‘This is dangerous’: slime moulds and the bitter debate over the nature of intelligence

Scientists are battling over whether supposedly simple organisms should be considered ‘intelligent’. The outcome could reshape our understanding of the natural world – and our own place within it

Forty years ago, as an undergraduate in Hokkaido, Toshiyuki Nakagaki came upon a lemon-yellow stain in a petri dish. That encounter turned him into a doyen of slime mould research – and fed a storm of biological and philosophical debate about the meanings of life and intelligence that persists to this day. Before, no one would have called a slime mould “intelligent”; the popular adjective, in fact, was “simple”. “A simple mass of protoplasm,” one 1895 description ran; “among the most simple of organisms”, said another. And it was hard to argue otherwise. A slime mould can appear to be just a small cell, capable only of feeding and reproducing. Simple is as simple does.

Of that first meeting, Nakagaki said: “I was just impressed with how fast it moved.” Physarum polycephalum, the slime mould species in that petri dish, has a top speed of 1cm an hour. For amoebic organisms, that’s gold-medal standard. At first glance, Physarum seems to spread as irregularly as ink on blotting paper, but in fact it senses its meals of bacteria or other microbes and reaches for them with a long, thin finger of protoplasm – which not only digests its food but then forages further or pulls back into the rest of the mould. It’s impossible to watch a slime mould over many days without sensing some deliberation at play.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger: what we learned from the year’s biggest rockumentary

Capturing the band’s 2025 global comeback tour, this two-hour film reveals the tense first rehearsal with Liam, Noel being a big softie and the Gallaghers’ politics – just don’t expect any mention of ticket prices

It was the reunion that many thought would never happen: Oasis re-forming for a series of sold-out live shows, their first since Noel and Liam Gallagher split acrimoniously in 2009. For those who managed to get tickets last year, the performances were a celebration of one of Britpop’s finest bands and a chance to live through a night of 90s nostalgia. For the millions who missed out, be it due to demand or budgetary restraints, the tour represented a generational Fomo moment.

Luckily, the directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern were embedded within team Oasis throughout the whole thing, alongside the Peaky Blinders creator, Steven Knight: the result is Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, a two-hour concert film that hits cinemas around the world this week. Whether you were on the front row at Manchester’s Heaton Park, doing the Poznan in Seoul or stuck at home watching it all online, Don’t Look Back in Anger captures the Oasis Live ’25 Tour for posterity. Here’s what we learned.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:09 pm

Colin from Accounts final season review – farewell to a blinding ray of TV sunshine

After season two’s mortifying ending, the charming hit comedy is back for the last time … with sex parties, extreme cringe and a final answer to the central will-they-won’t-they

There are cliffhangers, and then there’s whatever happened at the end of Colin from Accounts’ second season. We had, by that point, witnessed protagonists Ashley and Gordon’s unconventional love story evolve from bizarre meet-cute – key stages: boob-flashing, car accident, injured dog – to soulmate-level relationship. But what starts with an exposed nipple can abruptly go tits up. On a heaving dancefloor at Ash’s best friend’s wedding, Gordon – drunk and buoyed up by the DJ dropping Slice of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn (the Oceanian equivalent of Come on Eileen, judging by the euphoric reaction) – decides to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Ash, humiliated by the circumstances, doesn’t respond. Everyone else films it and laughs. Gordon insists the whole thing was a joke and awkwardly boogies on. Then the credits roll.

If you had somehow managed to wipe this eye-watering faux pas from your mind’s eye, fear not: the Aussie rom-sitcom returns for its third and final series by replaying the agonising proposal in full. It gets worse. We discover the pair split soon after and haven’t seen each other for three years. In fact, they’ve both since found other (extremely attractive) partners: the kind but dim David and the hyper-capable and efficient Chelsea. As Ash later observes, they’ve “upgraded” – but you know their respective hearts don’t really belong to their nice new beaux.

Published: September 7, 2026, 2:30 pm

Will hordes of influencers, weed smokers and mid-point talkers bring down the US Open?

This year, the noise at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center has officially become A Problem. But changing it would mean changing society

The first thing you notice while sitting in the upper tiers of Arthur Ashe Stadium is the noise. A persistent exterior hum filters up from ground level, fed by the massive ventilation and cooling units that sit outside the stadium, the clack of the Long Island Rail Road to the north, and the forklifts receiving goods from the refrigerator trucks that keep the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center flush with its essential supplies of Evian, champagne, and premium IPA. Overhead, planes descending toward LaGuardia airport ensure the auditory assault takes place by land and air simultaneously. In the lower rakes of the stadium, the babble of the spectators is incessant; it’s not unusual to overhear full-volume conversations on various non-tennis topics – work, family, romance, last night’s dinner – that continue without interruption for the duration of an entire match.

New York is famously noisy, and the US Open, as the most glamorous annual sporting event in town, has always been loud in sympathy with its environment. Indeed, the brashness of the American grand slam has historically been its major selling point, the signature that distinguishes it from the Australian Open (the “happy slam”), Wimbledon (strawberries and cream, all-white attire, the home of tennis), and the French Open (French). People have been complaining about the volume of the New York crowd for decades. But this year the noise at the US Open feels different. This year noise at the noisy slam has become A Problem.

Published: September 7, 2026, 1:00 am

‘It’s not good to walk through the world feeling like prey’: Thelma & Louise’s writer on turning a movie classic into a musical

It was her very first film and it won her an Oscar. But can Callie Khouri now make it work on stage with songs? She talks about what made her write it – and how little has changed since

‘I have a world-class case of beginner’s luck,” says Callie Khouri, who won an Oscar for her very first screenplay, Thelma & Louise. She also scored a hit with her first TV series, Nashville, which lasted six seasons. And at 68, she is taking on another first by penning a musical theatre version of Thelma & Louise, hoping her luck hasn’t run out. “I hope that this is not the end of that streak,” she laughs. “That I don’t hit a wall here and slide down it like Wile E Coyote.”

Thelma & Louise isn’t an obvious bet for a musical. A story that features an abusive marriage, attempted rape, murder and double suicide doesn’t scream “jazz hands”, and Khouri had turned down offers before. “My agent said, ‘There’s a guy who wants to meet you to talk about doing Thelma as a stage musical,’” says Khouri. “And I just thought, ‘Well, that’s nuts!’” But the iconic 90s film – starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis (and a young Brad Pitt) – is an ultimately triumphant piece of cinema: a feminist road movie driven by the power of female friendship, which still captures imaginations. Khouri was eventually convinced. It’s been a decade in the pipeline, but things took off when uber-producer Sonia Friedman came on board, and now it has premiered at London’s Young Vic, starring Rachel Tucker and Amy Lennox.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘So big and so close’: going on a bear hunt in northern Spain

Conservationists have helped Cantabrian brown bears claw their way back from the edge of extinction in the beautiful mountains of Asturias – and carefully controlled nature tourism allows visitors to see them

Once upon a time, in the woods outside Pola de Somiedo, lived a family of Cantabrian brown bears. The villagers reported sightings of a mother bear who had lost a leg to a hunter’s trap, her two cubs and two adult males, either of which might have been the father. In those days, at the end of the 1980s, they seemed to be the last of their kind in this part of Asturias. Meanwhile, the wider population dropped to about 60 bears across the surrounding Cantabrian mountain range that gave the species its name.

