Food prices rise at fastest rate since January 2024 with vegetables, milk, cheese and fish going up; Bank of England expected to keep interest rates on hold on Thursday

At 3.8%, the latest UK inflation data certainly isn’t welcome news for the Bank of England ahead of its decision on Thursday, where it’s widely expected to leave rates on hold, said James Smith, developed markets UK economist at ING.

Yet the latest data doesn’t dramatically move the needle one way or another on the prospect of a further rate cut later this year.

Inflation is more or less at a peak, though it’s likely to stay in the 3.5-4% area for the rest of this year.

However, we think there is still scope for services inflation to undershoot the Bank’s forecasts further in the next release for September. And more broadly, we are seeing a significant easing in rental growth, which is set to be a significant source of service sector disinflation over the coming months.

If we’re right about that, it would tip the balance slightly more in favour of a November rate cut, which we still narrowly expect. Certainly, we aren’t in the camp that thinks rate cuts are over. Services inflation should show more visible progress next spring, while wage growth should ease below 4% by year-end. Add in the fact that the late-November autumn Budget is likely to be dominated by tax rises, and we think there’s still a decent case for UK interest rates to fall two or three more times by next summer.

The good news is that August inflation data has corrected some of the upside surprise we saw last month. The bad news is that CPI has maybe a little further to go before hitting its peak. Indeed, food inflation continues to push higher – though survey data suggest that we may be nearing the peak on this front too. And despite better services data this morning, inflation in the largest basket remains sticky. To be sure, there are some encouraging bits of information in today’s report – and we will need to see more of this for the Bank of England to cut Bank Rate again.

This is why we continue to see a slightly longer pause when it comes to the Bank’s next rate move. For us, the MPC [monetary policy committee] may want to wait for a larger accumulation of evidence before dialling down restrictive policy again. Seeing the downtrend in CPI begin could assuage fears on the committee that the hump in inflation is not turning into a plateau.

The Israeli military said the route via Salah al-Din street ‘will be open for 48 hours only’

AFP have a bit more detail on the Israeli military’s ‘temporary’ route for Palestinians to flee Gaza City (see 7.48am BST).

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it was opening “a temporary transportation route” via Salah al-Din street. Its Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee said the corridor would remain open for just 48 hours from midday (9am GMT) on Thursday.

What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN commission of inquiry has now concluded is a genocide.

States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.

Enzo Maresca’s side return to the site of the club’s first Champions League win but the team face a battle against their former striker

A trip to the Allianz Arena offers Chelsea fond memories of the greatest night in their history, a meeting with two what‑might‑have-beens and a swift reunion with a player desperate to prove they were wrong to let him go.

Perhaps Enzo Maresca will be feeling nervous if his team have to face Nicolas Jackson when they open their Champions League campaign against Bayern Munich on Wednesday night. There are plenty of examples of loanees coming back to haunt their parent club in the tournament and Jackson will not be short of motivation if he features against Chelsea less than a month since he left on loan.

Plus: national teams with top-10 scorers in the 21st century, different kits in the same match (2) and a referee’s coin toss

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“Who is the most prolific player with the initials XG?” asks Oliver Forrest. “And who has the highest goals and assists of players with the initials GA?”

There are only a handful of male* footballers with the initials XG – here is an exhaustive list. The diminutive journeyman Greek midfielder Xenofon Gittas scored 17 goals across his club career (plus three for Greece Under-21s) but cannot match the scoring exploits of Xhevdet Gela, who is our winner with 44 goals across all competitions including the Europa League with the Finnish sides MyPa and Lahti. Unusually, during a spell between 2019-2022 in which Gela was playing for Ekenäs in Finland, he was also the full-time manager of a fourth-tier side, Esbo, a club around 80km away. Gela returned to the manager’s role at Esbo in January this year, although not in a playing capacity.

After nearly 50 years, Greenfield says he cannot ‘in good conscience’ continue; Unilever has previously rejected similar claims by Ben & Jerry’s social mission board

Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield has stepped away from the ice-cream brand after nearly 50 years, according to a post by the other founder, Ben Cohen.

Cohen’s post shared what he said was a letter from Greenfield in which he called it one of the “hardest and most painful decisions” he had ever made.

Sam Altman said if there is doubt the system will default to the under-18 experience putting ‘safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens’

OpenAI will restrict how ChatGPT responds to a user it suspects is under 18, unless that user passes the company’s age estimation technology or provides ID, following legal action from the family of a 16-year-old who killed himself in April after months of conversations with the chatbot.

OpenAI was prioritising “safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens”, chief executive Sam Altman said in a blog post on Tuesday, stating “minors need significant protection.

