This Monday, it will be two years since Julian and Juliette Rayner moved into their new zero-carbon home on a development about 20 minutes drive from Bristol.

The property boasts a range of new technologies that makes it highly energy-efficient and enable the couple to generate their own electricity and live a greener lifestyle.

Instead of the traditional gas boiler that so many people rely on for their heating and hot water, there’s an air source heat pump fitted to one of the outside walls, plus extensive solar panels, underfloor heating, an electric vehicle charging point and high levels of insulation. The Rayners also bought a battery for electricity storage.

Even though they were aware of the impact insulation and an energy-efficient boiler could have on their bills, moving to a green home had not been top of the couple’s wish list. But the more research they did into the benefits that a zero-carbon home could deliver, the more they liked the sound of it, so they took the plunge and bought one of the development’s 32 properties.

They soon found that their energy bills plummeted, and they effectively pay as little as 50p to £1 a week to power their home – ie, all their hot water, cooking and heating needs – in the warmer months, when they are able to generate most of their power via the solar panels. In fact, in June this year they were £12 in credit.

During the winter, when they have to rely on the National Grid, they might spend more like £33 a week, or £150 a month.

“We’ve lived in much older properties in the past and know how much they cost to heat – and it’s a lot,” says Juliette.

So, two years after moving in, how are they finding their home and its green features – in particular, the heat pump?

“In a way, we don’t really think about our heating or energy bills any more, which I suppose is what you want, really,” says Julian.

“It’s definitely been an education, as it needs a bit of a behavioural shift if these are going to be the homes of the future. Neither us nor our neighbours knew much about heat pumps and solar panels before we moved here, but it’s been good in that we’ve all been in it together and finding our way as we go.”

Thankfully, their experience over the past two years has been positive. “It’s quite a change from a gas boiler. For instance, if you were to switch off the heating completely and it’s cooled right down, it can take longer to warm up than it would have done when we were using gas,” says Julian.

“However, this shouldn’t be seen as a negative. Instead, it means we get a more comfortable, consistent temperature all the time – rather than feeling cold and having to crank the heating up, like we used to when we had a boiler. It’s easier now, because we don’t have to think about times to turn it on and off. It’s just there and does its own thing responsively.”

The couple have also had friends and family ask about their heat pump, and how they find it.

“I knew what it was going to look like – a bit like an air conditioning unit at an office. It’s a square box, probably about 4ft long, 3ft wide and 1ft deep, with a big fan in the middle,” says Julian.

He adds: “People do ask the things you often see in the media – such as if they’re noisy. But once you’ve seen it working, you realise that it’s actually really quiet … You can sit outside and have a barbecue and you’re not even hearing it, and you’re about 4ft away from it.

“It lays to rest a lot of the misconceptions you often hear, or things people have picked up that aren’t necessarily true.”

The couple have been delighted about the savings they have enjoyed on their energy bills (though those figures quoted above don’t include the standing charge).

“We can’t all be expected to completely overhaul our lives when it comes to being greener, we have to be realistic. But we want to do what we can, and this house really makes us feel like we’re doing our bit to help,” says Juliette.

According to Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s property expert, searches for terms such as “solar panels” and “heat pumps” on its site have risen dramatically since 2020 – from outside the top 500 to within the top 100 for the panels, and into the top 200 from above 1,000th place for the pumps.

“They’re not top of buyers’ must-haves just yet, and more work is needed to raise awareness of the benefits, but we expect to see more of a focus on these types of features as the nation moves towards greener homes,” he says.

Heating the UK’s 28m homes creates almost a fifth of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, so after decades of relying on gas and oil boilers, households will need to break their addiction to fossil fuels if the government hopes to meet its climate targets.

For most homes, the alternative to traditional heating systems is likely to be an electric air source heat pump.

This little-understood technology has divided opinion. There are those who believe heat pumps could play a vital role in climate action, and then there are the sceptics who claim their benefits are a lot of hot air. In between are millions of people with little clear information to hand, and some high-stakes financial decisions ahead of them.

