrors in her cell.

“In a place like prison, where anything that is personal is stripped away, it’s even more important to hold on to every means by which you can express yourself,” she writes. “Don’t let uniform, depersonalised rules, dress codes, schedules, and behavioural requirements grind down your edges and mould you into a ‘model citizen’”.

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:50 pm

Subterranean salad: underground farmers seek solution to food crisis in disused UK mines

Researchers in North Yorkshire feel the clock ticking as they aim to transform British food production

It has the vibe of a Bond villain’s underground lair but the workers in hi-vis and helmets aren’t weighing and packing hard drugs or parts for a death laser. It’s pak choi and lettuce.

More than 1,000 metres down, researchers in North Yorkshire have created the world’s deepest underground farm and are running trials for a project that could transform UK food production.

Published: August 22, 2026, 12:00 am

The US has a plan to save the Colorado River. Experts say it won’t be enough to stop the crisis

The 10-year blueprint mandates water cuts of up to 40% for California, Arizona and Nevada

It’s official: after years of tense negotiations and missed deadlines, there is finally a plan to govern the future of the imperiled Colorado River - or at least the makings of one.

With the previous framework set to expire in October, the US Bureau of Reclamation publicly released its proposal for a new plan on Friday.

Published: August 21, 2026, 12:41 pm

Brazil’s vast iron mine that supplies the world and fractures the Amazon – in pictures

The Grand Carajás project has made the country a mining superpower, but communities living in its shadow face pollution, displacement and silenced histories

Published: August 21, 2026, 5:00 am

TikTok agrees to $400m settlement to resolve US children’s privacy litigation

The DoJ sued TikTok and its former parent company in August 2024 for allegedly failing to protect children’s privacy and collecting their information

⁠TikTok and its Chinese former parent company ByteDance on Friday agreed to a $400m settlement to resolve the US Department of Justice’s allegations that the short-form video app ⁠violated children’s online ⁠privacy.

The justice ​department sued TikTok and ByteDance in 2024 for allegedly failing to protect children’s privacy and illegally collecting their information. The defendants were accused ⁠of violating a law requiring online services aimed at children to obtain parental consent to collect personal information from users under age 13.

Published: August 21, 2026, 3:05 pm

Tornadoes pummel New York’s Long Island and Delaware capital

First responders also rescued flood-stranded people after storms unleashed heavy rains in the US north-east

Residents in Delaware’s capital and on Long Island, New York, were picking up the pieces on Friday after tornadoes touched down during sudden storms that battered the north-eastern US with heavy rains and left dozens of people stranded in their cars during flash flooding.

In Atlantic Beach on Long Island, which stretches out into the ocean to the east of New York City, images posted on social media showed a large funnel cloud over the water and small buildings torn apart at a beach club.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:15 am

Texas slashes $50m judgment against Alex Jones over false claim Sandy Hook shooting was hoax

Appeals court slashes judgment to $1.5m in a significant legal victory for the rightwing Infowars founder

A Texas appeals court has slashed the $50m judgment to $1.5m against Alex Jones, founder of the rightwing platform Infowars, over falsely calling the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a hoax.

The ruling does not affect a $1.4bn judgment against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for Jones after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:27 am

Abusers coercing or duping women to post explicit OnlyFans content, UK court cases reveal

Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercion

Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.

In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman to OnlyFans without her consent, and was paid money for the material he posted to the website.

Published: August 22, 2026, 5:47 am

Tesla recalls nearly 3m vehicles in China over door handle safety risks

Recall comes after Chinese authorities said it would ban hidden car door handles commonly seen on Tesla models

Tesla and other carmakers are making a major recall of more than 4m vehicles in China over safety concerns mostly related to their door handles, according to Chinese authorities on Friday.

The US carmaker is recalling about 2.98m China-made and imported EVs including Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S over door-handle safety risks, according to China’s state administration for market regulation.

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:48 pm

‘It brings me joy’: how young people are making CDs cool again

Compact discs are back, with searches for players up 96% at John Lewis and popular models sold out online

With more than 800 million people subscribing to a music streaming service, wireless speakers have become a familiar sight in homes. But expect to get reacquainted with a different object to play music soon: the CD player, once consigned to obsolescence, is back.