20 authors, including Viet Thanh Nguyen and Abdulrazak Gurnah, call on the French president to restart scheme to help creatives evacuate

Sally Rooney, Deborah Levy, Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen are among 20 authors urging French president Emmanuel Macron to resume a “lifeline” programme for evacuating Palestinian writers, scholars and artists from Gaza.

The Pause programme for writers and artists in emergency situations, as well as a student evacuation programme, were abruptly suspended by the French government at the beginning of August over a Palestinian student’s allegedly antisemitic online remarks, a decision that the letter-writing authors said amounted to a “collective punishment”.

Cosying up to Trump is an all-in gamble. Britain should be building better relations with more reliable allies closer to home

Interpreters are not required for visiting US heads of state, but that doesn’t mean Donald Trump and Keir Starmer will speak the same language this week. The UK prime minister will practise the art of tactful diplomacy emphasising mutual advantage and historical alliance. Most of the words in that sentence mean nothing to a president who is fluent only in self-interest.

Given the likelihood of miscommunication between two men from such different political cultures – the showbiz demagogue and the lawyer technocrat – relations have been remarkably friendly and, in Downing Street’s estimation, fruitful.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

What if Descartes had melted his brain on acid? Find out in this mind-expanding exploration of drugs and formal philosophy

This book is a trip. Among other things, it copiously details all the drugs that the US-born professor of history and philosophy of science at the Université Paris Cité has ingested. They include psilocybin, LSD, cannabis; quetiapine and Xanax (for anxiety); venlafaxine, Prozac, Lexapro and tricyclics (antidepressants); caffeine (“I have drunk coffee every single day without fail since September 13, 1990”); and, at least for him, the always disappointing alcohol.

The really trippy thing, though, is not so much Justin Smith-Ruiu’s descriptions of his drug experiences, but the fact that they’re written by a tough-minded analytic philosopher, one as familiar with AJ Ayer’s Foundations of Empirical Knowledge as Aldous Huxley’s mescaline-inspired The Doors of Perception. Moreover, they’re presented with the aim of melting the minds of his philosophical peers and the rest of us by suggesting that psychedelics dissolve our selves and make us part of cosmic consciousness, thereby rendering us free in the way the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza defined it (paraphrased by Smith-Ruiu as “an agreeable acquiescence in the way one’s own body is moving in the necessary order of things”).

From telling the insurers to accepting you may need to get the experts in, tips on dealing with the deceased’s property

When someone close to you dies, be it a relative or a friend, practical considerations may be far from your mind. But you could quickly find that you have the responsibility of looking after, then clearing out, their home.

First feature from director Donncha Gilmore is propelled by charismatic and natural performances by leads Adam Lunnon-Collery and Liath Hannon

This Irish gen Z romance begins so naturally, on Halloween in Dublin where Trinity College students are partying in an abandoned building. Rugby player Jason (Adam Lunnon-Collery) is chatting up aspiring indie film-maker Charlie (Liath Hannon); their conversation is laidback and intense, light-hearted and meaningful, like life. “I’m in character as an arrogant jock,” jokes Jason. We’ve just watched him taking stick in the locker room for having his ears pierced. Now you can practically see his heart thumping in his chest talking to Charlie, who is trans.

The pair spend the night drifting through the city; they message a drug dealer (to score fireworks not drugs) and film each other with a Super 8 camera. Nobody hassles them. The movie is gentle and sweet until a sudden reveal – a twist that will require a stiff test of your ability to suspend disbelief, that almost verges on clumsy. But the charisma and lovely naturalism of performances from newcomers Lunnon-Collery and Hannon carries it off. Lunnon-Collery is particularly excellent as Jason, all warmth and charm on the surface.

Field-to-fork farmers on the Scottish island are restoring abandoned crofts and serving home-grown produce and freshly caught seafood in their homesteads

‘Edible means it won’t kill you – it doesn’t mean it tastes good. This, however, does taste good,” says chef Carla Lamont as she snips off a piece of orpine, a native sedum, in her herb garden. It’s crisp and juicy like a granny smith but tastes more like cucumber. “It’s said to ward off strange people and lightning strikes; but I like strange people.”

We’re on a three-hectare (seven-acre) coastal croft on the Hebridean island of Mull. Armed with scissors, Carla is giving me a kitchen garden tour and culinary masterclass – she was a quarter-finalist in Masterchef: The Professionals a few years back. Sweet cicely can be swapped for star anise, she tells me. Lemon verbena she uses in scallop ceviche.

A new exhibition showcasing African American photography in rural and urban areas of Texas underscores the role of the community photographer in documenting local life and culture

Kaitlin Olson’s turn as an extremely intelligent, glamorous crime-solver isn’t always the most believable. But it’s crowd-pleasing TV that’s slick, easy on the eye and highly watchable

Will we ever grow bored of the savant sleuth? I suspect not – the satisfaction of witnessing a fantastically gifted person crack absurdly complex cases is one of fiction’s most reliable draws. As ever, our screens are swarming with them: in the past year alone we’ve been introduced to Ludwig, David Mitchell’s puzzle-setter turned incredibly astute (if reluctant) detective; been reunited with Natasha Lyonne’s human lie-detector Charlie Cale in Poker Face; and crossed paths once again with brainiac attorney Elsbeth, whose forays into policing are chronicled in the Good Wife spin-off of the same name.

Also back for more mental gymnastics is Morgan Gillory, the protagonist of breezy procedural High Potential, which returns for a second season. With an IQ of 160 – giving her “high intellectual potential” (Mensa typically requires a score of about 130) – Morgan’s ability to unravel mind-bendingly complicated sequences of events is downright astonishing. Yet there’s something a little different about this particular clever-clogs crimestopper. Ever since an antisocial drug addict by the name of Sherlock Holmes set the genius detective tone, such characters have usually had a few issues. Ludwig is reclusive, his talents tempered by intense awkwardness. Cale is a chaotic, commitment-phobic outsider partial to a drink or two, while Elsbeth is a no-filter weirdo who gives people the creeps.

I should have been devastated when I came third in a public speaking competition. But the joy that came out of nowhere has shaped the rest of my life

“I am a teenager, living in an age with war, corruption, discrimination, racism, sexism. But no one seems angry about it. People see the slight advances towards equal society as having solved our issues entirely and it just isn’t enough.”

It’s March 2015, and I’ve done it: I’ve solved inequality. Standing in the basement room of Modern Art Oxford for my regional heat of the Articulation prize public speaking competition, I truly believe that I may have just introduced this room full of parents and teachers to the concept of feminism. I’m very pleased with myself.

Retailer hopes to bounce back from summer cyber-attack with fashion picks aimed at wider age range

After a cyber-attack rained on its summer, Marks & Spencer is banking on fashion to brighten its autumn.

A Prada-esque, crystal-embellished, charcoal V-neck cardigan (£46), a faux leather trenchcoat with a price tag of £90 – £6,810 less than the Burberry version – and a £36 short pleated skirt that offers a wearable take on Charli xcx’s “brat” styling will hit shop floors shortly.

A rich and savoury meat main served over steamed rice, and a crunchy and satisfying side or snack

Our restaurant Bao turns 10 this year, and today’s two dishes capture what’s driven us from the start: heritage and innovation. As the season shifts towards autumn, we crave deeper, more grounding flavours, and lu rou fan is just that: rich, savoury and nostalgic. The daikon tots, meanwhile, are a happy kitchen accident from even before we even had a restaurant – they’re crunchy on the outside, soft within and oddly satisfying. Both dishes reflect what we have always been about: balancing the familiar and the unexpected. Honest, humble and a little indulgent, and perfect for that in-between time as summer fades.

From publicly shunning British Palestinians, to supplying parts for fighter jets, Labour looks increasingly out of step with international opinion

On Tuesday, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Its conclusion is unsurprising, with few states in history having been so brazen about their intentions. To take just two examples: in May, the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed”; a week later, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel is “destroying more and more houses [in Gaza, and Palestinians accordingly] have nowhere to return”.

At the beginning of this month, Labour’s deputy prime minister and former foreign secretary, David Lammy, wrote a letter to the chair of the international development committee, Sarah Champion, declaring that “the government has carefully considered the risk of genocide”, and has not concluded that Israel is acting with genocidal intent. How can two bodies come to such different endpoints? The British government has not come to a conclusion on genocide, because if it was to, it would have to face up to its complicity.

Since our 2024 climate pledge, there has been a global pushback against green progress. This update reflects the urgent and growing challenges facing our planet – and how the Guardian is more focused than ever on exposing the causes of the climate crisis

• In the past three weeks, more than 50,000 Guardian readers have supported our annual environment support campaign. If you believe in the power of independent journalism, please consider joining them today

The Guardian has long been at the forefront of agenda-setting climate journalism, and in a news cycle dominated by autocrats and war, we refuse to let the health of the planet slip out of sight.

2024 was the hottest year on record, driving the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time

Winter temperatures at the north pole reached more than 20C above the 1991-2020 average in early 2025, crossing the threshold for ice to melt

The planet’s remaining carbon budget to meet the international target of 1.5C has just two years left at the current rate of emissions

Humans are driving biodiversity loss among all species across the planet, according to the largest syntheses of the human impacts on biodiversity ever conducted worldwide

Tipping points – in the Amazon, Antarctic, coral reefs and more – could cause fundamental parts of the Earth’s system to change dramatically, irreversibly and with devastating effects. We asked the experts about the latest science – and how it makes them feel

Published our annual company emissions data, explaining what drives our emissions and where they have risen and fallen

Created a digital course, as part of an initiative by the Sustainable Journalism Partnership, sharing examples from experts across the Guardian of how to embed sustainability into journalism and media commercial operations

Contributed our time and knowledge to working groups in the advertising industry that are working on better ways to measure the emissions impact of advertising

Former Bank chief economist Andy Haldane says left-behind communities need investment to stem populist tide

Defeating far-right populism will require Labour to radically overhaul its “arid” approach to raising living standards in left-behind communities, the former Bank of England chief economist has said.

