Lipstick, manicures ... and fascism: the ugliness behind the $450bn beauty industry

In their new book The House of Beauty, beauty writer Arabelle Sicardi examines the good, the bad and the ugly of the lucrative industry

The very first sentence of Arabelle Sicardi’s book, The House of Beauty, reads: “When I tell you that beauty is a monster, I need you to know it is my favorite kind.”

Sicardi, who splits their time between New York City and Los Angeles, has a love/hate relationship with the beauty industry. A writer and consultant working in beauty and tech, their projects include a beauty newsletter, a creative collective called Perfumed Pages and a non-profit arts project called the Museum of Nails Foundation. In their new book, they examine the impact of the $450bn beauty industry – the pretty and the very ugly.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:45 pm

‘Why don’t you believe Palestinians?’: the Israeli comedian putting the conflict on stage

In documentary Coexistence, My Ass!, Noam Shuster Eliassi uses humor and honesty to turn a one-woman show into something politically radical

In the late 2010s, Noam Shuster Eliassi was working at the United Nations, the latest step in a lifelong effort to build peace between Israelis and Palestinians, when she had an epiphany. In Ukraine, a Jewish comedian named Volodymyr Zelenskyy had made the improbable leap from sitcom about accidentally becoming president to actually becoming president. Perhaps, if she were to take her political career seriously, she should start writing jokes.

It worked. As an Israeli Jew fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Shuster Eliassi could nimbly weave between different audiences, and what started as short comedic videos on social media soon became an invitation from Harvard to develop a full-on stand-up routine skewering the idea of coexistence as it’s often used in the Israeli-Palestinian context. The show would riff on her upbringing in one of the only joint Israeli-Palestinian communities in the country, threading a fine needle with self-deprecating humor and an activist’s edge. The aim, she told the Guardian, was to “unpack” the idea of coexistence, “and say, like, ‘this is how I grew up, there are so many funny kumbayah moments, and I propose something else.’”

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:01 am

‘Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk’ – why investors are happy to pay him $1tn

Making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire appears to fit a US investment culture of backing high-flying innovators

For all the headlines about an on-off relationship with Donald Trump, baiting liberals and erratic behaviour, Tesla shareholders are loath to part with Elon Musk.

Investors in the electric vehicle maker voted on Thursday to put the world’s richest person on the path to become the world’s first trillionaire, despite the controversy that is now seemingly intrinsic to his public profile.

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:15 pm

‘We’re sick of the OnlyFans model’: Stella Barey’s porn site lets gen Z sex workers have a life

The 28-year-old’s platform, Hidden, offers a Tumblr-like sensibility in an industry roiled by slop and lets adult content creators earn without burning out

Stella Barey has an hour for lunch. At 1.30pm, she loads her banged-up Tacoma with her three Belgian malinois and drives to a secret Los Angeles hiking trail. There, she gulps down a tapioca pudding and laces up her sneakers. After checking over her shoulder for foot traffic, she pulls down her brown sweatpants and jiggles her bare ass for the camera. Then come the undies. Her coiffed landing strip hovers above the rocks as a rush of urine floods the trail. Every mile she walks, she films another video: a flash, a moon, a finger up the ass.

When Barey decided in 2020 to pursue porn full-time, she did not imagine that at 28 she would spend more time hunched over a desk – not in the fun way – making flow charts, scheduling Zoom calls, and sending pitch decks. “I’m at my happiest when I’m making a video like putting a strawberry in my butt and pushing it out,” she says. “Now I’m on calls all day and I have tech neck.” Known online as the “Anal Princess”, with large, blinking Shelley Duvall eyes and an American Girl doll pout, she will try anything once – even the title “tech founder”.

Published: November 7, 2025, 12:00 pm

Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk | Robert Reich

The president has put Snap benefits in jeopardy amid a fight over Medicaid. The nation has lost its moral authority

The Democrats had a great day on Tuesday. It’s crucial that they hone their economic message for next year’s midterms to focus on affordability and fairness.

Trump is doing the opposite. Although a federal court ordered him to continue to provide food stamps to about 42 million low-income Americans who depend on them, Trump threatened to deny them anyway until the end of the government shutdown.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:00 pm

‘It’s impossible not to have contradictions in a contradictory world’: Catalan pop visionary Rosalía on critics, crisis and being ‘hot for God’

With a towering new album about female saints in 13 languages, she’s pop’s boldest star – and one of its most controversial. She revisits her spiritual breakthroughs, and explains why we need forgiveness instead of cancel culture

Rosalía Vila Tobella is just as bored as you are of pop music functioning as gossip column fodder, with lyrics full of hints of rivalries and betrayal. “I’m tiring of seeing people referencing celebrities, and celebrities referencing other celebrities,” she says. “I’m really much more excited about saints.”

The 33-year-old Catalan musician and producer’s monumental fourth album, Lux, draws on the lives of dozens of female saints, inspired by “feminine mysticism, spirituality” and how lives of murder, materialism and rebellion could light the way to canonisation. Rosalía reels them off. Her gothic, operatic new single Berghain borrows from the 12th-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen (cited like Madonna these days by experimental female musicians). “She had these visions that would pierce her brain. There’s also Vimala, who wrote poetry but was a prostitute, and she ended up becoming a saint because she was one of the first women who wrote in the Therīgāthā,” an ancient Buddhist poem collection written by nuns.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 am

US supreme court issues emergency order blocking full Snap food aid payments

High court’s order comes after appeals court rejected Trump administration’s request to block November benefits

The supreme court has issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments.

The high court’s order came after the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid a US federal government shutdown.

