Pope Leo urges healing of ‘deep wounds’ before meeting child sexual abuse survivors in France 27. September 2026 (14:20) Catholic church must reckon with its ‘painful errors’, pontiff tells crowd in Lourdes during four-day tourThe pope has called on the Catholic church to heal “deep wounds” and “painful errors”, before a meeting with survivors of child sexual abuse as he continues his four-day visit to France.Addressing a crowd in a large field near the Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called on the church to reckon with its past, without directly referencing sexual abuse scandals in France that affected at least 330,000 children over seven decades. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Only 3% of US sickle cell patients receive red blood cell exchange for disease, researchers find 27. September 2026 (14:00) Various factors block sufferers of disease from receiving treatment that is effective and has widespread availabilitySickle cell patients are missing out on an effective treatment despite widespread US hospital access to the technology, new research has found.That treatment is called a red blood cell exchange, a procedure that discards a patient’s damaged red blood cells while simultaneously mixing the patient’s remaining plasma, platelets and white blood cells with red blood cells from a donor before returning them to the body. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Bad language: profane Trump brings presidential swearing out into open 27. September 2026 (14:00) President has let rip with swearwords in recent months, redefining norms about acceptable language in public officeWith a lifetime of political memories stretching back to John F Kennedy’s assassination and the Black civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Cheryl Johnson had one complaint above all else about today’s politicians: the swearing.“All this cursing in politics, we never heard that before,” said Johnson, a retired social worker living in the Pittsburgh area. “Words are very powerful, and the past 45 presidents of this country, have not used such vile language. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Houses can be built on floodplains despite failing safety test, says high court 27. September 2026 (13:48) Decision to allow development of 190 new homes in north Somerset sparks campaign for change in the lawHouses can be built on floodplains even if they fail a crucial safety test, according to a high court judgment that will be of “immense interest” to developers across England and Wales.The ruling clears the way for a highly controversial development of 190 new homes on north Somerset’s floodplains, despite the site being in “flood zone 3a”, the highest level of flood risk before land is considered a functional floodplain. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
‘Hell on earth’: last residents eat weeds to survive in Russian-occupied Oleshky 27. September 2026 (13:00) Ukrainian forces airdrop supplies in to city where bodies are left to be eaten by dogs because of deadly risk from dronesThe phone message sent out of Russian-occupied Oleshky was grimly matter of fact: food for the 2,000 or so civilians – including 50 children – remaining in the city and its surrounding villages had finally run out.“We’re in Oleshky [and] we can’t get out. We’re going hungry … Right now, I’ve got absolutely nothing to eat,” read the message from a woman in the besieged city who was waiting to be evacuated by the occupying forces. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
‘It’s hard to sell a house when it’s covered in baboon faeces’: Cape Town divided over plan to remove its monkeys 27. September 2026 (13:00) Two troops of chacma baboons are breaking into homes and shops but animal rights activists insist coexistence is the answerCape Town’s city council has said it will “imminently” round up two baboon troops coming into repeated conflict with residents. The animals will be sterilised and permanently moved to a newly constructed sanctuary. The plan has been fiercely criticised by animal rights activists, who say the monkeys should remain roaming freely, and that less destructive options have not been properly considered.Cape Town’s baboon problem has been brewing since the 2000s, after the city stopped culling troops in the late 1990s after pressure from the public. But in the past two years it has reached boiling point. A 2025 census found that the population had grown by a third since 2000, from 360 baboons to 493, now living in 12 managed troops. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI 27. September 2026 (13:00) ‘The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don’t feel they are making the choices in their lives’The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it”.When Reich asked whether this state would be a democracy, he got a cool no. “Democracy is too slow, and it holds science back,” he was told. “To optimize for science, we need a beneficent technocrat in charge.” Continue reading...(The Guardian)
‘Rip the plaster off’: Andy Burnham sets out vision for universal free social care 27. September 2026 (12:00) PM says he will put proposals for NHS-style service funded by everybody into Labour’s next general election manifestoUK politics live – latest updatesAndy Burnham has said that he is going to “rip the plaster off” to fix the broken social care system, as he set out a vision for a universal service that would be free at the point of use for everybody in England.The prime minister said the new NHS-style social care service would be funded by “everybody” but did not give further details of how his radical long-term plan would be paid for. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Trump allies could use midterms ‘counting window’ to disrupt results, experts warn 27. September 2026 (12:00) Fears grow that loyalists in key states could use critical period when votes are counted to amplify false claimsElection experts have warned Donald Trump’s administration could use the crucial hours and days after November’s midterm elections to disrupt the results after struggling to enforce a crackdown on voting.With less than six weeks remaining until polls close, and control of US Congress in the balance, the post-election “counting window” is seen as as a particularly vulnerable moment by former US federal government officials. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
UK politics live: Burnham confirms he wants new taxes to pay for free social care in England, saying many already paying ‘huge’ dementia costs 27. September 2026 (11:51) PM appears to be anticipating criticism of reforms that he will set out on Tuesday at the Labour party conference‘I can deliver’: Burnham pledges radical change on eve of Labour conferenceKuenssberg puts it to Burnham that, according to the Health Foundation, a system offering adult social care free at the point of deliver (like healthcare delivered by the NHS) would cost £18bn.Burnham says the cost is “not that high” (ie, not as high as £18bn).Not that high.But can I directly deal with this issue of the costs?Louise Casey is still doing an official review for us, so I will set out the vision, if you like, on Tuesday [in his speech to the conference].Louise will then help us with the how. How do we make this happen? When can we make it happen? Continue reading...(The Guardian)