They have since clawed their way back from the edge of extinction here in northern Spain, and nature guide Luis Frechilla believes their numbers may now be upwards of 500 again. “They’re still classed as endangered,” he tells me, until the official count hits 1,000. But relative abundance makes them much easier to see today in Somiedo natural park – one of Spain’s first such protected areas, established in 1988.

Published: September 7, 2026, 11:00 pm

Canada’s retaliatory US tariffs take effect as trade dispute grows

Counter-measures covering several sectors come after Trump announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of American imports have come into effect, escalating a trade fight that has been marked by intensifying tensions between US president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney.

The tariffs took effect at 12.01am on Tuesday, and range from 15% to 50% and apply to products covering $20bn in imports from the US. The measures target sectors including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics – industries that have been most affected by US tariffs.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Legal veterans lead fightback against Trump’s ‘full-out assault on democracy’

Advocacy groups expand legal challenges and condemn president’s ‘self-serving attempts to take over midterms’

A cluster of advocacy groups that boast veteran lawyers, voting experts and ex-judges have expanded legal challenges to Donald Trump’s authoritarian executive orders on voting and other presidential actions they see as a “war” on the rule of law in the US.

Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.

This article was updated on 7 September 2026 to reflect that members of the Democratic Attorneys General Association have filed suit, not the Daga itself.

Published: September 7, 2026, 12:59 pm

US woman charged with killing son ‘very invested’ in Lindsay Clancy trial, prosecutors say

Corie Walsh charged with murder after two-year-old Barrett found dead in basement of Illinois family home last week

An Illinois woman charged with killing her two-year-old son had been closely following the murder trial of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy and was texting friends about the case just hours before her son was found dead, prosecutors said.

Corie Walsh, 40, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after her son, Barrett, was found dead in the basement of the family’s suburban Chicago home last Tuesday, according to court records obtained by NBC Chicago.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:41 pm

German chancellor vows to stay in office despite AfD triumph in state election

Friedrich Merz said his conservative CDU was shaken ‘to its very foundations’ after far-right victory in Saxony-Anhalt

A “shocked” and chastened Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay in office despite the far right’s triumph in a state election that has brought anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin politicians within striking distance of power.

The German chancellor, appearing ashen-faced in front of reporters in Berlin, said on Monday that the landslide victory by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt had shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) “to its very foundations”.

Published: September 7, 2026, 10:48 am

Global move away from oil could lead to conflict and migration, experts say

Researchers urge governments to help worst afflicted countries, such as Nigeria and Algeria, which rely on oil revenues for public services

Conflict, migration and economic upheaval will accompany the global move away from oil, unless governments act urgently to help the worst afflicted countries to cope, research has found.

Nigeria, Iran, Angola and Algeria are among the countries that will be severely affected, as they rely strongly on oil revenues for their government and provision of public services, but have little diversification and too little capital to cushion the blow.

Published: September 7, 2026, 5:00 pm

UK plan to sanction illegal Israeli settlements draws criticism from US, Israel and British MPs – UK politics live

UK to reassert support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution in move drawing widespread criticism

• UK to adopt tougher stance on Israel with illegal settlements trade ban

The UK has committed £100m to boost Ukraine’s air defences over winter with a package of military equipment including Patriot missiles, Jamie Grierson reports.

There are further details in the Ministry of Defence’s news release.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:13 am

‘Army of patriots’: how a black-clad Christian vigilante group swarmed Portsmouth

Daniel Thomas has spent months trying to unify the UK’s disparate far right to form a disciplined anti-migrant force

Just a few days ago, Daniel “Tommo” Thomas let a group of fellow far-right sympathisers in the north-west of England into a secret. “Groups of men all across the United Kingdom are joining up as one, as one group of resistance,” said Thomas, a convicted kidnapper who is a former bodyguard to Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. “Something is about to go down and it is about to send a fucking shock wave. What is the end goal of all of this? It is to start something that will then snowball. Once we pull this off it will then snowball across the country.”

The trigger event prophesied by Thomas in a YouTube video last week came to pass on Saturday morning, when hundreds of masked men dressed in black appeared on the streets of Dover. By occupying key roundabouts at 7am, the group caused a 4-mile-long queue of traffic along the A20, closing it in both directions. Perhaps more significantly, a uniformed gathering that brought to mind the black shirts of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s forcefully grabbed the nation’s attention.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Giuliani says Mamdani should skip 9/11 ceremony during rant against Islam

New York City mayor confirms he will attend memorial service but declines to respond to Giuliani’s remarks

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony.

In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 1:25 pm

Artworks stolen from Renoir Museum on French Riviera in latest heist

Thieves took four artworks but dropped one as they fled, says mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer

Two thieves have broken into a museum dedicated to the French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in southern France, stealing four artworks and dropping one as they fled.

“This morning, two individuals broke into the Renoir Museum and stole four works of art,” said Bryan Masson, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:13 am

‘Nakedly political’: US attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new health department report

HHS releases report linking ‘gender ideology’ to political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health.

It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:00 am

‘The most anti-union president’: how Trump turned his back on US workers

Labor experts stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been with actions since last Labor Day that have hurt unions

Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to champion US workers. Shortly before Labor Day last year, he said: “Every policy of the Trump administration is designed to lift up the American worker and “promote great-paying blue-collar jobs”. But in the year since last Labor Day, Trump has taken many actions that have hurt US workers and unions, with some labor experts saying they’ve been stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been.

In the months after Trump returned to office, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) cut workplace inspections by 20%, compared with Joe Biden’s last year in office. Even though Trump campaigned as a champion of coal miners, his administration has repeatedly delayed implementation of a rule to limit silica dust, which has afflicted and killed many coal miners with black lung. The United Mine Workers union has urgently called for “immediate enforcement” of the stalled silica dust rule.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:00 am

Republican midterm convention will be ‘Trumpist pageantry’ – at the party’s own risk

A historically unpopular president will take centre stage as the party seeks to sway voters with an unprecedented event

It seemed like a good idea at the time. In December 1978, Jimmy Carter, a US president besieged by inflation and energy crises, watched as thousands of Democrats descended on Memphis, Tennessee, for a rare midterm convention.

“It was wild,” recalls Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee. “It became a forum for Ted Kennedy to informally announce his opposition to President Carter. There was a lot of hostility to the president there. The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 3:00 am

How the Nepal-Tibet disaster became the latest victim of China’s ‘Clean Internet’ campaign

The online campaign used to focus on tackling cybercrime and hacking but has since expanded to suppress information that differs from official narratives

Tsering Phuntsok watched news of the Nepal-Tibet flood unfold from thousands of miles away in southern India. The 46-year-old Tibetan in exile has missing family members on both sides of the border; those in Nepal are named in official government lists, but in Tibet he has received no information.

“I have started praying for the lost ones now. I have to accept they will not return [because] … I’m not getting any information.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:14 pm

Europe’s fighter jet plans are in disarray. What happens next?

While the UK and Italy are making progress, France and Germany’s joint venture came to nothing, and the prospect of more countries pulling together seems way off

When the former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi laid out a plan for Europe to catch up economically with the US and China, collaborating on defence was one of the prescriptions. No more should each country in Europe try to make its own version of a boat, tank or jet but instead share costs and technologies between allies.

Europe appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, were forced to cancel the joint future combat air system in June, after fraught efforts to work together since 2018.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Hijacking pirates exploit regional chaos to return to seas off Somalia

US-Israel war on Iran and political instability in Somalia lead to pirates targeting cargo ships off Horn of Africa

The scourge of Somali piracy targeting cargo ships and smaller dhows off the Horn of Africa has returned to levels not seen in a decade, driven by a convergence of factors including disruptions to the shipping industry caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran and a resurgence of political instability in Somalia.

