With his Sundance film festival and institute, Robert Redford used his considerable power to bring generations of talented film-makers to a bigger audience

Robert Redford, who died at the age of 89 on Tuesday, will rightly be remembered as one of Hollywood’s finest leading men, a true-blue movie star and assured actor who was, to quote my mother and surely many others, “very, very handsome”. His many iconic performances – in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Way We Were, The Sting and more – certainly left an indelible mark on American movies. But he should perhaps be remembered more for his work behind the camera, as the country’s greatest benefactor of independent cinema.

Through his Sundance film festival and non-profit institute, Redford lent his considerable star power and funds to American independent film, and created what is still its most secure and enduring pillar of support. He provided maverick, cutting-edge film-making with a freewheeling marketplace and crucial buzz, helping to launch the careers of a true who’s who of critically acclaimed directors across generations. With Sundance, Redford played the role of mentor, patron, champion of the small and scrappy, benevolent godfather of independent cinema. It’s through Sundance, rather than his films, that Redford became, as the Black List founder Franklin Leonard put it on X, “arguably the film industry’s most consequential American over the last fifty years”.

Witty, foul-mouthed, camp and punky, it was the 00s answer to slick superclubs and the rock patriarchy. As its rough, raw sound returns, the scene’s eyeliner-ed heroes, from Peaches to Jonny Slut, relive its excesses

Jonny Melton knew that his club night Nag Nag Nag had reached some kind of tipping point when he peered out of the DJ booth and spotted Cilla Black on the dancefloor. “I think that’s the only time I got really excited,” he laughs. “I was playing the Tobi Neumann remix of Khia’s My Neck, My Back, too – ‘my neck, my back, lick my pussy and my crack’ – and there was Cilla, grooving on down. You know, it’s not Bobby Gillespie or Gwen Stefani, it’s fucking Cilla Black. I’ve got no idea how she ended up there, but I’ve heard since that she was apparently a bit of a party animal.”

It seems fair to say that a visit from Our Cilla was not what Melton expected when he started Nag Nag Nag in London in 2002. A former member of 80s goth band Specimen who DJed under the name Jonny Slut, he’d been inspired by a fresh wave of electronic music synchronously appearing in different locations around the world. Germany had feminist collective Chicks on Speed and DJ Hell with his groundbreaking label International DeeJay Gigolos. France produced Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Vitalic and Electrosexual. Britain spawned icy electro-pop quartet Ladytron and noisy, sex-obsessed trio Add N To (X). Canada spawned Tiga and Merrill Nisker, who abandoned the alt-rock sound of her debut album Fancypants Hoodlum and, with the aid of a Roland MC-505 “groovebox”, reinvented herself as Peaches. New York had performance art inspired duo Fischerspooner and a collection of artists centred around DJ and producer Larry Tee, who gave the sound a name: electroclash.

He marched against the Vietnam war, supported the Black Panthers, has protested over animal rights, ended up in prison after a climate sit-in – and starred in Babe, LA Confidential and Succession. He explains how he became the ultimate activist-actor

Amid the hustle of midtown Manhattan on Wednesday 11 May 2022, James Cromwell walked into Starbucks, glued his hand to a counter and complained about the surcharges on vegan milks. “When will you stop raking in huge profits while customers, animals and the environment suffer?” Cromwell boomed as fellow activists streamed the protest online.

But the insouciant patrons of Starbucks paid little heed. Perhaps they didn’t realise they were in the company of the tallest person ever nominated for an acting Oscar, deliverer of one of the best speeches in Succession, and the only actor to utter the words “star trek” in a Star Trek production. Police arrived to shut down the store.

From publicly shunning British Palestinians, to supplying parts for fighter jets, Labour looks increasingly out of step with international opinion

On Tuesday, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Its conclusion is unsurprising, with few states in history having been so brazen about their intentions. To take just two examples: in May, the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed”; a week later, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel is “destroying more and more houses [in Gaza, and Palestinians accordingly] have nowhere to return”.

