‘There is no secret agenda’: Nara Smith on home-making absolutely everything, raising four kids at 25 – and why she’s definitely not a tradwife

The model, actor and influencer is known for making her own frozen yoghurt, bubblegum or even toothpaste while dressed in immaculate haute couture. But she insists she is not who the internet thinks she is

Nara Smith is not a tradwife, she wants you to know that. Nor is she an ex-tradwife – pace the New York Times who included her in a feature on how ex-tradwives are as popular a movement now as the tradwives were in the first place. Nor was she peddling a tradwife-adjacent lifestyle choice by marrying at 18, having four children by 24, and devoting hours to cooking and documenting it online. Nor is she Mormon, by the way. Although, yes, her husband, the model and former teen heart‑throb Lucky Blue Smith, was raised Mormon, but we’ll get to that. Nor was she telegraphing subliminal religious messages in her content: “There is no secret agenda.” Nor was she abandoning her biracial heritage by wearing her hair in a sleek little bob. Nor was she leaning into a 1950s housewife archetype – even when dressed in a pink and red polka-dot minidress to batch-cook sourdough.

Smith wants you to scrap everything you think you know about her and start again. She also doesn’t care if you don’t. As with her content: “Those that get it, get it. Those that don’t, don’t. And that’s totally fine. I tell people: ‘If you don’t like my content, I won’t see you scroll past me.’ ‘If you need to block me for your own sanity, please do. I promise I won’t know.’ And if you want to stick around, that is beautiful, I’m grateful, welcome.”

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

‘I just wasn’t going to give up’: the fight to free the longest-serving political prisoner in the US

Leonard Peltier was imprisoned for 49 years before his sentence was commuted. A new Netflix documentary exposes the ‘corrupt’ system that allowed it to happen

On 20 January 2025, with 14 minutes remaining in his term as president, Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, after years of pressure to release a figure seen by many as the longest-serving political prisoner in the US. The Indigenous activist, a leader within the American Indian Movement (Aim) and an icon of Native American resistance, served nearly 50 years in prison for allegedly killing two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, in 1975 – killings he has always denied, prosecuted in a railroaded trial widely seen as corrupt.

Outside the Florida prison where Peltier was being held that morning were several of the many activists and lawyers who fought for his release, as well as film-makers David France and Jesse Short Bull. The two directors’ long-gestating documentary on Peltier’s fight for justice was set to premiere just a week later at the Sundance film festival with a very different ending, the octogenarian still awaiting a chance to return home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa reservation in North Dakota. That morning, there was “a sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to happen”, France said.

Published: October 10, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Like a drill going into my eye’: why the mystery over Havana syndrome refuses to die

Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of ‘mass hysteria’? Or are they from attacks with an energy weapon and, if so, who is responsible? And has there been a cover-up?

Shortly after 1am one night in April 2019, a CIA officer on a work trip to London was jolted awake in his hotel room by the most intense head pain he had ever experienced. His body was soaked with sweat and he felt like his eyes were spinning in their sockets. He manoeuvred his way out of bed, hoping to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but found his sense of balance had deserted him. Eventually, he fell back into a fitful, shallow sleep.

The next day, arriving at the work meeting he had travelled for, the officer found he could not remember the names of colleagues in the room, people he knew well. As the meeting got under way, he could barely follow the discussion. Initially, he chalked it up to a terrible – if rather odd – case of food poisoning. But over subsequent weeks, worrying symptoms persisted: brain fog, loss of balance and increasingly harsh tinnitus.

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 pm

Blind date: ‘Most awkward moment? When she squished an insect that was on my forehead’

Holly, 42, a horticulturist, meets Graeme, 47, a forest manager

What were you hoping for?
Really, just a fun night with minimal awkwardness was my fairly low expectation before the meeting.

First impressions?
A very positive, engaging lady with a beautiful smile.

What did you talk about?
Growing food, the joys of seeds, birdwatching, the failings of young people when it comes to proper raving, epigenetics and breaking generational cycles.

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 pm

Amélie allowed me to embrace my neurodivergence

Watching a DVD of the French film alone in my room, I saw for the first time a character who moved through the world like I do

Amélie likes the sound of cracking creme brulee with a teaspoon, plunging her hand into a sack of grain, and turning around in the cinema to watch people’s faces in the dark. I like the smell of books and I love cinema, but I hate the sound of people eating popcorn.

Amélie was not the first neurodivergent-coded woman I’d seen depicted in film. There had been Margot Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums and Suzy Bishop in Moonrise Kingdom – two Wes Anderson characters in whom I’d recognised myself. But Amélie was the first who was at the centre of the story; she’s the titular character and we see things through her eyes. It was the first time I’d seen a woman on screen move through the world as I did: overstimulated, a bit lonely and afraid of the unknown, comfortable in her own company, with firm likes and dislikes and a powerful sense of social justice.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

I saw Iran execute a man in public. Is this what the US wants? | Robert Tait

It is odd for the US defense secretary to be laying the groundwork for an event that could be organized by Tehran

Pete Hegseth’s plans to stage a public execution resemble a grotesque Iran-imitation game.

Having failed over the past seven months to defeat the Tehran regime on the battlefield, the self-styled “secretary of war” now proposes to mirror its notorious practice of enforcing the death penalty as a grand public spectacle.

Published: October 9, 2026, 12:27 pm

Hurricane Isaias latest updates: at least four people dead and hundreds of thousands without power

First Atlantic hurricane of the 2026 season makes landfall in the US as officials warn of ‘spinoff tornadoes’

• Full story: Two dead as Isaias weakens to post-tropical cyclone after striking Florida panhandle

• Key things to know about Hurricane Isaias as millions under evacuation orders

• Sign up for the US Breaking News email

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said no requests for search and rescue assistance had been received following Isaias, which he described as “cautiously, a good sign”.

Speaking to Fox News, he said:

I think that may be a sign that people heeded the warnings, took proper precautions. We sure would love to say we have not gotten a report of a fatality yet, and we’ll see what happens.

There’s also a lot of hazards post-storm that people should be careful of, but so far we’ve had a lot of assets in place that have not been called on, which is a good sign. I’d rather be over-prepared, and not have to use them, than not have what you need.”

Hurricane Isaias has weakened to a post-tropical cyclone early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, after it made landfall in Florida and lashed the US Gulf coast with heavy rain and fierce winds.

The category 2 hurricane hit the coast near Destin, Florida, late on Friday, with maximum sustained winds of 105mph.

The storm is expected to move across Alabama and into the Tennessee Valley, the NHC added, with maximum sustained winds decreased to near 35mph.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:54 pm

Trump says Ukraine needs a new leader after diesel deal with Russia

US president suggests Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not done enough to end war

Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel.

The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:42 pm

Nine people, including children, dead after mass shooting in Pennsylvania

Authorities say suspect among dead in house after standoff with police in Erie and there is no ongoing threat

Nine people, including children, died in a mass murder on Friday in Erie, Pennsylvania, after a gun-wielding attacker opened fire outside a home and then entered the property, according to authorities.

The suspected attacker was also found among the dead as police responded to the deadly violence, which triggered a standoff involving Erie police officers and tactical teams.

Published: October 10, 2026, 8:45 am

Christa Pike out of hospital and back in prison after botched execution attempt

Pike’s lawyers said she is back in same prison she’s lived in for last 30 years and will continue to receive medical care

Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital after surviving Tennessee’s botched 30 September attempt to execute her by lethal injection and is back in prison, her lawyers said on Saturday.

Pike, 50, returned to the Deborah K Johnson rehabilitation center, where she has been imprisoned for the last three decades, her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason, said in a statement.

Published: October 10, 2026, 10:10 am

Man with gun kills one Philadelphia police officer and injures another

10-year police veteran Shane Seiber was killed after responding to a report of a man with a gun

A Philadelphia police officer was fatally shot and another was wounded on Saturday after responding to a report of a man with a gun, authorities said.

Shane Seiber, 40, was killed early on Saturday morning in West Philadelphia, according to the city’s police commissioner, Kevin Bethel.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:12 pm

US man shoots off-duty ICE agent who allegedly attacked him and daughter

ICE official, who was sleeping on man’s lawn and appeared ‘intoxicated’, faces felony charges, California police say

A 72-year-old man shot an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official in California early on Friday morning after the “intoxicated and agitated” official assaulted him and his daughter on their property, local authorities allege.

The Fresno police department said that the ICE official was receiving medical care after being shot in the midsection. The official, identified as David Gonzalez, is facing felony charges for assaulting the father-daughter duo, Fresno police said.

