Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Music documentary, Oasis, Music, Culture, Pop and rock, Film
Title – ‘Would they fight or hug?’ The Oasis comeback film’s makers on shooting fans, vicars, police – and the Gallaghers | Music documentary | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/davesimpson
Link – ‘Would they fight or hug?’ The Oasis comeback film’s makers on shooting fans, vicars, police – and the Gallaghers | Music documentary | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T04:00:58.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/09/oasis-dont-look-back-in-anger-documentary-interview-liam-noel-gallagher

On 4 July last year, Oasis were all set to start the first gig of their hugely anticipated comeback, 16 years since the band imploded after Liam Gallagher swung a guitar in the direction of brother Noel’s head backstage in Paris. However, just 20 minutes before showtime, there was no sign of the singer. Some 74,500 fans in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium were going crazy, while Noel was left impatiently pacing around the venue’s loading bay, presumably wondering if everything was about to fall apart again.

“Then the monitor I was watching all this on suddenly cut out,” says Will Lovelace, the director who was filming the comeback. “When it came back to life, suddenly Liam and Noel were there chatting. Then they walked out to this eruption.” Later, Noel is filmed expressing incredulity that his long-estranged younger sibling could “skip the final rehearsal, then just rock up, grab my hand, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ And off he goes, sounding like he’s 30 years younger. And I’m like, ‘You absolute mad cunt.’”

The Cardiff entrance is one of the more dramatic scenes in Lovelace and co-director Dylan Southern’s film Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, which briefly dwells on how the fractious working-class Manchester tearaways became the biggest rock band in the world in the 1990s before concentrating on how, 30 years later, they did it all again.

The Oasis Live 25 tour consisted of 41 concerts across 14 countries and five continents, playing to more than two million people. Don’t Look Back In Anger captures the supersized raw power of those gigs but also packs an unexpectedly emotional wallop, showing how a bitter, long-fractured relationship between two feuding brothers was healed by the power of their own music – not just over themselves but over those millions of fans.

The cameras capture Noel’s stunned admission that he “wasn’t prepared for the intense outpouring, a sense of what it meant to people”. Lovelace insists it was the same for the directors. “We arrived in Cardiff unprepared for this tidal wave of emotion. It seemed bigger than Oasis, something a lot of people needed. I don’t think we understood the magnitude of it. I was overwhelmed.”

Southern and Lovelace’s previous music films include the New York indie scene rockumentary Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) and LCD Soundsystem’s live farewell, Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012). Southern says it “never came up” that the pair also made No Distance Left to Run , the 2010 documentary about Oasis’s avowed rivals, Blur.

The directors have their own history with the Manchester band – as fans. Lovelace remembers, as a teenager growing up in the Fens, East Anglia, listening to Definitely Maybe on a Walkman and thinking: “This is the first music that feels like my own.” Southern saw them in 1994 at the 200-capacity Hull Adelphi, when the working-class northerners “felt like our band”. When tickets went on sale for Oasis Live 25, Lovelace was “in a car on my phone failing to get a ticket” while Southern “eventually gave up”.

They were later approached about “a big project”, but weren’t told what it was and were sworn to secrecy. Then they were put together with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, as scriptwriter, and the project got under way. “Filming rehearsals in London took a lot of negotiating because they’ve never allowed that,” says Lovelace. “It was never going to work if we just went in there with our cameras,” adds Southern. “We had to come up with a way to be invisible.”

So they hid cameras in all the sound kit. “We had a grotty Portakabin outside in a heatwave so we could monitor everything,” says Southern. “It was completely unglamorous,” grins Lovelace. “But for six weeks, Oasis didn’t see us or our crew.”

The band reacquainted themselves with songs they hadn’t played for years, at this point with Noel singing, while the directors trained a camera on the door to catch Liam’s grand arrival. They waited and waited.

“Nobody knew exactly when he was coming,” says Southern. “There was a palpable tension. We knew we had these historically volatile characters, so you ask yourself, ‘Are they going to fight – or hug each other? And of course they do neither. They have a job to do. Apart from a very brief photoshoot, they hadn’t been in a room together for 16 years. Then Liam walks in, drops his bag and goes, ‘Are we ready then?’ Two hours later, while they’re playing the outro to Champagne Supernova, he picks up his bag and leaves. He did that every single day. And then suddenly they were playing the gigs – and the tension started melting. You could see Noel and Liam getting closer every night.”

Thirteen gigs were filmed, but the directors wanted more than a concert film so they recruited people with what Southern calls “a unique eye. We employed cinematographers to hold every camera, rather than someone who filmed Stereophonics last week.”

This meant the likes of Haris Zambarloukos (Belfast, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice), Lol Crawley (who won an Oscar for The Brutalist) and Moonlight Oscar-nominee James Laxton. Southern had observed that classic rockumentary films such as Monterey Pop and Gimme Shelter were made by “the greats of the period”. He even held a camera himself. “I wanted to be in there among the crowd,” he explains.

The film includes unusually personal footage of fans of all ages. A South Korean free diver explains how the band’s lyrics helped her through depression; a teenager in floods of tears is comforted by a stranger; a guy sitting cross-legged on the floor prays while singing along to Slide Away; a young woman who survived the 2017 Manchester Arena bomb but was left with “survivor’s guilt” realises the meaning of it all is “to not look back in anger”. Southern sums it up: “The effect the music has on people is like magic. In the film, Liam says, ‘It’s like it comes from somewhere else.’”

The narrative was further helped by a series of “unexpected gifts”, as Southern calls them. “Before we filmed, we went to Burnage [where the Gallaghers grew up] and took everything in. We went in St Bernard’s Church, opposite their old primary school, and asked Father Luke if we could film. We had no idea that, on the only day we could shoot, he would read the passage from the Bible where St Peter asks Jesus, ‘How many times must I forgive my brother who sinned against me?’ And he is told, ‘Not seven times but 77 times.’ Then he built his whole sermon that morning around Noel and Liam.”

Another gift was unearthing archive footage of Noel revealing he has a “character flaw that means I can never forgive … anyone, ever”. This is then gradually demolished over the film. There’s also a comical police sergeant at one gig whose team briefing is formed from Oasis song titles. “We’re just going to have to Roll With It,” he says. “It’s The Masterplan.”

A sadder moment arrives in Sao Paulo, as the band hear that Stone Roses bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield has died aged 63. We see the musicians in shock, Liam dedicating Live Forever to “our dear friend, our hero”, and a visibly shaken Noel playing the guitar solo while staring up at Mounfield’s face on a screen above the stage. “There are probably versions of Live Forever that were technically better,” says Southern, “but that had to be in.”

With as many as 20 cameras on the go at once, the directors ended up with “hundreds and hundreds of hours” of footage. Among the more painful editing decisions was having to omit a three-minute close-up of a teenage girl in tears to Talk Tonight, because it just didn’t fit anywhere. And, while the film is low on gossip and revelations, there is power in what remains unsaid.

“The reconciliation didn’t happen in rehearsals,” says Southern. “It started happening on stage and continued happening.” Lovelace adds: “They’re healing this enormous chasm not in private, but in public. And things were forgiven without saying a word. Maybe that’s part of what people are responding to.” Mostly, the Gallaghers are interviewed separately, but by the end they’re giving their first joint interview for two decades – as reflective older men, praising each other’s contributions, laughing at each other’s humour and the “madhouse” of Oasis.

“We are in contact way more than we ever were before,” says Noel. “I’d forgotten how funny Liam was. All the little things that used to annoy us about each other have gone away.”

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger is in Imax and cinemas on 9 September in the UK, 10 September in Australia and 11 September in the US

Keyword – Global development
Trefwoorden – Global development, Global health, Children’s health, Early years education, Society, Children, Pregnancy, Parents and parenting, Education, Life and style, Health & wellbeing, Family, South Africa, World news, Africa, Neuroscience, Science
Title – Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds | Global development | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kat-lay
Link – Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds | Global development | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T04:00:58.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/sep/09/babies-born-to-anaemic-mothers-have-smaller-brains-study-finds

Babies born to mothers with anaemia have smaller brains, particularly in key regions linked to movement, learning and the regulation of emotion, according to a study.

Researchers said the differences, first detected at the age of one, could lead to cognitive problems when children started school.

More than a third of pregnant women worldwide have anaemia – a condition typically caused by iron deficiency in which the number of red blood cells in the body is lower than normal. Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and dizziness. Rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.

Researchers from King’s College London in the UK, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa , followed more than 300 mothers and their babies in Cape Town, scanning the brains of the infants several times between the ages of three months and two years.

On average, the total brain volume of babies born to anaemic mothers was 4% lower than that of babies born to non-anaemic mothers – despite all the anaemic mothers being diagnosed only with a mild version of the condition.

Differences were recorded in three specific regions of the brain: the putamen, caudate nucleus and corpus callosum.

“All three of these brain regions are implicated in key neuropsychological functions,” said Jessica Ringshaw, first author and researcher at King’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) and the University of Cape Town, citing processing speed, emotion regulation and executive function as examples.

The gap between the groups of babies widened over the first two years of life – the corpus callosum, for instance, was about 4% smaller at 12 months in the group whose mothers had been anaemic but 6% by 24 months.

Earlier research in South Africa looking at toddlers and school-age children found comparable differences in brain volume.

“These aren’t children who are catching up, where the brain differences are disappearing over time,” said Ringshaw. “They are still there when the children are six years old and going to school, and when these things might then start translating into more noticeable cognitive difficulties.”

The findings offer a potential explanation for earlier studies showing that children born to mothers with anaemia scored less well on tests of development, she added.

The mothers with and without anaemia were otherwise very similar in terms of factors such as household income and food security, Ringshaw said, making her confident that maternal anaemia caused the differences the team observed.

The results reinforced the importance of tackling anaemia in women of reproductive age, Ringshaw said. “We should be screening for anaemia and iron deficiency, particularly during pregnancy,” she said, recommending the use of oral or even intravenous iron supplementation where appropriate.

