Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Venice film festival, Film, Culture, Classical music
Title – Russian director refuses to denounce lead actor despite criticism from Ukraine | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/philip-oltermann
Link – Russian director refuses to denounce lead actor despite criticism from Ukraine | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:41:27.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/09/dau-director-defends-russian-lead-actor-ukraine-criticism

The director of a controversial new Russian film has said “everyone pays for his own choice” when asked about his lead’s refusal to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In film-maker Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s DAU, which premiered at the Venice film festival on Wednesday, Greek-Russian star conductor Teodor Currentzis plays the eponymously nicknamed protagonist, Nobel prize-winning quantum physicist Lev Landau.

In the run-up to the festival, the film’s inclusion in the lineup was heavily criticised by the Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs, in part over the fact that Athens-born Currentzis continues to live and work in Russia, and has never publicly denounced Putin’s war.

“It’s his choice,” Khrzhanovsky said at a press conference on the Lido. “But I think everyone is paying for his own choice, his own life, his own destiny,” added the film-maker, who has renounced his Russian citizenship over the full-scale invasion and lives in exile in Germany.

He referred to his film, in which Currentzis’s character Landau is put under pressure to work on the development of the nuclear bomb and eventually reluctantly agrees. “As you can see in the movie, the main character is also making different choices, and he’s paying for his choices.”

Currentzis did not attend the Venice premiere due to a “last-minute emergency”, but Khzhanovsky said he was still in touch with his lead actor and that he was “one of the greatest conductors of our time”.

Asked about his own position on the state of the war in Ukraine, Khrzhanovsky said: “The only thing I can wish for is peace and success for the Ukrainian government to succeed in the best possible way, to save the country and to win this war.”

DAU was a highly controversial project long before Russian tanks started rolling on to Ukrainian soil. Originally pitched to producers in 2006 as a conventional biopic, and shot between 2008 and 2011 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the film grew into a gargantuan piece of experimental performance art, with 400 principal roles and approximately 10,000 extras. Some critics have likened it to a “ Stalinist Truman Show ”.

Allegations of behind-the-scenes misconduct have dogged the project for more than a decade, with reports that on-set “KGB officers” – played by real-life ex-KGB officers – were allowed to control and punish the rest of the cast. Author Michael Idov, who was one of the few journalists allowed to spend time on set, described Khrzhanovsky as “unhinged” in a 2011 GQ article .

In Venice, Khrzhanovsky said he left the 700 hours of footage shot in Kharkiv untouched between the end of filming and 2023, in order to concentrate on art-project DAU off-shoots.

Experimental films DAU. Natasha and DAU. Degeneratsiya were screened at the Berlin film festival in 2020, but Khrzhanovsky has described the three-hour feature presented in Venice as the “mother film”.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Homes, Home improvements, Life and style
Title – The death of the dining room: how mealtimes moved to the kitchen – or the sofa | Homes | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – The death of the dining room: how mealtimes moved to the kitchen – or the sofa | Homes | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:18:20.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/sep/09/the-death-of-the-dining-room-how-mealtimes-moved-to-the-kitchen-or-the-sofa

Name: Dining rooms.

Age: Ancient Romans took meals in a room called a triclinium .

Appearance: A room with a big table in the middle, surrounded by chairs.

You mean a kitchen? No, a kitchen has a fridge and an oven. This doesn’t.

Like a conference room in an office? A little, but this room is in your house and it’s just for eating in.

What am I, royalty? Hardly. The dining room was a standard feature of a typical middle-class home.

When was all this? From Victorian times until quite recently.

Why did they decide they needed special dining rooms ? Once upon a time, homes tended to have a single, all-purpose entertainment space, but as furnishings in the living room became more elaborate and upholstered, it was thought desirable to designate a separate space for eating .

I guess that makes sense. By the 20th century, dining rooms – once the preserve of the rich – were part of the architecture even in modest homes.

In that case, where did they all go? Most of them have been turned into something else. According to research by insurance provider Aviva , nearly a quarter of homeowners have repurposed their dining rooms.

Into what, exactly? Sometimes, people knock down a wall to make a bigger living room or a bigger kitchen. Others turn dining rooms into gyms or home offices.

Or panic rooms? Possibly. However personal the change, few people feel the need to maintain a separate room just to eat in occasionally.

And they don’t miss their dining rooms? The fashion for bigger kitchens has moved the social focus of mealtimes. These days, people tend to cook and eat their food in the same space.

