Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Music, Culture, Folk music, Pop and rock
Title – ‘Somewhere to be themselves, and be kind’: the Filipino folk-popper creating a hand-drawn world for gen Z to escape to | Music | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/hannah-j-davies
Link – ‘Somewhere to be themselves, and be kind’: the Filipino folk-popper creating a hand-drawn world for gen Z to escape to | Music | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T15:00:09.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/sep/11/somewhere-to-be-themselves-and-be-kind-the-filipino-folk-popper-creating-a-hand-drawn-world-for-gen-z-to-escape-to

H arpy Hare by Yaelokre is the kind of song you might expect to have gone viral in the 1520s, not the 2020s. Backed by guitalele (that’s a guitar/ukulele hybrid), the lullaby begins with the line “Harpy Hare, where have you buried all your children?” performed by fictional kids from the equally fictional world of Meadowlark who are depicted in fey illustrations wearing animal masks. But two years ago it became an unlikely TikTok hit, reaching No 1 on Spotify’s Global Viral Songs chart.

That was in summer 2024, when the world of Meadowlark was a bit more DIY. Not only was its creator still making tracks and illustrations from their “diary turned storybook” in their bedroom, there was no Reddit community around them yet and only the faintest of whispers about Yaelokre online. These days, Keath Ósk, the Icelandic-Filipino artist behind the project, has almost three million monthly Spotify listeners; last year they played a sell-out UK and Ireland tour, and they have just released their first album under their own name, delighting a following of gen Z and queer listeners who write fan fiction about Ósk’s world and cosplay as their hand-drawn characters, prompting questions on Reddit such as: “My costume has bells [on it], should I remove them for the concert?”

Meadowlark’s kids transmit messages of bravery and courage and celebrate childlike wonder in a world determined to stamp it out. Ósk’s folkloric storytelling has created a deeply parasocial fandom, attracting followers who find solace in this outsider world, and some who find LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent readings in Ósk’s music. One mother wrote online that their 10-year-old child had “found her people” at one of Yaelokre’s live shows after being bullied.

The project started as a kind of escapism for Ósk, they say when we meet in a London cafe for their first proper interview. They don’t share their gender or age but appear to be in their early 20s, wide-eyed, playful, clad entirely in earthy shades of beige, with a messy bleach-blonde mop; they have a surprisingly plummy British accent for a recent transplant to London. “I wanted to be an illustrator for children but I was also enjoying the media my dad was sharing with me – video games like Skyrim and fantasy books. We are huge nerds!” Ósk used to sign their illustrations as Yaelokre, a portmanteau of yellow and ochre. They would also practise voice acting: “My mum would catch me talking to myself and be like, ‘Are you doing alright?!’” – which led them to fuse their love of fables with another passion, music.

Ósk grew up predominantly in the Philippines, on Luzon island, occasionally venturing to Iceland to visit their father’s family. They miss Filipino food, they explain, even if as a culture “we’ve absolutely botched spaghetti – we love making it sweet”. Singing is a big part of Filipino culture, and the nation’s love of enthusiastic home karaoke sessions is well documented. “It’s huge there,” says Ósk. “You’d know your neighbour was having a birthday party because you could hear their auntie screaming their lungs out.” Perhaps less known, at least in the west, are the regional singing contests that offer entertainment and a way out of grinding poverty for some. Ósk’s mother would enter such contests “when she needed extra money, to buy milk for me as a baby. I’m not ashamed of saying that I grew up really, really poor.” The culture of people singing competitively for money is, says Ósk, “such a wonderful and also a sad thing”.

Their own foray into music happened organically, they explain, as the Meadowlark concept expanded dramatically from a school project about a friendship between a hare, a goat, a tree and a baby moose. They contemplated writing a book about them, but deterred by the need to “build a whole plot” around the characters, they turned to music instead, creating a theatrical sound world that spun its own myths. It didn’t take long from Ósk putting music online to blowing up on TikTok and signing – as Yaelokre – with Atlantic Records in early 2025.

They moved to London earlier this year, where they rerecorded 11 original tracks for their debut album, Foreword, giving their sound a bolder update: sometimes belting karaoke-style, or channelling the Filipino rapper Gloc-9 on the scatter-gun delivery of And the Hound. There’s also a cover of Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for a Hero: in their hands, it sounds more like an epic poem than an 80s power ballad. Ósk also sings in Tagalog. “I want to be able to represent where I came from,” they say. “I’m so patriotic. When people ask about my gender, I just go, I’m Filipino …” Ósk doesn’t see the shift in sound as a contradiction: “I have so many layers and [Yaelokre] is not my only world. I have my own history and truth outside it. A lot of my young audience are going to grow up with Yaelokre. I grew up with Pinoy hip-hop!”

They’re clear that this isn’t the end of Yaelokre and its animal mask-wearing child mascots; they’re working on new music involving the characters soon. But there have been challenges along the way, and perhaps Ósk is happy putting some distance between themself and their creations. Earlier this year, they removed two characters from Meadowlark lore after they were sexualised by some members of the fanbase. Some fans have seen it as a sign that Ósk is angry with them, but they say there’s no rage. “I want to be able to filter as much as possible so that the community is safe, but I’m not angry. I think people are still learning. My one rule is please don’t sexualise any of my characters, because they represent me.”

