Fox News kicked one of its biggest stars off the air last week. Maria Bartiromo reportedly was removed from network programming after she shared internal directives with the Trump administration. (Bartiromo’s reps deny that she was fired from the network.)

The White House accused Fox News of muzzling MAGA viewpoints, but Bartiromo might well land on her feet: Rumors suggest she could be up for a gig at “60 Minutes,” or perhaps work in the White House press shop.

The network has a habit of minting high-profile conservative personalities — and also of abruptly discarding them. Right-wing messaging and news can change over time, but one constant remains: None of Fox News’ stars are ever bigger than Fox News itself.

Tucker Carlson

Carlson had washed out at CNN and MSNBC before “Tucker Carlson Tonight” took off at Fox News during Donald Trump’s first term. He became known at the network for his “inflammatory monologues on immigrants, Black civil rights activists, vaccines and national identity” and “emerged as one of Fox’s biggest names,” The New York Times said when Carlson was fired in 2023.

He was even said to be a possible GOP presidential contender. But a defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems in the aftermath of the 2020 election revealed that Carlson’s “polemical pro-Trump persona” on air did not always match his behind-the-scenes commentary. “I hate him passionately,” Carlson said in a text revealed during the lawsuit discovery process, per the Times.

Fox News took Carlson off the air in April 2023, a week after the network settled the Dominion lawsuit for $787.5 million. He maintained a high profile, hosting an interview show on X. And he made up with Trump, speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

But Carlson remains controversial. He is part of “breakaway MAGA faction increasingly at odds with President Trump” over the Iran war, said Axios. He has also proven divisive within the conservative movement because of commentary “criticizing Israel and flirting with alternative theories about World War II,” said The Hill.

Bill O'Reilly

O’Reilly was perhaps the original Fox News star — launching the show that became known as “The O'Reilly Factor” when the network first aired in October 1996. The “blustery showman” lasted 20 years, becoming a “linchpin of Fox News' primetime lineup and a ratings powerhouse” for the network, NBC News said when the network cut ties in 2017.

The host was undone by repeated allegations of sexual harassment going back to 2002. In one case, O’Reilly reportedly settled with a producer for $9 million. The network also paid out $13 million to a group of five women who “claimed they were victims of lewd comments, verbal abuse or unwanted sexual advances,” said NBC News.

The network let him go with apparent reluctance. O’Reilly “has been the undisputed king of cable news — and for good reason,” fill-in host Dana Perino said on air the night his departure was announced, per NBC. These days he hosts the “Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis” podcast and appears on NewsNation programming.

Glenn Beck

Beck burned brightly and then burned out fast during his two-year tenure at Fox. His show debuted the day before President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, and the new host soon took viewers on a “roller-coaster ride” that “incorporated conspiracy theories, wild-eyed accusations and predictions of doom,” NPR said in 2011.

It made a splash, but by the time he left Fox News his “ratings were declining” and “hundreds” of advertisers had withdrawn from the show. Beck remained active in conservative media, founding Blaze Media.

Shepard Smith

Unlike the previous figures on this list, Smith was not known as a pundit or opinion commentator. But his departure was notable.

He spent 23 years with Fox News and was an anchor for the network’s more traditional news-side programming. That made him an “outlier” at Fox News, The Associated Press said, when Smith “abruptly” walked away from his contract in 2019.

Smith had often “given tough reports debunking statements made by Trump and his supporters,” which drew a backlash both from the president and from Fox News viewers, said the AP. “If you feel like the Fox viewers were getting mis- or disinformation, I was there to make sure that they got it straight,” Smith said to PBS journalist Christiane Amanpour in 2021, per The Hollywood Reporter. Smith moved to CNBC. His show there was canceled in 2022.

Roger Ailes

Ailes created Fox News in 1996. He was a “former top adviser to Republican presidents” who grew the fledgling news network into a “must for any Republican candidate seeking major office,” The Wall Street Journal said when Ailes resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal in 2016.

The network “toppled CNN” as the cable news ratings leader six years after it launched, said the Journal. It was not enough to save the career of Ailes, who departed weeks after former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit saying he retaliated after she “rebuffed his advances.” Ailes “made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country,” Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch said in a newsroom address about the departure, per the Journal. Ailes died the next year.

In ever-changing Las Vegas, it might seem like nothing lasts forever. Hotels, eateries, shows and winnings come and go, but there are some institutions that stand strong. These iconic restaurants and bars have been serving good food, stiff drinks and memorable moments for decades, each one a vital part of the city’s culinary — and cultural — fabric.

Atomic Liquors

A night here is a little different now — patrons, for example, can’t sit on the rooftop to watch nuclear detonations at the Nevada Test Site like they did during the early 1950s. But Atomic Liquors still has its midcentury charm (and legendary neon sign).

The downtown watering hole was the first to receive a Tavern License in Las Vegas, and patrons can still sip on one of the bar’s original drinks: the Atomic Cocktail, a “potent” concoction of vodka, cognac, sherry and Champagne that should be enjoyed “with care,” said Islands.

Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House

Bob Taylor’s Ranch House is less glitter and more grit, leaning into an Old West feel. When it opened in 1955, the supper club could “only be reached by a dirt road,” and Taylor “cut and cooked his steaks over mesquite coals,” said the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Posters of John Wayne, saddles and spurs still cover the wood-paneled walls, watching over diners tucking into ribeye and honey barbecue chicken. Earlier this year, the restaurant received an America’s Classic Award from the James Beard Foundation.

Golden Steer Steakhouse

Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley were once regulars at this “relic of Las Vegas’ Golden Age,” said Condé Nast Traveler. Open since 1958, the Golden Steer’s decor traces the city’s “transformation from a frontier settlement to an entertainment capital,” with old rifles on the walls and leather booths named in honor of every member of the Rat Pack. Order the famous Caesar salad and bananas foster for dinner and a show — both are prepared tableside — and take a peek at the Mob Room, where made men used to do business.

Hugo’s Cellar

At this “romantic hideaway,” women receive long-stemmed roses as a welcome gift, and food is served with “old-school flair,” said Eater. Sit back in your comfortable booth illuminated by a stained glass lamp, and watch as waiters prepare Hugo’s Cellar’s famous tableside salad to order and set a pan of cherries jubilee ablaze. Seafood dishes like Queens Lobster and herb-encrusted Chilean sea bass are favorites, but the charbroiled steaks “hold their own.”

Italian American Club

Back in the 1960s you needed to be a member to eat at the Italian American Club (yes, Sinatra was part of the organization). But since 1990 the public has been welcomed for plates of spaghetti bolognese, chicken marsala and osso buco. It feels like classic Vegas inside, with live music nearly every night and the walls “crammed with signed photographs and showbiz memorabilia,” said Atlas Obscura. There are three dining rooms, and typically, each is packed with “snazzily-dressed” patrons enjoying the lively atmosphere.

Kung Fu Thai & Chinese Restaurant

When Kung Fu first opened its doors in 1973, it changed the culinary landscape of Las Vegas, becoming one of the city’s “earliest champions of Thai cuisine,” said Eater. Many locals have Kung Fu to thank for introducing them to “authentic” Thai flavors, and the restaurant’s “pioneering presence” set the foundation for today’s “vibrant and diverse Asian food scene.” The menu features hundreds of items, with Thai fried chicken wings and chicken curry two of the most popular choices.

Osaka Japanese Bistro

History was made in 1967 when Osaka served its first plate of sushi, becoming the first Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas. Its late founder, Sam Nakanishi, named his new spot in honor of his wife Aiko’s hometown, and the original bistro (and a second location) are still owned and operated by the Nakanishi family. The expansive menu includes dozens of sushi rolls — the Roppongi with spicy tuna, shrimp and tuna was featured on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” — and several pages of entrees and appetizers.

Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge

Everything that makes Las Vegas fabulous — bright lights, over-the-top design, opulent food and drinks, and eccentric characters — can be found in spades at Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge. This is Vegas at its most grandiose, with 64-ounce Scorpions listed on the menu alongside “tantalizing” options like French toast ambrosia, beef bulgogi loco moco and the “legendary” Peppermill burger, said Las Vegas Magazine.

You can sit in the diner-style restaurant, but the magic takes place in the Fireside Lounge, a dazzling spectacle of pink and purple neon lights, mirrored tile and faux greenery. Try to grab a seat around the bubbling water fountain/fire pit, order a frozen strawberry daiquiri or Blue Hawaiian, and enjoy some quality people watching.

‘Okay, sure, a folding iPhone’

Will Oremus at The Atlantic

Nothing “quickens the pulse of an Apple fan more than these three words: one more thing,” says Will Oremus. In the “pantheon of ‘one more things,’” Apple’s foldable iPhone “feels like a dud.” Apple “has begun to feel like a late-stage tech giant, squeezing residual value from markets it has long since saturated.” The company “will eventually have to do something that once came naturally to Apple when it was an underdog: take a risk.”

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‘AI may become the third superpower’

Paul Tudor Jones at The Wall Street Journal

When “Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet this month, the leaders of the world’s two full-spectrum superpowers will confront a force that has grown far more powerful since they last met: artificial intelligence,” says Paul Tudor Jones. AI’s “most consequential advances — starting with recursive self-improvement — are still ahead.” The “threat is real and demands coordinated action by the U.S. and China.” Both countries “must commit to a timeline to control the advance and proliferation of AI.”

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‘The Houthis are testing the limits of Saudi restraint’

Khaled M. Batarfi at Al Jazeera

The “renewed escalation in Yemen is no longer simply a Yemeni battlefield development,” as for “Saudi Arabia, it is becoming a direct test of national security, economic resilience and the kingdom’s ability to prevent the wider regional war from spilling further across its borders,” says Khaled M. Batarfi. A “return to an open-ended war would contradict that strategy and impose unnecessary political and economic costs.” But “restraint cannot mean accepting repeated attacks on Saudi territory.”

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‘The political cost of sending Korean forces to Hormuz’

Syrus Solo Jin at Foreign Policy

South Korea appeared “poised to request that the legislature deploy the country’s navy to the Strait of Hormuz,” says Syrus Solo Jin. South Korea’s “navy is well-equipped and capable of sustaining long-term missions in waters far from its shores, and it has experience in counterpiracy and patrolling missions in the region.” The challenge is “political, rooted in Korea’s convoluted history with the United States.” South Korea is “now facing a difficult decision over deployment.”

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With the 2026 midterm elections two months away, Republicans have been ratcheting up their verbal assaults on Democratic candidates of Muslim faith. While these attacks have most notably come against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, they may be emblematic of a larger GOP campaign against Islam.

What are Republicans saying about Muslims?

El-Sayed has become a lightning rod for a host of anti-Muslim sentiment, including from the Trump administration. The Senate candidate is part of something “very, very evil” that is “on the rise in the United States,” Vice President JD Vance said during a speech in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights. President Donald Trump has referred to Democratic candidates as “jihadists” and also called El-Sayed a “communist who hates Jews and Israel.” El-Sayed has disavowed accusations of antisemitism.

Republicans in Congress have recently been pumping up similar attacks against Islam as a whole. “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse” and a “threat to both national security and our republic,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on X. A similar sentiment was echoed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “The enemy is at the gates,” Tuberville said on X in response to a photograph of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is also Muslim. In Tuberville’s own state of Alabama, Muslims “make ‌up less than half a percent of the population,” said Reuters.

Why is this the new GOP tactic?

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has “quickly become a central aspect” of the Republicans’ strategy to win the midterms, as “Muslim and Arab American political power is growing across the country,” said The New York Times. The “number of Muslim Americans running for — and winning — local, state and federal elections has steadily increased over the past decade.” There are currently 255 Muslim elected officials across 26 states, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

There has been an “escalation of messaging designed to raise alarm about Muslim Americans and Muslim candidates,” said NBC News. The Islamophobia in politics is nothing new, as it “began cropping up more pointedly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, and it hardened as Trump began his rise.” Since then, the “undercurrent of concern and fears raised by politicians around Muslim Americans has remained steady.”

Critics say the “rhetoric unfairly targets Muslims, while Republicans say they are raising legitimate concerns about security, extremism and the role of religion in public life,” said Reuters. “If you can wrap yourself in the flag ​and you can criticize Muslims and Islam that means you don’t ​really have to deal with the issues,” Aaron Hughes, a religious studies professor at the University of Rochester, said to Reuters. These attacks come even though many Muslims have beliefs that “dovetail with Republican orthodoxy, such as opposition to some abortion procedures and same-sex marriage.”

Others feel that Republicans “may have trouble with anti-Islam messaging heading into the midterms,” said Spectrum News. If any “candidate in the midterms wants to engage in questionable campaign behavior and make outlandish statements, this may not be something that voters are going to go for, even in a relatively conservative area,” Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a professor of political science at the University of North Texas, told the outlet. Voters “care about core issues like cost of living, and social wars probably aren’t going to fly in a 2026 midterm election with a Republican president in office.”

Polls show data centers are broadly unpopular with both Democratic and Republican voters. President Donald Trump is championing the tech facilities anyway, raising concerns among his GOP allies that he is hitching the party to a losing issue ahead of the midterm elections.

What did the commentators say?

Communities will only reject data centers “if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. The president “knows the polling on data centers is bad,” said Politico, but sees them as one of the country’s “few investment engines humming in an otherwise sputtering economy.” His outspoken defense of the centers puts him at odds with GOP Senate candidates Mike Rogers in Michigan and Ken Paxton in Texas who have worked to “distance themselves” from the Big Tech companies building the facilities. Tech companies have “overplayed their hand and overstayed their welcome,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon said to the outlet.

“Has Mr. Trump lost his populist touch?” Matthew Continetti said at The Wall Street Journal. Not exactly. The president’s populism has “always had a pro-growth streak,” and his support of data centers reflects his belief that “national economic development” is the key to winning the United States’ “strategic competition” with China. AI is “supercharging investment and GDP” and is one area where the U.S. has a “qualitative edge” over its rivals. Republicans should not go down an “antigrowth, antidevelopment rabbit hole” but instead work to address “reasonable” concerns about data centers “without sacrificing economic prosperity and American prestige.”

The president is “losing touch with the public,” David A. Graham said at The Atlantic. Polls show that three-fourths of Americans “oppose a data center being built near where they live.” Politicians as disparate as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have critiqued the centers and put themselves on the side of voters. Trump’s defense of data centers puts him in the “unusual position of misreading, and opposing, a populist groundswell.”

Why the misstep? The president has surrounded himself with Big Tech figures like David Sacks and Larry Ellison, and “his financial disclosures show he’s become more of a tech investor,” said Graham. He is also spending less time giving speeches and hosting rallies where he can directly gauge voter sentiment. Trump is “not hearing from voters who might alert him to how unpopular data centers are.”

What next?

Democrats see Trump’s embrace of data centers as a “gift” ahead of the midterm elections, said The Hill. They are also reminding voters that nearly every Republican in Congress voted for the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that “encourages the construction of new data centers by providing generous tax credits” for their construction. GOP candidates “are taking their cues from the public backlash, rather than the president.” But the president’s fierce advocacy “does cause some challenges for members,” a GOP operative said to the outlet.

