The Shed, New York The actor indulges his love of the past in a breezily enjoyable play about a man falling for a woman from the 1930s, played by a standout Kelli O’Hara Tom Hanks is a star who’s always had one foot squarely in the past. As an actor he’s forever been likened to James Stewart, a reincarnation of the charming, essentially good American everyman, a from-another-era lead who’s increasingly been more comfortable in period fare (in the last decade, he’s appeared in just four present-day films). As a producer, he’s gravitated toward historical shows such as Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific; his directorial debut was 60s-set music comedy That Thing You Do! and his undying obsession, outside of acting, is the typewriter, collecting and writing about its throwback appeal. In his new play, The World of Tomorrow, his fondness for the “good old days” has led to the inevitable, a story about a man with a fondness for the “good old days” who actually gets to experience one of them for himself. It’s a loosely familiar tale of time travel, based on a short story written by Hanks that tries, and half-succeeds, to bring something new to a table we’ve sat at many times before. Continue reading...

The native species is typically grey or brown and the pink hue is thought to be caused by a genetic mutation An “exceptionally rare” pink grasshopper has been spotted basking in the sun alongside a river in New Zealand’s South Island. A group of department of conservation researchers were conducting their annual grasshopper survey near Lake Tekapo in the MacKenzie basin when they came across the dark pink female critter. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the World Health Organization in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work The World Health Organization has said its workforce will shrink by nearly a quarter – or over 2,000 jobs – by the middle of next year as it seeks to implement reforms after its top donor, the United States, announced its departure. US President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the body upon taking office in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work and cut its management team by half. Continue reading...

UN committee to consider claim by prominent Māori leader Tureiti Moxon that alleges government policies have harmed Indigenous people The United Nations has agreed to hear an urgent complaint against New Zealand’s coalition government alleging it is responsible for significant and persistent discrimination against Māori. Prominent Māori leader, Lady Tureiti Moxon, has filed the complaint to the UN’s committee for the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (CERD). Continue reading...

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which was looted by the Nazis and nearly destroyed in a fire during the second world war, sells at Sotheby’s auction A painting by Gustav Klimt has sold for a record-breaking $236.4m (£179.7m, A$364m) with fees, making it the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction and the most expensive work of modern art sold at auction. The six-foot-tall painting, titled Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, was painted by the Austrian painter between 1914 and 1916 and shows Lederer, a young heiress and daughter of Klimt’s patrons, draped in a Chinese robe. Continue reading...

The move marks the first time a country is claiming damages for such an increase in emissions. What we know on day 1,365 See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage Ukraine plans to seek nearly $44bn from Russia for the damage linked to an increase in climate-warming emissions from the ongoing war, a government minister told Reuters. The move marks the first time a country is claiming damages for such an increase in emissions, including from the fossil fuels, cement and steel used in fighting the war, and from the destruction of trees through resultant fires. “A lot of damage was caused to water, to land, to forests,” said Pavlo Kartashov, the country’s deputy minister for economy, environment, and agriculture. “We have huge amounts of additional CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases,” Kartashov said in an interview on the sidelines of the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil. A Russian missile strike wounded at least 32 people in Ukraine’s Kharkiv overnight, its governor said early Wednesday, the third such attack on the eastern region in three days. Moscow has been intensifying its daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and hitting a number of civilian sites ahead of winter. Kharkiv governor Oleg Synegubov said at least 32 people were wounded in the latest overnight attack, including two children and an 18-year-old girl. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will head to Turkey on Wednesday seeking to revive the United States’ involvement in diplomatic efforts to end the Russian invasion. Zelenskyy said he wanted to reinvigorate frozen peace talks, which have faltered after several rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul this year failed to yield a breakthrough. Moscow has not agreed to a ceasefire and instead kept advancing on the front and bombarding Ukrainian cities. Zelenskyy will meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Wednesday, he told reporters at a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday. The United States on Tuesday approved a $105m sale to Ukraine to upgrade and sustain Patriot missile defences, as Russia keeps pummelling its smaller neighbour. The state department said it informed Congress of the deal for parts, training and services on the Patriots, which Ukraine relies on to shoot down incoming missiles. “The proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s ability to meet current and future threats,” a state department statement said. Poland has identified two people responsible for an explosion on a railway route to Ukraine, prime minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday, claiming that they were Ukrainians who collaborated with Russian intelligence and that they had fled to Belarus. The blast on the Warsaw-Lublin line, which connects the Polish capital to the Ukrainian border, followed a wave of arson, sabotage and cyber-attacks in Poland and other European countries since the start of the war in Ukraine. Spain will provide Ukraine with a fresh military aid package worth 615m euros ($710m) to support its fight against Russia’s invasion, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Tuesday. Speaking at a Madrid press conference alongside visiting Zelenskyy, Sanchez said that around 300m euros of the package would be allocated to “new defence equipment”. “Your fight is ours,” Sanchez said, adding that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “neo-imperialism” seeks to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for”. During his trip to Spain Zelenskyy made also took the opportunity to view Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica”, a move laden with symbolism. Among the last century’s most famous paintings, “Guernica” depicts the horrors of war – specifically the bombardment of civilian targets. The enormous, black-grey-and-white painting features screaming women, flailing horses and a gored bull. Picasso used them to represent the bombing by Nazi and fascist Italian war planes of the town named Guernica in 1937, during Spain’s Civil War. Continue reading...

