Chuck Schumer should quit – but would his imaginary friends agree? | Arwa Mahdawi

The US government was shut down for weeks – and then Democrats shrugged their shoulders and gave up

Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has a pair of very sweet imaginary friends. They’re a middle-class couple called Joe and Eileen Bailey and they live on Long Island. At one point the imaginary couple, who feature in Schumer’s 2007 book, Positively American, were called the O’Reillys. According to the Hill, one Schumer aide said the name then was changed because the publisher thought O’Reilly was “too ethnic” for mass consumption. Another aide said that claim was false, and Schumer just wanted a name that “sounded more national”. Naming strategy aside, the key point here is that Schumer has said he runs all his policy decisions by this completely fictional couple. He’s referred to them hundreds of times throughout his political career.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:00 pm

These parrots came to Los Angeles as pets – then went wild. Now scientists are unlocking their mysteries

Once escapees from the pet trade, Los Angeles’s feral parrots have become a vibrant part of city life, and could even aid conservation in their native homelands

A morning mist hung over the palm trees as birds chattered and cars roared by on the streets of Pasadena. It was a scene that evoked a tropical island rather than a bustling city in north-east Los Angeles county.

“It feels parrot-y,” says Diego Blanco, a research assistant at Occidental College’s Moore zoology lab, nodding to the verdant flora that surrounds us: tall trees and ornamental bushes with berries.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:03 pm

‘He was quite a private person’: expansive auction shows Gene Hackman as actor and artist

Bonhams is selling over 400 items from the estate of the late Oscar-winning actor, from a draft script of The Silence of the Lambs to his own unique artwork

He was Lex Luthor to Christopher Reeve’s Superman. But could he have been Hannibal Lecter to Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling?

The intriguing prospect is raised by an unlikely 33-page draft script for The Silence of the Lambs lurking in a collection of the late actor Gene Hackman’s possessions that goes up for auction later this month.

Published: November 15, 2025, 10:02 am

Liechtenstein 0-1 Wales: World Cup 2026 qualifier – live reaction

⚽ Updates from the Group J qualifier (5pm GMT)
⚽ Get in touch! Email Niall with your thoughts

As Alan just mentioned, there are far more Wales fans than Liechtenstein ultras in the compact Rheinpark Stadion tonight. There are a few boos for the hosts’ national anthem – although it probably doesn’t help that it’s the same tune as God Save the King.

“Evening from Vaduz,” writes Alun Pugh. “Sweet Caroline being played by a tone deaf DJ, and being booed from three sides on the ground. Quite right too.” Reclaim it, I say – Sweet Caroline is for everyone (who’s had two to three pints).

Published: November 15, 2025, 7:08 pm

‘Trump is inconsistent with Christian principles’: why the Democratic party is seeing a rise of white clergy candidates

From Texas and Iowa to Arkansas, faith leaders are wading into politics to counter the rise of Christian nationalism

He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.

Published: November 15, 2025, 5:00 pm

Snacks that kids will actually eat – recommended by a nutrition expert

From chickpea puffs to fruit rolls, the crowd pleasers this registered dietitian keeps stocked check all the boxes

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

I have grown wary of sending my four-year-old to school with bananas. Despite my best intentions to ply her with fresh produce, I have spent too many weekday mornings scooping mashed-up, peeled but uneaten bananas and browning apple slices out of her Elsa lunchbox.

Like many parents, I’m constantly trying to strike the balance between convenience, nutrition, variety, budget and – importantly – whether my kid will actually eat the foods I’ve packed for her.

Published: November 14, 2025, 8:15 pm

Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show

Pair devised responses to public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his treatment by the justice system and his friendships with powerful people

Hundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.

The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018, the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.

Published: November 15, 2025, 11:00 am

Mamdani’s appointment of Lina Khan a warning to private equity, experts say

Ex-FTC chair was among first to go after practice of folding local firms into larger ones leading to higher prices

Experts say New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s selection of Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair, for his transition team acts as a warning to private equity firms in the state that have raised rents and monopolized local healthcare industries.

Throughout the US, private equity has increasingly monopolized industries through the practice of “roll ups,” acquiring many small local firms and rolling them into one larger firm, giving them power to simultaneously raise prices and lower quality.

Published: November 15, 2025, 1:00 pm

US army veteran who received Purple Heart deported by ICE to Mexico

Venezuelan-born Jose Barco detained upon early release from prison following attempted murder conviction

An army veteran and Purple Heart recipient who served two tours in Iraq was deported on Friday morning from an immigration detention facility in Florence, Arizona.

Arizona state representative Raquel Terán told Fox 10 Phoenix that Jose Barco, a Venezuelan-born veteran whose family fled Cuba as refugees, was deported at 4am from Arizona.

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:03 am

Viktor Orbán begins ‘anti-war roadshow’ as Hungary gears up for 2026 elections

PM makes opposition to support for Ukraine central to Fidesz campaign as it loses ground over cost of living crisis

Hungary’s prime minister has kicked off a weeks-long “anti-war roadshow”, turning criticism of European support for Ukraine into an early campaign message before next year’s elections.

Viktor Orbán’ is scheduled to stage an event in five cities before the end of the year, and started with an assembly on Saturday in the north-western city of Győr.

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:31 pm

Thousands hit streets of Belém to call for action during crucial Cop30 summit

Funeral for fossil fuels held as part of ‘Great People’s March’ calling on governments to step up climate efforts

The streets of Belém echoed with indigenous chants, classical Brazilian songs and calls for environmental justice on Saturday as tens of thousands of people marched to demand urgent action on the climate and nature crisis.

Activists from around the world converged on the Amazonian host city of COP30, urging negotiators to ramp up ambition.

Published: November 15, 2025, 3:50 pm

Questions arise over strikingly similar signatures by Trump on recent pardons

Seemingly identical signatures appeared on clemency orders, which White House blamed on technical error

The Trump administration’s clemency drive is coming under scrutiny after the justice department this week replaced pardons posted online that bore strikingly similar copies of Trump’s signature with others that are distinctively variable.

The corrections came after online commenters seized on the similarities in the president’s signature granting “full and unconditional” pardons to seven men, including to former New York Mets player Darryl Strawberry, former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada and former New York police sergeant Michael McMahon, on 7 November.

Published: November 15, 2025, 3:21 pm

$170,000 a minute: why Saudi Arabia is the biggest blocker of climate action

Desert kingdom depends on oil dollars but its people already face a climate ‘at the verge of livability’. What’s going on?

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:00 pm

Salt Lake City declines to charge anti-child-trafficking activist with sexual assault

District attorney cites ‘insufficient admissible evidence’ against Tim Ballard in connection with allegations

A district attorney based in Salt Lake City is declining to file charges against the founder of an anti-child-trafficking organization – made famous by the 2023 movie Sound of Freedom – in the wake of sexual assault claims by several women in lawsuits.

Sim Gill, the district attorney, issued a statement Friday saying there is “insufficient admissible evidence”, and his office has declined to file charges against Tim Ballard in connection with the allegations.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:52 pm

Todd Snider, alt-country singer-songwriter of Alright Guy, dies aged 59

Influential musician who created Americana hits had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia

Todd Snider, the influential alt-country singer-songwriter who created Americana hits such as Alright Guy, has died at 59.

His passing was shared through announcements on his official social media accounts. Although no cause of death was provided, his family shared on Friday that he had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:38 pm

Trump pressures Thailand to recommit to Cambodia ceasefire with ‘threat of tariffs’

Bangkok had earlier said it was suspending ceasefire, accusing Cambodia of laying landmines along the border

The US has put pressure on Thailand to recommit to a ceasefire with Cambodia, warning trade talks could be halted as Washington seeks to keep a Donald Trump-brokered truce agreement from falling apart.

Earlier this week, Thailand said that it was suspending the ceasefire deal, accusing Cambodia of laying fresh landmines along the border, including one it said wounded a Thai soldier on patrol, who lost a foot in the explosion.

