Keyword – Food
Trefwoorden – Fruit, Life and style, Vegetables, Gardens
Title – Gladys the giant pumpkin: is this the biggest fruit in the world? | Fruit | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – Gladys the giant pumpkin: is this the biggest fruit in the world? | Fruit | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T15:12:21.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/sep/08/gladys-the-giant-pumpkin-is-this-biggest-fruit-in-world

Name: Gladys.

Age: Gladys was germinated on 19 April and pollinated on 30 June.

Weight: About 544kg (1,200lb).

Quite a big girl then. Gladys is an Atlantic giant pumpkin.

Quite a big pumpkin then. Indeed. About the weight of six or seven average-sized adults.

Appearance: A 4.3-metre (14ft) circumference, spread over 600 sq ft, with hundreds of leaves and an intricate network of secondary vines and roots. It’s also a bit gross, to be honest. To me it looks a bit like … actually, I’m not going to say. Look at the picture, you decide.

Who grew it? Ben White.

The Arsenal right-back ? No, the Essex heating engineer. White is also an amateur gardener and “ Vegetable Tamer ”, according to his Instagram.

How did he do it? He grew Gladys in an 18-metre polytunnel, tending to her lovingly with water and nutrients, and keeping her cool with a fan. “It isn’t just about growing a massive pumpkin. It’s about seeing how far you can push a plant towards its genetic potential,” he posted. He also said he “feels like a father” to her.

Aw , that’s nice. There must be magic involved. “No tricks,” says Ben, who has a decade of big-pumpkin-growing experience and showcased one at the 2021 Chelsea flower show. At Gladys’s peak “she was piling on 40+lbs a night”, he wrote.

Did he call her Gladys because she grows at night, and has pips? I don’t know. Nor do I know if she turns into a carriage at midnight. The point is that she is massive, smashing the original target of 1,000lb.

The biggest ever? You’d think, but actually not even close. Last October, after 50 years of growing bigger and bigger pumpkins, twin brothers Stuart and Ian Paton from Lymington in Hampshire finally broke the world record with one that weighed 1,278kg with a circumference of 6.4 metres.

Surely that’s the biggest vegetable ever? Pumpkins, though treated as veg in the kitchen, are actually fruit if we’re talking horticulturally.

Those pips! Usually referred to as seeds, but yes. If we’re talking strictly veg, I give you a 62.7kg cabbage grown by Scott Robb in Alaska; a 27kg cauliflower grown by Peter Glazebrook in Nottinghamshire; an onion grown by Gareth Griffin in Guernsey that weighed an eye-watering 9kg …

Enough! But they don’t really compare to Gladys, do they? Presumably she’s being fattened up for Halloween? Actually not. White is going to take her to a competition at the Canna UK National Giant Vegetables Championship at the end of this month.

By which time she won’t have beaten the Paton brothers’ world record, will she? No, but White plans to put Gladys on display to raise money for the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance. “It gives the challenge a purpose beyond simply trying to grow an enormous pumpkin,” says White over email. “Last time our giant pumpkins (Gloria & Greta) and the community raised £1,100.”

Do say: “Smashing!”

Don’t say: “But why?!”

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Venice film festival, Film, Elon Musk, Culture, Alex Gibney, Festivals, Documentary films
Title – Elon Musk told ex-girlfriend he needed ‘a legion of children before the civil war’ | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/philip-oltermann
Link – Elon Musk told ex-girlfriend he needed ‘a legion of children before the civil war’ | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T15:05:13.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/08/elon-musk-ashley-st-clair-documentary-venice

Elon Musk is sowing “deliberate division” via his social media platform X that will be catastrophic unless regulated, the mother of one of the 14 confirmed children fathered by the world’s richest man has warned.

In Musk, a new documentary by veteran film-maker Alex Gibney , former Maga influencer Ashley St Clair says Musk told her in a text message he wanted to have a child with her because he needed to have “a legion of children before the civil war”.

The couple had a son in 2024 but have since separated. St Clair says Musk’s team offered her a $40m lump-sum payment and a monthly stipend of $100,000 in return for her signing a non-disclosure agreement but withdrew the offer after she refused to sign it.

Asked at the documentary’s Venice film festival premiere whether her ex-partner was just scared of a civil war or actively trying to stoke one, St Clair said: “Whatever it is, what he’s doing with this platform on X cannot be ignored, because he is stoking flames that don’t exist in the real world.”

“He is creating something that is causing real world effects with all of these inputs on X,” said the former Trump supporter, who also said she now regrets her former political activism. “I do believe that he is causing deliberate division that may be catastrophic if it’s not regulated or tamed, or if we don’t do our part in putting it down.”

Since acquiring the site formerly known as Twitter in 2022, Musk has used the platform to amplify his personal political views. On Monday, he celebrated the strong result for Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, writing “Well done!” in response to co-leader Alice Weidel’s acclamation of the lead candidate.

Film-maker Gibney, whose previous subjects include Enron, Vladimir Putin and the US military, said Musk’s preoccupation with civilisational collapse was probably rooted in his childhood in South Africa.

“He had a childhood that was very difficult and traumatic,” Gibney said in Venice. “To some extent he’s now playing out that trauma on the rest of us, if I were to psychoanalyse the situation.”

The four-hour documentary, which Gibney filmed over three years, paints a comprehensive portrait of Musk’s rise from software start-up tech bro to engineering entrepreneur selling rockets and electric cars to Maga acolyte.

