Автор: Файзик-Ха

A show full of deities, snakes and shrines puts three ancient faiths in the spotlight. Our writer seeks out its inspiration in the bustling metropolis of Mumbai

It’s the eyes that stay with you – piercing black discs that seem to vibrate against the intense orange of a goddess’s skin. The rest is a blur of silver, yellow and saffron as temple attendants encourage you to move, clockwise, around the murti, or sacred statue. For a moment it’s as if this shrine is the one fixed point in the whole city.

The goddess in question is Mumba, the patron of Mumbai, her temple at the beating heart of one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. A few streets to the east is the green and white splendour of Minara mosque. To the north is the intricately carved Jain temple of Parshwanath. All around is the noise and commerce of a place that Indians regard as their version of New York and LA combined – “the city of dreams”. Yet, far from being a godless metropolis, this is a place where religion is very much a going concern.

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Russian leader rejects Ukrainian president’s bold proposal for face-to-face meeting in Turkey

Vladimir Putin will not travel to Istanbul for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Kremlin has said, rejecting the Ukrainian president’s bold proposal for a face-to-face meeting in Turkey to discuss peace.

In a statement late on Wednesday, the Kremlin said its delegation would be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline Putin aide who led the only previous round of direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022.

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Cruise does things his way in this eighth and last Mission: Impossible, as his maverick agent Ethan Hunt takes on the ultimate in AI evil

Here it is: the eighth and final film (for now) in the spectacular Mission: Impossible action-thriller franchise, which manifests itself like the last segment jettisoned from some impossibly futurist Apollo spacecraft, which then carries on ionospherically upwards in a fireball as Tom Cruise ascends to a state beyond stardom, beyond IP. And with this film’s anti-AI and internet-sceptic message, and the gobsmacking final aerial set piece, Cruise is repeating his demand for the echt big-screen experience. He is of course doing his own superhuman stunts – for the same reason, as he himself once memorably put it, that Gene Kelly did all his own dancing.

Final Reckoning is a new and ultimate challenge (actually the second half of the challenge from the previous film) which takes Cruise’s buff and resourceful IMF leader Ethan Hunt on one last maverick, deniable mission to exasperate and yet overawe his stuffed-shirt superiors at Washington and Langley. And what might that be? To save the world of course, like all the other missions.

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How you pass your days is how you pass your life – mine seem to slip through my fingers

The other day, a visiting friend and I planned a trip to the seaside. I was taking her on the scenic route to the station, ambling happily along, when she pointed out: we might miss our train.

We made it with seconds to spare. My friend was very understanding, but it was a wake-up call.

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This kind of behavior from the Trump administration has gone on for so long that it is hard to rouse the media to cover it

It certainly looks as if policy is for sale in the Trump administration. After all, the president’s primary domestic policy deputy, Elon Musk, gained his position in the administration more or less by purchasing it: he is the richest man in the world, and the primary funder of Trump’s last presidential campaign, and it is seemingly by this virtue – does he have any others? – that Musk has been granted the authority to dismantle large swaths of the federal bureaucracy.

This is something of a pattern for Donald Trump. In his first term, it became de rigueur for foreign dignitaries to stay at Trump’s hotel on trips to Washington, a practice long perceived to be a way of currying favor with the president by spending money at his businesses. Trump funneled money to his hotel business from domestic sources, too: when Secret Service agents were required to stay at Trump’s hotels, they were charged exorbitant rates – including after he left office. Before their recent worldwide jaunt making deals with foreign governments and businesses that will financially benefit their father – including plans for a major new golf course in Qatar, built in partnership with a company controlled by the royal family – Trump’s sons launched $Trump, a cryptocurrency coin – that ever-popular scheme of shameless millennial grifters.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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Ellie’s endless ditties are more horrifying than mushroom monsters. But her painful renditions of a-ha and Pearl Jam aren’t just cringe – they signal a much bigger problem

This week’s episode of The Last of Us contained a moment that froze the blood. For a split second, the hearts of the viewing audience rose into their throats in horror. This is a show that has presented us with terror after nightmarish terror but, even by these exceptional standards, this was almost too much to bear. I am talking, of course, about the scene where Ellie started playing a Pearl Jam song on a guitar.

Within the broader world of The Last of Us, the song – entitled Future Days – is of enormous importance. If you’ve played the game, you’ll know the scene it hints at. It’s devastating. You’ll also know that, if the show hews closely to the source material, the general theme of guitars will eventually reduce the audience to emotional husks, teeing up the saddest, most hopeless ending to any major piece of storytelling in years.

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