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:03 pm

New Orleans court deputy who handcuffed journalist disciplined – for violating etiquette

Herschel Green handcuffed WWL producer and lawyer for not leaving public space, but was only punished for arguing about it with administrator

A New Orleans criminal court deputy who handcuffed a journalist covering July’s indictment of Louisiana’s state attorney general has been disciplined for breaching his employer’s professionalism policy – albeit for an argument with the facility’s judicial administrator that day, according to an internal agency report.

New Orleans sheriff’s office deputy Herschel Green was ordered to undergo counseling for that argument after he and his colleague Diedra Rayfield placed both WWL Louisiana investigative producer Danny Monteverde as well as station attorney Elana Beiser in handcuffs, a 33-page agency report released on Friday said.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:12 am

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain easily wins re-election

Fain was dogged by investigation but still decisively beat challenger Rich Boyer, who received just 13% of vote

The president of the United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain, has easily won his re-election bid after an campaign period marred by accusations of corruption and election interference.

The union’s election of leadership for a four-year term began with mail-in ballots being sent out in late August 2026, with vote tabulating commencing on 6 October.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:46 am

Dozens reportedly injured in Yemeni Houthi attack at Riyadh airport

Donald Trump says he is evaluating whether the US should join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed rebels

Yemen’s Houthis have launched a missile attack on Riyadh’s international airport in Saudi Arabia, with dozens reported wounded and a witness describing panic in the terminal.

Donald Trump told reporters he was evaluating whether the US should join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

Published: October 10, 2026, 8:54 am

Marcy Kaptur: longest-serving congresswoman’s bid for another House term roiled by anti-trans ad

Democrat in Congress since 1983 rebuked over ‘dangerous’ campaign ad – will it harm her chances in tight Ohio race?

Last month, Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history, released a video advertisement in which she looks directly at the camera and says exactly what she thinks about one of the most divisive issues facing Democrats today.

“Here’s the truth: I voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools because parents know what’s best for their kids,” Kaptur says, “and boys should not play in girls’ sports.”

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Targeting Trump: how Democrats plan to investigate the president if they win Congress

Control of Congress after the 2026 midterm elections would give Democrats power to subpoena documents and testimony

In August, Jamie Raskin renewed his demand that Jared Kushner hand over documents about the overlap between his informal role advising Donald Trump on foreign policy and the private equity firm he runs after an earlier request was ignored.

Five of the 11 companies that Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and Ron Wyden wrote to about Donald Trump’s IRS settlement – including the Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial – never answered at all.

Published: October 9, 2026, 6:00 am

Federal judge rules against Trump DoJ’s policy of collecting state voter rolls

Judge says justice department policy of checking state voter rolls against a federal immigration database is unlawful

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the US justice department’s policy of collecting states’ unredacted voter rolls to check them against a federal immigration database is unlawful.

The ruling, by the US district judge Sparkle Sooknanan, was a setback for Donald Trump, who has pushed his administration to ramp up investigations into non-citizen voting ahead of the November midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.

Published: October 9, 2026, 1:08 pm

Despair after 200-year-old ‘grandmother’ tree toppled for Trump’s border wall: ‘It crushes your heart’

Protesters spent months occupying an ancient cottonwood. Then a tense standoff with US border patrol came to a head

A 200-year-old cottonwood tree near the US-Mexico border, known as the “grandmother”, has been destroyed to make way for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, despite a months-long effort by protesters trying to save it.

In late July, land defenders began a tree-sit in the ghost town of Lochiel, Arizona, taking turns occupying a platform high in the tree’s canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:57 pm

'Gaza is a moral tear in the universe' – Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor | Radical Thinking

Are we really living through ‘end times fascism’? The authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor think so.

In a new series from the Guardian, the pair speak to Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty in an extended interview. From Trump 2.0 and the rise of the tech billionaire to Gaza and the ongoing climate emergency, Klein and Taylor argue we are not just lurching from crisis to crisis, but are in a new and dangerous moment in history. However, they haven’t given up hope of a fightback.

Radical Thinking will be published every Saturday in the Politics Weekly feed

Published: October 9, 2026, 11:45 pm

‘People are leaving’: New York City’s EMS workers are struggling to make ends meet

EMS workers, who make life-or-death decisions in emergencies, are the lowest paid first responders

After 31 years in New York City’s emergency medical services, Oren Barzilay has started giving young New Yorkers advice he never imagined giving when he began his EMS career. “Don’t come here,” he tells them. “You are only going to hurt yourself.”

It is a striking reversal for Barzilay, the recently retired president of FDNY EMS Local 2507. What changed for Barzilay was not his view of work or the value of service. It was what he believes is the New York City failure to pay the people who put their lives at risk to save the lives of others.

Published: October 10, 2026, 7:00 am

Edge Control: the art exhibition using hidden camera images to explore race and beauty

Artist Deana Lawson uses beauty supply store surveillance images to analyze power and personhood in her exhibition at the Gagosian in New York City

In her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, writer and philosopher bell hooks explains that the relationship between Black people and the act of “looking” has been traumatic since slavery. Black people, many of whom are still subject to the constant surveillance that originated during enslavement, have historically been punished with severe consequences, such as lynching, for looking back at those who subjugate them. Despite these risks, hooks writes, they rebelled by secretly looking at white people, as well as their surroundings, rejecting the white gaze as the singular framework of reality. We can, as bell hooks writes, “interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see”.

I thought of this analysis when I visited Edge Control, artist Deana Lawson’s latest photography exhibition at the Gagosian gallery in New York City. Edge control refers to the gels and pomades that slick the hairs along the edges of a Black woman’s hairline, but in Lawson’s exhibit, the phrase takes on an additional meaning. It’s at once a styling product for Black haircare devotees as well as a tool to examine the beauty industry, consumerism and how surveillance and race intersect.

Edge Control is on view at the Gagosian in New York City until 24 October

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

The moment I knew: We were babysitting my younger siblings and he wore a tutu to make them laugh

When Sarah Maloney’s primary school crush danced back into her life, she braced for a ‘teenage whirlwind romance’. Then one night, she realised they were both all in

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

In 2017 I was 16, went to an all-girls Catholic school in Melbourne and had zero tolerance for teenage boys and their nonsense. Instead, I spent a lot of gossip time lamenting Jake, who broke my tiny heart in primary school and then moved hours away.

A local debutante ball was coming up. It was an expensive tradition that was fundamentally at odds with my values, but I couldn’t say no to a pretty dress and dancing – I was still a teenage girl after all. Some friends asked cousins or co-workers from our part-time jobs to be partners. I got knocked back by everyone. When I complained to my mother, she let me know Jake had moved back to town, and did she want me to ask his mum if he would be willing?

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:00 pm

Six men on how they plan to stand up against rape culture

While most of the crowd at a Stop Sexual Violence rally in New York City was mostly women, men of all ages were in attendance too

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered at city halls and college campuses across the country on Thursday to demand an end to sexual violence. The nationwide rallies followed weeks of public outcry over the mishandling of campus sexual assault cases at Cornell University and Louisiana State University.

The protest organizers – including Women’s March, Feminist Generation and Me Too International – demanded justice for Jane Doe, who said she was drugged and gang-raped by seven students at a Cornell frat party; Kendall Francis, who said she was raped by an LSU football player; and all survivors harmed “from the frat house to the White House”. They also called for reform of Title IX, a set of protections for sexual misconduct victims and LGBTQ+ students that the Trump administration has slowly stripped away.

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

‘Would I sit down with Tommy Robinson? It’s not a definite no’: lessons from people who fought the far right in the 70s, 80s and beyond

Extremists are on the rise globally – but UK activists have seen them off in the past in everything from football, politics, music and more. How did they do it?

Tariq Mehmood encountered the far right early – at primary school. “When white children surround you in the playground and sing, ‘God made little black people, he made them in the night, he made them in a hurry, and forgot to paint them white’, and the school doesn’t clamp down on that, then you’re living within the far right. It’s not one organisation, it’s a mass movement.”

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 pm

Post-its, homework breaks and karaoke: inside the Women’s Pro Baseball League’s debut season

The first league of its kind in 70 years brought players from all around the world to Illinois for eight weeks, writing a new chapter in the history of women’s sports

On the morning of 14 September, Rocky Henley sat at her rental home’s dining room table amid scattered rulebooks, colorful markers and graph paper. The New York Heights manager drew a chart on a large poster – her method of sketching plays for the evening’s playoff game. Her assistant manager, Jackson, trudged in from the kitchen in flannel pajama pants and a Heights hoodie and watched her work. He also happens to be her son.

