The artist and curator of photography talks about her relationship to the work of Black pioneers of photography and the influence of her 2000 book

When Dr Deborah Willis was an undergrad student at the Philadelphia College of Art, she asked the question that informed her work for years to follow: “Where are all the Black photographers?”

From photos by Gordon Parks in Time Magazine to Black image-makers capturing daily life in Ebony and Jet magazines – she knew that Black photographers, like her father, were making their impact on the world. Growing up, her father was an amateur photographer, and her father’s cousin owned a photo studio, and seeing them photograph people as a child created a desire in her to become an image-maker.

Version of company’s Gemini 2.5 AI model solved complex real-world problem that stumped human computer programmers

Google DeepMind claims it has made a “historic” artificial intelligence breakthrough akin to the Deep Blue computer defeating Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997 and an AI beating a human Go champion in 2016.

A version of the company’s Gemini 2.5 AI model solved a complex real-world problem that stumped human computer programmers to become the first AI model to win a gold medal at an international programming competition held earlier this month in Azerbaijan.

‘Sometimes, less really is more,’ says chef as Michelin-starred restaurant offers Mindful Experience option

When gazing at the bill after a Michelin-starred meal, the average diner’s first thought is not usually: “I wish I’d got less food for that.”

But Heston Blumenthal has come up with a new menu catering to just that sentiment, tailored to reflect a growing demand for smaller portions, driven by weight-loss drugs.

Former president called recent attacks ‘horrific’ and urged leaders to lower political temperature

Barack Obama addressed the recent killing of Charlie Kirk and told a crowd in Pennsylvania this week that the country was “at an inflection point”, but that political violence “is not new” and “has happened at certain periods” in US history.

Obama added that despite history, political violence was “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country”.

Museum says specimens taken are worth €600,000 based on price of gold but have ‘immeasurable heritage value’

Historic gold samples with a street value of €600,000 but priceless to scientists and researchers have been stolen from the French national natural history museum in the latest of a series of museum robberies in France.

“This has happened in a critical context for cultural establishments in France, particularly museums,” the Paris museum said. “Several public collections have been the victims of robberies in the past months.”

• First T20: England, 197-6, beat Ireland, 196-3, by four wkts

• Salt has rollicking opening stand with Buttler and hits 89

Jacob Bethell’s big day was hardly straightforward but this was still a brutal showing by England. With Ireland putting up 196, some serious work was required to avoid an upset as the 21-year-old became his country’s youngest men’s captain.

Enter Phil Salt, ready to make headlines again. The opener followed his 141 against South Africa last Friday with 89 off 46 balls as England secured victory in the first of three Twenty20 internationals, with 14 balls to spare.

Police call on public for information as campaigners demand government address increased threat and ‘anti-Sikh hate’

Police investigating the rape of a British-born Sikh woman in a racially aggravated attack in the West Midlands have made a fresh appeal for public help as they bailed an arrested man.

The woman, in her 20s, reported being attacked by two white men while she was on her way to work in Oldbury on the morning of Tuesday 9 September.

Anderson updates Thomas Pynchon for the era of Ice roundups, pitting shaggy revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio against cartoonish forces of reaction

One of the great creative bromances has flowered again: Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon. Having adapted Pynchon’s Inherent Vice for the screen in 2015, Anderson has now taken a freer rein with his 1990 novel Vineland, creating a bizarre action thriller driven by pulpy comic-book energy and transformed political indignation, keeping his pedal at all times welded to the metal.

It’s a riff on the now recognisable Anderson-Pynchonian idea of counterculture and counter-revolution, absorbing the paranoid style of American politics into a screwball farcical resistance, with a jolting, jangling, nerve-shredding score by Jonny Greenwood. It’s partly a freaky-Freudian diagnosis of father-daughter dysfunction – juxtaposed with the separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border – and a very serious, relevant response to the US’s secretive ruling class and its insidiously normalised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) roundups: the toxic new Vichyite Trump enthusiasm.

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2; Gearbox Software/2K Games
Familiar and predictable, but also well-honed and significantly less juvenile, the fourth Borderlands game is a blast

Once a games franchise hits its fourth outing, it is certainly mature – yet maturity is not a word generally associated with Borderlands, the colourful and performatively edgy looter-shooter from Texas. This series is characterised by a pervasive and polarising streak of distinctly adolescent humour. But in Borderlands 4, developer Gearbox has addressed that issue: it features plenty of returning characters in its storyline, but this time around they are more world-weary and less annoyingly manic. Borderlands has finally matured, to an extent. And not before time.

