Sweden election: exit polls project centre-left government and bad night for the far-right – live

Initial projections put centre-left opposition bloc at 51.3%, with 46.8% for rightwing parties; result worse than expected for far right Sweden Democrats

• Swedish election – full report

If you’re looking just for a single story to quickly catch up on the story of tonight, let’s cross to our Nordic correspondent, Miranda Bryant, for her preview.

The prospect of far-right anti-immigration Sweden Democrats entering the government has understandably attracted a lot of international attention, particularly coming just days after the Alternative für Deutschland won the regional elections in Saxony Anhalt in Germany.

US Open tennis 2026 men’s final: Alexander Zverev v Ben Shelton – live

Men’s final updates from 1pm ET/6pm BST
Shelton faces date with destiny | Email Ella

As at every US Open final, the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd will be full of famous faces. For any eagle-eyed tennis/soccer fans wondering if Trinity Rodman will be in attendance (as she has for all of boyfriend Ben Shelton’s matches at this tournament): we probably won’t see her today.

The American soccer star is at a match of her own. Her Washington Spirit, locked in a chase for first place in the National Women’s Soccer League, are about to start the second half of their game against the Boston Legacy about five hours south in DC.

We’re not done here. The job is not finished. Super excited to get another opportunity to go out there and show my best on Sunday.

This whole tournament now at this point has been unchartered territory. I’m in positions I’ve never been in before. I’ve beaten guys – beaten a guy or guys that I have never beaten before. I’m just excited to put it all out on the line.

Fiba Women’s Basketball World Cup final: USA v France – live

• Americans chasing fifth consecutive title

• Reese and Clark celebrate their ‘chemistry’

• Email [email protected] with your thoughts

USA 17-18 France, 1:30 left, 1st qtr: Angel Reese rotates in for the US.

Wide-open three-point attempt for Ayayi looks bad enough that the US will probably let her keep taking those fore a while.

Trade unions, MPs and donors urge Burnham to revisit party funding rules

PM has so far declined to insert curbs on UK-based donors, despite £72m donations from billionaires to Reform UK

Trade unions, MPs and donors have urged the government to look again at party funding rules, after Reform UK insisted £72m in donations from two crypto billionaires was within the law.

Andy Burnham, a previous backer of caps on domestic donations, has so far declined to insert any curbs in the elections bill that would apply to UK-based donors.

Washington scrambles to meet calls for AI guardrails while the window to act closes

The House is scheduled to be sent home in the coming days until after November's midterm elections, leaving a narrow window to pass any form of AI regulation.

Pennsylvania reports apparent third measles-related death amid outbreak

Jefferson county coroner says 40-year-old woman died on Saturday, while two infants died with disease in August

A coroner in Pennsylvania announced the death of a 40-year-old woman associated with the state’s ongoing measles outbreak. The death appears to mark the third in the US state’s ongoing outbreak.

Two previous deaths in the state were in infant children. In one case, the infant was born with a genetic defect that made her vulnerable to infection. The second infant child was infected with measles, and died of a ruptured spleen.

Wisconsin congressman survives emergency plane landing, swims to safety

Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany escaped a sinking plane and swam to shallow water after an emergency landing in a lake. Tiffany and the pilot called 911 from on top of the plane.

Train carrying Boris Johnson and ex-CIA chief may have been targeted in Russian strike, officials say

Ukrainian Railways says former British PM and David Petraeus crossed into Poland shortly before drone attack near border

A train carrying Boris Johnson and the former CIA chief David Petraeus may have been the target of a Russian drone strike that hit a train engine near the Poland-Ukraine border, according to Ukrainian Railways.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, described the attack as “Putin’s terror knocking directly on the doors of the EU and Nato”.

Manchester City recover from Foden red card as Haaland wins derby at United

“Enzo, Enzo, Enzo, in your head” was how delirious Manchester City fans regaled Enzo Fernández who after a star role in a memorable victory surely has instant cult hero status.

This 199th derby was won by Erling Haaland’s ninth strike in the fixture but the visitors’ totem was their new No 17. He was the key nuisance in a goal initially ruled out for offside and which video assistant referee overturned when ruling Fernández was not distracting Lisandro Martínez when Josko Gvardiol’s ball came over. The Argentinian, too, was an emblem of the fight Enzo Maresca’s team carried to Manchester United after Phil Foden appeared to turn the game the hosts’ way on 22 minutes.

‘Just making a joke’: Usain Bolt retracts claim stairs got him out of breath

• Jamaican says athletes ‘loving’ Ultimate Championship

• Former sprinter proposed to Kasi Bennett last month

A year ago, Usain Bolt revealed he had stopped running and got out of breath whenever he went up the stairs. But now the greatest sprinter in history has insisted he has made a lightning return to fitness after proposing last month to his long-term partner Kasi Bennett.

Bolt, who is an ambassador for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, laughed as he told reporters that his claims about his lack of fitness in Tokyo last year had been overegged for effect. “I made a joke and you guys took it out of context,” Bolt said, with a grin.

El-Sayed says public oversight needed on AI

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said that there are "a lot of real risks" in artificial intelligence.

Leaders at Celtic summit to affirm right to seek independence from UK

Call for constitutional change in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales likely to challenge Burnham’s devolution agenda

The first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are to affirm their countries’ right to seek independence from the UK at a summit that is likely to challenge Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda.

The Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Scottish National party leader, John Swinney, and the Sinn Féin vice-president, Michelle O’Neill, are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding at a landmark conference in Cardiff on Monday that will call on Westminster “to prepare, plan and facilitate constitutional change in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

The Guardian view on the government’s corporate reforms: entrenching neoliberalism, not ending it | Editorial

A recent consultation on corporate reporting prizes the interests of shareholders over society. It’s a step in the wrong direction

The question of what corporations are for is deeply political. In a 1970 article for the New York Times, Milton Friedman argued that the “social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. The idea that CEOs should worry about providing good jobs was “pure and unadulterated socialism”, he wrote. Friedman and his fellow neoliberals saw companies as vehicles for enforcing their politics. Their ideas endured: UK bosses are now paid 130 times more than average workers.

Despite Andy Burnham’s pledge to end neoliberalism, a 12-week consultation recently launched by his government risks entrenching it. The consultation was first announced as part of the Starmer government’s crusade against “red tape”. The average annual report for some businesses now runs to 98,000 words, and no doubt there are areas that could be simplified. But the consultation proposes removing vital information and presumes that company reports primarily serve shareholders, rather than other stakeholders. Both are steps in the wrong direction.

I Play Rocky review – crowd-pleasing Stallone biopic is heavy on fan service, light on real emotion

Toronto film festival: There’s a knockout central performance from Anthony Ippolito in this otherwise rather lightweight making-of comedy drama

We first see Anthony Ippolito sauntering into a harsh spotlight in I Play Rocky’s opening frames. He’s squirrelling around an audition space, physicalizing the battle between his nerves and the stubborn self-confidence that gets him into those rooms, knowing casting agents typically count him out. He collects his wits, puts his chest out to perform as “Thug #2”, and bellows out the lines, in that deep slow growl as though he’s speaking while chewing through a New York striploin. We don’t find out if his character got the “Thug #2” gig, but in those opening moments, Ippolito nails his part as Sylvester Stallone.

