10 delicious and safe summer salad recipes during cyclospora outbreak

Many people in the US are avoiding lettuce in the wake of the cyclospora outbreak. Here are 10 crispy and crunchy salad options from Ottolenghi’s signature spices to Nik Sharma’s fruity grains, from our huge recipe collection

A fresh, crunchy salad by Yotam Ottolenghi. Cucumber is a hard-working salad component at the best of times but, here, with the combination of curried, crunchy nuts and a sweet-sour tamarind dressing, it will work overtime on your meal-prep menu.

Published: August 15, 2026, 5:00 am

The Fauci hearing was painful to watch. But we need answers on Covid-19’s origin| David Relman

Despite the recent hearings in Congress, we seem to be even further from the goal of understanding Covid-19’s origin’s than we have ever been

As a microbiologist and infectious disease clinician, it has been tough to watch the recent devolution of public discourse on Covid-19 origins. It has been especially difficult for me to read the comments of Anthony Fauci about the origins debate in his now-public diary. And it has been painful to watch the televised spectacle hosted by the US senator Rand Paul on 29 July involving a hostile interrogation of Fauci.

Despite many early pleas, including my own, for a dispassionate, objective assessment of what we know, don’t know and need to know about Covid-19 origins, we seem to be even further from this goal now than we have ever been – plagued by politicization, polarization and illogical thinking.

David Relman is a professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford University. He was an inaugural member of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

Is the US ready for President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

The New York congresswoman’s power is in the spotlight as people wonder if the stars are finally aligning for her to run for US president in 2028

“They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.”

The words were delivered slowly, deliberately and with some steeliness by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her audience, crammed into the pews of Rockefeller Memorial chapel at the University of Chicago, burst into spontaneous applause. That was in May. In the three months since, the speculation around Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitions – for herself and for America – has only grown louder.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

Will Poulter on challenging stereotypes in new opioid drama: ‘Shame on us for stigmatizing people’

The British actor delivers his strongest performance to date in indie film Union County as a person struggling with substance abuse trying to turn his life around

Every week, Annette Deao, a drug dependency counselor, sits in the county jail and offers incarcerated people in rural Ohio a chance at recovery. One bright day she meets Cody, a young man who shuffles towards the lectern and quietly says that he’s ready to give it a shot. “His self-respect is in the basement,” said Will Poulter, the British actor who plays the character. “He doesn’t like or accept himself enough to embark on helping himself.”

Directed by Adam Meeks, an Ohio native, Union County is a bruising yet poetic depiction of a real life drug recovery court in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where individuals join long-term treatment programs with daily sobriety testing. Though the film is led by Poulter and Noah Centineo as foster brothers taking steps to get clean, much of the supporting cast is made up of first-time actors who share their real – and often painful and non-linear – stories of recovery. The hybrid of narrative feature and documentary-esque elements combine in a deeply affecting watch that is anchored by Poulter’s natural-feeling approach to the role.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:00 am

Hundreds of sea turtles are stranded in Cape Cod each year. An ‘amazing network’ has mobilized to help

Massachusetts beaches have become a ‘hotspot for mass stranding of sea turtles’, so an annual rescue effort has grown

Sea turtle #471 gasped audibly, as veterinarian Kathy Tuxbury palpated the surgical scar on the animal’s left flipper.

The turtle – lovingly renamed “Lucky” by the huge network of conservationists, interns and volunteers working to save its life – is one of the last patients of the year at the New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital, waiting to be returned to the ocean.

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

Where healthcare could sway voters, organizers ramp up an old tactic: talking to people

In Wisconsin, voters weigh candidates who backed cuts to Medicaid, and those who want to expand it

Going door to door in western Wisconsin multiple times per week, Bill Hogseth tells strangers about his seizure.

Hogseth, the co-executive director and lead organizer of the nonpartisan group GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin (Groww), tells them about waking up in an ambulance, and the impact of the seizure on his ability to drive and work. Usually standing on their doorsteps, he asks to hear their stories too – about ambulance rides, hospital bills, broken bones.

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

US navy veterans and military health experts express concern over USS Abraham Lincoln sailors

Prolonged deployment is coupled with reports of water shortages, plumbing issues and attempts to jump overboard

• Trump downplays concerns about sailors onboard USS Abraham Lincoln

US navy veterans and military health experts are expressing concerns about the strain on sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has spent nearly nine months at sea supporting US operations in the Middle East, amid reports of poor living conditions and worsening mental health among its crew.

The San Diego-based aircraft carrier left port on 21 November, originally bound for the Pacific, but was redirected to the Middle East as the US-Israel war with Iran began. It has now spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a significant port visit, with its deployment repeatedly extended.

Published: August 15, 2026, 4:00 am

Concerns grow over increased global ties with Taliban in Afghanistan

Campaigners fear deeper diplomatic contacts are undermining demands for improvements in human rights

The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon kill 11 in worst toll since June truce

Rescue services search for survivors and bodies after airstrikes hit homes in Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani

Eleven people have been killed, including three children, and 19 injured in two Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon, the worst toll since deals in June brought a lull in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israeli warplanes bombed a home on the outskirts of the village of Ansar, killing seven people and flattening the building early on Saturday morning. Rescue services were working at the site to try to find survivors and locate bodies.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:55 am

Teenager pleas guilty to attacking California sea lion in viral video

Tyler Muehl, 18, could face a year in prison for kicking marine animal four times on La Jolla coast

An 18-year-old California man has admitted he kicked a sea lion in a video that went viral recently – while referring to himself by the name of an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) competitor – and has pleaded guilty to a federal crime.

Tyler Muehl, of San Diego’s La Jolla neighborhood, faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine after acknowledging in court on Thursday that he violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s prohibition on harassment of wildlife, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:54 am

Double jeopardy could spell end of state case after Luigi Mangione’s guilty plea

Defense argues New York cannot try Mangione over same act or offense as federal case – the killing of Brian Thompson

Luigi Mangione’s plea to federal stalking charges in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death has spurred questions about the fate of the separate Manhattan murder case against him, with experts saying New York’s double-jeopardy law could derail that trial.

Mangione pleaded guilty to one count of interstate stalking resulting in death, and one count of cyberstalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death, in connection with the 4 December 2024 shooting outside a Midtown hotel. Both charges carry a potential maximum life sentence.

Published: August 15, 2026, 4:00 am

Lindsay Clancy murder trial: prosecutors revive theory of faked suicide attempt

Prosecutors pointed to internet searches made on the family computer in the months before the killings to make their case

Prosecutors revived a theory in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial case this week, suggesting she had faked a suicide attempt after allegedly strangling her three children.

While prosecutors have been arguing that Clancy acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible, her defense has said she suffered from postpartum psychosis.

Published: August 15, 2026, 4:00 am

Tributes paid to Jason Arday after former Cambridge professor’s death

Andy Burnham calls for reflection after ‘tragedy on so many levels’ in comments echoed by London mayor Sadiq Khan

Andy Burnham has called the death of Jason Arday, whose body was found at his home in south London on Friday, a “tragedy on so many levels”.

Arday resigned as a professor at the University of Cambridge last week after allegations of plagiarism, which he denied. He was pronounced dead just after 3pm on Friday.

Published: August 15, 2026, 5:22 am

Massive egg recall in US south and south-west due to salmonella outbreak

1.6m dozen eggs from Texas recalled amid one of the largest recorded foodborne illness outbreaks in US history

A massive egg recall affecting nearly 1.6m dozen eggs has been elevated to the US Food and Drug Administration’s highest-risk warning as officials investigate a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 100 people.

The FDA on 12 August reclassified the recall of nearly 1.6m dozen white and brown cage-free eggs over concerns they may be contaminated with salmonella.

Published: August 15, 2026, 9:01 am

Ex-officer accused of plotting New Orleans attack is released after jury declines to indict

Former law enforcement officer was accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a jazz festival

A white former law enforcement officer accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.

A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.

