Intent on vindication after spending four months in prison last year, Peter Navarro asked a federal appeals court on Sunday night to force Donald Trump’s justice department to explain why it would not defend his 2022 conviction for defying a January 6 committee subpoena.
The request to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit is fraught for the department as it would have to confront the appearance that it quietly dropped the case in order to shield Navarro after he was tapped as a senior adviser to the president.
Toronto film festival: Nia DaCosta ups the nastiness of Hedda Gabler in a stylish but over-egged adaptation with lead Tessa Thompson losing the film to a standout Nina Hoss
Henrik Ibsen’s second-most famous play, Hedda Gabler, has been plenty messed around with in recent years. There was a much-derided stage production starring Mary-Louise Parker. There was Liz Meriwether’s sci-fi reimagining, Heddatron. And now there is Nia DaCosta’s film Hedda, a rejiggering of the narrative that places a premium on subterfuge and sexual intrigue. It sometimes lands its intended jolt, but too often mistakes arch style for profundity.
That was also true of DaCosta’s Candyman sequel, an endlessly attractive film that was an otherwise confused update of the 1992 classic. Hedda fares better; it’s the work of a more assured and restrained writer-director, one who is willing to, on occasion, let visual flash take a backseat to more mechanical matters of storytelling. But there is nonetheless a recklessness to DaCosta’s version, its brash iconoclasm throws both baby and bathwater out of the manor-house window.
Candidates will need backing of 80 MPs by 5pm on Thursday if they wish to stand
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, used his speech to conference this morning to say that the TUC expected the government to deliver its workers’ rights bill “in full”. He said employment rights were “overwhelmingly popular with voters across the political spectrum”.
And he condemned Reform UK for its stance on employment rights. After saying that Nigel Farage claimed to represent working class people, he went on:
Here’s the truth – there is a world of difference between what Nigel says and what Nigel does.
Every single Reform MP, including Mr Farage, voted against outlawing fire and rehire, against banning zero hours contracts and against day one rights for millions of workers.
Ask yourself this fundamental question. Do you believe in your gut that that Nigel Farage really cares about the people of Clacton when he’s off collecting his speaker’s fees in the United States?
Do you believe that Richard Tice really worries about the people of Skegness while he’s living it up at home in Dubai, or are they just rightwing conmen lining their own pockets?
I just have to say this. No amount of TikToks, or ozempic, or expensive haircuts, will ever hide the eager inner ugliness of Robert Jenrick.
The man who ordered murals painted over in a reception centre for children seeking asylum is indeed a xenophobe, an opportunistic xenophobe hoping to create a political climate that ends up with far right folks laying siege to hotels and black and Asian people being threatened and harassed on our streets.
If we look at the powerful geopolitical push factors, they’re things like regime change. We think Afghanistan, war, civil conflict. And when we look at people crossing in small boats, where do they come from? Well, the top nationalities: Afghan, Eritrea, Iranian, Syrian, Sudanese – just those five nationalities account for almost two thirds of all small boat arrivals, and these individuals are from some of the most chaotic parts of the world.
But there are also some pull factors, and the question is, why not claim asylum in France, why come to the UK? A number of reasons recur there when we speak with asylum seekers. It’s the presence of family members, the English language.
In those circumstances, typically, flagged upon the system, the UK government would be able to issue a speedy refuse refusal and try and effect removal.
As it is, people arrive, we don’t have that record, so we don’t know who they are.
Free speech demonstrations came after government said Facebook and others failed to follow new regulations
At least 16 people have been killed during protests in Nepal over a government ban on dozens of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X.
The government, led by the prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, has faced mounting criticism after imposing a ban on 26 prominent social media platforms and messaging apps that it says have failed to comply with new regulations.
People suspected teenagers playing ding dong ditch and called police, who found animal crawling on the door panel
Inhabitants of an apartment block in Bavaria, southern Germany, who called police to investigate the relentless buzzing of their doorbells late at night were surprised to find the culprit was not a teenage prankster as they had suspected, but a slug.