“What I discovered was that the story of Musk was not a new tech story,” said Gibney. “But his story is the story of an old wine in a new bottle. His story turns out to be the story of the confidence man, the stock pumper. His wealth and power comes from inflating stock.”

Keyword – Australia news
Trefwoorden – Australia news, Microbiology, Infectious diseases, Science, Health, Hygiene
Title – Flushing the toilet can release a ‘plume’ of breathable pathogens – and closing the lid won’t stop their escape | Australia news | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tory-shepherd
Link – Flushing the toilet can release a ‘plume’ of breathable pathogens – and closing the lid won’t stop their escape | Australia news | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T15:00:43.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/09/flushing-the-toilet-releases-pathogens-inhaled

Flushing toilets release particles into the “breathing zone” of adults and can remain suspended in the air for at least 20 seconds, a new study has found.

And closing the lid might not be enough to avoid a “plume” of potential pathogens.

Meanwhile, previous research has shown public toilets are an inescapable hotbed of microbes.

Flinders University researchers reviewed 22 studies of toilet-generated aerosols, publishing the results in the Science of the Total Environment journal .

They found microbes from the water used for flushing or from contamination of the bowl ended up as aerosols, with more “turbulent” flushing releasing more particles.

That included bioaerosols – aerosols that contain biological material and can transmit pathogens including legionella, influenza and norovirus. There are differing reports about whether Covid spreads through toilet aerosols.

The researchers found higher levels of aerosols in the water and higher levels of turbulence during the flush increased the volume of particles suspended in the air, but the effects of bathroom ventilation and whether the lid was up or down were unclear.

Despite that, lead author and PhD student Lira Adiyani said she would still recommend putting the lid down after using the toilet.

“Toilet flushing creates turbulence that can release aerosols into the surrounding air,” she said.

“Some studies detected these aerosols at adult breathing height, indicating a potential pathway for inhalation exposure.

“The more microbes present in the toilet, the more bioaerosols may be released. Therefore, larger flush volumes generally produce more aerosols.”

Adiyani said “based on the available evidence” she would still recommend closing the lid as a precautionary measure, “while recognising that it does not completely prevent aerosols from escaping”.

In the report, the researchers wrote that the effects of indoor aerosols had been “understudied” despite the risk of infection. This had “important implications for risk assessment, building design, and infection control in an era of water security pressures and emerging infectious diseases”, they wrote.

“Indoor aerosols influence air quality and human health as their small size allows them to penetrate deep into the respiratory tract when inhaled, providing a direct exposure pathway.”

Co-author, environmental health professor Harriet Whiley, said people didn’t have to be worried in their own homes, unless someone in the house was immunocompromised.

She said the team was working on “protecting the most vulnerable through good design” in places such as hospitals and aged care environments.

They are increasingly concerned about “opportunistic pathogens” that can be present in water, particularly recycled or rainwater. “They don’t affect healthy people,” she said. “But if you’re immunocompromised you can get very sick, and it can be fatal.”

So it’s about getting “an effective flush with less volume and less turbulence”, she said.

Dr Lotti Tajouri, an associate professor in molecular genetics at Bond and Murdoch universities wasn’t involved in the research but warned bathroom dangers go well beyond the toilet.

His own research is particularly focused on public toilets and mobile phone use in toilets.

“As soon as you enter a toilet, consider everything contaminated,” he said.

The door will have microbes on it, as will the floor – so you should never put anything on it, he said. Then you might touch the lid, after which you flush with the lid up or down.

If it’s up, you get the “plume” effect, an “explosion or aerosols … you are literally sprayed [with]”.

Flushing with the lid down might limit your exposure to the plume, but depending on the cleanliness of the toilet, previous users have left microorganisms on every surface anyway. “The roof, the walls, the floor,” he said.

Then, you touch the toilet door again, before (hopefully) washing your hands. But you will probably touch the taps again, blow microorganisms around with the hairdryer, touch the exit door and then touch your phone.

“Studies show between 50% and 80% of people use mobile phones in the toilet. For younger generations it’s almost 100%,” he said. “They will contaminate their phones and fingers with fecal microorganisms – salmonella, campylobacter, all sorts of bacteria and viruses.

“The less contact you have, the better it is.”

Keyword – Community
Trefwoorden – Photography
Title – Time to reflect and gentle giraffes – readers’ best photographs | Photography | The Guardian
Author –
Link – Time to reflect and gentle giraffes – readers’ best photographs | Photography | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T15:00:42.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/community/gallery/2026/sep/08/time-to-reflect-and-gentle-giraffes-readers-best-photographs

Click here to submit a picture for publication in these online galleries and/or on the Guardian letters page

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Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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Kintail, UK

Erongo, Namibia

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Kuang Si Falls, Laos

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Premier League, Business, Football, Gambling, Sport
Title – Half of Premier League clubs face losing lucrative sponsors if unlicensed gambling firms banned | Premier League | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthughes
Link – Half of Premier League clubs face losing lucrative sponsors if unlicensed gambling firms banned | Premier League | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T14:15:44.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/08/premier-league-clubs-sponsorship-advertising-deals-unlicensed-gambling-companies-uk-government

Half of the Premier League’s 20 clubs have sponsorship or advertising deals with unlicensed gambling companies that could be illegal next year under plans being developed by the government.

An eight-week consultation on proposals to ban sponsorship from gambling companies not licensed in the UK closes on Wednesday, with licensed operators such as Ladbrokes and William Hill pitted against the Premier League in a battle that could cost clubs tens of millions of pounds.

