- ‘I’m a hustler, a grinder’: Teyana Taylor on music, motherhood and One Battle After Another
- Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is an alarming new low for the ongoing culture wars | Jesse Hassenger
- ‘I tried to escape with drugs, pills and alcohol’: Björn Borg on his misery and mayhem after quitting tennis
- From high-octane action to arthouse intrigue … all Kathryn Bigelow’s films – ranked!
- ‘It makes you feel like a teenager again!’ Why The Summer I Turned Pretty is 2025’s surprise TV hit
- Trump’s suit against the New York Times is nonsense. Yet it poses a grave threat | Robert Reich
- Trump turns fire on Putin and lauds UK in press conference with Starmer
- More than 250,000 displaced from Gaza City in past month, UN figures show
- Trump suggests punishing TV networks for ‘negative’ coverage amid outrage over Kimmel suspension
- Strike action across France as hundreds of thousands join protests
- Kamala Harris tells of dismay as Tim Walz ‘fumbled’ debate answer in book
- Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, named new CEO of Turning Point USA
- UN faces $500m budget cut and 20% job losses after big drop in US funding
- Wildfire smoke will kill nearly 1.4m each year by end of century if emissions not curbed – study
- Macrons to submit scientific evidence to US court to prove Brigitte was not born a man
- ‘Censor-in-chief’: Trump-backed FCC chair at heart of Jimmy Kimmel storm
- ‘The dungeon’ at Louisiana’s notorious prison reopens as Ice detention center
- Zhang Zhan: who is the Chinese citizen journalist facing a second trial?
- My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. How can I change his mind?
- From small town New Zealand to Mont Blanc: how ultrarunner Ruth Croft made history
- In Whose Name? review – Kanye’s descent makes for grimly compelling watch
- How I learned to stop worrying and love the snakes in my ceiling
- Him review – Jordan Peele-produced football horror is a disappointing fumble
- Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert … who is the next to be silenced? | Moira Donegan
- Jeff Hiller and Katherine LaNase’s surprise Emmy wins buoy those of us who also don’t fit a template to continue The Slog | Rebecca Shaw
- Trump has gone home but Britain’s problems will remain. Starmer’s invitation was a big mistake | Frances Ryan
- As boys shift to the right, we are seeing the rise of the ‘new chill girl’ | Naomi Beinart
- The Guardian view on Trump’s state visit to Britain: plenty of glitter, but this was gilt, not gold | Editorial
- The Guardian view on the Lib Dem conference: speaking for parts of England | Editorial
- Ben Jennings on Keir Starmer’s negotiations with Donald Trump – cartoon
- Rashford’s double silences Newcastle’s party and eases Barcelona to victory
- Doku decorates Manchester City’s win over Napoli after De Bruyne return ends early
- Elisabeth Terland hat-trick takes Manchester United into Women’s Champions League
- Piastri and Norris ‘in control of own destiny’ in F1 world championship battle
- McLaughlin-Levrone runs fastest women’s 400m in 40 years to claim world gold
- Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
- José Mourinho confirmed as Benfica manager and faces swift Chelsea return
- Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio to stand trial over alleged sharing of explicit video
- Giants New Zealand must be wary of bogey team Canada in World Cup semi-final
- Judges rule against Trump administration on deporting Guatemalan children and Venezuelans
- Videos appear to show people smuggling by state-linked Libyan militia in Mediterranean
- UK doctors guilty of sexual misconduct are not being struck off, research finds
- Live Nation and Ticketmaster accused of allowing ticket brokers to rake in millions from resales
- Teflon diet, garlic milk and zebra cows triumph at 2025 Ig Nobel prizes
- The island that banned hives: can honeybees actually harm nature?
- The Indiana town suffering under the shadow of a BP refinery: ‘They’ve had way too many accidents’
- ‘Sun day’: US climate activists to rally for clean energy amid Trump attacks
- UK’s public sector broadcasters demand more prominence on YouTube to combat misinformation
- John Lennon’s school desk goes on display at Beatles Museum in Liverpool
- Two men and a woman arrested in Essex on suspicion of spying for Russia
- Taxpayers lose £400m as result of investment fund set up by Rishi Sunak
- Nvidia to invest $5bn in Intel after Trump administration’s 10% stake
- Jury finds LA protester not guilty of assaulting border patrol agent
- CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox instead of single vaccine
- Italy first in EU to pass comprehensive law regulating use of AI
- ‘If you don’t make a stand now, when would you?’: inside the Together for Palestine concert
- Trump v the Truth review – no other broadcaster would attempt TV so daring (and mind-numbing)
- Swiped review – breezy drama gives dating apps the origins treatment
- Juice season two review – Mawaan Rizwan’s enchanting sitcom comes at you like a tidal wave of creativity
- The Lady from the Sea review – Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander make waves in magnificent rewrite
- Ghost Trail review – pain and paranoia as a Syrian refugee attempts to track down his torturer
- The Young Man by Annie Ernaux audiobook review – anatomy of an affair
- Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Opp 12 no 2 & 96 album review – sheer joie de vivre
- Joy Crookes: Juniper review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week
- ‘He should be known as a film music revolutionary’: revitalising the legacy of Czech composer Zdeněk Liška
- The Traitors Circle by Jonathan Freedland review – a propulsive story of German resistance
- Clown Town by Mick Herron review – more fun and games with the Slow Horses
- On Drugs by Justin Smith-Ruiu review – a philosopher’s guide to psychedelics
- Everything Will Swallow You by Tom Cox review – a cosy state-of-the-nation yarn
- Why do some gamers invert their controls? Scientists now have answers, but they’re not what you think
- Borderlands 4 review – the chaotic, colourful shooter has finally grown up a little
- Why random lines of video game dialogue get stuck in our heads
- EA Sports FC 26 preview – new play styles aim to tackle Fifa challenge
- Sally Rooney unable to collect award over Palestine Action arrest threat
- Picasso painting not seen for 80 years unveiled by Paris auction house
- Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World review – sex, squalor and jungle sweat for an eternal outsider
- Photographer Joy Gregory on her new project, decades in the making: ‘A lot of people I worked with on it have died’
- How Robert Redford redefined menswear on – and off – the screen
- You be the judge: should my housemate stop brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink?
- Perfect panna cotta and parmesan salad: everything I’m cooking before my Sicilian getaway
- A Greek bearing gifts: the many talents of the moschofilero grape | Hannah Crosbnie on drinks
- Rachel Roddy’s recipe for lasagne with courgette and three cheeses | A kitchen in Rome
- How to turn fruit and veg odds and ends into a frozen food topping – recipe | Waste not
- Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: why September is an ideal time to update your look
- Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: ‘She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning’
- Cos takes centre stage at New York fashion week and Gwyneth Paltrow rebrands
- ‘It’s silent but does the heavy lifting’: the soft power of the white shirt
- ‘It was a bad dream – but I never woke up’: what it is like to lose your best friend
- The one change that worked: I went to a festival by myself and made peace with being perimenopausal
- My wife and I had couples therapy on TV. It nearly wrecked our marriage
- This is how we do it: ‘I want sex four or five times a day, but I’m learning to respect her libido’
- Walking and feasting on the German shore of Lake Constance
- I used to have wonderful vaginal orgasms. Why did they stop – and how can I get them back?
- ‘I kept asking: “Why? What did I do?”’ How come so many young, fit, non-smoking women are getting lung cancer?
- This natural rubber yoga mat lasted me a decade of daily practice
- ‘I got Coldplayed!’: how the Jumbotron claimed another unwitting victim
- ‘People give me a wide berth’: My weird week of wearing shoulder pals
- ‘Pack plenty of blankets or towels’: how to start thrifting secondhand furniture
- Sort as you go and don’t rush: six steps to clearing out a loved one’s home when they die
- Between Moon Tides: hacking nature to save the saltmarsh sparrow documentary
- ‘Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t like’: The rise and fall of the Baader-Meinhof gang | Jason Burke
- China’s ‘temple economy’ in the spotlight as scandals rock influential religious leaders
- Memes and nihilistic in-jokes: the online world of Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer
- People in France: share your views of Thursday’s nationwide strike
- Tell us: have you revitalised your love for your job?
- Australian bird of the year 2025: nominate your favourite now
- Tell us about the worst meal you have cooked
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- A rediscovered Picasso and a Black Sabbath ballet: photos of the day – Thursday
‘I’m a hustler, a grinder’: Teyana Taylor on music, motherhood and One Battle After Another
She was discovered by Pharrell Williams, signed by Kanye West and worked with Beyoncé – all by her early 20s. Now the star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film is creating a buzz in HollywoodTeyana Taylor is – as she often says to interviewers – the entertainment equivalent of “a Glade plug-in” air freshener: put her in “any socket” and she will make “every room smell good”. And, at 34, she has the CV to prove it. After kicking off her career at 15 as a choreographer for Beyoncé (she later showcased her own moves to millions in the headline-grabbing video for Kanye West’s 2016 single Fade), the New York native began making her own critically acclaimed, cutting-edge R&B. She has also acted in a slew of movies and TV shows – including an award-winning turn as a mother who kidnaps her son from the care system in 2023’s A Thousand and One – and worked as a creative director for brands and a host of other musicians.But Taylor also likens herself to another household item. “I am a sponge,” she says. “I’m never above being a student.” This was especially true on the set of her latest project, Paul Thomas Anderson’s vigilante group caper One Battle After Another. Observing castmates including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro – plus the director himself (to many, the greatest of his generation) – turned her into “SpongeBob SquarePants. I get to have my notebook and take all these notes and soak everything in.” Continue reading...Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is an alarming new low for the ongoing culture wars | Jesse Hassenger
The late-night show getting pulled ‘indefinitely’ after relatively mild commentary about the right is another worrying sign of where Trump’s America is headingExplainer: What did Jimmy Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk’s killing?These are not the late-night wars of old.Back in the 90s and 2000s, much ink was spilled as the major networks grappled for ratings in the now-quaint real estate of post-11pm programming. Johnny Carson retired. David Letterman jumped to CBS. Conan O’Brien was plucked from obscurity, eventually handed The Tonight Show, and then had it essentially clawed back by Jay Leno for a few more years of appalling hackwork. But in retrospect, maybe the most prescient moments were two that seemed decidedly minor at the time: Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect was yanked off the air by ABC because Maher expressed an unpopular 9/11-related opinion in a highly understandable context, and Jimmy Fallon playfully tousled Donald Trump’s hair. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/18/jimmy-kimmel-show-pulled
‘I tried to escape with drugs, pills and alcohol’: Björn Borg on his misery and mayhem after quitting tennis
The sporting superstar walked away from success and adulation at 26 – much to everyone’s bemusement. He opens up about his secret life and the depression, cocaine, overdoses and aggressive cancer that almost killed him‘I’m a person who doesn’t say very much,” Björn Borg says with a wry smile. Which may be the understatement of the century. Borg, the greatest tennis player of his day, has spent 42 years saying nothing since he announced his retirement at the age of 26.When he broke that news in 1983, it was one of the biggest shocks in the history of sport. Not simply because he was at his peak, but also because he was the rock star tennis player – beautiful, mysterious and followed by a flock of teenybopper fans. When Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz triumphed in the US Open earlier this month, aged 22, he became the second youngest player to have won six major tournaments. Borg beat him by four months. Continue reading...From high-octane action to arthouse intrigue … all Kathryn Bigelow’s films – ranked!