Published: November 8, 2025, 2:50 am

‘Huge victory’ in Portland as judge’s final order bars Trump from sending national guard

Karin Immergut said earlier she ‘found no credible evidence’ that protests in Oregon city were out of control

A federal judge in Oregon on Friday blocked Donald Trump from deploying national guard troops to Portland, ruling there was no evidence of widespread violence to justify federal intervention.

The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, delivered her final order in the case on Friday. She found that protests near Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were “predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence”.

Published: November 8, 2025, 2:35 am

Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks

Student, national and local groups across US organized day of action to condemn Trump’s assault on academic freedom

Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students’ and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.

The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations such as Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United.

Published: November 7, 2025, 8:05 pm

Trump says US will boycott G20 summit in South Africa, citing treatment of white farmers

Administration has long accused South Africa of allowing white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked

Donald Trump said Friday that no US government officials would be attending the Group of 20 summit this year in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.

The US president had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:57 pm

Turkey issues genocide arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli PM, ministers and army chief accused of crimes against humanity ‘perpetrated systematically’ in Gaza

Turkey has issued arrest warrants for alleged genocide against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and senior officials within his government.

Among 37 suspects listed were the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the army chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said a statement from the Istanbul prosecutor’s office, which did not publish the complete list.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:35 pm

US grants Hungary one-year exception from sanctions over Russian oil and gas

Viktor Orbán had a friendly meeting with Donald Trump on Friday to press his case for a reprieve

The United States has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions for using Russian oil and gas, a White House official said on Friday, after Viktor Orbán pressed his case for a reprieve during a friendly meeting with Donald Trump in Washington.

Last month, Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that carried the threat of further sanctions on entities in countries that buy oil from those firms.

Published: November 8, 2025, 1:10 am

James D Watson, who co-discovered DNA’s twisted-ladder structure, dies aged 97

Nobel prize winner shaped medicine, crimefighting and genealogy, but later years marred by racist remarks

James Dewey Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped light the long fuse on a revolution in medicine, crimefighting, genealogy and ethics, has died, according to his former research lab. He was 97.

The breakthrough – made when the brash, Chicago-born Watson was just 24 – turned him into a hallowed figure in the world of science for decades. But near the end of his life, he faced condemnation and professional censure for offensive remarks, including saying Black people were less intelligent than white people.

Published: November 7, 2025, 9:04 pm

Indiana woman who was at wrong home address to clean fatally shot by resident

Officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez dead after she accidentally went to a wrong property

Authorities in Indiana are considering whether to charge a homeowner who they say shot and killed a woman after she mistakenly went to the wrong address where she thought she was turning up to clean a property.

Police officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez, 32, dead just before 7am Wednesday on the front porch of a home in Whitestown, an Indianapolis suburb of about 10,000 people.

Published: November 7, 2025, 11:10 pm

Trump news at a glance: supreme court blocks full Snap food aid payments following White House request

The high court’s order came after a federal appeals court denied the administration’s request to block an order to distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits – key US politics stories from 7 November 2025

On Friday, moments after a federal appeals court ruled the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments, the White House turned to the supreme court in a further attempt to block the order.

Within hours, the top US court issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments, which nearly 42 million people rely on to put food on the table.

Published: November 8, 2025, 2:05 am

Trump claims foreign-owned meatpackers driving up US beef prices

President asks justice department to open an investigation but provides no proof to support his allegations

Donald Trump on Friday accused foreign-owned meat packers of driving up the price of beef in the US and asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation.

The Republican president announced the move on social media days after his party suffered losses in key elections in which the winning Democratic candidates focused relentlessly on the public’s concerns about the cost of living.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:25 pm

Cornell University settles with Trump administration to restore $250m in funds

Upstate New York institution is the fifth university under government investigation to bow to White House demands

Cornell University announced a settlement with the Trump administration on Friday, becoming the fifth university under investigation by the US government to do so.

The agreement will see more than $250m in federal research funding restored. In exchange, the university will share admissions data with the government, pay $30m and invest $30m more in research programs benefiting farmers – a reflection of the university’s longstanding record of agricultural research. Cornell also agreed to continue to “evaluate the campus climate”, particularly for Jewish students, and use the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws, which views diversity initiatives as unlawful race-based discrimination, in training materials.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:20 pm

Supreme court considering taking up case challenging legality of same-sex marriage

Court could revisit issue in case brought by county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples

The US supreme court on Friday is considering taking up a case that could challenge the legality of same-sex marriage across the country.

Hours after ruling that Donald Trump’s administration can block transgender and non-binary people from selecting passport sex markers that align with their gender identity, the justices are holding their first conference on the Davis v Ermold case. While their deliberations are typically kept private, the court may announce whether it will take the case as early as Monday.

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:37 pm

An Arizona town is dreading plans to turn its prison into an ICE facility: ‘It’s morally objectionable’

In Marana, residents crowded into a town hall recently to learn the fate of a building that’s been closed for two years

In an Arizona town where farmers have long wrested a living off the arid land, reports that a former prison complex may be turned into an immigration detention center have sparked a fierce backlash, with residents seeing the potential transition as the latest undesirable symbol of the Trump administration’s massive escalation of immigration enforcement.

The facility in Marana, a town of about 63,700 people located north of Tucson, sprawls across a flat expanse of desert studded with scrubby bushes and hardy trees. It was shuttered almost two years ago, and the Management and Training Corporation, the private company that owns it, informed the town manager of company plans to operate a detention center in the prison.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 pm

Who are the contenders for Nancy Pelosi’s long-held San Francisco seat?

After nearly 40 years in the Congress, the former House speaker is stepping down, reigniting interest in the race

Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that, after nearly four decades in Congress, she will not seek re-election has reignited interest in the race for her long-held San Francisco seat.