The causes of anaemia were complex and could include infectious diseases, she said, with the study finding higher rates of anaemia in women living with HIV, “so having our iron interventions, but also appropriate infection management in conjunction with that [is important]”.

While the World Health Organization lists reducing rates of anaemia as a priority, progress has stagnated over the past two decades .

“Now more than ever, anaemia needs to be placed at the forefront of public health efforts if we are to ensure that children are not only surviving but thriving,” said Ringshaw.

The research, published in the journal Brain Communications, used special new MRI scanners that are cheaper and more portable than the conventional machines used in hospitals.

It compared images taken using the traditional “high-field” MRI machines with those taken by the portable “low-field” options, and found the latter were sensitive enough to detect the same differences in the brains of babies born to anaemic mothers.

Steve Williams, professor of neuroimaging at King’s, said: “This study has proved that our novel technology can measure the impact of malnutrition on the developing brain, at scale, in some of the most challenging environments. This will provide an early, sensitive assessment of planned interventions.”

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Massachusetts, US news
Title – Lindsay Clancy juror had reasonable doubt but would not agree to acquit, foreperson says | Massachusetts | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/uwa-ede-osifo
Link – Lindsay Clancy juror had reasonable doubt but would not agree to acquit, foreperson says | Massachusetts | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T01:45:42.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/lindsay-clancy-juror-trial

A lone juror in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of the murder of her three children, would not agree to acquit Clancy despite expressing reasonable doubt about whether she was guilty, the jury’s foreperson said in an interview airing Monday.

Speaking to NBC 10 Boston just days after Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial , Roni Carlson, the foreperson, confirmed there was one holdout juror who would not be persuaded to acquit Clancy due to insanity.

“He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I started filling out the forms. I was so excited,” said Carlson, a retired elementary school teacher. According to Carlson, the holdout juror then said: “But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Carlson is one of three jurors who spoke to the Boston NBC affiliate.

In the NBC10 interview, another juror, Paula Devlin, called the holdout “very arrogant”, adding: “He really did not take anything that anybody said.”

The holdout juror has not yet spoken publicly about the trial.

During jury deliberations, Carlson told Massachusetts judge William Sullivan that one member of the 12-person jury was not following the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt.

Clancy strangled her three young children in January 2023 before attempting to kill herself by jumping out her bedroom window, leaving her paralyzed.

During the closely watched trial, prosecutors argued she intentionally killed the children.

The defense argued that Clancy, who did not deny killing her children, had sought help for her declining mental health before suffering a psychotic break.

The attorneys cast blame on the healthcare system for overmedicating her, in lieu of properly diagnosing her with postpartum depression.

The three jurors told NBC10 that the evidence presented during the trial indicated Clancy was a loving mother.

“Everything proved she loved her children, from her journals to her mother-in-law, everything proved that she loved her children. So she had to have snapped and not known what she was doing,” Carlson said.

The judge declared a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict.

Clancy remains held at a psychiatric hospital. A status hearing has been set for 29 September. Prosecutors have not yet announced if they will retry her.

In the US, call the national maternal health hotline on 1-833-852-6262 . In the UK, the Pandas foundation offers support via WhatsApp on 07903 508334. In Australia, the national maternal and perinatal mental health hotline is 1300 726 306.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Ukraine, Europe, World news, Russia
Title – Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv books in 1,000 Patriots as UK and EU open up missile aid | Ukraine | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/warrenmurray
Link – Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv books in 1,000 Patriots as UK and EU open up missile aid | Ukraine | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T01:26:49.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/ukraine-war-briefing-kyiv-books-in-1000-patriots-as-uk-and-eu-open-up-missile-aid

Ukraine is ⁠contracting a supply of about 1,000 Patriot missiles over the coming years with the help of allies and ⁠through an E⁠U loan, ​Kyiv’s defence minister, Yevhenii Khmara, said on Tuesday as the country’s allies met. Germany announced it is “urgently” sending Ukraine part of its stockpile of Patriot Pac-2 interceptors . Berlin’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, appealed to other supporters of Ukraine “to look into their own stocks and make similar deliveries”. The long-established Pac-2 version destroys ballistic missiles and aircraft by exploding and shredding them with shrapnel, whereas the latest upgrade, the Pac-3, is a higher precision “hit-to-kill” missile that rams into its targets.

“I am aware that it is not easy to strike a balance between one’s own security requirements and urgently needed support to Ukraine,” Pistorius said. “But please, if in doubt, decide in favour for Ukraine .” Before the defence contact group meeting started, the UK announced it had committed £100m to boost Ukraine’s air defences by buying US military equipment that will include Patriot interceptors, write Dan Sabbagh and Jamie Grierson . The commitment also covers large-calibre ammunition and drones.

Regarding Patriots, Khmara, Kyiv’s defence minister, stressed: “The majority of these [1,000] missiles will only start to be shipped in the coming years, which is why we ask that you supply us the missiles from your stockpiles today .” The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Ukraine will ⁠be able to put the ⁠next €3.2bn (£2.7bn; US$3.7bn) disbursement ⁠from the EU’s support ​loan towards ⁠Patriot. Ukraine says it needs 300 Patriot interceptors to defend itself through the winter. Khmara said Ukraine was also being hindered by a shortfall of $27bn in financing for drone supplies.