The “heat pump revolution” is gathering pace: last month it emerged that the UK had passed the milestone of 250,000 certified heat pump installations, with 2024 said to be on track to be “a record-breaking year”. This week (23–29 September) is Heat Pump Week, and the technology also received a boost at the Labour party conference on Monday when the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, announced a “home upgrade revolution” aimed at making the country’s housing stock cleaner and cheaper to run.

An air source heat pump looks like a large air conditioning unit and works like a fridge in reverse: it captures heat from air and uses refrigerant gas and a compressor to raise the temperature enough to heat the water which flows through our home radiators. You can read more about exactly how a heat pump works here.

The Guardian has investigated the leading claims, counter-claims and grey areas to separate myth from reality.

Claim: Heat pumps are more expensive to run than gas boilers

Heat pumps are expensive. In the UK, the majority of homes are expected to opt for an air-source heat pump, which costs on average just over £12,500 to buy and install – four to five times the cost of a gas boiler.

To help bridge the gap, the government offers grants of £7,500 to households through its boiler upgrade scheme. But critics have said that even with the grants, households could face higher energy bills because in the UK the electricity used to run them costs roughly four times the price of gas.

So what does the research say? Experts have found that, on average, heat pumps are far more efficient than gas boilers, turning one unit of electricity into 2.5 to five units of heat. By contrast, a gas boiler often produces 0.9 to 0.95 units of heat for each gas unit because some heat is lost through the flue pipes.

The technical measure for this efficiency is known as the seasonal coefficient of performance (Scop), and any heat pump with a Scop of more than 3 will match the running costs of an 85% efficient gas boiler, according to research.

A study of 750 households by Energy Systems Catapult, an independent government-backed researcher, found that heat pumps typically have a Scop of 2.9, meaning they would cost slightly more than a gas boiler to run. A separate study by the Energy Saving Trust, an independent advisory group, put the cost at £14 a year more than using a new A-rated gas boiler.

There’s no need to settle for higher bills, though. Research has also shown that a new breed of energy tariff designed specifically for heat pump users could tip the balance in their favour. Octopus Energy and Ovo Energy have both released cheaper-than-average tariffs tailored for heat pumps, which would make one cheaper to run than a gas boiler even with a Scop score well below 2.9.

Claim: Heat pumps don’t work at freezing temperatures

Heat pumps are installed in two-thirds of homes in Norway, where the average winter temperature is -7C, but this hasn’t cooled fears in the UK that they would be unable to warm homes through Britain’s relatively mild winters.

In fact, a survey of more than 4,000 adults across the UK, Germany, France and the US last autumn, undertaken by the data company Electrify Research, found that more than 40% of Britons agreed that heat pumps are not up to the challenge, compared with 36% in Germany, 35% in the US and 26% in France.

But real-world data disproves these fears. In the study by Energy Systems Catapult mentioned above, the government-funded demonstration project analysed the performance of 750 heat pumps over a period of two years on some of the country’s coldest days, where mean daily temperatures fell to as low as -6C.

The study found that heat pumps needed to work harder in cold temperatures, but they still performed well. During periods when the temperature dipped to -6C, the efficiency rating fell from an average of about 2.9 to 2.44, meaning that the running costs would rise to just above those of a gas boiler, but only for these periods.

The science shows that heat pumps can work at winter temperatures. But poor advice and installation can upend even the most encouraging scientific findings. Richard Halsey, a director at ESC, said: “One of the key findings from our study is that proper design and installation is at the heart of delivering a heat pump that works for the home that it’s in.”

Claim: Heat pumps cannot be installed in older properties

The belief that heat pumps only work effectively in modern buildings has fuelled concerns that Britain’s large stock of Victorian and pre-second world war homes will scupper the government’s aim to install 600,000 a year by 2028.

A report commissioned in 2021 by the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), a trade body that represents gas boiler manufacturers, in partnership with four gas network companies, said heat pumps would be impractical for up to 54% of British households who were using gas to heat their homes.