The slug had been sliding up and down the bell plate, creating havoc in the building and tearing angry residents out of their beds long after midnight when they could not sleep for the noise.
Artist’s latest work at Royal Courts of Justice in London is thought to refer to pro-Palestine demonstrations
A painting by Banksy of a judge using a gavel to beat a helpless protester appeared on the walls of the Royal Courts of Justice before quickly being covered up by guards.
Banksy confirmed the artwork was his by posting a picture of it on Instagram on Monday morning.
In November 1980, I was 13 and making my way to Firhill from East Kilbride alone, arriving at the game to discover there was no manager in the dugout. It seemed very strange but, as I went on my own and was too shy to speak to anyone while I was there, it wasn’t until the next day that I found out via the Sunday Mail that Bertie Auld had resigned and gone to Hibs.
The news was devastating. Bertie was my first manager, in charge for all the years I’d been a supporter, all of them in the Premier League. Now he’d gone and nobody had told me.
The organisers of the Great North Run have apologised for using a map of Sunderland, rather than Newcastle, on this year’s finisher medals, but this was just one in a long line of map mistakes.
Other blunders have included phantom supermarkets, dangerously misleading mountaineering routes and geopolitical blunders.
His grandparents survived the Nakba and he fled Assad’s Syria. Khalil is no stranger to political persecution, but not even Trump’s crackdown can silence him
When a history of resistance to the lurching authoritarianism of Donald Trump’s second presidency is written, it could well begin on 11 April 2025, inside a small immigration courtroom in remote, central Louisiana.
It was there, in the early afternoon, that a slight young man dressed in a blue uniform jumpsuit spoke calmly but directly to the new administration – away from the gaze of television cameras and 1,000 miles (1,610km) from his friends and family. Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian organiser, had been arrested a month earlier – snatched from the lobby of his Manhattan apartment building as he returned home with his wife. Now, detained in the small town of Jena, he sat before a judge who had just ruled that he was eligible to be deported from the United States purely for his political views.
The FDA is allowing the vaccine for people 65 and older, but younger people need to have an underlying condition
For many Americans, the new Covid vaccine guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), spearheaded by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his highly controversial Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, have added another layer of stress to an increasingly inaccessible healthcare system.
The agency authorized Covid vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections, but younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them particularly vulnerable.
It’s not enough any more to cover just ‘the birds and the bees’ as many more children are seeing adult content before their teens
Jess Melendez is an educator and the author of Porn is Not Sex Ed!
It’s not exactly every parent’s dream dinner-table conversation: “Mum, what’s porn?” But whether we like it or not, many children stumble across mainstream internet pornography. A recent study in the UK found that more than a quarter of children encounter porn online before the age of 11. In the US, studies show the average age of first exposure to online porn is 12, with some encountering it earlier. For many parents, that knowledge can spark panic: “What if this is the first place my child learns about sex? What if they think that’s what real intimacy looks like?”
Here’s the good news: you don’t need to panic, but you do need to prepare. The truth is, your child will be exposed to ideas about sex, whether through peers, media or yes, pornography. And it will happen – long before you’d ideally want it to. The most protective factor isn’t monitoring phones or giving lectures. It’s you showing up as an honest, calm and approachable parent.
Jess Melendez is an educator and the author of Porn is Not Sex Ed!
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Exclusive: Experts decry lack of nationally determined contributions in negotiating document with weeks to go before UN-set deadline
EU member states are still wrangling over crucial commitments on the climate crisis with no sign of agreement, according to a leaked draft text seen by the Guardian.
With just weeks to go before a UN-set deadline, the European Commission and key member states remain at loggerheads over targets on greenhouse gas emissions, with the prospect of a strong outcome looking increasingly imperilled.
Elevate this everyday favourite with a serving of lemon and paprika-spiked greens
Eggs in a basket are a treat. The easiest way to make the necessary holes in your sliced bread is with a round pastry cutter – or a heart-shaped one for fun. Break the eggs into their bread ‘baskets’, then fry up their “hats” to go alongside. To make this a grownup rather than a nursery dinner, serve with lemon-and-paprika-spiked chard, or spinach or kale, if that’s what you have; I am growing a surfeit of chard, so I always need new ways to use it up.