Published: August 15, 2026, 9:40 am

In JD Vance’s hometown, comment on his new memoir is hard to find

The US vice-president’s most recent memoir may be widely read in Middletown, Ohio, but no one seems to be talking about it

Nearly two months since JD Vance’s most recent memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, was released, and following sales of 64,000 copies in its first week, Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio, has had time to take it in.

At the town library, administrators say there has been interest in the book among the wider public.

Published: August 15, 2026, 5:00 am

US immigration judges are deporting people in mass hearings – some without notice

Inside ‘mega master’ calendar hearings, the new tactic of scheduling hearings on short notice and deporting the people who don’t show up

A man in line for the elevator bank at the federal immigration court in San Antonio, Texas, on a morning in mid-July told the security guard that he had an attorney. “You’re special,” the guard replied, with genuine surprise.

Upstairs, inside Brittany A Rodriquez’s courtroom, the young judge with stark blond highlights gave an asylum seeker a month-and-a-half to turn around an application for protection or be ordered deported. Another person who told her “I don’t have a lawyer, I only have God” was given until September to find legal representation, or the judge indicated she would move forward with the case regardless.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:00 am

From laptops to sleep buds, 25 tech essentials for college students this year

With fall semester due to begin, our tech reviewer lays out the best back-to-school laptops, headphones, writing tablets, smartphones and more to ease back into studies

• We found the 30 best deals for students and parents, from headphones and chairs to a shoe rack

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

August is here, which makes it a great time to think about what tech you need to get the most out of college. Whether you need to get around the campus, carry all your stuff from lecture hall to lecture hall, or want to be the life of the party after your studies are complete, we’ve found a wide variety of tech and accessories to help you navigate campus life. Even if this is your final year, we have suggestions to help get you across that stage with your tassel flipped over.

We have tested every piece of tech in this list, and our picks cover a range of prices as well, so if you don’t have the cash for (or want) the latest and greatest, there are some budget options. College is supposed to be fun and a great learning experience. We hope these picks will help you with both.

Published: August 15, 2026, 10:15 am

Thirty years after Tupac Shakur’s killing, can a murder trial offer justice?

Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis faces trial on Monday over rap star’s death that marked notorious chapter in hip-hop’s history

In September 1996, rap star Tupac Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas strip, succumbing days later to his injuries. His killing, which remained unsolved for decades, gave rise to fervent conspiracy theories and conjecture.

Thirty years later, one man is facing trial for the ambush: Duane “Keffe D” Davis.

Published: August 15, 2026, 7:40 am

Donald Trump doesn’t just love billionaires, he loves multimillionaires too

US tax policy deprives the government of revenue and overwhelmingly serves the interests of the rich

After the House passed its version of Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last year – the one that paired a $5tn-plus tax cut with $1tn-plus of cuts from food stamps and Medicaid – the House speaker, Mike Johnson, explained that “this is not giving tax cuts to the millionaires”. The beneficiaries, he said, were “small business owners” that “provide the jobs in every community in America”.

Johnson was playing to the myth of the modest, sturdy Main Street job creator. It is an appealing story. It’s also the most consequential piece of BS distorting American policy that deprives the government of tax revenue, stunts American capitalism, twists regulations, thwarts competition and overwhelmingly serves millionaires’ interests.

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

‘Once I started zooming in, I never stopped’: the mesmerising art of macro photography

Converts describe a demanding form of capturing nature very close up that has grown in popularity in last few years

• Vote here for your favourite invertebrate of the year

“I always just pray ‘please don’t fly away’,” says Dara Ojo. As a wildlife photographer, he can handle spending minutes, hours and sometimes days waiting for the shot, but insects are not always very cooperative.

Ojo is one of an increasing number of photographers turning their lenses towards something smaller: macro photography. This refers to photographing the natural world at an extremely close range, close enough to see the facets of a fly’s eye, or the geometry of a spider’s face.

Published: August 15, 2026, 7:00 am

Gen Z flocks to BirdTok as birding takes flight: ‘It’s a craving for something real’

Social media and Shazam-like birdsong apps drawing young people to hobby as they seek a gentler connection to the outside world

Sorry Elon, but they’re not your kind of tweets. Social media users are flocking to TikTok to join a burgeoning trend for birding videos as the hobby attracts a younger demographic.

With the internet ever more cluttered with polarising, shouty and AI content, evidence is emerging of Britons preferring a gentler, more melodic window on the world in the shape of footage of the nation’s feathered friends.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:00 am

Sure, ‘Woke 1’ had its issues – but we have far bigger problems on our hands | Arwa Mahdawi

AOC’s remarks about past excesses have been ripped out of context. Progressives shouldn’t get roped into this sideshow

There is probably no word that has been more used and abused in the last decade than “woke”. It has been rendered completely meaningless, but it refuses to die. Indeed, it has now taken on new life: in the past week, there’s been a flurry of headlines about “Woke 1.0” or “Woke One”. If you haven’t seen the phrase pop up in your newsfeed yet, it will soon.

So what is this cursed phrase? There’s no official definition, but the term is largely being used to refer to the period between 2018 and 2021 when social justice language was at its peak in mainstream culture. Certain progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have started to use “Woke 1” disparagingly, as a way to distance themselves from that period and signal that they stand for a new form of left-leaning politics that is more palatable to centrist Democrats. “Woke 2”, I suppose.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: August 15, 2026, 5:00 am

What AOC gets right – and wrong – about ‘Woke 1.0’ | Francine Prose

Recent comments by AOC have reignited a fiery debate about ‘wokeism’. But what are we really talking about?

Full confession: I am one of those who have come to think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can essentially do no wrong. At times when I most fear for the future of our country, I watch her videos and am consoled and cheered by her clarity, her honesty, her intelligence, her simple common sense. So I was a little surprised to hear that on a recent interview on ABC This Week, she quoted a political ally as having remarked: “Woke 1.0 was crazy.”

What surprised me was not that she called for some moderation of the radical positions – the call to defund the police and the military, for example – that have, at times, been an aspect of progressive politics. But I was frankly a little unnerved to hear her use the word “woke”.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book is Five Weeks in the Country

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

It’s the SUV tyranny: where have all the normal family cars gone? | Coco Khan

They rule the roads and, in their wake, even old-style saloons have been supersized. It’s an illusion of consumer choice

Recently, while traipsing from showroom to showroom in search of a used car for my growing clan, the iconic line from Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman movie The Dark Knight came to mind: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” And by villain, of course, I mean an SUV driver.

Because, if you haven’t shopped for a secondhand family car recently, I’ll save you the shock: wherever you look, it’s SUVs.

Published: August 15, 2026, 12:00 am

I feel guilt talking to those left behind in Afghanistan. While I enjoy freedom, they are prisoners | Nelufar Hedayat

Five years since the Taliban returned to power, life – especially for women – is awful. We must keep the people’s stories alive and hope they will be free again

There are fewer and fewer stories coming out of the land of my birth. Before, I would open Instagram and see my cousins, lip-syncing to trending videos, posing with flowers at a rose garden or at a trendy cafe in their coolest outfits, keeping a record of their lives. I would hear British-Afghan friends talk about their recent trips to the provinces, towns and cities of their foremothers and the buzz of learning about their heritage. I would eagerly await the latest music video from Afghanistan’s many pop stars, all vying to become the hottest track played at weddings, not just in Afghanistan but all over the world. Afghanistan, its culture, and people felt closer back then.

Five years ago today, the brittle peace of the fragile new democracy was shattered by the withdrawal of western military, diplomatic and charitable groups that had intervened in the country’s fate since 2001. Overnight, on Sunday, 15 August 2021, Afghanistan was undone and abandoned.

Nelufar Hedayat is an Afghan-British journalist, and the presenter and co-director of the documentary In Real Life: the God Thieves

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Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

Trump’s spying on left-wing groups recalls J Edgar Hoover’s Cointelpro | Ken Roth

The FBI from the 1950s to the 1970s tried to infiltrate and discredit leftist organizations. Trump seems to be repeating that sordid practice

It is bad enough that the Trump administration blocked a federal criminal investigation when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed Renee Good as she was turning her car away from him in Minneapolis the past January. Just before the shooting, Good and her partner had been observing and protesting against ICE officers.