Public accounts committee finds Labour’s progress ‘appears to have stalled’ despite billions of pounds in investment The NHS has failed to cut waiting times as promised in its recovery plan despite billions of pounds in investment, the public accounts committee (PAC) has warned. The influential parliamentary committee’s verdict raises serious doubts over whether Labour can fulfil its key pledge to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring that patients can once again get hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029. Key NHS targets to improve access to both planned care and diagnostic tests by last spring “were missed”. NHS England had spent £3.24bn setting up community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs but had not achieved the aim of reducing delays. In July, 192,000 people had been waiting at least a year for care, despite a pledge to eradicate that practice altogether by March 2025. 22% of patients were having to wait more than six weeks for a diagnostic test, even though that was due to be cut to 5% by March. Continue reading...

Nearly two-thirds of ‘prevention of future deaths’ reports by coroners are not acted upon, say researchers at King’s College London The advice given by coroners in England and Wales to help prevent maternal deaths is not being acted upon, research suggests. Academics at King’s College London looked at prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports issued by coroners in cases of pregnant women and new mothers who died between 2013 and 2023. They found these reports were not being “systematically used nationally”. Continue reading...

Study from University of Oxford looks into evolutionary origins of kissing and its role in relations between species From Galápagos albatrosses to polar bears, chimpanzees to orangutans, certain species appear to kiss. Now researchers suggest Neanderthals did it too – and might even have locked lips with modern humans. It is not the first time scientists have suggested Neanderthals and early modern humans were intimately acquainted. Among previous studies, researchers have found humans and their thick-browed cousins shared the same mouth microbe for hundreds of thousands of years after the two species split, suggesting they swapped saliva. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer accused of failing to adequately strategise while in opposition, leading to uncoordinated policymaking Keir Starmer is failing to make major improvements to public services partly because he did not plan properly while in opposition, according to a report from the Institute for Government (IfG). The prime minister went into government without a clear idea about how to achieve his targets, the IfG found, resulting in haphazard attempts to reform various sectors, from the health service to the courts. Continue reading...

‘In the last part of the game, the crowd was still with us’ Manager drew on 2022 disappointment against Ukraine Steve Clarke believes the Scotland support could “smell magic” before World Cup qualification was sealed in dramatic style with a 4-2 win over Denmark. At 2-2 and in stoppage time, Scotland were bound for March’s playoffs. Stunning goals from Kieran Tierney and Kenny McLean triggered euphoric scenes as the Scots earned a spot in the men’s World Cup for the first time since 1998. McLean scored Scotland’s fourth from the halfway line. Continue reading...

World’s largest scientific review warns consumption of UPFs poses seismic threat to global health and wellbeing Ultra-processed food (UPF) is linked to harm in every major organ system of the human body and poses a seismic threat to global health, according to the world’s largest review. UPF is also rapidly displacing fresh food in the diets of children and adults on every continent, and is associated with an increased risk of a dozen health conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression. Continue reading...

My social media feed is now a hellish stream of puerile AI slop. Am I stubborn to want to hang on to reality? Recently, a friend sent me a video of a man dressed as a pickle. Following a high-octane car chase, the pickle flung himself out of the car and flailed down the highway. It was stupid and we laughed. But it also wasn’t real. When I pointed out to my friend that the video was AI-generated, she was taken by surprise, noting she’s usually pretty good at spotting them. She was also frustrated: “I hate having to be on the constant lookout for AI trash,” she lamented in the chat. And I feel that. Becoming an AI detective is a job I never wanted and wish I could quit. Continue reading...