Again, the real-world experience proves this wrong. There will be some homes which won’t be suitable for a heat pump – such as high-rise blocks without any outdoor space – but the majority of households are expected to be able to use one, according to experts.

The two-year study mentioned earlier included homes across the country – from south-east Scotland and Newcastle to the south-east of England – to test the technical and practical feasibility of a large-scale rollout of heat pumps into existing homes. It found that properties including Victorian terrace houses and 1960s flats could have a heat pump successfully installed.

“The project has not identified any particular type or age of property that cannot have a successful heat pump installation,” the ESC report said. “The suggestion that there are particular home archetypes in Britain that are unsuitable for heat pumps is not supported by project experience and data.”

There are caveats: flats or terrace homes with limited outdoor space may need to consider wall-mounted or rooftop heat pumps. For all housing types, there will need to be space inside for a hot water tank, often where the old boiler used to be. And for older buildings, other upgrades – such as loft and wall insulation, or the replacement of old radiators with larger models and underfloor heating – may be needed.

Claim: I will need to spend a lot insulating my home

Improving the insulation of a home can only help its energy efficiency. The same is true for properties with heat pumps. But experts believe there is a misconception that these require intrusive and expensive home upgrades to work properly.

A study for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in 2021 found that the move to very low or even zero-carbon home heating could be undertaken “without necessarily carrying out extensive deep retrofit work”.

It said that “homes can convert to electric heating at a cost far lower than the accepted wisdom” and “with no threat to comfort”. Additionally, greenhouse gas emissions would “fall very dramatically as a result”.

The ESC study found that about 15% of properties required some energy-efficiency upgrades – but in the majority of cases this was loft insulation, which costs less than £1,000 and can be done with minimal disruption. Only “a few” properties required cavity wall insulation – which carries a cost of about £2,700 – or the replacing of old doors.

Andrew Sissons, a deputy director at Nesta, a charity which undertakes research into home heating innovation, says: “Insulation is a good thing to do in its own right – but your home doesn’t need to be insulated to get a heat pump.” A well-insulated home can make heat pumps run more efficiently, but it is more important to make sure that the correct size heat pump and radiators are installed, he adds.

In short: if you live in a home where the heating keeps your rooms comfortably warm, it is very likely that you won’t need to undertake any extra insulation before installing a heat pump. But if you can afford to invest in low-cost measures such as draught exclusion, double glazing and loft insulation, you will get this money back in lower bills over the long term.

Claim: my heat pump might be a noise nuisance to neighbours

Heat pumps are designed to be installed outside the home to extract warmth from the air, ground or water. In densely populated areas, this could mean scores of heat pump fans humming within a relatively small location. One device typically emits a constant hum of between 40 and 60 decibels – about the same as a fridge or dishwasher – but could many of them amount to a noise nuisance?

The main source of heat pump noise is the fan, which draws in air, and the compressor, which raises the temperature of the refrigerant by increasing pressure on its gases. Concerns around noise pollution are tricky to disprove because the limited rollout means that, to date, there are few actual examples of lots of heat pumps working in close proximity to one another.

Earlier this year, one reader wrote to the Guardian complaining that a summer stay in a development where all eight properties had heat pumps was marred by the hum. “If you sat in the garden in the evening, it was an annoying, continual source of noise,” the writer said.

The Guardian reader’s experience may have been due to improper installation, or the use of older, noisier heat pump models, according to Jack Harvie-Clark, a director at Apex Acoustics, a noise-testing consultancy. “Modern heat pumps can be significantly quieter, and proper placement – away from property boundaries – can further reduce noise impact,” he says.

His advice? If households take a slow and steady approach to heating their homes, they will avoid making their heat pump work harder than it needs to. Overworking it would increase the noise it makes – and make it less efficient and cost-effective, too.

“I believe that many people in the UK try to operate their heat pumps the way they operate gas boilers – turning them on and off – but they can’t heat houses as quickly as gas boilers, so they need to run constantly to do that,” says Harvie-Clark.

