‘We’re at a crisis point’: Chappell Roan, Shirley Manson and Eli on playing Olivia Rodrigo’s women-led festival

Ahead of playing Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields, artists explain why female-first festivals are due for a resurgence

When I first saw the poster for Olivia Rodrigo’s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival in June, I assumed it was AI. Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski, the Breeders, Bikini Kill and Garbage, all arranged in a neat line – and this was before I got to the words “special guests”. Karen O, Sarah McLachlan. And, to top it all off, Stevie Nicks? No.

I saw the post confirmed on Rodrigo’s Instagram, and thought: how?

Published: August 27, 2026, 2:00 am

We surveyed 6,000 Americans. Here is the winning message for Democrats | Dustin Guastella

It’s about ‘kitchen-table populism’: focusing on Americans’ day-to-day economic struggles

This year’s Democratic primaries look and sound a lot more populist than usual. Brian Poindexter, a union iron worker running on a “workers first” message, won a House primary outside Cleveland. Sherrod Brown is mounting a Senate comeback in Ohio on the same “rigged system” message that has allowed him to outshine other Democrats in Ohio. Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who built his career fighting corporate landowners, is the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine. And Josh Turek, a self-described “prairie populist”, is on the Senate ballot in Iowa.

In fact, according to research we’ve conducted through the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), more than 70% of 2026 Democratic candidates now rely on populist rhetoric in their campaigns, laying the blame for our broken system on rich elites of one kind or another.

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:00 am

‘I fight pain and fear with art’: how Yayoi Kusama blazed a trail for neurodivergent artists

The pioneering Japanese artist talked openly about how her mental health and neurodivergence informed her creativity, paving the way for the likes of Turner prize winner Nnena Kalu

Yayoi Kusama – who has died at the age of 97 – was 10 when she first started experiencing vivid hallucinations consisting of visual and aural disturbances, which she described as “flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots”. A drawing from 1939, of a woman in a kimono assumed to be her mother, shows her obliterated by those dots; they would become Kusama’s artistic obsession. She hallucinated flowers, too. “I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe”, she once said, when asked about that recurring motif. “I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness.”

For Kusama, art making was a means of survival. “I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live”, she said in a 2012 interview. In so doing, she became one of the most acclaimed and admired contemporary artists, staging happenings and influencing the pop art movement as a pioneering figure in the New York avant garde. Her exhibitions and major retrospectives draw huge crowds. In 2022, due to enormous public demand, Tate Modern in London extended her Infinity Mirror Rooms show for a whole extra year (it ended up running until 2024).

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:42 am

‘One with the dust’: how I survived Burning Man when everything went wrong

I was thrilled to finally experience the Nevada festival. But I underestimated how hardcore it was – and the life lessons it would bring

I was naked in our tent at Burning Man last year when all hell broke loose. The 100km/h (62mph) gust wrenched our tent stakes from the ground – and me from my nap.

I threw on a dress, fear coiling in my belly when I saw the midafternoon sky had turned dark.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:00 am

How do you define good health – and achieve it – in a broken US medical system?

In a new book, Dr Lucy McBride aims to help us navigate US healthcare – and tread carefully in the wellness industry

Most of us want to be healthy, but it’s easier said than done. In the US, people are caught between a broken medical system and a well-resourced wellness industry. The failings of the former – cost barriers, rushed appointments, impersonal attention – push them towards the snake-oil solutions of the latter.

Over 25 years of practicing medicine, running a primary care practice in Washington DC, Dr Lucy McBride has seen patients struggle to navigate the medical system.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 am

How the deadly Nepal and Tibet flash flood unfolded – a visual guide

US Geological Survey says massive glacial collapse caused catastrophic flash floods in the Himalayan border region of Nepal ⁠and Tibet

• Follow latest updates live

• Tell us: have you been affected by the flash floods?

At 8.37am on Wednesday, an enormous section ⁠of a glacier in the Himalayas sheared free and crashed on to the valley floor in Nepal’s Langtang national park, about 35 miles (60km) north of the capital, Kathmandu, near the mountainous Nepal-Tibet border.

Such was the force of the event, it was initially reported as an earthquake of magnitude 4.4. The US Geological Survey later determined the tremor was caused ​by glacial rock and ice collapsing, registering a magnitude of 5.2.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:07 am

Flood risk forces halt to rescues in Tibet, as Nepal death toll rises to 469

Lake has formed at epicentre of flood, forcing rescue teams to withdraw, Chinese state media report

• Nepal flash flood – latest updates

• Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, and hundreds killed

• Visual guide: how the deadly flooding unfolded

• Tell us: have you been affected by the flash floods?

China has paused rescue work at the epicentre of the catastrophic flooding in Tibet this week amid fears that a lake ⁠formed at the ⁠site ⁠was ⁠at risk ​of ‌bursting, as the overall death toll in Nepal rose to 469 people, with more than 1,300 missing.

A lake formed by immense piles of debris has begun overflowing towards the area where rescue teams were headed, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:45 pm

Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful, US judge rules

Anthropic ​argued designation as ‘supply chain risk’ could cost the company billions ‌of dollars in lost business ‌and reputational harm

A US federal judge ruled Thursday that sanctions imposed in February by the Trump administration against AI giant Anthropic were illegal, finding that the government had punished the artificial intelligence company for publicly criticising the Pentagon.

“The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” Judge Rita Lin said in a 59-page decision.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:34 pm

Seven charged with damaging Trump’s Scottish golf course accused of ‘terrorist connection’

Course at Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort was painted with words ‘Gaza is not 4 sale’ and clubhouse was sprayed with graffiti

Seven people charged with vandalising Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland have been accused of malicious damage “having a terrorist connection”.

The clubhouse at the five-star Trump Turnberry hotel and resort on the west coast of Scotland was graffitied on 8 March last year and the course was dug up and painted with the words “Gaza is not 4 sale”.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

Senator calls for criminal investigation of RFK Jr after Guardian report

Newly obtained records indicate health secretary lied about Samoa trip during Senate confirmation hearings last year

A senior Democratic senator is calling for a criminal investigation into the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, following reporting by the Guardian that indicated he lied during Senate confirmation hearings last year.

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

Published: August 27, 2026, 3:11 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Missiles shot down during long Russian attack wave

Drones and missiles target civilian infrastructure of Kyiv and other cities; car bomb kills Russian serviceman in St Petersburg. What we know on day 1,647

Published: August 27, 2026, 6:12 pm

Federal judge again halts Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting in midterms

President’s directive stalls for a second time about a week before the first postal ballots are due to be sent out

A federal judge on Thursday halted – at least for the moment – attempts to implement Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting.

The president’s directive stalled for a second time about a week before the first mail ballots are due to be sent out for the rapidly approaching midterm elections. In the US district court, Judge Indira Talwani placed a 14-day hold on the government implementing the order in a case that could be headed back to the supreme court, which on Monday overturned an earlier ruling of hers that had blocked Trump’s order from taking effect.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:31 pm

Three journalists sue Pentagon after being fired from military news outlet

Three employees of Stars and Stripes, a government-funded news service, allege they were fired after reporting on USS Abraham Lincoln

Three journalists who were fired by the Pentagon from a US government-funded news outlet sued the Department of Defense in federal court on Thursday, arguing their dismissals were illegal and violated their first amendment rights to free speech.

The three journalists were all employees of Stars and Stripes, which their court filing calls “the U.S. military’s independent news source since the Civil War with a long history of editorial independence, free from news management or censorship by military command”.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:33 pm

Near total lunar eclipse will be seen from North and South America Thursday night

Earth’s shadow will appear to be a reddish ‘blood moon’ due to the way sunlight is scattered by the atmosphere

A near total lunar eclipse will be visible across large swathes of North and South America on Thursday night with millions of people expected to be able to see one of nature’s marvels.

Lunar eclipses occur when Earth moves between the sun and the moon and its shadow is cast on to the lunar surface. In Thursday night’s event 96% of the moon will be darkened by the Earth’s shadow at its peak moment.

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:13 am

Please don’t rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

It is polite to reposition a guest’s shoes when they arrive, but the emergency services in one city advise just skipping that part

Etiquette, manners and consideration for others are integral pillars of Japanese society but there are times when they might go a step too far, according to one city’s emergency services.

The fire department in the central city of Kanazawa has urged people not to tidy up the shoes that paramedic crews have taken off when entering a house, warning it could hinder their ability to get in or out quickly, particularly when carrying someone on a stretcher.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:25 pm

What could Meta’s US settlement mean around the world – and what now for other claims against firm?

Other governments could seek similar concessions, while separate legal action is pending in places ranging from Kenya to the Netherlands

In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in Ethiopia’s northern town of Bahir Dar, was shot at close range and died outside his family home. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war.

