This season of the long-running animated sitcom has aimed its ire at the cruelty and stupidity of an administration others have found hard to successfully ridicule

I’ll admit it: I’m more of a Simpsons guy than a South Park guy. Nothing really against those South Park guys – I’ve caught plenty of episodes over its astonishing near-30-year run, and loved the 1999 big-screen movie. But while I haven’t always maintained clockwork viewership of The Simpsons, either, those characters have proved durable enough to revive my interest in episodes old and new. South Park has a thinner bench by comparison, and as the show itself astutely pointed out years ago, it’s difficult for a satirically minded animated sitcom to explore ground that The Simpsons hasn’t covered already. South Park’s political bent, too, has often seemed less varied than the warmer (but still sometimes cutting) social ribbing of Matt Groening’s signature show. It’s a fine line between omnidirectional satire and libertarian crankiness.

And yet the 27th season of South Park has accomplished something vanishingly few of its peers, whether in animation or topical comedy, have been able to do: getting laughs taking shots at the second Trump administration. It’s not that the White House is beyond reproach. Quite the opposite problem, much-documented: the Donald Trump cabal is so outsized in its stupidity and cruelty that it’s hard to distend it into a “funny” caricature, even a bleak one. In Trump’s second term, it has only gotten bleaker; jokes that were worn out by the end of 2020 are getting retold with a nasty vengeance, and the bar for cathartic laughter has been raised considerably.

A multi-textured loaf, flecked with seeds, courgette and cheese, plus a fantastic, Mexican-style, rice-stuffed chicken

Little beats a loaf of fresh bread still warm from the oven. Today’s one is flecked with courgettes (zucchini), toasted seeds, a pleasing hint of green chilli and plenty of cheddar – the more mature, the better. It is delicious in the extreme, and even more so when spread with pickled chilli butter. But first a year-round roast chicken, inspired by the red rices of Mexico, that fills the day with a happy glow. If ever there was a dish to sing for its supper …

Wimbledon champion faces strong list of women’s US Open title rivals, but the men’s draw is still dominated by Sinner and Alcaraz

Iga Swiatek has finally had a brief moment to catch her breath. Her life has been on fast-forward for the last few hectic yet rewarding weeks, emerging from the heat and humidity of the Cincinnati Open with another significant title. Fourteen hours later she was on court in New York, throwing herself into two long days of competition alongside her new partner, Casper Ruud. The stakes were low for singles players in the mixed doubles this week but every point she played meant more mental energy expended.

There is still little time for Swiatek to reflect on how the summer has developed, but with the final grand slam tournament of the year starting on Sunday it is clear the past few months have become a defining moment in her career. Swiatek started the season swimming upstream, still reeling from her doping case last year. She emerged from that difficult period with the most surprising, special victory of her career, a triumph on grass, her least favourite surface, at Wimbledon, which she sealed with a merciless 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Amanda Anisimova in the final. In stark contrast to the relief she felt after previous triumphs, this victory brought her only joy.

From Instagram poetry to Greek classics, the works of fiction that have caused uproar through history – and into the present

The banning of books, it would be easy to think, is a relic of less enlightened ages. The Catholic church, in a last spasm of rectitude, added Jean-Paul Sartre, Alberto Moravia and Simone de Beauvoir to its Index of Forbidden Books during the 1940s and 50s, but then abandoned the list, which had lasted four centuries, in 1966.

Public book burnings by Nazis or McCarthyites, too, might be assumed to be nothing more than a baleful warning from the past. Yet the burning of books still appears an irresistible act to some – even in the country with the strongest statutory protection of free speech, the United States. In 2019, students at Georgia Southern University burned copies of visiting Cuban-American author Jennine Capó Crucet’s Make Your Home Among Strangers, some shouting “Trump 2020!”. In 2022, the Nashville pastor Greg Locke held a public bonfire for “demonic” books, including the Harry Potter and Twilight series.