Claim: Heat pumps could cause blackouts

Britain’s plans to meet its climate targets rely heavily on electrifying the economy. Heat pumps – alongside electric vehicles – are expected to contribute to the UK’s power demand more than doubling by 2040.

Heat pumps are also expected to have a big impact on how electricity grids run. A spell of cold weather could cause a collective surge in demand from millions of households. But are these challenges too great for grid operators, and can households expect power blackouts in exchange for a greener energy system?

National Grid ESO (NESO), the arm of National Grid which balances Britain’s electricity supply and demand, produces detailed annual forecasts of the country’s various potential routes towards its climate goals, as well as studies that analyse the changes expected to power supplies and electricity demand. These blueprints show that the UK should have enough power supplies to keep the lights on – but also that heat pumps, electric cars and batteries could help it use its available electricity better, too.

For example, homes and businesses can charge their electric vehicles or batteries overnight when power demand is lower, helping to keep the daily use peak from climbing too high. These same energy stores could help to keep the lights on, and heat pumps running, by releasing electricity back to the grid at times when demand for power reaches a peak.

ScottishPower, which runs regional networks as well as main transmission lines, has created an artificial intelligence-powered “digital twin” of its electricity networks to simulate how they might change by 2045. One of its key findings is that using heat pumps flexibly could help to reduce their contribution to peak demand by up to 32% by 2045, making it easier to keep the energy grid stable.

UK Power Networks (UKPN), which runs the grids serving London and parts of the south-east of England, is already monitoring real-time data from homes that have electric heating alongside an electric vehicle charger, solar panels or batteries, to understand the impact that heat pumps will have on the grid.

It will no doubt be trickier for the grid operators to keep the lights on than it was in the past but there is no reason to believe that we will experience more blackouts in the future as a result of heat pumps if careful modelling and upgrades continue.

Two people were arrested on Wednesday in connection with vandalism in an abandoned Hollywood Hills mansion owned by the son of a Philadelphia Phillies co-owner.

John Powers Middleton, a film producer, owns a property that has long been left vacant and become a popular target for graffiti artists and squatters.

Los Angeles police department officers patrolling the area near one mansion on Mulholland Drive responded to reports of a man and woman who had recently spray-painted the residence and fled in a white Mercedes-Benz.

The suspects, identified as 35-year-old Jacob Smith and 19-year-old Thomia Fagan, were arrested shortly after.

“The officers’ investigation revealed that both suspects had entered the private property and utilized spray paint to deface the property,” reads the statement by the LAPD. Officers said they recovered “several spray paint cans” as well as a loaded unregistered firearm.

Smith was charged with suspicion of vandalism, while Fagan faces charges of suspicion of a firearm in a vehicle, according authorities. Both are being held without bail.

A similar fate has fallen on Middleton’s other mansion about 5 miles (8km) away which has also been overtaken by squatters and graffiti artists. The properties owned by Middleton are located at 7571 Mulholland Drive and 1754 N Sunset Plaza Drive, according to KABC.

Middleton apologized to the residents of Los Angeles a day after the arrests were made, taking responsibility for the state of his properties.

“What’s happened to my property is criminal and I hope everyone caught will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” said Middleton in a statement to NBC News. “No one in Los Angeles should have to put up with squatters and vandalism that are out of control.”

He also said that private security measures had been in place, but the volume of break-ins and vandalism overwhelmed the teams that were hired. In the statement, Middleton promised to increase security, with 24/7 armed guards and crews actively working on repairs.

Middleton also said he would reimburse the city for any expenses incurred in securing the properties.

The abandoned mansions have attracted tourists, thanks to online viral posts, increasing the issue of trespassing and vandalism. In recent weeks, visitors were leaving tags on the mansion, one of which was reportedly owned by Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul who was recently charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. One of the tags in the home reads: “Diddy was here.”

Councilmember Nithya Raman said her office had been in close contact with the Los Angeles police department and the department of building and safety regarding the incidents at the properties.