Four people also rescued alive at popular Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia amid heavy snowfall and strong winds A British woman and four other foreign tourists have been killed in a blizzard at a nature reserve in southern Chile. Nine people went missing on Monday in the Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia, a popular tourist destination, amid heavy snowfall and winds reaching up to 120mph. Continue reading...

Bosnia led for an hour but have to settle for playoffs Spain and Switzerland held but qualify, as do Belgium Austria qualified for the 2026 World Cup after snatching a 77th-minute equaliser through Michael Gregoritsch against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Vienna to earn a 1-1 draw and top Group H. It will be Austria’s first appearance at a World Cup finals tournament since 1998. Bosnia finished second in the group, two points behind on 17, and go into a playoff in March for a spot at the finals tournament, which will be co-hosted next year by Mexico, the US and Canada. Continue reading...

Wales saved their best until last and head into the World Cup playoffs on the back of an emphatic demolition of North Macedonia that guarantees Craig Bellamy’s team a home semi-final next March. Opponents will be rightly apprehensive of visiting Cardiff on this evidence. Bellamy’s depleted side were superb as they routed the previously unbeaten and previously second-placed team in Group J courtesy of a Harry Wilson hat-trick plus flashes of brilliance from Brennan Johnson and Dan James. Wales knew they had a place in the playoffs courtesy of winning their Nations League group but, stepping up when it mattered most, they ensured the more favourable route towards the next World Cup. Continue reading...

Hampden Park has hosted seismic, spine-tingling occasions in a storied history dating back to 1903. Add this one to the list. Scotland’s long, long wait is over. Steve Clarke, Andy Robertson, Scott McTominay, John McGinn; you shall go to the ball. So too Kieran Tierney, whose curler from 22 yards seemed to have sealed victory by the odd goal in five before Kenny McLean produced an even more spectacular fourth. Almost three decades of frustration, during which Scotland have peered towards World Cups from afar, were obliterated as Denmark fell to defeat in stoppage time. Grown men in kilts shed tears. Denmark’s participation in next summer’s jamboree depends on March playoffs. Clarke and a suddenly giddy football nation can start making concrete plans. Continue reading...

This heart-stopping Danish investigation about a mob lawyer turned whistleblower is more dramatic than Scandi-noir as it drops one huge revelation after another. It’s easy to see why it absolutely rocked Denmark As film-maker Mads Brügger explains at the outset of this four-part documentary series, a black swan is the name given to an event so extraordinary that you could never have seen it coming. In this case, Brügger’s black swan isn’t an event so much as a person: a lawyer named Amira Smajic, a “once in a lifetime” source for a journalist and the person who – he says – could “force us to rethink Danish society”. Smajic has spent years acting on behalf of some of the country’s most infamous criminal gangs, and is now exposing their activities as part of this major investigation for the state-owned broadcaster TV 2. Crucially, it’s not just the criminal underworld that Smajic is laying bare, but also their white-collar accomplices – the seemingly respectable businesspeople and lawyers unfazed by escapades involving dirty money and fraudulent invoices. It’s a co-dependent arrangement – one section of society “is feeding the other, and vice versa”, says Smajic. It would be an understatement to say that The Black Swan made an impact on Danish viewers. Half of all Danes watched it when it aired in 2024, and it sparked a string of police investigations, as well as a tightening of laws around money laundering and gang activity. It has also turned the country’s almost prelapsarian vision of itself on its head. Brügger – a steely, often sandpaper-dry compere who has previously gone undercover in North Korea for the film The Red Chapel – claims making The Black Swan has shown him that the country could be “grim and dark”. Simply put: something was rotten in the state of Denmark. It’s easy to see why the series has had such an impact. As well as the huge revelations it uncovers, the way The Black Swan unfolds often seems to go beyond the work of even some of the best Nordic noir dramatists. Our anti-heroine, Smajic, arrived in Denmark as a child refugee amid the Bosnian war. A legitimate career gave way to working with the mob, and she would go on to be dubbed the “ice queen” by her associates for her ruthless practices. And yet, as the series unfolds, Smajic uses those same practices to obtain a huge cache of evidence for Brügger and his team, often putting herself in seemingly imminent danger as she documents all manner of nefarious activities from a Copenhagen office rigged with hidden mics and cameras. While the production has arranged safety measures for Smajic during her six-month stint as their inside woman, it is still risky business. But as she explains, this could be her only way out of a life of crime that has become so innate to her being, and which she likens to being addicted to drugs. Many of the scenes that unfold defy belief, not least those that involve Fasar Abrar Raja, a Rasputin-esque former member of the Bandidos biker club whose rap sheet includes convictions for assault, possession of firearms and drug smuggling. His braggadocio and insolence slowly turn to something darker. By episode three, broadcast next week, he threatens to “crush [Smajic] with my bare hands”. Continue reading...

