The Tejano singer trying to win back Latinos who voted for Trump, one quinceañera at a time

Bobby Pulido has a strategy: show up at the 15th birthday parties that are a rite of passage in the Texas borderlands – and flip a key House district for Democrats

It took all of two minutes for Bobby Pulido’s electoral stealth weapon to come into play. The Tejano music star turned Democratic congressional candidate had barely begun canvassing in the high school football stadium in Edinburg, Texas, when a 15-year-old girl came rushing up to him.

“Señor Pulido! Señor Pulido!” she cried. A few months ago, she told him, he had made a surprise appearance at her quinceañera, the coming-of-age girls’ 15th birthday party that is a rite of passage in these US borderlands.

Published: October 4, 2026, 3:00 am

Saturday Night Live: Dakota Johnson struggles through weak episode as Taylor Swift gatecrashes

The Verity star’s awkwardness with live comedy is matched with similarly sub-par writing in an episode featuring a surprise cameo from her superstar friend

Saturday Night Live kicks off the second episode of its new season at RNC headquarters. With the midterms looking bleak for Republicans, strategists bring out some heavy hitters to record TV ads. Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) delivers a message in Spanish putting all of the blame on Trump (“Oh my God! He tricked us!”); a comatose Mitch McConnell (Mikey Day) is rolled in to flash the peace sign; and Vice-President JD Vance (Jeremy Culhane) tries to make his pitch for 2028, only to be laughed out of the room. Secretary of war Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) barges in, chugging “Spider-Man’s new non-alcoholic bitch beer” to demand voters “do the gayest thing ever and vote”.

Finally, president Trump (James Austin Johnson) interrupts to deliver a rambling diatribe, promising checks for five grand to voters if they re-elect Republicans (“that’s not a bribe because I have no intention to follow through on that promise”), test out some terrible new slogans (“imagination makes a Maga nation”), and record victory and concession messages, both of which are the same: “We did it, we won!”

Published: October 4, 2026, 7:15 am

Manhattan ‘mole’ mystery: rumors of lost gold spur clandestine excursions into New York sewers

A recent arrest suggests that underground invaders of city’s sewer system are lured by the promise of lost valuables

There’s been one thing in particular that has been intriguing New Yorkers this summer: the existence, and whereabouts, of so-called “mole people” – a mysterious group of individuals who spend at least some of their time wading about in the city’s sewers.

New Yorkers learned a bit more about the phenomenon this week, when two men were caught red – or perhaps another color – handed, after allegedly emerging from a tunnel in Manhattan. Their arrests have shed some light on a slew of instances where people have been witnessed lifting manhole covers and clambering underground.

Published: October 4, 2026, 5:00 am

Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality | Steve Bloomfield

The US president has taken credit for far-right victories across Latin America, but those wins have had more to do with fears of gang crime than his meddling

Donald Trump has enjoyed very few foreign policy victories since returning to power. From failed wars to failed peace processes, his second term in office has been marked by one costly blunder on the world stage after another. In Latin America, though, the US president has a different story to tell.

His administration’s national security strategy outlined how the US wanted to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”. It was a brazen document, laying out how his government would interfere in the political life of countries it considered part of its sphere of influence, rewarding governments and movements that are “broadly aligned with our principles and strategy”.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

The AI industry is booming. Women are getting left behind

Women hold just a fraction of new AI jobs but are overrepresented in roles with high risk of AI disruption

There’s a common fear among people who work in Silicon Valley: snag one of the fast-growing, high-paying jobs in artificial intelligence, or get trapped in the “permanent underclass”, a phrase describing the fate of those who won’t have upward mobility in the age of AI.

The phrase usually describes a future in which AI automates human jobs. But for women in tech, it’s starting to look like the present.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:00 am

The first step of caring for your makeup is storing it right. We asked experts how to

Eyeing the new drop from your favorite brand? Make it go the extra mile with these expert tips

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

• The best beauty advent calendars in the US in 2026 – tested and vetted

Each week the Filter newsletter cuts through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.

I hate throwing away my makeup. My beloved 2010s Naked eyeshadow palette and liquid matte lipsticks hung out in my white Ikea drawers well past their expiration dates.

The best beauty advent calendars in the US in 2026 – tested and vetted

Inside Seoul’s K-beauty ‘mecca’: I hunted for the best skincare at the world’s biggest Korean beauty store

Published: October 4, 2026, 12:15 pm

Polls close in first round of Brazil’s high stakes presidential election

Leftwing incumbent Lula trying to fight off close rival Flávio Bolsonaro, far-right son of jailed ex-president

The polls have closed in the first round of Brazil’s highly polarised and high-stakes presidential election that could change not only the direction of Latin America’s largest country but that of the entire region.

The election pits the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, against the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump and the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after his failed 2022 re-election attempt.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:52 am

Woman in Cornell rape allegations case targeted with threats, her lawyer says

Attorney says people have threatened to silence or harm ‘Jane Doe’ if she does not withdraw civil lawsuit

The woman who has alleged that ⁠she was drugged ⁠and raped ​by Cornell University students has been the target of threats, her lawyer said on Sunday.

Thomas Giuffra, who represents the ⁠woman identified as “Jane Doe”, told CNN that people have threatened to silence or harm her if she does not withdraw her civil lawsuit ⁠alleging that several members of a Cornell fraternity drugged and raped her in 2024.

Published: October 4, 2026, 9:15 am

Pennsylvania health officials brace themselves as measles outbreak expected to spread

Most counties don’t have their own health agencies, and some specific population groups have low vaccination rates

Pennsylvania is bracing for a wave of measles cases, with some public health officials concerned that it’s “only a matter of time” until the disease spreads beyond the outbreak’s epicenter.

Last week the state reported its fifth measles-associated death amid 943 confirmed cases across 39 counties. The outbreak comes amid concerns that public health in the US has been hit by increasing vaccine skepticism, especially due to the power and influence of controversial health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Published: October 4, 2026, 3:00 am

Bosnian Serb nationalist Dodik declares party victory in Bosnia election

Staunchly pro-Russia politician has dominated campaign and inflamed divisions despite not appearing on ballot

Bosnian Serb nationalist politician Milorad Dodik has declared victory for his party in an election in Bosnia shaped by economic pressures, the prospect of the Balkan nation joining the European Union and ethnic tensions that have divided the country since its brutal 1992-95 war.

Dodik is a staunchly pro-Russia politician who, despite not appearing on the ballot, has dominated the campaign and inflamed divisions with separatist rhetoric that has sparked fears of renewed instability in Bosnia.

Published: October 4, 2026, 1:42 pm

US marine arrested in Japan on suspicion of killing woman, police say

Suspect allegedly killed woman at hotel in Okinawa as prime minister calls crime ‘exceptionally brutal and vicious’

A US marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa is accused of murdering a Japanese woman and has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said on Sunday.