Khmara said Russia was ​making no strategic gains along the 1,200km (750-mile) frontline, but was trying to compensate with “terror against Ukrainians”. Russia resumed its near-constant drone and missile attacks on Kyiv on Tuesday after a brief halt ⁠for the visit of US peace negotiators. Officials said five ​people were killed ​in the capital and more in several regions.

There are signs of a successful operation by Ukraine’s Third Army Corps to recapture a Russian-held finger of land near the strategic town of Lyman in the Donetsk region . War analysts said the action liberated more than 200 square kilometres of territory. In a video posted on Monday, Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the corps, stood in the monastery town of Sviatohirsk west of the salient and taunted Putin over the Russian president’s recent claim that Moscow’s forces had captured it. Military analyst Emil Kastehelmi, of the Finland-based Black Bird conflict analysis group, told Reuters that the extent of the Ukrainians’ gains remained unclear.

September and October could see the year’s most intense fighting in Donetsk , with Russia potentially trying to stage new mechanised assaults, Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Reuters. “As the weather conditions deteriorate, drones become less effective. And that’s usually where Russians try to return mobility to the battlefield.” But Ukraine had developed a solid defence against such attacks, Kofman added, pointing to a failed Russian assault in July near the city of Dobropillia. Russian forces are less than 15km (9 miles) from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two main cities in the “fortress belt”. Both are under worsening strikes by drones and guided bombs, regional officials have said.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Tuesday had an hour-long phone call , a summary of which was only available from the Kremlin at time of writing. Trump called for a speedy end to the fighting, said Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. Putin “pointed out what the Americans could realistically do to bring the hostilities to a swift conclusion” and stressed that Russia had “no aggressive plans” towards Europe. Volodymyr Zelenskyy meanwhile said Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators could meet as early as this month. “If all sides agree, we also want to hold it in the autumn. If September works out, then it would be great. The earlier, the better.” A Bloomberg report predicted no serious moves towards peace by Russia until 2027.

Romania’s SRI intelligence service said it prevented a sabotage ⁠operation coordinated by Russia on Romanian territory. “The Russian citizen was instructed by an intermediary to make photo-video materials with targets of ⁠strategic military interest, including Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft ​during their ​presence on the national ​territory.” Suspected Russian agents tried to blow up an Antonov in August at ​Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. The SRI said: “The ​investigation also ‌revealed that ​the Russian ​Federation continues to use persons from vulnerable categories to carry out such illegal activities.”

Russian authorities said they detained a suspect in last week’s shooting of a senior military officer . The Federal Security Service said a 21-year-old Moldovan national was arrested for being allegedly “involved in an assassination attempt” at the behest of Ukrainian intelligence services. Russia’s investigative committee said the officer was shot at least six times on 3 September on the outskirts of Engels. The city in the Saratov region hosts Russian strategic bombers that are used to attack Ukraine.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – US military, US foreign policy, US news, Iran, Middle East and north Africa, World news, Trump administration, US politics
Title – US says Iranian tankers ‘destroyed’ after missile attacks on American warship | US military | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/shrai-popat
Link – US says Iranian tankers ‘destroyed’ after missile attacks on American warship | US military | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T01:04:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/iran-underwater-drone-strait-of-hormuz

The US military on Tuesday said it had “destroyed” several Iranian tankers after Iran attempted to strike a US navy warship with ballistic missiles, as violence once again surged across the region, pushing the price of oil past $100 a barrel.

American forces struck the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Iran’s Kharg Island, US central command (Centcom) said in a statement, adding that American forces “directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck”.

Centom said the strikes came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a US Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days. “The US warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and continued to patrol regional waters. No American personnel were harmed,” it said in a statement.

The IRGC said they had struck a US military base in Jordan in retaliation. Air-defence systems destroyed 18 ⁠of the ⁠20 ​ballistic missiles originating ⁠from Iranian territory, Jordan’s state ⁠news ​agency ‌reported, citing the ‌armed forces, adding that two missiles fell in unpopulated areas ‌and there were no casualties.

The IRGC also said they ⁠attacked ⁠two US ​vessels and eight ⁠oil tankers in the Gulf, after warning crews of oil tankers near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to immediately leave their vessels.

After a month of relative calm in August, Iran and the US have resumed exchanges of fire, sending ‌global oil prices back up to levels last seen in July. On Wednesday, oil prices rose above $100 a barrel in early Asia trading.

On Tuesday, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia , wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze in what appeared to be a significant expansion of the Middle East war.

Saudi Arabia said it would retaliate after the strikes – reportedly involving dozens of drones and missiles – that targeted several oil facilities in the country’s south.

Remarking on the latest strikes by Iran, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the US would not let Iran’s attacks to go unanswered.

“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. And I think you’ll see that again today,” Rubio said on Tuesday, during a trip to Colombia.

