Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – France, Extreme heat, Europe, World news, Wine, Environment, Farming, Climate crisis, Food & drink industry, Food
Title – French winemakers forecast 30-year low harvest after severe drought and heat | France | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kim-willsher
Link – French winemakers forecast 30-year low harvest after severe drought and heat | France | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T15:10:51.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/07/french-winemakers-forecast-30-year-low-harvest-after-severe-drought-and-heat

French vineyards hit by severe drought and heatwaves are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production after the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, according to the agriculture ministry.

Initial estimates suggest winemakers will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of 6% on last year, and 17% less than ‌the 2021-2025 average.

Agreste, the government’s farming food, forestry and fishing statistics body, said the drop was partly caused by a reduction in the number and size of vineyards, but mostly the result of extreme weather conditions .

“The summer was particularly hot and dry: soil drought has intensified throughout the country and heatwaves have caused localised sun scald, scorching, defoliation, and wilting of the grapes, reducing harvest volumes,” it reported.

However, some winemakers say with grape harvests still being conducted it is too early to make credible predictions.

The disappointing forecast comes after an optimistic start to the year, with heavy spring rains that encouraged grape growth. “The hot and dry summer conditions meant a deterioration of the [harvest] forecast,” Agreste reported.

A series of heatwaves brought the highest summer temperatures recorded in France since records began in 1900, with averages of 24C in June, July and August. Almost half of the country recorded temperatures on or above 40C.

Among the worst hit wine regions is Champagne where the grape harvest, which started unusually early in mid August, is predicted to be almost half that of last year. The Jura region in the east was the next worst hit with an estimated 37% loss. This year’s Burgundy-Beaujolais region grape production was expected to be one-third down, Agreste reported.

Winemakers in Bordeaux and the Languedoc-Roussillon as well as those in the south-east and south-west reported higher harvests this year but all except the Savoie region were down on the 2021-2025 five-year average for production.

However, Cécile Mathiaud of the Burgundy wine producers association said she was surprised by the government’s disastrous figures for her region’s vineyards.

“We know we won’t have a full harvest this year, but we have no definite figures and there’s no suggestion the situation is a disaster,” Mathiaud said. “We have some vineyards that have reported not much this year and others where it has been higher than expected.”

Some Burgundy vineyards began their harvest in early August but others are collecting the grapes now, she added. “Our reference is the historically low harvest of 2021 when we produced only 1m hectolitres; we think it will be higher this year, but the question is by how much? I have absolutely no idea how the ministry has come up with these figures.”

Agreste said the figures were estimates and definitive results would not be known until regions made official harvest declarations later this year. It added that 2026 grape harvests were “marked by significant regional disparities”.

Wine harvests have traditionally taken place in France between September and mid October, but the climate emergency has brought dates forward slightly each year for the last four decades. This year, the harvest timetable advanced at least a week compared with last year throughout the country. Some vineyards in Bordeaux began two weeks early.

There are also concerns that vines and grapes in some of France’s best-known wine producing regions, including Bordeaux, have been damaged by smoke from rampant wildfires. No major Bordeaux vineyards suffered direct damage from the flames that came within 15km (9 miles) of the city, but there is concern that smoke has entered the grape skins causing “smoke taint” and affecting the taste of the finished wine.

The agriculture ministry would normally issue harvest estimates in early August, but postponed its analysis at the request of the wine industry because of what it described as “the high level of uncertainty surrounding these forecasts” caused by weather conditions and wildfires.

France’s wine sector is already under pressure owing to a decline in demand. Annual wine consumption in the 1960s in France was 127 litres each year compared with 40 litres a year now.

Wine drinking in the US, France’s largest export market, has also dropped and French wines have been hit by Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Australian lifestyle
Title – A job that changed me: I went off the rails in school and worked nights at a blast furnace. It was like gazing into the fiery pit of hell | Australian lifestyle | The Guardian
Author – Tony Jackson
Link – A job that changed me: I went off the rails in school and worked nights at a blast furnace. It was like gazing into the fiery pit of hell | Australian lifestyle | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T15:00:22.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/sep/08/a-job-that-changed-me-i-went-off-the-rails-in-school-and-worked-nights-at-a-blast-furnace-it-was-like-gazing-into-the-fiery-pit-of-hell

I arrived in Australia from the UK in 1983, at the sprightly age of 14. Unbeknown to me I was a historical figure, the very last of the £10 poms.

My parents and I were a family full of beans about a new life but just over a year later tragedy struck when my mother was killed in a car crash. My father and I were left to carry each other in grief. We were wildly unprepared. At only 35, my dad did his best to solo-parent while at school I went off the rails – all booze, sex and drugs. I couldn’t care less about education, had no interest in what lay beyond schooling and crashed out of year 12 with no grades.

As soon as I left school it rapidly became clear that, given my lack of qualifications, good jobs were not easy to come by. I worked for a while in a supermarket, tried to sell aluminium siding door-to-door and spent hours at a printing machine, soaked in ammonia, spitting out architectural plans for builders.

Eventually a friend lured me into joining him on the night shift in a blast furnace. The job offered a modest hourly rate for some pretty hellish work.

Adorned with asbestos gloves that went all the way to my armpits, my task was to place long steel rods in the furnace until they turned bright red, then slip the hot rods into long plastic tubes, softening the plastic so I could bend and glue them together to form garden furniture.

A hot furnace, melting plastic, industrial resin, 10pm till 6am. What’s more, my friend was going through an Elvis phase and would play his records all night. To this day I can’t listen to Elvis without shivering.

When I look back on this period of my life, I think of Irvine Welsh’s book If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work. The pithy sarcasm of the title really captures the epiphany I experienced facing a thousand-degree furnace every night. I had seriously screwed up.

I hated school but it was dawning on me that perhaps the teachers were not getting in the way of my good times, they were actually on my side, trying to arm me with what I’d need to have a chance at a job that was more aspirational than melting plastic tubes.

I come from a proud working-class background. I understand the value of a decent day’s pay for a hard day’s work. But with hot steel rods in hand and the aroma of molten plastic and resin in my nostrils, I realised that the future was going to be a long hard slog and I was determined to have a crack at leading a more creative work life.

Like many teenagers, music was everything to me, so that was my first port of call. I signed up for a night course in music recording and mixing. But fate had other ideas.

While I was studying, my Elvis-loving blast furnace friend had scored a job with his uncle at a television production company, working as a trainee sound recordist. After a few months he told me he was leaving; his dad had offered him a job for twice the pay, replacing the soap dispensers in public toilets. I jumped on the opportunity and demanded that he get me an interview to be his replacement. My night course had taught me a thing or two about microphones.