Whether it’s Robbie Williams’ new album, a Blur v Oasis play or Britpop romance novels, Alex James and others explain why we’re all still in thrall to the ​m​ad-fer-it 90s

It is a Tuesday evening, and in the suitably 1990s environs of Soho’s Groucho Club, Robbie Williams, resplendent in pair of dungarees, is in the process of launching his new album. It’s called Britpop, features some songs co-written with Gaz Coombes of Supergrass, and is, he attests, “the album that I wanted to write and release after I left Take That in 1995”. This was the brief period where he attempted to establish himself as an adjunct to the mid-90s wave of hugely successful UK alt-rock, releasing a string of audibly Oasis-influenced solo singles, palling around Glastonbury with the Gallaghers and temporarily employing one of the band’s inner circle, Creation Records’ former managing director Tim Abbot, as his manager. “I’ve been musically aimless for a little while,” Williams said to the assembled press. “I’ve just spent the last 15 years looking backwards. I think with this album, if I am gonna look backwards, I might as well just clear the decks and go back to the start and head off from there.”

His determination to revisit the Britpop era feels slightly odd. His Oasis-influenced singles met with declining public interest, nearly scuppering his solo career before Angels and Let Me Entertain You came to the rescue. His relationship with Abbot ended with each suing the other in a dispute over Abbot’s contract (they settled out of court), he later said Oasis were “gigantic bullies” (Liam Gallagher replied that he’d “never bullied anyone in my life”) and when he talked about the period when I interviewed him in 2016, it was in terms of trauma: “There was an indie fundamentalist mentality … I was looked down on when I was in conversation with a lot of people … [it] starts to make you feel agoraphobic and second-guess everything you do”. But his appearance at the Groucho is the latest in a series of 90s-themed publicity stunts by Williams – he’s also unveiled fake blue plaques in Camden, proclaiming it “the home of Britpop”, and Soho’s Berwick Street, where the photograph on the cover of Oasis’s (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory was taken.

The stars and makers of a new version of The War of the Roses discuss modern dating, swearing in America and the problem with Mr Tickle

At the start of The Roses, a counsellor asks a couple to list what they love about each other. It’s a struggle. “He has arms,” is about as good as it gets. The actors who play them are less reticent. Highlights are itemised before I’ve even asked. “I love your hair,” Olivia Colman tells Benedict Cumberbatch. “Short at the sides! Brilliant!” It’s their first time together in ages. They compare half-terms and weeding. She coos over his dislocated shoulder. He admires her suit.

OK, enough mush. What do they hate about one another?

Once seen as controversial and the preserve of celebrities and Love Islanders, the style has become ubiquitous. Is this a sign of body positivity or something else entirely?

There are plenty of places where no one would bat an eyelid at the sight of a thong bikini; on a beach in Brazil or around the Love Island fire pit, visible butt cheeks are practically de rigueur. But my first sighting this year was not while surfing in Australia or sunbathing in the Caribbean, but at an open-water swimming spot, on a rainy day in Scotland.

I should not have been surprised. Tiny swimwear is huge news this summer. It is no longer confined to sunny climes, but cropping up everywhere from lidos to leisure centres – and lochs, apparently.

• Latest news before the afternoon kick-offs

• Ten things to look out for | Mail Matchday live

Bournemouth and Wolves both started the season by shipping four goals each, albeit to Liverpool and Manchester City.

Andoni Iraola could hand debuts to Ben Gannon-Doak and Amine Adli, signed from Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen this week for around £50m altogether. Vítor Pereira could field his new right-wing-back, AKA the fastest man in Serie A last season, Jackson Tchatchoua.

Police are on alert for Sunday’s Premier League match after Nottingham Forest had a hand in the Eagles’ demotion

Crystal Palace against Nottingham Forest isn’t usually a Premier League fixture that would have the Metropolitan police on red alert. But after a summer spent at each other’s throats at the court of arbitration for sport as well as on social media over Uefa’s decision to demote Palace from the Europa League to the Conference League, to Forest’s advantage, supporters of both clubs are preparing to come face-to-face on Sunday afternoon.

