Republicans claim US president ‘desperate’ to end shutdown, which has now entered 33rd day

My colleague Lauren Gambino has filed this report on the California proposition to redraw its congressional district boundaries. Here is an extract from her story:

California’s Proposition 50 began as a warning from the nation’s largest blue state to its largest red one: don’t poke the bear. But when Texas moved ahead with a rare, mid-decade gerrymander, pushed by Donald Trump as Republicans seek to shore up their fragile House majority in the midterm elections, California made good on its threat.

Now, California voters appear poised to approve a redistricting measure placed on the ballot in August by Democrats and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who have cast it as a chance to check Trump’s power …

Fast bowler says England have confidence and belief as he prepares for what could be his final series against the old foe

“My dad would be Australia and I’d be England,” Mark Wood says with a wry smile when remembering his first Ashes Tests as a boy in his back garden in Ashington, Northumberland. “I’d try to copy Darren Gough, Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard and, later, Jimmy Anderson, who I’d go on and play with. My dad, who didn’t do the actions so well, had to be Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne. He was most proud of his Gillespie but his Warne wasn’t great.”

Wood snorts at the idea that his dad, Derek, might have let him win most of those matches. “No, no, no. It was proper cricket. You had to give each other lbw and every time I hit my dad in the leg he’d be going: ‘No, that’s going over’ or ‘That’s down the leg side.’ I was like: ‘Dad, that was plumb.’ I had to get my DRS right.”

His parable of collective social responsibility is a hardy classic but the Yorkshire playwright’s wider legacy should not be neglected

How on earth does one sum up JB Priestley? He wrote 39 plays, 26 novels and a huge amount of nonfiction and was dismissed by Virginia Woolf, with characteristic snootiness, as “one of the tradesmen of letters”. But, in art as in life, tradespeople are invaluable and with one of Priestley’s most popular plays, When We Are Married, about to be revived at London’s Donmar Warehouse, it is worth asking what the qualities are that make him a durable dramatist.

It makes sense to start with An Inspector Calls, which was famously revived by Stephen Daldry in 1992 in a production that has lasted for more than 30 years. What Daldry and his designer, Ian MacNeil, did was to cut through the play’s schematic outline and treat it as an expressionist fable about a family poised on the edge of self-destruction.

• O’Neil could be in charge for visit to Chelsea on Saturday

• Was sacked 11 months ago by relegation-threatened club

Gary O’Neil is increasingly likely to make a shock return to Wolves, with the club in advanced talks to appoint their former head coach.

Wolves have held positive discussions with O’Neil about returning to the post from which he was dismissed last December. Wolves, who visit Chelsea on Saturday, could finalise his appointment in the next 48 hours. O’Neil would replace Vitor Pereira, who was sacked after an alarming eighth defeat in 10 matches at Fulham on Saturday that left Wolves bottom of the Premier League with two points.

Vincent Kompany’s side continued their magnificent form to end opponents’ record-breaking away run

If it was going to end, it was always likely to end here. That it was going to end exactly like this, though, was not so predictable. Bayer Leverkusen arrived at the Allianz Arena on a run of 37 Bundesliga away games unbeaten, and they never looked like extending it. You will forgive the Bundesliga neutral for mourning not the loss of an incredible record-breaking sequence which stretched back to 27 May 2023 – when Xabi Alonso’s team were heavily beaten by relegation-battling Bochum – but the demise of a competitor to Bayern Munich not seen since Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund were in their thrilling pomp.

This was less an authentic Topspiel and more a piercing afterparty hangover, a tough supermarket-bread pretzel and lukewarm coffee, a Monday morning letter from HMRC, a black and white declaration of unavoidable dues owed. All of which, of course, was great for Bayern as they limbered up for this week’s Champions League meeting (a real deal Topspiel) against holders Paris Saint-Germain, with the recently re-signed Vincent Kompany able to show the authority and pragmatism that led him to this point by leaving Harry Kane, Luis Díaz and Michael Olise on the substitutes’ bench.

Brighton still find goals despite Agyemang blow, West Ham eye an upturn and Everton leave it late to level

If Jocelyn Prêcheur needed an example of how far his London City Lionesses team have come in a few weeks, it was Saturday’s encounter against Chelsea. It ended in a 2-0 defeat to the champions but his side impressed at Stamford Bridge and asked several questions of their opponents. London City controlled 43% of possession – perhaps more than expected – and managed the same number of shots on target (three), with Isobel Goodwin providing a particular threat running in behind. “When we compare it to September when we played other top-four opposition, it was really good,” Prêcheur said. “What I like is that we start to see a team – [that] was my biggest challenge. We saw a team that defended and attacked together. We still need to improve.” SD

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 London City Lionesses

Spurs’ rally against Liverpool reveals Ho’s and Taylor’s tasks

The former Verve singer talks about his supporting role in the big Oasis reunion shows, his AI fears and what he thinks of fans who Shazam his songs

Richard Ashcroft is the man of the moment. Fresh from supporting Oasis as the self-proclaimed “only man for the job”, the former Verve singer is back with an (almost) sold-out arena tour for 2026, and some more Oasis dates in South America, not to mention a seventh solo album, Lovin’ You. We caught up with Ashcroft to chat about loving Abba, being inspired by Serge Gainsbourg and fighting Liam Gallagher.