“These properties are both owned by the same individual, who is in egregious violation of the law,” Raman said.

“This is a public safety issue with serious consequences for both neighbors and the surrounding community. Irresponsible property owners must take accountability for their property or face action from the city,” she said.

The Los Angeles Times spoke to several neighbors who were baffled by the state of the mansions.

“It’s just insane,” said one neighbor. “There was once a gorgeous home there. I mean, who does that? Who walks away from a $10m house like that and just lets it go to squatters?”

“We’ve become known for the graffiti mansion,” said another neighbor. “It’s so embarrassing to have this in the heart of the Hollywood Hills.”

It was also reported that a crew of workers boarded up the windows earlier this week and erected a new chain-link fence around the property. Workers also painted over graffiti.

Donald Trump threatened on Friday to direct the justice department to pursue criminal charges against Google if he is elected president, claiming the company was unfairly displaying negative news articles about him but not his 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris.

The complaint – the latest threat on the campaign trail from Trump to wield the power of the presidency in response to enemies real or perceived – came in an abrupt post on Truth Social.

“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,” Trump said in the post.

“This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, when I win the Election and become President of the United States.”

Trump did not address the possibility that there have been more negative stories about his campaign than Harris’s in recent weeks, and what prompted him to lash out at Google was not immediately clear.

Google has said it does not manipulate search results to benefit a particular party. “Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries,” the company said in a statement.

Still, conservatives have long complained that Google’s search results unfairly favor Democrats. The rightwing Media Research Center, which bills itself as a media watchdog for conservatives, has previously issued reports claiming Google helped Democrats.

The Trump campaign has also bitterly complained about the Harris campaign using the “sponsored” feature on Google search results to promote positive news coverage from outlets, including the Guardian, but with headlines rewritten by the campaign to favor Harris.

Trump’s post about the Google search results was the latest instance of him vowing to prosecute supposed opponents.

This month, Trump threatened in another Truth Social post to pursue criminal charges against any lawyers, donors, political operatives and a range of other people who he believes engaged in supposed election fraud against him if he wins the presidential election in November.

At a news conference on Thursday, Trump said former House speaker Nancy Pelosi should face criminal prosecution for not preventing the January 6 Capitol attack, which was caused by his own supporters rioting to stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.

And at a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday, Trump called for an attorney general “in a Republican territory” to investigate Pelosi and her husband over reports that they had sold Visa stock before the justice department brought an antitrust lawsuit against the credit-card company.

Boris Johnson considered an “aquatic raid” on a Dutch warehouse to seize Covid vaccines during the height of the pandemic, he has revealed in his memoirs.

The former prime minister discussed plans with senior military officials in March 2021, according to an extract from his forthcoming book, Unleashed, published in the Daily Mail.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was, at the time, at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports, and Johnson believed the EU was treating the UK “with malice”.

Johnson said that he “had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed”.

The deputy chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Doug Chalmers, told the prime minister the plan was “certainly feasible” and would involve using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals.

“They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports,” Johnson wrote.

However, Chalmers told Johnson it would be difficult to carry out the mission undetected, meaning the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a longstanding Nato ally”.

Johnson concluded: “Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought, but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.”

Elsewhere in the published extracts, Johnson denied eating cake at what he described as the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity” held to celebrate his 56th birthday during the Covid lockdown.

He did not see or eat any cake at the event on 19 June 2020, he said, adding that it “never occurred” to him or the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that the Partygate birthday gathering was “in some way against the rules”.

He wrote: “Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday.

“I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity. I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance.”

Downing Street previously admitted that staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room for what was reportedly a surprise get-together for Johnson organised by his now-wife, Carrie.

Johnson became the first prime minister to receive a criminal penalty while in office over Partygate, although an investigation by the former senior civil servant Sue Gray found that neither Johnson nor Sunak was aware of the event in advance.

In the extracts from his autobiography, Johnson also said he believed he “might have carked it” when he was in intensive care with Covid without the “skills and experience” of his nurses.

