Nerdery triumphs over gossip in this earnest but compelling memoir of the 90s New York club scene
It is bizarre to learn that, despite a career spent desperately trying to fill the dancefloor, reading the room night after night to predict how he might make it pop off, Mark Ronson never dances – “unless you count standing around, bobbing my head, and reciting rap lyrics as dancing”.
Night People is intended as Ronson’s memoir but is as much an attempt to immortalise the people and scenes he came up in as it is a reflection on a childhood shaped by the late-night parties hosted by his parents – first in London, where a distant memory of Robin Williams tucking him in to bed with “Nanu nanu” floats through, then later in Manhattan, when his mother marries Mick Jones from Foreigner.
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© Photograph: Steve Eichner/Steve Eichner/Getty Images
© Photograph: Steve Eichner/Steve Eichner/Getty Images
© Photograph: Steve Eichner/Steve Eichner/Getty Images
In this week’s newsletter: a conservation success story has a sting in its tail as wild pollinators pay the price
Everyone wants to save the bees.
Angelina Jolie put on a beekeeping suit for Guerlain and David Beckham proudly presented the King with a pot of honey from his bees in Oxfordshire. So many people wanting to do good have set up hives in their gardens or on roofs that they have become a symbol of sustainability. Of course, farming honeybees is a great way to make delicious honey, but there is a sting in the tail – keeping hives doesn’t help wild pollinators.
Human-made global warming ‘caused two in three heat deaths in Europe this summer’
A tiny town in Idaho dodged incineration in 2024. Will the next wildfire take it out?
Wild bees visit different flowers to balance diet, study shows
The best way to help bees? Don’t become a beekeeper like I did | Alison Benjamin
I was terrified of bees – until the day 30,000 of them moved into my house | Pip Harry
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© Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy
© Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy
© Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy
McConaughey plays the unassuming real hero who drove a schoolbus full of children out of California’s deadliest wildfire
The political context has been scorched away in Paul Greengrass’s empowering inferno. This is a dynamically shot and earnestly performed real-life disaster movie about California’s terrifying 2018 Camp fire, a darkness-at-noon horror that became the deadliest wildfire in California history, killing 85 people and razing more than 150,000 acres. Greengrass and co-screenwriter Brad Ingelsby have taken their inspiration from Lizzie Johnson’s 2021 book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, about the calamity and the ironically named town caught up in it, pointing up the extraordinary, unassuming courage of school-bus driver Kevin McKay who piloted a busload of screaming kids and their teacher through hell to safety.
America Ferrera plays the caring, if slightly prim teacher Mary Ludwig and Matthew McConaughey is the rough, sweaty everyman hero behind the wheel – with whom, in the time-honoured style of Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, Mary is to have an emotional connection. Before the fire, Kevin had been a loser and a screwup, alienated from his son and ex-wife, on the verge of getting fired from his school-bus-driving job (due to honest errors attributable to family worries) – but of course highly eligible for the heroic redemption that the fire will provide.
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© Photograph: Apple TV+. All Rights Reserved./PA
© Photograph: Apple TV+. All Rights Reserved./PA
© Photograph: Apple TV+. All Rights Reserved./PA
Supporting Sri Lankan tea-pickers, training Mexican marine conservationists, and helping to regenerate remote Alpine villages are among your favourite tourism projects
• Tell us about a favourite European city break – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher
Nestled in the Kathmandu Valley, Nagarkot Community Homestay Network is a cornerstone for building businesses. It enables women to grasp financial independence by opening up their homes to tourists. It was an enriching cultural experience for both me and my host. Their support of each other spilled over during my stay, in their warmth, delight and genuine desire to share and learn.
Vicky Bamford
© Photograph: Harald Kraus/Alamy
© Photograph: Harald Kraus/Alamy
© Photograph: Harald Kraus/Alamy
Beijing’s comments come as leading military figures in PNG express concern over a potential defence treaty with Australia
China has urged Papua New Guinea not to sign a treaty that could restrict or prevent it from cooperating with another country, days after Australia failed to secure a defence pact with the Pacific nation.
In a statement on Facebook late on Thursday, the Chinese embassy in Papua New Guinea said it respected the country’s “right to conclude a bilateral treaty with other countries on a voluntary basis”.
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© Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
© Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
© Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Over a year into power, Starmer’s government is floundering – but it still has time on its side. In the second of a two-part series, our panelists suggest ways of reversing the slide
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© Composite: Guardian Design/PA
© Composite: Guardian Design/PA
© Composite: Guardian Design/PA
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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© Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images
Decades after the BBC sitcom first aired, B&Bs in the Devon resort only occasionally lean into their association with the show
With his abusive and impatient service, ill temper and overt snobbery, Basil Fawlty might not have expected to be a point of reference forbed-and-breakfast owners.
But 50 years after Fawlty Towers first aired on the BBC, B&Bs in Torquay are still fond of the town’s association with the sitcom and its eponymous proprietor.
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© Photograph: PA
© Photograph: PA
© Photograph: PA
A buttery and crumbly pastry, which works as well for breakfast as it does for an afternoon treat
Italians know what they’re doing when it comes to sweet things, and they’re not shy about enjoying them for breakfast, either; that said, only in Sicily do I feel comfortable having brioche and granita first thing in the morning, mainly because no one there bats an eyelid. This crostata – a buttery, crumbly pastry filled with homemade blackberry and bay jam – would work well for both breakfast and an afternoon treat. You will have more jam than needed here, but if you’re going to the effort of making it yourself, it’s worth having a bit extra to enjoy on yoghurt or toast.
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© Photograph: Issy Croker/The Guardian. Food styling: Julia Aden. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.
© Photograph: Issy Croker/The Guardian. Food styling: Julia Aden. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.
© Photograph: Issy Croker/The Guardian. Food styling: Julia Aden. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.
Exclusive: Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at recent ICAO meeting, thinktank says
The UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.
Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at the recent “environmental protection” meeting of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the report found. The ICAO is the forum where nations agree the rules governing international aviation.
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© Illustration: Guardian Design/Alamy
© Illustration: Guardian Design/Alamy
© Illustration: Guardian Design/Alamy
Framework outlines legislation both sides will need to pass to create agency investigating Troubles-era crimes
The British and Irish governments are to unveil a new framework to deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s Troubles in an effort to resolve an issue that has bedevilled politics in the region and relations between London and Dublin.
Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, and Simon Harris, Ireland’s foreign minister, are scheduled to publish the long-awaited proposals on Friday after a year of negotiations to overhaul the controversial Legacy Act passed by the Conservative government in 2023.
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© Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
© Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
© Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
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