John Lewis report that searches for CD players are up 96% since July, possibly owing to students heading to university and buying the systems for their rooms. The £79 Crosley Voyager, and the £129 Pure Classic C-D6 are both sold out online, with the Voyager scheduled to return in October. Portable CD players are also popular.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:00 am

First deportation flight lands in Haiti after TPS suspension

ICE charter carrying more than 160 Haitian nationals landed in Cap-Haïtien, after temporary protection status was revoked

The first deportation flight to Haiti since the US supreme court upheld Donald Trump’s power to strip 350,000 Haitians – and others – of a key type of legal status in the US landed in the troubled nation on Thursday.

The flight was carrying more that 160 Haitian nationals and landed in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second-largest city, aboard an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charter.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:53 am

Sean Duffy’s family road-trip reality series: we watched it – will anyone else?

Trump transport chief’s YouTube show vowed to ‘celebrate America’s story’ – it’s debatable whether it celebrates anything besides the Duffys themselves

It would be fair to say that the Trump administration’s celebration of the United States’s 250th birthday has been unorthodox – involving, as it has, an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House, a poorly attended state fair, and a car race through Washington, before which the US president will take a lap of honor.

On Tuesday, however, Donald Trump officials dropped perhaps their weirdest 250th offering yet: a six-part travel show in which the US secretary of transportation take his entire family on a startlingly self-involved, creatively funded road trip around the country.

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

From Booker-listed Marlon James to a memoir by Michael Douglas – the biggest books this autumn

Midlife meditations from Barbara Kingsolver; musical portraits by Jonathan Coe and Yiyun Li; plus memoirs from Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench – all among the coming season’s highlights

The Disappearers by Marlon James
Hamish Hamilton, 3 September
After a detour into mythic fantasy, the author of the Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings returns to Jamaica. This account of a brutal homophobic attack on a group of gay actors in 1980s Kingston has already been longlisted for this year’s prize.

Published: August 22, 2026, 1:00 am

Dog Park: a delightful sitcom that will fill the Colin from Accounts shaped hole in your life

This snort-aloud Australian comedy is sweet, hilarious – and a surprising examination of male loneliness and mid-life crisis. Who’s a good show then?!

Whenever I’m watching a programme that features an animal and I realise I’m expected to have a specific reaction to that animal, I run into a problem. I call it the Cuteness Assumptive Theory: Subjectivity in Television issue (CATSIT for short). It boils down to this: if the success of your show relies on my finding your lead actor scrumptious-wumptious, you’ve already failed. We all like different things.

The theory applies equally to humans. We all know that moment when some interchangeable heartthrob walks into the scene on a US sitcom. All the characters lose their minds, this being apparently the hottest person on Earth, while you’re sitting thinking, ‘Huh?’ It happens with child stars too. Casting directors have a narrow spectrum of children they think will elicit an “awww” response from audiences. The response usually elicited in me is “Couldn’t they find a better actor?” I’m not trying to be liked here! Anyway, it’s the animal version that came to mind this week, watching Dog Park.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

David Harbour has blown Tony Stark’s cover in Avengers: Doomsday. It might just be what Marvel needs

The actor, who plays Red Guardian in the film, made a cryptic comment to Variety that raised more Robert Downey Jr-shaped questions than answers. But was it a clanger, or expert trolling?

Nobody knows exactly what solemn blood oaths Marvel uses to prevent spoilers. But we do know that Andrew Garfield spent most of the run-up to 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home – in which he would eventually turn up as one of two secret Spideys – behaving as if Kevin Feige was standing behind him, holding up a giant card saying: YOU HAVE NEVER MET TOBEY MAGUIRE. So we can imagine it’s pretty full on. Why, then, has Avengers: Doomsday star David Harbour this week apparently blurted out the biggest Marvel secret since Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin in Iron Man 3?

Invited by Variety magazine to offer up a line from Doomsday “completely out of context”, Harbour thought for a moment, adopted the Russian accent of his Red Guardian character and came out with: “You … are Tony Stark.” Which is quite a thing to say about a film whose entire marketing campaign so far has depended on us accepting that Iron Man remains dead, and that the actor who used to play him, Robert Downey Jr, is playing Victor von Doom instead.

Published: August 21, 2026, 8:37 am

‘We’re barely above porn’: why would a film-maker choose to make a deliberately bad ‘mockbuster’?

