The Paramount-Warner Bros merger is being fought in the US and UK. Britain’s culture secretary knows the risks and can intervene. She should

Though it has yet to become front-page news in the UK, you should know about the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros merger. It threatens to inflict immense harm on the British public. As actors and public figures who have spent our careers in the arts in Britain – working with British crews, on British stages and sets – we have a responsibility to the public who support, enjoy and consume the art we make.

The UK is being threatened by a media merger that would harm our workers, our culture and the public – but we can stop it. We are encouraged by Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, who recently sent letters to Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery, as well as a statement to parliament, indicating that she is “minded to intervene” in Paramount’s $110bn takeover of Warner Bros.

Alan Cumming, Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong are actors working in the UK and Hollywood

Suing his record label and sick of being a sex symbol, the singer spent 1992 working on the Trojan Souls for stars including Aretha Franklin and Bryan Ferry. Now, newly released studio footage shows him in his creative prime

• Wham! special: read Andrew Ridgeley on their bizarre 1985 trip to China

The George Michael album that never was began in defiance and ended in grief. It was 1992. Mired in a toxic dispute with Sony Records, Michael chose to keep busy and declare his independence by making an album of songs to be sung by several of his musical heroes, including Aretha Franklin, Janet Jackson and Sade Adu, under the alias the Trojan Souls. Michael worked on the album for months until his Brazilian boyfriend Anselmo Feleppa died of Aids in March 1993 and he lost interest in music. It was never revived.

Tracks from the sessions have since leaked, along with some of the fly-on-the-wall footage filmed by Michael’s close friend and informal adviser Andros Georgiou, who has spent years trying to get unauthorised clips removed from YouTube and TikTok. Now, months before the 10th anniversary of Michael’s death, he is releasing 90 minutes of unedited video as Trojan Souls – not exactly a film but an unfiltered view of Michael in his creative prime. “I thought these fans were making money from my rights so I decided to stop fighting and get it out there,” Georgiou says. He hopes it will open a door on what he calls, with characteristic hyperbole, “the greatest album never made”.

Challenges vary from poor transport links to high numbers of people flocking to the area looking for work

When 19-year-old Dejanae set her online job search criteria for the local area, she was shocked at how few options came back. She studied animal science in college but is struggling to find work in the West Midlands.

“It’s hard. You put Dudley, but it’s mainly jobs outside Dudley that come up because there just isn’t much here,” she said. “Even jobs in Birmingham (10 miles away) are difficult because I’m two hours away on a bus, so they don’t even want to consider me.”

The Hallmark Channel’s ropey version of The Odyssey is going viral for its star-studded cast. Christopher Nolan’s film only looks better by comparison

Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey is far from the first committed to screen. As early as 1911, Italian director Guiseppe de Liguoro made a silent version entitled L’Odissea. Readers of a certain age may remember watching the futuristic animated series Ulysses 31 throughout the 1980s. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is based on The Odyssey. So too, if you squint as hard as you can and discount the Goofy Goober song, is the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie.

However, the pre-Nolan adaptation that has the biggest legacy is arguably Andrei Konchalovsky’s two-part version, made in 1997 for the Hallmark Channel. This is the adaptation that has been doing the rounds in recent days, clipped up on social media (the full version is highly discoverable on YouTube) and catching the eye of Joyce Carol Oates, who spent much of Thursday night tweeting very enthusiastically about it.

St Mungo’s project aims to challenge stereotypes by narrating stories of people supported out of rough sleeping

In his days of rough sleeping, Lee, 54, recalls the nights that were so cold it hurt. Having lived in North America for several years – including a year spent sleeping rough in Canada – he returned home to London for mental health support, hoping the NHS would be able to help. Instead, he ended up homeless.

On his first night on the streets of London, a St Mungo’s outreach worker came across him. He was taken to A&E to await help in the warm and, in the middle of the night, he got a call. “I’m outside,” a St Mungo’s team member told him. Knowing that help was there, he says, was when things started to change.