Ahead of the release of A House of Dynamite – which could make Bigelow the first woman to win the best director Oscar winner twice – we rate her hits, from Point Break to The Hurt LockerAn old-school coldwar nuclear sub thriller based on a true story from 1961, with Harrison Ford as the icily authoritarian Soviet commander busting out his Ryushhhyan acksyent. Liam Neeson plays his second-in-command, resentful at having this cold fish imposed over his head and yet destined to respect the guy. Some slightly clunky traditional moments for our two leading males, but also a few exciting ones. Continue reading...‘It makes you feel like a teenager again!’ Why The Summer I Turned Pretty is 2025’s surprise TV hit
This nostalgic tale of first love is an agonising masterclass in modern romance. No wonder it’s become such a sensation – and that a movie is on the wayIt’s often said that the romcom is dead. Kiss goodbye to the crisp charm of Nora Ephron’s freshly sharpened pencil bouquets in the fall, embrace the era of musings on love as nothing more than a maths equation. Then along comes gripping teen romance The Summer I Turned Pretty and it gets us at the first Taylor Swift track.Across its 26-episode run, the adaptation of Jenny Han’s trilogy of novels has won the hearts of millennials who have been desperately yearning for a nostalgic watch to fill the void of 00s romcoms. Reminiscent of rose-tinted love stories of their youth, before dating apps, catfishing and ghosting entered their vocabulary, the show’s potency has been such that Prime Video even issued a warning asking viewers not to use hate speech towards the cast. It isn’t real, no matter how visceral it feels, and the streamer didn’t even wait 24 hours to let fans know that a feature film finale is on the way. Continue reading...Trump’s suit against the New York Times is nonsense. Yet it poses a grave threat | Robert Reich
The president won’t prevail in court. But his cases against media companies have a potential chilling effect on criticism of the governmentDonald Trump has sued the New York Times for, well, reporting on Trump.Rather than charging the Times with any specific libelous act, Trump’s lawsuit is just another of his angry bloviations.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now Continue reading...Trump turns fire on Putin and lauds UK in press conference with Starmer
US president also advises PM to use military to stop irregular migration at conclusion of his second state visit Donald Trump has accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart.Trump said on Thursday that he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office, but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so. Continue reading...More than 250,000 displaced from Gaza City in past month, UN figures show
Tens of thousands more forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in face of new Israeli offensiveMore than a quarter of a million people have been displaced from Gaza City in the last month, according to figures from the UN, with tens of thousands more forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in the face of a new Israeli offensive.Strikes by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes hit Gaza City again on Thursday as a UN official said “new waves of mass displacement” were under way, after about 60,000 fled the new assault in 72 hours earlier this week. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/18/un-figures-people-displaced-from-gaza-city
Trump suggests punishing TV networks for ‘negative’ coverage amid outrage over Kimmel suspension
President says Jimmy Kimmel was ‘not a talented person’ as critics blast show’s suspension as an attack on free speechJimmy Kimmel suspension – live updatesDonald Trump suggested on Thursday that TV networks which cover him “negatively” could be punished by the government after his celebration of ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.On Air Force One, the president spoke to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the UK. The president said major US networks were “97% against me”, though he did not offer evidence to prove this figure or detail how this conclusion was evaluated. He said he read the statistic “someplace”. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/jimmy-kimmel-show-trump
Strike action across France as hundreds of thousands join protests
Disruption seen across country as PM Sébastien Lecornu urged to rethink budget cutsHundreds of thousands of people have marched in street demonstrations across France as trade unions held a day of strike action to pressure the new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, to rethink budget cuts and act on wages, pensions and public services.There was disruption to public transport as train, bus and tram drivers went on strike, hospital staff joined protests and nine out of 10 pharmacies were closed as pharmacists protested against pricing policies. About one in six teachers at primary and secondary schools went on strike, as well as school canteen staff and monitors. Several high schools from Paris to Amiens and Le Havre were blockaded by students. Protesters held more than 250 demonstrations and marched in cities from Paris to Marseille, Nantes, Lyon and Montpellier. Continue reading...Kamala Harris tells of dismay as Tim Walz ‘fumbled’ debate answer in book
Democratic 2024 presidential nominee’s memoir also reveals Minnesota governor was not first choice as running mateHarris calls Biden decision to seek re-election ‘recklessness’ in new memoirKamala Harris watched mortified as her running mate, Tim Walz, fell into JD Vance’s trap in last year’s vice-presidential debate and “fumbled” a crucial answer, she writes in a campaign memoir.The former Democratic presidential nominee also admits that Walz had not been her first choice for vice-president in her book 107 Days, obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week. Harris writes that her “first choice” would have been the then transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, a close friend of hers who is gay. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/kamala-harris-book-tim-walz
Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, named new CEO of Turning Point USA
Late co-founder previously expressed that he would want his wife to lead in the event of his death, organization saysErika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, has been appointed as the new CEO and chair of the board for Turning Point USA.The organization announced on Thursday that the late CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed at an event last week, had previously expressed that he would want his wife to lead in the event of his death. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/charlie-erika-kirk-turning-point-usa-tpusa
UN faces $500m budget cut and 20% job losses after big drop in US funding
Core budget to fall to $3.2bn next year and initial minimum 3,000 job cuts expected amid streamlining processThe UN will need to cut $500m (about £370m) from next year’s budget and lose 20% of its staff as it struggles to cope with a massive reduction in funding by the Trump administration.The plan, in gestation since Donald Trump started cutting his foreign aid budget, is likely to involve an initial minimum 3,000 job cuts out of a 35,000-strong main workforce. The overall UN core or regular budget would be cut from $3.7bn to about $3.2bn next year. It means reductions of 15.1% in resources and 18.8% in posts in the regular budget compared with the 2025 budget. Continue reading...Wildfire smoke will kill nearly 1.4m each year by end of century if emissions not curbed – study
Separate research found that at the current rate of global heating, more than 70,000 people will die in the US by 2050Smoke billowing from wildfires will cause a growing number of deaths around the world in the decades ahead as the planet continues to heat up, new research has found.Wildfire smoke is expected to kill as many as 1.4 million people globally each year by the end of the century if planet-heating emissions are not curbed, according to a study published on Thursday. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/wildfire-smoke-global-deaths-2050
Macrons to submit scientific evidence to US court to prove Brigitte was not born a man
French president and wife allege rightwing influencer Candace Owens is using defamatory attacks against them to boost media profileThe French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife plan to present scientific evidence to a US court to prove that Brigitte Macron was not born a man, the lawyer representing them in a defamation suit has said.The couple filed the suit in July against Candace Owens, a rightwing influencer, and her business, alleging continuing defamatory attacks against them in order to boost the profile of her media platform, gain more audience and make money. Continue reading...‘Censor-in-chief’: Trump-backed FCC chair at heart of Jimmy Kimmel storm
Brendan Carr says he supports free speech – but has gone after broadcasters he deems are not operating in the ‘public interest’“The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Brendan Carr, now the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in his chapter on the agency in Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that detailed plans for a second Trump administration.It’s a view he’s held for a long time. He wrote on X in 2023 that “free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.” Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/18/brendan-carr-fcc-jimmy-kimmel
‘The dungeon’ at Louisiana’s notorious prison reopens as Ice detention center
Critics condemn reopening of ‘Camp J’ unit at Angola in service of Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown, noting its history of brutality and violenceThere were no hurricanes in the Gulf, as can be typical for Louisiana in late July – but Governor Jeff Landry quietly declared a state of emergency. The Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola – the largest maximum security prison in the country – was out of bed space for “violent offenders” who would be “transferred to its facilities”, he warned in an executive order.The emergency declaration allowed for the rapid refurbishing of a notorious, shuttered housing unit at Angola formerly known as Camp J – commonly referred to by prisoners as “the dungeon” because it was once used to house men in extended solitary confinement, sometimes for years on end. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/louisiana-angola-prison-trump-ice-immigration
Zhang Zhan: who is the Chinese citizen journalist facing a second trial?
The former lawyer was outspoken about China’s response to the Covid pandemicA Chinese citizen journalist who was jailed after reporting from the frontlines of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan is to face trial for a second time, according to human rights activists and media freedom groups.Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison in May 2024 after serving four years behind bars, is expected to go on trial on Friday at the Shanghai Pudong New Area people’s courtfor “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all term used to target government critics. Continue reading...My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. How can I change his mind?