Since late April there have been eight hijackings by Somali pirates, including two within the space of a fortnight in August: one targeting an oil tanker with ties to Iran, the other a Cameroon-flagged vessel, the Lutuf, carrying military equipment for Turkey.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘I suggested maybe a lighter touch’: William Shatner on Star Trek at 60

The actor and others involved with the phenomenon speak about the legacy and progressivism of a much-loved science fiction TV series as it reaches an important milestone

“The mystery of time,” muses William Shatner, and for a moment we are back on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise listening to one of Captain Kirk’s philosophical tag-line speeches. “Not just the passage of time and our perception of it, but what is time? What does 60 years mean? It really is meaningless, isn’t it, 60 years, in terms of what time is? On the other hand, Dolly Parton just died. It brings up the whole concept of the passage of time and what that means.”

In an episode called The City on the Edge of Forever, Shatner’s Kirk travelled back in time and fell in love with a pacifist (Joan Collins) only to discover that she must die to prevent Nazi Germany winning the second world war. Such ethical quandaries help explain why Star Trek will celebrate its 60th anniversary on 8 September not just as a force in US culture but a mirror held up to the country’s politics.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:00 am

Knightfall review – low-rent gender-flipped Bond knock-off swaps Aston Martins for Minis

Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott’s no-nonsense spy heads a game cast that includes Ian Ogilvy and Roger Moore’s son Geoffrey, but this austerity actioner lacks tension

Proceeding from an old-school title pun – yes, the heroine goes by the name Ros Knight – the latest from resourceful microbudget producer Jonathan Sothcott surely has one optimistic eye on filling the void left by the withdrawal of 007 from public life. Here is the gender-flipped Bond some have been seeking: the adventures of a no-nonsense, tough-talking security operative (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) who is tasked with recovering a lethal bioweapon pilfered from a scaled-down Porton Down during the prologue. Everything, in truth, proves a bit reined-in. This austerity actioner spends less on its set pieces than the Broccolis typically did on keeping one Aston Martin refuelled; the Sothcotts’ car of choice, emblematically, is the dinkiest of Minis.

In essence, it’s Bond without the attendant glamour, hanging around drizzly marinas and parky-looking country lanes, in dim light that hopefully obscures some of the more obvious budget limitations. What money there is here has wisely been spent on human resources, faces who might still look good on the promotional material: a cameoing Michael Paré as a shady Felix Leiter type, Roger Moore’s son Geoffrey as our gal’s understandably worried-looking lover, Nick Moran giving cut-price Colin Firth as a meddling bureaucrat. The pick of the players is a spry, characterful Ian Ogilvy as Ros’s estranged father, helpfully identifying where the real power lies on a chessboard and generally steadying scenes whenever matters get a bit too threadbare.

Published: September 8, 2026, 1:00 am

The Castle by Jon Ronson review – bizarre tales of modern masculinity

A journalist embarks on a wild goose chase that might – or might not – be informative about the male condition

Recovering from surgery at home in upstate New York in 2023, Jon Ronson awoke to a string of texts from his adult son about a weird evening he just had at a stranger’s castle in Connecticut. Having gone along with a friend who’d been invited to a party there, he arrived to find a few lost-looking young women with the sixtysomething host, Chris Mark, a steel heir filming a reality show about “101 princesses” whose first rule was “Never say no to King Chris”.

As a parent, Ronson is worried; as a reporter of more than 30 years on the cranks-and-crooks beat, he’s already on the clock. After trawling online whispers of sinister goings-on at the castle, he decides to pay a visit to Mark, who proudly shows off the stalactites and waterfall in his “cave-themed” bedroom before explaining how he picks up women on dating apps to “adapt” them to life as “princesses”. “The only girls that really work are drug addicts ... they don’t know what’s going on,” he says. Almost touchingly, Mark asks Ronson to sign an NDA, and the book describes Mark flooding his phone with threats when he declines.

Published: September 8, 2026, 1:00 am

The pest I’ll never forget: the cockroaches were everywhere – even on our wine glasses

In a cheap London flat with no heating, dozens of the insects swarmed, leading to a Valentine’s Day that still makes me break out in a cold sweat

I don’t know if cockroaches really could, as we’re often told, survive a nuclear apocalypse, but I can tell you this with certainty: they can definitely survive pest control. “Hopefully that should be a bit better now,” said the friendly exterminator after his first visit to our flat. By the third visit he was speaking more honestly. “The only way to get rid of your cockroaches,” he said, “would be to burn this whole block of flats to the ground.”

It was January 2003 when I moved with my girlfriend Helen into our first London flat. It’s fair to say there were red flags we probably should have spotted. It was suspiciously affordable – £140 a week for a place less than a minute’s walk from Finsbury Park tube station? Sure, the place looked pretty skanky, but it was still spacious for a studio flat. We put the price down to the fact there was absolutely no way of heating the property and signed up.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Scarves, hijabs and a grand boubou: unmasking identity – in pictures

Souleymane Bachir Diaw’s photographs of textiles and bodies carry messages around patriarchy, domestic violence and the rituals of manhood

Published: September 7, 2026, 11:00 pm

Friedrich Merz is now on borrowed time. But that’s not why the AfD’s triumph is seismic | Jörg Lau

The anti-fascist consensus about our Nazi past is fundamental to German democracy. But that, shockingly, is being shattered

As shock at the scale of the far right’s resounding state-election victory in Germany reverberated on Sunday, not everybody was unhappy.

Seconds after the first exit polls from Saxony-Anhalt were revealed, Donald Trump posted the results on his Truth Social platform, seemingly delighted by the devastation of the centrist-conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the surge of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Jörg Lau is an international correspondent for the German weekly Die Zeit

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Lindsay Clancy was failed by our warped understanding of motherhood | Moira Donegan

Clancy’s case became a referendum on mothers, healthcare, and the status of women

Most family annihilators are men. It’s a grim fact that such incidents are common enough to have a discernible pattern. The massacre is carried out by a husband and father, often one who is on the verge of bankruptcy or divorce; typically, it forms the finale of a long reign of domestic violence terror.

About half the time, the perpetrator kills himself after slaughtering his family. Gun use is common – a large number of what are termed “mass shootings” in the United States are in fact family annihilation killings, in which a man turns his weapon on his family members. Other times, the killer uses knives, or fires.

Published: September 7, 2026, 3:00 am

Youth clubs, trade unions, pubs: here's how Burnham can fix Britain's social recession | Gordon Brown

From volunteering to the WI, we have lost so many ways to meet our neighbours. Making that easier can only be good for society

Prime minister Andy Burnham has hit the ground running, tackling head-on three of the public’s burning concerns: falling standards of living, failing public services and a remote, out-of-touch, over-centralised Whitehall. Now, this autumn, a fourth challenge, reversing the decades-long decline of civic engagement, is about to move centre stage to achieve his ambition to put citizens back in control of their communities.

For while there are tens of thousands of local champions bringing towns, cities and villages together, Britain is suffering a civic recession, a hollowing out of the associations, clubs and organisations that once were the beating hearts of our communities.

Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

Published: September 8, 2026, 12:00 am

We’re the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix. The heat crisis has us all facing the same question | Emmanuel Grégoire, Giuseppe Sala and Kate Gallego

Our three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures

This summer, mayors met in London during the heatwave that ironically threatened to derail London Climate Action Week.

