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It is one of the world’s finest collections, full of Monets, Miros and Picassos. But is the great Swiss architect’s extension for the Beyeler Foundation a worthy addition? Or is it a bit luxury boutique?
In the early 1960s, when Peter Zumthor was a teenage apprentice in his father’s cabinet-making workshop, he designed his first cupboard. He later recalled the satisfaction of fitting the door so perfectly that it closed “with a special sucking sound”, saying his father instilled in him “the Basel pride in the well-built object”.
Six decades on, with a fleet of globally celebrated projects to his name, the 83-year-old Swiss architect is back in Basel, beaming with the same local pride. He is gazing out at his latest well-built object, which is also his first project here: a monolithic new gallery that looks chiselled from the earth, its layers of pale crumbly concrete hammered into shape, its big oak and bronze doors – their handles wrapped with leather cord – closing with that same satisfyingly expensive Swiss swoosh.
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 04:00:46 GMT
Since Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder in 1994, Denise Brown has devoted herself to ending domestic violence. She talks about her beloved sister, the trauma she witnessed in the couple’s marriage and how lives can be saved
The last night Denise Brown spent with her sister Nicole Brown Simpson was at a restaurant for a family celebration. Nicole looked out of the window. “All of a sudden she goes, ‘Oh my God, there he is.’ He was driving by.” Brown looked out, trying to get a glimpse of her sister’s ex-husband, the former American football star OJ Simpson. “I saw these headlights. She said, ‘He’s constantly following me.’” They went back to talking about their plans for the summer.
The following morning, 13 June 1994, Brown was up early at her parents’ house in Orange County in southern California, when the phone rang shortly after 6am. “I heard my mom scream a scream that I had never heard from a human being,” says Brown. “It was so guttural. Just awful.”
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 04:00:46 GMT
Wētāpunga can weigh as much as a mouse and its numbers dwindled across New Zealand due to predators and habitat loss
The population of New Zealand’s endemic wētāpunga – believed to be the world’s heaviest insect – is officially “recovering” thanks to a groundbreaking breeding programme that has overseen the release of 11,000 insects into the wild.
“The future of wētāpunga is looking bright,” said Dr Chris Green, an honorary researcher at the department of conservation, who documented the success of the project for the New Zealand Journal of Zoology. Green co-authored a report released on 2 October that outlines the success of the breeding programme.
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 05:19:45 GMT
Working-age adults such as my son, who is autistic, face a fragmented and unreliable system, yet ministers talk only of a national care service for older people
Seemingly brilliant conference speeches are often followed by a hangover, and so it has arguably proved with Andy Burnham’s. It was, it has to be said, something of a triumph, but there is now a familiar sense of nagging angst over how his big idea of a national care service is actually going to work. But equally, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to be more generous and patient. The policy issues are vast. The new PM’s commitment to serious change is clear. And having been urgently needed for years, the basics of what he wants – personal, home-based care delivered free at the proverbial point of need – will be on their way if Labour wins the next election.
Here, though, is a question that is much less finely balanced. Neither Burnham’s speech nor the much shorter address given by Yvette Cooper, the new health and social care secretary, contained a single mention of what roughly half of England’s social care budgets are spent on: provision for working-age disabled adults. Why not? I get the politics: fixating on older people’s care and the pensions triple lock makes everything clear and relatable. But England’s fragmented, unreliable system for younger disabled adults is in need of the same radical level of reform, and it’s the source of just as much fear and worry for the people who either depend on it, or eventually will do.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 05:00:48 GMT
The Tory leader says the party’s plans to cut people’s benefits are no more than ‘common sense’
It’s a thought. A bold one. Possibly a career-ending one. But a thought nonetheless. When Theresa May told the Tory conference in 2002 that under Iain Duncan Smith the Conservatives had become “the Nasty party”, many members took that to mean they had become undesirable. Within a few years, David Cameron had moved the Tories closer to the “hug a husky” centre and by 2010 he was prime minister.
Kemi Badenoch takes a rather different view. For her, being the Nasty party is a badge of honour. An aspiration. People had had it far too good with austerity, Brexit, Covid and the Liz Truss mini-budget. The country needed a reality check; a return to old-fashioned unpleasantness. A taste of genuine hardship. People had got far too used to getting something for nothing. Especially the physically and mentally ill. What they needed was a short sharp shock of intense labour from 8am to 8pm. That would make them feel better. And anyone found skiving would be banged up for a short time in prison. Say 10 years.
Continue reading...Sun, 04 Oct 2026 17:13:49 GMT
The actor, who is performing on the West End, was filmed telling theatre fans ‘you can’t come 20 times and sit in the front row, it’ll drive me mad’
Gillian Anderson has come under fire after the actor was filmed telling a group of fans that they were “distracting” her by repeatedly sitting in the front row while she performs in London’s West End.
The Sex Education and X-Files star was filmed outside the Soho Place theatre where she’s performing in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, telling a group of fans: “You guys cannot sit in the front row. I do not care; you cannot sit in the front row. It’s so distracting.”
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 01:02:01 GMT
Aircraft leave Gloucestershire base to return to US following arrest of dual British-Iranian national in central London
The US Air Force has pulled its bombers from RAF Fairford following an investigation into an alleged planned terror attack at the base.
The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the US, according to a Pentagon official who was not authorised to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on Sunday on condition of anonymity.
Continue reading...Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:25:03 GMT
Former prince to challenge whether Thames Valley police acted lawfully over searches relating to his arrest
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is taking action against Thames Valley police to challenge the legality of search warrants that led to his arrest earlier this year, a judicial spokesperson has said.
A private high court hearing is due to take place before Mr Justice Hilliard on Thursday to determine whether documents related to the the former Duke of York’s call for a judicial review can be made public; with Thames Valley police in opposition.
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 09:00:31 GMT
Election called after rightwing parties voted down emergency legislation aimed at tackling housing crisis
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a snap general election three days after rightwing parties torpedoed the emergency legislation his minority government had put forward in response to growing public anger over the country’s housing crisis.
Sánchez, who has been in office since 2018, used a televised address to communicate his decision, which had been widely expected.
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 07:22:01 GMT
Andrew Griffith makes speech today as Reform UK accuses party of copying policies they ‘announced weeks and months ago’
The Conservatives would legislate to force the Scottish government to allow a new power station to be built in Scotland, Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy secretary, is saying.
Bowie is speaking at the conference this morning and, in comments released in advance, he says:
The SNP’s effective ban on new nuclear energy in Scotland flies in the face of common-sense.
No part of Great Britain should be missing out on plans for new nuclear renewal.
Look, we are a broad church; it’s not a purity test.
But when people vote for our party, they often, as they did previously, they like the things that we stand for, but they were extremely frustrated with our inability to deliver those in government.
Continue reading...Mon, 05 Oct 2026 09:30:44 GMT
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