US vice-president’s trip comes a day after two Trump envoys met Netanyahu
US vice-president JD Vance has arrived in Israel with his wife, Usha. More details soon …
As we mentioned in the opening summary, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner arrived in Israel yesterday in a push to reinforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
The content guardrails introduced this week feel like hollow posturing after the failure of past promises
For months, Instagram has been struggling to convince parents, advocates and officials that it’s a safe place for kids, even though there’s a mountain of evidence to show quite the opposite. Now, the company is introducing yet another set of guardrails that will supposedly keep teens on the platform safe. But going by their track record, parents shouldn’t be smiling yet.
Starting this week, all users aged under 18 will automatically be placed into the 13+ setting, which restricts their feed to content that meets the standards of the US PG-13 movie rating.
He is the most popular UK politician on one of the world’s most popular social media sites. Working out what that means is actually surprisingly difficult
There’s a famous clip that still does the rounds on social media, which is weird, because it’s Russia Today, hardly regular viewing, it happened in 2017, a fairly long time ago, and it was on the show Sam Delaney’s News Thing, which was never appointment viewing. In it, Nigel Farage is ceremonially knighted by a girl of about seven, who then says: “My mummy says you hate foreigners.” Delaney cuts in, “No no no, little girl”, and Nige falls about laughing, because good old Nigel, he’s always game for a laugh.
Pause on whether or not Farage hates foreigners; the reason I can do an impression of the little girl is that every teenager I know is pitch perfect on all three parts – the girl, Delaney, Farage. Whenever people say, “Is it bad that Nigel Farage is the only politician my kids have heard of? Should I worry?”, I try in vain to think, “No, this is nothing to worry about – this is just a peculiar moment that went viral, the wind changed and it stayed like that.”
Film-makers Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti play new owners of a haunted house in a DIY effort that is fun but fatally unscary
Scary found-footage movies can and do get better than this enthusiastic DIY horror from married-couple directors Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti. Their zero-budget feature is fun for a while, but in the end it’s just not scary enough. There is nothing to make jump out of your skin or frighten you out of your senses. Kempt and Toti also star in the film, playing fictional versions of themselves: Rachel and Nick, horror-obsessed film-makers living in Kirksville, Missouri. Things go wrong after they buy a house on the cheap to shoot a haunted house movie. (Which sounds unrealistic, but you can actually buy a fixer-upper in Kirksville for less than $30,000)
The idea is that we are watching behind the scenes documentary footage shot by Nick, who provides a forlorn voiceover: “I wish I never filmed any of it.” At first, the new house seems the perfect setting for a horror movie: there’s some satanic graffiti inside, a door that looks as though someone has taken an axe to it, even some creepy little portraits of stern-faced Victorians. The pair’s easygoing, self-satirising banter is good fun as Rachel considers the ways in which their haunted house might actually kill them: “We are literally inhaling rat faeces!”
Idea that apes at closed-down zoo have been abandoned is ridiculous, says CEO, after urban explorer’s video made headlines
A rainy afternoon in Bristol but the troop of western lowland gorillas did not seem to mind the damp and were foraging for snacks of lettuce and cereal scattered around their zoo enclosure.
To the untrained eye, their expressions might be described as lugubrious, but Sarah Gedman, the curator of mammals at Bristol Zoological Society (BZS), insisted the apes were perfectly relaxed and in tune with each other. “They’re not sad at all,” said Gedman.
The president will host a lunch for Republicans in the Rose Garden as construction is carried out on the White House’s east wing
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with the news that president Donald Trump will host Senate Republicans for lunch in the White House’s Rose Garden later today as ongoing demolition work takes place on the building’s east wing.
President Donald Trump claimed a key victory in a US appeals court Monday as a divided three-judge panel decided he is allowed to deploy federal troops to the city of Portland, Oregon. Trump had claimed the right to send the national guard to the liberal stronghold for the purported purpose of protecting federal property and agents. The ruling marks an important legal victory for Trump as he continues to send military forces to Democratic-led cities.