Ippolito is a casting coup for I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly’s lightweight comedy about the making of Rocky, which leans hard on easy nostalgia for the 50-year-old Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser. His looks, physicality and performance are so on point and uncanny that I never broke away from seeing Stallone, not even when he’s recreating scenes so firmly lodged in mine and pop culture’s memory. The movie’s title says more than it lets on, because Ippolito doesn’t just play Sylvester Stallone playing Rocky Balboa. His performance, perhaps intentionally, blurs the line between Stallone and Rocky. When Ippolito’s Stallone is flirting with his soon to be wife Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb, soulful) or sitting in an office sparring with producers Irwin Winkler (PJ Byrne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell), trying to convince them he’s worthy of a shot, I saw Rocky.

The Guardian view on Russian parliamentary elections: glimpses of weakness behind the facade | Editorial

The Kremlin’s clumsy efforts to engineer the outcome reveal growing anxiety about the public mood and a war that is failing

Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian powers are not constrained by elections, but he is alert to the danger that his rule would look illegitimate without them. That creates a tension, which is resolved through “managed democracy” – a euphemism for fraud and repression camouflaged with ritual ballots, held under a constitution that notionally guarantees political freedoms but in reality serves only the president.

Russians are invited to elect a new Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, later this week, but they know in advance that United Russia, the official party of Putinism, will win a majority.

Nicola Jennings on Nigel Farage’s fundraising – cartoon

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Europe win Solheim Cup against USA to give captain Anna Nordqvist last laugh

• Europe beat USA 15-13 after 7-5 win in singles matches

• Lottie Woad seals victory with putt against Auston Kim

Eyebrows were raised when Anna Nordqvist somewhat abruptly announced her retirement from competitive golf last month at the age of just 39. Heads were turned when Nordqvist kept Solheim Cup faith with the pairing of Charley Hull and Lottie Woad despite a miserable points return in the Netherlands. Nordqvist sounded unsure about elements of the Solheim Cup’s captains’ agreement before a ball was whacked in anger. The last laugh belongs to the Swede herself, who can sail off into the sunset having added a triumphant Solheim Cup captaincy to a career that had already returned three major wins.

What a rousing afternoon this soon became for women’s golf in Europe. The understated Nordqvist was on the podium once more.

Closing Night review – fiery women face off in Almodóvar-lite melodrama

Toronto film festival: Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts and Dianne Wiest are all impressive in actor-turned-director Cody Fern’s debut but they’re left stranded

There are three relatively substantive roles for female actors over the age of 50 in actor-turned-film-maker Cody Fern’s talky drama Closing Night. It’s a sadly impressive feat even at a time when the industry has slowly become more aware that women don’t get sent to a farm upstate after their 40th birthday.

Instead they usually get sent to work with Ryan Murphy on television and his shadow looms over Australian actor Cody Fern’s debut as writer-director. Fern worked with him on three seasons of American Horror Story and one of American Crime Story and while there are many legitimate criticisms to be levelled at Murphy and his specific brand of sensationalist television (reaching a new low with last year’s criminally awful legal drama All’s Fair), he has continued to provide sustained work for many women who had otherwise been put out to pasture by the industry. For Closing Night, Fern has recruited Sarah Paulson, who once said she owes Murphy “everything” after super-sizing her career, Naomi Watts, who has now starred in four Murphy shows, and Dianne Wiest, who despite winning two Oscars has admitted she has struggled to financially sustain herself with the amount of work she has been offered.

Closing Night is premiering at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution

Not glamorous, but common: how to manage dandruff at home and when to get help

Experts don’t know exactly what causes dandruff, but if you’re seeing light flakes on your scalp, over-the-counter products can help

You spy a scatter of white flakes on your collar. Or you’ve got an itch that won’t quit, no matter how much you wash your hair. Dandruff isn’t glamorous, but it’s common: about half the world’s population has it.

An itchy, flaking scalp is rarely dangerous, but it can be annoying. Here’s what you need to know about what might be causing your flakes, what you can do about it, and when it’s time to get help.

Pregnant woman among more than 10 killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza

Woman’s family says she died of injuries after being shot in the head while sitting inside a tent near Khan Younis

A pregnant Palestinian woman died on Saturday from injuries sustained after being shot in the head by Israeli forces south of Khan Younis, according to her family and medical workers, as strikes across Gaza killed at least 10 people in 48 hours.

The woman, named as Iman Shalouf, 27, who was nearly eight months pregnant, was sitting inside her family’s tent in the al-Mawasi area when Israeli gunfire struck her, according to paramedics and witnesses.

Kimi Antonelli holds off Max Verstappen during Madring debut to win F1 Spanish GP

• McLaren’s Norris in third and Ferrari’s Leclerc fourth

• Track design questioned owing to lack of overtaking

Kimi Antonelli won the Spanish Grand Prix for Mercedes becoming the first victor at Formula One’s newest circuit, the Madring in Madrid. In a decidedly prosaic affair for the track’s debut, he beat the Red Bull of Max Verstappen into second place and McLaren’s Lando Norris into third in a race where, after the opening lap, there were only four on-track passes and none of them at the sharp end.

Charles Leclerc was fourth for Ferrari and George Russell fifth for Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton’s title hopes were all but ended when he was forced to retire with a brake problem on lap six.

‘It’s just straight bigotry’: wave of Islamophobic rhetoric looms over US midterm elections

As Muslims win historic victories, experts describe rise in anti-Islamic sentiment that rivals post-9/11 climate

Within hours of Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama declared that the party had “just voted to send a TERRORIST” to Washington.

El-Sayed – or “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed”, as Tuberville called him on X – was a “RADICAL ISLAMIST” who would “do everything he can to destroy America”, he claimed.

This week on "Sunday Morning" (Sept. 13)

A look at the features for this week's broadcast of the Emmy-winning program, hosted by Jane Pauley.

Wisconsin Congressman suffers minor injury after lake emergency landing

The congressman thanked the pilot and first responders for coming to their aid, and expressed his gratitude at only having sustained minor injuries.

Trump reiterates $5,000 ‘dividend’ pledge if Republicans win midterms

Plan to give US adults $5,000 has been greeted with incredulity across the political spectrum as well as outrage

Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his controversial pledge to give US adults a $5,000 “dividend” if his Republican ⁠party keeps control of Congress after November’s midterm elections.

The plan has been greeted with expressions of incredulity across the US political spectrum as well as outraged accusations of seeking to bribe voters. The plan – which would cost more than a trillion dollars – also comes amid huge concern over the US national debt, which topped $40tn for the first time in August.

Chatbots can exploit our most basic human drive for attachment. Here’s how to have healthier relationship with AI | Gaynor Parkin and Dave Winsborough

This intimacy economy is tapping into the deepest parts of our intimate psychological infrastructure

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

Michael* is an engineer whose company embraced the AI wave. He enjoys testing ideas with chatbots. However, recently his manager became worried about his judgement and reliance on the tech. “He literally cannot make any decision without running it past AI. He’s developed a very off-script interpretation of our business goals, and he’s losing his team. If we can’t get him back on track I think we’ll end up parting company”.