Hi, Richard! Always a pleasure to interview another Richard – who else is in the club?
Madeley … Hammond … It’s dying out. I wonder if it’s because of the Dick abbreviation? Back in the day, old actors were very happy being Dickie. I went into an off licence in Chiswick and this lad went: “All right, Dickie?” I said: “Do you know what happens to people who call me Dickie?” He said: “Oh no, sorry mate.” I said: “I’m only joking. I don’t give a shit. Call me what you want.”

Actor and director, who is already a regular blood donor, says that he will make the organ donation next month

Jesse Eisenberg has revealed that he is donating a kidney to a stranger next month. The actor and director told NBC’s Today that he was “donating my kidney in six weeks” but wasn’t entirely sure of his motivation.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “I got bitten by the blood donation bug. I’m doing an altruistic donation [in] mid-December. I’m so excited to do it.”

International Organization for Migration says refugees are heading to Tawila, which is already sheltering 652,000 displaced people

More than 36,000 people have fled Sudan’s Kordofan region east of Darfur since Saturday, the UN’s migration agency has said, a week after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control of the city of El Fasher.

The strategic central area between the country’s Darfur provinces and the Khartoum-Riverine region that includes the capital to the east, has in recent weeks become the latest battleground in the two-year civil war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group.

Leader of Spanish region’s People’s party had clung to power despite calls for him to stand down over 2024 disaster

‘Mud on our hands; blood on his’: fury lingers one year after deadly floods

Carlos Mazón, the embattled president of the eastern Spanish region of Valencia, has bowed to public fury and political pressure by resigning over his botched handling of the deadly floods that killed 229 people in the area just over a year ago.

Mazón, a member of the conservative People’s party (PP), had hung on despite calls for him to stand down after it emerged that he spent more than three hours having lunch with a journalist as the floods hit and people were drowning in their homes, garages and cars.

In films such as The War Game, Culloden and Punishment Park, Watkins pioneered the mock-documentary form and used it to make his historical dramas and up-to-the-minute dystopias all equally immediate and real

• Peter Watkins, Oscar-winning director of The War Game, dies aged 90
• Peter Watkins obituary

Dystopian, post-apocalyptic, mockumentary: these are common, even hackneyed genres in today’s movies and television. But when film-maker Peter Watkins deployed them in the 1960s, they were revolutionary, and Watkins himself was revolutionary as well – an English revolutionary, in fact, alive to the cruelty and iniquity of kings but also to that of people bent on decapitation. His cinema persistently asked questions about those in power, and what will happen when their power goes catastrophically wrong. An artist dedicated to challenging and upsetting, Watkins came from the dissenter tradition of uncompromising radicalism on screen and stage – the same tradition as Edward Bond, Ken Loach and Dennis Potter.

His enduringly brilliant and angry anti-nuclear drama The War Game was commissioned but then banned by the BBC in 1965. (It screened in cinemas, and was finally shown on television a couple of decades later.) It lasts just 47 minutes but viewers felt they had lived through a lifetime of fear. When I first saw it as a teenager at a CND meeting 15 years after it was made, it seemed as if I had entered a new era of disillusioned adulthood.

There’s a clarity about Mamdani’s message that stands in sharp contrast to most Democratic politicians

For someone who exudes positive energy and seldom stops smiling, Zohran Mamdani certainly does provoke a lot of negative reactions.

“He’s not who you think he is,” one TV ad glowered over gloomy images of the 34-year-old state assemblymember who is the clear frontrunner for New York City mayor. The ad doesn’t make clear precisely what the supposed disconnect is, but the tagline clearly is meant to give voters pause.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist covering US media, politics and culture.

What starts as a compelling satire of the film industry turns into an unconvincing schlocky mess that even Fred Melamed can’t save

Not a bad idea for a Hollywood satire here – and there’s a cameo for renowned character turn Fred Melamed, whose appearance does however have the effect of exposing how callow everyone else is on screen. Much as I wanted to like this lo-fi production, which cheekily intersperses its modestly budgeted scenes with stock footage establishing shots of the city skyline, the movie kept slipping gears and – scene-by-scene – felt awkward and uncertainly performed, along with some audio issues on the soundtrack.

The setting is Los Angeles, and Dev (Matthew Sato) is a young wannabe screenwriter humiliatingly fired from his job as an executive’s assistant for hawking his script to his employer’s competitors, and his need to break into the biz becomes increasingly desperate. To the dismay of his longsuffering girlfriend Monica (Olivia Rouyre), Dev tries one last roll of the dice: he befriends Trip (Will Sennett), the rich screwup son of film producer Scott Lefkowitz (Melamed) – a big-hitter who is known for his ability to greenlight projects with a single phone call.