Borderlands 4 still flings jokes at you thick and fast, and they are still hit-or-miss, but at least its general humour is a bit more sophisticated than before. It retains the distinctive cel-shaded graphical style and gun and ordnance-heavy gameplay that people have always loved. Indeed, it throws even more guns at you than any of its predecessors, and with a little work at filtering out the best ones, you will find plenty of absolute gems with which to take on hordes of straightforward enemies and more interesting bosses. A decent storyline emerges after the formulaic first few hours, eventually sending you off on some unexpected, fun and sometimes gratifyingly surreal tangents.

The choice for governments around the world is clear: engage, or fall beneath the US president’s wheel. For now, Britain must do the former

Has any visiting leader ever seen so little of Britain or the British as Donald Trump is doing this week? The absurdly unrepresentative version of the country offered up to the US president on his second state visit on Wednesday was a Windsor parody, a Potemkin version of this country, glistening with protocol and polish, amid a lavish reenactment of the British monarchy’s invented traditions. Just about the only thing that was authentic was the rain.

But here’s the unalterable and underlying thing. None of that really matters. What matters is that Trump is the most powerful leader in the world. Despite all the Trumpian shocks, the US and Britain remain allies. Business can and should be done between them. So the opportunity for face-time with Trump, in circumstances designed to soften him up with flattery and engage him over this country’s own priorities, is to be seized. Not to do this would be perverse.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

She had a zest for life that propelled her to the heights of stage and screen – but behind all this lay a shocking story of violence, grooming and abuse. From her bed, flanked by pills and cigarettes, Ireland’s grande dame looks back

Brenda Fricker is sitting up in a bed plumped with pillows, wearing a sapphire blue blouse and a head of grey-golden ringlets. One bedside table has her medication, 25 pills a day. Another has a cup of water, an ashtray and her cigarettes. Above and on either side of her are shelves jammed with an eclectic hoard of books: Salman Rushdie, Edna O’Brien, Brian Aldiss, Alex Ferguson. Meanwhile, gazing out from framed black and white photographs on the walls, are writers, producers and actors from another era, plus a young, luminous Fricker herself.

The current version of Fricker is 80 and not so well, happy to be interviewed but only from the bed of her Dublin home – not exactly a common setup with stars, but then she is no ordinary star. “I’m out of breath just talking,” she says. “I’ve never known tiredness ever in my life. Weary. Will I ever get up again?” She will, but the question is not entirely rhetorical. “I’m having a dreadful death,” she says. “I’m just dying, every day in pain.” This is said in a matter of fact tone, only to be undercut by a rueful prediction: “I’ll probably live to be 100.”

Dr Debra Houry and Susan Monarez say US unprepared to prevent chronic disease or fight next pandemic

• RFK Jr’s actions have greatly diminished US ability to respond to outbreaks, ousted CDC officials say

Donald Trump has claimed his administration has reached a deal with China to keep TikTok operating in the US, amid uncertainty over what shape the final agreement will take, with suggestions from the Chinese side that Beijing would retain control of the algorithm that powers the site’s video feed.

“We have a deal on TikTok ... We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” Trump said on Tuesday, without providing further details.

An American football fan called in sick so he could attend a game – and was rumbled after being caught on camera, his face projected up on the stadium’s giant screens

Name: Getting Coldplayed.

Age: The original incident happened on 16 July this year.

A research paper says people are more likely to believe you if you use long words when asking for forgiveness. I prefer to keep it simple

A bloke in a service station once said something really horrible to me. But he swiftly followed it up with one of the most sincere apologies I’ve ever been on the end of. This was at Hopwood Park services on the M42, years ago. I’d just pulled up at the pump. Clocking me, he knocked on the passenger window, and when I opened it he stuck his head in and said something vile. It could have been classed as banter, I suppose, but it was still vile. My two young children were in the back, all wide-eyed in bafflement. Upset more than angry, I got out, filled up and went to pay, only to find him waiting by the car when I returned. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry mate. I didn’t know you had your kids in the car. I apologise for that.” There was something about the last four words which made the difference, somehow adding just the right amount of emphasis.

I wasn’t particularly pleased to have such a memory stirred this week when I read about a research paper, published by the British Psychological Society, on how the length of the words you use when you make an apology are important in conveying your sincerity. Apologies always fascinate me because, as far as I can see, without contrition on one side and forgiveness on the other, we’re all doomed.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

DIY expert Jaharn Quinn has spent 20 years upcycling homewares. She shares where to look and what to bring when hunting for pre-loved pieces

I have always loved thrifting and upcycling. There’s no greater feeling than discovering a hidden gem at a thrift shop and upcycling it into something new, especially when you save hundreds – sometimes thousands – of dollars.

I love flipping through interior magazines, poring over gorgeous images on Pinterest and scrolling through home tours on social media.