As temperatures broke records across the UK and Europe, leading some climate talks to be suspended or cancelled, we found ourselves seeking shelter and comparing how our cities prepare for extreme heat: how we protect vulnerable residents, communicate risk, and redesign neighbourhoods for hotter summers.

Published: September 7, 2026, 1:00 am

The AfD’s win in Germany is a dark day for Europe. Time is running out to stop the far right | Cas Mudde

This party is among the most extreme in Europe. To protect our democracies, liberal parties must urgently change their tactics

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) narrowly failed to secure an outright majority in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. But nobody should take comfort from that. The party still won by a landslide. Decades of far-right election gains have made them seem normal to the point where only the biggest victories are deemed newsworthy. But 44% of the vote for a party that is officially classified as “extreme right” is not normal. It is a black day for European democracy, even if it occurs in a small east German state.

While Saxony-Anhalt (and Germany itself) may have dodged the worst outcome because the AfD won’t automatically fulfil its ambition of forming the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era, there is no reason to assume it will be so lucky at the next election. Neither will other German states, such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in two weeks’ time, or other countries, such as France next year. No country is immune from the far right and, perhaps even more worryingly, no far-right party or politician is too extreme for political success (as the US has shown). We must therefore update our analyses and strategies.

Cas Mudde is the author of The Far Right Today, and is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia

Published: September 7, 2026, 6:56 am

We have fact sheets for many health conditions. Why isn’t there one for ‘What to do on the day your loved one dies’? | Ranjana Srivastava

The best doctors understand something that is easy to lose in the machinery of a hospital: death does not turn a person into an administrative task

“If you don’t mind, can we start with the patient who has died?”

“But he has died,” I say to the resident, eyeing our long list of the living.

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:00 am

The Guardian view on the far right’s real weapon: it is the politics of powerlessness | Editorial

From Dover to Saxony-Anhalt, extremists thrive when voters believe established parties can no longer deliver security, prosperity or meaningful change

What links the thuggish masked agitation in southern England this weekend and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) best-ever result in a German state – where it more than doubled the 21% vote it received five years ago? Several hundred men in balaclavas blocking an A road are not the same as a party winning a landslide election. But both events draw on the idea that the political system has lost control. The extremists in Dover and Portsmouth dramatise this claim; the electoral result in Germany threatens to institutionalise it.

The prospect of Germany’s first far-right-led state government since the second world war carries real consequences. In Saxony-Anhalt it could see power handed to a party hostile to migrants, Islam, LGBTQ+ rights and climate policy. Alarmingly, it has senior figures linked to former neo-Nazi groups. About 170,000 foreign nationals live among 2 million people in Saxony-Anhalt – and roughly a fifth of the state’s doctors were born abroad. The grim paradox is that an AfD government could oversee the very state intelligence service that has classified the party as “rightwing extremist”.

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: September 7, 2026, 10:48 am

Coco Gauff dismantles Iva Jovic to reach quarter-finals in confident US Open run

• Gauff defeats Jovic 6-1, 6-4 in 80 minutes

• American has yet to drop a set in New York

• Andreeva awaits in anticipated quarter-final

Coco Gauff continued her serene march through the US Open women’s draw with her most complete performance yet on Monday night, seeing off fellow American Iva Jovic 6-1, 6-4 to reach the last eight in New York for the first time since winning it all in her grand slam breakthrough three years ago.

The fourth-seeded Gauff overwhelmed Jovic with the depth of her returns and an assured blend of aggression and defense, finishing with twice as many winners (18 to nine) and half as many unforced errors (15 to 30). The 1hr 20min clinic was the latest statement in a late-summer win streak that has transformed her from a player searching for answers this time last year into perhaps the most dangerous woman in the field right now.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham have been stalked. They’re far from alone in the WNBA

Players generally welcome interacting with their fans. But as the league’s popularity surges, there are dangers to be aware of

Caitlin Clark spent most of the 2025 WNBA season sidelined with a series of injuries that forced her to miss more than 30 games. But she also spent part of the season (and the preceding offseason) quietly navigating a tumultuous and scary reality: a 55-year-old man was stalking her, and he was convinced they were in a relationship.

That man, Michael Lewis, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison last July. Lewis sent Clark “hundreds” of messages – many of which were “threats and sexually explicit” – between 12 December 2024 and 11 January 2025. Lewis, who is from Texas, was arrested at a hotel in Indianapolis, where Clark plays for the Indiana Fever. The case took a toll on Clark: she said she feared for her safety and had changed her appearance in public.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:00 am

Man City-bound 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan is MLS’s chaotic revelation

The Philadelphia Union midfielder has gotten his longest run of game time since turning pro, and the data is tantalizing

There’s a video from a United States U-15 camp three years ago that will make your head spin. It’s a routine training session for the boys on the pitch except one, a head shorter and a year or two younger than the others, who’s practicing with the national team for the first time.

Is the boy nervous? He is not. A pass floats into the box and he checks his run, tries to get under it, but the ball is too high for his 13-year-old head to reach. He doesn’t even jump. As the cross sails over him, he flings himself forward like Superman and flicks a heel up behind his back, catching the ball with a scorpion kick that bounces straight into the path of a teammate for a cartoon assist.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:00 am

Fake wide receivers to undercover stings: did the 49ers have the wildest NFL preseason of all time?

A large part of San Francisco’s summer was a literal car crash. On the positive side, they have so far avoided their usual list of crushing injuries

The Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers have trekked to Australia for this week’s NFL season opener in Melbourne. The flight time from California to Victoria is nearly the same for both teams – roughly 16 hours – but their journeys to the start of the season couldn’t be more different.

It’s been smooth sailing for the Rams, with their collection of playmakers growing by the day. It’s a very different story for the 49ers: facing Aaron Donald and Myles Garrett, not to mention the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks, at least twice this season is the least of their problems. Their offseason has been more than lightly turbulent: it’s been batshit crazy.

Published: September 8, 2026, 1:00 am

Belichick denies he has lost control of UNC football program amid off-field turmoil

• Former general manager has resigned post

• Belichick’s son Steve is on medical leave

• School has launched investigation into program

North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick said on Monday he believes his program “totally” has an atmosphere of following rules amid an investigation into its conduct.

“Obviously everybody’s responsible, including me, for doing things properly,” Belichick said. “And we intend to do that.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 1:41 pm

Champions League is fertile ground for new managers – but knowhow could be key later on

Luis Enrique, Vincent Kompany and Mikel Arteta are among the favourites to lead their sides to victory, but more recent appointments should not be counted out

A delve into the history of the Champions League shows that managers can and do win in their first season at a club, but also that experience matters. Which makes it interesting, given that tenures for the 2026‑27 crop range from newly appointed coaches to one with almost 15 years in charge. Some have managed more than 100 matches in the competition, others none.

It gets under way on Tuesday with 14 of the 36 clubs led by managers who have been in the role for less than a year. It cannot match the turnover of the Premier League, in which 11 of 20 managers were appointed in 2026, but the tenures of the head coaches involved this season break down neatly.

Published: September 8, 2026, 12:00 am

Newcastle admit they started planning for Eddie Howe’s exit at start of year

• Manager made surprise decision to step down in July

• Sporting director disappointed to lose Bruno Guimarães

Newcastle’s sporting director, Ross Wilson, has revealed he began planning at the start of this year for Eddie Howe’s departure. Howe stepped down as manager in late July and the club turned to Matthias Jaissle, who had been identified as the preferred successor.

