Want long, luscious hair? Experts offer their hair growth tips

Influencers tend to give hair care advice based on vibes. We asked medical professionals

Trying to grow your hair? If so, here’s what social media suggests: shampoo daily; don’t shampoo daily; avoid sulfates; embrace sulfates; use protein treatments; absolutely don’t use protein treatments; trim your hair regularly, but not too regularly.

Is that helpful?

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:00 pm

Brutish, bullying, imperialistic: the Ugly American is back | Steven Greenhouse

Donald Trump is using US power to insert himself into other countries’ affairs, treating them as vassals

For decades, president after president has sought to rid the US of its image as a bullying, imperialistic nation. But with his blustering, often brutish behavior toward other countries, Donald Trump has rapidly revived that notion. Under Trump, the Ugly American is back.

Trump has done this by using US power in aggressive and arrogant ways – by attacking other countries’ policies and then threatening to punish them if they don’t bow to his demands. Trump is doing exactly what international law says national leaders shouldn’t be doing. He has repeatedly inserted himself into other countries’ affairs, browbeating their leaders, berating their policies and disrespecting their sovereignty. Too often, Trump treats other countries as vassals of the US (and of his ego).

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:00 am

‘Most horrific death you could imagine’: the truth behind Netflix’s Death By Lightning

The streamer’s new historical drama looks back on the often forgotten story of US president James Garfield whose progressive political career was cut horribly short

The descendants of James Garfield, the 20th US president, were proud of his life but rarely spoke of his death. “We knew what had happened, that he was shot in a train station,” says James Garfield III, his great-great-great grandson. “We read about the story in books but, in one way or another, we just glanced over it.”

That changed in 2011 with the publication of Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, a book by Candice Millard that revived interest in Garfield’s unfinished life. Her work has now inspired a Netflix drama, Death By Lightning, starring Michael Shannon as the president and Matthew Macfadyen as the drifter who gunned him down.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:26 pm

From floored to flawed: Does anyone want to win the Super Bowl this season?

The NFL is built on parity. But this season the NFC only has a few contenders while even the best teams in the AFC have worrying flaws

No league sells parity like the NFL: it’s the entire brand. But through 10 weeks of this season, this isn’t a league that is equally balanced between the good, the bad and the mediocre. It’s one where most of the league is simply fine.

In the NFC, at least, there is some clarity. The Rams and Seahawks (both 7-2) look like the most complete teams in football, and secured blowout wins on Sunday. The 6-2 Eagles, despite their struggles, still have one of the most talented rosters in the league, likewise with the Packers (5-2-1). Even the Lions (6-3), who have been inconsistent along both lines of scrimmage and have been dealing with tension on their coaching staff, have proven they can hammer good teams. For all five, you can still easily put together a Super Bowl path.

Published: November 10, 2025, 12:41 pm

‘It shows such a laziness’: why I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT

It’s the ultimate ick: trying to form a deep, lasting connection with a person who outsources original thought

It was a setting fit for a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, in a rustic-chic barn that reeked of stealth wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I told the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if to tell me a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled tightly as this man described using generative AI for the initial stages of planning the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I responded politely. Inside, however, I resolved: if my future spouse came to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Published: November 10, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘I enter a room and people say: “God just walked in”’: Morgan Freeman on voicing the divine, meeting Mandela – and his six decades on screen

The 88-year-old actor has appeared in more than 100 films, playing everyone from presidents to prisoners. Here, he reflects on AI’s ‘robbing’ of his voice, not believing in Black History Month – and why he’s nowhere near retirement

In a dishonest age when truth is under siege, media attention shatters into a thousand shards of glass and nothing is quite what it seems, what could be more precious than a voice of authority? Cue Morgan Freeman, an actor who has portrayed a US president, Nelson Mandela and the Almighty, and replaced Walter Cronkite on the voiceover introducing the CBS Evening News. If John Gielgud’s baritone was described as being “like a silver trumpet muffled in silk”, Freeman’s is like rich wood polished to a quiet shine.

It was less God’s gift than the product of hard work, thanks to an inspiring voice and diction instructor at his community college in Los Angeles. “If you’re going to speak, speak distinctly, hit your final consonants and do exercises to lower your voice,” says Freeman, dapper in light jacket , via video call from New York. “Most people’s voices are higher than they would be normally if they knew how to relax it. He taught that sort of thing. It was Robert Whitman: I will never forget him.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:00 am

Senate approves funding deal to end longest US government shutdown

Bill, which passed 60-40 but does not include key health concession demanded by Democrats, now heads to House

The Senate on Monday approved a funding package that is expected to bring to a close the longest government shutdown in US history, after a coalition of Democrats broke from their party and voted with Republicans, in a move that has enraged many in their caucus.

The vote passed in a 60-40 tally, with seven Democrats and one independent joining all Republicans to approve a compromise deal that would fund most federal agencies through January. The agreement, which next goes to the House of Representatives, does not directly address the expiring tax credits for healthcare premiums, the issue at the center of the 40-day stalemate between Democrats and Republicans, though the Senate majority leader John Thune has promised a Senate vote later this year on the subsidies.

Published: November 11, 2025, 2:07 am

Trump threatens BBC with $1bn legal action over edit of speech in documentary

Leaked BBC report said film had ‘completely misled’ viewers by splicing two parts of January 6 speech together

Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the broadcaster that reached fever pitch over criticism that its flagship documentary programme in 2024 used a misleading edit of a Trump speech.

Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn (£760m), according to US media outlets who cited the letter. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course.

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:06 pm

Trump scolds air traffic controllers and blames rivals for economy in interview

President put forth his version of ‘Trump Care’ and insisted ‘we have the greatest economy we ever had’

Donald Trump chastised overwhelmed air traffic controllers, cast blame and doubt in response to poor economic indicators and claimed that increased access to food stamps had put “the country in jeopardy”, in an exclusive interview on Fox News Monday evening.

Speaking with Laura Ingraham, the president shared his thoughts on a wide range of topics from housing mortgages to foreign policy, interspersed with insults flung at his political opponents that were teed up by Ingraham’s questions, including Gavin Newsom, the California governor and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader.

Published: November 11, 2025, 2:47 am

Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration

Apple and WhatsApp say they will keep warning users if their phones are targeted by governments using hacking software against them

Apple and WhatsApp have vowed to keep warning users if their mobile phones are targeted by governments using hacking software against them, including in the US, as two spyware makers seek to make inroads with the Trump administration.

The two technology giants made their statements in response to queries from the Guardian as the two cyberweapons makers – both founded in Israel and now owned by American investors – are aggressively pursuing access to the US market.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:00 pm

UK commentator detained by ICE after Israel criticism to be released, family says

Sami Hamdi’s visa was revoked in what appeared to be retaliation for criticism of Israel while touring the US

The family of British political commentator Sami Hamdi, who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late October while on a speaking tour in the US, say he is set to be released and will be able to “return home soon”.