Oregon governor Tina Kotek, has called on a federal appeals court to review and overturn a decision made by a three-judge panel on Monday that would permit Trump to deploy federalized national guard troops to the streets of Portland against the wishes of state and local officials. Kotek said she hoped the full ninth circuit court of appeals vacates the panel’s 2-1 decision, as the dissenting judge, Portland-based Susan Graber, urged her colleagues to do.
Former FBI director James Comey formally asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges against him, arguing he was the victim of a selective prosecution and that the US attorney who filed the charges was unlawfully appointed.
The US government shutdown extended into its 21st day on Tuesday with no resolution in sight, as a prominent Republican lawmaker publicly broke ranks with party leadership over the decision of Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to keep Congress shuttered for weeks.
Donald Trump reposted an AI-generated video of him flying a fighter plane emblazoned with the words “King Trump” and dumping brown sludge onto protestors, in what appears to be a retort to the widespread No Kings protests that took place Saturday against his second presidency.
Donald Trump welcomed PM Anthony Albanese to the White House, signing a rare earth minerals deal. It came amid rising trade tensions with China, which tightened its rare earth exports and is facing a 100% tariff threat from the US.
The former prime minister says he wishes ‘another solution’ could have been found over school closures
Former prime minister Boris Johnson tries to give the inquiry context around the decision making on the closure of educational settings. He says:
Don’t forget that we didn’t know the effect this disease had on kids. We didn’t know much about the transmissibility of the disease. There were all sorts of things that were simply unknown and difficult to plan for. And the thing was moving very fast.
And from the point of view of No 10, we were focused very much on trying to stave off, trying to avoid an appalling public health crisis, and we were focused on getting enough ventilators, on getting enough PPE, trying to avoid a significant number of casualties, and I think it’s important for the inquiry to focus, to remember that at the time that the school closures were first mentioned, they were seen as something you put in at the peak of the pandemic, and we didn’t think we were yet at the peak of the pandemic.
Unless more countries drastically cut back on antibiotic use in food production, these vital drugs will lose their efficacy for humans
What we’re putting into our bodies can either nourish us, or make us ill. With that in mind, I wrote recently about the role of food consumption in terms of the risk of colon cancer. But what about food production?
Across the world, we are seeing the rise of cheap meat: largely driven by demand from a rising middle class who finally can afford beef, pork and chicken, which used to be out of reach, given their cost. Approximately 45% of global consumption growth is occurring in upper-middle-income countries including China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. Poultry is set to take an increasingly large share of that growth (projected to grow by 21% by 2034), because it is relatively cheap, widely acceptable and requires fewer resources per kilogram compared with beef or pork. By 2034, it is estimated that poultry will provide 45% of the protein consumed from all meat sources.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox (version tested); The Chinese Room/Paradox Interactive Arriving more than two decades after the original, this sequel was mired in development disaster – resulting in an interesting almost-failure
You are an ancient and powerful vampire, and you wake up in the basement of some decrepit Seattle building, with no recent memories and a strange sigil on your hand. The first thing you do is feed on the cop who finds you, before smacking his partner into a wall so hard that his blood spatters the brick. A violent fanged rampage ensues, where you beat up and tear apart rival undead and their ghouls while currying the favour of the local court of vampires, and trying to keep your existence hidden from the mortal populace of this sultry city.
But this is also a detective story: there’s a younger night-stalker sharing your brain, a voice in your head named Fabian, who talks like a 1920s gumshoe (presumably because he once was one). Fabian isn’t violent at all; he evidently works with the human police and the vampire underworld, snacking on consenting volunteers’ blood and using his mind-delving powers to solve murders. These two stories are two entirely different games in the same setting, but then everything about Bloodlines 2 feels stitched awkwardly together. It is unfortunate that I happen to be playing this right after bingeing AMC’s Interview with the Vampire TV series, because the contrast is stark. One is a masterful, frightening, sexually charged and deftly comic reimagining of vampire mythology. The other is OK.
The number of solo festivalgoers has jumped since the pandemic, and even safety concerns aren’t dissuading lone ravers. We speak to some to find out why
From solo travel to dining alone, people have increasingly been embracing social activities by themselves in the years since the pandemic – even in the ultra-social contexts of live music and club culture.
