‘It’s a deep soul connection’: Erasure on how 40 years of friendship got them through grief – and why Vince Clarke has quit touring

Returning for a 20th album of sumptuous synthpop, Andy Bell and Clarke open up about difficult recent years, being happily uncool and battling resurgent homophobia

Andy Bell is rabbiting away on multiple topics. There’s his farm in Mallorca, where he and his husband Stephen Moss have had a fine year harvesting pomegranates, kiwis and lemons. Then there’s the Erasure frontman’s fascination with clowns (“Would the makeup help you avoid facial recognition technology?”), memories of 90s nightclubbing (“You could do anything and get away with it!”) and a worry that he’s turning into “a fussy old grandpa”. Suddenly, he catches himself: “But what about you, Vince? You’re being very quiet!”

Bell’s bandmate, whose only contribution since joining the video chat from his San Diego home has been to say hello, smiles. “No, no, I just love listening to you, man. I’m really enjoying this.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

After rape allegations at Cornell University, why are women again being urged to talk to their sons? Why not men? | Gaby Hinsliff

Boys learn by watching how the men they respect treat their partners, female colleagues, women on the street. Now is the time for those men to step up

There were seven men in all, and it lasted almost seven hours.

What followed, according to the woman at the heart of the Cornell University case that has gripped student campuses around the world, was less a sexual encounter than a grim pack-bonding exercise fuelled by booze and ketamine, in which she was passed around like a blow-up doll.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

In the UK, the Rape Crisis national freephone helpline is on 0808 802 9999 (12-2.30pm and 7-9.30pm every day of the year). Rape Crisis also operate a live chat helpline, open Monday: 2pm-4.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Tuesday: 2-4.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Wednesday: 12pm-2.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Thursday: 12pm-2.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Friday: 9am-11.30am, 2pm-4.30pm. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and also by email in Ireland jo@samaritans.ie. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk. The 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, is on 0808 2000 247. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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: October 1, 2026, 10:00 pm

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

New York film festival: 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

Experience: I’m allergic to the cold

My condition is severe, so I have to a keep close watch on my body temperature and can’t eat chilled foods

In 2012, when I was 37, I started noticing that my fingers would get swollen and red whenever I held an iced drink. I thought it was strange, but I didn’t know what was going on. Then the same thing would happen when I handled food from the fridge. My instinct was to put my hands under hot water, but that made it worse.

For a while, that’s all I experienced. I thought it was weird but not dangerous. I was busy with my three children, so didn’t worry.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘Like caring for a pet’: the open-source tree map inspiring Berliners to water their urban forest

Gieß den Kiez app shows trees in critical need of watering and can be adopted by other heat-stressed cities around the world

Amanda Gläser-Bligh sometimes attracts puzzled looks when she goes to water the eight-year-old street tree she has adopted outside her door in Charlottenburg, Berlin.

“I named her Linda the linden,” she says. “Berliners are not always known for being super friendly but most people react really positively when they find out what I’m doing.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

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

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, 9:18 pm

Letitia James appointed special prosecutor in alleged gang-rape at Cornell

New York attorney general brought in by governor after recent questions raised over university’s 2024 investigation

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, said on Thursday she is appointing Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged gang-rape at Cornell University.

“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said in a statement. “This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:08 pm

400 French schools closed on Friday as protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ – Europe live

Dozens of schools have been damaged and nearly 3,000 teenagers have been detained since the start of the tensions

The prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France told BFMTV that the situation on the ground was “incomparable” to the riots on Thursday, with “far fewer demonstrators” joining the protests today.

11 schools in the region are affected, while 55 switched to e-learning, Jacques Witkowski told the broadcaster.

Published: October 2, 2026, 1:27 am

‘An amazing ride’: SpaceX flight led by first Black female commander sets US speed record

Four astronauts pulled up at International Space Station after eight-hour express flight led by Jessica Watkins

Four astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday after launching on an eight-hour express that set a US speed record, and that created further history with the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit.

SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for Nasa after a three-week delay to fix their Dragon capsule’s leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but skies cleared enough to allow a safe liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 11.10am (1510 GMT).

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:18 pm

California outlaws child marriage, joining 17 other US states

Advocacy group that pushed for the legislation says 9,000 children are married in California every year

California has outlawed child marriage, joining 17 other US states where the taboo practice is also banned.

Under past state law, minors of any age could obtain a court order for marriage with the consent of their parents.

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:43 pm

Swing-and-a-miss: MLB rescinds idea to host baseball game in national park after backlash

Officials in Wyoming had called notion to host game in Grand Teton national park ‘deeply unwelcome’

Major League Baseball (MLB) leadership is no longer considering holding a game inside a national park, according to a letter commissioner Robert Manfred sent to officials in Teton county, Wyoming, on Thursday in what could be the league’s biggest swing-and-a-miss off the diamond.

On 26 September, the Washington Post reported that MLB had reached out to the White House about staging a one-day game at Grand Teton national park in Wyoming. Teton county describes itself as a “a year-round resort community” and sits within the Jackson Hole valley. It’s also a habitat for grizzly bears, osprey, bison and more.

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:36 pm

Kanye West’s sold-out Russia concerts cancelled, organisers confirm

Russia’s foreign ministry had called planned shows unacceptable due to rapper’s ‘glorification’ of Adolf Hitler

Two sold-out shows that Kanye West was due to play in Russia have been cancelled after weeks of confusion, organisers have confirmed.

The US rapper, who now goes by the name Ye, had been due to perform at the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg on 10 and 11 October.

Press Association contributed to this report

Published: October 1, 2026, 5:41 pm

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, 2:23 pm

Can the Democrats take Texas? – podcast

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is surprising everyone, as polls have him leading his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, in the Republican-led state of Texas.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to James Henson, founder and executive director of the Texas Politics Project, about why a blue wave in the Lone Star State would be seismic

Watch Jonathan Freedland on our new Politics Weekly YouTube channel

Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com

Watch Stateside’s interview with Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, Noor Abdalla

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:00 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

Democratic senators accuse Trump administration of worsening childcare crisis

Six lawmakers demand information on childcare center closures, cost changes, Head Start and government grants

Democratic senators have accused Donald Trump’s administration of worsening the country’s childcare crisis, warning that rising costs and daycare closures are leaving families with fewer affordable options.

In a letter seen by the Guardian and addressed to Alex Adams, assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), senators led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts argue that federal cuts and changes to childcare programs like Head Start are destabilising an already fragile system.

Published: October 1, 2026, 4:00 am

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

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

The end times fascists are plotting their escape from our world. Our mission is clear – podcast

An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them

By Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Read the text version here

Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/longreadpod

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:00 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

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

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

The Filter Q&A: ask the Guardian’s fashion stylist anything

Need help with your wardrobe? Guardian stylist Melanie Wilkinson will be joining us online today at 3pm BST to share her favourite tips for making any outfit pop – men’s or women’s. Ask her your questions now!

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Baggy jeans are everywhere, can I still wear my favourite straight leg style? What should I wear to a Christmas work party? I’m broke, what’s an easy styling hack to update my autumn wardrobe?

The Guardian’s fashion stylist, Mel Wilkinson, has been styling and celebrities and fashion shoots for over 15 years. She’ll be sharing all her tips and tricks, and answering all your questions at 3pm BST today. So whether it’s advice on where to buy a pretty bra in a H cup, or how to find smart trousers if you’re 5ft 2, please post your questions in the comments now.

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:58 am

‘If you can’t hold it, you don’t own it’: why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl

People describe their return to physical media – whether to protect data, support artists, or retain control of one’s choices

For some, it is the security of knowing they have a physical copy of their favourite films and music, free from algorithms, interruptions and the vagaries of streaming. For others, it is the sound of needle on vinyl, the click of a cassette player and the ability to interact with a physical format.

We asked people if they were moving back to CDs, DVDs, vinyl and older formats to escape algorithmically curated content. Here are some of their responses.