Published: October 10, 2026, 3:00 am

Squeezy olive oil bottles, Meghan’s pot filler tap and the rise of ‘cheffy’ kit in home kitchens

Social media ‘chefluencers’ and open restaurant kitchens have made chefs more visible and inspired aspirational gadget-buying

The Duchess of Sussex is no ordinary home cook, but when Meghan appeared on Instagram this week at a hob presided over by a special pot filler tap, it spoke to a shift in the everyday kitchen – the rise of “cheffy” kit.

While the pot filler is now most often found in luxury residential kitchens, it was reportedly invented in the early 20th century as a functional fixture for commercial kitchens. It joins a wealth of other restaurant equipment to have infiltrated our homes, from squeezy olive oil bottles to stainless steel mixing bowl sets.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:49 am

In three years, Israel's war on Gaza hasn't just changed the Middle East, it's changed the world | Steve Bloomfield

A whirlpool of violence has engulfed everywhere from Lebanon to Yemen. Meanwhile, the west has destroyed any political authority it once had

There was a world before 7 October, 2023, and now there is a world after. For Gaza, for Israel, for the wider Middle East, and for everyone else too. Not all hinge points in history are obvious at the time. Three years on from the day it began, and precisely one year since a supposed ceasefire was agreed, this one is now impossible to ignore.

The before-and-after pictures tell part of the story. An update to Google Maps, released last week, underscores just what three years of relentless Israeli military onslaught has done to Gaza. Satellite images show how entire towns have been reduced to rubble. Mosques and hospitals, visible three years ago, have now disappeared. Meanwhile the once-empty shoreline is now crammed with tents. This is what it looks like when an attempt has been made to destroy a people.

Steve Bloomfield is the former international editor of the Observer

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

The Jane Doe in the Cornell seven case is getting threats | Arwa Mahdawi

Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail

If she really was raped, why didn’t she speak up earlier? Why did she get drunk? Why was she wearing such a short skirt? Why did she walk home by herself?

God, it’s exhausting, isn’t it? Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail. People accuse the woman of asking for it. They question her motives; they scrutinize her looks; they attack her character. And without fail, she is punished for speaking up.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:00 am

Angry French students take to the streets. British students don’t – and I think I know why | Kitty Sayers

I grew up in France, where all children are taught about the revolutionary roots of their nation and what the state owes its citizens. The lessons leave their mark

Young British people have plenty to be angry about. Crushing student debt, private-school privilege, a housing market they can’t enter. Yet unlike their French counterparts, they have little tradition of turning that frustration into collective action. I grew up in France as a Briton, and for years I have watched my French friends do something my British ones never seem to: take to the streets.

“To arms, citizens! Form your battalions! Let’s march, let’s march!” It shouldn’t be too surprising, given the rousing lyrics of La Marseillaise, that France’s revolutionary spirit is not a relic of the past.

Kitty Sayers is a master’s student in journalism

Published: October 10, 2026, 2:45 am

The more Putin escalates his attacks on Europe, the more Europe should support Ukraine | Timothy Garton Ash

Moscow’s imperialist strongman believes decadent European democracies can be cowed. Our job is to prove him wrong

Vladimir Putin is escalating both his full-scale war against Ukraine and his shadow war against the rest of Europe. His main purpose in the shadow one is to break European support for Ukraine so he can subjugate that country, something he regards as existential for Russia’s future and his own. While we in the rest of Europe must prepare as best we can to defend ourselves against every kind of hybrid attack, the central thrust of our response should be to redouble our support for Ukraine. Ukraine is his main target. It’s there, and only there, not in a contest of a thousand hybrid pinpricks, that Putin’s Russia can in a meaningful sense be defeated and deterred.

In a powerful new book, Warum Russland nicht aufhören wird (Why Russia Won’t Stop), the German historian Martin Schulze Wessel shows how Putin’s policy fits into a much older Russian tradition of territorial expansionism and striving for hegemony, combined with a religiously infused imperial ideology. He reminds us that in 2016 Putin said “Russia’s frontier ends nowhere” and in 2025, “wherever the boot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours”. West Europeans, fondly imagining that we have consigned such brute territorial imperialism to the dustbin of history, tend to think there must be some other explanation (eg something we did “wrong”, like the eastward expansion of Nato). Finns, Estonians and Poles know better. Despite Russia’s weaknesses, the author concludes, it is “the most dangerous country in the world”. Some in Asia might question that large claim, but certainly Russia is the most dangerous country for Europe.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

How do human beings explain taking part in genocide? NAZA provides a chilling look | Omer Bartov

It’s easier to blame brutes and sadists for extreme violence. But as we see in the documentary, modern genocides are fueled by people who are uncomfortably recognizable

Werner Best, a senior SS official and jurist who helped organize the Nazi death squads that murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, is also known for his statement: “We must destroy the enemy without hating him.” He belonged to a younger generation of Nazi technocrats, who despised the foul-mouthed, beer-bellied, brown-shirted “old fighters” of the Nazi party in the 1920s, and believed in organizing genocide neatly and dispassionately. After the fall of the regime, Best escaped justice for the rest of his long life, dying peacefully in Germany in 1989. His chilling statement came to my mind while I was watching the film NAZA.

I grew up in Tel Aviv and have visited there often in recent years. That is why the interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, which make up this documentary, felt strangely familiar. The conversations are conducted at night on rooftops, and the camera scans the cityscape, lingering on apartment windows as their inhabitants watch TV and make dinner. The landscape was intimately recognizable, and I felt a natural affinity with those people living their lives. I also recognized the way the interviewees talked – their speech patterns and choice of words. They reminded me of my son, who served more than a decade ago in the intelligence unit many of them might have belonged to.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:00 am

Stop talking about the US ‘Jewish vote’. It's not that simple | Judith Levine

Political parties vie for Jewish support based on false assumptions about a single issue: Israel

Everybody wants the Jewish vote. As if there were one. Jews are educated, generally liberal. Although they comprise only about 2% of the electorate, they vote in high numbers, overwhelmingly for Democrats. In 2024, 79% chose Kamala Harris. They are also assumed to be steadfast friends of Israel, no matter what it does. Republicans, waging a fake war on antisemitism while courting white supremacists, consider Jews increasingly up for grabs.

Nationally, Jewish Americans are concentrated in a few bright blue spots. A 2020 map from the Jewish Electorate Institute showed a third of Jews living in 20 congressional districts – out of 435 – most of them in New York, New Jersey, California and (purple) Florida. Of these, only one sent a Republican to Washington.

Published: October 9, 2026, 6:00 am

Christa Pike’s botched execution is a reminder of the horror of the death penalty | Moira Donegan

Lethal injection was a way for us to deny the reality of capital punishment. Pike’s experience shows us what it is

Christa Pike had asked to be hanged. In the weeks before her botched execution by lethal injection on 30 September, in which she survived two lethal doses of barbiturate pentobarbital and had to be hospitalized, Pike and her legal team had challenged Tennessee’s execution protocol.

The state’s lethal injection regimen had failed before. In May, Tony Carruthers was also sent to Tennessee’s death chamber, only to leave alive after prison officials struggled to find a vein.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: October 9, 2026, 3:00 am

LeBron James is everything Philadelphia wants. And everything it can’t stand | Bryan Armen Graham

The sports-mad city has embraced its new superstar, even as he choppers in from Manhattan and makes no secret of the fact that Philly was never his first choice

Philadelphia has always had an instinctive affinity with athletes who embrace the grind over the glamour. In a place where sports mean a little too much, commitment has traditionally counted for more than celebrity. What it demands above all, sometimes unreasonably, is the sense that they have bought in, that the city and its fortunes matter to them as much as they do to the people who devote their lives to backing its teams.

