You Can See Everything review – Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes doc is a modern masterpiece of deceit

No spoilers here – TV’s grand illusionist meets his match when he moves in with Theranos founder and her family

For anyone remotely near the worlds of documentary, comedy or medical fraud, there has been one thing on the mind for weeks now: a single-minute clip of Nathan Fielder, the absurdist comedian whose boundary-pushing HBO series The Rehearsal cemented his status as docu-reality’s premier auteur, staring into the deep blue eyes of Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the blood-testing startup Theranos. Unblinking, faces inches apart, the famously dry purveyor of harebrained business schemes and the convicted fraudster appeared locked in a battle of wills. “Are you being real right now?” Fielder asked her, in a classically meta bit – could Fielder really have spent years filming a secret documentary with one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious pariahs?

The prospect of TV’s grand illusionist versus emblematic girl-boss scammer seemed potentially too good to be true; buzz for You Can See Everything, Fielder’s furtive documentary co-directed with wunderkind du jour Lance Oppenheim (whose narrative feature debut, the Robert Pattinson-starring Primetime, premiered last month) was such that access to the film’s New York film festival premiere on Wednesday became this fall’s hottest ticket.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:51 am

Sex, drugs and amoebic dysentery: the 20 best making-of documentaries – ranked!

From tropical disasters and doomed sci-fi epics to bribing Orson Welles and fending off a puma, we rate cinema’s most revealing glimpses behind the scenes

Behind-the-scenes footage from Dawn of the Dead is the highlight of this aficionados-only affair, which follows the 1979 satirical zombie horror all the way through to distribution. Director George A Romero, makeup maestro Tom Savini and the occasional zombie actor shoot the breeze in the deserted shopping mall that provides the movie with its incongruous central location.

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:31 am

The Colorado River is shrinking. What happens next?

Lake Mead is at its lowest level since it was filled nearly 90 years ago, Lake Powell also at a historic low

It was 42C (108F) degrees as we motored across Nevada’s Lake Mead in our rented pontoon boat. Colby Pellegrino with the Southern Nevada Water Authority wanted to show us something we shouldn’t have been able to see. She pointed toward a rock island where a large metal pipe was sticking out of the water.

“That is the first intake that was built to bring municipal water into the valley in 1970,” Pellegrino said.

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:55 am

Margot Robbie changing her name to her husband’s hurts my beautiful lesbian brain. Here's why | Rebecca Shaw

I don’t flip a table every time this happens – but I actually do mind when it’s the default decision with no discussion

Being a lesbian in a heretofore heteronormative society means having to go along with lots of things that don’t make sense to your beautiful lesbian brain. One such thing for me is the ongoing expectation that women who marry men should change their surname to their husband’s.

Last week my tolerance was tested again when it was revealed that after a decade of marriage, Margot Robbie has changed her surname to that of her husband, Tom Ackerley.

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:00 am

Peta claimed victory when fashion stopped using fur – so why are they back hijacking catwalks?

The animal welfare group has revived their runway-storming tactics from the naughts, now targeting the use of wool

Her walk was poised, her outfit – crop top, tailored trousers, high heels – so on point that when Josie Knowles strutted down a London Fashion Week catwalk last month she could have passed for a model. That is, had it not been for the sign the Peta protester held saying “H&M: Wool is Bloody Cruel.”

Still, as one social media commentator put it when praising her strut: “you cant tell me Peta didn’t know what they were doing when they hired this diva”.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

‘I will see you in the parking lot after this’: when book clubs get dramatic

Book clubs can be fun, fulfilling and interesting – but many members have seen a meeting or group go down in flames

For four years, Laura has been in a book club with other young mothers from her church. You might be picturing a docile scene of women drinking sweet tea – they live in the US south – and discussing a life-affirming family novel or chaste romance.

But you probably didn’t account for werewolf smut.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:30 am

Hegseth puts the future of warfare in the hands of major Maga donors

Installing tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to Pentagon defense board raises conflict of interest concerns

• Send us your questions about how the Iran war will affect US voters in the midterms

By installing the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to advisory roles in a Pentagon project about the future of warfare, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, bestowed extraordinary influence on two of Maga’s most significant campaign donors – and both men own companies that benefit from federal defense contracting.

The new project, which Hegseth dubbed “Project Meridian” in an event in Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday, will be led by Pentagon official Emil Michael, a former Uber executive. As the Guardian has reported, Michael made millions in profits off non-public Musk company AI stock while in federal office – and while guiding the Department of Defense’s artificial intelligence efforts.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:27 am

Tennessee suspends executions as Christa Pike’s lawyer says failed lethal injection leaves her in critical condition

Independent inquiry ordered after failed execution of Pike, who was convicted of 1994 murder

• Christa Pike: what we know so far about Tennessee woman’s failed execution

Tennessee’s governor on Thursday said it was “deeply disturbing” that his state botched the execution of a death row prisoner who remained alive and snoring 40 minutes after receiving a double dose of the lethal drug that should have quickly killed her.

Bill Lee, a Republican, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry after Wednesday night’s failed attempt to put to death Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder, at the execution chamber in Nashville.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:33 am

Lawmakers call for action on ‘plainly illegal’ taxpayer-funded ads to promote Trump

House Democrats say officials may have illegally misused public funds to pay for president’s ‘narcissistic ego trips’

The Trump administration is facing growing questions over whether it illegally used taxpayer money to air television ads promoting Donald Trump five weeks before the US midterm elections.

Two congressional Democrats, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and George Whitesides of California, have asked federal watchdogs to investigate the ads.

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:39 am

Brazil attorney general says meddling ‘cannot be tolerated’ after Trump funding plans revealed

Jorge Messias calls Guardian report ‘an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty’ as nation prepares to go to polls

Brazil’s attorney general has said foreign meddling in his country’s institutions and democracy “cannot be tolerated” after a Guardian report revealed how the Trump administration was pushing to direct funds to a campaign against the Brazilian supreme court.

Writing on X, Jorge Messias called the report “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”. “The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” Messias added.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:34 am

Judge denies defense motion to declare Lindsay Clancy not guilty of murder

Request for Clancy, 36, to be acquitted turned down nearly a month after first trial ended with deadlocked jury

The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case on Thursday refused to declare her not guilty, turning down a defense motion that had argued there was not enough evidence to prove she was responsible for killing her three children.

On Tuesday, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington tried to persuade Judge William Sullivan that prosecutors had not offered any proof that Clancy had killed her three children. Prosecutors argued there was plenty of evidence, calling Reddington’s claim “laughable”.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:27 pm

Lyft agrees to pay California $272.5m in largest-ever wage theft settlement

More than $237m will be distributed to drivers over firm labeling them independent contractors and not employees

Lyft agreed to pay the state of California $272.5m on Thursday to ⁠settle claims that it stole drivers’ wages by mislabeling them as independent contractors rather than employees.

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, called the agreement a “landmark win for workers” and said it was the largest settlement involving wage theft claims in the state’s history.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:05 pm

France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting

About 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents under way outside high schools around the country

A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned, as it said many schools would switch to online classes to protect teachers and pupils.

The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, called a crisis cabinet meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the demonstrations, which erupted in the Paris region last week but have snowballed across the country.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:52 am

How the stabbing incident unfolded on Israel-bound flydubai plane | Deconstructed

An Israel-bound flydubai flight from Dubai made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after one of the co-pilots allegedly stabbed his captain in an apparent attempt to crash the plane. Israeli passengers intervened to stop the attack, restraining the co-pilot, while a reserve crew was able to stabilise the plummeting plane and ultimately land it safely in Saudi Arabia. The motive remains unknown, as international teams open investigations into the incident

• Motive behind flydubai cockpit stabbing unknown as international investigation opens

• Australian couple on plane diverted after flydubai pilot’s alleged attack on co-pilot

• ‘Hero’ pilot, plumber and dentist among those who saved flydubai flight to Israel

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:43 am

Hitting the sweet spot: bear treats itself to baked goods at Colorado farmers’ market

Shoppers and vendors in Aspen surprised by unusual customer as it stretched to sample stall offerings

Farmers’ market shoppers might not usually pay much attention to the local resident devouring fresh bread and pastries at one of the stalls with extra gusto – but some certainly did last weekend when they realized it was a hungry bear.