“Forest aren’t our rivals – they’re nothing to us,” says the Palace fan Chris Waters. “But all of a sudden this game has a bitter edge to it.” Sanad Attia, AKA Wolfie, who presents the Forest Fan TV YouTube channel, says: “We’ve never really had any kind of issue with Palace – I was quite happy for them winning the FA Cup. But they have been wanting to blame everyone but themselves. And in particular, Forest and Evangelos Maranakis.”

Battle between real and fake is an active front in sport and the Newcastle striker transfer saga is vast but strangely hollow

Depraved. Sickening. Toxic. Foul, but also pestilent. The end of days? That last thing wasn’t the end of days. This right here is the end of days.

But is it though? Is it really? Going on a summer holiday is always a bit strange when your life involves staring at sport. Taking a break just as football is preparing to enter its own sweaty, steamy eight-month meat pocket is extra tough. Re-engagement can be difficult. Oh look. There’s football hiding behind a bush in the car park again, frazzled and wired from staying up drinking crystal meth negronis and writing a presentation about merging marketing and sales, all the while gripped with a gathering sense of horror that it’s just not possible.

Catastrophic hunger caused by aid blockade is most keenly felt by elderly people, the young and the destitute

In the overcrowded, rubble strewn streets of Gaza City, there was little surprise at the announcement that UN-backed experts believed the scenes of desperation could now be formally described as a famine.

“This is something we have been saying for months now, and we have witnessed this and we have been living this and suffering this. We feel very powerless and very sick and very tired,” said Amjad Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGO Network, who has been in Gaza City throughout the 22-month war.

The map will now be sent to governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to quickly sign it into law

The Texas senate has given final approval to a redrawn congressional map that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.

It will now be sent to governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to quickly sign it into law, however Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court. The Texas house of representatives approved the map on Wednesday on an 88-52 party-line vote, before the senate approved it early on Saturday.

From Queen Mary and Welsh Harp to Caladrius and Garuda, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which sporting projectile has been recorded at 351mph?
2 Which part of the atmosphere is named after an allotrope of oxygen?
3 What name is shared by members of the Famous Five and Secret Seven?
4 Which M6 service station invites visitors to “scrum on in”?
5 Whose D’eux is the bestselling French language album ever?
6 Ben Macdui is the highest peak in which national park?
7 Which animals have aggressive episodes known as musth?
8 In 1525, who wrote Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants?
What links:
9 Cambodia genocide memorials; Carnac megaliths; Ludwig II of Bavaria’s palaces; Port Royal, Jamaica?
10 Aelfgyva; Queen Edith; person fleeing a burning building?
11 King George V; Queen Mary; Queen Mother; Welsh Harp; William Girling; Wraysbury?
12 d’If; du Diable; Rikers; Robben; Solovetsky?
13 Ouse tributary; Madagascar’s largest carnivore; links Exeter and Lincoln; Cabaret director?
14 Bennu; Caladrius; Garuda; Huginn and Muninn; Ziz?
15 Fenty Beauty; Haus Labs; Pleasing; Rare Beauty; r.e.m beauty?

Former Lib Dem leader and Meta strategist writes in new book that power in tech capital is interlaced with ‘self pity’

• Full interview: Nick Clegg on tech bros, Trump and leaving Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is full of hubris and hugely wealthy and macho men who think they are victims, the former politician and Facebook executive Nick Clegg has said.

The former leader of the Liberal Democrats makes the claim in a new book chronicling his three careers as an MEP in Brussels, an MP and deputy prime minister in Westminster and as a communications and public policy strategist in San Francisco.

Campaigners say judgment shows powerful men cannot hide behind money and libel laws to silence accusers

Women’s groups have said a high court judgment dismissing a libel claim against the Guardian by actor Noel Clarke marks a victory not just for his victims, but for press freedom and public interest reporting as a whole.

They said too often “wealthy and abusive men” have been able to use the courts to try to silence victims, hiding “behind injunctions, NDAs, [and] threats of defamation suits”.

New wave of content creators say they hope to increase pay transparency by questioning people in the street

Would you be prepared to tell a stranger how much you earn and let them broadcast it all over the internet?

For better or worse, it used to be the case that pretty much the only people who knew your salary were you, your boss and probably HM Revenue & Customs.

