‘She saw these tarot cards on my table and asked me to read her future. I predicted absolutely nothing’
Before switching to photography I studied fashion, so my early photographs concentrated on that. But, in 1994, I decided that music and people were the subjects I wanted to get involved in. I went into a newsagent and found a music magazine called Touch, which I really liked the look of. After agreeing to look at my fashion portfolio, the editor said: “Well, you’ve got beautiful models here. Can you make boring DJs look as interesting?”
He commissioned me to photograph drum’n’bass DJ General Levy, and it ended up on the cover of the magazine. As a result, I picked up work from DJ Mag – they asked if I was into drum’n’bass and I just went with it. I photographed clubbers at London’s Ministry of Sound – there was a guy in the crowd who really stood out, and I was later excited to discover he was Goldie.
As US-China tensions simmer, people online are joking about wanting to ‘become Chinese’ – starting with their wellness routines
Did you drink ice water today? If you did, that was “not very Chinese of you”, according to Sherry Zhu, a 23-year-old Chinese American creator based in New Jersey. If you were really serious about “becoming Chinese”, you would be sipping hot water every day, she warned in a TikTok video with millions of views. “I really do feel like, digestion-wise, a lot better when I’m drinking hot water,” she later explained to GQ.
Zhu’s guidance is taken from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a health system that dates back 5,000 years and offers a holistic approach to treating symptoms – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Other creators of Chinese descent have their own TCM hacks: keep your feet warm and your periods will be more bearable. Drink tea made with goji berries, jujubes and ginger as a cure-all. Move your body every day to promote the flow of qi, or internal energy. “Do my Chinese baddie routine with me,” they caption their videos in half-authoritative, half-joking tones. “Advice from your Chinese big sister.”
With the wait for the new Winds and Waves games set to stretch into 2027, Pokemon’s 30th anniversary celebrations have plugged the gap with a deluge of nostalgia bait. Is the franchise in danger of losing its heart?
It has been almost impossible to escape Pokémon for the past few weeks. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original games, the Pokémon Company has been on an unprecedented promotional nostalgia trip for the entire month: there was a campaign where celebrities gushed about their favourite Pokémon, gifting us the memorable sight of Lady Gaga singing with a Jigglypuff, and Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (great Game Boy Advance remakes of the original 1996 games) were rereleased on the Nintendo Switch. The Natural History Museum in London has opened a special Pokémon pop-up shop, and a limited-edition greyscale Pikachu plush toy sold out in about three seconds (they will be making more, to the disappointment of scalpers everywhere).
And all that is just the start. We’ve seen the opening of a Pokémon theme park in Tokyo, the announcement of a tiny Game Boy-shaped music player that plays the games’ soundtrack, a collaboration with high-fashion brand JimmyPaul that had its own runway show … it’s been endless. Regular readers will know that I am exactly the target audience for this festival of Pokémon nostalgia: the first generation of Pokémon kids and now hurtling towards 40. And yet I have been unmoved by most of this, even slightly annoyed by it.
An heiress helping to traffic young women to brutal billionaires: the finale of the banker drama used one of its characters to take on a huge real-life scandal
Just who is Yasmin Kara-Hanani? It’s a question that has dogged Industry’s trauma-logged heiress since the series began in 2020. “Who have I married?” wonders Henry Muck, Yasmin’s hapless aristocratic new husband about his ruthlessly ambitious bride in her Lady Macbeth era.
The season four finale solves the mystery with a shocking Epstein-inspired arc. As the Tender scandal spirals, revealing the payment processor/wannabe bank as a front for Russian intelligence, the former Lady Muck cuts and runs from her marriage to Henry, as well as her job in communications at Tender. She is now carving a niche for herself trafficking young women to a transnational crew of brutal billionaires hellbent on breaking the social contract nation by nation. Turns out, Yasmin (Marisa Abela) is a millennial-style take on Ghislaine Maxwell. It’s a ruinous evolution perversely pitched as a dream realised.
MPs warn the plan so far lacks direction and drive, but there are four clear ways to really move on from our disastrous Brexit
Many of us have been there: in the driver’s seat on a tricky hill start, when the engine cuts out and the car judders to a halt. Since the EU-UKsummit last May – the event that was supposed to map a new and dynamic way forward – stalling is fast becoming a real risk for Keir Starmer’s most crucial long-term policy area: improving Britain’s relationship with the EU.
Today’s report by MPs on parliament’s foreign affairs committee rightly warns that despite the hugely welcome – and essential – progress in relations with our closest allies and neighbours, Starmer’s project is “suffering from a lack of direction, definition and drive”. If Labour is to deliver a growing economy, improve living standards for every UK resident and tackle the very real threat of Reform UK, getting the EU reset back into gear is a matter of urgency.
Naomi Smith is chief executive of Best for Britain
Lawsuit is first wrongful death case brought against Google over flagship AI product after death of Jonathan Gavalas
Last August, Jonathan Gavalas became entirely consumed with his Google Gemini chatbot. The 36-year-old Florida resident had started casually using the artificial intelligence tool earlier that month to help with writing and shopping. Then Google introduced its Gemini Live AI assistant, which included voice-based chats that had the capability to detect people’s emotions and respond in a more human-like way.
“Holy shit, this is kind of creepy,” Gavalas told the chatbot the night the feature debuted, according to court documents. “You’re way too real.”
Keir Starmer has told MPs that “hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship” after criticism of his stance on the Iran conflict.
A day after Donald Trump dismissed Starmer as “not Winston Churchill”, angry that the US was denied use of British bases for initial strikes, the prime minister’s handling of the UK response to the conflict came under attack by Kemi Badenoch, the opposition leader, at prime minister’s questions.
With shipping routes disrupted and tensions rising across the region we want to hear from maritime workers, sailors and port workers and others working at sea who are affected
The conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping across the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.
Maritime traffic through the strait, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, has effectively been closed since strikes on Iran began. Some vessels have been diverted or delayed and ports and shipping companies are dealing with heightened security concerns and uncertainty.
Sixteen novels are in contention for the £30,000 award, now in its 31st year, with settings ranging from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata
Katie Kitamura, Susan Choi, Kit de Waal and Lily King are among the authors longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction.
Awarded annually and now in its 31st year, the prize comes with £30,000, and is one of the most prominent accolades for women’s writing in the English language. The 16-strong list features a selection of novels that range in setting from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata, and from 1970s Birmingham to East Berlin on the brink of reunification.
To browse all books in the Women’s prize for fiction 2026 longlist, visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
If you want to add some glitz to elevate your look, try shiny earrings, metallic shoes or a snazzy belt
Once in a while, it is fun to pull out all the stops and get properly dressed up. To wear something gorgeous and probably impractical, do your makeup carefully, rather than in two and a half minutes, and coerce a family member into taking a photo before you leave the house.
It is awards season, and red carpet fashion hoopla is all around us. But for those of us who don’t have an Oscar nomination, the nights that call for weapons-grade glam are few and far between, especially at this time of year. Which is fine by me because, frankly, who has the time? In real life, for most of us, quick styling hacks when you want to look A Bit Dressed Up are way more useful than a ball gown. Accessories that elevate your look from blah to belle, easy tricks that give your outfit a sense of occasion. These, not the bells-and-whistles party dresses, are the real treasures of your wardrobe.
Linguists say reaction to Irish TD’s remarks reflects shared regional English roots and enduring impact of empire
When the politician Thomas Gould rose to speak in the Irish parliament recently, few expected a lesson in colonial linguistics.
Yet clips of his speech began circulating online last week, with some viewers saying he sounded unmistakably Jamaican. The reaction was animated, particularly among Jamaican heritage communities.
In an attempt to find new audiences and save money, opera companies are ‘throwing spaghetti at the wall’ to see what sticks. It often works
It’s Sunday and I’m in a suburban Ikea on the verge of tears. Perhaps this is not so surprising – who among us hasn’t approached emotional breakdown navigating the labyrinthine homewares store? But these are tears of joy. And no, it’s not because I’ve nabbed one of the cult-status Djungelskog plushies; it’s because of the five people singing at me from two metres away.
I’m in the outdoor plants and furniture section, watching The Marriage of Figaro – or a version of it, in which Figaro and his bride-to-be, Susanna, work in floor sales and their philandering boss is the store manager. It’s probably the last place I’d expect to discover the sublime beauty of Mozart’s opera. Half an hour earlier, my fellow audience members and I – who were emailed the secret location 24 hours earlier – were eating meatballs and mash in the canteen.
An internal US assessment indicates that Israeli officials had doubts that the Lebanese state could disarm Hezbollah even before Israel launched an aerial campaign against the group on Monday.
The leaked embassy cable shows that on the eve of the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Israeli officials had told Washington that Hezbollah was reconstituting its military capabilities faster than the Lebanese armed forces could degrade them. It said neither Beirut nor Damascus could be trusted to contain the threat on Israel’s northern borders.
Social media feeds have been flooded with fake battle scenes since start of Iran conflict
Elon Musk’s X will ban users from making money on the platform if they repeatedly post unlabelled AI-generated war videos, after social media feeds were flooded with fake battle scenes from the Iran conflict.
The social media platform, which has about half a billion monthly active users, will suspend people from earning revenue from posts for 90 days if they put up AI-generated videos of an armed conflict without adding a disclosure that it was made with AI. A second infraction wouldlead to a permanent ban, it said on Tuesday night, after the first days of the conflict in Iran were marked by a torrent of bogus online footage.
In book Dream Facades, Jack Balderrama Morley examines houses from shows including Keeping Up with the Kardashians to see what we can learn
Houses have always been at the center of reality TV. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous set the domestic stage in the 1980s with its quasi-documentary look into the real lives of the ultra-wealthy. It walked so MTV Cribs could run, and in September 2000, Cribs became what critic Sam Jacob called “the most popular architectural media ever”. Known for its unhinged (and sometimes fake) house tours by the celebrity owners themselves, the hit show’s Ozzy Osbourne episode spun off in 2002 into The Osbournes, which Kris Jenner used for the basis of her pitch for Keeping up with the Kardashians. The rest is history.
In the book Dream Facades: The Cruel Architecture of Reality TV, author Jack Balderrama Morley reflects on residential settings and takes us through these histories, reflecting on how homes and design in reality shows are at once aspirational escapism, sinister characters, extensions of our own desires, and artifacts of American urban history. “I’m interested in what reality TV show homes represent, and why so many of us love getting lost in them,” Morley said. “On screen, they become appendages of our own homes.”
Incident took place at EFL Trophy game with Barnsley
Player ‘truly sorry for the offensive word that I used’
Jack Fletcher has received a six-game ban and been fined £1,500 for calling a Barnsley player a “gay boy”, with the Manchester United midfielder apologising for the homophobic slur.
Fletcher made the comment when playing for United Under-21s in October’s 5-2 EFL Trophy loss at Oakwell. On 62 minutes Fletcher said to an unnamed Barnsley player “you’re a gay boy”, according to the testimony of Will Davis, the referee, who subsequently sent the 18-year-old off. Fletcher admitted the charge, with both the opponent and the FA regulatory commission accepting his assertion that he did not wish to be intentionally homophobic.
The US president’s plan will hurt consumers, companies and the stock market, as well as relations with other countries
After the US supreme court overturned Donald Trump’s global tariffs, he had two options: do what’s best for the US economy or do what’s best for his ego. Trump of course chose what’s best for his ego, and he did that by seizing on a never previously used legal provision to impose new tariffs that Trump – who can never admit defeat – insists will be just as good as the overturned tariffs.