The retirement of the former speaker of the House was long-anticipated, and two Democrats had already declared their intent to run. Saikat Chakrabarti, a former tech executive who previously served as the chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Scott Wiener, a state senator, kicked off their campaigns this year.

Published: November 7, 2025, 12:00 pm

All Her Fault review – Sarah Snook’s terrifying thriller is an absolute pleasure to watch

This extraordinarily tight child kidnap drama knits all its threads together brilliantly – and the mighty Snook of Succession fame shines as a mother whose son is missing

Look, I am a mother, a neurotic and – if one of my HRT patches sloughs off without me noticing – very quickly a clinical paranoiac. But even if that were not true, this latest tale of a playdate gone unthinkably wrong would have me firmly in its grip. All Her Fault, an adaptation of bestselling thriller writer Andrea Mara’s 2021 book of the same name, braids a number of popular TV trends together, interrogating White Lotus-style the phenomenon of middle-class US affluence and the protections it offers and corruptions it encourages, a missing child narrative and an examination of the penalty women pay for motherhood. It is rare that all these things are held in balance, without at least one element becoming preachy or the thriller part becoming baggy or preposterous, but All Her Fault manages it brilliantly.

We are plunged straight into the thick of things as wealthy wealth manager Marissa Irvine (Succession’s mighty Sarah Snook) arrives to pick up her five-year-old son Milo from a playdate at the home of another school mum, Jenny (Dakota Fanning). But when she reaches the supposed address, the woman who answers the door is not Jenny, has never heard of her, or Jenny’s nanny Carrie (Sophia Lillis) who was in charge of the playdate, or Milo. It soon becomes clear that no one has seen Milo since Carrie picked him up from school. He’s gone, his online tracker found smashed to bits in the school car park, and he stays gone even after the time a ransom demand would usually have been received.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:00 pm

As his debut film Once Were Warriors showed, Lee Tamahori was a director of guts and flair

Tamahori was the outstanding director of Along Came a Spider and Die Another Day – but his first film was his greatest work

In 1994, the New Zealand film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:43 pm

Feed them, love them and play them drum’n’bass: vets’ tips for keeping pets happy and healthy

Dogs and cats aren’t always good at communicating to their humans what they want or need. Here, experts reveal 15 ways to make sure your furry friends are at their best

Half of UK adults own a pet, with 28% opting for a dog and 24% a cat, according to vet charity PDSA. How can we ensure these animals are in good health? From feeding to fireworks, vets share their advice on how to keep our canine and feline friends healthy and happy.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 pm

Campaign director: Zohran Mamdani’s ideas are indebted to the films of his mother, Mira Nair

The passionately inclusive politics of the newly-elected New York mayor have clear echoes in boundary-breaking movies such as Salaam Bombay! and Monsoon Wedding

When Zohran Mamdani was elected as New York City’s first Muslim mayor and the youngest since 1892, headlines naturally focused on his groundbreaking political rise. But for many, the spotlight also turned to a name that had already long resonated on the global stage – his mother Mira Nair.

A pioneering film-maker with a career spanning more than three decades, Nair has continually reshaped how south Asian identity is portrayed on screen. Now, with her son taking a major public office, the cultural legacy she built appears to echo in the next generation.

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:03 pm

The ‘Kelvin-verse’ is history. Where do the Star Trek movies go from here?

One of the new Paramount ownership’s first acts has been to end the Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto series of Trek movies. But surely they can’t stop making them forever?

There have been many Star Treks over the decades. First up we had a 1960s morality play performed on cardboard sets; then it became a billion-dollar movie saga about space diplomacy. More recently we’ve been gifted an ever-expanding collection of streaming spinoffs, each one more determined than the last to prove itself the true keeper of the sacred flame. Now we have a franchise that no longer has any idea what to do with itself. According to Variety, its producer Paramount has shelved the most recent film trilogy, known unofficially as the “Kelvin-verse”, that starred Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps the more pertinent question here might be whether this grand old sci-fi saga is now really suited for the big screen at all. The recent films – 2009’s Star Trek, 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, and 2016’s Star Trek Beyond – won critical plaudits, yet were also criticised by fans for trying to turn a utopian thought experiment about empathy, cooperation and the perils of militarism into a knockabout space opera.

Published: November 7, 2025, 1:52 pm

Leftist and centrist Democrats won on Tuesday. So what’s the party’s lesson? | Dustin Guastella

Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill focused their messages on the economy, but structural problems endure

On Tuesday, Democrats won right, left and center.

In purple Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, the staunchly anti-socialist former CIA official won handily over her Republican counterpart. Meanwhile, Mikie Sherrill, a poster child for centrist Democrats, won big in light-blue New Jersey. And in ultra-progressive New York, the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, predictably, took the mayoralty. With such varied success, what could be the common lesson?

Dustin Guastella is the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, and a research associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 pm

Airline chaos is coming to America. If only Democrats had less of a backbone | Dave Schilling

If this stretches to Thanksgiving, we’ll be facing a nightmare. The obvious solution: move back in with your parents

In our modern age, the only thing worse than flying – cramped seats, bad food, someone potentially calling you a racial slur – is not flying at all. I will suffer all manner of indignity, up to and including a drunk puking up Jersey Mike’s on to my trousers, but if you dare say that I might not be able to board the Flying Nightmare Tube at the scheduled date and time, I will throw the kind of fit you only see in YouTube videos of people that are actually on airplanes.