The league is understood to be lobbying against a ban on the grounds that the services offered by primarily Asia-facing betting companies and online casinos are not available in the UK, although anyone with a VPN can open an account and place a bet in minutes.

Analysis has found the number of top-flight clubs who have commercial relationships with unlicensed operators has risen from six to 10 over the summer.

The increase is likely to have been influenced by the league’s decision to impose a voluntary ban from this season on front-of-shirt sponsorship deals with gambling companies.

Everton announced a new three-year sleeve sponsorship deal with the crypto casino Stake.com, and Fulham moved their sponsorship with SBOTOP from the players’ shirts to their training kit, while eight other clubs including Chelsea and Tottenham have commercial deals that include perimeter advertising at their stadiums and/or player branding.

One company, 8XBet, which is licensed in the Caribbean island of Curaçao, has deals with Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Ipswich and Coventry.

Unregulated betting has grown considerably in recent years, with unlicensed operators earning £379m from users in the UK in the first half of 2025 according to the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, giving them 9% of Britain’s £8.2bn online gaming marketplace, up from 2% in 2022.

The government has moved to clamp down on unlicensed operators because they do not offer the customer protections such as affordability checks and spending limits provided by regulated betting firms, and the growth of the unregulated market has been linked to financial harm, addiction and suicide.

Everton’s sponsorship deal with Stake has been seized upon by campaigners given that the prime minister, Andy Burnham, is a fan of the club and attended their opening game of the season against Crystal Palace.

One of the UK’s biggest betting companies, Entain, which owns Ladbrokes, has written to all 10 Premier League clubs linked to unlicensed operators this week and its letter to Everton makes reference to Burnham’s position.

“The risk to football, sport integrity and society is real,” the letter states. “Unlicensed operators are not required to offer the safeguards that licensed operators must, including Gamstop self-exclusion, deposit and spending limits, and affordability checks.

“This removes the protections most likely to prevent consumer harm, meaning vulnerable customers unfairly pay the price for the partnerships that their clubs make.

“Everton’s association with Stake.com is particularly at odds with the prime minister’s longstanding support for the club. It seems unimaginable that, having made his government’s opposition to unlicensed gambling agreements clear, Andy Burnham would become a billboard for unregulated gaming by wearing the club’s current strip.”

In correspondence with operators the gambling minister, Vicky Foxcroft, is understood to have made clear that the government plans to introduce the ban next year, although it will face pressure from the Premier League to allow existing contracts such as Everton’s to run their course.

The league’s insistence on protecting a significant revenue stream for the clubs is understandable, but its reluctance to combat unlicensed gambling operators also contains an element of risk.

There is growing evidence that unregulated betting companies are a main fund of pirated sports rights through advertising. The growth of illegal streaming poses a potential threat to the Premier League’s £12bn TV rights deals.

The Campaign for Fairer Gambling’s 2024-25 national report highlighted the symbiotic relationship between sports piracy and unlicensed gambling, with 89% of illegal streams in the UK featuring adverts for black market bookmakers.

Football club sponsorship also appears crucial in driving punters towards the unregulated market, with a Frontier Economics study cited in the government’s consultation saying sponsorship deals are the second-largest driver of consumer awareness of unlicensed operators after social media advertising.

Keyword – NO KEYWORD FOUND
Trefwoorden – NO KEYWORD FOUND
Title – Ben Jennings on the far-right disturbances in Dover and Portsmouth – cartoon | Ben Jennings | The Guardian
Author – Ben Jennings
Link – Ben Jennings on the far-right disturbances in Dover and Portsmouth – cartoon | Ben Jennings | The Guardian
Publish date – Mon 7 Sep 2026 19.11 CESTLast modified on Tue 8 Sep 2026 11.37 CEST
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/sep/07/ben-jennings-on-the-far-right-disturbances-in-dover-and-portsmouth-cartoon

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Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Venice film festival, Elon Musk, Documentary films, Alex Gibney, Film, Culture, Festivals, Technology
Title – State handouts, 10,000 lasers – and Trump’s election: six things we learned from the Elon Musk film | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/philip-oltermann
Link – State handouts, 10,000 lasers – and Trump’s election: six things we learned from the Elon Musk film | Venice film festival | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T13:34:15.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/08/state-handouts-10000-lasers-and-trumps-election-six-things-we-learned-from-the-elon-musk-film

V eteran documentarian Alex Gibney’s film about the richest broligarch on the planet has been one of the most eagerly anticipated films at the Venice film festival this year. The Oscar-winning 72-year-old, who has in previous films taken on the US military, the Catholic church, Vladimir Putin and Scientology, has been investigating the tech tycoon’s ascent and speaking to people in his orbit since late 2022, before his Maga turn and Trump 2.0.

The result clocks in at just under four hours and presents a comprehensive answer to how on earth one man managed to amass so much money and political influence. It is shocking less for any individual new pieces of information Gibney has unearthed than for its totality. Here are six things the film tells us:

Musk is a genius – at tricking the government into giving him assistance

At Maga rallies, Musk has been introduced as “America’s biggest capitalist”, but Gibney reminds us that he’s always been more than happy to go begging to the state for handouts – such as by cosying up to Obama to gain government contracts for SpaceX to launch satellites for Nasa and the military. The film zooms in on a Tesla press event in June 2013, where Musk unveiled a new “battery swap” system that promised to remove and replace the drained battery pack of a Model S with a fully charged one in just 90 seconds. As it turns out, the technology was never rolled out, and interviewees tell Gibney that a demonstration site at Harris Ranch was barely used for the process. Instead, the film-maker suggests that Musk’s over-promise allowed Tesla to get more ZEV credits from the Californian government, which are awarded to electric car makers based on range and which Musk could then sell to more polluting manufacturers.

In spite of everything, there was something admirable about Musk once

Gibney’s film serves as a reminder that Musk has never been in possession of charm or charisma – the petulant perma-poster retweeting praise is not far from the self-regarding twentysomething start-up bro. But what he did with the funds he earned from selling shares of his first software companies, Zip2, X.com and PayPal, was unusual, Gibney concedes. Where others turned to venture capital, Musk turned to engineering. It’s partially an act, we learn from his ex-wife Justine when she recalls how self-consciously he picked his wardrobe, telling her “I can’t look cool or hip, because I need to look like an engineer”. But in footage of Musk biting his nails with fellow engineers during SpaceX rocket launches his enthusiasm and emotional investment is genuine, and at times infectious.

Musk’s procreation drive is motivated by a fear of civilisational breakdown

Musk has 14 publicly known children, and sources tell Gibney that there are probably more. Some of them were conceived in romantic relationships but more recently the circumstances of their birth seem to have been entirely transactional, via sperm donations to employees of his companies. In a text message to one of his ex-partners, influencer Ashley St Clair, Musk said his desire to have “a legion of children” was driven by a fear of “civil war”. The documentary mostly places the roots of that fear in his South African childhood (in one scene, his father Errol Musk talks with no visible remorse of shooting three intruders in their home). “It’s no doubt he had a traumatic childhood,” Gibney said at a press conference in Venice. “He’s now playing out the trauma on the rest of us.” But, oddly for a man who was long a prominent atheist, the film also hints at a religious dimension to his vision of the apocalypse. The sordid business of negotiating disbursements and NDAs with the mothers of Musk’s children are handled by his right-hand man Jared Birchall, a devout Mormon whom St Clair calls his “henchman” and “demon”.

To Musk, empathy is good in principle but not in action

Recently, Musk has held forth at length about his view that “suicidal empathy” – people who have more empathy for criminals than the victims of criminals, in his view – is behind the decline of western civilisation. Empathy isn’t bad, he says in the doc, it’s just that it’s become too shallow. But interviews in the film raise the question of whether Musk is capable of empathy at all. This is a man who tells his wife that “if you were my employee, I would fire you”, and urges her to tell his estranged trans-daughter Jenna that “I’ll always love her” – and then cuts off her health insurance the next day.

Musk knew with a disconcerting degree of certainty that Trump would re-elected

In the film, St Clair describes the events of Trump’s election in November 2024. Musk, she tells Gibney, had a “degree of certainty” about the results before they came in that “I had never seen before”. He told her that he would “unleash the anomaly in the matrix” and that “we have 10,000 lasers in space”. Gibney leaves that comment hanging.

The godfather of AI is worried Musk might rig the next election

Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel-winning British-Canadian computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI”, used to be friendly with Musk, but the pair fell out after Hinton declined his offer to join the xAI board. In the film, he makes clear that he does not trust Musk to weigh up the risks and benefits of AI responsibly, and there’s more. “It’s fairly clear to me that Trump is hell-bent on corrupting the midterm elections,” Hinton says onscreen. “If you wanted to corrupt those midterm elections and you wanted to use AI, all you needed to do was get detailed information on US citizens. And what Doge did looked like just what you would do.”

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Georgia O’Keeffe, Art, Painting, Art and design, Culture, Exhibitions, Detroit, Michigan
Title – Skyscrapers and smokestacks: the grittier side of Georgia O’Keeffe | Georgia O'Keeffe | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/veronica-esposito
Link – Skyscrapers and smokestacks: the grittier side of Georgia O’Keeffe | Georgia O'Keeffe | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:00:01.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/sep/08/georgia-okeeffe-architecture-exhibit

G eorgia O’Keeffe is celebrated for her ethereal depictions of flowers, sunlight, landscapes and animal bones, their gracefully swooping forms dripping with organic curves and seemingly on the verge of melting before our eyes. Such an approach would seem to be quite at odds with the firm, straight lines of farmhouses and barns, to say nothing of the electrified skyscrapers of New York City – and yet that is exactly what is centered in the Detroit Institute of Arts’s new show Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture .

“I wanted to tell a new story about an artist who is so familiar,” said Dia curator Ben Coleman, who oversaw this collection of close to 40 works from the famed artist. “We can take a fresh look at works that O’Keeffe always considered essential and celebrate them in the way she wanted to.”

The idea for the show emerged from O’Keeffe’s 1932 work Stables, which is the only piece on exhibition that is in the Dia’s collection. It’s a charmingly tranquil side view of the titular construct, dominated by bright green, rich burgundy and subtly textured eggshell white, made by O’Keeffe during one of her many travels through the rurals of upstate New York and far-out parts of eastern Quebec. The artist regularly adventured through these rough and remote lands before deciding to leave New York City and live full-time in New Mexico in 1949.

Coleman explained that Stables gave him the inspiration to look at O’Keeffe’s work with fresh eyes and seek out other ways of exploring her subtle textures and studies in pure color. “Stables is very precise in its use of geometry, and for many people who know O’Keeffe also a bit unexpected,” said Coleman.

With his eyes attuned to the geometries of Stables, Coleman began to seek out more and more of O’Keeffe’s architectural works. Among other things, this search let him put fresh eyes onto the artist’s New York City pieces, many of which she made from the vantage of her apartment window; she and her husband Alfred Steiglitz started on the 11th floor of the Shelton Hotel in 1926, then moved up to the 28th, and finally the 30th floor out of 31. “It was likely the tallest residential building in the world at the time,” said Coleman.

