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This insider’s history of the CIA explores the last 50 years of US foreign policy with granular detail and mordant humour The 250th year of the American experiment seems to invite a reckoning. For a young country, the United States is overblessed – or burdened – with myths about its foundation and how the nation has conducted itself at home and abroad. William T Vollmann’s 3,000-page novel A Table for Fortune is an epic attempt, 15 years in the making, to engage with the US’s past and present at an institutional and a personal level. The four simultaneously published volumes offer both a family story and an insider’s history of the CIA, in order to show the consequences of the quest for liberty and the belief in American exceptionalism. Vollmann’s previous novels have explored the ideological basis of American society, most notably those of the Seven Dreams series, published from 1990 to 2015, which depict the generally disastrous encounters between American settlers and Indigenous peoples. A Table for Fortune continues this project by investigating the last 50 years of US foreign policy, at the heart of which is 9/11, with the book “tracing the roots of that crime in one direction and its poisoned harvest in another”. Though the CIA has been fertile ground for many great American novelists – Don DeLillo, Norman Mailer – Vollmann is perhaps the first to represent the culture and daily activities of the agency in granular detail. His great gambit is to frame this as a dark workplace comedy of minor resentments, sexual tension and office banter. These sections are narrated by the institutional voice of the CIA itself in a relentlessly sardonic tone rife with acronyms, codenames and jargon rendered in multiple fonts. The mordant humour of the narrator, who regards all forms of death and suffering as “fun”, has a seductive quality that allows Vollmann to educate the reader about a broad sweep of geopolitical subjects ranging from the Angolan civil war to the…

Such a punitive measure will leave people at risk of exploitation and severe poverty, says Mark Joselin of the Refugee Council Cabinet ministers are right to be worried about the potential impact of the new asylum bill (Mahmood infuriates fellow ministers by failing to reveal impact of UK migration shake-up, 30 October). The proposed refugee tax unfairly punishes refugees by threatening to slap most with a £10,000 tax once they are granted refugee status, a clear breach of the UN refugee convention. It is aimed at those who arrived with nothing and were not allowed to work while their claims were being assessed, and it ignores the reality that refugees already contribute through the tax system. Continue reading...

West Ham recover from 3-0 down to draw 3-3 at Cardiff Leaders Middlesbrough beaten 2-0 at Wrexham Scott Parker’s return to West Ham had had looked like beginning in painful fashion but instead featured a stunning comeback from 3-0 down. The east London club’s new head coach had watched Cardiff’s Jack Moylan help himself to a first-half hat-trick, before a rousing response after the break ended with Max Kilman levelling the scores at 3-3 eight minutes from time. Elsewhere in the Championship, leaders Middlesbrough went down 2-0 at Wrexham. Parker had been confirmed as West Ham’s head coach earlier on Wednesday, taking over from Nuno Espírito Santo, who was sacked on Tuesday. The club’s former midfielder was appointed on a two-and-a-half year contract. Continue reading...

The winner of the 2026 Baillie Gifford prize is a riveting work of ancient history that feels startlingly present • ‘Blockbuster’ history of Alexander the Great wins £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize In 336BC, Alexander was not great. He was a wiry 20-year-old “no one had thought much about” who found himself king of Macedon after the assassination of his father, Philip. He seemed uniquely unfit for the position. Desperate to prove his worth, Alexander led an army into the Persian empire to confront Darius III, a man who ruled more than 50 million people. Darius was so confident of victory that he brought his family along for the show. Alexander was outnumbered, and apparently out of his depth. He had suffered a fever that left him “shaking and helpless”, and dissent rattled through his ranks. A vast military force was bearing down on him, with Darius at the helm. “He did not know it yet,” Edmund Richardson writes, “but Alexander was about to become a legend.” Continue reading...