Really? I eat in front of my computer, on the sofa. In many ways we’ve come full circle: back to spilling food on upholstery.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a regular house with a dining room. That’s because the shift started some time ago. In 2008, it was predicted that the dining room would be extinct by 2020 . According to a study from the time, more than half a million homeowners had plans to renovate by knocking through their dining room in the following 12 months.

And all that knocking through just carried on. Indeed. The vogue for open-plan living has all but obliterated the very idea of rooms.

Do say: “As our lives and ways of interacting change, so the interiors of our homes change with them.”

Don’t say: “This used to be the dining room, but now it’s where three of my nine housemates sleep.”

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Iran, Strait of Hormuz, Oil, US foreign policy, Marco Rubio, World news, US news
Title – Iran claims to have attacked 10 ships near strait of Hormuz after US strikes | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/william-christou
Link – Iran claims to have attacked 10 ships near strait of Hormuz after US strikes | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:18:15.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/iran-claims-to-have-attacked-10-ships-near-strait-of-hormuz-after-us-strikes

Tehran has said it attacked 10 ships around the strait of Hormuz after the US sunk five Iranian tankers, as escalating strikes between the two countries sent the oil price above $100 a barrel for the first time since July.

The attacks were the sharpest flare-up of strikes in weeks, as the two sides struggled to break a deadlock in the six-month-long war. Fighting in recent weeks has largely revolved around who controls the strait of Hormuz, as Iran attempts to close off the waterway and Washington enforces a blockade of Iranian ports.

The strait is a critical route for global energy supplies, with up to 20% of the world’s oil and gas transiting it before the US-Iran war. The rising price of oil, above the psychologically significant $100 mark, is likely to raise inflation and the price of goods.

Stocks fell on Wall Street while rising fuel and food prices in the US will further frustrate the Trump administration, which faces a midterm election with an unpopular war and a cost-of-living crisis.

Among the vessels struck by Iran were two US vessels and eight oil tankers, the Iranian’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday.

The IRGC said the 10 vessels were “noncompliant” – a likely reference to ships that tried to traverse the waterway without its permission. At least one sailor was killed and another was missing.

The US denied that its vessels were hit, with US Central Command saying on social media that all “attempted attacks failed”.

A tanker in Iraqi waters carrying 2mi barrels of fuel oil was also struck by a drone, according to Iraqi officials. There were no reports of casualties among the crew and the Iraqi government said there were no reported oil leaks.

Iran said it also fired missiles at US bases in Jordan – 18 of which authorities said were intercepted while two fell in unpopulated areas.

The US had said it destroyed five Iranian oil tankers overnight, publishing videos of ships on fire. The US military said the attacks were a response to Iran targeting a US navy warship twice in the previous two days.

Iranian state TV said the US strikes had followed a “complex intelligence and operational action at dawn” to seize a US underwater drone in the strait. The US said the seized craft was a “defective” older model that did not carry any sensitive data.

The back-and-forth strikes signalled an intensifying escalation between the two sides as Washington announced a new policy of attacking Iranian tankers if Iran targets its warships.

“Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio , told reporters.

Iran said it would also escalate its attacks, and that for every two or three tankers struck it would respond by hitting 20. The IRGC said it would also release maps of a new, much-larger area near the strait that it considers forbidden for ships to traverse, extending as far as the Gulf off Chabahar for the first time.

The conflict has also taken on an increasingly regional dimension as the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen traded strikes with Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis launched a wave of attacks on four cities in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, causing large fires at oil installations and wounding 73 people. The Houthis said dozens of people have been killed in Saudi airstrikes, something unconfirmed by Riyadh.

Fighting re-ignited between the two sides after the Houthis launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government of Yemen in south Yemen last week, aimed at reaching the Red Sea.

The group is trying to enforce a Red Sea blockade against Saudi Arabia, announced in July. If enforced, it would cut off another route for the kingdom to export its oil.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Foreign policy, Ed Miliband, Israel, West Bank, MI5, MI6, UK security and counter-terrorism, UK news, US news, Middle East and north Africa, Palestine, World news, Politics
Title – Israel sanctions will not hurt intelligence sharing between spy agencies, says Miliband | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – Israel sanctions will not hurt intelligence sharing between spy agencies, says Miliband | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:14:41.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/israel-sanctions-will-not-hurt-intelligence-sharing-between-spy-agencies-says-miliband

British intelligence has been given assurances by its Israeli counterpart that information sharing with the UK will continue as before, Ed Miliband , the foreign secretary has said.