Barbara Cartland, like most successful writers, was a creature of routine. Every day, between 1.15pm and 4pm, she would recline on a chaise longue, “clad in brilliant pink, hair a platinum helmet”, and dictate around 7,000 words to a secretary while “fondling a Pekingese”, said Wendy Holden in Literary Review.

By these means, she churned out roughly 20 novels a year – more than 700 over the course of her lifetime – and sold 750 million copies, a figure “exceeded only by Shakespeare and Agatha Christie”.

While her “tales of virgins and sheikhs, pirates and princesses” were devoured across the world, they proved especially durable in the Middle East: “Arab men,” she noted, “can’t get enough of the sort of girl I write about.”

It would be easy simply to mock Cartland, but the journalist and broadcaster Matthew Sweet avoids this trap in “The Great Dictator”. Without skipping over her faults, he “gives her virtues full credit” and treats her as a figure of “cultural and historical importance”. The result is a “fantastically enjoyable, drily hilarious and incredibly well-researched biography”.

Cartland may have had a “marshmallowy exterior”, but Sweet shows in this “brilliant book” that behind it “lurked sinews of high-tensile steel”, said Kathryn Hughes in The Guardian.

Coming of age just after the First World War, at a time when there “were not enough husbands to go around”, she resolved to be “financially self-sufficient”.

She spent the 1920s working as a gossip columnist, reporting on the escapades of the Bright Young Things, before making a “tactical marriage to a dull man called Alexander McCorquodale”, who proved to be an alcoholic. Divorcing him after having a daughter, Raine (the future Countess Spencer, stepmother to Diana, Princess of Wales), she “effected a neat swap” by marrying his paternal cousin, which meant she didn’t even need to change her surname. In 1950, the pair settled in Camfield Place, a manor house in Hertfordshire, where she lived until her death in 2000, aged 98.

“Sweet writes with great wit and brio but also considerable sympathy,” said Lynn Barber in The Observer. He points out that Cartland was a “great organiser”. While clothes were rationed during the Second World War, she set up a scheme to lend wedding dresses to Auxiliary Territorial Service brides. Later, she led a campaign to create a reservation for Gypsies near Camfield Place: “Barbaraville” opened in 1963 and “remains to this day”. It is, Sweet suggests, “perhaps her most lasting achievement”.

What happened

Europe’s Copernicus climate service on Wednesday reported that August was tied for the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the U.S. also experienced its hottest summer “in the 132-year record.” The average temperature in the 48 contiguous states was 74.37 degrees Fahrenheit from June to August, 0.4 degrees “hotter than during the peak of the devastating Dust Bowl in 1936” and 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average, The Associated Press said.

Who said what

The Earth “cooked” due to the “dangerous double whammy of human-caused climate change and a supersized El Niño,” the AP said. America’s “unhappy trifecta: the warmest August, warmest summer, and warmest calendar year to date,” was “set by unusually big margins,” Yale Climate Connections said. The summer saw a “staggering 1,541 record monthly highs set or tied nationally,” said CNN. “Normal conditions were observed” only in “pockets of the Midwest and northern Plains,” said CBS News.

What next?

Highs in September are “favored to be above average” across the lower 48 states, said NOAA. The “Godzilla El Niño” has already boosted the oceans to record temperatures, The New York Times said, and that “extra warmth” will “spread to the rest of the planet in the months ahead, making the globe’s average temperatures likely to break more records through the end of the year and into 2027.”

What happened

Iran on Wednesday said it attacked two U.S. ships and eight tankers near the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. sinking five Iranian oil tankers. The Pentagon said the tanker strikes were retaliation for Iran’s first confirmed attacks on U.S. Navy ships during the six-month war. Those attacks “failed,” The Wall Street Journal said, but “officials described some of them as close calls.”

This was the “biggest wave of attacks on shipping by both sides” yet, Reuters said, and it “sent the price of oil surging” above $100 a barrel for the first time since July. U.S. gas prices hit $4.22 per gallon, and diesel rose to a record $5.94 per gallon. On Thursday, five gas stations in California maxed out diesel at $9.99 per gallon, the highest possible price on the pump, according to GasBuddy.

Who said what

The U.S. and Iran “appear to be stuck in a cycle that is draining U.S. air defenses and deepening Iran’s economic crisis,” The New York Times said. Iranian ballistic missiles did “minimal” damage to a U.S. military base in Jordan, officials told the Times, and it may have left some U.S. troops with “traumatic brain injuries.” They also damaged “several fighter jets” at the base, CBS News said.

What next?

“I think war ​is going to end immediately after the election,” sending oil prices “tumbling downward,” because Iran “can’t hold out any longer,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday. Top White House advisers have “privately” discussed with Trump “that the Iran war could drag on through the remainder of his term,” the Journal said, citing U.S. officials.

What happened

President Donald Trump capped off the first night of an unusual Republican midterm convention on Wednesday with a movie-length speech in which he defended his Iran war and tariffs while also saying he would send all U.S. adults a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if Republicans retain both houses of Congress in the November elections. “Please pretend that I am running,” he told the partially full arena in Dallas. Trump was preceded by a string of Republican candidates and Cabinet members, many of whom attacked Democrats as “communists,” and a surprise video appearance by Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).

Who said what

Trump “reveled in making the upcoming elections all about himself,” The Associated Press said. But his “financially and politically implausible” dividend pledge reflects his “apparent calculation that he needs bold moves to revive Republicans’ chances” amid “his low approval ratings.” The payouts would cost about $1.2 trillion, Politico said, which “would dwarf the amount distributed during the Covid pandemic and likely explode the deficit” and “worsen inflation.”

Trump’s “DOGE divided” and tariff rebate checks “never panned out,” The New York Times said. And “there’s reason to think that Republicans in Congress, like they did with his two previous promises of quick cash, could shrug off the president’s suggestion.” The “Trump dividend” is a “last-ditch bid to prevent an electoral shellacking,” The Wall Street Journal said. But the GOP’s “all-Trump-all-the-time strategy” could also “drive away independent voters.”

What next?

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to give Thursday’s keynote address, but Trump is closing out the convention’s second and final night.

From lower bills to better weather, many people are looking beyond the UK and choosing to retire abroad, but there are risks to look out for.

The number of Britons looking to retire abroad is “rapidly growing”, said Sky News, but there are hurdles before they can fulfil their dream of a life “in the sun”, especially since Brexit.

Due to a range of factors there is a “massive gap”, said Aegon, between the life people imagine in retirement and where they eventually choose to live.

Why are people retiring abroad?

An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 British retirees currently live overseas, said PensionBee, with many possibly swayed by “warmer weather, a change of lifestyle or a more affordable way of living”.

In some cases, older people are looking further afield in places such as Thailand for care homes, due to “higher standards and lower costs”, said The Times.

Popular places to retire to

France, Spain and Australia have historically been “prime candidates” for expat Brits to retire to, said Hoxton Wealth, but a “new roster of destinations” is becoming more popular due to cost of living rises, visa rule changes post-Brexit and changing tax landscapes.

Cyprus is popular among retirees, said MoneyWeek, due to the lack of inheritance or wealth taxes in place, “as well as its climate and outdoor lifestyle”, plus English is widely spoken across the country. The Republic of Ireland is also popular as “under the Common Travel Area (CTA), UK citizens have the right to live, work and retire” there without the need for a visa and there’s no formal application process for residency, “unlike a host of other EU countries post-Brexit”.

Malta and Portugal also rank high among retirees, added the financial website, thanks to their proximity to the UK as well as “balmy climates, access to healthcare and low crime levels.”

What to consider when retiring abroad

One of the biggest factors to consider when retiring abroad is your state pension.

Expats are denied the “triple lock uplift” on state pensions, said The Telegraph, if they live in around 100 countries including much of the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This means state pension payments are frozen at the rate first received and the financial impact can be “increasingly severe”, said Rathbones, meaning people miss out on around £77,000 over 20 years.

Depending on where you take money from, you need to consider “inevitable fluctuations” in exchange rates, said Experts for Expats, as you need to be sure your income will continue to support you, even if your disposable income drops. The “default position”, may be to sell your home and move abroad, but consider whether you may decide to return to the UK and how hard and expensive it may be to get back onto the property ladder.

It is worth testing out an area first either by renting or just having a holiday, said Aegon, and working out what stage of retirement it is best for. This way you can find out what daily life actually feels like “before you redesign it entirely”.

Tracy-Ann Oberman has form when it comes to bold theatrical reboots, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. In 2023, the actress “memorably reclaimed” “The Merchant of Venice”, turning Shylock into an East End matriarch in the 1930s. Now, she takes on “Present Laughter”, Noël Coward’s arch self-portrait of a vain, ageing, star actor Garry Essendine (anagram: neediness).

Directed by Lindsay Posner, the production turns Garry into Geri, and shifts the action from 1930s London to 1970s New York, though the characters remain mostly British. It is an evening of “mild mirth” rather than “wild guffaws”, but the transpositions work well, and Oberman, playing Geri, has the “glittery presence to hold the flimsy, at points farcical, affair together”.

“What initially sounds like a gimmick proves surprisingly effective,” said Kris Hallett on WhatsOnStage. Oberman is “tremendous”, switching effortlessly between diva-ish theatricality and genuine loneliness. “Present Laughter” is not prime Coward: “It is expertly constructed and often very funny, but beyond its central character, there is precious little flesh and blood.”

And Posner’s production moves, if anything, too swiftly; “what starts as pace eventually feels like rushing”. But it is a visual treat, with a design that evokes an impossibly stylish Manhattan existence, with Warhol-esque portraits of Geri, and a “parade of immaculate dressing gowns”, and “shimmering gowns”.

It is not only the central role that has been gender swapped, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. Coward’s ghastly avant-garde playwright Roland Maule here becomes Rosina, an “intense cross-genre experimentalist for whose work no theatre is far enough off-Broadway”.

The standout performance, though, is from James Dreyfus as Geri’s long-suffering assistant Monty, said Ben Kulvichit in The Stage. Dreyfus made his name in 1990s sitcoms such as “The Thin Blue Line”, and his “funny bone is as strong as ever”: he communicates “decades of devotion and exasperation with the bristle of his moustache, and his line readings are drier than gin”.

Festival Theatre, Malvern, from 15-19 September, then touring until 28 November.

“There’s a marvellous tenderness and generosity to this elegant tale of autumnal regret; an intimate movie acted with effortless grace by Willem Dafoe,” said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, an ageing New Yorker who works for the post office, living alone in a small, book-filled room, drinking and playing pool with his friends in the evening.

One day, he is amazed to be accosted by “a dandyish young hipster” outside his apartment building; this is Meyers (Edmund Donovan), who has found Saxberger’s long-since out-of-print volume of poems. He declares him a neglected genius; he and his rich, “callow and excitable” literary friends take up his cause, and want to use their connections to get him republished.

Amused, and more thrilled than he wants to let on, Saxberger finds the attention of these young people dizzying – particularly because one of them, a beautiful and volatile actress (the “superb” Greta Lee), has “a kittenish crush” on him.

Director Kent Jones has great fun with these “achingly mannered” aesthetes, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. They call themselves the “Enthusiasm Society”, and describe their meetings as “fermentations”; one of them even “wears a cape”. But “drama pulses under the comedy, too”, and a “cool astringency” grows.

“Late Fame”, adapted from a novella by the Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, is “razor-sharp on class and art”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Unearned riches, it tells us, “are mostly for the rich”.

In the end, “it’s Dafoe’s film”. It’s a reminder that he’s often at his best when he’s not at full stretch in “loony mode” (as in “Poor Things” or “The Northman”). “He’s in nearly every frame, quiet and serious, achingly sympathetic. It’s worth watching just for him.”

Guy Ritchie made his name in the 1990s with films set in cartoonish criminal underworlds; but he is himself of posh stock, and owns a shooting estate in Wiltshire. In his Netflix series “The Gentlemen”, he mixes his fantasy vision with his personal history, said Nick Hilton in The Independent.

Ludicrously entertaining

The show stars Theo James as Eddie, aka the 13th Duke of Halstead, who inherited the family seat at the start of series one – and discovered that it was playing host to a cannabis factory run by a crime family (headed by geezer-in-chief Ray Winstone).

Eddie, who recently left the Army and is as hard as nails, gets in on the action and in series two, he extends his criminal empire and forms a transactional alliance with a shady fellow aristocrat (Hugh Bonneville).

Unfolding over eight episodes, this brash gangster romp is ludicrous enough to be entertaining in its own way; but the dialogue and plotting really are unforgivably bad.

Baroque deaths and showdowns

A “caper composed primarily of fists, shouting and men made of fists shouting ‘faaackin’ ’ell’ in tweed” sounds like a composite of everything Ritchie has ever made, said Sarah Dempster in The Guardian. It is fun, but it lacks the energy that fizzed through his early work.

You feel that Ritchie wants to say something meaningful about Eddie’s moral descent, said Ben Dowell in The Times; but the show is far too in love with carnage and wisecracks to hold on to anything serious. Besides, you don’t come to this unsophisticated series for that. You come for “chases, showdowns and more baroque deaths than you can shake a shooting stick at”.

Ukraine’s air defences are “dwindling” and Vladimir Putin is “planning to make the most of it”, said international relations expert Rajan Menon in The New York Times. While Russia might be suffering an estimated 30,000 casualties a month and is struggling to replenish its troops, its president appears “adamant he will pay whatever price – human or financial – necessary to win”.

Last week Donald Trump sent his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow for talks with Putin. Then on Sunday they travelled to Ukraine for the first time to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who announced plans to widen peace discussions. The Ukrainian president agreed that he wanted to resume trilateral negotiations with the US and Russia in September, amid mounting civilian casualties and intensifying Russian strikes.

But afterwards, senior Kremlin officials “doubled down on Putin’s demands for Ukrainian capitulation”, said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, claimed the situation “worsens each day” for Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

This year has brought “a series of Ukrainian successes that led many to believe Kyiv may have regained the initiative”, said Miro Sedlák on the Atlantic Council. But the “technological gap” between Russia and Ukraine is narrowing, “dramatically reducing” the chances of battlefield breakthroughs. Zelenskyy’s dismissal of his “tech-savvy” former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov sparked “widespread dismay” in Ukraine, while many Russian commentators “cheered the news”.

Ukraine has run out of Patriot missile interceptors, said Menon in The New York Times. Russia is gearing up for “massive strikes” on Ukraine’s energy grid during the winter, aiming to “break morale” and increase pressure on Zelenskyy to “seek a deal”.

Ukraine’s drone strikes are still “inflicting pain on some of the most strategic sectors of the Russian economy”, said Alexander Osipovich in The Wall Street Journal, especially on oil refineries, leading to fuel shortages. “The costs are adding up.”

Ukrainian air strikes are “bringing the war home to a misled, disillusioned public”, said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. But does “out-of-touch” Putin even realise? He doesn’t use a smartphone or the internet, and relies on “inner circle apparatchiks” and loyalists telling him what he wants to hear. He’s likely to “double down” by becoming more aggressive and expanding the war beyond Ukraine, intensifying “hybrid warfare operations across Europe”, than to sue for peace.

Putin’s understanding of the war is “severely distorted by the Russian military’s systematic lying”, which is emboldening him to insist on “his maximalist demands”, said the ISW.

