A singularly horrendous TV show has crashed the star-rating review economy. But if zero stars is the new benchmark for critical rage, three films deserve the big 0

Kim Kardashian’s world-historically horrendous TV show All’s Fair has detonated a firestorm of critical horror which, as well as everything else, may have undermined the currency of the star-rating review economy. My colleague Lucy Mangan gave Kardashian’s show an all-but-unprecedented zero stars and zero stars are in fact very rare on this paper.

Yet perhaps in the post-Kardashian world they will become more commonplace. I actually have the distinction of giving the first zero star review in the Guardian’s history — for Cuba Gooding’s terrible comedy Boat Trip back in 2002. But it’s weird. There have been worse films than that which didn’t get zeroed. Not many. But some.

New deputy leader also calls on government to lift two-child benefit cap urgently and in full

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Lucy Powell, Labour’s new deputy leader, has said the government should stand by its manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, amid signs that it may be preparing to break that promise.

Powell, who left Keir Starmer’s cabinet in the reshuffle before being elected deputy leader last month, said the budget needed to be about putting more money, not less, into ordinary people’s pockets.

US government shutdown blamed for cuts from Friday, two weeks before busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period

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New York, Los Angeles and Chicago airports are among 40 that will see reductions in flights from Friday as a result of the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines.

The Associated Press published the list after airline regulators identified “high-volume markets” where air traffic will be reduced on Friday, a move that would force airlines to cancel thousands of flights and create a cascade of scheduling issues and delays at some of the nation’s largest airports.

This article was amended on 6 November 2025. A previous version said the US government was in its 35th day of shutdown. The correct current number is 37 days.

Late-night hosts discussed Democrats’ wave of election wins, from governorships to New York City’s mayor

Late-night hosts reacted to Democrats’ slate of wins across the country and Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York City mayoral race.

UN body’s recommendations driven by AI advances and proliferation of consumer-oriented neurotech devices

It is the latest move in a growing international effort to put guardrails around a burgeoning frontier – technologies that harness data from the brain and nervous system.

Unesco has adopted a set of global standards on the ethics of neurotechnology, a field that has been described as “a bit of a wild west”.

• Premier League’s bottom club to make official approach

• Championship club are reluctant to lose head coach

Wolves are to make an official approach to Middlesbrough to make Rob Edwards their next head coach. The Premier League’s bottom club are long-standing admirers of Edwards, previously a player and coach at the club.

Boro are reluctant to lose Edwards, who joined the Riverside club on a three-year contract in the summer. The club stand third in the Championship following Tuesday’s draw at Leicester and last Saturday’s defeat by Watford.

This story will update

Mountbatten Windsor is no longer entitled to use the terms and has been erased from roll of peerage

King Charles has officially stripped the former Duke of York, now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, of his HRH style and his prince title.

Charles formally made the changes, which were announced a week ago, by issuing a letters patent under the great seal of the realm, which the crown office published in the Gazette, the UK’s official public record.

• Coach made seven changes for Champions League game

• Board support giving younger players more exposure

Chelsea are fully supportive of Enzo Maresca’s recruitment and rotation strategy and had no issue with the head coach making seven changes for Wednesday’s 2-2 Champions League draw with Qarabag.

Although the result left Maresca facing questions over his starting XI, the Italian left Baku knowing he retains the firm backing of Chelsea’s leadership.

Kevin Roberts, whose group pushed Project 2025, had defended ex-Fox News host’s talk with Nick Fuentes

The leader of the conservative thinktank behind Project 2025 apologized for supporting a white nationalist amid turmoil on the right over the mainstreaming of extremist ideology, but is resisting calls to resign.

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, previously defended the former Fox host Tucker Carlson for having Hitler fan Nick Fuentes on his podcast without pushing back on his white supremacist views.