Some of Brian McDermott’s players will arrive home a week after their early exit from the tournament By No Helmets Required England players would have been well advised to ignore the advert outside their North Bay hotel in Wollongong over the weekend: “Everything that truly matters is possible,” it read. Not quite everything, it turns out. While England women packed their cases and headed out of Australia the morning after their World Cup campaign was ended by slick Samoa, England men are still stuck outside a party they’ve been told to leave. Having watched their fate sealed during the Tonga v Samoa game on Sunday, England have moved to Sydney but some players will not arrive home until Friday, a week after their World Cup ended. It could have been worse. They have been staying overlooking Wollongong’s wonderful beaches, where the distinctly salty smell of seaweed drifts in with the mist off the bay. The surfers among the squad could take a hundred steps from their bedroom and be in the water, and the players whose families are in town have been able to start their end-of-season holidays early. When Wigan teammates Junior Nsemba and Zach Eckersley reminisce about their trip to the World Cup, they may well talk about spending the afternoon riding e-scooters up and down Cliff Road or strolling along North Beach rather than playing against Tonga, France and Papua New Guinea. With the beaches, cafes and stunning lilac jacaranda trees on every street, there are worse places for dreams to end. But most England players and staff are just desperate to get home. Continue reading...

She has played King Lear, all three witches in Macbeth and an ape turned variety performer in Kafka’s Monkey. As she prepares for a new show, she discusses the soaring highs and deep lows of her extraordinary life Kathryn Hunter pulls off her black beanie and sits down. She hates having to keep still: “It’s torture.” On aeroplanes, she is always in the aisle, bobbing up and down. She has an inner restlessness, an energy looking for the right outlet – one that even eight hours of rehearsing hasn’t quieted. With the beanie, a body warmer and a cup of builders’ tea, the acclaimed actor looks as if she is on a break at a construction site. She is working on a stage adaptation of Eurotrash, Christian Kracht’s novel about a mother, played by Hunter, who is accompanied on the final trip of her life by her son, played by Ben Whishaw. As the pair come to terms with their dark past – and Europe’s – they must confront what Hunter describes as a “hinterland of silence”. In this case, it stems from the family’s Nazi ties, but Hunter believes “people will relate to it … in that every family has silences”. Working on the play has got her thinking about her own mother – and about the actor Marcello Magni, the co-founder of Complicité theatre and the love of Hunter’s life, who died in 2022 at 63. Continue reading...

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Up Next Previous Page Next Page Metro went behind the scenes to see how the high-speed trains will travel into London’s new mega rail hub currently under construction. London is being transformed underground as part of the HS2 works, with giant tunnels built to connect the sprawling Old Oak Common railway station to the line before its final leg to Euston. One of the recently completed excavations is the breakthrough between Old Oak Common and the 1,181 ft (360m) tunnels from the crossover box, creating an 8.8-mile connection to the West Ruislip tunnel, with the final blocks pushed out Jenga-style last month. Metro toured the London-bound tunnel near Old Oak Common with Rail Minister Lord Hendy, located a stone’s throw away from the upcoming hub. Going into the freshly excavated HS2 tunnel in London was a dizzying experience (Picture: Metro) Two London double-decker buses could easily fit through the tunnel (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams) It will combine the high-speed, Elizabeth line, Great Western Railway and Heathrow Express services under one giant roof. After entering through the unassuming-looking shaft on Victoria Road in North Acton, the first gigantic tunnel box opens up. At around 98 feet underground, the first thing to greet visitors is not a digger as you’d expect, but the figure of St Barbara perched on the wall inside a small wooden house. St Barbara, the protector of tunnelling workers (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams) She is the patron saint of tunnelling and has to oversee all work, a remnant from the times tunnelling was a highly dangerous job. One HS2 worker told Metro that unless a blessing ceremony is held before works, tunnellers will refuse to start. While the saint stems from Christian tradition, workers from all backgrounds ‘demand a ceremony happens before any tunnelling,’ he said. Latest London news Busy…