The disclosure counters predictions that his decision to impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements would lead to a collapse in cooperation between the agencies.

The exchanges of information are seen as mutually beneficial and it is understood that Israeli intelligence was never willing to become mired in any political dispute between the two governments.

Miliband insists the intelligence sharing from the UK has not aided the Israeli occupation or its actions in Gaza and the West Bank .

Miliband also expressed confidence that the US shared some of his exasperation with Israel’s reluctance to constrain the settlers in the West Bank, or to engage fully with the 20-point plan for Gaza set out by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

As yet there has been no public criticism of the UK actions by the White House. Trump, now locked in fighting midterm elections, appears reluctant to leap to the aid of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who persuaded him to go to war against Iran. That decision has pushed oil prices beyond $100 a barrel, helping to swell a threatened “blue wave” that could leave the Democrats in charge of both the House and the Senate.

There is also cross-party concern in the US at the violent tactics adopted by some Israeli settlers.

Miliband said on Sky News on Wednesday: “We obviously talked to the Americans in advance of our announcement. I think the whole international community, let me say this, has been quite frustrated, to put it mildly, with some of the actions of the Israeli government.

“I think there is real concern about what is happening … underlying so much of the conflicts in the Middle East is this failure to really grasp the situation between Israel and Palestine .

“It’s in our interest to act not just because it’s standing up for our values, but because it’s in our interests to have this two-state solution as a rock of stability in the Middle East.”

The US decision not to oppose the UK over its sanctions and ban on trade with the Israeli settlements follows conversations between Trump and the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, on Monday, as well as previous diplomatic exchanges at lower levels.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, was careful not to endorse the UK sanctions, but affirmed he shared the objective of securing greater stability.

Miliband can also claim credit for persuading Canada and France to join the trade ban , the surprise element in the package announced on Tuesday.

The agreement came together late in the process. Eight other European countries have announced their intention to introduce such measures or to support the measures within the EU, a statement of solidarity that represents probably less of a shift than headlines might suggest.

Some of the signatory countries had already taken steps independent of the EU, or had long been advocating for measures such as suspension of the Israel-EU trade agreement.

For France, the decision to join the British initiative was formalised relatively late during Emmanuel Macron’s trip to London, when he met Burnham on 3 September and celebrated the display of the Bayeux tapestry at the British Museum.

France acted after a Franco-Swedish proposal made to the EU27 in April appeared to be making little progress.

The French plan aimed to establish an embargo or tariff on products from the occupied territories, but resistance from a constellation of countries including Germany, Italy and Bulgaria blocked progress. The commission also appeared to raise objections.

Paris last year had led the push to recognise the state of Palestine as critical to the two-state solution, but much of the French diplomatic energy had subsequently drifted. The UK, along with Jordan, will hold a meeting concerning improving humanitarian supplies into Gaza at the UN general assembly later this month

In advance of Miliband’s statement, Trump had been hinting that he might support the Argentinian claim to sovereignty over the Falklands, a proposal mooted by Netanyahu’s son.

But in a little noticed move likely to please Washington, Miliband this week supplemented the action against Israel by announcing fresh nuclear related sanctions against Iran, including targeting Iranian ships involved in “malign behaviour”.

The UK also said it was backing a motion to be put to the UN stating Iran was in breach of its obligations on nuclear proliferation.

The new sanctions are extended to cover energy, software, metals, gold and related activities such as shipping, insurance and banking. Most Iranian aircraft will be prohibited from landing in the UK.

In response to the UK ban on goods, not due to come into force for at least six months, Israel has said it will: close the British consulate in in occupied East Jerusalem ; remove British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel; terminate the UK’s role in training Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank; and deny 12 mainly leftwing MPs entry to Israel.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Air transport, Airline industry, Business, Heathrow airport, Gatwick airport, Travel, Transport, Flights, Heidi Alexander, UK news, Europe, World news, Ryanair, Politics
Title – Air traffic control boss given a week to report after UK flight chaos causes 2,000 cancellations | Air transport | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gwyntopham,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marksweney
Link – Air traffic control boss given a week to report after UK flight chaos causes 2,000 cancellations | Air transport | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:09:18.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/uk-flight-cancellations-nats-martin-rolfe-heidi-alexander

The head of the air traffic control provider Nats has been given a week to report back on the reasons for a technical failure that grounded thousands of flights, as the transport secretary said she did “not believe the issue was unavoidable”.