“The government has agreed to release Sami,” the family said in a statement on Monday. “He will be able to return home soon insha’Allah.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:12 pm

US declares partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after historic meeting

Ahmed al-Sharaa and Donald Trump hold first White House summit between a US and Syrian leader since 1946

The US has announced a partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after a historic meeting in Washington DC between its new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Donald Trump.

Monday’s meeting was the first summit between a US and Syrian leader at the White House since 1946. The meeting is part of a remarkable turnaround in US-Syrian relations after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, who had prosecuted a deadly civil war in the country from 2011 until his forces collapsed in December 2024.

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:55 pm

Drug dealer granted clemency by Trump sent back to prison for violating terms of release

Man accused of groping family’s nanny, evading bridge tolls and swinging IV pole at nurse and threatening to kill her

A convicted drug dealer who had been granted clemency by Donald Trump was sent back to federal prison on Monday for violating the terms of his release after being charged with several new crimes.

Jonathan Braun was sentenced to 27 months behind bars.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:24 pm

Oscar Isaac says he would only do Star Wars again if Disney doesn’t ‘succumb to fascism’

Star Wars actor said he was ‘not so open to working with Disney’ in interview two days after the company suspended Jimmy Kimmel

Oscar Isaac has said he is “not so open to working with Disney” in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, with the Star Wars actor saying he’d only consider working with Disney again if the company doesn’t “succumb to fascism”.

Asked in a GQ interview published Monday whether he’d consider returning to the Star Wars franchise, in which he played X-wing fighter pilot Poe Dameron across three films from 2015 to 2019, Isaac said, “Yeah. I mean, I’d be open to it, although right now I’m not so open to working with Disney. But if they can kinda figure it out and, you know, not succumb to fascism, that would be great … if that happens, then yeah, I’d be open to having a conversation about a galaxy far away. Or any number of other things.”

Published: November 11, 2025, 12:57 am

China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months, analysis finds

World’s biggest polluter on track to hit peak emissions target early but miss goal for cutting carbon intensity

China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, analysis reveals, adding evidence to the hope that the world’s biggest polluter has managed to hit its target of peak CO₂ emissions well ahead of schedule.

Rapid increases in the deployment of solar and wind power generation – which grew by 46% and 11% respectively in the third quarter of this year – meant the country’s energy sector emissions remained flat, even as the demand for electricity increased.

Published: November 11, 2025, 12:01 am

Trump news at a glance: Senate passes funding package to end shutdown after Democrats break ranks

Trump said he would “abide by the deal” struck by US lawmakers – key US politics stories from 10 November 2025

After weeks of false starts and failed votes, a procedural vote passed in the US Senate with a 60-40 tally, as seven Democrats and one independent joining all Republicans to advance a compromise deal that would fund most federal agencies through January.

The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday.

Published: November 11, 2025, 3:11 am

Trump-brokered peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia breaks down after border landmine blast

Thailand’s military chief suspended the peace agreement with neighbouring Cambodia after a landmine blast injured two Thai soldiers near the border

Thailand has suspended the implementation of a peace agreement with neighbouring Cambodia after a landmine blast injured two Thai soldiers near the border, escalating tensions between the neighbours who clashed in July.

US president Donald Trump helped broker a peace deal between the two southeast Asian nations, after a five-day border conflict. Both sides signed an expanded truce in Malaysia in October but on Monday Thailand’s armed forces chief said that had been halted.

Published: November 11, 2025, 12:06 am

US has sent $7.5m to Equatorial Guinea to accept noncitizens deportees

Country is one of world’s most repressive and corrupt, raising concerns over rights abuses of those deported

The United States has sent $7.5m to the government of Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes, to accept noncitizen deportees from the US to the West African nation, according to a leading congressional Democrat, current and former state department officials and public government data.

The money sent to Equatorial Guinea is the first taken from a fund apportioned by Congress to address international refugee crises – and sometimes to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in the US – that has instead been repurposed under the Trump administration to hasten their deportation.

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:18 pm

Ghislaine Maxwell eyeing commutation, whistleblower tells House Democrats

Epstein associate is also receiving special treatment in prison, Democrats say, according to whistleblower

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats.

Democrats on the House judiciary committee announced on Monday that they had received information from a whistleblower that indicates that the British former socialite, 63, is working on filing a commutation application. They also said Maxwell had been receiving special treatment at federal prison camp Bryan in Texas – the minimum-security facility she was transferred to earlier this year.

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:22 pm

Zohran Mamdani’s writer on crafting a historic victory speech: ‘In New York, inspiration is everywhere’

The mayor-elect’s address pulled from Socialist titans, Astoria’s uncles and his rival’s father. Julian Gerson explains how the two collaborated on the ‘love letter to New York’

In his victory speech after winning the New York mayoral election last week, Zohran Mamdani came out swinging.

The speech included, among other dramatic flourishes, a reference to the socialist titan Eugene Debs, shoutouts to the city’s “Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses”, tributes to Jawaharlal Nehru and Fiorello La Guardia, sprinkles of Arabic – and it was all delivered with the cadence and command of a hip-hop emcee. Many who were listening could not help but wonder: how the hell did he pull that off?

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:06 pm

‘We need this food’: Las Vegas teens on hunger and anxiety amid Snap cuts

Children may not understand politics of shutdown, but fear of future hunger can affect young brains, research reveals

On Halloween, neighbors in the downtown Las Vegas area of Huntridge gave out bags of nonperishable meal bags along with the usual trick-or-treat candy. The bag contained ingredients to make a quick chickpea curry: cans of garbanzo beans, coconut milk, crushed tomatoes, chicken, Thai seasoning and jasmine rice. Child-friendly bags held shelf-stable milk, cereals, cheese and crackers, cups of mac and cheese and meat sticks. A fancied-up ramen bag came with tinned BBQ pork, stir-fry vegetables and crunchy chow mein noodles. There were six different dinners in all.

The neighbors knew that shelf-stable food wouldn’t replace Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits, commonly known as food stamps, or food bank supplies.

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:10 pm

Can OpenAI keep pace with industry’s soaring costs?

As investor jitters grow, the loss-making ChatGPT firm’s vast spending commitments test the limits of Silicon Valley optimism

It is the $1.4tn (£1.1tn) question. How can a loss-making startup such as OpenAI afford such a staggering spending commitment?