And if Putin cared about the Russian economy, he wouldn’t have launched the invasion in the first place, said Owen Matthews in The Spectator.

He remains “determined” to keep fighting and Trump has “no new plan for peace” other than letting the war end on Putin’s terms. Zelenskyy is “deluded about Ukraine’s chances of defeating Russia”, and about stopping Moscow’s “slow but relentless advances” and its “ruthless campaign to render Ukraine’s cities unliveable”.

Western sanctions on Russia have “basically failed” because of the West’s “hunger” for its cheap oil and gas. Russia is “stepping up” its defence capacity, while Ukraine’s allies in Europe are also “prioritising their own defence”. Ukraine is heading into “the hardest and most punishing winter of war”, and it’s about to run out of missiles, men and money.

What next?

There are signs that Europe’s “political taboo” on talking to Putin is cracking, said Matthews in The Spectator. Alice Weidel, co-leader of the pro-Russia AfD in Germany, has called for “an open channel to Russia” to reach “an understanding and achieve a peaceful solution”. Putin’s intention seems to be to give Ukraine “a brutal final kicking” before settling the war “on his terms”.

He may try to freeze the conflict while reorganising and re-arming, said Tisdall in The Guardian, or he could accept Zelenskyy’s ceasefire offer “without sincerely committing to a lasting settlement”. But a ceasefire without “cast-iron, pre-agreed security guarantees” could leave Ukraine more, not less, “vulnerable to renewed aggression”.

After the Russian parliamentary elections from 18-20 September “we’ll see whether Putin is going to throw the kitchen sink at this wall to finish it, in his view, once and for all”, said Sky News military analyst Michael Clarke.

The Bayeux Tapestry, which opens today at the British Museum, is “shivers-down-the-spine, tell-the-grandchildren sort of stuff”, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Textbooks can tell you the facts: “seventy metres, 58 scenes, 626 figures”, but the reconstructions and photographs are nothing like the real thing. In fact, it’s “more than a shiver of excitement”, it’s the “loan of the millennium” and truly "magnificent".

The British Museum is offering a “once-in-a-lifetime – no, once-in-history – opportunity to experience a genuine wonder of the world at close quarters”, said Mark Hudson in The Independent. Right from the off, it is best to “let the images carry you”. After Harold assumes the throne, having sworn allegiance to William on a trip to France, the early sections of the Normans’ preparations for war have a “documentary veracity” and “cinematic drive, that propels us remorselessly onwards to the departure of the Norman longships towards the English shore”.

Throughout, the Tapestry portrays “storytelling of the highest order”, and “simply getting it to London is a momentous achievement”, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Its “most famous section”, the Battle of Hastings, feels like an “11th-century equivalent of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece ‘Guernica’ (1937)”. It is “pure carnage”. Horses fall, warriors are decapitated and a mace flies through the air: “an emblem of anarchy and violence”. But far from a “tub-thumping celebration of Norman power”, it is striking how much it feels like a “requiem” for Anglo-Saxon England. “To see this astonishing artefact back in Britain for the first time in 1,000 years is the most moving moment of my career.”

The pace of the battle scenes “hurtles along”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. But in the borders, the Tapestry sets out its action in a “wider world, and even, when it shows the comet, a larger cosmos”. Against the brutality of the violence, depictions of peasants working the land are stitched in “distracting, vibrant detail”. This is both “pointed and poignant: whoever wins, whoever rules England, country people will still work the soil”.

Some of the best bits are when there is no violence at all, said Jo Lawson-Tancred on Artnet. The artwork certainly has some historical “limitations” of accuracy, but most importantly it offers a “rare, secular insight into a medieval way of life that might otherwise feel too remote to imagine”. We see unique depictions of a “lavish” Norman feast of food seized from the English in Pevensey, with striking detail of cooking in a “cauldron over fire and serving roast meat on skewers”.

There are moments of levity, too, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. It may be “extravagantly otherworldly”, but it is also “accessible by dint of its simplicity”. The narrow tapestry is “topped and tailed by joyously random images of fantastical beasts and the odd weird naked guy”. This is not just an artefact consigned to the past: “it’s boyishly excitable about the details of conflict, an action comic realised in millennium-old cloth”.

The Bayeux Tapestry is on display in the British Museum from 10 September 2026 until 11 July 2027. Tickets will next be released on 21 October for viewings between 1 January and 31 March 2027.

“Zia Yusuf is a brilliant man, and he’s a genius actually, and he’s an incredible communicator,” Tory defector and Reform member Nadine Dorries told Times Radio recently. But, she added: “I wish he closed down his Twitter account.”

The interview followed a tweet by Reform’s self-styled “shadow home secretary” in response to reports that Somali-born Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council, was the favourite to be Labour’s candidate to replace Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Yusuf asked his followers: “Do you understand what’s happening?”, a remark that drew condemnation from across the political spectrum for its apparent racial undertones.

‘Remarkable and rare gifts’

“Even in these polarised times”, it is hard to imagine another politician as “unlikeable”, “rebarbative” and downright “sneery” as Yusuf, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. I can’t help feeling that “every time he appears in the media or tweets a controversial opinion, he shaves another slice off Reform UK’s increasingly fragile poll ratings”.

Take, for example, his decision to call former defence secretary Ben Wallace, a former Scots Guards officer who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a “traitor”. Just for good measure, he then added a poll asking if Wallace should be prosecuted for treason.

That episode earned Yusuf a “ticking off” from Nigel Farage, but “the more one sees and hears from Yusuf, the more obvious it becomes that he is a liability for Reform”, said Stephen Pollard in The Spectator.

The son of Sri Lankan immigrants, Yusuf built a hugely successful business career and is clearly “a man of remarkable and rare gifts”. But he is also “the latest example of the truism that business success is no indicator of political acumen, let alone political success”.

‘Ticking timebomb’

Whether Yusuf is or is not a nice person, “behaving as he does is entirely politically rational”, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. In labelling former Army officers traitors or arguing those not born in Britain shouldn’t be able to stand for Parliament, Yusuf is signalling “an assault on established institutions” and conventions. “The very fact that this alienates people unnecessarily makes his signal – that with him there is no compromise or messing about – more reliable.”

This has also endeared Yusuf to rank-and-file Reform members. A poll conducted in June found that 22% of those asked would opt for him as leader in a contest to replace Farage, ahead of current deputy Richard Tice, party chairman Lee Anderson and Reform’s “shadow chancellor” Robert Jenrick, said the Daily Express.

Politically this makes sense, said UnHerd. Having seemingly failed to absorb and replace the Conservative Party, Reform is “reasserting itself as an unambiguously populist party. All it needs now is an unambiguously populist leader.”

Senior figures within the party are forming what they call an “Anyone but Zia” group to try to prevent him from succeeding Farage, should he step down, said The Observer . “They all know [Yusuf’s] a problem, but he is popular among the grassroots,” one critic told the newspaper. “He’s a slowly ticking timebomb.”

A non-league footballer who “revs up teammates with F-bombs in a thick London accent” has become the “unlikely successor to the throne of a traditional kingdom in Uganda”, said The Times.

George Desmond Kamurasi, captain and goalkeeper of SE Dons in Bexleyheath, southeast London, is a first cousin of the Tooro region’s late king and a grandson of King George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III, who ruled between 1928 and 1965.

Prison breakthrough

The royal succession committee of the Tooro kingdom selected Kamurasi following the death of King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who had occupied the Tooro throne since 1995 after succeeding his father at the age of three.

Oyo’s death prompted an “outpouring of grief” across Tooro and Uganda, said UG Diplomat. The nation’s president, Yoweri Museveni, described him as a “good person and a good leader,” whose death was “a great loss to the people of Tooro and Uganda”.

In contrast to Oyo, Kamurasi has spent most of his adulthood in Britain, “building a life largely outside Uganda’s royal spotlight”, said Pulse.

He has spoken of a “difficult adolescence” – his mother died when he was 14, leaving him “vulnerable to bad influences”, and he has remembered being “angry” and making poor decisions. “I got into the wrong circle and ended up in jail.”

But then “I realised that everything I had done was my fault” and “I took responsibility”.

After serving his jail sentence, football “became his route to rebuilding his life”. Kamurasi once played in Barcelona, where he was watched by Pep Guardiola, and in England he played lower-league and grassroots football for clubs including Ashford United.

Videos from his coaching sessions “portray an intense and motivational figure” who speaks about “discipline, responsibility and the need to recover from failure”.

Strong mobiliser

The royal succession committee selected Kamurasi last week, with 15 of the 18 members present voting for him, and a formal proclamation is expected after Oyo’s burial this weekend.

He’s “said to be reluctant to swap his goalkeeping gloves for the crown”, said The Times. The Spy in Uganda quoted unnamed sources “close to the unfolding succession process” claiming that Kamurasi doesn’t wish to leave London and inherit the kingdom.

But if the succession committee’s decision is officially confirmed and he accepts the role, the “qualities” he preached on the football pitch, such as “discipline, resilience, accountability and hunger for success” will then be “tested on a much bigger stage”, said Pulse.

Opinion on social media is divided over the prospect of the 6ft 6in footballer returning as monarch. He “looks like a strong mobiliser, no nonsense, aggressive”, said Ugandan author Cynthia Natkoto on X. “For the people of Tooro, that’s a good thing.”

But another X user described the prospect as “a crazy turn of events” and some have wondered how the kingdom would take to a king who is married to a “mzungu”, in his case a white British woman.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the prolific chef and restaurateur in New York City, operates more than 45 restaurants around the world and has written five cookbooks. All of his books capture the remarkable way he merges simplicity and elucidative flavor combinations. His fourth book, 2011’s “Home Cooking with Jean-Georges ($40),” does so in a particularly utilitarian fashion.

Cooking with eyes wide open

Vongerichten’s five-ingredient watermelon salad, for example, is a ferocious overturning of how to think about a favorite fruit. The rich funk of the blue cheese and resonant twang of freshly ground black pepper convince the watermelon to let its sweetness glow. The fruit’s juicy core tangoes with extra-virgin olive oil’s grassy unctuousness. Pop, pop goes a dusting of flaky salt.

In the recipe’s intro, Vongerichten offhandedly notes the salad “tastes even better when the watermelon is cold and the cheese is room temperature and soft.” Texture steps into the spotlight and turns a sublime recipe all the grander. Vongerichten tosses this intel at the reader as an aside. He cannot help himself. Wisdom plops out of him like ice in a sleet storm.

Such is how “Home Cooking with Jean-Georges” flows. This is a book in which the tricks, takeaways and techniques are embedded in the recipes themselves. Parmesan chicken teaches you that breadcrumbs are extraneous when you grate Parmesan on both large and small holes on a grater, coat chicken breasts with it, bake, and, whammo, savory, textural contrast without the filler.

You might in no other cookbook see someone add a stick and a half of butter to boiling water to cook mustard greens. Then you eat those greens, all silky, their jagged acerbity mellowed after four minutes of boiling, and you shake your head in confounded appreciation.

Famous chef, best-in-class writer

A chef creating a cookbook is only as reliable as their writer. For “Home Cooking,” Vongerichten enlisted one of the finest recipe writer-developers in the game, Genevieve Ko, who is currently an editor at The New York Times.

Ko ensured the recipe’s instructions in this book were as pristine and legible as Vongerichten’s cooking is nimble and gleaming. A watermelon salad can say so much and teach so readily if its quiddities are conveyed with precision. Effortlessness has perhaps never been presented with such rigor.

‘European democracies are running out of time to turn away from the abyss’

Rafael Behr at The Guardian

Victory for the “Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in the region of Saxony-Anhalt over the weekend is not the biggest electoral prize won by a far-right party in Europe in recent years, but it is one of the most shocking because it is Germany,” says Rafael Behr. No “country had more to learn from history if it wanted to immunize its democracy against extremism.” This “doesn’t have to be Europe’s destiny.” Nationalists “do not form a monolithic bloc.”

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‘Medicare now covers CBD, but Congress wants to ban it’

Maddie Salamone and Caitlin Styrsky at USA Today

A new “Medicare pilot program covers hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products to treat certain patients, even as Congress is moving forward with a law that will effectively wipe those same products off the market,” say Maddie Salamone and Caitlin Styrsky. The “resulting policy quagmire threatens patient access, undermines the work of entrepreneurs and highlights a deeper truth: Hemp already plays a role in American healthcare, whether federal lawmakers are ready to acknowledge it or not.”

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‘The American prison system is cruel. Maine is showing there is another way.’

Abdallah Fayyad at The Boston Globe

In a “number of states, corrections leaders are starting to experiment with more humane ways to run prisons, looking to countries like Norway and Sweden as models,” says Abdallah Fayyad. In Maine, the “entire prison system has undergone various reforms that have so far yielded promising results.” The “idea is to make prison feel as normal as possible — more akin to the outside world so that people have an easier time adjusting to society when they’re released.”

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‘Fortress Yellowstone’

Joseph Bullington at In These Times

An “influx of wealth has made Teton County, Wyoming,” the “richest and most unequal county in the United States,” says Joseph Bullington. Some of the “ultrarich ranch owners celebrate the natural beauty of their land and are ardent conservationists when it comes to the Yellowstone ecosystem.” But “most of these landowners accumulated their wealth through industries that help drive the destruction of nature elsewhere.” Their “ranks include private equity investors, oil and gas billionaires and real estate developers.”

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President Donald Trump had a clear goal when he appointed Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve: lower interest rates to spur economic growth. Now Warsh has signaled that the Fed could raise rates to rein in rising prices, putting him on course to clash with the president.

What did the commentators say?

Raising rates before the midterm elections “would create an immediate showdown with the Trump administration,” said The New York Times. The president “has gone to great lengths” to get the Fed to lower rates and Warsh was “handpicked” for the job after an “elaborate audition process” shaped by Trump’s rate preferences.

The financial markets have demanded signs that Warsh is “serious about bringing inflation under control,” said the Financial Times. Warsh last month bent to those demands. Rising prices are “concerning,” and the central bank has “work to do,” he said at a Wyoming Fed meeting, per FT. Observers saw that as a signal that rate increases could come as soon as this month.

The Fed chairman is in a tough spot. The war with Iran has “sent global energy prices soaring,” which has “kept inflation from slowing,” Jonathan Levin said at Bloomberg. The AI spending boom has also “kept prices elevated.” A rate hike before the midterm elections “would surely raise the ire of the White House,” but it would be the “right thing” for Warsh to do in order to bring rising prices under control. It would also “bolster his credibility in the financial markets” if he was seen “putting American households above politics.”

What next?

There is “still significant uncertainty” as to whether Warsh will move to oppose Trump’s pressure campaign and raise rates this month, Jamie McGeever said at Reuters. In addition, the president might benefit if Warsh decides to ignore the White House and set his own course. Trump “doesn’t want higher interest rates,” but rising prices and higher borrowing costs “aren’t particularly palatable” to voters heading into the midterm elections.

“Not everyone is convinced” that Warsh will move to raise rates, said CNBC. The chairman’s comments at Jackson Hole were “only marginally” more hawkish on inflation than his previous remarks, Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst said in a client note, per the outlet. And Trump administration officials maintain that a rate hike is not justified by the current evidence. Core inflation “has remained very, very restrained,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

Trump’s preferences remain clear. The Fed should lower interest rates “OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT,” the president said in a Truth Social post. The next Federal Reserve policy meeting is Sept. 15.