This high vantage let O’Keeffe create unprecedented cityscapes, among them a series of works depicting the gritty urban industrial life surrounding the East River. With smokestacks billowing out pollution and endless rows of nondescript urban buildings, it’s quite far from the works O’Keeffe is famous for, but according to Coleman, in these pieces she’s honing her ability to represent the feeling of a place by the buildings that fill it, a talent that she would famously apply to New Mexico’s adobes in subsequent years.

“She tried very hard to represent the spirit and character of these places,” said Coleman. “So in my mind it connects an adobe church in New Mexico with a skyscraper in midtown Manhattan.”

Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture also offers viewers a most remarkable depiction of the Brooklyn Bridge; verging on religious in its adoration of a beloved icon, it was made by the artist in 1949 as a sort of swan song as she was on her way out of New York. The piece is dominated by a flattened view of the bridge’s famous arches, bringing to mind the shapes of stained glass windows, framing gracefully swooping renditions of the bridge’s suspending cables. It neatly defamiliarizes the bridge, toying with abstraction while offering much to anchor the eye in reality.

“It’s a deeply personal painting,” said Coleman, “documenting a moment of transition for O’Keeffe. It places our point of view into a moment of departure, and there’s a beautiful, poetic quality to how she uses light and variations of color, almost like looking through a stained glass window.”

Another noteworthy aspect of Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture is that it brings together multiple depictions of a humble patio door, a beloved part of the artist’s home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. O’Keeffe bought the house in 1945, taking four whole years to restore it from the ruined state that she found it in. It became her permanent home in 1949, and she resided there until 1984, just two years before her death.

The patio door paintings are a part of a suite of nearly abstract works centered around doors that O’Keeffe made during the 1940s and 50s, remarkable for the variety of colors that she brings to these simple, repeating forms. “Once she saw this patio door,” said Coleman, “O’Keeffe decided that it was something that she needed to live with. She was inspired to paint it dozens of times, and it’s part of an extraordinary series of works, some of the most abstract in her career, but also so precisely anchored and placed.”

Placing her alongside contemporaries such as Agnes Martin and Mark Rothko, these pieces are color studies formed out of minimistic geometries, generally showing rectangles of color with minimal, if any, perspective. After viewing one of the patio door paintings, Martin wrote to O’Keeffe: “It was a joyous experience and afterwards I knew more about the possibility of human response.”

Immersive digital experiences offered at the exhibition let audiences actually feel what it’s like to be in some of the places that O’Keeffe inhabited while painting – the upper floors of the Shelton Hotel and her beloved patio in Abiquiu. They offer a chance to slow down and let one’s senses take charge, as museumgoers take their shot at attending to the subtle details of place that O’Keeffe drank in as she attempted to capture the pure essence of a location.

Coleman is excited to be bringing O’Keeffe’s architectural works to light, a part of her career that is built on an entire social network of architects and designers that she had deep personal and creative relationships with. In his telling, it’s a story that has long resided in the archives, and now is the time to give it greater prominence in a celebrated artist’s career. “It’s a really exciting story,” he said, “to see these rich connections that inspired her to engage with the built environment for many years. I think visitors will be surprised that these works exist at all.”

Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture is on view from 11 September to 3 January at Detroit Institute of Arts

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Europe, Ukraine, Russia, World news, Germany, France, Hungary
Title – Russia says it will give a ‘harsh and painful’ response after Hungary expels 10 diplomats – Europe live | Europe | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jakub-krupa,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/yohannes-lowe
Link – Russia says it will give a ‘harsh and painful’ response after Hungary expels 10 diplomats – Europe live | Europe | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T13:11:53.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/sep/08/ukraine-russia-war-zelesnkyy-putin-ruslan-kravchenko-prosecutor-general-germany-france-europe-latest-news-updates

Moscow says it will have a ‘harsh and painful’ response to Hungarian move to expel 10 diplomats

We are getting a bit more on that Russian response to Hungary , and it’s clear that Moscow is not happy.

The foreign ministry said it would proceed with a “harsh and painful” response, AFP reported.

“ The response to the Russophobic lobby in Budapest will be harsh and painful, ” foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the TASS state news agency.

European countries say they would support restrictions on trades with West Bank settlements

The foreign ministers of Canada , Denmark , Finland , France , Iceland , Ireland , Norway , Poland , Portugal , Spain , Sweden and the UK , have issued a statement saying they ⁠would support or consider restrictions ​on trade in goods with Israeli ⁠settlements in the West Bank that are illegal ⁠under international law.

The countries confirmed “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law, or that they are actively considering these and other measures, in accordance with their national procedures,” the nations’ foreign ministers said in a statement .

“ The government of Israel must immediately halt the expansion of settlements and civilian administrative powers, ensure accountability for settler violence, and investigate allegations against Israeli forces,” it added.

The (relatively new) UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband , has been speaking in the House of Commons, setting out the government’s position.

Taking a much stronger stance than his predecessor, Yvette Cooper , Miliband said the government would now take the official stance that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety, while announcing an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories, among a number of other policies.

You can read more in our UK politics live blog here:

Ukraine can buy Patriot air defence system parts from EU’s support loan, von der Leyen says

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said that Ukraine will ⁠be able to buy crucial ⁠parts for ⁠Patriot ​air defense systems through the ⁠next €3.2bn (£2.7bn; $3.7bn) disbursement ⁠from the EU’s support ​loan.

