The Guardian has only ever published 15 zero-star reviews. Here they all are

As Kim Kardashian’s All’s Fair sets a new low for TV, we revisit every single thing our critics have mercilessly panned. Brace yourself for the Mount Rushmore of rubbish!

Lucy Mangan’s Guardian review of Kim Kardashian’s new Disney+ legal drama All’s Fair was something of a rarity. Not necessarily because she didn’t care for it – the scorn has been universal – but because she gave it zero stars.

Not two, the score you give something you want to write off as too mediocre to break sweat over. Not one, which is what you give something if you want to make the people who made it wince. Zero stars. All’s Fair, according to this newspaper, is a product entirely devoid of discernible worth. In the entire 204-year-old history of this publication, only 15 zero-star reviews have ever been written, and All’s Fair is so unremittingly awful it got one of them. These are the other 14, presented here as the Guardian’s Mount Rushmore of crap.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:03 pm

Mamdani refused to compromise on his values – and was rewarded for it | Moustafa Bayoumi

His win is a huge victory for all New Yorkers, but it is also meaningful far beyond the five boroughs of this city

The people of New York have spoken. Despite all the odds, a 34-year-old Muslim Democratic socialist has been elected to lead the largest city in the United States. Zohran Mamdani’s win is a huge victory for all New Yorkers, but it is also meaningful far beyond the five boroughs of this city.

Just as amazing was that this election wasn’t even close. Mamdani’s main opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, ran a campaign that was as devoid of imagination as it was of hope and even personality. Having dramatically lost the democratic primary this past summer, Cuomo was forced to run as an independent, an almost comical political affiliation for a man whose campaign was utterly dependent on donations from the billionaire class.

Moustafa Bayoumi is Guardian US coolumnist

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:00 pm

This machine could keep a baby alive outside the womb. How will the world decide to use it?

For parents who have buried infants born too soon, a device like the AquaWomb is a miracle in waiting – and an impossible choice

Beth Schafer lay in a hospital bed, bracing for the birth of her son. The first contractions rippled through her body before she felt remotely ready. She knew, with a mother’s pit-of-the-stomach intuition, that her baby was not ready either.

At just 23 weeks of gestation, her son teetered on the cliff edge of viability, the fragile threshold where modern medicine offers any promise of keeping babies alive.

Published: November 5, 2025, 12:00 pm

NFL trade deadline: did the bumbling Jets just fleece Jerry Jones and the Cowboys?

New York traded away two of their best players in an extraordinary few hours. But they could finally have made a decision that makes sense

It’s rare to see a franchise accept what everyone else already knows – that what they’ve built isn’t working. The Jets didn’t just tweak their roster at the deadline; they detonated it. In a dizzying few hours, they dealt cornerback Sauce Gardner to the Colts and defensive lineman Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys.

Published: November 5, 2025, 12:49 pm

Alex vs ARod: the baseball legend turned ‘recovering narcissist’ tells all

A surprisingly revealing and honest new docuseries looks back at the fallen star’s career in sport with eye-opening frankness

Alex Rodriguez is no mere ballplayer. He’s a chip off baseball’s Mount Olympus, the 18-year-old top draft pick who appeared all but destined to take his place alongside Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and other immortals of the game when he broke into the majors in 1994. And while Rodriguez distinguished himself as a Willie Mays-grade offensive demon and one of the best infielders who ever lived, he played under the stress of the game’s richest contract (infamously, he signed for a record $252m in the year 2000) and under the harsh glare of the New York media spotlight after joining the Yankees in 2004; to meet the pressure, he turned to performance-enhancing drugs – a cardinal sin in the sport – and was ultimately banished from baseball’s hallowed pantheon.

Worse, Rodriguez lied about doping after getting caught twice (the first time before there was an explicit major league policy against PEDs), shattering trust with baseball fans who eventually came to see him as a classic narcissist – albeit one who has been linked to Madonna and JLo and was alleged to have a painting of himself as a centaur hanging over his bed. (He can deny that, but not the Details magazine photo of him kissing his mirror image.) Sadly, Rodriguez’s present-day reinvention at age 50 into a Bloomberg TV thought leader and part-owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves has done little to sway an American public that still feels badly burnt by him.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:00 pm

My chilling week on Roblox: sexually assaulted and shat on as a child avatar roaming the online world

In seven days my young alter ego is cyberbullied and attacked while exploring clubs, casinos and horror games, all with parental controls in place. Is the platform safe for children – or an ‘X-rated paedophile hellscape’?

I am an eight-year-old girl, standing near-naked in a room full of strangers.

As the room spins and zooms upon me and people glide around me, I clock my features.

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:00 pm

US supreme court justices express skepticism over legality of Trump tariffs

Justices grill administration over imposition of steep duties as Sotomayor says: ‘I just don’t understand this argument’

The US supreme court appeared skeptical of the legal basis of the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariff regime on Wednesday after justices questioned the president’s authority to impose the levies.

Justices heard oral arguments on Wednesday morning on the legality of Donald Trump’s tariffs , a crucial legal test of his controversial economic strategy – and power.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:53 pm

Democrats celebrate while Republicans stew over Mamdani’s historic win and others

Obama said ‘the future looks a little bit brighter’ while the House speaker lied about New York mayor-elect’s policies

• US politics live – latest updates

Left-leaning Americans awoke to a rare recent moment of political celebration with Democratic victories in several elections across the country, led by the election of Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York, while Republicans breathlessly predicted the end of the country.

“The future looks a little bit brighter,” Barack Obama wrote on X about Democratic victories on Tuesday. “It’s a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:13 pm

Republicans file lawsuit challenging California’s redistricting measure

Prop 50, passed by voters yesterday, allows legislature to redraw congressional maps to benefit Democrats in House

• US politics live – latest updates

Republicans in California on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging a high-stakes redistricting measure that could help flip up to five congressional seats for Democrats.

The suit, filed by David Tangipa, a Republican assembly member, 18 California voters and the state Republican party in the US district court for the central district of California, argues that the new maps are unconstitutional because they were drawn to increase the voting power of a particular racial group. It asks the court to block the new maps from taking effect, at least temporarily.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:27 pm

Jimmy Kimmel opens ‘Big, Beautiful Food Bank’ as Snap cuts hit families amid shutdown

The late-night host invites food and essential donations at his Hollywood center to support Los Angeles charities

The late-night TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is stepping up to help during the ongoing US federal government shutdown by opening a new center for food donations.

The ABC program announced the program, titled “the Jimmy Kimmel Live Big, Beautiful Food Bank” on Instagram on Tuesday, just after Donald Trump reaffirmed his plan to block Snap benefits despite a federal judge’s earlier order for the administration to use emergency funds to continue the food assistance program.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:32 pm

Judge orders prosecutors to turn over evidence in case against James Comey

Federal judge concerned that justice department sought to ‘indict first and investigate later’ in case of ex-FBI director

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors in the criminal case of the former FBI director James Comey to produce a trove of materials from the investigation, saying he was concerned that the justice department’s position had been to “indict first and investigate later”.

Magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick instructed prosecutors to produce by the end of the day on Thursday grand jury materials as well as other evidence that investigators seized during the investigation. The order followed arguments in which Comey’s attorneys said they were at a disadvantage because they had not been able to review materials that were gathered years ago.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:53 pm

Andrew allowed to keep Falklands medal despite losing royal and military titles

King Charles has agreed to his brother retaining South Atlantic medal for navy service during 1982 conflict

He has lost his princehood, dukedom, Order of the Garter knighthood and military titles, but the former Duke of York, now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, can at least keep his campaign medal awarded for active service during the 1982 Falklands conflict.

The defence secretary, John Healey, had already confirmed Mountbatten Windsor would be stripped of his last remaining title, the honorary rank of vice-admiral, which he was given on his 55th birthday in 2015 and retained even after he lost other military positions in 2022.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:50 pm

Louvre heist suspect is social media star and former museum guard, reports say

Man, identified as Abdoulaye N, is one of four accused over theft of historic jewels worth tens of millions of pounds

One of the men arrested on suspicion of stealing €88m (£77m) of crown jewels from the Louvre museum is a minor social media star with a passion for motorbikes who has worked as a security guard at the Pompidou centre, French media have reported.