Exams, dating, parenting … whatever life throws our way, there will be uncertainty and surprises. The sooner we accept that, the happier we will be

If we want to build a better life, we have to be able to not know. Does that sound confusing? Perhaps you don’t know what I’m talking about? Good! That’s great practice.

If you cannot tolerate not knowing, you run the risk of arranging your life so you can know everything (or at least try to), and you may end up sapping your existence of any spontaneity and joy. You don’t ever have the experience of exploring a new place and discovering something exciting, because you’ve already Googled it. And you don’t give a new relationship a chance to develop because you’ve already written that person off. You plan the life out of your life, and your only enjoyment comes from things working out exactly as you knew they would.

When my son was growing up, his school recorder was the bane of my life. Now it’s what I reach for at the end of a hard day, rather than a glass of wine

I’m like a coiled spring after work. Shoulders tense, breath fast and shallow. Usually the sound of my laptop lid slamming shut would be followed by the squeak of a cork pulled from a bottle of red, the wine hastily sploshed into a glass, that first mouthful putting a much-needed full stop on the working day.

Then, a few months ago, I came across my now-adult son’s old school recorder in the attic. I idly blew into it, immediately transported back to the days it was the bane of my life – his daily practice a violent assault on my eardrums, the piercing shriek still reverberating through my head hours after he had gone to bed.

Mazón faced daily calls for his resignation after flooding in October 2024 killed 229 people

Following Mazón’s announcement that he would leave his post as the regional head of Valencia, questions are swirling as to what comes next.

Mazón did not say if he was calling a snap election or quitting his seat in the regional assembly, which would end his parliamentary immunity.

About 70% of town’s olives are inaccessible without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers

Around As-Sawiya, rolling hills covered in fields and orchards rise to a horizon sharp against a pristine blue sky. It is a stunning view. But look closer and it becomes clear why the few thousand residents of this small town in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank say they are under siege – and why the olives are still heavy on the trees two weeks after the official date of the beginning of the annual harvest.

From the highest point in As-Sawiya, Mahmud Hassan, the mayor, points out the olive orchards on the other side of the highway below the town. They lie on land owned by local families but are now impossible to reach without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers who live in settlements around the town, or with Israeli security forces, he says. In all, about 70% of the town’s olives are currently inaccessible.

Reform UK leader says he expects Labour to be forced into an austerity budget before the next election

Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.

He says Britain has been living under an illusion.

I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.

As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.

Culley, 19, who was arrested on drug-smuggling charges in May, is released after plea deal

The pregnant British teenager Bella May Culley has been released from a Georgian prison, where she had been held for six months on drug-smuggling charges after a plea deal.

Culley, 19, who is pregnant, was arrested in May at Tbilisi airport and accused of attempting to smuggle 12kg (26.5lbs) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lbs) of hashish into the country.

Chinese leader says ‘check if there is a backdoor’ in reply to Lee Jae Myung’s quip about security of Xiaomi devices

It would take someone with nerves of steel to joke about the security of Chinese smartphones in front of Xi Jinping.

Step forward the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, who, after being given a pair of smartphones by the Chinese leader before their state banquet at the weekend, wondered out loud if the devices were secure.

An elegant reflection on experience and imagination complicates a very familiar figure of speech

Simile

How does a simile work?
— Place something next to something
and say, here. (The here is where
the somethings touch.) The rainy
night, like Debussy.
There on the shelf, a piece

Michael O’Leary says Rachel Reeves needs tax cuts to create growth, as airline’s profits jump 42% in first half

• Business live – latest updates

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The UK economy is “doomed” under the Labour government, the boss of Ryanair has said before this month’s budget, as the airline revealed a jump in first half profits.

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of the budget airline, hit out at Rachel Reeves, accusing the chancellor of failing to deliver on her programme of economic growth.

For 20 years, populists have been blaming the ECHR for endangering Britain by offering basic protections to immigrants

In the latest series of Blue Lights, the BBC drama about police officers in Belfast, there’s a scene where a constable insists on staying with a mentally ill man until a nurse arrives. “This is an article two issue,” the officer tells his colleague – by which he means that under article two of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), incorporated into UK law by the 1998 Human Rights Act, the state has a duty to protect life. It is an uncontroversial example of how the ECHR, which turns 75 this week, has found its way into everyday life across the UK.

In Westminster, withdrawal from the ECHR has become a new rallying cry for the right, which claims it is the solution to unauthorised migration. In early October, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives said they want to take the UK out of the convention if they win the next election. Last week, MPs voted down a largely symbolic proposal by Reform’s Nigel Farage to do the same. The right’s hope is that it will become a wedge issue similar to Brexit. “We are not sovereign all the while we are part of the European convention on human rights,” Farage claimed.

The American stepped away from the tour in 2023 to address her mental health. This year has been spectacular as she has reached two grand slam finals

There is an air of calm surrounding Amanda Anisimova when she speaks; a palpable sense of her comfort in her own skin.

In a sport like tennis that can swing its protagonists from one emotional extreme to another, week in, week out, Anisimova has worked hard to value the highs, the lows, and the moments in between, all while staying true to herself.