The former BBC journalist has spent four years considering the misfits, misinformation and manipulation that are now central to US politics. In his new book, The Coming Storm, he weaves a terrifying narrative

Gabriel Gatehouse only got back from Florida a few minutes ago. His wheeled suitcase is still in the hallway of his London home. He was out there covering the US election for Channel 4 News and has had very little sleep, he says, but you’d never guess it from his twinkle-eyed sprightliness. His original plan was to try to get into Donald Trump’s election party at Mar-a-Lago, he tells me as he makes us each an espresso, but his contact told him to forget it; it was full, “and you don’t blag your way in when the guy’s survived two assassination attempts”.

So instead, Gatehouse headed to Little Havana in Miami, which has a sizeable Cuban American population. No Republican nominee has won Miami-Dade county since 1988, but “the swing to Trump was very visible”, he says. “People were just having a big old Cuban party, really, in celebration.” These were ordinary citizens, he says, not “the slightly sinister, Maga, nod-and-a-wink at ‘alt-right’, white supremacy, dictatorship” crowd. But he didn’t spot any upset Democrat voters. “I saw nothing but joy and happiness, and [the election] hadn’t been called for Trump at that point, but they could kind of sense it, they could feel the momentum, and they were right.”

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One of the original cast of the world’s longest-running soap, Spencer sparkled with charisma – and carried the show through seven decades that utterly transformed British culture

• June Spencer, long-time star of The Archers, dies at 105

On Sunday 14 May, 1950, a cast of actors assembled in a Birmingham studio to record the pilot episode of a new radio drama set in an English farming community. Perhaps they thought little of it. The next day they were back recording a serialisation of something that probably seemed weightier and more significant – George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss. But without much fanfare or even noticeable enthusiasm from BBC bosses, the drama was commissioned, and began regular transmission on the following New Year’s Day. The Archers, a six-day-a-week ritual on BBC Radio 4, is now the longest-running soap in the world. But with the death of actor June Spencer, aged 105 , the final link with that pilot is broken.

Give or take a brief break when her children were small, Spencer was a lynchpin of The Archers from that first appearance as Peggy – a cockney girl out of her natural habitat in the countryside, driven to distraction by her husband Jack Archer – until the final episodes she recorded in 2022. Spencer’s voice accompanied the people of Britain from postwar rationing and the tail-end of the horse-drawn plough through the utter transformation of British culture, society and agriculture, the ostensible subject of the programme. The Archers began three decades after the creation of BBC radio. The following 70 years saw the rise of television, the emergence of commercial channels and satellite, and the triumph of the internet, streaming and social media. Through that media revolution, Peggy’s voice – chiding, comforting, exasperated and loving by turns – endured, losing only its London twang.

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Some ex-girlfriends of accused men tell court of the burden of not knowing if they had been drugged

Giving evidence in Avignon’s criminal court, a softly spoken woman in her 30s pondered the question if the medication she took as part of managing her multiple sclerosis might have allowed her ex-partner, Cédric G, to sexually abuse her without her knowledge. She described their relationship as “lies, from start to finish”.

Cédric G, 50, a software technician who used to run a record shop in Avignon, looked on from behind the glass-screened dock in the court. He is one of 51 men on trial over the rape of Gisèle Pelicot , whose then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.

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Wolves look for a first win of the season at home to fellow strugglers Southampton while Liverpool host Aston Villa

Saturday 3pm Venue Gtech Community Stadium

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Conditions are ripe for Reform to do well in 2026 Welsh elections and even beat Tories to second place

• UK politics live – latest updates

Within hours of their landslide victory this summer, Labour MPs had already begun discussing how to counter the threat from Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party had won five parliamentary constituencies and 14.3% of the vote. Keir Starmer’s strategists see this resurgence of Faragism as arguably their biggest electoral challenge .

That threat has been made more acute by Donald Trump’s victory in the US this week. Buoyed up by his ally’s triumph, Farage has set his sights on a new UK target: the Senedd elections in the spring of 2026.

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Rob Bonta vows to defend state from president-elect’s policies threatening immigrants, abortion rights and more

California was considered a leader in fighting the most extreme policies of Donald Trump ’s first administration, and after the Republican’s decisive win this week, officials in the Golden state say they are more prepared to resist some of the measures Trump is expected to pursue in his second term.

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, will be a crucial figure in that effort, tasked with spearheading litigation and defending vulnerable Californians’ rights in the courtroom. It’s a tall order as the president-elect has promised policies that could threaten the state’s immigrant population, LGBTQ+ residents, climate initiatives, gun safety measures, healthcare programs and abortion rights.

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An elephant at Berlin zoo used its trunk to interrupt flow of water from hose used by another elephant

If you get frustrated by the shower hog in your house you’re not alone: research suggests such behaviour might even irritate elephants.

Scientists say they have not only discovered an elephant with an astonishing ability to shower with a hose, but spotted another cutting off the flow of water – possibly in a deliberate act of sabotage.

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This spicy Mexican coffee with a kick may soon be your new weekend brunchtime boost

Café de olla is a Mexican breakfast staple made from coffee brewed with spices, orange peel and piloncillo , or unrefined cane sugar. We mix it with tequila to make our espresso martinis for a great little pick-me-up.

Daniel Corrochio, Corrochio’s , London N16

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Kemi Badenoch’s election is evidence of strong meritocracy, say some activists and public figures, while others question her ideology

Kemi Badenoch’s election as Conservative party leader may have been somewhat eclipsed by the US election , but it nonetheless represents a political milestone . Her positioning as a “culture warrior” is, to some, proof not of a changing Conservative party but one with a new face for old instincts .

Here, the Guardian asks black and minority ethnic campaigners, as well as public and political figures, what it means for the Tories to have a black leader.

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