This is why the United States Federal Aviation Administration potentially cancelling 10% of air traffic at 40 airports chills me to the bone. Whether I like it or not, I have to be in Pittsburgh this month. Would you keep me from enjoying the epic sights and sounds of Pittsburgh? Maybe so, if the alternative is a sleep-deprived air traffic controller suggesting my pilot take a nosedive into the Grand Tetons.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Published: November 7, 2025, 11:00 am

Democrats should celebrate this week’s victories, but beware: Trump is already plotting his revenge | Jonathan Freedland

The Maga machine is clicking into gear to ensure that defeat is all but impossible in next year’s midterm elections

After the joy, the trepidation. Or at least the preparation. Democrats, along with many others around the world, cheered this week’s wins in a clutch of off-year elections that saw Donald Trump’s Republicans defeated from sea to shining sea. But now they need to brace themselves for the reaction. Because Donald Trump does not like losing. And he will do everything he can to ensure it does not happen again – by means fair and, more often, foul. Indeed, that effort is already under way.

For now, the Democrats are still clinking glasses, enjoying a success that tastes all the sweeter for coming exactly a year after they lost everything – the House, the Senate and the White House – to a returning and triumphant Trump. The most dramatic win was Zohran Mamdani’s history-making victory in America’s most populous city, New York, but there was success too at the other end of the continent, as voters in California backed Democrats on an apparently technical measure that could prove hugely significant. In between, Democrats won the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia by healthy, double-digit margins.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and host of the Politics Weekly America podcast

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 7, 2025, 4:05 pm

Martin Rowson on Elon Musk’s new pay package – cartoon

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Published: November 7, 2025, 4:32 pm

The Guardian view on worsening extreme weather: the injustice of the climate crisis grows ever clearer | Editorial

The increasing ferocity and frequency of tropical storms imposes an unbearable burden on countries including Jamaica

The geographically uneven risks from increasingly extreme and dangerous weather grow ever starker. As Jamaica and other Caribbean countries clear up after Hurricane Melissa, and Typhoon Kalmaegi heads west after killing nearly 200 people in the Philippines and Vietnam, the case for more international support to countries facing the most destructive impacts from global heating has never been stronger.

Last week’s five-day rainfall in Jamaica was made twice as likely by higher temperatures, according to initial findings from climate attribution studies. The current death toll across the Caribbean is at least 75. The economic and social costs are hard to quantify in a region that is still recovering from 2024’s Hurricane Beryl. Crucial infrastructure has been destroyed before the loans used to build it have even been paid off. Andrew Holness, Jamaica’s prime minister, estimates that the damage there is roughly equivalent to one-third of the country’s gross domestic product.

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 7, 2025, 6:30 pm

Trump pardons ex-Mets star Darryl Strawberry over past tax and drug conviction

• Trump grants full pardon to New York Mets great

• Strawberry hit 335 HRs and was eight-time All-Star

• US president cites faith, sobriety, ministry work

Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry on past tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year’s post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety.

Strawberry was an outfielder and eight-time All-Star, including seven with the Mets from 1983 through 1990. He hit 335 homers and had 1,000 RBIs and 221 stolen bases in 17 seasons.

Published: November 7, 2025, 8:33 pm

Fox Sports drops Mark Sanchez permanently and hires Drew Brees as NFL analyst

• Fox drops Sanchez as felony case proceeds

• Brees joins Adam Amin through 2026 season

• Sanchez pleads not guilty to battery charge

Fox Sports has severed ties with game analyst Mark Sanchez as he faces criminal charges, multiple outlets reported Friday.

“We can confirm that Mark Sanchez is no longer with the network,” a Fox spokesperson told the Athletic. “There will be no further comment at this time.“

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:12 pm

F1’s three-way title fight echoes the glorious battles of yesteryear

Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen battle for the title, just as Juan Manuel Fangio, Nino Farina and Luigi Fagioli did 75 years ago

With no little pleasing symmetry, 75 years on from a three-way fight for the inaugural Formula One title, the championship is entering its decisive phase once more with three protagonists in the running and the promise of an enthralling denouement of the kind that has graced some of the sport’s greatest seasons.

Heading into this weekend’s São Paulo Grand Prix, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen all remain in the hunt. Norris leads Piastri by one point, with the defending champion, Verstappen, 36 points back, after a late-season resurgence.

Published: November 7, 2025, 8:39 pm

Sabalenka to face Rybakina in WTA Finals decider after holding off Anisimova

• World No 1 triumphs 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in epic semi-final

• Rybakina battles back to defeat Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-3

Aryna Sabalenka will attempt to close out one of the greatest seasons of her career by winning the WTA Finals for the first time as she rekindles her rivalry with Elena Rybakina in the final of the season-ending championships.

In the final stages of a tournament that has spectacularly produced both drama and quality, semi-final day in Riyadh further underscored the fierce competition at the top of women’s tennis today with two excellent three-set contests.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:30 pm

NBA targets 2027 launch for new Europe-based league with 16-team model

• NBA eyes 2027 launch for Europe league

• 16-team model with 12 permanent clubs

• Talks ongoing with investors, major cities

The NBA is targeting October 2027 as a potential launch date for the new Europe-based league that it and Fiba have been working to make happen, a league official said Friday.

NBA Europe managing director George Aivagolozu, speaking at a conference in Milan, said the first season of the new league might be described as “a semi-opening”, indicating that not all of the slots in the planned 16-team league could be allocated at that time.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:49 pm

NCAA bans six men’s basketball players for manipulating performances in betting scheme

• Six NCAA players banned for prop-bet scheme

• Investigation found altered play, leaked info

• Follows earlier bans at Fresno St and SJSU

The NCAA revoked the eligibility of six men’s college basketball players for allegations of sports betting on Friday in three separate cases at New Orleans, Mississippi Valley and Arizona State.

The NCAA Committee on Infractions released findings from an investigation that concluded Cedquavious Hunter, Dyquavian Short, Jamond Vincent, Donovan Sanders, Alvin Stredic and Chatton ‘BJ’ Freeman manipulated their performances to lose games, not cover betting lines, ensure certain prop bets were reached or provided information that enabled others to do so during the 2024-25 regular season.