Published: November 15, 2025, 4:03 pm

Turmoil and tensions at FDA after dramatic exit of top drug regulator

Scramble to find replacement for George Tidmarsh shines light on dysfunction at US regulatory agency

After the dramatic ousting of the top drug regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) two weeks ago, officials have scrambled to find a replacement in a process that has revealed the agency’s internal cracks and tensions.

It’s troubling news for a regulatory agency that has previously enjoyed a reputation for stability and consistency.

Published: November 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

Trump news at a glance: Pam Bondi announces investigation into Trump’s adversaries’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein

US attorney general names Jay Clayton as lead investigator, hours after direction from US president – key US politics stories from 14 November 2025

Pam Bondi announced on Friday afternoon that she had assigned Jay Clayton, the interim US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein, hours after the president directed her to do so.

“Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead,” the US attorney general said of the lawyer, who also served as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump’s first administration. “As with all matters, the department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:03 am

Trump says he will take legal action against BBC, despite its apology

US president says he will sue the corporation for ‘anywhere between a billion and $5bn’

Donald Trump has said he still plans to sue the BBC despite receiving the apology he demanded over a misleading edit of one of his speeches.

The row, over an episode of Panorama from last year about the Capitol riot in 2021, led to accusations of bias at the broadcaster and the resignation of two of the most senior executives at the BBC: the director general, Tim Davie; and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of news.

Published: November 15, 2025, 10:54 am

Hurricane Melissa a ‘real-time case study’ of colonialism’s legacies

Destruction in Jamaica shows why climate justice cannot be separated from reparatory justice, campaigners say

Perched on the edge of a hill in the idyllic village of Cold Spring in Hanover, Jamaica, the Gurney’s Mount Baptist church has stood for centuries as a symbol of resistance and endurance. The church and its congregation have endured through uprisings – in particular the famous 1831 slave revolt led by the Black Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe – and earthquakes.

But when Hurricane Melissa descended on Jamaica, it ripped off the church roof and shredded the rows of sturdy pews, leaving an unrecognisable mangle of wood and debris in its wake. Outside, parts of the structure had survived the onslaught of the category 5 storm. The church is one of Jamaica’s 146,000 buildings – just 15% of those assessed so far – that has suffered major to severe damage, according to Alvin Gayle, director general of Jamaica’s emergency management office. The death toll on Thursday was 45, with 13 people missing; an estimated 90,000 households and 360,000 people have been affected by the damage.

Published: November 15, 2025, 9:25 am

Israel breaching international law by limiting Gaza aid, says Unrwa official

Natalie Boucly says supplies are ready but only about half of what is needed is getting into territory

Israel is breaching international law by continuing to impose restrictions on aid flows into Gaza, where the population remains critically short of food and life-saving goods as winter sets in, a senior official at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.

In an interview during a recent visit to Brussels, Natalie Boucly, an Unrwa deputy commissioner general, said the whole world – including the EU and US – needed to increase the pressure on Israel’s government to ensure the unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza.

Published: November 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘I’m not as fierce as I seem’: Glenn Close on growing up in a cult, marching against Trump – and being unlucky in love

She’s Hollywood’s biggest character actor who terrified a generation of men with her ‘bunny boiling’ turn in Fatal Attraction. Now, Close alternates the glamour of the red carpet with living in a red state. She talks about the joy of her ‘undefined’ life

Most of us don’t live our lives in accordance with a governing metaphor, but Glenn Close does. The 78-year-old was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, a town in the north‑east of the US that, to the actor’s enduring irritation, telegraphs “smug affluence” to other Americans. In fact, Close’s background is more complicated than that, rooted in a childhood that was wild and free but also traumatic, and in an area of New England in which her family goes back generations. “I grew up on those great stone walls of New England,” says the actor, chin out, gimlet-eyed – Queen Christina at the prow of a ship. “Some of them were 6ft tall and 250 years old! I have a book called Sermons in Stone and it says at one point that more energy and hours ran into building the New England stone walls than the pyramids.”

If the walls are an image Close draws on for strength, they might also serve as shorthand for the journalist encountering her at interview. Close appears in a London hotel suite today in a military-style black suit, trim, compact, and with a small white dog propped up on a chair beside her. For the span of our conversation, the actor’s warmth and friendliness combine with a reserve so practised and precise that the presence of the dog in the room feels, unfairly perhaps, like a handy way for Close to burn through a few minutes of the interview with some harmless guff about dog breeds. (The dog is called Pip, which is short for “Sir Pippin of Beanfield”. He is a purebred Havanese and “they’re incredibly intelligent”. Most dog owners in the US have the emotional support paperwork necessary to get them on a plane but, says Close, laughing, “That’s really what he is!”)

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Not for the faint-hearted’: is running the BBC an impossible job?

After Tim Davie’s resignation, the next director general will face internal strife, external noise and looming talks over the corporation’s existence and purpose

As BBC senior editors arrived at its New Broadcasting House headquarters in central London on Monday, the most pressing question was what had convinced Tim Davie, the corporation’s director general, to quit suddenly. Like any good BBC drama, it was a plot twist no one had seen coming.

As they assessed the brutal pressures that had finally proved too much for Davie, a second question soon arose. Was running the BBC now simply an impossible job?

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Six great reads: football friendships, European health hacks and the seven stages of romance scams

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the past seven days

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:44 am

Blind date: ‘She friend-zoned me over text before the night was through’

Alex, 31, an academic, meets Rachel, 28, a university caseworker

What were you hoping for?
A good plotline, a fun evening and the chance of a connection.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

She was a prison officer. He was a convicted rapist. How did she fall for him?

Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington was working in a men’s prison when she began a relationship with an inmate that would turn her, too, into a criminal. How do some of the most dangerous men in Britain get what they want – even behind bars?

There was a moment in the summer of 2022 when 26-year-old Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington, a female prison officer in a men’s jail, had to make a choice. She was on her wing at HMP The Verne in Dorset, in the day room where inmates go to read books and newspapers, when a prisoner called Bradley Trengrove handed her a magazine. Concealed within its pages was a slip of paper with a number written on it – the number of his secret, illicit mobile phone. Under the watchful eye of the prison’s security cameras, Austin-Saddington had to decide what to do next.

“I was thinking, do I report it? Do I not report it?” she says. “I wasn’t thinking, I’ll text him – that wasn’t in my head.” But she did not throw the piece of paper away. She kept it, and in the end decided not to report anything.

Published: November 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

The scientist who helped win the fight to protect a sacred piece of the Pacific

Respected ocean expert Katy Soapi continues to advocate to protect Tetepare, one of the last untouched places in Solomon Islands

Scientist Katy Soapi’s earliest memories are of the sea. She grew up on Rendova, a lush island in western Solomon Islands, and life centred around the ocean.

“I remember when the big waves came, we would dive under them and come up laughing on the other side. Being part of those natural elements brought me so much joy.”

Published: November 14, 2025, 11:00 pm

Chris McCausland: ‘My most embarrassing moment? Going into an undertaker’s thinking it was a barber’s’

The comedian on his geeky teenage years, cheating in an exam and why Strictly is his biggest achievement

Born in Liverpool, Chris McCausland, 48, became a software engineer before losing his sight in his 20s due to a genetic disorder. Forced to change careers, he worked in sales before turning to standup comedy in 2003. In 2024, he took part in Strictly Come Dancing and won. His waltz with professional Dianne Buswell was awarded the memorable moment Bafta in 2025. This year, he added more than 100 new dates to his theatre tour Yonks!, which runs until May 2026, and he has just published a memoir called Keep Laughing. He is married with one child and lives in London.

When were you happiest?
My college years when I was 17 to 19, before the responsibilities of adulthood, just doing the things that I was good at and liked – computers, maths, further maths (I was a geek).