The suspect allegedly “killed [a] 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet” as well as her backpack, local police told news media outlets.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:46 am

JD Vance flexing Maha connections as he eyes 2028 election

Considered Republican frontrunner for presidential election, Vance is cozying up to the movement – as it splits

JD Vance, widely considered to be the Republican frontrunner for the presidential election in 2028, is aligning himself with the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement as some say it is shedding its grassroots supporters in favor of political and corporate interests.

The US vice-president has positioned himself as the inheritor of Make America Great Again (Maga), and attaching himself to Maha, which many in the Trump administration believe helped to win the 2024 election, signals a greater overlap between the two movements as the administration’s popularity plummets amid the war in Iran and rising prices.

Published: October 4, 2026, 7:00 am

Mass shootings leave two people dead in Georgia and 12-year-old girl dead in Baltimore

At least 25 injured at block party shooting in Georgia and three wounded in Baltimore park shooting, officials say

Two people were killed and at least 25 others injured when a shooting erupted at a homecoming block party in Vienna, Georgia, early on Sunday, according to authorities.

In another high-profile mass shooting in the US over the weekend, a 12-year-old girl was shot and killed and three others were wounded after gunfire evidently broke out over a parking spot in a Baltimore park on Saturday, officials said.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:23 am

More than 400 schools in France to be closed on Monday as more protests planned

Education minister says 24 schools have been burnt or ransacked and 78 staff members injured since student unrest began last month

• Europe live – latest updates

More than 400 schools in France will be closed or partly closed on Monday as authorities brace for another week of student protests.

Lessons will be totally or partly suspended in 400 to 500 schools because security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, the education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Sunday.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:08 am

Conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito hints at retirement in interview

Alito, 76, delivers comment in rare interview with CBS News scheduled to air on Monday

Samuel Alito, the conservative US supreme court justice, has said “I think I have to” contemplate retiring every year at his age.

Alito, 76, delivered that comment in a rare interview with CBS News scheduled to air on Monday, a little more than six months after a widely publicized hospital visit invited speculation about his potential retirement.

Published: October 4, 2026, 3:00 am

After a deadly paper mill explosion, a community in Washington state looks to a key House race

In a district shaken by deaths of 11 workers, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez faces a stiff challenge to keep her seat

On a misty morning in May in south-west Washington state, Laura Oltmann, a 41-year-old dietitian, had barely clocked in when an unfamiliar overhead announcement echoed through the hospital.

“We get overhead pages for different types of emergencies. But this one, we don’t get very often,” recalled Oltmann.

Published: October 4, 2026, 10:27 am

The desperate, failed attempt to keep one Florida district Black

Efforts to consolidate the Black vote here were frustrated, handing the Democratic nomination to a white party insider

A major plot line of the hyper-partisan, mid-decade redistricting arms races – launched at the urging of Donald Trump – has been the elimination of traditionally Black congressional seats in the south. In the midst of that battle, a subplot emerged: a challenge to one of those Black seats from inside the Democratic caucus itself as the veteran congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose own district was splintered, chose to seek re-election in Florida’s 20th congressional district, which had been represented for decades by a Black legislator.

Her candidacy and primary win raise prickly questions about the value of lived experience as a prerequisite for effective representation of minority communities, about how Black Democratic candidates should deal with friendly fire from non-Black opponents, and about internal economic vulnerabilities of so-called Black seats that are in districts where candidates generally raise less money than others.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

Republicans say they hate communists. So why do they like Donald Trump?

Trump supporters may be surprised to learn the state takeover of means of production is not driven by the left

Americans will never accept the Democratic party’s slide to the left, or so desperate Republicans are hoping.

With the midterm elections fast upon us, Zohran Mamdani’s promise of a few city-run bodegas in New York City will scare the bejeezus out of middle America. Disgust over the democratic socialists’ unicorn-and-puppy promises of a world without capitalism will keep the Republicans in power.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

MS Now connects ‘blue dots’ at Texas fan event: ‘I always feel hope when I watch them’

Network at receiving end of White House press ban recently chose red state to host fan event as part of broader outreach

In 2024, Donald Trump and JD Vance carried Tarrant county, Texas, by 42,125 votes. So why, on the afternoon of 26 September, was the arena at the University of Texas-Arlington filled with nearly 5,000 super fans cheering for liberal media darlings Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell like they were rock stars?

After two years of hosting the network’s annual fan event in dark blue New York City, MS Now (formerly MSNBC) got wind that something was happening in Texas. The state, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the US Senate in 37 years, might do so next month, when 37-year-old James Talarico, Texas state representative, goes up against the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, a well-known but controversial figure who ousted incumbent John Cornyn in the party’s primary with Donald Trump’s backing.

Published: October 4, 2026, 3:00 am

The American dream remains elusive in the valley that inspired East of Eden

John Steinbeck’s hometown of Salinas is the least affordable city in the US for the middle class, a recent Brookings Institution analysis found

Nestled between two mountain ranges at the crook of central California’s coastline sits a valley known as the “salad bowl of the world”.

Farm workers stoop over neatly lined rows of crops off Highway 101 to harvest more than half of the nation’s supply of lettuce and nearly a third of its strawberries. The soil here is so rich that author John Steinbeck made the Salinas valley the promised land in his literary depictions of people chasing the American dream: immigrants, farm workers, westward-moving hopefuls, hungering for a better life.

Published: October 3, 2026, 2:00 am

Southern California swelters as late-season heatwave smothers region

Temperatures expected to hover around 100F in downtown LA and even hotter inland, raising concerns about wildfires

Southern California faced scorching heatwaves this summer that made locals wonder what happened to their famed Mediterranean climate.

Now, the fall is bringing heatwaves too.

Published: October 3, 2026, 6:26 am

California’s new laws target workers’ biggest fear of AI taking their jobs

The state, which is home to many AI companies, is one of the first to roll out workplace regulations targeting the technology

California’s laws aimed at protecting workers from the impacts of artificial intelligence could pave the way for broader workplace safeguards across the US as calls for regulating the technology mount. As the federal government goes hands-off on AI, California is taking the reins to address workers’ biggest fears.

On Thursday, California governor Gavin Newsom signed a suite of new laws that ban bosses from relying entirely on AI to decide whether to fire workers, using it to predict employees’ emotional states or collecting neural data, meaning the information from electrical signals of someone’s brain or nerves. They also require companies to notify workers if layoffs were caused by AI and prohibit AI surveillance in workplace bathrooms.