The rest is history. I got the job and the drive and ambition that had been absent during school was fully awakened. After work I stayed back most evenings and taught myself how to shoot and edit. I was, as they say in northern England, mad for it!

I went on to have a feverish television career. I travelled the world filming for the BBC, covered war zones, toured with Oasis and spent far too long documenting the criminal underworld in London. By the time I returned to Australia I was an ambitious documentary director and was soon making films for the ABC, SBS and a host of international broadcasters.

And all of this I put down to the creative drive I discovered staring into that blast furnace. Despite the teachers’ best efforts, school just didn’t work for me, but gazing into the fiery pit of hell certainly did. On reflection this tale is probably a decent argument for resourcing adult education. School isn’t for everyone, and we all mature at different stages of our lives.

Keyword – Science
Trefwoorden – Weight-loss drugs, Obesity, Medical research, Science, Society, UK news
Title – Cravings ‘like heroin withdrawal’: what happens when weight-loss drugs don’t work? | Weight-loss drugs | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nicola-davis
Link – Cravings ‘like heroin withdrawal’: what happens when weight-loss drugs don’t work? | Weight-loss drugs | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T15:00:21.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/sep/07/glp1s-weight-loss-drugs-cravings-non-responders

W hen Mercedes was told by her doctor that she could be prescribed GLP-1 weight loss jabs in 2024, she broke down. “[When] she said yes, I cried in her office. And I didn’t really stop crying for a week,” she said.

“Finally, after being overweight my entire life, this was going to save me. My struggle, my burden, my shame was finally going to come to an end.”

But as time went on it was hope, not weight, that fell away.

“I was on [Ozempic] for nine months. And then I went on Wegovy for four months, then Contrave [an oral, non-GLP-1 medication], and then Mounjaro, and that was for a few months, and then nine months ago I started on Zepbound,” said Mercedes. “Nothing has worked.”

A recently retired teacher in her 50s, Mercedes is among a small proportion of people for whom the powerful new weight-loss drugs, championed by celebrities for their transformative effects, do not work.

Ozempic, a type 2 diabetes medication, and Wegovy, which is licensed for weight loss, both contain a drug called semaglutide that mimics a hormone that occurs naturally in our bodies: GLP-1. These medications reduce the rate at which food is emptied from the stomach, suppress appetite and increase the production of insulin – meaning many people lose weight.

Mounjaro and Zepbound, also now household names, have an even greater weight-loss effect. They both contain the drug tirzepatide which mimics both GLP-1 and another hormone.

The excitement around such “GLP-1s” has been hard to miss: the medications have grabbed headlines, with clinical trials suggesting they can help participants lose an average of 15% to 20% of their body weight. Studies suggest they could help with conditions ranging from heart problems and addictions to fatty liver disease . In some cases experts say the effects may not be entirely related to weight loss .

But not everyone experiences the benefits. Between 9% and a third of participants in clinical trials lose less than 5% of their body weight – depending on the type of drug and dose used.

Now researchers are trying to work out why – something they say could help doctors tailor the use of the drugs, maximise cost-effectiveness and reduce side-effects.

For Mercedes, the impact of non-response has been profound.

“Aside from the fact that it’s not working and that it’s so expensive, to say it’s hard on the self-esteem is a humongous understatement,” said Mercedes, who lives in Canada. “It’s been a real struggle, with shame and regret and big bills and disappointment that my own body is not working the way it should.”

Prof Alexander Miras, an obesity expert at Ulster University, said the efficacy of the drugs could not be blamed on patients. “If the drug does not reduce hunger and food intake for someone, it is just not going to work,” he said.

Mercedes said she has tried hard to stick to lifestyle changes alongside the medications but, for her, the jabs did not suppress constant, intrusive thoughts about food.

“I just thought: ‘No, I’ve got to get somewhere … I’m going to die of obesity’,” she said. “I was really strict with myself for a month – but the cravings, which I can only call like heroin withdrawal … it’s just overwhelming. And the food talk never ended.”

The extreme effort paid off, to an extent. “I can honestly say I lost 20 pounds in that month, but not because of the medication,” she said.

Mercedes is certainly not alone: the Guardian has heard from dozens of people for whom GLP-1 medications have had little effect.

Yury K, 57, also from Canada, said he tried a number of weight loss programmes before starting Wegovy for obesity. He exercises about five days a week, mainly with kettlebells, and does not eat junk food or fast food.

While Yury said he saw some improvements in his blood sugar levels and cholesterol while using the medication, as well as a reduction in food noise and appetite, he found his weight barely changed.

“I started Wegovy at about 242lb and, after six months, I was still about 242lb. My weight can fluctuate a little because of water, but essentially there was no meaningful weight loss,” he said. He also experienced unpleasant side effects, including constipation and sensitive skin.

“There is so much discussion about GLP-1 medications as if they work for everyone, and that was not my experience. When you put in the effort with diet and exercise, take the medication exactly as prescribed, and still see little benefit, it is difficult not to feel disappointed,” he said.

Lucille*, 53, who is based in Luxembourg, told the Guardian she has been taking GLP-1 medications for four years – initially to help with insulin resistance – starting on a daily injection of a GLP-1 medication called Saxenda, before switching to Ozempic.

Yet despite being effective at first, Lucille says the medications no longer help her lose weight – even after switching to Mounjaro and taking the highest dose. “It’s as if nothing is having an effect any more,” she says. “The Mounjaro 5mg [dose] is outrageously expensive and so far none of these medications have been approved by my health insurance,” she adds.

At present, the reason for such variations in response remains unclear. “The short answer to why some people don’t respond is we don’t really know,” said Miras.

He said research had suggested factors such as motivation, intelligence, education and socioeconomics did not predict how patients would respond to GLP-1 medications.

But other characteristics might do. “We know, for example, that age plays a role – so older people lose less weight. Sex plays a role – men lose less than women,” said Miras. “[And] people with type 2 diabetes lose less weight compared to people without.”

Studies have also suggested ancestry might have an impact, with the medications most effective in people of European ancestry, and least effective in people of African American ancestry.

Dr Mahesh Umapathysivam, an endocrinologist and clinical researcher at Adelaide University in Australia, said it was plausible that hormones could have an effect too.

“There is growing evidence that oestrogen alters GLP-1 response. We see that with the difference between male response and female response. Also, we know from some of the physiological studies that time of menstrual cycle also alters GLP-1 response,” he said.

“Finally, the use of menopausal hormone replacement therapy – which contains oestrogen – is associated with greater weight loss in semaglutide users.”

Then there is the matter of genetics. A recent study highlighted the potential role of a genetic variant that affects receptors in the brain upon which the drugs work.