Answer that positively and it will go a long way to easing investor concerns over bubble warnings in the artificial intelligence boom, from lofty tech company valuations to a mooted $3tn global spend on datacentres.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:37 pm

The risky strategy of Booker winner Flesh pays off | Justine Jordan

The protagonist’s inner life is hidden from the reader in this highly original novel

• David Szalay wins 2025 Booker prize for ‘dark’ Flesh

Reflecting on the Booker judging process, chair Roddy Doyle stressed the “singularity” of Flesh, the most unusual novel on the shortlist. In his sixth book, Hungarian-British writer David Szalay takes a classic story arc – one man’s journey through life, from childhood to old age – and presents it in a radically new and challenging way, scooping out the interiority that usually powers the novel form.

We meet his protagonist, István, as a bored 15-year-old in a Hungarian backwater. He is seduced by a middle-aged neighbour into a relationship suffused with shame and disgust; a confused act of violence knocks his life off course; he joins the military and is stationed in Kuwait; he moves to London and works as a bouncer before the rising tides of global capital carry him, for a while, into the monied elite. And all the while, we are cut off from his thoughts, emotions and motivations: we see only how others react to him, desire him, fear him. The most we tend to hear from István himself is a bland, noncommittal “OK”.

Flesh by David Szalay (Vintage Publishing, £18.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy for £16.14 at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:00 pm

The 10 best toaster ovens in the US – tested and reviewed

A new breed of toaster ovens can air fry, bake, roast, broil and more – all in a compact box that will fit in almost any kitchen

• Five chefs share the kitchen appliances they can’t live without

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

Toaster ovens have always been extremely versatile appliances, but the newest models take it to another level. A modern toaster oven can do away with your dehydrator, air fryer, microwave and even your traditional gas oven. They heat up faster than ovens, cook your food faster, and use less electricity. Many of the toaster ovens in this guide are even capacious enough for families of four, and can roast a whole chicken.

They are also consistently excellent appliances. I tested 10 different models for this guide, and they generally produced such good results that you really can’t go wrong. But with so many sizes, features and price points, it can still be challenging to find the right fit for you and your kitchen. Fortunately, we found great models for every size and preference.

Best overall:
Breville Joule Smart Countertop Oven Air Fryer

Best budget:
Cuisinart AirFryer Toaster Oven with Grill

Published: November 10, 2025, 8:15 pm

The Queen of Versailles review – Kristin Chenoweth goes big in unwieldy Broadway musical

St James Theatre, New York

The Wicked star reunites with composer Stephen Schwartz for a flashy yet exhausting adaptation of the acclaimed documentary

Like the US Capitol a century later, Versailles, that magnificent and ludicrously opulent monument to the French monarchy, was built on questionable grounds: marshland. Many in King Louis XIV’s circle side-eyed his decision to relocate the court to a swampy village miles outside Paris, site of a royal hunting lodge and great potential folly. But he did it anyway – the wetland drained, the sand imported, the running water laboriously engineered to support a palatial ode to absolute power.

The Queen of Versailles, a new Broadway original musical starring Kristin Chenoweth, rests on similarly shaky foundations. The show’s raison d’être is the reunion of Chenoweth, the diminutive diva who originated Broadway’s pre-eminent blonde (Glinda the Good Witch), with Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. And for Chenoweth’s first lead Broadway role in a decade, the pair, along with author Lindsey Ferrentino, have selected a curious comeback vehicle: a shopaholic billionaire’s wife, proud builder of the largest private residence in America, unrepentant believer in the spoils of American capitalism.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:41 pm

‘Most of it was the conga preset on Prince’s drum machine’: how Fine Young Cannibals made She Drives Me Crazy

‘Prince’s Purple Rain guitar was in the corner of the studio and his lava lamps were everywhere. You couldn’t help but be inspired’

I was in a band in Hull called Akrylykz. When the Beat came to play at the Welly club we gave them a demo tape. Then they invited us to tour with them. Later, after they split up, Andy Cox and David Steele were looking for a singer for a new band and they remembered me. Fine Young Cannibals felt right straight away. After The Tube filmed us doing Johnny Come Home, we just took off. Then somebody must have noticed me on telly because suddenly I was getting film offers, and I appeared in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Scandal.

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:57 pm

Why do people love spicy food – even when it hurts to eat it?

Tearing up, sweating and other bodily functions are all signs that the body is trying to expel spicy foods as quickly as possible. But there is a simple reason why some people enjoy those sensations

The first thing to understand about eating spicy food is that it really isn’t a matter of taste. Capsaicin, the active chemical in capsicum plants that are a key ingredient in anything you’d think of as “spicy”, evolved as an irritant to stop mammals from chewing and destroying plant seeds. It acts on the nervous system directly through receptors in the tongue, throat and skin – no taste buds required – and, in theory, tells our bodies that the thing we’ve just ingested is something to get rid of as soon as possible. The obvious question, then, is: why do some of us like the sensation so much?

To start to understand that, it’s helpful to know a bit more about what’s going on in the body. “Think of an engineering brief where we have to detect irritants in a system and clear them rapidly,” says Liam Browne, an associate professor at UCL who specialises in the neuroscience of sensory perception and pain. “Capsaicin binds to a receptor in the body called TRPV1, which is found in a specialised class of neurons called nociceptors that usually detect things that are potentially damaging to the body.” When that happens, it’s like a little fire alarm goes off and activates parts of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates various involuntary bodily functions without conscious control. “That’s what leads to all these physiological effects like tearing up, sweating, or your nose running,” says Browne. “It’s your body trying to get rid of the irritant.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 9:00 am

I used to scold myself for forgetting things. Then I built a daily survival pouch

It contains a stain-remover pen, silent fidget toy and a few Band-Aids, and Matilda Boseley never leaves home without it

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

I’ve spent a lot of this year trying to perfect the art of leaving the house.

This might sound like an odd mission until you’ve seen me spend 25 minutes getting distracted while looking for my wallet and sunnies, doubling back to grab my laptop, tripling back for my work pass, missing my train, arriving at my destination with 1% battery and only then realising the medication I was meant to take that morning is still sitting on the counter.

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Published: November 10, 2025, 2:00 pm

Maybe the BBC can learn a thing or two about fake news from Trump | John Crace

The broadcaster didn’t make a very good job of its untruth – possibly because it hasn’t had as much practice

You have to admire the chutzpah. The cheek of it. Donald Trump describing the BBC as “corrupt” while threatening to take legal action. Karoline Leavitt, The Donald’s White House mouthpiece, calling the BBC “100% fake news”. The man has never been known for his self-awareness so it’s safe to say the irony has almost certainly passed him by. If you’re being charitable, let’s just say that maybe it takes fake news to spot fake news.