Andy Haldane warned that Labour’s growth plans were failing to support parts of the country where voters feel neglected and disenfranchised.

US president arrives on Tuesday ahead of a lavish programme, as Sadiq Khan calls for UK leaders not to shy away from ‘being critical’

Donald Trump has landed in the UK ahead of an unprecedented second state visit.

The US president and the first lady, Melania Trump, touched down on Tuesday evening at London Stansted onboard Air Force One ahead of a series of events over the next two days, including being hosted by King Charles, military parades and a possible flypast by the Red Arrows alongside British and American F-35 jets.

The FBI director’s seeming fandom of the Premier League club also represents an unexpected clash of politics

FBI director Kash Patel appeared for a hearing in front of the US Senate judiciary committee wearing a tie featuring the logo of English Premier League side Liverpool on Tuesday.

The tie drew questions across social media. For one thing, it’s extremely unusual for a government official to wear a tie featuring the logo of any business, let alone a sports team. For another, Patel has not publicly expressed fandom for Liverpool in the past – at least not in words. He has previously been photographed wearing Liverpool ties on at least two separate occasions, though. The first, on 12 December 2024, came when Patel was visiting various lawmakers on Capitol Hill after Donald Trump’s victory in that year’s election, with Patel at the time being rumored to be a part of the administration. The second came about five months later, on 9 April 2025, at a press event touting the US authorities’ capture of narcotics. By that time, Patel had been confirmed as director of the FBI.

With his Sundance film festival and institute, Robert Redford used his considerable power to bring generations of talented film-makers to a bigger audience

Robert Redford, who died at the age of 89 on Tuesday, will rightly be remembered as one of Hollywood’s finest leading men, a true-blue movie star and assured actor who was, to quote my mother and surely many others, “very, very handsome”. His many iconic performances – in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Way We Were, The Sting and more – certainly left an indelible mark on American movies. But he should perhaps be remembered more for his work behind the camera, as the country’s greatest benefactor of independent cinema.

Through his Sundance film festival and non-profit institute, Redford lent his considerable star power and funds to American independent film, and created what is still its most secure and enduring pillar of support. He provided maverick, cutting-edge film-making with a freewheeling marketplace and crucial buzz, helping to launch the careers of a true who’s who of critically acclaimed directors across generations. With Sundance, Redford played the role of mentor, patron, champion of the small and scrappy, benevolent godfather of independent cinema. It’s through Sundance, rather than his films, that Redford became, as the Black List founder Franklin Leonard put it on X, “arguably the film industry’s most consequential American over the last fifty years”.

Witty, foul-mouthed, camp and punky, it was the 00s answer to slick superclubs and the rock patriarchy. As its rough, raw sound returns, the scene’s eyeliner-ed heroes, from Peaches to Jonny Slut, relive its excesses

Jonny Melton knew that his club night Nag Nag Nag had reached some kind of tipping point when he peered out of the DJ booth and spotted Cilla Black on the dancefloor. “I think that’s the only time I got really excited,” he laughs. “I was playing the Tobi Neumann remix of Khia’s My Neck, My Back, too – ‘my neck, my back, lick my pussy and my crack’ – and there was Cilla, grooving on down. You know, it’s not Bobby Gillespie or Gwen Stefani, it’s fucking Cilla Black. I’ve got no idea how she ended up there, but I’ve heard since that she was apparently a bit of a party animal.”

It seems fair to say that a visit from Our Cilla was not what Melton expected when he started Nag Nag Nag in London in 2002. A former member of 80s goth band Specimen who DJed under the name Jonny Slut, he’d been inspired by a fresh wave of electronic music synchronously appearing in different locations around the world. Germany had feminist collective Chicks on Speed and DJ Hell with his groundbreaking label International DeeJay Gigolos. France produced Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Vitalic and Electrosexual. Britain spawned icy electro-pop quartet Ladytron and noisy, sex-obsessed trio Add N To (X). Canada spawned Tiga and Merrill Nisker, who abandoned the alt-rock sound of her debut album Fancypants Hoodlum and, with the aid of a Roland MC-505 “groovebox”, reinvented herself as Peaches. New York had performance art inspired duo Fischerspooner and a collection of artists centred around DJ and producer Larry Tee, who gave the sound a name: electroclash.