Identified by justice officials as Abdoulaye N, the 39-year-old man was arrested at his home in Aubervilliers, the suburb north of Paris where he was born, six days after the 19 October heist. He faces charges of organised theft and criminal conspiracy.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:42 pm

Man gropes Mexican president as she speaks to citizens on the streets

Man tries to kiss and embrace Claudia Sheinbaum, highlighting security risk and harassment women face in Mexico

The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has been groped by a man as she mingled with citizens on the streets of Mexico City, raising questions about the lack of presidential security and the level of sexual harassment the country’s women face.

A video of the incident on Tuesday shows a visibly drunk man trying to kiss the president on the neck and embrace her from behind, as she removes his hands and turns to face him, before a government official steps in and places himself between them.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:31 pm

Trump ally Infantino to award first Fifa Peace Prize at World Cup draw in DC

• New Fifa Peace Prize announced on Wednesday

• Infantino to present first award on 5 December

• Ceremony set for World Cup draw in Washington

One of Donald Trump’s closest sporting allies has created what some are calling football’s version of the Nobel Peace Prize, only weeks after the US president was snubbed for the real thing.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino announced the creation of the Fifa Peace Prize, to be awarded each year to “individuals who help unite people in peace through unwavering commitment and special actions”. The inaugural award will be presented on 5 December during the World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, a high-profile event that Trump is expected to attend.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:37 pm

London mayor’s message for Zohran Mamdani: ‘In our cities, hope and unity will always triumph’

Sadiq Khan says: ‘We are united by something far more fundamental, our belief in the power of politics to change people’s lives for the better’

While the soon-to-be first Muslim mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, was in the final throes of his mayoral campaign on a brisk day in New York, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim of mayor of London, was wrapping up a two-day climate summit in a steamy if overcast Rio de Janeiro.

“Hope is not gone,” Khan told the 300 city mayors gathered in the Brazilian city’s museum of modern art.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:48 pm

Which of our warnings came true in the first year after Trump’s second election?

From military-level force in cities to tens of thousands of federal workers fired by the Trump administration, effects have been felt at every level

Last year, as Donald Trump’s campaign promises and policy proposals became increasingly clear, the Guardian published a series called The Stakes to outline the impact the administration would likely have on the country. The stories were broken down by subject matter – spanning civil rights, health, immigration and cities.

Much of what was covered in the series has played out on American streets and inside homes since Trump was inaugurated in January. From military-level force used in urban centers, to tens of thousands of federal workers fired by the administration, the effects have been felt at every level.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:47 pm

‘I’m never surprised when I read about a woman murdering a man’: Helen Garner on her Baillie Gifford prize-winning diaries

Her first book outraged Australian critics – but now she’s scooped the UK’s top nonfiction prize. She talks about female anger, becoming cool at 82 – and why winning made her feel like a stunned mullet

When Helen Garner was announced as the winner of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction in London on Tuesday night, the 82-year-old Australian author was 16,000km away in Melbourne, watching the ceremony on a live stream at home on what was for her Wednesday morning. When the big moment came, she heard “the winner is …” and then the feed froze. “We were going, ‘Oh God!’ Running around. We didn’t know what to do. The timing was like something in a comedy.” Congratulations immediately rushed in, which is how she knew she’d won the £50,000 (A$100,000) prize for How to End a Story, an 800-page collection of her astoundingly frank diaries, kept between 1978 and 1998.

Garner is still grappling with her win when we speak a few hours later. “I’m a stunned mullet,” she says, sitting in her study, wrapped in a lilac shawl and with glasses on a cord around her neck. “I didn’t think I had a chance.” She has absolutely no idea what she said in her thank you speech: “I think I’m in shock.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 1:16 pm

‘It’s for the girls and the gays!’ Rachel Sennott on her hilarious comedy about the grotty glamour of Gen Z life

After side-splitting viral videos led to breakout films Bottoms and Shiva Baby, the star gets frank about the darker side of ‘making it’ with I Love LA – a show so funny that choosing a best gag is impossible

Rachel Sennott hops on to our Zoom call and immediately launches into an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding pained. She is only a couple of minutes late, but she is keen to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, it’s exactly what a writer wants to hear at the start of an interview. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone who has watched the unapologetically queer, unapologetically crass film Bottoms – which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman, and starred in alongside her friend, The Bear’s breakout star Ayo Edebiri – will already know that she has plenty to say, be it about gender, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. And by the end of her new eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that she has even more to say about the darker side of Gen Z life (at 30, she is an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling both generations).

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott is, of course, a fan, citing the show alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for her series, which follows the travails of an influencer, Tallulah (Odessa A’Zion) and her friend and fledgling talent manager, Maia (Sennott). Perhaps the largest spot on the moodboard, though, went to Entourage, the HBO sitcom about a rising A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:45 pm

‘A model of the transnational artist’: Cuban artist Wifredo Lam gets first US retrospective

The major modernist artist is finally getting a blockbuster exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, celebrating a career filled with innovation

Although he was a major modernist artist whose collaborators ranged from European greats like Pablo Picasso and André Breton to new world giants like Aimé Césaire, Cuban artist Wifredo Lam has not seen a major US retrospective worthy of his stature. That changes with the MoMA’s blockbuster show Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream.

The product of years of work and dozens of collaborations with institutions and collectors around the world, When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream shows the entire sweep of a career that straddled eras. Lam is best-known for agglomerations of elongated and mysterious figures that borrow from cubism and surrealism, although the exhibition also shows different sides of this artist: lushly colored and textured pieces that verge on abstraction, sculptural heads that point toward the artist’s African roots, early figurative works, and the weird cacophonies of forms that the artist made through the 1960s and 70s.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:01 pm

Are you a perfect modern gentleman? Not if you run in public or wear a tank top to the gym …

According to Country Life magazine, today’s true gentleman will never expose his shoulders or modify restaurant orders, but can cook splendid omelettes

Name: The Modern Gentleman.

Age: Modern.

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:07 pm

In his first term, Donald Trump called journalists the enemy. This time around, he’s treating us like one | Betsy Reed

Today, we launch our year-end fundraising appeal, crucial for helping keep us properly funded in 2026 as we face an administration that is using its might to silence independent reporting. Please help today if you are able

• Betsy Reed is US editor of the Guardian

From Hungary to Russia, authoritarian regimes have made silencing independent media one of their defining moves. Sometimes outright censorship isn’t even required to achieve this goal. In the United States, we have seen the administration apply various forms of pressure on news outlets in the year since Trump’s election. One of my great disappointments is how quickly some of the most storied US media organizations have folded when faced with the mere specter of hostility from the administration – long before their hand was forced.

Mostly, this has not been the doing of journalists or editors, but that of billionaire proprietors and corporate brass putting their private interests above the public good. Worryingly, we now seem to be moving into a new phase, with top editorial roles being filled with appointees seen as more palatable to the White House, and reporters’ access to public information being restricted.

Published: November 5, 2025, 11:00 am

The Zohran Mamdani method can work beyond New York. Take the fight to the right | Aditya Chakrabortty

For too long, the centre has been adopting the language of the right but deploying it with greater civility – to disastrous ends

Zohran Mamdani was forged in the era of Donald Trump. He came to socialism through watching Bernie Sanders run for the US presidency in 2016, in the contest that ultimately gave us Trump I. Last November, a few days after the election of Trump II, he asked voters why they’d backed that guy. The conversations prepared Mamdani in his battle for New York, and the film of them reveals so much about the politics of this era that it repays watching.

Those of us schooled in the tactics of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair might roll our eyes at yet another “listening exercise”, starring a powerbroker and his retinue in some beautifully lit hall, but this is no such thing. Here stands an unknown on a street corner in the Bronx, waving a placard as doughtily as a Seventh-Day Adventist. Rather than read off a Rolodex of platitudes, this politician sees his public – some of whom look a little like him, yet whose faces and bodies are etched with the strains of the city. Never having spoken to power, even a lowly state assemblyman such as Mamdani, they talk of lives made smaller and shorter in an economy where the daily basics are too costly. Politics has failed them, so they consider politicians to be failures.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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 5, 2025, 6:09 pm

Ella Baron on Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral victory – cartoon

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Published: November 5, 2025, 6:35 pm

Usha Vance hasn't fully Maga-fied herself yet. Is she having moments of doubt? | Arwa Mahdawi

The second lady is no victim – she has been a major force in JD’s meteoric rise. But as a former Democrat, what does she really think of the political world she’s landed in?