Toronto film festival: Judd Apatow’s actor daughter Maude directs her mother Leslie Mann in a smart, charming film about a woman adrift finding unlikely younger friends
One could cynically look at the credits for the film Poetic License and dismiss it outright. It was directed by Maude Apatow, daughter of Judd, and stars, among others, Apatow’s mother, Leslie Mann, Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Nico Parker (daughter of Thandiwe Newton and film-maker Ol Parker). On paper it all looks like a make-work project to keep the well-connected busy and creatively fulfilled. But the film itself – Apatow’s debut – is rich and lively enough to make none of the nepo stuff really matter.
Written by Raffi Donatich, Poetic License concerns a family who have moved from Chicago to a sleepy university town where economist James (Cliff “Method Man” Smith), has secured a plum professorship. He’s busy getting started, which leaves his wife Liz (Mann) a bit lonely and unmoored in her new life. Making matters worse is the inevitable drifting away of her high school-senior daughter, Dora (Parker), whose effort to make friends at her new school means she has to spend a little less time with mom. Liz is prone to a little risk, and so when two college boys, Sam and Ari, who are in the poetry class she’s auditing begin soliciting a friendship, she throws caution to the wind and accepts.
Poetic License is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution
On the podcast today: another England qualifier, another low block they labour to break down – this time from Andorra. The panel ask, does it always have to be like this? Thomas Tuchel’s England side are yet to be good, so how long do fans have to wait for it to click?
Frédéric Péchier, 53, allegedly targeted 30 children and adults at clinic, some of whom could not be resuscitated
A French anaesthetist accused of intentionally poisoning 30 child and adult patients between the ages of four and 89, 12 of whom died, has gone on trial in the city where he worked.
Frédéric Péchier, 53, worked at two clinics in the eastern city of Besançon when patients went into cardiac arrest in suspicious circumstances between 2008 and 2017. Twelve could not be resuscitated.
Centre-back suspended for ‘non-intentional’ rule breach
He failed test after Manchester United Europa League tie
Athletic Bilbao centre-back Yeray Álvarez has been suspended for 10 months due to a failed doping test after a Europa League match, European soccer’s governing body Uefa announced on Monday.
The 30-year-old Spaniard tested positive for canrenone, a substance prohibited in and out of competition, after Bilbao’s 3-0 home defeat by Manchester United in the semi-finals of Uefa’s second-tier club competition in May.
Finisher T-shirts also feature outline of River Wear, as organisers spin medals as ‘most unique’ in event’s history
The organisers of the Great North Run have apologised after finisher T-shirts and medals were printed with a map of rival north-east city Sunderland instead of Newcastle.
About 60,000 people took part in the half marathon on Sunday, running 13.1 miles from the centre of Newcastle, across the River Tyne, and through Gateshead, finishing by the coast in South Shields.
Toronto film festival: Chris Evans is excellent as a vain actor kidnapped by an eco-terrorism cult in an initially amusing comedy of performative politics that falls apart
Poking fun at the absurdity of celebrity is of course never unwarranted but it also frequently comes across as a little fatiguing. The target is easier than ever and too often, so are the jokes, incisive satire proving hard to nail when the subjects have become so indistinguishably cartoonish. The same has become true of the wealthy in general and recent films that have tried to lampoon either have felt lazy, pointing and laughing at something that’s stopped being funny a long time ago.