Published: October 3, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It’s OK to love somebody when they’re not perfect’: how John Cena conquered Hollywood – and why he refuses to abandon Vince McMahon

By embracing the role of amiable lunk, the wrestler turned actor has become an unlikely, and very modern, leading man. But does his relationship with the WWE, and its controversial former owner, risk tarnishing his brand?

I must admit, I was apprehensive about meeting John Cena. The WWE wrestler turned actor has built an enviable Hollywood career playing idiots – capable idiots with real heart, but dimwits nevertheless. Still, Cena is obviously nobody’s fool; fools don’t rise from humble beginnings to become their generation’s answer to Hulk Hogan or The Rock. Would the Cena who appears on my computer screen be the real one? Or something closer to the comic-book characters he embodies so well: guileless, silly and fond of a deliberate misunderstanding?

It is immediately clear that this is no manchild. Perfectly punctual, he greets me with a lavish formality befitting a man who made his film debut as the title character in The Marine. Within a minute he has volunteered, unprompted, that “a core value of mine is respect”. Cena, 49, is speaking to me on behalf of Matchbox: The Movie, a film extension of the Mattel toy car brand for Apple TV, and for 45 minutes he is generous, funny, complimentary and elusive without ever being evasive. It’s a genuinely radical thing for a man built like a chest freezer – having only recently retired from wrestling after 26 years – to be so relaxed about being ridiculous, and in an age of such joyless online strongmen as Trump, Musk and Andrew Tate, his buff charm is welcome.

Published: October 4, 2026, 2:00 am

A cargo ship, 20 crew, and a huge stash of cocaine: the seafarer imprisoned for smuggling – on no evidence

After Turkish police found drugs on board the Phoenician M, the ship’s chief mate, Ali Albokhari, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. His wife is still fighting to free him

In the early hours of 6 October 2023, Elena Albokhari was woken by a text message from her husband. Ali Albokhari, 42, a Finnish-Syrian with dark hair and cherubic features, was chief mate on a cargo ship named the Phoenician M and had been at sea since June. The 180-metre bulk carrier had docked at Ereğli in the Turkish Black Sea a few days earlier and Ali was due to return home to Helsinki soon, but instead of feeling excitement, Elena was growing increasingly worried about his welfare.

She’d had a similar feeling of unease a month earlier, when the ship had arrived at Barranquilla, Colombia. Ali had called in a panic to report that drugs had been found; Armada Nacional officers had marched onboard and uncovered holdalls stuffed with 137kg cocaine. Labels on the packages – the crest of Turkish football club Kayserispor – hinted at their destination: Turkey was the next port of call. “I never want to work as a seaman again,” Ali told Elena. “We are having big problems.”

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

‘I can’t listen to Pink Floyd - I find their music dreary’: Elvis Costello’s honest playlist

The singer-songwriter owes a lot to Georgie Fame and likes the romantic side of Jimi Hendrix – but which ringtone song can put him in a bad mood?

The first song I fell in love with
The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix, which came out in 1967 when I was 12. Hendrix was known for outgoing music, but I was a romantic soul, so the emotional side of his music led to that strain in my own writing.

The song I do at karaoke
Karaoke? Certainly not. I do this for a living. Would you have made my great-grandfather dig ditches for fun? I prefer to live vicariously through Bill Murray singing (What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding in Lost in Translation.

Published: October 4, 2026, 1:00 am

Oat of this world: cooks descend on Scotland for ultimate porridge making contest

Technical mishaps and plenty of whisky as competitors from as far afield as US and Australia vie for Golden Spurtle

There are many varieties of spurtle. The traditional Scottish cooking implement, designed for stirring porridge without forming lumps, comes in a range of sizes, can be formed from cherry wood, beech, or maple, and might be topped with a decorative finial or smoothed out at its end for a more modern finish. But on Saturday in Carrbridge, in the Scottish Highlands, only one spurtle mattered: the Golden Spurtle, awarded annually to the winner of the World Porridge Making championship, which have been hosted here since 1994.

The sun shone on the picturesque village as almost 40 competitors lined up in the village hall for six heats across the day. Tasked with producing a traditional porridge – made only from untreated oatmeal, water and salt – and a speciality dish where additional ingredients and flourishes were permitted, entrants had travelled from across Scotland and as far afield as Australia and the US for a shot at the Golden Spurtle.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:00 am

I was disorganised and overwhelmed. Could a daily to-do list turn my life around?

Whenever I thought about getting a handle on life – decluttering, sorting my finances, improving my health and productivity – I felt defeated. So I tried this month-long experiment to feel more in control

Alvin and the Chipmunks was my wake-up call. A Blu-ray copy of the film had stared down from my bookshelf for years, accumulating dust, when one day a shard of sunlight landed on it, as if directed by a higher power. This prompted some uncomfortable questions. Had I watched it? No. Did I intend to? No. So why had I let it linger there untouched for such a long time? The answer is simple: I’m a disorganised mess.

Zooming out, things weren’t much better. I had a mountain of clothes that needed to be hung up or put away, cupboards stuffed with God knows what, plates and mugs that I had never used … The thought of sorting everything out was overwhelming.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:00 am

Hegseth is obsessed with testosterone therapy. If anything, I’d like the opposite | Dave Schilling

Maybe the key to life is being able to bench press 300lb at 75. But do we need more muscle-bound, angry guys around?

I loathe going to the doctor.

Not a controversial opinion, compared to some of the other ones in this section of the Guardian. I’m not exactly arguing for universal basic income or for Manchester City to be relegated to the Saudi Pro League here. No one looks forward to a doctor visit, with its recriminations for bad habits or various intrusive blood tests. People don’t have cocktail parties to celebrate their yearly check-up, and yet, it seems like every day, there’s a new reason to go get prodded by a stranger in a lab coat.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

Retailers are making returns harder. A carpet seller taught me why that’s a mistake | Gene Marks

A standard business practice offsets future costs by funding a reserve for returns – but many small businesses don’t do it

In my 30-plus years of being an accountant I have learned many business lessons from people who were much smarter than me. Jerry Crawford was one of those people. Jerry taught me about product returns.

Jerry – who sadly passed away a decade ago – sold carpets wholesale from a nondescript little building in south Jersey. He employed about 50 people and counted many local and national carpet retailers as his customers. When I reviewed Jerry’s books, I noticed a large reserve for “returns”.

Published: October 4, 2026, 7:00 am

Does the word ‘Dumbass’ flash up when your husband calls your phone? | Polly Hudson

From ‘Sharon London Sex’ to ‘Trashy Anne’, the names saved in our phones are tiny records of how relationships began. Why erase the evidence?