While glucagon-like peptide-1s have been widely celebrated for transforming weight loss, some who attempt to use the medications find themselves in a less-studied patient category called nonresponders. This minority of people haven’t experienced any significant change in weight even after adjusting their dose or switching brands.

What are the influencing factors?

Between “9% and a third of participants” in clinical trials for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs lose less than 5% of their body weight after months of use, which is the threshold associated with health improvements, said The Guardian. Now, researchers are “trying to work out why” the drugs are ineffective for nonresponders — a discovery that could help doctors “tailor the use of the drugs, maximize cost-effectiveness and reduce side effects.”

The drug’s lack of efficacy cannot be blamed on patients, said Alexander Miras, an obesity expert at Ulster University, to The Guardian. If the drug does not “reduce hunger and food intake for someone,” it is “just not going to work.”

For now, the “short answer” to why some people don’t respond is that “we don’t really know,” said Miras. Research suggests that factors such as “motivation, intelligence, education and socioeconomics” are not predictors of how patients would “respond to GLP-1 medications.”

Other characteristics such as age, sex and whether or not someone has Type 2 diabetes do appear to have an effect. Studies have also suggested “ancestry might have an impact,” with the medications “most effective in people of European ancestry and least effective in people of African American ancestry,” said The Guardian.

Some may be jumping the gun, however. Many people labeled as nonresponders simply “do not take the medication correctly” or “discontinue treatment before adequate therapeutic effect can be achieved,” said Kingston University biologists Nadine Wehida and Ahmed Elbediwy at The Conversation. Studies show up to 20% to 60% of people “stop treatment within the first year” amid “widespread use of the drug in doses below the recommended amounts.”

Is there hope for nonresponders?

There is “no reliable way” to predict what group one will fall into when trying GLP-1s, said Stanford Medicine News Center. The good news is “you don’t have to wait long to find out.” In general, higher doses produce better results, so doctors “typically start patients low and increase gradually, watching for side effects.”

If the dose is not associated with any weight loss, “waiting three months on the same dose is not going to give you more answers,” said Stanford Medicine endocrinologist Sun Kim to the department’s News Center. You should “increase the dose and reassess.” Whether or not it’s working tends to become clear within the first few weeks.

Certain medical factors such as “thyroid disorders” can “disrupt metabolism,” said Yale Medicine. People with “impaired glucose regulation,” including those with diabetes, therefore tend to “lose less weight on these medications.” A less common underlying condition could also be playing a role.

Sometimes, “despite doing everything right,” a patient “just doesn’t respond the way we would hope,” said Avlin Imaeda, a Yale Medicine gastroenterologist. And this phenomenon isn’t “unique to weight-loss medications,” said Yale Medicine. Some patients may not react to “certain blood-pressure drugs, antidepressants or cancer therapies.” Biology is complex, and treatment responses can vary widely.

For those hoping for something to look forward to, a “series of promising new drugs are in development,” said The Guardian. In the meantime, for nonresponders still struggling to lose weight, “weight-loss surgery may be the only option left.”

GLP-1-based drugs not working does not “predict a lack of response to [bariatric] surgery,” said Miras. In the end, it’s “not your fault,” and it’s not the drug’s fault either. “This is purely luck.”

What happened

Lonnie Bunch III on Tuesday announced he will retire as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at the end of the year, with “very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude.” The founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Bunch became the first Black person and first historian to lead the Smithsonian in 2019. His seven-year tenure as secretary was “marked most recently by attacks from the Trump administration” over “how the Smithsonian presents American history and values,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

Bunch told The Wall Street Journal his decision to retire had “nothing” to do with President Donald Trump or the White House. “It was really just saying, ‘now’s the time,’” he told the Times. Still, “it has been stressful,” and “I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone.” Bunch has “defended the organization’s independence” from Trump’s “efforts to assert control" over its content, CNN said, but he “also tread a fine political line.”

What next?

“Unlike the Kennedy Center, Trump does not have the power to select or remove the Smithsonian leadership at will,” Politico said. But “he can have tremendous influence in the process” through selecting new members of the Board of Regents. The 17 regents, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, will appoint Bunch’s successor.

What happened

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday rejected an emergency appeal from Missouri Republican officials to pause last week’s unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that a new congressional map is void and can’t be used in the upcoming midterm elections. But shortly after Kavanaugh’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark ruled in a separate case that Missouri can’t use any map other than the new one, designed to net Republicans one House seat as part of President Donald Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push.

Who said what

“Taken together, the dueling court orders left Missouri where it began,” The New York Times said, with “no agreement about which congressional map should be in effect in November and no immediate route to resolving that question.” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) said on X that the state is “prepared to follow and comply with” the ruling from Clark, a Trump appointee. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) on Tuesday night instructed local election officials to use the new map, which was also used in last month’s primaries at his direction.

What next?

People Not Politicians, the group fighting the GOP gerrymander, asked Clark to stay his ruling, appealed it to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court and asked the Missouri Supreme Court to hold Hoskins in contempt for violating its order to use the 2022 maps. Missouri must start sending out absentee ballots Sept. 19.

What happened

Britain, France and Canada on Tuesday announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including banning all trade and services linked to them. The rapid expansion of settlements and increasing settler violence “pose a direct and urgent threat” to a two-state solution, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement. At least nine other countries said they intended to impose similar sanctions.

Who said what

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in Parliament on Tuesday. And too often, the “Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse.”

The economic impact of the sanctions is “likely to be limited, since the settlements produce only a small amount of largely agricultural exports,” The Associated Press said. But it’s a “symbolic expression of displeasure with Israel by some of its closest allies” and a “new sign of the Israeli government’s growing isolation as a result of the Gaza war.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “responded to Britain’s announcement with fury and indignation and announced countermeasures,” including closing the British Consulate General in East Jerusalem, The New York Times said.

What next?

The U.S.’ Israeli ambassador, Mike Huckabee, called the sanctions “discrimination against the Jewish people” that could bring “repercussions or retaliations” from the U.S. But the White House “did not oppose” the U.K.-led effort, Axios said, citing officials and diplomats. And U.S. officials told Britain they “shared their concerns about the Netanyahu government’s West Bank policy.”

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists.”

With these words, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has delivered the “biggest reset in UK relations with Israel for decades”, said The New Statesman political editor Ailbhe Rea.

His decision to introduce a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not without “political risk”, but it marks a determination to “inject values and politics into British foreign policy” that many at home and abroad feel has been lacking for years.

What did the commentators say?

“Ethnic cleansing” and “forced displacement” are often seen as acts of genocide, a word Miliband was careful not to use, said The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley. In this context, sanctions against settlers seem “disproportionately low and leave the State of Israel off the hook”, but the “effects of the new British legislation will be felt far more widely”.

Israel has reacted strongly and swiftly by announcing four “counter-measures” against the UK, including the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, and the denial of entry to Israel to 12 “British elected representatives and other British nationals involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity”. Among these are former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, also hit back on X with: “The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts”.

With this announcement, Britain “risks moving from being a country capable of connecting Israel, the Gulf, Washington and Europe to one whose positions are increasingly predictable but whose involvement is decreasingly necessary”, said Labour peer Jon Mendelsohn in The Spectator. This could result in a “remarkable loss of influence in pursuit of policies which have yet to demonstrate that they have made peace, Palestinian statehood, regional security, the safety of British Jews or Britain’s national interests more attainable”.

Miliband will hope his Jewish heritage – his mother was a Holocaust survivor who fled to Israel – and “staunch support of Israel’s right to exist will reassure the Americans”, and he “emphasises the difference” between targeted West Bank sanctions and the full boycott of all Israeli goods which Miliband himself opposes, said Rea.

What next?

Aside from the heavily signposted but underreported impact that West Bank sanctions will have on Palestinians living there “there are other potential prices to pay for this muddled gesture,” said The Times View. Not least, in next month’s crucial Israeli general election where a “siege mentality could rear its head, propelling more hardliners into power”. Were this to happen, the current feel-good mood created by joint UK, French and Canadian sanctions could prove “hugely counterproductive”.

Still, Miliband shows no signs of backing down, and intends to use the UN General Assembly later this month to shine the “clearest and harshest spotlight on what is happening and what must change” in Gaza, he told the Commons.

Those who have long claimed the UK has no influence on the world stage are “missing what’s happening”, said former foreign office special advisor Ben Judah on X. By pulling together CANZUK countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK) with EU members and their associates into these “issue coalitions of non-US led Westerners”, the UK has “found a role and an influential one, partially as a consequence of America abandoning hers”.

“This move against the Israeli settlement project to attempt to protect the possibility of a two-state solution from an extremist Israeli government is a continuation of this geopolitics.”

Hundreds of arrests across dozens of countries have been linked to “The Com”, an online community of predominantly young men who carry out acts of violence termed nihilistic extremism.

“It’s violence for the sake of violence,” EU counter-terrorism coordinator Bartjan Wegter told the Associated Press in an interview ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Unlike Islamic jihadism, “there’s not a direct link with ideology”.

What is ‘nihilistic terrorism’?

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the leading UK-based think tank dedicated to combating extremism, defines nihilistic terrorism as “violent acts lacking an ideological motivation and driven by a misanthropic world-view”.

Communities such as The Com form a “decentralised web of chats, forums and channels characterised by support for violence” but “with no specific political, ideological or religious goal”, although some factions have adopted extreme right-wing beliefs. The tactics and resultant harms of nihilistic extremists “often mirror those of ideologically motivated extremist networks”, with “some overlap between the two phenomena’s digital ecosystems, activities and cultural references”.

But this is “violence as a means of asserting oneself”, said the EU’s Wegter. It’s “a means of gaining status in those online communities”.

How do these networks recruit and operate?

Short for “The Community”, The Com is a broad online ecosystem that encourages and engages in cybercrime, extortion and violence.

Largely made up of young, male native English-language speakers, members range from “11-year-olds trying to hack Minecraft to people in their mid-20s targeting vulnerable kids online,” Aiden Sinnott, principal threat researcher at cybersecurity firm Sophos, told The Guardian.

Communicating via encrypted platforms such as Discord and Telegram, the networks serve as a pipeline where “older members of The Com contact kids and try to get them to commit increasingly sophisticated acts of criminality”.

Activities are split into three subsets. Hacker Com includes groups such as Scattered Spider, linked to last year’s massive data breaches of retailers Marks & Spencer and the Co-op. In Real Life Com phones in fake bomb threats to schools and offers violence-as-a-service contracts, and is associated with a spate of random stabbings over the last year. Lastly, Extortion Com coerces young people into sharing or live-streaming acts of self-harm, sexually explicit behaviour or even suicide.

One of the most notorious networks within Extortion Com is 764. Founded by Texas teenager Bradley Cadenhead, who is currently serving an 80-year sentence in the US for possessing child sexual abuse material, the network now has victims and perpetrators in dozens of countries.

The UK’s National Crime Agency has said reports of Com networks increased six-fold in the UK from 2022 to 2024, and researchers at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in the US have identified at least 295 arrests across 33 countries linked to The Com.

What is being done to tackle them?

These attacks are tough to prevent or track because the perpetrators are young individuals without a criminal record, usually, “who don’t leave any footprints other than online perhaps, but then it’s often behind encrypted walls and communities,” Wegter told AP News.

Over the summer, Europol ran a campaign to target nihilistic violent extremist content online. Investigators from nine countries participated in “Referral Action Days” to disrupt the online ecosystem, limit propaganda dissemination, and find new investigative leads, including identifying around 4,340 web addresses linked to The Com.

The campaign also aimed to enhance “platforms’ response to and awareness of terrorist content online produced and disseminated by The Com groups”, said the agency.

“What a challenge”, said Liz Else in New Scientist. Penning the “first major biography” of Stephen Hawking with the theoretical physicist’s estate and the “whole scientific world” all “watching closely to see the result”. But science writer Graham Farmelo has pulled it off. “Kudos all round.”

Farmelo paints a “comprehensive and accessible portrait” of Hawking as an “extraordinarily determined man” who had a darker side to which the public and scientific community “mostly turned a blind eye”, said Philip Ball in The Guardian.

The “uncomfortable but unavoidable truth” is that Hawking’s refusal to give scientific credit to others, sexism and “controlling behaviour” were largely “ignored because of his disability”. “I think it is indeed going to take us years to process that.”

Farmelo first covers the science which offers a “genuinely inspirational tale”. Hawking’s work on black-hole thermodynamics would have been “impressive by any measure”. But achieving it while living with “debilitating and ultimately paralysing” motor neurone disease is remarkable.

The “problematic stuff” emerges from “those closest to him”. His friends at Oxford found him “lazy and entitled”; his youngest son said his father never let him win at board games as a child; and his “unsparing ridicule” of the religious beliefs of his first wife, Jane, contributed to the unravelling of their marriage. We also learn how “scandalously bad” he was at acknowledging the work of others, something that became clear early on when he “failed to indicate his debt” to the physicist Roger Penrose.

This pattern of “accepting more than his fair share of credit” certainly “ruffled feathers” in the scientific community, said John Gribbin in Literary Review. But in person he was “gregarious and generous” to his students.

Farmelo gives non-scientists a “good sense” of why Hawking’s work matters, including “succinct discussions of how black holes evaporate” and the “nature of gravitational waves”. But his book also puts the facts into “context”. The result is an “absorbing and informative account of the life of the most interesting physicist of the second half of the 20th century”.

While fog can create an eerie, lonely atmosphere, it’s teeming with life. Scientists have found vibrant microbial communities in low-hanging clouds, including bacteria that can detoxify air pollution. And these microbes could play a larger role in our air quality than previously expected.

Misty microbes

Fog water can have “bacterial concentrations similar to those in continental or marine bodies of water” and “contain microbiomes well-differentiated in composition from those in the dry aerosol microbiomes,” said a study published in the journal mBio. While scientists have known that bacteria and other microbes exist in the air, not much was known about “whether those airborne microbes are doing much,” be it “growing, feeding, dividing and changing the air around them” or “simply waiting to land somewhere better,” said ZME Science.

Fog is “basically just a cloud that’s low to the ground — water vapor that has condensed or frozen to form tiny droplets or crystals in the air,” said The Weather Channel. Researchers focused on radiation fog, which is the still kind that “occurs on clear nights as the ground cools the moist air immediately above it.”

They “collected and analyzed samples from 32 separate fog events along with aerosol particles gathered before, during and after fog formation,” said a release about the study by Susquehanna University. The findings showed that fog is “more than a vehicle for transporting microbes” and could be a “habitat where bacteria can thrive and positively influence atmospheric chemistry, air quality and even climate processes.”

While “fewer than 1% of fog droplets contain bacteria,” when “averaged together, they represent an astounding amount of life,” said a release by Arizona State University (ASU). “When you take all of the droplets together, the concentration of bacteria is the same as in the ocean,” said study co-author Ferran Garcia-Pichel, the director of the ASU Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, in the release. Each fog event had an average of 188 unique bacterial signatures, and the “communities of microbes present were similar across all fog samples” but “differed quite a bit from those found in air without fog,” said Science News Explores.