Instead, it turns out the administration has been investigating progressive and even mainstream groups that have been involved in protests against Donald Trump’s sweeping deportations, according to newly released government documents.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 am

Donald Trump can’t beat Iran and Nigel Farage can only beat a bin. When it counts, these populists are just losers | Jonathan Freedland

The pattern in the US and Britain is clear. They serve up stunt after stunt to mask incompetence and the betrayal of all those who trusted them

It’s a shame Nigel Farage ducked the announcement of his victory in the Clacton byelection, which confirmed his return as MP for the seat he had needlessly resigned from just a few weeks earlier. You’d have thought he would have loved it. It was the culmination of a stunt, an exercise in politics as performance. It was a display animated by – and seeking to inflame – grievance, a million miles away from the hard, grinding work of tackling the problems that underlie those grievances. It was an attempt to deflect scrutiny, distract attention and evade responsibility. It was, in other words, everything nationalist populists like him excel at. Indeed, the only thing.

Reform UK said Farage stayed away because Essex police had warned of a “credible threat” to his security, a claim swiftly denied by Essex police. (Add a flexible approach to the truth to that list of nationalist populists’ talents.) Still, it was a slightly odd claim to make. Recall Farage’s favoured explanation – there are others – for the undeclared £5m gift he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which prompted the very parliamentary investigation that so riled the Reform leader he felt compelled to quit his seat and seek a preemptive not guilty verdict from the people of Clacton: namely, that he needed the money to pay for private, enhanced security. It seems £5m was not quite enough to ensure the lucky recipient would be safe standing next to a man dressed as a bin.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: August 14, 2026, 9:03 am

The Guardian view on booming poetry sales: Homer, meet the Instapoets | Editorial

In an unexpected twist, a Hollywood epic has contributed to Britain’s best-ever half-year in poetry sales

In a short story called Career Move, published in the New Yorker in 1992, Martin Amis imagined a world in which screenwriters wrote for little magazines and earned a pittance while poets were global superstars. Amis’s story, a wonderfully ironic inversion of the time-honoured norm, was surprisingly prescient: the film and TV industries have been struggling, with screenwriters facing contracting outlets for their creations, whereas poets are now big business.

The Bookseller reported recently that poetry sales were at a historic high. Part of the increase can be attributed to Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, which has made Homer hot: editions of The Odyssey and its prequel, The Iliad, have garnered almost £1m in book sales in the UK this year. (As well as valiantly trying to keep the ailing film industry afloat, Nolan has also created a craze for epic poetry.) But Nolan’s film does not solely account for the boom in poetry sales. Even without the Homer run, sales of poetry texts and anthologies were still up by 7.2% from what was historically already a very high base.

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: August 14, 2026, 10:05 am

The Guardian view on Nigel Farage: Clacton cannot acquit him | Editorial

Reform won a contrived byelection, but scrutiny continues – while the party increasingly attacks the watchdogs and journalists asking awkward questions

Nigel Farage didn’t attend the count of the byelection he forced upon Clacton. Instead, Reform UK’s leader celebrated his win with supporters at a “Farage Fest”, filmed by a friendly TV channel. For a politician who claims to speak for the people, it was telling that at his triumph he preferred an audience of believers.

Mr Farage won because his toughest opponent on the campaign trail was a comedian in a jumpsuit with a bin on his head. That Count Binface nevertheless won 27% of the vote captured the absurdity of a contest the main parties had boycotted as a Faragist stunt. Reform UK’s leader wanted to turn scrutiny of his finances – notably an investigation into whether he failed to report a £5m gift from an overseas crypto billionaire – into a “fight” with the “establishment”. But the result determined who represents the Essex seat, not whether he broke parliamentary or electoral rules.

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: August 14, 2026, 10:06 am

As ESPN cuts familiar faces, its retreat from serious NBA coverage is complete

As ESPN cuts expert voices and rewards viral argument, fans who want to understand basketball are building a smarter conversation elsewhere

After the Phoenix Suns dumped the Golden State Warriors out of last season’s play-in, Stephen A Smith settled behind the First Take desk to explain why Steve Kerr might have coached his last game. Midway through the burial, he claimed the Warriors hadn’t “been to the playoffs since that championship in 2022” – a four-year drought in his telling – before grumbling that Golden State could pay someone far less than $17m a year to miss the postseason.

Cool. Except the drought never happened. Golden State reached the conference semi-finals in 2023 and again in 2025. ESPN anchor Shae Cornette, who had command of the basic facts, tried to smuggle that inconvenient reality into the discussion. It went nowhere. Apparently, nobody on an ESPN set is permitted to correct the franchise “star”. Only weeks earlier, Smith had been inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame for his work in media.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:00 am

Prichard Colón, boxer left with brain damage after 2015 fight, dies aged 33

• Puerto Rican suffered brain bleed in only defeat

• WBC blamed illegal blows to back of the head

• Colón had won his first 16 professional fights

The boxing world was in mourning Friday following the death of Puerto Rican fighter Prichard Colón at the age of 33, 11 years after he sustained brain damage in the only defeat of his professional career.

Colón’s death was confirmed in statements by the World Boxing Council and the World Boxing Organization late Thursday.

Published: August 15, 2026, 4:42 am

‘Here we are 30 years later’: the Olympic team that transformed US basketball

The 1996 US women’s Olympic team enter the Hall of Fame on Saturday after giving momentum to the WNBA and re-launching an era of American dominance

For the US women’s basketball team, the 1996 Olympics weren’t just about winning gold in front of their home crowd.

It was about the future of women’s basketball in America. The US women were knocked out of the 1992 Olympics in the semi-finals by the Commonwealth of Independent States – a stunning and embarrassing defeat. Heading into the 1996 Games, which were held in Atlanta, turning around the program was a top priority not just for USA Basketball, but the NBA as well, which was looking to start a women’s league that would become the WNBA.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:00 am

Transfer roundup: Aston Villa close on Japan keeper Zion Suzuki as Emiliano Martínez nears exit

• PSG sign Spain’s Ferran Torres from Barcelona

• Djed Spence completes move to Inter from Spurs

Aston Villa are preparing for the potential exit of goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez by accelerating a move for Parma’s Zion Suzuki. Juventus have revived their interest in Martínez, who is open to leaving Villa after six seasons at the club and is increasingly likely to depart during this transfer window. Villa are advancing a deal to sign Suzuki as the Argentina No 1’s replacement.

Villa dismissed an offer from Juve for Martínez earlier this summer, but the Serie A club have now revisited a move for the 33-year-old, who is under contract until 2029. Juve are also thought to be monitoring Ederson, now of Fenerbahce, and Tottenham’s Guglielmo Vicario. Suzuki was poised to join Paris Saint-Germain this week but the Champions League winners, who defeated Villa in the Super Cup in Salzburg on Wednesday, pulled out of a deal worth about €35m (£30m).

Published: August 15, 2026, 10:53 am

Lani Pallister dethrones Katie Ledecky to claim Pan Pacs 400m freestyle crown

• Australian claims gold with American great second

• Sam Short wins men’s 400 free with Pan Pacs record

• US end Aussies’ nine-year run in women’s 4x100m free

Lani Pallister and Sam Short have showcased Australia’s glittering 2028 Olympic middle-distance swimming prospects by claiming multiple gold medals at the Pan Pacific championships in California.

The 24-year-old Pallister continued her stunning meet when she downed American legend Katie Ledecky to win the 400m freestyle title on Saturday (AEST), following her 200m freestyle victory over Canadian superstar Summer McIntosh and silver behind Ledecky in the 1500m free, as well as gold in the 200m free relay.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:05 am

Struggling Venus Williams suffers 14th straight defeat in Cincinnati rout

• Seven-time major champion beaten 6-2, 6-2

• Williams, 46, loses 11th match of the season

• Tsitsipas advances as Dimitrov squanders lead

Colombian Emilia Arango handed Venus Williams a 14th straight loss dating to July of last year, defeating the fading seven-time grand slam champion who is currently ranked 615th in 66 minutes by 6-2, 6-2 at the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters.