For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting Meareg’s lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

AI slopper in chief: Trump turns to social media amid tough questions

As the US president struggles to end his Iran war, and approval ratings hit new lows, he leans on a familiar gambit

Donald Trump knows the power of an image – of himself, with everyone from Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un to Kim Kardashian. How about George Washington?

As the US president struggles to end his war with Iran, and with his approval ratings hitting the lowest levels of his second term, he has in recent weeks posted a series of AI-generated images of himself alongside key historical American figures.

Published: August 27, 2026, 3:00 am

Florida grand jury finds DeSantis administration ‘misappropriated’ funds from Medicaid settlement

Grand jury declined to indict anyone but said there was a ‘sophisticated scheme’ to use funds for political activity

• US politics live – latest updates

A Florida grand jury has found that the administration of the governor, Ron DeSantis, “misappropriated” $10m in taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity with ties to DeSantis’s wife, before the money was reportedly “funneled” into “two political action committees”.

In the grand jury report, which remains sealed but was obtained and published by CBS News Miami on Wednesday, the grand jurors wrote that “we conclude that these funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” but said that they found “insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally”.

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:51 pm

Democrats to investigate ‘miraculous’ rise of Trump Jr’s investment firm

Congressman Jamie Raskin asks president’s son to detail firm’s recent success after he joined 1789 Capital as partner

Democrats on a powerful US congressional committee have launched an investigation into a venture capital firm which has thrived since recruiting Donald Trump’s son.

Donald Trump Jr joined 1789 Capital as a partner just days after his father won a second term in office in November 2024. Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the US House of Representatives judiciary committee, has asked the president’s son to detail the firm’s recent success.

Published: August 27, 2026, 1:33 pm

Georgia senator Jon Ossoff slams racist posts allegedly from Republican opponent’s ex-staffer

Representative Mike Collins has been dogged by associations to white nationalism and antisemitism

• US politics live – latest updates

The US senator for Georgia Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has slammed a “disgraceful and disqualifying” report that a former staffer for his Trump-backed Republican challenger Mike Collins shared images online of a swastika and depicting himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.

It is the latest instance of someone in Collins’s orbit facing scrutiny over racist or white nationalist conduct. Ossoff called the report “stunning” and said it “should shock the conscience of every Georgian”.

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:12 pm

‘No precedent’: Lorde and Little Simz to star at world-first festival run on clean power

A zero-emission compact hydrogen power plant will drive the main stage at Clifton Down in Bristol

When Lorde, Little Simz and Wet Leg stride on to stages in Bristol this weekend, they will not only be entertaining tens of thousands of festivalgoers but taking part in what is being billed as a world-first clean power project.

The two stages at Forwards festival on Clifton Down are being driven almost entirely by green power – a combination of hydrogen and mobile batteries charged with sustainable energy.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘Behind every case, a person’: the man leading DRC’s Ebola fight on the human cost hidden behind the numbers

Prof Pierre Akilimali, who heads DR Congo’s response to an outbreak that has so far killed more than 2,700 people, says tackling the disease requires trust and respect

The statistics, says the man responsible for overseeing the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are meaningless. That it is now the largest outbreak, the most deadly strain, that 100 days have passed, that the death rates keep climbing, says Prof Pierre Akilimali, should never detract from the human tragedies at the centre of this virus.

“It is behind those numbers that matters; it is the father, the child, the loved relative. Behind every case is a person and behind every person is a family. For us Congolese, we hold on to that as we work.”

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

Judge orders mental health evaluation for man found with gun at Trump golf course in LA

Judge ruled Jeanine John Taele, discovered with firearm days before Trump visit, was unfit to face felony charge

A judge in California has suspended criminal proceedings against a man found with a loaded gun near Donald Trump’s golf course in Los Angeles, and instead ordered him to undergo a mental health evaluation.

Jeanine John Taele, 38, of Downey, California, was arrested for weapons violations days before the president spoke at a 5 August Republican fundraiser at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:32 am

Meta agrees to major changes to Facebook and Instagram as it settles US trial over teen addiction for up to $18bn

US tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use

Meta agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit on Wednesday. Dozens of US states had accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products.

The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay up to $18bn. Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use nationwide in the US.

Published: August 26, 2026, 1:30 pm

‘You can taste the ash’: surviving in America’s wildfire smoke capital

A magical corner of Oregon has the highest US rate of wildfire smoke deaths. How do residents live with the haze – and grief?

Driving into the county, you can’t miss the sign.

“IT’S THE CLIMATE”.

Published: August 26, 2026, 5:00 am

Mel Brooks’ 20 favorite films to be screened in LA for 100th birthday

Comedian and director’s picks for American Cinematheque series range from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights to Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

Twenty of Mel Brooks’ favorite films of the past century will be screening this fall in Los Angeles, as part of a film series the 100-year-old comedian and director programmed himself.

The American Cinematheque, Los Angeles’ year-round nonprofit film festival, worked with Brooks to put together his favorites list, which starts with Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, from 1931, and ends with Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi’s 2019 dark comedy about a Nazi-era German boy who has Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend.

Published: August 26, 2026, 7:29 am

‘I’m an ever-changing vessel’: Erykah Badu on defying definition, life as a birth and death doula and her first album in 11 years

Why do the Texan innovator’s records take so long to make? ‘It’s important to gather the data,’ she says: the death, dating and dopamine behind her exquisite comeback alongside the Alchemist

Erykah Badu needs the lights down low. The singer, producer, actor and registered doula shuffles into a private room at London’s Soho hotel and quietly asks for some changes to the atmosphere: lights dimmed, soft seat. A green juice would be great.

As it turns out, Badu was out last night with Dave Chappelle, sitting with the comedian at a grand piano and playing songs into the wee hours. She looks mischievous when she thinks about the impromptu party, but declines to go into detail about what, exactly, went on. Instead, the 55-year-old smiles at me, eyes wide, her gold teeth glinting in the low light: “Oh yes,” she says slowly and quietly, like some kind of mysterious warlock. “It was a late one …”

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

Experience: I brought a bear back to life

I was in India, performing dentistry on my first animal patient, and it was supposed to be a straightforward operation

I’ve been a dentist for 40 years. I spend most of my time treating patients at my surgery in Chichester, West Sussex. When I studied to become a dentist in the 1980s, I didn’t think I’d be getting my hands anywhere near the teeth of any exotic animals.

Twenty years later, in 2000, that changed. A patient of mine, Alan Knight, the CEO of International Animal Rescue (IAR), showed me photographs of the inside of a bear’s mouth. The bear was called Jojo and his teeth had been broken off by poachers. Some of the teeth were too rotten to be saved – if left untreated, Jojo would become more prone to infection and abscesses.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

How did Trump get so rich? – podcast

In the past couple of weeks, the Trump administration has reignited its trade war with Canada, threatened an ‘economic D-day’ against Iran and watched the US national debt surpass $40tn. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has personally made billions of dollars since returning to office.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to Dan Alexander of Forbes about how Trump has amassed his fortune – and what his economic record could mean for voters in the midterms

Watch Jonathan Freedland on our new Politics Weekly YouTube channel

Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com

Subscribe to The Guardian Investigates podcast before the launch of season 2 of Black Box, coming next week

Buy a copy of Dan Alexander’s book White House, Inc here

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

I don’t get along with my sister-in-law. Should I try to address the dynamic? | Leading questions

There are two things to consider, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Are you hurt by the way she treats you or the way she sees you?

• Read more Leading questions

I’m struggling with a dynamic with my sister-in-law. We’re not a natural fit personality-wise, and I’ve tried to be mindful of that. At times I wonder whether she might be jealous of the life I have with her brother and our children. I often encourage my husband to spend time with her without me, because she doesn’t seem to particularly enjoy me being there. As a result, we now mostly see each other at family gatherings, which happen about once a month.

There’s a recurring pattern where she corrects me quite sharply, with an impatience that often feels disproportionate or plain mean. She might snap while I am talking to her parents (with whom I have a good relationship), laugh at how I pronounce a placename, or dismiss a question as though it’s too stupid to answer. These interactions are quick and barely noticeable to anyone else, although my daughter and husband have both observed and agreed it was pretty mean.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:00 am

Trafficked on the last US slave ship, Cudjo Lewis never returned home to Benin. But his descendant has

Cassandra Lewis’s Benin citizenship reflects a broader push by African countries to reconnect with diaspora descendants

Cudjo Lewis, originally named Oluale Kossola, never forgot home – and he ensured that his descendants would remember a place that they might never see with their own eyes. Captured from the Bantè region of Benin, west Africa, Lewis was trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean and enslaved in rural Alabama in 1860, just one year before the onset of the US civil war and 52 years after the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed.

He was one of the last survivors of the Middle Passage when he died on 17 July 1935, and one of the 110 survivors of the Clotilda, considered to be the last slave ship to illegally traffic Africans to the United States. Conspirators burned and sunk the Clotilda – a hull from the ship was not recovered until 2019 – and refused to facilitate the survivors’ return to Africa, even after the civil war.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:00 am

Marketing meltdown: why has Andrew Garfield’s new film suddenly added Robin Hood?