At first glance, it’s such a simple, reasonable ask. A Threads user went vaguely viral last week, with a post announcing: “In other news, my wife of 11 years is respectfully requesting that I take ‘(hinge)’ out of her contact name on my phone.” A lively discussion then followed, which included the pertinent note that Rob in the Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe “has the mother of his children in his phone as ‘Sharon London Sex’”. Somebody else reported a husband of more than a decade saved as “Feyonce”, but this makes perfect sense, because if you thought of a pun that good, of course you’d be reluctant to let it go.

Personally, I’ve never got over noticing – on their reality show rather than while lunching – that Kim Kardashian has her mother saved as Kris Jenner instead of, say, Mom. It felt like an extremely revealing detail from the queen of the genre.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:00 am

Are my gen X peers the influencers the world has been waiting for? | Emma Beddington

Their careers are peaking, they’re rich in money and time – and young people think they’re cool. But maybe it’s not as simple as that

‘Stop sleeping on gen X.” I heard this on TikTok recently. I misinterpreted it, with a guilty start, as: “Stop sleeping, gen X,” because I am 51 (peak X), so always tired; while not sleeping at the time, I may have been resting my eyes. In fact, Joel Marlinarson, a marketing guru, was suggesting my generation have become a powerful, if underrated, force online.

Aged between 46 and 61, gen Xers with proper jobs are peaking, career-wise (although it’s a different story for those out of work, as a report last month on the struggles of over-50s jobseekers made plain). We’re more likely to own homes than the following generations; we’re emerging from the trenches of childrearing and, the argument goes, ready to indulge in some me-time. “If gen X were a country, it would be the world’s second-largest consumer market,” the World Economic Forum reported last year, with gen X women in particular influencing 70% to 80% of all consumer spending.

Published: October 4, 2026, 6:00 am

Can teaching schoolchildren about Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade remain optional? | Morgan Ofori

Mounting evidence about how slavery shaped Britain shows that teaching about its history cannot be a matter of choice

I often think back to my years as a secondary school history teacher, and to what I was and wasn’t able to teach. History is a foundational subject in England, taught to children from the age of five to 14 to build critical thinking, weigh evidence and help pupils understand the world they’ve inherited.

The key stage 3 national curriculum, covering ages 11 to 14, states that pupils should understand how “Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world”, including a historically grounded understanding of empire.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

Chiefs v Raiders, Broncos v 49ers and more: NFL – live

• Updates on the action kicking off after 9pm UK time

• Taylor lifts Colts to victory in London

• Share your thoughts with Graham via email

TOUCHDOWN! Chargers 3-7 Seahawks 9:55, 1st quarter

S Darnold to E Wilson for 23 yards

K Cousins to I Thomas for 27 yards

Published: October 4, 2026, 2:17 pm

NFL roundup: Rams stage wild comeback against Eagles as Jackson exits Ravens game

• Rams score two touchdowns in final four minutes

• Ravens QB absent for second-half against Titans

• Drake Maye finds form in Pats win over Bills

Kyren Williams ran for two touchdowns in the final four minutes as Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams rallied from a 10-point deficit to beat the Philadelphia Eagles. The Rams had struggled offensively all afternoon and a win seemed out of reach until late in the fourth quarter, when Eagles coach Nick Sirianni decided against kicking a chip-shot field goal that would have made it a three-score game and instead went for it on fourth down. The Eagles failed to convert, giving the Rams new life. Stafford led touchdown drives of 98 and 79 yards, with Williams scoring the go-ahead touchdown from seven yards out. Both teams are 2-2 on the season.

Published: October 4, 2026, 2:02 pm

‘Insane’: F1 drivers unite over engine regulations after chaotic Bahrain GP

• Antonelli and Hamilton led the criticism in Sepang

• Race delayed after software problems in wet conditions

Formula One drivers issued a damning condemnation of the sport’s current engine regulations that caused the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to open with farcical scenes of cars stopping on track and unable to accelerate because of software problems in the electronics that control the engines.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won in Sepang but only after F1 suffered the embarrassment of a host of cars barely able to complete two ­formation laps in the wet as they were making their way to the grid.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:30 am

Djokovic rolls back years to beat Zverev as Sabalenka swept out in China Open

• Novak Djokovic into semi-finals after 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win

• Aryna Sabalenka loses to 34th-ranked Bartunkova

Novak Djokovic rolled back the years to oust Alexander Zverev from the China Open on Sunday, beating the top seed 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to set up a semi-final with Daniil Medvedev.

The 39-year-old electrified a packed crowd in Beijing, where he extended an astonishing winning streak to 32 matches. Djokovic got off to a poor start, double-faulting twice in the first game to help Zverev, a decade his junior, break serve instantly.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:33 am

Jesse Marsch: ‘We Americans have been inundated with propaganda since we were young’

As he prepares to face his home nation, the Canada manager reflects on his adopted country’s soccer, its prime minister, and its place in the world

Peak leaf hasn’t yet arrived in Montreal but the bursts of gold and butterscotch up on the hill that gave this place its name still mushroom out by the hour.

Sitting in a glass-panelled hotel mezzanine at the foot of Mount Royal, Canada men’s coach Jesse Marsch has his mind on another harvest. When this extended autumnal international window ends, he will decamp to Italy, where the olive crops at his Tuscan villa are ready for reaping.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:30 am

Let’s stop doubting Thomas Tuchel: England are impressive and Euro 2028 is the target

Coming third in the World Cup was really not a disaster, and Saturday’s rout of Croatia and building the team around Jude Bellingham are good signs

Move fast and fix things. It has been a fine week so far for Thomas Tuchel as he attempts the cyclical task of soldering together not just an England team, but a way of looking like one, all the while being battered by the to-and-fro conflicting winds of England managerdom.

There is nothing new here. This is a job that involves not just picking the right players and making high-stakes calculations over your second-half substitutions, but carrying out these basic duties while wrestling with aggrieved members of the Thuggee cult on a collapsing rope bridge outside the Temple of Doom, and simultaneously having your heart ripped out.

Published: October 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

Cable robs Padres of potential home run in bizarre playoff loss to Brewers

• Ty France’s ninth-inning drive hits roof cable

• Brewers go on to win NLDS opener 3-2

Brewers manager Pat Murphy credited the team’s legendary late broadcaster Bob Uecker for an unlikely boost in the ninth inning to help preserve a 3-2 victory over visiting San Diego in ⁠the opener of their playoff series on Saturday.

With one out in the ninth and the Brewers clinging to a one-run lead, San Diego had a runner on first when Ty France hit a drive to left field ⁠off closer Trevor Megill. But the ball struck a roof cable, stayed in play and was caught by Jackson Chourio for the second out. Megill then retired Jackson Merrill on a fly ball to right field to ⁠give Milwaukee the victory.