Ósk wants to keep the fandom as wholesome as possible, even staging sustainable clothing swaps at live shows, to help cherish a sense of wonder. “There’s a space for people to learn and to be themselves and to be kind,” they say, “and to have a community where they don’t feel like they’re alone in this world.” Is this a world they would have benefited from growing up? “Most definitely. Making this story is what I could call my moral compass. It’s less about getting into playlists or winning awards and more about reaching the kids who didn’t grow up with these principles – I want to be able to share my wisdom and what I’ve learned.”

Foreword is out now on Atlantic Records. Keath Ósk tours Europe and the UK from 7 October and North America from 9 November

Keyword – Society
Trefwoorden – Assisted dying, Law, England, Wales, House of Commons, Politics, UK news, Labour, Society
Title – MPs vote against legalising assisted dying in England and Wales | Assisted dying | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker
Link – MPs vote against legalising assisted dying in England and Wales | Assisted dying | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:36:35.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/11/mps-vote-against-legalising-assisted-dying-in-england-and-wales

A bill to permit assisted dying in England and Wales has been voted down by MPs, almost certainly stopping such a measure from being enacted before the next general election at the very least least.

In the second reading of the bill, put forward by Labour’s Lauren Edwards, MPs voted by 286 to 270 for it to be blocked.

The result is a reversal of MPs’ support for a near-identical version of the bill, which sought to allow adults with terminal illnesses and less than six months to live to end their lives with the approval of a panel of experts. This was approved by the Commons in the last parliament.

While some MPs cheered and hugged in the Commons chamber after Friday’s result, the scuppering of the idea caused significant anger among supporters of assisted dying, who believe the measure should already have become law. The previous bill, sponsored by another Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater, passed through the Commons but was blocked in the Lords , where it was talked out by a handful of peers who tabled a huge number of amendments.

In a statement after the vote, Edwards said the public broadly supported a change in the law and “will not understand why that couldn’t happen because a minority in the House of Lords used procedural devices to block it and MPs balked at insisting that they do their job”.

She added: “Assisted dying will come in this country, as it is already doing all across the world, but not soon enough. Parliament has dropped the ball today. It will be picked up again as it must be, because the law as it stands is simply too cruel and too unjust to be allowed to stand.”

On its second reading, Leadbeater’s bill was approved by 330 votes to 275, and by 313 to 291 at the third reading. The fact that the vote tally for both sides dropped in Friday’s result – with that of the pro side falling more – suggests it was sunk as much by a lack of enthusiasm than by MPs changing side.

Some MPs had said they were lobbied by pro-assisted dying campaigners notably less this time than with Leadbeater’s bill.

As the issue is deemed a matter of conscience, it had been left to a private member’s bill rather than a government-sponsored one, with Andy Burnham and his ministers staying officially neutral.

However, the prime minister has been seen as less supportive than Keir Starmer, by announcing he would not vote on the bill – his predecessor voted in favour – and saying he believed the debate on assisted dying should be paused until social care was improved.

Closing a sometimes emotional debate on Friday, the health minister Alison McGovern said the government would enact the plan if it became law, but reiterated concerns about social care. She said: “In my opinion, social care has been ignored for far too long, both the 1.5 million people, mainly women, who work in it, and the families who need it, and we heard that across the house today.”

Opening the debate, Edwards said it was a false choice to say the issue should be delayed ahead of improvements in social and palliative care. She said: “We must grasp that opportunity in front of us to create a holistic end of life care system that will deliver choice and dignity for every single one of our constituents.”

During the debate, the Labour MP Claire Hazelgrove, who supported the bill, said her mother chose to end her life aged 61 while suffering a late-stage terminal illness. Hazelgrove said: “She had access to good palliative care, but what we learned, the hardest of ways, is that not all pain can be palliated. I will never forget seeing her writhing and screaming in pain at points for weeks.”

Another Labour MP, Ashley Dalton, who has been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer , said the assisted dying bill did not adequately protect people with treatable depression who also had a terminal illness.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – North Dakota, Dinosaurs, Science, US news
Title – One giant step: first known adult T rex footprints found in North Dakota | North Dakota | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/oliver-milman
Link – One giant step: first known adult T rex footprints found in North Dakota | North Dakota | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:34:07.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/11/tyrannosaurus-rex-footprints-north-dakota

The first known series of footprints from an adult Tyrannosaurus rex has been found in North Dakota by a team of scientists.

The 23ft-long trackway – consisting of four three-toed footprints, two left and two right – was first identified in the south-west of the state, in the dinosaur fossil area known as Hell Creek Formation, last year by researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Colorado and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

The findings, which have now been published in a scientific journal , date from 66.5m years ago and are the first of their kind to be found and identified. While isolated footprints and juvenile, or related species, tracks have been found before, this is the first known series of footprints left by a wandering T rex.

“Bones tell us an enormous amount about these animals, but footprints capture a moment of behavior,” said Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver museum.

“With a trackway, we can actually follow an animal as it moved across the landscape. That is incredibly rare for T rex.”

Each of the footprints is about 3ft (0.91m) long, with a stride of about 13ft (3.96m). The research team used high-resolution 3D surface scanning to document each footprint and create physical 3D reproductions. From this work, researchers were able to make a rough estimate that the animal was walking about 3.5-4.5mph – about the same as a brisk human walking pace.

The T rex, the most famous of all dinosaurs, lived about 66-68m years ago during the Cretaceous period, according to the known fossil record. The creatures, which stood 12-13ft tall, were among the last non-avian dinosaurs to walk the Earth before a mass extinction event wiped them out.