Usha Vance is a very clever woman with terrible taste in men. The Yale and Cambridge-educated lawyer quit her job at a prestigious DC firm the same day her husband was picked to be Donald Trump’s running mate. She trailed after him on the campaign trail, smiling for the cameras. A former Democrat, she aligned herself with Trump, a man her husband once called “America’s Hitler”.

In exchange for her loyalty, the second lady now has a taxpayer-funded mansion, regular trips in a private jet, and a husband who acknowledges white supremacist attacks on her – saying “Don’t attack my wife” – but has failed to condemn them head on. Speaking during an event at the University of Mississippi last Wednesday, the vice-president said that he hoped his wife, raised in a Hindu household, would convert to Christianity. JD, by the way, used to be an atheist, then converted to Catholicism in 2019, saying he “really liked that the Catholic church was just really old”.

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 5, 2025, 11:00 am

Why the anger with Billie Eilish? Because it’s against the rules to say what we all know about billionaires | Zoe Williams

The singer is giving away millions – but the parameters for criticising the super-rich are very narrow, and hardly anyone qualifies

What exactly happened with Billie Eilish at the Wall Street Journal Magazine Innovator awards last week? Look it up, and you have a perfect thumbnail of the modern information environment, its highs and lows. You can find out the exact words used by the event host, Stephen Colbert, as he introduced her and announced that the 23-year-old singer was giving away $11.5m (£8.8m) to fight food poverty and the climate crisis. You can find out the exact words she used after she took the stage. “We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark and people need empathy and help more than kind of ever, especially in our country,” she said. You can also get straight to the controversial bit. “Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me. If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”

You can get an instant read on Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction, at least if you believe the New York Post – he was there while his wife, Priscilla Chan, received an award, and he signalled his displeasure by reportedly refusing to clap. You can do a deep dive on what Eilish meant by “shortie” (was it a catcall, an endearment or a simple statement of that fact that Zuckerberg is 5ft 7in and, by sheer coincidence, so is Jeff Bezos?). And you’ll find plenty of global backlash, so familiar and predictable that it feels almost naive to question its assumptions. “As gen Z are wont to do,” one Sky News Australia presenter said, “she seems to be a bit of a socialist, despite the fact that she has millions and millions of dollars in the bank.” He segues straight to Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York City, noting that his biggest support is from “high-income earners”.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:12 pm

The Guardian view on Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York: the Democrats can build on an uplifting night | Editorial

A historic campaign that focused on the theme of affordability can offer wider lessons to a re-energised opposition

Since the re-election of Donald Trump last November, a demoralised Democratic party has struggled to reverse a palpable sense of downward momentum. At a grassroots level, amid plunging poll ratings, there has been a yearning for renewal and a more punchy, combative approach in opposition. Against that bleak backdrop, the remarkable election of Zohran Mamdani to the New York City mayoralty is a moment for progressives to savour.

Mr Mamdani entered the mayoral race last October as a socialist outsider with almost zero name recognition. He won it with more than 50% of the vote after the highest turnout in more than half a century, and despite the best efforts of billionaires to bankroll his chief rival, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, to victory. That achievement makes him the youngest mayor of the US’s largest city for more than 100 years and the first Muslim to occupy the role.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:31 pm

Qarabag 2-2 Chelsea: Champions League – live reaction

Alejandro Garnacho scored off the bench as Chelsea escaped from Azerbaijan with a point after being given a scare

1 min: No Caicedo or Enzo in midfield for Chelsea, and that’s going to be a test of Romeo Lavia and Andrey Santos. The young visitors get booed on every touch. Boos are very much in fashion in football, as Trent Alexander-Arnold will tell you.

Here we go in Baku, the teams are out, the jewel of the Land of Fire take on west London’s finest. The weather looks much the same as London today, though the pitch looks decidedly soggy.

Published: November 5, 2025, 7:41 pm

McIlroy thanks PGA chief for Ryder Cup apology and questions LIV changes

• McIlroy received apology over fan abuse

• Eyes Dubai finale after ‘amazing 10 months’

• Calls LIV’s 72-hole shift ‘peculiar’ move

Rory McIlroy says the PGA of America chief executive, Derek Sprague, personally apologized for the abuse directed at him and his wife during Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph at Bethpage Black and that the gesture helped close the book on what had been a bruising week.

“I got a lovely email from Derek Sprague apologizing,” McIlroy told BBC Sport ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. “Erica worked with Derek at the PGA of America back in the day, so we know Derek and his wife pretty well. He couldn’t have been more gracious or apologetic and he wrote us a lovely letter, which we really appreciated.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:05 pm

Venus Williams, 45, to open 33rd straight professional season at Auckland Classic

• Williams to play 33rd WTA season at age 45

• US star given wildcard for January’s ASB Classic

• Former champ joins Osaka in Auckland field

Tennis great Venus Williams plans to play for a 33rd straight season on the WTA Tour, starting in Auckland in January.

Organizers of the ASB Classic in New Zealand said Wednesday that the 45-year-old Williams would feature at their 5-11 January event.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:14 pm

Dana White says UFC consulted with FBI over suspicious betting activity

• UFC contacts FBI over suspicious wagers

• Dulgarian released after UFC Vegas 110 loss

• Caesars refunds bets amid integrity probe

With the UFC potentially facing its second betting scandal in the past three years, CEO Dana White told TMZ on Tuesday that the promotion is in close contact with the FBI after heavily favored featherweight Isaac Dulgarian lost on Saturday at UFC Vegas 110.

Confirming reports from Uncrowned and Yahoo Sports, White said IC360, UFC’s betting integrity partner, alerted the UFC hours before Dulgarian’s featherweight fight against Yadier del Valle that the underdog was drawing plenty of betting action to win along with first-round prop bets.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:04 pm

Mountain bike world champion Kate Courtney: ‘In pushing your edge, you find you’re capable of more’

A broken wrist and time away from the sport helped Kate Courtney find new purpose – and the freedom that led to another world title

In early September, Kate Courtney lined up at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships for the 12th time in her career, but the first time targeting the marathon distance. A figure at the front of the pack in the shorter cross country and short track distances, Courtney would surprise everyone by winning the 77-mile race, claiming the second rainbow jersey of her nearly decade-long career.

“The competition at the sharp end is so high and the course was brutal, so I was productively intimidated,” said the 30-year-old Courtney, “I didn’t think much about the pressure of winning, which let me just focus on myself.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 10:00 am

Max Dowman leads charge for ever younger stars at Arsenal and beyond

Champions League history-maker has benefitted from growing emphasis on youth and club’s fast-track approach

If Mikel Arteta had any doubts that Max Dowman is equipped for the big stage they will have been dispelled in a few seconds on Tuesday night. Dowman, having just become the first 15-year-old to play in the Champions League when he replaced Leandro Trossard in the 72nd minute against Slavia Prague, received the ball on the right flank from Declan Rice and immediately drew a foul from his marker, David Zima. A few minutes later he repeated the trick after effortlessly controlling a long diagonal pass, expertly dragging the ball along the touchline despite the attention of another defender.

“That’s personality, that’s courage and you cannot teach that,” Arteta said. “You have it or you don’t. It doesn’t matter what his passport says. You throw him in this context and he’s able to adapt and have a good performance. I’m really happy with that.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:30 pm

Nick Kyrgios to play women’s No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Battle of the Sexes clash

• Australian tennis star to meet Belarusian in December in Dubai

• ‘I’m not just here to play, I’m here to entertain,’ says Kyrgios

Nick Kyrgios, Australian former Wimbledon finalist, is to play women’s world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in an exhibition match in Dubai.

The clash evokes memories of the 1973 Battle of the Sexes match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs – which King won in straight sets in the Houston Astrodome and was later the subject of a Hollywood movie.