In September, the NCAA also banned three college basketball players for betting on their own games at Fresno State and San Jose State.

The violations at New Orleans against Hunter, Short and Vincent came to light after the NCAA received a tip about game manipulation. The NCAA said a student-athlete overheard the three players discuss a third party placing a bet on their game against McNeese State on 28 December 2024. New Orleans lost 86-61.

That same student-athlete reported that during a timeout near the end of the game, Short instructed him not to score any more points. New Orleans suspended all three student-athletes for the remainder of the season while it investigated the allegations.

The NCAA investigation showed that the three players manipulated their performances in seven games from December through January to lose by more points than the spread for that game.

The violations against Freeman were uncovered when the NCAA reviewed text messages involving Mykell Robinson, who played at Fresno State. Records on Robinson’s phone indicated that on four separate occasions between November and December 2024, Freeman knowingly provided information to Robinson, who was betting on Freeman through daily fantasy sports accounts.

Freeman also knowingly provided information on at least two occasions to his then-girlfriend, who was also betting on Freeman.

The NCAA said last month that it had been investigating at least 30 current or former players for gambling issues.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:38 pm

Former Canada coach convicted of sexual assault not included on public sanctions lists

Bob Birarda, jailed in 2022 for assaulting players, is not listed by Canada Soccer or BC Soccer. The country’s new Safe Sport director says the omission exposes a major gap — and is calling for a global registry of banned coaches.

Two years after receiving an 18-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting players under his care, a former Canada women’s national team coach is yet to appear on any public sanctions list published by Canada Soccer or BC Soccer, the regional governing body for soccer in British Columbia, where the crimes took place.

The revelation has prompted the executive director of the Canadian organization newly appointed to manage reports of abuse and misconduct to call for an international registry of offenders to track individuals who have been banned from sports for misconduct.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:00 am

NWSL playoffs 2025 predictions: can anyone stem the Kansas City Current?

Our panel breaks down the parity-packed season, the state of the league, the dark horses and danger teams – and why everyone is still chasing the Current

… Kansas City’s dominance. The NWSL, like all US sports leagues, is usually built on parity. The Current made a mockery of that notion, winning 21 and drawing two out of their 26 games to finish 21 points ahead of second-place Washington. Their goal difference was an absurd plus-36, scoring seven more goals than any other team and conceding 12 fewer than anyone else. Beau Dure

Published: November 7, 2025, 9:00 am

Florida’s 7ft 9in Oliver Rioux becomes tallest player in college basketball history

• World’s tallest teenager debuts for national champs

• Rioux, 19, plays two minutes in Florida’s 104-64 win

Florida coach Todd Golden had people yelling at him at halftime Thursday night to get 7ft 9in center Olivier Rioux in the game.

Golden relented with 2:09 to play – and made history in the process – after chants of “We Want Ollie” swept through the O’Connell Center.

Published: November 7, 2025, 6:37 am

Deep red and swing states making election flip to Democrats indicate Trump’s plunging popularity

Results in smaller districts may offer even greater insight into the US political landscape heading into the midterms

The 2025 off-year elections proved to be a major success for Democrats, as candidates at state and local levels managed to make inroads into and even flip several Republican strongholds across the country.

Much of the national spotlight was centered on Zohran Mamdani’s landmark win in New York, along with Democratic victories in the gubernatorial races of New Jersey and Virginia. And in both Virginia and New Jersey there were several precincts or voting blocs that voted for Trump in 2024 that then voted for Democrats this year.

Published: November 7, 2025, 11:00 am

Outrage mounts in Oklahoma over plea deal for rapist: ‘That’s sketchy as hell’

Jesse Butler, 18, faced 78 years in prison, but judge reduced sentence to community service and counseling

Anger is growing in an Oklahoma community over a “sketchy as hell” plea deal allowing an 18-year-old man convicted of multiple charges of rape and assault dating to when he was 17 to perform community service and commit to counseling.

Jesse Butler, of Stillwater, originally faced 78 years in prison after being charged as an adult over 10 allegations including rape, battery by strangulation, rape by instrumentation and domestic assault involving two women.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:15 pm

Passengers start to feel bite of flight cuts amid US government shutdown

Travellers forced to adjust their plans as longest shutdown on record continues with no sign of resolution

• US politics live – latest updates

• List of US airports cutting flights on Friday

A US government order to make drastic cuts in commercial air traffic amid the government shutdown has taken effect, with major airports across the country experiencing a significant reduction in schedules and leaving travellers scrambling to adjust their plans.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said the move is necessary to maintain air traffic control safety during a federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution, in which air traffic controllers have gone without pay.

Published: November 7, 2025, 10:25 pm

Out-of-touch Trump talks up economy among sycophants and stars in Miami

President jets in to speak at ritzy American Business Forum as millions see their food aid slashed – crisis, what crisis?

It was the week in which Republicans took a beating at the polls, the government shutdown became the longest in history, and 42 million people across the country, including 3 million in Florida, saw their federal food aid slashed.

But in the alternative reality of Miami, where tickets to an overwhelmingly conservative business conference headlined by Donald Trump cost up to $1,990, and billionaires from Saudi Arabia rubbed shoulders with equally wealthy American tycoons such as Jeff Bezos and Ken Griffin, those events created barely a ripple.

Published: November 7, 2025, 12:00 pm

Virginia Republican who shared violent texts from prominent Democrat loses re-election

Carrie Coyner conceded defeat after igniting text scandal over Democrat imagining ‘two bullets’ in rival’s head

The Virginia Republican politician who shook up multiple statewide elections by disclosing text messages in which a prominent Democratic candidate fantasized about a rival receiving “two bullets to the head” has conceded defeat in her own bid to retain office.