Published: November 15, 2025, 10:00 am

After I burned out, physics helped me understand what had happened to me – and to move on | Zahaan Bharmal

I thought hard work equalled success. I had to realise that’s not always how it works, in science or in life

If the words “force equals mass times acceleration” are mildly triggering, I apologise. Newton’s second law of motion will be familiar to anyone who’s ever studied physics. For some who struggled with that course, it may bring back painful memories. But for me, as an awkward teenager, it was oddly comforting – proof of an ordered, structured universe where cause always led to predictable effect. I carried that belief into university, where I studied physics, and even into my career. If I just worked hard enough, success would be mine.

But nine months into my first job, I got made redundant. It turns out that life doesn’t always obey Newton’s laws.

Zahaan Bharmal is the author of The Art of Physics and a senior director at Google, writing in a personal capacity

Published: November 15, 2025, 8:00 am

Taylor Swift’s silence on the Trump administration using her music speaks volumes | Alim Kheraj

Official Trump social media accounts have been using The Life of a Showgirl snippets to promote his agenda. Why has Swift, who once wanted ‘to be on the right side of history’, said nothing?

In the last two weeks, the Trump administration has used music from Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, in three posts on social media. The first, shared by the official White House account on TikTok, was a patriotic slide show of images set to lead single The Fate of Ophelia. As Swift sings “pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes”, the video cuts to pictures of the US flag, President Trump, the vice-president, JD Vance, and the first and second ladies. The second and third were posted by Team Trump, the official account for the Trump Campaign. One, set to Father Figure, riffs on the lyric “this empire belongs to me” with the caption “this empire belongs to @President Donald J Trump”, while the other, celebrating Melania Trump winning something called the Patriot of the year award, is soundtracked by Opalite.

The Trump administration has found itself in dicey waters for using popular music in the past. The White Stripes and the estate of Isaac Hayes have both attempted to sue the administration for using their music without permission, while artists including Celine Dion, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Abba and Foo Fighters have released statements demanding Trump stop using their songs at campaign rallies and public appearances. Most recently, Olivia Rodrigo condemned the administration after the official Department of Homeland Security and White House Instagram account used her song All-American Bitch on a video promoting its controversial deportation efforts (the song was later removed by Instagram).

Published: November 15, 2025, 11:41 am

Welcome to the great unwokening of Hollywood! Shame no one can be bothered to turn up | Jason Okundaye

Sydney Sweeney has become the poster child of a predicted rightwing cultural domination. So why is no one watching her films?

I was on a walk around my local area in London when I was stopped in my tracks by a young man sauntering past me, wearing stone-wash jeans, a pair of shades and a “Reagan-Bush ’84” T-shirt. He gave off an incredibly smug air but, to be fair, he did look good. It’s a nice T-shirt, not like those garish Reform-branded football kits, so I could see why it might be appealing. A quick search informed me that for gen-Z rightwingers in the US, it has become the “conservative take on a band shirt or the once-ubiquitous Che Guevara tee”.

That casual display of conservative aesthetics reminded me of something else too: a much discussed cover of New York magazine from earlier this year, after Trump 2.0’s inauguration, which showed young rightwingers celebrating as they “contemplate cultural domination”.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Big content is taking on AI – but it’s far from the David v Goliath tale they’d have you believe | Alexander Avila

Deals between media conglomerates and tech companies serve both sets of interests, while leaving artists by the wayside

The world’s biggest music company is now in the AI business. Last year, Universal Music Group (UMG), alongside labels including Warner Records and Sony Music Entertainment sued two AI music startups for allegedly using their recordings to train text-to-music models without permission.

But last month, UMG announced a deal with one of the defendants, Udio, to create an AI music platform. Their joint press release offered assurances that the label will commit to “do what’s right by [UMG’s] artists”. However, one advocacy group, the Music Artists Coalition, responded with the statement: “We’ve seen this before – everyone talks about ‘partnership’, but artists end up on the sidelines with scraps.”

Alexander Avila is a video essayist, writer and researcher

Published: November 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Trump can get away with saying what he likes about the BBC. But Epstein? That’s his one vulnerability | Jonathan Freedland

In attacking a vital broadcaster, the US president is once again holding others to standards he flouts. But the Maga faithful might not let his links to the disgraced financier go

To confront Donald Trump is to engage in asymmetric warfare. It is to enter a battlefield that is not level, where he enjoys an immediate and in-built advantage over those who would oppose him or merely hold him to account. That fact has cost Democrats dearly over the past decade – exacting a toll again this very week – but it has now upended an institution central to Britain’s national life: namely, the BBC.

The key asymmetry can be spelled out simply. Trump pays little or no regard to the conventional bounds of truth or honesty. His documented tally of false or misleading statements runs into the tens of thousands: the Washington Post registered 30,573 such statements during Trump’s first term in the White House, an average of 21 a day. In a single interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes earlier this month, Trump spoke falsely 18 times, according to CNN.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US?
On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Published: November 14, 2025, 5:12 pm

The Guardian view on the Booker prize winner: putting masculinity back at the centre of literary fiction | Editorial

David Szalay’s Flesh breaks from a decade of female-centred interiors and reopens a genre many thought closed to men

Novels of female interiority have dominated literary fiction for nearly a decade. Writers such as Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh captured the inner lives of young women in a way that felt almost shockingly fresh and real, and chimed with the #MeToo moment. Similar stories about young men have become hard to find.

This week an unapologetic portrait of masculinity won the Booker prize. Flesh, by the British-Hungarian novelist David Szalay, follows the rise and fall of a working-class Hungarian immigrant called István from the late 1980s to the present day. We mainly see István in acts of casual sex or violence. He eats, he smokes. He says “Okay” and “yeah” over and over again. The novel is an exercise in radical exteriority: we do not know what István looks like, thinks or feels, and often he doesn’t either. This is the realist novel pared down to the bone.

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

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:25 pm

The Guardian view on Cop30: someone has to pay for the end of the oil and gas age | Editorial

The fossil-fuel era is drawing to a close, but at a pace far too slow for the planet’s good or a fair transition to a clean energy future

The weather in Belém, wrote the Guardian’s environment editor, offers a convenient metaphor for the UN climate talks being held in the Brazilian city. Sunny mornings begin in blazing optimism before the Amazon’s clouds gather and the deluge begins. Cop30 has followed the same pattern. It opened with sunshine – an agenda agreed on day one. The storms were deferred for later “consultations” on climate finance, carbon border tariffs and the question of how to close the yawning gap between national climate pledges and the Paris agreement’s safe pathway. These await Cop30’s second week.

They are likely to be more than mere squalls. The International Energy Agency confirmed last week that the fossil-fuel era is ending. Its annual report said the world will hit peak coal, oil and gas this decade and see declines thereafter. The economist Fadhel Kaboub, who advises developing nations on climate, argues this is not “because of political will, but because the economics of renewables is winning”. Africa, he says, can generate about 1,000 times the electricity it will need in 2040 – which could be exported. Globally, however, hydrocarbon use is easing far too slowly. The fight over money and a just transition matters at Cop30.

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

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:30 pm

Ruthless Shiffrin storms to record 102nd win as Olympic slalom season begins

• Shiffrin wins by 1.66sec in dominant display

• American’s 102nd World Cup win overall

• Albanian teenager Lara Colturi takes second

American Mikaela Shiffrin laid down a marker for the Olympic season ahead by obliterating her rivals to easily win the opening Alpine Ski World Cup slalom race on Saturday.

The 30-year-old was in a class of her own, going quickest on both her runs to win by 1.66 seconds for her ninth career win in Levi and a record-extending 102nd World Cup victory.

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:12 pm

Sinner extends indoor dominance with win over De Minaur to reach ATP World Tour final

• Sinner wins 7-5, 6-2 to reach final for third year in row

• Defending champion chasing his sixth ATP title of season

Jannik Sinner continued his total dominance of the indoor season as he held off an admirable early challenge from Alex de Minaur before bulldozing his path into the ATP Finals for a third consecutive year with a supreme 7-5, 6-2 victory, extending his winning record against the Australian to 13-0.