Three of the discovered footprints are set to be recovered by helicopter later this year and transported to the museum in Denver. The findings are a particular joy for the Colorado schoolteacher who stumbled upon the site.

“As a teacher, I’m always telling my students that science starts with curiosity, passion and careful observation,” said Kent Hups, who is a longtime museum volunteer and also co-authored the paper. “I never imagined that could lead me to a discovery like this.”

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Israel, Gaza, Palestine, West Bank, Israel-Gaza war, Middle East and north Africa, World news
Title – In Gaza, we’ve seen horror unfold with global powers’ support. Is that a blueprint for elsewhere? | Ahdaf Soueif | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ahdafsoueif
Link – In Gaza, we’ve seen horror unfold with global powers’ support. Is that a blueprint for elsewhere? | Ahdaf Soueif | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:29:23.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/11/gaza-horror-global-powers-support-blueprint-palestinians-israel

L ast week, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, put out an AI-generated video that showed a conveyor belt of overweight Palestinian prisoners – dreaming of food and education – entering one of his prisons; he pops the dream bubbles above their heads and they come out emaciated and crying. Ben-Gvir is building an execution site for Palestinian prisoners with spectator booths, and he recently showed up at Damon prison in northern Israel and taunted female prisoners who complained about the poor conditions. He is digging a moat around a new high-security jail and planning to introduce crocodiles to patrol it. In all this, he has the approval of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while the law that he championed mandating the death penalty for Palestinians deemed terrorists by military courts and convicted for lethal attacks is built on public support .

Sometime around 2017, many Palestinians and their supporters in the global media felt a change. Articles about Palestine no longer drew the hate mail we’d been accustomed to and events in support of Palestinian rights were hardly heckled. It seemed that people were less and less convinced by the image long cultivated by Israel and its supporters – the bearer of “western values” in the Middle East, the home to the “most moral army in the world”, a country acting only in self-defence – while it regularly assaulted Gaza and continued to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank .

It had been a widely held tenet that if enough people in the democratic western world knew the reality of what Israel was doing to the Palestinians, they would pressure their governments, and Israel would be made to observe the norms of international law. Eventually, a reality would be born in which Jews, Muslims and Christians would live as equals within some political system that would be as good – and as flawed – as others. South Africa was always cited as the example, where rising international pressure over the decades was decisive.

But what looked like the winning of the moral, rational argument was offset by an acceleration of the processes of occupation, an increase in the frequency and blatancy of settler attacks in the West Bank, and of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks on Gaza. The past three years have been the logical development of this. In the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks, Israel escalated its killing, maiming and displacement of the Palestinians to the level of certifiable genocide . The defence minister, Israel Katz, says he is committed to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, while a West Bank settler proudly tells the BBC that one Jewish life is worth 10 million Palestinian lives. Social media is awash with Israelis – from pundits on TV news debates to IDF soldiers – stating and performing the outrages necessary to achieve the objective of a Palestinian-free Palestine.

And while people across the world now know the truth of what is happening in Palestine and repeatedly and full-heartedly reject it, many democracies across the west continue to send arms and provide intelligence to Israel – even in a time of genocide. The US president’s Board of Peace makes a mockery of Palestinians, while hundreds of Israeli trucks clear the rubble from Gaza – and, with it, evidence of war crimes. The US attacks international institutions, such as the international criminal court , that seek to offer some semblance of justice for Palestinians. And to repress the constant protests of hundreds of thousands of their citizens, western democracies compromise their justice systems, attack their educational institutions and undermine their own democratic freedoms. Some have belatedly announced sanctions limited to Israeli settlements – illegal settlements that have should have been sanctioned years ago.

In 2014, I served on the jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine . In the preface to the report, which came after Israel’s third war on Gaza in six years, I wrote: “If not genocide, then genocide is not far behind.” Today I wonder if the genocide is not also a trailer for something more to come.

If the genocide was not a surprise, neither is the fact that the old colonial masters have no particular aversion to it. In a line of continuity with their own history, western countries have for decades partnered with Israel on weapons production and intelligence and surveillance technology. The west has sought Israeli advice and training in counter-terrorism, interrogation and civilian population-control techniques. A selling point for Israeli weapons has always been that they have been tried and tested .

And now, as Israel’s genocide is livestreamed, the establishment watches, enables, protects and helps tidy up. We may be watching a research and development exercise, a blueprint, a template, an example being created. We are already in a world where – it has been argued – some populations are surplus to requirements. Some of them live in areas that are a property developer’s dream.

This war is not only about Palestinians and Israelis, but about ideologies of supremacy and domination that threaten the people of the world, its civil societies and what is left of its international organisations. For the moment, it is the Palestinians who are on the frontline, the Palestinians who are being killed and maimed and tortured and displaced. But the Palestinians are also standing between all of us and a world remade in Israel’s image.

Ahdaf Soueif is the author of Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Late-night TV roundup, Jimmy Kimmel, TV comedy, Comedy, Culture, Television, Television & radio
Title – Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s midterm convention: ‘That arena was as empty as a Waymo’ | Late-night TV roundup | The Guardian
Author – Guardian staff
Link – Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s midterm convention: ‘That arena was as empty as a Waymo’ | Late-night TV roundup | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:26:08.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/sep/11/jimmy-kimmel-trump-republican-midterm-convention

Late-night hosts recapped the second day of Donald Trump’s underattended and unusual “midterm convention” in which he promised $5,000 for every adult US citizen if the Republicans win.

Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel opened Thursday’s monologue with a report from the second day of the Republican National Committee’s “midterm convention” in Dallas, held at the request of Donald Trump. “He demanded a midterm convention, which is something that had never been done before, because there’s no reason to do that,” Kimmel explained. “And of course he got it. They do whatever he wants.”

Trump spent the previous night posting on Truth Social, disputing all evidence that the Dallas arena was less than crowded. “He is so embarrassingly desperate to convince us that the place was packed. He even tried to convince the people in the place that it was packed,” Kimmel laughed before a montage of Trump saying “the place is packed” or “nobody has left,” among numerous other comments about his audience size, including “please, if you don’t mind, don’t anybody go to the bathroom,” lest the media take a picture of an empty seat. “Easy for you to say, you’re the only one wearing a diaper,” Kimmel retorted.

The host then played a clip of the half-empty arena itself, at the moment Trump asserted that it was still jam-packed. “Could there be a better metaphor for this presidency than him bragging about the size of his crowd to a bunch of empty seats? I don’t think so!

“That arena was as empty as a Waymo,” he added. “But his must be high-ness has so many trembling flunkies around him willing to corroborate his constant bullshit, why would he even bother to tell the truth?”

Later in his hour-plus speech, Trump promised to send $5,000 to every adult US citizen should the Republican party win the US House and Senate in November. “I spent all day today trying to decide whether that was a bribe or a lie,” said Kimmel, “and I think it might be both things? I think Donald Trump just invented the libe.

“How nice of the president to offer us our own money. This is like if I went in your bathroom and unplugged your electric toothbrush, put it in a box and gave it to you for Christmas.”

If such a scheme were to take place, Kimmel noted, it would add $1.3tn to the US federal deficit. “How is he going to pay for that?” he wondered. “Is Ivanka going to sell girl scout cookies to pay for that? No! We will have to pay it back with more taxes, and the best part is he wouldn’t send us the checks anyway.

“If you believe Donald Trump is going to give you $5,000 if the Republicans win, I have a Mexican-paid wall, a privately funded ballroom and a three-day long Iran war to sell you.”

The Daily Show

Trump may be unpopular, said Michael Kosta on the Daily Show, but “he has a secret weapon” for the midterms, “and it’s called a bribe”. As Trump claimed on Thursday, should Republicans win in November, he would send “a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000”.

“That’s two trips to the grocery store! Or one, if you buy raspberries, Kosta quipped. “I like how Trump calls this a dividend. Do you know when businesses hand out dividends? When they’re raking in money. The last time I checked, we, as a country, have a negative $40tn of money. America should not be handing out dividends. We should be faking our own death and starting a new life in Thailand.”

Even Trump’s supporters seemed confused by the untenable offer. Brian Kilmeade, host of Fox & Friends, could only offer: “Not bad … I’m not sure that’s OK but I think it’s kinda fun.”

“And that’s what being president is all about! Having fun,” Kosta joked. “Even Brian Kilmeade didn’t know what to make of this … he sounds like Trump just asked him to throw rocks off the overpass.

“But this is just the latest in a cycle of Trump’s behavior with the American people,” Kosta conclude. “He promises a huge payout; that never happens. And then he promises an even bigger payout, and then that never happens. This spiral is exhausting, poisonous, and it makes you question the very health of our democracy. And look, I’m not sure that’s OK, but … it is kinda fun.”

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – New York fashion week, Fashion, Fashion weeks, Life and style, New York, US news, Sport, Basketball
Title – It’s a slam dunk for Tommy Hilfiger as stars turn out for Plaza homecoming | New York fashion week | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jesscartnermorley
Link – It’s a slam dunk for Tommy Hilfiger as stars turn out for Plaza homecoming | New York fashion week | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:21:09.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/sep/11/slam-dunk-tommy-hilfiger-plaza-homecoming-fashion-new-york

Tommy Hilfiger’s front row was a slam dunk. The Knicks are the kings of New York right now, so scoring Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns and Miles McBride, three of the team’s stars, for the guest list of his New York catwalk show was a victory. Travis Kelce, who is co-designing another upcoming collection with Hilfiger and had been rumoured to attend this event with his new bride, was a no show, but you can’t win them all.

Tommy Hilfiger is all about sport. The design vocabulary of oversized jerseys, team stripes, rugby shirts and letterman jackets draws heavily on the visual language of the stadium. Kelce, whose NFL tunnel walks have become a catwalk of their own, is the latest in a line of sporting ambassadors that includes Thierry Henry, Rafael Nadal and Lewis Hamilton. Hilfiger has long stood for a certain glossy stars-and-stripes Americana – its graphic red, white and blue logo is a riff on the flag – but American identity is delicate cultural territory right now. Sport, which unites audiences across all backgrounds and political allegiances, gives the brand a wholesome place to congregate. “People really like him,” Hilfiger said backstage, explaining why he chose to collaborate with Kelce. “He’s really humble, down to earth, sweet, fun, and funny. And a superstar athlete.”