Published: October 2, 2026, 1:00 am

Greg Freeman: All Set the Bone review – ambitious alt-country double album spreads its talents a touch thin

(Transgressive)
The Maryland singer-songwriter’s third album has an impressive sense of scale compared to last year’s breakout Burnover, but is less immediately appealing

Greg Freeman’s third album All Set the Bone feels, at its best and most nervy, like an off-brand pressure cooker: too hot, bursting at its seams, rattling with kinetic energy. The Maryland-born singer-songwriter has a voice that often sounds like it’s straining at its limits, and although he is ostensibly part of a growing indierock revival that’s been taking hold over the past few years – a cosy perennial – there’s nothing particularly comfortable about the songs on this double album. On Marooned, frantic stabs of guitar and drums create queasy unease; opener Cahokia muddles up the catharsis of a great American road song, descending into proggy bedlam. And his lyrics most often drum up anxieties big and small: “Who do you look to when you’re all on your own?” he asks on Culture. “When all your heroes lost their microphones?”

Freeman broke out with last year’s Burnover, a set of taut story-songs that were at turns witty, delirious and devastating. Freeman’s secret was in his ability to weld that literary streak to loud, bolshy, riff-heavy music that wouldn’t sound out of place on mainstream rock radio. All Set the Bone is several orders more ambitious in its scale, and its songwriting, which is more imagistic and diffuse. The result is an impressive record but one that’s less immediately appealing. Freeman wrote it while travelling through the US and reckoning with “a lot of change in my personal sense of … everything”, and you can hear that searching quality in the final product. All Set the Bone contains fewer fireworks than Burnover, but Freeman still has plenty of spark.

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:30 am

Kill Jackie review – Catherine Zeta-Jones’ assassin thriller is like Killing Eve … minus good characters or plot

This preposterous nonsense probably had high intentions – and then realised it’s easier to replace credible writing with gunfights, car chases and ear-bitings

A freeport is somewhere you can store imported goods and not have to pay any of the duties usually required by the bothersome authorities until you move them out of there. It’s not quite what I expected to learn when watching a new crime-caper-comedy-thriller-cum-comeback-vehicle starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, but on the other hand I didn’t expect to learn anything at all so we could consider it a bonus.

The customs benefits and tax reliefs available in certain exclusionary zones are the carefully explained means by which Jackie Price (Zeta-Jones) has established a successful art business over the last 20 years. She acquires art, puts it in a warehouse, invites rich people to come and view it, bid on it and buy it. I don’t know if they bear the cost of the taxes themselves as they ship it home, or indeed whether this is included in the bid price or not. Having been led by the early scenes to believe there would be much more in the way of financial detail, I now find myself beset by questions.

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:00 am

‘I look at the footage to convince myself that you were alive’: how Ross McElwee made a film about unimaginable loss, grief and guilt

When his son died aged 27, the director could barely bring himself to watch his old clips of the boy. When at last he did, it was the genesis of an extraordinary project

Ross McElwee is the film-maker who spun home movies into art, framing himself and his friends and his son Adrian. The director used to film Adrian for a few minutes each month. He tracked the kid from infancy to adulthood, trying to catch the significant turns of his life. When tragedy struck it back-shadowed the footage. Maybe every home movie is a ghost story at heart.

It feels crass to compliment McElwee on his latest documentary, Remake, because it isn’t the picture he’d ever have chosen to make. It is instead a grief-struck tour-de-force: a magnificent film about film-making and its real-world repercussions. McElwee filmed Adrian because he loved him, but now fears he might have hurt him. So he sifts through the material in search of clues, addressing his son as though he’s still in the room. “I look at the footage to convince myself that you were alive,” he says. “But also to convince myself that you’re gone.”