Published: October 4, 2026, 5:04 am

Cavan Sullivan’s stunner makes him youngest-ever USMNT scorer in romp over Mexico

• 17-year-old scores brilliant long-range chip

• Julian Hall and Mailk Tillman also grab goals

• US have scored 11 goals in last three games

• As it happened: USA 3-0 Mexico

The first time the United States and Mexico played at this building, Jimmy Conrad and Landon Donovan provided the goals in one of several 2-0 wins for the US. On Saturday, the US squad included eight players who hadn’t yet been born when that happened.

This young US team went one better than their forebears, though, silencing a sizable pro-Mexico contingent in a composed 3-0 triumph that fully announced the arrival of an exciting new generation of players. Cavan Sullivan, just a few days after turning 17, became the youngest goalscorer in the history of the program with an eye-catching long-range chip. Julian Hall, 18, scored his third goal in as many games. Malik Tillman capped the scoring in the 85th minute, humbling a 10-man Mexico after they’d opened the match with far more strength.

Published: October 3, 2026, 9:35 pm

Let there be blanks instead of Manchester City’s name on trophies: there was no honour there | Jonathan Wilson

The spaces can stand both as a rebuke to an era of greed but also a tribute to the Premier League’s hunt for justice

At half-time in the 2014 League Cup final, Sunderland led Manchester City 1-0. Yaya Touré equalised with a casually brilliant 30-yard clip 10 minutes after the break, and City went on to win 3-1. City, we now know from the independent commission, were at the time involved in a prolonged and calculated act of cheating, while Touré, the leaks in Der Spiegel suggested, was being paid via a dual contract to disguise exactly how much City were spending. Although precise details were left to the appendices, the commission’s report refers to payments “not recorded in an employment contract … but instead recorded in a consultancy agreement”.

Had Sunderland won, they would not merely have ended a 41-year wait for a trophy but would have qualified for the following season’s Europa League. It’s possible, of course, that the strain the extra games placed on the squad would have led to relegation in 2015, rather than the familiar trope of sacking a manager, in this case Gus Poyet, midway through the season, and surviving thanks to a bump under his successor, Dick Advocaat.

Published: October 3, 2026, 12:00 pm

Trump names intelligence chief Jay Clayton as new White House AI czar

Clayton had said AI was a ‘gamechanger’ but also posed ‘a threat’ during his confirmation hearing

Donald Trump on Sunday named Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, to also serve as the new White House AI czar.

Clayton, who leads the US’s 18 intelligence agencies, previously served as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term.

Published: October 4, 2026, 10:45 am

Debris found as US Coast Guard search for missing medical plane carrying six people

Six passengers and crew onboard still unaccounted for after medical plane vanished off coast of Massachusetts

Researches found debris from a medical transport plane that was carrying six people when it vanished over the Atlantic early on Saturday during a flight from Bermuda to Boston, the US Coast Guard said.

A statement from the Coast Guard issued on Saturday evening said crews searching off the coast of the Massachusetts island Nantucket “located a debris field confirmed to be from the aircraft”, described as an air ambulance.

Published: October 4, 2026, 7:00 am

Russia strikes Kyiv bridge as German chancellor visits Ukraine in show of support

Attack shortly after Friedrich Merz arrived on unannounced visit intended to underline Germany’s backing

Russia has struck another major bridge in Kyiv as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, arrived in the capital in a show of support for Ukraine.

A Russian drone hit Kyiv’s key Northern Bridge over the Dnipro River, marking the fourth consecutive day that Russia has targeted bridges used by tens of thousands of residents commuting between the city’s two banks. Video footage showed cars driving across the bridge as the drone plunged into the roadway and exploded in a burst of fire. Two people were injured in the strike, said Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

Published: October 4, 2026, 9:12 am

OpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company’s culture is ‘broken’

David Robinson joins other insiders in urging industry to take more care over rapidly developing technology

A safety leader at OpenAI has quit the company, warning that its culture was broken and that AI firms were not “being nearly careful enough” about developing the technology.

David Robinson, who led the writing of safety reports that accompanied the ChatGPT developer’s product releases, explained his resignation in an essay headlined: “I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken.”

Published: October 4, 2026, 12:48 am

More than 1,200 Colorado students have earned a climate ‘seal’: ‘We’re the ones growing up in this world’

A statewide initiative pairs climate-focused coursework with community service – and is spreading to other states

As a student at a high school not far from Denver’s main airport, Anthony Muñoz wondered whether the jet fuel from airplanes flying above his campus was harming living things.

An avid gardener, Muñoz partnered with a local university to create a garden on the campus of his charter school, Vista Academy, filling it with native plants that could detect ground-level ozone pollution. He also worked with climate scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federal office in nearby Boulder, who directed Muñoz on what data to collect, what the condition of leaves reveals about air quality and why milkweed matters for monarch butterfly migration.

Published: October 4, 2026, 5:30 am

Episcopal bishop who urged Trump to ‘have mercy’ to resign post in Washington DC

Mariann Budde gained national attention for calling on US president to consider immigrants and LGBTQ+ people

Rev Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington DC who gained national attention when she called on Donald Trump to “have mercy” on the country’s immigrants and LGBTQ+ community after his second inauguration, is resigning.

Budde shared in her resignation letter that she will be leaving her post on 3 June 2028 after the consecration and ordination of the new diocesan bishop.

Published: October 3, 2026, 2:21 pm

Trump appears to share personal phone number of US senator in ploy to push permanent daylight savings

US president urges Americans to call Tom Cotton to support bill to make daylight saving time permanent

Donald Trump on Saturday put pressure on the US senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, urging Americans to call what appeared to be the personal cellphone number of his fellow Republican and the chair of the Senate intelligence committee.

The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House in July, but it faces roadblocks in the Senate, where some Republicans are strongly opposed to it. Proponents, including the president and his administration, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. Detractors say permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.

Published: October 3, 2026, 3:07 pm

Young sailors on the USS George Washington adjust to life at war – in pictures

Life onboard the aircraft carrier near the strait of Hormuz as it conducts military operations against Iranian targets

Published: October 3, 2026, 11:34 am

Outgoing prison chief in Christa Pike case oversaw five ‘botched’ executions, lawyers say

Frank Strada will leave role next month after uproar over execution attempt, which sent Pike to hospital in critical condition

Tennessee’s prison chief is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.

Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive.

Published: October 3, 2026, 3:00 am

Thousands of child-on-child sexual offences reported at schools in England and Wales

Exclusive: Average of nearly five sexual crimes a day against under-13s were reported to police between 2021 and 2025

• From unwanted touching to rape: the scale of child-on-child abuse in English and Welsh schools

Lawyers and campaigners have condemned the “horrifying” scale of child-on-child sexual abuse in schools after a Guardian investigation revealed thousands of sexual offences against under-13s, including multiple rapes, are reported to police every year.