“People carrying the genetic variant, we found lose about an extra 0.76kg (1.6 lbs) on average, and people who carry two copies of the variant double that,” said Adam Auton, vice-president of human genetics at the 23andMe Research Institute, and the senior author of the study.

“For people with two copies, this accounts for about 10% of the weight people might expect to lose on these medications.”

Umapathysivam and colleagues have recently published a study into two genetic variants that affect the production of an enzyme, known as PAM, that modifies many hormones including GLP-1. The team found people with such variants appear to show resistance to GLP-1.

“GLP-1 resistance simply means a given amount of GLP-1 has less effect on the body,” Umapathysivam said. “The implication for treatment is that a certain dose of GLP-1 in someone with resistance might mean less weight loss, less glucose lowering, less insulin secretion or less slowing to the gastric emptying.”

Despite emerging research, it is not yet possible to accurately predict who will respond to weight loss jabs and who won’t.

But there are reasons for people like Mercedes to be hopeful. A series of promising new drugs are in development. “Another option is to change patients to a non-GLP-1 based drug called Mysimba [the UK brand name for Contrave]. It works in the same parts of the brain, but just slightly differently and therefore may be worth trying,” said Miras. “It is not available in the NHS, just privately.”

For some who struggle to lose weight with GLP-1 medications, weight-loss surgery may be the only option left. And, Miras says, “[A] lack of response to GLP-1 based drugs does not predict lack of response to [bariatric] surgery.”

And for those who lose little to no weight on GLP-1 medications, the message is clear. “It’s not your fault and it’s not the drug’s fault either, this is purely luck,” said Miras. “I’ve seen it before, it’s not very common, but it does happen.”

Mercedes began GLP-1 medications with huge amounts of hope and expectation. “There was just so much publicity around it. So many people [using the drugs said]: ‘Oh, I forgot to eat lunch,’ that I suppose subconsciously I just sort of ignored the prospect that … the drugs didn’t work,” she said.

“I wish I knew if there were other people out there, like me, for whom [GLP-1s] are just not effective at all.”

*Some names have been changed

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Ligue 1, Football, Sport, European club football, Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille, Paris FC
Title – Monaco kept their best players and are top of Ligue 1 – but at what cost? | Ligue 1 | The Guardian
Author – Luke Entwistle
Link – Monaco kept their best players and are top of Ligue 1 – but at what cost? | Ligue 1 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T14:59:41.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/07/monaco-best-players-top-ligue-1-psg

W hen a manager says that “no player is more important than the club”, it is usually because said player is agitating for a move. Filipe Luís was referring to Folarin Balogun, who did quite the opposite on transfer deadline day, opting to stay at Monaco rather than joining Everton, despite an agreement between the clubs.

You’d think that retaining your top scorer from last season would be reason for celebration, but the fact it is not once again exposes the French football paradox. Like plenty of other clubs in Ligue 1 , Monaco are torn between sporting and financial prerogatives. They ended up prioritising the former on transfer deadline day, albeit unwillingly, and even in a week when they beat PSG at the Parc des Princes to retain their 100% record, it is bittersweet.

Monaco went into deadline day prepared to make a sacrifice. Balogun was their top scorer last season and had shone at the World Cup for USA, but his exit had been planned. Matthis Abline had arrived from Nantes at the start of the window to take his place and everything was going “as planned” in the words of the club’s CEO, Thiago Scuro.

It wasn’t so simple though. In the midst of Balogun’s on-again-off-again move to Everton, Monaco agreed and then reneged on a deal to sell Lamine Camara to Chelsea. No manager would want to lose the midfielder, but Monaco had been forced to accept Chelsea’s offer, having made promises to French football’s financial watchdog, the DNCG, to reduce the wage bill and raise considerable funds in player sales. However, by the time a deal was struck with Chelsea, the French transfer window had closed and Camara’s replacement, Érik Lira, was no longer an option, especially given that the non-EU spot, occupied by Balogun, had not been vacated as planned.

Ultimately, neither Camara nor Balogun left. Good news, you might think. If it was, you couldn’t necessarily tell in Scuro’s hastily convened press conference on Wednesday, when the club’s CEO rallied against the idea that Monaco were “the bad guys in the room” following the series of unfortunate events the night before. “Unfortunately, we have to face this situation and find solutions in different ways,” added Scuro. It remains to be seen what the solutions are.

Luís, meanwhile, bemoaned an “imbalanced” squad: too many centre-forwards, a lack of midfield cover, and no recognised right-winger after Maghnes Akliouche’s move to PSG. The squad may lack balance and the club did not bring in the money they need, but the reason for their despondency is also the reason they can now harbour greater ambitions for the season. Balogun was Monaco’s best player last season; Camara has been their best player so far this season. If Camara was affected by the Chelsea saga, it did not show on Friday night. He was excellent in the second half as Monaco came from behind to beat PSG, with goals from Nazinho and Stanis Idumbo securing the 2-1 win.

Luís – who played for Atlético Madrid, Chelsea and Flamengo, as well as Brazil – says a big move will come for Camara. “If he maintains his level, it won’t just be one club – all the big clubs will come for him,” said the manager, adding that the 22-year-old is “unbelievable”, “elite”, and that “there aren’t a lot of players like him in football”. Scuro hinted that there would be “even better options and offers” in the future for the Senegal international. An eventual departure is expected, but Monaco should at least try to live in the present – as much as the spectre of financial obligations looms.

The manager has plenty of talent at his disposal and Balogun, who has missed the first few games of the season, is set to return soon. Without their top scorer from last season, Monaco have won their first five fixtures of the campaign in all competitions, scoring 12 goals in the process. The club’s decision to sack Sébastien Pocognoli in the summer looked harsh, but no one could complain about the start Luís has made. Not even the legendary Arsène Wenger enjoyed a better start at Monaco than the Brazilian.

Luís was full of praise for Luis Enrique, naming him as one of the top five managers in history. And the respect is mutual. “He is a manager I like a lot,” said the PSG boss. “I was happy when I found out that he was coming to France, then I told myself that I maybe shouldn’t be.” The pair faced each other in the Intercontinental Cup last year, when Flamengo – who won the Copa Libertadores under Luís – held PSG to a 1-1 draw before the French side won a penalty shootout.

Monaco are the only team to have won their first three Ligue 1 games this season. They have kept their best players, bar Akliouche, and they have a highly rated manager who is enhancing his reputation every week. There is plenty to cheer about, at least on the face of things, but the reasons for optimism are also the reasons for concern; such is the paradox that afflicts Monaco.