Onlookers on Saturday reached for their phones to take photos and videos of the bear in downtown Aspen, Colorado, after it wandered through the stalls and got up on to its hind legs to dig into the baked goods.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:58 pm

Trump doesn’t rule out declaring state of emergency before midterm elections

President also dismissed low poll ratings as ‘fake numbers’ and deflected responsibility for Iran war in Time interview

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump deflected responsibility for misleading Americans about the length of the Iran war, dismissed low poll ratings as “fake numbers” and refused to rule out the possibility of declaring a state of emergency before the midterms, in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine.

When confronted with questions about the length of the Iran war, the US president blamed the media for reporting his remarks in which he said the conflict was projected to last “four to five weeks”, in March.

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:20 pm

DNC sues Trump administration over last-minute changes to overseas voting form

DNC accuses Pentagon of pushing through changes to how voters abroad request absentee ballots ahead of midterms

The Trump administration broke the law when it pushed through a last-minute change to the form overseas citizens use to register and request absentee ballots, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Until recently, the form, the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), gave overseas voters four options to choose from when describing their geographic location. Voters could say they needed an overseas ballot because they were on active military service, living outside the US with an intent to return, or living outside the US and uncertain about their return.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:41 am

‘Page one of repressive playbook’: critics warn of Trump’s conspiratorial attacks

President’s outlandish and extensive conspiracy theories endanger US freedoms, health and science, experts say

Since the start of his second presidency, Donald Trump has often launched outlandish conspiratorial attacks on critics and foes that mock them and label their views as hoaxes, prompting scholars and legal experts to say Trump’s attacks endanger US freedoms, public health and science.

Trump’s extensive use of conspiracy theories is the hallmark of an authoritarian leader that has weakened trust in the coming midterm elections, dangerously ignored scientific evidence, and often pushed for prosecutions of his political enemies in ways that seriously erode civil liberties, say critics.

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:00 am

White House removes CNN from press pool for second time in a week

Network was listed as primary TV pool covering Thursday’s presidential activities but then was abruptly removed

For a second time in a week, the White House has unilaterally removed CNN from its assignment as the primary television pool representative covering Donald Trump.

CNN was excluded on Saturday from pool duty onboard Air Force One, despite a district judge’s ruling – two days earlier – overturning the White House’s ban on the network and two other media organizations.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:07 am

ICE got ‘quieter’ – then killed a father in Maine. Now watch groups are shifting their tactics too

ICE-watchers get creative after the killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, as Trump’s immigration crackdown takes a more secretive approach

Most of the time, the scene outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the small, coastal town of Scarborough, Maine, could be confused for a nature watch in “Vacationland”, the slogan on state license plates.

People sitting in lawn chairs under a tent. Birds chirping. The sound of the breeze moving through the trees.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:00 am

Death row inmate Christa Pike survives two lethal injections in Tennessee - The Latest

A woman convicted of murdering a schoolmate 30 years ago has been taken to hospital after surviving two rounds of lethal injections in Tennessee. Christa Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in the state in 200 years. Pike, 50, has spent three decades on death row after she was convicted of the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. A last-minute appeal to stop the lethal injection was overturned by the supreme court, but the state governor, Bill Lee, has suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. Lucy Hough speaks to the attorney and anti-capital punishment campaigner Clive Stafford Smith – watch on YouTube

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:01 am

Trump and his allies credit deportations with record low crime. Experts disagree

Administration says increased immigration enforcement led to fewer homicides, but they have been on the decline since Joe Biden’s term

Over the last year and a half, the US has seen a historic drop in homicides. Researchers and reporters are still puzzling through the complex set of reasons why - from the easing of pandemic-era stressors and the Biden administration’s investments in community-based violence prevention to policing and other factors.

But for the Trump administration, there’s one easy explanation: increased immigration enforcement. As the midterm elections approach, the White House has been doubling down on this message, saying its crackdown against immigrants is why US crime rates are now falling.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

California helicopter crash kills two people and leaves two hospitalized

One person remains missing after medical helicopter crashed off Catalina Island near Los Angeles, officials say

A medical helicopter crashed off Catalina Island near Los Angeles, killing two people and leaving two hospitalized, authorities said.

Rescuers early on Thursday searched for a fifth person who was reported to be in the aircraft and was missing, the Los Angeles county fire department said in a social media post.

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:08 am

Steve Hilton, Xavier Becerra clash in testy California governor’s race debate

The candidates running to replace Gavin Newsom sparred over taxes, immigration and regulating AI

Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, the candidates running to be California’s next governor, clashed on Wednesday over taxes, immigration and regulating artificial intelligence in a testy debate held days before voters begin receiving their ballots in the heavily Democratic state.

Hilton, the former Fox News host endorsed by Donald Trump, used the hourlong matchup, hosted by CNN in its studio in Burbank, California, to argue that Becerra, a former congressman who served as the US health and human services secretary during the Biden administration, was not actively campaigning and instead taking voters for granted.

Published: September 30, 2026, 9:02 pm

Gavin Newsom signs laws to protect California workers from AI threat

Democratic governor sharply critical of Donald Trump for not passing comprehensive federal AI regulations

Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws on Wednesday aimed at protecting California workers from the threats of artificial intelligence , including potential job losses and workplace surveillance.

The laws ban employers from using the technology to predict a worker’s emotional state by using their biometric data, require employers to send written notices to workers if AI is responsible for mass layoffs and ban employers from relying on AI to decide to fire someone.

Published: September 30, 2026, 5:17 pm

Police search for additional victims as two bodies discovered in California

Officials investigating missing persons case find bodies in remote area of Lancaster, north of Los Angeles

Law enforcement officials are looking for additional victims after two bodies were found on Tuesday in a remote area of Lancaster, California, a small city about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Authorities found the bodies in a shallow grave while they were investigating a missing persons case, according to KTLA. Outside of the sheriff’s department investigating the discovery of the remains as a homicide, little is known about the two people who were found in the shallow grave.

Published: September 30, 2026, 6:05 pm

From Super Bowl champ to master architect: Mike Tomlin’s sprawling Minecraft city is magnificent

The former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach took 12 years to build a city filled with stadiums, skyscrapers and bespoke homes. It is a marvel

We may finally have cracked the case as to why the Pittsburgh Steelers stagnated so much over the final years of Mike Tomlin’s tenure as head coach: he was focused on virtual urban planning.

I’m kidding, of course. It’s good when people in high-pressure jobs have creative hobbies. Count this writer (and his interior designer wife) among those who were gobsmacked on Wednesday night by Tomlin’s reveal of a 12-year-long project in Minecraft, the world-building game. Tomlin had teased that during his coaching career, he took up Minecraft city-building as a way to connect with his young children. We have now seen the fruits of that labor, and they are magnificent. Look my my works, Terry Bradshaw, and despair.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:42 am

I went to America’s largest gathering of astrologers. It was a battle over how to read the stars

Now a $15bn industry, astrology is more mainstream in the US than ever. But its practitioners are still debating: who gets to have authority on the celestial bodies?

“The dwarf planets change everything,” said the woman with the smart haircut as she made a mind blown gesture with her fingertips, temples to air.

I am at the United Astrology Conference, the largest professional gathering of astrologers in the world, in downtown Chicago. Around me, vendors are hoping to excite the 1,500 attenders, flogging books, tracts, affiliations, proprietary apps and various software programs that have replaced the laborious chart-drawing of yore.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:00 am

'It’s a little splurge that adds a lot of joy': 22 whimsical products that make us smile

When life starts to feel boring, a touch of levity is just what the doctor ordered. Our contributors’ picks make even work and cleaning feel playful

• A buckwheat pillow and 10lb blanket: what you loved most in September

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

Welcome to Filter finds, a series where Filter contributors share the things they love most – and think you might, too.

The objects we choose to surround ourselves with should, above all, be useful – but life is short. Why not have a little fun while we’re at it? This month, we asked our contributors to share the practical things that spark not only joy, but whimsy – a sense of playfulness in our everyday lives. They certainly delivered!

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:15 am

20 fascinating facts about hair: why baldness is super-masculine – and a pubic bush could be a ‘cheating detector’

Judy Wearing has spent much of her life studying our follicles. She explains how our armpits betray our emotions, why some gentlemen really do prefer blondes and the reason we evolved to have eyebrows

As a PhD student at Oxford studying mating behaviour, Judy Wearing was suddenly struck by a thought: what was the purpose of pubic hair? The point of armpit hair? The function of each of our body’s furry patches? When the published literature failed to produce satisfying answers, Wearing began her own investigation. Her aim was to shed light on why exactly we evolved these particular patches, with pubic hair the most puzzling of all: was it for warmth, protection … or something else?