The 46-year-old Williams was given a wild card entry at an event where she reached a semi-final a dozen years ago. She has played and lost 11 times this season while competing on organizer free entries.

Published: August 14, 2026, 1:27 pm

Europe’s top clubs threatened Club World Cup boycott before Fifa plan collapsed

• Ultimatum issued hours before plan was scrapped

• European Football Clubs demanded Infantino back down

Europe’s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino withdrew his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, issuing their ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped.

In a letter to the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, the influential European Football Clubs (EFC) group warned that its cooperation with future tournaments would hinge on Infantino backing down. It said the threat would hold unless a joint venture between EFC and Fifa – a framework for which has already been agreed – is completed before television rights can be sold for the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:00 am

British cyclist Finlay Tarling, 19, dies in Volta a Portugal accident

• Teenager involved in an accident in Portugal

• Rider’s NSN Development Team ‘heartbroken’

Finlay Tarling, the younger brother of Netcompany Ineos rider, Josh Tarling, has been killed while racing in stage eight of the Volta a Portugal.

Although the details are yet to be confirmed, reports in the Portugese and French media suggest that the 19-year-old Welsh rider was hit by a non-race vehicle travelling on the course in the opposite direction to the peloton.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:42 am

La Liga 2026-27 preview: Madrid look to Mourinho in bid to dethrone Barcelona

Florentino Pérez pressed the Special One button again after two straight trophyless seasons at Real, but Lamine Yamal and co remain title favourites

A lot has changed since José Mourinho was last appointed Real Madrid manager, but a lot has also not changed. Before his first game in charge in 2010, Spain had just become world champions, their extra-time winner in the final scored by a Barcelona player after their opponents, who had been reduced to 10 men, had tried to kick them off the park. Like then, Mourinho’s task is to take down a Barcelona team that have won two La Liga titles in succession. And like then, he has a host of world-class talent at his disposal.

Florentino Pérez is also still around – and he is largely the reason why Mourinho is back. After the chief executive, José Ángel Sánchez, was said to have led the charge to appoint Xabi Alonso last summer, the 79-year-old club president has made the decision his own this time. He promised Mourinho, who won La Liga with 100 points in his first spell, would return if he was re-elected in snap elections in June and the announcement came, in true Pérez style, on the opening day of the World Cup.

Published: August 15, 2026, 12:00 am

Alaska candidate for US Senate seat rejects Kamala Harris’s unsolicited support

Former VP sent fundraising appeal for Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign – with half of donations going to Harris’s organization

Alaska US Senate candidate Mary Peltola has rejected the support of Kamala Harris, her fellow Democrat, after the 2024 presidential candidate sent out a seemingly unsolicited fundraising appeal on Peltola’s behalf.

Harris, who lost Alaska – typically a Republican-voting state – by 13 points during her unsuccessful White House run, on Wednesday sent an email from her political organization to supporters of Peltola, a former US House member.

Published: August 15, 2026, 8:07 am

‘He had magnetism’: Lula returns to site of political origins to launch fourth-term campaign

Brazil’s president was union chief who led metalworkers’ strikes of 1979-80 that paved the way for return of democracy

Day after day, tens of thousands of metalworkers would cram on to the football pitch in São Paulo’s industrial suburbs to demand higher wages and, perhaps unwittingly, transform the destiny of Brazil.

“You weren’t just documenting a fact – you were documenting history,” said photographer Jesus Carlos, who immortalised the now legendary strikes of 1979 and 1980 with his 24mm lens.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:00 am

Christopher Berry-Dee is the UK’s all-time bestselling true crime author. Is he also a violent abuser of women and children?

The British writer is known for his unique ability to get inside the heads of serial killers. But a Guardian investigation reveals multiple accusations of assault and child sexual abuse. What is the truth about the man described by his own daughter as ‘absolute evil’?

Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual abuse and violence

From the outside, it looked like the sort of happy family home a child might draw. Red brick, surrounded by rolling countryside, in Curdridge, near Winchester. Here lived the true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee, with his second wife, Tracey Dee, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha, in the early 1990s. Inside, it was a house of horrors, full of murder memorabilia. In a wardrobe were the clothes a nine-year-old girl had been murdered in. One afternoon, Zoe was playing when she found them. The now 38-year-old council worker from Romsey says she remembers “putting it all on … going downstairs and everyone being absolutely traumatised”. Later, another gruesome memento was added to the collection: the Austin Metro that convicted murderer Michael Sams had used to transport a body in 1991. Bloodied sections of the seatbelts had been cut out for forensic tests.

Berry-Dee was the serial killer man. He wrote to convicted murderers in jail and befriended them. They told him everything. Through them he saw the terror in their victims’ eyes, watched their anguished death throes, heard their final screams. He listened to tapes of their confessions in his study. Zoe grew used to hearing them echo through the house. “It would always be on,” she says. “At the time, it felt normal.”

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

Multiple people injured in shooting at Virginia State University

School said shooting involved ‘multiple suspects’ as campus was locked down and police responded to scene

Multiple people were injured in a shooting at Virginia State University (VSU), police said on Saturday morning, with several suspects still at large.

The campus, about 20 miles (32km) south of Richmond, was on lockdown when police released initial details about the shooting.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:20 am

No 10’s ads for a TikTok team show why social media is a smart career move

The Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms on the demand from high-profile people and brands for help in harnessing the power of TikTok

I didn’t want to work in social media. If you’d asked 15-year-old me my dream job, I might have said foreign correspondent, or maybe travel writer. So you can imagine my surprise to now find myself giving these very colleagues advice on how to get the best selfie angle or write the sharpest TikTok ‘hook’.

But taking a job as the Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms, may prove to be one of my smartest career moves if the current job market is to be believed.

Published: August 15, 2026, 1:01 am

Missed out on tickets to see the Bayeux tapestry in London? A £1,000 hotel stay will get you in

British Museum’s £33 tickets sold out in a day but some slots have been reserved for guests at five-star One Aldwych

Those hoping to snare a glimpse of the Bayeux tapestry when it comes to the British Museum this September faced nine-hour online queues, with the £33 tickets sold out within a day.

But the monied guests of a five-star hotel in Covent Garden have not had to go to such arduous lengths to get a view of the nearly 1,000-year-old depiction of William the Conqueror’s victory over King Harold II of England at Hastings in 1066.

Published: August 15, 2026, 6:00 am

Secondhand booksellers in UK and Ireland suspect AI firms behind ‘strange’ bulk orders

Development comes after Anthropic was found to have spent millions on books to scan for ‘data acquisition’

Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, amid speculation AI companies are acquiring the tomes for their data.

Bookshops contacted by the Guardian say they have been receiving orders from buyers in the US, Canada, continental Europe and the UK. The increase has been replicated around the world, with booksellers in the US, Australia and Europe also reporting unusual orders.

Published: August 15, 2026, 1:00 am

‘A tax on being thin’: only high earners make overall savings on food bills from weight-loss drugs

Users need discretionary income of nearly £100,000 a year to make savings on their grocery spend after paying £1,200 for GLP-1s, analysis finds

The high cost of weight-loss medication is a “regressive tax on being thin” because the outlay outweighs any saving on food costs for all but the highest earners.

Someone needs to have discretionary income of nearly £100,000 a year to actually save money after covering the £1,200 annual cost of GLP-1 medication, according to an analysis by the consultancy Baringa.

Published: August 15, 2026, 12:00 am

How to buy a ‘mega-dinghy’: the perilous new model of Channel crossing

Boats carrying hundreds of people are a clear and alarming trend. But where do such large vessels come from?

Providing a large dinghy for use in the choppy seas of western Europe was not a problem, as long as the order was for more than 20 vessels, they said. The sales manager at the Chinese company even had an online brochure for an undercover Guardian reporter, posing as a prospective client, to peruse.