Talking points

“ Ça se prolonge, ” read the front page of L’Équipe on Saturday. “It’s extended” was not only a reference to Luis Enrique, Fabián Ruiz, João Neves, Willian Pacho, Senny Mayulu and Lucas Beraldo extending their contracts, but also to PSG’s winless run in Ligue 1 this season. The last time PSG began a campaign without a win in their first three was in 2012. PSG won the league that season and there isn’t too much concern this time around. “In my first two seasons, we had a habit of not winning games at the start of the season, and at the end we won everything,” said Neves post-match. Luis Enrique said he was willing to bet that PSG would finish the season as champions. Even if the European champions are in the bottom half of the table, seven points off leaders Monaco, few would bet against them securing their sixth consecutive Ligue 1 title come May.

Bruno Génésio did not want to catastrophise after Marseille’s 2-0 defeat to Monaco last weekend but he admitted there was “cause for concern” after he watched his team lose 3-2 at home to Paris FC on Sunday. Lassine Sinayoko scored a hat-trick for the visitors, with his first goal coming after just 23 seconds. There is a glaring lack of quality and depth in this Marseille side. Génésio said his players made “too many big errors” but he cannot replace many of them. On the bench he only had raw, untested prospects and players who have returned from loan spells after failing to secure contracts elsewhere. Amine Harit, who is back in the team after a loan in Turkey, says he and his teammates are “giving 100%”. That hasn’t always been the case at Marseille. Even if it is this season, it may not be enough to secure European football.

This is an article by Get French Football News

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Germany, The far right, Europe
Title – Why is the far-right AfD’s state victory significant and what might happen next in German politics? | Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/deborah-cole
Link – Why is the far-right AfD’s state victory significant and what might happen next in German politics? | Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T14:04:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/07/why-far-right-afd-state-victory-significant-german-politics-germany-explainer

Germany is reeling from the biggest far-right victory in a state election since the Nazi period after voters in Saxony-Anhalt in the former communist east gave the anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party a thumping first-place finish of 44% , just short of an absolute majority.

What happened and why is it significant?

For the first time since the second world war, a German state is on the brink of electing a far-right government after a big win in Saxony-Anhalt, described by the news magazine Der Spiegel as a magnitude 9.0 “political earthquake”.

Coming in nearly 27 points ahead of the co-ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), the conservative party of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the AfD pulled off a coup whose aftershocks will ripple across Germany and beyond its borders. The AfD will have broad powers over education, culture and ‌domestic security if it manages to take power in the state. Among other policies, it has promised to start a remigration and deportation offensive, ban rainbow flags in schools, and halt the building of new windfarms. It now has a strong wind at its back for the two state elections yet to come this month.

Its triumph also raised doubts whether the unpopular Merz could hold on in the face of such a clear rejection of his policies and leadership after just 16 months in power. The AfD co-leader Alice Weidel told reporters in Berlin that her party was targeting a 40% result at the next general election, scheduled for 2029. It is currently polling in first place at 28%.

What might happen next?

The AfD’s national leaders and the chief candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, the media-savvy former fragrance salesman Ulrich Siegmund, said the state’s voters had given the party a clear mandate to govern. However, without an absolute majority in the state parliament, the party would need partners or supporters to either join a coalition or “tolerate” a minority government. Siegmund said repeatedly before the vote he would only stand for election as premier with a clear majority. The remaining parties ruled out playing kingmaker to Siegmund by lending formal support. However, the BSW, a small “left-conservative” populist party which narrowly cleared the 5% hurdle to representation, has hinted at tacit cooperation.

Prior to the election, some Christian Democrats in the state openly questioned the “firewall” policy. Siegmund indicated he would spend the coming days and weeks “with an outstretched hand”, testing the hitherto resolute opposition to helping the AfD into power. If Siegmund fails to build a coalition, he suggested holding a new election, something that would require a two-thirds majority in the state legislature.

What does the result say about the firewall approach?

The stunning outcome in Saxony-Anhalt has underscored doubts about the viability of the policy of mainstream parties to exclude the AfD from power. The only other time the AfD won in a state, in neighbouring Thuringia in 2024, its victory was less decisive, allowing the remaining parties to cobble together an ideologically awkward, cross-spectrum coalition. Given the AfD’s margin of victory in Saxony-Anhalt, it is difficult to imagine how the humiliated CDU could form such a “Frankenstein” alliance of disparate parties this time. The state premier, Sven Schulze, acknowledged the party no longer had a mandate to try.

What does the result mean for the CDU and Friedrich Merz?

Sunday’s election amounted to a stinging rebuke of Merz and his CDU. The stony-faced chancellor admitted he was “deeply shocked” by the result. Exit polls showed voters were furious about his broken promises to revive the economy and shore up fiscal discipline. Energy prices, stoked by inflation and the Iran war, have hit voters hard in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany’s poorest state. Cost of living issues appeared to far outweigh immigration, the AfD’s trademark call to arms, as a mobilising issue. Although support for the AfD has been strongest in the ex-communist east, the party also made strong gains in two elections in western states earlier this year amid fears over deindustrialisation.

The Social Democratic party (SPD), a junior partner in Merz’s alliance, indicated on Monday it would be willing to water down planned changes to Germany’s costly and creaking social welfare system in order to placate disgruntled voters. Merz insisted the measures to shore up the healthcare and pension systems were necessary and vowed to remain and fight for them “in the interest of our children and grandchildren”.

What about the next two state elections?

Voters in the German capital, Berlin, and the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, two of Germany’s 16 länder, will go to the polls on 20 September. The obvious momentum for the AfD, as well as widespread German dissatisfaction with Merz and his right-left government with the SPD, mean those polls are also fraught with risk for the parties in the federal coalition. The AfD currently has a narrow lead ahead of the co-ruling SPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but for now looks unlikely to win an absolute majority. The situation in Berlin – once divided between east and west – looks muddled, with the CDU, far-left Linke and the AfD all jockeying for first place. Even if the CDU managed to hold on to its lead on election day, it would struggle to form an ideologically coherent coalition, dealing Merz and his party another stinging blow that could further destabilise his government.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – La Liga, Deportivo A Coruña, Villarreal, European club football, Football, Sport
Title – Aubameyang rolls back years as revamped ‘Super Dépor’ return to La Liga in style | La Liga | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/billy-munday
Link – Aubameyang rolls back years as revamped ‘Super Dépor’ return to La Liga in style | La Liga | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T12:03:13.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/07/pierre-emerick-aubameyang-deportivo-a-coruna-la-liga

P ierre-Emerick Aubameyang was already the best player on the pitch when he ran through to score Deportivo A Coruña’s winner on Saturday night. It was certainly not Ilias Akhomach, the Villarreal substitute whose pass on halfway had inadvertently played Aubameyang through, nor Sergi Cardona, the intended target of that pass. After 89 minutes and two assists, the 37-year-old Aubameyang raced the length of the half to slot past Luiz Júnior to make it 3-2.