With a tiny budget and six days, Anthony Frith directed a film for the studio behind Sharknado – and then made Mockbuster, a documentary about the experience

Directors don’t tend to appreciate having their films eviscerated by critics. And us critics, well practised in lobbing proverbial grenades from the safety of our pretentiously book-lined, Cahiers du Cinéma-strewn offices, don’t tend to look an artist in the eyes and tell them that their work sucks.

This is, however, exactly what I do to the Australian film-maker Anthony Frith. I’ve even prepared a zinger for the occasion. “Your film is a lemon that’s been eaten by a turkey then dumped into a vat of curdled mayonnaise,” I say.

Published: August 21, 2026, 8:00 am

You’re Killing Me review – did an AI monkey write this terrible Brooke Shields crime caper?

I desperately wanted this show to be Gilmore Girls meets Murder, She Wrote – but the story of a novelist turned amateur sleuth is just so lazy. And yet, I still have high hopes for the confirmed second season

Look, we all want Brooke Shields to be in gainful employment. We all want her to have a fabulous third act to her career. God knows, the child model turned star of prurient fever dreams Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon (and the “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” jeans ad campaign when she was 15) has earned it. Plus, she did a fine turn in Friends and a number of us remember Suddenly Susan very fondly.

But she’s terrible in the terrible new thing she’s in, which is a six-part comedy drama called You’re Killing Me. Shields plays successful cosy mystery novelist Allison Chandler, who lives in the picturesque town of Founder’s Cove, Maine. It’s Murder, She Wrote vibes all right, but please lower your expectations.

Published: August 21, 2026, 1:00 pm

Meet Fat Papi, the little-known NZ rapper catapulted to Billboard 100 fame

Kurdish New Zealander Baban Hussain has gained global fame with online hit he created with Australian producer

Two months ago, Baban Hussain, a 22-year-old Kurdish New Zealander, was working from a self-run studio in Auckland, putting out music to a few thousand followers as little-known rapper Fat Papi.

Then, as modern fairytales go, he made a viral hit that has amassed over 7.5bn views across YouTube, gained him nearly 10m new monthly listeners on Spotify, and catapulted him on to global charts – including the US Billboard Hot 100.

Published: August 21, 2026, 5:00 pm

Mike D: ‘After Yauch died I couldn’t make music. I’d open a computer file and just feel sadness’

As part of the Beastie Boys, the rapper shot to fame and notoriety in the 80s, before bandmate Adam Yauch’s death saw him withdraw from the spotlight. He returns with a solo album that sees him reckon with greed, mortality – and his past

‘It’s funny how far a joke will get you,” Michael Diamond grins. This time 40 years ago, the New York rapper known as Mike D was working with schoolfriends Adam “MCA” Yauch and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz on Licensed to Ill, their 1986 debut album as the Beastie Boys.

The “joke” in question is that record’s cartoonish send-up of frat-bro culture, set to fusions of hard rock riffs and hip-hop beats. As for how far it got them: destinations included global stardom, a page in the history books with rap’s first US chart-topping album, and the crosshairs of British tabloids as they roused a generation to “fight for your right to party”.

Published: August 21, 2026, 5:00 am

Add to playlist: the righteous jangle and snaking melodies of Jawdropped and the week’s best new tracks

The LA-based powerpop project’s triumphant debut is a celebration of low-stakes creativity in the slacker-skater tradition

From Los Angeles
Recommended if you like the Lemonheads, Sugar, the Muffs
Up next Secret to Spare released 18 September

Maybe it’s to do with getting older, maybe it’s to do with the broad-spectrum grimness of it all, but the thrill of low-stakes creativity, of making something for the joy of making it rather than in the hope of making it, feels particularly vital at the moment. And, if the sun-bleached cool of Jawdropped’s music is anything to go by, starting a powerpop project in your 30s will light up this pleasure centre like a dive bar pinball machine.