Carrie Coyner was seeking a third two-year term in Virginia’s house of delegates when she publicly shared the text messages that she had previously received from Jay Jones, a former Democratic colleague who ran in the state’s attorney general election on Tuesday.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:59 pm

How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate action

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.

Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Published: November 7, 2025, 12:00 pm

Residents of Alaska’s storm-battered Native towns consider moving to higher ground

Damage from Typhoon Halong underscored the vulnerability of villages in western Alaska to climate crisis

Darrel John watched the final evacuees depart his village on the western coast of Alaska in helicopters and small planes and walked home, avoiding the debris piled on the boardwalks over the swampy land.

He is one of seven residents who chose to remain in Kwigillingok after the remnants of Typhoon Halong devastated the village last month, uprooting homes and floating many of them miles away, some with residents inside. One person was killed and two remain missing.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:21 pm

Over 100 US leaders to attend Cop30 climate summit as Trump stays away

Dozens of US state and local leaders will be at talks in Brazil with president’s team expected to send no representatives

The Trump administration appears to be sitting out this month’s United Nations climate talks known as Cop30, telling the Guardian it will not deploy any high-level representatives to the negotiations.

But dozens of US subnational leaders attend to promote their climate efforts.

Published: November 7, 2025, 11:00 am

Week in wildlife: a toxic newt, a rescued gibbon and baby flying foxes

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: November 7, 2025, 8:00 am

ChatGPT accused of acting as ‘suicide coach’ in series of US lawsuits

Chatbot was first used for ‘general help’ with schoolwork or research but ‘evolved into a psychologically manipulative presence’, plaintiffs say

ChatGPT has been accused of acting as a “suicide coach” in a series of lawsuits filed this week in California alleging that interactions with the chatbot led to severe mental breakdowns and several deaths.

The seven lawsuits include allegations of wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, negligence and product liability.

In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Published: November 7, 2025, 6:13 pm

Film festival in New York cancelled after China puts pressure on directors

Participants ask for their films not to be shown at IndieChina event, which was due to launch this weekend

An independent film festival due to start in New York this weekend has been cancelled after several film-makers pulled out due to harassment from the Chinese authorities, raising concerns about transnational repression.

The inaugural IndieChina film festival was planned to take place between 8 and 15 November. But on 5 November the festival’s curator, Zhu Rikun, posted on Facebook that he had been forced to cancel 80% of the planned screenings because film-makers had pulled out.

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:11 pm

Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik announces run for New York governor

Self-styled ‘ultra-Maga’ Republican representative has ramped up attacks on Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul

• US politics live – latest updates

Elise Stefanik, a Republican New York representative and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, has officially launched her long-anticipated campaign for governor.

Reports indicate that Stefanik has been working behind the scenes to secure endorsements from key Republican figures and local officials. But the announcement comes three days after New York City voters elected the democrat socialist Zohran Mamdani, a political and ideological opposite, to run by far the state’s largest metropolis.

Published: November 7, 2025, 4:12 pm

Seven people hospitalized after package with ‘white powder’ opened at Joint Base Andrews

Investigation ongoing after package was sent to the home of the US president’s Air Force One

Seven people were briefly hospitalized after a suspicious package containing “a white powder” was sent to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, home to the US president’s Air Force One, on Thursday.

According to a spokesperson for the base, someone opened the package sometime in the afternoon, and it was cleared up by early in evening.

Published: November 7, 2025, 1:41 pm

Iran accused of plot to assassinate Israeli ambassador to Mexico

Israel says Mexico thwarted attempt in aftermath of deadly 2024 Israeli bombing of Iranian embassy in Syria

The United States and Israel have accused Iran of plotting to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Mexico, in what would be the latest attempt to take the two countries’ conflict to another region.

Israel said that Mexican authorities intervened to stop the attempt to kill the ambassador, Einat Kranz-Neiger.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:49 pm

Italy’s centenarians grow in number as another 2,000 reach the milestone

Southern European country has more than double the number of people aged over 100 than it did in 2009

The number of people in Italy living to 100 continues to grow sharply, with more than 2,000 reaching the milestone age in 2025, the vast majority of them women.

There are now 23,548 residents in Italy who are 100-years-old or over, compared with 21,211 in 2024, according to the latest figures from Istat, the national statistics agency. Italy has more than double the number of centenarians than it had in 2009, Istat said.

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:57 pm

At least 54 people injured in explosions at Indonesian school mosque

Authorities say suspect is 17-year-old male student and warn against terrorist attack speculation after Jakarta blasts

At least 54 people have been injured in explosions that shook a mosque at a high school during Friday prayers in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Authorities later said the suspect was a 17-year-old male student who had been injured and was undergoing surgery.

Witnesses told local television stations that they heard at least two loud blasts at about midday, just as the sermon had started, from inside and outside the mosque at SMA 72, a state high school within a navy compound in Jakarta’s northern Kelapa Gading neighbourhood.

Published: November 7, 2025, 6:31 pm

Two men charged in Ireland in relation to alleged planned far-right terror attack

Karolis Peckauskas of Drogheda and Garrett Pollock of Annalong in Northern Ireland charged with possession of explosives

Irish authorities have charged two men with possession of explosives in relation to an alleged planned terrorist attack by a far-right extremist group.

Karolis Peckauskas, 38, of Drogheda, County Louth, and Garrett Pollock, 35, of Annalong, County Down, Northern Ireland, appeared at Portlaoise district court on Friday after being arrested in a cross-border police operation.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:51 pm

Grammy awards 2026: Kendrick Lamar leads nominations with nine nods

Rapper receives nominations in all top categories while Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter and Leon Thomas are also major nominees

• Grammys 2026: the nominations in all the major categories

The Grammys’ love continues for Kendrick Lamar. The rapper, who took home the most trophies at the 2025 music awards with five, leads the nominees for the 2026 awards.