Wearing is still tangling with those questions, some 30 years after her student days. Now an author and editor (largely in the education sector), she has revisited her fascination with hair in Anxious and Hairy: The Evolution and Culture of Human Hair, exploring its unexpectedly dense and layered place in our history and psyche. Even Wearing was surprised by the places her research on hair took her, and the mysteries that still remain to be solved. “A lot of these questions, no one’s actually looked at,” she says over Zoom. Here is a mere snip of the fascinating facts she’s uncovered about hair.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:00 am

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s plan for AI safety: ‘Like asking your kids to self-police their Halloween candy’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s summit with tech CEOs and Republicans’ embarrassing hearing with special counsel Jack Smith

Late-night hosts mocked Donald Trump’s rebranding of AI as “super intelligence” and an embarrassing congressional hearing for Senate Republicans.

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:02 pm

Fixer, financier, spymaster: how the UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon is setting his sights on AI dominance

The Emirati royal is increasingly influential on the world stage. Some see him as a visionary. Others compare him to a Bond villain. Who is he?

On the night of 12 November 1993, a slim, young Brazilian named Royce Gracie stepped into an octagonal cage in Denver, Colorado, and found himself staring up into the eyes of a giant. Gerard Gordeau, a Dutch kickboxer, stood five inches taller, weighed almost three stone more than him, and had an extra decade of fighting experience under his belt. Now the pair were about to engage in bare-knuckle combat: no judges, no separation of opponents by size, no respite until someone either got knocked out cold or begged for mercy.

The fight lasted barely 100 seconds. In that time, Gracie calmly tripped Gordeau up, jumped on his back, and clutched at his throat, forcing the big man to hammer the floor in submission.

Published: September 30, 2026, 9:00 pm

The horror of the Cornell rape case is how ordinary it is | Moira Donegan

Many men rape; many men giggle encouragingly, or shrug indifferently, when their friends rape. Many men rape, and few seem to think that it’s a very big deal

Maybe more than anything else, sexual violence is repetitive. Men commit it in patterns: mostly against women who are close by and vulnerable, just below them on some social hierarchy: their assistant, their date, their friend, their daughter, their student, their kid’s babysitter.

Men rape for opportunity – because they can – and for status – because it makes them feel good. They rape to impress other men, documenting it on phones for one another’s benefit. Men rape and do not always seem to register much of a difference between the sex they’ve had that was rape and the sex that they’ve had that wasn’t. They rape, often, without seeming to think about it, registering their victims’ unwillingness with vague contempt, if at all.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:55 am

Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender

The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals

Amid a barrage of news stories warning about superintelligent machines rendering humanity extinct, a CNN story describing the opposite scenario – one in which the US military’s reliance on brittle chatbots almost brought the US into war with China – went mostly unnoticed by the public.

The biggest international AI news of the past three weeks was the Anthropic engineer Jacob Coxon’s resignation. According to him, OpenAI and Anthropic are “racing straight towards self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”. Coxon’s description of a “terminator” scenario, a machine becoming much smarter than humanity and deciding to wipe us out, captured the public’s, journalists’ and politicians’ attention, stirring waves of fear-inducing, credulous reporting, and policy actions.

Timnit Gebru is executive director of Dair and author of the forthcoming book Deep Unlearning: The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist, which is available for preorders now and set to publish on 16 February.

Emily M Bender is professor of linguistics at the University of Washington and co-author of The AI Con.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:00 am

The ultra-rich face … accountability? Manchester City and Clippers verdicts show it’s possible | Leander Schaerlaeckens

The sports world has accomplished a rare feat: calling out industrial-scale cheating on both sides of the Atlantic

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The first stage of billionaire exposure to accountability is vociferous denial.

The second is bafflement that such an earthly and proletarian problem should even be allowed to happen to you, titan of industry, pillar of society, master of man and beast alike.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:01 am

Is Trump to blame for Americans getting explosive diarrhea? | Arwa Mahdawi

As the midterms approach, Americans’ digestive health has become a bizarre talking point

Donald Trump seems to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about toilets.

Back in 2019, he bizarrely claimed: “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once.” He repeated this claim at a Michigan rally the following year. “Ten times, right, 10 times,” Trump complained. “Not me, of course not me, but you,” he added while pointing at an unfortunate audience member.

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Americans are paying millions for a batch of pro-Trump ads | Margaret Sullivan

The spots, including a recycled campaign ad, are funded by taxpayers and present the president as a hero

The US government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to get a blatantly partisan message in front of voters as the midterm elections loom.

And while these TV ads aren’t explicitly campaign ads, they might as well be.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:00 am

The Guardian view on the death penalty: Christa Pike’s execution was botched, but cruelty is inherent | Editorial

Three-quarters of nations have rightly abolished capital punishment in law or practice, but killing by the state has surged in the US

What is the kindest way to kill? That’s the question being asked once more following Tennessee’s failed attempts to execute Christa Pike for the brutal murder of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. The 50-year-old was taken to a medical facility, her condition unknown, with witnesses describing her snoring loudly around 40 minutes after receiving two injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday. It is the second botched killing in months, prompting Tennessee’s governor to order a halt to executions.

Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:14 am

Wales 2-1 Norway, Denmark 2-4 Portugal, Ireland game interrupted by Palestine protests: Nations League – live

• All the latest news from the 7.45pm BST kick-offs

• Live scores | Nations League tables | Email Michael

We are underway in all of the 7.45pm BST kick-offs!

Republic of Ireland (3-4-2-1): Kelleher, Scales, O’Shea, Egan, Manning, Coventry, Azaz, Abankwah, Moylan, Idah, Parrott.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:10 pm

Pleasant surprises of the NFL season so far: Brock Purdy for MVP and actual Raiders competence

It’s still early in the 2026 season but a number of teams and players have found unexpected levels of success in the last few weeks

Last season ended with a Super Bowl in which neither team – the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots – had been expected to participate. Before that, we had a 44-year-old grandfather returning from a four-season layoff to give the Indianapolis Colts unexpected cheer in an otherwise miserable season, while the Chicago Bears and Jacksonville Jaguars rebounded from bad 2024 seasons to win their divisions.

It’s early to state which surprises will be the most fun to recall this time around, but here are four to watch as things progress.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:30 am

Phil Mickelson’s reps say he sought treatment for family trauma and addiction

• Golfer has spoken of gambling issues in past

• Six-time major winner has not played since March

Phil Mickelson sought treatment earlier this year for “family trauma and addiction”, his representatives confirmed to multiple outlets on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old golfer voluntarily entered a treatment facility and has since returned home. Mickelson’s representatives did not say when he sought treatment or how long he stayed at a facility.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:11 am

Women’s tennis tour announces prize money parity with men’s events

• WTA announces ‘major milestone’ in fight for equality

• Combined WTA 1000 events to award equal prize money

All combined WTA 1000 tournaments will award women equal prize ⁠money to the men from 2027, the Women’s Tennis Association has announced, ⁠with the Italian ⁠Open ​and other major events joining the rest of the category in offering the ⁠same payouts.

Billie Jean King has often said that she was moved to form the women’s professional tennis circuit after earning $600 for her 1970 Italian Open title while Ilie Nastase took home $3,500 for winning the men’s tournament the same year.

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:54 pm

US soccer’s youth system is expensive, chaotic and overdue for reform

World Cup setbacks have renewed concern over America’s costly, fragmented youth system. The real test is whether the urgency survives the next news cycle

A few years ago, the idea that the US soccer community at large was neglecting youth soccer was met with silence or ridicule.

At a May 2022 conference call announcing a new collective bargaining agreement that effectively ended the “equal pay” saga, players were asked how they would build bridges with grassroots organizers who, in a fit of anger over perceived slights, nearly restored Carlos Cordeiro to US Soccer’s presidency not long after he resigned under heavy pressure. They could have offered any vague platitudes about how they valued youth and amateur soccer. They fell silent.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:00 am

Jürgen Klopp disgusted by claims his Germany team are ‘not white enough’

• Says social media claims are ‘nonsense’ and ‘idiocy’

• Coach sees ‘no reason to pay attention to these people’

Jürgen Klopp has reacted with disgust to a social media debate questioning whether the Germany team he is in the process of forming are “white enough”. Klopp said he believed there was no point in giving room to “such people and their utterances”, dismissing them as “complete nonsense”.