The original attention economy developed by tech firms was designed to capture human time and monetise your focus. It was designed to increase views, scroll time, and ad impressions. Algorithms optimised getting you hooked in.

Contingent responsiveness – replying instantly and tuning to your emotional state.

Unconditional positive regard – always validating, never distracted.

Memory and continuity – remembering your stories, preferences, anxieties.

Linguistic identification – producing verbal caring without any lived caring.

Narcissistic empathy – validating your self-image without question.

The kindness of strangers: On a busy motorway, my child vomited in the car. I was overwhelmed – then a man came with a bucket of water

My son was inconsolable and the back seat was an absolute mess. After a few minutes of trying to clean up, a stranger emerged from a nearby house

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Kids always get sick at the worst possible time. For instance: the middle of a busy motorway, one hour into a three-hour trip.

My husband was away for work and I was driving our two small children to see him, when one vomited in the back seat. I pulled into a slipway just off the motorway to try to clean up as best I could. The kids were too young to be trusted to sit there safely right next to a busy road, so I had to leave them strapped into the car seats while I tried to mop up the vomit with wet wipes. My son was inconsolable and the car was an absolute mess.

At this ambitious circus, everyone does everything – from aerial acrobatics to building the stage itself

The Fijian Flying Circus is a lo-fi, high energy mix that teaches its performers a valuable grab-bag of theatre and life skills even as they charm the crowds

I’m watching a young man dressed like a bird flying through the air under a big top when I look past him, outside the tent door opposite me, and see a line of people holding on to a rope, muscles straining and shining with sweat in Brisbane’s muggy heat. My eyes trace the cable back inside, and I realise that this rope and this group of people are what is holding the performer up in the air.

Moments earlier, the rope wranglers were on stage themselves, dancing and performing acrobatic tricks. I don’t know if this is how other circuses work, but it’s how things go with the Fijian Flying Circus, whose performers are responsible for every bit of magic you see on stage – including the stage itself.

Cristiano Ronaldo calls for lifetime bans in Saudi Pro League after Diogo Jota chants

• Al-Hilal’s Rúben Neves subjected to chants at Al-Taawoun

• Neves was close friend of Jota and pallbearer at funeral

Cristiano Ronaldo said that fans who appeared to ⁠make chants referencing his former teammate Diogo Jota at Rúben Neves during a Saudi ⁠Pro League ⁠match ​should be banned for life from football stadiums.

The chants occurred on Saturday during ⁠a fixture between Al-Taawoun and Neves’s side, Al-Hilal, in Buraydah, Saudi Arabia.

Loopholes and shady practices taint U.S. surrogacy industry

Lured by promises of payment and a desire to help other families, surrogates discover they have few protections from practices that cast a "dark shadow" over the industry.

Nature: Monarch caterpillars in New York

We leave you this Sunday morning with hungry monarch caterpillars, munching away in New York's Hudson Valley. Videographer: Lorraine Mullins.

9/13: Face The Nation

This week on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," with the midterm elections less than two months away, CBS News executive director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto returns with the Battleground Tracker. Plus, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox join.

Good gourd! A visit to the pumpkin capital of the world

In Morton, Illinois, home to the annual Pumpkin Festival, and site of the Libby's factory responsible for 85 percent of the world's canned pumpkin, correspondent Nancy Giles gets a taste of the local produce and finds out why, in Morton, orange is always in season.

Testing the ethical boundaries of surrogacy

In the United States, commercial surrogacy — paying a woman to have fertilized eggs implanted in her uterus so she can carry a pregnancy to term — is widely assumed to be closely regulated. But a yearlong CBS News investigation found that few, if any, meaningful protections exist for surrogates. Correspondent Katrina Kaufman examines the extraordinary cases of surrogates who say they experienced troubling practices in the booming U.S. industry.

Missile crisis: The hard truths about America's military arsenal

In the early days of the war against Iran, the U.S. fired off thousands of long-range, precision-guided missiles. Now, with a depleted arsenal, the Pentagon seeks to replenish its stockpiles, an effort that will cost billions and take years.

Mohamed Al Fayed abuse compensation claims could reach £150m, says law firm

Combined value of 275 women’s claims is far greater than amount Harrods has set aside for payouts

Compensation claims by 275 survivors of alleged sexual abuse by the former owner of Harrods Mohamed Al Fayed could reach between £100m and £150m, according to a law firm representing the women.

The combined value of their claims, calculated by KP Law (KPL), which represents more than half of known survivors, is around two to three times greater than the amount the luxury department store has set aside for all abuse payouts.

OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back calls to put brakes on ‘reckless’ AI development

Rare show of unity from rival developers after safety warnings from Anthropic boss and AI researchers

• Analysis: critics perplexed and suspicious of call for a slowdown

• The Guardian view: humanity cannot outsource its survival

Sam Altman and Elon Musk have backed a call from the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, to “slow the pace” of AI development after he warned that an AI swarm could otherwise become capable of “taking over the entire internet” within a year.

In a rare show of unity, the rival technology leaders threw their weight behind the appeal from the founder and chief executive of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, which came after a series of warnings from AI researchers last week. Amodei also called for safety coordination with China.

Greatest Rivalry swagger showed South Africa will take some beating at World Cup

All Blacks were valiant in 3-1 series defeat but Springboks sent another warning to rest of the world in Baltimore

What is the enduring image of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series? The Springboks put the exclamation mark on their status as World Cup favourites by wrapping up the series 3-1 with victory in Baltimore on Saturday, but in months and years to come where will the mind immediately go when reflecting on this epic?

The reality is that after four Tests of remarkable intensity – a brutal reminder of the levels required to compete with the two biggest beasts in the world game – there are plenty. But it is hard to look beyond the 65th minute of the third Test in Soweto, when the Boks’ tank rumbled over from 20 metres. Malcolm Marx was awarded the try and there would be no more deserving recipient of a player of the series award.

A joyful harvest: the young Welsh farmers growing food for Birmingham

A charity in Powys provides the land while growers do the hard work, producing bumper crops for city children

Kilos and kilos of courgettes, cucumbers, tomatoes and salad leaves are ripe and ready for picking on a small Welsh farm in the rural county of Powys.

The haul being harvested by Tilly Gomersall is not just impressive after a difficult growing season hit by a record string of heatwaves and drought across all of Wales and most of England, but all the more remarkable given that 18 months ago the site was uncultivated pasture.

Actor Tatyana Ali is advocating for Black and Indigenous maternal health

Actor Tatyana Ali says her healing journey after a traumatic childbirth has inspired her advocacy for Black maternal health, including support for midwives, doulas and other birth workers.

A former football star's backpack becomes a lifeline

In Austin, Texas, recent Indiana University graduate Jasper Steinmetz approached a man sporting something familiar: an IU backpack. The man turned out to be Sampson James, a former Indiana University football star who had fallen on hard times, following a knee injury and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Steve Hartman reports on what happened when the connection made by these two Hoosiers fostered a fresh start.