Heidi Alexander said on Tuesday she had also commissioned an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority into the latest Nats meltdown that severely disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.

The comments will pile pressure on the Nats chief executive, Martin Rolfe, despite Downing Street saying the government still had confidence in him after a morning meeting with Alexander, and as the number of flight cancellations passed 2,000.

The minister told the Commons: “Safety must remain air traffic controllers’ overriding priority, and this morning I have spoken to Nats chief executive, Martin Rolfe, who informed me this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site.

“So, while my understanding from Nats is that we can rule out a cyber-attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable.”

The UK Civil Aviation Authority said passengers were “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays and cancellations” as the issue was likely to be considered the results of “extraordinary circumstances”.

Airlines have urged action, with Rolfe facing increasing pressure to quit, after the third large-scale stoppage to flights in just over three years.

Latest industry estimates say about 330,000 passengers had their travel disrupted and delayed, with many stuck on grounded planes for many hours as the incident unravelled. Other passengers were stranded overnight at airports in the UK and abroad. More than 155,000 passengers had had flights cancelled, while flights had been delayed for more than 180,000 passengers.

A Downing Street spokesperson earlier said Alexander had asked Rolfe to “carry out a full investigation into what happened to make sure that lessons are learned, so that this doesn’t happen again”.

Alexander said she would “leave absolutely no stone unturned in understanding what has happened here, and what can be done to drastically reduce the likelihood of something like this ever happening again.

“I do think we need to ask tough questions about the resilience of Nat systems … We also need to think about consumer redress issues as well.”

The prime minister’s spokesperson added: “We have confidence in him and he’s been tasked with the investigation, which will report in a week’s time.”

Airlines including Ryanair and Wizz have called for Rolfe to resign or be sacked by Alexander. He had earlier defended the resilience of the systems run by Nats, which provides services to 15 UK airports.

“We will be doing a very thorough and full investigation,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We have at this point ruled out a cyber-attack … This will be something we haven’t seen in more than 50 years of operation.”

Nats said the problem occurred in its flight processing system but was not the same fault as the issues that caused outages and mass disruption in 2023 and 2025.

Ryanair queried the explanation and said lessons had not been learned. The carrier, which on Tuesday said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted when 50 flights were cancelled, said it had now cancelled more than 250 flights and that its costs would run into millions.

The airline’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said: “Martin Rolfe’s position as Nats CEO is untenable. We don’t need more investigations, we don’t need more reports, and we don’t need another parliamentary committee hearing where Martin Rolfe will promise change, will promise resilience, and will promise an effective backup system.”

He said the UK’s air traffic control services were one of the most expensive in Europe “and yet it keeps repeatedly failing”. O’Leary said Alexander should “today demand that failing Martin Rolfe must quit, or be dismissed”.

Yvonne Moynihan, the managing director of Wizz Air UK, called on Rolfe to consider resigning. “In any industry when you’ve had three failures, you need to consider three strikes and you’re out,” she told Today. “A third time and a third excuse is not enough any more. What we need to see from leadership is accountability.”

Luke Petherbridge, the director of public affairs at the travel association Abta, said: “While the immediate priority is supporting customers … the industry and the public will want answers as to what has gone wrong.”

Nats said the fix it eventually implemented on Tuesday, almost four hours after the incident first occurred, had been a “very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover”.

More than 300 flights were cancelled on Wednesday in the continuing fallout from the outage. According to data from the analysts Cirium, nearly 2,100 flights in and out of UK airports have been cancelled because of the failure, including 1,750 on Tuesday out of 5,800 scheduled flights. Of these, 541 were at Heathrow.

A spokesperson for British Airways said: “Tuesday’s air traffic control issue has forced us into cancelling almost 550 of our flights, affecting more than 85,000 of our customers. We’re incredibly sorry for the experience they’ve endured because of an issue that has been entirely out of our control.” The airline operated nearly 80% of its typical flight schedule.

Rail passengers affected by flight disruption could use booked tickets on a different date or to a different airport if needed, or apply for a refund, the Rail Delivery Group said.

The airport breakdown started at about 1pm on Tuesday and affected departing flights at many of Britain’s biggest airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.