Johnson spent several days in intensive care with Covid in April 2020. He described not wanting to fall asleep on his first night in intensive care “partly in case I never woke up”.

Following his release from hospital, the then prime minister spent some time at Chequers with his now-wife Carrie, and he recalled joining in with the clap for the NHS on a Thursday evening.

“I clapped with deep emotion because my lungs were telling me that I had been through something really pretty nasty, and that if it hadn’t been for [his nurses] Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it,” he wrote.

On his admission to ICU, Johnson said he “started to doze, but didn’t want to sleep – partly in case I never woke up, or in case they decided to perform some stealthy tracheotomy without letting me know”.

In what some might see as an unlikely union, the Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Lana Del Rey has married a swamp tour guide from Louisiana.

The Daily Mail obtained exclusive video and photos of the 39-year-old Del Rey’s wedding on Thursday to Jeremy Dufrene, 49, in Des Allemands, Louisiana, about a 45-minute drive south-west of New Orleans.

In the video and pictures posted by the Mail the pair are seen apparently getting married in an outdoor venue by the waterside in the small unincorporated community. Del Rey wore a graceful white dress while Dufrene donned a smart dark suit.

The New Orleans news outlet nola.com reported that Dufrene and the musician, nee Elizabeth Grant, had obtained a marriage license from Lafourche parish – which is the word Louisiana uses for county – three days before the nuptials.

The couple married near Airboat Tours by Arthur Matherne, the company for which Dufrene leads tours through swamps with creatures including alligators.

Dufrene and Del Rey were first romantically linked back in August when the couple was spotted holding hands at the Reading Festival in Britain, one of the country’s biggest music events.

But the pair are known to have been acquainted at least as far back as 2019, when Del Rey posted about visiting one of Dufrene’s wildlife tours. Del Rey returned to Louisiana in May earlier this year for another swamp tour, again tagging Dufrene on Instagram. And in June, she was again seen in the New Orleans area, causing waves among locals by visiting a 24-hr diner named the Tic-Toc Cafe that is not known among too many non-residents.

Del Rey is one of the world’s most famous singers, known for hits like Video Game and Summertime Sadness. Air Boat Tours by Arthur Matherne, meanwhile, has a five-star rating on Yelp from more than 240 reviews.

Brutal heat continues to plague the south-west US, with excessive heat alerts lingering long into September as parts of the region set grim new records for deaths connected to the sweltering temperatures.

Autumn has offered little reprieve for cities that have already spent months mired in triple-digit temperatures. This week, Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; and Palm Springs, California, are all grappling with severe weather, with highs that have pushed over 100F (38C). More than 16 million people in the US were under heat alerts on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, mostly clustered in the southern tips of Nevada, Arizona and California.

“Late-season heat is dangerous because people are fatigued from fighting heat all summer,” the NWS forecast office in Las Vegas cautioned in an alert, which warned of extreme weather expected to last through the weekend and into next week. “This is especially true this year,” it added, “as 2024 continues to break all-time heat records.”

Fueled by the climate crisis, and often exacerbated by concrete cityscapes that cook when temperatures rise, heatwaves are getting longer, larger and more intense.

Las Vegas had its 102nd day of temperatures above 100F on Friday, a new record for the most days in a single year. Several states, including Arizona and California, have experienced their warmest summers on record this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and forecasters are predicting that 2024 may rank as the hottest year – a record just set in 2023.

“But it’s not over,” NWS Las Vegas said on Twitter, noting the heat warnings lingering in the forecast through the weekend.

The scorching and sustained heat has taken a devastating toll; heat already ranks as the most lethal weather-related disaster in the US, and deaths are increasing. Heat-associated fatalities are growing across the south-west, where shadeless streets can grow hot enough to cause second-degree burns in seconds. As dangerously hot weather stretches past summer and into spring and fall, the risks for those who don’t have access to cooling have continued to rise.