Masculine adequacy is a curse, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Beyond assuring him he meets the standard, could you help him to see the standard doesn’t matter?My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. He feels like he doesn’t perform enough (he does) and worries he isn’t big enough (he is!).He grew up without a father – the father’s fault – and I wonder if this has something to do with it. How can I assist him to see sex as non-competitive? I love him, and I find this self-loathing distressing. Eleanor says: I assume he doesn’t think he’s losing the competition with you, somehow, but with imagined manly foes, comparisons, symbols of everything he (imagines he) isn’t? Continue reading...From small town New Zealand to Mont Blanc: how ultrarunner Ruth Croft made history
Croft’s recent win the 174km Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc made her the first woman to take out the triple series crown in the prestigious eventGrowing up in Stillwater, New Zealand, population 86, Ruth Croft learned hard work from a young age. Her father ran a transport company, managing dozens of drivers and semi-trailers across the 600km West Coast in the South Island.“On school holidays I worked for my dad full time, sometimes 14-hour days,” says Croft. “Shitty jobs like cleaning drains or the grease bay. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as he does.” Continue reading...In Whose Name? review – Kanye’s descent makes for grimly compelling watch
More than 3,000 hours of footage filmed since 2018 by a teenager gets turned into a strange, revealing and unsettling look at a fallen star“What was Kanye West thinking?” has remained a prevailing question since the Grammy award-winning rapper-producer pulled the rip cord on his spectacular descent into rightwing nihilism more than a decade ago. In Whose Name?, a cinéma vérité take on the tortured musical genius (who goes by just Ye now), offers fans and long-term observers a new artifact to pore over in search of answers – and reason to be disappointed all over again.That’s not a knock on the 104-minute opus, an outcropping of more than 3,000 hours of footage – some of it never before seen, some of it a reverse perspective on the viral stunts and rants that have marked Ye’s dramatic nosedive. Director Nico Ballesteros – who started filming in 2018, at age 18, with nothing to recommend him (his stint as a second assistant director on a Jesus Is King concert video came later) – had sweeping access to Ye and made the distinctive choice not to layer it with any talking-head commentary for context. Mostly, he turns on the camera, holds a tight focus on his subject and lets the rest drift in and out of frame. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/18/in-whose-name-review-kanye-west
How I learned to stop worrying and love the snakes in my ceiling
Overcoming my terror of new housemates was gradual but by observing them I learned that pythons can be beautiful and cleverFifteen years ago, while perched on the back deck of my 1920s tin and timber Queenslander home in Brisbane, I realised I was being watched.I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I spun around to discover a snake dangling from the lattice. Terrified, I rushed inside and locked the door. Clearly, fear is not rational, or I would have understood that serpents don’t have arms. Continue reading...Him review – Jordan Peele-produced football horror is a disappointing fumble
Marlon Wayans hams it up as a quarterback looking to crown the new Goat in an unsubtle and increasingly meaningless critique of a broken systemHim, a Jordan Peele-produced splatter film in the psychological mold of Us, deviates from the schmaltzy, feel-good formula that has defined American sports movies since Charlie Chaplin in The Champion. Tackle football, notorious for eating the young, is recast as a genuine meat grinder for Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) – a generational college quarterback touted as an heir apparent to Marlon Wayans’s Isaiah White, the Tom Brady of this world. But when a trippy, blunt force head injury endangers Cameron’s professional aspirations and multimillion-dollar payday, he agrees to train and rehab at Isaiah’s desert-based cement compound – a haunted house of vice and duplicity that threatens to swallow Cameron whole.Him is not a subtle critique of America’s pastime. It opens with Isaiah breaking his leg on a championship-winning drive, and young Cameron taking in the gruesome injury from his living room floor while his father drills the mantra “no guts, no glory” into his psyche. It reintroduces football, quite rightly, as a veritable meat market where players are poked, prodded and scrutinized like chattel. Director Justin Tipping even switches to X-ray vision to bring out the underlying damage that can result from football’s incessant collisions, one of many stylish visual touches. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/18/him-jordan-peele-film-review
Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert … who is the next to be silenced? | Moira Donegan
When a regime can use the power of the law to punish speech because it does not like that speech, then speech is not freeJimmy Kimmel, the late-night host, had his show suspended “indefinitely” from ABC on Wednesday after the Federal Communications Commission, the US’s broadcast media regulator, threatened the television network.The FCC threats came in retaliation for comments Kimmel made on his show regarding Charlie Kirk’s death and the Trump administration’s response to it. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel began.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...Jeff Hiller and Katherine LaNase’s surprise Emmy wins buoy those of us who also don’t fit a template to continue The Slog | Rebecca Shaw
Sorry to my enemies, but little boosts like this help stop me from abandoning my dreamsMoments of brightness are few and far between in our current landscape, but we were lucky enough to experience a couple earlier this week.If, on Tuesday morning, you heard high-pitched squeals from your neighbourhood, sorry, that was probably me after tuning into the Emmys broadcast just in time to see Jeff Hiller’s name announced. He had won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Joel on the beautiful and underrated TV show Somebody Somewhere. Continue reading...Trump has gone home but Britain’s problems will remain. Starmer’s invitation was a big mistake | Frances Ryan
All the pomp and circumstance can’t distract from the hate and division. The PM must summon the courage to actAs Donald Trump met with a grinning Keir Starmer and senior royals on his UK state visit this week, I found myself needing a Daily Mail body language expert.Did Starmer’s hand wave suggest he wanted to ask about the migrants currently being jailed surrounded by alligators in Florida? Did King Charles’s lip shape mean he was wondering about the women who’ve accused Trump of sexual assault?Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...As boys shift to the right, we are seeing the rise of the ‘new chill girl’ | Naomi Beinart
Even in comparatively liberal spaces, such as my high school, girls who wince at locker room talk risk exclusionSince Donald Trump returned to office, I have noticed a phenomenon at my high school that I call the “new chill girl”. A group of kids is talking casually about something. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it’s racist or sexist or homophobic, but whatever the poison, they inject it and the group dynamic shifts ever so slightly. As a general rule, the boys continue as usual while the girls – who tend to be more politically progressive – face a choice: they can speak up, which usually results in them getting the reputation as annoying and unable to take a joke, or they can let it pass and be regarded as a chill girl who isn’t angry or woke. Since November 2024, the latter reaction has become far more common.This kind of fearful silence is becoming more common outside of high schools, too. In December 2024, Disney removed a transgender character from a new series. This April, the New York Times reported that a new Trump administration regulation bars government employees from adding pronouns to their email bios. Two days after that, Gannet, one of the US’s largest newspaper chains, cited Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion when announcing that it would no longer publish statistics on employee diversity. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/18/high-school-chill-girl
The Guardian view on Trump’s state visit to Britain: plenty of glitter, but this was gilt, not gold | Editorial
The hyperbole is in sharp contrast to the actual achievements, but in this new era minimising damage and buying time look like winsAn unprecedented second state visit for a US president. An “extra-large” guard of honour. The UK rolled out not only the red carpet, royal welcome and golden carriage but also the superlatives for Donald Trump’s visit. Sir Keir Starmer’s hyperbole on the memorandum of understanding on tech made his guest look almost understated: the prime minister boasted that the transatlantic partnership paved the way for new technologies to “amplify human potential, solve problems, cure diseases, make us richer and freer”.Yet there was an inverse relationship between the pomp and ceremony of this trip and its real import, between the grand declarations of amity and the actual state of transatlantic ties. The US president soaked up the sycophancy and was obliging enough to hymn the “priceless” relationship. But while Mr Trump grumbled that Vladimir Putin had “really let me down”, he showed no inclination for tougher action against Russia despite Sir Keir’s preposterous remark that the US president had “led the way” on Ukraine and King Charles’s pointed reference – one that his mother might not, perhaps, have made – to Europe and its allies needing to stand together against tyranny. Continue reading...The Guardian view on the Lib Dem conference: speaking for parts of England | Editorial
Sir Ed Davey’s party has plenty to look forward to, but also difficult choices to makeThe two largest parties in the House of Commons approach the 2025 autumn conference season with trepidation. Both Labour and the Conservatives are spooked by collapses in voter support and by the rise of Reform UK. Party anxiety, internal disagreements and even grassroots revolts seem possible at both of their conferences.The third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats, have no such worries at all. They start their conference in Bournemouth this weekend in resilient mood. Having won 72 Commons seats in 2024 – the best result by any third party for a century – Sir Ed Davey’s party cemented those gains in the 2025 English local elections. While Labour and the Tories lost both votes and seats to Reform UK, the Lib Dems did the reverse, gaining seats and capturing three county councils. As a result, Sir Ed claimed the Lib Dems were now “the party of middle England”. Continue reading...Ben Jennings on Keir Starmer’s negotiations with Donald Trump – cartoon
Continue reading...Rashford’s double silences Newcastle’s party and eases Barcelona to victory
A little over 24 hours before kick-off, Hansi Flick spoke about how lucky he felt to have acquired Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United.Barcelona’s manager was not remotely bothered that the forward’s stock had fallen so far at Old Trafford. Rashford, he said, was a player he had long admired and could help improve. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/sep/18/newcastle-barcelona-chmapions-league-match-report
Doku decorates Manchester City’s win over Napoli after De Bruyne return ends early
Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?” He might have spoken, too, of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark.His strike was a seventh in five for City – form as ominous as the Norwegian’s in the 2022-23 treble season. Continue reading...Elisabeth Terland hat-trick takes Manchester United into Women’s Champions League
Manchester United 3-0 Brann (Utd win 3-1 on agg)Terland 8,13, 62Manchester United reached the main draw of the Women’s Champions League for the first time after an Elisabeth Terland hat-trick helped them overturn a first-leg deficit to deservedly eliminate the Norwegian side Brann in the third qualifying round.Terland netted a perfect hat-trick, scoring with her right foot after earlier doing so with her left and nodding in a header, to ensure Marc Skinner’s team will be included in Friday’s draw for the new, 18-team league phase of the competition, along with Chelsea and the holders Arsenal. Continue reading...Piastri and Norris ‘in control of own destiny’ in F1 world championship battle
Piastri says drivers not team will decide outcome of titleComments follow controversial swap by McLarenOscar Piastri has insisted that he and his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, are in control of their own destiny as they fight for the Formula One world championship after the pair were involved in a highly controversial swap imposed by the team at the Italian Grand Prix.Given the pair are in a two-horse race for the title, the question of team orders playing a potentially decisive role loomed large after Monza. Max Verstappen won the race but McLaren’s decision to have Piastri return second place to Norris, after the British driver lost the position due to a slow pit stop caused by a faulty wheel gun, was contentious. Continue reading...McLaughlin-Levrone runs fastest women’s 400m in 40 years to claim world gold
US runner takes title in 47.78 sec at World ChampionshipBotswana’s Busang Collen Kebinatshipi wins men’s 400mSydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran the fastest women’s 400 metres in 40 years to claim world championship gold in 47.78sec on Thursday and complete her transition from the one-lap hurdles in emphatic style. The American stormed through the Tokyo rain to add a first global gold in the flat 400m to the two Olympic and one world titles she won over the hurdles.Not since the Iron Curtain cast a shadow over Europe, and sport was seen as war by other means across the Eastern bloc, has a woman run a 400m as fast as McLaughlin-Levrone did on this wet and wild Tokyo night. Continue reading...Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
Robertson looks a better bet for Merseyside derby, a fresh test for Bournemouth, protests at West Ham and moreIt would be a surprise to see Arne Slot start Milos Kerkez against Everton, given the left-back’s struggles against Burnley last weekend. Kerkez was booked for diving and was lucky to avoid a second yellow after fouling Jaidon Anthony before being substituted for Andy Robertson after 38 minutes at Turf Moor. Surely Slot will not risk a similar performance in the cauldron of the Merseyside derby, especially with such a dependable option in Robertson and the tricky Iliman Ndiaye on the right wing for Everton? “It’s a massive jump [playing for Liverpool],” said the Scot as he came to the defence of Kerkez this week. “I came from Hull City, he’s come from Bournemouth, and it’s probably quite similar. He will be the starting left-back for Liverpool in the future and it’s up to me to push him this season and help him improve.” Kerkez is lucky to have such an experienced mentor, but may face a wait to get back into Slot’s starting XI after Robertson started against Atlético Madrid in midweek. Michael Butler Continue reading...José Mourinho confirmed as Benfica manager and faces swift Chelsea return
His contract to 2027 includes break clause this summerBenfica play at Chelsea in Champions LeagueJosé Mourinho has been confirmed as Benfica’s head coach on a contract until the summer of 2027, with a break clause at the end of this season. His fourth game, on 30 September, will take him back to his former club Chelsea in the Champions League.The 62-year-old takes over from Bruno Lage, who was sacked after Benfica’s 3-2 Champions League defeat by Qarabag on Tuesday. Benfica said in a statement that a break clause would allow the club or Mourinho to end his deal in the 10 days after their final game of this campaign. Continue reading...Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio to stand trial over alleged sharing of explicit video
Asencio and three former youth players to face trialCase relates to alleged incident in Gran Canaria in 2023The Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio and three former youth players at the club are to stand trial in connection with the alleged filming and distribution of sexual videos involving two women, one of whom was a minor at the time.According to court documents, three of the defendants are accused of “one count of distributing child pornography, as well as two offences against privacy”. Their bail has been set at €20,000 each (£17,400). The fourth, who is understood to be Asencio, is accused of two offences against privacy and has had his bail set at €15,000. Continue reading...Giants New Zealand must be wary of bogey team Canada in World Cup semi-final
Maple Leafs have gone under the radar at Women’s Rugby World Cup but underdogs can upset the championsFor anyone who might be thinking champions New Zealand are a shoo-in to make the Rugby World Cup final, Canada have three key attributes to suggest they can knock out the Black Ferns in their semi-final on Friday evening: Belief, fast ruck speed and Sophie de Goede.Canada are the world No 2 side and came close to beating England at the 2024 WXV 1, yet have gone under the radar in the buildup to this tournament and during its early stages, with much of the attention focused on the potential for a rematch of the 2022 final between New Zealand and hosts England. Against the Black Ferns in the last four at Ashton Gate, Canada will still be viewed as underdogs in some circles, something the team have spoken about a lot, according to the wing Alysha Corrigan. Continue reading...Judges rule against Trump administration on deporting Guatemalan children and Venezuelans
Double defeat protects Venezuelans with temporary protected status and Guatemalan minorsThe Trump administration has been handed a double defeat by judges in immigration cases, barring the executive branch from deporting a group of Guatemalan children and from slashing protections for many Venezuelans in the US.A federal judge on Thursday ordered the administration to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied immigrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/ruling-trump-deport-children-guatemalan-venezuelan
Videos appear to show people smuggling by state-linked Libyan militia in Mediterranean
Sea rescue NGO says clips and images provide evidence that smugglers ‘are part of Tripoli’s official military apparatus’Video footage and photos in the Italian press appear to show for the first time a militia allied with the Libyan government participating in people smuggling in the Mediterranean Sea.The clips and photographs, shared with the Guardian, were taken by a journalist for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica who had accompanied volunteers on a rescue boat operated by the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans. Continue reading...UK doctors guilty of sexual misconduct are not being struck off, research finds
Analysis reveals 24% of guilty doctors handed suspensions but are allowed to keep working in medicineUK doctors who are guilty of sexual misconduct are not being appropriately sanctioned due to weak disciplinary processes, research reveals.Nearly a quarter (24%) of doctors found guilty of sexual misconduct were handed suspensions but allowed to continue working in medicine, according to analysis of fitness to practice tribunals by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). This is despite the regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), recommending they be struck off the medical register. Continue reading...Live Nation and Ticketmaster accused of allowing ticket brokers to rake in millions from resales
FTC and seven states file lawsuit claiming resellers’ violations of ticket purchasing limits were ignoredThe US Federal Trade Commission and seven states accused Live Nation and its ticketing arm Ticketmaster of costing fans millions of dollars by tacitly allowing ticket brokers to scoop concert tickets and sell them at a significant markup, the agency said on Thursday.The lawsuit deepens Ticketmaster’s legal woes, which began after its botched 2022 sale of tickets to Swift’s much-hyped Eras tour. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/18/live-nation-ticketmaster-resales-lawsuit
Teflon diet, garlic milk and zebra cows triumph at 2025 Ig Nobel prizes
Researchers into idea to blend powdered PTFE into food as a zero-calorie filler to curb hunger win chemistry prizeFor decades scientists, doctors and public health officials have battled to solve the obesity crisis. Now researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for a radical new approach: slashing people’s calorie intake by feeding them Teflon.The left-field proposal was inspired by zero calorie drinks and envisaged food manufacturers blending powdered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) into their products in the hope it would sate people’s hunger before quietly sliding out. Continue reading...The island that banned hives: can honeybees actually harm nature?