Asked to respond to the debate as to whether the national team were “not German enough” or “not white enough”, he said: “There is absolutely no reason to pay attention to these people. You won’t get my thoughts on this. I have little time in everyday life for idiocy – and even less on social media.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:06 am

School gate to checkmate: British chess prodigy, 11, is youngest ever woman grandmaster

Bodhana Sivanandan’s father taught her to play age five and soon she was beating ex-champions. Now she is lighting up the Chess Olympiad

Over the weekend, 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan became the youngest ever holder of the title of woman grandmaster at the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan – while playing on a car booster seat so she could reach the board. By Tuesday morning she was back at school in north London for a design and technology lesson.

Bodhana has to juggle the competing pressures of being an international chess sensation with the more ordinary challenges of childhood and her first term at secondary school.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

NAZA film-makers say they spoke to more than 100 sources about Israeli actions in Gaza

Team behind documentary push back against IDF attempt to discredit its exposure of military systems

The team behind the award-winning film NAZA, which details the Israeli military’s targeting policies in Gaza and its alleged acceptance of high numbers of civilian deaths, have revealed they spoke to more than 100 sources with knowledge of the military systems used in the war.

The disclosure came in response to an Israel Defense Forces statement seeking to discredit the documentary.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:45 am

Trump officials abandon effort to investigate election threats, experts warn

Credible threats appear to have been overlooked as administration focuses on unverified claims of voter fraud

• US politics live – latest updates

The Trump administration has abandoned key security bodies meant to investigate direct threats to US elections by foreign actors and domestic terrorists, according to former officials and a recent report.

While administration officials have been actively focused on unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud by noncitizens, other credible election threats appear to have been overlooked, the officials say.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:00 am

California issues investigative subpoena to OpenAI over rogue agents’ hacking

State attorney general issues subpoena to OpenAI as ​part of broader inquiry into potential security vulnerabilities

California’s attorney general has issued an investigative subpoena to OpenAI, starting an investigation into the startup ⁠as ​part of a broader inquiry into potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities and incidents related ⁠to its AI models, his office said on Thursday.

Last month, Rob Bonta announced that ⁠the Department of Justice was conducting a formal ​investigation into the “Hugging ‌Face incident”, amid increasing ‌scrutiny of the AI industry. AI agents developed by OpenAI hacked Hugging Face in July, gaining access to parts of the open-source platform’s infrastructure.

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:01 pm

US borrowing costs hit 24-year high as global bond sell-off intensifies

Fears that US deficit is unsustainable also drive UK 30-year bond yields briefly above 6% for first time since 1998

• Business live – latest updates

The global bond sell-off intensified on Thursday, driving 10-year US government borrowing costs to their highest level in 24 years in a frantic day’s trading.

The threat of a renewed round of inflation from the persistently high cost of oil has spooked investors on both sides of the Atlantic, with central banks expected to raise interest rates in the coming months to prevent price increases from becoming embedded.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:56 am

UK-Iran national arrested under Terrorism Act over RAF Fairford incident

Counter-terrorism police arrest 25-year-old in Westminster and search two properties in central London

Detectives have arrested a dual UK-Iranian national on suspicion of terrorism offences as part of an investigation into a suspected plot near RAF Fairford.

Counter-terrorism police said the 25-year-old man was arrested on Thursday in Westminster on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts under section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:02 am

Family of Renee Good sues ICE agent who shot her and top Trump officials

Wife and brother of Minneapolis woman killed in immigration crackdown allege wrongful death

The family of Renee Good, the woman killed by immigration agents in January in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits against the agent who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration on Thursday.

In the lawsuits, Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, alleged wrongful death and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued by their lawyers.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:22 am

Judge dismisses DC reflecting pool damage case against former Olympian

Judge barred further charges against David Hearn, whom Trump blamed for damage caused by flawed installation

Federal prosecutors in Washington DC can never again charge the former Olympic canoeist David Hearn over damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, a judge ruled on Thursday, closing a case the US attorney’s office had already conceded it should not have brought.

Judge Todd Edelman, of the DC superior court, dismissed the case with prejudice, siding with Hearn’s lawyers over the office of the US attorney Jeanine Pirro, which had wanted to keep the option of refiling.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:14 am

US datacenter discharged large amounts of pollution for almost a year with no permits

Records show Vineland facility in New Jersey emitted health-harming pollution before regulators stepped in

DataOne, the Microsoft-linked New Jersey datacenter recently hit with a $1m fine for running unpermitted generators, emitted large amounts of health-harming air pollution for nearly a year before state regulators stepped in, according to public records obtained by Floodlight.

The Vineland facility’s 62 gas-fired generators became public in August after a Floodlight/Guardian visual investigation found them operating without permits. The New Jersey department of environmental protection last week fined the company over the fleet but did not disclose how long the generators had been operating nor how much air pollution they had released into the surrounding community over the past year.

This story is from Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:00 am

A Louisiana preschooler was allegedly abused at school. Then a hospital counselor discussed her chart with her principal

‘Impermissible disclosure’ preceded hospital counselor’s firing and departure of principal, her sister-in-law. The child’s attorney calls events ‘vile and repugnant’

A counselor at Louisiana’s premier pediatric hospital accessed the medical records of a girl whose parents reported that she was sexually abused by a classmate at her preschool – and then was fired after it was discovered that she shared information from the child’s file with the school’s principal, her sister-in-law, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

The details of the breach and resulting employee termination at the Manning Family children’s hospital in New Orleans came to light in a sworn deposition taken in August during civil litigation being pursued by the girl’s parents.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:00 am

Trump the environmentalist? How his Iran war exposed the fragility of dirty energy

Gavin Newsom says Trump is a ‘gift’ to the climate cause for dispelling notions of fossil fuel energy security

• Send us your questions about how the Iran war will affect US voters in the midterms

Of all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last week – that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.

Trump is the “greatest gift” to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:30 am

‘Water yes, mining no!’: the 87-year-old farmer who became a nature hero in Colombia

Porfirio Garcés is one of the ‘Jerico 11’, who face kidnapping charges after opposing a copper mine. Now, with a far-right president prioritising extraction, their fight has become more urgent

In the rural hamlet of Palo Cabildo in Colombia’s western Andes, 87-year-old farmer Porfirio Garcés tends to his anthuriums in the garden of his small house. He talks with passion about his vinyl record collection, which ranges from classical to pop music, but his main interest now lies elsewhere: his homeland, to which he feels a deep connection – and his desire to protect it.

Numerous water sources originate in the area, supplying not only Jericó, where Garcés lives, but also several neighbouring towns in the Antioquia region. A sign with a clear message hangs on the main porch of his property: “Yes to water.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:00 am

Think more rain means more river water? Not necessarily

Some rivers are receiving more rain than before but have lower water flow, according to a study

More rain and snow equals more water in rivers, right? Not necessarily. A new study shows that, despite receiving more rainfall than they used to, river water levels are falling because of changes in climate.

Global heating is intensifying the hydrological cycle, making wet regions wetter and dry regions drier, but how is this affecting river flow? Researchers from the Pennsylvania State University, in the US, have analysed precipitation and river flow records in more than 10,000 rivers between 1951 and 2020. In nearly one-third of rivers, they found that flow trends did not match with the changes observed in rainfall and snow.

Published: September 30, 2026, 10:00 pm

‘Explosion of melt rates’: 20% of Swiss glaciers lost in five years

Alpine regions in Europe experiencing extreme glacier collapse due to heat-trapping effects of fossil fuel pollution

Switzerland has lost almost one-fifth of its ice in just five years, research has found, in a dramatic reshaping of the Alpine country whose big white glaciers have been reduced to moonlike rock deserts, scientists say.

Swiss glaciers shrank by 5.5% in the first eight months of 2026, according to an annual monitoring report, after a summer of scorching heatwaves that followed a winter with little snow. The reduction in ice volume falls just shy of the record set in 2022 and brings the total loss of glacier ice since 2021 to 19.4%.

Published: September 30, 2026, 9:00 pm

Mamdani’s nuanced plan offers a roadmap to tackle antisemitism – and reignites criticism of the mayor

Critics noted that the plan does not discuss Israel; others praised it for not conflating Jews with the state of Israel

When the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, announced the city’s first-ever municipal strategy to address antisemitism – a nuanced, multi-pronged approach ranging from greater security measures for synagogues to an increased focus on Jewish history in public school education – critics were quick to note what the 33-page document does not mention at all: Israel.