Few embodied that ethic more completely than Lane Johnson, the Eagles’ revered right tackle and best player for more than a decade, who abruptly announced his retirement Tuesday after 14 seasons, two Super Bowl titles and a career spent neutralizing some of the most freakish physical specimens to walk the earth. Johnson’s quotidian greatness on the offensive line was almost perversely workmanlike. According to Pro Football Focus, he allowed just 10 sacks across close to 7,000 pass-blocking snaps in the last 13 years, going entire seasons without letting his man bring down the quarterback. The Eagles won nearly two-thirds of their games when he played and lost nearly two-thirds when he didn’t.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:00 am

USWNT exposed by ruthless Spain as early goals settle heavyweight friendly

• Guijarro and Navarro score in opening 14 minutes

• US midfield and defensive lapses exposed by Spain

• Yohannes misses penalty as US fightback falls short

In less than a year’s time, the United States and Spain will almost certainly arrive in Brazil as the top two contenders to win the Women’s World Cup. Spain, holders of the top spot in Fifa’s rankings for the past 60 weeks, are the defending champions; the second-ranked US won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

This month’s pair of friendlies between the two sides are taking place with caveats. Both sides are missing several of their most important players to injuries. The opening match in Brazil is 258 days away. Spain have booked their place, but the US still have to actually qualify for the World Cup, through a regional tournament that begins next month.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:53 pm

Bruno Guimarães completes Arsenal comeback to end Leeds’ unbeaten run

Arsenal built the foundations of their new success on a desire for competition, an appetite for battle. But what happens when that spirit is insufficient, when your opponents play just as hard as you do? Well, then you bring on Bruno Guimarães and you play even harder.

Arsenal had just snatched an equaliser against a dominant Leeds side when Mikel Arteta introduced his key summer signing. The former Newcastle captain has been having to bide his time but when he entered the field just after the hour, he turned the game on its head.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:41 am

Max Verstappen takes F1 Singapore GP pole from Leclerc after sprint win

• Hamilton qualifies third with Antonelli fourth

• Russell crashed out of sprint when leading on lap one

While Red Bull and Max Verstappen were very much on a roll at the Singapore Grand Prix with victory in the sprint and then pole position, Britain’s George Russell was left having to roll with the punches. His vanishingly slight title hopes took another blow after he crashed out of the sprint race on the streets of the Marina Bay circuit.

Verstappen’s pole was a mighty lap to beat the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc into second by five-hundredths of a second as the Dutchman enjoys his best form of the season. A 50th pole, his first in Singapore coming on the back of a pole and win at the last round in Malaysia and pole and victory in the sprint at Marina Bay.

Published: October 10, 2026, 8:17 am

‘I’m supposed to be here’: Angel Reese’s road from ridicule to the WNBA finals

After years of mockery and doubts about her game, Reese has helped carry Atlanta to the WNBA’s biggest stage. Her critics might want to start forming an apology queue

A lot of folks owe Angel Reese an apology after Friday night. They should probably form an orderly queue.

Not that the bad-faith take merchants who have spent three years gleefully circulating her missed layups, likening her occasionally awkward footwork to “Bambi on ice” and marveling at the supposed comic genius of “mebounds” are likely to join it. The right-wing culture warriors who turned one of the WNBA’s most naturally gifted rebounders into a joke were never particularly interested in an honest assessment of her basketball abilities. But after Friday the punchline has never worn thinner.

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:00 am

Seixas makes Giro di Lombardia history after riders stage safety protest

• French prodigy is youngest winner of the Classic

• Evenepoel highlights death of Finlay Tarling

Paul Seixas ended his breakout season as a history-making Monument winner with a stunning victory at the Giro di Lombardia. The 20-year-old French prodigy became the youngest winner of the Classic of the Falling Leaves and the fourth-youngest winner of a Monument.

The Vuelta champion Enric Mas took second place, 48 seconds back, with Giulio Ciccone rounding out the podium just over a minute behind the winner.

Published: October 10, 2026, 8:33 am

Portugal suspend Cristiano Ronaldo after walking out on national team

• Federation opens disciplinary proceedings

• Veteran has been critical of coach Jorge Jesus

Cristiano Ronaldo has been provisionally suspended as the Portuguese football federation (FPF) opened disciplinary proceedings against the 41-year-old after his decision to walk out on the national team.

Ronaldo apologised to supporters on Tuesday while criticising the Portugal coach, Jorge Jesus, and said he would serve any “suspension that is imposed” on him.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:48 pm

Mike Ditka: a life in pictures

Mike Ditka, the fiery former NFL player and coach who led the Chicago Bears to their lone Super Bowl title and became one of the most recognizable figures in American sports, has died aged 86

• Mike Ditka, legendary Chicago Bears head coach, dies at 86

Published: October 9, 2026, 9:41 am

Sliding Doors meets Biff’s Almanac: City saga stirs up a world of alternate histories | Max Rushden

Even New Romantics have a view but this long story will not be cut short amid endless hypotheticals and split narratives

It’s Wednesday afternoon (UK time) and I find myself interviewing Tony Hadley on TalkSport about his upcoming big band tour. We play a bit of Spandau Ballet, chat about the classics and his career – hanging out with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. In as much as you can deduce in a 10-minute chat on Zoom, Tony seems like an absolute gent.

We do always try to bring it back to sport – Tony is an Arsenal fan, there’s a bit of Arteta, Leeds at the weekend. Tony brings up Billy Bremner and suggests that my co-host Charlie Baker and I are too young to remember him playing. We are, and how wonderful to be called young.

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:00 am

‘We’re not asking for luxury’: school protesters in Paris suburb feel abandoned by French state

Students say they are desperate to get back to class but conditions are so bad that the protests must continue

On a normal school day, Mohammed, 17, wakes at 6am, cares for his younger siblings to help his single mother who works as a security guard, then takes two crowded buses and a local train to get to his high school in Sevran, a low-income banlieue town in the suburbs north-east of Paris.

“There aren’t enough chairs or desks to go round, so some students have to stand up,” Mohammed said. “Classes can be so packed you can’t interact with the teacher. In this year’s heatwaves, it felt like 40 degrees in overcrowded classrooms with no shade or curtains. It was so hot my brain couldn’t function.”

Published: October 10, 2026, 2:00 am

New York City’s Marble Hill residents furious after ICE shooting: ‘Why do this?’

Locals also express fear after man shot in the neck while his child was in the back of his car

Residents of Manhattan’s Marble Hill neighborhood were furious at federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday but also scared after an officer shot their neighbor who had his child in the back of his car.

Orlando Perez had parked his car on the corner of 225th St and Marble Hill Avenue on Thursday night and witnessed ICE arresting Oscar Belgal, 28, after he had been shot in the neck, apparently with an assault-style rifle.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:08 pm

FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review. Experts are alarmed

Regulator looks to expand loophole to allow dangerous compounds in food as long as they’re not carcinogenic

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing to expand a controversial loophole to allow some of the world’s most toxic chemicals to be added directly to food without a safety review.

The “threshold of regulation” (TOR) exemption currently allows dangerous compounds to be used without review in food contact materials, such as packaging or processing equipment, if they are not carcinogenic, and are added at levels below 0.5 parts per billion (ppb).

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

A replica of Donald Trump’s Oval Office goes for the gold in Washington DC

The tourist attraction just unveiled an elaborate, full-scale overhaul to match Trump’s second-term aesthetic

Sitting behind a replica Resolute Desk, nine-year-old Sydney Wright posed for the camera like a future US president. “I love it,” she smiled. And what about the dazzling gold appliqués, gold leaf and gold trim surrounding her? “It’s cool.”

Sydney was among a steady stream of visitors on Thursday to The People’s House: A White House Experience, an interactive museum – with an orientation film narrated by The West Wing star Martin Sheen – at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, just 150 yards from the real thing.

Published: October 10, 2026, 8:00 am

Thousands gather in London to express support for Palestinians after three years of ‘genocide’

Twenty arrested in first march since Ed Miliband declared UK’s position was that Israel’s occupation of West Bank was unlawful

Thousands of people have gathered in central London to express their support for Palestinians after three years of “genocide” carried out against them by Israel.

The demonstrators, many wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags, gathered on the Embankment at midday on Saturday. Some carried placards reading “End the genocide” and “Free Palestine” as they marched towards parliament. A bride and groom appeared to be among those in attendance and a two-minute silence was held to reflect on the lives lost in Gaza.

Published: October 10, 2026, 9:52 am

Marina Silva on Flávio Bolsonaro: He will try to finish his father’s ‘perverse project’ to destroy the Amazon

Exclusive: Former Brazilian environment minister warns of destruction as far-right scion favourite to become president

The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.

The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:00 am

Trump fumes over Nobel peace prize snub and criticizes Norway

President complains about not winning prize in year he started war with Iran and says: ‘We will not forget, Norway’

Donald Trump complained Friday about not winning the Nobel peace prize for 2026, a year in which he started a war with Iran.

At what was supposed to be a rally for other Republican candidates in Syracuse, New York, the US president devoted a long portion of his speech airing his grievances with the Nobel committee.

Published: October 9, 2026, 6:57 pm

Candidate named Hitler Mussolini elected mayor in Peru

Leftwing Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores beats far-right candidate in election in remote district of Andes

A businessman called Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores has been elected the mayor of a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, according to local election data.