EasyJet is expanding its travel horizons this winter (Picture: Getty Images) It might be the final countdown to 2027, but there’s still time to squeeze in a last-minute getaway. Whether it’s a festive Christmas market or some winter sun, easyJet has pulled through with seven new routes from five UK airports. During a bleak time for travel, with route cuts and rising jet fuel prices, it’s refreshing to see airlines doing their best amid the chaos. So, if you are keen for a holiday over the next few weeks, or even early next year, here are all the new flight routes from the budget airline. Liverpool to Reykjavík, Iceland easyJet and Liverpool John Lennon Airport just celebrated the launch of its first flight to Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital. Yesterday’s inaugural flight marks the start of easyJet’s twice-weekly service, operating every Monday and Friday throughout the winter. Fares start at around £25. Christmas in Iceland, anyone? (Picture: Shutterstock / Patpong Sirikul) Following the route launch, which was actually announced in June, Kevin Doyle, easyJet’s UK Country Manager, said: ‘We’re really pleased to be celebrating the launch of our first flight from Liverpool to Reykjavik today, offering our customers in the North West even more choice for their winter holidays.’ Paul Winfield, Liverpool John Lennon Airport’s Aviation Director, added that it’s ‘fantastic to see’ passengers from ‘across the region have the opportunity to fly direct to Iceland.’ For Reykjavík first-timers, it’s all about geothermal lagoons and Northern Lights, which in December and January provide the longest hours of darkness, giving you maximum time to spot them. The world’s northernmost capital is also home to the iconic Hallgrímskirkja Church, known for its distinctively curved spire and side wings and the futuristic-looking Harpa concert hall. Manchester to Nuremberg, Germany Nuremberg is the ultimate destination for Christmas market lovers. The German city’s…

After Apple raised iPhone prices earlier this year, a new rumor claims it plans to launch the base iPhone 18 with a higher price, too. A Weibo post from leaker Digital Chat Station, spotted by 9to5Mac, says the base iPhone 18 is getting a couple upgrades with the price hike, including a larger battery and […]

A Korean family is willing to sacrifice everything for their children’s education, in the third book in Lee’s Diaspora Quartet “An excellent hagwon,” according to one of the characters in Min Jin Lee’s new novel, “is everything.” Every year, Korean parents pay hefty sums to send their children to these private after-school academies designed to turbocharge academic performance, where they spend evenings and weekends being drilled in mathematics, reasoning and essay technique. In the third book in what she has called her Diaspora Quartet – a follow-up to 2017’s Pachinko, recently named one of the New York Times’s top 100 books of the 21st century – she presents the fierce competition to snag a spot at those hagwons deemed the best as symptomatic of Korea’s scarcity mindset: in a country where university places and white-collar jobs are hard to come by, everyone’s looking for an edge. But over the course of the novel’s 650 pages, they also come to stand as symbols of pretty much everything you can think of: of country and culture; of failure and success; of responsibility, or the lack of it; of what it means to achieve, and of what, in the final analysis, the purpose of our achievements might be. The action in American Hagwon unspools over nearly three decades, and crisscrosses from Seoul to Sydney to California and back to Seoul again. At its centre is the Koh family: John, Helen and their three children, Bo, DH and Mido. When the novel opens in 1992, their life in Korea appears comfortably middle-class – John is a senior manager at a multinational corporation; Helen is an upmarket saleswoman, her commissions covering the children’s hagwon fees. But they are dramatically capsized: first by a personal betrayal and then again, in a brutal one-two, by the financial crisis that clobbered Asia in the late 90s. The family move, then later move once more: sometimes together, more often following their own trajectories; but always connected, and supporting one another as…

Dyson’s first electric toothbrush watches you brush and flosses for you, but there are far cheaper ways to get an effective clean • The best electric toothbrushes for every budget When Dyson announced it was entering the toothbrush market, the world responded almost as one: “Four hundred and twenty pounds? For a toothbrush!?” No, it wasn’t a stray decimal point – or if it was, Dyson is doubling down and leaning into the mistake. Unlike high-end brushes from Oral-B or Philips Sonicare, where the “recommended” in “recommended retail price” is doing a heroic amount of heavy lifting given the frequent discounts, the Dyson CameraJet will actually set you back £419.99. Continue reading...

I revealed yesterday that the new Xbox Nano controller supports a Wi-Fi connection directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming, and now Microsoft is making it official today. Two new Xbox previews will let players try out using a phone as a controller on smart TVs, as well as cloud connect on the Xbox Nano to connect […]

Sonos is rolling out a big app update that includes new Presets and early access to its AI voice assistant. You can create a preset to play music at a specific volume in a certain room, which will appear directly on the homescreen so you can quickly start playback. If you're in the US, you […]

In the final part of our conversation with Norah's dermatologist, we are focusing on cosmetic dermatology. Dr. Elizabeth Hale breaks down anti-aging treatments, injectables like Botox, and the latest beauty trends. Is "baby botox" a good move? What about salmon sperm facials and injectable peptides? Plus, Dr. Hale answers your questions about crepey skin, red light therapy, GLP-1 face, dark under-eye circles, and the skincare that matters most after 50.