Published: August 21, 2026, 4:00 am

Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble: Parabólico review – gorgeous reinvention of Gilberto Gil’s grooves

(Sunnyside)
Saxophonist and composer Wilmer brilliantly transforms Gil tunes, changing tempos and adding breathy melodies, flourishes of horns or undulating rhythms to luscious effect

Over the past three years, Brazilian saxophonist and composer Gaia Wilmer has reimagined the catalogues of her country’s virtuosos so radically that it’s become a signature art. Folia: The Music of Egberto Gismonti transformed his finger-picked melodics into an almost prog-influenced cacophony; Trem das Cores, celebrating tropicália pioneer Caetano Veloso, found the eerie tenderness in his lilting melodies. Now returning with the first part of a three-volume homage to singer Gilberto Gil, Wilmer and her 20-piece ensemble produce luscious new works from their deconstructions.

For listeners familiar with Gil’s music, hardly any of Wilmer’s arrangements are recognisable from the originals. Her Overture transforms the 25 seconds of strummed guitars and group vocals that open Gil’s 1985 album Dia Dorim Noite Neon into a slowly unfurling four minutes of breathy trumpet melody and twinkling piano accents. Oriente replaces Gil’s wavering, emotive vocal harmony from the 1972 original with flourishes of horn fanfares and jazz swing that bolsters singer Mônica Salmaso’s lightly tripping bossa nova vocalisations. Eu Vim da Bahia even slows one of Gil’s best-known tunes to experimental flute-heavy ambience, transmuting his sprightly melody through the brassy weight of a big-band horn section.

Published: August 21, 2026, 1:00 am

‘We are in the inferno’: diaspora writers lead new movement of nature poetry

UK anthology inspired by question: ‘Where are our black and Asian nature writers?’ has boosted interest in genre

A new movement of eco poets from black and brown communities in the UK is challenging the canon of nature poetry against the backdrop of the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Mona Arshi, who co-edited the first UK collection of eco poetry from African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices, was inspired to put the anthology together after asking in a social media post that went viral: “Where are all our black and Asian nature writers?”

It’s time to write about daffodils
again.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘Embryonic’: lost novel by French film-maker Éric Rohmer is republished

English translation of Élisabeth, the New Wave director’s 1946 book about young lovers in prewar Paris, receives rave reviews as precursor to auteur’s cinematic work

In the dog days of the second world war, 24-year-old Maurice Schérer wrote a tale of young lovers in prewar small-town France. He described lazy August swims in the Marne River east of Paris. He wrote about age-gap affairs and semi-incestuous flirtations. Schérer gallantly used a nom de plume, Gilbert Cordier, to shield his Catholic family from scandal, but he needn’t have bothered as his concerns were unfounded. The finished novel, Élisabeth, barely made a ripple and quickly slipped out of print. Undeterred, Scherer adopted a second pseudonym – Éric Rohmer – and decided to try his luck as a film-maker instead.

Now – eight decades on from its first publication, 16 years on from its author’s death – Élisabeth belatedly returns from the cold. Republished in an English-language translation by Aaron Kerner, Rohmer’s book has been greeted with glowing reviews, hailed as a lost modernist classic and a crucial origin story for the award-winning director of Claire’s Knee, The Green Ray and My Night at Maud’s. “It would be a rewarding, exciting read even if the identity of its author were unfamiliar,” wrote Richard Brody in the New Yorker. The fact that it’s by Rohmer? That’s the icing on the cake.

Published: August 22, 2026, 2:54 am

Alice Roberts: ‘By the time I’d finished Richard Dawkins I’d left faith behind’

The TV presenter and author on the evolutionary biologists who inspired her, the genius of George Eliot – and fun with Frog and Toad

My earliest reading memory
The first books I remember were from The Village with Three Corners series Sheila K McCullagh. I loved the – literally – colourful characters, like Johnny Yellow Hat. I was reading with my Grandma, in her garden perhaps, sitting on a small patio, surrounded by bright begonias and busy lizzies.

My favourite book growing up
Arnold Lobel’s wonderful Frog and Toad stories. Toad would get himself tied up in knots, trying to find a button or fly a kite, but Frog was always there – a constant, caring and funny friend. I enjoyed reading these stories to my own children when they were young, and we still sometimes go back and revisit them. They’re so full of humour, heart and simple humanism.

Published: August 21, 2026, 2:00 am

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 2 review – once more unto the mercenary breach

PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S; Konami
This second collection remasters another three titles from the illustrious stealth espionage series, but their world has changed little since the original releases

‘War has changed,” claims Old Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Back in 2008, the team at Kojima Productions waxed poetic about people recruited to fight in proxy wars they have no political or ideological stake in. As these mercenaries follow their orders, traders get rich out of the so-called war economy. The more disastrous the conflict in a specific area, the higher the bidding price.