The US president is a master of the lie. Makes Boris Johnson look something of an amateur. Boris always followed a lie with a giveaway smirk. He couldn’t help himself. It was an integral part of his self-destruction. As if, buried deep down in his subconscious, there was a part of him that wanted to be found out.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:54 pm

In New York, Zohran Mamdani showed how it’s done: ‘identity politics’ can win elections | Nesrine Malik

New York’s newly elected mayor rooted his campaign in the personal while, ironically, exemplifying the tradition of the American ‘melting pot’

It is inevitable that too much will be laid on Zohran Mamdani’s head. So large is the vacuum on the left of politics that his victory will occupy an outsized space for progressives beyond New York City. And so, before I lay too much on his head myself, some caveats. New York is a specific place. It has a specific demographic and economic profile. And Mamdani is a man of a specific background, racial, political and religious. But with that out of the way, I think the successful practice of “identity politics” during his campaign offers some universal lessons.

I put identity politics in quote marks because the term now means little that is universally agreed upon. Broadly, it has come to mean something derogatory, kind of in the same way that “wokeness” has. It increasingly has negative connotations: a political appeal to race or other markers of identity that is shallow, rooted in perpetual victimhood, focused only on representation and disconnected from material reality. Seen this way, identity politics is not about universal goals, such as lifting people out of poverty and so mobilising broad coalitions of voters, but simply about visibility.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:00 am

Antidepressants are trendy. That’s a double-edged sword | Tayo Bero

It’s great the taboo is fading. But as TikTok influencers tout them, it’s a slippery slope to the memeification of disorders

Antidepressants are all the rage now, so much so that influencers are promoting them on TikTok, where mostly millennial and gen Z women have built micro-communities around hashtags like #lexaprotok, #zoloftgang and #livelaughlexapro.

According to data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, content related to antidepressants has recently exploded. The hashtag #antidepressants has surpassed 1.3bn views, according to the data, and searches for #lexapro have more than tripled since 2022. The data also showed that user shares per video tagged #ssri nearly quadrupled from 2022 to 2025.

Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist

Published: November 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

Ben Jennings on the BBC resignations – cartoon

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:24 pm

If you care about the BBC, stand up and defend it: this could be the beginning of the end | Polly Toynbee

Replacing the TV licence with a means-tested alternative may help disarm the right of one of its most effective weapons

Gotcha! The BBC’s enemies have taken two scalps and inflicted maximum damage. The shock resignation of the director general, Tim Davie, and the head of news, Deborah Turness, make it look as if the BBC accepts that it does indeed suffer from “serious and systemic” bias in its coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights. But in this political coup, only the BBC’s sworn ideological foes think a cherrypicked sample of journalistic errors amounts to “systemic” bias.

It was indeed a bad mistake to splice together two bits of Trump’s speech; but it needed a quick apology, not a decapitation. The BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, I’m told, tried to persuade Davie to stay to avoid this apparent capitulation to critics: Davie should indeed have stood his ground, not weakened the BBC by walking away.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Published: November 10, 2025, 3:42 pm

Unrwa has the capacity and expertise to support a postwar Gaza. We want to help make this peace work | Philippe Lazzarini

With a ceasefire in place, rebuilding must begin, justice be delivered and healing seriously addressed by Palestinian and Israeli societies

• Philippe Lazzarini is the commissioner-general of Unrwa

After two years of brutal warfare in Gaza, a fragile ceasefire – the first phase of US president Donald Trump’s 20-point plan – offers some respite to an exhausted population. For my Unrwa colleagues on the ground in Gaza, the constant fear of being killed by bombs and guns may have abated, but there is still much to worry about – access to shelter, food and clean water remains challenging, and winter is approaching fast.

There is no time to lose in tackling widespread hunger and disease. The scale of physical and psychological trauma is immense, and expectations about access to healthcare and education are growing. The next weeks and months will determine whether this watershed moment will lead to a new dawn or be a prelude to greater despair.

Philippe Lazzarini is commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa)

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 10, 2025, 1:41 pm

Why I love Martha Stewart – the original unapologetic alpha woman | Emma Beddington

She bites her pets, dumped Hannibal Lecter and claims she was the original tradwife. For anxious, people-pleasing women like me, channelling some of her DGAF energy could do us some good

With every year that passes, my decorative and culinary standards slip further, while, paradoxically, I become more obsessed with the former billionaire, felon, fancy fowl enthusiast and Snoop Dogg best buddy Martha Stewart. Stewart is, of course, the original domestic goddess, but also, she’s now claiming, the template tradwife. “I really was that woman. I was the original fucking tradwife,” she told the Lipstick on the Rim podcast, embellishing later, in an interview for the New York Times (marking the reissue of her 1982 cookbook, Entertaining): “And I was just as pretty as those girls, and more organised.”

I suppose she’s not wrong – she was already combining the homemaking, empire-building and self-promotional elements that characterise tradwifery 40 years ago – but it’s not the most tactful or self-effacing way to put it, which is very on-brand.

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:00 am

The Guardian view on the BBC under siege: Britain must defend its own truth | Editorial

With Donald Trump circling and Labour ministers wavering, defending the corporation’s independence is now a test of national will

The chair of the BBC, Samir Shah, struck a defensive tone in his interview to explain the mess the broadcaster has found itself in. The impression was of an organisation under siege rather than one confidently self-correcting. Mr Shah will be busy. He must find a new director general after Tim Davie resigned. Gone too is the CEO of news, Deborah Turness. Both resigned after an exhausting rightwing campaign which cried bias at every turn and was energised by an absurd transatlantic attempt to paint the BBC as part of a global liberal conspiracy.

A giant like the BBC will make mistakes. The failure is not owning them fast enough and moving on. The corporation remains one of Britain’s few genuinely national institutions – and ministers say it is a “light on the hill” for people here and abroad. The BBC is the most trusted source of news in the UK, and among the top five worldwide. Yet awareness of that value has faded as the broadcaster struggled to articulate a clear civic mission. This is a strategic blunder in the face of competition from US big tech, which wants to monetise outrage rather than the truth. Viewed from that perspective the current row over the editing of Donald Trump’s speech for Panorama is a sideshow. The real fight is over what impartiality means – and who gets to decide.

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 10, 2025, 7:17 pm

MLB pitcher Luis Ortiz released on $500,000 bail after allegedly taking gambling bribes

• Guardians pitchers indicted on fraud allegations

• NBA also caught up in its own gambling scandal

Cleveland Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz appeared in federal court on Monday on charges accusing him and teammate Emmanuel Clase of taking bribes to help associates win prop bets placed on pitches they threw.

A judge in in Boston granted Ortiz his release but with several conditions, including that he surrender his passport, restrict his travel to the US northeast and post a $500,000 bond. He must also avoid contact with anyone who could be viewed as a victim, witness or co-defendant in the case.