Paul Greengrass drama The Uprising was supposed to be a historical epic about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 – but a strange new campaign has inserted a surprising figure

Nobody likes to have the full plot of a movie spoiled before they’ve even seen it. However, sometimes this can be taken to the extreme. Take the new Paul Greengrass movie, The Uprising, for example. It is two weeks away from its US release and not only does nobody know the plot, but nobody seems to know what it is even about. Seriously, nobody at all. The film’s distributors just spent yesterday squabbling in public about whether Robin Hood was in it or not.

Here’s what we know so far. Initially, all the trailers and promotional materials made The Uprising look like a film about the Peasants’ Revolt that tore through England in 1381. And this was very exciting, since the revolt was a thrilling moment in history that has been bizarrely underserved by Hollywood over the years. Most exciting of all, though, it sounded like it fit exactly into Greengrass’s wheelhouse: full of action and realism and political awareness.

Published: August 27, 2026, 6:58 am

From maligned second city to Insta magnet: Marseille isFrance’s new capital of overtourism

This summer has been a tipping point. But it’s not too late to save what makes this place unique

When I first started visiting Marseille more than 20 years ago, few could have predicted that France’s then beleaguered second city would become one of the most popular destinations in the most-visited country in the world. Tarnished by stereotypes and home to some of Europe’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the port city seemed down on its luck, unloved and, in the eyes of many, somewhere to avoid. Tourists stopping at the city’s Saint-Charles station would clutch their bags while waiting for their connecting train to rural Provence, or the beaches of the Côte d’Azur.

Two decades on, poverty and drug gang violence still affect parts of Marseille, but this rough diamond has been reinvented as a modish holiday destination. Last month, I saw a local TV channel asking whether Marseille had become France’s capital of tourism, after Booking.com revealed it had surpassed Paris and Nice as the most searched-for destination for French users of the site. Breathless foreign media coverage – the New York Times published a “36 hours in Marseille” guide in 2019 and another one in 2025 – has driven the number of overseas visitors. From seaside petanque to vocoder rap and pizza served on aluminium plates, influencers revel in the golden-hued aesthetic of the urban riviera and promote the city’s most Instagram-friendly corners. Tourist numbers are expected to reach almost 7 million this year.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:00 pm

Jon Ossoff went low on Natalie Harp. The plan worked | Moira Donegan

The senator’s remarks reflect a turning point in Democrats’ attacks on the president. What should we make of them?

Apparently, he likes to say her name with a French accent. “Na-tah-lee!” the president cries out, in that affected tone of faux-formality that one might use with a person they love but do not quite respect, and she comes running, her thin legs teetering on her heels.

Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old “executive assistant”, was an odd recurring character in the latest blockbuster Trump administration book, Regime Change, by the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. In the book, Harp features like a silent sentinel, ever present but eerily quiet as Trump rants and raves. It’s not exactly clear what the scope of her responsibilities are; though, as Jamelle Bouie points out, the fact that she evidently helps run the president’s social media accounts, which can sway markets and influence his foreign counterparts, makes her one of the most powerful people in the federal government.

Published: August 27, 2026, 3:00 am

An $18bn settlement is a drop in the ocean for Meta – but the tide will still come for it | Chris Stokel-Walker

This week’s settlement without liability was pragmatic, but it doesn’t change the inevitability of further lawsuits around the world

Not many people would count paying $18bn they didn’t expect to when they woke up that morning as a victory. Yet for Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, the agreement with 52 US attorneys general to settle claims that it designed its products to be addictive to children, and misled people about their safety, could be described as a win of sorts.

Meta denies wrongdoing, and the amount it plans to pay will be spread over a decade. Some of it is contingent on other big tech firms not named in its case coughing up too. The cash is chump change for Meta, which made around $60bn in profit last year. More damaging to the tech giant in the long run could be the agreement to unwind some of the mechanics it has spent two decades perfecting to keep us on its platforms.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

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 27, 2026, 6:11 am

Kim Kardashian's kid wants to work at Starbucks. What a breath of fresh air | Polly Hudson

North West has revealed her sensible intention to get a ‘regular’ job. It could be character-building – unless the venti-sized privilege she was born with holds her back

All these years after Ab Fab, we’re regularly reminded how well observed the characters of Edina (Jennifer Saunders) and her daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha), were. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s eldest child, North West, has given a new – as in, not her first, obviously, given she’s the ripe old age of 13 – interview, in which she revealed her sensible intention to get a “regular” job.

The wide-ranging chat is as depressing (her favourite female artists are “Bktherula, Baby Osama and Babyxsosa”; me neither) as it is eye-opening (her favourite music video of all time is her own). But then she drops the Saffron-shell: “I wanna work at, like, Starbucks next year. I think I can next year ’cause I’m gonna be 14, so … I think I can. I want to have a regular job, I guess.”

Published: August 27, 2026, 3:00 am

Food allergies when flying are no joke. That's why nuts should be banned on planes | Lucy Pasha-Robinson

People with allergies must be able to travel without fear, and a compassionate society should respect that

What are you most scared of? Perhaps snakes send a chill down your spine. Or heights leave your knees weak. Peanuts may sound like an odd source of phobia, but they have taken on an absurd bogeyman quality for me since my daughter was taken to hospital by ambulance after eating peanut butter when she was six months old. Just the sight of a bowl on a pub bar, or their shells discarded on the pavement, can raise my heart rate – even when I’m not with her.

Nowhere is the sight of peanuts more confronting than at 30,000ft, especially now when millions are jetting back from their holidays. Travelling with a severely allergic child can be a nightmare for all sorts of reasons, but the idea you could be sat next to a passenger consuming the very thing that has hospitalised them is its own kind of hell.

Lucy Pasha-Robinson is a Guardian assistant Opinion editor

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 27, 2026, 8:00 am

The Guardian view on the Nepal-Tibet floods: prepare for more climate-linked disasters | Editorial

Medicine, food and other supplies are the urgent priority. But the rising risks from shrinking glaciers must be faced too

Thousands of people in Nepal and Tibet are in desperate need of emergency assistance following Wednesday’s disaster. With 360 people confirmed dead, more than 1,300 others are still missing as search and rescue operations continue. The precise sequence of events linking glacier collapse to flash floods is yet to be confirmed. But there is no doubting the enormous destructive power of the brown torrent that can be seen on video clips surging down the steeply sided Himalayan valleys, sweeping away everyone and everything in its path.

Testimony from survivors about terrifying near-escapes and losses is reminiscent of previous disasters, including the 2004 tsunami. With some of the worst-affected areas still cut off and accessible only by helicopter, there is a high level of uncertainty about the total number of people who have died or homes that have been destroyed. Existing medical, food, shelter and sanitation supplies will need to be replenished. Pledges of help for locally led relief efforts from foreign governments and agencies, following reports that hundreds of those missing were tourists or pilgrims, must lead to swift action. People need basics including electricity and clean water before they can start to rebuild and recover.

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 27, 2026, 10:40 am

Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

Liverpool need midfield nous, Michael Carrick is already under pressure and Villa can bid farewell to Enzi Konsa

Enzo Maresca has a shiny new £85m midfielder he could select for a debut but, at 18 years old, he may want Ayyoub Bouaddi to have a bit of time watching on from the bench to learn about the Premier League from his elders. The Moroccan may not have anticipated one of those to be a centre-back by trade. Marc Guéhi will be eager to make a triumphant return to Crystal Palace and may well have the opportunity to do so from central midfield, where he played last weekend in the victory over Bournemouth, scoring the equaliser. The centre-back was a surprise selection in the blocker role next to Elliot Anderson, but equipped himself admirably and was not limited to the dirty work, often being found in more advanced positions in open play and happy to have the ball at his feet. His long-term future is unlikely to be outside of defence but further proof of Guéhi’s adaptability will be a positive for Maresca, as a long season awaits. Will Unwin

Crystal Palace v Manchester City, Friday 8pm (all times BST)

Liverpool v Nottingham Forest, Saturday 12.30pm

Bournemouth v Everton, Saturday 3pm

Coventry v Hull, Saturday 3pm

Tottenham v Newcastle, Saturday 5.30pm

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:01 pm

WNBA star Brink launches withering attack on Kanter Freedom over anti-trans stunt

• LA star brands stunts as attempts to ‘stay relevant’

• Brink defends trans community in face of attacks

• Opinion: Kanter is using his freedom to punch down

Los Angeles Sparks star Cameron Brink has called former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom a “stupid piece of shit” who is “trying to stay relevant”, in the most vocal statement by an active player about Kanter Freedom’s recent actions involving the WNBA.