Lamar is up for nine awards, including album of the year (for his most recent, GNX), best rap album, record of the year and song of the year. He faces competition for the night’s top award – album of the year – from Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, Leon Thomas, Tyler, the Creator and Clipse, Pusha T & Malice.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:53 pm

In Your Dreams review – Netflix dreams up solid sub-Pixar adventure

Echoes of Inside Out and Coco in streamer’s engaging enough caper about a brother and sister journeying through their dreams

Once upon a time, Pixar had the kind of winning streak that most companies could only dream of. The studio didn’t just maintain a robust production line that won over both critics and crowds, they also managed to change our concept of what animation could achieve as an art form. Radically expansive visuals were matched with surprising, weighty ideas, conjuring the kind of magic that had been largely absent from Disney’s output in the years prior.

While many blamed the ensuing fade on Covid, in truth it had already started before then. Like the rest of the industry, the company had become overly reliant on sequels, with the four years before 2020 seeing one original versus four follow-ups and as cinemas shuttered, their latest offering, Onward, was middling enough to suggest that even superfans should be concerned about the future. It’s been a case of ongoing underwhelm ever since, a low point reached by this year’s Elio, a patchworked mess that had the lowest opening ever for a Pixar film (their only bright spot Inside Out 2 has left their upcoming slate looking predictably sequel-heavy).

Published: November 7, 2025, 2:00 pm

Pluribus review – the audacity of the Breaking Bad creator’s new TV show is incredible

It takes some chutzpah to make television like this. Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn is the only US citizen immune from an alien virus that makes everyone in the world supremely happy – and it’s a bleak, blackly comic watch

Even with the name of Vince Gilligan attached as creator, Pluribus – neatly styled Plur1bus on screen, to evoke further the unofficial motto of the US “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) – looks at first like a bit of light relief. The man who has spent the past two decades immersed in the harrowing world of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and El Camino, you reckon, has probably earned it.

Perhaps he is returning to his X Files roots with this tale of an alien virus that sweeps the globe, turning everyone happy and content, literally uniting minds (everyone’s thoughts, knowledge and memories are available to all – people no longer refer to themselves but as “this individual” when they speak) and causing them only to be kind to each other. Peace in our time! But what, kids, are we going to do about Carol (Rhea Seehorn)? She’s a middle-aged, bestselling writer of romantic fantasy novels, fantastically rich, adored by hundreds of thousands of fans – and as furiously miserable as only a misanthrope can be in such conditions. And Carol appears to be the only person in America immune to the virus. Hilarity must surely ensue!

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 am

‘I was the only out queer guy in rock’: Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum

The keyboard player on his heroin overdose, how Kurt Cobain wanted to be gay and why his memoir will ruin his Christian relatives’ Thanksgiving dinner

When Roddy Bottum began work on his remarkable autobiography The Royal We, the Faith No More keyboard-player knew exactly the book he didn’t want to write. “The kind that has pictures in the middle,” he says, via video-call from Oxnard, California, where he’s completing a new album by his group Imperial Teen. “I’m not a big fan of rock memoirs – they’re the most predictable, name-droppy, sub-literature experiences.”

The Royal We certainly isn’t name-droppy – Bottum doesn’t even use the surnames of his bandmates. And while he outlines the group’s origins and early development, this takes a back seat to his “youth escapades” in San Francisco, “before the internet, before that city got ruined”. Much of the focus is on his sexual awakening, and how the related secrecy and shame have affected his life. “I was having sex with men when I was very young, 13 or 14,” he says. “It was such a taboo, and that set the tone of my life.” In the memoir, episodes involving his cruising public toilets and parks as a teenager are recounted unflinchingly and unapologetically. “I had sex with older men in bushes,” he writes. “Shamefully at first, proudly later. Fuck off.”

Published: November 7, 2025, 1:13 pm

‘Erin Patterson remains mysterious to me’: Helen Garner, Sarah Krasnostein and Chloe Hooper on the mushroom murders

Three of Australia’s most acclaimed writers have teamed up to write The Mushroom Tapes, about the weeks they spent at the triple-murder trial, picking apart lies, media ethics and evil

“None of us wants to write about this. And none of us wants to not write about it.”

The profound inner conflict of the three narrators begins on page two of The Mushroom Tapes and never quite resolves, lingering as an ethical tension that colours almost every page.

Published: November 7, 2025, 2:00 pm

In Love With Love by Ella Risbridger review – a sexy celebration of romantic fiction

From Pride and Prejudice to Fifty Shades, a writer’s paean to the literature of desire

Eva Ibbotson, a doyenne of 1980s romantic fiction, once said self-deprecatingly that her books were aimed at “old ladies and people with flu”. To which Ella Risbridger, who is in her early 30s, sniffle-free and a devotee of Ibbotson’s “sexy and sweet” novels, has this cracking comeback: “If love is the most important thing, and to me it was and is, I want books that think that too.”

From here Risbridger plunges into what she charmingly calls “a field guide to delight”. Jane Eyre rubs shoulders with Ice Planet Barbarians (the bright blue aliens who inhabit the ice planet turn out to be sexy in a Mr Rochester kind of way). Pride and Prejudice makes its inevitable appearance, flanked by its many modern iterations, including the ones with dragons. Mills & Boon novels of every stripe are accorded the kind of sustained attention more usually given to Proust, while Judith Butler’s theories of gender are buttressed by a deft analysis of Rupert Campbell-Black, caddish hero of the Rutshire chronicles by the late, great Jilly Cooper.