They had a production capacity of 500 boats a month and, yes, it was possible to get even bigger ones for the right price. They could do a seven or even an eight-metre military-style dinghy for $1,678 (£1,238) a boat, without the engines, but that would be lacking CE certification, the mandatory mark that shows a product meets EU health and safety requirements.

Additional reporting by Lyndon Li

Published: August 15, 2026, 5:00 am

‘In the heatwaves, it’s crucial’: the fight to save France’s rural swimming pools

Ageing facilities offering daily refuge face funding threat as record temperatures parch the countryside

Suzy Bernard took a breath and jumped into the deep end of her village swimming pool with a splash.

“There’s a wonderful feeling of wellbeing in the water,” said the former hospital healthcare assistant, who recently learned to swim aged 75 and was now gliding along with her daughter and grandson.

Published: August 14, 2026, 9:00 pm

The 20-year search for a vanishing custard-and-chocolate coloured moth

Yorkshire common was thought to be the only known site of dark bordered beauty moths in England – until now

• Vote here for your favourite invertebrate of the year

Dave Wainwright first surveyed Wallington in Northumberland for a rare custard-and-chocolate coloured moth in 2004. He parked two miles from the site, hauled a moth trap across, and was bitten by a million flies.

He did not find a single dark bordered beauty that night. The ground was heavily grazed by sheep, and the creeping willow the caterpillars depend on was “quite well plucked”.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘Devastating’: bulldozers plough through Big Bend national park as Trump’s border work pushes ahead

Heavy machinery seen operating in famous Santa Elena Canyon amid outcry over new wall infrastructure in beloved Texas park

Bulldozers have begun plowing up ground at the mouth of Big Bend national park’s famed Santa Elena Canyon as part of the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar “smart wall” expansion on the US-Mexico border, according to new footage taken by activists who have been monitoring the site.

Tensions have run high since the Trump administration announced plans to erect new border security infrastructure in the roughly 500-mile Big Bend region of south-west Texas, which includes the Lone Star State’s largest and most-visited national park.

Published: August 14, 2026, 12:27 pm

Hundreds arrested on suspicion of arson in France as wildfires rage across Europe

One person killed and hundreds evacuated in Croatia as blazes also hit Germany, Greece and Spain

Almost 500 people have been arrested on suspicion of starting wildfires in France since the start of the summer, authorities have said, as firefighters in half a dozen European countries tackle ferocious blazes amid a record-breaking heatwave.

A fire engulfed ⁠homes in a Croatian holiday resort on Friday, killing one person, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate, officials said, as the EU warned that pockets of “very extreme” wildfire conditions stretched across the continent.

Published: August 15, 2026, 8:32 am

Picasso print stolen from Milwaukee art gallery in 2018 found by landlord while cleaning apartment

Torero print, one of 30 known to exist signed by Picasso, was stolen from Bill DeLind’s gallery in 2018

Bill DeLind thought the Picasso print that was stolen from his Milwaukee gallery in 2018 was gone forever. But then police called last week and asked him to look at an artwork that a local landlord found while cleaning out a vacant apartment.

DeLind immediately recognized the stolen Torero print, one of 30 known to exist signed by Picasso.

Published: August 14, 2026, 6:27 pm

At least six people dead and one wounded in mass shooting in rural Michigan

Suspected gunman fled the scene, prompting a manhunt, before he and another individual were found deceased

A mass shooting on Friday has left six people dead, including the suspected gunman, in Missaukee county, a rural area of northern Michigan, according to state police. Another person is in critical condition at a local hospital.

Michigan state police identified the suspected gunman as 39-year-old Chad Hickman in a statement posted on social media.

Published: August 14, 2026, 4:32 pm

BBC seeks to subpoena Trump children and son-in-law over defamation lawsuit

Network wants to serve Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr after president sues over January 6 documentary

The BBC is trying to subpoena Donald Trump’s children as it builds its defense against the president’s defamation lawsuit centered on a documentary on the January 6 insurrection.

In a motion filed on Friday, the BBC sought authorization to serve Trump’s two eldest children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, with subpoenas for testimony and their records on the events of 6 January 2021.

Published: August 14, 2026, 2:05 pm

Hawaii braces for direct hit from Tropical Storm Lala

Storm expected to strengthen to hurricane as state of emergency declared amid danger of ‘life-threatening’ floods

Tropical Storm Lala is set to hit Hawaii’s Big Island with hurricane force in a matter of hours, bringing dangerous winds, heavy rainfall and high surf in a sign of what a strengthening “super” El Niño in the Pacific may bring.

The tropical storm is currently about 420 miles (675km) south-east of Hilo on the archipelago’s largest island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said in its latest advisory, packing winds of 60mph (97km/h). Lala is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the Big Island.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:17 am

Safety check calls after Irish teenager electrocuted taking shower in Greece

Alex McKee died when picking up showerhead in ‘outdoor and rudimentary’ bathroom on Kimolos

The death of an Irish teenager, electrocuted while taking a shower in a holiday home in Greece, has led to calls for tighter checks on appliances at tourist accommodation.

Alex McKee, 17, is said to have died instantly when picking up the showerhead in a bathroom described as “outdoor and rudimentary” on Kimolos.

Published: August 15, 2026, 7:26 am

Powerful earthquake kills dozens in eastern Indonesia

Quake struck Flores region early on Saturday, prompting thousands to seek higher ground for fear of a tsunami

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Indonesia has killed at least 47 people, causing widespread panic and collapsing buildings and homes in a region prone to deadly seismic events.

Rescuers have yet to reach Nagekeo, the area closest to the epicentre, because roads were blocked by landslides and communications disrupted.

Published: August 15, 2026, 8:34 am

South Korea’s Lee urges talks with North Korea about finally ending Korean war

Lee wants to end 1950-53 war, which has never had a peace treaty, but says talks should include curbing North Korea’s nuclear capabilities

South Korean president Lee ⁠Jae Myung called on Saturday for talks with North Korea to pursue peaceful coexistence, saying ⁠Seoul would seek ⁠safeguards ​to prevent conflict and noting the need to replace the peninsula’s armistice with a “peace regime“.

In a ⁠speech marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Lee said the two Koreas ⁠should hold a sit-down for coexistence.

Published: August 14, 2026, 8:58 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy warns Egypt of food supply threat caused by Russian strikes in Black Sea

Kyiv says exports to Egypt under threat from Russian attacks; Moscow dismisses idea of Black Sea ceasefire. What we know on day 1,635

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Egyptian counterpart Abdel ⁠Fattah al-Sisi of possible food supply shortages caused by Russian strikes on ⁠cargo vessels in the Black Sea. “Ukraine is one of ⁠the largest food suppliers to ​Egypt and to ‌a significant number ‌of other countries in Africa ‌and the Middle East. These supplies are now under serious threat because of Russia’s war,” Zelenskyy said on X. “We are already seeing ‌a significant reduction in supplies, and this could have very ​unpleasant consequences due to rising prices and shortages,” he said, adding that the two countries had agreed to ⁠work on solutions.

Russia on Friday dismissed the idea of a ceasefire ‌with Ukraine in the Black Sea, saying it saw no grounds for “half-measures” that would ​offer a respite to the other side. In a statement, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of “brazen acts of terrorism” against shipping, while making no ⁠mention of Russia’s own attacks. “We view these attacks (by Ukraine) as a ​deliberate policy aimed at destabilising civilian ‌shipping in the Black ‌Sea region,” Zakharova said. “At the same time, we see no signs of improvement in the situation and, consequently, no grounds for half-measures that merely grant the Kyiv regime a temporary breathing space.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks in recent weeks against commercial ships in the ​Black Sea, driving world grain prices higher. Zakharova’s comments followed an earlier Ukraine proposal for both sides to halt their attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea in an apparent attempt to reopen a crucial grain corridor. Kyiv is said to have made the offer through a third party.

Russia has intensified its online disinformation campaign in Poland, using a dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv over second world war massacres ⁠to inflame tensions between Ukraine and ⁠its key ally, Polish ​officials and researchers say. The messaging, mostly posted on social media accounts in Polish, also tries to foment anger in Poland against refugees, as opinion polls show support for the far-right growing ahead of closely contested ⁠parliamentary elections in 2027.

