Stephen Colbert on Pentagon deal with Musk’s Grok AI: ‘Such a bad idea’

Late-night hosts mocked the Department of Defense’s contract with Elon Musk’s Grok AI, Donald Trump’s White House decor and Maga infighting over the Epstein files.“Trump got elected last year by making two promises: racism and bringing down inflation using racism,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. “So far, not so great”, as, thanks in part to Trump’s tariffs, inflation increased in June to 2.7%. And it could get worse, as Trump announced he would impose a 30% tariff on European goods starting in August

Post your questions for Craig David

It is, incredibly, 25 years since Craig David broke out with his debut album Born to Do It, a classic of British garage and R&B. The Southampton-born musician has since proven to be one of the former genre’s greatest ambassadors: he has said his recent single, Wake Up, is about “respecting my garage roots” and the importance of preserving genres and cultures “for generations to come”.That mission feels typical of David, a tireless and earnest pop presence due to release his ninth album, Commitment, next month. You can see the esteem he commands from the collaborators on it, among them Toddla T, Wretch 32, Jojo and Tiwa Savage. “Making music still turns me into that giggly, excited little kid who wants to feel the magic of it all,” he has said

The left must learn to take (and make) a joke | Letters

George Monbiot manages to achieve something quite remarkable: an essay on the corrosive potential of humour that ignores the decades-long tradition of the left wielding satire like a broadsword (How does the right tear down progressive societies? It starts with a joke, 10 July).Did we all dream Spitting Image, Saturday Night Live, Have I Got News for You, Ben Elton, or Jo Brand’s “battery acid” quip about Nigel Farage? The left practically invented modern political satire as we know it – and rightly so. Holding power to account through ridicule is not only legitimate but essential. But suddenly, when humour points the other way, it becomes seditious? Dangerous? Please.Humour is neither inherently leftwing nor rightwing – it is anti-hypocrisy, anti-power and often subversive

Stephen Colbert on Paramount’s $16m settlement with Trump: ‘Big fat bribe’

Late-night hosts rebuke Paramount’s settlement with Donald Trump and mock the Maga movement infighting over the Jeffrey Epstein files.Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show on Monday after two weeks in Turkey – “I heard so many great things from Mayor Adams about it,” he quipped – to blast his network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling with Donald Trump for $16m. “As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended,” he said. “And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16m would help

London arts centre to amplify global majority voices and ‘urgent questions’

A new London art institution aimed at promoting global majority voices wants to be a space for “difficult, urgent questions” alongside civil debate, according to its founder, who claims freedom of expression is under threat.Ibraaz will open this coming October in Fitzrovia, central London, and Lina Lazaar wants the 10,000-square-foot Grade II-listed building to become a bastion for respectful debate without the “aggression” seen in a lot of political discourse.It is funded by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, the philanthropic organisation named after Lina’s father, the Tunisian businessman who founded financial services group Swicorp before becoming a supporter of the arts in his home country.Lina Lazaar’s father has long advocated for north African and Middle Eastern art, but Ibraaz, which began life as an online platform, will launch as a home for global majority art and artists.“There has never been a greater need to create the conditions for genuine dialogue and a space for inquiry,” Lina Lazaar said

‘I broke down in the studio from all the raw emotion’: Richard Hawley on making The Ocean

‘I’d quit heavy drugs, got married and started a solo career … then my label dropped me. This felt like the last roll of the dice for me as a musician’My wife, Helen, had driven our two young kids down to Porthcurno beach in Cornwall. It’s where Rowena Cade had carved the Minack theatre into the granite cliffs. I’d been playing a gig so arrived two days later, and for a boy from a smoggy industrial city, the blue sea and palm trees felt revelatory.Roger, the landlord of the old smugglers’ pub, told me everyone had gone to the beach, so I took my boots off, rolled my suit trousers up and walked towards them