A recent survey by Ticketmaster found that the number of people who have attended either a weekend or day festival by themselves has risen from 8% in 2019 to 29% this year. Reading and Leeds festival introduced a campsite area for solo attendees this year, joining Download’s longstanding “lone wolf” area, and there are a growing number of social media pages such as London Solo Ravers, and WhatsApp groups such as Untitled Rave Community Project, for people venturing to nightclubs alone.
Voters could swap a rightwing government for a more moderate coalition – but the fragmentary political system makes any outcome possible
Here is the lowdown on elections in the Netherlands, where voters look likely to swap the most rightwing government in recent Dutch history for a more moderate, commonsense coalition in a snap parliamentary ballot on 29 October.
AI chatbots are “unreliable and clearly biased” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has said, warning of a threat to democracy eight days before national elections.
The four chatbots tested by the AP “often end up with the same two parties, regardless of the user’s question or command”, the authority said in a report ahead of the 29 October election.
Air breathed by people in the city categorised as ‘severe’ in quality after fireworks contribute to thick smog
Delhi awoke to a thick haze on Tuesday, a day after millions of people celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali with fireworks, marking the beginning of the pollution season that has become an annual blight on India’s capital.
Those in the most polluted city in the world once again found themselves breathing dangerously toxic air that fell into the “severe” category on Tuesday morning.
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has entered a prison in Paris, after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012 is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be jailed.
Guano, a fertiliser derived from seabird excrement, enriched Peru in the 19th century and was shipped around the world in huge quantities. On Santa Island, north of Lima, workers still mine it in the toughest of conditions
Since 1985, the country’s toad population has almost halved, with hundreds of thousands killed on the roads each year. But many people are determined to protect them – including 274 dedicated patrol groups
It’s 7.30 on a Friday evening, but I’m not heading to the pub or putting on a film. Instead, I’ve caught the train to a market town in Wiltshire, where I’m meeting up with members of Warminster toad patrol. These are volunteers who – like similar groups up and down the country – give up their evenings to protect their local toad population.
For the common toad (scientific name Bufo bufo) is becoming increasingly uncommon. A recent study led by amphibian and reptile charity Froglife showed that the UK toad population has almost halved since 1985. To see a creature that has been a stalwart of the British countryside – not to mention a prominent feature of literature and folklore – in decline is “worrying”, says Dr Silviu Petrovan, senior researcher at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study. Toads “don’t require very specific conditions” and “should be able to live quite well in most of the habitats in Britain,” he says – so if even they are not managing to survive, “it kind of suggests that things are not as they should be”.
Corking is the most likely culprit, but it could be scale insects or fungus. Here’s how to check
What’s the problem?
My prickly pear (Opuntia) cactus is developing raised brown patches on both sides of the stem that are spreading, though the plant is still growing. Should I be worried?
Diagnosis
Those circular brown patches are a classic sign of corking. This is a natural process in many cacti, which causes the lower stem to gradually harden and turn brown, like the bark on a tree. It usually starts at the base and slowly works its way up as the plant matures. While the rough texture can look alarming, it doesn’t harm the plant. However, because corking can be confused with a fungal infection or pests such as scale insects, it’s worth a closer look. Scale insects will appear as raised, uniform bumps that can be scraped off, whereas corking is part of the stem tissue itself and cannot be removed.
The viral blog turned book details the exhausting life of a courier, but something may have been lost in translation
From the early 2000s until the Covid lockdowns, Hu Anyan was one of China’s vast army of internal migrants, moving between cities in pursuit of work. He did 19 jobs – shop assistant, hotel waiter, petrol attendant and security guard, among other things – in six cities. Although all these jobs were atrociously paid, they still earned him more than the one he tried for two years in the middle of this period: writer. (An 8,000-word story earned him less than 300 yuan – about £30.) Then, during Covid, he wrote a blog about his night shifts in a logistics warehouse, and it went viral. The blog expanded and became I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, which has sold nearly 2m copies in China since being published in 2023, and now appears in Jack Hargreaves’s English translation.