“Eddie leaving didn’t feel chaotic and it didn’t feel painful,” said Wilson, who arrived on Tyneside from Nottingham Forest. “Eddie would be the first to tell you that. I came here 10 or 11 months ago and I’ve been planning in the background for a managerial change over eight or nine of those months. That doesn’t mean we were always going to go to Matthias, but he was always part of our planning.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 11:00 pm

For baseball’s Black and Latino players, it’s always 1926 somewhere

From home-run celebrations to tilted caps, players embracing joy continue to collide with an old guard devoted to Dust Bowl grimness

Over the last several years, simultaneously lauded and paralyzed by its ironclad traditions, baseball has undergone various forays into reinvention, trying to free itself from its unwritten rules of retaliation, its seeming aversion to joy, its demand that every generation of player of every culture and background play the game with the grimness of a Dust Bowl farmer.

The sport even attempted to change those customs by promoting a cultural shift with an industry-wide motto: Let the Kids Play. But in a time of intense division within the aggressive backdrop of Trumpism, the result is a racial clash that is actually a generational and cultural one that predates current politics by a century.

Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field, and Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America. He writes at Substack.

Published: September 7, 2026, 2:00 am

Bernie Ecclestone questioned after shotgun found on his private jet in Portugal

• Former F1 chief says firearm was for clay-pigeon shooting

• Police quiz 95-year-old over lack of documents for gun

Bernie Ecclestone was detained in Portugal on Monday after customs authorities found him in possession of an undocumented shotgun. The Guardian has independently confirmed the incident with multiple authorities involved in the matter.

The detention of the 95‑year‑old took place at Tires Aerodrome in Cascais, shortly after the former Formula One chief’s private jet landed. After a routine inspection of the aircraft and its passengers, authorities reportedly discovered a shotgun in Ecclestone’s possession. He was stopped for questioning by Portuguese officials and said the gun was for use in clay pigeon shooting.

Published: September 7, 2026, 10:45 am

Australia to force social media platforms to allow users to opt out of algorithms

Draft legislation enforces digital duty of care including limiting children’s exposure to misogynistic and eating disorder content

Australia will allow social media account holders to opt out of the powerful algorithms pushing dangerous and divisive content into users’ feeds, part of new laws designed to boost online safety.

Users over 16 years of age will be given new tools to turn off algorithm-driven content, with platforms facing fines of more than A$100m for non-compliance.

Published: September 8, 2026, 1:38 am

Tokyo tourist hotspot bans short-term rentals amid surge in complaints

Shinjuku ward targets accommodation in residential areas and near cultural sites as locals complain visitors disposing of rubbish improperly and being too noisy

A neighbourhood in Tokyo popular with foreign tourists will ban visitors from using thousands of short-term rental accommodations after a slew of complaints about behaviour.

In the latest sign that Japan’s patience with mass tourism is wearing thin, Shinjuku ward – home to the notorious Kabukicho nightlife district and the world’s busiest railway station – will prevent visitors from using private lodgings in residential areas and near schools and important cultural sites, Japanese media reported this week.

Published: September 8, 2026, 12:43 am

Ukraine’s prosecutor general resigns after corruption allegations as Russia resumes strikes on Kyiv – Europe live

Ruslan Kravchenko leaves post after his offices were searched at the weekend, as Zelenskyy says he hopes to meet Trump this month

Hungary has expelled 10 Russian diplomats who “engaged in activities … that are unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention,” the country’s foreign minister Anita Orbán said.

“The decision protects the security and sovereignty of Hungary,” she said in a statement on Facebook.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:09 am

Argentina says it will file criminal charges against energy company in Falklands row

Javier ⁠Milei has vowed to sanction oil companies drilling in the British overseas territory amid speculation Donald Trump is reviewing UK’s sovereignty ​claims

Argentina’s government said on ⁠Monday it will file criminal charges against the Israeli energy company Navitas Petroleum and ⁠its executives ⁠for operating ​in the Falkland Islands.

The move follows remarks on Friday by the Argentina president, Javier ⁠Milei, who vowed to sanction oil companies drilling in the British overseas territory as ⁠he stepped up the South American nation’s sovereignty ​claims.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:29 pm

‘I heard a lot of noise’: trial begins in Mexico for alleged killers of Australian surfers and American friend

Bereaved mother Debra Robinson in court stares at three men accused of murdering Jake and Callum Robinson and Jack Carter Rhoad in 2024

The suspected murderers of two Australian surfers and an American at a Mexican surfing hotspot have gone on trial, two years after the killings in a suspected robbery.

Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33 respectively, and their 30-year-old American friend Jack Carter Rhoad were on a surfing trip to Mexico’s Pacific coast when they were shot dead in Baja California state.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

French winemakers forecast 30-year low harvest after severe drought and heat

Estimates suggest drop in production with vineyards also concerned ‘smoke taint’ from wildfires may affect quality

French vineyards hit by severe drought and heatwaves are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production after the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, according to the agriculture ministry.

Initial estimates suggest winemakers will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of 6% on last year, and 17% less than ‌the 2021-2025 average.

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:10 am

US labor unions saw membership gains in 2025, mostly in states with bargaining protections

Uptick in US union membership coincides with high public approval ratings of unions

After years of decline, union membership in the US increased by 411,000 members in 2025, the largest increase since 2008, according to a new report.

The report makes clear the impact that “right to work” laws can have on union membership: most gains were concentrated in states that protect collective bargaining.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:00 am

Heatwaves and wildfires are setting back air quality improvements, UN finds

WMO report details extreme weather events causing climatic feedback loop with serious health consequences

Big increases in wildfires and heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis are hindering improvements to air quality around the world, UN experts have said.

Regions that had recorded a fall in pollution emitted by cars and industrial sites are facing new threats to air quality because of exposure to smoke from wildfires, according to a new report, while rising temperatures caused by intense heatwaves are causing a surge in ground-level ozone.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:35 am

Cities in Great Britain most vulnerable to extreme heat revealed

OS index examines which ‘urban heat islands’ suffer the most – and which cope the best with rising temperatures

Portsmouth, Leicester, Exeter, Bristol and Nottingham will be among the cities that warm the most by the end of this century as global heating turns British cities into urban heat islands, according to research.

Analysis from Ordnance Survey (OS) has created a heat vulnerability index for all cities in Great Britain. Portsmouth, which sits on the south coast of England and is home to 208,000 people, is the most vulnerable to extreme heat today and into the future, according to the research from the OS, the Met Office and the data analysis company 4 Earth Intelligence.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:01 pm

Glowworms shine again in North Yorkshire after larvae reared in garden shed

Volunteer ‘glow-getters’ overseeing reintroduction of endangered beetles at Nosterfield nature reserve

The bioluminescent beams of “fairy folk” are shining again from a nature reserve in North Yorkshire for the first time in a century after the successful reintroduction of endangered glowworms.

Female glowworms were spotted over multiple weeks at Nosterfield nature reserve this summer following a no-frills, almost zero-budget reintroduction of the much-loved invertebrates, which have vanished from the British countryside in recent decades and are notoriously difficult to re-establish.