Cloud cleaning

Scientists identified Methylobacterium as “one of the most abundant bacteria in the samples,” said the Susquehanna release. These microbes “consume single-carbon compounds such as formaldehyde,” which is a common air pollutant “resulting from the combustion of carbon fuels that contributes to ozone smog and poses health risks.”

The Methylobacteria “cleared such large amounts of formaldehyde so quickly that the researchers suspected they weren’t just eating it,” said the ASU release. At “high levels, the chemical is toxic to the bacteria, so they break it down into carbon dioxide to keep the levels low,” which is a “win-win for microbes and humans alike.”

“We observed them under the microscope to see that, yes, the bacteria are getting bigger and they are dividing, so there’s growth,” making fog a microbial habitat, said lead study author Thi Thuong Thuong Cao, a postdoctoral researcher at ASU, in the ASU release. The potential for “harvesting fog for drinking water has also been up for discussion,” said The Weather Channel. “Now, we need to consider and further study if these air-cleaning benefits are too good to pass up.”

People “think of fog as just water droplets,” said study co-author Derek Straub, an associate professor at Susquehanna University, in the Susquehanna release. But there’s a “tremendous amount happening inside those droplets that we are only beginning to understand.”

Tim Curry was a patron saint for the kooky. From his breakout starring role in 1975’s cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry brought his bulbous eyes and madcap energy to every performance. Intensely private about his personal life, he built a following on the strength of his oddball characters, including the zany butler in 1985’s Clue, the evil clown Pennywise in 1990’s It, and King Arthur—a Tony-nominated turn—in 2005’s Broadway hit Spamalot. In acting roles, “I would choose risky over anything,” Curry said last year. “That’s the best way to be.”

Born in northwest England to a Methodist chaplain, Timothy James Curry was blessed with “a mischief-maker’s good looks, a casual athletic grace, and a supple and resonant voice,” said The New York Times. Acting was his obvious calling, and after graduating from the University of Birmingham, he quickly found parts in regional theater. But it was the “campy sci-fi romp” The Rocky Horror Show that made him a star, said Rolling Stone. Originating the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter on the London stage in 1973, Curry reprised his role in the U.S. production in Los Angeles and then in the film. While the movie version “famously bombed” at first, it became “a midnight-movie sensation,” packing cinemas with costumed fans singing along, and it is still regularly screened today.

Curry “spent the rest of his acting career gleefully refusing to be pinned down,” said IndieWire. He schemed with onscreen sister Carol Burnett in 1982’s Annie, embodied the devil in 1985’s Legend, and sailed alongside Kermit and Miss Piggy as Long John Silver in 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island. Though a 2012 stroke left him wheelchair-bound and without the use of one arm, he played the narrator in Fox’s 2016 TV remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and remained active as a voice-over artist until the end of his life, recording the audiobook of his memoir last year. “I have loved and been loved,” he said, “and I hope you have, too."

There was far more to Dolly Parton than met the eye, and there was a whole lot that met the eye. Clad in towering blonde wigs, with sparkling, skintight outfits accentuating a bust that launched a thousand late-show quips, she combined showbiz glamour with garish excess. “A rhinestone shines just as good as a diamond,” she often said. But behind the glitz was profound talent, as well as a grit and generosity that made her one of country music’s biggest stars and a beloved international icon. Rising from Appalachian poverty, Parton wrote thousands of songs, including classics such as “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colors.” She recorded 25 No. 1 country hits and won 10 Grammys. She starred in movies such as 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias. And she was a shrewd businesswoman who blazed a trail through a male-dominated industry, amassing a fortune estimated at $450 million and giving millions to charity. She was also a quip machine with a bracing wit, who poked fun at herself while making clear she was not to be underestimated. “I’m not offended by all of the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb,” she said. “And I also know I’m not blonde.”

Raised in eastern Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, Parton had a “dirt poor” upbringing that “shaped every aspect of her life and career,” said The Times (U.K.). Her father was an illiterate sharecropper whose 12 children shared a one-room cabin with no running water or electricity. A musical prodigy “steeped in Appalachian mountain and bluegrass music,” she wrote her first song by age 6. Encouraged by a songwriting uncle, she appeared on local radio and cut her first record by the age of 11. The day after graduating from high school, she boarded a bus to Nashville “with a suitcase of songs,” said the Associated Press. She signed a deal with Monument Records and in 1966 released her first country hit, “Dumb Blonde,” a plucky takedown of female stereotypes. That same year, she married Carl Dean, an asphalt contractor she met in a laundromat; he avoided the limelight entirely and they stayed together until his death in 2025. In 1967, she scored a break when she was tapped by Porter Wagoner to be a regular on his TV show. The pair recorded numerous duets as Parton continued to pursue a solo career, gradually shifting “her country warble to a more polished, pop-leaning style.

In the early ’70s, Parton “started to eclipse” Wagoner with a run of No. 1 country singles, said The New York Times. She left his show in 1974, writing “I Will Always Love You”—a smash for Whitney Houston decades later—as a parting “expression of gratitude,” though it didn’t prevent him from suing her. Soon Parton was the reigning queen of Nashville, the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1975 and 1976. In the years that followed, she “continued her ascendance on the charts” with pop crossover hits like “Heartbreaker” and “Here You Come Again.”

Already a talk-show favorite for her easy banter and “outrageous style,” Parton “secured her status as a superstar” with 9 to 5, said The Wall Street Journal. Her performance as a secretary battling a lecherous boss alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda made her a household name, while the catchy, clever theme song she wrote topped both the pop and country charts. “Islands in the Stream,” a 1983 duet with Kenny Rogers, proved “another pop smash”; three years later, she opened Dollywood, a theme park near her birthplace. With features including a replica of her childhood home, it became one of Tennessee’s top tourist attractions and a key source of jobs and revenue for the region.

As the hits dried up in the 2000s, Parton turned toward the music of her youth, said Rolling Stone, recording bluegrass and gospel songs. She remained an “unstoppable force with a flurry of world tours, studio albums, film projects, corporate partnerships, and books.” A major philanthropist, she endowed college scholarships, raised money for disaster victims, and gave $1 million to help fund research that led to Moderna’s Covid vaccine. Her Imagination Library has distributed more than 300 million free books to young children worldwide. For all her accomplishments, Parton said being a songwriter was “the guts and the root of the whole thing,” and how she’d like to be remembered. “You’re putting something in the world that wasn’t there yesterday,” she said, “and which you hope people are still going to be singing after you’ve gone.”

The outcome of Michigan’s high-stakes Senate race may come down to a streamer from California, said Alexei Koseff in The Washington Post. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing a campaign crisis after his friend and political ally Hasan Piker—a progressive influencer with millions of followers—suggested in a livestream that if Jewish Americans continue to support Israel, “eventually someone is going to come around and take action—not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” Republican opponent Mike Rogers immediately played up El-Sayed’s ties to his fellow Muslim Piker, calling the streamer his “running mate.” El-Sayed attempted to mend bridges with Michigan’s Jewish community but refused to disavow Piker outright. “If you want to make this race about a streamer in California,” he said, “I just think you’re missing the boat.”

“It shouldn’t have taken this long for prominent Democrats to confront their party’s antisemitism problem,” said David M. Drucker in Bloomberg. Piker has been “spouting antisemitic and antiIsrael nonsense since at least last year”—even as El-Sayed brought him on the campaign trail. Some liberal activists see Piker as the Democrats’ version of Joe Rogan, helping them reach voters under 30, but his incendiary rhetoric risks Democrats’ “historically strong bond” with Jewish voters. Some Democrats are complaining that Republicans aren’t required to denounce right-wing influencers like the racist and Islamophobic Laura Loomer, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. True enough. But as “an avatar” of the insurgent left, Piker has made it clear he wants to purge all Zionists who believe in a Jewish homeland from Democratic ranks. Even though I’m critical of Israel’s policies, “it’s easy for me to see why Piker’s rise panics some Jews.

Like it or not, El-Sayed’s alliance with Piker “is one of the important questions at stake in the election,” said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Piker is not only virulently anti-Israel; he’s a self-described Marxist who has expressed admiration for Mao Zedong and once said America deserved 9/11. El-Sayed has said “he intends to use his victory as a platform” to move the Democratic Party to the left. His victory in November could “throw open the doors of the party to a strain of militant politics that many Jews justifiably consider dangerous.” Given that the alternative—the Republican Rogers—is an adamant Trump supporter, Michigan Democrats face “a grim choice."

“Whatever phantasmagorical thing a Real American might be, there has never been one realer” than Dolly Parton, said Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker. A self-made millionaire who was born in a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains, the beloved singer-songwriter and philanthropist, who died Aug. 25 at 80, “embodied our national ideal of authenticity.” She was even authentic in her embrace of artifice—“the wigs, the eyelashes, the boob jobs”—quipping, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” Then there was her music. She connected with Americans of all ages, races, and classes with songs of “hope, home, and hardscrabble happiness,” whether recalling a jacket her mother stitched from rags on “Coat of Many Colors” or mourning a romance on “I Will Always Love You.” Parton was often called the Queen of Country Music, but there was nothing monarchical about her. She was “democratic to her bones, of the people and by the people and for the people, the duly elected President of the United States of Americans.”

Parton was “the one person who could unite a deeply divided country,” said Zachary B. Wolf in CNN.com. She embraced her LGBTQ fans and penned the feminist anthem “9 to 5” but wouldn’t call herself a feminist, preferring “woman in business.” She dismissed herself as a Jezebel but openly discussed her Christian faith. Her mourners ranged from President Trump, who lowered flags to half-staff in her honor, to the Democratic Socialists of America, who declared her a working-class hero. She maintained “professional political agnosticism,” always deflecting with a “plain-spoken Dollyism” that entertained all sides. No one was surprised when she was ranked the most popular public figure in April, with a net favorability of plus 65, 51 points ahead of her closest competitor, former president Barack Obama.

Her death hits harder coming “when that other faux-blond 80-year-old” is “spreading chaos,” said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times. “Both Dolly and Donald are American originals.” She was “a fairy-tale version of the American dream,” while Trump is an entitled rich kid—another all-American archetype. Her philanthropy “was real and global”; his charitable foundation “was fraudulent and forced to shut down.” Parton represented an America where people “find connections in agreement,” not division, said Christian Schneider in National Review. Those seeking “to make America great again” should strive to do so “in Dolly’s vision.” In death, she pulled off one last remarkable feat: “getting the entire country to agree on something.” The nationwide grief wasn’t performative. “It was recognition that something genuinely irreplaceable had left the room.”

What are Flock cameras?

They’re shoebox-size automated license plate readers that capture still images of passing cars. Typically mounted on poles about 10 feet high, they’re powered by solar panels and linked to cellular networks. Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley founded the company in 2017 because he was fed up with theft in Atlanta, his hometown. The company initially leased cameras to homeowners associations, and by 2020, police departments started buying subscriptions. There are now more than 120,000 Flock cameras in the U.S., deployed by some 7,000 law enforcement agencies. But the backlash has grown just as quickly. Cities are canceling contracts, lawmakers from both parties are drawing up restrictions, and vigilantes have been vandalizing the cameras so they can’t snap pictures. “It’s mass surveillance,” says Cris van Pelt, creator of the police log tracking site HaveIBeenFlocked.com. “It has a huge potential for abuse and very, very little oversight.”

What happens to the images?

The surveillance photos can be uploaded to a vast, searchable database. When a previously flagged or wanted vehicle—which Flock’s AI software can identify by license plate, make, model, color, and even dents and bumper stickers—passes by a camera, local law enforcement receives an alert. Flock Safety says its equipment has assisted in 20% of cleared cases in the jurisdictions that use it, and helped locate more than 10,000 missing people. Providence, R.I., officials said Flock was “instrumental” in locating within hours a masked gunman who killed two people at Brown University last year. And one police chief in Washington state said that since installing Flock, his city of Lakewood has experienced a rare 15-month stretch without a homicide.

What do critics say?

People across the political spectrum—both Tucker Carlson and Bernie Sanders have bashed Flock—argue that its system violates the Fourth Amendment. Will Freeman, an anti-Flock activist, called it a “warrantless surveillance dragnet” in a lawsuit filed in May against the city of Boulder. So far, the courts have disagreed, saying there’s no expectation of privacy on public roads. Immigration activists are concerned about data sharing with ICE or Customs and Border Protection. They note that while Flock Safety has no federal contracts, local police could choose to share information with the feds. Meanwhile, the system isn’t perfect, and its errors can lead to harrowing consequences. When a Flock camera misread a “7” as a “2” on a car in Toledo, falsely matching a stolen car, the vehicle’s owner, Brandon Upchurch, was stopped at gunpoint, mauled by a police dog, and jailed for hours before being released. “I’m traumatized for real,” said Upchurch, who is Black. “If we would have sneezed wrong, it would have ended bad.”

Have police abused the system?

Dozens of law enforcement officers have been charged with or accused of using Flock for unauthorized tracking, mostly to stalk their current or former romantic partners. A Georgia police chief looked up the tags of his girlfriend and her teenage daughter 600 times to track their movements; he was arrested and died of apparent suicide. One woman, a sheriff’s deputy in Wisconsin who requested anonymity, told The Washington Post that her ex, a colleague, searched her license plate over a dozen times a day. “I didn’t leave my house for a week,” she said. One Florida officer, fired after an internal-affairs investigation discovered he’d made 192 inappropriate Flock searches, said, “Pretty much everybody abuses that computer system.” An advocacy group in Joplin, Mo., requested audit logs from the city police department and found that 85% of Flock searches had a one-word justification—like “suspicious” or “drugs”—and that fewer than 3% of searches had a case number.

What does the public think?

Flock appears to be hugely unpopular. Vigilantes have covered the cameras in trash bags, splattered them with paint, and even sawed them down. Freeman, the Boulder-based activist, has launched the app DeFlock, where users can map camera locations; more than 350,000 people have downloaded the app. Flock’s business is still growing, but the backlash has led more than 50 jurisdictions to cut ties with the firm this year. In July alone, 21 groups, including the Los Angeles Police Department, stooped using Flock or began the process of doing so. Local governments and Congress are drafting legislation to regulate the cameras’ use. In the Senate, Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has opened an investigation into how Flock uses its data. In the House, Keith Self (R-Texas) introduced a bill to require federal agencies to get a warrant before accessing any similar data. “This is not a Left issue, not a Right issue,” Self said. “It is a personal issue.”

How has Flock responded?

Langley points out that the cameras don’t do facial recognition and the customer, not Flock, owns the images. “Think about the tooling that we ask local law enforcement to use,” he says. “We give them a weapon, a gun, a taser, yet we’re afraid to give them a camera that reads a license plate on a public road?” As for misuse, the company says, Flock’s records of search logs allow departments to identify which cops abuse their power. Still, the recent bad press spurred the firm to implement changes it says make it harder to use the system for anything other than legitimate crime-solving. Case codes to justify a search, previously optional, will be mandatory, and the audit log will be upgraded so that Flock can detect abnormal search patterns and block those users. The default time for storing images before deletion, currently 30 days, will drop to a week. Yet the DeFlock activists aren’t placated. “No guardrails,” the group said in response to the new guidelines. “No regulations. No ‘only if they really need to’ pinkie promises. [The cameras] are coming down.”