The low-paid Chinese worker is at the mercy of an entirely unrestrained market. The jobs Hu does demand unpaid trial periods and have no base pay, and he works mainly for commission or a handling fee, which his employers can reduce on a whim. Disgruntled employees pick on each other, because “going after the powerful will only cost us in the end”. Experienced hands refuse to help newbies, on the grounds that “teaching the disciple might starve the master”. The only power Hu has is to walk away. When his bosses learn that he has no children, that his parents have pensions and medical insurance and don’t need his support, they worry that he will leave at a moment’s notice (and are sometimes right).
The tired old tropes of spooky visions, cursed wells and cookie-cutter characters are gleefully dissected in a fun slasher that trades a cabin in the woods for a villa in the jungle
If you enjoyed Scream and Cabin in the Woods, you’ll want to give this Indonesian horror a spin: it’s a gleefully referential slasher set not in a cabin in the woods, but a villa in the jungle. Said villa has no phone signal, but does benefit from regular power cuts, an old Dutch cemetery located barely 300m away, a live-in creepy uncle, regular visions of a little girl dressed in white, an obviously cursed well, and a forbidden room which may or may not be included in the floor plan. The characters immediately clock that the situation resembles a horror movie, and frankly, you’d lose all respect for them if they didn’t.
But the more the cliches pile up, the more we (and at least one of the characters) realise some sort of complicated meta-horror game is afoot. Why would a dumb jock, shy nerd, irritating guy, tomboy and girly girl with no real backstory be hanging out here anyway? The film gets into some slightly sticky territory when the characters have discussions of the “make it make sense” variety, but is on firmer footing with anything that involves commenting on and playing around with the various tropes of horror movies, with a particular focus on Indonesian horror cliches – and it gets wilder and sillier as it progresses.
Ministers face growing pressure to act amid fresh allegations over prince’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
MPs have moved to lodge a parliamentary motion to strip Prince Andrew of his dukedom, in a rarely permitted move in the Commons.
The government is facing mounting pressure over the prince’s residence in the 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor, where it was revealed that he has not paid rent for more than two decades.
Former Everton manager brought in on contract to 2027
Dyche will be in dugout against Porto on Thursday
Nottingham Forest have appointed Sean Dyche as their third head coach of a tumultuous season. The former Everton and Burnley manager will hope to stabilise the club after the winless 40-day reign of Ange Postecoglou and, before that, the dismissal of Nuno Espírito Santo.
The Fulham manager, Marco Silva, and the former Manchester City head coach Roberto Mancini were also considered but Forest opted for the experience of Dyche. He has signed a contract to 2027.
The manosphere is known for misogyny, but that’s not the only thing that influencers in this space offer. Young men explain the allure and the problems of the manosphere in their own words
Our writers give their verdicts on the new season, which tips off Tuesday. Can New York or Houston thwart an OKC repeat? And which youngster will make the superstar leap?
If we’re lucky, a fully healthy campaign from Victor Wembanyama. He’s already shown flashes of his insane ceiling in his previous two seasons. He’s such a difficult matchup with the ball in his hands, and on defense, he changes the entire calculus of opposing teams’ schemes with his length. Jakub Frankowicz
Its deranged antagonist might be an Anton Chigurh rip-off, but some fantastically flailing fight scenes almost lift this otherwise humdrum action romp
No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh was the scariest thing to come out of Latin America since Argentinian inflation. So it’s taken a surprisingly long time to see a direct imitator: the dark-clad avenger El Corvo, played here by Marko Zaror. Not only does he have the gauche coiffuring (bald on top this time), but also the philosophical penchant, asking imminent victims if they’ve given themselves a present recently. If the Cormac McCarthy rip-off wasn’t enough, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s ponderous thriller also gives El Corvo a couple of scenes lifted from The Terminator, and the villain from Enter the Dragon’s blade-hand for good measure.
Diablo isn’t all cliches though: martial arts multitool Scott Adkins has a potentially interesting role inverting the usual over-the-border revenge mission. He plays former bank robber Kris, who’s been charged with entering Colombia and kidnapping Elisa (Alanna De La Rossa), the daughter of drug baron Vicente (Lucho Velasco). Making good on a promise to her dead mother to extract her from the kingpin’s clutches, he bundles her into a car boot – and soon he not only has Vicente and assorted ne’er-do-wells on his six, but El Corvo too, hoping to cut in on the bounty.
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