Brink, the No 2 overall pick in the 2024 draft, spoke this week to the Mirror about the controversies that have surrounded the league this summer.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:32 am

Champions League draw: Arsenal face Real Madrid, Man City get Barcelona and PSG

• Manchester United will host Bayern Munich

• Aston Villa welcome PSG; Liverpool go to Inter

Arsenal face mouthwatering assignments against Real Madrid and Bayern Munich as they bid to go one better than last season’s agonising near miss and win a first Champions League title.

Mikel Arteta’s side were pipped on penalties by Paris Saint-Germain in the final three months ago and will be expected to cruise through this season’s league phase. The bulk of their draw appears kind but they are tasked with a visit to the Allianz Arena to play Bayern, whom they beat 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium last November, and host Real, who are once again under the charge of José Mourinho. Two seasons ago, Arsenal beat the Spanish giants 3-0 at home in a quarter-final first leg, Declan Rice scoring two memorable free-kicks.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:44 am

Uefa raises stakes with criminal complaint in battle to unseat Infantino | Matt Hughes

Uefa has begun a legal process against the embattled Fifa president but it will still be an uphill struggle to remove him

Anyone who interpreted Uefa’s decision to withdraw a proposed boycott of Fifa competitions, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as a backward step in the attempt to remove Gianni Infantino as Fifa’s president has been quickly disabused of that notion.

In a stunning development that overshadowed one of the biggest days in the European football calendar as national football federation and club executives gathered for the Champions League draw in Monte Carlo, Uefa announced it was preparing to make a legal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland alleging “criminal mismanagement” for his role in the failed World Cup sell-off plan.

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:00 pm

USA’s Russell and Brazil’s Dos Santos smash world records on ‘crazy’ night in Zurich

• Dos Santos and Russell smash hurdles world records

• Werro comes within 0.42sec of 800m world record

• Bednarek and Wanyonyi clock world-leading times

Masai Russell and Alison Dos Santos each set a world record while Mondo Duplantis won a historic pole vault on a frenetic Thursday night in Zurich.

The Letzigrund Stadium had a raucous sell-out 25,000 crowd and the still, balmy weather conditions helped the athletes no end.

Published: August 27, 2026, 2:05 pm

Is NBC’s Premier League coverage in the US too English? | Leander Schaerlaeckens

One wonders when, if ever, a US broadcast can win the same plaudits presenting the English league with a more American voice

There they were again, signaling with their unchanging faces and voices and their unchanging studio backdrop that another Premier League season had begun. On Friday afternoon, and again on Saturday and Sunday morning, Rebecca Lowe welcomed American viewers to what is somehow already the 14th season of the world’s most popular sporting circuit to air on NBC.

She was flanked, as ever, by her merry band of pundits, her gang of fellow British expats. The Robbies and the other ones. Also, Tim Howard as the token American, albeit one who spent 13 seasons of his goalkeeping career in the Premier League, deemed sufficiently English by osmosis to join the crew.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:36 am

Callaway cuts ties with Good Good Golf over ad depicting violence against woman

• Golf giant ends partnership with YouTube group

• Retailers have pulled Good Good products from shelves

• Garrett Clark says controversial skit was in ‘poor taste’

Callaway has ended its relationship with Good Good Golf amid mounting fallout from an advert that many believe made light of violence against women.

The golf equipment manufacturer announced the decision on Thursday, cutting ties with one of the world’s most popular YouTube sports channels effective immediately. Callaway also said it would donate $1m to organizations working to prevent violence against women and support survivors of domestic violence.

Published: August 27, 2026, 1:15 pm

Struggling Inter Miami hire Kily González as new head coach

• MLS club mired in five-match winless run

• González to replace interim coach Guillermo Hoyos

Inter Miami have hired former Argentina international Cristian “Kily” González as the club’s new head coach, according to two sources familiar with negotiations. César Luis Merlo was first to report the news.

The hiring will spell the end of interim manager Guillermo Hoyos’ time in charge of the South Florida club. In fact, he may have already coached his last game; MLS announced on Thursday that Hoyos had been suspended for one game for the club’s “repeated violations” of the late kickoff policy. (Inter Miami have become known throughout the league for delaying their return from half-time.)

Published: August 27, 2026, 2:04 pm

US Open: Carlos Alcaraz to face Safiullin on return as Sabalenka gets tricky draw

• Alcaraz back in action after four-month injury layoff

• Novak Djokovic faces Mariano Navone in first round

Carlos Alcaraz has been handed a tough draw on his return to singles competition after a four-month injury layoff as he faces the in-form Russian Roman Safiullin in the first round of the US Open.

Alcaraz, the defending champion in New York, has not competed in singles since sustaining a right wrist injury at the Barcelona Open in April, with the Spaniard missing the French Open, where he was also the defending champion, and Wimbledon. He was understandably rusty and tentative with his first serve when making his first competitive appearance since the injury alongside Serena Williams in the mixed doubles event on Tuesday, with the pair losing in the quarter-finals and the 44-year-old Williams even outperforming him during large parts of their time on court. His opening match against the world No 98 Safiullin, who has risen more than 100 places in the world rankings this year after returning from injury and defeated Alcaraz indoors at the Paris Masters in 2023, will be a significant first challenge.

Published: August 27, 2026, 11:34 am

Ratko Mladić, the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’, dies in The Hague

Bosnian Serb commander responsible for Srebrenica massacre dies in prison while serving life sentence for genocide

From the archive:

• Fourteen years a fugitive: the hunt for the Butcher of Bosnia

• Ratko Mladić will die in jail. But go to Bosnia: you’ll see that he won

Ratko Mladić, the infamous Serbian general who was serving a life sentence for genocide committed during the Bosnian war, has died in prison in The Hague.

Mladić had been one of the main architects of the policy of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian war. He was convicted of genocide for orchestrating the 1995 killing of at least 8,000 Muslims in the UN-designated “safe area” Srebrenica, the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:12 am

Jury deliberations begin in Lindsay Clancy murder trial after her attorney blames medical system

The state concludes: ‘This wasn’t a woman suffering from a lack of care’ or ‘a lack of resources’

• Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email

The jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial has moved into deliberations as jurors decide whether the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse is criminally responsible for fatally strangling her three children in January 2023.

Over the past five weeks, the trial, which has been called “America’s saddest murder trial” , has renewed nationwide attention on postpartum mental healthcare. Clancy’s defense maintains that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a condition estimated to affect around two women per 1,000 births – and therefore should not be held criminally responsible for her actions.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:00 am

South Korea to re-examine 310,000 missing person cases after fake record scandal

Renewed scrutiny comes after police officer accused of falsifying records in order to close the cases of people who were later found dead

South Korean police will re-examine about 310,000 missing persons cases closed over the past three years, prompted by a scandal in which an officer was arrested on suspicion of falsifying records to close files on two people who were later found dead.

The case has drawn national attention, with President Lee Jae Myung ordering an investigation into the police handling of it and telling the force to draw up a reform plan.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:06 pm

Ex-Barclays boss denies having sex with woman dressed as Snow White after Epstein emails

Jes Staley made comments to US lawmakers investigating his links to the convicted sex offender

The former Barclays boss Jes Staley has denied having sex with a woman dressed as Snow White, after being questioned about an infamous email exchange about Disney princesses with Jeffrey Epstein.

The comments were detailed in newly released transcripts from a closed-door interview last month with US lawmakers as part of their investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:21 am

Tate brothers urge release on bail in Miami as they fight extradition to UK

Andrew and Tristan Tate’s lawyer tells court that pair, who are wanted on rape charges, are not a flight risk

A lawyer for the social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate urged a US judge on Thursday to release the brothers on bail from a Miami jail ⁠as they contest extradition to Britain, ⁠where they are wanted ​on rape charges.

Howard Srebnick, a lawyer for the Tate brothers, told the Miami-based US magistrate judge Lauren Louis that they had regularly appeared in court in Romania, where they are on pretrial release, which he said ⁠was evidence they were not a flight risk.

Published: August 27, 2026, 9:01 am

In a Pennsylvania congressional swing district, a Republican incumbent faces allegations over embellishing résumé

Ryan Mackenzie, running for re-election, is accused of ‘fabricating’ a career in the real estate industry

The Republican congressman Ryan Mackenzie has been accused of embellishing his résumé with private sector experience in real estate sales amid an acrimonious showdown over his Pennsylvania seat.

Mackenzie, who has previously been accused of lying about his age on Tinder, “was a real estate salesperson licensed in PA”, according to his LinkedIn profile, and biographies have consistently listed it has his former profession.

Published: August 27, 2026, 3:00 am

Officials urge calm after malaria outbreak kills two staff at Frankfurt airport

Mosquito traps are set up at Germany’s biggest airport and doctors are asked to look out for symptoms of disease

German health officials are seeking to reassure the public after two workers at the country’s biggest airport died of malaria.