Sinner continues to perform at an astounding level that has allowed him to rapidly rise the list of all-time great’s. In a season that included a three-month doping ban between February and May, Sinner will attempt to win his sixth ATP title of the year in his 10th final. The 24-year-old has won 30 consecutive indoor hard court matches and 14 matches in a row after his recent triumphs at the Vienna Open and Paris Masters. He has also won 18 consecutive sets at the ATP Finals.

Published: November 15, 2025, 4:22 pm

Witnesses of Neymar’s sad decline hope for one final twist in his career’s brutal narrative arc | Barney Ronay

World Cup could still be in reach for the last genius of Brazilian football who has faded to a shadow of his former self

What’s your favourite Neymar advert? This is a tough question to answer. The body of work is huge and varied. The foot deodorant ad perhaps, which depicts Neymar’s feet literally on fire, ablaze with some kind of divine eau de toenail.

Or the new one for a brand of açaí berry death-gloop sorbet product, which shows Neymar holding up twin cones, like phials of luminous unicorn-sperm, and looking as though he’s just been hit over the head with a rock and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him.

Published: November 15, 2025, 8:00 am

In the name of their fathers: Eubank v Benn began and ended a heady era of British boxing

Their dads lit a fire that consumed me but Eubank Jr v Conor Benn embodies all that has gone wrong with the Dark Trade

Thirty-five years ago this month, on 18 November 1990, my life changed course when I watched Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn fight each other in Birmingham with a ferocity which left me astonished and breathless. After that savage and surreal contest, I began working on a book about boxing, Dark Trade, which allowed me to become a full-time writer.

Benn and Eubank were so different that my already deep interest in boxing caught fire. I became consumed by the fight game for decades until, earlier this year, I finished writing The Last Bell, my fifth and final book about boxing. I still loved the most interesting fighters and their incredible life stories, but the controversies around the manufactured rivalry between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr left me sick at heart.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Coach featured in Netflix’s Last Chance U dies after Oakland campus shooting

Mayor Barbara Lee calls John Beam ‘a man who dedicated himself to building up the young people of this city’

A US football coach who starred in the Netflix documentary Last Chance U, about struggling college teams, has died after being shot on campus, authorities in California said.

John Beam, director of athletics at Oakland’s Laney College, was hurt in a Thursday lunchtime incident at the school’s field house, its downtown sports training complex. He later died, the Oakland police department said on Friday.

Published: November 15, 2025, 1:50 am

The teenager who quit Manchester City for Oxford University: ‘I felt I could do more’

Han Willhoft-King was fancied to succeed at Spurs then City but opted for law at Brasenose College above pressing sessions with Guardiola

Freshers’ week, Oxford University, early October. A time for the heart to hammer with excitement, when horizons are broadened inexorably. For minimal sleep and maximum fun. And for one or two tall stories, a bit of personal reinvention, perhaps.

Take one new law student at Brasenose College, because he can certainly spin a few yarns. About the time, for example, he was coached by Yaya Touré at the Tottenham academy. He did not recognise him at first but then saw him on the ball and the penny dropped.

Published: November 15, 2025, 8:00 am

NFL midseason-ish awards: Darnold’s rise to MVP and a surprising Browns rookie

With the season more than halfway done, we look at the outstanding figures from the 2025 campaign so far

Sam Darnold, QB, Seahawks. With apologies to Jonathan Taylor, we know how this story goes. MVP doesn’t stand for Most Valuable Player anymore. It stands for Most Valuable Quarterback on a 12-win team with a nice storyline. That gives us three frontrunners: Matthew Stafford, Drake Maye and Darnold.

Published: November 14, 2025, 10:00 am

Dodgers’ Ohtani into rare air with third straight MVP award and fourth overall

• Ohtani wins fourth MVP, all unanimous

• Schwarber, Soto round out NL finalists

• Yanks’ Judge edges Raleigh for AL MVP

Two-way star Shohei Ohtani won his fourth MVP award in a unanimous vote for the National League honor on Thursday and Aaron Judge earned the American League accolade for the third time.

Ohtani won a MVP for the third straight year, his second in the NL with the Los Angeles Dodgers after two in the AL with the Los Angeles Angels. All four have been unanimous.

Published: November 14, 2025, 1:09 am

From conscience to platforming Trump: inside the slow death of ‘woke’ ESPN

The broadcaster was once attacked by critics for being too progressive. But that stance appears to have changed for good in Trump’s second term

“What happened to the Redskins, by the way?” Donald Trump asked in an interview on the Pat McAfee Show that notably did not stick to sports. His call-in appearance on Tuesday’s program to mark Veterans Day was meant to be a major coup for ESPN, the first time Trump had been interviewed on the network as a sitting president. But viewers could have just as easily been mistaken into believing they were watching Fox News.

Trump took his usual shots at Joe Biden, claimed credit for the Department for Veteran Affairs’ high approval ratings and declared victory over the Democrats in a government shut down that dragged on for a depressing 43 days. Rather than push back against the political self-promotion, McAfee cheered Trump on before opening the floor to his lackeys to ask him which NFL coach would make a great president. It was all delivered live from South Carolina’s Parris Island, the US’s oldest Marine depot, which gave McAfee further excuse to goad the commander-in-chief into barking “oorah” – a Marine battle cry that the recruits present were duty bound to respond to in kind. The only thing missing from the jingoistic scene was a monument to ESPN’s fallen integrity.

Published: November 14, 2025, 11:00 am

US judge bars Trump from cutting off University of California funds

Federal judge Rita Lin says administration has playbook designed to bring universities ‘to their knees’ and force them to ‘change their ideological tune’

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding and threatening hefty fines against the University of California amid the administration’s attempts to coerce elite US universities into adopting and promoting conservative ideals.

US district judge Rita Lin of San Francisco issued the preliminary injunction late Friday, saying the government was not allowed to demand payments from the California school system over the administration’s claims that it violates civil rights by allowing antisemitism and practising affirmative action.

Published: November 15, 2025, 4:43 am

From Hollywood to holy water: Pope Leo invites stars to the Vatican

Observers say that welcoming of guests including Cate Blanchett, Monica Bellucci and Spike Lee is a move to raise pontiff’s profile

A host of Hollywood celebrities will meet Pope Leo on Saturday, a gathering Vatican observers say is aimed at giving some star power to the pontiff, who is the first US pope in the history of the Catholic church.

Cate Blanchett, Monica Bellucci, Chris Pine and Adam Scott are among the actors who will join a special audience with Leo at his Apostolic Palace residence, along with the Oscar-winning directors Spike Lee, George Miller and Gus Van Sant.

Published: November 15, 2025, 5:00 am

Icelandic is in danger of dying out because of AI and English-language media, says former PM

Katrín Jakobsdóttir and her co-author want the 350,000 people who speak the language to fight for its future

Iceland’s former prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has said that the Icelandic language could be wiped out in as little as a generation due to the sweeping rise of AI and encroaching English language dominance.

Katrín, who stood down as prime minister last year to run for president after seven years in office, said Iceland was undergoing “radical” change when it came to language use. More people are reading and speaking English, and fewer are reading in Icelandic, a trend she says is being exacerbated by the way language models are trained.

Published: November 15, 2025, 10:00 am

China advises against travel to Japan amid escalating row over PM’s Taiwan comments

Sanae Takaichi says the use of force against Taiwan could warrant a military response from Tokyo

China has advised its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan, escalating a diplomatic feud sparked by comments from Tokyo’s new prime minister about a hypothetical attack on Taiwan.

Sanae Takaichi told Japan’s parliament on 7 November that the use of force against the self-ruled island claimed by China could warrant a military response from Tokyo. Japan has since said its position on Taiwan – just 100km from the nearest Japanese island – is unchanged.