Backstage before the show, Hilfiger said: “Preppy is back in the zeitgeist.” And on the catwalk, sportswear codes and collegiate chic were blended together. A bright, boxy rugby shirt was worn loose over a neatly pleated skirt, a slick quarterzip layered under a neat blazer. Hotdog-stand colours of mustard and ketchup were splashed over civilised tones of Oxford blue and chino beige. There was a deep-cut nod to Hilfiger’s history in the form of a silk dress, which re-printed the audacious Times Square billboard that launched his career. The advert listed the four greatest American menswear designers as Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein and the then almost unknown Tommy Hilfiger. It was a provocative stunt from a rookie which, 41 years later, stands the test of time.

The show was one in a long line of pop culture cameos for the Plaza hotel. This is where Cary Grant was kidnapped from the Oak Room in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, and where Macaulay Culkin ran into its then owner, Donald Trump, in the lobby in Home Alone 2. For Hilfiger, the venue was a homecoming: the designer lived in the hotel with his family for a decade. “I loved the idea of a show in my former home,” Hilfiger said beforehand, “and I am inspired by all the different types of people who come through these doors every day.” His personal favourite moment in the hotel’s history, he said, was Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball of 1966.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Gardens, Fashion, Life and style, UK news, TikTok, Social media
Title – Mossy catwalks, mycelial designs and Monty Don: the growth of gardener style | Gardens | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ellie-violet-bramley
Link – Mossy catwalks, mycelial designs and Monty Don: the growth of gardener style | Gardens | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:07:19.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/sep/11/gardening-fashion-cool-monty-don

Y ou could argue that photosynthesis, soil bacteria, chlorophyll and germination, by their nature, never go out of style. But somehow, as the news broke this week that Monty Don would step down from Gardeners’ World after 23 years behind the shovel, gardening is having a moment in the sun.

On Saturday, New Balance will launch a pair of trainers alongside the jewellery designer Bleue Wickham-Burnham in a campaign fronted by Don himself, photographed shrinking into a bush with a pair of the trainers around his neck. In high fashion of late, the gardener Charlie McCormick became the face of JW Anderson’s spring 2027 campaign, and Alfie Nickerson, who grows flowers biodynamically in Norfolk for his brand Burnt Fen Flowers, has recently been plucked by Jimmy Choo for its autumn campaign, Wild Rose. Catwalks have been mossy, designs have been mycelial.

In more everyday settings, a pair of beige hemp gardening clogs have become the kind of thing twenty-somethings Lime bike across London to bag . Gardener style – cords, gilets, Blundstones and barn jackets – is now as familiar on concrete as compost. Don might have been wearing a chore jacket – arguably not a gardener’s staple, despite its factory origins – on the telly for more than a decade, but they are now omnipresent in cafes, ad agencies and other places far from an allotment .

Online, gardeners are finding new audiences, in some cases for reasons besides their knowledge of gerberas: i-D magazine has hailed a new gen of “hot gardeners” as part of the catalyst for a 50% increase in gardening content on TikTok this year, alongside actual interest in it.

Fancy gardening tools and clobber are aspirational: a site called Gardenheir has made a name for itself selling hand-forged tools, £275 two-gallon watering cans and various items in collaboration with the French workwear brand Le Laboureur that seem more likely destined for a small-plates restaurant than a vegetable patch.

Niwaki is another site for very fancy gardening gear. According to Jake Hobson, its founder, the popularity of gardening togs is as much about the mindset it offers as practicality. “They communicate a particular attitude. They’re comfortable and loose-fitting, but they also suggest that you’re ready for action,” he says.

Niwaki has intentionally pushed its products to new, non-gardening markets. “We sell a lot from Chiltern Street to customers who may or may not have a garden, and who may or may not even wear it in the garden,” he says, drawing a parallel with the broader rise in the appeal of workwear.

He delights in seeing Niwaki’s gardening gear worn outside the garden, such as one of their hard-wearing canvas tool bags, designed “especially for the travelling pruner”, being worn to the airport. Or the brand’s Tobizubon, which he describes as “the very, very balloon-shaped Japanese gardening trousers” and which are “incredibly popular in France. I’ve seen some amazing people wearing them in Paris, often with boots or funky shoes, and sometimes with a smart jacket on top.”

As with all things gardening, it hasn’t happened in a rush. Matt Collins, the head gardener at the Garden Museum, in central London, thinks it has grown in tandem with an exaltation of the position of professional gardeners more generally, and an overdue understanding that it’s creative, worthy work. “For a long time, it was seen as quite a kind of lower-status [job] … gardeners are cool, gardeners do important work.”

According to Selina Ozanne, the head gardener at The Exchange, in Erith, south-east London, “gardening is often romanticised. It has charm, as well as aesthetic appeal.” Plus she thinks it “holds a lot of nostalgia for people. It’s often a hobby associated with parents or grandparents.”

Gardeners, both professional and amateur, are more visible now, says Collins. And not just on social media. “Galleries and museum spaces and communal spaces are investing more and more in gardens.” Plus, non-gardeners are doing more gardening in public. “People who don’t have the privilege of a garden of their own … are finding other places to garden,” in parks and local community gardens, says Collins.

The timing is key. With climate a central topic, people who are caring for our planet seem like logical recipients of adoration. Plus, as AI experts this week warned of the high likelihood of extinction by AI, the calming, eternal nature of gardening feels even more appealing. “There’s definitely a feeling that gardening is one of those crafts that can’t fully be automated,” says Collins. “Watering schedules can be automated, seed-sowing even, maybe, but the act of observing and engaging in gardens remains quite human.”

For younger people, there is arguably a more specific appeal. Ozanne, of the “Nokia 3310 generation”, spent her childhood “heavily outdoors, building dens and climbing trees”. For the current generation, she thinks gardening “holds a sense of intrigue and presents escapism from a chronically online society”.

