As the band celebrate their 60th anniversary, a California exhibition draws attention to the unique psychedelic artwork that has long told their story

Artist Bill Walker is one of those guys who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Having met Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead bassist and avant-garde classical composer, as a student at Nevada Southern University (now the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Walker was invited in 1967 to make an album cover for the band’s second album, Anthem of the Sun. This experience led to an epic LSD and ayahuasca trip in the Valley of Fire outside Las Vegas over New Year’s Eve and when Walker returned to San Francisco, he painted Anthem of the Sun, complete with figures he came across in the desert.

The Anthem of the Sun painting visually demonstrates the intense innovation that happened in the psychedelic revolution, when music was electrified and LSD became central to the burst of culture that defined the 1960s. The Grateful Dead encapsulated this spirit in their music and came to be considered the most American band of all time for being at the center of the psychedelic movement and its transition from the Beat generation that preceded it.

The new Data (Use and Access) Act, which criminalises intimate image abuse, is a huge victory won fast in a space where progress is often glacially slow

For Jodie*, watching the conviction of her best friend, and knowing she helped secure it, felt at first like a kind of victory. It was certainly more than most survivors of deepfake image-based abuse could expect.

They had met as students and bonded over their shared love of music. In the years since graduation, he’d also become her support system, the friend she reached for each time she learned that her images and personal details had been posted online without her consent. Jodie’s pictures, along with her real name and correct bio, were used on many platforms for fake dating profiles, then adverts for sex work, then posted on to Reddit and other online forums with invitations to deepfake them into pornography. The results ended up on porn sites. All this continued for almost two years, until Jodie finally worked out who was doing it — her best friend – identified more of his victims, compiled 60 pages of evidence, and presented it to police. She had to try two police stations, having been told at the first that no crime had been committed. Ultimately he admitted to 15 charges of “sending messages that were grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing nature” and received a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Up against the brilliant Mitchell Starc and his band of bowlers, even a dot ball for England in the Ashes is a moment of relief

“Must be amazing to be in Australia for the Ashes, what’s the atmosphere like?” It’s an understandable, if slightly daft question. Brett Lee isn’t in my house. I don’t wake up next to a furious Jonathan Agnew. “WHY AREN’T YOU IN CANBERRA, MAX?” I’m 850 miles from Brisbane.

Apart from me the atmosphere is one of wild indifference amongst the family. The good news is I’m hosting the Guardian Ashes Weekly podcast - now a professional excuse to watch another five (or two) days of agony.

Global Witness says plan to upgrade railway line from DRC to Angola puts up to 1,200 buildings at risk of demolition

Up to 6,500 people are at risk of being displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project funded by the EU and the US, amid a global race to secure supplies of copper, cobalt and other “critical minerals”, according to a report by campaign group Global Witness.

The project, labelled the Lobito Corridor, aims to upgrade the colonial-era Benguela railway from the DRC to Lobito on Angola’s coast and improve port infrastructure, as well as building a railway line to Zambia and supporting agriculture and solar power installations along the route. Angola has said it needs $4.5bn (£3.4bn) for its stretch of the line.

As leaders try to break smugglers’ business model, research suggests strategy so far has had opposite effect

Hardline migration policies adopted by governments across the globe have been a boon for people smugglers, fuelling demand and allowing them to raise their prices, according to a report.

The findings, released on Thursday by the Mixed Migration Centre of the Danish Refugee Council, and based on interviews with thousands of migrants and hundreds of smugglers, come as officials prepare to gather next week in Brussels to discuss how best to combat smuggling.

The rookie plays like a linebacker at quarterback. His reckless style is costing his teammates and coaches as well as himself

Jaxson Dart wants you to know something: this is real football. It’s not soccer or flag. It’s tackle football, the kind where quarterbacks go airborne. After taking the latest in a growing compilation of bone-crushing hits, Dart brushed himself off and delivered a post-game sermon on toughness. “We’re not playing soccer,” he said. “You’re going to get hit. Things happen.”

