Four women speak out about their underage experiences with the movie star and musician. Are the floodgates finally about to open?

Jared Leto has long been a person with something of a reputational issue. The public-facing side of this was bad enough – while playing The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, he reportedly sent rats, dead pigs and used condoms to his cast mates – but for years there have been upsetting rumours about what he does in private. After a lengthy investigation, the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret has finally brought at least some of them to light.

This is, as you might imagine, not a fun thing to watch. The film documents allegations of what are said to be decades of systematic criminal misconduct against teenage girls. The women interviewed here allege sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, sexualised grooming and statutory rape. They are backed up by anonymous male former co-workers who claim to have witnessed the machinery that Leto set up to procure underage girls from concerts.

Every time I get my hair done, I find myself confronted with rising costs, and dizzyingly long maintenance regimes

• Don’t already get The Long Wave in your inbox? Sign up here

This week, I tried to book in for some knotless braids at the last minute. I knew I was going to be writing about how the simple pleasure of getting a head of box braids is starting to feel increasingly complicated, and thought that it would be good to get some pictures of the process. Then, I found myself getting wound up as the subject of this newsletter began to play out on a sort of meta-level.

When I decided to get my hair done for this piece, I knew that booking a next-day braiding slot would prove to be a kafkaesque task. My usual place asks that you schedule around a month in advance. My second option says that we’d need a “private room” to bring a photographer, bumping the bill up to £600. While trying to write an immersive report on the difficulties that come with getting braids, I suddenly realise that I am living the report.

Underground clinic’s fate hangs in the balance after government withdrew state funding

For most people, spending hours deep underground in darkness would seem an odd prescription for better health.

Yet every morning, a handful of Armenians descend 250 metres beneath the earth into an active salt mine where they spend six hours in cavernous chambers carved from rock salt, hoping the air below ground will help them breathe more easily.

Five years ago, I wrote an open letter asking climate scientists to speak out against fossil fuels. Now governments are in retreat, it is surely time to act

• France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

Such is the astonishing scale of the wildfires burning at the gates of Bordeaux and Madrid, that if they had happened 20 – even 10 – years back, they may well have shocked the world into taking action on the climate crisis. But like the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly heating water, we have become inured; not only to the ever more devastating impacts of climate breakdown, but increasingly to the actions needed to bring global heating to heel.

Even as more than 35,000 wildfires rage across the surface of our world, and as we continue to rewind our planet’s climate so it resembles hotter episodes from its distant past, governments and trading blocs are very deliberately turning away from climate action.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London and author of The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis

The Guardian’s climate forum 2026
On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts – including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman – for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening.
Book tickets here

Ella Langley’s country single has spent 15 weeks as US number one thanks to its retro-modern sound, a viral misheard lyric – and a boost from the Ella Fellas

This week, Ella Langley beat a chart record held by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. The country singer’s Choosin’ Texas has now spent 15 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, making it the longest-running US No 1 by a female solo artist for a non-holiday single. The previous record holders, Houston’s I Will Always Love You and Carey’s We Belong Together, were bombastic pop events, the sort of unassailable hits that make sense as Hot 100 chartbusters. Choosin’ Texas, meanwhile, is a midtempo two-step with a relaxed vocal delivery and decidedly retro sound.

For Victoria Banks, a Nashville-based songwriter and instructor at Belmont University, the song’s breeziness is key to its success. “It’s a sleeper hit – it’s understated and unassuming,” she says. “Everything about the song throws back to a simpler time in country music that people are really craving.”

How do you choose what makes the front page? How hard is genAI making the job of the picture editor? Fiona Shields is the Guardian’s global head of photography, overseeing all the images across our websites and print publications. She’s online answering your questions now

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

NiallKell1 asks: Here’s a tricky one. Before Jeffrey Donaldson was convicted, articles about him used to come with photographs of him where he was in control of his presentation, a suited, professional, with a suitcase, stepping out of a chauffeur driven car to meet his accusers. And as an innocent before guilty person, that was appropriate.

But after he was convicted for child abuse, I noticed that the same photos above articles reporting his appeal etc were being used. And to me they suddenly seemed inappropriate. We had known Donaldson one way, but since then something has changed. He is guilty. And having photos of him stepping out of chauffeur driven cars, suitcases, suited, seemed to serve his appeal. When in fact he is now guilty. Not innocent.

I think the continued publication of him stepping out of cars, striding along with his briefcase has added to the context of the story - that this is a person with a high profile in public life. We have also published the artist’s impressions of him in court, but it seems we have no police “mugshot” of him on file which is the type of picture usually published when a guilty verdict is handed down so perhaps none was provided to the media.

More often than not these published pictures have been handed out to media by police or the authorities and so there is very little choice or room for a more expansive crop.

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water

Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said.

The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures.

Introducing the legislation would be ‘very challenging’ until care system improved, PM says

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.

The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be “very challenging” to introduce the controversial legislation until the care system was in a better place.

James Desborough, who also strangled cellmate to death for snoring while awaiting trial, hid body fragments in Cornwall woods

A triple killer who murdered and dismembered the bodies of two of his friends before strangling a third man to death in prison while awaiting trial has been told he will spent the rest of his life behind bars.

Mr Justice Saini, who sentenced James Desborough, 40, at Winchester crown court, said the circumstances of the case were unique.

Musa Ahmed was being treated in intensive care in London hospital after being pulled from West Mersea sea

A seven-year-old boy has died a week after an incident off the Essex coast in which his teenage cousin and her mother died as they tried to rescue him.

Musa Ahmed was being treated for life-threatening injuries after being pulled from the sea near West Mersea beach on 22 July.