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:00 am

Lee Tamahori, director of Once Were Warriors and James Bond movie Die Another Day, dies aged 75

New Zealand film-maker became a Hollywood fixture in the 90s and 00s, including making Pierce Brosnan’s last 007 movie, before returning to his home country

Lee Tamahori, the New Zealand director of Once Were Warriors and Die Another Day, has died aged 75.

In a statement to Radio New Zealand, Tamahori’s family said he had Parkinson’s and died “peacefully at home”.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:44 pm

Seth Meyers: ‘Trump has no idea what regular people are going through and he doesn’t care’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s refusal to admit grocery prices are rising and what fueled Democrats’ recent wins

Late-night hosts discussed Donald Trump’s out-of-touch comments on grocery prices, the longest-ever government shutdown and a dramatic White House press conference on Ozempic.

Published: November 7, 2025, 4:07 pm

‘At long last we can begin’: first five minutes of Stranger Things 5 revealed

Ahead of the hit show’s final chapter, Netflix has unexpectedly dropped a clip of the opening episode – and a surprise flashback will send chills up spines

The fifth and final series of Netflix’s supernatural smash hit Stranger Things is set to be one of the biggest shows of the year. The first part airs on 27 November, but a clip of the chilling opening five minutes has been shared online.

The episode, The Crawl, takes fans back to the start of the series in 1983, after the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp).

Published: November 7, 2025, 1:01 pm

The artist Luke Jerram on the tree-planting project he’ll never see finished

It may be a midlife crisis, says the man behind seven-metre installations of the Earth, moon and Sun who has planted 365 trees in a 100-year project in Somerset

Luke Jerram, whose art installations have travelled the world, is philosophical about his latest project bearing fruit beyond his time on Earth.

Known for his Play Me I’m Yours street pianos project and his Museum of the Moon artwork – a seven-metre diameter sculpture of the moon featuring detailed Nasa imagery of the lunar surface – Jerram is now working on Echo Wood, a living, breathing installation made of native British trees.

Published: November 7, 2025, 1:01 pm

From nursery to empty nest – interiors hacks for every stage of life

Invest in the right pieces in your first house (clue – it’s not a sofa), let teens have some say and make spare rooms work harder when the kids move out … interiors experts share their tips for every age

Published: November 7, 2025, 3:00 pm

Experience: I escaped East Berlin in the boot of a car

‘Tonight or never,’ the men helping me said. ‘Meet us in the alley. Eight-thirty’

In 1965, I was 19 and living in East Berlin. West Berlin was glamorous. They had ­everything: shoes, cars, food. But we had almost nothing. When bananas were imported once or twice a year, the queues stretched further than I had ever seen.

My brother and I were desperate to get out. We’d hang around the checkpoints, hoping to befriend a West Berliner. Occasionally, they took pity and sent us packages. But escaping was rare – and expensive. Most who managed it had paid thousands of marks.

Published: November 7, 2025, 5:00 am

I’m a food writer with a binge-eating disorder, and I’m learning to reject shame

My job and my disordered eating have long fed each other. Talking publicly about my experience helps lift the veil of secrecy surrounding it

Nothing in my life sparks greater joy and deeper shame than food. Publicly, I live and love to eat. As a food writer my livelihood depends on it. But privately, I live with a binge-eating disorder, and it can feel like what I’m devouring is actually devouring me.

My family is Italian, and their love language is food, so food is also the portal to all my memories, good and bad. Nonna’s lasagne at Easter, her zeppole at Christmas, were the best of times. The worst: foil trays piled with fried food at funerals, the liquorice allsorts I ate – and now hate – after my infant brother choked and paramedics rushed him to hospital. Emotional eating has always been so normal for me.

Published: November 7, 2025, 11:00 pm

‘A sign of who I am, right here on my hands’: meet the artists behind the new-school henna boom

The traditional artform of henna – applying intricate and floral designs to the hands and body in natural inks – is seeing vivid new life as a means of progressive social and political expression, led by a wave of young designers and artists

The night before Eid, plastic chairs line the pavements of busy British high streets from London to Bradford. Women sit elbow-to-elbow beneath shopfronts, hands outstretched as artists swirl cones of henna into intricate curls. For £5, you can walk away with both palms blooming. Once confined to weddings and living rooms, this centuries-old ritual has spilled out into public spaces – and today, it’s being reimagined entirely.

In recent years, henna has travelled from family homes to the red carpet – from actor Michaela Coel’s Sudanese motifs at the Toronto film festival to Katseye singer Lara Raj’s henna decor at the 2025 Video Music awards. Younger generations are using it as art, political expression and cultural affirmation. Online, the appetite is increasing – UK searches for henna reportedly rose by nearly 5,000% last year; and, on social media, creators share everything from faux freckles made with henna to five-minute floral design tutorials, showing how the dye has adapted to modern beauty culture.

Published: November 7, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Fabulous 50s dresses and even a kilt’: readers’ favourite vintage shops and markets in Europe

Our tipsters rummage through thrift stores and markets from Budapest to Bologna

• Tell us about a lesser known corner of Italy or a winter stay in the UK – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

W Armstrong in Edinburgh is a true institution. There are several locations, but the Grassmarket spot is a treasure trove. Frequented by locals, students and tourists alike, there is a price point for all. Whether I’ve been on the hunt for vintage cashmere, denim, fabulous 1950s dresses, garb for a fancy dress party or even a kilt, this store has sorted me out. It is always a favourite for when friends visit the city, and whether you are looking to buy or not, it is worth a visit just to see its eclectic collection.
Amy

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:00 am

Love & War: From frontlines to family life. Pulitzer-winning conflict photographer Lynsey Addario on the five stories that defined her career

Iraq 2003-2004

Published: November 7, 2025, 7:00 am

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Typhoon Kalmaegi, hunger in Gaza, displacement in Sudan, and Zohran Mamdani in New York: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: November 7, 2025, 6:23 pm