Amid their triumphant reunion, the brothers Pusha T and Malice answer your questions on the wisdom of the apostles, the catharsis of writing about their late parents and the greatness of Billy Joel

The Birds Don’t Sing [from new album Let God Sort Em Out] is an incredibly emotional track, especially for an album opener. What things did your parents say to you that make you proud and have stuck with you over the years? Fran_M
Malice: Creating that song was a very emotional time and it cut real deep, but to be able to journal the grief from losing both our parents into a piece of art was also healing. I believe it’s a song that is going to resonate with a lot of people, because whether we like it or not, most of us are going to end up outliving our parents. This is something always in the back of your mind, you know? Already, a lot of people are coming up to us on the street and saying: thank you, that song helped me to grieve. The Birds Don’t Sing isn’t just our story, it’s everybody’s story.

Pusha T: In hindsight I believe my mom was leaving breadcrumbs and doing all these little things in order to let us know she didn’t have long left. She was mapping, planning and vocalising specific things before she passed away. It was her way of saying goodbye, you know? It was super important to detail all of that, because it gave me and my brother a sense of peace.

Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking accomplice was sent to a minimum security facility after meeting a top DoJ official who is Trump’s ex-attorney – experts say ‘this is not the end’

When Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison camp last week, despite being convicted of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein, her move fueled ever-growing speculation about authorities’ handling of the late financier’s crimes.

For many, the timing of Maxwell’s sudden relocation from a Florida penitentiary to a Texas lockup known for its more campus feel and celebrity inmates was especially suspect – with two Epstein victims reportedly describing the event as a “cover-up”.

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

Warning: gallery contains sensitive images

The triple Oscar winner has retired from the profession twice – and returned twice. Ahead of Anemone, directed by his son Ronan, we gorge on Day-Lewis’s back catalogue

Perhaps keen not to be pigeonholed in high-fibre roles, Daniel Day-Lewis took on a pair of zany culture-clash comedies (the other was Eversmile, New Jersey) that featured him singing in a bubble bath. In Stars and Bars, he is a prim English art expert who travels to the American south to retrieve a Renoir from its owner (Harry Dean Stanton) and butts heads with various irksome oddballs. Playing the sort of nitwit that would become Hugh Grant’s meal-ticket, Day-Lewis proves that wackiness is not in his wheelhouse.

Vance Boelter, charged with killing top Democrat and her husband and wounding two others, to be arraigned in federal court

The man charged with killing the top Democrat in the Minnesota house and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, is expected to plead not guilty when he’s arraigned in federal court on Thursday, his attorney said.

Vance Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, was indicted on 15 July on six counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty, though prosecutors say that decision is several months away.

(Golden Angel/Interscope)
With a sleek dancefloor-facing sound, the Ghanaian American singer is deliriously in thrall to wealth and celebrity – but most of all love

Fountain Baby, the second album by Amaarae, was a revelation – a sensual, funny, frank and musically dense record released in 2023 that established the 31-year-old Ghanaian American pop musician as a cultural force to match contemporaries such as Rosalía and Charli xcx. Although the songs are hedonistic – largely oscillating between wry flexes of wealth and lyrics about trifling with, and being trifled by, women in her orbit – she is also a realist: actions have consequences in Amaarae’s world, such as on Reckless & Sweet, as she wonders whether her lovers desire her or merely her money.

Despite the ingenuity and complexity of her music, Amaarae has struggled to break into the mainstream, in the UK at least. A recent Glastonbury set felt sparsely attended and, aside from 2020’s Sad Girlz Luv Money, one of the most enduring viral hits to emerge from TikTok into the real world, few of her singles have had crossover moments.

Humans face three existential threats, from super-intelligence, nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, says blockbuster director as he announces new Hiroshima project

The director James Cameron has warned that the use of artificial intelligence in a global arms race could lead to the kind of dystopia fictionalised in his Terminator franchise.

Speaking to Rolling Stone to promote the publication of Ghosts of Hiroshima, an account of the first atomic bombing by bestselling author Charles Pellegrino which Cameron intends to adapt for the big screen, the film-maker behind three of the four highest-grossing films of all time (Titanic and the first two Avatar films), said that although he relies on AI professionally, he remains concerned about what might happen if it was leveraged with nihilistic intent.

Censorship order accuses books of promoting ‘false narrative and secessionism’ in disputed territory

The government in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has banned 25 books, including works by the Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, accusing them of promoting a “false narrative and secessionism” in the disputed territory.