At the beginning of this month, Labour’s deputy prime minister and former foreign secretary, David Lammy, wrote a letter to the chair of the international development committee, Sarah Champion, declaring that “the government has carefully considered the risk of genocide”, and has not concluded that Israel is acting with genocidal intent. How can two bodies come to such different endpoints? The British government has not come to a conclusion on genocide, because if it was to, it would have to face up to its complicity.

Tommy Robinson’s ‘free speech’ protest attracted more than 100,000 people – and it was easy to find links to key political figures and events in the US

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A young man in a suit made of union jacks held up a framed photograph of their hero above his head. The crowd loudly chanted the name. The focus of this acclamation was not Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, the organiser of the so-called “free speech” march in central London last Saturday.

They were instead shouting themselves hoarse for Charlie Kirk, the murdered political activist from Cook County in the US state of Illinois.

The big Beijing military parade included new weaponry that analysts say could potentially threaten the US Pacific territory

Like most people living in Guam, Jacqueline Guzman is used to hearing about the threat from China. The US territory of about 170,000 people lies in the Pacific Ocean and despite growing geopolitical tensions in the region, the cost of living rather than military aggression is front of mind for many residents.

Guzman says she is worried “about paying bills” and has trust in the US government to protect her.

On the first full day of his state visit to the UK, the US president will attend various events in Windsor before a state banquet

Lucy Powell has hit out at the “sexist” framing of her deputy Labour leadership campaign, with people claiming she and her rival, Bridget Phillipson, are standing as “proxies” for two men, Aletha Adu reports.

Most of Donald Trump’s policies horrify progressives and leftwingers in Britain, including Labour party members and supporters, but Keir Starmer has said almost nothing critical about the Trump administration because he has taken a view that maintaining good relations with the White House is in the national interest.

I understand the UK government’s position of being pragmatic on the international stage and wanting to maintain a good relationship with the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Faced with a revanchist Russia, Europe’s security feels less certain now than at any time since the second world war. And the threat of even higher US tariffs is ever present.

But it’s also important to ensure our special relationship includes being open and honest with each other. At times, this means being a critical friend and speaking truth to power – and being clear that we reject the politics of fear and division. Showing President Trump why he must back Ukraine, not Putin. Making the case for taking the climate emergency seriously. Urging the president to stop the tariff wars that are tearing global trade apart. And putting pressure on him to do much more to end Israel’s horrific onslaught on Gaza, as only he has the power to bring Israel’s brazen and repeated violations of international law to an end.

Annual August rate released as Bank of England considers holding interest rate at 4% to tackle rising prices

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UK inflation held steady in August, official figures show, maintaining pressure on households as the Bank of England prepares to keep borrowing costs at elevated levels.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the annual rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index remained at 3.8% last month, the same level as July and matching the forecasts of City economists.

The Israeli military said the route via Salah al-Din street ‘will be open for 48 hours only’ with another coastal route available for just two hours

The Israeli army said it has struck more than 150 targets in Gaza City since launching a major ground offensive on the Gaza Strip’s main urban hub early on Tuesday.

“Over the past two days, the [Israeli air force] and artillery corps troops struck over 150 terror targets throughout Gaza City in support of the manoeuvring troops in the area,” the military said in a statement issued on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

No one can fail to be distressed by the devastating impact the war has had on the children of Gaza, and I cannot imagine the fear and anguish their families have endured. It is a soul-destroying situation that compels us to act.

Every child deserves the chance to heal, to play, to simply be able to dream again. These young patients have witnessed horrors no child should ever see, but this marks the start of their journey towards recovery.

In Gaza, where the healthcare system has been decimated and hospitals are no longer functioning, there are severely ill children unable to get the medical care they need to survive.

As we welcome the first group of children to the UK for urgent treatment, their arrival reflects our determined commitment to humanitarian action and the power of international cooperation.

Minister insists court ruling that blocked deportation of Eritrean man ‘will not undermine basis’ of deal with France

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Keir Starmer’s returns deal with France will go ahead, a cabinet minister has insisted, despite a high court ruling that temporarily blocked the deportation of an Eritrean man.

Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, said the last-minute injunction stopping the 25-year-old from being flown to Paris would not scupper the “one in, one out” scheme for ever.