The 45-year-old, who shares two of his names with the notorious European dictators, won the race for mayor of Queropalca, in Peru’s central Huánuco region, and will take office on 1 January.

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

Study explores links between 19th-century Manchester workers and enslaved Africans in Caribbean

Global Threads research project reveals how slavery hung ‘like a spectre’ over the Peterloo massacre and other Mancunian struggles for equality

They were the killings that changed Britain, paving the way for working-class people’s right to vote, as well as leading to the founding of the Manchester Guardian. In the Peterloo massacre of 1819, peaceful protesters were shot and trampled to death by the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry at St Peter’s Field in the city.

A study by Global Threads, a public history project, has examined how the exploitation of Africans enslaved in the Caribbean was linked with the struggles of cotton workers at Peterloo. Though these workers were divided by thousands of miles and led different lives, they were exploited by the same forces – as Robert Wedderburn, a Black abolitionist in London, said at the time.

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

Tourism expansion v turtle nests: the dispute dividing communities in one Tobago resort

Plans for a 200-room project on an unspoiled beach have pitted developers against the conservationists fighting for smaller-scale schemes to protect the island’s habitat

Visitors to Rocky Point in south-west Tobago are drawn to its sandy beach, fringed by coral reefs and dark rock formations and carpeted with the fruit-bearing trees found on Caribbean coastlines – almonds, sea grapes, coconuts, and the poisonous manchineel. The beach is part of Back Bay, a 500-metre swathe of land, and trekking through its undulating terrain, thickly covered in bush and shrubs, feels akin to walking through a rainforest.

But this still relatively unspoiled location is at the centre of a struggle between two opposing interests – those who see large-scale development as the most profitable path and those who believe smaller, incremental developments owned by the community would be best.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Climate crisis is coming to crush many of world’s best surf breaks, study warns

Changing tide levels, shifting sands and hardened shorelines put waves at risk, affecting more than just surfers

The climate crisis is coming for some of the world’s greatest surf breaks, submerging some as sea level rises and wiping out others as classic breaks get crushed against coastal developments.

Analysis of dozens of famous waves in world surfing reserves (WSR) found more than three-quarters were at high risk because of changing tide levels, hardened shorelines and shifting sands.

Published: October 9, 2026, 8:00 pm

Animals crossing: the simple solution to stop roadkill in the Amazon

Installation of eight canopy bridges in Alta Floresta has enabled 15,000 safe crossings by animals including spider monkeys and marmosets – and more bridges are planned elsewhere

By about 7am, with dense fog blanketing the landscape, Gabriel Falquetto had already come across several road-killed animals along the ES-164 highway in Brazil’s Espírito Santo state. The biologist was on his way to Kaetés private natural heritage reserve (RPPN) in the Atlantic Forest, where he monitors wildlife and roadkill.

Then he spotted the lifeless body of a primate on the pavement. It was a buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps), a species listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list. An estimated 2,500 individuals remain in the wild, making it one of the world’s most threatened primates.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:00 am

Suicide memorial in Chicago signals compassionate shift by Catholic church

First US memorial for suicide victims dedicated by Chicago archdiocese earlier this year at Queen of Heaven cemetery

The Chicago archdiocese has recognized the Rev Charles Rubey’s work supporting families whose loved ones died by suicide this year by dedicating in his honor a memorial to the lives lost to suicide and the victims’ surviving families.

In 1979 Rubey founded the Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide, a counseling and support program run by Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Chicago.

Published: October 10, 2026, 3:00 am

Trump says he picked ‘devoted fan’ Katie Zacharia to be next press secretary

Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after giving birth to her second child

Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had picked Katie Zacharia to be the next White House press secretary, lining up a conservative commentator he called a “devoted fan” to be his most prominent spokesperson.

Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after the birth to her second child.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:39 pm

Florida execution called off after DeSantis withdraws death warrant for first time

Governor halts execution of William Lee Thompson, after Christa Pike survived failed lethal injections

Ron DeSantis cancelled a planned execution in the state on Friday, days before a 74-year-old man was due to be killed by lethal injection.

The move – the first time Florida’s governor has withdrawn a death warrant in his nearly eight years in office – comes just over a week after the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:32 am

One person killed and nine injured in chain-reaction crash in New York City

Motorist, reportedly trying to beat a traffic light, barrels through busy intersection and slams into pedestrians

At least one person was killed and nine injured in New York City’s eastern Bronx when a motorist barreled through a busy intersection, slammed into pedestrians and triggered a chain-reaction crash involving several vehicles, according to authorities and media reports.

The horrifying collision happened shortly after 2pm in the Bronx’s Allerton neighborhood, with the driver at the center of the crash reportedly saying he was trying to beat a traffic light.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:50 pm

Dozens injured and buildings damaged as tornadoes hit Sicily

Marsala on island’s west coast badly affected after powerful storm approached from Mediterranean

Two tornadoes have struck the coastal town of Marsala in western Sicily, injuring dozens of people, damaging buildings including a school, and overturning cars.

A series of videos began to circulate on Friday morning showing two waterspouts approaching the Sicilian town from the sea as people braced for their arrival.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Alleged abuse victims at British military school in Germany tell of agonising fight for justice

Two women, now in their 50s, say MoD refuses to take responsibility for abuse they suffered as children

Anne and Jane* were 10 years old when a member of staff connected with their British military school in Bünde, Germany is alleged to have singled them out and sexually abused them.

Now in their 50s, the women say he coerced them into keeping silent, and for decades they had only discussed their experiences with one another. “He said if we ever told anybody, then our fathers would lose their jobs and they would be kicked out of the army,” Jane said. “Being two young 10-year-old girls who basically followed their fathers around the world, their jobs were our lives.”

Published: October 10, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Cockroach’ leader among thousands detained in Delhi protest crackdown

Authorities impose strict lockdown in capital to try to stop rally against removal of 130m names from electoral roll

Indian authorities have placed Delhi under a severe lockdown and detained tens of thousands of people, including the leader of the youth-led “Cockroach” movement, in an attempt to stop an anti-government protest.

Thousands of people from across India were blocked from attending the demonstration, which had been called by the “Cockroach Janata party” (CJP) to protest against an exercise that has stripped 130m names from India’s electoral roll.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:17 am

Man dies after jumping into tiger enclosure at Yorkshire zoo

Police say man was pronounced dead at the scene after being attacked by tiger

A man has died after being attacked by a tiger after jumping into its enclosure at a zoo in Yorkshire, police have said.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park was evacuated shortly after the incident and the site will remain closed on Sunday.

Published: October 10, 2026, 10:13 am

Juliet Stevenson: ‘Do I have a nemesis? Where do we start? Putin, Musk, Trump, Erdoğan, Modi, Netanyahu’

The British actor on the genius of Bend It Like Beckham, the role she lost to Emma Thompson and why some actors get worse with age

What was the most Australian thing that you experienced while you were in the country filming Dustfall?

Working with a python? We don’t tend to work with snakes in the UK. I’m absolutely snake phobic but the python was very professional. Behaved better than I did.

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:00 pm

Parents fear YouTubers are bringing ‘brain rot’ to Netflix. But are kids wising up to ‘slop’?

As streamers poach viral creators to appeal to children, digital whack-a-mole has become a new kind of family challenge

Exasperated dad Simon Hooper shakes his fist at the camera in a recent viral video. “We managed to get rid of YouTube in our household six months ago and the kids are finally OK with it,” he says, but Netflix is “now commissioning YouTubers to make their brain rot and putting it back in front of my kids’ faces”.

The precise “brain rot” he’s referring to is the arrival of a polarising show that’s lighting up parent chats around the globe. And while Salish and Jordan Matter might be new to Netflix Kids users, the father-daughter content creators are familiar to anyone who’s spent any time on the internet. Jordan Matter, who started his YouTube career in 2017 as a photography vlogger, pivoted to family content after his energetic preteen daughter, Salish – a competitive gymnast – brought viral traction to the channel in 2019 and 2020. (Famously, his YouTube bio reads, “My daughter has taken over my channel!”)

Published: October 10, 2026, 12:00 pm

Ray Gunn review – Brad Bird’s animated film-noir sci-fi caper is an old-school family classic

Sam Rockwell voices the gumshoe who becomes embroiled with Scarlett Johansson’s femme fatale in this big-hearted and beautifully designed fantasy spectacular

Brad Bird, the Spielberg of animation, applies his masterly authorial touch to a terrific family film that retrieves the genre from the doldrums of dull, AI-formulaic stories and visuals. This animation is smart, witty, humane: a fantasy spectacular with old-fashioned entertainment values and some amazing cityscape design showcasing a beguiling and sweet romance.

