The mid-autumn festival, also known as the moon festival, is a celebration of harvest and family in Chinese culture – a time to gather with relatives and friends under a full moon. During the festival, people eat mooncakes – a rich round pastry that symbolises wholeness – and display lanterns: beacons that light the path towards prosperity and good luck.

It is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar, when the moon is believed to be at its fullest and brightest, coinciding with the harvest in the middle of autumn. In 2026, it will be held on Friday 25 September

• Avant-garments: the wild world of wearable art – in pictures

I refuse to play host to a man who has overseen the slaughter or injury of more than 64,000 children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars. I refuse to be complicit in genocide

Benjamin Netanyahu belongs at The Hague; not in the streets of New York City, and certainly not before the United Nations general assembly. The international criminal court has a warrant out for his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN’s own commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and named Netanyahu as its chief architect.

As the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district, I refuse to allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city unchallenged. I refuse to play host to a man who has overseen the slaughter or injury of more than 64,000 children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars. I refuse to be complicit in genocide.

Darializa Avila Chevalier is the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district

Warnings about the catastrophic effects of vital ecosystems collapsing were not published under previous PM

• UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

UK spy chiefs warned government ministers of the catastrophic impacts on national security from the collapse of vital ecosystems around the world, driven by the climate crisis and the overexploitation of nature. But their report, which was supposed to be published almost a year ago, was suppressed under Keir Starmer. Now the government is briefing foreign ministers from other countries on the findings, with a view to gathering global support for more concerted action on the risks.

US consumers are starting to opt out of the streaming world as several services raise prices without offering many perks

It may not be quite as politically buzzy as the price of gasoline or eggs, but another household expense is going up for millions of people. Disney has brought the price-gouging experience of its theme park home again by raising the prices of most iterations and bundles of its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services. Whether you pay to watch them with or without ads, separately or bundled together, you’re probably getting a price hike of a couple of bucks per month. The few bundles that will remain the same price feature ad-supported versions of both services (plus ESPN). Don’t worry, though; paying extra to avoid the ad-supported versions of those services won’t mean that you’re missing out on some cross-promotional opportunities. Disney’s terms of service note that they reserve the right to insert ads before and after programming on whatever subscription tier they want, regardless of what you’re paying for. True magic!

This particular magic isn’t reserved for Disney, though. Price hikes among streaming services have become so common that The Verge has a dedicated page aggregating the news of them, which tends to arrive every few months. Apple, apparently high on Emmy fumes, has raised its prices four times in four years, keeping pace with many of its competitors despite a vastly smaller dedicated catalog. Depending on which version of Peacock subscribers use, they’ve seen their bills padded by five or six dollars a month just since the summer of 2025, including another increase last month. Netflix, meanwhile, hasn’t gone up since March 2026. That’s not a reprieve; that’s a sign another hike must be around the corner.

Bullying, manipulation and intimidation can destroy lives, yet abusive authoritarians continue to rise to the top. How do they get away with it – and can they be brought to heel?

When Andrea finally resigned, her colleagues told her the truth they had always known about her boss. Some apologised. Others admitted they had watched what happened to her and said nothing. One offered the sentence I have been unable to forget: “You’ve been an emotional stab vest for us. You protected us.”

Andrea was a senior legal executive with decades of credibility when she began reporting to a powerful new colleague. Within months, something was wrong. Expectations shifted without warning and feedback contradicted itself. He spoke over her in public and undermined her in private. Slowly she began questioning not just him but herself, her competence, even her grip on reality.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor answers your questions on being confused with James Nesbitt, his own Sliding Doors moment and a new perspective since turning 60

How often do you get asked to recite that WH Auden poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral, and can you do it from memory right now? mattyjj and simoit
Not for a long time. I could probably do the first couple of lines: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone / Turn out the lights? And with muffled drums / Something, something … let the mourners come. There you go. Terrible!

In Steve Coogan’s Paul Calf’s Video Diary, your character praises Orson Welles’ The Trial for its “tremendous energy”, while Paul says he would “rather watch Dave Lee Travis playing Macbeth”. What’s your actual opinion of The Trial [by Franz Kafka]? AdrianH1
God, it’s a long time since I’ve read that. I read a lot of those books in my younger days, but probably, like a lot of people, even those who are graduates of English literature, I’d be hard pushed these days to tell you what it was about, other than the persecution of some minor character.

Patient groups decry ‘scandalous’ delays as four integrated care boards take step due to soaring demand for diagnoses

NHS bodies are forcing people with suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism to wait at least two years before they can be assessed as they struggle to meet surging demand for diagnoses of neurodiversity.

Four NHS integrated care boards (ICBs) covering large regions of England have adopted the approach because they cannot afford the cost of the number of assessments that people are seeking.

Thirty-seven-year-old charged with one count of criminal damage and failing to disclose his phone pin to police

The far-right agitator and anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas has been charged with criminal damage and failing to disclose his phone pin to police following an incident in the Channel on Tuesday, where he allegedly slashed a dinghy while a French rescuer was on board.

Thomas, 37, of no fixed abode, has been charged with one count of criminal damage along with an offence under section 53 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), for allegedly failing to comply with a notice to disclose a phone pin to police.

Chinese president’s proposals for lessening tensions come amid period of intense competition between the two countries over AI and trade

Xi Jinping has called for extensive cooperation with Washington to avoid the “Thucydides trap” that could put the US and China on a military collision course amid rising tensions over artificial intelligence, trade and Taiwan.

At the start of his summit meeting with Donald Trump in the White House, the Chinese president laid out terms for a mutual understanding that he said could steer the two competing superpowers away from future military conflict and on to a road of mutual gain.

The headline and text of this article were amended on 24 September 2026 to correct a misspelling of Xi Jinping.

Israeli PM attacks critics and calls New York mayor Zohran Mamdani ‘antisemitic’ in inflammatory address

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an inflammatory address to the United Nations on Thursday, decrying what he said was a global anti-Jewish conspiracy and swatting aside criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, as he faces down international isolation and a fight for political survival in upcoming elections in Israel.

As planned protests erupted on the streets of New York City, Netanyahu took aim at critics of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the international media, regional leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leftwing commentator Hasan Piker and the New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in an address that doubled as a stump speech to ignite his rightwing base for the elections.