On a tiny Italian island, scientists conducted a radical experiment to see if the bees were causing their wild cousins to declineOff the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.Giannutri island’s remote location made it a perfect open-air laboratory for the bee experiments. Photographs: Giuseppe Nucci Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/18/hives-honeybee-boom-tuscan-island-italy-aoe
The Indiana town suffering under the shadow of a BP refinery: ‘They’ve had way too many accidents’
Whiting residents worried after facility, which has had multiple problems, shut down temporarily after rainIt was the biggest news story around the midwest as the Labor Day weekend approached earlier this month: the unexpected surging price of fuel at the gas station.But for residents of Whiting, Indiana, petroleum has been presenting an altogether bigger problem. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/whiting-indiana-bp-refinery
‘Sun day’: US climate activists to rally for clean energy amid Trump attacks
Some 450 events are planned across the US this Sunday to celebrate growth of solar power and energy efficiencyAs the Trump administration wages an all-out assault on climate protections and renewable energy, activists are gearing up for demonstrations this Sunday to hype up solar power and energy efficiency.The national “day of action”, called Sun Day, will be spearheaded by the veteran climate activist Bill McKibben. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/sun-day-national-rally-clean-energy
UK’s public sector broadcasters demand more prominence on YouTube to combat misinformation
Bosses say independent news needs to be promoted on social platforms that increasing numbers of viewers are turning toThe BBC and Britain’s other public sector broadcasters have united to demand new regulations to force platforms such as YouTube to give them a fairer deal and more prominence, warning that failing to do so will fan the flames of misinformation.Public service broadcasters (PSBs) are facing huge pressures as increasing numbers of viewers turn to digital platforms. Bosses say PSBs need to be protected to safeguard the “shared social fabric of the UK”. Continue reading...John Lennon’s school desk goes on display at Beatles Museum in Liverpool
Desk from Quarry Bank high school had been hidden by staff as teachers considered Lennon a ‘nuisance’A desk used by John Lennon has gone on display after being found in the attic of his former school, where teachers had not wanted to remember the musician because he was a “nuisance”.Lennon attended Quarry Bank high school in Liverpool between 1952 and 1957, and the name of the Quarrymen, the band that would become the Beatles in their formative years, was inspired by the school’s name. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/18/john-lennon-school-desk-beatles-museum-liverpool
Two men and a woman arrested in Essex on suspicion of spying for Russia
Arrests follow counter-terrorism investigation into suspected National Security Act offences, Met police sayTwo men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia amid increasing alarm at the activities of Moscow’s intelligence services in the UK.The Metropolitan police said two men aged 41 and 46 and a 35-year-old woman were arrested at two separate homes in Grays, Essex, on suspicion of assisting the Russian intelligence service and taken to a police station in London. Continue reading...Taxpayers lose £400m as result of investment fund set up by Rishi Sunak
Report shows 334 companies backed by Future Fund, set up in May 2020 by then chancellor, have since gone underUK taxpayers have lost £400m following the collapse of hundreds of startups backed by a heavily criticised Covid-era investment fund launched by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor.The Future Fund spent £1.14bn backing 1,190 companies, some of them of types not usually associated with government portfolios such as the sex party organiser Killing Kittens and the now defunct festival tickets business Pollen. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/18/rishi-sunak-future-fund-british-taxpayers-lose
Nvidia to invest $5bn in Intel after Trump administration’s 10% stake
Deal gives Intel a lifeline as firms team up on AI datacenters and PC chips after Trump stake sparks market surgeNvidia, the world’s leading chipmaker, has announced plans to invest $5bn in Intel and collaborate with the struggling semiconductor company on products.A month after the Trump administration confirmed it had taken a 10% stake in Intel – the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America – Nvidia said it would team up with the firm to work on custom datacenters that form the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, as well as personal computer products. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/18/nvidia-intel-ai-partner
Jury finds LA protester not guilty of assaulting border patrol agent
Brayan Ramos-Brito acquitted after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incidentA Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent in June was acquitted on Wednesday after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident.The not guilty verdict for Brayan Ramos-Brito is a major setback for the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in southern California and for Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who has become a key figure in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 29-year-old defendant, who is a US citizen, was facing a misdemeanor and was the first protester to go to trial since demonstrations against immigration raids erupted in LA earlier this summer. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/los-angeles-border-agent-trial
CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox instead of single vaccine
Experts react with concern that increasing the number of vaccinations required will threaten children’s healthA powerful vaccines committee for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted on Thursday to change US vaccine policy and start recommending that children receive multiple vaccines to protect against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, instead of a single vaccine that can protect against all four diseases.The new recommendations from the panel, the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), arrived just one day after top former CDC officials said that Robert F Kennedy Jr was a threat to US children’s ability to receive vaccines on schedule. The committee’s work typically determines which vaccines are provided free of charge through the US government, shapes state and local laws around vaccine requirements, and influences which vaccines health insurers tend to cover. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/cdc-vaccine-policy
Italy first in EU to pass comprehensive law regulating use of AI
Legislation limits child access and imposes prison terms for damaging use of artificial intelligenceItaly has become the first country in the EU to approve a comprehensive law regulating the use of artificial intelligence, including imposing prison terms on those who use the technology to cause harm, such as generating deepfakes, and limiting child access.Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government said the legislation, which aligns with the EU’s landmark AI Act, is a decisive move in influencing how AI is used across Italy. Continue reading...‘If you don’t make a stand now, when would you?’: inside the Together for Palestine concert
Palestinian musicians were joined by stars including Neneh Cherry and Louis Theroux for a massive four-hour fundraising concert in London. Their artistry revealed the strength and breadth of a culture under siegeIt’s a muggy midweek afternoon when a trail of people draped in black and white keffiyeh scarves, Palestine flags and Free Palestine slogan T-shirts begin to trickle into Wembley Arena. In the foyer of the venue, 56-year-old Kiran has just arrived from her home in Milton Keynes.“I’d never protested in my life before October 2023,” she says. “It’s been so horrific to see what’s happening in Gaza, I felt I had to do something since if you don’t make a stand now, when would you ever? Things might feel futile but this is a way to show the world we care and that we stand together more than we are torn apart.”Neneh Cherry performs with Greentea Peng Continue reading...Trump v the Truth review – no other broadcaster would attempt TV so daring (and mind-numbing)
Channel 4’s use of facts to correct almost everything the US president has said since taking office in January is a monumental flex. Sadly three hours of him speaking is deadeningly boringIf nothing else, you have to applaud their commitment to the bit. Broadly speaking, the British media responded to Donald Trump’s state visit with a series of cautious little inserts nestled within scheduled news programming. Then along came Channel 4, which decided to go big, junking off a full night’s schedule to deliver an unbroken almost three-hour, fact-based, point-by-point repudiation of almost every single thing that Trump has said since he retook office in January.This sprawling extravaganza, entitled Trump v the Truth, formed the backbone of what effectively became Channel 4’s Trump Day on Wednesday. Preceding it was episode two of The Donald Trump Show, a weird hour that overlaid an arch Come Dine With Me narration over old Trump clips. And throughout the day, continuity announcers were replaced with a Trump impersonator who whined about the channel’s output. During Frasier at 10:40am, for instance, he complained about his intense dislike of tossed salads.Still, Trump v the Truth was always the real pull; a monumental flex that few other broadcasters would have dared to attempt. Starting at 10pm and rolling on into the small hours, the show was billed as a rigorously sourced factcheck of more than 100 untruths that Trump has told during his second term so far, in speeches, interviews, statements and social media posts. Continue reading...