Published: September 7, 2026, 3:49 am

Weather tracker: Typhoon Saudel causes mass evacuations in south-east China

Torrential rain causes widespread damage; while north-west South Africa hit by thunderstorms and central-southern US faces oppressive heat

Typhoon Saudel brought days of torrential rain to Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces in south-east China last week. The city of Putian, in Fujian province, recorded 416.5mm of rain in a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday, with surrounding villages recording more than 500mm in the same period. In Fujian, authorities estimate that almost 600,000 people were evacuated from high-risk, flood-prone areas. A further 128,000 people in 53 counties were also affected across Jiangxi, with emergency evacuations affecting 9,000 people.

Flooding, landslips and infrastructure damage were reported widely in the region. More than 2,500 teachers and students were trapped in a school compound in the Zhejiang city of Wenzhou on Wednesday after extreme rainfall caused flash floods in low-lying areas. At least 1,260 people reportedly had to be rescued in Putian after a river embankment collapsed on Thursday, flattening 100 homes. On Saturday, a landslip in a village of Suichuan county, in Jiangxi province, killed three people and nine others remaining missing.

Published: September 7, 2026, 1:27 am

Trump administration attacks UK plans to boost traditional media on social platforms

US embassy says Downing Street’s plan to give BBC, ITV and other established media more online visibility carries risk of ‘censorship’

The Trump administration has raised “serious concerns” over Downing Street’s plan to force YouTube and other digital platforms to hand more prominence to established broadcasters, warning the move risks “facilitating censorship”.

In a pointed intervention, the US government said the proposals to boost traditional media outlets in social media algorithms could “establish a template that authoritarian regimes could invoke to justify more control over online content”.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:20 am

Federal investigators search for cause of Amazon cargo jet crash that killed five

Focus likely on whether plane touched down too late in its glide path on to tarmac to enable it to stop safely

Federal investigators have started collecting evidence, including a flight data recorder, following the Sunday crash of an Amazon cargo jet at Miami international airport that killed five people and injured five others.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), announced a preliminary investigation into the Amazon Air flight 7598 accident involving a Boeing 767-33 Alpha operated by 21 Air, an all-cargo airline.

Published: September 7, 2026, 2:49 pm

Former Louisiana mayor completes 90-day jail term for raping 16-year-old boy

Judge admits he made mistake in sentencing Misty Roberts, who faced up to 17 years in prison after conviction

The former Louisiana mayor Misty Roberts has completed the 90-day jail sentence she received for raping a 16-year-old boy while still in elected office and been released from custody, according to state corrections records.

The 44-year-old finished her jail term on Monday, the Labor Day holiday in the US, one week after the state judge who presided over her case rejected a request from prosecutors to force her to serve a harsher sentence.

Published: September 7, 2026, 3:38 am

Ratko Mladić, the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’, given hero’s funeral in Serbia

Fanfare at Belgrade funeral of man convicted of genocide raises questions from EU over Serbia’s membership plan

Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war, has been given a hero’s funeral attended by thousands in Belgrade despite international alarm.

Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for ​his role during the Balkans genocide in the 1990s, Mladić died in prison in late August aged 84 while serving a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Published: September 7, 2026, 4:20 am

Syrian reactor could have been used for nuclear weapons if completed, UN says

Chief of nuclear watchdog says secret Assad-era facility would have been able to produce fissile material

A nearly complete nuclear reactor built secretly during the rule of the toppled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would have been able to produce fissile material for possible use in nuclear weapons, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog has revealed.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month visited two sites, one in Deir ez-Zor and a second in an undisclosed location identified to them by Syrian authorities.

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:37 am

Jaguar Land Rover confirms plan to cut 4,000 jobs over two years

Decision by carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and fallout from cyber-attack, labelled a ‘body blow for workers’

• Nils Pratley: Jonathan Reynolds is right, Jaguar Land Rover doesn’t warrant use of public money

Jaguar Land Rover has announced thousands of job cuts in a “body blow for workers” as it grapples with tough trading conditions, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.

Britain’s largest carmaker, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, confirmed the anticipated cuts on Monday, saying it wants to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 over two years, as part of an effort to save £1.7bn.

Published: September 7, 2026, 6:43 am

‘Will I screw this up?’ How I played timpani for the Philharmonia Orchestra – with no experience

He hasn’t seen the score and can’t actually play his instrument. But with the help of a virtual headset, our writer joins the revered orchestra for the rollicking finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture

I’m about to perform with the Philharmonia Orchestra and I’ve not rehearsed my part. In fact, I’ve not even seen the score. Or played my instrument before. Nervously taking my place among the virtuosos, I look around: the brass, string and woodwind sections are all warmed up and ready to be led by the energetic conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Then I glance up at the audience: the Royal Festival Hall is packed to the rafters. Gulp!

“Are you OK there?” asks Marta Génova, the Philharmonia’s head of digital product and experience, “or do I need to tighten your headset?” This, you see, is Virtual Orchestra, a VR experience designed by the Philharmonia that lets you play percussion during the rollicking finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. You’re offered the choice of triangle, cymbal and timpani (the last is “definitely the most fun”, Génova assures me) and after a quick run-through of the sounds you can get from your instrument, courtesy of Philharmonia percussionist Tom Edwards, you’re thrown into a rehearsal and then the actual performance. I’ve barely had time to say “How do I hold these sticks again?” before the strings start swelling, Rouvali waves his baton and a musical score starts hurtling across the bottom of my vision. Oh God, I think, am I about to screw this up?

Published: September 7, 2026, 12:00 am

Better Go Mad in the Wild review – boozing, bantering hermits impart their spiritual wisdom

Director Miro Remo journeys deep into the Czech countryside to find two brothers living an isolated life filled with quixotic wisdom in this surreal documentary

Narrated by a slaughtered bull, this extraordinary film takes the less-travelled path in charting the daily life of a pair of Czech twins a long way off conventional routes themselves. František and Ondřej Klišík are slowly going mad – or maybe closing in on enlightenment – in a cabin in the Šumava mountains and, extrapolating a short story about the brothers by Aleš Palán, director Miro Remo succumbs productively to the prevailing cabin fever – not only egging these longbeards on in their squabbling and loopy philosophising, but pitching in with his own fabulism and surrealism.

Closing on 60, “Franta” and “Ondra” still farm their smallholding with the help of Nandy, a mutinous bull ill-chosen as a draught animal. In their downtime, they booze, banter and bicker, lament their lack of prospects with the fairer sex, and blow off steam in epic arm-wrestling bouts. Despite an arm lost to a sawmill accident, it’s Franta who’s usually the victor; he is also possessed by a quixotic streak absent in his bluff sibling. Letting loose streams of poetry into the air like bunting, wishing “joy to all conscious beings”, he is also constructing his own Da Vinci-style perpetual flying machine. “Your aversion to my perpetuum is a little annoying,” he informs the exasperated Ondra.

Published: September 7, 2026, 11:00 pm

The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias review – Slavoj Žižek goes in search of paradise

Venice film festival: Inserting himself into settings from Apocalypse Now to The Handmaid’s Tale, the pop-cultural critic finds it hard to locate the perfect ending – even with spoilers

The great pop-cultural critic and postmodern Marxist is back, with more entertaining and semi-serious provocations and deconstructive insights, notionally into the idea of “utopias”, as they appear in the movies and TV, having already done “cinema” and “ideology”.

I was incidentally hoping for a Slavoj Žižek aria about how unexpectedly great and profoundly important threequels are. This is of course delivered emphatically in that amazing voice, now as universally recognised as Werner Herzog’s. Is it too late for a cameo on The Simpsons?