Collins points out a few thorns. Where fashion might sell a glamorous ideal of gardening, all forms of it involve muck, and not just some photogenic mud. Public gardening in particular, he says, “can be really difficult”. There can, he says, be “dog shit, human shit, sometimes, and grimy waste bags”. For Ozanne, who wears brands like Gramicci and Toast – repaired over and over again – the work makes her want to dress up. “I knew early on that if I was going to be out in public, picking up litter and dodging all manner of nasty things, that I wanted to look good doing it.”

But, says Collins, the glorification of the gardener isn’t necessarily translating to “their pay grade and how their actual value has been translated into [the] real world”. Gardening isn’t, according to Ozanne, “a career that’s accessible to everybody – both physically and financially”.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Boxing, Sport
Title – Benn and Garcia turn past scandals into a $30m Las Vegas world title payday | Boxing | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bryan-armen-graham
Link – Benn and Garcia turn past scandals into a $30m Las Vegas world title payday | Boxing | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:02:34.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/11/benn-and-garcia-turn-past-scandals-into-a-30m-las-vegas-world-title-payday

F our years ago Conor Benn’s career was thrown into limbo after two positive drug tests scuppered his blockbuster fight with Chris Eubank Jr. Two years ago Ryan Garcia was serving a one-year suspension after testing positive for ostarine at the time of his greatest victory.

On Saturday night they will each be rewarded with an eight-figure payday when they meet at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for Garcia’s WBC welterweight championship. The purses have not been disclosed, although reports have put the combined pot at around $30m (£22m) with each fighter expected to haul in roughly $15m.

Their routes to one of boxing’s biggest stages on Mexican Independence Day weekend have been different, as were the cases against them and their eventual outcomes. Both men insist they are not drug cheats, with Benn having ultimately been cleared by the National Anti-Doping Panel. But their collision course offers a striking reminder of a sport in which scandal can derail a career without necessarily compromising the value of the fighter involved in it.

Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs), the 28-year-old from Victorville, California, one of boxing’s first Gen-Z superstars, tested positive for the performance-enhancing anabolic agent ostarine on the day before and the day after his surprise win over Devin Haney in April 2024. His majority-decision victory was overturned to a no-contest , he was suspended for a year and his team blamed contaminated supplements.

Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) went through a longer and considerably more complicated ordeal. Two positive tests for the female fertility drug clomifene, a banned substance that can boost testosterone by 50%, emerged before the Londoner’s proposed fight with Eubank in October 2022, launching a regulatory battle that prevented him from fighting in Britain for two years. Benn maintained his innocence throughout.

Three years later, here they are. Garcia will make the first defense of the WBC title he won by dropping and outpointing Mario Barrios in February. For the 29-year-old Benn, it is a first world title shot and a chance to follow in the footsteps of his father, Nigel, who captured the WBC super-middleweight title more than three decades ago.

That Saturday’s fight was made at all speaks volumes about professional boxing’s peculiar moral ecosystem, where there is no single governing authority, universal anti-doping system or commissioner capable of imposing consistent sanctions across jurisdictions. Much of the power instead rests with promoters, broadcasters and sanctioning bodies whose financial interests are rarely served by keeping valuable fighters out of the ring.

Dismissed by critics for his good looks, luxury-brand endorsements and huge social-media reach – upwards of 13.1m Instagram followers with 9m more on TikTok – Garcia has amassed a massive following while oscillating between elite performances and episodes of extraordinary self-sabotage. His return from suspension brought an immediate world title shot – and a flat unanimous-decision loss to Rolando Romero in May 2025 – only for him to rebound against Barrios nine months later and win his first recognized world championship.

Benn’s journey has been different but hardly quieter. After eventually returning to fight in Britain, he lost to Eubank in April 2025 before avenging the defeat seven months later. Those fights restored his commercial momentum but did considerably less to establish him as a leading welterweight challenger.

Benn has not fought at the division’s 147lb limit for four‑and‑a‑half years, having recently campaigned at middleweight before coming down to 150lb to face Regis Prograis in April. Getting back down to welterweight may be the biggest gamble of all. “People say: ‘Oh, you can’t go up to this weight and then go back down.’ All right, cool. Well, just watch me do it,” Benn said at Thursday’s final press conference. “Discipline prevails, and I will make the weight.”

Garcia remains skeptical, suggesting the effects of the cut could leave Benn vulnerable once the punches start landing. “Even if he makes the weight, your brain can’t rehydrate fast enough,” Garcia said. “Them punches going to do some real damage.”

There is, beneath all the uncomfortable baggage, an intriguing fight between two men who certainly talk a good game. Garcia expects Benn to come forward and “try to resort to some dirty tactics”. Benn’s description of his approach sounded remarkably similar: “Tenacity, ferocity, spite, experience. I’m here to come and really set the tone from the first round.”

Therein lies the danger for the challenger. Garcia is the more naturally gifted boxer, with exceptional hand speed and a vicious left hook that is most dangerous against opponents coming forward. Benn’s best route to victory may require him to walk directly toward Garcia’s best weapon.

Garcia has shown he can be vulnerable when forced backwards, but Benn does not possess the timing or precision of Gervonta Davis, who handed Garcia his first professional setback with a withering seventh-round body shot in 2023 . Benn, meanwhile, insists that virtually every apparent disadvantage works in his favor because it leaves Garcia carrying the expectations.