Israel has played an outsized role in Mamdani’s campaign and since his election, with the mayor standing by his years-long support for Palestinians, and frequently describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and it’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as a war criminal.

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:00 am

Rick Ross arrested on domestic battery and strangulation charges

The rapper was arrested in Miami Beach on Thursday, days after an ex-girlfriend accused him of physical abuse

Rick Ross has been arrested on domestic violence charges in Miami Beach, according to local police.

The rapper was booked at Turner Guilford Knight correctional center at 6.10am local time on Thursday and faces one felony count of battery by strangulation as well as a misdemeanor count of battery.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:34 am

Nicolas Cage calls Marvel movies ‘a glorified WWE’ with over-50s in ‘ridiculous outfits’

Star of Spider-Noir told fan convention he ‘spoke with love’ at seeing gifted actors for ever gearing up for superhero fight scenes

Nicolas Cage, whose recent credits include the Sony Marvel series Spider-Noir, has criticised the Marvel Cinematic Universe, calling it an overfunded and embarrassing spectacle.

“I do say this with love,” said Cage at a fan convention in Texas. “When I see these 50-plus and otherwise intelligent and remarkably gifted thespians putting on these ridiculous outfits and getting ready for the fight – let’s face it, it’s all cutting to the fight – it’s hard for me not to be reminded that the MCU is becoming a well-funded and glorified WWE.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:10 am

Britain in talks with European allies over release of emergency diesel stockpiles

Ministers discuss drawing down EU countries’ reserves after Donald Trump threatens to cut off US supplies

Britain is in talks with European allies over releasing emergency diesel stockpiles after Donald Trump threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.

Ministers held calls with counterparts from the European Commission, Germany, France, Italy and Ireland on Thursday to discuss whether to draw down reserves after the Trump administration told Germany and France to release their stockpiles to help ease soaring global energy prices or face a US export ban.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:49 am

SpaceX launches crew to ISS successfully: ‘Thanks for an amazing ride’

Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit, is making her second trip to the space station

Four astronauts rocketed into orbit on Thursday on a space station mission that will stretch until spring, among them a Canadian whose wife will give birth while he is away.

SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for Nasa after a three-week delay to fix the capsule’s leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but in the end, the skies cleared enough to allow for a safe liftoff.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:22 am

Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, frontman of UK heavy metal band Venom, dies aged 63

Singer and bassist helped turn Newcastle band into hugely influential force on thrash and black metal subgenres

Conrad Lant, the British heavy metal musician who fronted Venom and ensured the Newcastle band became a huge influence on the genre, has died aged 63.

“For more than four decades, Conrad’s voice, bass and vision were at the heart of Venom,” reads a statement from the band. “He created something that changed heavy music for ever. Venom never followed the rules. They forged their own path. And Conrad was there at the centre of it all – uncompromising, fearless and unmistakable.” No cause of death was given.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:50 am

Ukraine persists with Russian oil refinery strikes in defiance of Trump

US president blames attacks for driving up fuel prices before midterms, though analysts say his Iran war is main cause

• Europe live – latest updates

Ukraine is pressing on with strikes on Russian oil refineries, defying Donald Trump, who blames the attacks for exacerbating a global diesel shortage and pushing up fuel prices.

Kyiv struck an oil facility in Russia’s southern Samara region overnight, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday in a statement on social media. The Ukrainian president added that a Russian vessel in the Black Sea was hit, as well as a launch and storage site for attack drones in the Oryol region.

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:09 am

East of Eden review – Florence Pugh’s soapy Steinbeck adaptation is brilliant, compelling TV

This take on the 1952 novel is lavishly shot and full of excellent performances. It lacks the heft to be a full examination of human nature, but it’s a high-quality family saga

It is rarely difficult to distinguish between a John Steinbeck novel and a ray of sunshine. The new adaptation of his 1952 book East of Eden doesn’t buck the trend and wastes no time plunging us into the murk. The opening scene follows a beaten, bloodied woman as she crawls across a muddy field towards the only house for miles around. Out of the house come two brothers. One rushes to rescue her. The other takes one look and announces: “This is a mistake.” Brother, you have no idea.

The rescuer is Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott), the sceptic Charles (Mike Faist). Cut back 25 years to watch them being raised in misery in an essentially motherless household by their monstrous father, Cyrus (Tracy Letts), a civil war veteran and ceaseless recounter of his heroics therein. Charles longs to follow in his footsteps. Adam is beaten for his lack of aggressive instinct. But it is Adam whom Cyrus sends to enlist and Charles he forces to stay behind and work on the family farm. “Because,” he says to Adam in a rare instance of paternal wisdom, “there are loose things in him that should be reined down.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:01 am

‘A saving gesture’: the art exhibition spotlighting US prisoners’ creations

A trio of shows at Michigan’s Grand Rapids Art Museum humanizes people who are incarcerated and celebrates the resilience of creativity

With nearly 2 million people behind bars, America is the global leader in incarceration. When you look at it per capita, we have the highest rate of incarceration of any independent democracy and rank fourth overall in the world, just behind El Salvador, Cuba and Turkmenistan.

Despite these troubling numbers, mass imprisonment is largely invisible. “Our carceral system is something we as a society try to separate out from the everyday,” observes Terra Warren, an associate curator at Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, who alongside curator Jennifer Wcisel brings audiences three solo shows from artists Julie Green, Gary Tyler and Ray Materson. They collectively aim to make us examine more closely just what prisons are doing to our society – and how art can prove transformative to those incarcerated.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:00 am

The Last First: Winter K2 review – race up second highest mountain reveals fatal cost of human ambition

Amir Bar-Lev’s doc covering competing climbers trying to achieve something that has not been done before uncovers a fascinating tapestry of aspiration and folly

During the Covid pandemic in 2021, a “last first” in mountaineering was achieved: the forbidding K2 mountain was scaled in winter for the first time. Amir Bar-Lev’s mountain-climbing doc tells the story of the competing climbers simultaneously hoping to reach the summit, several of whom do not survive the attempt. Far from being the straightforward survival-against-the-odds account that you might expect, this is a microcosm of some of humanity’s more regrettable traits, which rub up alongside each other in fascinatingly thorny ways.

To take just one example: the Nepalese push for the summit comes at the cost of sacrificing the chummy camaraderie among the international climbers; but then again, Nepal is a nation rich in indigenous mountaineering expertise that has been relegated for decades to the role of humble assistant in a series of records set by foreigners. On the other hand, did all the climbers in the Nepalese team get equal credit, or was the lion’s share of the glory allotted to Nirmal Purja, AKA Nims, the Nepalese social media rock star who spoke fluent English and knew how to craft a headline-worthy soundbite? (In a further strange twist, Nims was killed in an avalanche this year in between the film’s world premiere at Sundance and wider release.) Did Nims’ record disrupt old patterns of privilege, subtly reinforce them in new ways – or both?

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:53 am

South Park has ​​AI datacentres​, sentient penises ​and a billionaire problem – in more ways than one

​M​att Parker and Trey Stone t​ake aim at the obscenely wealthy ​in the latest episode – but it feels harder now to forget how wealthy they are

A little over a year ago, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone renewed their deal with Paramount after a contentious negotiation that held up production of the 2025 season.

That $1.5bn agreement raised questions about whether Paramount, newly owned by David Ellison, would really offer the creators creative freedom – or was the billionaire class solidifying its hold over a comedy series as cover to meddle in other divisions, like CBS News?

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Published: September 30, 2026, 11:26 pm

The Swan contestants on the ‘sadistic’ pageant reality show: ‘Ultimately, we were just a job’

In a new documentary, film-maker Erin Lee Carr lifts the lid on the 2000s TV series that shocked America

It was in 2003, while listening to country radio, that Kelly first heard the casting call: “Have you dreamed about plastic surgery but never thought you could afford it?” She immediately turned up the volume. The pitch sounded too good to be true: free cosmetic procedures, a nutritionist, self-esteem work – one “life-changing opportunity” that “could transform everything”. Kristy, Cindy, Tawnya and Beth heard the call, too: the chance to overhaul oneself from the outside in, fulfilling the implicit but omnipresent promise that if you just lost a little weight and just tweaked your face a bit, your whole life would open up. You, too, could be an ugly duckling transfigured into a swan.

