Only a robot would attempt to turn it into ‘tasty cookies’. A human would just scoop the sugar out again

At a time of intense, bitter division, it’s heartwarming when something brings us together. No, not “briefly becoming experts in lawn tennis”, or “being too hot” – that stupid Samsung advert where the guy “added way too much sugar to my gochujang pasta sauce” and asks his phone for help.

If, by the greatest good fortune, you have managed to dodge it, Google Gemini (an AI “assistant”) suggests he makes “tasty cookies” out of his sugary sauce. Instead of throwing his phone out of the window in holy rage, the youth seems inexplicably enthused (“Sweet!”) and follows its frankly inadequate instructions – add butter, mix, bake for 10 minutes – before wandering off with a cookie, apparently happy with this bizarre outcome.

When actor-director Anne Barbot embarks on an adaptation of a Zola novel with her neighbour, the gap between theatre and reality appears to collapse entirely

Art and life fuse deliriously in Gianluca Matarrese’s hybrid film, which alternates between documentary and fiction, theatre and cinema. Recently divorced from her husband, actor-director Anne Barbot throws herself into preparing a stage adaptation of Emile Zola’s classic novel L’Assommoir. In Gervaise, the working-class heroine of the book, Barbot finds echoes of her current situation: both are women who struggle to reclaim professional autonomy in the aftermath of broken relationships. Barbot’s production becomes more complicated when she casts Benoît Dallongeville, a neighbour who is also an actor, in the role of her love interest in the play. Soon, passion and tension begin to spill from personal relationships on to the page, and vice versa.

Matarrese’s film keeps the camera strikingly close to Barbot and Dallongeville as the pair embark on a long and physically arduous rehearsal process. Jagged, handheld closeups of minute facial expressions and gestures clue us into private emotions that may be unknown even to the two actors. We can sense that, in the beginning, Dallongeville is interested in courting Barbot, though she is pulling back. Yet, over long takes in which they feed each other lines, a certain chemistry gradually emerges, followed by actual romance. The film keeps this development deliberately opaque, as scene transitions make it difficult to tell whether they are reading a script or communicating as themselves. It is as if the border between performance and life has entirely collapsed.

Demanding that the University of Virginia’s president resign is taken from the Viktor Orbán playbook of authoritarianism

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down on Friday, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.

The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA had sufficiently complied with Donald Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion.

Universities are controlled by leftwing foundations. They’re not controlled by the American taxpayer and yet the American taxpayer is sending hundreds of billions of dollars to these universities every single year.

I’m not endorsing every single thing that Viktor Orbán has ever done [but] I do think that he’s made some smart decisions there that we could learn from.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

We would like to hear from Oasis fans about what they thought of the first two nights in Cardiff

This weekend Oasis began their sold-out, 41-date, reunion tour in Cardiff, marking the first time brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher have played together since 2009.

In a five-star review, the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis said it “serves as a reminder of how fantastic purple patch Oasis were”, but what about you? We would like to hear from Oasis fans about what they thought of the first two nights in Cardiff. Did it live up to your expectations?

Fall of 7% in premarket trading would wipe $70bn off firm’s value as market frets CEO’s foray into politics will distract from role

Shares in Tesla are heading for a sharp fall in the US as investors fear Elon Musk’s launch of a new political party will present further problems for the electric carmaker.

Tesla stock was down more than 7% in pre-market trading on Monday, threatening to wipe approximately $70bn (£51bn) off the company’s value when Wall Street opens.