Close to five sexual crimes against children aged 12 and younger were recorded on average by police every day in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, according to Guardian analysis of police data for 2021-25.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:00 am

Egyptian journalist faces terrorism charges after entire newsroom detained

Calls for release of six Matsadaash staff after one is charged, while whereabouts of other five remain unknown

An Egyptian journalist has been charged with joining a terrorist group, days after an entire newsroom was detained in what rights groups have said is a crackdown on press freedoms.

Last week, authorities arrested six journalists from the independent fact-checking and investigative platform Matsadaash – literally meaning “don’t believe” – accusing them in a statement of being unlicensed and publishing false news on behalf of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Published: October 4, 2026, 8:16 am

Polish activists launch abortion pill locker to bypass near-total ban

‘AbortOmat’ in Warsaw offers novel way to challenge country’s restrictions and allow women swift, anonymous access

They call it the “world’s first parcel locker for abortion pills”. Polish campaigners have launched a new means of distribution as part of their ongoing effort to skirt the country’s near-total ban on abortion.

Painted pink and framed by zebra-striped curtains, the 22-compartment “AbortOmat” in Warsaw allows women to access the pills swiftly and anonymously using a six-digit code. The service was envisaged for those who cannot or do not want to wait days for mail delivery due to a missed miscarriage or health complications, or who worry about receiving the pills at home.

Published: October 3, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘It’s glottophobia’: Brazilians in Portugal battle for linguistic recognition

Brazilian speech therapists say struggle for acceptance is part of wider prejudice embedded into Portuguese society

Not long after she started studying to become a nurse in Portugal, Iracema Ferreira began bringing a dictionary to her classes as a retort to accusations she was speaking Brazilian, not Portuguese. “It was to show that those words are in the Portuguese language dictionary,” she said.

A Brazilian speech therapist, Ferreira moved to Portugal in 2020 and later heard from several colleagues from her home country that the process of getting a licence to work in the European country was a dead end. The 45-year-old soon abandoned the idea of continuing the career she had practised for a decade and switched to nursing instead.

Published: October 4, 2026, 2:00 am

Do humans really have a ‘lizard brain’ lurking beneath our rational minds?

It’s a powerful analogy that captured the popular imagination, but the biological reality is quite different

Humans have a cognitive quirk for the number three. Think of the many stories that use it, from The Three Little Pigs to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Musketeers. Public information and political campaigns use it for impact and ease of recall (“Stop, look and listen”; “See it. Say it. Sorted”; “Reduce, reuse, recycle”). And then there are psychological or philosophical frameworks: Freud with his id, ego and superego; Plato’s three parts of the human soul; the Holy Trinity.

Well, it turns out neuroscience isn’t immune from tri-mania. In 1959 Paul D MacLean set out a new way of thinking about the evolution and function of the brain, which he christened the “triune” – three-in-one – model. It quickly became one of best known and most enduring concepts in human biology. His idea was that a trio of distinct brains are layered inside our skulls, one on top of the other, all fighting to generate our feelings and thoughts.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

‘Brave from the beginning’: 20 years of Friday Night Lights – the sports drama that dared to be different

It launched the careers of Jesse Plemons and Michael B Jordan, and let its stars improvise in a way that was fresh and new. This show about smalltown US football was confident, trailblazing – and wonderful

I’ve been around the south of the US enough to have seen the importance of football: little burgs where the high-school football field has stands that wouldn’t disgrace a League Two soccer club in the UK. Friday Night Lights, which was first broadcast 20 years ago, is set in the most fervent edges of that world, smalltown Texas, where what happens under the floodlights at the end of the working week defines the mood of the place for days to come.

Britt Daniel, the frontman of the Texas band Spoon, grew up in one such town, Temple. “Friday Night Lights is based on Odessa, and Odessa and Temple are very, very similar,” he told me in 2017. “The high schools used to play each other at football, and they’re the kind of towns where everything happens on Friday because it’s the football game. I didn’t really think about it until many years later, but you really risked being beaten [up]. Not just harassed, but beaten. Everywhere you went, you really had to look over your shoulder. If you were at the mall, if you were at the parking lot, if you were at a party – people really wanted to fight.”

Published: October 3, 2026, 4:00 am

A Statement review – outstanding climate change dramedy about a 1980 meeting

New York film festival: Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti and Tatiana Maslany lead an excellent ensemble in this dramatization of a failed conference on climate change

In late October 1980, days before the election of Ronald Reagan, Congress summoned 20 experts in various fields to a beachfront hotel in Florida. Their mandate was simple: figure out how to address the dire threat posed to the climate by fossil fuel emissions, then deliver their recommendations to Congress in the form of a statement.

Every word said during four marathon sessions over the next 36 hours – every disagreement or digression, tirade or truce – was recorded by a stenographer for posterity into a single document, hundreds of pages long, that stands as an artifact from a time when expertise was trusted, before corporate greed and political expediency mired “debate” about rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in a haze of misinformation and inaction. The fact that this meeting took place at all – that experts in climate, energy, law, philosophy, politics and more agreed on the fundamental facts, yet struggled to reach consensus on what to do about them – is fascinating, if perhaps not the most natural fit for a movie. This was, after all, a conference room of specialists sharing evidence via overhead projector.

Published: October 3, 2026, 5:15 pm

‘I thought, if I’m going to die, I’m going to write a book first’: Pachinko author Min Jin Lee

Her last novel sold 5m copies and was adapted into a hit series. Nearly 10 years on, the Korean-American author has written another epic. She discusses ambition and the diagnosis that inspired her to leave work and write

Back in 1995, when she was in her mid-20s, Min Jin Lee quit her job as a corporate lawyer. As a teenager she had been diagnosed as a hepatitis B carrier and doctors told her she was highly likely to develop liver cancer in her 20s or 30s. “I thought, if I’m going to die, I’m going to write a book first,” the now 57-year-old Korean-American author says of her decision to turn her back on a regular pay cheque and healthcare. “I was told so many times that I was going to get sicker and sicker, that I’ve always felt that if I can get a really good book out then I’m done.”

Lee, looking very much alive and well, is on a video call from her home in Harlem, New York, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind her. We are meeting to discuss the publication of her third novel, American Hagwon, the final part in what she calls her “Korean trilogy”, following Free Food for Millionaires in 2007 and her 2017 international bestseller, Pachinko, stylishly adapted for Apple TV in 2022. “Korean quartet!” she corrects me now. Thanks to experimental drugs, she is now so healthy she can commit to another book. “Before I turn 70, I should turn in my manuscript,” she jokes. “I’m writing the four books that I wanted to write and after that I’m going to take a long nap.”

Published: October 3, 2026, 1:00 am

When is the right time to compare US politics to the Nazi era? This expert on Christian nationalism says: now

Robert P Jones argues that declining white Christian influence has fuelled an alliance with Trump, and warns it is reshaping US democracy

The lawyer Mike Godwin famously came up with the “law” that, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one (or 100%).