Yet these “things” continue to happen to Dart at an alarming rate. In his eight NFL starts, he has absorbed as many unnecessary hits as any rookie quarterback in recent memory. On Monday night, Dart took another heavy hit near the sideline in the first quarter of the Giants’ 33-15 loss to the Patriots. Dart scrambled out of the pocket on second-and-13 and ran for a first down. As he approached the sideline, Dart could have stepped out and gained fewer yards while still moving the chains. Instead, he braced, lowered his shoulder and was sent soaring through the air by Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss.

Perhaps the data-soaked discourse of modern football actually does this Premier League centurion something of a disservice

Stack them up. Pile them high. Sort them and arrange them, parse them and categorise them, order them to your table like items in a Chinese restaurant. Personal favourites? Give me the No 33 against Arsenal, the one with the flowing hair. I’ll also take a No 81 against Chelsea, when he spots a hapless Robert Sánchez out of goal, and lobs him deliciously from the edge of the area.

Give me a No 98 against Bournemouth, in which he deliberately slants his run around the keeper, slots it in from a tight angle, tries to clamber atop the advertising hoardings in triumph, loses his balance, collapses in peals of giggles. And maybe chuck in a No 53 against Brentford, in which Kristoffer Ajer somehow manages to fall over without being touched, spooked into incoherence by his very presence.

Our cartoonist on what inspired him to draw some of his finest cartoons this year

• Buy a special print from his collection here

• David’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now

“Denis Law is one of the few footballers I’m too young to have seen play live, but like all followers of the game, I’m aware of his impact and talent. What I hadn’t fully appreciated was what a kind and generous person he was – something that became obvious as I read the many tributes to his character, in preparation for this cartoon”.

Gus Poyet’s assistant says ‘moment of misunderstanding’ led to his being punished by the K League

Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors had their “La Decima” banners ready on the second weekend of November to celebrate a 10th South Korean title won in style by the head coach, Gus Poyet. Their game with Daejeon Hana, however, turned out to be the most controversial and divisive of the season. Jeonbuk were leading 2-1 when, in injury time, the referee, Kim Woo-seong, did not award a penalty for handball, much to the displeasure of Mauricio Taricco, Poyet’s No 2.

Even when VAR intervened and Kim pointed to the spot, the former Tottenham full-back kept complaining, to the extent that he was shown a second yellow card minutes after the first. The Argentinian put his index fingers next to the outer corner of each eye. Kim interpreted the gesture as racist and reported the 52-year-old to the K League’s disciplinary committee.

Icy mining magnate Gillian Anderson goes head to head with rebellious rancher Lena Headey in a drama that takes itself so very, very seriously

Angel’s Ridge, Washington Territory, 1854. It’s dusty, there’s a saloon bar, there’s horses, an ineffable sense of – I don’t know, let’s call it manifest destiny – about the place, and the only colour settlers have brought with them is sepia. But wait! What’s this? The owner of the local silver mine riding into town? And it’s a woman! In a western?

Yessir, it is. Not only that but she is played by Gillian Anderson (in full ice mode, despite the dust) and is clearly trouble. Not only that, but there is a second woman about to go toe-to-toe with her and do battle for the town’s soul over the eight episodes that comprise The Abandons, the latest venture from Sons of Anarchy’s Kurt Sutter. Its joint lead is Lena Headey as Fiona Nolan, a devout Irish Catholic woman who has gathered a misfit ragtag bunch of motley orphan crew outcasts about her and lives with this patchwork family in Jasper Hollow. Jasper Hollow, alas, is full of silver that Constance Van Ness (the local mine owner, played by Anderson) wishes to bring under her control to placate one of her investors.

Twenty years on, the social media-savvy contestants will have greater power. His brutal approach to judging them will have to change, too

There is a moment in the trailer for Simon Cowell’s new Netflix show, The Next Act, that is almost touching in its adherence to the way things once were. Cowell, who we see on a variety of beige sofas primly clutching his knees, talks about how to curate a new boyband, 20 years after the launch of his first TV talent show. “There is a huge risk here,” he says, heavy with drama. “If this goes wrong, it will be: ‘Simon Cowell has lost it.’” In fact, as anyone who has an eye on dwindling audience figures for his existing shows knows, for the vast majority of 18- to 24-year-olds – or even for younger millennials – the more likely response will be, “Simon who?”