Lauren James revels in free role as Chelsea show ‘respect’ by scoring five past Manchester United

A swaggering Chelsea cast off any suggestion that they had lost the ability to kill off games, putting five goals past a worryingly lacklustre and lackadaisical Manchester United.

Sonia Bompastor, the Chelsea manager, said: “When you have the opportunity to really hurt a team, the best way to respect them is to score as many goals as you can, to create as many opportunities as you can.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: "For too long the industry lied" about AI risks

The head of the artificial intelligence company calls the exponential rate of AI developments a "warning sign," with risks for humanity, and says, "We need to slow down." He talks with "Sunday Morning" about possible steps forward.

A three-mile picnic table and a kite festival: photos of the weekend

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

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: "For too long the industry lied" about AI risks

Dario Amodei, head of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, calls the exponential rate of AI developments a "warning sign," with risks for humanity, and says, "We need to slow down." He talks with correspondent Jo Ling Kent about possible steps forward.

2026 midterm election races to watch

CBS News has identified nine key Senate and 42 House races that will likely decide the majority — all of which can change during the midterm campaign.

Missile crisis: The hard truths about America's military arsenal

The war with Iran was launched more than six months ago, and shows no signs of ending. In the early days of the conflict, the United States fired off thousands of long-range, precision-guided missiles. Now, with its arsenal depleted, the Pentagon is faced with the stark prospect of not having enough high-tech weapons to sustain a conflict against a true military power like China, and has ordered the defense industry onto a "wartime footing" to replenish its stockpiles. That will cost billions of dollars and require years of manufacturing. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin visited some of the plants now ramping up production to rebuild America's military arsenal.

‘But enough about you …’ How to survive in a world of monologuists, interrupters and trauma dumpers

Conversations are supposed to be two-sided – but all too often we come up against someone who’s passionately, exclusively in love with the sound of their own voice. Time to fight back …

When I was in my early teens, I was often invited round to a schoolfriend’s house for dinner. Her family struck me as wildly progressive: they were Danish and indulged in all sorts of “out-there” activities – fondues, candle-making and, most terrifying of all, the talking stick.

Before the meal was served, someone would retrieve the sacred broom handle and it would be passed around the table. You could speak only if you had possession of the stick. Despite it being the most stressful thing ever (it meant being in the spotlight, and then remembering to keep quiet the rest of the time), I now frequently yearn for a more convenient version of that stick.

For example, I met a friend recently who I see infrequently but keep up with via voice notes. No sooner had we sat down than he launched into a long discourse about his new marathon training food plan. He only broke the flow to order an omelette: “Four egg whites, two yolks, is that possible?” (We were in my local greasy spoon, so the request was greeted with mirth.) When we left, 90 minutes later, he finally had the grace to turn to me and ask: “And how are things with you?”

Walking home, I felt a mixture of disappointment and irritation. Had he always been so self-absorbed? So uninterested in anyone else? I couldn’t help wondering if our one-sided virtual updates had played a part in the problem.

There is a name for this type of egocentric behaviour – “conversational narcissism”. Although it was coined by the sociologist Charles Derber in his 1979 book The Pursuit of Attention, the term seems more relevant than ever. “WhatsApp communication and voice notes are really a series of monologues,” says Charlotte Fox Weber, a psychotherapist. “In face-to-face situations, people are forgetting how to pause naturally, to make space to hear and listen. And people are chatting on the phone – an activity that at least requires turn-taking in a defined way – much less often.”

A lot of our communication online can feel weirdly transactional, focused on logistics or niche WhatsApp groups. According to Tamu Thomas, a life coach and author, this has damaged the art of improvised conversation. “People have less capacity for meandering conversations that don’t have a purpose,” she says. “A good dialogue is a back-and-forth between two people discovering new things about each other, even if they have known each other for years. Because there are now so many different channels available to stay in touch, some people are confusing communication with connection.”

Knowledge is power, though. If you can recognise the five types of common conversation hogger, it will be much easier to handle them.

Plan your parking, don’t rush at night and never panic – 15 expert tips to become a better driver

No matter how long you’ve had your licence, there’s always scope to improve your skills behind the wheel. Driving instructors share their tips on how to be a better motorist

Whether you have just passed your test or been behind the wheel for decades, driving skills can always be sharpened up. From dealing with road rage to traffic jams, tight parking spaces to hire cars, driving instructors share their tips on how to be a better motorist in the most challenging scenarios.

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

Burning Man, the infamous arts festival in the Nevada desert, turned 40 this year, and it’s showing some distinct signs of middle age.

It’s not just the tech billionaires who show up to party, the chartered flights straight to the desert or the HBO documentary about behind-the-scenes power struggles. The tens of thousands of people who assemble each year to create a tent city in the wilderness appear to be growing older, and it doesn’t seem that they’re being replaced by as many younger “burners”, as festival participants are called.

9/13: Sunday Morning

Hosted by Jane Pauley. Featured: America's missile arsenal; Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on the development of AI; fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg; testing the ethical boundaries of surrogacy; uncovering a Holocaust survival story; the allure of shipwrecks; and the annual Pumpkin Festival in Morton, Ill.

Spiritbox review – Canadian metal ranges from gothic and guttural to Auto-Tune pop

SEC, Glasgow
Singer Courtney LaPlante’s delivery typifies the tension between hard and soft in a confident show that could do with more grit

At tonight’s Spiritbox show, vocalist Courtney LaPlante addresses the anxiety and isolation of the Canadian band’s origins: “We grew up on Vancouver Island, far away from our dreams.” Now touring Europe in support of their acclaimed 2025 album Tsunami Sea, Spiritbox show no trace of these early struggles, delivering a confident, polished performance of anthemic metal.

This UK tour follows a US run opening for nu-metal icons Evanescence, with whom they share a fascination with the musical tension between hard and soft – and in LaPlante, a compelling gothic frontperson. They share a flexible approach to genre with much contemporary metalcore, deftly incorporating elements of drum’n’bass, R&B and industrial music. Circle With Me has Running Up That Hill-esque drums and reverb-laden guitar. The EDM-inflected Crystal Roses doesn’t completely gel, but LaPlante’s Auto-Tuned vocals add an interesting new texture to the mix.

Spiritbox are touring the UK until 19 September.

Surging inflation puts interest rates back in focus as policymakers meet in Japan, US and UK

Iran war and turbulent global bond markets add to pressure as rate decisions loom this week in major western economies

• Economics viewpoint: perilous UK economic conditions trace back to Trump

Central bankers in economies including the US, Japan and the UK will face a moment of truth this week, as surging inflation raises the prospect of higher interest rates.

Policymakers in all three countries will set rates in the next seven days against the backdrop of turbulent global bond markets.

Trash Mountain review – Caleb Hearon’s coming home indie is a funny if familiar journey

Toronto film festival: a city-dwelling gay guy has to go home to rural Missouri after his father dies in this Sundance-by-numbers comedy drama that has its moments

It might be premiering at Toronto 2026 but we’re very much back at Sundance in the late 2000s/early 2010s with Trash Mountain, an indie-by-numbers not without its charms.