The long-running second world war dispute between Poland and Ukraine centres on the Volhynia massacres, in which Poland says Ukrainians killed about 100,000 Poles between 1943 and 1945. The dispute intensified after ⁠Zelenskyy named an army unit after insurgents who perpetrated the massacres, prompting hard-right president Karol Nawrocki to strip his Ukrainian counterpart of a top Polish ​honour in June.

Russian authorities acknowledged Friday that some regions face new petrol shortages, as Ukraine continues to attack the country’s oil refineries to blunt Russia’s capacity to pursue the war. Russia has shut down one big refinery at Orsk – about 1,300km (810 miles) from the frontline – for six months after it was attacked this week. “The situation remains tense in several regions of the country regarding fuel supplies to service stations,” the government said in a social media post. Oil companies are “taking the necessary measures to increase deliveries to the most vulnerable regions”, it said.

Russian jet-powered drones have struck a home in northern Ukraine, killing a 29-year-old woman and her 9-year-old son. This attack comes after the United Nations reported that July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion. At least 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 wounded last month. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones have targeted Russian infrastructure, including a major port north of Moscow.

Romania found ⁠a second drone in national ⁠territory on ⁠Friday, ​in the south-eastern village ⁠of Plauru near the Danube border with ⁠Ukraine, the defence ​ministry said ‌on ‌Friday, after a ‌low flying drone undetected by radar systems crashed earlier. The ministry did not specify ‌the origins of the drone. ​The Nato state has seen Russian drones repeatedly breach ⁠its airspace over the ​last four ​years.

Russian president Vladimir Putin told North Korean ⁠leader Kim Jong-un that Moscow and Pyongyang were cooperating across all areas to ensure ⁠regional ​security and stability, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. Putin said in a message ⁠to Kim marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule that he was confident Russia and ⁠North Korea would continue “constructive joint work” on bilateral and international ​issues, KCNA said. Kim had ‌visited Pyongyang’s Liberation ‌Tower on Friday to pay tribute to Soviet soldiers who fought ‌Japan in the second world war, KCNA reported.

Published: August 14, 2026, 6:53 pm

‘Their Strength Through Joy conversation is killing me’: Samuel Beckett’s German diaries

Published for the first time this month, the Irish writer’s record of his months in pre-war Germany is a fascinating insight into his understanding of, and unease with, Nazism

War was not yet on the immediate horizon when Samuel Beckett visited the German city of Hamburg in October 1936, but after watching the apoplexy that Adolf Hitler’s braying induced in ordinary Germans, the Irish playwright was certain that peace could not last. “They’ll need to fight soon (or burst),” he noted in his diary on 6 October.

The six notebooks that Beckett compiled during his six-month journey across Germany between late September 1936 and April 1937, published for the first time by German publisher Suhrkamp on 20 August this year, put paid to a commonly held view of the author of Waiting for Godot as a poet of pure pessimism, interested in despair and stasis but unconcerned by real-life politics.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:00 pm

Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’

More than four decades after his Holocaust story Maus transformed the graphic novel genre, Art Spiegelman discusses Trump, the shadow of 9/11 and the rise of fascism in America

When the cartoonist Art Spiegelman began dating his future wife, Françoise Mouly, in the mid 70s, she would tell him not to worry about walking her home, because even the New York muggers didn’t bother venturing to where she lived in Soho. He moved in with her quite suddenly not long after, when his apartment in Greenwich Village burned down. His landlord, who lived on the ground floor, was a hoarder – once, when he came to collect Spiegelman’s rent, a cockroach crawled up from under his shirt collar – and eventually his accumulated junk caught alight.

This feels like a quintessential New York story, but then much of Spiegelman’s life does, or at least fits with the kind of stories we like to tell ourselves about the city. The Soho apartment Spiegelman and Mouly have lived in for five decades is worth millions now and is surrounded by high-end designers; his studio, down the road, is above a branch of Tiffany’s. “It’s just kind of an embarrassment, I mean Tiffany’s is not my class,” says Spiegelman, who refers to these flash new arrivals, dismissively, as “very fancy airport mall stores”.

Published: August 15, 2026, 1:00 am

Little Bird: this beautiful, moving Canadian drama will fill you with visceral anger

There is dignity and tenderness to this drama based on the real story of the Sixties Scoop – the scandal of First Nations children who were forcibly taken from their parents and adopted by white families

Here’s one you’ll like: a man comes home to find his wife handcuffed to the wall and his young children missing. They have been taken by child protection services due to the lack of a fridge in the house, which is treated as a sign of neglect. When he confronts law enforcement officials outside, they beat him to death. Decades later, one of the children, now adopted into a Jewish home in Montreal, goes looking for the family she lost, risking the collapse of her new life to do so. I never said it was a joke. Although it turns out there was a fridge, behind the house.

Watching Little Bird (18 August, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), I was reminded that TV is capable of more than mere entertainment, something we lose sight of when we think of it as a purely profit-or loss-making enterprise. I felt the visceral anger and sadness of this story of a First Nations woman caught between cultures, robbed by forces beyond her control and stonewalled by the authorities. Set in Canada, the attitude, if not the events, feel shamefully familiar.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘I’d like a dramatic closeup’: John Oliver takes over daytime TV with delightfully wooden soap opera roles

The late-night host’s recent stints on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital have brought viewers to a dwindling genre

A man in a dark suit steps down from a helicopter into the aftermath of a warehouse shootout. Flanked by machine gun-toting members of his tactical team, he stalks through the carnage. Without breaking stride, he comes to a defeated fighter lying face down, reaching for a handgun, and shoots him at close range. The man stops in front of another fighter clinging to life, causing her to recoil in fear. “Everything’s gonna be OK,” John Oliver says, as the camera eases into focus for his closeup. “I’m here to help.”

For the past two months, US daytime television watchers have been reduced to double takes and stitches as the Last Week Tonight host has embarked on a summer side quest to become a soap opera star. It began with a three-episode arc on General Hospital with Oliver making his grand entrance as Z, head of the deep state-coded World Security Bureau. And it continued this week with another three-episode arc on Days of Our Lives as Devlin St John, chief water inspector for the soap’s mythic town of Salem.

Published: August 14, 2026, 4:00 am

‘We get 200 tourists a day’: when your house becomes a TV star

What’s it like to live on the set of a soap opera? Or above Ted Lasso’s favourite pub? The residents of the homes made famous by hit TV shows tell all

Half the world recognises the apartment that Carrie Bradshaw lives in. Or the New Jersey mansion where Tony Soprano ate, slept and obsessed over the ducks in his swimming pool. In the 1990s, if you asked a good chunk of the global population where Will Smith lived, they would instantly picture a huge, white abode in Bel Air.

For the real people who call those places home, this can be an issue.

Published: August 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Something Wile E this way comes: how the Looney Toons reboot movie came back from the dead

Cartoon royalty were lined for a live-action toon hybrid Coyote vs Acme. Then it was shelved as a tax write-off. But its cast, crew and fans fought for its release. Three years later it’s set to be a surprise summer hit

Back in 2020, Dave Green started making his new film, Coyote vs Acme. Mixing live action with animation, it would be an unconventional courtroom drama that pitched actor Will Forte against a host of 2D Looney Tunes characters – including cartoon royalty such as Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. This, Green believed, would weave a heady spell for cinemagoers of all ages. Six years later, his film is finally about to be released. When Green first called “Action!”, his dark hair was not yet flecked liberally with grey. It is now.

“We’ve held on to a lot of hope these past few years,” Green says from his home in Los Angeles, “and we never really let go of it.”

