News Atlas

GuardianOct 12Preview

Being Muslim After 9/11 review – other journalists wouldn’t dare to air this

Mobeen Azhar isn’t afraid to tackle hard topics in a brilliant documentary about the rise of Islamophobia – even when it involves hearing criticism about his own decisions In 2024, the journalist Mobeen Azhar made a documentary called Small Town, Big Riot that ought to have been highly influential, but, in our atomised modern media landscape, wasn’t. He deconstructed how anti-immigrant racists, radicalised by online propaganda, lies and hearsay, end up on the streets perpetrating shocking violence and rioting against a largely imaginary foe.Azhar’s new film tackles a wider, thornier problem and is less satisfying as a result. But in his willingness to debate hard topics – even if it means hearing difficult arguments, some of which are aimed at him personally – he is still provoking thoughts and airing views that better-known journalists would never go near. Continue reading...

Jack SealeTelevisionCulture

GuardianOct 12Preview

Mahmood orders urgent security review after killing of Ann Widdecombe

Home secretary also expands police support ‘with immediate effect’ for high-profile public figures not currently MPsSecurity arrangements for high-profile public figures including politicians and members of the royal family are to be urgently reviewed after the killing of Ann Widdecombe, the home secretary has said.Shabana Mahmood said former MPs, party leaders who are not MPs, peers, former members of devolved parliaments and party spokespeople will also be offered police support. Continue reading...

Rajeev Syal Home affairs editorUK security and counter-terrorismUK news

Al JazeeraOct 12Preview

Zohran Mamdani orders use-of-force review for New York City police

City spokesperson says the mayor's calls for reform are not connected to police response to an ICE shooting last week.

News

GuardianOct 12Preview

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘almost certainly’ behind RAF Fairford threats, says Burnham

UK to bring further sanctions against Tehran and IRGC after assessment Iran was likely to have coordinated incidentAndy Burnham said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were “almost certainly” behind threats to RAF Fairford, the firmest attribution of responsibility made so far by the UK after an incident late last month.The prime minister told MPs the UK would bring further sanctions against Tehran and the IRGC in the aftermath of an ambiguous episode that, despite over a fortnight of police investigation, has yet to lead to anybody being charged. Continue reading...

Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editorUK security and counter-terrorismIran

GuardianOct 12Preview

‘When it went double platinum, Andy Burnham gave us the award’: how Courteeners made Not Nineteen Forever

‘In nightclubs, I’d be the dude scribbling lyrics in the corner while everyone else was dancing or copping off’I had the lyrics to Not Nineteen Forever before the band existed. They were in a little red book of poems and scribbles that got me a place on the creative writing course at the University of Salford. Most of what became the songs for our first album, St Jude, were in that book. As well as uni, I was working in a shop and spending five nights a week at the Night & Day bar in Manchester, but in a nightclub I’d be the dude scribbling in the corner while everyone else was dancing or copping off. Continue reading...

Interviews by Dave SimpsonCultureMusic

GuardianOct 12Preview

Revealed: Nigel Farage adviser had unpublicised role at polling firm

Exclusive: Chris Bruni-Lowe used Redfield & Wilton Strategies role to develop potential campaign tactics, sources sayA close adviser to Nigel Farage had an influential role at a national polling company despite not being publicly associated with the firm, the Guardian can reveal.Chris Bruni-Lowe, Farage’s private pollster for many years, played an important role in the operations of Redfield & Wilton Strategies and used it to develop potential campaign strategies, according to several sources who have worked there. Continue reading...

Henry Dyer and Rowena MasonNigel FarageReform UK

GuardianOct 12Preview

Hallowarrior review – apocalyptic Home Alone-style survival horror delivers inventive shocks

Debut feature from Ben Sottak provides outlandish Halloween-based scares, with Milly Shapiro superb as the naive yet resilient home-defender, Pumpkin Home Alone meets Mad Max in this atmospheric seasonal chiller, named for Halloween and not a cheery greeting. A disease has wiped out most of humanity, leaving 16-year-old Pumpkin (Milly Shapiro) stranded alone in her rural family home in the middle of nowhere for the best part of four years. This classic American clapboard house has always been the perfect quaint yet unsettling place to celebrate Halloween, and she determines to uphold the family tradition and do just that, sending a radio broadcast to anyone listening to invite them to celebrate spooky season with her. Unfortunately, the message is picked up by some less than wholesome types, led by Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon), thus setting the stage for the proverbial to hit the fan.It’s t

Catherine BrayFilmHorror films

GuardianOct 12Preview

French centre left must wage ‘existential battle’ to prevent far right winning presidency

MEP Raphaël Glucksmann issues call after becoming social democrat candidate for 2027 presidential electionThe European lawmaker Raphaël Glucksmann has urged the French centre left to wage an “existential battle” to prevent Marine Le Pen’s far right winning the 2027 presidential election after he was chosen as the social democrat candidate for the presidency.“We’ve got to rid our hearts of the spirit of defeat,” Glucksmann, the founder of the small party Place Publique, said on Monday morning after his decisive win in a centre-left primary race held by the Socialist party. Continue reading...