Mosquito traps have been set up at Frankfurt airport and a mosquito monitoring process is under way. A detailed investigation is being conducted to clarify how the workers contracted the disease.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:23 am

Greek Orthodox priest and cult musician clarifies views on homosexuality

Father Dionysios Tabakis says his views are those of Orthodox church, ‘nothing more, nothing less’

A Greek Orthodox priest whose home-recorded album of drone metal and religious dubstep has made him a cult figure in experimental music circles has issued a statement in which he has clarified his stance on homosexuality and the Greek radical right.

“As can be seen from my musical expression, I am in favour of unity, love, empathy and help for every needy, wronged and suffering person in life,” Father Dionysios Tabakis said in a public statement shared with the Guardian. “Whoever they are, whatever they believe, whether they are a saint or a sinner.”

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:11 am

El Niño climate patterns supercharged by burning of fossil fuels, study finds

‘Godzilla’ event currently brewing could push 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of next year

A series of strong El Niño climatic patterns in recent decades, such as the “Godzilla” event currently brewing that is set to warp weather around the world, have been supercharged by the broader overheating of the planet caused by the burning of fossil fuels, a major new study has found.

El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon, taking place every two to seven years, when the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean heat up, causing a cascade of impacts around the world. The latest developing El Niño, set to peak later this year, is set to be the strongest in living memory and has been informally dubbed a “Godzilla” event.

Published: August 27, 2026, 11:00 am

Climate crisis could be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal, experts warn

Unusual heat this year may have melted ice and thawed bonds that hold glaciers in place – leading to catastrophe

• Nepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updates

• What caused the flash flood in Nepal and Tibet?

The devastating flash flood that has ripped through the border communities of Nepal and Tibet has heightened fears that the climate crisis is destabilising the geology of mountain and polar regions, threatening millions of people.

Satellite imagery suggests a glacier collapse high in the Himalayas was the primary cause of the deadly torrent of mud, water and ice that tore along the Bhotekoshi River on Wednesday. It swept away buildings and roads and left at least 360 dead and 1,400 missing.

Published: August 27, 2026, 11:25 am

One of east coast’s largest datacenters accused of ‘violating federal law’

Thermal drone footage shows a Microsoft-backed AI datacenter powering its operations with dozens of unpermitted generators

The largest planned AI datacenter in New Jersey is being accused of violating federal law after a visual investigation found the site running dozens of unpermitted gas-powered generators.

Thermal drone footage captured by the non-profit newsroom Floodlight last week showed the partly completed DataOne facility in Vineland was operating at least 45 of the site’s 62 generators at the time.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:00 am

West Point’s only climate scientist fired after continuing to teach human causes of climate change

Adam Kalkstein compared administration’s order to trying to teach the law without mentioning the constitution

The only climate scientist teaching at West Point, the US army’s military academy, was fired after he resisted an order to stop teaching about the human causes of the climate emergency, a lawsuit claims.

Dr Adam Kalkstein, a civilian professor of geography at the New York institution, was terminated after the spring semester this year, six months after a testy meeting with Brig Gen Shane Reeves, then dean of West Point’s academic board, the court filing said.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:15 am

ICE agent charged with Minnesota shooting released from jail in Texas

Judge rules Christian Castro, accused of shooting man and lying about it, cannot be held pending extradition request

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis was released from a Texas jail on Thursday, after a judge refused to order his return to Minnesota.

Christian Castro was released at the break of dawn from a detention center in Brownsville. He motioned his hand toward a few camera operators and a reporter crowding around him and quickly got into an SUV that drove off.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:20 am

Plane headed for remote Alaska town crashes and kills all four passengers on board

Plane was headed for airport in Seldovia from Anchorage, and was submerged in water after the crash

A small plane carrying four people crashed into shallow waters next to a remote coastal town in Alaska on Wednesday, killing everyone onboard, according to officials.

The Piper PA-24 was headed for the airport in the small town of Seldovia after taking off from Anchorage, according to a statement from the Alaska department of public safety. Seldovia’s airport is about 136 miles (219km) south-west of Anchorage.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:57 am

CEOs earn 614 times more than workers at US’s 100 lowest-paying corporations

Analysis by Institute for Policy Studies found that between 2019 and 2025, CEO compensation increased 41.4%

The average CEO of the US’s 100 largest, lowest-paying corporations earned 614 times more than their average worker last year, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

IPS’s latest executive excess report analyzed compensation at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay. Between 2019 and 2025, CEO compensation increased 41.4%, unadjusted for inflation, twice as much as the median worker pay increased at these firms during the same period, at 20.7%.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:00 am

Hiker reunited with backpack 60 years after he fell into a glacier in Austria

Bag, camera and pipe belonging to 86-year-old are latest relics uncovered as glaciers melt due to global heating

An 86-year-old mountaineer has been reunited with his backpack and climbing equipment after the kit emerged from a melting glacier in Austria – more than 60 years after he was forced to leave them there.

Items including an ice axe, camera and a pipe dating from the 1950s or 1960s were discovered on the Sulztalferner glacier in Austria’s Tyrol region, at an altitude of 2,955 metres (9,700ft) above sea level, by a hiker in July.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:00 am

AI can detect heart disease in women using mammograms, study suggests

Experts say findings mean breast screenings for cancer could also flag cardiovascular problems in women

Doctors have discovered a way to use routine mammograms that screen for breast cancer to spot heart disease, the world’s leading – and frequently underdiagnosed – cause of death in women.

Researchers analysed the scans using artificial intelligence and were able to successfully identify women with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure or who had suffered a stroke.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:00 am

Woman found guilty of indecent assault against two pupils at London boys’ school in 1980s

Sally-Anne Bowen, now 65, convicted of assaulting boys at Christ’s College, Finchley, where she was chemistry teacher

A chemistry teacher has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at an all-boys school in the late 1980s.

Sally-Anne Bowen, who taught at Christ’s College in Finchley, north London, assaulted the teenage boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s.

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:23 am

Bronze age treasure stolen in four-minute Spanish museum heist

Gold collection known as Treasure of Villena, worth at least €1.7m, is target of ‘very well planned’ raid

Thieves in Spain have raided the Treasure of Villena – a stunning collection of bronze age gold artefacts that has been described as the most important prehistoric trove in Europe – in the latest high-profile smash-and-grab heist on the continent.

The raid on Thursday morning of the 66 mostly gold objects in the Spanish town of Villena lasted just minutes, officials said.

Published: August 27, 2026, 8:47 am

‘She should have been queen of the world!’ Readers remember Dolly Parton

From quiet acts of generosity and life-changing gigs to singing for a professional puppeteer, Dolly Parton has had a profound impact on readers’ lives
• Photo gallery: fans pay tribute to Dolly Parton

I had the opportunity to meet her when I volunteered to work the Country Music Awards in the late 70s. Me and three other kids had Dolly all to ourselves for about 20 minutes. I remember with disbelief how she took several unhurried minutes with each of us and gave us her undivided attention for that time. She had no reason to do this. She was just as genuine as they come. Her philanthropy was exceptional. Her talent speaks for itself. I miss her already. Larry Lipman, Tennessee

Published: August 27, 2026, 6:02 am

Yayoi Kusama’s psychedelic art was at its best when taken in high doses

With dots that dizzied the viewer, the giddy sensory overload of seeing the grandest installations of her octopuses and giant pumpkins was hard to resist

• Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who became a global superstar, dies aged 97
• A life in pictures

I once had an argument about Yayoi Kusama with Peter Gabriel. Not in person – I’ve never met the prog rock hero. But after I recorded some critical comments on her work for the BBC, I watched the segment only to see Gabriel passionately defending her. My onscreen cynicism seemed harsh indeed compared with his soulful appreciation of all those dots.

My scepticism about Kusama started the first time I saw her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The context is significant because after a big dose of Jackson Pollock’s looping, tangled forests of colour and line (colour as line), Piet Mondrian’s pulsing Broadway Boogie Woogie and other great abstract art, Kusama’s dots appeared to me static, planned, predictable. I wasn’t excited or moved.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:14 am

The Last Sunrise review – Amazon’s soapy YA romance is thankless and bland

Another familiar concoction fails to make use of its sunny location and chooses cheap melodrama over romantic charm

A titular sunrise, a summer fling fantasy, exorbitant wealth, impossibly sculpted bodies: such are the profitable story ingredients that make up The Last Sunrise, the latest offering in Amazon’s endless catalogue of “romance content”. I wouldn’t ordinarily use that term to describe a film, but it fits The Last Sunrise (indifferently directed by Carlson Young) like a glove. The movie is an adaptation of the 2025 novel of the same title by Anna Todd, whose After series – itself adapted from Todd’s phenomenally popular One Direction fan fiction – was wrung dry between 2019 and 2024.