Published: November 15, 2025, 3:46 am

South Carolina executes man by firing squad, in state’s third such killing in year

Stephen Bryant, 44, convicted over 2004 murder, was shot dead despite growing backlash against ‘barbaric’ method

South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday, marking the third time the state has used gunfire to kill a person on death row despite growing backlash against the method.

Stephen Bryant, 44, had been sentenced to death for the October 2004 killing of Willard “TJ” Tietjen and pleaded guilty to two other murders. Bryant’s lawyers had argued in final appeals that the sentencing judge had been unable to consider his brain damage from his mother’s alcohol and drug use during pregnancy, but South Carolina’s supreme court declined to halt the execution on Monday.

Published: November 15, 2025, 12:09 am

Blast from confiscated explosives at police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir kills nine

The accidental explosion comes days after a deadly car blast in New Delhi which killed at least eight people near the city’s historic Red Fort

At least nine people were killed and 32 injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police have announced.

The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, the region’s main city, late on Friday while a team of forensic experts and police were examining the explosive material, said Nalin Prabhat, the region’s police director general. He ruled out any foul play, saying it was an accident.

Published: November 15, 2025, 7:18 am

California: powerful ‘atmospheric river’ storm prompts evacuation warnings

Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties prepare for deluge and possible landslides this weekend

A powerful storm doused California with heavy rain on Friday, prompting evacuation warnings as the state braced for the potential of floods, mudslides, thunderstorms and even the chance of a tornado over the weekend.

More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara county as the storm moved south toward Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service.

Published: November 15, 2025, 12:27 am

Labubu toy movie with potential to anchor franchise in the works at Sony

Viral plush toy is heading to big screen after a deal was signed with details still unclear over whether it would be live-action or animated

Labubus could be headed to the big screen. Sony Pictures has acquired the screen rights to the plush toy sensation and is in early development of a feature film which, if successful, would anchor a new franchise.

The deal, first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, was signed this week between the Chinese toy makers and Sony Pictures, whose animation division is fresh off the global success of KPop Demon Hunters. No producer or film-maker is attached to the project yet, and it’s still unclear if the film would be live-action or animated.

Published: November 14, 2025, 8:42 pm

Georgia prosecutor to take over last remaining criminal case against Trump

Pete Skandalakis appointed himself to take over 2020 election interference case from district attorney Fani Willis

The only remaining criminal case against Donald Trump has been revived after the head of Georgia’s prosecutor’s council appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, who was removed from the election interference case in September.

Pete Skandalakis, a Republican and the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, the state body that provides legal training and is often charged to mitigate prosecutorial conflicts, wrote in a statement on Friday that he would be taking over from Willis.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:30 pm

Cop30 was meant to be a turning point, so why do some say the climate summit is broken?

Swamped by lobbyists and hobbled by a lack of urgency, there are fears Cop could become a sprawling spectacle that betrays those who depend on it most

Thousands of diplomats, activists, journalists and lobbyists are gathering in the sweltering, tropical heat of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, for the Cop30 climate talks.

Since Brazil was awarded the hosting duties three years ago, hopes have been high that the Amazonian Cop – taking place in the country that hosted the Earth summit where the global fight for the climate first began – could be a turning point in the fight against climate breakdown.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Baby sea otter named Caterpillar rescued off central California coast

Marine Mammal Center in Morro Bay and local harbor patrol teamed up for mission to reunite pup with its mother

It was a foggy October afternoon on the central California coast when the Marine Mammal Center got a call on their public hotline: there were distressed cries coming from the frigid waters in Morro Bay.

The center’s experts were able to determine that the calls – which sounded almost like a human baby screeching – were coming from a roughly two-week-old sea otter pup that had been separated from its mother.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:58 pm

Protesters blockade Cop30 summit over plight of Indigenous peoples

Munduruku people demand to speak to Brazil’s president, saying they are never listened to

• Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in Brazil

Protesters blockaded the main entrance to the Cop30 climate conference for several hours early on Friday morning, demanding to speak to Brazil’s president about the plight of the country’s Indigenous peoples.

About 50 people from the Munduruku people in the Amazon basin blocked the entrance with some assistance from international green groups, watched by a huge phalanx of riot police, soldiers and military vehicles.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:23 pm

From Australia to Turkey and, reluctantly, Germany: the tug-of-war over hosting Cop31

A years-long standoff over who should host the 2026 climate summit leaves Brazilian hosts, and other states, frustrated

• Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in Brazil

Delegates turning up in the Amazonian city of Belém for the Cop30 climate conference were greeted by what some interpreted as a less than subtle dig by the Brazilian hosts.

The pavilions for Australia and Turkey – the countries that for more than three years have been competing to host the next Cop summit in November 2026 – had been placed side by side in the convention centre.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:00 pm

Trump accused of caving to big business after deal to cut Swiss tariffs to 15%

Rolex denies ‘any negotiation’ with US although luxury watchmaker entertained Trump and gave him gold clock

Donald Trump agreed to cut US tariffs on Switzerland from 39% to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters.

The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms.

Published: November 14, 2025, 9:24 pm

Judge to approve $7bn settlement with OxyContin maker that requires Sackler family members to pay victims

Deal would also require multibillionaire family to give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm

A federal bankruptcy court judge on Friday said he would approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids that includes some money for thousands of victims of the epidemic.

The deal overseen by US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane would require some of the multibillionaire members of the semi-reclusive Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7bn and give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm.

Published: November 14, 2025, 9:52 pm

Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers’s exchanges depict relationship as confidants, emails reveal

The child sex offender and the former US treasury secretary shared personal views about politics and relationships

A series of exchanges between child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, showing a relationship as confidants emerged among the emails released by Republican legislators this week in the continuing political turmoil over Epstein’s connections to Donald Trump.

The exchanges, from 2013 to early 2019, showed the two men sharing personal – and sometimes unseemly – views about politics and relationships.

Published: November 14, 2025, 5:10 pm

Searches for lorazepam surged after release of The White Lotus, data shows

Third series of TV drama spiked interest in anti-anxiety drug amid warnings over illicit production of ‘benzos’

In the third series of the hit TV show The White Lotus, the entitled North Carolina housewife Victoria Ratliff is often shown reaching for her lorazepam. Now researchers say internet searches for the anti-anxiety drug surged after the show’s release.

Lorazepam, also known by its brand name Ativan, is a type of drug known as a benzodiazepine, or “benzo”. It is thought to work by boosting the effect of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brain.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:00 pm

AfD hails US ban on European leftwing groups as historians fear crackdown on anti-fascists

German far-right party urges Berlin and other European nations to also designate ‘antifa’ groups as terrorist organisations

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has welcomed the US government’s decision to classify a prominent German anti-fascist group and three other European networks as terrorist organisations, calling on Berlin and other European governments to follow the example.

But historians of anti-fascism warned that at a time when far-right groups were making electoral gains across the continent, the move set a dangerous precedent that could prepare the ground for a broader crackdown on leftwing activism.

Published: November 14, 2025, 4:57 pm

Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent named young journalist of the year in UK awards

Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.

The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.

Published: November 14, 2025, 2:33 pm

Kashmir is focus of arrests after Delhi car blast linked to ‘terror module’

Investigators believe an explosion that killed 13 people may be linked to group operating in the disputed region

Police have carried out raids and made several arrests across the Indian region of Kashmir in the aftermath of a car explosion in Delhi that left 13 people dead.

On Wednesday, the Indian government confirmed it was treating the blast as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”. The explosion took place outside one of India’s most significant monuments during rush hour on Monday evening.

Published: November 14, 2025, 11:43 pm

My Cultural Awakening: I moved across the world after watching a Billy Connolly documentary

A chance viewing of the comic’s World Tour of Scotland made me swap Australia for the Highlands, although things didn’t quite go to plan …

I was 23 and thought I had found my path in life. I’d always wanted to work with animals, and I had just landed a job as a vet nurse in Melbourne. I was still learning the ropes, but I imagined I would stay there for years, building a life around the work. Then, five months in, the vet called me into his office and told me it wasn’t working out. “It’s not you,” he said, “I just really hate training people.” His previous nurse had been with him for decades; she knew his every move. I didn’t. And just like that, I was out of a job.