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:00 am

The week in wildlife: a rescued orangutan, the chonkiest bear and a barn owl’s triumph

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:00 am

I went curtain shopping during a Kyiv air raid. And not because I’m ‘resilient’ | Diana Berg

We can’t count on tomorrow so it would be rational to own less. Yet we make our homes nicer, just to anchor ourselves in the here and now

I was standing in front of a locked basement door in a building in our neighbourhood, laughing, as Ukrainian air defence shot down drones directly above me. I had run into the first residential building I could reach, and I even took a photo of the locked door – a shelter, and the shelter locked – because I wanted to remember it. I was on my way to buy curtains.

I hadn’t checked whether there was an alert before I left home. I had simply set out for the shop, 20 minutes away through our residential district, on foot. But somewhere along the way, things started exploding in the sky above me – and I was suddenly walking through a city under attack because I had decided that my windows needed new curtains. What the fuck was I laughing at? I should have been terrified, and I was. It was just that I still wanted the curtains, and the absurdity was hilarious.

Diana Berg is a Ukrainian artist, writer and cultural manager from Mariupol, and the founder of Platform TU, an independent cultural initiative now operating in exile after Russia’s full-scale invasion

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: October 1, 2026, 9:00 pm

Why boxing is still a box office smash hit even as the sport’s popularity wanes | Emma John

Fighters have always provided rich material for stories on stage and screen and the appeal to audiences has not wavered

Three of my greatest joys in life are watching sport, going to the theatre and playing violin. So it felt almost embarrassing to discover a classic play that combined all three, yet I’d never heard of it before. To be fair, Golden Boy has not been performed in the UK in more than 40 years and its curious premise may be one of the reasons.

Written in 1937, it’s about a gifted young violinist in Depression-era America who also has a talent for boxing and is lured away from music by the pursuit of fame and money in the ring. In the current London production he is played by Josh O’Connor, who Knives Out fans have seen with his fists up as a boxer turned priest in Wake Up Dead Man. O’Connor is no less convincing on stage than on film, attacking a heavy bag with the kind of power that does indeed make you worry for his precious hands. Nor is that ab definition entirely the work of a makeup artist.

Published: October 2, 2026, 12:00 am

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

• Sign up for our free newsletter here

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

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

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.

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: October 1, 2026, 11:14 am

Watson and Browns hold off Steelers’ fightback on last-gasp 56-yard field goal

• Szmyt hits career-long kick with 10 seconds remaining

• Cleveland improve to 3-1 after surviving Pittsburgh rally

• Rodgers throws three TDs but two costly interceptions

Deshaun Watson passed for 268 yards and moved the Browns into position for Andre Szmyt’s career-long 56-yard field goal with 10 seconds remaining, giving Cleveland a 27-24 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night.

Watson, who completed 24 of 33 passes with a touchdown and an interception, went 4 of 5 for 46 yards as he led a go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter for the third straight week.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:32 pm

WNBA playoffs: A’ja Wilson pours in 36 as Aces oust bloodied Caitlin Clark and Fever

• Four-time MVP adds 10 rebounds in 94-83 victory

• Clark finishes with 18 points in deciding Game 3

• Aces continue pursuit of fourth title in five years

A’ja Wilson made sure her basketball spoke for itself Thursday night, as the four-time WNBA MVP scored 36 points to lead the defending champion Las Vegas Aces to a 94-83 victory over the Indiana Fever in the deciding Game 3 of the first round.

The third-seeded Aces, who have won three of the past four titles, moved on to play the winner of the Golden State-Dallas series, which will be decided Friday night in San Francisco.

Published: October 1, 2026, 9:12 pm

Braves power past Phillies in Game 3 to book NLDS showdown with Dodgers

• Harris hits three-run homer in decisive Game 3

• Kerr throws 3 1/3 scoreless innings for Atlanta

• Braves advance to face two-time champion Dodgers

Michael Harris II hit a three-run homer in the first inning, Ray Kerr threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings and the Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 on Thursday night in the decisive Game 3 of their National League wildcard series.

