Documentary about New Zealand’s former leader records a shrewd but likable premier who did without the usual politician’s defences New Zealand’s former prime minister Jacinda Ardern emerges from this documentary portrait the way she did when she was in power from 2017 to 2023 … as a human being. More than any politician anywhere in the world in my adult lifetime, she looked like an actual member of the human race who was catapulted to office too fast to have acquired the defensive carapace of the professional politician. She was vulnerable and scrutable and likable in ways utterly alien to everyone else. Obviously this sympathetic film has been edited in such a way as to omit most of the hard business of internal politics and to foreground this humanity, although there is one fascinating moment at the very end when her partner Clarke Gayford gently asks if she might be doing too much; with a tiny flash of temper she asks if he is telling her to “delegate”. Gayford got his Denis Thatcher closeup there. Did we see a subliminal moment of the non-niceness vital for all successful politicians? Continue reading...

Defense secretary shares anecdote in The War on Warriors and rails against ‘rules and regulations’ governing war Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement. The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions. Continue reading...

None of the former officers accused by the IOPC will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired Twelve police officers would have faced disciplinary cases of gross misconduct for a catalogue of professional failings relating to the Hillsborough disaster if they were still serving, the police watchdog has said. However, no former officer named by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired. Some, including Peter Wright, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police at the time of the 1989 disaster, have died. Continue reading...

In the tropical dry forests of northern Colombia, a small team is gradually restoring the degraded habitat of the rare cotton-top tamarin Luis Enrique Centena spent decades silencing the forest. Now, he listens. Making a whistle, the former logger points up to a flash of white and reddish fur in the canopy. Inquisitive eyes peer back – a cotton-top tamarin, one of the world’s rarest primates. “I used to cut trees and never took the titís into account,” says Centena, calling the cotton-tops by their local name. “I ignored them. I didn’t know that they were in danger of extinction, I only knew I had to feed my family. But now we have become friends.” Continue reading...

Approval of legislation to ban Pfas would be major win for advocates pushing for safer gear alternatives across US A new bill proposed in the New York city council would ban the use of toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” in protective gear worn by the city’s 11,000 firefighters. The New York fire department is the nation’s largest firefighting force, and approval of the legislation would mark a major win for advocates who are pushing for safer “turnout gear” alternatives across the US. Massachusetts and Connecticut last year became the first states to ban the use of Pfas in turnout gear, and Illinois enacted a ban this year. Continue reading...

Experts warn this likely points to ‘regression to mean’ after recent spike in mass killings rather than continued decline A shooting last weekend at a children’s birthday party in California that left four dead was the 17th mass killing in the US this year – the lowest number recorded since 2006, according to a database that tracks them. The mass killings – defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed in a 24-hour period, not including the killer – are tracked in a database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. Continue reading...

Anthropic’s chief scientist says AI autonomy could spark a beneficial ‘intelligence explosion’ – or be the moment humans lose control Humanity will have to decide by 2030 whether to take the “ultimate risk” of letting artificial intelligence systems train themselves to become more powerful, one of the world’s leading AI scientists has said. Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve. Continue reading...

Arcola theatre, London This riff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories has flashes of promise but its comedy and purpose never land Shouldn’t that be Flat 2b? Then again, there are bigger problems in this gender-switched reworking of Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of sleuthing than a mere Americanism tossed into Victorian-era Baker Street. These detective adventures take place in post-pandemic London. Joan Watson (Simona Brown), who tells us she is “not” a doctor, is an American on a grown-up gap year of sorts. An advert for a flatshare brings her to the apartment of Sherlock Holmes (Lucy Farrett), who emphatically tells us she is not called Shirley. Despite Watson’s reluctance to be there, and her suspicion of Holmes, they set about solving cases together. At Arcola theatre, London, until 20 December Continue reading...

Official report says forces in England and Wales yet to implement policies for investigation A quarter of police forces in England and Wales are yet to implement “basic policies for investigating sexual offences”, an official report says, with women still being failed despite promises of change after the murder of Sarah Everard four years ago. The report by Dame Elish Angiolini follows an inquiry set up after Everard was murdered by a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens, in March 2021. She was abducted off a London street while walking home. Continue reading...

Watchdog says trend of care homes being registered in cheap areas, not where need is greatest, is ‘national scandal’ The number of registered children’s homes in England has risen to a record high, but providers are increasingly prioritising profit over care needs, Ofsted has warned. The watchdog said new children’s homes were proliferating in areas of the country where housing was cheapest, suggesting the rise was driven mostly by profit and this was “bending the system out of shape”. Continue reading...