The setting is a city of marvels in a world to come, a retro-futurist urban landscape with hints of Metropolis and Blade Runner; there are plenty of regulation moving walkways, flying cars and eerie hologram billboards, yes, but a light touch to put the fun back into what could be just cliche. Here is where an old-school noir thriller is to take place with tough private detectives and bad guys wielding state-of-the-art laser-particle firearms (this explains the title, though I’d hoped that it might also include some reference to 1980s Republican politics). There are careworn cops, cynical club owners and alluring shady ladies with touches of Lana Turner and Veronica Lake. The airborne automobiles also have the bulbous lines of a previous century, and the TV monitors show black-and-white images; plasma flatscreens have evidently been disinvented.

Published: October 10, 2026, 6:45 am

14th review – Ava DuVernay’s galvanizing documentary is a remarkable achievement

New York film festival: the director has made a fascinating and troubling companion piece to her Netflix documentary 13th, which takes a fiery look at American injustice

It feels at once like the blink of an eye and an eternity since Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th arrived on Netflix, a month before the election of Donald Trump to his first term as president. The intervening decade has more or less borne out the film’s thesis on the enduring specter of white supremacy in American life: that a clause within the 13th amendment abolishing chattel slavery – that involuntary servitude could be used as punishment for a crime – was immediately and continually exploited to criminalize black people, mass incarceration thus being the modern incarnation of America’s original sin.

The Oscar-nominated film, which saw a surge in viewership during the protests of 2020, has remained both a time capsule of late Obama-era moral clarity and, arguably, the acclaimed director’s best picture. At least, until now – 14th, DuVernay’s sequel, of sorts, soon also to arrive on Netflix, is just as lucid and galvanizing as its predecessor, with an updated, more pressing urgency befitting a democracy in distress.

Published: October 9, 2026, 6:00 pm

‘I’ve hit my midlife sexpot era!’ Romola Garai on marital misery, cheating … and sex scenes in cars

Layby hookups are all in a day’s work for Romola Garai in her steamy new drama Adultery. She talks faking orgasms, keeping secrets – and making audiences pass out

In a raging storm in the Peak District last winter, a blue Toyota Yaris was parked in a remote roadside spot with a sex scene being filmed inside it. “It can pose challenges, depending on the size of the car,” chuckles Romola Garai. “Me and Dominic [Cooper] got in this hatchback and asked: ‘How far do these seats go back?’ Soon there was a gale blowing outside. We were in the car, ready to shoot, but outside the entire film crew were being buffeted by high winds. They said: ‘You guys stay in there, don’t get out!’ while all the lights were getting blown away.”

What did the co-stars do while the camera crew battled the elements? “What actors always do in these situations – have a long, gossipy conversation about people in the industry. While everyone else was trying to save the show, we were sitting in the car, like: ‘Well, I’ve heard he’s a total nightmare!’”

Published: October 9, 2026, 5:00 am

The Guide #264: Why is Hollywood obsessed with the tech-bro baddie?

In this week’s newsletter: Dead-eyed billionaires can’t hold a candle to the maniacal cinematic villains of old – it’s time Hollywood rewrote its source code

• Don’t get The Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Sixteen years ago The Social Network was released and the first stirrings of a new cinema archetype were seen: the tech-bro villain. Perhaps that’s too damning a description for the Mark Zuckerberg portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in David Fincher’s 21st-century classic about the dawn of Facebook; he’s certainly not a villain in the mwah-ha-ha, moustache-twirling sense. But he is, at the very least, on the wrong side of antiheroic: brilliant, brittle, status-craving, cruel and in charge of a social network with an exploding user base. Back then of course, the ramifications of this combination of troubling personality traits and transformative technology hadn’t quite dawned on us all: to many, social media sites still seemed a societal net positive. But the character was chilling enough to give even the most Pollyanna of tech evangelists a moment of pause.

Fast forward to 2026, when faith in social media – and technology more broadly – is at Mariana Trench lows, and a sequel to Fincher’s drama has arrived in cinemas, this time both written and directed by the first film’s writer, Aaron Sorkin. The Social Reckoning whizzes the action forward to the tail end of the 2010s, by which time Facebook has grown into a near-trillion-dollar monolith. It follows real-life data engineer Frances Haugen (played by Mikey Madison), whose concerns over the radicalising qualities of Facebook’s algorithm prompt her to leak confidential files to investigative journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), resulting in the release of the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files. Right around the same time as this damaging publication, and also depicted in the film, is the small matter of a riot-slash-insurrection at the Capitol, egged on by the outgoing US president on, among other places, Facebook, prompting his belated ban from the platform by Zuckerberg.

Published: October 9, 2026, 11:00 pm

Gromit finally gets a voice … and it’s Martin Freeman

After 37 years, the staunchly silent dog will speak for the first time in the audiobook of his autobiography – and it turns out he sounds like a hobbit

He has been on screen for 37 years, but he has never uttered a word. Now, Gromit will speak for the first time – with the voice of the Hobbit star Martin Freeman.

The claymation dog, who has partnered with his eccentric inventor-owner Wallace in a series of Oscar-winning films including The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is releasing an autobiography this month – including an audiobook edition.

Published: October 9, 2026, 4:00 am

Branford Marsalis Quartet and Dianne Reeves: Dedicated to You review – eloquent Coltrane tribute

(Blue Note)
This elegant contemporary reinvention of 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman pairs Marsalis’s post-bop sax with Reeves’ agile vocals, to time-stopping effect

In the early 1960s, the Impulse! label tried to steer its star saxophonist John Coltrane away from increasingly uncompromising and experimental music that it feared might be scaring its customers. Label boss Bob Thiele suggested a more palatable all-ballads album with a little-known African American supper-club singer called Johnny Hartman, whose warm, Bing Crosby-like baritone but bracing absence of schmaltz had already impressed Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Coltrane and Hartman hit it off perfectly, and the 1963 album, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, was an unexpected mini masterpiece of restraint, flawless timbral expressiveness, and mutual understanding.

Invited by Blue Note Records in Coltrane’s centenary year to curate his own tribute, post-bop sax luminary Branford Marsalis made that album the template for Dedicated to You – done as contemporary reinventions, not mere cover versions. Marsalis invited Dianne Reeves, a vastly experienced jazz singer with a Sarah Vaughan-like mix of flawless intonation and agile spontaneity, to take the vocal role. “Listening to all the great singers coming up”, Reeves has said, “I learned that they stood in the band, not in front of the band. They saw themselves as co-creators of the sound.”

Published: October 9, 2026, 1:30 am

Shostakovich Symphony No 8 album review – composer’s cry of despair in a remarkable and resonant new recording

Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Altinoglu
(Alpha)
Conductor Alain Altinoglu brings weight and purpose while the instrumental solos are piquant and precise.

If the Leningrad was Shostakovich’s official response to the second world war, the Eighth Symphony was his answer to the question: “Will you tell us what you really think?” Written while the fighting was still under way, its immediacy remains striking today, a quality reflected in Alain Altinoglu’s purposeful interpretation with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestra.

You hear that directness at once in the way the strings dig deep, bringing remarkable colours to a 26-minute Adagio that, in the wrong hands, can sound merely bleak and black. Not that Altinoglu shuns the horrors: his phrasing and textural dynamics bring fearsome weight and a sense of wide-eyed terror to the composer’s protracted cry of despair. The orchestra covers itself in glory with instrumental solos that are piquant and precise. Resonant details are captured by an outstanding German production team that manages to outdo the Berlin Philharmonic’s excellent 2020 account under Kirill Petrenko (Shostakovich fans will need both).

Published: October 9, 2026, 12:00 am

Jess Williamson: A Mile South of Heaven review – alt-country singer’s love-hate affair with LA

(New West)
Following 2023 breakout Time Ain’t Accidental, the best songs here are when Williamson strips back country music, rebuilding it as something familiar yet different

In her essay Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion writes that she left New York City when “the golden rhythm was broken”. Texas-born alt-country singer Jess Williamson borrows the title for the aching opening track of her sixth solo album, on which she contemplates whether she has had enough of Los Angeles. But while Didion was looking back on leaving the city of her youth behind, Williamson is still in LA, wrestling with competing desires to stay or flee.