His mother was an Oscar-winning actor who had been exploited from a young age; Astin appeared in The Goonies at just 13. Now, he has followed in his mother’s footsteps again as a union leader. He talks Stranger Things, AI and why playing Samwise Gamgee cost him his house

Sean Astin is showing me around his new office. There’s framed movie prints on the walls, piles of paperwork and a stack of boxes of Stranger Things Funko Pops. “If you were here, you could look out this window and see a 10-storey building with our iconic Sag-Aftra logo on it,” he says proudly on video call, gesturing out of the window to the Los Angeles skyline. “But you just have to trust me that it’s there.” He shows me a framed photo of his mother, Patty Duke, aged 16, with the best supporting actress Oscar she won in 1963 (for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker), and even more proudly, a framed copy of Duke’s business card from when she was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-80s – the role he now occupies (Sag merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012). The 10 months of his presidency “has been a whirlwind”, he says.

It’s still slightly jarring to see Astin in a suit and tie, lanyard around his neck. We’re more accustomed to seeing him in the handwoven cloak and hairy feet of Samwise Gamgee, loyally accompanying mister Frodo into Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. Or as Winona Ryder’s short-lived partner in Stranger Things (before a Demodog got to him). Or as never-say-die college football underdog “Rudy” Ruettiger in the 1993 biopic. Or, for viewers of his own vintage, as plucky leader Mikey in The Goonies. Astin has been a member of the union he now represents for 45 of his 55 years, but he seems to have survived the perils of child stardom and a Hollywood upbringing remarkably unscathed. In fact, you could see it all as preparation for the role.

Firefighters in France and Spain face another day battling wildfires, as another heatwave set to hit this week

• Pedro Sánchez says Spain is suffering effects of climate crisis as firefighters battle wildfires in France

Provisional data on wildfires in Spain shows that more than 170,000 hectares of forest land have been affected since the beginning of the year – a nearly sixfold increase on the almost 29,000 recorded in the same period in 2025.

35 major fires have been recorded so far, up from just 11 last year.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto did not include any specific commitments on council tax but two models are being floated

I have already posted lines from Andy Burnham’s BBC interview on reforming social care (see 9.03am), making council tax fairer (see 10.03am), and ruling out an early election (see 11.56am). And yesterday Peter Walker wrote up the lines in the interview from Burnham saying he would disagree with Donald Trump if necessary.

Here are some of the other comments worth flagging up.

Burnham suggested care workers should be exempt from Shabana Mahmood’s plan to make foreign workers wait much longer until they can apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Currently workers normally have to wait five years until they qualify for settlement. Under Mahmood’s plans, the norm will become 10 years, and care workers could even have to wait 15 years (because working in a low-pay sector means they contribute less to the exchequer, the Home Office argues). Last week Kiran Stacey and Patrick Butler reported that Burnham may order a rethink.

Coming to fame in The Goodies, Oddie was later known for his wildlife expertise and presented BBC Springwatch

• Bill Oddie – a life in pictures

The writer, comedian and conservationist Bill Oddie has died aged 85. Having come to prominence with the comedy group The Goodies, Oddie later established himself as an authority on wildlife, presenting television series including the BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch.

Oddie’s agent paid tribute to his “intelligence and wit”. In a statement, David Foster said: “It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of Bill Oddie, the country’s best-loved birder. Bill was a multitalented celebrity – wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist. Yet it was never fame that he valued.

Scientists say decision is blow to UK astronomy as deep space observatory is home to world-leading facilities

Jodrell Bank Observatory, which runs a world-leading network of radio telescopes, is facing closure after its major funder cut support for the facility.

The deep space observatory, which hosts the Grade I-listed Lovell telescope, is prized by astronomers who study galaxies, black holes, star formation, planets beyond the solar system and the afterglow of the big bang.