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When María Corina Machado won this year’s Nobel peace prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights”, Donald Trump took the news as Maga-nanimously as you might expect. Having tirelessly run a campaign of self-promotion to ensure he won it himself, the president of the USA USA USA immediately claimed the credit for the Venezuelan opposition leader’s triumph, listed his own self-proclaimed and often dubious achievements in the field of global peacemaking and attacked the credibility of the committee who made the decision not to award the medal, cash prize and diploma to him. While security concerns mean it remains to be seen if the newly crowned Nobel laureate will emerge from hiding to pick up her accolade in person at the Oslo ceremony in December, a certain obsequious Fifa president appears hell-bent on stealing her thunder anyway. Yup, Gianni Infantino has decided to award a peace prize of his own creation in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions of international football fans the previous week in Washington.

• Team has not released cause of player’s death

• Kneeland had scored first career touchdown on Monday

The Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland has died at the age of 24, the team announced on Thursday.

“It is with extreme sadness that the Dallas Cowboys share that Marshawn Kneeland tragically passed away this morning. Marshawn was a beloved teammate and member of our organization. Our thoughts and prayers regarding Marshawn are with his girlfriend Catalina and his family,” the team said in a statement.

Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given

After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign.

His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal childcare and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive.

Alphonse Rudakubana says he lacked courage to tell police about son’s weapons and he ‘could have done far more’

The father of the Southport killer has said his son “turned out to be a monster” as he tearfully expressed regret for failing to tell police about the teenager’s weapons or his attempted attack on his former school, days before he murdered three young girls.

Alphonse Rudakubana broke down in tears on the second day of his evidence to the Southport inquiry, saying he was “desperately sorry” to the parents of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.

The proposed withholding of Medicaid and Medicare to restrict gender-affirming care follows the same logic as attacks on abortion care

In United States v Skrmetti, a supreme court decision issued this summer, the rightwing justices made it legal for states to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, in a ruling whose reasoning strained logic, claiming that state laws banning the treatment did not discriminate on the basis of sex. The ruling upheld laws in 27 states, all of them passed since 2021, which banned the treatment outright; according to the Human Rights Campaign, about 40% of trans minors live in states where treatment for them is against the law. Now, the Trump administration seems to be looking to cut off access to care for the other 60% of those kids.

In a proposed rule leaked to NPR, the administration plans to ban gender-affirming care for minors from being covered by Medicaid or by the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Chip. In a second, more sweeping proposed rule, the Trump administration looks to ban hospitals, clinics and providers from receiving any Medicaid or Medicare reimbursements at all if their practice provides transition-related pediatric care.

Thirty years on from the release of her acclaimed album I’m With Stupid, we count down the sucker-punching best tracks by the US singer-songwriter

Aimee Mann has had hits and acclaim from critics and her peers, but the sense that she’s slightly undervalued still clings. A song as deceptive as Build That Wall might explain why: on the surface it seems straightforward and easy-on-the-ear, but beneath its mellow, mellifluous surface lurk stinging lyrics and real emotional force.

Star will be played by the real-life singer’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in a film that will ‘humanise but not sanitise’ him

The first trailer for the Michael Jackson biopic has landed online after reports of a troubled production.

Filming on Michael had been completed in May 2024 and the film had originally been scheduled for release in April 2025, a date that was then pushed to October, but reshoots were needed in the June, pushing it once again, to April 2026.

UN secretary general António Guterres urges opening session in Brazil to bring about a ‘fundamental paradigm shift’

• Triple-whammy of hottest ever years risks ‘irreversible damage’, says UN

The failure to limit global heating to 1.5C is a “moral failure and deadly negligence”, the UN secretary general has said at the opening session of the Cop30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

António Guterres said even a temporary overshoot could “unleash far greater destruction and costs for every nation. It could push ecosystems past catastrophic and irreversible tipping points, expose billions to unliveable conditions, and amplify threats to peace and security”.

Ravaged communities near Montego Bay recount what last week’s category 5 storm took from them

• ‘New reality’: Hurricane Melissa strength multiplied by climate crisis, study says

• ‘How do you rebuild all this?’ Black River residents assess damage after Hurricane Melissa

Sitting outside her house in muddy slippers amid the ruins left by category 5 Hurricane Melissa that ravaged parts of Jamaica last week, Narva Maxwell Taylor recounted how she and her family had to fight for their lives when the storm sent flood waters surging through their home.