The strikes followed an earlier dispute over an American underwater drone in the strait of Hormuz, which the IRGC claimed to have seized as part of a “complex intelligence and operational action at dawn”, according to Iranian state TV. In a statement, the IRGC said images of the vessel would be released shortly.

In a statement, US Navy Capt Tim Hawkins, a United States Centcom spokesperson, said the submersible was “defective” and an older model “that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment”. Operations in the area continue, he said.

Iran has maintained a blockade of the strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about one-fifth of the global oil and gas shipments, since the outbreak of the war more than six months ago, while the US has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.

In Paris, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung and French president Emmanuel Macron discussed cooperation on security and freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz.

South Korea’s defence ministry said it had sent an inspection team to the United Arab Emirates to assess security conditions in the region, but stressed that the mission was intended to gather information and did not presuppose a troop deployment.

A South Korean official said Iran had expressed interest and sought explanations through diplomatic channels after media reports about a possible South Korean role in Hormuz security efforts.

South Korea’s presidential office ⁠separately said reports that the US had set a deadline for Seoul to send assets ​to Hormuz were untrue.

Seoul said last week ​it was reviewing various options, including military ​measures, to contribute to freedom of navigation in Hormuz, but denied reports that the US had set a deadline for Seoul to dispatch assets ​to the strait.

Trump has struggled to end the unpopular war, which has claimed the lives of 18 US service members.

Iranian authorities have previously put the overall death toll from US and Israeli strikes in the thousands, figures that outside observers, including US-based monitoring groups, have broadly corroborated.

Keyword – Television & radio
Trefwoorden – TV crime drama, Apple TV, Television, Television & radio, Culture, Drama, Australian television
Title – Last Seen review – this gripping Apple TV thriller is one of the standout shows of the year | TV crime drama | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/luke-buckmaster
Link – Last Seen review – this gripping Apple TV thriller is one of the standout shows of the year | TV crime drama | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T01:00:54.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/sep/09/last-seen-review-gripping-apple-tv-thriller-standout-shows-2026

L ast Seen is a classic, twisty thriller with a killer premise: a grieving father, whose young daughter went missing years ago and is now presumed dead, one day receives a phone call that he is convinced is from her. Hats off to director Christian Schwochow for delivering such a muscular, propulsive experience: I felt deeply invested from the start and by the third episode I was totally hooked. Getting between me and the screen would have been like trying to take a steak away from a dog.

Ian (Patrick Brammall, fresh from the very different Colin from Accounts ) is a former cop who now works for Australia’s 000 emergency phone service (the equivalent of the US’s 911 or the UK’s 999). His daughter Maggie disappeared 11 years ago. Ian is now six months sober and separated from his ex-wife (Jessica Wren). He eats alone, at home, with an unopened vodka bottle on the table in front of him, as if to say to himself: “I could, but I won’t.” He blames himself for the past and cannot move on.

The aforementioned telephone conversation features prominently in the show’s trailer, though it actually takes place at the end of the second episode. Which sounds like a long time to wait, though the series has a lot of groundwork to establish and wastes no time doing so. As for the person on the other end of the line: I’ll take a very cautious approach to spoilers and won’t say anything more.

The real MacGuffin – the event that truly sends the story barrelling forward – actually arrives before that important phone call, when the remains of a small child are found in Victorian bushland, near where Ian lives. The obvious conclusion is that these are Maggie’s remains. Ian rushes to the crime scene, starts sniffing around, and injects himself into the investigation. Things, of course, are not exactly what they seem. The plot thickens.

Writer Kris Mrksa has adapted Ryan David Jahn’s novel The Dispatcher into a script that, for me, brought to mind an interview with Breaking Bad and Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan , in which he revealed the two fundamental questions that his writing rooms revolve around: “Where’s a character’s head at?” and “What happens next?” These questions are clearly driving Last Seen too.

Brammall does a great job portraying an average person who has been profoundly changed by extraordinary circumstances; Ian is embittered, emboldened, aggrieved and enraged. We like and care for him, even when he’s unhinged and desperate. It’s also good to hear Brammall perfectly deliver quintessentially Australian lines (such as “my life’s still in the shitter”) in a naturalistic way we don’t always hear on television.

Another key player emerges in a local, Henry (Brendan Cowell), who is the brother of Ian’s friend Donald (Daniel Henshall). Henry and his wife, Jenna (Maxine Peake), have some, shall we say, unconventional ideological views, that are best left for the series to unpack.

Cowell is darkly magnetic, imbuing Henry with a heavy-hearted stoop and the measured cadence of someone who might be hiding something. Maybe many things. It’s a superb performance, eclipsing my previous favourite Cowell role – as a tinnitus-suffering police officer in the Australian cop movie Noise . Peake is also terrific as Jenna, carving out an enigmatic and deeply conflicted space, and bringing great weight to simple lines. This is a superbly acted show, buttressed by top-notch writing: all the characters are so interesting and richly layered.