I drove home crying, feeling utterly adrift. I wasn’t sure whether to try again at another vet clinic or rip up the plan entirely and do something else. After spending a few days floating around aimlessly, trying to recalibrate my life, I turned on the TV, needing something to take my mind off things. And there he was: Billy Connolly, striding across a windswept Scottish landscape in his World Tour of Scotland documentary.

Published: November 15, 2025, 7:00 am

‘I’m not just putting on nice plays’: Hollywood star Alan Cumming’s plan to reignite theatre in the Scottish Highlands

What is the effervescent new boss at Pitlochry theatre planning for his first season? Huge names, undersung stars – and a King Lear played by ‘the woman who changed my life’

‘Holy shit!” This was the instant response of one venerable theatre critic when Pitlochry Festival theatre sent round embargoed copies of the plan for Alan Cumming’s inaugural season. The man himself sits back in the cavernous workshop behind the theatre building, dapper in a grey plaid suit. “I loved that,” he says gleefully.

When the Hollywood star was announced as the new artistic director of Scotland’s only major rural theatre last September, there was widespread shock – not least that Cumming answered an open recruitment call – followed by feverish speculation over which A-list pals he might charm away from London or New York to perform in Highland Perthshire.

Published: November 14, 2025, 2:16 pm

‘It’s time for it to end’: the stars of Stranger Things open up about their final, epic season

After a decade, the Netflix hit is bowing out. Ahead of its last episodes, the show’s creators and cast talk about big 80s hair, recruiting a Terminator killer – and the birds Kate Bush sent them

How do you finish one of the biggest and most popular TV series of the last decade? Three years after season four came out, the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is about to make its way into the world. Millions of viewers are getting ready to find out what happens to the Upside Down and whether the plucky teens of Hawkins, Indiana can fight off Vecna for good, but it is early November 2025, and its creators Matt and Ross Duffer are finding it difficult to talk about. It’s not just because they’re feeling the pressure, or because the risk of spoilers and leaks is so dangerously high. It’s because the identical twin brothers from North Carolina are just not ready. “It makes me sad,” says Ross. “Because it’s easier to not think about the show actually ending.”

A decade ago, hardly anyone knew what the Upside Down was. Few had heard of Vecna, Mind Flayers or Demogorgons. In 2015, the brothers – self-professed nerds and movie obsessives – were about to begin shooting their first ever TV series. Stranger Things was to be a supernatural adventure steeped in 80s nostalgia, paying tribute to Steven Spielberg and Stephen King. Part of their pitch to Netflix was that it would be “John Carpenter mashed up with ET”. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine were in it, so it wasn’t exactly low-key, but it was by no means a dead-cert for success, not least because it was led by a cast of young unknowns. The first season came out in the summer of 2016, smashed Netflix viewing records, and almost immediately established itself as a bona fide TV phenomenon.

Published: November 14, 2025, 1:00 pm

Nuremberg review – Russell Crowe is top notch as an on-trial Göring but Rami Malek lets side down

Crowe is wittily cast as the pompous Nazi in this tale from behind the scenes at the Nuremberg trials, but Malek is deeply silly as army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley

Here is a movie promising the juiciest of real-life stories from history. Before the Nazi war-crime trials at Nuremberg that started in November 1945, an obscure US army psychiatrist called Dr Douglas Kelley was ordered to interview the prisoners, chief among whom was Hermann Göring. This was supposedly to establish their fitness for trial, but was really intended to gain inside information as to how they would conduct their defence. Russell Crowe is rather wittily cast as the portly, pompous Reichsmarschall Göring; it’s the best he’s been for a long time, a sly and cunning manipulator playing psychological cat-and-mouse with the Americans.

But there is a deeply silly performance from Rami Malek as Kelley: an eye-rolling, enigmatic-smiling, scenery-nibbling hamfest which makes it look as if Malek is auditioning for the role of Hitler in The Producers. Leo Woodall plays the American army translator Howie Triest, Michael Shannon is the US chief prosecutor Robert H Jackson and Richard E Grant is British Tory MP David Maxwell-Fyfe who (for all that his postwar career as home secretary was notorious for the homophobic persecution, which helped drive Alan Turing to his grave), is actually shown to be crucial in cross-examining the Nazis. All of these actors do their best, but the figure of Kelley himself is a ridiculous cartoon.

Published: November 14, 2025, 9:00 am

Malice review – you’ll be bingeing David Duchovny’s new thriller until Christmas

The X-Files star is at his charismatic best as a ruthless multimillionaire who hires Jack Whitehall as a sinister nanny. It’s like The White Lotus meets The Talented Mr Ripley

I can’t say I had “Jack Whitehall stars with David ‘The X Files/ Californication’ Duchovny in glossy TV thriller” on my 2025 bingo card, but here we are, and a good time with it can be had by all. Alongside, perhaps, a smidge of national pride to see the daft lad from Fresh Meat, Bad Education and Travels With My Father all grown up and holding his own.

The glossy thriller in question is Malice, in which Whitehall plays Adam, a tutor promoted to manny (male nanny, for those not au fait with rich people’s terms), who is bent – for reasons as yet unknown – on ruining high-rolling businessman Jamie Tanner (Duchovny). Whether he has it in for the rest of the Tanner family and friends, or they are just doomed to be collateral damage, is not clear, but that doesn’t spoil the machiavellian fun.

Published: November 14, 2025, 5:00 am

John Cleese Packs It In review – former Python goes on the road in sickness and in health

Such is his grumpiness, it isn’t clear why the 85-year-old wanted to make the film – though ‘I need the money’ is a running gag

The long and fabled history of Monty Python has now reached its footnotes and afterthoughts era. After years of interpersonal disputes, multiple forays into the culture war and one very expensive divorce, 85-year-old John Cleese goes solo with a thin 80-minute travelogue, undertaking a European mini-tour while enduring a roll call of ailments (partial deafness, bone spurs, vertigo) which appears at least as substantive as his onstage material. Explaining his motivation, Cleese is not untypically blunt: a wheezy “I need the money” is the closest this film locates to a running gag.

What are we offered in return? Near-relentless gripes and grievances that mesh with Cleese’s recent media profile, ranging from the endless repacking to being filmed at all hours. (Perhaps understandable, given director Andy Curd’s often unflattering angles.) Also lambasted: audiences who refuse to titter at such routines as the one in which Cleese spends a small eternity hacking up phlegm. We get oddly little of the show itself, instead there’s much B-roll filler in fish markets and cheese shops, and an unlovely photomontage of the comic’s battered big toe. (In fairness, he warns us: “If you’ve just had a mouthful of popcorn, look away now.”)

Published: November 14, 2025, 11:00 am

Vybz Kartel on his legal victory, vulgar lyrics and the lasting scars of prison: ‘If I hear a key shake, it traumatise me’

With his murder conviction overturned, the Jamaican star is back performing. He talks about his illness, regrets, and how he felt about dancehall going global while he was behind bars

There’s a moment when I’m interviewing Vybz Kartel in the courtyard of the Four Seasons hotel in Tower Bridge, London, and the UK government emergency alert test rings on my phone. He is panicked by it and jumps up. “Me ready fi run you know!” he says, which has us both laughing.

It is a funny moment, but also a jolting one considering that it arrives in the middle of him discussing the lasting psychological effects of prison. Kartel, 49, real name Adidja Palmer, had been incarcerated across different institutions in Jamaica following his conviction for the 2011 murder of his associate Clive “Lizard” Williams. Following a lengthy appeal process, he was released in July last year after the ruling was overturned by the UK privy council (which is the final court of appeal for Jamaica due to the nation being a former British colony).