It had been a similar case the week before, when Aubameyang’s pace left the Valencia defenders behind before he dinked the ball over the goalkeeper. The week before that, he calmly rounded Málaga’s Alfonso Herrero before opening the scoring. The week before that, the former Barcelona striker marked his return to La Liga against Elche with a superb touch and finish from Lorenzo Amatucci’s diagonal pass. Scoring in each of his first four games for Deportivo is a club record, eclipsing Bebeto’s fast start of three in a row from 1992.

Like Aubameyang, Deportivo appear reborn. “Super Dépor” were Spain’s most popular team around the turn of the century, with Bebeto having helped them win the Copa del Rey in 1995. Djalminha, Roy Makaay and the rest inspired them to a first league title in 2000, followed by another Copa del Rey in 2002 and a run to the Champions League semi-finals in 2004. After the money dried up, they were relegated from the top flight in 2011, 2013 and again in 2018, only returning this summer after eight years away.

The former Arsenal striker Lucas Pérez returned for a fourth stint to help Dépor climb out of the third tier two years ago. Aubameyang now has his sights on the club record of scoring in seven consecutive league matches, held by Pérez and Bebeto from different eras. It was another former Arsenal forward in Nicolas Pépé who broke the deadlock for Villarreal at the Estadio de la Cerámica on Saturday, with their new head coach, Iñigo Pérez, still searching for his first victory since leaving Rayo Vallecano.

At the start of the week, Pérez was preparing to face a very different Deportivo squad. By the weekend, it included the deadline-day arrivals of José María Giménez from Atlético Madrid and Marc Casadó from Barcelona. Deportivo’s equaliser at Villarreal came when Giménez stepped out from centre-back and slid the ball into the box for Aubameyang to chase. He clipped it into the middle with the outside of his boot, Luismi Cruz finishing first-time.

The signings of Giménez and Casadó – both on loan, both two-time La Liga winners – are a coup for Deportivo, even after an ambitious window where they spent €26m (£22.3m) on new players – only Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético and Real Betis have spent more.

Investment and debt-clearing at the club have gone hand in hand since the Galician bank Abanca became the majority shareholder in 2020, when Dépor were relegated to the third tier during the Covid pandemic. Abanca now owns 99.99% of the club, but the fans still have a voice. Supporters voted this summer to change the team’s name from Deportivo de “La Coruña” to the Galician version “A Coruña”.

The investment in all areas of the club has paid off. When given a guided tour of the training ground alongside Giménez, Casadó was impressed with the facilities. “It’s better than Barça,” he said, deadpan, on camera. “Seriously.”

Adama Traoré has arrived too, after a chat with his former Barcelona teammate Aubameyang, on a free. Antonio Hidalgo, who guided Deportivo back to La Liga in his first season in charge, deployed debutant Traoré as a wing-back off the bench on Saturday. When Gerard Moreno crossed for Tajon Buchanan at the back post, Traoré scrambled to get back into position but comically looped a header over his own goalkeeper to gift Villarreal the lead again on 76 minutes.

The influx of new players has brought with it concerns about the crop that got Dépor promoted in the first place. But where many thought Aubameyang might replace the bustling striker Bil Nsongo, the pair – 16 years apart in age – are now forming a fearsome partnership. Deportivo scouted Nsongo when he was playing for Canon Youandé in his native Cameroon but decided not to extend his contract after his first year with the B team. He was insistent though, having made A Coruña his home, and won the club over. “He was very interested in staying here,” said Deportivo’s academy director, Ismael Arilla.

Deportivo’s second equaliser came from another striker: Zakaria Eddahchouri, whose 18 months in A Coruña have been marked by his significant contribution to promotion and the time he fell over the top of the waterfront while taking a selfie last year. Firefighters had to rescue the Dutchman from the rocks below and he spent the night in hospital with minor injuries. After 12 goals in the second tier last season, his first in the top flight was drilled past Júnior at the near post after Aubameyang found him with a well-weighted pass.

There is no overstating the importance of Aubameyang since his €1.5m arrival from Marseille – in goals, ambition and willingness to mentor younger players. “He has a special talent but you should see him train, how involved he is, how it rubs off on his teammates,” said Hidalgo at full-time after the veteran’s late winner. But it’s also the little things: “His smile is infectious.” The front flip celebrations are a sight, too.

The “brutal” victory, as Hidalgo put it, against opponents who begin their Champions League campaign on Tuesday, moves Deportivo into the top five and keeps them unbeaten, but the former Sabadell, Sevilla B and Huesca coach is not getting ahead of himself. “The table that tells you where you’re at is the one on the final day of the season – now it’s just for looking at.”

Talking points

José Mourinho congratulated Real Betis for “playing for a draw and then winning the lottery” after his first defeat back as Real Madrid coach. Troy Parrott, given his professional debut by Mourinho at Tottenham, scored his first Betis goal in Friday’s 1-0 win at La Cartuja. Mourinho slumped in his chair as VAR spotted an offside in Carlos Espí’s acrobatic equaliser before Kylian Mbappé had a stoppage-time penalty saved by Álvaro Valles, leaving Barcelona to extend their lead over Madrid to three points with a 5-0 rout of Valencia on Sunday. Luck of the Irish?

Sandwiched between Barça and Madrid are Alavés, who have won three of their first four games. The former Real Madrid striker Mariano Díaz, who spent over a year as a free agent before signing in 2025, scored his third goal in four games during a 5-2 victory against Osasuna on Sunday. He was upstaged by Lucas Boyé, whose hat-trick included an absolute belter from 35 yards out. “I didn’t even think about it,” the Argentinian striker said.

One Argentina striker who is having considerably less fun is Julián Álvarez. Atlético were 2-0 down at Athletic Bilbao on Saturday by the time he entered the field to whistles from the travelling supporters. Nico Williams and Robert Navarro scored two in three minutes after the restart and Oihan Sancet added a late third. Diego Simeone opted not to comment on Álvarez not doing his post-match warm-down with the other substitutes.

Sid Lowe is away

Keyword – Food
Trefwoorden – Food, Salad, Cheese, Vegetables, Summer food and drink, Fruit, Cereals and grains, Herbs and spices
Title – Georgina Hayden’s quick and easy recipe for courgette and preserved lemon herby giant couscous | Food | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/georgina-hayden
Link – Georgina Hayden’s quick and easy recipe for courgette and preserved lemon herby giant couscous | Food | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T12:00:50.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/sep/07/quick-easy-recipe-courgette-preserved-lemon-herby-giant-couscous-georgina-hayden

W hile I dig my head in the sand at September’s arrival and the back-to-school dread, I’m trying to hold on to summer flavours for as long as possible. And this salad does just that: it’s summer and autumn, vibrant and comforting, all at the same time. It can also be served a multitude of ways: still warm, at room temperature with the feta added at the last minute, or even as leftovers (it’s great for lunchboxes, say).