When President Trump launched the Iran war in February, he declared that his “little excursion” would be over in “four to five weeks.” More than six months later, the war is still raging— and Trump “is losing,” said Ishaan Tharoor in The New Yorker. None of his initial goals have been achieved: the toppling of the Islamist regime, the seizure of Iran’s nuclear program, the dismantling of its ballistic missile program. The Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil export route that was open to international trade before the war, is now largely shuttered and partly controlled by Iran. Meanwhile, the U.S. has spent more than $37.5 billion on combat operations, “burned through inventories of precision-guided and air-defense munitions,” and seen at least 18 service members killed and more than 750 wounded by Iranian drone and missile strikes. Angered by high gas prices—now averaging $4 a gallon, up from $2.75 pre-war— only about 30% of voters approve of the president’s handling of the conflict. But Trump seems happy with his performance, said Peter Baker in The New York Times. Two weeks ago, he posted an AI-generated image of himself backed by an aircraft carrier, warplanes, American flags, and a sign reading “Mission Accomplished 2026."

Trump has been in denial for months, said Chas Danner in New York. Days before starting the war, he asked his then director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard if his plan for overthrowing the regime would work. According to a new Wall Street Journal report, she warned him that assassinating Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would usher in a more extreme regime, that Tehran would close the strait, and that Iran would hit U.S. partners across the region, weakening our standing with allies. Trump ignored her, “and all of those things happened.” America’s generals are still sending distress signals, said Fred Kaplan in Slate. In a “remarkable” document leaked to The Washington Post, four-star commanders around the world told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that they wouldn’t be able to “perform their tasks” if, say, China invaded Taiwan or Russia attacked the Baltics, because the Iran war has gobbled up “so many of their planes, ships, and other weapons systems."

Yet Trump now has the upper hand in Iran, said Noah Rothman in National Review. The U.S. Navy has been quietly shepherding more oil tankers through the strait, while its blockade of Iranian ports is making “life inside Iran intolerable.” Supermarkets are running out of rice and cooking oil. Iranians are “hoarding gasoline,” and medical services are “breaking down.” Those “dire conditions” could reignite mass protests—and force the regime to cry uncle. That’s why Trump “must keep up the current economic war,” said Abe Greenwald in Commentary. He’s spent six months flip-flopping on whether to escalate or look for a negotiated “exit.” It’s time to prioritize an “American victory,” even though that means “enduring the inevitable rise in oil prices.”

Good luck selling that to voters, said Joshua Green and Nancy Cook in Bloomberg. With Trump’s approval rating at 33%, GOP strategists are panicking that the “unpopular conflict” will cost the party dearly in the midterms: 69% of undecided voters say they’ll back candidates who want to end U.S. involvement in Iran. But no swift end is in sight, said Daniel DePetris in the Chicago Tribune. Trump’s ego likely won’t let him extinguish “a fire of his own making.” The Iranians, meanwhile, have a simple goal: “Survive.” Tehran may be weaker militarily, but “at least it knows what it wants.”

What happened

The Pentagon was thrown into turmoil last month after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll handed in his resignation, warning President Trump on his way out that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purging of senior officers and resistance to technological change was doing serious damage to the military. Driscoll has clashed repeatedly with Hegseth, who has pursued a vendetta against “woke” values and has in recent months fired or driven out several highly respected top commanders for reasons he has not articulated. They include Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, fired in April, and Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, the top Army commander in Europe, who was pushed out in July. George’s and Driscoll’s departures leave the Army with no Senate-confirmed civilian or military leader amid the ongoing war with Iran. Hegseth has also blocked the promotions of dozens of lower-level officers, many of whom were Black or female or had ties to George or Donahue. Driscoll reportedly warned Trump that Hegseth’s purge was creating chaos, hurting morale, and harming efforts to modernize the military. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) urged Trump to fire Hegseth, saying he was more focused on “culture wars” than on “the vital work of our national defense.

Driscoll’s departure came just days after four top military commanders warned Hegseth that the Iran war was compromising military readiness elsewhere in the world. In a highly classified assessment, the four-star commanders registered their disapproval of a plan to keep more than 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East through September, and many into 2027, The Washington Post reported. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the Post’s story “inaccurate” and “a betrayal of the force,” perpetuated by critics who hate Trump and Hegseth “more than they love America.”

What the columnists said

Driscoll’s departure “couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Brynn Tannehill in The New Republic. In Ukraine, we’re witnessing “a revolution in military technology and fundamentally how we think about war.” But rather than “lean into the future” of drones and artificial intelligence, as Driscoll was attempting to do, Hegseth canceled an elite counter-drone unit that “had been championed by the generals he sacked.” He’s putting his energies instead into building his ideal macho “warfighter” military, with no flab, transgender troops, female flag officers, or “Black men with shaving chits.”

He’s also focused on his own self-promotion, said Ewan Palmer in The Daily Beast. Another Washington Post report revealed that Hegseth had secretly “hired a team of MAGA influencers” who routinely laud him on social media and assail his critics. They include Kurt Schlichter, a retired colonel with more than 620,000 X followers, and Thomas Anderson, who touts Hegseth to his 323,000 X followers under his pen name CynicalPublius. The Pentagon, which had not disclosed that the influencers were on the payroll, “has not revealed what their roles are.”

Hegseth’s officer purge “is without precedent,” said Greg Jaffe in The New York Times. On his watch the number of four-star Army generals has been cut from 10 to five, and he’s fired or blocked the promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals. The dismissals don’t appear to be related to job performance but instead seem part of an effort to build a leadership “aligned with his political and ideological views.” One officer who’d led combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan reportedly had his promotion pulled because a unit he took over had a mentorship group for female paratroopers.

Driscoll’s departure “puts the Pentagon even more firmly under the control of Hegseth and his MAGA agenda,” said Nancy A. Youssef in The Atlantic. Driscoll, an Army veteran and close friend of Vice President JD Vance with the ear of the White House, sometimes “served as a counterweight to Hegseth’s impulses.” The prospect that he’ll be replaced by a Hegseth ally—potentially Pentagon spokesman Parnell—is further “raising fears inside the Army.”

Making a former Fox News host secretary of defense “was always a huge gamble,” said Tom Nichols, also in The Atlantic. “And now the price of that gamble is evident.” It’s not just Hegseth’s purge and his installation of loyalists; his “tenure has been disastrous on multiple scores.” He was reportedly the sole senior administration official to back Trump’s plan to attack Iran. Hegseth raided “assets from other theaters” to support that foolish war, leaving the U.S. and its allies exposed to threats from China and Russia, who are watching closely as we lose “to a third-rate power in the Middle East.” We will all pay the “price for his incompetence.”

Prince Alois of Liechtenstein is expected to veto an initiative passed by the country’s parliament that would legalise abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Situated between Switzerland and Austria, Liechtenstein – the majority of whose roughly 42,000 citizens identify as Roman Catholic – has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. The tiny Alpine principality is also “one of the few places on earth where a royal family still reigns with real political power”, said The Australian Women’s Weekly. Unlike other European monarchies, the constitution allows the ruling prince to dismiss governments, appoint judges, call referendums and veto legislation.

‘Protection of life’

Liechtenstein last held a referendum on legalising abortion in 2011, when the proposal was rejected by 52% of voters. Under current laws, abortion is allowed only in limited circumstances, including when a woman’s life is at risk, or if pregnancy involves a girl under the age of 14 (the age of consent) and/or is the result of rape. A woman who undergoes a termination outside those exemptions can be jailed for up to a year, with abortion providers liable for up to three years in prison.

Last week Liechtenstein’s parliament, the 25-seat Landtag, narrowly backed a citizens’ initiative which would legalise abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, by 13 votes to 12. It would also lift the country’s ban on providing information about abortions and bring them under health insurance cover. MPs rejected another proposal to put the matter to a public vote, despite a public opinion survey, the Lie Barometer, showing that a majority would vote in favour of it.

The initiative is unlikely to become law, however, after Prince Alois, who serves as regent for his father Prince Hans-Adam II, indicated to the Liechtensteiner Vaterland newspaper earlier this year he would veto any legislation of this kind, citing “the central legal interest of the protection of life”.

Currently, women in Liechtenstein must travel abroad if they wish to have an abortion, although since 2015 they have been able to do so without facing a penalty.

Liechtenstein has also not had a maternity ward for several years, “meaning that women must travel abroad to give birth”, said Vatican News. Benno Elbs, the archbishop of Vaduz, stressed the importance of a support system in which “saying yes to life becomes possible”. “A society that protects life must also be a society that does not abandon people in difficulty,” he told the publication.

‘Broader consolidation of power’

The last time the abortion debate was put to a public vote, the royal family threatened to use its power of veto if the result did not go in their favour. Such a step “would have plunged our nation into a severe crisis”, said Gabriella Alvarez-Hummel, a campaigner from Liechtenstein focusing on reproductive rights, in The Guardian. More than a decade on, “speaking out in favour of legalising abortion is regarded as speaking out against the monarchy”.

In August, Prince Alois announced a change to royal succession rules to allow women to ascend the throne on equal terms with men, breaking with three centuries of dynastic tradition. “This means that in future the first-born child, regardless of sex, will become heir to the throne and later princess or prince of Liechtenstein”, the House of Liechtenstein said in a statement.

The move was “hailed as overdue progress” but it also “masked a much broader consolidation of power”, said the Financial Times. Internal documents seen by the FT show that in a closed-door session of family members over the summer “Europe’s wealthiest ruling dynasty had quietly approved an overhaul that strengthens the authority of a prince who already wields extraordinary power”, while at the same time “reducing some of the rights and checks exercised by his relatives in the Princely House of Liechtenstein”.

Checks on Prince Alois were already “quite limited”, Wouter Veenendaal, professor of kingdom affairs at Leiden University, told the newspaper. The powers he now wields “would be unthinkable in Europe’s larger constitutional monarchies”.

College sports were once a bastion of amateur athletics. No more. Players get paid, openly, going to teams that can offer them the biggest paycheck. The lines between college and pro sports have grown fuzzy, and some marginal pro players are even attempting to return to class to keep their careers alive. A fierce backlash has ensued.

LSU: ‘Enraged every stakeholder’

It was once a settled fact that “players who had moved on to pro sports from college could not return to college,” said The Associated Press. Louisiana State University (LSU) is testing that notion, enrolling two athletes, Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, who “spent time in NFL training camps this summer.”

Neither player was on LSU’s roster for Saturday’s season-opening 51-10 victory over Clemson because the Southeastern Conference (SEC) asked a court to “force LSU into following the conference’s rules banning pro athletes.” A judge ruled the duo should be allowed to play under brand-new NCAA rules that allow a fifth year of college eligibility, and the league is appealing. The players are currently in limbo, said the AP. It’s “embarrassing where we are with college football,” Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney said to reporters, per the AP.

First-year LSU Coach Lane Kiffin has “enraged nearly every stakeholder in the sport” with his attempt to bring the pros back to college, said The Wall Street Journal. His recruitment of Wright and Harris sparked “all of college sports’ major conferences” — including the Big Ten, Big 12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference — to quickly adopt policies banning the return of players who attempt to go pro. Athletes who “sign professional contracts” should not “be permitted to return to college competition,” the SEC said in a statement, per the Journal.

Kiffin is pushing to let the athletes regain their eligibility to play at the college level. “They’re either gonna play for you, or they’re gonna play somewhere else around the country,” he said at a press conference.

LSU is not the only organization recruiting former pros. The NCAA has been ordered by courts to “allow professional basketball players to return to college basketball,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said at USA Today. Filling college rosters with “older adults and former professionals” will have the consequence of squeezing younger athletes out of college athletics. The NCAA is backing the “Protect College Sports Act,” which would codify college eligibility standards into federal law.

Amateurism: ‘Fundamentally dishonest’

The LSU saga is highlighting “college sports’ identity crisis,” Jason Lloyd said at The Athletic. University athletes “weren’t paid, they weren’t represented by agents, they couldn’t profit from endorsements” until the last few years. Such amateurism was “fundamentally dishonest” given the billions of dollars generated by college sports. Direct payments and endorsements are now allowed, a recent change. But colleges refuse to call the newly paid athletes “employees.” Doing so would give the players “legal rights, obligations and bargaining power” universities want to avoid. The question that must be answered: “What, exactly, is a college athlete in 2026?”

While the legal battle proceeds, LSU is playing without Wright and Harris — and playing well. Kiffin’s football team led Clemson 31-3 at halftime of Saturday’s game. “Imagine,” Kiffin said to ESPN at halftime, “if we had pro players.” The SEC is not amused. The league on Tuesday scheduled a vote of its college presidents to decide “whether to expel the Tigers from the league,” said ESPN.

‘America’s 911 system is dangerously out of date’

Rebecca Neusteter at Time

Many Americans “may be surprised to learn a sobering truth: The 911 professionals who answer the phone are often unable to automatically pinpoint a caller’s precise location and cannot always rely on callers themselves,” says Rebecca Neusteter. The U.S. “has let our 911 emergency response system languish for decades, failing to make the necessary investments to bring it into the digital age.” Updating “911 technology should be a national priority, and Congress must provide sufficient funding.”

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‘The Trump administration is claiming success in drug strikes. Not so fast.’

Daniel DePetris at the Chicago Tribune

“Cartels in Mexico and gangs in Ecuador are now considered to be in the same league as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State — this, despite the fact that cartels have no political ideology and are predominantly concerned with making money,” says Daniel DePetris. But “boat strikes don’t seem to be doing much of anything to reduce the flow of drugs.” By “waging an actual war on drugs, the powers that be in Washington are confusing tactical accomplishments with strategic ones.”

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‘It’s time for America’s workers to take their power back’

Fred Redmond at Newsweek

This “Labor Day, it is important to remember that everyone in this country deserves a fair shot at the American dream: a good job with decent wages to support a family and the chance to one day retire,” says Fred Redmond. Families are “stressing over every expense,” and for “Black workers and other workers of color, that dream is moving further out of reach.” Unions “fight for economic justice and for racial justice,” and “those fights are not separate.”

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‘Sexual strangulation is derailing a generation of girls’

Debra Soh at The Globe and Mail

What was “once considered aggravated assault is now an accepted part of modern dating,” says Debra Soh. Sexual choking “has become so normalized” that “both sexes believe the practice is benign, which is a myth that pornography, social media and sex educators promote.” But “there is no safe way to partake in choking, because it doesn’t require much pressure on a person’s neck for unwanted side effects to happen, including memory loss, headaches, stroke and brain damage.”

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Ukraine has spent years using its drone arsenal to great effect, both in its wartime front with Russian forces and in penetrating deep into Russian territory for daring aerial attacks on fuel and commercial infrastructure. Now, Ukraine has a new target: Russian airports and Moscow’s commercial air travel industry.

“Every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports” should know “Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a statement last week. Although Ukrainian drones have filled Russia’s skies before, Zelenskyy’s implied threat to commercial air routes suggests the war for aerial supremacy in the region has taken a new and potentially even more dangerous turn.

Why focus on commercial air travel?