“The pressure’s on Ryan completely,” Benn said. “No one’s given me a chance in this fight. Twenty amateur fights, just not made 147 for four-and-a-half years, the weight problem, the this, the that. No one’s given me a chance.”

There is also something more personal at stake for Benn, who has spent years carrying the advantages and burdens of his surname, including Garcia’s repeated contention this week that he would never have reached this position without it. There is a certain irony in Garcia attacking Benn as a nepo baby: Garcia has been a child of boxing privilege in his own right, enjoying nearly every advantage the industry can confer, never more than during his microwaved redemption. “It’s just a blessing to be in this position, to be headlining in Vegas, to be fighting on a mega show and put the Benn name back up in bright lights,” Benn said.

For all the talk of legacy, Saturday also offers a revealing snapshot of boxing in 2026. Two men once facing uncertain futures after positive drug tests will instead fight for a world championship and another handsome payday. Few sports are better at turning yesterday’s scandal into tomorrow’s main event.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Life and style, Weight-loss drugs, Obesity, Diabetes, Drugs, Health
Title – From ‘Ozempic breath’ to hair loss: sorting the science from the hype about weight loss jabs | Life and style | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/isabelle-aron
Link – From ‘Ozempic breath’ to hair loss: sorting the science from the hype about weight loss jabs | Life and style | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T14:00:07.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/sep/11/sorting-science-from-hype-about-weight-loss-drugs

They suppress your appetite so you never feel hung ry

FALSE “GLP-1 medications mimic Glucagon-like peptide-1 – one of the hormones involved in appetite regulation. It doesn’t completely suppress hunger, but it is powerful,” says Dr Federica Amati, nutrition lead at Imperial College School of Medicine and author of The Appetite Reset. “The medicine is about 1,000 times stronger than what we naturally produce from our gut,” she explains. As food passes through the gut, cells called L-cells sense the nutrients, which sparks the production of the GLP-1 hormone. Without the drugs, these bursts of GLP-1 production last a few minutes. “It’s a bit like a sparkler. In comparison, the drugs are like a bonfire that roars for a week,” says Amati. Because the GLP-1 hormone stays in your body for longer if you are on the drugs, you feel fuller faster and your appetite gets suppressed, but you will eventually get hungry.

They can cause gastrointestinal issues

TRUE “Nausea, constipation, diarrhoea, bloating and vomiting are well-recognised side-effects,” says Dr Adrian Brown, associate professor and specialist dietitian at University College London. “They tend to occur during dose escalation, and most symptoms improve over time.” Eating smaller meals, staying hydrated and limiting fatty foods can help.

“One of the best ways to prevent these side-effects is to prepare your gut, liver and pancreas before you start taking the medications,” says Amati. “If you go into treatment with existing reflux or constipation, it’s only going to get worse.” She advises eating more plants and gradually upping your fibre intake. Once taking the drugs, never push past the point of fullness. “The gastric emptying is so slow that you need to stop straight away.”

They make you forget to drink water

PARTLY TRUE The drugs themselves don’t make you want to drink less, but people can experience this as a side-effect. This is partly because we get a lot of water from food, especially fruits and vegetables. “These drugs massively reduce the amount that you eat – up to 40% reduction in calories,” says Amati. You may also drink less if you’re experiencing nausea, constipation or reflux. “It’s important that you do drink, because dehydration is one of the key reasons why reflux and constipation may be worse,” she says. As well as drinking water, she recommends having hydrating foods and smoothies, especially on the day you take the drugs (typically, the injections are used once a week, while the pills are taken daily), when you can have the most appetite suppression.

They can make you deficient in nutrients

TRUE Taking GLP-1 medication can “substantially reduce food intake, and that creates the potential for nutrient deficiencies if the quality of a person’s diet is poor,” says Brown, who has researched this area. He found that some people on these drugs may not get enough vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, calcium and protein.

“If your diet was relatively healthy to begin with, that’s fine because you’re just eating less. But this is not true for many people,” says Giles Yeo, professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and an obesity expert. “For those whose diets were not great to begin with, there’s a danger of going into malnutrition. You can’t just inject yourself and hope for the best. You have to think about your diet and exercise.”

Once you come off them you gain weight again

PARTLY TRUE “Obesity is a chronic, relapsing, progressive condition. When medications for obesity are stopped, a person’s body will attempt to regain the weight,” says Brown. “Studies have shown that people can regain about 60% of the weight lost following stopping the medication.”

In fact, one study from the University of Oxford found that people who stop taking GLP-1 medication will return to their original weight within two years. “For a lot of people, these are likely to be long-term or for ever drugs,” says Yeo. “Your appetite is only suppressed when you’re on them. If you stop, your hormonal levels will go back to what they were. You’ll feel as hungry as before, which means the weight will come back.”

While the idea of taking medication for ever might sound scary, Yeo points out that many people take medication for high blood pressure and statins, used for lowering cholesterol, for life. “I think the same is going to be true for these drugs,” he says.

They make you lose muscle and you need to eat more protein while taking them

TRUE “Whenever people lose weight, they don’t just lose fat, they also lose muscle. The key point is whether we can minimise it,” says Brown. “Current evidence suggests that up to 40% of the weight lost with GLP-1 medicine may come from lean mass [bone, muscle and connective tissue] rather than fat alone.”