Courgette and preserved lemon herby giant couscous

If your courgettes are homegrown and on the larger side, use just two or three. And although it’s not a necessity, I like to cut them into irregular shapes, because that gives them more surface area to char and flavour.

Prep 10 min Cook 30 min Serves 4 4 courgettes , trimmed and roughly chopped 2 preserved lemons , halved, flesh and seeds removed and discarded, peel finely chopped 4 garlic cloves , unpeeled 1 heaped tsp ground coriander ½ tsp sweet smoked paprika Sea salt and black pepper Extra-virgin olive oil 200g wholewheat giant couscous , rinsed ½ 25g pack flat-leaf parsley , finely chopped A few mint sprigs , leaves picked and finely chopped 1 bunch of spring onions , trimmed and finely sliced 200g feta

Heat the oven to 240C (220C fan)/475F/gas 9. Put the courgettes, preserved lemon peel, garlic cloves, ground coriander and paprika in a large roasting tray and season generously.

Drizzle over two tablespoons of the oil, toss well to coat, and roast for 20 minutes, until everything is a little charred. Leave to cool a little, then press the garlic flesh into any juices in the tray, and remove and discard the skins.

Meanwhile, bring a pan of salted water to a boil and cook the couscous for about eight minutes (or according to the packet instructions). Drain and rinse under cold water, then transfer to a large bowl.

When everything is ready and has cooled a little, mix the courgettes and any tray juices into the couscous. Add the chopped herbs and spring onions, mix again, then taste and adjust the seasoning as required. Just before serving, finish by crumbling over the feta.

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – End of the Road festival, Music festivals, Music, Indie, Culture, Festivals, Jarvis Cocker, Pulp, Geese, CMAT, Angine de Poitrine, Pop and rock
Title – End of the Road festival review – Pulp and CMAT lead indie landmark’s joyous birthday party | End of the Road festival | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/daniel-dylan-wray
Link – End of the Road festival review – Pulp and CMAT lead indie landmark’s joyous birthday party | End of the Road festival | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T11:38:49.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/sep/07/end-of-the-road-festival-review-pulp-cmat-larmer-tree-gardens-wiltshire

T here is a celebratory feeling in the air at End of the Road festival this year as it turns 20. The piano stage has been turned into a giant birthday cake with candles on top, one man is dressed as a toilet to commemorate the porcelain anniversary, and Jarvis Cocker leads a spirited singalong of Happy Birthday while wishing for 20 more years.

Retaining a core identity while also expanding and evolving has been key to that longevity. While early days were centred more on alt-folk and Americana, EOTR is now a genre-hopping powerhouse, blending everything from pop fun to noisy experimentation via global grooves, and with an equal focus on the familiar and the unknown.

Representing the former, Geese manage to pull in record audience attendance levels for their Thursday headliner show, while Pulp use theirs to announce a hiatus and they bow out with a set of deep, deep cuts and B-sides (including a beautifully sprawling and pulsing live debut of Deep Fried in Kelvin). It could have backfired spectacularly – with not even a nod to a hit song until almost an hour in – but while it was steadfastly uncompromising it was also a joyous rummage through the archive of true art-pop pioneers.

CMAT also announces she won’t be playing the UK for two years during her headline set, which wraps up with the singer shirtless and deep in the audience for some collective cathartic screaming to say goodbye. Angine de Poitrine’s microtonal math-rock, as though styled by Alejandro Jodorowsky on a B-movie budget, may be still firmly in the leftfield camp but they are on the main stage after their huge breakthrough year, turning their frantic and frenetic instrumental workouts into an oddly big-crowd-friendly routine.

Beyond the heavy hitters, the lineup has a deeply impressive wingspan. Factory Floor are in phenomenal form as they knock out a pummeling set of industrial electro-techno. Experimental electronic duo Another Country $$$ span everything from drum’n’bass to post-rock, while Cleo Reed’s queer country-soul (cuntry, as she calls it) is playful and sweet but also angry and impassioned. James K creates swirling electronic sounds that are so richly layered, dynamic and immersive, it’s like being pulled in and out of a dream state. Model/Actriz unleash a ferocious noise that manages to be as heavy as it is groove-locked – almost recalling a sweet spot between Perfume Genius and Gilla Band – as well as theatrical, with vocalist Cole Haden either doing endless ballet twirls or down in the audience whipping them into a frenzied state. But what’s especially infectious and energising at End of the Road is how everything, big or small, weird or poppy, is proportionally and enthusiastically attended. Everything is lapped up with the same appetite and gusto.

Twenty years on from its inception, the festival may be hitting a major milestone and delivering a vintage year, but it exists as a crowning achievement in a wider context. A medium-sized event (15,000 capacity) free of big corporate sponsors as money from brands and multinationals pours into identity-less festivals elsewhere, this is a rare yet deserved success story, testament to the enduring power and beauty of independent music.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Cats, Animals, Life and style, Pets
Title – The pet I’ll never forget: Harold, the halls of residence cat, who looked after me when I first left home | Cats | The Guardian
Author – Charlotte Smith
Link – The pet I’ll never forget: Harold, the halls of residence cat, who looked after me when I first left home | Cats | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T10:00:48.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/sep/07/the-pet-ill-never-forget-harold-the-halls-of-residence-cat-who-looked-after-me-when-i-first-left-home

I n 2022, when I moved into halls of residence at the University of Sheffield, my biggest concern was no longer having a furry friend to come home to, as I’d had a cat since I was 11 years old. Then I met Harold.

My first encounter with this gorgeous tabby was quite unusual. One day, in our 10-bed flat, a flurry of messages appeared on the group WhatsApp chat after my fellow roommates caught an intruder on the sofa, innocently munching on my leftover pizza.

As in many homes for first year university students, there were plenty of unfinished takeaways lying around the kitchen. And Harold was a smart cat with a clear goal: food. Any time he saw a snack or sensed one from a distance, he would come running. A can of tuna. A block of cheese. The occasional pancake. And I was more than happy to feed him – he probably had a better diet than me.

With the area housing more than 4,000 students, Harold was in high demand. He would choose a different home every night (we never found out if he had an actual owner), so I felt honoured when, from time to time, he would turn up meowing at my door. Catching him after a night out waltzing into our flat always cheered me up. It was the perfect end to an evening – as long as he stayed away from my chips.

You’d often find him stretching out in the sun, eyeing up his next treat, or waiting for the lift to his third flat of the day. But, once the novelty of the university pet wore off, some of my flatmates were less keen on letting him in, as they knew his game. For me, he was too charming to refuse.