Challenge to Meta could have forced it to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, but judge ruled company did not hold social networking monopoly Meta defeated a major challenge to its business on Tuesday when a US judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking. The case, brought by the US Federal Trade Commission, could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, with the former FTC chair accusing the company of operating a “buy or bury” scheme against nascent competitors. The tech giant bought WhatsApp for $19bn in 2014. Losing either the image-based social network, which generates an estimated half of Meta’s revenue, or the world’s most popular messaging app could have done existential damage to Meta’s empire. Continue reading...

The streamer continues its annual onslaught of forgettable festive films with a mostly charmless romance set in France At the risk of sounding like the Grinch, I must once again bemoan the release of Christmas movies before Thanksgiving; the temperatures may be dropping at long last, but it’s still too close to the gloominess of daylight savings and too far from the belt-loosening of the actual holidays to fully indulge in Netflix’s now-annual buffet of cheap Christmas confections. Nevertheless, their content conveyor belt rolls on, offering treats about as substantial and enduring as cotton candy beginning in mid-November. Like American chocolates that no longer, in fact, contain real chocolate but sell like gangbusters on Halloween anyway, the Netflix Christmas movie, like rival holiday movie master Hallmark, is relied upon, even beloved, for its brand of badness, for its rote familiarity (nostalgic casting, basement-bargain budgets, styrofoam snow, knowingly absurd premise) and uncanny artificial filler, for its ability to deliver hits of sugary pleasure while still somehow under-delivering on expectations. At worst, these films are forgettable train wrecks (last week’s A Merry Little Ex-Mas); at best, they are forgettable fun, such as the Lindsay Lohan comeback vehicle Falling For Christmas, of which I remember nothing other than cackling with my friend on her couch. (Actually, at best they are memorably ludicrous, such as last year’s impressively unserious Hot Frosty.) Continue reading...

Jamal Khashoggi’s plight and murder was a warning sign for the US, of the impending loss of freedom and censorship that would sweep the country The first time I ever used the words “alhumdulilah”, which translates to praise be to God in Arabic, was the night of 16 November 2018. A Friday night news alert came through on my phone: “CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination.” I collapsed into my couch, repeating the words. I am not Muslim. But Jamal, in life and death, has taught me a lot about faith and looking for hope in all the wrong places. As a writer with a history of criticizing America’s meddling in weaker countries, in normal circumstances, I should have been loath to celebrate the CIA. Karen Attiah is a writer and educator whose work focuses on race, global culture, and human rights Continue reading...

Countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Pacific and Europe plead for transition to be central outcome of talks Cop30 live – latest updates More than 80 countries have joined a call for a roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels, in a dramatic intervention into stuck negotiations at the UN Cop30 climate summit. Countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific joined with EU member states and the UK to make an impassioned plea for the “transition away from fossil fuels” to be a central outcome of the talks, despite stiff opposition from petrostates and some other major economies. Continue reading...

US president also claims Mohammed bin Salman ‘knew nothing’ about murder of journalist Donald Trump has shrugged off the Saudi regime’s 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying the journalist was “extremely controversial” and unpopular. The US president made the remarks at the White House on Tuesday while welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment in Istanbul by Saudi state operatives. Continue reading...

On first official visit to UK, leaders say aim is not to ‘break the British Treasury’ but to find solution to help clean up ‘mess’ left by colonialism The Caribbean’s slavery reparations body has decried misleading press reports that suggest their aim is to “break the British Treasury” by demanding trillions of pounds, as they mutually beneficial restorative justice programme. Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), which was set up to progress the Caribbean’s pursuit of justice for centuries of enslavement and colonisation by European nations, made the comments during the body’s first official visit to the UK. Continue reading...

Defender was injured playing for Brazil against Senegal Havertz has ‘minor relapse’ in recovery from knee injury Arsenal fear that Gabriel Magalhães could be sidelined for at least a month after he sustained a thigh injury on international duty last week, with the Brazil defender expected to miss a crucial part of the season for the Premier League leaders. Gabriel limped off during Brazil’s 2-0 win against Senegal in a friendly at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday and returned to the club for more tests this week after it was confirmed he had sustained a muscle injury in his right thigh. The tests are understood to be continuing and Arsenal have yet to confirm how long the influential 27-year-old will be absent, although he is not expected to be available for Sunday’s north London derby against Tottenham or the Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich three days later. Continue reading...