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Today:
The little-known friendship between Nina Simone and Langston Hughes
NEWS | 21 October 2026
“Nina Simone refined the strategies of resistance Langston Hughes pioneered during the Harlem Renaissance to create the soundtrack to the civil rights movement and inaugurate the birth of Black Power,” writes W Jason Miller, author of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, and the Birth of Black Power, a new book that explores the previously underacknowledged relationship between Hughes and Simone. The Guardian spoke to Miller about Langston Hughes, Nina Simone and their relationship. And Langston Hughes’ response was, “Why, Nina, I’d be happy to.”The audience gasped at the thought of their Nina Simone, North Carolina icon, being in connection with Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes had written promotional materials, so posters and newspaper ads had blurbs of support from Hughes. Right before he met Nina Simone, Langston Hughes gave a newspaper interview where he talked about his grandmother being part Lumbee and being part of the North Carolina tradition.

Top Stories:
You Can See Everything mania lifts viewership for The Dropout by 186%
NEWS | 21 October 2026
Viewership for The Dropout, the 2022 Hulu series starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes, surged by 186% in September compared with the month prior, according to Variety, after the announcement on 6 September of the previously secret film’s first teaser. Viewership nearly doubled again during the week of 12 October, increasing 92% over the week prior in the days before the film’s 16 October premiere. The film also pushed the weekend’s champion, the video game adaptation Street Fighter, to second place on Monday’s box office chart. Pundits are also predicting that the film could become the first documentary ever nominated for an Oscar for best picture. You Can See Everything will expand to at least 2,600 screens on its second domestic weekend, with many industry eyes on its box office rise.

World:
Jon Stewart on JD Vance’s rhetoric on immigrants: ‘cornerstone and intentional strategy’
NEWS | 21 October 2026
Late-night hosts mocked JD Vance’s apology for “imperfect” rhetoric condemning immigrants, riots in France and Katie Zacharia’s extremely brief tenure as White House press secretary. Jon StewartJon Stewart opened Monday’s Daily Show with a segment on Vance, or as he called him, “Vice-President Jeffrey Dahmer Vance”. The woman asked: “Why are you scapegoating immigrants for the issues you’re supposed to be solving as the vice-president?” Vance then apologized for his “imperfect” rhetoric regarding immigrants. “Aww, is it your rhetoric?” Stewart mocked. “Well, we were only on hiatus for one week, and we missed an entire White House press secretary,” he said.

Current Events:
‘It’s important that Michael’s voice is heard’: Jaafar Jackson says second biopic of his uncle will cover sexual abuse allegations
NEWS | 21 October 2026
Of all the criticisms levelled at the authorised biopic of Michael Jackson released earlier this year, the most persistent was that Antoine Fuqua’s film failed to mention the sexual abuse allegations against the singer. However, the enormous box office response to the film, which recently overtook Oppenheimer as the highest-grossing biopic of all time, has meant a sequel is inevitable. It’s someone else’s idea of what it is …”“And that’s really the issue we’ve been having as a family – not having Michael’s voice being heard. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted on other child sexual abuse charges, and died from an accidental propofol overdose in 2009, aged 50. “He’s become part of the collective imagination, and the collective imagination can never include the fact that he’s a paedophile.”

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SPONSORED | 21 October 2026
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News Flash:
Secrets, lies and a shock A-list cameo: how You Can See Everything became the film of the year
NEWS | 21 October 2026
We watch as Fielder, over a few surreal weeks in a beachfront rental, attempts to puncture Holmes’s indomitable facade of faultlessness. Was Holmes “being real”, for instance, when she told Fielder, with seemingly complete sincerity, that she has never told a lie in her life? Or when she continued to insist, despite plain reality, that Theranos devices could perform 1,000 diagnostic tests? But documentary tends to court the benefit of the doubt, as if their presentation did not reflect the makers’ own biases and motivations. I emerged from You Can See Everything unnerved: you maybe never know, but you still have to try.

Latest:
With nine new recordings of Mahler’s epic Resurrection Symphony this year alone, which rises above the rest?
NEWS | 21 October 2026
Whatever the reason, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony has already received four major UK performances this year: a season finale for the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, a season opener for both the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, and an 80th season celebratory concert for the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. The lineup of conductors is certainly impressive – including Kahchun Wong, Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Donald Runnicles and Paavo Järvi – but is it possible the market has reached saturation point? Sixteen years would pass before Otto Klemperer, who as a young man had known and worked with the composer, stepped into a studio with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1951. View image in fullscreen Goosebump raiser … Simon Rattle. That’s what makes Simon Rattle’s interpretation with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (released on 2 October on BR Klassik) so rewarding.