The catch? It would all be filmed for television, of course, for a short-lived show that some have called one of the most sadistic of all time: The Swan. The Fox reality program, which ran for two seasons in 2004, brought the spectacle of intensive plastic surgery – the endurance of extreme pain and humiliation in pursuit of a narrow beauty ideal – to US living rooms with shocking bluntness: bandages and bruises, surgical cannulas pounding into flesh, curt assessments of lumps and bumps and “masculine” teeth that must be corrected in pursuit of a better you. Even among similarly thin-obsessed programs from the infamously ruthless wild west of early reality television – America’s Next Top Model and The Biggest Loser, to name a few – The Swan stands out as especially cruel, at once hopelessly bought into punitive beauty standards on-screen and shamelessly manipulative off it.

Published: September 30, 2026, 2:00 am

Verity review – Dakota Johnson leaves teethmarks as she goes back to Fifty Shades erotic thriller territory

Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett co-star in this unconvincing mystery about a struggling writer who is asked to ghostwrite for a bestselling author

The nation is crying out for a really enjoyable erotic mystery-thriller, a taste potentially at least as strong as the cosy-crime fetish currently dominating our every waking moment. The success of Paul Feig’s naughty-but-not-nice movie The Housemaid proves it. We are thirsting for a sexy encounter with a dishy yet maybe problematic nice-guy husband; we are pining for a damaged and dangerous beautiful wife; we are longing to identify with a vulnerable yet gutsy young person who finds herself in the middle of their creepy scenario and we are yearning to spend some time in a secluded luxury lakeside villa of gigantic modernist proportions down whose night-time corridors we can tremblingly tiptoe. So here is a drama, adapted by screenwriter Nick Antosca from the novel by Colleen Hoover, in which someone has such excitingly transgressive sex that they leave teeth marks on the headboard. During this film, audiences may be leaving teeth marks in the seatback in front of them. Or the back of someone’s head. But not in a good way.

Dakota Johnson goes back into “Fifty Shades” ingenue-cute territory as Lowen, a struggling writer mysteriously approached by a legal team working for Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway, a mega-bestselling author whose recent indisposition means that she is unable to finish her hugely lucrative novel series. Crawford’s people ask Lowen if she might be willing, in exchange for several shedloads of money, secretly to ghostwrite the rest of Crawford’s darkly saucy page-turners. Lowen agrees, largely because she is strangely drawn to Verity’s handsome, sensitive husband Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett. She has to go and stay in their gorgeous Vermont home where she is upset to find that Verity is now immobile, using a wheelchair, and cannot speak. And she is even more upset to discover a certain manuscript by Verity which hints at a terrifying situation of which the world has no clue.

Published: September 30, 2026, 6:00 am

Beth Taylor: The Deeps Have Music album review – seamless legato and a gift for storytelling

Taylor/Brown
(Linn)
The Scottish mezzo-soprano makes this programme of sea-themed songs gleam and shimmer. Her account of Elgar’s Sea Pictures holds its own against classic accounts by Janet Baker and Sarah Connolly

Scottish mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor was a standout in the finals of the 2023 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and has since become something of a go-to in Handel. Her debut solo album, smartly curated with pianist Hamish Brown, brings together a satisfyingly salty programme of art song, culminating in an intrepid account of Elgar’s Sea Pictures.

Taylor’s is an instantly identifiable instrument. At its ruby-red bottom she has the breadth of a true contralto, yet there’s an upper extension that brands her a mezzo. Her seamless legato, cushioned lower register and gift for storytelling come into their own in Schubert songs like Meeres Stille and in the spellbinding opener, Hamilton Harty’s arrangement of My Lagan Love. Her gleaming top is shown off in delicate musical aquarelles by Hedwige Chrétien. Brown is a resourceful partner throughout, bringing imaginative depths to even the briefest of songs.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

Meshell Ndegeocello: Synonym review – vivid all-star reinventions of everyone from Bob Dylan to J-Lo

(Blue Note)
In the jazz-soul singer’s ‘expression of queer liberation’, stars from Chaka Khan to Bill Callahan to Cynthia Erivo duet on equally varied songs from Cher to the Human League and beyond

It’s fair to say that Meshell Ndegeocello has made a career out of declining to stay in one place too long. Since helping spark the neo soul genre with her 1993 debut album, Plantation Lullabies, she has variously worked in the fields of jazz, R&B, alternative rock, reggae, fusion and gospel. Her last album, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, seemed intent on defying any kind of classification, leaping from Afrobeat funk to electronic abstraction to a closing track that sounded not unlike the xx: it won a Grammy for best alternative jazz album, which slightly smacked of the awards’ organisers throwing up their hands in defeat after a lengthy and fruitless attempt to decide in which category it might belong.

Even if you knew absolutely nothing about Ndegeocello’s eclectic musical history, you could get a sense of her restlessness just from looking at the back cover of Synonym, a collection of cover versions rendered as duets. The source material picks from the oeuvres of Bob Dylan, Jennifer Lopez, the Human League, Barbra Streisand and Chris Cornell’s short-lived grunge supergroup Temple of the Dog, among others. Her collaborators range from Bill Callahan and Cat Power to Chaka Khan and Cynthia Erivo, by way of jazz pianist Robert Glasper.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:00 am

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson audiobook review – a Caribbean child’s-eye view of 60s Bradford

The author captures the comedy and cruelty in this tenderly written coming-of-age tale

This Women’s prize-nominated novel from Marcia Hutchinson is told from the perspective of Mercy Hanson, a girl born in Bradford in 1962 to a mother she adores and a father she fears. We follow Mercy, their spirited fifth child, from birth through her toddler years to primary education. There she discovers books for the first time, in which she finds delicious escape.

In her first week at school, she flees the classroom and runs all the way home after a teacher inadvertently kicks her in the forehead and then denies it. This prompts her God-fearing mother to march to school and into the classroom where she threatens the teacher with hellfire if she touches her daughter again. But Mercy’s mother is unable to protect herself or her children from her short-tempered husband who is “very tall, a proper giant” and smokes Capstan Full Strength cigarettes. Mercy’s father slaps her in her crib when she cries, and viciously beats her mother.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

What we’re reading: China Miéville, Sebastian Barry, Derek Owusu and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in September

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I was sideswiped by Giada Scodellaro’s Ruins, Child. A brilliant, strange book that challenged me in the most exhilarating way, with its fractured language and dream-cinema visions, the sense it bestowed of walking through a corridor full of echoes. Echoes of a less elliptical but no-less political kind haunt Jordy Rosenberg’s astounding Night Night Fawn. I guess you could call it a family novel? But it’s at least as much about fascism as it is about the family – as well as about unsettling linkages between the two. And for horrors and rage in a nonfiction register, Jonas Marvin’s The Breaking of the English Working Class is an indispensable – and beautifully written – essay on decades of structural, economic and psychic violence. The feeling it provoked in me brought to mind John Berger’s phrase “undefeated despair”.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:48 am

Dodge City by Patrick deWitt review – a wild draft-dodging road trip

This tale of a 60s college dropout driving across the US to avoid being sent to Vietnam is committed to both readerly pleasure and literary artifice

Canadian author Patrick deWitt broke through with a western, 2011’s Booker-shortlisted The Sisters Brothers. Now, he has taken on another hallowed American genre: the road novel. Recent works by Miranda July and Ben Markovits have, in very different ways, used the idea of the road trip as a way to dramatise midlife crisis. As befits a writer who is, in so many ways, a throwback, Dodge City returns the genre to its roots: the 1960s, and youth as opposed to middle age. A short précis – a cross-country journey undertaken by a UCLA drop-out armed only with a bag of amphetamines – makes the book sound like an Easy Rider tribute. It is typical for deWitt novels to be compared to films rather than other books. But in this case, something very different transpires.