The censorship order was issued by Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, who was appointed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) under the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Sinha was previously a minister in Modi’s BJP government.

After 10 goals in 12 league games earned West Ham player a rising star award she talks dogs, sleep and her football dream

Shekiera Martinez’s family were sceptical when she told them, aged eight, she wanted to start playing football. She was one of four girls and a boy in her family, growing up in Germany, and one of her older sisters had by then given up the game. “I wanted to start but when I told my mum, she firstly said: ‘No, you won’t play for long, you’ll be like your sister,’” Martinez recalls. “And so then I gave her a promise that I would play for longer than my sister.”

Sixteen years later, the West Ham striker has certainly kept that promise. After progressing through her local boys’ team, playing for Eintracht Frankfurt for six years and thriving at youth level for Germany, Martinez most recently collected the Women’s Super League’s Rising Star award for the 2024-25 season after a breakthrough second half of the campaign in which she scored 10 times in 12 WSL games.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is back to its twice-weekly format, delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Israeli prime minister to hold cabinet talks on occupation despite pleas from aid agencies and by families of hostages

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has convened a security cabinet expected to be held on Thursday evening to discuss the full occupation of the Gaza Strip, which aid agencies have warned would lead to countless more Palestinian deaths and further mass displacement.

The families of the roughly 20 remaining living hostages have called for Israelis to protest against the government and a decision they fear would endanger the lives of their loved ones.

Authors have been imagining societal collapse for decades – but could the reality be as dreadful as they think?

The man who claimed to have coined the word “survivalist” called himself Kurt Saxon. The sinister godfather of survivalism was actually born Donald Eugene Sisco, a former journalist who spent the 1960s floating between far-right groups in California before deciding that none of them were serious enough. Sisco’s passion for making his own bombs, which he advocated using on student demonstrators, cost him the fingers of his left hand. He liked to say that he was the reincarnation of a soul whose previous lives included a Roman legionary, a Nazi stormtrooper and the revolutionary philosopher Thomas Paine.

Survivalism, or prepping, is experiencing a boom, from Silicon Valley billionaires to users of the Reddit board r/collapse. Elon Musk’s entire career, for example, has been partly driven by apocalypse anxieties and his conviction that he alone can save the human race (details to be confirmed). The scenarios vary – climate catastrophe, renegade AI, another pandemic, nuclear war between authoritarian regimes – as do the responses. Some claim to be making rational preparations to survive in the event of civilisational collapse, while others seem unnervingly keen to see the world turned upside down. This can feel like a very 21st-century obsession, stoked by online conspiracy theories and the doomerism produced by 24/7 news, but Sisco was pioneering the doom business 50 years ago.

Uncertainty over which European competition they will play in and a lack of summer recruitment has made for a less-than-ideal backdrop to the new season

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 14th (NB: this is not necessarily Ed Aarons’ prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 12th

• Midfielder needs surgery to right knee

• West Ham confirm Michail Antonio’s departure

James Maddison faces a long period on the sidelines after Tottenham confirmed the midfielder had ruptured an anterior cruciate knee ligament. The England international sustained the injury during a pre-season game against Newcastle in Seoul and is to have an operation.

Spurs said: “We can confirm that James Maddison will undergo surgery for a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee … His surgery will take place in the coming days and, following that, James will then begin his rehabilitation with our medical team. Everyone at Tottenham Hotspur wishes James a full and speedy recovery. We will be supporting him every step of the way.”

Rushanara Ali accused of hypocrisy after claims she evicted tenants from east London property before putting up rent by almost £700 a month

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, is facing calls to resign after claims she evicted tenants from her east London property before increasing the rent by almost £700 a month.

Four tenants who rented a four-bedroom house owned byAli were given four months’ notice in an email last November and told their lease would not be renewed because the property was due to be sold, according to the i Paper.

Trump, who made his money in construction, launches biggest White House project in a century on paved-over Rose Garden

“Sir, why are you up on the roof?”

The question was shouted by a reporter on Tuesday as Donald Trump scaled new heights at the White House. The US president explained that he was scoping out a new ballroom and boasted: “Just another way to spend my money for this country.”

Moscow says preparations under way for possible meeting with Trump but dismisses US talk of three-way summit

• Europe live – latest updates

The Kremlin has said planning is under way for a possible meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump next week – but denied the Russian leader had agreed to a subsequent meeting with the US president and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On Wednesday Putin met Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin, and reports from Washington suggested he had agreed to meet first with Trump and then in a trilateral format, as part of US efforts to bring about the end of the war in Ukraine.