In recent years, a particular romance category has yielded high returns for Amazon: from this summer’s Every Year After to The Summer I Turned Pretty’s memorable run, these stories are easily palatable, set in idyllic locations, and orbit attractive, heterosexual, wealthy couples. Nothing new there – one need look no further than any run-of-the-mill 2000s romcom to find the same tropes. But the narrative simplicity that once made room for electric chemistry between leads, perfectly tailored wardrobes and irresistibly depicted locales has given way to cheap melodrama. With its improbable plot twists, family secrets and at least one across-the-face slap, The Last Sunrise is more soap opera than Under the Tuscan Sun.

Published: August 26, 2026, 12:01 am

Ain’t nobody better: Chaka Khan’s 20 best songs – ranked!

Ahead of the release of her 13th solo album, the fantastically titled Chakzilla, we rank the best of a sublime catalogue of funk, slow jams and tears-on-the-dancefloor disco

Chaka Khan had harsh words for the “assholes” at her then record company, Warner Bros, who she felt under-promoted 1992’s The Woman I Am, her first album in four years. Listening to Love You All My Lifetime’s cocktail of funk and contemporary R&B, you wonder if she didn’t have a point. There’s no obvious reason why it wasn’t huge hit.

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:00 am

Billy Strings: So Much for Goodbyes review – staggering, stirring songs of grief draw the blues out of bluegrass

(Reprise)
The crossover star’s introspective sixth album is full of memories of his mother, who died in 2025, bringing his dextrous guitar to songs rooted in tradition and yearning

On the face of it, 2025 was a landmark year for Billy Strings. His fifth album, Highway Prayers, won him his third Grammy. The first bluegrass album in more than 22 years to debut at the top of the US album sales chart, it confirmed him as the genre’s biggest crossover star in decades. He was feted by everyone from Bob Dylan to Post Malone to Willie Nelson, the latter describing him as “the John Coltrane of bluegrass”, a pretty impressive soubriquet in anyone’s book. As the New York Times noted, he was now capable of filling the arena-sized venues that his idols – Doc Watson, Clarence White, Tony Rice, Béla Fleck – could never have dreamed of performing in, packing them out with an audience that look less like traditional bluegrass aficionados than Deadheads: a vast, mobile, hippy-ish army that call themselves Goats. They’re presumably drawn by the ease with which Strings occupies the no man’s land between country and expansive, psychedelically informed improvisation, his willingness to put acoustic guitar through umpteen effects pedals and stretch out songs for 20 minutes on stage.

It’s a side of Strings’ music that’s only hinted at on Highway Prayers’ follow-up: as Burn the Other End and Lucid Daydream draw to an end, they briefly unravel into a kind of abstraction that you can imagine as a jumping-off point for heady, out-there exploration live. But So Much for Goodbyes is an album more concerned with introspection, and understandably so. In the midst of 2025’s successes, Strings’ mother died of an overdose. His chaotic upbringing is a matter of record. His father died of a heroin overdose when he was two, both his mother and his stepfather were addicted to meth and he left home at 14 on the grounds that “there was no food in the house and my parents were strung out”. But Strings said he had “no idea” she had relapsed, and her death seeps into every corner of the album: its title and cover art – based on a collage his mother was working on the night she died; the concluding instrumental that bears her name, Debra’s Waltz; the songs that, on the surface, appear to have nothing to do with her passing.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:00 am

Song & Dance album review – Jacques Forestier’s impressive debut has persuasive rhythmic poise

Jacques Forestier/Boris Kusnezow
(Warner Classics)
The Canadian violinist’s album definitely does what it says on the tin: from Bartók to Ernst, there is a quiet and beguiling eloquence to his playing

Perhaps the most promising thing about this impressive debut album from Jacques Forestier, the young Canadian violinist who tied in first place at the 2024 Joseph Joachim Competition, is the way it lives up to its title.

There’s a swing to the way he and the pianist Boris Kusnezow play Bartók’s six Romanian Folk Dances that extends even into the quiet movements, which sound distant and beguiling. Wieniawski’s Polonaise de Concert comes across as a dance rather than just a flashy showpiece. Bach’s D minor Sarabande is framed by movements from Ysaÿe’s solo Sonatas. All have persuasive rhythmic poise.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:00 am

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout audiobook review – brilliant portrait of an existential crisis

A teacher’s private anxieties are subtly combined with political events in this Booker-listed tale set in coastal Massachusetts

Artie Dam is a much-loved history teacher from coastal Massachusetts famed for his white socks and old sneakers and who sees a growing hopelessness in his young students. Not only are they dispirited by the state of the world, but they also believe they won’t be able to achieve their professional dreams. Their feelings of dread and ennui are shared by Artie who is aghast at the imminent re-election of a cruel and divisive leader (who remains nameless).

Artie is also lonely in the company of his wife, Evie, a therapist who comes from a wealthy family and is dismissive of her “soft” spouse. Artie realises he doesn’t truly know Evie, and she doesn’t care to know him. He traces their loss of connection to their son Rob’s car accident a decade ago in which Rob survived but his girlfriend Heather was killed. Such is Artie’s desolation that he contemplates suicide, if only he can find a way of doing it discreetly. But something happens while he is sailing in his boat that changes his mind. Later, a revelation from his son further shifts his perspective on his relationships.

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:00 am

Kolkhoz by Emmanuel Carrère review – intricate portrait of an elite French family

The author of The Adversary and Yoga unearths a history that includes the Nazis, Russia, and the Académie Française

When Emmanuel Carrère’s mother, Hélène, died in 2023, at the age of 94, President Macron spoke at her memorial. She had been “perpetual secretary” of the Académie Française, in effect its head, and 200 people gathered at Les Invalides in Paris to pay tribute. Emmanuel’s father, Louis, was there too, in a wheelchair, only half aware of what was going on. This 400-page memoir, translated into English by John Lambert, is a homage to both parents and the unlikely history that brought them together. It’s also an act of reparation towards Hélène, whom Emmanuel worshipped as a child but upset as an adult by publishing a book that she’d forbidden him to write.

Hélène grew up in stateless poverty in Paris, the daughter of Georges Zourabichvili, whose parents had fled Georgia in 1921, and Nathalie von Pelken, who as a child had six governesses, one for each day excluding Sunday. Though “the magical world of the fallen Russian aristocracy” was the backdrop, conditions were tough, not least after Georges disappeared in 1944, murdered by partisans for alleged Nazi collaboration. Hélène was 15 at the time and unsuccessfully tried to hide the truth about George’s death from her younger brother, Nicolas.

Published: August 26, 2026, 11:00 pm

The rise of ‘biogossip’: Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel is the latest in a delicious literary lineage

The much-discussed Life of M is the latest in a lineage of celebrity satire that spans from Virginia Woolf to The Devil Wears Prada

In Rachel Cusk’s new novel, Life of M, the famous actor protagonist participates in an event at a book store after hours. The actor, M, is joined by “a writer of some renown” and a fashion model who possesses “some vague self-absorption”. A brand sponsored the affair. I spent literal hours trying to find the real-world equivalent of the opaque fictional passage. I scrolled through the backlogs of influencers I know to appear bookish in their content, who might have fallen prey to Dior’s Ulysses tote bag drop or Miu Miu’s “literary club”. I even stooped so low as to DM a Natalie Portman fan account, asking for leads.

As has been widely reported, M’s character is based on Portman. One journalist was credited with the scoop, but she simply finished her advance copy sooner than the rest of us; it’s clear from page three, when Cusk describes M’s breakout film as having “immediately brought her childhood to an end” (obviously Léon: The Professional; Portman was 11 when she was cast) and a later film about obsessive, wild ballerinas (Black Swan). But the rumor that Portman is unhappy with her portrayal – an impression that cannot immediately be gleaned from the book itself, especially depending on interpretation of its final lines – has trickled down to the raggiest of tabloids.

Published: August 26, 2026, 2:00 am

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy review – picture-postcard retelling of haunting Minoan myth

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Asobo Studio
The medieval franchise is transplanted to Crete, conjuring action-adventure magic from familiar ingredients

The path in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is a familiar one. Amid ancient ruins and sun-dappled gorges, a young woman, Sophia, dutifully treads the same footsteps as a Minoan warrior from millennia ago, one with whom she seems to share a visionary connection. The “resonance” between these two characters is made clear by their echoing actions – a crank pushed in the bronze age that still works in the medieval present, for example. Through these spliced timelines, it becomes clear that Sophia, compelled by her supernatural gift, possesses little agency. Destiny beckons her forwards.

This is a smart meta concept for a game that, at its most basic level, boils down to keeping your left thumb planted firmly on the analogue stick, always pushing Sophia onwards in linear fashion. You jostle her through ornate corridors rendered as higgledy-piggledy pirate camps and cobbled Venetian streets. For the greater part of the game, you propel her through the Minoan remains of Crete, which harbour a dark and terrible secret. It is classic third-person action-adventure fare, building on the template laid down by the likes of Tomb Raider and then refined and complicated by titles such as The Last of Us. Little, from an interactive perspective, surprises: you dash, vault and swing between teetering podiums, squeeze through tiny gaps in rock and crouch behind conveniently placed walls to avoid enemies.