I expected my time with Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 2 to be nostalgic and, in good old MGS fashion, abundant with fictional events that sound eerily familiar to our current reality. Twenty minutes in, I was having an existential crisis.

Published: August 21, 2026, 3:45 am

The film Apollo 13 taught me how to survive heartbreak

After my engagement ended, I found myself repeatedly watching a movie about three astronauts trapped in a damaged spacecraft. It helped me see that sometimes the mere act of getting home is the success

‘Failure is not an option” has always been my family’s catchphrase; it’s flight director Gene Kranz’s famous line in the film Apollo 13. When I tell people it’s our family motto, they often joke, “That’s healthy.” But it isn’t about being the best. It’s about refusing to stop being.

I’ve loved Apollo 13 since I was a child. To me, Ron Howard’s 1995 adaptation of one of humanity’s greatest rescue missions is the perfect film to watch when you feel you might implode – because they got home. It is a film about a successful failure. When the Nasa director warns: “This could be the worst disaster Nasa’s ever experienced,” Kranz replies: “I believe this is going to be our finest hour.” Every time I watch that scene, I start crying.

Published: August 22, 2026, 4:00 am

The Guide #257: What we lose when a medium ​built for the ear surrender​s to the camera

In this week’s newsletter: As platforms chase ​s​ubscribers, podcasts are losing their off‑screen charm​, leaving listeners to wonder whether the intimacy of audio can survive the studio lights

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This has been the year that podcasting properly, unapologetically “pivoted to video”. Yes, it’s been a progression that has been in the making for quite a while, arguably ever since Joe Rogan first trained a webcam at himself and whichever guest he was smoking weed with in his studio back in 2009 – but in 2026 the medium’s transformation from purely aural to audio/visual (often with more of an emphasis on the visual) is truly complete.

In January, Netflix started broadcasting video versions of popular podcasts from The Ringer, iHeartMedia, Barstool and more, as well as continuing to make video pods of their own. That landgrab was a slightly desperate response to YouTube’s phenomenal success with visualised pods; after becoming the preferred podcast platform for most Americans in 2024, it managed the same feat in the UK in 2026, overtaking Spotify. No wonder, then, that Spotify has – as part of a wider push to get people sticking to its platform for pods – continued to bolster viewing capabilities for its own pods too.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘She had this divine calling’: the incredible and transporting art of Minnie Evans

Just over 50 years after she was one of the first Black artists to have a solo show at the Whitney, the museum gathers some of her most remarkable paintings for a new exhibition

Surprisingly, the term “outsider art” was coined fairly recently – in 1972, when the art historian Roger Cardinal made it the title of the book with which he introduced the idea to the English-speaking world. Since then, debates have raged as to whether it’s really justified to use such a term to describe art made beyond the confines of the art world, and if any of the other competing terms – among them naive art, folk art and raw art – are really any better.

The Whitney Museum of American Art’s new show, The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans, offers audiences an opportunity to contemplate just how its subject may – or may not – have been an outsider to the art world, and to also revel in Evans’s increasing insiderness in the decades since her death in 1987. A comprehensive retrospective with nearly 100 pieces covering the entirety of Evans’s artistic output, the show occurs almost exactly 50 years after the Whitney first introduced the artist’s genius to New York’s art elite.

Published: August 21, 2026, 2:00 am

‘It was dark and deserted. I was drawn by the light’: Christine Rodgers’ best phone picture

A man at a bank counter in a border town in northern India, tension in the air: how could any photographer resist?

Over the last decade, Lancashire-born, London-based Christine Rodgers has trekked in Bhutan, Nepal and the Indian states and regions of Uttarakhand, Ladakh and Sikkim. “I’ve developed something of a passion for the Himalayas,” she says. “I love being in the mountains; not climbing, but walking and camping at altitude, in sight of the wonderful range of peaks.”

Rodgers used to rely on her Olympus camera to take photographs on her trips, but has since switched predominantly to using her phone. “I love the immediacy,” she notes. “I did miss having a viewfinder at first, but I now feel completely at home with the screen.”