Zohran Mamdani, Ozzy Osbourne and Sinners also feature in encyclopedia’s top 20 most-read English-language pages Wikipedia’s article on Charlie Kirk was the most read on the online encyclopedia this year, as users sought out information on the conservative activist. People viewed the entry on Kirk nearly 45m times, many after he was shot at a university campus debate on 10 September. Charlie Kirk, 44.9m page views Deaths in 2025, 42.5m Ed Gein, 31.2m Donald Trump, 25.1m Pope Leo XIV, 22.1m Elon Musk, 20.2m Zohran Mamdani, 20.1m Sinners (2025 film), 18.2m Ozzy Osbourne, 17.8m Superman (2025 film), 17m Pope Francis, 15.3m Severance (TV series), 13.9m United States, 13m Thunderbolts*, 12.9m Weapons (2025 film), 11.8m JD Vance, 11.6m Adolescence (TV series), 11.6m MrBeast, 11.5m Cristiano Ronaldo, 10.8m The Fantastic Four: First Steps, 10.8m Continue reading...

Despite the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change Artificial intelligence and robotics will transform the world. It will bring unimaginable changes to our economy, our politics, warfare, our emotional wellbeing, our environment, and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that, in the not-so-distant future, a super-intelligent AI could replace humans in controlling the planet. Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change. Now. Continue reading...

Manager confident squad-building lessons learned He hopes Havertz problem has been ‘unlocked’ Mikel Arteta is confident Arsenal’s squad can continue to cope with injury setbacks after confirming Kai Havertz will not return for a few weeks. The Germany striker has been absent since August after knee surgery and had been expected back at the start of this month. But Arteta said Havertz had been unable “to go to the next level” when he stepped up his rehabilitation and faced a longer spell on the sidelines. Continue reading...

Our cartoonist on the people and themes that are fuelling the buildup to next summer’s tournament in North America You can buy a cartoon now in our Print Shop David’s latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now Continue reading...

Bloodgate, the ‘Hand of Back’ and a drop goal off ‘someone’s arse’ are among the tournament’s delightful eccentricities On the eve of a new Champions Cup season it is worth remembering when and where it all began. The answer is 30 years ago on the shores of the Black Sea where Farul Constanta of Romania hosted France’s mighty Toulouse in the opening pool game of the old Heineken Cup on 31 October 1995. Let’s just say they were different times. The match was played on a Tuesday and, while the crowd was recorded as 3,000, eyewitnesses were focused on the large number of security personnel with barking Alsatian dogs straining at the leash. Toulouse, boasting an array of internationals including Émile Ntamack and Thomas Castaignède, duly registered eight tries and won 54-10. Continue reading...

Hundreds of police, rangers and military personnel deployed to tackle virus threatening pork export industry Spanish authorities have deployed hundreds of police officers, wildlife rangers and military personnel in an effort to contain an outbreak of highly infectious African swine fever (ASF) outside Barcelona before it becomes a major threat to the country’s €8.8bn-a-year pork export industry. Officials believe the virus, detected in the municipality of Bellaterra, may have begun to circulate after a wild boar ate contaminated food that had been brought in from outside Spain. Continue reading...

Official tells MPs there was lots of information appearing in the press that ‘wasn’t particularly helpful’ Politics live – latest updates Business live – latest updates The Office for Budget Responsibility complained to senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the budget about a flurry of leaks that it said spread “misconceptions” about its forecasts, it has emerged. Prof David Miles of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee told MPs on the Treasury select committee on Tuesday that the watchdog had raised the issue of leaks with the department before the chancellor’s statement last week. Continue reading...

Trump’s special envoy lands in Russia as Putin hails ‘important’ capture of Pokrovsk, although this is disputed by Kyiv Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates Vladimir Putin has claimed Russian forces have taken control of the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine, as he sought to project confidence before a key meeting on Tuesday with a US delegation to discuss a possible peace deal to end the war. Dressed in military fatigues during a visit to a command centre on Monday evening, the Russian president hailed what he called the “important” capture of Pokrovsk – once a major logistical hub for the Ukrainian army – though Ukrainian officials later disputed the claim. Continue reading...

Leaving eight-year-old Lati-Yana Brown homeless and cut off from her family should never have been sanctioned by the state Britain’s long history with the Caribbean, from enslavement to the Windrush scandal, is marked by policies that have fractured families. The Home Office’s latest actions show little has changed. After the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, a tropical cyclone that made landfall across the Greater Antilles area in late October, eight-year-old Lati-Yana Stephanie Brown was left destitute in Jamaica. But after her UK-resident parents appealed for the Home Office to expedite her visa application, officials rejected it and Lati-Yana has been left to sleep on the floor of her elderly grandmother’s destroyed home. But the rejection rested on factual errors, according to Lati-Yana’s mother, Kerrian Bigby. Dawn Butler, her MP, shared a letter with me raising concerns about “misrepresentations” in the decision notice, including the claim that Bigby does not have full parental responsibility for the child, which she says is false. Nadine White is a journalist, film-maker and the UK’s first race correspondent Continue reading...