London airports as well as Manchester were among the most directly affected, with operations effectively suspended for hours in the afternoon. While Heathrow said the fault initially only stopped takeoffs, the airport was soon too full to accommodate more planes, with arriving flights diverted to other European airports.

Flights to and from other airports around the UK, including Birmingham, Edinburgh and Belfast, were also disrupted.

The air traffic control problems follow an “isolated event” a year ago that caused widespread disruption, and appeared less severe than the full grounding of flights in August 2023 , which prompted a parliamentary inquiry.

Keyword – Wellness
Trefwoorden – Well actually, Weight-loss drugs, Life and style, Health, Relationships
Title – ‘I’m sick of her talking about it’: 11 readers share how GLP-1s have affected their relationships | Well actually | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/madeleine-aggeler
Link – ‘I’m sick of her talking about it’: 11 readers share how GLP-1s have affected their relationships | Well actually | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T16:00:03.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/sep/09/glp-1s-affecting-relationships

As GLP-1 use continues to rise in the US and the UK , people’s bodies are being reshaped – as are their relationships.

“Relationships tend to develop a sense of equilibrium and predictability over time,” says Dr Lindsey Berisha, a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with clients using GLP-1s for over 10 years. “When one partner undergoes a significant change, it can shift that equilibrium, and even positive change can create uncertainty for both partners.”

Berisha says that her clients who use GLP-1s often report feeling relieved that they are no longer consumed with thoughts of food. These users often develop more self-compassion , she says, as they realize what they previously interpreted as a failure or lack of self-control was a legitimate biological drive and food preoccupation that made life harder for them. “This shift can often be more impactful than the weight loss itself,” she says.

But these changes can elicit mixed reactions from partners, family and friends, says psychologist Dr Rachel Goldman, ranging “from being supportive to feeling insecure, left behind, or worried that the relationship itself is changing”.

None of these reactions mean there is a problem with the medication or the relationship, Goldman emphasizes: “The goal is to recognize those shifts, communicate about them, and find new ways to connect rather than assuming the other person knows what you’re experiencing.”

Below, 11 Guardian readers share how GLP-1 use has shaped their relationships.

I can’t share my experience with my unsupportive husband

My husband is unsupportive. He’s afraid of long-term, currently unknown side-effects and likens GLP-1s to Fen-phen . As a result, I don’t discuss my experience with him. This has been a life-changing drug so far, and I can’t share it with the person I’m closest with. I can’t share the wins, the way I’m amazed and thrilled with how I feel, and I certainly can’t share any concerns or worries. It’s contributed to a distance between us.

I’ve struggled with obesity for my entire adult life, and my family and personal health history put me at very high risk of dying young due to complications from the disease. But my husband scoffs at characterising obesity as a chronic and recurring disease. Instead, he thinks people should just make better lifestyle choices and stop making excuses – which tells me a lot about how he views me, too. – Anonymous

The biggest impact has been on my daughter

I have been on Wegovy for six months and have lost over two stone (28lb; 13kg). The biggest impact has been on my 20-year-old daughter. I didn’t tell her I was on it and she found out when one of her friends went in the fridge and spotted it. I didn’t deliberately hide it in the fridge, but I also didn’t make it easy to find. We had discussed weight, identity and GLP-1s, but I was so ashamed of going on it that I didn’t want to tell anyone.

My daughter felt worried, angry and jealous. Food is a huge part of our family life – when everyone is home, we cook together and eat together. What kind of signal am I giving her and her brothers? So much of my insecurity about my weight and appearance is offloaded on to an injectable pen. My husband hasn’t really said much. He’s observing me. He also wants to lose weight, but maybe not enough to intervene in that way. I’m the family guinea pig.

I feel conflicted but mostly positive. I am carrying less weight. My back doesn’t hurt like it did. I can put on socks and shoes without being sore. I am more flexible. Calmer. I feel better. I care more about what I wear. I feel confident. I eat more healthily and drink less alcohol. The conflict comes in feeling like I’m cheating, like I don’t have enough willpower or strength to lose weight independently. What I need to do is own it and say, “Fuck it, I feel so much better.” But it’s not that simple. – Anonymous

It makes me feel greedy and slightly envious

My partner takes GLP-1s. I’m glad he is losing weight and is happy in himself, though it’s hard when we go out for a meal and have something to share. It makes me feel greedy. I feel slightly envious too, which is illogical. I would like to lose weight and am doing so without GLP-1s as I have a history of eating disorders and was recently pregnant but sadly miscarried. Maybe my partner being healthier will help us conceive.