‘Gourmand’ fragrances with notes of biscuit or cherries are also trending among young consumers online

A rise in the number of sweet, food-scented perfumes on the market could be linked to an increase in the use of weight-loss medication, according to the market research firm Mintel.

Food-inspired fragrances, with scent profiles that feature vanilla, coffee and caramel and referred to in the industry as “gourmand” perfumes, have surged in popularity in the past three years. Launches of sugary-scented, dessert-themed fragrances increased by 24% last year alone, Mintel said.

Fire chiefs say many stations are not fit for purpose and are urging government to protect services from proposed cuts

Approaching a dilapidated-looking 1960s building with a peeling and faded exterior, it is common for visitors to have the same thought: this cannot possibly be an active fire station.

“You can say it looks derelict, we know,” says Simon Carey, the group commander of the Plymouth response at Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service.

I struggled to cope with her refusal to meet me, until a straight-talking judge gave me a new perspective

Sometimes we learn the deepest truths in the most quotidian moments. One afternoon when I was six, I watched a character give birth in an army tent in the sitcom M*A*S*H. I immediately rushed from the den into the kitchen with a very important question for my mother. “Did you give birth to me in a tent like that?” I blurted out, hoping to learn my origin story.

Unexpectedly, my mother dashed from the room in tears. When she returned, she sat me down and broke the news I had somehow always known. “Your Uncle Ana brought you home from the hospital to Mommy and Daddy,” she said. “You’re adopted, which means we chose you.”

Corin Hirsch is a writer who covers food, drink and travel

With a bucket list of journeys that would take her from Palermo to Trondheim and Istanbul, our writer rekindles her love affair with long-distance train journeys

Snug, I stretched in the darkness, waking as the thump of wheels slowed to the tempo of a heartbeat. I could sense that the train was approaching our destination, so shuffled down the berth, easing up the blind to find a ruby necklace of brake lights running parallel with the tracks.

It had rained overnight and the road was slick, the sky a midnight blue, a D-shaped moon fading in the corner. Dawn was minutes away, and I could just make out the jumble of houses on hills, lights flicking on as though fireflies lay between their folds.

A quarter of a century after our first visit, the Guardian returns to Guédelon to find old-fashioned toil has built a “thoroughly modern” architectural laboratory

It was the summer of 1999 and, in a disused quarry in a forest in deepest Burgundy, a dozen or so incongruously attired figures were toiling away, hewing limestone blocks, chiselling oaken beams and hammering 6in nails.

The rough outline of what they were building was discernible, just: a perimeter wall a substantial 200 metres long and three metres thick; round towers, two large and two small, to mark the four corners; another pair flanking the main gateway.

This battle of the bands-style show teams western pop artists with K-pop stars to retool their songs. And it isn’t exactly flattering to the likes of Boy George, Vanilla Ice and TLC

I would like to understand K-pop better, as I believe it is very popular with the kids. That sentence is a hard-working one: it introduces the information that I have spent this week watching the new Apple TV+ show KPopped (from Friday 29 August), while suggesting I am too old to have any hope of success. But it’s nowhere near as hard-working as a Korean pop star.

This battle of the bands-style show aims to raise awareness of K-pop in the west like it’s lymphatic filariasis or something. The format reminds me of PE lessons. You know how gym teachers split groups of friends up, so they concentrate? Here, Korean boy and girl groups such as JO1 and Blackswan are split in half. Each half works with a famous western pop artist, re-tooling their best-known song in K-pop mode. The resulting performances are voted for by the studio audience, and the winner gets – well, nothing. An injection of relevance.

A deft drama about the aftermath of a sexual assault and glitchy dispatches from hip-hop’s ‘otherground’. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Former coalminers join fellow museum staff in strike over pay which is due to last until mid-September

“Who’d have thought we’d be doing this again?” Arthur Scargill said earlier this week, raising a laugh from the ex-miners standing in the picket line outside the National Coal Mining Museum.

Staff at the Wakefield museum, many of them former coalminers, have walked out in a dispute over pay, and were joined on Thursday by the now 87-year-old former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.