As the actor approaches his 90th year and publishes an autobiography, he reflects on his early years on stage, being inspired by Laurence Olivier, becoming a Hollywood star and conquering his demons

‘What’s the weather like over there?” asks Anthony Hopkins as soon as our video call begins. He may have lived in California for decades but some Welshness remains, in his distinctive, mellifluous voice – perhaps a little hoarser than it once was – and his preoccupation with the climate. It’s a dark evening in London but a bright, sunny morning in Los Angeles, and Hopkins is equally bright in demeanour and attire, sporting a turquoise and green shirt. “I came here 50 years ago. Somebody said: ‘Are you selling out?’ I said: ‘No, I just like the climate and to get a suntan.’ But I like Los Angeles. I’ve had a great life here.”

It hasn’t been all that great recently, actually. In January this year, Hopkins’ house in Pacific Palisades was destroyed by the wildfires. “It was a bit of a calamity,” he says, with almost cheerful understatement. “We’re thankful that no one was hurt, and we got our cats and our little family into the clear.” He wasn’t there at the time; he and his wife, Stella, were in Saudi Arabia, where he was hosting a concert of his own music played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. They’re now in a rented house in the nearby neighbourhood of Brentwood. “We lost everything, but you think: ‘Oh well, at least we are alive.’ I feel sorry for the thousands of people who have been really affected. People who were way past retirement age, and had worked hard over the years and now … nothing.”

A sharp, funny and engaging autobiography from one of the towering literary figures of our age

Margaret Atwood didn’t want to write a literary memoir. She worried it would be boring – “I wrote a book, I wrote a second book, I wrote another book …” Alcoholic excess, debauched parties and sexual transgressions would have perked things up, but she hasn’t lived that way.

In the end what she has written is less a memoir than an autobiography, not a slice of life but the whole works, 85 years. Where most such backward looks are cosily triumphalist or anxiously self-justifying, hers is sharp, funny and engaging, a book you can warm to even if you’re not fully au fait (and few people are) with her astonishing output, which in the “also by” contents list here fills two pages.

Breaking dancefloors, recording in the dark, crying at I Know It’s Over, winning in court, splitting over chips … the musician relives his tumultuous years in ‘the best British band ever’

‘It was terrifying,” says Mike Joyce, sitting in the palatial suite of the Stock Exchange hotel in Manchester. The drummer is talking about his favourite gig with the Smiths: the night in July 1986 when The Queen Is Dead tour hit Salford Maxwell Hall. “They weren’t taking ticket stubs off people coming in. So they were giving their tickets back out through the bog window.” The show ended up at double capacity. “They had to evacuate the bar downstairs because the sprung dancefloor was collapsing. Delirium! There were people crying their eyes out, strangers hugging each other – and that was before E!”

Joyce, garrulously upbeat company, has just written a warm, engaging memoir, The Drums, celebrating the Smiths. It’s a “right place, right time” story of his memories as the great indie band tore down the boundaries of British guitar music, with Johnny Marr’s beautifully intricate playing merging immaculately with Morrissey’s words, resulting in devastating, romantic and witty vignettes that perfectly captured everyday life.

The massacres carried out by the RSF in El Fasher, Darfur, with the support of its UAE sponsors, will only stop when the international community acts

It unfolded in plain sight over 18 months. The city of El Fasher in the Darfur region of Sudan, besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell to the militia group last week, and what has followed is a catastrophe.

Mass killings are under way. There are reports that in one maternity hospital alone almost 500 people – patients and their families – were killed. The few that managed to escape tell of summary executions of civilians. The RSF has embarked on a killing spree of civilians so severe that images of blood saturating the ground have been picked up by satellite. The speed and intensity of the killings in the immediate aftermath of the fall of El Fasher has already been compared by war monitors to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.

From publishing falsehoods to pushing far-right ideology, Grokipedia gives chatroom comments equal status to research

The eminent British historian Sir Richard Evans produced three expert witness reports for the libel trial involving the Holocaust denier David Irving, studied for a doctorate under the supervision of Theodore Zeldin, succeeded David Cannadine as Regius professor of history at Cambridge (a post endowed by Henry VIII) and supervised theses on Bismarck’s social policy.

That was some of what you could learn from Grokipedia, the AI-powered encyclopedia launched last week by the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. The problem was, as Prof Evans discovered when he logged on to check his own entry, all these facts were false.

Arsenal’s run without conceding goes on, Thomas Frank plays down tensions, and Eddie Howe’s gamble backfires

First the P45, then the pints. Vítor Pereira could be excused for having a drink on Sunday after his departure from Wolves, with the silver lining for the Portuguese being a decent payout. Pereira is already the fourth permanent manager to be sacked this season and while Evangelos Marinakis might have something to answer for, trigger-happy owners and directors are becoming increasingly erratic: that Pereira lasted just 45 days into a new three-year contract reflects as badly on the Wolves board as on the manager, just as Erik ten Hag’s sacking this time last year, coming less than three months after his own contract extension, reflected badly on the Manchester United hierarchy. Backing a manager and then pulling the rug so quickly is baffling, while a board’s desire for a “new manager bounce” so early in the season stinks of desperation and should be seen as an admission of guilt. Michael Butler

Match report: Fulham 3-0 Wolves

Match report: Burnley 0-2 Arsenal

Match report: Nottingham Forest 2-2 Manchester United

British Transport Police say LNER worker ‘undoubtedly saved lives’ as suspect remains in custody

A “heroic” rail staff member who intervened in a mass stabbing to save the lives of high-speed train passengers suffered life-threatening injuries, police said on Sunday, as a suspect remains in custody.

The member of LNER staff was recorded on CCTV attempting to stop the attacker as the train travelled between Peterborough and Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, British Transport Police said.

Additional reporting: Harry Taylor and Vikram Dodd

Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities

A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal.

In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China.

Avanti West Coast says all lines blocked due to derailed train between Penrith North Lakes and Oxenholme Lake District

Emergency services have been called to a train derailment near Shap in Cumbria, North West ambulance service said.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said a major incident had been declared
following the incident but at this stage “there are no reported
injuries”.

Hospital specialists report cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and women erroneously told their babies had died

High street clinics offering pregnancy scans could be putting unborn babies and their mothers in danger through a lack of properly trained staff, UK experts have warned.

According to the Society for Radiographers (SoR), high street clinics have seen a huge growth in numbers. However, hospital specialists say they have seen cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and situations in which women were erroneously told their babies were malformed or had died.