At times I felt as if I was cheating on my childhood tabby, Pippa, who still lived in my family home – there was no other animal I could have a greater love for. But I cherished Harold in a different way. For a pet-loving student getting to grips with independent living, he was a home away from home.

At the end of my first year of university I moved out of the buildings Harold used to roam, but I would still occasionally see him strutting from flat to flat. Later on, I became a residence mentor, supporting first year students living in university accommodation. “Do not let the cat inside any student flats,” the managers told me during my training. On a few occasions, I may have turned a blind eye.

Today, Harold remains a campus celeb, with 10,000 followers on Instagram as Harold the cat of Endcliffe (the name of the halls where he was found). He is always posing for the student paparazzi on social media, and even has a part-time job – guarding the doors of the village shop.

I’ll always be grateful to Harold for the laughs, the late-night chats and, most importantly, for being a much-needed anchor in my first year as a student.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – September 11 2001, US news, New York
Title – 25 years ago, two strangers met in the twin towers and escaped on 9/11. What happened next? | September 11 2001 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/davidsmith
Link – 25 years ago, two strangers met in the twin towers and escaped on 9/11. What happened next? | September 11 2001 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-07T09:00:30.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/07/strangers-twin-towers-escape-september-11

H e has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”

Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.

Their split-second decisions that day made all the difference. Over the next 25 years, both men moved from middle age into old age and retirement. Both enjoyed family weddings and watched children and grandchildren grow. Both saw US presidents come and go as old wars ended and new wars began . They remained friends through it all.

They also told their story – countless times – in churches, schools, TV studios and elsewhere. “It could be 800, 1,200, a number like that,” Clark estimates.

Praimnath, in a separate interview, muses: “People refer to me as ‘the 9/11 guy’. It doesn’t feel repetitive. It is like unloading baggage from my shoulder, like washing my soul with tears. It is comforting to know that people out there still want to hear.”

A cry for help

Clark is now 79, living in retirement in northern New Jersey with his wife; he has 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Praimnath, a decade younger, lives in Valley Stream, Long Island; he is a pastor, grandfather and empty-nester who speaks of his survival not as luck, but as an act of God’s grace.

Their recollections of 9/11 are still as clear as the cloudless sky over Manhattan on that September morning. Clark, a Canadian who was executive vice-president at the financial brokerage firm Euro Brokers, arrived at his office on the 84th floor around 7.15am. Down on the 81st floor, the Guyanese-born Praimnath had settled into his desk at Fuji Bank, where he worked as a loan officer.

At 8.46am, the peace was shattered by a deafening double boom as the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower. Clark recalls: “The lights above me flickered and I spun around in my chair and my peripheral vision caught flames against the window. It was surreal. Two or three seconds later, the flames dissipated and the airspace was filled with singed paper.”

Having volunteered as a floor fire warden after the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing , Clark sprang into action. He retrieved an official torch marked “WTC fire safety team” from an overhead cabinet and began shepherding staff toward the building’s central corridor.

Co-workers crowded against the north-facing windows, gazing up nine stories at the raging “ring of fire” consuming their twin building. Thinking the emergency was confined next door, Clark phoned his wife at home and his father in Toronto, reassuring them that he was safe.

Three floors below, Praimnath was on the telephone with a colleague in Chicago who had witnessed the north tower explosion on television and begged him to evacuate. He was looking towards the Statue of Liberty when he spotted another plane – so close that he could make out the “U” on the tail of United Airlines Flight 175 .

“On a given day, it was normal for a plane to zoom by a half a mile to a mile away,” he recalls. “But this plane is coming towards me. I made eye contact. I dropped the phone and screamed and said, ‘Lord, I can’t do this. You take over’. I don’t know why I said that – but thank God I said that.”

Praimnath dived under his desk in the foetal position, weeping and praying as the Boeing 767 bore down on his window. “With the most thunderous sound, the plane came and crashed into the building,” he says.

The aircraft struck diagonally at 9.03am, cutting through the 77th to 85th floors. The impact flattened entire walls, severed electrical wiring and sent a shock wave of jet fuel and debris through Fuji Bank’s offices.

Praimnath says: “That big orange glow that you see there – I’m stuck in the middle of it. Upon impact, it looks like a demolition crew came with a big giant wrecking ball and ripped the entire office. Every wall is flattened. I remember a large chunk of the plane was broken off and stuck in the office doorway.

“I remember flames all around me, as if somebody took a giant bag of cement, threw it in the air and I can’t breathe. The floor above me collapsed and it’s hovering over the desk and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to die. It’s gonna totally collapse, crush me to death, or I’m gonna get sucked out by the air pressure.’ You can hear the sound .”

At the memory, he sets his teeth and blows down the phone to recreate the terrifying whoosh.

Three floors higher, Clark was standing on the west side of the 84th floor when the aircraft sliced into the building’s eastern trading floor. “Our room exploded,” he says. “Everything came out of the ceiling – air conditioning ducts, lighting, the whole works. For five seconds the building swayed to the west and then it swayed back to vertical. For those 10 seconds I was quite terrified, thinking the building was going to roll over. But it didn’t.”

When the tower steadied, Clark gathered a group of six or seven colleagues and led them toward the central core. The impact had demolished stairwells B and C, but stairwell A, tucked furthest away on the north-west side, somehow remained open.

The group began descending stairwell A. On the 81st floor landing, they were halted by a man and woman coming up the stairs. “She was insistent we not go down,” Clark says. “‘No, no, no. You can’t go down,’ she said and, because she stopped us, it allowed me to hear a call for help from within the 81st floor, a muffled cry: ‘Help, I’m buried. I can’t breathe.’”

Brothers for life

Clark squeezed through an opening where the door frame had been ripped from the drywall and stepped into the dark 81st floor, guided by Praimnath’s desperate shouts.

Inside the office, Praimnath prayed for rescue. “I can still remember the flames encroaching and I’m screaming, ‘Lord, send somebody, I don’t want to die.’ I’m crawling away from the flames, dodging all the cables that were hanging in the ceiling, short-circuiting because the sprinkler system came on,” he recalls.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna die.’ Somebody had a flashlight on the other end of the floor. The person’s saying, ‘I’ll wait for you’, but I couldn’t hear because I got temporarily deaf when the plane hit the building. As I’m crawling away, the flames are coming closer, licking up the office space.

“I got to the wall. The person’s saying, ‘Bang on the wall, I know where you are’. I hit the wall and the person says, ‘Climb over there.’ It had a hollow ceiling, a 10-foot sheetrock wall, a drywall. I remember that so vividly.”