Which doesn’t mean that a new generation of viewers can’t be lured in by Cowell’s expertise. The question of whether 66-year-old Cowell can tweak a dusty and decades-old model has less to do with current music trends – just as well, since pop music has moved from TV to TikTok, which Cowell says he hates – than the music executive’s extremely well-tested ability to make good TV and bend his persona to align with the times. In the rollout of publicity for the new show, Cowell has made a good fist of expressing regret at how rude he used to be to contestants, apologising in the New York Times, after some cajoling, for “being a dick”, and putting his eye-rolling, grimacing performance as a judge down to the tedium of audition days rather than what most of us understood it to be: the extraction of lolz out of confused individuals who had the misfortune to appear on his shows.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Fifty-four couples got married in a mass wedding in Gaza in a moment of hope after two years of war. Crowds gathered in Khan Younis among the rubble

Whitney thinks Haile would be happier in a relationship. Haile says she’s fine by herself. You decide who’s being too single-minded
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m being treated like a sad case, but I am fine by myself. I’m not interested in dating at the moment

Haile’s happiest when she’s in love. I’m glad she’s found peace, but I worry she’s closing herself off

Tall, handsome and used to receiving fire emojis on his social media posts, the dancer has, with his partner Mayara Magri, been called ‘the Posh’n’Becks of ballet’. But there is suffering in his art: ‘I kind of enjoy negativity,’ he says

In the expensive hush of a hotel bar over the road from the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden, London, Matthew Ball asks for a mint tea. I’m having a white wine; Ball’s body is clearly more of a temple than mine, although you don’t need to know our drinks orders to see that: he has an effortlessly straight-backed posture, muscular arms under a white T-shirt. On stage, ballet dancers can seem like mighty gods and goddesses, but often IRL they are petite. Not so Ball, whose tall stature is part of why he’s much in demand for princely roles and partnering. With the fine features and strong angles of his face, and those piercing eyes, there’s a bit of the Robert Pattinson about him. Is he as brooding and romantic in his roles on stage? Certainly. Tortured? We’ll come to that.

At 31, Ball is riding the crest of a career that seems to have gone pretty smoothly so far. Growing up in Liverpool, he didn’t get much stick for being into ballet as a kid (the worst comments came from another girl in his ballet class). Joining the Royal Ballet School at 11, he graduated straight into the Royal Ballet company and was promoted each year, making it to the top rank of principal in 2018. He has loved getting his teeth into meaty dramatic roles, especially the psychological turmoil of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballets: the suicidal Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling or the doomed poet Des Grieux in Manon. As a guest star he was smouldering as The Stranger in Matthew Bourne’s popular Swan Lake and made a virtuoso cameo, spinning in a Paul Smith suit, in the recent Quadrophenia ballet. Plus, he dances at galas all over the world, often with his Brazilian girlfriend and fellow Royal Ballet principal Mayara Magri. He would groan at me telling you that Tatler called them “The Posh’n’Becks of ballet”. “They really went to town on that,” he shakes his head bashfully, “Golden Balls!”

The Russian president’s Delhi visit gives him a chance to reduce Moscow’s isolation but both countries need each other to negotiate Trump’s America and a powerful China

When Vladimir Putin last set foot in India almost exactly four years ago, the world order looked materially different. That visit – lasting just five hours due to the covid pandemic – saw Putin and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi discuss economic and military cooperation and reaffirm their special relationship.

Three months later, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would turn him into a global pariah, isolating Russia from the world and restricting Putin’s international travel.

Government once seen as progressive on migration says aid cuts to blame for excluding countries ‘not experiencing war’

The Ugandan government has stopped granting asylum and refugee status to people from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, citing severe funding shortfalls for the significant policy shift.

Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees, announced that the government would no longer grant the status to new arrivals from countries “not experiencing war”.

The imposing concrete buildings that defined British postwar architecture held a vision of the future – but many fell into disrepair. A new book finds the finest examples

A new overnight bus service in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland offers comfort and sustainability

I feel my travel-scrunched spine start to straighten as I stretch out on the plump mattress, a quilted blanket wrapped around me and a pillow beneath my head. As bedtime routines go, however, this one involves a novel step – placing my lower legs in a mesh bag and clipping it into seatbelt-style buckles on either side; the bed will be travelling at around 50mph for the next 12 hours and there are safety regulations to consider.