As the first Apple TV series made entirely in Australia – it was filmed in Victoria, where it is set – Last Seen has the aesthetic polish we’ve come to expect from the streaming platform: a high-end, prestige drama gloss. This kind of sheen can sometimes leave their shows feeling a little homogenised, but here it works a treat, thanks to the sharp eye of Bonnie Elliott, who is one of Australia’s most accomplished cinematographers (my favourite work of hers includes Spear , These Final Hours , and Undertow ).

But as good as it looks, it’s the people and plots in Last Seen that will stick in your head. It doesn’t just pile on the twists; it makes the twists really matter, because we always understand, with painful clarity, the emotional consequences for the people experiencing them. This is riveting television, and one of the standout shows of the year.

Last Seen is on Apple TV now

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – New York, September 11 2001, Zohran Mamdani, US news
Title – Mamdani releases 170,000 pages of records regarding impact on air quality of 9/11 attacks | New York | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/victoria-bekiempis
Link – Mamdani releases 170,000 pages of records regarding impact on air quality of 9/11 attacks | New York | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T00:40:03.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/air-quality-september-11-attacks-documents-release

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has released more than 170,000 pages of municipal records involving the impact of the September 11 attacks on air quality health, as well as the city’s response.

Mamdani announced the documents and an online portal for accessing them on Tuesday. The release comes alongside the settlement of two lawsuits pursued by 9/11 Health Watch, which fought for access to these long-withheld documents.

“For too long, New Yorkers have had to fight for access to records that should have been available to them in the first place,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“The devastating truth is that the suffering did not end once the smoke cleared and the dust settled,” Mamdani also said at a press conference. “People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.”

The tranche of documents offers just a fraction of air quality reports on Ground Zero. But they do include an internal memo where New York City weighed possible liability related to air quality.

The release of these records comes three days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11 – which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania. The documents provide further evidence that city officials knew air surrounding the twin towers was toxic – but misled the public into thinking it was safe, officials said.

“My colleagues and I who represented Ground Zero and the surrounding communities immediately warned local and federal officials of the health risks posed by toxins in the air at the time,” congressman Jerry Nadler said in a statement.

“Our warnings were not heeded, and now we and the public know that city hall, led by former mayor [Rudy] Giuliani, predicted that thousands of responders and community members would face devastating long-term health impacts from these toxins.”

New York City council member Gale Brewer voiced similar sentiments.

“For 25 years, first responders, survivors, families, and people who lived, worked and went to school in lower Manhattan have lived with the health consequences of 9/11 while critical pieces of the city’s own record – HOW they got sick – remained out of reach,” she said in a statement.

The portal, Brewer said, “is a great first step toward giving the public access to that record, one that has been denied them under previous administrations.”

Ben Chevat, executive director of 911 Health Watch, thanked Mamdani for “being the mayor, after 25 years, who finally begins to answer the question: ‘What did the city know about the dangers from the toxic cloud at Ground Zero and when did it know it?’

“For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the US Congress, and the city council documents showing what the city actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as city officials continued messaging to the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable’,” he said in a statement.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – US Open Tennis 2026, Sport, Tennis, US Open tennis, US sports, Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz
Title – Tiafoe stages epic comeback to break Michelsen’s heart in US Open classic | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bryan-armen-graham
Link – Tiafoe stages epic comeback to break Michelsen’s heart in US Open classic | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T00:33:30.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/08/frances-tiafoe-alex-michelsen-us-open-quarter-final

At the end of more than four and a half hours of escalating drama inside the world’s biggest tennis stadium, a devastated Alex Michelsen fell into Frances Tiafoe’s arms just outside the tramlines, sobbing uncontrollably. Tiafoe took his younger countryman in an embrace and held him there for 23 seconds, the victor consoling the vanquished in the aftermath of an extraordinary comeback that had carried him, somehow, into the US Open semi-finals.

Only a couple of hours earlier, the 28-year-old Tiafoe had been two sets down and two points from elimination in the third set, with Michelsen within touching distance of the biggest victory of his young career. Instead, Tiafoe roared back from the brink to win a quarter-final that will be long remembered in New York, outlasting Michelsen 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (6) on Tuesday afternoon to reach the last four at Flushing Meadows for the third time in five years. Now he will face Ben Shelton on Friday after the American ousted defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in another epic five-set marathon that ended at 3.33am on Wednesday morning.

“The moment is huge. Can’t downplay it at all,” Tiafoe said. “The way it happened, right? Two sets to love down, him serving for it, I’m down breaks early in the fifth. There were so many times where I was down. … It was definitely a Braveheart-type win. It ranks pretty high in probably all-time wins in a slam.”

The pulsating contest unfolded inside a half-empty Arthur Ashe Stadium amid an oddly subdued atmosphere for an all-American quarter-final, with many spectators taking a break after Aryna Sabalenka ’s grueling three-set win over Linda Noskova in the day’s opener. The setting was hardly ideal for the 11th-seeded Tiafoe, who had played all four previous rounds in the more intimate cauldron of Louis Armstrong Stadium next door, where he thrives on the crowd’s energy and has yet to lose in 10 career matches.