Published: November 4, 2025, 11:15 pm

Russian forces appear to tighten grip on strategic city of Pokrovsk

Military analysts say situation in Pokrovsk has deteriorated, while Kremlin says it plans to explore resumption of nuclear testing

Moscow’s forces appear to be tightening their grip on Pokrovsk, with street fighting raging across the ruined city in eastern Ukraine, as the Kremlin announced plans to explore the resumption of nuclear testing.

Ukraine’s general staff on Wednesday denied Russian claims that its troops had been encircled, saying efforts were under way to reinforce the flanks around Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:28 pm

Air safety officials to investigate deadly UPS cargo plane crash near Kentucky airport

Aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff at Louisville international airport, killing at least nine and injuring 11

Dozens of air safety investigators are set to arrive in Kentucky on Wednesday to piece together evidence on how a UPS cargo plane crashed and erupted into a huge fireball, killing at least nine people and injuring a further 11.

At least 28 National Transportation Safety Board agents will start searching for clues about the possible cause of the disaster, which saw the UPS plane crash shortly after takeoff at the Louisville Muhammad Ali international airport, leaving behind a fiery trail of destruction on the ground and a huge plume of black smoke.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:01 pm

US Starbucks workers prepare to strike if contract is not finalized by next week

Starbucks Workers United voted to authorize open-ended strike if deal with company is not reached by 13 November

Unionized Starbucks baristas voted to authorize an open-ended strike ahead of Starbucks’s high-traffic holiday season, announced Starbucks Workers United on Wednesday.

The union said workers are prepared to strike if a contract is not finalized by 13 November, which is the company’s Red Cup Day, and strike actions could hit more than 25 cities and escalate if there is a lack of progress.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:29 pm

Disgraced former king of Spain’s memoir details ‘enormous respect’ for Franco

Memoir chronicles Juan Carlos’s anointment as heir to dictator and death of younger brother when playing with pistols

A memoir by Spain’s disgraced former king chronicles his anointment as heir to the dictator Francisco Franco, his role in saving democracy from a coup attempt in 1981, and his grief at the death of his younger brother when the two were “playing” with a pistol as teenagers.

The book, published 11 years after Juan Carlos’s abdication and exile, is titled Reconciliation but appears to do anything but, instead detailing how he feels abandoned and misunderstood by his son and heir, King Felipe VI, and by other close family members.

Published: November 5, 2025, 7:46 pm

Anti-trafficking campaigner welcomes UK ban on strangulation in pornography

Samantha Browne says ban will help stop young people thinking violent practice is normal or safe

An anti-trafficking campaigner has welcomed the ban on pornography featuring strangulation, known as “choking”, saying it will help stop young people thinking it is a normal and safe practice.

Samantha Browne, who suffered exploitation as a teenager in the adult industry, said the ban would help prevent children mimicking violent sex they have seen onscreen, and she hoped it would open the door to ending other forms of abusive pornography.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:21 pm

Southport inquiry: killer’s father ‘sorry’ for failing to deal with son’s violent behaviour

Alphonse Rudakubana says he was ‘scared’ of his son and did not oversee his internet activity as a result

The father of Axel Rudakubana has told the inquiry into the 2024 Southport attack that his failure to deal with his son’s violent behaviour had “catastrophic consequences, for which I am desperately sorry”.

Alphonse Rudakubana said he had been “very scared” of his son and avoided confrontation with him, which meant he did not oversee the teenager’s internet activity. His son was regularly searching online for violent material and went on to order a stockpile of weapons.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:31 pm

Fortnite maker and Google settle five-year legal fight over Android app store

Epic Games has reached a ‘comprehensive settlement’ with Google, potentially ending a years-long legal battle

Fortnite maker Epic Games has reached a “comprehensive settlement” with Google that could end its five-year legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps, both companies revealed in a joint legal filing.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the settlement an “awesome proposal” in a social media post.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:30 pm

Libyan general accused of crimes against humanity arrested in Tripoli

Osama Almasri Najim was arrested in Italy in January on an ICC warrant, only to be released and flown back to Libya

A Libyan general wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity has been arrested in Tripoli.

Osama Almasri Najim, the former chief of Libya’s judicial police, was arrested over allegations of torturing prisoners, leading to the death of one, at Tripoli’s main prison, Libya’s prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:02 pm

Helen Mirren to receive Golden Globe lifetime achievement award

The multiple Bafta, Emmy, Globe and Oscar-winning actor will receive the film prize in recognition of her ‘transcendent performances and commitment to her craft’

Helen Mirren, the British actor who is already the winner of awards including an Oscar, four Baftas, three Golden Globes, five Emmys and a Tony is to add another to the shelf: the Cecil B DeMille Golden Globe for lifetime achievement.

Mirren, 80, who was given a damehood in 2003 and made a Bafta fellow in 2014, will pick up the award in a ceremony on 8 January, three days before the main Golden Globes take place, as part of an event billed by the Globes as the “Golden Eve”.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:48 pm

Experts call for new taxes on worst polluters to help poorer nations with climate crisis

Report to be discussed at Cop30 says global agreements should target carbon intensive activities and ‘ultra high net worth individuals’

New taxes on the super-rich, fossil fuels, financial transactions and highly polluting and carbon-intensive activities should be explored as key ways of raising the finance needed to help poor countries, governments have been told in an influential report.

The proposal is one of the top recommendations of a new blueprint for global climate finance, the Baku to Belém roadmap, drawn up by the governments of Brazil and Azerbaijan, the current and the previous president of the UN climate Cop process.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:00 pm

‘Green desert’: the farmers winning a battle with Brazil’s wood-pulp giant

Eucalyptus production is dominated by large multinationals that convert farmland and forest into monoculture plantations

Razor-straight rows of eucalyptus clones flank the Baixa Verde settlement in north-eastern Brazil. The genetically identical trees are in marked contrast to the patches of wild Atlantic forest – one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth – that remain scattered across the region.

Surrounded by nearly 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of eucalyptus plantations, Baixa Verde is a rare example of a local victory over a multinational in Brazil. The rural settlement owes its existence to nearly two decades of legal battles over land rights – but the fight is not over yet.

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:00 pm

Archaeologists discover how oldest American civilisation survived a climate catastrophe

Experts find artefacts left behind in Caral showing how population survived drought without resorting to violence

Archaeologists in Peru have found new evidence showing how the oldest known civilization in the Americas adapted and survived a climate catastrophe without resorting to violence.

A team led by the renowned Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady, 78, concluded that about 4,200 years ago, severe drought forced the population to leave the ancient city of Caral, and resettle nearby.

Published: November 5, 2025, 1:50 pm

Japan deploys soldiers to contain surge in bear attacks in Akita

Close encounters reported almost daily as bears intrude into residential areas and attack and sometimes kill people

Japan has deployed troops to the northern prefecture of Akita to help contain a surge in the number of bear attacks that have terrorised people in the mountainous region.

Unexpected encounters with bears are being reported almost daily in the lead up to hibernation season as the animals forage for food. The bears have been roaming near schools, train stations, supermarkets and even at a hot springs resort.

Published: November 5, 2025, 1:13 pm

Surge in antisemitism investigations at US universities after October 7 attacks, data shows

A report shared exclusively with the Guardian documents how a civil rights law has become a tool to impose ideological priorities on US schools

US government investigations into universities over antisemitism allegations surged following the 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, with more investigations open in the last two months of that year than in the two decades prior, according to a report published on Monday that was shared exclusively with the Guardian.

The data, compiled by the Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors and relying on publicly available records, offers a detailed account of how landmark civil rights legislation – and particularly Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – has become a primary tool to restrict speech on campus.

Published: November 5, 2025, 11:00 am

Death of beloved neighborhood cat sparks outrage against robotaxis in San Francisco

KitKat, affectionately known as ‘mayor of 16th Street’, was struck and killed by a Waymo in the city’s Mission District

The death of beloved neighborhood cat named KitKat, which was struck and killed by a Waymo in San Francisco’s Mission District last week, is sparking uproar in the city and across the internet. Now local politicians and community leaders are harnessing momentum to put new limits on the fast-spreading autonomous vehicle industry.