“Together with Nato secretary general Rutte, I welcome the agreement ‌by Member States on the ​derogation for Ukraine to purchase crucial products for Patriot ⁠air defence systems,” she ​said in ​a statement.

Ukraine heavily relies on advanced air defence systems, mainly US Patriot interceptors, to protect its skies from Russian ballistic missile attacks. But this year, supplies of Patriot missiles have run out, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to strikes.

After a brutal summer of deadly Russian missile and drone attacks, Ukraine last week requested an exemption from Buy European procurement rules to acquire US-made Patriot interceptors using the EU’s €90bn support loan.

Ukraine has been asking western allies for air defence equipment amid fears Russia will dramatically intensify its missile attacks this winter.

My colleagues Jamie Grierson and Dan Sabbagh have written a story about the UK committing to £100m to boost Ukraine’s air defences ahead of the anticipated attacks.

We already mentioned the pledge in this post , but their story contains more detail.

Here is an extract:

“The air defence interceptors plus large-calibre artillery rounds and other drones will be supplied to Ukraine through a contribution to a Nato scheme to buy American weapons.

Ukraine is currently unable to prevent Russian ballistic missile attacks due to a shortage of Patriot interceptors, leading to attacks that have killed civilians and destroyed food and logistics warehouses over the summer.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants to obtain 300 Patriot missiles, costing about $3m (£2.6m) each, to help Kyiv protect its electricity, heating and water systems through the normally hard winter.

The UK did not say how many Patriots it would be able to buy, but the number is likely to be only a fraction of the number sought, though other western allies are also examining how they can help Kyiv defend itself.”

40-year-old Russian man questioned over Romanian sabotage allegations

A 40-year-old Russian man suspected of being involved in the operation is being questioned by Romanian prosecutors on Tuesday, a statement from Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism said .

Authorities are seeking court approval to detain him for 30 days pending inquiries into his encrypted communications, which reportedly included photos of several Romanian and multinational military bases.

Romanian intelligence service says it prevented Russian sabotage operation targeting defence, critical infrastructure

Romanian intelligence service said it “prevented the commission of a sabotage on national territory,” involving a Russian citizen in Romania and a number of defence and critical infrastructure targets.

In a statement , the SRI service said that the Russian man, who was being monitored as part of an extensive investigation, attempted to take photo and video documentation of “some communications centres and national military bases used by Nato allies,” as well as other defence institutions and critical infrastructure.

“The data obtained indicate a similar action pattern to that used on the territory of European states by networks of saboteurs coordinated by entities from the Russian Federation, including in the cases thwarted in Romania in 2024 and 2025: the Russian citizen was instructed by an intermediary to make photo-video materials with targets of strategic military interest, including a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft during their presence on the national territory.”

It added that “the specific actions taken by the SRI, as well as the measures taken with the Romanian authorities and external partners, led to the prevention of an act of sabotage on national territory.”

The service did not offer more detail on whether it involved any arrests.

Dutch foreign minister calls for ‘accountability, reconciliation, education’ after Serbia’s ‘hero’ funeral for Mladić

Dutch foreign minister Tom Berendsen also joined in calls for “accountability, reconciliation and education about the past” as he criticised Serbia for holding a “hero” funeral for Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić ( 12:48 ).

In a statement, Berendsen said :

“Ratko Mladić was convicted of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The honour bestowed upon him in Belgrade by the state is incompatible with European values and deeply hurtful to victims and their families.

The Netherlands supports voices in Serbia and across the region calling for accountability, reconciliation and education about the past.”

German police detain suspect after sabotage attacks on power grid

Elsewhere, we are getting a line from Germany that German police have detained a man suspected ⁠of carrying ⁠out ​a series of sabotage attacks on the country’s ⁠electricity grid, as reported by local media and Reuters.

The suspect, identified as Daniel V. by German media, was detained in Weisweiler about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west ‌of Cologne, where he allegedly carried out one of his ​attempted attacks, Reuters said.

German police have been searching for the 48-year-old since they obtained letters ⁠claiming responsibility for a series ​of sabotage ​attacks on the ​power grid, in which ​the suspect ‌cited opposition to ​fossil ​fuels as a motive.

German news agency DPA said that the suspect’s “motive was reportedly climate-related, with the letters criticising electricity production from fossil fuels.”

EU backs Hungary’s decision to expel 10 Russian diplomats

Separately, the commission was also asked about Hungary’s decision to expel 10 Russian diplomats this morning.

The commission’s foreign affairs spokesperson Christian Wigand said:

“ We take note of Hungary’s legitimate decision.

This is an expected reaction [given] Russia’s persistent campaign in using hybrid attacks against the EU and its member states.

The European Union expresses its full solidarity with Hungary and reaffirms its support for the diplomatic and consular activities of all member states conducted in accordance with international law.

The European Union will continue to closely coordinate with Hungary and other member states, and remains committed to protecting the interests and the rights of EU citizens.”

Bosnia withdraws diplomatic staff from Serbia in protest at Mladić’s ‘hero’ funeral

It’s worth noting that Bosnia and Herzegovina withdrew all staff from its Belgrade embassy yesterday, and transferred consular services to its embassies in Zagreb and Podgorica in protest against Mladić’s ‘hero’ funeral in Belgrade.

The ministry said the move intended to “reduce communication with Serbia to the lowest possible level,” while intensifying its dialogue about the situation with the EU, US, and the UK.

It’s also probably safe to say that the Bosnian foreign ministry was not impressed with the commission’s bland holding position yesterday.