Angelique Chrisafis in ParisFranceEurope

GuardianOct 12Preview

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne review – what if Oscar Wilde had lived?

The great Irish writer died, a broken man, at only 46. Imagining a second act for him is a great idea – but the results are sentimental and unconvincingIn 1895, four days after the opening of The Importance of Being Earnest, the Marquess of Queensberry left a card at Oscar Wilde’s club that publicly accused him of “posing as a somdomite”. Instead of instigating the libel case that led to his imprisonment and early death in a Paris hotel just five years later, what would have happened if Wilde had simply torn that card up? John Boyne’s new novel sets out to answer that intriguing question.For starters, Boyne contrives a fate for Wilde’s beloved Lord Alfred Douglas which entertainingly redistributes the details of the real Wilde’s life before, during and after his time in Reading jail. This sets up the novel’s cat-and-mouse game with the history it is reimagining. Wilde himself, convenient

Neil BartlettFictionBooks

GuardianOct 12Preview

The Deshaun Watson revival derailed, much to the joy of those with a functional memory

After three straight game-winning drives, Cleveland’s quarterback was sacked eight times in a dismal defeat that punctured the hype surrounding himI guess the New York Jets didn’t get the memo. This was supposed to be a Deshaun Watson lovefest. A day where, much to the chagrin of those of us with a moral compass and a functional memory, football fans worldwide could declare Watson was “so back” and that the Browns were in some blinkered, alternate universe, a Super Bowl contender. No such luck, as the Browns looked like the Browns – reminding an otherwise jubilant city of Cleveland that they are trapped in the sports equivalent of the Backrooms.Limping along for 155 passing yards and one touchdown, Watson fell to Earth harder than David Bowie in a Nicolas Roeg film (yes, I just watched the Dennis Miller Monday Night Football documentary on HBO). He completed fewer than 50% of his passes

Dave SchillingNFLCleveland Browns

GuardianOct 12Preview

Fontaines DC: Dopamine Chamber review – gloomy, gorgeous and a gargantuan triumph

(XL)This is a beguiling, endlessly inventive and frequently astonishing fifth LP from a group at increasing ease with being the best band of their generationFifteen centuries ago, the Byzantine archbishop Theophilus of Adana did first-hand business with the devil for his own superficial betterment. Today, we just blindly tick a little box marked “accept terms and conditions” or let high-street snake oil merchants inject poison into our faces. The Faustian pact has become as depressingly banal as it is endemic and destructive – and unlike Theophilus, we can’t rely on the Virgin Mary to save us now. In the midst of headlines about AI destroying humanity, the idea of listening to music submerged in precisely this shade of doom might sound like, well, hell. If anyone can thread that poisoned needle, it’s Fontaines DC.When the Dublin band introduced their last album, 2024’s Romance, it came w

Laura SnapesFontaines DCMusic

GuardianOct 12Preview

Peasants by Maryam Aslany review – why an ancient way of life may hold the key to our future

Modernity means cities – or so we’re told. This bold new study of those who make their living from the land argues otherwiseThe word “peasant” has a negative edge: it has come to mean someone ignorant, unsophisticated, lowborn. Such an attitude, writes Maraym Aslany in this impressive piece of anthropology-cum-history, is “a residue of the massive psychodrama which made us who we are … we became modern by expelling the peasant parts of ourselves”. Her book weaves together a global history of peasants and an account of the four years she spent travelling in India, Cambodia, Peru and Ghana, living with and talking to peasant families.She aims to challenge the notion that the decline of the peasantry is the necessary condition for becoming “modern”. This notion arose in Britain, the first country to rid itself of its peasants when, with the enclosure acts, it turned its land from a common g

Joe MoranHistory booksScience and nature books

GuardianOct 12Preview

iPhone 18 Pro Max review: Apple’s biggest, heaviest and longest-lasting superphone

A giant screen, big battery, rapid chip and top cameras push the great iPhone 18 Pro to the max with a price tag to matchApple’s largest Pro iPhone gets its biggest battery upgrade yet to make it a true two-day phone with new Siri AI and a variable aperture camera.The iPhone 18 Pro Max is the supersized sibling of the regular 18 Pro and, though it is no longer Apple’s most expensive phone thanks to the £2,000 iPhone Duo, it has a similarly large price tag to match costing from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299).Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A20 ProRAM: 12GBStorage: 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 27Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mmWeight: 249g Continue reading...

Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editoriPhoneApple

GuardianOct 12Preview

Pine cones, glitter and a hip-hop head for sale: red-hot artists reveal their Frieze stunners

As the sprawling art jamboree hits London, eight of the most exciting exhibiting artists share what their work means to them – and who they hope will buy itFirst held in 2003, the Frieze art fair is a giant art supermarket that descends on Regent’s Park, London, every October. Some detest it for its blatant commercialism, others relish it as the opportunity to see a mind-boggling amount of contemporary art in one enormous tent. Here, eight British-based artists of the moment talk through what they’re showing. Continue reading...

Interviews by Alex NeedhamFrieze art fairArt

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