KitKat was a regular fixture at the deli and liquor store Randa’s Market, and was well known in the neighborhood and on social media. In a recent podcast interview, Daniel Zeidan, part of the family that owns Randa’s, described KitKat as unequivocally adored.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:00 pm

California man who survived 20 days in snowy wilderness says it was walk or die

Ron Dailey, who got lost on hunting trip in Sierra national forest, resolved to walk to safety after his food ran out

A hunter who spent nearly three weeks lost in the snowy California wilderness says he managed to get rescued after discerning “you either try to walk out or you’re going to sit here and die”.

The remarkable story of survival centers on Ron Dailey, whom authorities say went missing in the Sierra national forest in Fresno county after taking a solo hunting trip there on 13 October.

Published: November 5, 2025, 11:00 am

Pope Leo calls for ‘deep reflection’ about treatment of detained migrants in US

Pontiff says authorities must address the spiritual rights of those held in custody amid immigration crackdown

Pope Leo has called for “deep reflection” in the US about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that “many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now”.

The Chicago-born pope was responding late on Tuesday to a range of geopolitical questions from reporters outside the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, including what kind of spiritual rights migrants in US custody should have, US military attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.

Published: November 5, 2025, 11:44 am

Five injured after man ‘deliberately’ drives car into people on French island

Two people in ‘very serious condition’ and suspect arrested after pedestrians and cyclists hit on Île d’Oléron

Five people have been injured, two of them seriously, after a driver rammed into pedestrians and cyclists on Île d’Oléron, a popular tourist destination off France’s Atlantic coast, authorities have said.

“This morning, starting at 8.40am, an individual driving his vehicle went on a journey during which he deliberately hit several people who were in his path, either on bicycle or on foot,” the French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on Wednesday.

Published: November 5, 2025, 12:51 pm

Amazon sues AI startup over browser’s automated shopping and buying feature

Amazon accuses Perplexity of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing

Amazon sued a prominent artificial intelligence startup on Tuesday over a shopping feature in the company’s browser, which can automate placing orders for users. Amazon accused Perplexity AI of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing.

“Perplexity’s misconduct must end,” Amazon’s lawyers wrote. “Perplexity is not allowed to go where it has been expressly told it cannot; that Perplexity’s trespass involves code rather than a lockpick makes it no less unlawful.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:17 pm

Mary was not co-redeemer, Vatican says amid spread of cult of the Madonna

Pope Leo approves decree saying co-redeemer title risks eclipsing exclusive role of Jesus in saving humanity

Pope Leo has instructed Catholics not to refer to Mary as having helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation, amid the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues and self-styled prophets.

A decree from the Vatican’s doctrinal office approved by the pontiff says Jesus alone saved humanity from hellfire and therefore Catholics must not call Mary the “co-redeemer” or “co-redemptrix”, ending a long-running debate among church scholars that has even divided popes.

Published: November 5, 2025, 4:01 pm

France moves to suspend Shein over sex dolls as debut store opens in Paris

The fast-fashion retailer has faced a backlash after the childlike dolls were discovered for sale on its website

The French government has said it will suspend the fast-fashion shopping website Shein amid controversy over its sale of childlike sex dolls.

The announcement came as Shein opened its first brick-and-mortar store in the world in Paris amid a heavy police presence.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:45 pm

Colbert on Pelosi calling Trump a vile creature: ‘You know who agrees? Most Americans’

Late-night hosts spoke about Trump’s disastrous approval rating and looked at a big election night for New Yorkers

Late-night hosts looked back on comments made by Nancy Pelosi about Donald Trump and examined the last-minute campaigning for the New York mayoral race.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:58 pm

Miss Piggy movie on way from Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone and Cole Escola

The demanding Muppet is set to get her own movie at Disney with Oscar-winning actors producing and the Tony-winning multi-hyphenate writing

Miss Piggy is getting the movie star treatment, courtesy of Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone.

A feature film about the diva puppet is in the works at Disney, which owns the rights to the Muppets franchise, Variety reported on Wednesday. Lawrence and Stone will serve as producers, working with a script from Oh, Mary! creator Cole Escola.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:01 pm

All’s Fair review – Kim Kardashian’s divorce drama is fascinatingly, existentially terrible

Not even Glenn Close can save this Ryan Murphy disaster from its dismal plots, clueless characters – and the worst kissing scenes ever filmed

I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad. I assumed that there was some sort of baseline, some inescapable bedrock knowledge of how to do it that now prevents any entry into the art form from falling below a certain standard. But I was wrong. The new series from Ryan Murphy, All’s Fair – starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts and Niecy Nash as the founders of an all-female law firm delivering divorce-y justice to incredibly rich but slightly unlucky women under the azure skies of California – is terrible. Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible. While I try to get my thoughts in order after bearing witness to the first episode, I’m going to give you a few direct quotes, so you can see why I’m struggling.

“Let’s put the ‘team’ in ‘teamwork’.”

Published: November 4, 2025, 1:02 pm

Predator: Badlands review – a pointless but unkillable franchise that has started to eat itself

The toothy villain is humanised and made sympathetic in this disappointing horror sci-fi – at which point it ceases to be the Predator

There is disappointment in store for those hoping the Terrence Malick classic Badlands had been rebooted as a horror sci-fi, with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek menaced by a great big space alien with a peculiar mouth. No: this is actually the umpteenth iteration of the Predator franchise, which has a roach-like unkillability itself, having started in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger facing an extraterrestrial creature rustling and snarling in the Central American jungle.

Predator: Badlands is just about kept from flatlining by Elle Fanning’s effortless charm, though it shows what happens when the Predator in question must, in the service of narrative development, be humanised and made sympathetic and vulnerable and … kinda … nice? What happens is that it ceases to be the Predator, so something or someone else has inevitably to fill the Predator role.

Published: November 4, 2025, 5:00 pm

‘The left hand is the devil’s hand’: how Shih-Ching Tsou turned childhood trauma into extraordinary drama

When her grandfather warned her not to use her left hand, the director was shocked. Now she’s made an acclaimed film taking aim at this Taiwanese superstition

The teenage Shih-Ching Tsou was at home in Taipei cooking a meal one day when she picked up a knife with her left hand. “My grandfather told me the left hand is the devil’s hand. He said: ‘You should not use that.’” Up until then, the Taiwanese-American film-maker hadn’t even realised she was left-handed. “I was already ‘corrected’, probably in kindergarten, by the teacher.”

That conversation – and the lingering sense of shame – stayed with her, Tsou says. She spoke to her mother about it. “She told me she was left-handed too and got corrected” – forced to use her right hand – “because at the time, they said you had to do the same as other people.”

Published: November 4, 2025, 3:46 pm

Three decades later, The Truman Show feels freshly disturbing – and astoundingly prescient

Peter Weir’s dystopian comedy, starring Jim Carrey as the unwitting star of his own reality TV series, takes on new resonance in the techno-capitalist era

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The great Australian director Peter Weir is perhaps underrated as an auteur, simply because his filmography doesn’t follow any thematic or stylistic principle; each of his contributions feels like a complete work of art unto itself. While Picnic at Hanging Rock remains his finest work, his foray into Hollywood culminated in the utterly transfixing, intermittently horrifying Jim Carrey vehicle The Truman Show. Almost 30 years after its theatrical release, the film has only grown in stature and prescience.

Ostensibly a dark satire on voyeurism and the inexhaustible manipulations of the media, The Truman Show predated the television juggernaut Big Brother by a single year, and it’s hard not to see something causal in that. Both are about surveillance and the murky line separating reality from entertainment; both involve hidden cameras watching the participants’ every move. The key difference – the one that gives the film such moral potency – is that Truman doesn’t know he’s on TV.

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Published: November 4, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘A shot of adrenaline’: readers pass on 90s club classics to new generations

With the latest John Lewis Christmas ad sparking nostalgia, readers share which 90s hits are worth partying to

In the new John Lewis Christmas ad, a young son gifts his dad a vinyl copy of the track Where Love Lives by Alison Limerick, which transports the father to the dancefloor of his youth. Powerful stuff.

Of course, that record wouldn’t be everyone’s choice, so we asked readers to tell us which 90s club tracks they would pass on to the next generation. Here are some of them.