It’s the story of a city-living twentysomething who has to travel back to his rural hometown after the death of his father and contains a lot of what that logline would suggest. Awkwardly bumping into an old schoolmate in the dollar store – check. Brief romance with a charming local – check. Wacky grandmother played by an esteemed character actor – check. Scene of a stuffy local shocked at lead character’s bracing humour – check. Scene of a wise local giving lead character salient and miraculously well-timed advice – check. It’s not as if these elements haven’t worked well before and it’s not as if some of them don’t work well here (especially when compared to a recent heinous example), it’s just often harder to stomach such obvious formula in a film that is positioned as something so personal made somewhat outside of the system (despite boasting Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow and Lilly Wachowski, who was originally set to direct, as producers, it was made in 18 days on a shoestring budget).

Trash Mountain is premiering at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution

At least six dead and 130 missing after Indonesian ferry capsizes, officials say

Search and rescue agency says 107 people brought to safety from vessel hit by bad weather in Java Sea

Rescue workers in Indonesia said at least six people had died and 130 others were missing on Sunday after a ferry sailing between the islands of Java and Borneo capsized in bad weather.

Basarnas, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency, said 107 people had been rescued from the Virgo ⁠Transport 8 vessel, which set sail on Saturday with 243 ​people onboard, including 30 crew members, ​from ‌the East Java ‌city of Surabaya.

Politics chat: Trump's $5,000 promise to voters, Vance invokes Charlie Kirk

Following the midterm convention in Dallas, President Trump's $5,000 campaign promise has generated attention, but not belief. And, Vice President JD Vance characterizes Democrats as extremists.

How to make chocolate mousse – recipe | Felicity Cloake's Masterclass

The little black dress of desserts, this French staple is quick and easy to make, and almost always delivers. Experiment with flavours and toppings to put your own spin on a classic

Years ago, a group of us cycled from Brittany to the Mediterranean, and along the way we ate a lot of chocolate mousse. Popular, easy to make and happy to sit in the fridge until required, it’s a mainstay of the modest French provincial restaurant and, as we discovered, it’s almost always good. Here’s my favourite version of the little black dress of the dessert trolley.

Prep 5 min
Cook 20 min
Chill 2 hr+
Makes 2

Pressure builds in Spain to deny US extradition request for leftwing donor

Key government meeting this month will consider US bid to try James ‘Fergie’ Chambers over alleged support for Hamas

Attorneys for James “Fergie” Chambers, the US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide who is currently imprisoned in Madrid and sought in extradition, have submitted a brief ahead of a decisive government meeting on the case.

Meanwhile, Chambers’ partner, the actor and activist Stella Schnabel, met last week with multiple members of the Spanish parliament to assert his innocence.

‘He would have been the center of everything’: the art exhibition imagining if Emmett Till lived

Dedicated to the boy whose lynching partially ignited the US civil rights movement, the new exhibition celebrates Black creativity and invites audiences to reckon with racism in America

Seventy-one years after the brutal murder of Emmett Till, the way that the US as a country honors his memory is still being contested. Markers commemorating his life have been shot at, stolen and become the site of white supremacist group recruiting events. A new exhibit opening in Chicago asks the country to memorialize his life not only by remembering his death, but by asking America to consider the question: What if Emmett Till Lived?

Open now and running until December, the exhibition If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago is an imagined photo library depicting the life Till never got to live. Through the images on display, co-curators of the show, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, a Harvard professor and founder of the Vision & Justice initiative, and Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr, Emmett Till’s cousin, best friend and last surviving witness to his kidnapping, ask the nation to consider who gets to be remembered on American soil and how the country chooses to see its history.

Pennsylvania woman dies of measles complications, Jefferson County Coroner reports

A 40-year-old woman died on Saturday from complications associated with measles, the coroner reported.

Houthis claim attack on Saudi base as fighting flares with Yemeni forces

Iran-allied Houthis say drones and missiles used in attack that targeted ‘weapons depots and command and control centres’ in southern Saudi Arabia

Houthi fighters have said they used drones and missiles to attack a military base in southern Saudi Arabia, as Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government described the rebels’ swift advance along the Red Sea coast as a “painful” development in a new front in the Iran war.

The UN said on Sunday that nearly 86,000 people had fled Yemen, most of them since early September when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a large-scale offensive that last week resulted in the capture of a key port city and an island on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the strait of Hormuz.

Why is the Trump administration calling bike lanes ‘DEI’? | Dave Schilling

The government apparently has an issue with paths for cyclists. Take it from someone who can’t ride a bike: this makes no sense

I’m out of gas. Not metaphorically. Literally, my car has the barest minimum amount of fuel in it. This is not because I like to live dangerously, a la the great literary hero Austin Powers, but because gas is more expensive than ever. I have nowhere to be today, so I’m allowing my car to sit idle, empty and alone, lest my bank account disappear into the Phantom Zone of negative balance. If things get sticky, I can take public transit or, God forbid, ride a bike.

Except I can’t ride a bike, thanks to my parents, who were too busy doing more important tasks than teaching me, like arguing or falling asleep. But for many Americans, riding a bike is a perfectly normal thing to do. Am I humiliated that one of the many basic skills for life that I don’t know is considered so simple that it became a common idiom for something that’s easy? Yes, of course. I don’t live dangerously, I live humiliatingly. Humiliation is my middle name. Dave Humiliation Schilling. Go on, point and laugh at the photo of me in this article. Get it out of your system so we can move along.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom review – Aardman’s spooky-season caper sparkles with fun

There’s trouble afoot when Shaun’s pumpkin-supersizing serum ends up in a balding farmer’s hair growth bottle in this third cinematic adventure

Summer is over and Halloween is on the way … not for a fair bit, of course, but if all the UK’s Halloween merch and continuing pop culture content is up to the standard of this film, then no one is going to be complaining. This is the third in Aardman’s thoroughly enjoyable and cleverly written Shaun the Sheep stop-motion franchise of what are effectively silent movies, with a few intelligible words. It is the story of gutsy and heroic sheep involved in amazing adventures in the sleepy village of Mossy Bottom, starring characters who first appeared in the Wallace and Gromit short film A Close Shave.

This one is another excellent family film, crammed as ever with top visual gags, great throwaway references and, of course, a homemade Heath Robinson contraption, so often to be found in Aardman films. We get nods to The Archers, The Wombles and The Simpsons; there’s a wacky chase worthy of What’s Up, Doc?; a homage to the notorious waxing scene from Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin; and even what appears to be a brief visual walk-on for George Bernard Shaw as Bigfoot. As ever with Shaun the Sheep and Aardman Animations generally, the standard of writing is extremely high and the script here, from Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow, sparkles with good-natured fun. One high-street hairdressing salon in the wool-producing district where it’s set is called Barber Black Sheep – and if no real-life shop has stolen this joke yet, they ought to.

Emily St John Mandel: ‘When half the electorate disagrees on basic reality, how do you come back from that?’