Ozzie Albies hit a two-run homer in the fourth and Matt Olson added a solo shot in the seventh for the Braves, who advance to a best-of-five Division Series against the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

Published: October 1, 2026, 8:34 pm

‘It’s sad seeing players promote it’: Wembanyama says he will never endorse gambling companies

• Spurs star says he will ‘never’ promote betting

• Wembanyama says endorsements must reflect his values

• James, Durant and Antetokounmpo have gambling ties

Victor Wembanyama has ruled out ever endorsing a sports betting company, saying he was saddened to see fellow NBA players lend their names to gambling platforms.

The San Antonio Spurs star was unequivocal when asked after Thursday’s training camp workout if he would consider partnering with a sportsbook.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:52 pm

Pro-Palestine protests interrupt game as Ireland pass up 2-0 lead in draw against Austria

Protests halted events in Dublin twice before the Republic of Ireland were forced to settle for a 2-2 draw after Austria came back in the second half of their Nations League encounter at the Aviva Stadium.

Despite a significant security presence, the contest was twice interrupted in the opening 45 minutes, first due to what campaign group Stop the Game later referred to in a statement as a “limited tennis ball protest”, when – around the 20th minute – tennis balls wrapped in stickers featuring the Palestinian flag and the text “#StopTheGame” were launched on the pitch.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:59 pm

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 in ‘major milestone’

• 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

Former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering Black neighbor given early parole

Amber Guyger, who has served seven of 10-year sentence, had said she had walked into Botham Jean’s home thinking it was her own when she shot him

A former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering her Black neighbor after walking into his apartment thinking it was her own was granted early parole on Thursday after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.

Amber Guyger, 38, who is white, was convicted of murdering 26-year-old Botham Jean, an accountant from St Lucia. Jean was eating ice-cream and watching television when Guyger mistakenly entered his home and shot him on 6 September 2018.

Published: October 1, 2026, 2:45 pm

World food prices hit near four-year high as heatwaves and El Niño hit farmers – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Newsflash: World food prices rose in September to their highest in nearly four years as farmers were hit by hot weather and logistics disruptions.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index, which tracks a basket of food commodities, has jumped to its highest level since November 2022.

Persistent hot and dry weather led to a downward revision of sugarbeet yield forecasts in the European Union, where planted area was already anticipated to decline from the previous season, while El Niño-related weather conditions continued to affect production prospects in key producing countries in Asia.

Lower sugar production in Brazil’s key Center-South growing region also contributed to the tighter supply outlook. Additionally, India’s announcement of duty-free raw sugar imports further contributed to the increase in international sugar prices.

International poultry meat prices rose, reflecting a rebound in Brazilian export prices amid strong global import demand. Pig meat quotations also surged, principally driven by higher prices in the European Union, where high temperatures continued to slow animal growth, limiting the availability of slaughter-ready pigs.

Published: October 2, 2026, 1:19 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

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

New Washington DC law bans landlords from imposing dog breed restrictions

Landlords can no longer refuse pit bulls, rottweilers, dobermans or other breeds considered ‘scary’

Landlords in Washington DC will no longer be able to refuse a tenant’s dog based on its breed, size or weight, nor can they impose special charges related to these factors.

At least, that’s what a new law that took effect on Thursday aims to achieve. Animal welfare organizations and animal shelters applauded the legislation, emphasizing the benefits of reducing barriers to pet ownership in the US capital.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:34 pm

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

Increased air pollution linked to more night-time coughing, UK-led study finds

‘Day-to-day’ symptom of harmful emissions, which in turn can disrupt sleep, can be overlooked, say researchers

New research has found that increased air pollution is associated with more night-time coughing, leading to disturbed sleep.

Most air pollution research looks at symptoms that are severe enough for people to seek medical help, but day-to-day symptoms can be overlooked. Prof Cecilia Mascolo, who led the study from the University of Cambridge, said: “I come from an area in Italy with very high pollution and I am very aware of its not-talked-about effects.”

Published: October 1, 2026, 10:00 pm

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

May heatwaves, deaths, ruined harvests: study of Europe’s summer paints grim picture for the future

EU Copernicus report shows surface air temperatures from June to August were 2.5C above decadal average

The scorching heat that persistently baked western Europe this summer was the worst on record, a report has found, with more than half the continent seared by “very strong” heat stress that felt hotter than 38C.