Ortiz, dressed in a pale green track suit, did not say anything in court. His lawyers declined to speak to reporters afterward.

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:40 pm

New York Giants fire head coach Brian Daboll after another lost season

• Decision comes after Giants blow another late lead

• Daboll was named NFL coach of the year in first season

The New York Giants have fired head coach Brian Daboll after Sunday’s defeat left the team with a 2-8 record and staring at another lost season.

“The past few seasons have been nothing short of disappointing, and we have not met our expectations for this franchise,” Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said Monday in a joint statement. “We understand the frustrations of our fans, and we will work to deliver a significantly improved product.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:12 pm

After hundreds of millions spent on players, what was Liverpool’s plan? | Jonathan Wilson

The defending Premier League champions spent big over the summer, but it’s hard to see how the new players fit

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

What was it supposed to look like? Amid all the talk around Liverpool and their disappointing form at the start of this season, that is perhaps the hardest question of all to answer. What were they trying to do? If it had worked, how would this team have played?

The champions spent £424m (about $550m) on new signings in the summer, but if all had gone well, they would have spent an additional £40m ($53m) to land the Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guéhi. The England international would, at the very least, have given an extra option at the back (the injury to Giovanni Leoni has diminished their defensive options further), allowing Arne Slot to rest Ibrahima Konaté, whose poor form continued in the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. An early City penalty was a direct result of Konaté getting in Conor Bradley’s way as Jérémy Doku cut in from the left.

Published: November 10, 2025, 3:45 pm

‘Focus on driving and talk less’: Ferrari president hits back at Lewis Hamilton

• John Elkann has say after Hamilton’s ‘nightmare’ verdict

• Lando Norris plays down title talk after victory in Brazil

Lewis Hamilton has been told to “focus on driving and talk less” in a rebuke from the Ferrari president, John Elkann, which was almost certainly a reaction to Hamilton’s outspoken description of his first season with the team as a “nightmare”.

Hamilton has endured a difficult debut year with Ferrari, with the team underperforming and the seven‑time champion having a trying time adapting to a new environment and practices.

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:31 pm

IOC edges closer to ban on transgender women in female Olympic events

• Sources expect ban within next six to 12 months

• IOC president wants to protect the female category

The International Olympic Committee is edging closer towards implementing a ban on transgender women competing in the female category in time for the Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Multiple sources expect such a ban to come into effect over the next six to 12 months with the new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, making clear she wants to drive through her campaign pledge to protect the female category.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:15 pm

US anti-doping accuses Wada of trying to ‘smear America’ amid Enhanced Games row

• Pro-doping event scheduled to take place in Las Vegas

• Usada says critics deflecting after 2021 swimming scandal

The war of words between anti‑doping bodies over the Enhanced Games has intensified after Usada accused Wada of attempting “to smear America”.

Travis Tygart, president of the US Anti-Doping Agency, made the claim as he hit back at the World Anti-Doping Agency suggestion that it should do more to stop the pro‑doping event scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next year. Tygart said that Wada’s intervention was a “desperate attempt to divert attention” from its role in the Chinese swimming scandal of 2021.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:36 pm

Atlético Ottawa’s ‘icicle kick’ lights up blizzard-hit Canadian Premier League final

• David Rodríguez scored acrobatic equalizer and winner

• Play was stopped every 15 minutes for snow removal

• Gallery: The best shots from an epic final

Atlético Ottawa secured a Canadian Premier League final victory unlike any other, a snow-globe spectacle amid a swirling blizzard featuring what online media outlets dubbed an “icicle kick” from the Mexican midfielder David Rodríguez.

Ottawa, the hosts, beat Cavalry FC 2-1 in extra-time win in Sunday’s title decider in temperatures of minus -8C (17.6F) with snow so heavy that play was halted every 15 minutes to clear the lines, and goalkeepers used shovels to carve out their boxes.

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:12 pm

Data centers meet resistance over environmental concerns as AI boom spreads in Latin America

An expert describes how communities in some of the world’s driest areas are demanding transparency as secretive governments court billions in foreign investment

This Q&A originally appeared as part of The Guardian’s TechScape newsletter. Sign up for this weekly newsletter here.

The data centers that power the artificial intelligence boom are beyond enormous. Their financials, their physical scale, and the amount of information contained within are so massive that the idea of stopping their construction can seem like opposing an avalanche in progress.

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:58 pm

Canada no longer measles-free as outbreaks spread

Canada has lost its measles elimination status as vaccination rates have slipped below the 95% coverage rate needed to stop outbreaks

Canada is no longer measles-free because of ongoing outbreaks, international health experts said on Monday, as childhood vaccination rates fall and the highly contagious virus spreads across North and South America.

The loss of the country’s measles elimination status comes more than a year after the highly contagious virus started spreading.

Published: November 11, 2025, 2:23 am

US supreme court to decide if states can accept late-arriving mail ballots

Case involves a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots to count if they are received days after election day

The US supreme court announced on Monday it will hear a high-stakes case about whether states can accept mail-in ballots that arrive after election day, even if they are filled out and mailed before then.

The case, Watson v Republican National Committee, involves a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots to count if they are received within five business days of election day.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:01 pm

David Szalay wins 2025 Booker prize for ‘dark’ Flesh

The judges ‘had never read anything quite like it’, says panel chair Roddy Doyle, announcing the Hungarian-British author’s novel as the winner of the £50,000 award

• Justine Jordan: The risky strategy of Booker winner Flesh pays off

Hungarian-British author David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker prize for his novel Flesh.

Szalay’s sixth work of fiction traces the life of one man, István, from his youth to midlife. The judges “had never read anything quite like it”, said panel chair Roddy Doyle, who won the prize in 1993. “It is, in many ways, a dark book, but it is a joy to read.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:00 pm

Two dead after small plane on hurricane relief trip to Jamaica crashes in Florida

Aircraft headed to island on Hurricane Melissa aid mission crashed into a pond in a neighborhood in Coral Springs

A small turboprop plane on a hurricane relief mission to Jamaica crashed into a pond in a gated residential neighborhood of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, killing two people shortly after takeoff and narrowly missing homes, authorities and a local resident said.

The Coral Springs police department confirmed the deaths in a statement Monday afternoon. But police did not provide further details about the occupants of the plane and did not immediately return messages seeking more details.

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:51 pm

Floridians warned about falling iguanas as wintry weather hits eastern US

Cold and snow take hold in eastern two-thirds of the US, from the Great Lakes to Florida and Texas

Floridians have been asked to keep their guard up against iguanas plummeting out of trees and possibly hurting them as temperatures plunge in their state and other parts of the US.