The novel opens with our protagonist, Leland “Lee” Clarke, receiving his draft notice – he is to be sent to Vietnam. He has just been expelled from UCLA for assaulting a fellow student, a rich hippy who condescends to him. This “event of violence” (a “one-punch wonder”, as Lee’s father calls it) costs him his draft deferment. Lee doesn’t consider himself a conscientious objector – that is only another form of heroism, and “the myth of the hero is at the heart of my critique of the entire exercise”. But nor does he want to go to Vietnam. He decides, instead, to dodge – to head to Canada. Younger readers may note with envy that being kicked out of college mattered a lot less when you weren’t tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Published: September 30, 2026, 11:00 pm

Gears of War: E-Day review – an alien invasion shouldn’t be this boring

Xbox, PC (version tested); The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios
E-Day boasts the best combat in 20 years of Gears games – but everything surrounding it is disappointing

Every Gears of War game released in the last 20 years has made reverent reference to Emergence Day, when alien creatures emerged from the earth, single-minded in their savagery. In E-Day, you’re there to witness it: the police lights, flipped cars, ground tremors, civilians running, aliens pouring out of fissures in the earth and ripping faces off. You’re at ground zero in a squad of four soldiers called Gears – Marcus Fenix, the leader; Dom, who wants to retire; Lucas, a green cadet with a buzzcut; and the dishonourably discharged Mags. Only this dysfunctional quartet can turn the tide. With guns. Lots of ’em.

Instead of answering questions raised by the ending of 2019’s Gears 5, we’re back to the start to find out why Marcus has a scar on his lip and why these soldiers started strapping chainsaws on to their assault rifles. Anything that was left to the imagination is here, for you to point at and say: “I understood that reference. This is a thing that I have seen.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:09 am

How Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil stands out from all other game adaptations

There’s no Leon, Claire or Ada Wong in Cregger’s adaptation. Instead, it re-creates something more fundamental – the strange, terrifying experience of actually playing the game

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I’ve been surprised by the number of Resident Evil fans complaining on social media about Zach Cregger’s cinematic adaptation of the survival horror series. “It’s not a real Resident Evil movie,” they’ve claimed. Were we watching the same film? Certainly, it doesn’t feature any of the familiar heroes – there’s no Leon, no Claire, no Ada Wong – and there’s a distinct lack of recognisable antagonists and well-known locations. Despite all of this, Cregger’s interpretation is one of the most accurate and interesting video game films ever made.

On the surface, it’s about a zombifying virus that gets accidentally released in Raccoon City by the Umbrella Corporation. These are, of course, the foundations of the Resi mythos. More interestingly, Cregger seeks to replicate and explore the structural and narrative conventions of the series. In the film, the player character, hapless courier Bryan Hodukavich, is thrust into a viral outbreak, with no weapons and no idea what’s going on. He is then submerged into an uncanny shadow world of escalating peril and body horror. The film takes us through a series of locations dragged straight from the games – an abandoned farmhouse, a road tunnel crammed with abandoned cars, a hospital and the obligatory sewer level. As he progresses, Bryan finds increasingly powerful weapons, from a handgun to an assault rifle – but he is always short on ammo. And there are typewriters in at least two scenes!

Published: September 30, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Shane was rascality personified’: the Pogues on their late frontman, anti-Irish prejudice and the feud over Fairytale of New York

The Celtic punk band’s co-founders Spider Stacy and James Fearnley take your questions about Shane MacGowan, ruffling the feathers of trad musicians and putting Laurence Fox in his place

The Pogues earned a reputation early on as a ferocious live band. What does it feel like to be in the middle of that whirlwind? VerulamiumParkRanger
Spider Stacy [co-founder, tin whistle, vocals]: Last Christmas, we did a secret gig in a pub in Nunhead [in London] and it reminded me of those early days when we were so close to the audience, who were practically on top of each other. The venue that most sticks in my mind is the Hope & Anchor [in Islington, London]. We played there to about 35 people [in 1983], but when we went back a month later the match had been struck and it was absolutely roaring. After that, at gigs, there were clothes landing on stage …

James Fearnley [co-founder, accordion]: Medical equipment, crutches …

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:41 am

Blimps, burlesque and brass bands: America takes flight – in pictures

A new Taschen book comprising 700 images from the National Geographic’s archives charts a dramatic century of dizzying change in the US

Published: September 30, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘It’s frustrating to see immoral videos do so well’: how YouTube sensation Half-Asleep Chris sent a rollercoaster to space and made Bella the cat a star

His videos of cats, loopy contraptions and theme park rides round the heavens (and his back garden) have notched up a billion views. We meet Chris Burton in the suburban home where it all happens

Chris Burton is getting ready to redecorate his house. The first reason for this is quite sad. His beloved cat Bella died recently, aged 17, and the indignities of old age mean a new carpet is in order. The other reason is that Burton, AKA Half-Asleep Chris, is turning his dining room into a re-creation of London’s Rainforest Cafe (also RIP – it closed in 2023). There will be temple walls and a talking tree, a fish tank and fronds. Thunderstorms every 20 minutes.

He’s doing most of the work himself, he explains, as we edge past an 8ft fibreglass tapir in the hall. But he’ll need an electrician to rig the starry ceiling and a plumber to check the waterfall for leaks. I sneak a feel of the tapir: firm yet squishy, foam and five layers of silicone over a steel frame. Most people will only see rather than touch it, yet it has exactly the same amount of give as – I imagine – the real deal. This lack of half-measures is very Half-Asleep Chris.

Published: September 30, 2026, 9:00 pm

Oasis take legal action to stop sale of unheard recordings valued at more than £1m

Tapes made in the 90s, including candid conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher, which were expected to sell for up to £1.6m

A collection of unheard Oasis recordings, including 63 live shows, hours of rehearsals and candid conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher, has been pulled from auction after legal action taken by the band.

In September Littleton Auctions in Worcestershire, England, listed the collection made by the band’s former sound engineer, Huw Richards, with a guide price of between £1.2m and £1.6m.

Published: September 30, 2026, 6:07 pm

Terrible idea or major coup? Galliano’s Zara collection launches after Met controversy

Collaboration regarded as ‘really big thing’ for retailer in some quarters despite backlash around designer’s antisemitic remarks in 2011

A month after it was announced that a planned exhibition dedicated to fashion designer John Galliano at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art would not proceed, his debut collection for fast fashion company Zara has been released.

Called Re{form}, it was, according to a press release, “authored by the couturier John Galliano. Built from our memory. Made for now.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:05 am

My wife obsessively consumes US news. She’s so stressed but can’t turn off. What should I do? | Leading questions

Instead of asking her to step away from her distress, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, could you suggest she channel it into action?

• Read more Leading questions

My wife is obsessed with everything that’s happening in the US. She literally spends all day sitting on the couch, watching videos and reading opinion pieces. She’s originally from America and has been living abroad for 25 years and she has family in the US, so I get that she needs to feel connected to what’s happening. But it’s constant. Whether we’re eating, watching a TV show or movie, when we’re talking about something completely unrelated – everything, every topic, either starts or ends with outrage.

I’ve told her she needs to take at least one day off all social media, but she won’t do that even for an hour. It stresses her out more and more every day, but she just keeps going back to it – and it has been really affecting me, more lately than ever. On weekends I stay up late playing games (my way of winding down after a week of work) and she’ll go to bed early. And during those times sometimes I just sit and cry. Everything that’s happening is so stressful, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just wish I could rip away her phone and let her breathe! I don’t know what to say or do. Is there anything that could help?

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:00 am

I looked through thousands of Prime Day deals. Here are the best early sales

From Ugg and Ninja to KitchenAid and Shark – these are best sales to get your hands on before Prime Day kicks off on 6 October

• A buckwheat pillow and a 10lb blanket: what you loved most in September

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

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, live on 6 and 7 October, is the Super Bowl of online shopping. While the e-commerce behemoth just hosted another Prime Day in June, consumerism never sleeps and there are still genuinely good deals to be found, although some are exclusive to Amazon Prime members. But if parsing through thousands of deals isn’t your jam, fear not, because it’s ours.

As veteran consumer journalists, we’ve taken the time to find out what’s really worth the spend, from expert-vetted tech gadgets to make every day a little easier to rigorously tested kitchen scores that help put dinner on the table quickly. Here are the top Prime Deals to shop from brands you know and love such as KitchenAid, Ninja, Bissell, Ugg and more.

Published: September 30, 2026, 10:27 am

So long PSL, hello apple-flavored everything – seven snacks we're eyeing this fall

Pumpkin spice is a perennial fall favorite – but apple is the new flavor coming for its crown

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

Every fall, brands add pumpkin spice to everything, from cereals and sodas to … toilet paper. Fall seems to come earlier every year too. By the end of summer, Starbucks has typically already released its infamous pumpkin spice latte, or PSL, a drink that has become a hallmark of the season.

And the flavor continues to be profitable. In 2025, pumpkin spiced foods garnered an estimated $1.25bn in revenue, according to Future Market Insights.