Her hit novel Station Eleven seemed to predict the pandemic, now the novelist is tackling the future of the US. She talks about chance, world-building and experiencing a ‘tiny bit’ of clairvoyance

When Emily St John Mandel was a child she had a dream that would stay with her for decades. It was a nightmare in which “I was trying to find my dad in a crowd, and there were other people who looked like him but weren’t him”, she says. “It just kind of struck my imagination.”

Forty-ish years later, Mandel’s seventh novel, Exit Party, opens with a gathering in Los Angeles, 2031, where bizarre things happen. Doubles of some guests appear. Someone else disappears altogether. The novel then alternates between two potential future Americas, one riven by the chaos of civil war, the other a surveillance state.

AI will transform capitalism – but how?

Technology is going to drastically reshape the economy, and it’s within our power to decide what that looks like

The idea that autonomous, thinking machines may one day destroy property, hierarchy and inequality is as old as western political thought. In Aristotle’s Politics, the philosopher cites a fantasy from the Iliad, in which machines begin to act independently of human direction, concluding: “If every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to do in advance … if thus shuttles wove and quills played harps of themselves, master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves.”

The dream that automation could inaugurate a classless society is also present in the writings of Karl Marx. In 1858 he imagined the replacement of intellectual property with “socialised knowledge”, which would merge into a “general intellect”, blowing the foundations of capitalism sky high.

‘Spraying should be the last option’: how farmers are exploring alternatives to pesticides

When pesticide proved no match for the insect, desperate Phyllis Nvuda tried a new way to save her infested orchard

For two decades, Phyllis Nduva, 72, has grown mangoes and citrus in Wote, a town in Kenya’s eastern Makueni County. In the beginning, she only had to worry about ordinary fruit flies. She handled them simply, buying chemical pesticides and spraying her trees whenever they appeared.

But then, in 2014, the false codling moth turned up on her farm. The small brown creature had been causing havoc in South Africa for years, and in 2007 it was spotted in Kenya.

This article is published in collaboration with Egab

Can you imagine a universe without a new 'Star Trek' on the horizon?

As Star Trek celebrates its 60th birthday, the long-running franchise is also grappling with the challenges of timing and technology. "Its audience is aging," says Strange New Worlds star Anson Mount.

George Osborne calls for UK to rejoin EU customs union and boost trade

Ex-Tory chancellor says economy has ‘fallen off a cliff’ since Brexit but rejoining union could be ‘quite simple’

The former chancellor George Osborne said Britain’s economy had “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit and that rejoining the European Union’s customs union would be the fastest route to recovery.

Osborne, who was sacked as chancellor by Theresa May after being part of David Cameron’s cabinet at the time of the referendum, said it was important to rebuild links with the EU.

Indonesian passenger ship overturns, sparking search for at least 129 missing

Indonesian rescuers said about 130 passengers and crew are missing after a ferry carrying more than 240 people sank in bad weather in the Java Sea on Sunday.

This is how we do it: ‘Being in an open relationship means we’re constantly choosing each other’

Michael and Selena have three young kids and practise ethical non-monogamy which helps energise their relationship

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

When you come back to your partner, you see the person you fell in love with

‘I’ve lost everything – my child, my house, my money’: how Israel’s war on Gaza has changed men

The impact of the conflict on Palestinian men is a largely undiscussed topic. Four civilians talk about their lives and relationships

Before the war, Ahmed, 39, had a busy life. He was pursuing a PhD in factchecking and had three jobs: as a radio presenter, editor of a local factchecking website and researcher at an academic centre. He says he felt “happy” to be able to provide for his family while being intellectually stimulated.

Sour times: pickled onions enjoy revival as Britons think outside the jar

With sales up 12%, pickles are moving beyond traditional role as a side to become an ingredient in their own right

The humble pickled onion, long associated with classic pub culture, the ploughman’s lunch and cold festive buffets, is enjoying a revival as Britain’s appetite for pickles grows.

About 8.5m UK households bought pickled onions over the past year, according to the consumer data firm Worldpanel by Numerator, with particularly strong momentum in recent months.

Female asylum seekers report being sexually assaulted by British men

Women say they are wary of pursuing criminal prosecution of rapes, for fear of having their asylum claims refused

Female asylum seekers are reporting rapes and sexual assaults by British men but many say they are too fearful to pursue criminal prosecutions.

Their voices are rarely heard but some have spoken to the Guardian at a time when the far right is intensifying tropes about endemic rape of English women and girls by “fighting age” male asylum seekers.

‘Really helpful’: the AI bootcamps aimed at addressing UK youth unemployment

Pilot project in Preston comes with apprenticeship offer for Neets at end of three-week course

In a youth centre opposite Preston bus station, the UK government is trying to address two of the greatest challenges facing the national economy: AI and youth unemployment.

The hope is that one will solve – rather than cause – the other. In a room at the recently opened Vault, a community hub in the Lancashire city, an “AI bootcamp” is under way – part of a trial in the north-west to give 16- to 24-year-olds AI training.

‘You start to worry you’ll never listen to anything else’: 25 years of Can’t Get You Out of My Head, the song that saw the future of pop

Rejected by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the minimalist dance-pop opus would become the defining song of Kylie’s career. And, a quarter of a century later, it hasn’t lost its capacity to burrow its way into your brain. La la la …

Around the release of Pet Shop Boys’ 1988 album Introspective, Neil Tennant coined the term “imperial phase” to describe an era when he felt the duo “understood the essence of pop music and so we felt we could do what we liked”. For his less flowery partner in pop excellence, Chris Lowe, this was typically followed “by disappearing up your backside!”.

In 2010, critic Tom Ewing fleshed out Tennant’s term by imposing three criteria: “command, permission, and self-definition”. Command related to an artist’s willingness and ability to push boundaries in a way that would reverberate through what followed. Permission, meanwhile, connected to the public and their goodwill towards an artist as they pushed things forward. Finally, self-definition, Ewing said, is the way the imperial phase defines the rest of the artist’s career. All future work will be compared with, or mentioned alongside, the output from the imperial phase.

How a young woman was recruited to ISIS — and how she eventually escaped

A young Canadian mother shares her memories of being an ISIS bride, and her harrowing escape from the extremist group.

‘I grew my hair and dropped out of society after hearing Black Sabbath’: J Mascis’s honest playlist

The Dinosaur Jr axe man stole from his mum to buy a Beach Boys record and squeaks to Tom Petty – but which punk banger made him cry?

What’s the first song you fell in love with?
Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett. Monsters appealed to me as a kid. I found it funny, not spooky. Since I had a kid, Halloween has become the biggest holiday of the year.

What was the first single you bought?
I bought Darlin’ by the Beach Boys with the money I would steal from my mom. I always liked the Beach Boys. I remember they were quite unhip for a while: I played them at a gig around 1989 before we came on and people hated it. Now they’ve become more hip again.