Zelenskyy’s warning comes as part of Ukraine’s “effort to disrupt Russia’s economy” and “pressure Moscow to end the war,” said The Wall Street Journal. Ukraine has “vowed to avoid targeting airliners and civilian deaths.” Instead, it intends to “scale up so-called Operation Carpet,” which circulates drones “near Russian airports, forcing air-traffic control to pause takeoffs and landings.”

The strategy is “no longer simply a repetition of isolated, sporadic emergency alerts” that have shuttered Russian airways in the past, said Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Southern Command, to the Journal. Ukraine intends to “transition to constant pressure aimed at paralyzing civilian air traffic” for eastern Russia.

The problem for Russia is “not that Ukraine has to shoot down an airliner,” said industry news site Live and Let’s Fly. “Quite the opposite.” Ukrainian drones merely need to “create enough uncertainty” for authorities to close airports or until “airlines or insurers decide the risk is no longer worthwhile.” The tactic is a “useful tool of war.”

Trying to shutter an airport permanently “would be difficult,” as a “sustained attack would become predictable and easier for air-defense systems to halt,” said The Guardian. But “periodic closures of Russian airports on a semi-regular basis” are achievable by “relying on an element of surprise,” said Royal United Services Institute aviation analyst Justin Bronk to the outlet.

Ukraine has also “urged the U.N.’s aviation agency” to “ask its members ‌to fully ban operations in Russian airspace,” said Reuters. The International Civil Aviation Organization itself has observed “heightened risks of civil aircraft being targeted or caught in crossfire,” said the group in a statement this week. Though the airline industry can “reroute flights and maintain operations during conflicts,” that type of “operational ​flexibility does not address the ​fundamental security threat.”

What are Russia’s options?

Russian President Vladimir Putin “vowed that Russia would keep pummeling Ukraine” at a press conference last week where he “dismissed” Zelenskyy’s threat to Russian airspace, said The Washington Post. “If this has been voiced, it amounts to nothing less than a call for state terrorism,” said Putin. “And I would point out that they are asking us to resume negotiations and requesting face-to-face meetings. One does not negotiate with terrorists.”

Although Ukraine’s airspace has been closed to commercial travel for several years, Russia has “refused to close the country’s airspace for civil aviation, despite the escalating war,” said the Journal. While American and European operators have pulled back from Russian sorties, their absence “has proven a boon” to operators from Asia and the Middle East, thereby “offsetting the risk of operating in skies regularly penetrated by Ukrainian drones.”

Russia’s military is “focusing on striking manufacturing and storage sites around Kyiv and energy and port operations in Odessa,” said former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen on Substack. While it is “uncertain whether Zelenskyy’s warning will change the current pattern of attacks and retaliations,” it is also “hard to see” how Ukraine can “keep launching hundreds of drones (sometimes as many as a thousand)” nightly into Russia. It could simply be, said Bryen, that Zelenskyy is “saying more than he can do.”

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Help realize your favorite coffee lover’s barista dreams with a gift that will elevate their at-home java game. Each one of these items, including a versatile milk frother, quality coffee bean grinder and buzzy candy, can be used for making a cup of coffee in the morning or entertaining a crowd ready to get caffeinated.

Fellow Atmos electric vacuum coffee canister

Using fresh coffee beans is one of the “most important parts of making a good cup,” said Wired. Storing them in a vacuum-sealed canister keeps the beans at their peak, preserving the “delicate and rich flavors you get from fresh-roast coffee.” The electric version of Atmos’ coffee canister is easy to use — just push a button — and can also hold spices, nuts and loose-leaf tea. ($80, Amazon)

Instant Pot MagicFroth milk frother

They’ll never need to leave the house for a latte again — unless they want to. The MagicFroth is “highly customizable” and able to make “well-structured” hot, warm and cold foam in three different textures, said Food & Wine. It has a spout designed for precise pouring and can also be used to make non-coffee drinks like hot chocolate and matcha. ($45, Amazon)

Lardera Wilfa Uniform grinder

In order to get the highest-quality cup of joe at home, you have to start with a good burr coffee bean grinder like this one. Its 58mm steel flat burrs ensure precision and uniformity, with 41 settings to choose from for cold brew, pour-over, drip, French press, AeroPress and espresso. The stylish grinder is easy to use — put your beans in, push a button and it shuts off when the beans are “pulverized” — and “sits discreetly” on a countertop “without getting in the way,” said The Verge. ($299, Lardera)

Kinto Sepia amber mug

Coffee tastes better when served in a fun, retro glass. Kinto’s “dainty” glass mugs have a vintage feel and are as “attractive as they are useful,” said Food & Wine. The heat-resistant amber glasses are “durable” and can hold 11 ounces of liquid. They also look “lovely” when displayed on a table or have sunlight streaming through them. ($30, Amazon)

Monin coffee syrup variety pack

Spice up their coffee routine with this selection of five delicious flavored syrups. The pack includes caramel, amaretto, hazelnut, vanilla and Irish cream, along with recipes. Each bottle can flavor up to 15 drinks, from lattes and iced coffees to espresso martinis and milkshakes. ($10, World Market)

Ovalware cold brew coffee maker

The “sleek” design of this “solid” cold brew coffee maker and pitcher adds to its appeal, said Serious Eats. The lid’s “tight seal” keeps the flavor in, with the cold brew tasting the same on day one all the way through day seven (if it doesn’t get consumed sooner). The base and other components came apart “easily” for cleanup, and the borosilicate glass pitcher is dishwasher-safe. ($41, Amazon)

Uncommon Goods blind taste test coffee kit

Help take their knowledge of coffee to the next level. This blind taste taste kit will guide them through distinguishing different bodies and flavors in five mystery single-origin roasted coffees. The kit also includes a flavor wheel, rating sheet, cups and an envelope they’ll open at the end of their tasting experience, explaining each coffee’s origin and flavor profile. ($58, Uncommon Goods)

SugarBean Coffee Bean Brulée

Think crunchy, crackly and like nothing else. Coffee Bean Brulée is a candy made of Arabica coffee beans enveloped in caramelized sugar, which shatters when chewed or crumbled up as an ice cream topping or coffee garnish. There are three caffeine strengths to choose from — Single Shot, Double Shot and Triple Shot, for the biggest buzz — and several different flavors, like cardamom, cacao nib and coconut. ($8.50, SugarBean)

This week’s midterm GOP convention in Dallas will be a “rally like none other” and a “truly Historic Event,” President Donald Trump said on Truth Social in June when he first announced his unexpected plans for an off-season conservative confab. Despite Trump’s enthusiasm, not everyone in the GOP is making the trek to Texas — especially during a brutal campaign cycle that has pushed many battleground Republicans into an electoral crouch.

What did the commentators say?

Republicans are “privately questioning” whether Trump’s midterm convention “strikes the right tone amid the electorate’s tightening budgets,” all while “diverting candidates from their districts just weeks out from Election Day,” said CNN. The “overarching fear,” though, is that an event “once dubbed ‘Trumpapalooza’” will end up being “far more about promoting the president than the candidates who are actually on the ballot.”

Republicans are staring down a “bleak political environment” in which Trump’s approval is at a “record low,” said The New York Times. GOP candidates in battleground races may therefore be “keeping their distance” from Trump’s Dallas rally, “choosing to stay home and campaign instead.” Republicans face “growing hesitation” about associating themselves with the “polarizing president so close to the election,” said Politico. “More than 70 GOP candidates and members” polled by the outlet revealed that “most either do not plan to attend or are still weighing whether to go.”

“I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention,” Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who faces a “tough campaign to keep his central Michigan seat,” said to Politico. “But I can control where I’m at, what I’m doing.”

Still, party officials see the convention as their “best opportunity to rally voters behind Trump’s agenda,” said Reuters, even as some “remain skeptical” that the event can “meaningfully shift voter sentiment.” For organizers, the convention is “expected to serve a familiar purpose as a fundraising and networking hub for candidates and donors.” Many will feel “obliged ​to attend” in order to “court donors and raise their profiles through media appearances,” said RNC member Oscar Brock to the outlet.

Although traditionally “major party conventions” orient themselves around a “specific item of business” such as “formally nominating” candidates, the Dallas convention has “no such line items,” said The New Republic. Steep attendance costs reflect that the event has been “billed as a big Republican party” for which House members are asked to pay a “minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest,” with “better packages” fetching “closer to $100,000.” The event also features multiple “corporate sponsors” whose funds are “being dumped into a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors.”

Given the peculiar funding and “poor planning,” many GOP campaign strategists are “seething” that the convention is “little more than a fundraiser for an unnecessary Trump production,” said Puck. And then “there are the optics” of an event scheduled days after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “Imperfect timing, perhaps,” for officials to be “photographed carousing in elephant hats with the party’s wealthy elite.”

Compounding those optics concerns is the convention being scheduled for the “same nights as the first two games of the NFL season,” said CNN. Primetime speakers, presumably the GOP’s heaviest-hitting figures, will be forced to compete with the “most-watched sport in the country.”

What next?

The convention is scheduled to last two days, said Texas Republican consultant Brendan Steinhauser to The Hill. “Not two weeks.” The short time frame won’t be “taking away from anything else,” and so long as the event is a “net positive financially” and makes use of the time to “deliver a message,” then “it’s a good thing.”

What happened

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday said he was “deeply shocked” by the far-right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) victory in the weekend’s state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. AfD won a 43.8% plurality, according to exit polls, but fell three seats short of the majority needed to form a government. No far-right party has governed a state or major city in Germany since the Nazi era, and the AfD’s win in the small eastern state was the biggest challenge yet to the “firewall” that Merz’s Christian Democrats and other mainstream parties have erected against political extremism.

Who said what

“This is the worst election defeat the CDU has suffered in years, even decades,” Merz told reporters. “Of course, there will have to be consequences,” but “giving up is not an option for me.” The “embattled leader,” saddled with “sagging poll numbers” and a stagnant economy, “faces an uphill battle to save his government,” The Wall Street Journal said. “Impatience with Merz is now turning to panic” in his party, with many officials “pushing him to shift the government’s political course” and a “minority” seeking to lift the party’s “ban on cooperating with the AfD at the state level.”

What next?

AfD leaders said they will try to poach CDU lawmakers to gain the crucial three seats in Saxony-Anhalt or partner with the far-left BSW party, which shares the AfD’s anti-immigrant and pro-Russia views.

What happened

A man armed with two handguns and a Taser charged toward Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dr. Amy Acton on Sunday as she addressed a crowd at the Canfield Fair, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. The man, Patrick Havas, knocked down at least two elderly people but was stopped before he reached Acton and did not draw his weapons, police said.

Who said what

The apparent attack attempt came as the “unofficial start of the campaign sprint” kicked off on Labor Day weekend, Reuters said, and President Donald Trump’s “deep unpopularity is imperiling Republican chances” of keeping control of Congress and state offices. Acton’s “closer-than-expected race” against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy “has become extraordinarily toxic,” The Washington Post said. Ohio politicians from both parties condemned Sunday’s political violence, which a Ramaswamy spokesperson called “completely unacceptable.”

What next?

Havas, 38, was booked in the Mahoning County ​Jail for disorderly conduct and two counts of assault. Even before the Labor Day kickoff, this year’s “campaigns already have been combative, busy and expensive,” The Associated Press said, and “they are expected to get even more so” as “voters tune in ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.”

What happened

Canada on Tuesday morning imposed steep tariffs on about $20 billion of U.S. imports, aiming to match President Donald Trump’s recent 50% tariffs dollar for dollar. The hundreds of U.S. products slapped with the tariffs, ranging from 15% to 50%, include steel, aluminum, cheese, clothing, appliances and farm equipment. Trump has been “trying to humiliate Canada economically” since trade talks broke down in acrimony last month, The New York Times said, but Prime Minister Mark Carney has his “insulted and angry nation solidly behind him.”

Who said what

Carney’s new retaliatory tariffs cover goods worth “roughly 6%” of U.S. exports to Canada last year, so they’re “unlikely to dent U.S. growth overall,” The Associated Press said. But “Canada has already gone beyond tariffs in other ways,” slashing U.S. alcohol sales with provincial bans and boycotting other goods, while Canadians “sharply cut travel” to the U.S.

The “spat with Canada” is the “latest evidence” that Trump “remains as committed as ever to his disruptive strategy of trade brinkmanship,” the Times said, despite “nearly two years of blistering court defeats, vicious international disputes and mounting domestic blowback” over rising prices and severed trade relationships.

What next?

Trump over the weekend suggested ending all trade with Canada and on Monday night threatened to block sales of Canadian Bombardier aircraft inside the U.S. Carney has “become symbolic of resistance,” Canadian historian Robert Bothwell told the AP. So Trump will try to “make an example” of him and Canada to “theoretically terrify everybody else while in fact showing them that they need to remove themselves even further from the United States.”

Founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, Eton College is a “rarefied bubble of educational privilege” that will have taught the country’s next two kings, said The Telegraph. Prince George will this week follow his father, uncle and 20 British prime ministers by attending the £21,891-per-term boarding school west of London.

Speaking in 2000, Prince William said that he “really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student”, although in his autobiography published in 2023 Prince Harry was critical of his time at the school.

George will be exposed to the same “idiosyncrasies” of the institution, but changing times present new challenges for the young prince.

‘Own language and traditions’

Prince George will be one of “250 apprehensive first years” arriving at the school for their first term, said The Telegraph. In the first few days, George and his classmates will settle into their accommodation and begin learning “Eton’s peculiar geography” and the typical “rhythm of the day”. School days begin with a 10-minute morning chapel service, followed by around seven lessons, and at least two hours of “intense sport”, as well as “EW (extra work)”, Eton’s name for homework.

“Eton has its own language and its own traditions,” said The Sunday Times. Each house has a “dame”, Eton’s version of a matron, who will “regularly pop in for a chat with George and the other F-Blockers”, or first years. He will also be assigned an “‘uncle’” and a “timelord” from among the older boys in his house. The former will explain the intricacies of Eton’s uniform – a “black morning suit with pinstripe trousers” – and mastering the “front studs, back studs and detachable collars”. The latter will help him arrange his schedule and extra-curricular activities, which might include “22-inch calibre rifle shooting on the school range” or “auditioning for a play”.

“The school has so many unique names and phrases that there is an ‘Eton Glossary’ on its website,” said the Daily Express. George will be expected to learn and use the terms “pop” (senior prefects), “dry bobs” (those who play cricket instead of rowing in the summer) and “beaks” (teachers). On day one, new pupils are quizzed on these “unique phrases of the school”, as well as the colours of each of its 25 houses.

Even though Eton is close to Forest Lodge, the Waleses’ eight-bedroom Windsor home, George will be a full boarder, said Hello! This means he will go home “every two or three weeks”, although he will enjoy a room to himself, as “there are no shared rooms at Eton”.

‘Challenge’ for security

For George, going to Eton will be a chance to “find his first tribe away from home”, said The Telegraph. But being a future king does not entitle you to “become a BNOC (big name on campus)” at Eton. “No one cares who your parents are, because almost everybody’s parents are someone.”

However, the young royal differs from his peers in having “greater protection than any heir in modern times”, said The i Paper. The Prince and Princess of Wales have fought for a “tighter approach” to media access than William and Harry experienced at Eton. They were part of a “gentleman’s agreement”, in which photos were traded to the press from a select number of events in exchange for leaving them alone.