The actor was convicted in 2023 leaving this a film maudit, and though he is convincing, it only draws uncomfortable parallels with his own life Back in 2023, rising star Jonathan Majors was swinging for the fences and beyond in this colossal, Paul Schrader-esque psychodrama about a would-be bodybuilder, for which role Majors got himself stacked to beast proportions. Many expected it to play a huge part in the awards conversation, with key scenes surely destined to be shown in sizzle reel clips at endless prize ceremonies and invoked in endless op-ed pieces about fragile masculinity. But no. Now it is almost a modern film maudit, all but forgotten, a cursed film only now coming out quietly, and maybe its star is maudit as well. Majors plays Killian Maddox, an iron-pumping wannabe caring for his disabled grandfather and cultivating a fan obsession with the stars of the bodybuilding circuit. He is particularly keen on a preening beefcake named Brad Vanderhorn, whose magazine covers Killian plasters over the walls of his sad bedroom, and dreams of making it on to these covers himself. Killian is plagued with loneliness, depression and incipient mental illness, body dysmorphia and inability to connect with women. At one point he has a full-tilt, Travis Bickle-style disastrous date with Jessie (Haley Bennett), a co-worker at the supermarket where he has a day-job. And he is addicted to steroids, which trigger terrifying ’roid rage. Continue reading...

The revolutionary spirit in politics and architecture; histories of free speech and civil war; plus how the Tories fell apart and Starmer won We live in a hyper-political yet curiously unrevolutionary age, one of hashtags rather than barricades. Perhaps that’s why so many writers this year have looked wistfully back to a time when strongly held convictions still made waves in the real world. In The Revolutionists (Bodley Head), Jason Burke revisits the 1970s, when it seemed the future of the Middle East might end up red instead of green – communist rather than Islamist. It’s a geopolitical period piece: louche men with corduroy jackets and sideburns, women with theories and submachine guns. Many were in it less for the Marxism than for the sheer mayhem. Reading about the hijackings and kidnappings they orchestrated makes today’s orange-paint protests seem quaint by comparison. Continue reading...

Twenty-four tiny drawers of fun stuff sounds delightful – but not when you’re the one filling the thing Maybe 10 years ago, I bought permanent Advent calendars for the kids: Scandi-looking Christmas houses with 24 tiny drawers, from Sainsbury’s. I think my original plan was that some of the draws could contain something other than chocolate, not because I’m the kind of almond mum who won’t let anyone eat sweets before breakfast, but because their dad and I are separated and have them half the time each, so it wasn’t unusual for them to wake up and have six Lindt chocolate balls to chomp through before they’d opened their curtains. The tiny drawers are a curse. Some years I could only find stuff for one of the kids (erasers in the shape of hedgehogs; lip balm); other years, a different one was in luck (Lego Yodas; magnets). It was never, ever fair. One year, I found tons of different batteries for the drawers, and I thought it was the most genius thing I’d ever done, but they said: “How is this a fun gift? If we needed a battery, we’d just go to the kitchen drawer, which is supposed to have batteries in it.” I realised in about 2019 that I’d just have to start planning earlier, around July, if I wanted to strike the perfect balance of parity, festivity and usefulness, and that was a good year, actually. I found some tiny business cards with swear words on them that they could just leave around the house, and ear-splitting whistles and unisex lip balm. We have enough erasers and pencil sharpeners now to last until nobody ever makes a mistake because the written word is just a memory. Continue reading...

The site isn’t exposing misleading reporting – it’s revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits Donald Trump has used the mainstream press as a punching bag for many years, but in recent weeks his jabs have become even more frequent – and more ill-tempered. He threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn last month over the editing of a documentary that aired more than a year ago. He called one White House reporter “piggy”, and told another – the well-regarded Mary Bruce of ABC News – that she was a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”. He called a New York Times reporter “ugly, both inside and out”. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Four years after workers at a Starbucks store in upstate New York became the first to unionize, hundreds of outlets followed – defying intense resistance from the coffee chain. What happened next? 2000Thousands of Starbucks baristas are on strike across the US, warning the world’s largest coffee chain to brace for the “longest and biggest” bout of industrial action in its history. Barely a year after Brian Niccol, the Starbucks CEO, tried to draw a line under bitter divisions between its management and unionized workers, pledging to “engage constructively” with them, the American coffee giant is now grappling with an escalating strike during its lucrative holiday trading season. Continue reading...

Elderly people unable to reach water stations set up by South East Water after treatment site closed Thousands of homes have been without water for four days in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, after South East Water accidentally added the wrong chemicals to the tap water supply. Schools across the area have been shut for two days, and residents have been filling buckets with rainwater to flush toilets. Cats, dogs and guinea pigs have been given Evian to drink as the people of Tunbridge Wells wait for their water to be switched back on. Currently, 18,000 homes are without water. Continue reading...