Breaking:
‘They were brilliant people’: fascinating film reveals a Harlem Renaissance reunion
NEWS | 21 October 2026
Like the David committee of the Italian Renaissance or the American Revolution’s Continental Congress, the Harlem Renaissance is one of those moments that makes you wonder: what was it really like? “I think they were shooting a lot of events, looking for evidence of the Harlem Renaissance,” Liani says. They were brilliant people.”View image in fullscreen Liani Greaves and David Greaves speak onstage. “It shows that the Renaissance was not a monolith of thinking.”But the issue that really hung over the party was how the Harlem Renaissance would be remembered. “I often think about this film as a recipe for a renaissance,” Liani says.

Trending:
‘They pulled a guy’s face off. It’s my favourite bit!’ Linda Cardellini on Freaks and Geeks, Mad Men and slasher horror Crystal Lake
NEWS | 21 October 2026
In Crystal Lake, the prequel to the Friday the 13th movies, Cardellini plays Pamela Voorhees, the original slasher of the 1980 film. It felt good’She liked the jump scares and the gore, which is handy, because Crystal Lake is full of them. Maybe that is digestible.”View image in fullscreen ‘Trust me, it’s going to get great’ … Cardellini and Jon Hamm in Mad Men. Photograph: All4On the subject of all-time-greatest TV series, Cardellini joined Mad Men in its sixth season, playing Sylvia Rosen, who has an affair with Don Draper. The fact that it’s another horror does not mean, however, that Cardellini is in her scream queen era.

This Just In:
‘We tried to levitate the Pentagon’: the almost unbelievable life of Ed Sanders, trickster god of the US counterculture
NEWS | 21 October 2026
“Charles Manson once wrote me a letter saying, ‘If I was as powerful as you claim then you wouldn’t be here,’” Ed Sanders tells me over a video call, savouring the menace in that sentence. Ed Sanders top left, with – left to right – Ken Pine, Tuli Kupferberg, Ken Weaver, Bob Mason, Charles Larkey. Photograph: Courtesy of Ed Sanders ArchiveIndeed, Sanders was a Zelig of the Lower East Side, friendly with Ginsberg (“A great man”), William Burroughs (“Unnerving, brilliant”), a then unknown Jimi Hendrix (“He was trading as Jimmy James. Photograph: Courtesy of Ed Sanders Archive“Some of the songs we wrote then we probably wouldn’t write now,” says Sanders, today more professorial than hippie in appearance and speech. Today, Sanders, long resident in leafy Woodstock, keeps the Fugs going with younger musicians.

Today:
Ali G answers his critics: ‘Me ain’t the first intellectual to get haterz’
NEWS | 21 October 2026
“Can you tell people that you’re from Hustler?” Ali G asks me. View image in fullscreen Back in da house … Ali G. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The GuardianNow he’s back in Ali G: Who Iz I? it happened to Jesus, to Gandhi and to Brooklyn BeckhamSo how should I address you – Ali, Ali G or Mr G? Did the world need Ali G, or did Ali G need the world? And that’s no bad thing.” So who understands Ali G better in 2026: the Guardian or Jacob Rees-Mogg?

Top Stories:
Selma Blair ‘did not intend to harm anyone’ during airplane incident, representatives say
NEWS | 21 October 2026
“Selma Blair experienced a medical emergency on the flight,” her representatives’ statement contended. “And the authorities took her dog from her,” said the statement, which described Blair as a disability rights and MS community advocate. Blair’s representatives expressed gratitude to the “handful of journalists [who] have taken the time to report on Selma as a human being rather than a headline”. Beside that case and the incident in 2016, Blair grappled with controversy when she apologized in February 2024 for an Islamophobic comment on social media. And she also starred in the acclaimed 2021 documentary Introducing, Selma Blair, which explores her life after her MS diagnosis.

World:
‘You have to dance like everybody else!’ Burkina Faso in full colour – in pictures
NEWS | 21 October 2026
‘You have to dance like everybody else!’ Burkina Faso in full colour – in picturesSanlé Sory is said to have taken a million photographs over six decades, documenting rapid change in his home country. A new exhibition looks at the moment he embraced colour

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Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 21 October 2026
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Current Events:
Michael Kiwanuka: Fudge review – rough and instinctive, but also lush and alive with melody
NEWS | 21 October 2026
In November 2024, Michael Kiwanuka released his fourth album, Small Changes, an extremely poised and self-assured piece of work. It turned out there was a second album, its songs written – or rather, jammed into existence by Kiwanuka and members of his live band – concurrently with Small Changes. Fudge’s release was announced in 2025, hard on the heels of Small Changes: it was reviewed in a handful of heritage rock magazines. View image in fullscreen Never self-indulgent … Michael Kiwanuka and collaborators. Indeed, you’re left thinking that Fudge could probably have been released as the new Michael Kiwanuka album, with no explanation of its genesis, without spooking any horses.