Published: November 14, 2025, 1:00 pm

أحمد [Ahmed]: Sama’a (Audition) review – a wild, world-spanning act of musical devotion

(Otoroku)
The British free-jazz pianist Pat Thomas leads his quartet through a powerful fusion of Sufi inspiration, rhythmic intensity and improvisational fire

In April 2022, the wild and inquisitively wilful British free-jazz keyboardist and composer Pat Thomas was improvising with his eyes shut in the company of his quartet أحمد [Ahmed] at Glasgow’s Glue Factory. The music was dedicated to the 1950s-70s legacy of the late Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk bassist, oud player and early global-music pioneer Ahmed Abdul-Malik, the inspiration for the group’s work. When Thomas emerged from his trance, he was astonished to hear that an ecstatic crowd had been dancing the night away around him.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Since أحمد [Ahmed]’s inception, their collective heat has fused abstract improv and groove music from all over the world: Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, dub, jungle, electronics, and the 1990s free-improv of Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill and drummer Steve Noble have all inspired Thomas. Saxophonist Seymour Wright has absorbed the sax vocabulary of Evan Parker and the insights into collective improv and avant-swing of AMM drummer and teacher Eddie Prévost. Eclectic partners Joel Grip (bass) and Antonin Gerbal (drums) power and expand these infectious, volatile energies.

Published: November 14, 2025, 9:30 am

‘I can’t be silent. I’ve been through too much’: Dee Dee Bridgewater on singing with the greats – and confronting Maga with jazz

Fuelled by a loathing of Trump, the war in Gaza and anger at ‘the same old chauvinistic crap’, the 75-year-old – who cut her teeth with Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and more – has no plans to stop protesting

When I speak to Dee Dee Bridgewater, the jazz singer is preparing for a concert that evening in Des Moines, Iowa, performing classy selections from the Great American Songbook. But even though she has also recorded this material for her recent album Elemental, Bridgewater is not really in the mood. “I just don’t feel like it’s the time to be doing love songs and whimsical songs from the 1920s and 30s,” she says. “They’re beautiful, but there’s some kind of spirit and energy pushing me to sing songs saying: people, we have to protect our democracy.”

Bridgewater is one of American jazz’s foremost voices. Capable of crooning and confronting, the two-time Grammy winner has a career that spans six decades and has never stopped evolving. She cut her teeth sharing the stage with several of jazz’s greatest band leaders – Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon – before branching out into acting; singing pop and disco; and working out of France, the UK and Mali, always with a determination to create on her own terms.

Published: November 14, 2025, 8:00 am

Future Boy by Michael J Fox review – secrets from the set of a definitive 80s movie

The actor’s account of his big Hollywood break – and how it almost never happened

Michael J Fox has already eked out four books of Hollywood memoir, so the justification for a fifth – written with longtime collaborator Nelle Fortenberry – ought to be good. It is: the subject of these 176 pages is a three-month period in 1985 when Fox was simultaneously shooting his breakout sitcom role in Family Ties and the career-defining American classic, Back to the Future.

That’s two more-than-full-time jobs for one little guy, necessitating that the then 23-year-old actor work 20-hour days, six days a week. This schedule was only possible because the mid-1980s was a time before showbiz labour laws caught up with basic human decency. These days, we’re told, a standard contract “demands two weeks of buffer time on either side of a job”, while Fox didn’t even get an hour.

Published: November 14, 2025, 7:00 am

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery; The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr; The Good Nazi by Samir Machado de Machado; Bluff by Francine Toon; The Token by Sharon Bolton

The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery (Viking, £16.99)
The first novel for adults by award-winning children’s author Montgomery is a locked-room mystery set in 1910 on a remote tidal island off the Cornish coast. At Tithe Hall, Lord Conrad Stockingham-Welt is busy instructing his servants to prepare for the apocalyptic disaster he believes will be triggered by the imminent passage of Halley’s comet. The labyrinthine house is a nest of secrets and grudges, harboured by both staff and family members, who include an irascible and splendidly foul-mouthed maiden aunt, Decima. When Lord Conrad is discovered in his sealed study, killed by a crossbow bolt to the eye, she co-opts a new footman to help her find the culprit. With plenty of twists, red herrings and a blundering police officer, this is a terrific start to a series that promises to be a lot of fun.

Published: November 14, 2025, 12:00 pm

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review – hallucinogenic romp through dystopia is stupidly pleasurable

Activision; PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PC
With a deafening onslaught of massive shootout set-pieces in exotic locations, an evolving campaign mode and excellent multiplayer offerings, this maximalist instalment of crazed carnage is a hoot

It seems like an anachronism now, in this age of live service “forever games”, that the annual release of a new Call of Duty title is still considered a major event. But here is Black Ops 7, a year after its direct predecessor, and another breathless bombard of military shooting action. This time it is set in a dystopian 2035 where a global arms manufacturer named the Guild claims to be the only answer to an apocalyptic new terrorist threat – but are things as clearcut as they seem?

The answer, of course, is a loudly yelled “noooo!” Black Ops is the paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed cousin to the Modern Warfare strand of Call of Duty games, a series inspired by 70s thrillers such as The Parallax View and The China Syndrome, and infused with ’Nam era concerns about rogue CIA agents and bizarre psy-ops. The campaign mode, which represents just a quarter of the offering this year, is a hallucinogenic romp through socio-political talking points such as psychopathic corporations, hybrid warfare, robotics and tech oligarchies. The result is a deafening onslaught of massive shootout set-pieces in exotic locations, as the four lead characters – members of a supercharged spec-ops outfit – are exposed to a psychotropic drug that makes them relive their worst nightmares. Luckily, they do so with advanced weaponry, cool gadgets and enough buddy banter to destabilise a medium-sized rogue nation. It is chaotic, relentless and stupidly pleasurable, especially if you play in co-operative mode with three equally irresponsible pals.

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Studio bosses were like: it sounds lovely. We’ll pass!’: Joel Edgerton and Clint Bentley on their Oscar-tipped lumberjack tragedy

The actor and the director of Train Dreams – a quietly powerful tale of a logger in 1900s Idaho – on the slog of getting it made, the joy of motel living and why human-made things will always beat AI

America was built by men like Robert Grainier, the stoical lumberjack at the heart of Train Dreams. Grainier cuts the trees and tames the forest and lays the ground for railroads and towns. Technically, then, Train Dreams is a western. But he never once ropes a steer, shoots a bandit or circles the wagons ahead of a Comanche attack on the plains. The small print tells a different kind of story.

It was a hard film to pitch, admits the actor Joel Edgerton: an uphill struggle; plenty of studio trepidation. “You go into the meeting and say: ‘Well, it’s a movie about a guy who’s not really making choices for himself. He’s kind of pushed around by life.’”

Published: November 14, 2025, 5:00 am

Dorothy Waugh’s epic 1930s US national park posters – in pictures

Between 1934 and 1936, artist Dorothy Waugh was commissioned to create 17 posters for the National Park Service, a groundbreaking opportunity for a female designer at the time. Her designs, which were both accessible and avant-garde, are being celebrated in an exhibition for the first time at New York’s Poster House. Blazing A Trail: Dorothy Waugh’s National Parks Posters is on display until 22 February 2026

Published: November 14, 2025, 10:03 am

The week around the world in 20 pictures

The Cop30 climate summit, blackouts in Kyiv, immigration raids in Chicago and super-typhoon Fung-wong: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:38 pm

Tim Dowling: our lunch guests are always prompt … So where are they?

The table is laid by 12.30pm and we’ve even ironed the napkins. At 1pm the meat is resting. At 1.30pm it’s time to make a phone call …

My wife and I are having people to lunch – another couple; old friends. It’s supposed to be an informal affair, but it’s necessarily been a long time in the planning because, unlike us, our guests are busy people, and hard to nail down.

Besides, if you have weeks to plan a lunch it can’t be that informal – you don’t want to make it seem as if you woke up that morning still having no idea what you were going to cook, even if that is the case.