Responding to questions from reporters yesterday, the EU’s lead spokesperson Paula Pinho insisted that “there is no place for glorification of war criminals,” but did not really engage with repeated questions about the apparent state and military honours involved.

In a late afternoon post directed at Pinho, the ministry said: “are you even aware of what you are saying?”

It continued:

“Five ministers from the Serbian Government were seated in the front row at the funeral, a convicted war criminal was given military honours, and his body was flown in on a Serbian Government aircraft.

What are you afraid of? Why are you unwilling to call this what it is?

Your position on the funeral of a convicted war criminal is a disgrace to the entire European Union!”

Difficult not to see a link between their furious reaction and this morning’s hasty statement from von der Leyen and Pinho’s notably different tone at today’s midday briefing.

EU ‘looking into’ its response to Serbia’s ‘hero’ funeral for Mladić

Not surprisingly, the issue of the EU’s muddled response to yesterday’s “hero” funeral for Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić comes up again during today’s midday briefing held by the European Commission.

A commission spokesperson said the commission was “looking into” any potential consequences for Serbia.

She also repeated commission president von der Leyen’s criticism from this morning ( 9:41 ) , saying the images from the funeral were “shocking” and “speak for themselves.”

“They demonstrate a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s recent history and contradict the values underpinning Serbia’s path towards the European Union,” Paula Pinho said.

She declined to say if von der Leyen would visit Belgrade on her annual trip to western Balkans, stressing the programme is still being worked on.

Moscow says it will have a ‘harsh and painful’ response to Hungarian move to expel 10 diplomats

We are getting a bit more on that Russian response to Hungary , and it’s clear that Moscow is not happy.

The foreign ministry said it would proceed with a “harsh and painful” response, AFP reported.

“ The response to the Russophobic lobby in Budapest will be harsh and painful, ” foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the TASS state news agency.

Russia to respond to Hungary’s decision to expel 10 Russian diplomats

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry told RIA Novosti news agency that it would respond to Hungary’s decision to expel ten Russian spies diplomats from Budapest ( 11:09 ).

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Politics, UK news, Labour, Ed Miliband, West Bank, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Foreign policy, Conservatives, Mike Huckabee, Florida, Education
Title – UK sanctions on Israeli settlements in West Bank to take up to nine months to come into force – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andrewsparrow,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/richardadams
Link – UK sanctions on Israeli settlements in West Bank to take up to nine months to come into force – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T13:04:13.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/sep/08/uk-us-trade-israel-sanctions-labour-ed-miliband-farage-latest-news-updates

Ban will take six to nine months to come into force, Miliband says

Miliband said the legislation he was announcing today would take six to nine months to come into effect.

Here is Miliband’s peroration.

My parents came here as Jewish refugees and found sanctuary and a country that stood up for the rule of law, freedom and self-determination.

Those are the values this government is standing up for today.

And I truly believe that the vast majority of the British people, including in our communities with ties to the region, are united in their desire to see humanitarian suffering end, and all sides commit to a durable peace process.

And just as we want Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side, so we have to live out those values in Britain.

Jews in Britain, Muslims in Britain, people of all faiths and none, have a right to live without prejudice or fear.

A Britain that upholds its values at home and around the world. A Britain that fights against oppression and suffering wherever it occurs. A Britain that stands up for what is right.

Miliband says France and Canada also announcing bans on trade with illegal settlements today

Miliband said France and Canada were also banning trade with the illegal settlements today

We act in concert with others in a broad international coalition.

I can tell the house that today France and Canada are announcing alongside Britain that they will also ban the import of goods from illegal settlements, joining the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway.

Other countries were also planning further action, he said.

This is what Britain can achieve, leading with others and this is in our fundamental national interest.

Miliband said the government would do all it could to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza .

I pledge we will continue to do everything we can to provide all the humanitarian support possible to help the people of Gaza.

UK-supported hospitals in Gaza will enable around 800,000 medical consultations this year, and essential health service health services for patients.

UK expertise will deliver care to over 1,000 child amputees, and we recently welcomed another wave of students from Gaza coming to study in Britain. And we will welcome more.

But in truth, unless Israel changes course, the situation will remain dire.

So we are taking further steps both ourselves and with others, our extension of the global human rights sanctions regime will enable us to target those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law, whether in Gaza or anywhere else in the world. And we will let the UN general assembly in New York later this month shine the clearest and harshest spotlight on what is happening and what must change.

Miliband turned to claims of genocide.

On the question of genocide, the UK has always supported full, robust and fair judicial processes to consider allegations, with final determinations made by competent courts before the British government reaches a conclusion.

This has been the case for all of the genocides since the 1948 Genocide Convention – Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia and acts against the Uyghur people. That will remain our policy.

It is right this issue has been brought before the ICJ, and I want to I want to make it clear that we support the court in coming to its determination.

Miliband says there’s ‘increasing evidence’ war crimes have been committed in Gaza

Turning to Gaza , Miliband said the 7 October attack could not justify what had happened since.

Over 70,000 people have been killed, at least 20,000 of them children.

The vast majority of the population is now displaced. Nearly 2 million people, who are now penned into just one third of the territory. Life-saving humanitarian aid and access has been routinely blocked. Hospitals and clinics have been destroyed. Over 60% of homes are in ruins …

International humanitarian law imposes clear rules for states fighting wars, including to ensure access to food and medical supplies to avoid mass displacement of civilians, and to avoid the targeting of civilians.

Serious and international violations of this law, if proven, amount to war crimes.