Published: August 22, 2026, 3:00 am

‘My ability to cope was unravelling’: how I navigated ADHD and childbirth – and seven things I learned

Neurodivergence can make an already challenging process far trickier — and in the UK support isn’t automatically available. A new book aims to help mothers prepare

It’s 7am in a postnatal ward. I’ve been brought here having given birth around four hours earlier. I’m hot and have not slept since arriving at the hospital at 9pm for an induction, only to go into labour spontaneously before it could begin. All around me is incandescent hospital light and the sound of crying newborns. This would be challenging enough for someone who isn’t neurodivergent, but coupled with my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) I could feel my ability to cope unravelling.

I remember looking around, crying, unable to shut off the noise in my brain. “What if I don’t ever sleep again,” the little voice asked. I shut my eyes and the noise grew. Then there was my newborn son, lying next to me in a cot, and the fact that I had absolutely no idea how to look after him. I pressed the emergency buzzer and told the midwife who arrived that I could not breathe and needed to be discharged immediately. She said they couldn’t do that because I was under the mental health team and needed to speak to them first. I cried more.

Published: August 21, 2026, 9:00 pm

Are baby products the secret to better skin? 15 toiletries worth trying

With gentler formulas and lower prices, children’s toiletries can work just as well for adults. From nappy rash cream to nourishing bath milk, these are the products that have earned a place in my routine

There may be plenty of worrying headlines about children using adult beauty products from younger and younger ages, but what about the reverse?

I’ve been a beauty editor for more than a decade, but when I had my first child in 2020, I was immediately impressed with the body washes, bath products and moisturisers designed for babies, particularly as someone with eczema and sensitive skin. The products’ gentler, often fragrance-free formulas are easier on my skin, tend to cost less, and result in a less cluttered bathroom, since we can all use the same things. These are the ones I’m still using – on the entire family – five years on.

Published: August 21, 2026, 5:00 am

I asked 13 college grads for dorm essentials that stood the test of time

I asked 13 people about the things they have carried from college into adulthood –and found their modern day equivalents

• 21 things tweens want for back-to-school season, according to tweens

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One of the highlights of the summer before college was trotting off to my local Linens N Things to outfit my new home, a triple dorm room in the Little Building at Emerson College in Boston. Armed with a list of must-haves and strongly suggested essentials, I filled a shopping cart with a lot of stuff I’d use immediately (jersey twin XL sheets) and stuff that I’d eventually throw away after four years (the very same sheets, useless after college when you will never see a twin XL bed again.)

Most, if not all, of the stuff I bought didn’t make it out of Boston, save for a pop-up laundry hamper that did a tour of duty in San Francisco, surviving three moves in four years, before being relegated to its final resting place, the garbage can.

Published: August 21, 2026, 6:15 am

‘Such adept cover stars’: why dogs are taking over fashion in the ‘AI face’ era

Cute, egoless canines offer a break from a world that feels dominated by ‘nepo babies’ and ‘Maga lady aesthetic’

What do Nicole Kidman, a pair of “nepo babies” and a beagle called Sansa Martínez Berlingeri have in common? They all appear on the covers of the all-important September issues of Vogue and Dogue. But the winner of the unofficial battle of the covers? The one with the keenest sense of smell and a penchant for playing with socks.

The September covers of British Vogue and Vogue US have come under intense scrutiny after their recent release, while their canine counterpoint, Dogue, has been almost unanimously celebrated.

Published: August 21, 2026, 7:00 am

Ditch the giant handbag, don’t overdo the botox and 16 other ways to extend your ‘hotspan’

If ‘lifespan’ is the time you’re alive and ‘healthspan’ the years you’re disease-free, then ‘hotspan’ is the period you’re attractive and vibrant. Want to increase yours? Experts share their tips

Forget 12-step skincare routines, red light therapy and injectables – the single most important thing you can do for your skin is wear UV protection. “Not just sun protection, but UV protection, every single day, regardless of weather or season,” says Dr Jennifer Owens, resident aesthetic expert at the Reborne Longevity clinic in London. “Up to 90% of visible skin ageing is caused by UV exposure – nothing else comes close in terms of impact.”