I think GLP-1s are brilliant and can really help people. My partner has struggled [with weight loss] before and this seems to be working. I am concerned about people using it who don’t need it, though. It’s complicated. – Anonymous

I’m sick of her talking about nothing else

My best friend of 15 years has recently lost three stone (42lb; 19kg) after being on a GLP-1. I am pleased for her as she seems incredibly happy. Unfortunately, she regularly talks about food and weight now. She talks at length about how much weight she has lost, the old clothes she fits into, and how good everyone says she looks. I am pleased for her but sick of her talking about nothing else.

I have struggled with weight and food. I don’t want to go on a GLP-1, but I am struggling even more being surrounded by people who are on it. I don’t like how [these drugs] seem to be shifting the narrative around weight so that fatness is suddenly massively unacceptable again. – Anonymous

What’s it got to do with anything?

The truth is that [using] GLP-1s hasn’t really affected my relationships at all. My partner knows about it but forgets all the time, because it’s not changed our lives together. My friends don’t know, but they don’t know about my iron supplements either – what’s that got to do with anything?

For me, my main issue is binge eating, which is a very private and isolating habit. Nobody I love saw me tear through three takeaways a night – I’d hide that, which would create a distancing sense of shame. If anything, the medication means I can be more present and open with the people I care about.

It’s funny that people talk about GLP-1s being the “easy” way to lose weight. Yes! Isn’t that the point? I got my first fillings at 23 and remember telling my dentist how amazing anaesthetic is. Yes, I could get a root canal without anaesthetic, or lose weight by white-knuckling hunger pangs and miserable restrictions. Or I could use the brilliant medical invention that makes reaching my health goal feel just fine. – Anonymous

I have pretended I don’t care about being fat all my life

I have been on a GLP-1 for nearly two years and have kept it largely secret. Weight stigma is real. At work, people respect me more – people I don’t know have more time for me, and I get more praise than before. It’s ridiculous and so fucking rude.

Generally, my friends are really pleased for me. They have seen my weight fluctuate over the years. My concern is that I am still concealing my secret. I don’t want people to think I’ve cheated. I guess there is still fat shame somewhere. I have pretended I don’t care about being fat all my life. If I told people I was on this damn drug, they would know I was lying [about not caring]. I may tell them as time goes on. Some will have guessed. It’s the wild west out here, in social terms.

My partner is really happy for me. She loves that I look fire so much these days, and that is partly because I can dress well. I think she has felt insecure at times because of my glow-up. But that is only one thing. It doesn’t change our combined life, our shared ambitions and understanding. – Anonymous

I love myself for the first time in a long time

As soon as I lost 5 stone (70lb; 32kg), my husband told me he’s no longer in love with me. It totally floored me. I knew that I had become the woman I wanted to be, but I was no longer the woman who needed his validation.

After a lot of heartache, I decided to stay and fix whatever broke between us. We have been together for 32 years, married for 25; we have three children and a beautiful home. We are trying to be the best for each other and have started dating again. There is still no intimacy, but the love and respect are there.

I love myself for the first time in such a long, long time. I only want the best for me. – Anonymous

I feel like I’m being dishonest

I have been using a GLP-1 for two years and have lost nearly ⅓ of my former body weight. Almost nobody in my life knows. I have family members and close friends who have used them and have been open about it. I really admire their ability to be so honest with everyone. I feel like I am being dishonest with people even though I don’t ever deny using them – I just don’t offer the information.

I’ve started a new relationship and my partner doesn’t know. I like to think he would be with me regardless of my weight. I think the main difference in myself that led to the relationship is my confidence and my willingness to put myself out there. Maybe one day I will tell him, but not yet. – Anonymous

Now I’m divorced

My ex-wife started using them to lose weight a few years ago. After about a year, she had lost 70lb (31.8kg). I was super proud and excited for her. But then she left me for another guy and now I’m divorced. – Anonymous

She was chubby but happy

The drug not only destroyed any appetite that my wife had, but it destroyed any desire she had for anything other than sitting around watching TV. My wife used to be a little chubby, but she was happy and we had a good life. Now she says she is “skinny, ugly and hates [herself]”. – Anonymous

If he hadn’t been supportive, it would have been much harder

I’ve lost 35kg (77.2 lb) on Mounjaro, which I started in December 2024. I’ve maintained my weight loss on a micro-dose for almost a year. I feel calmer, more confident, and much more inclined to initiate sex. I’ve lost my appetite for greasy, heavy foods, and probably still eat under half of what I used to. This was hard on my foodie partner, but he knew how important it was for me to achieve a healthy weight.

I started exercising daily, and now my husband has joined me. Now, instead of drinking wine and eating cheese together, we go to the pool or the hot springs, and on evenings and weekends we walk. If he hadn’t been supportive and willing to join me on my health journey, it would’ve been much harder. – Sara, 42, Brunswick, UK

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Vuelta a España, Cycling, Sport
Title – Vuelta a España: Matthew ⁠Brennan rounds off famous five with sprint success | Vuelta a España | The Guardian
Author – Agencies
Link – Vuelta a España: Matthew ⁠Brennan rounds off famous five with sprint success | Vuelta a España | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T15:59:14.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/09/vuelta-espana-matthew-brennan-fifth-stage-win-cycling

Matthew Brennan claimed a fifth Vuelta a España stage victory on Wednesday as the young British rider edged a bunch sprint in Seville to win the 17th stage. The 21-year-old Grand Tour debutant crossed the finish line ahead of Jordi Meeus and Magnus Cort Nielsen.

The general classification leader, Enric Mas, moved one step closer to claiming a first Grand Tour victory as he maintained his 2min 6sec lead on Felix Gall, with four-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglic a further four seconds behind.

The stage was set up for the bunch sprint finale, without a single climb on the long, flat, 185km ride from Dos Hermanas to the Andalusian capital.

Sinuhe Fernandez and Enzo Paleni formed a two-man break early on, whipping up a gap of more than four minutes on the peloton, who were moving at a leisurely pace on another hot day with temperatures over 30C.

The gap extended to more than five minutes around the halfway point, with Visma then working hard to reduce it. The Groupama FDJ-United rider Paleni dropped Fernandez but was absorbed by the peloton with just three kilometres remaining after a monumental effort.

Brennan came around the Danish rider Cort to claim the sprint victory, holding off Belgium’s Meeus, who crossed the line in second. As with his other stage victories, the Briton raised his hand to the air, this time with all of his fingers up to represent his five victories.

Brennan’s victory puts him in a small bracket of riders, including Tadej Pogacar – who was overwhelming favourite to win this year’s Vuelta before he suffered a season-ending injury in a crash in stage eight – to claim five or more stages at a single Grand Tour.

On Thursday, riders take on a 32.1km individual time-trial from El Puerto de Santa Maria to Jerez de la Frontera in stage 18, which is one of the last chances for Mas’s general classification contenders to cut down the gap on the Spaniard.

Keyword – Technology
Trefwoorden – Anthropic, AI (artificial intelligence), ChatGPT, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Computing, Technology, US news, World news
Title – Anthropic researchers say AI could cause human extinction by 2030 | Anthropic | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/richardluscombe
Link – Anthropic researchers say AI could cause human extinction by 2030 | Anthropic | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T15:53:34.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/09/anthropic-researchers-ai-human-extinction

Artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic , one of whom has quit his job in protest.

The latest doom-laden predictions came in posts on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI , were ignoring or at best mishandling their response to the threat.

“Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” wrote Jacob Coxon.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

The post garnered responses from at least two other Anthropic employees who backed up Coxon’s dire predictions.

In the first, Evan Hubinger, who describes himself as a lead in the company’s alignment division, which works on ensuring Anthropic’s AI models function in line with human goals, said his former colleague was “correct”, and that the industry was falling behind in attempts to deal with the apocalyptic potential.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Hubinger wrote . “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

Hubinger’s comments mark a surprising affirmation of Coxon’s unflattering, apocalyptic predictions from a person still on Anthropic’s payroll. A second response came from Samuel Marks, Anthropic’s “scalable oversight lead”, who posted a lengthy analysis he stressed was in his personal capacity, and not the views of his employer. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes),” wrote Marks. “This could happen in the next few years. In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.”

Their musings on the possibility of human extinction follow more concrete warnings about AI’s cybersecurity capabilities by Sam Altman, chief executive of Anthropic’s rival OpenAI. OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, has conceded previously that “we underestimated the real-world cyber capabilities of our AI models”.

Altman said last year that certain aspects of AI, including what he called the “silent surrender” of human decision-making, terrified him.