People detained after arriving in small boat expected to be returned within three weeks, says Home Office

People who arrived in the UK on a small boat have been detained under Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal for the first time and are expected to be returned to France within three weeks, the Home Office has said.

Detentions began on Wednesday lunchtime, with those identified in the Channel boat being held in immigration removal centres pending their removal.

Protests set to greet vice-president on visit after governor said redistricting ‘looks like it’s going to happen across many Republican states’

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa held a telephone call with US president Donald Trump on bilateral trade and the two countries’ trade negotiating teams will have more detailed talks, Ramaphosa’s office said on Thursday.

South Africa tried for months but failed to negotiate a trade deal with Washington ahead of Trump’s deadline. US imports from South Africa now face a 30% duty.

Rightwing media mouthpieces and ICE get both barrels in South Park’s latest zeitgeist-capturing satire. You can feel Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s disdain in every frame

Two weeks ago, South Park kicked off its 27th season with one of its angriest, most politically daring episodes. The animated sitcom, long a magnet for controversy, incurred the wrath of the current US administration for its brutal and graphic send-up of Donald Trump as a petty, micro-penised dictator, as well as parent company Paramount’s cowardly capitulations to him.

Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker received immediate backlash not only from online conservative fans (who make up a good portion of their audience) but the White House itself, which released a statement calling South Park hypocritical and irrelevant. That latter charge was especially poignant, given that Stone and Parker just inked a new deal with Paramount for five more seasons, plus streaming rights, to the tune of $1.5bn.

MSF says it has rarely ‘seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians’ as it has at GHF aid sites

The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has called for the immediate closure of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation operating in Gaza, describing GHF-run food distribution sites in Gaza as having become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”.

In a social media post on Thursday, MSF wrote:

“In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.”

The GHF-run food distributions in Gaza, Palestine, have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.

During those seven weeks, our teams treated 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15. Faced with no alternatives to find food, starved families frequently send teenage boys into this lethal environment, as they are often the only males in the household physically able to make the journey.

Patients have also included a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed all the way through his abdomen, and five young girls, one of whom was only 8 years old and suffered a gunshot wound to her chest.

In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.

The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.

Yuri Ushakov says ‘concrete preparations’ underway for Russia-US meeting but prospect of three-way talks have not been discussed

Russian news agency Ria Novosti has just reported that the meeting between Putin and Trump is “likely to take place next week.”

Separately, asked for updates on Gaza, the European Commission has confirmed that “Israeli authorities continue not to authorise or allow EU access to Gaza” as the bloc “is not considered a humanitarian actor,” and it has to rely on UN reports.

Gambling tax reform is being strongly promoted by Gordon Brown, the former Labour PM who also spent 10 years as chancellor

Rushanara Ali, the homelessness minister, is facing criticism for hiking rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds, reportedly just weeks after the previous tenants’ contract ended, PA Media reports. PA says:

Four tenants who rented a house in east London from Ali were sent an email last November saying their lease would not be renewed, which also gave them four months’ notice to leave, the i newspaper reported.

Ali’s property was then re-listed with a £700 rent increase within weeks, the newspaper said.

An early test showing of the forthcoming Brontë adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi reveals film features horse rein sex, suggestive egg yolks and necrophile nuns

Equal parts intrigue and scepticism had already dogged the forthcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights from Emerald Fennell – whose first two films, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, displayed a love of mordant and explicit envelope-pushing.

As reported by World of Reel, a first test screening for the film, which stars Margot Robbie and Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi, took place earlier this week in Dallas, and audience reaction was “mixed”.

British No 1 has good ‘first impressions’ of her new coach before their opening assignment at the Cincinnati Open

Emma Raducanu believes her new coaching partnership with Francisco Roig can help to take her game to the next level as she tries to continue her recent rise up the rankings. “First impressions are it’s going really well,” Raducanu said, , speaking for the first time about the move in an interview with the Guardian. “We did a few days after Wimbledon together and I was really happy with how it went. I’m just so excited to have him on board, so much experience. I’m really looking forward to continuing.”

With her hiring of Roig, Raducanu has indeed added a wealth of experience to her team. A former player with a career-high singles ranking of No 60 in 1992, Roig came to prominence as a longtime member of Rafael Nadal’s coaching team, working alongside Toni Nadal, Rafael’s uncle and coach, as the Spaniard built one of the greatest careers in the history of professional tennis. Roig himself decided to end his 18-year partnership with Nadal in 2022 and he later briefly coached the injury-prone Italian Matteo Berrettini.