This tumultuous love-me, love-me-not is set to Williamson’s most traditional soundscapes to date: “Deep in the woods I feel the hum of the city,” she sings on Hum of the City in her strongest Texas drawl over mournful strings and twiddling banjo. Gone are the iPhone-programmed drums that made her 2023 breakout Time Ain’t Accidental so appealingly offbeat, and while the Americana flourishes give weight to Williamson’s nostalgia for her native Dallas, at times they make the album stodgier and less imaginative than her previous record.

Published: October 9, 2026, 12:30 am

‘People forgot I existed’: Audrey Niffenegger on taking 14 years to write a sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife

Her debut made her a global star. Now she has finally written a follow-up – and this time, it’s political. She talks about impostor syndrome, screen adaptations and becoming radicalised

The artist and novelist Audrey Niffenegger began writing the long-awaited sequel to her bestselling debut, The Time Traveler’s Wife, in 2012, just after Obama’s re-election. It was a “rosy” time in American politics, “as good as it gets over here”, she says now, but her new novel required her to imagine what the world might look like in 20, 40, 60 years’ time. In the 14 years she spent exploring various dystopian futures, American politics moved on. And her imaginings began to look worryingly realistic.

An early scene in the new book involves a group of neo-Nazis at a house party. When she was writing it, few people believed the US would witness a resurgence of neo-nazism. It’s not like she is “psychic or anything”, she tells me, the clues were all there. “The first thing I remember reading in the news was Watergate, and so I’ve grown up with Reagan, and the Republicans coming on stronger and stronger, so that every Republican president we get is more of a disaster. And I thought the logical progression of that would be fascism,” she says.

Published: October 10, 2026, 1:00 am

‘Sometimes she publishes notes she’s scribbled on her hand’: Édouard Louis on 10 reasons to love Anne Carson

The French author discovered Carson on a bus while stranded in a snowstorm and has been enthralled by her fearless imagination ever since

• Where to start with Anne Carson

• ‘Delights await!’: Margaret Atwood and other writers on Nobel winner Anne Carson

1. Anne Carson is one of the greatest writers of our time. I discovered her work on a Peter Pan bus from New York to New England. I’d bought Antigonick in a bookstore a few days earlier, almost randomly. From the very first lines, I was enthralled. While we were on the bus, a snowstorm suddenly blanketed the roads, and the other passengers and I found ourselves stuck for 10 hours in rural America, surrounded by an entirely white landscape. I took my computer out of my backpack and started to translate Antigonick into French. Spontaneously. I was so absorbed by the power of Carson’s text that I didn’t notice the hours pass.

2. One of Carson’s greatest strengths is that, unlike so many other contemporary writers, she doesn’t try to “make literature”. She writes. Sometimes clouds do the speaking, in her work, and sometimes monsters do; sometimes, in the middle of a collection of poems, she lets an imaginary Catherine Deneuve take over the narration. Sometimes she writes a letter to her own sleep and sometimes she publishes notes she’s scribbled on her hand. She writes about Homer, but also Rosalía; about Brecht, but also Marilyn Monroe.

Translated by Josh Cohen

Published: October 9, 2026, 8:08 am

AK Blakemore: ‘The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt was extremely silly and bad’

The poet and author on F Scott Fitzgerald’s perfect novel, losing faith in Ernest Hemingway – and the recent debut that blew her away

My earliest reading memory
Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy – where an assortment of differently shaped dogs go on a walk – wormed its way into my subconscious when I was very young. The great dane (Hercules Morse, as big as a horse), the dalmatian (Bottomley Potts, covered in spots), the dachshund (Schnitzel Von Krumm with a very low tum) … I could probably still recite most of it from memory.

My favourite book growing up
I had a lot of picture books illustrated by the great Korky Paul, and remember being obsessed – even as quite a young child – with the intricate grotesquerie of it all. He’s probably best known these days for illustrating the Winnie the Witch books, but my favourite was The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis, in which a rotund, green-haired man called Rufus Skumskins O’Parsley makes a cake out of disgusting things (rotten eggs, spider legs, garden snails and so on), only for the cake to come to life and attempt to eat him. Probably more than a little bit of Skumskins found its way into the protagonist of my second novel, The Glutton.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:00 am

Mao’s Last Dancer Li Cunxin on his long-awaited follow-up: ‘I don’t think my publisher expected it to take 14 years!’

As The Lucky Son picks up where Cunxin’s 2003 memoir left off, the renowned Chinese Australian ballet dancer reflects on sacrifices made by his wife, his years at a stockbroker, and his success leading the Queensland Ballet

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Some people live such extraordinary lives that a single autobiography simply won’t suffice. Li Cunxin has now written two. The renowned ballet dancer and former artistic director of Queensland Ballet had hoped he was finished writing his story after the phenomenal international success of his 2003 memoir, Mao’s Last Dancer. But life had other plans.

“Actually, I had signed a contract with Penguin Random House for a follow-up,” Cunxin says, from his home in Brisbane. “It was going to be about the lives of my brothers and friends in China, and the ways the country has changed over time. But then I was offered the job at Queensland Ballet and I had to dedicate all my time to that. I don’t think they were expecting [the sequel] to take 14 years!”

Published: October 9, 2026, 7:00 am

End Of Abyss review – a creepy dollhouse take on Resident Evil and The Thing

PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox, PC; Epic Games Publishing
This fetchingly presented horror game brings style and scares, but overextends itself with repetition

A small band of soldiers enters an abandoned facility, where puckered flesh sprouts from cold steel. It’s a promising but familiar start to a sci-fi horror story, with heavy overtones of Alien and The Thing. Neither of those, though, were so … dinky.

End of Abyss’s facility is presented as a kind of a model-village recreation of The Thing’s Outpost 31 that you peer into from above. Your little bobble-headed hero takes up a tiny fraction of the screen, with most of the remainder drenched in foggy darkness, or even blanked out entirely. This is a world of Usborne-style cutaways, where anything outside the walls is total blackness.

Published: October 9, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Jelliness is my life motto’: jackpot theatre prize winner Jaha Koo on kimchi, K-pop and his robotic eel

Feted for cooking up shows that can be mouthwatering as well as thought-provoking, the artist discusses his fusion of South Korean and European culture

When I meet Jaha Koo in Oslo, where he has just been honoured with the prestigious International Ibsen award, I hand him a congratulatory packet of Haribo. The alternative would be a jar of kimchi but one of the many things you learn from Koo’s captivating theatre shows is that air travel and fermented vegetables can be a disastrous combo. When he moved to Berlin from South Korea with 10kg of his grandma’s finest kimchi, it became “bloated like a dead whale” and exploded on his balcony. His new neighbours were unimpressed.

In Koo’s current touring production, Haribo Kimchi, he examines how this unlikely fusion of two foods represents his cultural identity. He does so while preparing an onstage banquet for two lucky audience members. Despite spending many years in Europe, where Haribo gummies originated around a century ago, Koo still finds himself considered foremost as Korean by Europeans. But when he returns to his original homeland he is not always seen as Korean either.

Published: October 10, 2026, 5:00 am

‘They looked like two curtain-twitchers, though not very subtle ones’: Peter Crome’s best phone picture

The photographer was walking home in London when he caught the attention of a pair of canine snoops

Walking home after dropping his little girl at school, Peter Crome sensed he was being watched. A former professional ballet dancer now living in London, he had supplemented his income with photography work for 20 years. “But since having my daughter, my Nikon gear has sat idly by,” he says. “I got so used to lugging my heavy equipment around with me, it’s been quite refreshing to go somewhere just with a phone and still come back with wonderful pictures. My iPhone has also been a blessing for keeping in touch with family back home in Sydney,” Crome adds.

The cause of his disquiet that day was, to his happy surprise, these two dogs. “It was such a comical moment,” he says. “They looked like two curtain-twitchers, though not very subtle ones. I liked how they were perfectly framed with the different layers of window frames, and the brickwork and hedge provided some pleasing textures, but it was the disapproving expression on their faces that made the photo for me.”

Published: October 10, 2026, 3:00 am

Blood of My Blood review – gripping ghost story is a reckoning with slavery

Royal Court theatre, London
A Black British woman traces her family’s enslaved past in Joy Nesbitt’s supernaturally charged play

Joy Nesbitt’s fantastically chilling play is both a ghost story and a reckoning with the undocumented history of enslaved people. It takes us from present-day America into the past, towards the exact moment when slavery was abolished.

A white couple has turned their South Carolina plantation into a holiday rental. People come for celebrations and weddings, we hear. It is tantamount to slave-plantation tourism, says Talulah (Jodie Campbell), a Black British woman who has traced her family line to this spot. Talulah is trying to channel her descendant Ginnie (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ) through the ritual practice of “conjuring” – making contact is a way to fill in the gaps of her family’s enslaved past.