Published: August 14, 2026, 12:00 am

Why does everything feel meh? We're in the era of joyless decadence – Stateside with Kai and Carter

We should, in theory, be happy. Thanks to our phones, we can do practically anything – listen to our favorite bands' entire discographies, have extravagant meals delivered to our door, travel the world through an endless scroll. So why do so many of these experiences feel so joyless? Why do so many of us feel so empty all the time? Hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman wrestle with these questions with academics Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson, who argue that we are living in an era of decadence without pleasure. While decadence always arises in times of extreme inequality, they say that tools like AI and GLP-1s reveal how we've lost our ability to truly enjoy things – and, ironically, reclaiming decadence may help us finally have fun.

• Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson’s Guardian essay: Why does everything feel joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure

Published: August 14, 2026, 1:45 pm

Why is Drake barking like a dog? Six things you need to know about the rapper’s midlife pivot

There’s a lot to unpack as this proud son of Toronto closes in on 40 – from his gambling to his very public dates. Here goes!

Even if you can only name a handful of rappers, Drake is probably one of them. Not so many years ago, he was among the planet’s biggest celebrities, named in the same breath as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé and breaking chart records set by the Beatles. Many of his dozens of hit singles – Work, One Dance, Hotline Bling and God’s Plan – were ubiquitous, among the last truly crossover radio hits.

Drake is still landing chart spots (if not critical acclaim), but now it’s his foray into the “creator economy” that’s raising eyebrows – shilling for a crypto casino, fraternising with manosphere influencers and, just last weekend, live-streaming dates with OnlyFans models. So what’s this all about? Is Toronto’s once-golden boy having a midlife crisis – or is it a media-savvy pivot? Here’s how Drake got caught up in the “creator economy”.

Published: August 14, 2026, 12:00 am

Family affair: how pop-star siblings Audrey Hobert and Malcolm Todd stormed the charts in parallel

Following in the footsteps of Michael and Janet Jackson, and Kylie and Dannii Minogue, the Hobert siblings have simultaneously struck pop gold – with no rivalry

The history of rival sibling pop solo acts is a limited but potent one. Most famous, of course, are Michael and Janet Jackson. Kylie and Dannii Minogue, Billie Eilish and Finneas, Beyoncé and Solange, Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield, Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry, Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, and Brandy and Ray J all share the intimate and rare understanding of what it was like to share Lego sets and chart space.

That strange dynamic recently gained a new pairing. The US artists Audrey Hobert, 27, and her younger brother, who performs as Malcolm Todd, 22, have both scored global hits synonymous with the sound of summer 2026.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 am

‘I felt so inspired’: Guardian readers on trying Homer’s epics after seeing The Odyssey

Readers describe how Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster has ignited or reawakened their interest in classical literature

“I’m having a classics summer this year,” says Tommy Maddinson, 26, from London. He’s been inspired by Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey to delve into the subject, which has involved cinema trips, visits to the British Museum, and reading Homer’s epic before the film’s release. “I managed to finish it the day before. Since then I’ve been reading a few other classical texts and commentaries …”

Maddinson is not alone. Thanks to the popularity of Nolan’s film, poetry sales in the UK are on course to reach a record high this year after surpassing £8m during the first 30 weeks of 2026 – an increase of 13.3% on the same period last year, according to the market researchers NielsenIQ.

Published: August 14, 2026, 3:00 am

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian; Claws Out! by Bella Mackie; Plant Lady by Minyoung Kang; Children of Wolves by Lawrence Osborne; Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian (Hutchinson Heinemann, £18.99)
American bestseller Bohjalian deserves to be far better known in the UK, although, as the first line of his 26th novel points out, “It is neither virtue nor might that rules the world; it’s luck”. Mira Winston’s luck began early, as she was born into a rich family, clever enough to secure a place at Yale, and a talented enough golfer to consider turning pro, but things change dramatically in 1978 when, at the age of 18, a ball she hits on a driving range smashes the temporal bone of a young caddy, killing him almost instantly. The freak accident turns out to be rather more complicated than first thought, not least because it becomes karmically conflated, in Mira’s mind, with her relationship with a married man twice her age. Told as a memoir, with Mira looking back on the derailment of her life and chronicling society’s changing perceptions of agency and privilege, this literary thriller is a masterfully executed ace.

Claws Out! by Bella Mackie (Borough, £20)
Mackie’s third novel centres on Diana, a manipulative grifter whose previous three husbands have died, apparently of natural causes. She’s in the process of getting her feet under the fourth mark’s prosperous Hampstead table when she encounters opposition. David Farrand’s “entitled but otherwise entirely average” daughter Catriona isn’t going to give up her father or her inheritance without a fight, and when she starts investigating Diana’s past, she discovers that her former stepchildren are convinced of foul play. Meanwhile, Diana’s own son, a feckless charmer, is also hoping to benefit from his mother’s matrimonial plans. Some readers may find the arch authorial tone grating, and the sharp-eyed will spot at least one major plot development before it occurs, but the incisive social satire, vinegary humour and expert pacing will keep you laughing as you turn the pages.

Published: August 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Rebecca Perry: ‘Lorca hit me like a bolt of lightning’

The poet and novelist on the power of fairytales, being inspired by Frank O’Hara and the joys of Doris Lessing

My earliest reading memory
Reading On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan, aged five or so, sitting on the floor of the bedroom I shared with my brother – who, in my memory, was sitting on the carpet next to me.

My favourite book growing up
I had a collection of fairytales in a big yellow hardback, which I was totally entranced by from around the age of seven to 10. I’ll never forget the feeling of despair on turning the page and discovering that the Little Mermaid had become foam on the surface of the water; it was a very early lesson in the helplessness of the reader in the face of a story’s destiny. In particular, though, I loved a Scottish fairytale called The Black Bull of Norroway, which I think, in many ways, has been under the surface of everything I’ve ever written.

Published: August 14, 2026, 2:00 am

Alien: Isolation 2 – another strong female protagonist stalked in a terrifying new world

Creative Assembly could strike gold again with this follow-up to their fan-favourite, film-inspired game … if you’re brave enough to venture outdoors

Alien: Isolation redefined Alien games on its release in 2014, bringing the original taut, haunted house theme of the first movie to fans who had mostly been fed action-packed shooters. Cowering under desks and inside lockers wasn’t a new thing; being hunted by an intelligent and lethal xenomorph that could spring down from a duct at any moment was.

“I was thinking about what we could do for a sequel while we were still finishing the first game,” reveals Creative Assembly’s Alistair Hope, creative lead on Alien: Isolation and its sequel. “But we didn’t actually start the project until around the time of the 10th anniversary. We’ve seen the response grow over time, watching [Alien: Isolation] continue to find new players, even though it’s a relatively old game. And they’re surprised there isn’t a sequel.”

Published: August 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt convinced me to give up on my fashion industry dreams

I was struggling to make ends meet as an unpaid intern when a sarcastic song from the hit comedy gave me the clarity to walk out

It was 3am in the summer of 2017, and I was lying in a triple bunk bed in a hostel in London, listening to the sounds of the 14 other people in my dormitory snoring. I had been working unpaid internships in the fashion industry in London for the past 18 months and living in £12-a-night hostels. When I couldn’t sleep, I would watch TV on my beaten-up phone to drown out the snores. I was watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, an absurdist comedy about a woman who moves to New York after 15 years imprisoned in a doomsday cult’s underground bunker.

Her relentless positivity often inspired me to keep going, but on that particular night, the opposite happened: Kimmy gave me the courage to give up.

Published: August 15, 2026, 4:00 am

Madonna will not be playing Glastonbury in 2027, Emily Eavis says

Festival organiser says she has booked next year’s headliners but would not say if Taylor Swift is among them

Madonna will not be performing at next year’s Glastonbury, the festival’s organiser, Emily Eavis, has said.

The singer, who has the most top 10 singles in UK chart history of any female artist, has never featured at Britain’s biggest music festival.

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:38 am

‘I’ve never done anything like this in my life’: Marina Abramović on making art with balloons

The artist’s latest swerve sees her creating an alien inflatable landscape for New York’s Balloon Museum

Oversized inflatable blades of grass graze my face as I wind a path through the glowing white gallery space. Little papery squares of snow blow, some sticking to my hair. The path through the room curves so that only what is right in front of me is visible: initially, it seemed like I would reach the far side of the room in mere seconds but still my journey, magically, continues. I am at Snowy/Windy/Spring on Planet Z, the latest installation by the performance artist Marina Abramović. It opened earlier this month at New York’s newly opened Balloon Museum, which bills itself as “the first permanent home for inflatable art”.