“We have to give God thanks we are alive. We could be dead. But everything is gone. I don’t have anything left now,” Taylor, a resident of Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, said.

Speaking as their film Die My Love is released, the actor joined a number of other famous names questioning the value of the new roles

Jennifer Lawrence has become the latest star to express scepticism over the necessity of intimacy coordinators, saying she declined their services while working on new film Die My Love, because she felt “safe” with her co-star.

Intimacy coordinators were introduced as a result of the #MeToo movement to try to ensure the safety and comfort of actors when shooting scenes involving sex and nudity. Yet actors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Sean Bean have pushed back against the profession, with some suggesting they interrupt their creativity.

Decision marks the close of a storied 20-term congressional career for the first woman to serve as House speaker

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Nancy Pelosi, a California Democratic representative and the first woman to serve as speaker, announced she will retire from Congress, two years after stepping down from House leadership.

The decision marks the close of a storied 20-term congressional career that saw Pelosi rise to the apex of American politics. A force on Capitol Hill for decades, she was a central figure in the major legislative accomplishments of Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s presidencies.

• Live tennis updates from the final group matches

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Paolini nets to go down 0-15 but soon makes 30-15, and a backhand swiped wide gives her game point. And though a decent return incites her to go wide, a decent first serve serve secures the hold. “It’s always good to get the first game under your belt,” revelates Tim Henman.

Ready … play.

Sometimes we feel threatened by bids for closeness, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. It can help to consider if you’re being true to yourself

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When I was 17, I was quiet, an observer on the fringes. That was often mistaken for being wise. Now 70 (and, by the way, gay), I am chatty and opinionated with a tendency to talk over others in conversation. I have come by the changes honestly, so I don’t whip myself over it because I am enjoying expressing myself. But I do wonder if this is a normal progression, the loss of filters with ageing, or if I am simply losing my sociability – going off the rails in some way.

While I like being friendly to all and enjoy the company of women especially, I recognise how easily they can be hurt. I seem to put out a strong “new-best-friend” vibe, but then sometimes, when they step close, I feel crowded and back off. The flip-flop clearly offends and I don’t want to be doing that, but I frame it as being true to myself. Is this a destructive habit and if so, should I dial down the friendliness?

Eleanor says: How responsible are we for the ways other people see us?

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Experts say 2023, 2024 and 2025 the three hottest years in 176 years of records, with 1.5C Paris agreement target now ‘virtually impossible’

A triple-whammy of hottest years ever recorded threatens “irreversible damage”, the UN has warned as the world’s nations prepare to meet at the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil.

This year is on course to be the second or third hottest ever, in records that stretch back 176 years, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. It means 2023, 2024 and 2025 will be the three hottest on record, demonstrating that the world is now deep into the climate crisis.

Eschewing the fairyfloss hooks of her earlier work, the Australian’s third album is both more mature and less immediately palatable

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Almost all of Hatchie’s music could slot frictionlessly into a coming-of-age film. Her songs, mostly, are misty-eyed ruminations on puppy love and its ensuing devastation; they yearn for a redamancy that feels both fated and vexingly out of reach. You can imagine Harriette Pilbeam’s millefeuille harmonies soundtracking a high school prom dappled with a disco ball’s refractive glimmer, or picture her fleecy guitars over a montage of light teenage debauchery. These are tracks prefabbed for telegraphing big feelings; everyone knows the outsize melodrama of a first, second or 20th crush.

Liquorice, the title of Pilbeam’s potent third album, winks at her 2018 breakout EP Sugar and Spice. That formative work was a candy blast of dreampop, emphasis on pop – indebted as much to Carly Rae Jepsen as Cocteau Twins, whose co-founder Robin Guthrie ended up providing a remix of Pilbeam’s single Sure. Liquorice, meanwhile, is more mature and less immediately palatable, eschewing the fairyfloss hooks of Pilbeam’s earlier work.