Robert P Jones thought long and hard about whether to go there in his latest book. But the more he studied US demographic numbers, considered the rise of Christian nationalism and heard Donald Trump use the language of racial purity, he found the conclusion inescapable. “This is our 1933,” he writes.

Published: October 3, 2026, 6:00 am

Star Wars actor John Boyega on the day his 10-year-old school friend Damilola Taylor was killed: ‘It kept me up at night because I was just with the guy’

The star was just eight when his friend was stabbed. Decades on, he’s ready to talk about that day – how it shaped him, and how, as he becomes a father himself, it will shape him as a dad

“I feel a bit nervous,” confesses John Boyega, as he sits down in front of the camera. “Speaking about it could possibly help. I haven’t revisited this in a long time. Yeah, my heart is just beating.” The Attack the Block and Star Wars actor is talking in the opening scene of a new BBC Two documentary about the killing of 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor.

On 27 November 2000, Damilola was stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle and left to die in a concrete stairwell, attacked as he walked home from an after-school club at Peckham library in south London. It took six years and three separate trials at the Old Bailey, costing a total of £16m, to secure a manslaughter conviction. His death shocked the nation not only because he was so young, but because all the suspects were also children. Boyega was one of the last people to see Damilola alive. The pair had enjoyed a close friendship since Damilola’s move to the UK from Nigeria in August of that year.

Published: October 3, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘We have been dispossessed’: Nick Hayes on land rights and a peaceful revolution at the real Toad Hall

The co-founder of the Right to Roam campaign and author of The Book of Trespass discusses the Oxfordshire riverside community he calls home and how Hardwick Hall has been taken back by the people

On the banks of the Thames in South Oxfordshire, the Hardwick estate has been owned by the Rose family for generations. When Sir Charles Rose, a banker, sportsman, yachtsman and aviator, sped through the lanes in his Rolls-Royce in the early days of motoring, he inspired Kenneth Grahame to create Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows. Grahame’s character became a symbol of decadent aristocracy whose foolishness leads to the temporary loss of a fine house to weasel-socialists.

Now Toad Hall has been taken over for good and Nick Hayes, artist, writer and co-founder of the Right to Roam campaign, has had a riverside view of this striking turn of events. When Hayes, who lives on a beautiful wide-beamed barge on the Thames, became the Hardwick estate’s artist-in-residence, he discovered that Rose’s heirs are, in effect, disinheriting themselves. The estate is gradually being turned into a charity which will be run by the tenants and the alternative community that has grown up in its shelter.

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

‘An extraordinary hour’: the explosive play re-staging the biggest TV clash of the Aids era

A New York production brings Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci’s 1993 debate to life in a masterclass of controlled fury

On 30 November 1993, the Aids activist Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were arguing again. They argued a lot back then about the US government’s response, or lack thereof, to the Aids crisis. Fauci asserted institutional legitimacy. Kramer scolded that any institution presiding over a genocide doesn’t have any. Kramer wanted to untie Fauci’s hands from politics and bureaucracy; Fauci wanted to de-escalate Kramer’s vituperous hand-wringing. They also ribbed each other, allies as often as antagonists.

On the night they appeared on C-Span, the buttoned-up not-for-profit cable channel better known for unfettered congressional coverage than for the verbal pyrotechnics of CNN’s Crossfire, or the revelations-as-entertainment approach to politics by Oprah and Donahue. But this night was different. Journalist Steve Scully spent the hour trying to moderate Kramer and Fauci as they attacked and amused each other: he redirected them back to his questions when passions erupted, and kept those questions to centrist concerns of, mostly, money. And in between all this he took he took calls from civilians whose empathy and expertise in Aids, let’s say, ranged wildly. It was an exhausting hour, which settled little. But it showed what just might happen when people yell at each other loudly enough so they can be heard, and also listen.

Published: October 3, 2026, 2:00 am

I craved a mean girl’s approval until My Little Pony broke the spell

I didn’t realise my school infatuation was just making fun of me, but then an episode of the cartoon series taught me the attributes of true companionship

When I was seven, I was obsessed with one particular classmate. She was the only girl taller than me and she never let me forget it. She was allowed to wear colourful nail polish and had shiny Lelli Kelly shoes, while I had short, plain nails and had to make do with classic black Clarks. I craved her approval.

That spring she got an iPhone, and deliberately shunned me for a while afterwards. I cried for hours, but I wasn’t confused. I understood, and even respected it. Why would she grace me with her aura? I was lucky she let me sit at her table at all, even if it was only to taunt me for still bringing in a packed lunch. She was my best friend – I was always holding out hope that one day I would be hers.

Published: October 3, 2026, 4:00 am

This is how we do it: ‘My mistress has complete control over me and makes me so happy’

LD is the submissive to Lady Alice’s dominatrix – and it has been a revelation for them both

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I have cerebral palsy and live with my parents. Lady Alice is a delicious secret

Published: October 4, 2026, 3:00 am

My friends are spouting conspiracy theories – what should I say? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

You can be curious about others’ beliefs without compromising your own

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who explained that her ill health was down to reasons I would describe as dubious. Taking certain supplements and changing her diet have significantly improved her health. Good for her. However, she was disappointed and a little annoyed that I didn’t share her outrage and wasn’t going to follow her views.

I’ve got another friend who thinks cholesterol is a lie and that we should live largely on meat (and supplements). Another went through a sugar causes cancer phase. And another is sceptical of vaccines. Each of them may be right. They might not. We are learning more about the human body every day. But I was raised by scientists and I want to see a large-scale trial before I get outraged and change the way I live. Equally, I’m not convinced that a lightly regulated for-profit industry (supplements) is automatically more trustworthy than a highly regulated for-profit one (pharma).

Published: October 3, 2026, 10:00 pm

It’s the Filter’s first birthday! 25 things readers loved most this year … and if we still recommend them

In the course of a year, we’ve tested products ranging from instant coffees and cat toys to towels and sleep masks. These are the ones you loved most

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

The Filter US is turning one. Over the past year, we have cooked, cleaned, hiked and generally put our homes and bodies through a lot in pursuit of things actually worth buying. We have tested packing cubes on 14 trips, spent 63 nights testing sleep masks, recruited 84 coffee drinkers to taste instant coffee and put thousands of products through their paces (and called out ones which we don’t recommend).

And we have gone deeper: asking a food lab to test the best non-toxic pans, blind-tasting everything from protein bars to nonalcoholic beer and getting the tea on Padma Lakshmi’s favorite kitchen tools. Across hundreds of articles, we have covered everything from a satisfyingly bouncy $1,600 organic mattress to a small but mighty $9 cleaning brush. We have found the legitimately best deals on our favorite things too.