“I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” a smiling Abramović said, speaking on Zoom from her Manhattan apartment. “But if you give me an assignment then I’ll try to see what I can do with it.” As she began researching balloon art her first thought was that it was “so kitschy – basically for kids and games”. However, the more she contemplated the balloon, the more she saw its resonance with her own practice. “You put air in it, and at some point the air comes out. Or you pinch it and it disappears. The temporality of this is very close to what I’m doing: performance art.”

Published: August 14, 2026, 3:00 am

Are you tweaking on your partner? From secret boob jobs to Botox on the sly, people explain why they keep their cosmetic procedures hidden

Daniel’s boyfriend thinks his youthful complexion is down to fancy skincare, and Jessica’s nearest and dearest still don’t know she’s had a breast enhancement …

Jessica was at a spa with her friends of more than 20 years when she noticed one stare at her bikini, lock eyes with her and laugh, before asking: “Wait, have you …?” The game was up – eight months after she’d had a secret breast enhancement, she’d been rumbled. Fearing judgment from even her closest circle, she had only spoken to two people who’d had the procedure, for advice, and told a neighbour in case she was unwell after the surgery. “My family still don’t know – most people don’t,” the 42-year-old from London says, including her two children who live between her and her ex-husband. “I’m not alone; I’ve since learned winter is the most popular time for people to get things done, then they can just hide under jumpers while everything settles in, so no one notices.”

For years, celebrities have endured public speculation about their tweakments and surgeries – but as procedures become more commonplace, “civilian” patients are facing the same questions from family and friends. And many of them are choosing to go incognito; some surgeons estimate up to 70% of their clients aren’t telling others about their aesthetic procedures. But what are the practicalities of disguising everything from breast augmentation to filler to hair transplants from your closest circle? And why are so many people spending thousands of pounds to alter their appearance – only to hope that no one notices?

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:59 am

‘I don’t even drink whisky’: Scotland reels in visitors as much of Europe swelters

More direct flights from North America and, say tourism chiefs, Highland warriors and Tartan Army have helped

For the tourist industry, 2026 has been a rocky year, with war, EU border delays, climate and economic woes gnawing away at holiday plans. But while much of Britain is feeling the loss of visitors from the Middle East and beyond, one part is thriving.

Scotland is reeling in ever more visitors, with strong annual growth and a 15% rise in flight bookings to Scottish airports in June and July, compared with a drop in bookings to London and the rest of England in recent months, according to VisitBritain figures.

Published: August 15, 2026, 2:00 am

Iceberg, romaine, kale: which salad greens are healthiest?

If you’re trying to meet your daily serving of 2.5 cups of vegetables, you might have some questions

If you want to eat lettuce, that no longer just means iceberg. In our bountiful age, there are many options: romaine, red-leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, beet greens, bok choy, bitter radicchio, every developmental stage of arugula.

Sometimes, it’s simply up to preference. But if you’re trying to meet your daily serving of 2.5 cups of vegetables – or you’re rethinking your salad choices amid the US cyclospora outbreak, you might have some questions about which greens to go with.

Published: August 14, 2026, 9:00 am

Blind date: ‘I got the impression he liked me well enough, but who knows?’

Andrew, 75, a retired graphic designer, meets Gilli, 64, a counsellor

What were you hoping for?
An exciting evening in a great restaurant with a lovely lady I might be able to start a relationship with.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

As online dating goes into ‘salvage mode’, can AI solve all its problems?

Dating apps such as Bumble forced to adapt as ‘swipe fatigue’ grows

Bumble was supposed to be different. When it launched in 2014, it offered women a simple proposition: if you matched with a man, you had to make the first move. The rule was meant to make online dating safer and less intimidating, while giving women control over who got to speak first.

This week, Bumble abandoned it.

Published: August 14, 2026, 6:00 am

Meera Sodha’s recipe for black rice salad with tomatoes, tamarind and green beans | Meera Sodha recipes

Change up your seasonal salads with an easy-to-prep dish that centres on slow-cooked rice and a lively Asian dressing

Here’s a recipe straight out of the low-effort, high-reward school of cooking, in which you chop the vegetables and nuts, boil the rice and beans, throw over a dressing … and it’s done! It was written in the middle of a heatwave, when cooking felt impossible, but I couldn’t look at another watermelon and feta salad. The trade-off is that this dish relies heavily on a couple of key ingredients: sambal oelek (which gives the salad its sparkle) and black rice, which, unlike other types of rice in a salad, never tastes worthy.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘From this perspective, the bullfrog feels powerful and mythical’: Steven Scott Grogin’s best phone picture

The photographer was on an early-morning hike by a lake in Michigan when he spotted the unusually large amphibian, so he dipped his lens below the waterline to get the shot

Steven Scott Grogin describes his mornings in Michigan as a ritual. He wakes up at 6am on the dot to get ready for a hike. His favourite lake, once a quarry pit, is a 30-minute walk away, so he tends to arrive by around 7am. “It’s serene and private, and I feel very peaceful there,” Grogin says. “The terrain changes from flat areas to very hilly sections, and there is a lot of biodiversity.”

As he circled the lake’s perimeter, he saw this American bullfrog in the water. “It was the largest one I’ve ever seen, around six to eight inches long and very hefty,” he says. “Bullfrogs are predators, but they’re also very skittish, so getting close is difficult.”

Published: August 15, 2026, 3:00 am

Tim Dowling: who is the secret admirer leaving gifts for the dog?

Soft toys and furry things keep appearing in the garden. I wouldn’t rule out the fox at this point

After weeks without rain, the garden has turned a uniform beige. Whole shrubs have perished in the unrelenting heat, their crisp brown leaves disintegrating in the breeze. In the middle of the scorched lawn lies the prone body of a large dead bird.

On closer inspection, it appears to be a stuffed toy fashioned into the form of a limp duck carcass. When I open the back door for a closer look, the dog steps out between my legs, picks up the bird and carries it inside. It was clearly made with dogs in mind.

Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

20 of the best cabins, campsites and hotels in Europe’s mountains, lakes and forests

From a 500-year-old inn in the Italian Dolomites to a log cabin in Finland’s lake district, these boltholes offer a tranquil and restorative getaway

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:00 pm

When did all the best summer activities become unacceptable? The Becky Barnicoat cartoon

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Published: August 14, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘What’s happened to us? Where did we get lost?’ Zimbabwe reckons with the reality of violence against women

The deaths of a Bulawayo mother and her daughters spark calls for an urgent action on gender-based violence

The three white coffins were draped in white lace and topped with small sprays of flowers. The mourners who filled a Bulawayo church last week to pay their respects to Zandile Tshuma and her daughters, Natalie, 15, and Nala, five, had not engaged in the usual tradition of first viewing the dead at their home: the bodies of this family had travelled all the way from England to reach their final resting place at Luveve cemetery on the edge of Zimbabwe’s second city, in Matabeleland.

While the deaths attracted few news reports in the UK, in Zimbabwe and South Africa, the tragic case has reignited concern over the region’s high rates of femicide. Many commentators on TV and social media expressed shock that a well-educated woman with a successful career abroad seemed as vulnerable to familial violence as a poorer woman in a southern African township.

Published: August 14, 2026, 2:00 am

People in the US: how do you see the impact of 9/11 on the country and day-to-day life?

We would like to hear from Americans about how they see the legacy of September 11, 25 years on

We would like to hear from Americans about how they see the legacy of 9/11. Now, 25 years later, how do you see the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the country and day-to-day life?

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Published: August 14, 2026, 7:57 am

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Wildfires rage in Europe and the US, an earthquake rocks Colombia, Russian strikes in Ukraine and a solar eclipse – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: August 14, 2026, 11:04 am