Published: November 5, 2025, 7:00 am

Radiohead review – bards of the apocalypse return for a brutal bacchanal

Movistar Arena, Madrid

Powered by a pounding rhythm section, the crowd dance to even the tricksiest drum patterns at Radiohead’s first gig in seven years – one that demonstrates the pure joy this band can bring

Almost 10 years have passed since Radiohead released a new record, and more than seven since they were last seen on stage. Living through that period has felt like moving further and faster into the future that their songs often sounded so worried about. Animal-borne diseases and invading armies, bomb shelters and endless rainstorms, falling skies and collapsing infrastructure – ’twas all foretold in the lyric sheets of the ever-fretful Thom Yorke.

His reputation as a soothsayer has probably been overstated as the band’s myth has grown in their absence, but if the frontman is a genius (the jury is still out and may never come back in, their verdict deferred more by politics than musicianship) then he’s hardly the only monumental talent in the lineup. For all the brilliant records Yorke has made lately, including several with bandmate Jonny Greenwood in their looser-limbed trio the Smile, the faithful have been holding out a geological age to see the full five back together.

Published: November 5, 2025, 1:19 am

Donna Jean Godchaux supplied steel and soul to the Grateful Dead in their prime

Godchaux sang on classics by Elvis and Otis Redding and had a long solo career, but it’s as a member of the Dead’s classic, acid-drenched 70s lineup – and as the band’s only female member – that she will be remembered

• Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Grateful Dead singer, dies aged 78

By her own admission, Donna Jean Godchaux was not a fan of the Grateful Dead when she arrived in California – then Donna Jean Thatcher – in 1970. Already a music industry veteran at 23, she had spent five years as a member of Southern Comfort, a group of singers regularly employed as backing vocalists at the renowned Fame studios in her native Alabama. But she was rigidly unimpressed with her San Francisco friends’ undying devotion to Jerry Garcia and co. She hated the band’s name and loudly opined that the only reason people liked them was because they were invariably out of their minds on drugs when they went to see them live. In fact, she could prove she was right: she offered to attend a Dead show sober, certain she would hate it.

It proved a fateful decision. By the end of the Dead’s set at the Winterland Ballroom, Thatcher – ostensibly retired from music – had announced: “If I sing again, it will be with this band”. Through attending other Dead shows she met a local pianist named Keith Godchaux, whom she subsequently married, and after meeting Garcia and angling for him to give her new husband a job, she found herself hired as well.

Published: November 4, 2025, 5:53 pm

‘I want to ride out on a unicorn every night’: swords’n’sorcery heavy metal band Castle Rat

Wielding fantasy weapons and splashing fake blood, the New Yorkers have even learned how to make chainmail outfits – and they’re already aiming to conquer stadiums

While many a rocker has cribbed from high fantasy, few have truly walked the walk. Sure, they might bedeck their album sleeves with ghouls, goblins, manacled maidens and brawny barbarians, but did a member of Cirith Ungol ever have to retrieve a missing unicorn horn from a snowy field in the depths of winter? Has Yngwie Malmsteen spent time squinting in the back of a tour bus, repairing his own chainmail?

Formed in 2019, Brooklyn’s Castle Rat have had to face both these scenarios and more as they live out their epic fantasies. From heraldic, earworm-heavy anthems to eye-popping live shows, costume design, videos and album art, they’re not so much a metal band as a full immersive experience.

Published: November 4, 2025, 10:00 am

Wings by Paul McCartney review – a brilliant story of post-Beatles revival

A compelling oral history traces the rise one of the most successful bands of the 70s from the ashes of a creative breakup

The Beatles learned how to be Beatles together. From 1963 to 1970, the group’s four members experienced an entirely new kind of fame, while leaning on each other to get through it. After splitting up, they faced another unprecedented challenge: how to be an ex-Beatle? This one had to be confronted alone.

The heaviest burdens of expectation fell on the group’s main songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were also suffering from the emotional shock of an acrimonious personal split. Both of them leaned on their wives. As John and Yoko Ono pursued political campaigns and avant-garde art projects, Paul and Linda McCartney retreated with their children to their ramshackle Scottish farm, where Paul licked his wounds, sheared sheep and tinkered with new songs. Paul insisted that Linda become his new musical partner, despite her inexperience. As she said later: “The whole thing started because Paul had nobody to play with. More than anything he wanted a friend near him.” The album he made with her, Ram, sold well but received savage reviews, deepening his crisis of confidence.

Published: November 5, 2025, 7:00 am

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling audiobook review – an all-star outing

Cush Jumbo, Hugh Laurie and Matthew Macfadyen bring extra twinkle to Rowling’s magical tale

It has become tradition for Audible to bring out the big guns in the run-up to Christmas and deliver star-studded adaptations of well-known novels; the last few years have brought terrific productions of Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Bleak House and David Copperfield.

Now attention has turned to younger listeners with a new, full-cast recording of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of the Potter books in which the orphaned Harry, consigned to sleep in a cupboard in his aunt and uncle’s house, learns he is a wizard and is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Good Wife’s Cush Jumbo is our narrator, steering the story alongside a cast including Hugh Laurie as venerable wizard-in-chief Albus Dumbledore; Michelle Gomez as Professor McGonagall; Riz Ahmed as Professor Snape; Mark Addy as Hagrid; Matthew Macfadyen as Lord Voldemort; and newcomers Frankie Treadaway, Max Lester and Arabella Stanton as young wizards Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:26 pm

Other People’s Fun by Harriet Lane review – darkly comic tale of envy and revenge in the Insta age

The worlds of the haves and the have-nots clash, in a toxic friendship between two women brought together by a school reunion

Of all the seven deadly sins, envy is the last to be commodified. You can understand why – unlike lust, anger or even sloth, it’s not something to admit to. In his Allegory with Venus and Cupid, Bronzino depicted envy as an ugly green hag, clutching her head and howling impotently; now Instagram has allowed anyone online to gain access to images of the lifestyles of those richer, prettier and luckier than ourselves.

Ruth, the narrator of Harriet Lane’s third novel, Other People’s Fun, is corroded by it. Alone, her marriage over, her daughter grown and her freelance work as dull as it is low paid, she is that most dangerous of characters: an overlooked middle-aged woman with nothing to lose. When she bumps into beautiful, stupid and entitled Sookie at a school reunion, she reconnects with her teenage self “and all her violent desires”. Having flown under the radar as a pupil, noticed by Sookie only because she lent her her essays, she has perfect recall of her own petty humiliations, now amplified by the fact that she can stalk her contemporaries’ “best lives” on social media, while almost none of them remember her.

Published: November 5, 2025, 9:00 am

The Simpsons has a​ long, weird ​love ​affair with ​video ​games

The Fortnite tie-in is only the latest in a longstanding relationship between The Simpsons and video games, showing how the hit sitcom has survived as a cultural icon

And so Fortnite has done it again. Over the past five years, developer Epic Games maintained the relevance and awareness of its ageing online shooter by churning out pop culture collaborations, from Marvel to John Wick to Sabrina Carpenter. For limited periods, players get to take part in the game as their favourite movie characters and music artists, an arrangement that provides refreshed audience numbers for the game – and a tidy revenue stream for the brands.

Now it’s the turn of The Simpsons. This month, the Fortnite island has become a miniature Springfield, complete with popular characters and well-known locations. If you want to play as Homer and shoot up Moe’s Tavern, you can. If you want to take Bart to Kwik-E-Mart for a squishee, go ahead. Everywhere you look there’s a fun little Simpsons Easter egg, from the fact that the Battlebus (which delivers players on to the island) is now driven by Otis to the presence of Duffman, Seymour Skinner’s steamed hams and drooling aliens.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:00 pm

A PowerWash Simulator sequel is exactly what we need right now

It may look like an unnecessary sequel, but even as someone who played the original cleaning game for a record-setting 24 hours straight, I’m hooked all over again

Does the world really need another PowerWash Simulator game? No, some will say. Probably people who have never played the original and don’t understand the appeal, but like to tilt their head with a mixture of bemusement and condescension and say: “So what do you do in the game? Just wash things?”