Published: September 30, 2026, 7:15 am

Pierpaolo Piccioli presents ‘most personal show’ at Balenciaga

Italian designer imbues collection with signature flourishes and style rooted in the craft of the couture atelier

It was “the most personal show I have done here”, the designer Pierpaolo Piccioli said after his Balenciaga presentation at Paris fashion week on Thursday.

Piccioli, who always wears a coral necklace, placed a monumental sculpture of undersea coral crafted from fabric in the middle of the catwalk. Like Cristóbal Balenciaga, Piccioli is both a maximalist and a minimalist. He likes boldness but not fuss, each look one audacious idea executed cleanly. A floor-length ivory cape fastened with a simple gold clasp. A black suit with one bold slash of tangerine at the jacket hem. A gown covered from neck to ankle in bubbles of organza.

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:41 am

Exposed bras and unitards: why are people wearing underwear on the outside?

From crystal balconettes on the catwalk to mankinis on the parkrun, showing off your undies seems to be all the rage

Name: Underwear.

Age: The first loincloths date from about 7,000 years ago.

Published: September 30, 2026, 10:15 am

Stella McCartney makes waves with ‘sea life, not sea food’ theme in zero-wool Paris show

Designer showcases wool alternatives and ocean-inspired clothes and says ‘kindness requires real work’

Stella McCartney has been talking about animal rights at fashion week for 30 years. She is usually a lone voice, but the issue is back in the headlines this season. Outcry over the physical restraining of a Peta protester at a catwalk show by Steven Kolb, the president of New York fashion week’s governing body, has put cruelty in wool production – previously considered niche compared to the hot button topic of fur – on the news agenda.

“There is no wool on the runway this season, and I’m proud of that,” McCartney said after her show. She has been working on wool alternatives, including Brewed Protein, a fermented alternative to cashmere and wool developed in collaboration with the Japanese biotech firm Spiber, which was first used in her collections a year ago.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:46 am

You be the judge: should my girlfriend let me hang my football calendar in her flat?

Kitty is buying a flat and Henry is moving in with her, but they’re already having decor disagreements. You decide who needs to get over their hang-ups?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

It’s not a showroom; it’s a home. Both people should get a chance to display their personalities

Published: October 1, 2026, 12:00 am

Thursday news quiz: Superheroes, AI zeroes and a very lost shark

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Swapping the glitz and glamour of last week’s visit to Istanbul for non-league football, your humble quiz master spent Saturday soaking up the sunshine while watching Walthamstow FC put a mere nine goals past a hapless Lowestoft Town. A quick sympathetic exchange with the shellshocked Lowestoft keeper – “Oh mate, long Saturday afternoon for you” – yielded the weary reply: “Long Saturday? Long fucking season.” Bless him. We hope you feel somewhat more optimistic about tackling these 15 questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 267

Published: September 30, 2026, 10:00 pm

From breakfast pancakes to dinner sides and pudding: Alissa Timoshkina’s apple recipes

Fried in pancakes, braised with duck, pickled with a roast chicken or baked for pudding, apples are one of autumn’s star ingredients

Few ingredients are as familiar as apples, yet few carry such symbolic weight. Peaking just as the season’s begin to turn, they are the ultimate symbol of nature’s abundance, imbued with a sense of nostalgia for the retreating sunlight. The symbolism became unexpectedly tangible to me during a recent autumn apple-picking trip with my family: surrounded by branches heavy with fruit, I found myself seeing the humble apple with fresh awe. It looked nothing short of nature’s miracle. Native to the mountains of central Asia, near the modern Kazakhstan-China border, it has travelled further than perhaps any other fruit, becoming at home in cuisines from Normandy to New York, Caucasus to Kashmir. Sweet or savoury, everyday or celebratory, the apple is truly universal. Its versatility always reminds me of the simple joy of cooking with the seasons.

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:00 am

Beansprouts, nonya paste and kefir – whose fridge is this?

Baker Helen Goh’s fridge is chock-full of far-eastern flavours – but with a few fusion surprises

Curry leaves
I used to freeze fresh curry leaves, but then [the chef] Romy Gill said you lose all the aroma when you do this. So now I fry them and you get curry leaf oil, which keeps them fresh. You can then crumble them into things like dal.

Tofu
I’m addicted to tofu – I have firm, medium, soft, and puffy. But this is my breakfast tofu in ginger syrup; it’s like junket but made with soya beans. Someone taught me how to make this, but the secret ingredient was plaster of paris, so I get it from the Asian grocers. I’m not a big breakfast person, but I could easily eat a whole tub of this.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:00 am

AI chatbots remove hijabs from images of Muslim women when prompted

Guardian tested chatbots after French far-right politician stripped a Muslim woman of her hijab in a photo

When prompted, AI chatbots will edit images to remove the hijabs from Muslim women, a violation of one of the world’s most common and visible expressions of faith.

The Guardian asked ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini and Claude to take the veil off an AI-generated image of a woman wearing a hijab. Both OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok bots complied with the prompt. Anthropic’s Claude responded that it does not have an image-editing or -generating feature but that it would not alter a photo to remove someone’s hijab.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:00 am

Mahmoud Khalil is ready to talk about ICE detention – Stateside With Kai and Carter

After more than a year of legal limbo, Mahmoud Khalil is preparing to ask the US supreme court to hear his deportation case – and if they take it up, the outcome could have sweeping ramifications for political speech in the US. When Khalil was detained by ICE for his role in student protests at Columbia University, it was widely understood as a test case. Khalil was a legal permanent resident with a green card. The Trump administration claimed his advocacy on behalf of Palestinian people made him a threat to US foreign policy. Kai Wright speaks with Khalil about his new book, No Land to Stand On, which details what happened after ICE snatched him up, flew him across the country and deposited him in a for-profit detention center. Khalil and his wife, Noor Abdalla, share their family’s experience – how, with a newborn child, they fought to keep Khalil in the US, and how they’re facing the reality that the Trump administration is still trying to deport him

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:45 am

A ‘freaked out’ US food industry is hitting back at Maha – with social media influencers

Cross-partisan support in Washington on issues like pesticides and food additives pose a threat to the industry’s bottom line

Some of the biggest food and agriculture corporations in the US are funding a campaign that pays social media influencers to combat elements of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again platform, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project.

The ascension of RFK Jr to secretary of health and human services has boosted his putative campaign to end chronic illness in the US, which he believes is primarily caused by processed foods and dyes, exposure to certain chemicals, and poor farming practices, along with an overuse of what he falsely claims are dangerous vaccines. The “Maha” movement blends long-running mainstream concerns about food and farm safety with conspiracy theories about everything from medicine to milk. A Maha “summit” in Washington this week will feature JD Vance and several members of Trump’s cabinet.

Published: September 30, 2026, 3:00 am

Send us your questions about how the Iran war will affect US voters in the midterms

Our politics and foreign policy reporters will answer your questions live in a Q&A on Tuesday 6 October

The war with Iran has had major implications for Americans’ wallets, government spending and US foreign policy. It’s also been key in reshaping the political landscape as it enters its seventh month before the 2026 US midterms.

We’ll be hosting a live midterm election Q&A on Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 12pm EDT on the Guardian US site, with a panel of our politics and foreign policy reporters to help readers understand the costs of the war and political consequences for Trump and candidates running in November.

The makeup of the Democratic party, plus key races to watch

Who are the groups financially backing the candidates in the midterms?

Published: September 30, 2026, 12:23 pm

Tell us: what happened after you froze your eggs?

Much is made of the decision to try to preserve fertility but less explored are the choices that come afterwards. We want to hear from people about what happened next

Oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing, has been around for decades but the procedure stopped being considered experimental in 2012. Since then, elective egg freezing has boomed. Often represented as an insurance policy against age- or illness-related fertility decline, the process can be costly and complex.

While figures vary, research suggests most people who undergo egg freezing never access their eggs and results are mixed for those who do. Long-term storage poses its own costs and questions.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 am

Has direct experience of a recent climate event changed your mind about the climate crisis?

Perhaps you lost your home or possessions in a wildfire, or your mountain business has been affected by glacial retreat and snow scarcity

Has direct experience of a global climate event where you live changed how you now view the climate crisis?

Perhaps you were sceptical or even denied the climate crisis before the impact of recent global climactic events.

Published: September 30, 2026, 7:07 am

Cancan record attempt and angry gen Z: photos of the day – Thursday

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

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:21 am