There’s an initial kick then to the new film from French music video provocateur turned film-maker Romain Gavras, who finds a more precise section of the VIP area to ridicule: performative environmentalists. As the world continues to burn, artists and those who use that word loosely, have attached themselves to the crisis whether it be to make themselves seem worthier to their fanbase or to make terrible art in its name. There’s both here in Sacrifice, a biting comedy thriller that lands us at another meaningless gala, set inside a remote location in Greece. We arrive with troubled movie star Mike (Chris Evans), panicking over his perceived hair loss (his assistant, played by Sam Richardson, ensures him that another trip to Turkey is easily scheduled) and eager to move past a rather embarrassing viral clip of him ranting with a flame-thrower at the premiere of his action vehicle Octavius: The Last Centurion. He’s technically there to do good for the environment but he’s really just there to do good for his image, something that takes a setback when he sees Bezos-styled billionaire Ben (Vincent Cassel) showing a Daily Mail TikTok of his freakout to others. Ben’s wife Gloria (Salma Hayek) is a pop star whose latest album is designed to be from the perspective of a flood.
Sacrifice is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution
“It’s heartbreaking for me, I don’t understand people putting up the flag,” said Mohammad, who crossed the Channel almost four years ago, desperate to escape persecution. Back then it was rare to see St George’s cross flags as frequently as he does driving around now. The flags are seen as divisive and dangerous in a climate of anti-migrant protests where political discourse is fixated on deportations, small boats and threats to withdraw the UK from human rights frameworks. It has left individuals who have sought refuge in the UK feeling anxious, upset and fearing repercussions.
“Immigrants, they just want to have a better life. If our country was safe, was all right, we would never leave,” said Mohammad, who asked to use only his first name fearing reprisals. After facing persecution as a practising Christian in Shia-majority Iran, Mohammad left his life behind at 28 suddenly and without a plan.
England head coach hails ‘box office’ Jofra Archer
Stokes and Wood ‘progressing well’ after injuries
Brendon McCullum has ramped up the Ashes hype ahead of this winter’s trip to Australia, describing England’s pursuit of the urn they last won a decade ago – and have brought back from the Antipodes just once since 1986-87 – as “the biggest series of all of our lives”.
England returned to international action last week for the first time since a thrilling five-Test series against India concluded in early August, and though they lost to South Africa over three one-day internationals that run ended with a historic, one-sided victory in Southampton on Sunday. A spellbinding performance in that game from Jofra Archer, who took four wickets for 18 runs – “There was an ‘ooh’ or an ‘aah’ every single over,” he said afterwards – set imaginations racing with thoughts of what the injury-prone seamer might achieve in more high-profile assignments to come. The first Ashes Test starts in Perth on 21 November.
The agency celebrates the US and the president as aggressor, conqueror and unrestrained international lawbreaker
On Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order restoring the Department of Defense to its original name, the Department of War.
That name “had a stronger sound”, Trump told reporters in August. “As Department of War we won everything,” he added, “and I think we’re going to have to go back to that.” In June, at the Nato summit, he called Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, his “secretary of war”.
Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books
Embedded within Clarke’s legal action was a new threat to public interest reporting, despite his emphatic defeat
Nik Williams is a policy and campaigns officer at Index on Censorship
The high court’s ruling in favour of the Guardian struck a powerful blow for the free press and for holding those accused of sexual misconduct to account. While across the globe, we have seen the courtroom as the venue of choice to push back against the legacy of the #MeToo movement, this victory sent a clear signal that the voices of those affected have lost none of their power, impact or poignancy.
Noel Clarke is an actor, screenwriter, producer and director who is best known for the Hood trilogy, as well as acting in Doctor Who. In 2022, he sued the Guardian for its reporting based on the testimony of 20 women who accused him of “sexual harassment, unwanted touching or groping, sexually inappropriate behaviour and comments on set, professional misconduct, taking and sharing sexually explicit pictures and videos without consent, and bullying between 2004 and 2019”.
Renewables are thriving, with Africa breaking solar energy records – but action is needed to plug financing gap
The first signs of a takeoff of Africa’s green economy are raising hopes that a transformation of the continent’s fortunes may be under way, driven by solar power and an increase in low-carbon investment.
African leaders are meeting this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Africa Climate Summit, a precursor to the global UN Cop30 in November. They will call for an increase in support from rich countries for Africa’s green resurgence, without which they will warn it could be fragile and spread unevenly.
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