(It feels unfair that other pastimes don’t have to justify themselves like this. No one ever says, “Wait, you just run around the park in a circle for five kilometres?” Or, “So you just kick the ball with your foot?”)

Published: November 5, 2025, 10:00 am

Football Manager 26 review –a modern sim for the modern game

Sports Interactive; PC (version tested), PS5, Switch, Xbox
After a two-year wait, Football Manager 26 upgrades every aspect of the football sim, but it may take some getting used to

You can imagine what the home fans are singing in the Stadium of Light: “Top of the league, you’re having a laugh!” Your Liverpool team, who until this afternoon were five points clear at the top of the table, trail by two goals in the 82nd minute. You wonder where Mo Salah left his shooting boots, or why Virgil van Dijk seems to have forgotten the whole concept of tackling. But this isn’t on the players, it’s on you – or so you’ll tell the press – as you stare at the tactics screen trying to figure out which of the dozens of potential tweaks will change the tide of this depressing spectacle.

Football Manager was always the data-driven alternative to the visually opulent Fifa series (now EA Sports FC), but the latest instalment starts to bridge the graphical gap. The 3D-rendered match highlights have been given an upgrade via the new Unity engine, and the results are impressive. Premier League derbies, Champions League finals, and even away matches in the north-east have visual gravitas now, even if the replays and so-called important moments often overstay their welcome. There are no Fifa-style authentic chants ringing around the stadia, but the atmosphere is palpable and your imagination fills in the blanks.

Published: November 4, 2025, 1:00 pm

‘I thought ‘Bond girl’ was such a demeaning term’: Famke Janssen on acting, ambition and Woody Allen

She came to prominence as a model, before starring as Xenia Onatopp opposite Pierce Brosnan’s 007. Then, instead of pursuing glamorous roles, she got gritty. She discusses sexism, success and why she won’t be stripping off on social media

Famke Janssen is dressed for her photoshoot at the Covent Garden hotel exactly as her character, Betty, would dress in the new Netflix crime drama Amsterdam Empire – lacy and floral but tailored and mini, with long school socks. Is the look sexy in a sardonic way, or irony expressed through fashion? We spend a lot of time, one way or another, talking about objectification, the beauty myths of the patriarchy, the collateral damage of the self – sexism, basically. Janssen has been in more than 60 films across a 30-year career, and before that, she was a model. There’s a lot to talk about.

So it hardly seems the time to mention how smoking she looks; her face as flawless and cheekboney at 60 as it was nearly 30 years ago, in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. It’s almost unnerving – if she were a man, I would mention it without hesitation. She puts it down to clean living: “I get judged very quickly, that I must have had work, which I haven’t. We shame women into it, and then we shame women when they do it. I support everyone’s decision to do whatever they want, it’s just not my cup of tea.”

Published: November 5, 2025, 5:00 am

Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz to reunite for new Mummy movie – reports

Fourth in the series will be directed by horror-comedy specialists Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, AKA Radio Silence

Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are to reunite for a new Mummy movie, the fourth in the series of films featuring Fraser as adventurer Rick O’Connell that are part of what has become known as Universal Studio’s Monsters franchise.

According to Deadline, Fraser and Weisz are lined up to return to an as-yet-untitled project to be directed by horror-comedy specialists Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, AKA Radio Silence, who previously made Ready or Not, Abigail and two instalments in the Scream series, Scream and Scream VI.

Published: November 5, 2025, 12:26 pm

Melanie and Janet behind the beauty store counter: Victor Wedderburn’s best photograph

‘Melanie was my then wife – I couldn’t earn enough from photography, so we got a bank loan and opened the shop, with Janet as a partner. My photos from that time feel important now because that community is gone’

This picture was taken in our beauty shop in Bradford, called Shade. Janet (right) was a friend of my then wife Melanie (left). I’d spent a good two years taking photos and I enjoyed it, not that I thought my work was good enough to be shown in an art gallery. I couldn’t earn enough from photography to cover the costs of the materials, so we decided to get a bank loan and open the shop instead, with Janet as a partner.

I first got into photography in 1983, aged 28, after I was made redundant from my truck-driving job. I had a friend who did photojournalism and I used to go and watch him develop black-and-white photos in his darkroom, where you have a red light on to see what you’re doing. So when I heard about someone who was selling a colour kit, I jumped at the chance. I thought my friend was going to help me learn how to use it but he didn’t know how to develop colour photographs. It was only when I started teaching myself that I realised how difficult it is.

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:27 pm

Drink tea, tidy up and take action! Can advice from artists really improve your life?

As three self-help books chock full of arty wisdom are released, an art critic tests whether they can improve a seemingly lost cause: him

You’d think at this point I would have learned all the lessons I could from art. I have been a full-time, professional art critic for most of my adult life. I spend my days in galleries, surrounded by art, reading about it, absorbing it. I like art a lot, but I am also cynical about its supposed benefits beyond the merely aesthetic.

But just as a new study by the Art Fund finds that art isn’t just good for our mental wellbeing but our physical health, three new books are hell-bent on proving that art is chock full of important life lessons too. Can art really teach us anything, can it change the world, can it make you a better person? We might as well put it to the test and see if it can improve the apparently unimprovable: me.

Published: November 5, 2025, 10:37 am

A moment that changed me: I thought I was a lesbian. David Bowie made me realise the truth

When I went to the Bowie exhibition at the V&A, I hoped that by losing myself in his gender experimentation I might, in turn, stumble across a clue to my own identity ...

In 2011, a couple of years before the David Bowie Is exhibition opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a lesbian. Up until that point I had been exclusively dating men, one of whom I married. Two years later, I was in my early 40s, a newly separated mother of four children, living in the US. I had started to question my gender identity, as well as my sexual orientation, and was looking for some answers.

I was born in England in the early 1970s – before the advent of the internet. As a teenager, my friends and I didn’t have Reddit or YouTube to turn to when we had questions about sex; instead, we turned to pop stars, and in the 80s everyone was messing with gender. Annie Lennox wore boys’ clothes, Boy George wore girls’ clothes, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat had members who were out and proud.

Published: November 5, 2025, 6:55 am

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: introducing the twinset 2.0 – where practicality meets panache

I’m so glad the twinset is back – because the only thing better than wearing one jumper is wearing two

I love jumpers. Jumpers are my happy place. I know we are supposed to call them sweaters or knits because it sounds more posh, sorry, elevated, but my heart belongs to good old jumpers.

So I am thrilled that the twinset is back, because the only thing better than wearing a jumper is wearing two. But, as you may have noticed from the photo, the twinset no longer looks quite how you remember it. Traditionally, a twinset is a crew-neck jumper, long or short sleeved, with a matching cardigan. It looks as though it probably smells of lavender sachets and as if its wearer might drop into a curtsey at any moment.

Published: November 5, 2025, 2:00 pm

Soy, oat, almond, rice: which alternative milk is healthiest?

The best choice depends on your needs and preferences, say experts – here’s how to pick the one for your lifestyle

The dairy aisle might need a new name, given the diversity of products on offer. Dana Ellis Hunnes, a senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Health, says her local grocery store often stocks more non-dairy milk options than dairy ones. She’s tried various options, including a brief phase with coconut milk (“It was too creamy and too watery at the same time”). Now, she enjoys oat milk, which adds the right amount of creaminess to her coffee.

The best choice depends on individual needs and preferences, says Hunnes. One person might want to add more protein to their diet, while another might be looking to increase their calcium intake. Flavor and mouthfeel are also important considerations.

Published: November 4, 2025, 8:45 pm

Fifteen nostalgic gifts in the US that will take you back to simpler times

We dove into the nostalgia trove – from Lego to Bratz, Barbie to Battleship – for unique gift ideas destined to delight

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Holidays are steeped in nostalgia. From watching the same Christmas movie for the 20th time, to ugly sweaters that hearken to another era, memories of the past saturate every aspect of the holiday season.

“Nostalgia is universal,” says Dr Krystine Batcho, nostalgia expert and professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. “By bringing back thoughts of people, activities and things that gave us joy in our past, we can relive good emotions such as joy, peace, security and love.”