Published: October 10, 2026, 4:00 am

I don’t actually have to be at home when I’m wfh, do I? The Edith Pritchett cartoon

Continue reading...

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 pm

11 questions to ask yourself before going no contact with a family member

In the UK, one in five families are affected by permanent estrangement – it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. These are the questions experts suggest you ask yourself before cutting a relative out of your life

It’s important to be certain you aren’t walking away because it feels more manageable than addressing challenging issues. “Sometimes estrangement is exactly what’s needed for safety and healing. Other times it functions as an attempt to avoid grief, conflict, disappointment or the painful acceptance that a parent cannot become the person one longs for,” says Joshua Coleman, a clinical psychologist and the author of Rules of Estrangement. “Distance alone doesn’t resolve those emotions.”

Published: October 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Venta review: a humidifier that fixes the worst part of humidifiers

Venta’s evaporative mechanism add cool moisture without mist, mineral dust or disposable filters

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If you live with forced-air heating, you know that winter can bring chapped lips, dry eyes and waking up with a scratchy throat. A common ultrasonic humidifier attacks the issue with an eye-catching stream of cool mist – and they work well. But as I found out after setting up two of them, they also bring an unwelcome guest: dust.

Minerals dissolved in the water travel with those droplets, leaving a messy residue behind. With two running, it was like an invisible dust storm rolled through every day, raining fine white powder everywhere. It coated furniture, clogged air filters and even choked computer fans. I don’t mind dealing with household dust, but a maddening amount accumulated daily.

Published: October 10, 2026, 10:15 am

I got tired of eye-stinging campfire smoke, so I tested smokeless fire pits to find the best

We put half a dozen backyard smokeless fire pits – from Solo Stove, Breeo, BioLite and more – to the test

A campfire in your backyard seems like a nice idea – until you try one and end up shifting chairs every 30 seconds to escape the eye-searing smoke. A better option is a smokeless fire pit, which still burns wood or charcoal but is safer, contained and more manageable. You can warm your hands, cook burgers and other food, and – most importantly – gather with friends and family.

New models by Cuisinart, Breeo, Solo Stove and others help you meet all of those objectives with one product.

Published: October 9, 2026, 12:17 pm

Privileged and proud: how nepo babies took fashion month by storm

From commanding the catwalks to acting as plus-ones for their famous parents, celebrity kids are bang on trend

Knee-length skirts and bras worn as tops were two of the main takeaways from fashion month, which wrapped up this week. But the biggest trend had nothing to do with clothing. From New York and London to Milan and Paris, the shows were the ultimate proof of a nepo baby takeover.

John Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu, 26, made her Paris catwalk debut at Miu Miu. Apple Martin, 22, the daughter of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow, walked the Chloé show.

Published: October 9, 2026, 7:31 am

Anthony Vaccarello’s decade at Saint Laurent comes to an end – in pictures

After 10 years as creative director of the Paris-based luxury brand, the designer bows out. From a rock’n’roll aesthetic to see-through brogues, here are 10 stand-out moments

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Henry Harris’ recipe for tarte Vaudoise à la creme

This fantastic tart is a minor miracle invented by a legendary chef, yet it has very few ingredients and an intriguing technique for baking it

Often, the greatest dishes are made from very few ingredients and with pretty standard techniques, and this tart is one of them. It’s based on an old Frédy Girardet recipe that, despite his reputation as one of the all-time greats, calls only for a simple application of process to deliver a knockout result (which is one reason I put it in my latest book). A pastry case is spread with sugar and cream, then dotted with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. The pastry is not blind baked, but filled and baked in a very hot oven. That sounds wrong, but it is not: a fierce heat is needed to bake the pastry under its filling and to meld the cream, sugar and butter. A pinch of flour is mixed with the sugar and, as it all boils up, that smidgen of flour holds everything together as it bubbles and reduces until it takes on the appearance of condensed milk while the pastry cooks and toasts at the edges. I still use Girardet’s quantities because, unsurprisingly, they work perfectly. Merci, chef.

Henry Harris is chef/co-owner of Bouchon Racine, London EC1. His book, The Racine Effect, is published by Quadrille at £40. To order a copy for £36, go to guardianbookshop.com

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:00 pm

Spa bliss in the Alps: hot springs and hiking in the shadow of Mont Blanc

An autumn break in the French mountain town of Saint-Gervais-Les-Bains offers thermal treatments and glorious walking trails before the winter ski crowds descend

Mont Blanc is hiding behind the clouds, but the Aiguille du Midi spears the sky above a mountainside ablaze with russet, gold and tawny tones. The maples flare red; rowan trees are dusted with crimson berries.

Our little group has trundled up to Mont Lachat station (altitude: 2,115 metres) on the Tramway du Mont Blanc, the century-old cog railway that climbs improbably steep slopes from the French alpine town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains. Operational since 1909, the railway was once intended to reach the 4,809-metre summit of Mont Blanc, but war, glacial terrain and waning funds put an end to that ambition. But even from Mont Lachat, the view is a showstopper. On one side, the Bionnassay Glacier slips scenically down the slope, a buzzard soaring over the milky-green glacial lake at its base, while on the other the Chamonix valley basks in soft autumnal sunshine.

Published: October 9, 2026, 11:00 pm

What happens to your pets when you die?

Without a proper plan – whether in a trust or will – your beloved companion could face an animal shelter or worse

The idea of making a will may be uncomfortable, but routine. Ensuring that your family and estate is taken care of is a kindness. But there’s one thing clients often aren’t sure how to handle, says Azriel J Baer, a trust and estate attorney at New York-based law firm Farrell Fritz, PC: what will happen to their pet.

Sometimes, “somebody wants to set up a trust with substantial money in it”, he said. But more typically, the client wants to ensure “the right person” gets the dog or cat – but has no idea how best to do it.

Published: October 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Who invented emojis and what do bug eggs look like? The kids’ quiz

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

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Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

Published: October 9, 2026, 11:00 pm

Five Great Reads: unmarked graves, Happy Mondays, and a childhood without sugar

The Guardian’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Miles Herbert

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Hello and welcome to the weekend.

This selection of reads from across the Guardian has chronicles of evolution, investigations and interviews which ask us to think about how we remember our loved ones when they are gone, and – of course – stories that leave you with a little something sweet.

Published: October 9, 2026, 9:24 pm

‘This is not an anti-tech town’: backlash to datacenter in city once home to IBM

Fight in East Fishkill, New York, part of a growing divide over whether AI benefits outweigh enormous downsides

For decades, East Fishkill helped build New York’s tech industry.

The hamlet, located 70 miles north of New York City, was home to a 460-acre campus where IBM researched and manufactured semiconductor chips for nearly 50 years.

Published: October 9, 2026, 6:00 am

Why you've probably been thinking about narcolepsy all wrong

The sleep disorder has been the butt of jokes and a comedic plot point, but the reality of living with narcolepsy is anything but funny. Things could be about to change for people with the condition though, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first ever drug to treat narcolepsy itself, rather than just its symptoms. Madeleine Finlay tells Ian Sample how the scientific breakthrough came about, and Julie Flygare, who has narcolepsy and founded the non-profit Project Sleep, explains what it is like to live with the condition and how the drug could be gamechanger

Published: October 9, 2026, 7:16 am

Send us your questions for economist Isabella Weber on inflation and affordability

First Edition newsletter will be hosting a reader Q&A with economist Isabella Weber, a leading voice on inflation, affordability and cost of living and now’s your chance to put your questions to her

Isabella Weber is one of the most sought-after and influential economists of her generation, and has advised policymakers and governments in the US, Germany, Europe and Latin America.

She has become a leading voice on inflation, affordability and the cost of living. Her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics, looks at the relationship between economic insecurity and the rise of the far right, arguing progressive politics must respond to the rise of authoritarianism by urgently addressing the economic pressures people experience in their daily lives. For years Weber was treated as an outlier.

Weber is an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate in research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, and is the author of the prize-winning How China Escaped Shock Therapy.

We’d love to hear your questions. Perhaps you would like to find out how the cost of living affects the current political landscape? What’s happening in the bond markets? Or the advice she’d give to progressive politicians, from incumbents like Burnham and Mamdani to the German parties taking on the AFD. From austerity to zero deficits, nothing is too simple or complex.

Published: October 9, 2026, 4:08 am

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Student protests across France, Russian strikes on Kyiv, wildfires in Indonesia and Comic-Con in New York – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: October 9, 2026, 10:08 am