Published: October 3, 2026, 7:15 am

The moment I knew: As a reality TV contestant, I was allowed one 15-minute call a week. Even at 3am, Chris would always pick up

Conor Curran’s first date with Chris lasted nine hours but their relationship remained casual. Then, when Conor was at his most vulnerable, Chris was there for him

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

At 29 I had lost my career in hospitality because of Covid and decided to throw my hat in the ring as a contestant on MasterChef Australia. By the time I was eliminated in 2021, restaurants still weren’t open and I didn’t know what to do with my life. My lease was coming to an end in Melbourne and I wasn’t doing well with the lockdowns and people recognising me from TV. So I decided to retreat to my father’s place in Adelaide for a while.

By early 2022 I was dating a guy but, after a few months, he ghosted me suddenly.

Published: October 3, 2026, 12:00 pm

My relationship with food was broken. Then I killed my own dinner

For years, eating was something to control, fear or regret. After I hunted my first deer, I started to see fat, hunger and my own body in a different light

I muffled my sobs with a pillow so my family couldn’t hear me from the adjacent room. I was 19 years old and we were in Paris, staying on the top floor of an old six-story walkup where every step echoed through the thin walls. I was trying, and failing, to hide the emotional war I had decided to wage on my body. Who does that on a family vacation? In Europe, no less?

Pulling tear-soaked strands of hair off my cheeks, I stood in front of a full-length mirror and grabbed the fat of my thighs. If only I could just – I pictured ripping off fistfuls of my body and flinging them out the windows, where they would land on some unknowing French person six stories below. I had this vision often: pulling bits of myself off and casting them somewhere far away from me.

Published: October 3, 2026, 5:00 am

Miu Miu turns ‘real clothes’ into high fashion with sportswear style

Brand’s signature desire to subvert the ordinary brings blazers with track pants and crop tops under blazers to Paris fashion week

Speaking backstage at Miu Miu’s show on Sunday at Paris fashion week, Miuccia Prada said she had been thinking about “real clothes”. The clothes people wear on the street for running errands rather than posing on social media. Her findings? Succinct. “The reality of clothing today is this mix – sportswear, casual, normal,” she said. Her challenge? To make them “more interesting, more rich”. To achieve this, she outlined how she had decided to focus on mixing “elements of sports with sophistication”.

The collection opened with a series of five neatly pleated checked skirts. The first was worn with an equally neat checked blazer but rather than a smart shoe, such as a pump or loafers, there were brightly coloured trainers. The second featured a crop top under the blazer, the trainers swapped for spiky high heels. The other looks ditched the blazer and clipped the tops so they sat just under the bust line.

Published: October 4, 2026, 9:45 am

How to make the perfect zuppa di cozze – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

A tomatoey, southern Italian alternative to moules marinière – but who makes the definitive version?

Abundant, good value and ready in minutes, mussels are one of my favourite seafoods, but when it comes to preparing them, I rarely look farther than northern France. Italians, of course, also eat mussels, and this tomato-rich recipe is a particular favourite in the south – Neapolitans traditionally tuck into zuppa di cozze on Maundy Thursday but it’s found on menus all year round. With its bold flavours and oily, garlicky sauce, it’s a great alternative to creamy moules marinières, and similarly needs no accompaniment but a hunk of bread to make a meal, though chips, of course, are rarely unwelcome.

Published: October 4, 2026, 5:00 am

Dining across the divide: ‘Without being patronising, I think as he grows older he’ll tune in to the damage “free speech” can do’

Did a Tory voter who opposes all censorship offend a leftwinger concerned about how people treat one another?

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

Ted, 24, London

Occupation Works for a thinktank

Published: October 4, 2026, 4:00 am

Alone with the stars, lynx and wolves in ‘Empty Spain’

A world away from the tourist hotspots of the coast, Extremadura and Castile and León offer unpolluted skies, lower prices – and hope for the future of vulnerable wildlife

As photographed at night from a satellite, or the International Space Station (ISS), the Iberian peninsula looks encrusted with lights along its coastal edges. Madrid forms a big pulsing cluster near the centre, while surrounding hinterlands appear as something of a void. Ever fewer people live out in Castile and León and Extremadura, adjoining regions that cover much of what is known as La España Vacía, or “Empty Spain”.

Not many visit either, or at least not compared with Barcelona and other glowing nodes of the tourist circuit. So, while the big ports and resorts struggle to manage surplus holidaymakers, there is room for plenty more out west, toward the Portuguese border. Some have been following the stars that way lately, under the auspices of an astrotourism initiative called Extremadura Buenas Noches.

Published: October 3, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘We are in a kind of war’: row over viral Amsterdam chip shop lands in court

Neighbours say crowds drawn by TikTok to Fabel Friet are clogging the picturesque canal street and attracting litter, gulls and rats

People living in one of Amsterdam’s most exclusive neighbourhoods have taken the city to court for licensing a chip shop that has gone viral on TikTok.

On busy days, the queue for Fabel Friet on Runstraat stretches across a bridge on the Keizersgracht – one of Amsterdam’s most famous canals – a court was told last week. The narrow street itself is crowded by tourists waiting for their orders seven days a week. And loitering with intent – on parked cars, on the street itself, and on steps and porches – gulls wait to swoop.

Published: October 3, 2026, 9:00 pm

Incinerated novels and destroyed warehouses: Russia’s war on Ukrainian books

A Ukrainian publishing boom sparked by the 2022 invasion is now under threat from the force and frequency of Russian attacks

On a Saturday morning in August, Viktor Kruglov, the co-founder and chief executive of the publisher Ranok, was at his headquarters in Kharkiv – the eastern Ukrainian city that, along with Kyiv, is the centre of the country’s publishing and printing industry. Built 15 years ago on the site of a former bread factory, the footprint of the premises is about 10,000 sq metres (107,640ft). Books were stacked 12 metres high on rank after rank of shelves.

Kruglov, along with five senior colleagues, were on the warehouse floor to discuss the approaching school year. The warehouse was holding 628,000 new schoolbooks. “It was the high season of distribution,” he said, “so we were checking all our processes: how to do it more successfully, how to do it in time.”

Published: October 3, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘It’s been hard’: families await the return of the USS Abraham Lincoln

After reports of suicide attempts and food shortages, the aircraft carrier is expected to dock in San Diego this week following a record-breaking 250-plus days at sea

A mother in San Diego is counting down the days until her son comes home.

“I had a big sign made, welcoming him back,” she said. “I can’t wait to see him.”

Published: October 3, 2026, 2:00 am

A human tower in Spain and drought in Indonesia: photos of the weekend

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

Published: October 4, 2026, 5:42 am