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/18/trump-v-the-truth-review-channel-4
Swiped review – breezy drama gives dating apps the origins treatment
Lily James plays former Tinder employee who became founder of Bumble in an illuminating yet corny rise-to-fame taleIn 2012, a plucky, headstrong young entrepreneur crashes a startup mixer in Los Angeles, desperately trying to get their big idea off the ground. Naive and ruthlessly ambitious, they brave the skeptics, the losers, the people too good to talk to them and the people who don’t take them seriously. Eventually, inevitably, their genius – obvious, unsinkable, perhaps diabolical – collides with opportunity. Voilà! An origin story is born.Swap out the date and the city, and this would describe a pivotal scene in any number of recent movies and TV shows that take cinematic interest in the self-mythology of entrepreneurs. The dramatic logic and iconography of the origin story, basically true but always highly glossed, is by now so recognizable it almost writes itself: initial rejection, dogged persistence, chance meeting, lightbulb moment, big break. We’ve seen it in a wave of brand backstory movies – Flamin’ Hot, Air, BlackBerry and Tetris to name a few – as well as the recent boomlet of shows depicting 2010s hustle culture. The twist with Swiped, Hulu’s new film on the founding of online dating titans Tinder and Bumble, is that this founder is a woman. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/18/swiped-review-tinder-bumble-movie
Juice season two review – Mawaan Rizwan’s enchanting sitcom comes at you like a tidal wave of creativity
The cast radiate charm, the storytelling is hugely imaginative and the narrative is irresistibly heartwarming. It’s not the funniest comedy, but it has so much more going for it than just laughsMawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chairs) and messing around his sensible therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey). Now – having been fired from the job and broken up with Guy – he’s crashing with his friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home. Jamma seems fine with his new gig and more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/18/juice-season-two-review-mawaan-rizwan-sitcom
The Lady from the Sea review – Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander make waves in magnificent rewrite
Bridge theatre, LondonIbsen’s mysticism and mermaids are thrown out as director Simon Stone amps up the 1888 play’s psychological intensity with his eco-focused updateWriter-director Simon Stone is known for his rock’n’roll takes on the classics. This is a characteristically high-octane version of Ibsen’s play: loud, modern and led by screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln. Yet his script, again created in the rehearsal process, retains all of Ibsen’s layers and adds some of its own in the updating.All mystical talk of the sea and mermaids is excised. The production brings a sharply lit realism to the privileged yet complex family at its heart that seems to be slowly drowning: Ellida (Vikander), as the young, second wife of neurologist Edward (Lincoln), is caught between life with her husband and a long lost, formative ex-lover, Finn (Brendan Cowell), who makes a reappearance. Ellida’s stepdaughters, Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike) and Asa (Gracie Oddie-James), are trying to stay afloat amid grief for their biological mother, who killed herself. Continue reading...Ghost Trail review – pain and paranoia as a Syrian refugee attempts to track down his torturer
Jonathan Millet makes his fiction feature debut with an ambitious slow-burn thriller that opens up a complex world of painThe face of a Syrian refugee is the enigmatic key to this slow-burning drama-thriller, the fiction feature debut of French film-maker Jonathan Millet; it is hard, blank, withdrawn, yet showing us an inexpressible agony, a suppressed, unprocessed trauma, complicated by what is evidently a new strategic wariness. The refugee is Hamid (played by Adam Bessa), a former literature professor from Aleppo who is now in Strasbourg in France in 2016, having suffered torture in Damascus’s notorious Sednaya prison, and the killing of his wife and infant daughter.Hamid asks expatriate Syrians if they know a certain man, showing them a hazy photograph, claiming that this is his cousin. In fact, it is a man who tortured him and Hamid is a member of a ring dedicated to tracking down Syrian war criminals all over Europe. Haunted, exhausted and unhappy, Hamid’s only real relationship is with his elderly mother in a Lebanese refugee camp, with whom he has weekly Zoom calls; this a tender performance from Shafiqa El Till. Continue reading...The Young Man by Annie Ernaux audiobook review – anatomy of an affair
The Nobel winner explores the dynamics of her relationship with a student 30 years her junior in an intimate, taboo-breaking memoirIn Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical story, translated by Alison L Strayer, the author recalls a past affair with a student who was 30 years her junior. “Often I have made love to force myself to write … I hoped that orgasm, the most violent end to waiting that can be, would make me feel certain that there is no greater pleasure than writing a book.” In other words, she is keen to break her writer’s block. But, to both their surprise, the affair becomes “a relationship that we longed to take to the limit, without really knowing what that meant”.The Young Man is Ernaux’s shortest memoir yet, clocking just over half an hour in audio. But brevity doesn’t impede her ability to get to the heart of the intimate dynamics or external pressures of a situation that many others view as taboo. The couple get disapproving looks in restaurants, which, rather than leaving Ernaux cowed, reinforces her “determination not to hide my affair with a man who could have been my son”. Continue reading...Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Opp 12 no 2 & 96 album review – sheer joie de vivre
(Signum)Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson end their cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas with energised and immaculate performancesViktoria Mullova began her cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas partnered by Kristian Bezuidenhout, but Alasdair Beatson has been the pianist for the last three instalments. They end the series with a pairing of the second of the Op 12 set in A major with the last of the sonatas, in G. All of the performances use historical instruments, with Mullova playing her gut-strung 1750 Guadagnini and using a classical bow, while here Beatson plays a different keyboard for each sonata. For the rather Mozartian Op 12 no 2 he uses a copy of a Walter fortepiano made in 1805, seven years after the sonata was composed; while for the much more ambitious keyboard writing of Op 96 it’s a copy of a Graf from 1819.What is common to the performances of both sonatas is the sheer joie de vivre of the playing. Everything seems energised, and if the precision and immaculate ensemble is sometimes at the expense of obvious affection for the music and perhaps the last degree of warmth, that’s usually a small price to pay. The fine detail of both the violin and the keyboard playing is exquisite; the shape of every phrase, you feel, has been considered and weighted accordingly, without losing any sense of spontaneity, so the music never stales. Continue reading...Joy Crookes: Juniper review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week
(Insanity)Four years ago, the south Londoner’s star was on the rise with her debut Skin – then she vanished. Now, she’s back with shimmering sounds and cleverly unsentimental lyrics, plus explosive cameos by Vince Staples and KanoIn an overcrowded pop market, where artists are encouraged to maintain a constant presence and stream of what’s depressingly termed “product”, south London singer-songwriter Joy Crookes’s career has progressed in a curious series of fits and starts. After releasing a series of EPs, she ended 2019 as a hotly tipped act: appearances on Later … With Jools Holland, nominated for the Brits Rising Star award, placed high in the BBC’s Sound of 2020 poll, invited to support Harry Styles on tour. But the latter was nixed by Covid, and her real commercial breakthrough didn’t arrive for nearly two years: released at the tail-end of 2021, her debut album Skin made the Top 5 and, in Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, spawned one of those long-tail viral hits that achieves a weird omnipresence despite barely grazing the Top 30. She started working on a follow-up, then vanished again. The four years that separate her debut from Juniper were at least partly consumed by a period when she was “really sick” and “mentally unstable”.It’s a period that understandably hangs over the contents of Juniper: “I’m so sick, I’m so tired, I can’t keep losing my mind,” she sings on opener Brave; “I’m pretty fucking miserable,” runs the blunt chorus of Mathematics, ostensibly a breakup song that seems underpinned by something noticeably darker than romantic woe alone. You could argue that Juniper’s introspective tone comes at a cost – there’s no room for the kind of sharp, political songs about Brexit, gentrification and immigration that peppered Skin – but Crookes is an impressively snappy lyricist who comes across as smart, streetwise and gobby regardless of the personal trauma she’s describing. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/18/joy-crookes-juniper-review
‘He should be known as a film music revolutionary’: revitalising the legacy of Czech composer Zdeněk Liška
The electroacoustic pioneer scored dozens of pictures – and communist propaganda. Too successful to be persecuted by the politburo but largely forgotten when he died, his music is being revived by a new archival seriesZdeněk Liška became one of the eastern bloc’s pioneers of electroacoustic music by accident. After breaking through making music for ads and animations, the revolutionary film-makers of the 1960s Czechoslovak new wave asked him to soundtrack their movies, which he took as his greatest inspirations. With the help of radio engineering enthusiasts at Czechoslovakia’s film powerhouse, Barrandov Studios, he could imitate the whoosh of a spaceship or birds chirping. He composed underwater electroacoustic symphonies and music to be played on typewriters. Despite his innovations, he famously proclaimed: “I only write music under the pictures.”Liška was as productive as he was innovative: from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, he would score eight feature films a year, as well as numerous shorts and TV series. He could go camp or avant garde, channel Disney-like beauty and loved a waltz. His peers recall him composing on the night train or sketching the next cue while the orchestra was still recording the last one. Czechs from across the generations can whistle some of his melodies, such as the carnival-style theme from crime series The Sinful People of Prague. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/17/film-music-revolutionary-czech-composer-zdenek-liska
The Traitors Circle by Jonathan Freedland review – a propulsive story of German resistance
A thriller-like account of the influential men and women who opposed Hitler and paid a terrible priceOn 10 September 1943, a loose group of well-connected friends met in a small apartment in the Charlottenberg area of Berlin. The host was Elisabeth von Thadden and the nominal reason for the get-together was her younger sister’s 50th birthday. Really, though, this was a cover story for nine influential people meeting to discuss what should happen now that it was clear that Hitler was losing the war.Otto Kiep, a former diplomat, talked hopefully about how Mussolini’s recent toppling meant that Italy was ready to make peace with the allies, while political hostess Hanna Solf gleefully anticipated the moment when Hitler fell: “We’ll put him against a wall.” Meanwhile, Von Thadden herself, a devout Protestant and former headteacher of an elite girls’ school, warned of the humanitarian crisis that would follow the end of hostilities. For those who gathered on that late summer’s day for tea, sandwiches and a particularly unappetising food item called “war cake”, Germany’s rebirth as a democratic nation state felt so near that they could almost touch it. Continue reading...Clown Town by Mick Herron review – more fun and games with the Slow Horses
The ninth novel in the Slough House series, this tale of IRA infiltration is a perfect mix of one-liners, plot twists and real-world-tinged intrigueTrigger warning: the new Slough House novel shares its name, I assume accidentally, with a particularly bleak soft-play centre on London’s North Circular Road in which sticky under-fives circulate through an infernal apparatus wailing and stabbing each other with plastic forks while the grownups sit at plastic tables drinking horrible coffee and waiting for death. Just a glimpse at the dust jacket sent me back a decade to that environment of grubbiness, boredom and mild peril. It’s not that big a leap, mind. There’s something of the knockabout quality of a soft-play centre in Mick Herron’s fictional world: all fun and games until someone loses an eye.That said, as far as I know, none of the injuries in the real-world Clown Town will have been occasioned by the victim being held down so the front wheel of a Land Rover Defender can be driven over their head – which is the attention-grabbing scene with which Herron opens this latest instalment. As often, Herron’s plot takes off from real-world events: the Stakeknife scandal – in which it turned out that MI5 had been protecting a murderously vicious IRA enforcer as an intelligence asset – appears here in the story of Pitchfork, whose signature “nutting” technique of killing during the Troubles was running over people’s heads.What you see when you see a blank page is much what you hear when you hear white noise; it’s the early shifting into gear of something not ready to happen – an echo of what you feel when you walk past sights the eyes are blind to; bus queues, whitewashed shopfronts, adverts pasted to lamp-posts, or a four-storey block on Aldersgate Street in the London borough of Finsbury, where the premises gracing the pavement include a Chinese restaurant with ever-lowered shutters and a faded menu taped to its window; a down-at-heel newsagent’s where pallets of off-brand cola cans block the aisle; and, between the two, a weathered black door with a dusty milk bottle welded to its step, and an air of neglect suggesting that it never opens, never closes. Continue reading...On Drugs by Justin Smith-Ruiu review – a philosopher’s guide to psychedelics