CEO of leading production company says unless pay or exposure are high, creators are ‘not that interested’ in TV Broadcasters need content creators more than creators need them due to the shift in how the public consumes media, according to a leading production company backed by Elisabeth Murdoch. Founded 10 years ago, the trajectory of creator-led After Party Studios (APS) reflects the disruption of the old TV broadcasting model by content creators, as it makes what it calls “culturally relevant” shows with stars such as the YouTuber KSI and F1 driver Max Verstappen that pull in millions of views. Continue reading...

It’s 20 years since Jo and Richard Hill bought anything in Rotherham city centre. Why have they and so many locals abandoned it for the nearest retail park – and what would it take to change their minds? On 22 May 1987, retail history was made in Rotherham. Parkgate Retail World, thought at the time to be the UK’s largest open-air shopping centre, welcomed shoppers for some one-stop retail therapy. The official opening was marked in swanky fashion with a “breathtaking” display from Marlboro’s red-and-white branded biplanes, followed by a “spectacular” laser show, the first in South Yorkshire. Helen Worth – Coronation Street’s Gail Platt – cut the ribbon before jovial local people jostled to fill their car boots with goods from Comet, Jolly Giant and Poundstretcher. Almost 40 years on, the razzle is a bit less dazzling. Parkgate, as the retail park is called now, looks like any large big-box outdoor shopping centre you might find on urban fringes. There’s a Primark, a Sports Direct and a Matalan, plus (of course) a Frankie & Benny’s. Shoppers still seem to love it. “I think it’s ideal. It’s got everything here,” says Robert Gordon. The 66-year-old retired factory production manager had popped to Pets at Home to get a cupcake and toy for his dog Bruno’s fourth birthday. Continue reading...

I tested the fitness-tracking accuracy of the Fitbit Edge against the Apple Watch SE 3 during a 5,000-step walking workout, and the data reveals some serious surprises.

While it's not yet clear what kind of product the smart phone startup is cooking up, Nothing's CEO said that product is designed to leverage AI for productivity gains.

Pups that carry your shopping are one thing – but what about the mechanical canines being bought up in the US by ICE? Or the mutant mutts due to be developed by a startup called Warhound? Have you ever wanted to hang out with a dog with no fur, no face and a chip in its shoulder? If so, I suggest you head to San Francisco, where a startup called Dimensional has been paying people $20 (£15) an hour to walk four-legged robot dogs. This isn’t because the dogs need the exercise – it is because the company needs the training data. As reported in the New York Times, the goal is to develop “operating systems that can integrate with AI agents so the machines can act more independently”. What exactly will these machines do when they can act more independently? The founder of Dimensional insists they will help people. They might carry groceries home, for example, which is certainly something my tiny chihuahua-mix is incapable of. Continue reading...

X is introducing a new version of its web app that it says is much faster than before, and it's now rolling out the updated app "one country at a time" for signed-in users. "Open a profile on X.com over a slow connection," principal engineer Yagiz Nizipli said in a blog post about the changes. […]

The British writer-director, featured on the 2026 U.K. BAFTA Breakthrough list, supported by Netflix, also tells THR how "I always feel I have two audiences" and about his vision for "sign language cinema."

Social media is awash with claims iron deficiency can be identified in the mirror by dark circles, breaking hair and dry skin. But is ‘ferritin face’ real? Madeleine Finlay tells Ian Sample why so many of us struggle to keep our iron levels up, how we can actually diagnose low iron and the best way to correct a deficiency, with help from Hal Drakesmith, a professor of iron biology at Oxford University, and advice from Dr Sue Pavord, a consultant haematologist at Oxford university hospitals and associate senior lecturer in clinical medicine at St Edmund Hall ‘Ferritin face’: are social media claims about iron deficiency fact – or fiction? Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...