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:00 am

Trainwatch – alone with your thoughts on a railway line to nowhere

The flat routines of a dead end railway job screen out an approaching menace in a quietly intriguing game from the indie developer of Cat Lady and Lorelai

Lonely jobs have provided excellent material for independent video games over the years. From Papers, Please to Firewatch to The Stanley Parable, players have been happy to spend hours dwelling in depressing cubicles or rural hideaways, usually because there is an intriguingly hidden point to it all.

In Trainwatch, a character named Troy has taken a seemingly godforsaken job as a railway worker in an unnamed desolate backwater. His main task over the course of a single month is to manage a level crossing, closing the gate whenever a train comes, while also carrying out daily chores such as cooking and washing. It sounds serene, but Troy is also running away from something. The other stipulations are that he stays sober and calls his wife every night. And there is something lurking in the fog at the edges of the fields – one day he must face it.

Published: August 27, 2026, 2:00 am

With the end of physical media in sight, gamers have had enough

An increasing tension between players and publishers about ownership of titles could lead to a divestment from the system the big companies are trying to enforce

At the time of press, there is a well-publicised protest taking place in the video games community. PlayStation 5 owners are being encouraged to log off from their consoles between 23 and 30 August – no playing games, no downloading new titles. The motivating factor is Sony’s decision to cease physical game disc production from January 2028. After that, games will only be released as digital products. In an act of poor timing or wilful defiance, Sony chose this week to send out a mass email reminding customers of their PS5 terms and conditions: “The software is licensed to you, not sold,” states the relevant clause. “You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play … ” It knows, of course, that most customers won’t open the email, let alone read it.

There has always been a tension between game players and game publishers – an underlying sense of mutual mistrust. Players are wary of their favourite franchises being canned, or games being delayed or released with bugs. Publishers and manufacturers are wary of piracy and the capricious tastes of consumers. But now the atmosphere among many game players feels more starkly political than ever. Microsoft has been targeted by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement for its ties to the Israeli military; the consumer advocacy group Stop Killing Games is gaining support; players have protested over the purchase of Electronic Arts by a Saudi-led consortium – boycotts have been proposed in part due to the possible ramifications regarding LGBTQ+ content in titles such as The Sims. As the games industry has grown and globalised, its impact on culture, society and politics has increased. Yet, on an individual level, gamers and consumers are feeling increasingly powerless.

Published: August 26, 2026, 7:00 am

Vholume review – a headlong rush of parkour perfection in a brutalist wonderland

PC; Nathan Grange, Léonard Lemaitre, Niels Tiercelin, IronEqual
Race across impossible dystopian cityscapes in this exhilarating game of wall-runs, death-chancing leaps and split-second improvisation

At first, Vholume seems like a quick rush through some smartly selected references. Has this breathless yet austere parkour game been designed or ingeniously curated? The urban gymnast moveset comes from Mirror’s Edge. Level names use terms like conapt, first coined by Philip K Dick. And the environments themselves are dystopian and surreal, Half-Life 2’s City 17 colliding with the blasted avenues and mute archways of de Chirico. Many games have influences. Vholume has actual taste.

All the surface stuff fades away when the game is in motion, however. Vholume’s an on-foot racing game in which you hoof it through spectacularly odd environments, moving from one beam of concrete to the next. You’re clipping your wall-runs and power-slides together to bridge seemingly impossible gaps between buildings, forever in search of the next stretch of track, the next turn, the next jump that gets you to the level’s exit and the worldwide leaderboards. And once that’s done, you have a choice: onwards to another gauntlet, or back to the start of this one again to slice a few microseconds off your score? Or maybe you’d rather head over to multiplayer to race against the ghosts of others?

Published: August 26, 2026, 5:30 am

Actor Peter Cullen, voice of Optimus Prime and Eeyore, dies aged 85

Montreal-born actor also voiced KARR in Knight Rider and the monster in Predator, having started his career on Canadian TV and radio

Peter Cullen, the actor behind the voice of characters including Eeyore in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh franchise and Optimus Prime in Transformers, has died aged 85.

He died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, a statement said.

Published: August 27, 2026, 11:56 am

‘The technique was revolutionary’: Ha Chong-Hyun, the 91-year-old South Korean artist who turned painting inside out

In his trailblazing work, paint is pushed through the back of hemp to create spare, striking paintings. Abstraction is a form of rebellion, he says – and he has no intention of slowing down

In the early 1970s, the Korean artist Ha Chong-Hyun had a simple but novel idea: why not apply oil paint to the back of a surface rather than the front? Instead of canvas, he stretched pieces of hemp, a coarse and loosely woven fabric, and pushed the thick oil paint through the holes in the cloth. For each work he used a single colour, in a neutral or muted tone such as white or brown. On the “front” side, he then moved the paint around with various handmade tools to create something akin to brushstrokes.

Ha, now 91, has remained dedicated to this technique, known as the “back-pressure method” (bae-ap-bub in Korean), ever since. He titles every piece Conjunction – because for him the work is essentially about the coming together of artist and material – along with numbers denoting the date of its creation. “The technique he developed was really revolutionary. It hadn’t been done before,” says Max Bossier, director at Lisson Gallery in London, where a selection from this decades-spanning body of work, alongside several of Ha’s earlier artistic experiments, will go on view in September.

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:00 am

‘I am so tired’: Jillian Edelstein’s devastating portraits of apartheid and more – in pictures

The South African photographer documented her country’s harrowing Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These pictures form part of a new exhibition – alongside intimate images of actors, artists and friends

Published: August 26, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘He could arch both eyebrows and curl his lips in every direction all at once’: Tim Curry’s five best screen roles

The actor fully embraced his physical talents and outsized personality with a line in theatrical baddies teetering deliciously on the edge of serious and silly

• Tim Curry, star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Stephen King’s It, dies aged 80
• Tim Curry on sexuality, surviving a stroke – and 50 years of stardom
• Clowns, corsets and kings: Tim Curry – a life in pictures

As Dr Frank-N-Furter, the gender-nonconforming alien mad scientist who presides over Richard O’Brien’s glam rock musical, admits two innocents to his gothic castle and induces them into all sorts of delicious naughtiness, Curry is so thrillingly liberated as to seem a menace. An irresistibly appealing menace. Apparently able to arch both eyebrows and curl his lips in every direction all at once, Curry wraps his mouth around the double-entendres and belts out the lyrics with lip-smacking relish, and fully fleshes out this avatar of sexual confidence. The film earned one of the original cult fandoms, the stage musical endures and many other actors have pulled on Frank’s corset and high heels – but the role indelibly and for ever belongs to Curry.

Published: August 27, 2026, 4:29 am

No more crying over spills: I tested a robot vacuum that has a portable spot cleaner

Many robovacs can dust, mop and empty themselves at a dock, but the detachable cleaner sets the Eufy Omni E28 apart

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There are a lot of robot vacuums to choose from these days. The Eufy Omni E28 may look like every other robot vacuum and mop, but it has one very big standout feature: its dock includes a detachable handheld carpet/fabric spot cleaner. Whenever you get a bad spill on the carpet, you’re supposed to be able to race over to the Omni dock, yank the “FlexiOne” portable deep cleaner’s handle to release it from the dock, plug it in where you need to deep clean, and eliminate that unsightly stain before it sets and leaves a permanent stain.

For a month, I used this robot vacuum to clean my home’s hardwood flooring, kitchen tiles and carpet. I also conducted a stain test to see how well its detachable deep cleaner could handle a variety of stains. I came away highly impressed with the cleaning power Eufy has packed into the E28, but you will also need to be a patient person who can handle a little noise.

How we tested

How well the robot vacuum works

How well the portable deep cleaner worked

What we disliked

Is it worth it?

Important specs and dimensions

Published: August 27, 2026, 7:15 am

Like a rhinestone cowgirl – Dolly Parton’s most glorious, joyful and meta looks

Across six decades, the late country singer and pop culture icon turned self‑presentation into a flamboyant art form

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Dolly Parton may have had a record 25 US country No 1 singles, released 66 studio albums and earned six Golden Globe nominations, among many other achievements, but the Tennessee-born star also had an incredible number of fashion moments. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”, she famously quipped when asked about her style. As we bid her farewell, six Guardian writers reflect on their favourite Dolly looks.

***

Published: August 27, 2026, 10:00 am

I tried 11 coffees from Counter Culture, the accessible small-batch roaster converting coffee slobs to snobs

I’ll never go back to Starbucks after trying this specialty brand. Level up your morning coffee with well-made beans and the right roast for you

• Four ways to brew better drip coffee

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I’m an empathetic girl, except when it comes to anyone who despises the taste of coffee.