Unfortunately, Trump’s decision to create a whole new set of tariffs will be bad for both the US economy and the world economy. When one cuts through Trump’s delusional poppycock about how great his new tariffs will be, it becomes clear that his new 15% across-the-board tariff will hurt consumers, corporations, factories, US trading partners and Trump’s beloved stock market. While Trump says “tariffs” is “the most beautiful word”, economists, business executives and consumers give Trump’s tariffs a thumbs down. A huge 64% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, according to a new ABC News/WashingtonPost/Ipsos poll.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the assassinated Ali Khamenei, is being heavily tipped to succeed his father as supreme leader of Iran, which would pitch a hardliner into the task of steering the Islamic republic through the most turbulent period in its 48-year history and offer a powerful signal that, for now, it has no intention of changing course.
No official confirmation has been given and the announcement may be delayed until after the funeral of Ali Khamenei, which was on Wednesday postponed.
From Marty Supreme to One Battle After Another, this awards run has been populated by a harder-to-love group of spiky characters
Broadly speaking, the best way to get an acting Oscar is to play someone lovable, or someone lovably hateable. Not every acting winner fits that binary, of course, but the history of all four categories is filled with fascinatingly bad behavior (Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, JK Simmons in Whiplash) as well as expressions of sheer delight at the combination of actor and lovable character (Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love). This year’s crop of acting nominees isn’t exactly short of rooting interests: Michael B Jordan makes his pair of 1930s gangsters charming twice over in Sinners while still distinguishing between their individual nuances, and Benicio del Toro’s even-keeled activist is highly lovable in One Battle After Another. Elsewhere, though, there’s definitely a stronger-than-usual strain of characters who defy the usual standards of easy likability.
The importance of likability in an Oscar campaign is akin to its importance in a political one – though in the case of the Academy awards, performers are campaigning twice, for themselves as actors and, essentially, for their characters as part of the cinematic firmament. That’s why likability is arguably the secret accelerant to the longtime trend of the awards going to actors playing real-life figures. It’s not just about a physical transformation or seamless impersonation, because many of those biographical performance aren’t really that when you put them side by side with the real thing. It’s that extra rooting interest that comes from embodying Freddie Mercury, Winston Churchill, Stephen Hawking, Abraham Lincoln, Judy Garland – people who Academy voters probably already like or admire to some degree, at least in the abstract. Suffering, too, can help create an easier sense of empathy.
Former diplomat Arthur Snell says a heating planet is accelerating conflict and migration – and fostering a new age of empire. Democracies are dangerously unprepared, he warns
After a diplomatic career spent in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, the last place Arthur Snell expected to cheat death was on holiday.
But it was an uncomfortably close brush with a falling boulder while climbing in the Swiss Alps that helped to bring his personal and professional lives together. His beloved mountains were, he realised, becoming less stable thanks to a changing climate. And if physical geography drives the way states exercise their power, as classic geopolitical theory argues, then a heating planet must be dislodging more than rocks.
Using raw honey for fermentation makes this jam a gut health powerhouse
Rachel de Thample is one of my food heroines. She’s the author of six books and course director of the College of Naturopathic Medicine’s natural chef diploma, and has also been head of food for Abel & Cole and commissioning editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated, among so much else. She trained with the likes of Marco Pierre White, Heston Blumenthal and Peter Gordon, and now teaches fermentation and gut health at River Cottage HQ, where I cut my own teeth in teaching eco-gastronomy more than 20 years ago. While researching honey fermenting recently, I came across her recipe in River Cottage’s Bees & Honey Handbook, which I’ve adapted here so you can make as much as you like using a variety of aromatics.
It’s essential to use raw honey for fermenting, because it is naturally acidic (low pH) and contains wild yeasts, beneficial microbes and active enzymes that help create a healthy fermentation environment once diluted. Pasteurised honey, on the other hand, is heat-treated to slow crystallisation, which also destroys many of the naturally occurring yeasts, beneficial bacteria and enzymes needed for fermentation.
Many workers at some of the largest US corporations have no choice but to rely on healthcare and food assistance because of low wages, even as CEO compensation continues to grow, according to a new report released Wednesday.
The report, published by the Institute of Policy Studies, focuses on 20 of the S&P 500 corporations that have primarily US-based workforces and report the lowest median wages of the group.
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