Surface air temperatures in western Europe from June to August were 2.5C above the recent decadal average, according to an update from the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service on Friday, while milder but still deadly heat across the rest of the continent made the summer Europe’s third hottest on record.

Published: October 1, 2026, 7:00 pm

US states and cities sue over Trump EPA’s repeal of emissions rules

Democratic-led coalition says gutting key protections will set US back decades and worsen climate crisis

States and cities sued the Trump administration on Thursday for repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.

Twenty-one states, led by New York, are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rule. The Democratic-led coalition also includes Pennsylvania’s governor, the District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago and the city and county of Denver. They argue that “gutting one of the country’s most significant climate protections” will set the nation back decades and worsen the climate crisis.

Published: October 1, 2026, 3:24 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

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

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says new ballistic missile used in combat

Volodymyr Zelenskyy hails use of FP-7 tactical ballistic missile, which manufacturer says is being developed as an interceptor. What we know on day 1,682

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:47 pm

Drumcree talks break up without agreement on fifth day of standoff

Dispute over contentious Orange Order march will now go to a legal appeal on Monday after talks hosted by Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant end

Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”.

A legal appeal over the contentious march is now scheduled for Monday, after unsuccessful late-night negotiations at Hillsborough castle with representatives from the Orange Order and Garvaghy Road residents on the fifth day of the standoff.

Published: October 1, 2026, 6:07 pm

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

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

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 (EC), 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

The Celebrity Traitors review – Ross Kemp really needs to get a grip

The most hotly anticipated TV show of the year is here! And a number of the stars – ahem Grant Mitchell – are struggling already …

Warning: this article contains spoilers for episode one of The Celebrity Traitors.

So – have they managed to capture lightning in a franchised bottle again? The new series of The Celebrity Traitors, more hotly anticipated than Nigella entering the Bake Off tent, is here. Twenty-one contestants of varying levels of fame, but never dipping below C-list, have signed up to endure Claudia Winkleman’s tyranny in Ardross Castle, in the hope of winning up to £100,000 for their chosen charity and a place in the nation’s consciousness and possible heart for between one week and a lifetime, depending how things work out.

Published: October 1, 2026, 1:15 pm

A new season of love: hit musical Rent returns to the West End with Gaten Matarazzo – in pictures

Jonathan Larson’s much-loved show about New York artists has been revived for its 30th anniversary with a cast including the Stranger Things star

Published: October 2, 2026, 1:15 am

Take It or Leave It review – vividly atmospheric formative adventures of future pop princes Madness

Docufictional 1981 comedy captures the working-class ska-pop pranksters in their hungry years with an almost Loachian authenticity

Opting for the former is the best idea for this unexpectedly revealing, vividly atmospheric, often funny and alarming, docufictional comedy from 1981 about the rise of the baggy-trousered ska-pop national treasures Madness. It takes us from their beginnings in 1976 to their chart breakthrough: gormless, penniless blokes, obsessing about music and roaming north London’s gritty districts of Camden Town, Stoke Newington and Crouch End. (This elicits some droll dialogue: “They’re all the same, these streets” … “That’s why they put signs on them.”)

Our naughty, dodgy heroes play people’s parties, sign on the dole and do mortifying odd jobs, get told off by site foremen and office supervisors, drive to gigs in Arthur Daley vans, almost get into fights with skinheads and have calamitous arguments with the drummer during rehearsals. It could have carried on like that indefinitely, but the arrival of Graham “Suggs” McPherson as singer is the mysterious ingredient around which everything coalesces: his voice miraculously ups the band’s game, apparently curing their worrying propensity for playing flat. His vocals mesh with the reggae thump of the keyboards and sax and the rest of the band’s goofy jogging-on-the-spot stage energy.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

East of Eden review – Florence Pugh in 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