Compile your thrifting inventory. This should include the items you are especially looking for, such as a bedside table or a chest of drawers. It’s inevitable that you’ll get sidetracked – which is half the fun – but a list helps you focus when you start to feel overwhelmed, which sometimes happens.

Always carry cash. It makes it easier to bargain.

Pack plenty of blankets or towels in your car. These will protect the pieces you find and keep them cushioned from moving around in your vehicle too much.

Pack a toolkit including antibacterial wipes to wipe down secondhand furniture, removing the dust and dirt to see what’s underneath; measuring tape to see what will fit in your car and home; a notebook filled with ideas, house plans and measurements plus a pencil to jot more down; paint swatches to check for colours that can easily be integrated into your home; and a screwdriver set in case you need to take furniture apart to fit it into your car.

Delphi-2M uses diagnoses, ‘medical events’ and lifestyle factors to create forecasts for next decade and beyond

Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence tool that can predict your personal risk of more than 1,000 diseases, and forecast changes in health a decade in advance.

The generative AI tool was custom-built by experts from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the German Cancer Research Centre and the University of Copenhagen, using algorithmic concepts similar to those used in large language models (LLMs).

More women are entering the US ranching and agriculture field. Their struggles – and aspirations – defy the traditional Marlboro cowboy stereotype

Savanah McCarty was not riding across the wide-open prairie when a horse accident nearly killed her.

She was in the driveway of her leased farm outside Bozeman, Montana, waiting for a student’s mother to arrive, when her horse seized and flipped over backwards, landing on top of her.

When Jade Ang Jackman met Ayesha Hussain it was to make a film about the latter’s training as a stunt performer. With that in the bag along with Sag award nominations, they are going after bigger ambitions together

Ayesha Hussain says her mum was relieved when she became a professional stuntwoman because there were a lot more safety precautions on film sets than at the nightclubs where she had been fire-breathing and throwing knives since her early 20s. Now a twice Sag-award nominated stunt performer, with credits on Doctor Who, Gladiator II and Deadpool and Wolverine, 35-year-old Hussain has her heart set on becoming “the female Keanu Reeves slash Jason Statham”.

As part of Hussain’s aim to tackle the lack of representation of south Asian women in the action arena, she joined with Malaysian-British director Jade Ang Jackman to co-found the film collective Babes With Blades. In January, they took over the Rio cinema in London’s Dalston during the London short film festival to showcase a series of action shorts; these included FKA Twigs’ swordsmanship in Sad Day, and Nida Manzoor’s teen action-comedy 7.2. Babes With Blades has also started a print magazine; and taught classes to children from low income households the basics of boxing.

Eoin Hayes TD apologised for ‘huge mistake’ of dressing up as Barack Obama at 2009 Halloween party

A member of Ireland’s parliament who was pictured in blackface at a 2009 Halloween party will stay on as a member of the Social Democrats, the party leader has said, citing his “unreserved” apology and the fact that the incident took place 16 years ago.

Eoin Hayes, a deputy (TD) for Dublin Bay South, came under fire this week after media published pictures of him dressed up as the then US president, Barack Obama, at a party. At the time, Hayes was the president of the students’ union at University College Cork.

Fahad Ansari launches legal action against UK home secretary after his phone is seized at Holyhead port

A lawyer who filed Hamas’s challenge to proscription claims he was unlawfully detained under the Terrorism Act, with his phone containing legally privileged information examined because of his client.

Fahad Ansari, who issued legal proceedings on Wednesday against the home secretary and the chief constable of north Wales police, was stopped by officers at the port of Holyhead on 6 August as he returned from a family holiday in Ireland with his wife and four children.

‘When I stopped to let him out, he was looking down. I didn’t know what he was doing. Turned out he was writing a poem about me. I still have it’

I drove a cab in New York for three decades. Riding around, I would meet poets, drag queens and other people who were inspiring. It made me feel good. I started taking their portraits, sometimes with me in the picture. I had several cameras and would often have my strobe hooked on to my visor with a rubber band.

This particular evening, in 1990, I had been informed by a friend that there was a book event going on so I went to take a look. It was jam-packed inside. I spotted Allen Ginsberg, so I went over and talked to him a little. He was pretty intense, kind of stressed, so I had to lay back a little but I asked him if he could write an introduction to my book In My Taxi. But he had too much going on.

EU executive also seeks sanctions on two Israeli ministers, but may struggle to secure majority approval required

The EU executive has called for a suspension of free trade with Israel and sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Ursula von der Leyen had already floated the proposal to suspend the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement last week as the European Commission faced intense pressure for greater action amid criticism that it was not using its economic leverage to influence the Israeli government.