What has occurred, including the actions of the IDF, have been examined in depth by a number of organisations, including the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry.

The conclusions of these reports represent increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed, and we support legal processes to determine this.

Miliband says UK arms exports to Israel that contribute to occupation will be banned

Miliband said some measure were being introduced now.

We are sanctioning a further set of extremist settlers who have supported or incited acts of violence against Palestinian communities.

And I can also announce that we are extending the existing global human rights regime such that it will enable swifter action to deter settlement expansion, including, crucially, seeking to prevent the development of E1.

I also want to address the question of arms sales. We’ve already suspended over 30 arms licences used by the IDF in Gaza. That suspension remains fully in place.

We will now also refuse all licence applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation – in effect, a double lock against arms sales. This means the ban on such exports will now remain in place as long as the occupation persists.

Ban will take six to nine months to come into force, Miliband says

Miliband said the legislation he was announcing today would take six to nine months to come into effect.

Miliband says he ‘wholeheatedly’ opposes boycotting all Israeli goods because of his backing for two-state solution

Miliband said the new measures would “target illegal settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel”.

He said:

We will continue to support important and valued trade with green line Israel [Israel within the pre-1967 borders] precisely because we support the two-state solution, including security and prosperity for Israel.

For this reason, I wholeheartedly oppose the boycott, divestment, sanctions or BDS campaign.

Miliband also said adverts for land in illegal settlements would be banned

Earlier this year, shamefully just a few miles from here, we saw an expo advertising illegal settlement land. We must and we will ensure this never happens again.

So we so we will ban the advertising in the UK of illegal settlements.

Miliband confirms ban on goods from illegal settlements, and sanctions against firms backing settlements

Miliband confirmed the government is banning trade with the illegal settlements.

He said:

I do not believe the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops and supermarkets, so I can announce today that we will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

To do so, we will introduce a new comprehensive sanctions regime … with appropriate religious exemptions.

And as part of this regime, we will go further. We will take action against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure financing or real estate for settlement expansion.

So to those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this. You will face the full force of UK sanctions. Settlements are illegal. They should not be promoted in our country.

Miliband says UK government now recognising UK’s occupation of West Bank as unlawful

Miliband defends using the term ethnic cleansing.

I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is it is the least the people who face such such suffering deserve.

And it should be the prelude to justice.

He goes on:

Now, for a long time the British government has rightly said settlements are illegal, but we have remained silent on the question of the legality of the occupation as a whole, which in 2024 the International Court of Justice concluded was unlawful.

Today I announced that the official view of the British government is that the occupation is unlawful because because of Israel’s entrenchment of its control, its intention to extend permanent sovereignty and its expansionist agenda via illegal settlements.

Our position is not just an overdue statement of reality. The government believes the UN lawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories.

Miliband says ethnic cleansing happening in West Bank

Miliband says ethnic cleansing is happening in the West Bank .

Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, has described what is happening as, I quote, “a violent and criminal effort to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank”.

The former minister of health and retired brigadier general from the IDF, Ephraim Sneh, has said, and I quote again, “this is ethnic cleansing”.

To put it simply, ethnic cleansing is defined by the UN as a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove, by violent and terror inspiring means, the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.

The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists.

And all too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this, and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Miliband says backing two-state solution is ‘north star’ of government’s Israel policy

Miliband says many British Jews “live in fear in the face of rising antisemitism”.

He goes on:

When I went to school in the 1980s, I did so without fear. Today we need to face the truth. That is not the case for thousands of Jewish children across the UK. Children who have to go to school with security guards outside their school. No child should have to go to school facing this. And no teacher should face antisemitism either.

Whether it happens in our schools, universities or workplaces, or online or on our streets, antisemitism is a scourge and an evil.

Miliband says the government has spent £250m on measures to protect the Jewish community, but it must do more, he says.

I will in October hosted representatives of the G7, the countries with the largest Jewish populations from across the world. We will meet in the UK to discuss the different ways we can work across borders to tackle antisemitism, including tackling online hate.

And he says there is no contradiction between supporting Israel and supporting the state of Palestine .

I’m proud of my Jewishness and unwavering in my support for the state of Israel. And there is absolutely no contradiction between this and my support for the state of Palestine.

Indeed, quite the opposite.

The two-state solution is based on an explicit belief that the only route to security for both peoples is to live side by side in peaceful coexistence with freedom, security and self-determination.

Securing the two-state solution in its fullest form is the north star of this government’s policy, and indeed of successive British governments over decades.

Miliband says security cooperation with Israel will continue.

Tackling these threats [from Iran] is just one of the most one of the important shared national security interests we have with Israel, on which we will continue to cooperate.

Miliband condemns Iran as threat to ‘Israel and Jews across the world’

Miliband goes on to condemn the 7 October “Hamas terrorist atrocity”.

It was a murderous act by a murderous terrorist organisation designed to massacre and instil fear across the whole population.

October 7 makes plain the grave threats the Israel faces, and it has every right to defend itself. We should not only condemn those threats, but act against those who carry them out.

Miliband says Iran “continues to threaten Israel and Jews across the world”. He goes on:

We have already designated Iran’s IRGC, and we will do more today on Iran’s proxy groups. So today I can also announce we are sanctioning Lebanese Hezbollah’s financing arm, al-Jihad al-Hassan.

Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. So we are also acting this week to report Iran to the UN security council for its nuclear violations alongside our allies.

And I can announce today that we are also reimposing major economic sanctions on Iran, in line with the European Union and the United States.