Published: November 4, 2025, 8:15 pm

‘You definitely felt disposable’: models – one 27, one 62 – discuss Botox, weight loss, creativity and the threat of AI

Modelling has changed hugely over the decades. Two models from different generations discuss the highs and lows of the industry, from the joy of travel and dressing up to predatory behaviour and physical pressures

It’s easy to think of models as people whose lives are full of glitz and glamour, who “don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day”. But according to New York-based Danielle Mareka, 27, and 62-year-old Dee O, who lives in London, the reality for most models is a constant hustle to get noticed.

That’s not to mention keeping up with the fashion world’s changing landscape: since O began modelling in 1983, the internet and social media have transformed the way the industry operates. And models are now navigating innovations such as AI models appearing in Vogue and the impact of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs on the sector. O and Mareka met to discuss their careers past and present.

Published: November 4, 2025, 11:00 am

The ‘pavement vigilante’: why Cameron Roh is naming and shaming bad walking etiquette

He films people breaking his self-created ‘laws’ of street decorum and posts the videos online – with many viewers expressing their gratitude. So watch out if you’re rushing along on your phone or wheeling a small bag that could be carried ...

It’s a damp, grey morning in Soho, London, and Cameron Roh is standing a metre or so behind a woman who is speaking loudly into her phone outside Caffè Nero. She is breaking his “laws” of “pavement etiquette” and he holds up his phone and presses record. Lost in conversation, the woman doesn’t see him, but still, watching him from a distance, it’s fist-in-mouth awkward. What if she turns around? Is this allowed? Is this even OK?

Suddenly, the woman hangs up and dashes across the road, oblivious to what has just happened. Evidence duly captured, Roh returns to where I am hiding and delivers his verdict, which is marks out of 10 – with 10 being perfect pavement etiquette. “That’s a two,” he says. Her crimes? “On her phone, sudden stop, pretty much in the centre of the pavement, meaning people have to walk around her to get past. No, no, no.” She didn’t see us, but that somehow feels worse; I feel as if we’ve just pickpocketed her. Roh giggles, unfazed. As a self-appointed pavement vigilante, this is what he does.

Published: November 5, 2025, 10:00 am

The mind-boggling valuations of AI companies

You try wrapping your head around a string of deals worth nearly $600bn

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. If you like reading our newsletter, forward this email to five friends with a demand they sign up like it’s a chain letter warning of bad luck for five years. In this week’s news, AI companies hit mind-boggling financial milestones such as a $5tn valuation, a $100bn quarter, and a string of deals worth nearly $600bn.

The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center stretches from Interstate 80 up into the dry Nevada desert mountains. The complex spans tens of thousands of acres and is home to nearly 200 companies, both for fulfillment and logistics operations and tech data centers. That includes Google, Microsoft and Tesla. Some businesses have several data centers, each multiple football fields long, that snake up the desert valleys. The industrial center’s landmass makes up 65% of the county’s territory. It’s so big, it’s almost hard to comprehend.

How do Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 compare against hearing aids? I put them to the test

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Published: November 4, 2025, 3:00 pm

‘The Irish landscape whispers tales of the past’: a trip beyond the blarney in far-flung Donegal

Our writer explores the cliffs, beaches and villages of the Gaeltacht area of Donegal and sees the landscape afresh through the Irish language

Earlier this year, a trailer for a film called Dear Erin appeared in cinemas featuring bloody-knuckled, flat-capped “Paddy” penning a letter on a table strewn with empty porter and whiskey glasses to Erin, his long-lost American flame. Much online brouhaha and frustration ensued at yet another Hollywood misrepresentation of modern day Ireland. The trailer was eventually revealed to be an elaborate ruse by Epic, the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, to call out the tired stereotypes and “to find out who the Irish really are”.

Ireland, and the Irish, are many things. The country’s economic and social structures have changed rapidly in recent decades but that doesn’t necessarily mean the culture has altered unrecognisably. What has changed is the increasing draw to connect with Ireland’s natural landscapes. Writers such as the late Tim Robinson, Manchán Magan and the popular podcaster Blindboyboatclub have been pivotal in mining the connection between the natural world and the country’s past. The Irish language has seen a renaissance in the past few years for the same reason. In his 2020 bestselling book Thirty-Two Words for Field, Magan writes: “Irish has a rich store of words that offers a more soulful and nature-connected way of seeing the world. It lets you live more deeply in your environment.”

Published: November 4, 2025, 7:00 am

Apple Watch SE 3 review: the bargain smartwatch for iPhone

Cut-price watch offers most of what makes the Series 11 great, including an always-on screen, watchOS 26 and wrist-flick gesture

Apple’s entry level Watch SE has been updated with almost everything from its excellent mid-range Series 11 but costs about 40% less, making it the bargain of iPhone smartwatches.

The new Watch SE 3 costs from £219 (€269/$249/A$399), making it one of the cheapest brand-new fully fledged smartwatches available for the iPhone and undercutting the £369 Series 11 and the top-of-the-line £749 Apple Watch Ultra 3.

Published: November 4, 2025, 7:00 am

Zohran Mamdani faces a daunting task: making New York affordable

The democratic socialist promised free childcare, fast buses and a rent freeze – can he deliver before New Yorkers lose patience?

• Zohran Mamdani elected mayor of New York – latest updates

• Share your views on the New York mayoral election results

After more than a year of repeating ambitious promises about freezing rent and making childcare free, Zohran Mamdani will wake on Wednesday with a daunting task ahead of him: make those things reality for New York City.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist ran New York’s most ambitious mayoral campaign in years, attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters with bold promises to make the largest US city affordable.

Published: November 5, 2025, 3:39 am

Rise of the ‘porno-trolls’: how one porn platform made millions suing its viewers

A company called Strike 3, owner of Vixen and Tushy, has clogged US courts with lawsuits, mostly against porn watchers who feel shamed into settling privately

When 73-year-old Tom Brown*, a retired police officer from Seattle, received a letter from Comcast, he might have mistaken it for a broadband bill. Instead, it was a subpoena. He had been sued in federal court for illegally downloading 80 movies. Some of the titles sounded cryptic – Do Not Worry, We Are Only Friends – or banal, like International Relations Part 2. Others were less subtle: He Loved My Big Ass, He Loved My Big Butt, and My Big Booty Loves Anal.

Brown, who had spent decades investigating sex crimes, claimed he had never watched any of them. His years “dealing with pimping”, he wrote in a court filing, left him “with no interest in pornography”. He had been married for 40 years, he did not need to download Hot Wife, another title in the list. But the subpoena did not seem like something he could laugh off. It said he could face damages of up to $150,000 per movie – as much as $12m for all 80 films. If he did not respond promptly, the letter said, Comcast would identify him to the plaintiff in the case: a company called Strike 3 Holdings.

Published: November 4, 2025, 12:18 pm

When 14-year-old Leanne went missing, police labelled her a runaway. Her family say it’s because she is Native American

Urban cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the US are regularly erased or dismissed, say campaigners, with families left to search for loved ones alone

On the evening of 18 March 1999, Alan Artale, stepfather to Leanne Marie Hausberg, a 14-year-old biracial Native American girl, did what every American is told to do when their child goes missing. He immediately reported Hausberg’s disappearance to the New York City police department.

But 26 years later, speaking at the family’s neighbourhood park in Brooklyn, New York, he says their response at the time “felt dismissive”.

Published: November 4, 2025, 12:00 pm

Share your views on the New York mayoral election results

We’d like to hear what people make of Zohran Mamdani’s win of the New York City mayoral election

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani was elected on Tuesday as the 111th mayor of New York City, defeating the former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and making history as the city’s first Muslim mayor.

We’d like to hear what people make of Mamdani’s win, and what New Yorkers’ hopes are for their city.

Published: November 5, 2025, 9:50 am

Tell us: are you a UK centenarian or do you know one?

We would like to hear from centenarians, their family and friends

The number of centenarians (aged 100 years and over) in the UK has doubled from 8,300 in 2004 to 16,600 in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Between 2004 and 2024, the number of male centenarians has tripled from 910 to 3,100. During the same period, the number of female centenarians almost doubled from 7,400 to 13,600.

Published: November 4, 2025, 10:55 am

Hindu devotion and a Beaver supermoon: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Published: November 5, 2025, 1:50 pm