The unusual warning came as one of the season’s first blasts of wintry weather began to take hold in the eastern two-thirds of the US, from the Great Lakes to Florida and Texas.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:09 pm

Trump officials set to approve ‘forever chemical’ as pesticide ingredient

Critics say that fifth Pfas Trump’s EPA has proposed for approval this year would put food and water supply at risk

The Trump administration is poised to again approve a new Pfas “forever chemical” pesticide ingredient, a move that is drawing criticism from public health advocates who say the nation’s food and water supply is being put at more risk from the dangerous compounds.

The substance would be sprayed on corn, soybeans and wheat, and it marks the fifth Pfas pesticide ingredient the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed for approval under Donald Trump’s second term as US president.

Published: November 10, 2025, 1:00 pm

‘I would give all my life for my brother to come back for one second’ – This is climate breakdown

Ari loved his community and set up a volunteer group to fight wildfires. One day his brother Bilal received the phone call he had long dreaded. This is Bilal’s story

Location Halabja, Iraq

Disaster Wildfires, 2025

Bilal Mukhtar is a teacher living in Halabja, in the Hawraman region of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. Wildfires are breaking out here with increasing frequency, caused by natural events and compounded by hotter and drier weather. Iraq is experiencing its worst drought in nearly a century. Climate change makes drought and wildfire in Iraq more likely.

Published: November 10, 2025, 12:17 pm

Q&A: what are the main issues at Cop30 and why do they matter?

Cop returns to its Brazilian roots and attempts to map a path to crucial emissions cuts that navigates financial, scientific and ethical aspects of the climate crisis

• Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief

• From net zero to NDCs: your comprehensive Cop30 jargon buster

Cop30 is the 30^th conference of the parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty signed in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro that binds the world to “avoid dangerous climate change”, without specifying how to do so.

This year, Cop returns to its roots in Brazil for the first time in the Amazonian city of Belém. The Brazilian hosts have a packed agenda, with 145 separate items on it, and decided to begin early, with a preliminary event called the Belém Climate Summit. World leaders were invited to this two-day event, held on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 November in Belém, to try to encourage their negotiating teams to shed entrenched positions and take bold actions at Cop itself.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:00 am

Bezos’s Blue Origin postpones second rocket launch over poor weather

Blue Origin says it is aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday as competition with Musk’s SpaceX intensifies

Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced on Sunday to postpone the anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket due to unfavorable weather conditions in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Rain and a ground system issue caused delays that were followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers with the only option of pushing back the rocket’s planned second mission. Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:35 pm

Hegseth says six people killed in two new US attacks on alleged drug boats

US defense secretary says without providing evidence that dead from strikes in eastern Pacific were ‘narco-terrorists’

US forces struck two more alleged drug trafficking boats off the coast of South America, killing six people, the Trump administration’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said.

The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More than 70 people have been killed in the strikes so far.

Published: November 10, 2025, 1:41 pm

Democratic candidate for Congress criticizes deal to end shutdown – which her mother voted to advance

Stefany Shaheen omitted to mention that her mother, Jeanne Shaheen, was among party’s rebel senators who voted to approve bill

• US politics live – latest updates

A Democratic congressional candidate who posted to social media criticism of the bipartisan deal that looks set to end the government shutdown omitted to mention that her mother was among the party’s rebel senators who voted to approve it.

Stefany Shaheen, who is seeking to represent New Hampshire in the US House of Representatives, said in the post to X that she “cannot support this deal when [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson refuses to even allow a vote to extend health care tax credits”.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:23 pm

US supreme court rejects call to overturn decision legalizing same-sex marriage

Justices turn away appeal from former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples

• US politics live – latest updates

The supreme court on Monday rejected a call to overturn its landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v Hodges.

Published: November 10, 2025, 3:05 pm

Ukraine’s energy sector faces wide-scale investigation over ‘kickback’ allegations

Anti-corruption agency says state nuclear power operator Energoatom taking illicit payments of 10-15%

Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau said on Monday that it was conducting a large-scale investigation into the country’s energy sector, alleging kickbacks in transactions involving the state nuclear power operator, Energoatom.

The bureau, which operates independently of the government, alleged that several senior figures were involved. Ukrainian media identified one of them as Timur Mindich, a businessman and associate of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:29 pm

Eight people die and several injured after car explosion in Delhi, police say

Several fire engines rushed to the scene after blast reported near the historic Red Fort, fire services said

A car explosion outside the historic Red Fort monument in Delhi has killed at least eight people and started a fire in the surrounding area, according to police.

The cause of the explosion, which took place just before 7pm local time (1330 GMT) on Monday night, is being investigated. The registered owner of the car has reportedly been detained for questioning.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:00 pm

Terrorist turf war battle in north-eastern Nigeria leaves about 200 dead

Fighting between Boko Haram and rival militants from Islamic State West Africa Province broke out on shores of Lake Chad

As many as 200 terrorists were killed in a turf war on Sunday between rival jihadists in north-east Nigeria.

The fighting between Boko Haram and rival militants from Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) broke out over the weekend in the village of Dogon Chiku, which lies on the shores of Lake Chad, a restive area located at the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Published: November 10, 2025, 3:05 pm

Man goes on trial in Germany over deadly Christmas market car attack

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen accused of murdering six and attempting to kill hundreds in Magdeburg last December

A man has gone on trial in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on charges of murdering six people and attempting to murder hundreds more by deliberately ploughing his SUV into a packed Christmas market last December.

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 51, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, appeared in court on Monday wearing handcuffs and with his feet shackled, accompanied by armed police. He will be held in a bullet-proof glass case throughout the trial.

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:21 pm

‘Mommy’s got her phone’: A House of Dynamite is good on nuclear threat – and great on smartphone reliance

The Netflix film graphically highlights the importance mobiles bring to both work and home life, as well as their potential to wreak havoc on a global scale

Since its release, A House of Dynamite has triggered its own fallout over how accurately the film depicts the government’s immediate response to a nuclear attack of unknown origin. Could a missile fired from the Pacific really reach Chicago in just 18 minutes? Is the decision to retaliate solely in the president’s hands?

In particular, the Pentagon has challenged the film’s suggestion that US-launched interceptor missiles have only a 61% success rate at shooting down incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles, insisting that the real figure is 100% in testing. (The nonprofit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation puts it even lower than the film, at 55%.)