What if Descartes had melted his brain on acid? Find out in this mind-expanding exploration of thought and consciousnessThis book is a trip. Among other things, it copiously details all the drugs that the US-born professor of history and philosophy of science at the Université Paris Cité has ingested. They include psilocybin, LSD, cannabis; quetiapine and Xanax (for anxiety); venlafaxine, Prozac, Lexapro and tricyclics (antidepressants); caffeine (“I have drunk coffee every single day without fail since September 13, 1990”); and, at least for him, the always disappointing alcohol.The really trippy thing, though, is not so much Justin Smith-Ruiu’s descriptions of his drug experiences, but the fact that they’re written by a tough-minded analytic philosopher, one as familiar with AJ Ayer’s Foundations of Empirical Knowledge as Aldous Huxley’s mescaline-inspired The Doors of Perception. Moreover, they’re presented with the aim of melting the minds of his philosophical peers and the rest of us by suggesting that psychedelics dissolve our selves and make us part of cosmic consciousness, thereby rendering us free in the way the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza defined it (paraphrased by Smith-Ruiu as “an agreeable acquiescence in the way one’s own body is moving in the necessary order of things”). Continue reading...Everything Will Swallow You by Tom Cox review – a cosy state-of-the-nation yarn
This deeply comforting tale of record collecting, magical creatures and a lovingly knitted cardigan rambles across EnglandUrsula K Le Guin had her Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction; I have my comfy cardigan theory. What Le Guin proposed is that human culture, novels included, didn’t begin with technologies of harm, such as flints and spears, but with items of collection and care, such as the wicker basket or, nowadays, the carrier bag. And so, if we make them that way, novels can be gatherings rather than battles.Tom Cox’s third novel fashions an escape from the dangerous outside world into something soft, comforting and unfashionable. It might once have been a Neanderthal’s armpit, but now it’s more likely to be a cosy cardigan. Or a deeply comforting story. Continue reading...Why do some gamers invert their controls? Scientists now have answers, but they’re not what you think
The phenomenal response to an article we published on this question led to detailed cognitive research – and the findings have implications that go way beyond gamersFive years ago, on the verge of the first Covid lockdown, I wrote an article asking what seemed to be an extremely niche question: why do some people invert their controls when playing 3D games? A majority of players push down on the controller to make their onscreen character look down, and up to make them look up. But there is a sizeable minority who do the opposite, controlling their avatars like a pilot controls a plane, pulling back to go up. For most modern games, this requires going into the settings and reconfiguring the default controls. Why do they still persist?I thought a few hardcore gamers would be interested in the question. Instead, more than one million people read the article, and the ensuing debate caught the attention of Dr Jennifer Corbett (quoted in the original piece) and Dr Jaap Munneke, then based at the Visual Perception and Attention Lab at Brunel University London. Continue reading...Borderlands 4 review – the chaotic, colourful shooter has finally grown up a little
PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2; Gearbox Software/2K GamesFamiliar and predictable, but also well-honed and significantly less juvenile, the fourth Borderlands game is a blastOnce a games franchise hits its fourth outing, it is certainly mature – yet maturity is not a word generally associated with Borderlands, the colourful and performatively edgy looter-shooter from Texas. This series is characterised by a pervasive and polarising streak of distinctly adolescent humour. But in Borderlands 4, developer Gearbox has addressed that issue: it features plenty of returning characters in its storyline, but this time around they are more world-weary and less annoyingly manic. Borderlands has finally matured, to an extent. And not before time.Borderlands 4 still flings jokes at you thick and fast, and they are still hit-or-miss, but at least its general humour is a bit more sophisticated than before. It retains the distinctive cel-shaded graphical style and gun and ordnance-heavy gameplay that people have always loved. Indeed, it throws even more guns at you than any of its predecessors, and with a little work at filtering out the best ones, you will find plenty of absolute gems with which to take on hordes of straightforward enemies and more interesting bosses. A decent storyline emerges after the formulaic first few hours, eventually sending you off on some unexpected, fun and sometimes gratifyingly surreal tangents. Continue reading...Why random lines of video game dialogue get stuck in our heads
From famous Street Fighter lines to quips from 90s classics, these are the quotes we hear again and again – and even incorporate into our own livesSome snippets of video game dialogue, like classic movie quotes, are immediately recognisable to a swathe of fans. From Street Fighter’s “hadouken!” to Call of Duty’s “remember, no Russian” to BioShock’s “would you kindly?”, there are phrases so creepy, clever or cool they have slipped imperceptibly into the gaming lexicon, ensuring that whenever they’re memed on social media, almost everyone gets the reference.But there are also odd little phrases, sometimes from obscure games, that stick with us for seemingly no reason. I recall most of the vocal barks from the second world war strategy game Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, even though I haven’t played it for 20 years. Why is it that I’ll lose my headphones, wallet and phone on a daily basis, but I have absolute recall when it comes to the utterances of burly soldier Samuel Brooklyn? Why am I doomed to “Finally, some action”, “Consider it done, boss” and the immortal “okey dokey” echoing through my head? What is wrong with me? Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/sep/17/video-game-dialogue-pushing-buttons
EA Sports FC 26 preview – new play styles aim to tackle Fifa challenge
After a lacklustre response to the 2025 edition, the game has gone all out to engage players and respond to user feedbackIn an open office space somewhere inside the vast Electronic Arts campus in Vancouver, dozens of people are gathered around multiple monitors playing EA Sports FC 26. Around them, as well as rows of football shirts from leagues all over the world, are PCs and monitors with staff watching feeds of the matches. The people playing are from EA’s Design Council, a group of pro players, influencers and fans who regularly come in to play new builds, ask questions and make suggestions. These councils have been running for years, but for this third addition to the EA Sports FC series, the successor to EA’s Fifa games, their input is apparently being treated more seriously than ever.The message to journalists, invited here to get a sneak look at the game, is that a lacklustre response to EA Sports FC 25 has meant that addressing user feedback is the main focus. EA has set up a new Player Feedback Portal, as well as a dedicated Discord channel, for fans to put forward their concerns. The developer has also introduced AI-powered social listening tools to monitor EA Sports FC chatter across various platforms including X, Instagram and YouTube. Continue reading...Sally Rooney unable to collect award over Palestine Action arrest threat
The Normal People author can no longer safely enter the UK without potentially facing arrest, according to a statement read out by her publisher at the prize ceremonyIrish author Sally Rooney could not travel to collect a literary prize this week over concerns that she may be arrested if she enters the UK, given her support of banned group Palestine Action.She has cancelled all future public engagements in Britain, and is currently seeking advice over legal issues that, she says, “could affect the very availability of my work.” Continue reading...Picasso painting not seen for 80 years unveiled by Paris auction house
Portrait of Dora Maar completed in Paris during war had been in private collection since being bought in 1944Europe live – latest updatesA newly discovered painting by Pablo Picasso of the French photographer and painter Dora Maar completed during the German occupation of Paris that has not been seen for 80 years, has been unveiled.The work, Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar), was finished towards the end of the couple’s turbulent nine-year relationship and shows Maar in a softer, more colourful light than Picasso’s previous portraits of his then lover. Continue reading...Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World review – sex, squalor and jungle sweat for an eternal outsider
Michael Werner Gallery, LondonArtists as varied as Sarah Lucas, Gwen John and Georg Baselitz are called upon by critic-curator Hilton Als to chime with the writer of Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys was a perpetual outsider. Born Welsh and Creole into largely black Dominican society in 1890, she was out of place everywhere – too foreign for Europe, too Caribbean for Britain, too white for Dominica, and much too female to be taken seriously as a writer for most of her lifetime.But her literary influence continues to grow and resonate, especially with American critic and curator Hilton Als. His group show is a heady, passionate, experimental love letter to Jean Rhys – to her literature, her in-betweenness, her life of unbound creativity in a postcolonial world – in the vein of his previous exhibitions-as-portraits of Joan Didion and James Baldwin. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/sep/18/jean-rhys-michael-werner-wide-sargasso-sea
Photographer Joy Gregory on her new project, decades in the making: ‘A lot of people I worked with on it have died’
A new retrospective by the Black British artist plays with everything from the Victorians’ use of flowers to Eurocentric beauty standards – including one piece she started in 2003There weren’t many Black students at the Royal College of Art when Joy Gregory was a student in the 1980s, but she did study alongside artist and Blk Art Group founder Keith Piper, who was putting together a Black photography exhibition. “He asked me if I would submit some work,” says the 65-year-old artist.Piper had liked her work, which explored themes of colonialism, beauty, gender and race. However, her submission was rejected by the organisers on the basis that it simply wasn’t Black enough. “You have to recognise the political climate at that time around practice and making a mark and I was basically taking pictures of flowers,” says Gregory. “For me, you have the right to make whatever work you want. By shutting down what can and cannot be, you start to censor yourself. I was a bit pissed off, thinking: why should you pander to what people think you should be and sit within the box that they’ve created?” Continue reading...How Robert Redford redefined menswear on – and off – the screen
The late actor was a paragon of masculine cool and a sartorial chameleon, able to take any aesthetic trope and make it shine with easy authenticityThe pantheon of men’s style icons is surprisingly compact. There are scores of uniquely handsome and stylish actors, pop stars, sportsmen – but when it comes to their decades-long influence and a sense of permanence unaffected by trends in fashion, three square-jawed American boys next door stand out: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen – and Robert Redford, who died yesterday at 89.Redford’s death is, obviously, a loss to cinema. In the latter half of the 20th century, few actors so roundly embodied the soul of American film-making, or perhaps even the US itself. During a decade-long, career-defining run of hit movies, Redford established the archetype of the modern leading man. He was impossibly handsome and warmly charismatic, of course, but also scrappy, soulful, athletic, bookishly intelligent and politically aware. A matinee idol who could fix your car while reciting Walt Whitman.Redford played with style, able to flit between macho tradition and 70s femininity, and always with innate sex appeal Continue reading...You be the judge: should my housemate stop brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink?
