
AI datacentres are almost universally unpopular. They are loud, unsightly and drain environmental resources, with most of the profits generated flowing back to the US companies that build them – and the statistics against them are piling up.
Guardian reporter Hettie O’Brien visits Brick Lane in east London, where people are trying to resist plans for a 5,200-sq metre datacentre being pushed through by the government, to find out why people hate them so much
Continue reading...Despite a long absence from parliament, Burnham showed he could hold his own and, despite some nerves, even enjoy himself
The coming months will show whether Andy Burnham fits Kemi Badenoch’s charge of a leader too obsessed with being liked to make hard choices. One thing, however, does seem clear from his first outing at prime minister’s questions: he likes saying yes.
The very first question came from a political opponent – Ann Davies of Plaid Cymru – but Burnham replied as if she was a valued constituent, saying he understood her worries about the prison early release scheme and hoped she could be reassured.
Continue reading...The story of a serial killer taking revenge on the rich predatory men who abused her just earned a fantastic finale. With career-defining acting, daring Epstein parallels and super dark comedy, it’s a total must-watch
You could easily watch the first few minutes of Furious without knowing that it would turn out to be so special. It opens with a scene of pure horror: it’s Halloween night and a real monster is hiding among the pretend ones. A woman we come to know as Catherine Grace (an astonishingly good Lola Petticrew) is inside a man’s house, wearing a creepy kitten mask. The man is in bad shape, crawling on the floor, gasping for air and begging for his life. Catherine is alternately chirpy and tender with him, but eventually, she loses her patience with his pleading. She takes a syringe filled with fentanyl out of a pencil case decorated with sparkly stickers and jewels and finishes the job.
So far, so creepy crime drama, but Furious is already hiding in plain sight, because the monster is not who we think it is. What looks as if it will be a cat-and-mouse story, in which a tenacious FBI agent hunts a twisted serial killer, quickly rips up any expectations. We learn that Catherine was trafficked into sex work as a teenager, and is now making her way through a kill list of predatory and powerful men. Her life has been shaped by a conspiracy of abuse, violence, neglect and indifference. She has decided to take matters into her own broken hands.
Continue reading...‘U-turn’ doesn’t do justice to the myriad ways he found to break a pledge. Now the former PM is resigning as an MP, why did I have such high hopes?
Keir Starmer exits the British political stage as he entered it: doing the exact opposite of the thing he said he was going to do. It’s only 10 weeks since he pledged to remain as MP for Holborn and St Pancras until the next election, despite stepping down as prime minister. That’s plainly the decent course of action: a dedicated Labour man wouldn’t want to force a byelection. Even if it’s a slam dunk for the party, it inevitably draws focus and resources from more important matters. Someone who takes the business of representing constituents even a 10th as seriously as all MPs say they do would feel that the honour of those votes should be repaid.
It’s a pretty boring life for an ex-PM turned backbencher. You have to keep your counsel as a large amount of blame is tacitly shovelled your way, while keeping your opinions to yourself. But that second requirement was the one thing Starmer was really good at. Once it transpired that the opinions he said out loud were open to endless revision and denial, I was never able to figure out what the real ones were.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Referencing Tarkovsky and French theory, the Austrian-Iranian singer is writing some of today’s wittiest music – though she’s ‘too pop for the art world, too indie-darling for the mainstream’
You wait ages for a brilliant pop song about film-making and then two come along at once. Following on from Charli xcx’s Camera comes Actress by Sofie Royer, with lyrics referencing rotoscoping, call sheets, screenplays, establishing shots, cinéma verité and more. “When the dust settles on your heart / I’d like to audition for the leading part,” she purrs over pumping disco, screwball-funny as she stacks up the metaphors to woo some Letterboxd-brained beau. “My mise-en-scène is flawless, don’t you know I’m quite adored / I’ll win you over in 35mm 4K-restored.”
It’s a typically smart and witty number from a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and, as it happens, aspiring actor, whose erudition and taste light up one of the best albums of the year, the forthcoming Before/After. Its lead single Cowboy Mouth is a recreation of a Sam Shepard play in song; another song makes a catchy funk-pop chorus from the word “sesquicentennial”. Her music is cosmopolitan enough to sit Italo disco next to new wave and garage rock, and across her discography there’s a big cast of cultural figures from Andrei Tarkovsky to Kenneth Anger, Luigi Mangione to Ivy Wolk, knowingness offset by her keen sense of humour.
Continue reading...I was forced to examine the idea of sexual pleasure after a tumor was removed from my spinal cord
Ten years ago, my right elbow started to hurt. The internet suggested I had tennis elbow, so I stopped playing tennis. Once the outer elbow pain moved inward, I changed my self-diagnosis to golfer’s elbow. I stopped lifting weights, competitive dragon-boating and bouldering.
For good measure, I consulted an occupational therapist about my nightly bullet-vibrator routine after reading that golfer’s elbow is common among construction workers who operate heavy-duty vibrating machinery. He listened closely and said he’d note VRI on my patient chart. I asked what VRI meant, eager to end my diagnostic journey. “Vibrator-related injury,” he responded. We busted out laughing.
Continue reading...In first PMQs clash with Kemi Badenoch, prime minister rejects comparison to Liz Truss’s government
Andy Burnham blamed the Conservatives’ legacy for leaving the UK vulnerable to market turmoil, in his first prime ministers’ questions clash with Kemi Badenoch, as the UK’s borrowing costs climbed further.
The Conservative leader compared the market pressure on Burnham’s second day to Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. But the prime minister said it was the Tories’ failure to address the UK’s growth and debt which meant the economy was exposed to market shocks.
Continue reading...Guardian City editor Anna Isaac among those who had credentials to cover event declined
Reform UK has banned at least three journalists from its annual conference who have reported critically on the party and Nigel Farage.
The Guardian’s City editor, Anna Isaac, the investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan and the broadcaster and biographer Michael Crick were told this week that their credentials to cover the event, which begins on Thursday, had been declined.
Continue reading...Two men and two women charged with murder after body of newborn girl found with 33 stab wounds
A newborn baby girl died from multiple stab wounds before she was found on top of a washing machine in an outhouse in Sheffield, a court has heard.
Two men and two women appeared in court on Wednesday charged with the murder of the newborn, named only as Baby S. She was found with 33 wounds from 15 separate stabbings when police were called to a property in the Wincobank area of the city on Sunday.
Continue reading...Thousands remain missing and aid is hampered by treacherous conditions in communities almost wiped out of existence
Searching for the body of his wife in the mud, Dil Bahadur Shrestha lamented that he did not even have a shovel left. For now, he has been using his hands to try to find her as he picks through the ruins of his house.
On Wednesday morning last week, Jamuna Shrestha, his wife of 50 years, had been at home in Betrawati on the banks of Nepal’s Trishuli River, feeding her beloved chickens and goats.
Dil Bahadur Shrestha, who is searching for his wife of 50 years, Jamuna.
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