In Arizona’s Maricopa county, home to Phoenix, 664 fatalities are believed to have been linked to the heat this year , according to public health officials, who are still working to confirm more than half of them. Southern Nevada, where Las Vegas is located, has seen more deaths this year than in any year prior, with officials confirming this week that there have been 342 fatalities linked to the heat. This surpassed last year’s record, which marked an 80% increase over 2022.

But even these tragically high numbers are believed to paint only part of the picture. Heat deaths can be difficult to track, especially among high-risk populations including in unhoused communities. “We will inevitably see this number climb,” Melanie Rouse, Clark county’s coroner, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Older people, children and people with underlying health conditions are among the most at risk, especially among those without access to air conditioning, but first responders have also reported that heat-related emergencies have been climbing for workers.

“Delivery drivers, warehouse operators, our construction trades – basically anyone who has to work outside – we have seen emergencies from them and people with regular medical emergencies, and during a normal day the heat causes them to succumb,” Scott Vivier, the deputy fire chief in Henderson, a city south-east of Las Vegas, said in July.

Vivier’s department is among the first in the region to use a new tool called the polar pod, which enables emergency responders to pack someone in ice and water while they transport them to the hospital. Vivier said it’s had an incredible impact on their ability to save lives, and that they’ve even been trained to use the pods to revive overheated pets.

Exposure to prolonged extreme heat can also have lingering effects that are harder to quantify. As residents across the south-west yearn for the coming of a cooler autumn, public health clinicians have cautioned the heat can pack a psychological punch as well, leading to symptoms like irritability, anxiety and difficulty concentrating.

Singer Chappell Roan has pulled out of an appearance at this weekend’s All Things Go festival, claiming that her situation has become “overwhelming”.

The rising star, who currently has seven songs in the Billboard Top 100, released a statement on her Instagram stories, announcing that she won’t appear at either the DC or New York City stages this weekend.

“I apologise to people who have been waiting to see me in NYC & DC this weekend at All Things Go, but I am unable to perform,” the 26-year-old wrote. “Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it. I feel pressures to prioritise a lot of things right now and I need a few days to prioritise my health. I want to be present when I perform and give the best shows possible. Thank you for understanding. Be back soon xox.”

Organisers of the festival responded with a post on X, showing support, writing that “it’s important to remember that health and well-being always comes first.”.

Roan had made headlines in the last week after an interview with the Guardian in which she spoke about her thoughts on the upcoming election.

“I have so many issues with our government in every way,” she said. “There are so many things that I would want to change. So I don’t feel pressured to endorse someone. There’s problems on both sides. I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote – vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city.”

The comment sparked pushback online and led Roan to respond in a number of TikTok videos in which she attempted to clarify her stance. While admitting she would be voting for the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, she added: “I’m not going to settle for what the options that are in front of me, and you’re not going to make me feel bad for that.”

Roan also said: “Obviously, fuck the policies of the right, but also fuck some of the policies on the left. That’s why I can’t endorse. That’s why I can’t, like, put my entire name in my entire project behind one.”

The singer, who was recently named best new artist at the MTV VMA awards, has previously spoken about the troubles she has had with her expedited rise to fame.

In June, she broke down on stage in North Carolina, saying to fans: “I just want to be honest with the crowd. I just feel a little off today because I think that my career is just kind of going really fast and it’s really hard to keep up. I’m just being honest that I’m just having a hard time today.”

She has also released a number of statements about how she has been treated by over-eager fans who have crossed the line with “creepy” behaviour. “I don’t care that this crazy type of behaviour comes along with the job, the career field I’ve chosen,” she said. “That does not make it OK, that doesn’t make it normal. That doesn’t mean that I want it, that doesn’t mean that I like it.”

In her Guardian interview, Roan also spoke about her diagnosis of “severe depression” for which she is in therapy at the moment. “I think it’s because my whole life has changed,” she said. “Everything that I really love to do now comes with baggage.”

Roan, whose hit singles include Good Luck, Babe and Hot to Go!, has scheduled tour dates in the upcoming weeks in Tennessee and the Austin City Limits festival in Texas. She is also scheduled to be a musical guest on Saturday Night Live on 2 November.

