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Shakespeare to Star Trek: Patrick Stewart’s extraordinary life - The Latest

Tributes have poured in for Patrick Stewart, who has died aged 86. The distinguished actor had a long and varied career that began on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company before going on to global stardom on the screen in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises. Stewart was born in Yorkshire in 1940, and had spoken of a challenging childhood marred by alcoholism and domestic violence – something he campaigned against for much of his life. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw

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© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

‘I left shellshocked’: writers on their scariest non-horror movies

For Halloween, Guardian writers have picked the most efficiently terrifying films outside of the horror genre from How to Have Sex to The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Minor spoilers ahead

Hiding in plain sight throughout Lee Chang-dong’s deliciously enigmatic Burning, in which a spirited young woman (Jeon Jong-seo) disappears, and a wealthy playboy (Steven Yeun) gives serial killer vibes, is a disaffected male rage. That’s perhaps the most commonplace horror of our times, whether on the internet or politics, and you feel the tremors of it steadily breaking the surface in Yoo Ah-in’s performance. He plays Jong-su, an aspiring writer, quietly frustrated with his lot in life. Jong-su works odd jobs and tends to his incarcerated father’s dilapidated farm, growing more desperate to grasp some sense of control over the world around him, which is where the scary part comes in. Lee is the master dramatist who with Burning tilts violently into thriller territory, navigating elements from Taxi Driver, The Vanishing and Michael Haneke’s Caché, using the language of horror movies to conjure up a creeping anxiety and dread that erupts into pure existential fear. Radheyan Simonpillai

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© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

‘I saw the script and went: oooh!’ Olivia Colman and Alexander Skårsgard on their steamy folk-horror movie Wicker

30 October 2026 at 11:00

She plays a depressed fisherwoman. He plays a man made of wicker who is solely dedicated to her pleasure. How did the actors feel about this strange, emotional connection – and what did Colman draw from her own marriage?

Another year, another raunchy comedy-drama in which Alexander Skarsgård is the answer to a social outcast’s erotic dreams. “I fucking loved Pillion so much!” says Olivia Colman, reliably sweary straight out of the gate, as she brings up last year’s British indie hit starring Skarsgård as a leather-clad dom with a timid traffic warden as his submissive. “And when they kissed at the end … Aww.” The 52-year-old Oscar-winner for The Favourite gives a mock-sniffle and a little shake of her frizzy grey locks, then pretends to dab her eyes.

Seated beside her in a London hotel room and wearing a bright orange “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt, Skarsgård tilts his head appreciatively. In Pillion, it was Harry Melling who had the privilege of being ravaged by the 50-year-old Swedish actor. Now it is Colman’s turn in Wicker, an earthy adult fairytale filmed in Budapest and set in a medieval village populated almost exclusively by British comic actors who converse in language both archaically formal (“Happy to transact with you”) and bluntly colloquial (“I’d better fuck off”). Among them is Phil Daniels as a leering butcher and Richard E Grant as a doctor who is even more inept at his job than Grant was as a Celebrity Traitor.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Black Bear

© Photograph: Courtesy of Black Bear

© Photograph: Courtesy of Black Bear

Security guard who protected Nigel Farage on campaign trail was facing rape charge

Ryan Dinnage – who accompanied Reform UK leader on walkabouts before local elections – was later jailed, raising questions about vetting failure

One of Nigel Farage’s security team who accompanied him on the local election campaign trail this year was facing a rape charge and was later jailed for eight years, raising questions about a failure of vetting.

Ryan Dinnage spent time protecting Farage in April and May, but in June was convicted of having raped a woman while she slept in a caravan at the Royal Windsor horse show.

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© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

Security guard who protected Nigel Farage on campaign trail was facing rape charge

30 October 2026 at 09:00

Ryan Dinnage – who accompanied Reform UK leader on walkabouts before local elections – was later jailed, raising questions about vetting failure

One of Nigel Farage’s security team who accompanied him on the local election campaign trail this year was facing a rape charge and was later jailed for eight years, raising questions about a failure of vetting.

Ryan Dinnage spent time protecting Farage in April and May, but in June was convicted of having raped a woman while she slept in a caravan at the Royal Windsor horse show.

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© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

A Few Good Men review – Aaron Sorkin’s legal drama makes unwelcome return to stage

30 October 2026 at 06:00

Vivian Beaumont theater, New York City
Unconvincing performances and an ill-fitting big stage make a retooled version of the classic courtroom drama feel like a missed opportunity

Given the current state of the US military brass, it makes some sense that audiences would want to drift back to an older, nobler idea of the armed services, in which bad actors exist but are rooted out by the good guys in uniform. That perhaps explains the Broadway revival of A Few Good Men, Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 courtroom drama about a cocky military attorney defending two young marines who followed an illegal order with fatal results. The play is at once sharp and misty-eyed, critiquing a hallowed institution while reverently imbuing it with a certain dignity – in some ways, it does for the military what Sorkin’s The West Wing did for the Oval Office.

A Few Good Men was turned into a hit Oscar-nominated film in 1992, starring a then boyish Tom Cruise in the role of recalcitrant navy lawyer Daniel Kaffee and a frightening Jack Nicholson as Kaffee’s ultimate enemy, Colonel Jessep, the hardliner in command of the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, where a marine has died under troubling circumstances. Directed by Rob Reiner, the film is a clever, old-fashioned crowd pleaser, culminating in a classic trial scene punctuated by the line. “You can’t handle the truth!”, Jessep memorably bellows at Kaffee just before confessing to his misdeeds. Those in search of crackling drama and sentimentality about the military should just watch that film, rather than plunking down a considerable sum of money to see the play in its current form at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont theater.