AI executives have shared some concerns about the direction of AI and its growing ability to manipulate, seize and control human functions and actions. A sharp rise was reported this summer in incidents of AIs escaping users’ control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways.

In one of the most publicized examples, staff at OpenAI recorded rogue behavior among its leading AI agents that escaped a closed training environment in July to access the open web and launch an unprecedented hacking attack on the software repository Hugging Face.

OpenAI, the San Francisco-based startup behind the publicly available AI bot ChatGPT, later admitted that it should have responded earlier to warning signals of the days-long attack, which is widely considered to be the first autonomous agent cyber-attack.

Those executives, however, have stopped short of agreeing with the fully doomsday warnings like Coxon’s and have bristled at any attempts to regulate the AI industry.

Some politicians have urged the industry to slow down and or in some cases halt development on AI altogether. Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, called for better congressional oversight in a post on X on Tuesday, in which he noted: “81% of Americans believe Congress isn’t doing enough to regulate AI.”

In another post last week, he demanded a “pause [in] AI development now”, citing the OpenAI hacking incident and warnings in July from 1,000 scientists at leading AI companies that “there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems”.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Venice film festival, Film, Culture, Documentary films, Festivals, New York, US unions
Title – Union Town review – passionate exposé of US delivery workers’ employment conditions | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/xanbrooks
Link – Union Town review – passionate exposé of US delivery workers’ employment conditions | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T15:49:03.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/09/union-town-review-barbara-kopple-amazon-ups

B arbara Kopple’s documentary about app-based delivery workers is a stirring, defiant, battle-hardened affair, swinging between the fraught picket line and the still more hazardous New York City streets. It’s a new film that feels old in the best sense of the word; a hoarse battle cry that summons the ghosts of The Grapes of Wrath and the New Deal, Eugene Debs and Woody Guthrie. That America is long dead and buried, a casualty of changing times, but Kopple sees no reason why it should not rise again.

Union Town, tellingly, is the third part of a loose trilogy which serves as an ongoing audit of US workers’ rights. This began with 1976’s Harlan County, USA, which tackled a Kentucky miners’ strike, and continued through 1990’s American Dream, which covered a meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota. Since then, however, the culture has shifted, atomised, with the big corporations increasingly reliant on a shadow economy of undocumented workers. Kopple’s “deliveristas” ferry packages for the likes of Amazon and DoorDash but they are technically third-party contractors. That means if, say, they happen to be injured in the line of duty, they cover the hospital bills and repairs to the bike. It also means that they are likely to be fired while they’re laid up in bed.

Kopple spotlights a push by the Teamsters union to unionise Amazon’s disparate workforce, which culminates in a paralysing six-day strike over the 2024 Christmas period (“You’re killing Santa,” a disapproving news anchor tells Teamster president Sean O’Brien). Along the way, the film collates a lengthy and damning rap sheet. We hear from the warehouse employees who pack boxes in 105-degree (40.5C) heat, the delivery drivers who sleep in their cars and earn $7 an hour, and the exhausted migrant workers who live under threat of being apprehended by ICE. Kopple’s fly-on-the-wall approach ensures that these invisible workers have names, faces and voices – and it’s only the bosses who refuse to break cover. The sole one we hear from is Carol Tomé, the grandmotherly CEO of UPS. She materialises on a TV business show to enthuse about the benefits of putting robots in the warehouse. Robots would be better, she giggles. More efficient; “No attitude.”

Union Town is keen to emphasise the positives. Solidarity pays dividends. David slew Goliath. “Jeff Bezos is Darth Vader,” says one Teamster. “And we’re the rebel army.” And yet the unavoidable takeaway of this bleakly potent picture is that this struggle is Sissyphian, with the membership split and confused and actively voting against their own interests. The Amazon drivers envy the UPS drivers; 60% of Teamster members support Trump. Outside the Amazon headquarters at night, the union’s Chris Williamson maintains what is effectively a one-man picket line after everyone else has gone home. He’s freezing his feet off in the New York slush and angrily, desperately calling for reinforcements.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Norway, Europe, Monarchy
Title – Norwegians gather in Oslo to mourn King Harald – video | Norway | The Guardian
Author –
Link – Norwegians gather in Oslo to mourn King Harald – video | Norway | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T15:44:12.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2026/sep/09/norwegians-gather-in-oslo-to-mourn-king-harald-video