Raquel doesn’t believe ADHD excuses Gina’s bad habits. You decide who needs to brush up on their etiquette• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a jurorI can hear her swishing and spitting from my room. I have a visceral reaction to itLiving with ADHD is difficult, and anyway, the kitchen is not some sacred food-only zone Continue reading...Perfect panna cotta and parmesan salad: everything I’m cooking before my Sicilian getaway
In this week’s Feast newsletter: Before I head to Italy for a last hit of summer sunshine, I’m getting into the mood with bucatini by a master and a Sicilian spread that is a true autumn feastSign up here for our weekly food newsletter, FeastAs you read this, I will likely be in the throes of packing my suitcase for a much-needed escape to Italy (Sicily, to be precise). A hit of vitamin D before the summer wardrobe is put away for another year, and I am ready to fully embrace autumn and winter hermit mode. I’ve always felt that September is the perfect time to escape to the Mediterranean for a last-minute injection of sun and, in this instance, to indulge in pasta, gelato and a healthy side of aperitivo. I cannot wait.Because I have to cook a million meals before I go, I have prepared the family Rachel Roddy’s chicken thighs with cherry tomatoes and a green bean, lettuce and parmesan salad for a meal I know they all will devour. I’ve also made Felicity Cloake’s raspberry panna cotta with the haul we harvested from our local pick-your-own farm, a recipe she confirms also works with overripe or crushed berries that aren’t quite in top shape. There is also a tub of Rachel’s courgette, goat’s cheese and lemon risotto in the fridge, because we nabbed a couple of courgettes at the farm, too. That should keep my household going for a bit.If you want to read the complete version of this newsletter please subscribe to receive Feast in your inbox every Thursday Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/sep/16/feast-georgina-hayden-sicily-italian-food-pasta
A Greek bearing gifts: the many talents of the moschofilero grape | Hannah Crosbnie on drinks
Is it a white? Or a rosé? Or an orange wine? Explore its versatilityGreek wines get a lot of praise from me, and I’m not going to stop any time soon. This week, the particular drum I’m beating has “moschofilero” written all over it. Yes, mos-ko-FIL-ero, because this is a grape variety to explore if you’re after a new wine that can be had for very competitive prices.It’s an ancient grape that’s grown predominantly in the Peloponnese and on the Mantinia plateau, where the cool climate and average elevation help this delicate grape ripen. While the wines it makes are united by a steady acid, they can also range from the intensely aromatic to the clean and zesty. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/sep/18/greek-wine-moschofilero-grape-hannah-crosbie
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for lasagne with courgette and three cheeses | A kitchen in Rome
A meat-free version of the classic layered pasta dish made with good strong cheese and a few essential details you may not have thought ofWhen I was writing a book about pasta, an acquaintance from Naples who lives in Chișinău, Moldova, with his Welsh wife suggested that the first step with lasagne is to approach it like a town planner. That is, first work out the size of the dish in relation to the size of the pasta sheets (this applies to both fresh and dried), then decide how many layers you want, not only to establish how many sheets you need, but also to proportion the various fillings accordingly. We also decided that the construction of a lasagne should be like that of a bricklayer combined with a Jackson Pollock approach to the sauces.My ceramic lasagne dish is 30cm x 20cm, and three 10cm x 25cm dried lasagne sheets make a single layer in it, so a five-layer lasagne requires 15 sheets. Most dried lasagne sold today doesn’t require pre-cooking or soaking, but those sheets depend on the sauce being liquid enough to provide enough moisture to hydrate and cook them. Dry sheets also require a relatively long cooking time, so, in the case of today’s lasagne, which involves a dense and creamy, rather than a liquid sauce, I dip the sheets into boiling water for 30 seconds, then in cold water and then lay them on a tea towel to dry, which gives them a head start. It also reduces the total cooking time, which suits the delicate texture of the courgette and ricotta in the sauce. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/sep/18/lasagne-courgette-three-cheeses-recipe-rachel-roddy
How to turn fruit and veg odds and ends into a frozen food topping – recipe | Waste not
The freezer is one of the best tools for saving waste. Here it makes an unexpected but inspired burrata topperWhile most Instagram food trends prioritise spectacle over substance, the viral frozen tomato idea that I’m employing today delivers genuine culinary value, and solves a common kitchen problem into the bargain. I’m a bit late to the party, admittedly, but it’s a versatile waste-saving technique.Its origin clearly derives from either Hawaiian shaved ice or granita, that classic Italian frozen dessert made by stirring and scraping or grating a sorbet-like base into shavings, and the approach essentially applies granita principles to fresh produce, while at the same time cutting out all of the hassle: simply pop any surplus or past-its-best fruit or vegetables in the freezer until they’re rock solid, then grate! Continue reading...Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: why September is an ideal time to update your look
This is a powerful month for fashion, and an ideal time to try a waistcoat, wider trousers, a shorter skirt or a splash of saturated colour‘Every day is all there is”, as Joan Didion put it, rather elegantly. The words are so smoothly balanced you can turn them over in your mind like a pebble, and the phrase popped into my head the other day when I was thinking about why September is such a powerful month for fashion. September, the saying goes, is January for fashion people. This is sunrise for new trends, high noon for shopping, peak season for glossy magazines packed with breathless style instruction. It is the point in the calendar when an update of what you wear suddenly feels urgent.This seems, on the surface, like odd timing. After all, once you get to be an adult, nothing much happens in September. It’s not much of a season for parties, or for family holidays. Just the muscle memory of school days makes this the moment to lock back into the routine, the nine-to-five, the tea-bath-bed. But that’s the point. September is all about the everyday. Continue reading...Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: ‘She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning’
Preteens are parroting influencer speak and demanding anti-ageing products as the pressure to fit in intensifiesJessica, 25, was working a shift at Sephora when a little girl who looked about 10 ran up to one of her colleagues, crying. “Her skin was burning,” Jessica said, “it was tomato red. She had been running around, putting every acid you can think of on the palm of her hand, then all over her face. One of our estheticians had to tend to her skin. Her parents were nowhere to be seen.”Former Sephora employee KM, 25, has her war stories too. Like the day a woman was caught shoplifting and told the security guard “she was trying to steal because her kid was getting bullied because she didn’t have a Dior lip gloss. [The mom] couldn’t afford it but her daughter told her she is going to get made fun of at school.” Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/17/sephora-workers-child-skin-care
Cos takes centre stage at New York fashion week and Gwyneth Paltrow rebrands
The high street brand moves beyond fast fashion with a brutalist collection, while Paltrow loses the gimmicksThe headline act on day four of New York fashion week had all the hallmarks of a typical designer catwalk, including a pulsating soundtrack and a front row peppered with Hollywood stars. However, there was a twist. Instead of a luxury brand staging the show on Sunday, it was the high street label Cos.The Swedish label, founded in 2007 by the H&M group, welcomed guests including the British actors Jodie Turner-Smith and Naomi Watts as well as the singer Lauryn Hill to a former 1890s rope factory in Brooklyn. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/sep/15/cos-new-york-fashion-week-gwyneth-paltrow-rebrands
‘It’s silent but does the heavy lifting’: the soft power of the white shirt
The white shirt speaks of formality without trying too hard and is making a comeback on the catwalk and on screenVictoria Beckham has positioned herself as a pop star, mother, perfumier, TikToker and fashion designer. But whatever job next month’s Netflix documentary focuses on – details are scant, but it’s thought the early October series will end at her Paris catwalk show – she will always be scrutinised over how she looks. How to temper that? Wear a plain white shirt.The documentary poster released this week shows Beckham wearing a diamond tennis bracelet, open-collar white shirt – and nothing else. Last week, the Princess of Wales appeared in public at the Natural History Museum, also in a plain white shirt. Earlier this month, the Duchess of Sussex launched her Netflix series in a white shirt (one of seven in fact), and when Taylor Swift recently announced her new album she did so wearing a white shirt. Laura Dern wore hers twice at the Venice film festival, and the woman with the most enviable wardrobe in fashion – Sarah Jessica Parker – chose a billowing version to promote her role as Booker prize judge. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/sep/12/soft-power-white-shirt-fashion-victoria-beckham
‘It was a bad dream – but I never woke up’: what it is like to lose your best friend
For 25 years, Justin and Nichola were an essential part of each other’s lives. Then, one random Wednesday, came a terrible, wrenching phone callMany lifelong alliances begin with a period of mild intimidation, and so it was with my friendship with Nichola. We were 18, in the first year at university, and shared a few French classes. I didn’t know her name, had never heard her speak in English but, with her voluminous curls and friendly, curious stare, she stood out. I assumed she would be too cool to hang around with someone like me.One weekend, at a student social in the grotty union bar, booze acted as an icebreaker and the guardrails dropped. Nods of recognition in the corridor became cheery hellos, then toasties in the cafe, followed by nights out and nursing hangovers in front of the TV in our dilapidated student houses. Continue reading...The one change that worked: I went to a festival by myself and made peace with being perimenopausal
As I reached my late-40s, I’d become anxious and risk-averse. A solo trip made me realise who I was again – and taught me to embrace the thrill of trying something newI used to pride myself on being a gung-ho kind of person, embracing change and thrills in life, whether that was travelling alone to South America or doing standup comedy. But, as my 40s progressed, I found myself becoming more cautious. I started to choose the safer option, such as booking a package holiday instead of a DIY adventure, or hesitating before sending a work email, worried it didn’t sound “right”.I felt anxiety, low mood and brain fog – all symptoms of perimenopause – creeping in. I was in what I would call a menopausal funk: weighed down by my feelings and my slightly aching body. I began experiencing this two years ago. I’m 47 now. Taking HRT (hormone replacement therapy) helped, but I felt as if I had reached a point in my life where I had to accept that I was just going to be a bit less “me” and not so brave. Continue reading...My wife and I had couples therapy on TV. It nearly wrecked our marriage
After Jessica and I received expert counselling from the hit show Couples Therapy, I became public enemy number one. Here’s what didn’t make it to the screen“You are the reason women hate men,” a woman commented on one of my Instagram posts. “You don’t deserve Jessica, you schmuck,” another said in a direct message on Facebook. “I hope you’ve gotten the help you need and set your poor wife free,” wrote a third.I am a novelist who relishes connecting with his audience. That disposition has suffered. The reason: three months ago, the US network Showtime aired the latest season of the documentary series Couples Therapy, on which my wife Jessica and I appeared as one of the pairs. Continue reading...This is how we do it: ‘I want sex four or five times a day, but I’m learning to respect her libido’
Grace and Theo’s long-distance relationship – and mismatched libidos – puts pressure on their sex life, but they are learning to build intimacy• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously“We’ve been getting to know each other and building intimacy in bursts of a few weeks at a time Continue reading...Walking and feasting on the German shore of Lake Constance
Waterside trails, tastings and cosy inns are just some of the highlights of an autumn break in southern GermanyUnder the warm autumn sun, looking out over the lake, I’m sipping tart, refreshing apple-secco. It’s a sparkling prosecco-like aperitif, but made from apples instead of grapes. I eat a few cinnamon apple chips, then move on to the hard stuff: brandy made from heritage apple varieties.If you hadn’t guessed, apples are big business around here. I’m on a walking trip along the shores of Lake Constance, on Germany’s southern border. About 250,000 tonnes of apples are harvested in this region each year. Our trip has coincided with the annual gourmet event, when local producers set up stalls and sell their wares along 9 miles (15km) of the SeeGang hiking trail between Überlingen, Sipplingen and Bodman-Ludwigshafen (this year it takes place on 12 October). If apples aren’t your jam, there’s also pear-secco and spirits made from everything from plums, cherries and blackcurrants to jerusalem artichokes. Hikers can also sample food such as smoked sausages, cheeses, onion tarts, and homemade cakes and pies. Continue reading...I used to have wonderful vaginal orgasms. Why did they stop – and how can I get them back?
My husband and I still have sex – but something’s missing. Is stress the culprit?I’m a woman in my 50s and have been with my husband for decades. We have always had a wonderful sex life and I used to be able to climax vaginally very easily, often without clitoral stimulation. During an eventful time for the family a couple of years ago, my libido and ability to climax disappeared, though they did eventually return. A few months ago, I had a health crisis, which has slightly impaired my coordination on one side. Although I have recovered very well, I am again experiencing a loss of libido and sexual sensation.We continue to have sex regularly and I enjoy the intimacy. I can climax with clitoral stimulation but it takes a long time and can be almost physically painful. I really miss vaginal orgasms and the release they brought. Although I am of perimenopausal age, I have no obvious symptoms and a hormone test came back normal.Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. Continue reading...‘I kept asking: “Why? What did I do?”’ How come so many young, fit, non-smoking women are getting lung cancer?
For decades, lung cancer has been viewed as a disease of older men who smoked. Now, cases among young women are on the rise and doctors are baffled. Could air pollution be behind it?Towards the end of 2019, Becca Smith’s life was full and hectic. At 28, she had taken on a unit in Chester to convert into a yoga studio, poured in all her savings and hired teachers, while at the same time working as a personal trainer. Her days started at 5am; she was driven, stressed, excited, and had no time for the back pain that just would not subside.“It kept moving around,” she says. “Every day it would be in a different part of my back. I was strapping on heat packs and ice packs just to get to work.” Smith saw her GP, her physiotherapist and a chiropractor, all of whom suspected a torn muscle. “What really worried me,” she says, “the worst-case scenario, was a slipped disc.” One day in March 2020, the pain was so intense that Smith took to her bed, fell asleep and woke with a crashing migraine and blurred vision. Her mum took her to the optician who shone a light behind Smith’s eyes, saw haemorrhaging and sent her straight to the hospital. Once there, Smith was admitted, and over the course of a week, had an MRI, a CT scan, and a biopsy taken from the cells in her back. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/14/lung-cancer-young-fit-non-smoking-women
This natural rubber yoga mat lasted me a decade of daily practice
The JadeYoga Harmony helped me unlock a new form of fitness, and stuck with me for the long haulHave a buy it for life product recommendation – or disagree with our review? Email thefilter.us@theguardian.comSign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things.The original yogis didn’t have rubber mats, or foam ones, for that matter. They had bare ground, grass mats and animal skins, if they were lucky. So when my wife suggested I spend $90 on a natural rubber yoga mat like the one she had, I balked. Is that really necessary?It turns out the answer was yes. Ten years later, I’m still using the JadeYoga Harmony mat I sprang for, and I’m no longer a skeptic, I’m an evangelist. Natural rubber provides enough cushion for comfort, enough grip to safely push my limits, and the durability of a truck tire. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/14/jadeyoga-harmony-yoga-mat-bifl
‘I got Coldplayed!’: how the Jumbotron claimed another unwitting victim
An American football fan called in sick so he could attend a game – and was rumbled after being caught on camera, his face projected up on the stadium’s giant screensName: Getting Coldplayed.Age: The original incident happened on 16 July this year. Continue reading...‘People give me a wide berth’: My weird week of wearing shoulder pals
The latest craze for the kidult market is small stuffed toys you attach to your clothes. But can you look cool – or even just socially acceptable – while wearing them?There was a time when adults who owned collections of stuffed toys were relatively uncommon, weird even. All that has changed recently: the rise in popularity of toys such as Squishmallows and Jellycat Amuseables has been linked to the growing “kidult” market (adults buying toys for themselves) which accounted for almost 30% of toy sales last year. On the whole, cuddly toys are something people keep at home, on their beds or on display shelves. But that’s changing too – plush toy keyrings such as Labubus are now everywhere. And some “Disney adults” (self-professed grown up Disney fans who might, for example, go to the theme parks without taking children with them) have gone one step further: attaching toys not just to their bags, but to themselves.“Shoulder pals” (variously known as “shoulder plushies”, “shoulder toys” and “shoulder sitters”) are small toys made in the likeness of Disney characters. They have magnetic bases and come with a flat metal plate designed to be placed under your shirt, so the toy perches on your shoulder. Since the first one, baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, was brought out in 2018, these toys have become a common accessory at the Disney theme parks. There are multiple Reddit threads and TikTok videos about how to track down the latest ones (some are sold at the Disney store, but others are only available at specific locations within the parks). There will apparently be 45 official Disney shoulder pals on offer by the end of next year, with characters ranging from Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell to Anxiety from Inside Out 2. That’s not to mention the many, many knockoffs available online, as well as those sold by Primark, or the DIY pals that some creative TikTok users have been making. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/17/my-weird-wild-week-of-wearing-shoulder-pals
‘Pack plenty of blankets or towels’: how to start thrifting secondhand furniture
DIY expert Jaharn Quinn has spent 20 years upcycling homewares. She shares where to look and what to bring when hunting for pre-loved piecesI have always loved thrifting and upcycling. There’s no greater feeling than discovering a hidden gem at a thrift shop and upcycling it into something new, especially when you save hundreds – sometimes thousands – of dollars.I love flipping through interior magazines, poring over gorgeous images on Pinterest and scrolling through home tours on social media.Compile your thrifting inventory. This should include the items you are especially looking for, such as a bedside table or a chest of drawers. It’s inevitable that you’ll get sidetracked – which is half the fun – but a list helps you focus when you start to feel overwhelmed, which sometimes happens.Always carry cash. It makes it easier to bargain.Pack plenty of blankets or towels in your car. These will protect the pieces you find and keep them cushioned from moving around in your vehicle too much.Pack a toolkit including antibacterial wipes to wipe down secondhand furniture, removing the dust and dirt to see what’s underneath; measuring tape to see what will fit in your car and home; a notebook filled with ideas, house plans and measurements plus a pencil to jot more down; paint swatches to check for colours that can easily be integrated into your home; and a screwdriver set in case you need to take furniture apart to fit it into your car. Continue reading...Sort as you go and don’t rush: six steps to clearing out a loved one’s home when they die
From telling the insurers to accepting you may need to get the experts in, tips on dealing with the deceased’s property When someone close to you dies, be it a relative or a friend, practical considerations may be far from your mind. But you could quickly find that you have the responsibility of looking after, then clearing out, their home. Continue reading...Between Moon Tides: hacking nature to save the saltmarsh sparrow documentary
Sea levels are rising in New England at some of the fastest rates in the world. On a quiet ribbon of saltmarsh in Rhode Island, septuagenarian Deirdre isn’t prepared to accept the loss of her beloved saltmarsh sparrow - the species is facing extinction before 2050 due to elevated high tides inundating nests and drowning fledgling birds. Leading a team of citizen scientists, Deirdre unravels the secret to finding delicate nests amid thick marsh grass, while they design and deploy a low-cost ‘ark’ to try to raise the sparrow nests to safety. Continue reading...‘Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t like’: The rise and fall of the Baader-Meinhof gang | Jason Burke
In the 1970s, the radical leftwing German terrorist organisation may have spread fear through public acts of violence – but its inner workings were characterised by vanity and incompetenceIn the summer of 1970, a group of aspirant revolutionaries arrived in Jordan from West Germany. They sought military training though they had barely handled weapons before. They sought a guerrilla war in the streets of Europe, but had never done anything more than light a fire in a deserted department store. They sought the spurious glamour that spending time with a Palestinian armed group could confer. Above all, they sought a safe place where they could hide and plan.Some of the group had flown to Beirut on a direct flight from communist-run East Berlin. The better known members – Ulrike Meinhof, a prominent leftwing journalist, and two convicted arsonists called Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader – had faced a more complicated journey. First, they’d had to cross into East Germany, then they took a train to Prague, where they boarded a plane to Lebanon. From Beirut, a taxi took them east across the mountains into Syria. Finally, they drove south from Damascus into Jordan. Continue reading...China’s ‘temple economy’ in the spotlight as scandals rock influential religious leaders
Powerful Buddhist monks who have previously escaped punishment are the latest target of the government’s crackdown on excess wealth and alleged corruptionFor a religious leader, the allegations were scandalous. Mistresses, illegitimate children, embezzlement. But in 2015, the head abbott of Shaolin monastery, the cradle of Zen Buddhism and kung-fu in China, was untouchable. Shi Yongxin, the so-called “CEO monk” who turned the 1,500-year-old monastery into a commercial empire worth hundreds of millions of yuan, held firm. Soon he was cleared of all charges.But 10 years later, the 60-year-old monk was not so lucky. In July, not long after Shi returned from a trip to the Vatican to meet the late Pope Francis, the Shaolin Temple released a statement saying that he was being investigated for allegedly misappropriating funds and for fathering illegitimate children with multiple mistresses. Less than a fortnight later he was dismissed and stripped of his monkhood. He has not been heard from since. Continue reading...Memes and nihilistic in-jokes: the online world of Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer
A growing number of shooters are in conversation with their digital communities, which are becoming extremeOn the day that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson shot and the killed rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, prosecutors say, he texted his roommate to confess what he had done. While appearing to admit to the murder and describe how he was planning to retrieve his gun, he pivoted to mention why he had carved messages into the ammunition.“Remember how I was engraving bullets? The fuckin messages are mostly a big meme,” Robinson texted, according to authorities. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/17/charlie-kirk-suspect-online-memes
People in France: share your views of Thursday’s nationwide strike
We’d like to hear from people across France about how they view Thursday’s strikesAround 800,000 people are expected to join marches across France on Thursday.French trade unions across many sectors from schools to transport have called for the nationwide strike to oppose unpopular budget plans. Continue reading...Tell us: have you revitalised your love for your job?
We would like to speak to people who are sticking to their jobs, a trend which has been termed job-huggingWorkers in the UK are embracing job-hugging and prioritising security in their careers as they face a competitive job market, according to new figures.Instead of looking for new roles, employees are sticking to their jobs, a trend which has been termed job-hugging. We would like to speak to people about how they have revitalised their love for their job. How do you bring back the spark when you’ve been in a job for a long time? Do you have any tips you’d like to share about how to make your job more exciting? Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/sep/11/tell-us-have-you-revitalised-your-love-for-your-job
Australian bird of the year 2025: nominate your favourite now
We want to hear which Australian birds you think should be shortlisted for the Guardian/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll next monthCreate your own bird art with colouring sheets from Pete CromerWhich of the 830 bird species that call Australia home (or at least one of their homes) should make it into the 2025 Australian bird of the year poll?Australia has a great diversity of avian life, home to nearly one in 10 of the world’s 10,000 living bird species. And we love to celebrate it. Australians are renowned for admiring our beautiful, bountiful and boisterous birds. And nothing highlights that more than the Guardian/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll, held every two years, when birdlovers around the country battle it out to see their favourite feathered friend take the crown as best bird. Continue reading...Tell us about the worst meal you have cooked
We would like to hear from people about their culinary disasters and what they think went wrongFrom an overambitious birthday cake to an adventurous would-be feast that ended up in the dustbin, we would like to hear about the worst meal you’ve ever cooked.We will feature a selection in an article of humorous (and non-lethal) anecdotes of culinary disaster for G2. Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/sep/16/tell-us-about-the-worst-meal-you-have-cooked
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Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they meanScroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you Continue reading...Sign up for the Football Daily newsletter: our free football email
Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of footballEvery weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter Continue reading...https://www.theguardian.com/info/2022/nov/14/football-daily-email-sign-up