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© Photograph: Emilio Madrid

© Photograph: Emilio Madrid

© Photograph: Emilio Madrid

Patrick Stewart brought gravitas and complexity to the screen, from Star Trek to X-Men

30 October 2026 at 04:25

From Jean-Luc Picard to Charles Xavier, the actor’s Shakespearean training – and that sonorous voice – made him a unique charismatic force in Hollywood

No actor showed the commercial potential of blue-chip British classical training like Patrick Stewart. With style, technique and the most minutely self-aware, almost vaudevillian sense of mimicry, Shakespearean thesps can turn their hand to American movies and high-end American television and show the American method actors how it’s done – sometimes, even, at the beginning of their screen careers, at a competitively low wage.

Stewart was one of the thoroughbreds of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1970s stage generation who had also had classy small screen roles, such as his intimidating Sejanus in I, Claudius opposite Derek Jacobi. But he effected a warp-speed leap to pop culture stardom by getting the role of Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Federation starship USS Enterprise, in TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, the hugely successful reboot of Star Trek that ran from 1987 to 1994, spawning four separate feature films and then another series, Star Trek: Picard.

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© Photograph: MARVEL/Allstar

© Photograph: MARVEL/Allstar

© Photograph: MARVEL/Allstar

Bostonians Compete to Be Their Airport’s New Voice

30 October 2026 at 00:06
By Christmas, the winning voice will echo through Boston Logan International in recorded greetings and announcements that millions of travelers will hear.

© Brian Snyder/Reuters

The competition to be the voice of the Boston Logan International Airport drew more than 5,000 auditions from Massachusetts residents.

Nvidia CEO reportedly targeted by an alleged Chinese spy

29 October 2026 at 18:23

Jensen Huang reported to have had close relationship with tech company executive suspected of passing intel to China

US intelligence agencies believe the Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been targeted by an alleged Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

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© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Nvidia CEO reportedly targeted by an alleged Chinese spy

29 October 2026 at 18:23

Jensen Huang reported to have had close relationship with tech company executive suspected of passing intel to China

US intelligence agencies believe the Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been targeted by an alleged Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

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© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Reform UK launches its own ‘newspaper’ with Farage on front page

29 October 2026 at 17:59

Party aims to build a ‘significant national publishing operation’ as first edition of the Reformer is distributed

Reform UK has launched what it is calling a newspaper, featuring large pictures of Nigel Farage, which the party hopes will replace mainstream media for its supporters.

Though the party is hiring qualified journalists to write its newspapers, the only “reporter” credited with writing articles is Farage, the party leader.

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© Photograph: Matt Fidler/The Guardian

© Photograph: Matt Fidler/The Guardian

© Photograph: Matt Fidler/The Guardian

Female Lib Dem MP accuses Nigel Farage of shoving her in parliament

29 October 2026 at 20:54

Caroline Voaden says Reform UK leader grabbed her by the arm and tried to push past her in incident in May

A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament after which one of her male colleagues intervened.

Caroline Voaden gave her account of the incident in May this year after Farage revealed on Wednesday that there had been a “physical altercation” in parliament which meant he had decided to avoid the budget.

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© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

Female Lib Dem MP accuses Nigel Farage of shoving her in parliament

Caroline Voaden says Reform UK leader grabbed her by the arm and tried to push past her in incident in May

A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament after which one of her male colleagues intervened.

Caroline Voaden gave her account of the incident in May this year after Farage revealed on Wednesday that there had been a “physical altercation” in parliament which meant he had decided to avoid the budget.

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© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Composite: House of Commons; Stefan Rousseau/PA

Делаем AppImage средствами Nix

«И что это я, в самом деле, всё про QEMU да про QEMU? Давайте я вам лучше про AppImage расскажу. Короче, случай из жизни nix». (c)

Для сборки QEMU с своими доработками (новые машины, tcg-code-quality, i2c-remote-master, GPIO наружу через GUSE и прочее) у каждого коллеги свой путь: кто-то собирает сам, кто-то берёт готовый бинарник у соседа, кто-то сидит на дистрибутиве, где glib на три года старше, чем нужно, а студенты вообще не хотят ничего собирать сами...

Хотелось простого: один файл, который скачал, сделал chmod +x и запустил. На любом x86_64 Linux, без root, без установки пакетов и без «а у меня не собирается». При этом сама сборка должна быть воспроизводимой, а не «собрано на ноутбуке у Пети».

Ниже история о том, как из этого получился небольшой flake, который собирает QEMU через Nix и упаковывает его в AppImage. Здесь я покажу как подписывать образы, обновлять их дельтами и подсовывать QEMU свою, экспериментальную libfuse так, чтобы она использовалась только для QEMU.

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Rare love letters to French aristocrat shed light on Louis XVI maritime mystery

‘Miracle’ cache of letters written by French scientist who died in ill-fated La Pérouse mission give personal account of 1785 voyage

As he prepared to climb the scaffolding to be publicly executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked: “Is there news of Monsieur de la Pérouse?”

He was referring to Jean-François de Galaup, the count of Pérouse, a naval officer and navigator whom the French king had dispatched in 1785 on a round-the-world scientific mission to rival discoveries made by the English explorer Captain James Cook.

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© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Rare love letters to French aristocrat shed light on Louis XVI maritime mystery

29 October 2026 at 14:00

‘Miracle’ cache of letters written by French scientist who died in ill-fated La Pérouse mission give personal account of 1785 voyage

As he prepared to climb the scaffolding to be publicly executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked: “Is there news of Monsieur de la Pérouse?”

He was referring to Jean-François de Galaup, the count of Pérouse, a naval officer and navigator whom the French king had dispatched in 1785 on a round-the-world scientific mission to rival discoveries made by the English explorer Captain James Cook.

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© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

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