Published: August 21, 2026, 7:00 am

Tim Dowling: my working holiday just isn’t working

The weather is unrelentingly glorious, the views are amazing, but I cling to the freelancer’s habit of never quite admitting I’m on holiday

In the summer of 1995, I went on a family holiday to Portugal. On the first day I got a call from a UK magazine, asking if I would be interested in interviewing Meg Ryan, in three days’ time. I looked out to the pool, where my wife and my mother-in-law were pushing my infant son across the water in an inflatable ring.

“Sure,” I said. I broke the news, packed my things, flew to London and, the next day, to LA.

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:00 pm

What is the pan-European emergency telephone number? The Saturday quiz

From Adventure Galley and Queen Anne’s Revenge to a bus station that’s a classic of brutalist architecture, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Emily Firmin was the only human in which children’s TV series?
2 What is the most spoken language written in Devanagari script?
3 Which brothers were, respectively, King of Scots and High King of Ireland?
4 What is the pan-European emergency telephone number?
5 Who has trained a record 12 Epsom Derby winners?
6 Where is the bus station a classic of brutalist architecture?
7 Who is said to have found the True Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century?
8 Whose last general election victory was in 1906?
What links:
9 Photographed by Luna 3; Berlin 1961-89; Judith Chalmers series; Wind in the Willows, ch 7?
10 Adventure Galley; Fancy; Queen Anne’s Revenge; Royal Fortune; Whydah?
11 Daedalus; George London and Henry Wise; Adrian Fisher?
12 LA Dodgers; San Francisco Giants; New York Jets; New York Giants?
13 Maestro; Taking Sides; Tár; Unfaithfully Yours?
14 Satoshi; Wei; lamport; lovelace?
15 John II; Louis Philippe I; Napoleon III?

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

Island-hopping through stone-age history in Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Man

Exploring prehistory sites around the Irish Sea – that were old even before the pyramids were built – throws a magical light on our ancestors

The guide was adamant. “I’ve picked human teeth out of there and I’m not doing it again.” The small group of tourists looked suitably aghast, except the boy. He was jiggling the wellington boots on his feet and singing to himself. He looked about 14. I sensed that he was the catalyst, the one to make things happen.

“So, if anyone is planning to leave human remains in this ancient place,” went on the guide, throwing the boy a stern look, “I say, DON’T.”

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

Why are clouds different shapes and why do flowers bloom? The kids’ quiz

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

Published: August 21, 2026, 11:00 pm

A party, 101 princesses and an eccentric millionaire: Jon Ronson on a mysterious castle – and what it taught him about masculinity in crisis

When my son texted me from a Connecticut fortress in the middle of the night with an alarming message, it set me on a quest to understand the bizarre lifestyle of its owner

I awoke one morning in the summer of 2023 to discover that, while I’d slept, my son Joel had been texting my wife and me a series of unnerving messages about a perilous situation he had found himself in, in Connecticut.

From what I could tell, as I frantically tried to piece together the night’s events, one of Joel’s friends had been invited to a party being held by a stranger she’d met that week on Tinder. So Joel and two others went along for the ride. But when they arrived, they found the man’s home so bizarre that Joel did something he’d never done before – he sent me the coordinates of his location and a photograph, just in case.

Published: August 21, 2026, 7:00 am

Strangers in their own land: Mexicans deported from Trump’s America find refuge in ‘Little LA’

With plentiful jobs and community support, one Mexico City neighbourhood has become a haven for those who have lived much of their lives in the US

With its wide avenues lined with tall palm trees, its quaint cafes and old-school cantinas, as well as the mix of English and Spanish spoken on the street, the Tabacalera neighborhood in downtown Mexico City has a certain US feel – so much so that it is has become known as Little LA.

The nickname is about more than appearances, however. In recent years, this corner of the metropolis has become a haven for many Mexicans deported from the US, particularly those who spent years or decades living across the border and for whom Mexico feels like a foreign country. In Little LA, they have found a more familiar place to belong.

Published: August 21, 2026, 3:00 am

People in the US: how much do you spend on food per month?

We’d like to hear from people in America about how much they’re spending on groceries and going out to eat

Food is expensive and getting more so.

A July Harris poll found that more than half of Americans struggle to afford groceries. In the UK, food prices are on track to rise by 50% since the cost of living crisis began in 2021.

Published: August 21, 2026, 2:00 am

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Wildfires in Europe, Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Meta trial and swimming in Gaza – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: August 21, 2026, 10:25 am