Published: September 7, 2026, 9:31 am

‘Swiftly enchanted’: why Bedknobs and Broomsticks is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers recommending their most rewatched comfort films is a reminder that Disney’s kids fantasy is more than a Mary Poppins knock-off

“Filigree, apogee, pedigree, perigee!” – the four incantatory words I blame for receiving a shonky Paul Daniels magic set as a child in the 80s. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, it’s the spell that Angela Lansbury’s patriotic Nazi-vanquishing witch Eglantine Price casts to transform people into fluffy rabbits; a trick I yearned to pull off.

When it became clear I wouldn’t deter the Third Reich with three plastic thimbles, a deck of playing cards and a flaccid wand, my conjuring kit was mothballed – but my irrational love of the Disney film remains to this day. For me, it originally fell into the category of the crackling VHS that your parents taped off ITV at Christmas then would repeatedly plonk you in front of to shut you up – to the point I can even recall the adverts.

Published: September 7, 2026, 2:00 am

The Spiral review – Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is hilarious as a demon cutting a deal with a vain matriarch

Venice film festival: Tedeschi gives a career best performance as the mysterious stranger who visits a wealthy Italian family to prey on their pampered weaknesses

Everyone in the movie business has earnestly learned to call film-makers “storytellers”, despite the fact that film-makers don’t necessarily have to deliver conventional narrative and that so many of them are in any case no good at the old-fashioned business of storytelling.

But this last point certainly doesn’t apply to Italian director Paolo Strippoli who has brought to Venice an uproarious edge-of-the-seat gripper in which Valeria Bruni Tedeschi gives us the funniest performance of the festival and the best of her career.

It’s a satirical nightmare about a wealthy woman’s Faustian bargain, like one of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected – as elegantly designed and beautifully shot as anything by Paolo Sorrentino and with smart, subversive things to say about body image and body fascism and about a cosseted, self-involved Italian matriarch who eternally congratulates herself on sacrificing herself – or wanting to sacrifice herself – for her children.

At the centre of this bizarre drama is Anna (superbly played by Jasmine Trinca) who is complacently marred to wealthy alpha-male Bari businessman Walter (Adriano Giannini): they have two children: Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergone) and Tobia (Andrea Genovese). Each family member gets a chapter.

At a spectacular party at their gorgeous home, whose clear purpose is to make friends and neighbours jealous, a terrible accident happens, just after the children discover an ominous spiral of ants in the grass.

While praying desperately for a miracle, Anna is visited by “L’estranea” of the film’s Italian title, the mysterious stranger hilariously played by Tedeschi, who appears to know all about this rich, picture-perfect family and offers to solve their problems. But she wants something in return, a sadistic deal that cuts to the heart of both parents’ selfishness.

Anna had always wanted to act in her youth but her father forbade it – now she has been obsessively pushing Alice into acting and is morbidly upset at any physical problem that Alice has which damages this proxy ambition. As for macho Walter, he is thrilled at Tobia’s skills at football, and sponsors his son’s youth team; he is disgusted (rather than compassionate) at a weight issue that Tobia has which gets him dropped from the side.

And all the time Anna sombrely considers the sacrifices she has secretly brokered for other people to make with this smirking, skittish Mephistopheles in order to keep her family safe. But has she done wrong? Is she guilty of some obvious sin which is being punished? No. It is just a deadpan tale of supernatural cruelty meted out to someone whose only crime is smugness, vanity and being rude to her domestic staff. It all climaxes in an apocalyptic finale: an enjoyable and macabre family affair.

Published: September 7, 2026, 10:30 am

‘The more famous I got, the bigger my beehive got’: how Mari Wilson made Just What I Always Wanted

‘I was trying to bring back some glamour. The backcombed hair was like architecture really. It took more than 45 minutes to style’

Just What I Always Wanted had already been in our live set, but with different verses. When we’d gone on David Essex’s Showcase earlier in 1982, in the middle eight I sang “A wink from Wilbur, a kiss from Kurt, don’t tell Hank, he might get hurt” – all names of my backing band the Wilsations. But when it came to recording, I said to Tot Taylor, who wrote most of my early singles, including Love Man and Baby It’s True, “We can’t sing that because no one will know who they are. What about, ‘A mink from Paris, a ring from Rome, a whole new wardrobe in my home?’” Tot, such a brilliant writer, took it from there.

Published: September 7, 2026, 6:45 am

The Newer World by Sebastian Barry review – a near-miracle of storytelling

The third in a loose American trilogy follows the epic journey of a formerly enslaved man in the aftermath of the civil war

But is not the story as good as the truth?” asks Tennyson Bouguereau, the narrator of Sebastian Barry’s The Newer World. Tennyson, a formerly enslaved man in post-civil war America, recounts his life story in ways that call to mind the age-old debate about whether it’s better to get our history from novelists or historians. While historians might argue that there is no contest, the question hints knowingly at the novelist’s counter-argument. It sent me searching for a line from Barry’s 2008 Costa-award winning novel, The Secret Scripture, in which the narrator describes history as “a fabulous arrangement of surmises and guesses held up as a banner against the assault of withering truth”.

In her Reith Lectures, Hilary Mantel suggested that history is “what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it”, but I tend to think of it as more of a butterfly net. Historians chase after and capture the things they deem significant. They leave things out, often deliberately. Barry’s entire body of work is a prime example of fiction’s ability to fill history’s gaps, merging personal tragedies with national ones in ways that (dare I say) demonstrate the supremacy of the form – especially for those of us descended from people for whom history never cared one whit. I was therefore intrigued to learn that he had set out to write the story of a man like Tennyson. Barry’s earlier novels refracted Irish history through the lens of two fictional Irish families, the Dunnes and the McNultys. His first foray into this period of American history in Days Without End, for which he won his second Costa award, also followed one of the McNultys – Thomas McNulty flees the Irish famine for America, where he finds himself drawn into the genocidal work of clearing Native Americans off their land, and then, together with his lover and fellow soldier, John Cole, adopts a Lakota girl, Winona, whose family they have helped slaughter. Barry picked up Winona’s story in A Thousand Moons, published in 2020, which follows her fortunes as she, Thomas and John settle on the same farm outside Paris, Tennessee that is occupied by Tennyson and his twin sister Rosalee among others.

Published: September 7, 2026, 11:00 pm

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson review – quirky postwar nostalgia from the Life After Life author

There are glimpses of Atkinson’s subtle brilliance in this gentle noirish mystery set around the Festival of Britain

In 1951, in a desperate attempt to raise the spirits of a shattered nation, the government came up with the Festival of Britain, a celebration of national creativity, grit and ingenuity. It is a moment in history that could have been designed for Kate Atkinson, who loves nothing more than a quirky detail and a cast of British eccentrics.

Harry Flynn (definitely think Errol), the quietly magnetic hero of Our Noble Selves, has survived Burma as a foreign correspondent turned war reporter. After a doomed marriage to a war widow called Ivy, and a stint in a mock-Tudor semi in Wealdstone with her, her eight-year-old daughter Veronica and a terrier, Mrs Betty, he resumes his bachelor life in London. A chance encounter with his old newspaper boss, Gerald Barry, leads him to a job compiling the festival’s poetry anthology. Barry provides a handy introduction: “The country’s stuck in the doldrums; we need to see the future,” he explains. The festival will celebrate “the Land and the People … Our love of country, love of freedom, love of nature, pride in craftsmanship, our reputation for tolerance and fair play.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:11 am

Gloria Steinem’s revolutionary life – podcast

From going undercover as a Playboy bunny to founding Ms Magazine, Steinem brought feminism into the US mainstream. Carter Sherman explains her legacy

By the time she died last week at the age of 92, Gloria Steinem had become almost synonymous with the modern feminist movement in the US.