For much of the day it was Michelsen, the unseeded 22-year-old from the Orange County suburb of Laguna Hills, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, who appeared bound for the signature win of a career that has come spectacularly into bloom over the past 10 days. The opening set lurched through four breaks in the first five games before Michelsen was first to find his footing. Tiafoe fought off a set point at 4-5, only for Michelsen to hold at love before pouncing again at 6-5, breaking his opponent’s serve to close out the set after 50 minutes.

Michelsen tightened his grip early in the second as Tiafoe continued to play from behind on his serve, falling behind in five of his first seven service games while getting broken three times. Michelsen broke for 3-1, fought off two break points to consolidate, then broke again for 5-1 after getting the best of a punishing 24-shot exchange before serving out the set. So far, so good.

The match appeared in hand after Michelsen broke again early in the third, eased through his service games and survived a gut-check eighth game, where he fell behind love-40 but calmly brushed aside all three break points before holding for 5-3, including the second with a blistering 134mph ace. One hold of serve from becoming the first American man to reach the last four at the US Open without dropping a set since Jim Courier in 1991, the nerves finally surfaced as Michelsen opened with back-to-back double faults before Tiafoe broke to level at 5-all.

Thrown a lifeline and suddenly energized, Tiafoe held for 6-5, then pressed again as Michelsen served to force a tiebreak. Michelsen saved one set point with a 133mph ace, but Tiafoe manufactured another and this time Michelsen cracked, missing a forehand volley to hand Tiafoe the set 7-5 and drag the match into a fourth.

“You’re four points away from making a semi-final of the US Open,” Michelsen said. “After I double-faulted twice, I was like, ‘Oh, here we go. It’s not good.’ I feel like I just handed it to him. Then after that he started playing really good.”

By now the near-capacity crowd was back in their seats and the complexion of the match had shifted completely. Tiafoe had ended the third on a heater, peeling off 17 of the last 22 points, and rode it into the fourth, breaking early as his movement sharpened, the forehand began doing more damage and the Ashe crowd buzzed at the possibility of a comeback.

Michelsen, remarkably composed for most of the afternoon, suddenly looked downcast and occasionally panicked, making 16 unforced errors in the fourth and at one point gently tossing his racket toward the court in frustration. He broke back for 3-2 after a bruising 14-point game, but Tiafoe, now playing with the freedom of a man gifted second life, immediately broke again and held firm from there, serving out the set to force a decider.

“He wasn’t playing like Frances,” Michelsen said. “Then I kind of let him back in at 5-4. Then after that, he was playing, you know, like Frances does on Ashe. After that, it was a dogfight.”

The fifth produced the best tennis of the match, both men hitting more winners than unforced errors as the quality somehow rose into the fifth hour. Michelsen regrouped first, breaking Tiafoe at love for 2-0 and consolidating for 3-0, only for Tiafoe to break back shortly after and restore parity. From there neither man yielded. Tiafoe, who had managed only three aces through four sets, uncorked seven of them in the fifth, including three in the final four points of a tense hold for 5-all. Michelsen recovered from love-30 in the next game, prevailing in a 19-shot exchange at 30-all before holding for 6-5. Tiafoe answered once more to force a deciding first-to-10-points tiebreaker, where the pressure only intensified and his greater experience and nerve management finally told.

Tiafoe opened a 6-4 lead in before Michelsen clawed back within a point, but a 135mph ace gave Tiafoe an 8-6 cushion and a Michelsen backhand error brought up three match points. Michelsen saved the first, only for Tiafoe to finish the job on the next with a forehand passing-shot winner, sealing the victory after 4hr 38min. Tiafoe briefly gestured to roaring crowd before quickly finding his opponent in front of the umpire’s chair, while Michelsen was quickly overcome by tears and eventually walked off Ashe with a dark blue towel pulled over his head.

“I think it was a combination of a lot of things,” Michelsen said. “The match was very emotionally draining. Then, you know, it’s just Frances. I don’t think anyone else could have made me cry in that moment, to be honest. Maybe Learner [Tien]. But Frances, he’s such a good guy, and he said a lot of personal things and just kind of got to me.”

Said Tiafoe: “I really like Alex. I really, really do. And I just wanted to come up there and just dap him up. I didn’t think it was going to be as long as it was, but I understand the moment. He was definitely crying on my shoulders. Yeah, we just had some words for each other, and that was it.”

For Michelsen, the defeat brought a brutal end to the deepest grand slam run of his young career. The world No 46 had not dropped a set through four rounds, knocking out the 16th seed Brandon Nakashima and 27th seed Tomas Martín Etcheverry while becoming the first man born in 2004 to reach a major quarter-final. On Tuesday, he came within two points of carrying that flawless run all the way to the semi-finals.

The victory continued a remarkable fortnight for Tiafoe, whose momentum has steadily gathered pace since finding himself two sets to one down against Martin Damm in the opening round. After straight-sets victories over Rei Sakamoto, Valentin Vacherot and seventh-seeded Daniil Medvedev, he found himself staring at an even deeper hole on Tuesday before producing the third comeback from two sets down of his career.