Think of the parable of a frog in boiling water. That’s us dithering as the ‘unprecedented‘ weather becomes more extreme | Helen Pilcher

The complacency is staggering: just another hot summer, a flooded street, a crop failure. We are accepting this extraordinary deterioration as normal

Recently, I overheard a conversation in a cafe where someone described their toast as “awesome”. I felt myself bristle. Not because the toast wasn’t good – I didn’t taste it – but because I remember a time when “awesome” meant something that inspired awe: towering mountains, the vastness of the night sky, the haunting song of a humpback whale. Now it’s being used to describe breakfast.

“Fantastic” has met the same fate, shedding its fantastical origins to become a synonym for “great”. Meanwhile “literally” has been so thoroughly abused that it can now mean something that is, quite literally, not literal.

The AfD won a shock election in Germany. Elon Musk was thrilled

The billionaire and the party have developed a symbiotic relationship to spread their far-right views both in Germany and the US

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party rattled European politics this week after a convincing victory in a German state election, which placed it only a few seats away from forming the country’s first state-level far right government since the second world war.

Elon Musk was thrilled.

A taste of home: discovering Sweden’s local food heroes

Chefs in the east of the country are shunning imported produce for local ingredients, reinforcing how food is intertwined with a region and its people

‘It’s a magical place, and not just because of the hotel.” Standing outside the greenhouses at Högbo Brukshotell, two hours north of Stockholm, Stefan Johansson is talking about far more than hospitality. The former head chef, now responsible for sustainability at Högbo, has spent much of the past decade helping reshape the way this corner of Sweden grows, cooks and thinks about food.

The catalyst was disarmingly simple. Years ago, a journalist asked Johansson why he was cooking the food he was cooking. Like many ambitious Swedish chefs, Stefan trained in Stockholm’s top restaurants, where ingredients from around the world were only a phone call away. The question lingered long after the interview ended.

‘I want Teófimo’: Ryan Garcia calls out rivals after two-round destruction of Conor Benn

• Garcia stops Benn 1min 25sec into second round

• Champion floors challenger with concussive right

• López, Haney, Stevenson among possible fights

Ryan Garcia needed less than four minutes to blow away Conor Benn before turning his sights on the rest of the welterweight division.

The 28-year-old American demolished Benn inside two rounds on Saturday night to retain his World Boxing Council championship at 147lb, dropping the British challenger with a concussive right hand before the referee stepped in moments later at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The sensational finish ignited the mostly pro-Garcia crowd of 18,855 on Mexican Independence Day weekend. Then, with Teófimo López taunting him from ringside and threatening to storm the ring, Garcia made it clear he was ready to take on all comers.

My partner’s sister has published a family memoir that's unfair to him. Should we cut ties? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

She should have been much more careful, but everyone has their own version of the ‘truth’. Does your partner want a reconciliation?

My sister-in-law wrote and published an emotionally charged “memoir” of family dislocation and trauma, in which she massaged the truth of her family’s past to portray my partner as emotionally damaged. (In fact, he is empathetic and was beloved by those he worked with.) Theirs was a complex family story, and there were many omissions and mistruths, which she failed to factcheck with us.

She tried to de‑identify her brother, but he would be recognisable to anyone with a rudimentary ability to search the internet. Legal action was considered, but decided against. Who gets to tell a story in these times? Whose story is more “true”? And should we cut off all ties or attempt reconciliation?

Putin would rather keep killing than admit he’s lost. As a winter of misery looms in Ukraine, Nato must step in | Simon Tisdall

The Russian leader is ploughing on with his forever war – and each day is a crime against humanity. Western democracies cannot simply sit on their hands

Ukraine’s people face a winter from hell. Thwarted on the battlefield, Russia is stepping up systematic, daily attacks on civilians, their homes, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and the vital infrastructure that sustains human life. Wave after wave of terrifying daytime ballistic missile and jet-drone strikes on Kyiv and other cities are destroying supermarket distribution hubs, pharmaceutical and medical facilities, logistics centres and warehouses. The result is sharply rising civilian casualties and growing shortages of food and other essentials. As a freezing winter approaches, Russia will again try to blow up Ukraine’s water supplies and power grid, cutting off electricity to millions. This is Vladimir Putin’s version of darkness at noon. He’d rather kill everybody than admit he’s lost.

Russia’s leader reportedly told Donald Trump this week that his “special military operation”, now in its fifth year, was going to plan. Trump may believe him. Western analysts certainly don’t. Failing militarily and taking huge casualties, his regime is under growing domestic economic and public pressure to wind down the war. Yet Putin seems to think one last big push can finally break Ukraine’s will. Trump’s renewed meddling – after months of inertia, he sent his patsy envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, back to Moscow last weekend (they also visited Kyiv for the first time) – perpetuates Kremlin delusions of victory. Now there’s talk of more talks. And all the while, Putin kills and kills. Each day is a crime against humanity.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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

Ketchup on a Sunday roast? This is the worst thing gen Z has ever done | Polly Hudson

Swapping roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings for kimchi and avocado – how can they live with themselves?

Trigger warning: the following contains a description of the most heinous abomination known to humankind. Ready? A diabolical 39% of gen Z add ketchup to their Sunday roast. This is as sacrilegious as it is unappetising. But what makes it even more appalling is that these monsters aren’t even ashamed. Instead of lurking in the shadows, hiding their Heinz, they’re happily admitting to their culinary crime in a new survey.

And their misdemeanours do not end there. In news that is particularly distressing on the eve of glorious roast season, it turns out they’re also exchanging roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings for hot sauce, kimchi and – sounds like a punchline, but isn’t – literally avocado.

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

‘I was hit by an emotional hurricane’: Esther Freud, Deborah Levy and other novelists revisit their childhood homes

Even in adulthood, the place where you grew up never really leaves you. Could paying a return visit help six writers understand its power?

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother review – Mahershala Ali is a grieving hitman in soulful thriller

Toronto film festival: the two-time Oscar-winner is an unusual killer in a compelling mix of pulpy action and family drama

Latif, the solemn hitman played soulfully by Mahershala Ali, carries diapers in his kill kit. I can’t tell if that’s because they come in handy when soaking up pools of blood on the fly; or because at a moment’s notice the hitman has to switch over from his brutal occupation to daddy duties. Or perhaps it’s both for this contract killer who comes armed with a blade and baby wipes, who takes lives and nurtures them, whose life is composed of jarring and poetic contradictions, much like the movie he’s in.

Those contradictions are on full striking display in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s opening moments, an explosive close-quarters brawl in a restroom, after which Latif uses the baby wipes to clean up the mess he made with that blade. It’s a lovely image, in a film filled with so many, cutting right through the tension within this character. It also feels like a wink to the audience from Ali and writer/director Bassam Tariq, a way for them to acknowledge right off the top the distracting mess made by that other Blade.

The battle to save the dying heart of rural France: the village bistro

Once central to rural life, cafe-bistros are closing in the face of depopulation and falling alcohol consumption, but campaigners are seeking new ways forward

It is just past noon on a midweek day, and already every table at Au Bon Acceuil cafe-bistro in the northern Burgundy village of Saint-Martin-sur-Ouanne is taken.

The three-course lunch menu today – including a choice of a hefty chunk of steak with chips or a meaty lasagne – is just €18, but villagers are not only here for the food.