The arc of Steinem’s life – and activism – was a long one. From going undercover as a Playboy bunny to becoming a radical publisher bringing feminism into the mainstream. She was a fearless reproductive rights campaigner. In Ms Magazine she wrote about having an abortion – and encouraged other famous women, and readers, to do the same to break the stigma around it.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

‘She’ll outdo herself’: Céline Dion fans camp out for glimpse of star before sold-out Paris comeback

Singer has rewarded patience of hundreds waiting outside hotel with regular appearances and even some dancing

Noëlla Lamy, 52, who described herself as one of Céline Dion’s biggest fans, was preparing to spend all night on a Paris pavement without a tent but wearing a sweatshirt printed with the singer’s face for comfort.

“Céline Dion is a force of bravery and an inspiration,” she said.

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:36 am

Can breath be art? Liz Larner on sculpting with hair, lashes, leather – and international group exhalation

The Californian once cultivated petri dishes breathed on by artists that turned ‘murky and scary’. But now, in our dystopian age of space technocrats, she’s taking inspiration from Nasa shots of asteroids

‘I had artists from all over the world breathe over petri dishes,” says Liz Larner. “It was a piece of international art made from breath bacteria.” The American sculptor is reminiscing about her 1988 work Every Artist Gave a Breath, a fragile and strangely evolving work of art grown on agar. Exhibited in a 2022 show, it has since transformed in various ways: some bacteria has morphed into “beautiful, dried wafers in colour”, while other dishes “turned into a really weird blackish-green, really murky and a little scary”.

Larner is no stranger to making alluring work out of strange materials, from human hair and false eyelashes to leather and surgical gauze. For her first major exhibition in the UK – A Hard Line to Bend at Camden Arts Centre in London – the sculptor has been transforming single-use plastic into pieces that bristle with seductiveness and menace. “I was living in LA at the time when China stopped accepting American plastic, which was where we were sending it all to be recycled,” she says. “I started taking it to my studio – it got so huge, I had to hang it from my ceiling.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:57 am

Are rich people really worse behaved? Here’s the science – podcast

Who’s more likely to steal sweets from a child? According to science, it’s the rich. A study seemingly confirming our suspicions about the moral behaviour of the wealthy was one of the winners of the 2026 Ig Nobel prizes, which honour research that makes you laugh and then think. Science editor Ian Sample tells Madeleine Finlay what the researchers think could be behind the phenomenon, and they explore some of the other awards, including one for a surprising quality we look for in our friends and another for a biomechanical definition of kissing

Rich people more likely to steal children’s sweets, finds Ig Nobel prize-winning study

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Published: September 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

A job that changed me: I went off the rails in school and worked nights at a blast furnace. It was like gazing into the fiery pit of hell

It finally dawned on me that perhaps the teachers were not just getting in the way of my good times, they were actually on my side

I arrived in Australia from the UK in 1983, at the sprightly age of 14. Unbeknown to me I was a historical figure, the very last of the £10 poms.

My parents and I were a family full of beans about a new life but just over a year later tragedy struck when my mother was killed in a car crash. My father and I were left to carry each other in grief. We were wildly unprepared. At only 35, my dad did his best to solo-parent while at school I went off the rails – all booze, sex and drugs. I couldn’t care less about education, had no interest in what lay beyond schooling and crashed out of year 12 with no grades.

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:00 am

My favorite family heirloom: an old Zojirushi hot water dispenser better than any tea kettle

It heats water up fast and crucially, keeps it warm for the whole day, so you can can access hot water to your heart’s content.

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Of all the things my mother has given me from the vast warehouse of her garage, there are two items I treasure the most. One, a Costco-sized box of gallon-sized Ziploc bags, and two, a battered Zojirushi water boiler that has been in the family for decades. The Ziploc bags are nice to have and can be easily replaced; the water boiler, on the other hand, has become an indispensable tool that makes my life at home a little better, every time I use it.

A brief twist: if given the choice, I’d take an ice cold beverage over hot any time. But even I, with my preference for drinks so cold that they hurt my teeth, have been converted to my family’s beloved Zojirushi.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:15 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Harold, the halls of residence cat, who looked after me when I first left home

He was the gorgeous furry tabby who made my day, even when he waltzed into my flat just to finish my takeaway. Now he’s a campus celeb, with a part-time job guarding the doors of the village shop

In 2022, when I moved into halls of residence at the University of Sheffield, my biggest concern was no longer having a furry friend to come home to, as I’d had a cat since I was 11 years old. Then I met Harold.

My first encounter with this gorgeous tabby was quite unusual. One day, in our 10-bed flat, a flurry of messages appeared on the group WhatsApp chat after my fellow roommates caught an intruder on the sofa, innocently munching on my leftover pizza.

Published: September 7, 2026, 3:00 am

Cravings ‘like heroin withdrawal’: what happens when weight-loss drugs don’t work?

GLP-1 medications have been a gamechanger in the fight against obesity. But for a minority of patients, their impact is negligible. Why?

When Mercedes was told by her doctor that she could be prescribed GLP-1 weight loss jabs in 2024, she broke down. “[When] she said yes, I cried in her office. And I didn’t really stop crying for a week,” she said.

“Finally, after being overweight my entire life, this was going to save me. My struggle, my burden, my shame was finally going to come to an end.”

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:00 am

Is it true that … hard water damages hair?

Mineral deposits can accumulate, making hair drier, but removing them can cause different problems

From hair treatments to shower filters, a wave of products have been launched promising to protect hair from the “problems” caused by living in a hard-water area. But are they really necessary? “Hard water has a higher concentration of dissolved minerals, especially calcium and magnesium,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. “These are naturally occurring in water, particularly water that is not rainwater.”

When water moves through soil and rocks, such as limestone, minerals dissolve into it and remain there when it comes out of your tap. These minerals are responsible for the limescale that builds up in your kettle.

Published: September 7, 2026, 12:00 am

Houseplant hacks: can white vinegar or lemon juice clean leaves?

Dust and hard water can leave deposits that slow photosynthesis, but don’t believe everything you read about using acids to remove them

The problem
Dusty leaves are more than a cosmetic problem. A film of dust blocks light, which slows photosynthesis and dulls the plant. Hard water makes it worse, leaving chalky white mineral spots on the foliage that a damp cloth simply smears around.

The hack
The acids in white vinegar, or lemon juice, dissolve the mineral salts left behind by hard water – just wipe a very diluted solution over the leaves with a microfibre cloth.

Published: September 8, 2026, 2:00 am

The death of ‘hello’: how gen Z – and scammers – put paid to the greeting

If you’re called by an unidentified number, the advice is to remain silent until you’re sure there’s a human being on the line. Is this the end of an era?

Name: Hello.

Age: 200 years old.

Published: September 7, 2026, 7:08 am

25 years ago, two strangers met in the twin towers and escaped on 9/11. What happened next?

Stanley Praimnath and Brian Clark were two of only four individuals known to have survived above the impact zone in the south tower

He has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”

Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.

Published: September 7, 2026, 2:00 am

Grape harvest at Prague Castle and a Nepal zip wire: Monday’s photos of the day

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

Published: September 7, 2026, 8:31 am