Published: November 10, 2025, 12:58 pm

‘Such a tonic’: why Burn After Reading is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers remembering their most rewatched comfort film is a tribute to the Coens’ playful star-packed comedy

The opening credits suggest a work of serious intrigue: a view of Earth from outer space zeroes in on the east coast ot the US and zooms into what’s revealed to be a large building complex nestled in woodland – what we’ll soon learn is CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia – to a soundtrack of propulsive, thundering percussion. From here, it will only gradually become apparent that there is no great mystery to the film, Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2008 spy thriller pastiche Burn After Reading, its characters instead set to chase phantoms, walk down blind alleys and, ultimately, learn nothing at all.

In one of the Coens’ noir-inflected knotted plots, Washington DC gym workers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt) happen upon a disc containing the raw memoir of former CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) – what Chad deduces is “highly classified shit” – and decide to try blackmailing the ex-spook for its return. Meanwhile, Linda begins a dalliance with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a paranoid US marshal who’s also having an affair with Osborne’s wife Katie (Tilda Swinton).

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:00 am

Predator: Badlands – exiled hunters, rogue androids and unkillable monsters – discuss with spoilers

The latest instalment dismantles expectations surrounding predator and prey while tearing up the crossover cinema rulebook

Predator: Badlands is the kind of movie that offers hope Hollywood has finally moved on from the bad old days of crossover cinema. Batman v Superman, Godzilla vs Kong, and the Alien vs Predator movies all imagined that the only thing you had to do to get bums on multiplex seats was to pair up two logos with recognisable silhouettes and watch the greenbacks roll in.

This new film, though, manages the rare feat of cross-pollinating between two decades-old sci-fi sagas, and somehow adding depth and emotional texture to both. Predator suddenly feels like a space where we discover that even within a society of ritualised trophy violence and hereditary warrior pride, there’s room to rebel. Alien is reimagined as a universe in which synthetic beings aren’t just sinister corporate automata, reprogrammed dolts or soft-voiced laboratory philosophers, but something more familiar: entities who can malfunction in ways that look suspiciously like a soul attempting to coalesce in the digital ether.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:21 pm

‘The second coming we all deserve!’ Sesame Street goes global at long last

After decades of struggle, the warm-hearted kids’ programme has been rescued by Netflix. This could be the start of a partnership as enduring as Bert and Ernie’s

An entire generation of British adults was raised by Sesame Street. They’re easy enough to spot; they’re kind, they have had that Pointer Sisters pinball counting song as an earworm for four decades, and they were repeatedly told off at school for pronouncing the final letter of the alphabet “zee”.

But this generation is old. The last time Sesame Street was regularly broadcast in the UK was September 2001, when Channel 4 made the decision to replace it with The Hoobs. However, this all changes now. Because Sesame Street has just rolled out on Netflix for the first time.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:00 am

Michelle Obama dishes the secrets behind her most famous outfits: best podcasts of the week

The former First Lady hosts an absorbing new show about her fashion evolution. Plus, Katy Davis explores ‘waiting’ – whether it’s for a bus or an imprisoned lover

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:00 am

‘We never had much fun – we were angry’: Eve Libertine on life with anarcho-punk pioneers Crass

Accused of obscenity and sued by police and Tory MPs, Libertine outraged the establishment as part of Crass. Now she’s back – and she hasn’t mellowed with age

‘Things haven’t changed,” sighs Eve Libertine as she contemplates her new album. “All those songs are as relevant as they ever were.” The album in question, Live at the Horse Hospital, shows no sign that one of punk’s most anti-establishment figures is mellowing with age. Recorded at one blistering London live show in April 2024, Libertine collaborated with Chilean guitarist Eva Leblanc, reimagining tracks from Libertine’s back catalogue including ones from her time singing with 1970s anarcho-punk pioneers Crass. Produced by Crass founder Penny Rimbaud, it treads a path between performance art, experimental music and earth ritual; with her strident operatic tones, Libertine sounds like a soothsayer foretelling an apocalypse. It’s not an easy listen, but that was never the case with Crass, either.

“We never had much fun, to be honest,” Libertine says. “It was really heavy going at times. We were angry; we were trying to say things in a way that was confrontational and shocking to get a reaction. And we definitely did.”

Published: November 10, 2025, 8:00 am

Poem of the week: Leaves by Frederic Manning

A landscape of illusory peace is depicted just before the guns of battle reach it in the first world war

Leaves

A frail and tenuous mist on baffled and intricate branches;
Little gilt leaves are still, for quietness holds every bough;
Pools in the muddy road slumber, reflecting indifferent stars;
Steeped in the loveliness of moonlight is earth, and the valleys,
Brimmed up with quiet shadow, with a mist of sleep.

Published: November 10, 2025, 10:07 am

Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith review – a wild ride with the poet of punk

Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up to Just Kids and M Train

The post-pandemic flood of artist memoirs continues, but Patti Smith stands apart. The poet who wrote punk into existence before pivoting to pop stardom then ghosting fans to raise a family has, in the 21st century, leaned into literature and music with such vitality it has become hard to say which medium suits her better. It hardly matters. At 78 years old, Smith lives and breathes both.

Her latest memoir follows the tightly focused coming-of-age story Just Kids, published to great acclaim in 2010, and 2015’s more ruminative M Train. Bread of Angels splits the difference to create a more conventional autobiography. It could be described as Just Kids’ prequel and sequel, moving from Smith’s hardscrabble childhood to the near-present, where a striking twist takes the narrative back to her literal conception. It’s one of a number of revelations about an artist whose story would otherwise seem, by now, well-chiseled into the tablets of rock history.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:00 am

Wiggles admit likely consumer law breach over Emma Bow headbands with button batteries

Children’s music supergroup pledges to discuss safety risks on special episode of Wiggle Talk podcast

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Children’s entertainers the Wiggles have admitted to selling headbands to kids without warning about the dangers of button batteries contained within the products.

More than 3,100 Emma Bow headbands, which have four flashing lights powered by button batteries, were sold at live concerts, retailers and online between June 2022 and March 2024.

Published: November 11, 2025, 2:33 am

Sydney Sweeney addresses US box office bomb for boxing movie: ‘We don’t always just make art for numbers’

Fact-based drama Christy suffers historically bad opening weekend in latest commercial disappointment for star

Sydney Sweeney is taking the dismal box office performance of Christy, the R-rated biographical drama in which she plays trailblazing boxer Christy Martin, in her stride.

The film, directed by David Michôd, opened to $1.3m this weekend, making for one of the worst US starts ever for a movie opening in more than 2,000 theaters.

Published: November 10, 2025, 8:07 pm

John Oliver on the ‘shocking’ use of felony murder charges in the US

The host spoke about a little-known charge that sends people to prison for life for murder even if they haven’t actually murdered anybody

John Oliver took aim at felony murder charges and the “shocking” system that has led people to be incarcerated for a crime they didn’t technically commit.