While media coverage of the royals has “undergone a sea change since the 90s”, Prince George still faces a “bigger threat” to his privacy and security than his predecessors. The “rise of phone cameras, Meta glasses and other smart spectacles” are a “challenge” for the 24-strong security team at the school. Eton’s facilities are “dotted around the town”, meaning George is likely to encounter tourists who are not subject to the same rules and regulations as the media. “Take a close look at pictures of Prince George released ahead of his first day at Eton. They may be the last we see of him for some time.”

Donald Trump suggested last week that the US might reconsider its tacit support for British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in retaliation for the UK’s failure to support him in the Iran war. The US president implied that he would not support the UK in a territorial dispute with Argentina.

Soon after, in a televised address, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, said he would reopen the country’s claim to the islands it calls las Malvinas, declaring that the geopolitical “winds of change” would favour Buenos Aires. He proposed a “handover” of the islands akin to the transfer of Hong Kong to China, dismissing Britain as a country “in decline”.

What did the commentators say?

During the Falklands War in 1982, Margaret Thatcher had “the solid backing of the special relationship, and her ideological soulmate, Ronald Reagan, in the White House”, said Robert Tait, The Guardian’s US political correspondent. But Andy Burnham “must contend with the chill wind emanating from the menacing and destabilising presence of Trump”.

The US president’s “vindictive mindset” is to Milei’s advantage and “was almost entirely the trigger” for his address; the Argentinian president is trying to counter his own “falling political popularity”. Indeed, the same factor “may have played a key role” in the military junta’s decision to invade the Falklands in 1982.

But there’s no suggestion that Argentina would “dream of repeating” that “disastrous” decision, which led to the death of 907 sailors and soldiers, said The Economist. Milei “appears uncompromising” but, in truth, he knows forcing any change in status for the Falklands is a “tall order”. In a 2013 referendum with a turnout of more than 90%, all but three of 1,517 islanders voted to remain a British Overseas Territory .

Milei claims “this territory is ours”, but he wants to reach a “consensus solution” over the future status of the islands, similar to Britain’s agreement with China to cede control of Hong Kong. There are “risks to stirring up fresh confrontation”: Britain could block the sale of weapons containing British parts to Argentina, or influence how the International Monetary Fund “deals with” Milei’s struggling government. Milei may simply be trying to “shore up the more conservative parts of his base” ahead of elections next year. “Amping up his rhetoric” is less a show of strength than a reflection of Milei’s weakening domestic position.

In the event of a conflict, even a deployment of “two destroyers and three or four frigates” would be a “stretch” for the Royal Navy, said Lewis Page in The Telegraph. However, the UK’s aircraft carrier capability would be “completely dominant against Argentina”. Their forces are “even more run down than ours”.

While the UK could not sustain an aircraft carrier presence “indefinitely”, we could “dominate the skies over the Falklands for long enough to mount a campaign there”. And, unlike in 1982, the Falklands are “at least somewhat garrisoned”, which would be a “serious problem for a renewed Argentinian invasion”.

What next?

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said British support for the Falkland Islanders’ right to determine their own future was “unwavering”.

However, as part of a “furious backlash” to the UK’s plans to sanction Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel is now calling for sanctions on Britain over the Falklands, said The Independent. Far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described the islands as “Argentine territory under occupation”. Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister, took aim at what he called Britain’s “hypocrisy and hostility towards Israel”, saying Israel would only “stop recognising the Malvinas” once Britain stops “recognising Palestine”.

Plans for large-scale oil production around the Falklands “raise the economic stakes”, said Al Jazeera. Milei declared that the Sea Lion deep-sea oil project, a joint UK-Israel operation due to begin production in 2028, was a “clear and present danger” to Argentinian interests. Argentina has threatened to file criminal charges against Israeli energy company Navitas Petroleum and its executives, claiming they have violated Argentinian law by holding UK-issued exploration and exploitation licences.

Sweden’s “second city”, Gothenburg, is less crowded than Stockholm and, thanks to the “icy, clean water surrounding the coast” is known for its excellent seafood, said Arielle Domb in The Independent.

Located on the country’s southwest coast, at the mouth of the River Göta, the city has been a “crucial” destination for the fish and shellfish trade since the 18th century. Its daily indoor fish market, Feskekörka, is still open today. Housed within a building that resembles a church with “pointed Gothic arch windows”, you’ll discover “vibrant fish stalls” selling everything from lobsters and crayfish to whole salmon. A two-day seafood festival “celebrating west coast ingredients” takes place every September, this year from 18 to 19.

Gothenburg is “brimming” with trendy restaurants and coffee shops. Bar Bulot is a lovely spot for natural wines and seafood dishes like “delicate halibut ceviche with thin slices of melon” or “oyster with a tangy tapioca mignonette”. For a really “exquisite” meal try Champagnebaren, where you can feast on “edible flower-decorated dishes that look like paintings”. And if you feel like a cocktail after dinner, head to the “stylish” bars Bruno or Unity Jazz, both “around the corner”.

If the city has one “must-see district” it has to be Haga, said Alicia Miller in National Geographic. Grab some salty liquorice at Lakritsroten to munch while you explore the “cobbled streets and cute boutiques”, and stop to browse in the antiques shops.

There is “nothing more Swedish” than fika – slowing down for the country’s cherished “coffee-and-cake ritual”. If you want to “feel like a local” go to “sip artisanal coffee” at da Matteo on the central shopping street of Magasinsgatan before buying a sourdough cinnamon bun from Alvar & Ivar to “nibble in Slottsskogen park”.

To “get to grips” with the city’s history, consider spending an afternoon at the Museum of Gothenburg which is “primely placed in the 18th-century former Swedish East India Company headquarters, on the banks of Stora Hamnkanalen” (Great Harbour Canal).

Perhaps best of all, Gothenburg is within easy reach of a “beguiling” archipelago, said Lizzie Frainier in The Times. Vrångö, the southernmost inhabited island, is just a 30-minute ferry ride from Saltholmen port. With fewer than 400 residents, it’s home to two “ruggedly beautiful” nature reserves, each with its own hiking trail. There is only one hotel on the island – Kajkanten Vrångö – where traditional boat houses have been transformed into pared-back “self-catering” accommodation that look out over the water. Order a seafood hamper from nearby Fiskeboa to enjoy the “sweetest langoustines you will ever taste”.

Everyone wants to go to space, but at what cost? Companies that have been hoping to colonize the cosmos are not addressing the potential environmental and atmospheric impacts of that expansion. This phenomenon is known as starwashing, and it is likely only going to become more common.

Taking space

Starwashing, a spin on greenwashing, is when space companies “sell space exploration narratives by appealing to a desire to expand humankind beyond Earth” while “downplaying or omitting the negative repercussions for Earth and the space environment,” Marissa E. Yingling, an associate professor of social work at the University of Louisville who first popularized the term, said at The Conversation. These companies “appeal to your sense of cosmic wonder” as well as to an “interest in learning about life’s origins, Earth’s place in the universe or the desire for humans to explore places beyond our planet.”

The problem is that starwashing “takes attention away from actually solving the problems that are here on Earth,” Gregers Andersen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern Denmark, said to Grist. For example, Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, “envisions building space habitats that could house billions as a solution to environmental catastrophes on Earth” and “outlined a vision for moving industry off Earth, most immediately to the moon,” said Yingling. SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk, has expressed interest in creating human settlements on Mars. But “even if having a fraction of the human population live and work in space one day far in the future were possible, it would not fix pressing environmental crises such as wildfires or climate change in the near term.”

Another source of potential harm is the proliferation of data centers. AI usage has increased the need for these centers, which have very high water requirements. Bezos and Musk “both have companies that build and rely on resource-intensive data centers based on land” and have “espoused plans to construct solar-powered orbital data centers,” said Yingling. They “frame these plans as environmentally beneficial because an orbital data center wouldn’t require the same amount of water or electricity as a data center on Earth.” Yet “orbital data centers, made up of satellite clusters, would add to an already-crowded space environment.” They can also “threaten Earth-based astronomy” and “pollute Earth’s orbit with debris.”

Room for improvement

Unfortunately, putting things in space takes a substantial environmental toll. Spaceflight “leads to a globally averaged depletion of the ozone layer and contributes to global warming,” said a study published in the journal Earth’s Future. “Nearly 88% of the ozone loss comes from nitrogen oxides released by objects reentering the atmosphere.”

Aside from ozone depletion, “space expansion has other environmental effects,” said Grist. These include the “loss of dark sky as satellites reflect sunlight and damage to wildlife habitats around launch sites,” in addition to the “enormous greenhouse gas emissions involved in building and launching satellites.”

If a “rocket, satellite network or lunar mining project is supposed to benefit everyone, companies should have to provide transparent accounting for emissions, land use, debris risks and impacts on communities,” said The Cool Down. There should also be “tougher oversight before new launch facilities, satellite fleets or data-center projects move forward.”

The prevalence of starwashing does not mean that all extraterrestrial endeavors should be scorned, said The Cool Down. “Methane-detecting satellites have uncovered leaks from oil and gas operations in recent years that dramatically exceeded what had been reported,” said Grist, and “astronauts have been shocked by how fragile and delicate Earth’s atmosphere looks from space,” turning a “surprising number of them into climate advocates.”

John Healey has said Britain’s economy is finally “turning a corner” as he set out his mission to “make Great Britain growth Britain” again.

In his first major speech as chancellor, Healey sought to reassure the markets by pledging to stick to Labour’s tax and spend fiscal rules, while trying to present a more optimistic view of Britain’s economic prospects. But only days ago a global bond sell-off saw UK yields hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crash, further increasing the cost of borrowing for the UK government.

But Healey “begins with a credibility problem that is not entirely of his own making”, said Simon French in The Sunday Times. He is the eighth chancellor in 10 years, so many businesses, households and investors are “fatigued and sceptical” about yet another new vision for growth.

What did the commentators say?

“A glance at the news could easily reinforce the gloomy impression” that the UK economy is in dire straits, but some key indicators are “telling a more cheerful story – one of growth”, said James Moore in The i Paper.

There is a “surprising level of optimism” among businesses in the services and manufacturing sectors, with overall GDP growth expected to beat Bank of England forecasts for the third quarter, boosted by warm weather and the men’s football World Cup. The data shows “that UK plc is more resilient than anyone really expected in the face of the strong headwinds that it is battling against”.

There are tentative signs that “consumer confidence has also improved”, said Delphine Strauss in the Financial Times. Private new car registrations are up by almost a fifth compared to last summer, while earlier figures from the Bank of England show growth in consumer credit.

UK recruiters also saw hiring pick up in August for the first time in four years. It adds to “evidence that the UK’s weak jobs market was stabilising and business and consumer confidence were improving – albeit from a low base – before a renewed rise in gas prices and sovereign bond yields that again threatens to hold back the economy”.

Most members of the public who describe the economy as broken “put its condition down to poor political priorities rather than to other reasons, such as global shocks, immigration or failings on the part of individual citizens (such as not working hard enough)”, said Anoosh Chakelian in The New Statesman.

Andy Burnham and his chancellor are constrained by costly rising debt – interest on debt costs more than the defence, Home Office and justice departments combined – rigid fiscal rules, and Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise the three main taxes. But they need to find a way to pay for their ambitious policy platform “that commands the confidence of markets – and a public more and more convinced that the economy is broken by design”.

What next?

While the underlying numbers look positive, were the Bank of England to raise interest rates later this month, or Healey to announce tax rises in the Budget at the end of October, things could turn sour very quickly.

For now, the chancellor is trying to strike a more upbeat tone than his predecessor. After the equivalent speech in the last two years since Labour returned to power, the public has been “left with a clear message of tough times, and significant tax rises ahead”, said the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam. Today was different.

The chancellor is “trying to nurture some fragile early signs that confidence is returning” but “the burning question is how to fill multi-billion gaps in public finance plans before the Budget, in a way that minimises the economic impact.

“While vibes are important, policy matters more.”

A “touchstone of British factual television”, will come to an end this September, said Radio Times. Two 90-minute episodes of one of the world’s longest-running documentaries will air on ITV in an “epic and moving end to a television landmark”.

Based on a Jesuit maxim – “give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man” – 14 seven-year-olds from a variety of backgrounds were interviewed in 1964 about their thoughts and aspirations for the future. But the tenth and final iteration will see a return of many cast members, who have mixed views on the show’s practices.

‘Glimpse of the country’s future’

This “groundbreaking ITV documentary series” has been described as the “Bayeux tapestry of television”, said The Guardian. Over the last six decades, the children’s progress has been “creating a snapshot of Britain’s social history”.

But this instalment will have some “noticeable differences”. Michael Apted, the researcher who found and selected the participants, and interviewed them for each episode, died in 2021. Director Asif Kapadia, who was chosen to replace Apted for his acclaimed Ayrton Senna, Diego Maradona and Amy Winehouse films, has since called this documentary the “most beautiful thing I’ve ever made”.

Two of the subjects have died. Lynn Johnson, who became a librarian in east London, was the first, in 2013. Nick Hitchon, a Yorkshire farmer’s son who became a nuclear scientist, approached the programme wanting to record a final message after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died in 2023, just “hours” after his final “heartbreaking” interview.

The documentary was originally intended as a “one-off” for the current affairs show “World in Action”, said The Times. But it intrigued audiences as it “promised the viewer a glimpse of the country’s future”.

The cast’s lives continue to diverge. Tony Walker, a “cheeky-chappy kid” from Bethnal Green, east London, dreamt of becoming a jockey, but turned to cab driving, while Andrew Brackfield claimed to read the Financial Times aged seven, successfully predicted he would attend Cambridge, and is a retired partner of Linklaters. But in a “villain-free series”, Bruce Balden’s “fundamental goodness still shines”. In the first episode he said we should “give most of our money to poor people”, and by “28 Up” was “teaching maths to immigrants in the East End and in 35 Up was teaching in Bangladesh”.

‘Outrageous’ inequality

Over this time period, we have seen the participants “grow up, marry, separate, have careers, suffer illness and depression”, said The Independent.

Cast members have also accused Apted of “pursuing an agenda and have been intermittently unhappy at how they were portrayed”. Throughout you can see a “reluctance to continue to appear on screen warring with a sense of duty – a generational one, perhaps – not to disrupt a historic enterprise”.

Many of the cast stepped back for one or several episodes. One of a “trio of prep-school toffs”, Charles Furnaux left after 21 and became a BBC producer, while Liverpudlian teacher Peter Davies dropped out for three instalments after being “monstered by the right-wing press for calling Margaret Thatcher’s government ‘an incompetent, uncaring bloody shower’”.

Considering the aims and scope of the project, it is “outrageous” that only four girls were chosen alongside 10 boys, cast member Jackie Bassett told The Mirror. Bassett, alongside two friends from the same “working-class east London” primary school, and “solo upper-class Suzy” were the only female representatives on the show.

Bassett famously challenged Apted on camera for “asking the women about marriage and children rather than anything else”. She would later “point blank refuse to speak about certain topics”. “I was not going to talk about something that would affect my family, my children – so I basically just told him no”, said Bassett. “He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.”