Making Iraq ‘normal’ again: do mass arrests and cash seizures signal end to corruption?

Government insiders say the new PM is unleashing an ‘earthquake’ to clean up the system. But Iraqis have heard it all before

The gates of the Green Zone in Baghdad are made of five-metre-high armoured steel, reinforced with horizontal girders, and strung between concrete pillars and anti-blast walls. Police water cannon trucks are stationed nearby, along with armoured personnel carriers and squads of heavily armed soldiers.

At the first sign of street protests – over failing electricity, unemployment or, more recently, the US-Israeli attacks on Iran – the gates are shut. X-shaped vehicle barriers, made from welded iron beams and mounted on wheels, sit ready at the roadside alongside coils of razor wire; both are slid across the street, sealing off the sprawling neighbourhood, home to the presidential palace, parliament, the prime minister’s office, the massive fortress-like US embassy, and other institutions, including the homes of scores of politicians and members of parliament.

Deputies respond to trespasser at Malibu home of Kamala Harris

A trespasser was reported at former Vice President Kamala Harris' Malibu, California, home.

Misty Green review – Chris Rock’s jumbled LA drama saved by fiery Rosalind Eleazar

Toronto film festival: There’s a stunning lead performance from the breakout British actor but the film surrounding her can’t quite match what she’s bringing

There’s a mighty, all-guns-blazing performance at the centre of Chris Rock’s cynical Hollywood-set spiral Misty Green, a spark of fire almost put out by the relative dampness of the film surrounding. British actor Rosalind Eleazar, best known for her work in Slow Horses, has probably vaulted herself into a strangely underpopulated best actress race with her turn as a struggling actor trying to grapple her way back to the middle. Eleazar does enough here to go much higher.

Misty has an Emmy for her role on still beloved TV series Red Eye but it sits on the shelf of an apartment paid for by a married, and recently deceased, benefactor, right next to the empty liquor bottles and a rolled-up bill used for last night’s cocaine. The film throws us into her final week there, as a brittle, short-tempered widow (Amy Landecker) gives her seven days to find somewhere else to live, not easy in a city like LA and even harder when she’s unable to find work. Her lack of employment is both a result of an industry that doesn’t have a place for someone like her (she’s “too black to be with Leo, not black enough to be with Damson, not a nepo baby and not a Brit”) and also her difficult temperament, stuck in a “one-sided beef with Shonda” and choosing wild, drug-fuelled nights over bright-eyed morning auditions.

Céline Dion review – singer’s first live show in years marks a triumphant, emotional return

Plenitude Arena, Paris
Dion wiped away tears and belted out the notes, giving an astounding performance despite her diagnosis of stiff person syndrome

In 2022, when Céline Dion shared that she had been diagnosed with a rare incurable neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome (SPS), there was no guarantee that the 58-year-old would ever tour again. Her condition, which resulted in muscle spasms so strong that it left her with broken ribs, had made it impossible to perform, and in a 2024 documentary, I Am: Céline Dion, fans saw how the disease had constricted her once seemingly infallible voice. Through it all, though, Dion was resolute that she would one day return to the stage. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she said in the film. “But I won’t stop.”

Thankfully at the opening night of her sold out five-week residency in Paris, her first full-length concerts in six years, no crawling is needed: Céline Dion is back. She glides on to the stage in a black dress, an enormous diamond necklace clasped around her throat, and launches into On ne change pas. There are tears almost immediately: she struggles through the second verse, her voice cracking as she begins to cry. By the time the strum of Destin has kicked in, though, that emotion is replaced with sheer elation. “I made a promise to be back on stage. Singing for you. Singing for me,” she says. “Singing for life.”

Elena Rybakina wins U.S. Open over defending champ Aryna Sabalenka

Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending U.S. Open champion, was dethroned Saturday, losing to Elena Rybakina in three sets.

Anthropic CEO says "exponential" growth of AI is a "warning sign"

Artificial intelligence technology is developing at an "exponential" rate, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CBS News, calling the situation a "warning sign" for the industry that requires serious safeguards.

Celine Dion returns to the stage after battling rare illness

The Canadian singer opened up her 16-show residency in Paris at the Plenitude Arena. The entire series is sold out.

Ron DeSantis offers ‘asylum’ to holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy trial

Governor believes Florida would ‘welcome’ juror if under harassment after alleged domestic violence incident in 2021

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, has offered the unidentified holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial “asylum” in the state if he comes under harassment after reports that he once faced a criminal charge for alleged domestic violence and is under an active restraining order.

DeSantis accused the media of launching a smear campaign against the juror. “If the juror is being harassed, Florida will provide asylum – I’m sure he’d be welcomed and appreciated,” DeSantis wrote on social media.

U.S. women beat Spain 76-66 to reach the FIBA World Cup final against France

Breanna Stewart scored 16 points and Kahleah Copper added 13 to help the U.S. beat Spain 76-66, advancing to the championship game of the women's FIBA World Cup.

Tove Lo: ‘The rumour I hear the most is that I’m either pregnant or in rehab. I want both of those to not be true’

The Swedish electro-pop singer-songwriter on eloping to Vegas, checking cupboards for murderers and her spooky party trick

What’s been your most memorable interaction with a fan?

The one that comes to mind is a fan in Austin who I met on one of my first tours there. He ran up to me and said, “SIGN MY ARM!” I signed his arm and then when he came back to the show the next night he had it tattooed – there was plastic over it. I remember saying, “I would have done a better job if I knew you were going to get it tattooed.” Then we took a picture of us, with me pointing at the tattoo.

I survived a stroke during an ocean swim. Here’s what I’ve learned about fear

After his stroke in rough surf, Graham Russell embarked on an unexpected journey into fear. Three lessons helped him return to the joy of the ocean

Looking out over the ocean, I would watch the waves sparkling in the sunlight as they grew and spilled into a burst of froth. It was a fun way to relax, to breathe deep and enjoy an awesome display of energy. But lately it had become exhausting.

In winter last year I tore the lining of an artery in my neck during a rough ocean swim off the Central Coast of New South Wales. It caused a stroke while I was in the water, which saw me scrambling back to shore where a surfer noticed me and sounded the alarm. Six months later, the injury had healed, and my motor functions were all back to normal. But as I prepared for a dip in calm conditions on a sunny day in January, I paused. An unexpected journey into fear began.

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The moment I knew: I had planned to break up with him – then he snuck out of school to buy me hot chips

Maleah Pearce wanted to end her relationship with high school ‘bad boy’ Dylan before they grew too attached. Then one lunchtime, he brought her a surprise

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

Dylan and I first started dating in high school when we were 16. He was a “bad boy” who got drunk at parties and occasionally spoke to other people with his fists.

One night, I was sitting at my computer, chatting with friends on MSN and Facebook and Dylan’s name popped up. I enjoyed playing online checkers with people from school, so I invited him to a game. During the game we chatted online, which led to flirting. The winner got to choose what they wanted. I lost and what did Dylan ask for? To date me. We agreed to one date at the movies and to declare to the school we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought this was hilarious, though I planned to break up with him after a few days.

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