This is why it’s important to prioritise protein-rich foods and resistance training when taking GLP-1s. “It’s not negotiable – you have to do it if you want to preserve lean mass,” says Amati. “If you have excess fat mass and you engage in resistance training, you will lose fat first because that’s the stored energy source.” She recommends resistance training three times a week, including high-quality protein in every meal, and eating that first.

Not everyone responds to them in the same way

TRUE “These drugs don’t work for everybody – they’re not a magic bullet,” says Amati. “The data shows that 5-20% of people lose less than 5% of their body weight, so they’re classed as non-responders. If you’re someone who doesn’t have a very sensitive GLP-1 receptor, GLP-1 medications won’t have the desired effect.” While we don’t yet know why this is, Yeo says that it’s only a matter of time before we do.

Anyone should use them to lose weight

FALSE GLP-1 drugs were originally developed for people with type 2 diabetes. Now, they’re also licensed for people with obesity, or people who are overweight and have weight-related health problems. Despite this, many people are using GLP-1s for aesthetic reasons because they’ve become so easily accessible.

“I see a lot of people accessing them to lose weight before a wedding or a holiday,” says Amati. “These drugs are not designed for that.” People taking GLP-1s in this way could end up with a worse body composition, she explains. “It’s much easier to regain fat than muscle, so you could find yourself with increased fat mass compared to before you started. Losing lean mass is not helpful for longevity.”

They could improve your mental health

PARTLY TRUE When it comes to how GLP-1s impact anxiety and depression, Michael Browning, professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, says, “The evidence that they’re beneficial is pretty thin, and some studies are ongoing.”

Things are more promising for addiction, particularly with alcohol, where there have been some randomised controlled trials. One of these showed that taking semaglutide (the GLP-1 agonist in Wegovy and Ozempic) reduced the number of heavy drinking days for participants. For other addictions, such as nicotine and other drugs, more research is needed. “There’s work in animals that suggests they might reduce nicotine dependence, but the evidence is not there in humans,” says Browning.

They cause bad breath and smelly burps

MORE RESEARCH NEEDED Is “Ozempic breath” a thing? “There is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but not any epidemiological studies,” says Dr Praveen Sharma, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham’s School of Dentistry.

While there’s no hard evidence yet, it could be side-effects like vomiting and dehydration that lead to a dry mouth, he says. Saliva “keeps the mouth hydrated and the bacteria level low”, so having a dry mouth can mean “you get a proliferation of bacteria, which can result in bad breath”.

As for burps? Dr Lindsey Ann Edwards, senior lecturer in microbiology at King’s College London, says that by slowing gastric emptying, GLP-1 medication can “cause food to remain in the stomach and upper gastrointestinal tract for longer, creating more opportunity for the gut microbiome to ferment partially digested food. This microbial fermentation can generate gases which may contribute to unpleasant-smelling or “sulphur” burps.

They can make your hair fall out

TRUE Your body goes through a stress response when you take GLP-1 drugs, says consultant dermatologist Dr Angela Tewari. “That puts stress on the hair, and you can experience telogen effluvium, which is stress response hair loss. It puts your hair into a shedding phase,” she says.

The good news is that this kind of hair loss is reversible. As your body gets used to the medication, this side-effect will ease off, although the pace at which your hair grows back will vary. “It can be an inch a month for some people. Generally, how fast your hair grows is a genetic thing,” says Tewari, who recommends taking the lowest possible dose of GLP-1s and eating food rich in protein, zinc, iron and vitamin C to encourage a healthy scalp.

Your face may get saggy and gaunt

TRUE You may take GLP-1s to change your body, but what do the drugs do to your face? Under your skin, you have a “support system”, explains Tewari. “There’s your collagen, and under that you have a fat layer and a muscle layer. That all makes the skin look plumper.” When you lose the fat layer quickly, the top layer of your skin is still expanded, as it has stretched over time to support the other layers. This means your skin will sag as there is less support underneath, so it can look wrinkled and dull. To counter this, many people end up spending money on injectables, says Tewari. “I wouldn’t jump into any procedures straight away. Allow your body to settle into its new look before you do anything,” she says.

Weight loss isn’t the only health benefit

MORE RESEARCH NEEDED As more people take GLP-1s, researchers are looking at the benefits beyond weight loss. One study found that people on GLP-1s were 30% less likely to develop breast cancer . Another found that patients with breast, lung, bowel or liver cancer who took them were up to 50% less likely to have their cancer spread .

“What’s challenging is disentangling the direct impact of these drugs and the secondary impact of losing weight,” says Dr Simon Cork, associate professor of physiology at Anglia Ruskin University’s School of Medicine. “Obesity increases your risk of at least 13 types of cancer. By reducing your weight, the likelihood of you developing cancer will also be reduced.”

Cork has researched GLP-1s and cardiovascular disease, and found that “the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with obesity taking GLP-1 was reduced by about 14%”. More research is needed, but if there are “weight-independent effects of these drugs”, Cork says the difficulty will be in trying to separate those benefits from weight loss, as some patients won’t need to lose weight.

Keyword – Art and design
Trefwoorden – Photography, UK news, World news, Art and design, News photography
Title – Swimming pigs and a flying scarecrow: photos of the day – Friday | Photography | The Guardian
Author –
Link – Swimming pigs and a flying scarecrow: photos of the day – Friday | Photography | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T13:29:18.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/sep/11/swimming-pigs-flying-scarecrow-photos-of-the-day-friday

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