Having perfected my at-home cup, I can’t fathom anyone disliking the warming flavors that incentivize me to leave my bed every morning. In fact, I’m convinced I could convert tea loyalists and energy drink lovers into coffee connoisseurs if they set aside their Folgers and tried quality beans.

I never leave home without my trusty, leakproof Owala coffee mug

Published: August 26, 2026, 12:15 pm

You be the judge: should my partner stop eating off other people’s plates?

Helen says grabbing friends’ leftovers is a no-no. Bill thinks wasting food is wrong. You decide who should eat their words
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I know Bill hates waste, but pouncing on people’s leftovers is embarrassing, unhygienic and rude

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:00 am

Stephen Libby on fashion: I’m on a mission to revive the jumpsuit – they’re practical and stylish

The 70s was a golden era for the jumpsuit, but I’m happy they’re back, thanks to Harry Styles, Benson Boone and – of course – me

Since appearing on The Traitors, I’ve become synonymous with jumpsuits. In fact, I’ve been required to wear one at every public appearance I have made since it aired, despite only wearing two on the show. That’s the power of the jumpsuit, I guess.

When I was packing for the show, I wasn’t even sure I would bring them – and not everyone watching liked them. Lots of people did, but I got messages saying: “What the hell is he wearing?”. The memes were also phenomenal. My favourite was my head on John Travolta’s body in a still from Saturday Night Fever.

Published: August 26, 2026, 6:00 am

AI-proof? Younger workers desert the digital world for traditional crafts

In a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding

It’s a bleak moment for young people entering the workforce for the first time. For decades, a university degree seemed to promise a stable career – but entry-level white-collar jobs across almost all sectors are being disrupted by AI. Budding accountants, software engineers and junior lawyers increasingly find themselves displaced by cheap automation.

Even creative fields are struggling against AI tech that can produce artwork, lengthy prose or complex design briefs in seconds.

Published: August 27, 2026, 6:38 am

Why we’re all hooked on tinned fish

Sardines, mackerel, herring, pilchards, sprats and anchovies ... canning only makes the umami flavour better. They’re my top choice for pasta

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I can’t find it, despite having spent the past 35 minutes looking, but somewhere in the house is The Crisis Cook Book. It’s a standard paperback, postbox-red with white writing on the cover, and full of recipes from chefs including Rowley Leigh, Heston Blumenthal and Jeremy Lee. Not having found it, I needed Amazon to tell me it was published in 2007 and compiled by Nick Lander, at the time the Financial Times’ restaurant correspondent. He asked 28 chefs to donate three recipes – their favourite starter, main course and dessert – and proceeds from the book went to the national homelessness charity Crisis.

The reason I needed (and still need – it is now a mission) to find the book is because inside it is Rowley’s recipe for pasta with tinned sardines, fennel, chilli and lemon zest. It’s a recipe that I have made so many times, and for so many years, that I don’t need to look at the book; but, equally, because I’ve made it so many times and so much time has passed, I have no idea how far I have drifted from the original, and want to check. I’ve even written about this recipe in my weekly Guardian column, without referring to the book or even mentioning Rowley! Not that a store-cupboard version of the Sicilian pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines and wild fennel) is owned by anyone, although Rowley did teach me.

Published: August 27, 2026, 5:10 am

How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’

People with persistent predatory personalities cause an inordinate amount of pain. Recently, our shared understanding of them has grown – and it could help protect us

The classic checklist for psychopathy was developed in 1980 by Prof Robert Hare, who is still the recognised giant of the territory. The 20 traits, which ranged from pathological lying to a lack of empathy, were based entirely on prison populations. This worked because not only did Hare have the benefit of a large sample, with pronounced psychopathic behaviours, but he was able to compare interviews and self-reporting with data collected about the individuals – so inconsistencies could be identified.

However, Hare knew this approach was limited. In 1976, he said that he simply didn’t know to what extent his results could be generalised to non-incarcerated psychopaths, including female ones. “Research into the socially successful psychopath is badly needed,” he concluded. Even decades later in the early 2000s, when Hare wanted to look into psychopaths in politics, he still needed to go to prison to find them (Pinochet’s henchmen in Chilean jails). Research into the higher-functioning psychopath – who doesn’t get caught, or maybe doesn’t even resort to crime – has proved elusive, not least because self-reporting questionnaires don’t work. Psychopaths lie; arguably, that’s their main thing.

Published: August 26, 2026, 9:00 pm

Architourism in France: the retro futurist seaside town near Montpellier that’s out of this world

Built in the 60s and 70s to curb a holiday exodus to Spain, with apartments inspired by Mayan pyramids and featuring ‘intergalactic curves’, La Grande-Motte is having another moment in the sun with fans of modern architecture

My dream holiday is a trip back in time. Not to see the results of seismic Pompeii or 15th-century Machu Picchu – although I love both – but somewhere created specifically between the mid 1950s and 1970s, when cities were getting weird. I love postwar architourism, exploring urban planning at its most frenzied and optimistic. I have relished trips to Niemeyer’s Brasília and Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh in India, where the monumental and visionary modernist architecture and interiors are at odds with the minimal population. So La Grande-Motte, the retro futurist folly of a resort town on the southern coast of France, a 30-minute drive from Montpellier, had long been on my “must visit” list.

The tourist board of this Occitanie seaside town likes to flag up some superficial parallels between it and the aforementioned cities, but this isn’t a high-concept capital city or administrative hub. It was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s purely to persuade the French to stop going south to the Costa Brava in Spain. As part of an initiative by the French government, a stretch of windswept mosquito-infested coast between Montpellier and Perpignan, including Gruissan and Port Leucate, was reimagined as an alternative to the Côte d’Azur with several new-build beach towns. La Grande-Motte would be the weirdest project. It was made for fun. It’s also well positioned to visit the nearby salt marshes and 13th-century walled-in town of Aigues-Mortes, for when you want to feel as if you’ve ticked a few more holiday boxes.

Published: August 26, 2026, 11:00 pm

Modern cowboys are saddling up in the US West. And they’re on a whole new mission

In states like Montana, range riders can play a key role in a wild landscape where livestock and predators navigate life together

For most people, the word “cowboy” still summons a figure from Western folklore – a rough rider with a weathered face and a steely gaze, a self-reliant loner who answers to nobody, is fearless in the face of danger, and protects his lands from predators – animal and human alike.

But over the past 15 years, a new range rider has emerged in the American West, one that is out on a wholly different mission: to live in a wild landscape where livestock and predators can co-exist.

Published: August 26, 2026, 7:00 am

The flat-pack skyscraper: how wood can shape the cities of the future

Our buildings are monuments to extraction and extreme emissions. But what if we turned from destructive concrete to timber?

• Last chance to buy the summer issue of The Long Read magazine, now with 15% off. Click here to order

I travelled to Oslo in the early autumn. It felt like arriving into the future. Or, at least, a fragment of a possible future. I drove north in the quiet digital bubble of my electric rental car. In 2024, Norway became the first country in the world where electric cars outnumbered petrol cars.

A smooth, pristine motorway unfolded between farmlands and low hillsides of dense green forest. Long tunnels carried the route up above the banks of Lake Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake. After a little more than an hour, the road curved downward to run parallel to the lakeshore.

Published: August 26, 2026, 9:00 pm

Tell us: have you been affected by the flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border?

Floods and mudslides have swept away houses and roads with many hundreds missing

Hundreds are missing and at least 160 people have died after torrential floods ⁠hit the Himalayan border areas of ⁠Nepal and in ​Tibet in China. An avalanche of ice and rock triggered massive flash floods causing widespread damage to villages and infrastructure.

Officials said hundreds of travellers from countries including India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Malaysia, were reported missing.

Published: August 26, 2026, 8:09 pm

Share your tributes and memories of Tim Curry

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of the performer - whether you met him or admired his work

Tim Curry, performer of screen and stage, who made his name as the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, has died aged 80.

Curry got Tony nominations for his varied stage work on Broadway as Mozart in Amadeus, Alan Swann in My Favorite Year and as King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot. He also made a supremely creepy Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 TV adaptation of Stephen King’s It. But above all he is most remembered for one role: Dr Frank-N-Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the screen version of the 1973 stage show.

Published: August 27, 2026, 2:48 am

Share your tributes and memories of Yayoi Kusama

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of artist Yayoi Kusama – whether you met her, or appreciated her work

Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese outsider artist who became a global superstar, has died aged 97.

Kusama died in a Tokyo hospital on 14 August, her company Yayoi Kusama Inc announced in a statement on Thursday.

Published: August 27, 2026, 12:49 am

Panic in Kyiv and prize sheep: photos of the day – Thursday

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

Published: August 27, 2026, 6:46 am