Clark’s torchlight had picked out a hand protruding from a hole in the 10-foot sheetrock wall. He grasped Praimnath’s hands and hauled him over the partition. The desk beneath Clark gave way, and both men crashed to the floor in a heap.

Clark recalls: “We fell and he gave me a big kiss. I said, ‘What’s going on, what are you doing?’ I stuck out my hand and said, ‘I’m Brian Clark.’ He says, ‘I’m Stanley Praimnath; we’ll be brothers for life.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have any siblings.’”

Clark noticed that Praimnath had a puncture wound on his palm, while his own hand was cut and bleeding from moving debris. Clark recalls his instinctive gesture of solidarity: “I smooshed our hands together and said, ‘In fact, we’ll be blood brothers for life. Come on, buddy. Let’s go home.’”

When they returned to the stairwell, Clark made the critical decision to ignore the warning of the woman on the landing. Pointing his torch down the staircase, he saw no flames. Clark and Praimnath turned downward. Most of the colleagues who had been with Clark, however, chose to head upward, believing safety lay on the roof. They died in the collapse. At Euro Brokers, 61 of Clark’s colleagues perished.

Lives intertwined

When Clark and Praimnath finally emerged on to the street, police and emergency workers yelled at them to run. Minutes later, the south tower collapsed in a cascade of steel and concrete, sending a rolling cloud of debris surging through lower Manhattan. The two men dived inside 42 Broadway to escape the choking dust.

In the chaos, Praimnath reached into his pocket and handed Clark a business card from a small home business he and his wife operated. Separated in the confusion, Clark used the number on that card to reach Praimnath late that evening, confirming that both had made it home.

While Clark suffered remarkably little long-term psychological distress – describing his lack of post-traumatic stress as an unearned “gift” – Praimnath’s return to the living was fraught.

Arriving home on Long Island on the evening of 9/11, Praimnath says he suffered profound memory loss. “I wanted to know what this strange woman was doing in our house with two children, not going home. I refused to go to bed because this strange woman was in that room.”

His wife, Jennifer, quietly cared for him without judgment. “She would hobble me into the bathroom, fill the tub with warm water and Epsom salts, and tell me to soak,” he says. “Then she would put me on the couch. Every day, she would leave an apple, a sandwich, a bottle of water and a notepad. I don’t know how long I was in that state. All I know is that one day, I got up, looked at her, recognised her and snapped out of it.”

When Praimnath returned to work in October at a temporary office in Jersey City, he still could not navigate on his own. “I had to draw out my commute on a map and color-code it,” he recalls. “When I got to work, people would say, ‘Stan, can you please sign this?’ I didn’t have a clue what I was signing. But they were kind, patient managers. Gradually, the pieces came back.”

In the quarter-century since that Tuesday morning, the lives of Clark and Praimnath have remained intertwined. They shared family milestones, celebrated at each other’s daughters’ weddings and phoned one another regularly.

When Clark’s eldest daughter married, Praimnath and his wife were seated at the head table. Praimnath says: “Brian introduced me to all his friends and family as his blood brother. You could see people looking around, thinking, ‘Something doesn’t quite fit the picture!’ But Brian didn’t care. That’s who he is. He is the big brother I never had.”

For Praimnath, surviving 9/11 opened a deep spiritual vocation. In 2006, he became a pastor, joining the staff of the church where his father-in-law was senior minister. Over the past two decades, he has travelled to churches, military bases and schools worldwide, delivering his testimony as a sermon on redemption.

“On 9/11, I was crying out to the Lord under that desk, ‘Lord, let me live to walk my daughters down the aisle,’ and God answered. I walked Stephanie and Caitlin down the aisle. I’ve lived to see my grandchildren, Hannah and Ezra. They don’t call me Papa – they call me ‘Papaya’. Stephanie even bought me a shirt that says ‘Papaya’.”

Yet Praimnath’s resilience has been tested repeatedly. In 1993, he narrowly escaped the first truck bombing at the World Trade Center. He was diagnosed with leukaemia and a severe bout of Covid-19 scarred his lungs with bilateral pneumonia. Then, after a trip to Europe with his wife, doctors discovered that his four coronary arteries were severely blocked, requiring emergency quadruple bypass surgery.

“My question has always been: how many times do you try to kill one man?” asks Praimnath, who retired from the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation two years ago. “I’m living by grace. I still travel. I still do exactly what I used to do before.”

Blood brothers

He and Clark know they have more years behind them than lie ahead. On the 25th anniversary , Clark will attend a memorial service at his local town square in New Jersey, beginning at 8.45am, before spending the day quietly with his wife. Praimnath will be at a church in Virginia, telling his story once again, with gratitude.

Both men find themselves speaking to a generation for whom 9/11 is not a living memory, but history. Clark, who retired in 2006, says: “I don’t have to teach history anymore – the textbooks have that covered. What textbooks don’t have is the emotional reality, the optimism that life carries on despite terrible evil. But whenever I speak at schools, 98% of the time, the very first question the kids ask is: ‘Are you still in touch with Stanley?’”

Praimnath experiences the exact same phenomenon. Just recently, he addressed 700 students over Zoom at a Christian school in Tampa, Florida. “These children weren’t even alive when the towers fell,” Praimnath says. “Yet when you describe the roar of the jet engine and the wing slicing through the office, you can hear the audible gasp in the auditorium. It becomes real to them.”

The blood brothers look out at the contemporary US with a mixture of sorrow and perplexity. Clark has become an outspoken pacifist, dismayed by the decades of overseas conflict that followed the attacks.

He says: “With 25 years of time to think about it, I realise more and more the utter futility of war. I think of Germany, Italy, and Japan being our greatest allies today. What on earth are we doing to ourselves? Dropping bombs on residential areas in Ukraine, Russia, Gaza – what a senseless waste of energy and human life.”

Clark’s aversion to vengeance ran so deep that he was repulsed by the street celebrations following the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. “I was disgusted when people were driving around in pickup trucks chanting ‘USA!’ and cheering for another human being’s death. Capture him, interrogate him, lock him away – fine. But taking lives and celebrating it? No. That is not who we should be.”

Praimnath recalls the profound but fleeting sense of unity that blossomed after 9/11. “After that infamous day, the entire nation rallied around each other,” he reflects. “All the churches were packed. A month later, everything went back to normal.

“But I still believe we are a resilient people. We may have our political differences but at the end of the day we know that, when tragedy strikes, the labels fall away. On the 81st floor, there were no Republicans or Democrats, no Black or white. We were just brothers trying to find the way out.”

The subheading on this article was amended on 7 September 2026. An earlier version said the interviewees escaped from the north tower, rather than the south. Stanley Praimnath’s surname was also misspelled.