It also marked another milestone in Tiafoe’s enduring love affair with the US Open. The native of Hyattsville, Maryland, who first reached the last four here in 2022 before returning to the same stage two years later, became only the second American man this century to reach three US Open semi-finals along with Andre Agassi.

“I’m just a different person in general,” Tiafoe said. “Those two runs were great, something I will cherish forever, but I’m not that person who I was when I made one in 2022 and when I made one in ’24. I’m not that person. I’m excited to see what this me does come Friday.”

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Singapore, Asia Pacific
Title – Singapore boosts PM’s salary by $1m amid major pay rise for ministers | Singapore | The Guardian
Author – Agence France-Presse
Link – Singapore boosts PM’s salary by $1m amid major pay rise for ministers | Singapore | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T00:00:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/singapore-pm-ministers-salary-pay-rise

Singapore’s prime minister has been given a $1m pay rise as the affluent city-state announced a dramatic one-off salary boost for government ministers.

The pay increases add more than 60% to what are already the world’s highest ministerial salaries.

Singapore has justified high-end salaries for its political leaders, arguing they attract talent and ensure good governance. The issue is nevertheless politically sensitive, with cabinet members’ income far exceeding that of most ordinary citizens.

Prime minister Lawrence Wong’s benchmark annual salary will rise from S$2.2m ($1.7m) to S$3.6m ($2.8m).

The deputy prime minister’s benchmark will lift from S$1.8m to S$3m. Cabinet ministers will get between S$1.8m and S$2.8m, depending on the seniority and weight of their portfolio.

Wong said he would donate the entire increase of his salary to “suitable good causes” during his term.

Even before the raise, the Singaporean prime minister’s paycheck vastly outstripped the wages of many other leaders, including in the US and other G7 nations. The US president earns $400,000 a year, while the UK prime minister is paid about $230,000 annually.

“Political salaries are a difficult and emotive issue,” said Wong, whose long-ruling People’s Action Party dominates Singapore’s parliament and its 21-member cabinet. “The sums involved are more than what most citizens earn, so I understand why Singaporeans scrutinise them closely, and why many feel strongly about the matter.”

However, the issue is “ultimately about whether Singapore will continue to have the quality of political leadership we need to take our country forward” in the decades ahead, he said.

“Our starting point is this: good government depends on good leadership.”

The South-east Asian nation, which last adjusted ministerial salaries 15 years ago, is regularly ranked among the world’s least corrupt countries.

Wong said the pay raises were recommended by an independent committee, adding that existing office holders would not be moved immediately to the new benchmarks.

They will receive a one-off adjustment of up to 9% from 15 October, depending on individual circumstances, including performance.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – California, Animals, World news, West Coast, US news, Conservation
Title – California confirms rare sighting of gray wolf in Mendocino national forest | California | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dani-anguiano
Link – California confirms rare sighting of gray wolf in Mendocino national forest | California | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T22:09:59.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/california-gray-wolf-mendocino-national-forest

A gray wolf has recently been seen in California’s Mendocino national forest for the first time since the species returned to the state 15 years ago, state wildlife officials confirmed.

Officials in Lake county, which is about two hours north of San Francisco, said last week the California department of fish and wildlife (CDFW) had received reports of sightings in the forest in late August. The agency verified the presence of a wolf in the far north end of the county, county supervisor Brad Rasmussen said in a statement on social media.

The CDFW confirmed the sightings in a statement, telling the Guardian it had received two separate reports from an area where Mendocino, Glenn and Lake counties meet. The agency received photos and were on the ground to confirm the presence of the animal the following day, said Alicia de la Garza, the CDFW deputy director of public affairs.

“The sighting was verified by a CDFW wolf biologist who confirmed the validity of the photos, conducted surveys in the area and confirmed wolf tracks where one of the sightings was reported,” de la Garza said.

A century ago hunters and settlers drove wolves in California to extinction, but the animals returned to the state in 2011 and have significantly expanded their presence over the last decade, largely in the rural and remote north-east. There are at least 50 documented wolves in California.

The recent appearance in the Mendocino national forest, which was first reported by MendoLocal.News last week, is significant.

It represents the only confirmed sighting west of the Sacramento Valley, Axel Hunnicutt, the state gray wolf coordinator for the CDFW, told the Sacramento Bee , and is a sign the species is expanding its range.

“Evidence of wolves in that part of the state is a good thing,” he said.

The return of the animal has not been without controversy. Ranchers have expressed frustration that there is little they can do when wolves kill their livestock – the species is protected in California and under the federal Endangered Species Act. Donald Trump has sought to change that.

Last week the president signed an executive order , titled “Supporting America’s Ranchers”, that directs the interior department to look at removing gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act, and to loosen restrictions for “lethal removal”.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has sought to de-list the gray wolf, but the matter is still unfolding in court. Meanwhile, the act protects the wolves that are across the majority of the lower 48 states under a 2022 federal court order.

Environmental groups condemned Trump’s order.

“Once again, we see this administration attempting to override the checks and balances provided by bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act in order to create industry carveouts and distract from other bad policies that are proving unpopular,” said Leia Barnett, New Mexico conservation lead for WildEarth Guardians.