Maggie Smith, the prolific, multi-award-winning actor whose work ranged from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to Harry Potter to Downton Abbey, has died aged 89.

The news was confirmed by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens in a statement. They said: “She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27 September.

“An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.

“We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”

Smith’s gift for acid-tongued comedy was arguably the source of her greatest achievements: the waspish teacher Jean Brodie, for which she won an Oscar, prim period yarns such as A Room With a View and Gosford Park, and a series of collaborations on stage and screen with Alan Bennett including The Lady in the Van. “My career is chequered,” she told the Guardian in 2004. “I think I got pigeonholed in humour … If you do comedy, you kind of don’t count. Comedy is never considered the real thing.” However, Smith also excelled in non-comedic dramatic roles, performing opposite Laurence Olivier for the National Theatre, winning a best actress Bafta for The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, and playing the title role in Ingmar Bergman’s 1970 production of Hedda Gabler.

Born in 1934, Smith grew up in Oxford and began acting at the city’s Playhouse theatre as a teenager. While appearing in a string of stage shows, including Bamber Gascoigne’s 1957 musical comedy Share My Lettuce opposite Kenneth Williams, Smith also made inroads on film, with her first substantial impact in the 1958 Seth Holt thriller Nowhere to Go, for which she was nominated for a best supporting actress Bafta. After starring in Peter Shaffer’s stage double bill The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Smith was invited by Olivier to join the nascent National Theatre company in 1962, for whom she appeared in a string of productions, including as Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello in his notorious blackface production in 1964. (Smith repeated the role in Olivier’s film version the following year, for which they were both Oscar-nominated.)

In 1969 she was cast in the lead role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the adaptation of the Muriel Spark novel about the Edinburgh schoolteacher with an admiration for Mussolini; Smith went on to win the best actress Oscar in 1970. Later the same year she starred in Ingmar Bergman’s production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for the National Theatre in London’s West End; the Evening Standard’s Milton Shulman described her as “haunt[ing] the stage like some giant portrait by Modigliani, her alabaster skin stretched tight with hidden anguish.” Another Oscar nomination for best actress came her way in 1973 for the Graham Greene adaptation Travels with My Aunt, and an Oscar win (for best supporting actress) in 1979 for California Suite, the Neil Simon-scripted anthology piece in which she played an Oscar-nominated film star.

Smith continued her successful parallel film and stage careers in the 1980s. She starred opposite Michael Palin in A Private Function, the wartime-set comedy about food rationing, co-scripted by Alan Bennett, and had a colourful supporting role as gossipy cousin Charlotte Bartlett in Merchant Ivory’s A Room With a View, for which she was nominated for yet another Oscar. She followed it up with The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, a character study in which Smith played the unmarried, frustrated woman of the title. On stage she played Virginia Woolf in Edna O’Brien’s 1980 play at the Stratford Festival theatre in Canada, and in 1987 starred as tour guide Lettice Douffet in Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage. She also reunited with Bennett for his Talking Heads series on both radio and TV, playing a vicar’s wife having an affair.

Film roles continued to roll in: she starred alongside Joan Plowright and Cher in Franco Zeffirelli’s loosely autobiographical Tea With Mussolini, a dowager countess in Robert Altman’s country-house murder mystery Gosford Park, and opposite Judi Dench in Ladies in Lavender, written and directed by Charles Dance. She also accepted the prominent role of Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, appearing between 2001 and 2011 in every instalment apart from Deathly Hallows Part 1. Meanwhile she achieved arguably her most impactful TV role as the countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, created by Gosford Park writer Julian Fellowes – reprising the role in two standalone cinema films, released in 2019 and 2022. Having played the role on stage in 1999, Smith enjoyed a late career triumph in The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennett’s memoir about the woman who lived on his driveway.

Smith was married twice: to fellow actor Robert Stephens between 1967 and 1975, and Beverley Cross between 1975 and his death in 1998.