Get Jiro to Below: the seven best shows to stream this week

A sushi master seeks bloody revenge in Anthony Bourdain’s hilariously gory dystopian animation, while Josh Hartnett’s Jaws-esque horror about a mystery sea creature terrorising a small town will keep you guessing all the way

Anthony Bourdain’s eccentric, epicurean spirit lives on through this animation, adapted from a graphic novel series he created with Joel Rose. It’s set in a lawless, near-future LA where food is the only non-digital pleasure left. No one is more important than chefs. Our hero, sushi master Jiro, languishes in the projects with only embattled mother Miyako and sharp knives for company. When he upsets some mobsters, a survival battle ensues. Cue a series of hilariously gory deaths (one man is executed using hollandaise sauce) and lavish celebrations of food culture. The story is hokey and the dialogue doesn’t always sing but Bourdain’s love of food as a sensory delight is greedily indulged.
HBO Max, from Sunday 4 October

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

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

Trá Pháidín: Cloch’s Claí review – giddy Galway gang burst the boundaries of folk music

(World of Echo)
With musical ideas spanning mariachi and motorik beats, and lyrics with Kneecap-grade rage, this brilliant collective evolve tradition with stinging, joyful songs

Quicksilver and giddy in its exploration of Irish music, language and identity, Trá Pháidín’s second album bursts open the idea of a 21st-century traditional folk record. It woos you with the reverb-smothered guitars and birdsong-like flutes of Tí Mhichael Phaddy (Michael Paddy’s House, an opener suggesting a psychedelically perfect rurality) before an Irish woman cuts in, bigging up her countryside Airbnb on the phone. A shouty local then comically interrupts her.

Trá Pháidín (Paddy’s Beach) are a six-strong collective of brilliant musicians from Galway, Ireland’s largest Irish-speaking county, and their album’s title, Cloch’s Claí (Stone and Dry Stone Wall), suggests that each track plays its own scabrous, weight-bearing part in the whole. The 45 minutes unfold as an interrupted sequence, full of improvisation, texture and ornament, the band freely roaming other genres, revealing them as connected neighbourhoods.

Published: October 2, 2026, 1:00 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

Rhapsody: A Manifesto by Alice Oswald review – a history of the spoken word, from Homer to Ted Hughes

A twisting, beguiling investigation into the art of poetry that ends in a call to arms on behalf of the natural world

The poet Alice Oswald is no stranger to thinking in public about her art. She was Oxford professor of poetry until 2023, and her lectures are available online. But this is her first full-length book, and as such is something of an occasion.

So what exactly is it? For a work of prose it contains a lot of poetry, much translated or composed by Oswald herself. Shakespeare, Donne, Shelley and Ted Hughes also feature. Though nonfiction, the book is full of stories, particularly retellings of Homer and Aeschylus. It is billed as “genre-defying” and there is much formal experimentation. But at heart it is an exploration of the oral tradition, and the writer’s own subtitle is A Manifesto, which feels exciting and urgent, pointed at the contemporary world with its pressing realities.

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

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

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

‘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

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

‘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

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

‘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

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

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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

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

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

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

I travelled all over the country on a €63 monthly rail pass: readers’ favourite holidays in Germany

From cycling in Berlin and the Black Forest to world-class cocktail bars in Cologne and magical North Sea beaches, readers share their travel tips

• Tell us about a sunny autumn break – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

In an often overlooked corner of Germany, near the Dutch border, Münster is an absolute gem. Covered porticos will convince you you’re in northern Italy, gothic churches will remind you you’re in Mitteleuropa and the buns from Zeit für Brot will insist you’re in heaven. Nature-lovers can take in the Botanical Gardens and relax by the Münstersche Aa river. Those of a historical bent can peek into the room where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 and mull the report card of nation states in the nearly 400 years since. But really, it’s a great place just to drop-anchor and lose a few days.
Jeremy

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

Homes for sale in landmark towers in England and Scotland – in pictures

From a neo-baronial country house with turrets in acres of grounds in Scotland to a modernist tower block in a bustling part of London

Published: October 1, 2026, 11:00 pm

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

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

‘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

‘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

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

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