On Last Week Tonight, Oliver joked that murder was “the thing that cats are constantly plotting” before moving on to the specific crime of felony murder.

Published: November 10, 2025, 4:17 pm

‘I can’t control how others perceive me’: Sydney Sweeney on boxing, weight gain and her flair for controversy

She ignited a culture war with a jeans advert. Now she has delivered a knockout performance as boxer Christy Martin. Sweeney talks about taking punches in the ring – and in the media

There was much blood and sweat – but few tears – involved in Sydney Sweeney’s transformation into Christy Martin. David Michôd’s biopic of the trailblazing fighter, who hauled women’s boxing into the US mainstream in the mid-1990s, spends much of its runtime recreating Martin’s real-life fights. And she doesn’t always win. I left the screening wondering if I had genuinely just seen Sweeney – whose acclaimed acting career, canny commercial ventures and unwitting contributions to the online outrage cycle have combined to make her one of the world’s most famous women – being mercilessly and repeatedly punched in the head. Turns out I had.

“Oh yeah, they were all real. Every fight that you see, we’re hitting each other,” says the 28-year-old cheerily. “I had concussions, there were some bloody noses.” Were the concussions frightening? “Nah, I loved it! The lady who played Laila Ali” – Muhammad Ali’s daughter, who defeated Martin by knockout in 2003 – “is an actual professional boxer. She’s in the air force and fights for Team USA – she hit hard and it was very, very real. She’s how I got my concussion.” Sweeney felt she truly “became a fighter. It was such an exhilarating feeling. In between takes, I’d be like: ‘I think I won that round!’”

Published: November 10, 2025, 6:00 am

Is Malta the new Dubai? Why UK migrants are flocking to the small island nation

British expats love it for its red postboxes and Marks & Spencer stores. But they love it more because they only have to pay 15% tax on their income

Name: Malta.

Age: Inhabited since 6500BC.

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:09 pm

Is it true that … the harder you work out, the more you sweat?

Sweat levels can be misleading, and factors such as age, sex, humidity and even your clothes all make a difference

It seems like common sense: if you leave a fitness class looking as though you’ve just ridden a log flume, you’ve probably worked harder than if you’re barely glistening. But that’s not always the case, says Adam Collins, a researcher from the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism at the University of Bath.

Sweating, he says, is part of the thermoregulation process. When your body temperature rises, it signals to your brain to sweat in order to cool you down. As the sweat evaporates, it helps regulate your core temperature.

Published: November 10, 2025, 8:00 am

The one change that worked: I was burned out and stressed – then I found a steamy solution

After a bereavement and world events left me struggling to cope, I tried meditation, yoga and therapy. But it was my local sauna that helped me find peace and purpose

Earlier this year, I was approaching burnout. I felt as though my career as a freelance journalist was on permanent life-support, I was juggling a hectic family life, and I was consumed with worry about a world seemingly hellbent on self-destruction. I was struggling, too, with the death of a close family member and an old school friend. Grieving had become a default status. Despite support from family and loved ones, I needed to find a way to cope with this nearly overwhelming sense of loss.

I tried meditation, yoga and therapy, which all helped. Then I heard of Community Sauna Baths, a not-for-profit project in London designed to make saunas accessible and affordable for everyone. From my very first visit, I felt something change. A sense of peace came over me. It immediately felt like a sanctuary, a pocket of calm in the chaotic city that also allowed me to soothe this churning sadness and release some of the bottled-up angst.

Published: November 10, 2025, 11:00 am

My search for the perfect steak frites in Paris, the staple of French brasserie cuisine

It’s on every prix fixe menu in France, but which restaurant serves up the best incarnation in the capital? I stomped and chomped my way across the city to find out

I once ate seven bowls of ragù bolognese over the course of a single weekend. I was in Bologna, to be fair, and on a mission – to get to the bottom of spag bol (yes, I know it should be served with tagliatelle). A few years earlier, I did something similar with a Polish stew called bigos (a sort of hunter’s stew). I wanted to learn about its variations, its nuances, and I wondered what you could find out about a place if you dived into one dish in particular. In the case of bigos, I gleaned that the Polish are prepared to wait a long time for things to be done.

My friend Tom suffers from a similar obsession (just last month he dropped a dozen scotch eggs on a bank holiday Monday) and so when he said he was heading to Paris to eat multiple steak frites, I wasn’t exactly surprised. He wasn’t just going for a laugh, mind you: Tom runs a pub in London called the Carlton Tavern, and had come to the opinion that his steak and chips could do with a bit of zhooshing up. Hence the recce in Paris. But a man travelling all that way to examine meat and potatoes cannot do so alone, so I volunteered my services.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:00 am

A new start after 60: I found my feet in midlife, became a park ranger at 85 – and retired happily at 100

At 104, Betty Reid Soskin has had the most extraordinary life, from protest singing to civil rights activism to meeting the Obamas. She reflects on what it takes to stay strong and keep going

Betty Reid Soskin was 92 when she first went viral and became, in effect, a rock star of the National Park Service. She was the oldest full-time national park ranger in the US – this was back in 2013; she’d become a ranger at 85 – but she had been furloughed along with 800,000 other federal employees during the government shutdown. News channels flocked to interview her. She was aggrieved not to be working, she told them; she had a job to do.

“In a funny way, I suppose that started lots of things,” Soskin says. Her memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom, was published in 2018, and a documentary about her work, No Time to Waste, was released in 2020. Another film is in the works. Barack Obama called her “profoundly inspiring”. Annie Leibovitz photographed her. Glamour magazine named her woman of the year. Now, Reid Soskin is 104, and “all of whatever I was supposed to do, I’ve done”, she says.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:00 am

Did you solve it? Two dead at the drink-off – a brilliant new lateral thinking puzzle

The solution to today’s poison puzzler

Earlier today I set you the following puzzle. Here it is again with the solution.

Two dead at the drink-off

Published: November 10, 2025, 5:00 pm

‘The tigers are hungry’: endangered but deadly, the world’s largest big cat is sowing fear in Siberia’s villages

The spread of African swine flu among the wild boars the animals eat has led to the deadliest winter for attacks on people in the Russian region for decades – and a spike in tiger killings

The attacks seemed to come from nowhere. At first, the tigers snatched guard dogs on the edge of villages in Russia’s far east, emerging from the forest at night to prey. Others went for livestock, going after horses and cattle.

Then the attacks on people began. In January, an ice fisher was mauled at night and dragged away by a big cat, just weeks after a forester had been killed. In March, another man was attacked and partly eaten by a tiger. It was the deadliest winter for tiger attacks in Siberia for decades.

Published: November 10, 2025, 7:00 am

Typhoon aftermath and war commemoration: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: November 10, 2025, 2:01 pm