Last month Swiss startup Twiliner launched a fleet of futuristic sleeper buses, and I’ve come to Amsterdam to try them out. Running three times a week between Amsterdam and Zurich (a 12-hour journey via Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg and Basel), with a Zurich to Barcelona service (via Berne and Girona) launching on 4 December, the company’s flat-bed overnight sleeper buses are the first such service in Europe.

A tricky age gap, a dose of wedding day drama, literary love affairs, office rivals and the sexy side of Brexit

Consider Yourself Kissed
Jessica Stanley (Hutchinson Heinmann)
Clever and contemporary, this modern romance between short king single dad Adam and magazine writer Coralie accrues depth as it jumps from initial meet-cute to a decade-long romance, all the while embracing stepmotherhood, work and politics. (You didn’t think you could get Brexit into a romance?) The writing is wonderful, and the book has genuine heft – which might dial back the escapist fun, but it’s no less enjoyable for that.

Problematic Summer Romance
Ali Hazelwood (Sphere)
Hazelwood, a behemoth of current romantic fiction, specialises in funny and sharp hot-nerd affairs. Despite highlighting its own issues in the title, this novel got a rather mixed reception from the more judgmental corners of the internet on account of the age difference between the lovers. The gap between Maya and Conor, her big brother’s best friend, is 15 years – she is 23 to his 38. Depending on your generation and point of view, this is either completely and absolutely fine, or intensely concerning, despite the heroine insisting valiantly on her own agency and a reluctant romantic hero who resists the affair for this very reason. The book itself is typically charming and incredibly enjoyable, full of one-liners and cheek. (Far less controversially, she has followed it up with Mate, about a vampire bride falling in love with a werewolf. Sex with an actual animal is notably less problematic than an age gap in 2025.)

Residents report homes shaking from 3.3-magnitude quake that British Geological Survey says was centred just off the coast of Silverdale, Lancashire

A 3.3-magnitude earthquake shook homes in north-west England late on Wednesday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported.

The quake struck shortly after 11.23pm and was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District, including the towns of Kendal and Ulverston, within 12 miles of the epicentre.

25 questions on notable pop culture, sporting and public figures we lost this year. How will you fare?

Something a little different this week. As the year draws to a close, the Thursday quiz pauses to pay tribute to some of the notable pop culture, sporting and public figures we lost over the past 12 months, with the annual in memoriam edition. No prizes, except the chance to remember the joy they (mostly) gave us – via the medium of trying to recall obscure trivia about them. Let us know how you get on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 226 – annual in memoriam edition

Advertising expert questions origins of slogan selected by Games organisers who hail its ‘significant symbolism’

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

If you typed the words “believe, belong and become” into a Google video search on Thursday morning, the first return may have been a sermon by TJ Mauldin, the lead pastor of the First Baptist church of Tifton, Georgia.

Directly below the bearded and blue-jeaned pastor’s video under that alliterative banner, you may have clicked through to a sermon by West Florida Baptist church’s Mike Brown, who had those three b-words emblazoned on a snug-fitting black T-shirt.

Amnesty International finds immigrants at Florida facility were shackled and left outside in metal cage for up to a day

Detainees at the notorious Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz” were shackled inside a 2ft high metal cage and left outside without water for up to a day at a time, a shocking report published Thursday by Amnesty International alleges.

The human rights group said migrants held at the state-run Everglades facility, and at Miami’s Krome immigration processing center operated by a private company on behalf of the Trump administration, continue to be exposed to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” rising in some cases to torture.

Pace of area’s temperature rise, outpaced in US only by Alaskan Arctic, apparently increased in past five years

The US region called New England is widely known for its colonial history, maple syrup and frigid, snow-bound winters. Many of these norms are in the process of being upended, however, by a rapidly altering climate, with new research finding the area is heating up faster than almost anywhere else on Earth.

The breakneck speed of New England’s transformation makes it the fastest-heating area of the US, bar the Alaskan Arctic, and the pace of its temperature rise has apparently increased in the past five years, according to the study.