Published: November 15, 2025, 6:00 am

How Anna Wintour’s Vogue front covers made a statement to the end

A look at the editor-in-chief’s Vogue covers from her first radical combination in 1988 to her final ‘weird’ shoot

During her 37-year tenure as editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour has presided over more than 400 covers. December 2025’s, on newsstands this week, will prove her last before she steps away to focus on roles as Vogue’s global editorial director and chief content officer at Condé Nast.

The cover is certainly memorable: an image of the actor Timothée Chalamet photographed by Wintour’s long-term collaborator Annie Leibovitz in a Celine white polo neck, long cream coat and embroidered jeans, standing on a “planet” with a backdrop of a star-filled nebula provided by Nasa.

Published: November 14, 2025, 3:11 pm

Redefining the rules of ‘mom style’

Motherhood changes so many things, including our bodies – and it’s reimagining not only our sense of style, but our sense of adventure, too

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A fresh newsletter from Blackbird Spyplane landed this autumn. Fashion’s most wise and witty tastemaker had written a guide to “cool mom style”, talking to newish mums. As a newish mum myself, the words reverberated through my inbox.

Among the pieces worn by the likes of designer Zoe Latta, designer Ellen Van Dusen and writer Natalie So were Pro Force martial arts pants and Marimekko-brights, Marni clogs and oversized yellow leather jackets. Gone were the cosy pumps and chunky practical boots I saw in the playground. Instead? Cool trainers that can go for miles, at pace, or be slipped on if your hands are full – Salomon “Snowclog Mid” sneakers, Nike Air Rifts, Asics Gel-Kayano 14s.

Published: November 14, 2025, 7:00 am

Experience: I played the trumpet for 25 hours straight

I couldn’t repeat a song, and improvisation wasn’t allowed. I needed a very long set list.

The first time I picked up the trumpet was 15 years ago. Before that, I had tried the drums and the clarinet. They didn’t quite stick. But when I blew my first note on the trumpet, it resonated with me in a way nothing else had. From that moment, I knew: this was my instrument.

Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to music. I teach students from diverse backgrounds and nationalities to share my love for the trumpet with others. I’ve seen first-hand how little recognition musicians and musicologists receive. Music demands so much time, discipline, money, and years of study – yet it is so undervalued. I’d like to change that.

Published: November 14, 2025, 5:00 am

Question 1: Are phone cheats killing the pub quiz?

Quizmasters are banning smart devices, using dedicated apps and finding plain old honesty can combat trivial offences

Who is older, Gary Numan or Gary Oldman? If you know the answer to this question (see below), you are probably one of hundreds of thousands of Brits who attend a pub quiz every week.

As a nation of committed trivia buffs, it was unsurprising that news of a quizmaster in Manchester outing a team for cheating was leapt on. Just where, we asked, is the special place in hell reserved for those quizzers who take a sneaky look at their phones under the table?

Published: November 14, 2025, 3:28 pm

It’s not all about roasting on an open fire – there’s so much more you can do with chestnuts

They have strong Christmas connotations, but these nuts are so versatile, whether you’re eating them hot out of the shell, or with pasta or pheasant. Plus: a burger that lives up to the hype

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If I’d ever spared a thought for how chestnuts – the sweet, edible kind, not the combative horsey sort – were harvested, I would probably have conjured rosy-cheeked peasants bent low in ancient forests and filling rough-hewn hessian sacks by hand. Back-breaking labour, sure, but so picturesque!

I was delighted, therefore, while on a writing retreat in Umbria last month, to get the opportunity to watch an elderly couple manoeuvre a giant vacuum around their haphazard orchard, followed by their furious sheepdog. The fallen crop was sucked into a giant fan that spat their bristly jackets back out on to the ground, and the nuts then went to be sorted by other family members on a conveyor belt in the barn – the good ones to be sold in the shell, the less perfect specimens swiftly dropped into a bucket for processing.

Published: November 14, 2025, 12:30 pm

‘We stayed in a 500-year-old palazzo for €100’: readers’ favourite historic places to stay in Europe

Travel back in time at a folly in Scotland, a parador in Spain and a German castle
• Tell us about your favourite church in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

My husband and I stayed in a beautiful 500-year-old Venetian palazzo for just €100 for a double room. The exterior of Palazzo Abadessa, tucked away in the sleepy backstreets of the Cannaregio district, is low key enough, but the grandeur and opulence begin to hit your senses as you explore. First we strolled through the lush ornamental garden, then the huge entrance hall decorated with frescoes and Renaissance paintings going back to the golden age of Venice, lit by glittering Murano chandeliers. The reception area is furnished with an antique velvet armchair, perfect for sipping a prosecco or Venetian spritz. Back in the 16th century, the original owners provided Venice with two of its doges, and today the stone corridors and high-ceilinged rooms have a classy, noble air, as if the ghosts of Caravaggio or Tintoretto might appear any moment and begin painting. Breakfast of cappuccino and croissants in the courtyard served by the friendly owners was a delightful way to start the day.
April

Published: November 14, 2025, 7:00 am

Born in the forest: the women giving birth alone in the Kashmiri mountains

Far from hospitals, nomadic Gujjar women routinely go into labour – and die – on their herder communities’ long seasonal treks

Dawn had just broken across the trail through the Pir Panjal mountains when Fatima Deader felt the first labour pains. She and her family had almost reached the midway point of their 134 mile (215km) trek from Rajouri in Jammu to Kashmir’s higher pastures. Mist clung to the forest, and the ground was slick beneath the feet of the caravan of about 70 pastoralists who had stopped to camp together the previous night.

A week from her due date, she had been travelling on horseback and assumed the discomfort she felt was fatigue – until pain tore through her body.

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:00 am

Detained in US for speech, a UK commentator speaks out: ‘They don’t want people like us to go to America’

Sami Hamdi was detained after a pro-Israel group released a video purportedly showing him praising the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel

A British political commentator who was detained by immigration authorities in the US over his pro-Palestinian advocacy said shortly after returning to the UK on Thursday that his detention was “less an attack on me and more an attack on Americans and the rights of Americans themselves”.

Sami Hamdi arrived in London on Thursday, three weeks after he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at San Francisco international airport while on a speaking tour in the US. He agreed to leave the country after being guaranteed the right to apply for a new US visa, which he says he plans to do.

Published: November 14, 2025, 7:00 am

People in the US: how are your holiday shopping plans being affected by Trump’s tariffs and the cost of living?

We want to hear from people in the US about how Donald Trump’s economic policies may be affecting their plans for holiday shopping

We’d like to find out more about your holiday spending plans this year. The New York Times reported on Friday that the Trump administration is pivoting to an affordability message and considering lowering some tariffs rates.

The administration has floated policies that would lower prices for coffee and fruit, spoken about a 50-year mortgage proposal, and Trump has mused on social media about giving Americans $2,000 funded by tariff revenue.

Published: November 14, 2025, 6:32 pm

Are you limiting the time you spend online? We’d like to hear from you

What prompted this change, and how has it affected you?

Are you bored of AI slop dominating news feeds? Fed up of “enshittification”? Tired out by “advice pollution”? Done with polarising content? Giving up social media and rediscovering the joy of boredom?

One study shows that time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has gone into decline since then, according to an analysis conducted for the Financial Times by digital audience insights company GWI.

Published: November 14, 2025, 11:38 am

Plastic paradise: on the frontlines of the fight to clean up pollution in Bali – in pictures

In January the island’s beaches were inundated with waves of plastic pollution, a phenomenon that has been getting worse by the year. Photographer and film-maker Sean Gallagher travelled to Bali to document the increasing tide of rubbish washing up on beaches and riverbanks, and the people facing the monumental challenge of cleaning up. His portraits are on show now as part of the 2025 Head On photo festival at Bondi Beach promenade until 30 November

Published: November 15, 2025, 2:00 pm