As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them

In April, Gil Durán was permanently banned from Elon Musk’s X for posting just two words. Durán was responding to a post from the tech company Palantir outlining its 22‑point “technological manifesto”, which praised American “hard power”, western culture and AI weapons, denounced inclusivity and called for compulsory national service. Durán responded: “TLDR: Fascism” (TLDR is short for “too long, didn’t read”).

Durán didn’t break any of X’s written rules, he points out over a video call from San Francisco – so much for Musk’s “free-speech absolutism”. His ban might just have had something to do with his preceding tweet, showing the cover of his new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. The book’s central argument is that big tech is no longer our friend, as many of its billionaire owners have seized economic and political control and are steering the fate of the planet towards their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions.

Felix Kersten, the personal therapist of Hitler’s principal enforcer, claimed to have saved countless lives from the Holocaust. A new feature film exposes him as a narcissist prone to myth-making

Five years ago, German writer-director Felix Randau was approached by French producers who wanted him to make a miniseries about Felix Kersten, the former massage therapist to Nazi SS head Heinrich Himmler.

When the producers first pitched the project, there was one sentence which leapt out. “They said that if Steven Spielberg had known about Felix Kersten, he would have shot a film about him, not about Oskar Schindler.” Who was this intriguing, largely overlooked figure, who claimed to have saved countless Jews and other concentration camp prisoners from certain death?

We need an enlightened US president to make the case for global AI regulation. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of what is needed

When I am woken by the sound of my dog whining, I understand that she is hungry and wants me to get up. When my alarm clock goes off, I don’t consider its needs. It is following an instruction to rouse me at a certain time but it doesn’t care if I stay in bed. It doesn’t try to get me up by other means. The dog, on the other hand, will go to plan B. She barks.

This capacity for autonomous action was once a difference between animals and machines. AI has blurred the line. Advanced models devise their own strategies to reach a goal. The task might be defined by a human master, but the machine weighs its options for delivery. It can make its own choices. Given rules, it can break them.

It looked like it was gone forever, but Jason Sudeikis’s hugely popular show returns with a premise that’s all twee nonsensicality. If you love messages of positivity and togetherness, you’ll be thrilled

Having transported a flailing AFC Richmond to the upper echelons of the Premier League with his wholesome, folksy and highly simile-reliant management style, the finale of Ted Lasso’s third season saw our titular coach return to the US to spend more time with his son in Kansas. At the time (2023), the general impression was that we were waving goodbye for good. But could this intensely American protagonist really do the most British thing of all and bow out at the height of his sitcom’s popularity? Nope. Last year it was announced that its star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis had caved to market forces and was reprising his colossally popular alter ego.

It was the logical thing to do: the 11-time Emmy-winning show was the most-watched streaming original of 2023. Not that logic features heavily in this fourth season. Before we discover how Ted has been lured back to south-west London, we find out what he’s been up to in the interim. Did he parlay his success into US soccer? Return triumphantly to college football? Sit back with his millions and rest on his laurels? Nope, nope and nope again. Instead, he’s working in his local supermarket, warmly greeting his customers by name, providing moral guidance to younger colleagues and generally radiating his trademark howdily-doodily energy. Why? Because he’s a good man without ego who loves to connect and make a positive difference in his community! This is Ted Lasso we’re talking about!

Ted Lasso is on Apple TV

This week, we launched our third annual vote to honour nature’s unsung heroes. The Guardian’s natural history writer – and woodlouse fanboy – Patrick Barkham will be here from 4pm BST (11am EDT) to discuss this year’s poll and why we must celebrate the spineless

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What do the tardigrade and the earthworm have in common? They are, of course, the two previous winners of the Guardian’s Invertebrate of the Year poll. An annual contest that pits some of the the natural world’s finest species against each other in celebration – and to remind ourselves why beetles, slugs, worms and moths and others play a critical role in the planet’s infrastructure.

Contenders to take the tardigrade’s crown this year include the common woodlouse and the immortal jellyfish. We’ll be revealing the rest of the shortlist over the next few days.

As the Guardian’s natural history writer, Patrick is one of the UK’s foremost nature writers and has written books about badgers, moths and his lifelong love of the outdoor world. His recent reporting has looked at rewilding projects, the homing habits of swifts and people pretending to be otters.

The N-Dubz and X Factor star’s career went into freefall after an elaborate sting by the Sun on Sunday, and she’s still campaigning for tougher press regulation. But will it work?

Late last year, Tulisa Contostavlos took a good look at her life. Her relationship had come to an end and she found herself in her late 30s (she’s 38 now), wondering what next. “I started thinking about all the things I’d never done,” she says. At 20, life had got weird – Contostavlos was in the successful hip-hop group N-Dubz and became an adult just as the fame and money started coming in. By 24, she was a judge on the Saturday night TV show X Factor. If that hadn’t happened, she thinks she might have become an archaeologist – she’s obsessed with ancient history. And so last year she went travelling, to Egypt to see the pyramids, and to Peru to visit Machu Picchu.

There were other, bigger changes. She gave up smoking and started having therapy for the first time. Contostavlos sat down, she says, and “I wrote a list of what my ‘greatest self’ looked like – where she’d go, how she thought, how she felt, the things she would do. I started implementing every single thing on that list and I found through doing that, you just become her – it is actually that simple. It just takes effort and discipline.” Her greatest self, she says, “is a person of action, and she turns lemons into lemon cake”. It got her thinking about the criminal trial that left her career in freefall. “I was like, right, let’s try to do something.”

Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council to meet with Tory party but decline meeting with Joshua Bonehill-Paine

• Badenoch defends decision to allow man jailed for antisemitism to stand as councillor

Ministers will scrap the requirement for companies to prove their green and progressive values before they are awarded government contracts, and instead ask firms to prove they will help young people back into work.

As part of a government push to reduce the number of people not in education, employment or training (Neets) in the UK and boost regional growth, public sector buyers will double the consideration they give to whether companies will get more people into jobs, rather than if they can show they are improving social and environmental wellbeing. Government procurement contracts account for about £90bn of taxpayers’ money spent each year.

Four-tonne piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket believed to have hit lunar surface on Wednesday at 5,400 miles an hour

A four-tonne piece of a discarded SpaceX rocket that has been floating in space since last year is believed to have unintentionally crashed into the moon at high speed, in a collision that poses no danger to Earth but was expected to blast out a new lunar crater.

The object, the size of a building, is part of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from the US company Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025.

Exclusive: New health secretary promises root-and-branch reform after damning maternity scandals

Women should not feel pressurised into experiencing an “ideal birth”, the new health secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said, promising a root-and-branch reform of standards after several damning maternity scandals.

Cooper, who returns to the department 27 years after she was the minister for public health under Tony Blair, said maternity and child health would be a major focus in the role, where she will also be expected to implement significant reforms to social care.

Victims’ minister said earlier that PM was ‘looking into’ inquiry into Epstein and another into Mohamed Al Fayed

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham is not actively considering a public inquiry into the actions of Jeffrey Epstein in the UK, despite claims to the contrary, it is understood.

The victims’ minister, Alex Davies-Jones, said on Tuesday had the prime minister had agreed to meet the sex offender’s victims, was “looking into” an inquiry and was “taking this very seriously”. A separate inquiry into the alleged actions of the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed is also being considered. But the Guardian understands a public inquiry is not being actively considered by No 10.