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Company tugs at heartstrings with Pickles the talking toy dog as it celebrates 20 years of blockbuster festive adsJohn Lewis has turned to a celebrity best known for playing aristocrats to put a playful but rather upmarket spin on the countdown to Christmas with this year’s festive ad, which features a toy dog called Pickles and a glamorous granny.Kristin Scott Thomas, known for playing upper-crust characters in films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and the Apple TV show Slow Horses, is cast

National Cyber Security Centre expects attacks on critical facilities such as power stations, airports and hospitalsAI-powered malicious software is “highly likely” to be used in hacking attacks against the UK’s power stations, airports and hospitals by 2028, according to the state cybersecurity body.The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said AI will probably enable a ransomware attack against critical national infrastructure [CNI] between now and 2028. The UK’s definition of CNI covers a ra

He needs a dialysis machine to survive, but on a flight it was first damaged, then it was lostMy father suffers from terminal renal failure and relies on a highly specific dialysis machine every night to survive. British Airways’ check-in staff twice insisted on checking this fragile 20kg lifeline into the aircraft hold where it was first damaged, then lost.When his outbound flight arrived at Heathrow, it was returned broken resulting in a frantic search for a loan unit and hours spent in A&E so

Latest arrests come after DoJ unsuccessfully fought to force state election officials to set aside about 20,000 ballotsUS midterms – live updatesThe US Department of Justice (DoJ) in California has charged six more people with alleged voter fraud crimes, an escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the state’s election processes on the eve of the midterms.Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and a close ally of the president, announced on Monday that his office

Andy Burnham to launch ‘structured dialogue’ on issue at Commonwealth summit in Antigua and BarbudaAndy Burnham will ask countries affected by Britain’s role in slavery to help shape an expected formal apology, Downing Street has indicated, arguing that their input is indispensable in crafting an enduring message.The prime minister was en route to the Commonwealth heads of government summit (Chogm) in Antigua and Barbuda, which begins on Tuesday. No 10 said he would use the event to launch a “st

Donald Tusk is attempting to restore legitimacy to the country’s constitutional court. In a polarised country and continent, that carries political risksThe Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, must occasionally look towards Budapest and sigh. A landslide victory in elections last spring enabled Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, to act with ruthless determination to clean up the country’s politics after 16 years of corrupt Orbánisation. Mr Tusk, whose centrist coalition ousted the far-r

Credit to Arsenal for restricting opportunities at Anfield but Iraola will need his side to learn to unpick low backlinesLiverpool did not have a shot on target in their 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on Sunday, according to Opta, the first time they have drawn this type of blank in a Premier League game at Anfield since records began in 2003-04. They did not find the target in a goalless draw at the Emirates Stadium this year either, though in both games they struck the woodwork. The margins tend to be

From January, when the latest legislation comes into force, Australia will arguably be a world leader in gambling regulationThe 2026 Melbourne Cup is not due off until 4am GMT on Tuesday – which is 3pm local time on what is still a public holiday in the state of Victoria – but there has already been some spectacular action in the betting market for the “race that stops a nation” over the last few hours, with the Irish punting legend JP McManus, no less, leading the charge.McManus and his fellow

Thomas Laffitte on the threats facing the European Union and Giorgio Re on why the strongest defence must come from the democratic right and centre-rightYour editorial rightly highlights the European far right’s maturing plans for Brussels’ political machinery (The Guardian view on the far right’s plans for Brussels: doing the work of Xi, Putin and Trump, 27 October). Alongside these developments, the evolution of Euroscepticism itself deserves closer attention.As I argued in a recent report fro

Phil Dawson recalls falling in love with a saxophone-playing bear in Rafi Zabor’s The Bear Comes HomeI’m a little late to the table, I know (I’ve been walking in the woods while my porridge was cooling), but I just wanted to make a small addition to readers’ reflections on the fictional bears that have won their hearts (Letters, 23 October). When I was a youngster, neither Winnie-the-Pooh nor Paddington Bear held that much appeal to me, but in my 40s I fell in love with a “deeply human sax-playi

Jane Rosenthal and Siobhan McGovern respond to an article advocating for the death of email signoffsWhat a miserable whinge Tom Gill has subjected us to on the residual flourishes and formalities that linger on in salutations and signoffs in emails (The email sign-off is archaic – it needs to go. No regards, Tom, 25 October).Do let’s keep such greetings. They convey a great deal in tone and intention, and the nature of the relationship, not to mention the character and wit of the writer. True, t

Dr Rob Richardson and Dr Olivier Sykes argue that urban regeneration takes time to plan and deliver, over periods that extend beyond one parliamentary termThe fact that the vast majority of levelling up projects are unfinished is disappointing, but not surprising (Most levelling up projects still unfinished years after funding allocate, 24 October). Trying to push through such top-down projects in unrealistic timescales, hoping for electoral rewards, was a characteristically misguided approach f

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Ibstock has issued a thumping profits warning, with sales 22% below expectations in the third quarterWith John Healey’s Your First Home scheme on the way, is the mood improving in the housebuilding sector? A couple of the builders have results later this week, so can speak for themselves. In the meantime, though, here’s a thumping profits warning from Ibstock, the country’s biggest brickmaker, to spread a little more gloom. Demand hit a brick wall in the summer, as the company could have put it.

Chains in seven countries say cooling unit temperatures rose overnight in incident similar to hack of French shopsWho is hacking Europe’s supermarket fridges and freezers, and why?Supermarket chains in at least seven European countries have said the temperatures of refrigerators and freezers in some of their shops soared overnight to as high as 50C (122F), echoing a cyber-attack last month that caused millions of euros of damage in France.Retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembou

It’s 80% frozen and there are no roads outside towns, but that’s not stopping the territory welcoming more visitors than ever before with three new airportsName: Greenland (or Kalaallit Nunaat, the land of the people in the Greenlandic language).Age: The landmass is believed to have been settled about 2500BC. Continue reading...

Sunday’s win at Liverpool showed the Gunners are deeper, more experienced, and are playing against a weaker class of contenders than last seasonSign up for our free newsletter hereArsenal are three points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But given the team in second are Manchester City, who are likely to be facing at the very least a major points deduction, perhaps more significant is that they are five clear of Brighton in third. The season of domination that many anticipated from

Republican John Sununu tries to distance himself from unpopular president in race against Chris Pappas that has gone from ‘toss-up’ to ‘lean Democrat’Chris Pappas is stopping himself from getting too excited ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election.“I take nothing for granted,” said the four-term US representative and Democratic nominee for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat. “This is a very purple, competitive state. Elections are never in the bag here.” Continue reading...

‘Giving Lara Croft pistols meant we could show off her acrobatics. And when she goes to Peru, we threw in a T rex!’I joined Core Design in the summer of 1994 and met Toby Gard, who showed me his concept sketches for Tomb Raider. He’d already come up with the title and drawn a mock-up box cover with a woman holding two pistols. Continue reading...

The artist who was inspired by Swiss glaciers, the Vietnam war and her own divorce was sidelined from St Ives’ art history – but finally has a major retrospective at TateAt the centre of Tate St Ives’ newly opened retrospective of the British modernist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, her monumental altar-piece Glacier (Blue Cave) pulls viewers into its frozen tendons of turquoise and white. Its mouth is agape and the blue slit of its eye casts downwards to the rest of its body. The glacier feels human: