To survive a deadly cancer, author Ida Harris had to give up her sweet tooth. It’s been an identity-shaking adjustment

A diabetic at a dessert show: I know it sounds like a terrible joke, the most exquisite torture or, at the very least, a bad idea. But there I was at Sweet Fest in Atlanta, rumored to be the sweetest day the city had ever seen.

I strolled slowly by dessert display after display: decadent banana puddings; strawberry-stuffed muffins; brownies in shades of blonde, velvet and the darkest chocolate. I lusted after every sugar cookie, ice cream scoop and candied apple. But nothing quite piqued my interest like the bread puddings made by small, home-based bakeries.

Payouts are ‘an acknowledgement’ of US’s long history of refusing to process loans from Black farmers, USDA says

The Biden administration has doled out more than $2bn in direct payments for Black and other minority farmers discriminated against by the US Department of Agriculture, the president announced Wednesday.

More than 23,000 farmers were approved for payments ranging from $10,000 to $500,000, according to the USDA. Another 20,000 who planned to start a farm but did not receive a USDA loan received between $3,500 and $6,000.

Donna Massey told a dispatcher: ‘Please don’t send no combative policemen that are prejudiced’

Two emergency response calls were made from the home of Sonya Massey, the Black woman who was shot in the face by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy after she called 911 for help , in the days leading up to her death, according to records released Wednesday.

In a third call, Massey’s mother, Donna Massey, reports that her daughter is suffering a “mental breakdown” and tells the dispatcher, “I don’t want you guys to hurt her.” She adds that she fears the police and asks that no officer who is “prejudiced” be sent.

Vice-president brushes off remarks by Donald Trump in which he said Harris ‘happened to turn Black’ a number of years ago

Kamala Harris has shrugged off Donald Trump’s questioning of her racial identity , saying that it was “the same old show” and that “America deserves better”, at a rally in Texas.

On Wednesday, in an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) , Trump antagonised senior Black journalists and questioned Harris’s race, saying, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black.”

Chaotic event hosted by National Association of Black Journalists saw Trump lie about abortion and immigration

During a contentious and chaotic panel hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday, Donald Trump parroted disinformation about immigration and abortion, questioned Kamala Harris’s race and accused a panel moderator, Rachel Scott – the senior congressional correspondent for ABC News – of being “rude” and presenting a “nasty question” when she asked him: “Why should Black voters trust you?”

The appearance – which received backlash earlier this week from Black journalists citing the former president’s anti-Black, anti-journalist and anti-democracy history – received a mix of jeers, laughter and interruptions from attendees as Trump evaded several questions asked by moderators.

Chancers, grievance merchants and the far right have taken advantage of the killings of three small girls. The result has been sickening violence

Away from the fury, the violence and the speculation that has engulfed Southport, one thing matters more than all else: three small girls were killed this week. They were aged six, seven and nine. Eight more children were injured, and two adults. They went out on Monday morning to a Taylor Swift-themed dance event, with the whole of summer and their lives stretched out ahead of them. Then there was a horrific knife attack.

The families and friends of those three girls, and of the others who were left injured and traumatised, face a long period of grief and trauma. Yet, rather than being allowed to heal, the suffering of a small seaside town has been exploited by chancers, grievance merchants and the far right . Using social media and other internet platforms, they spread misinformation and pet theories and flyers, calling on others to come to Southport. A name for the attacker was circulated, along with allegations of motive. “Mask up,” the messages advised, with an address of where to meet and a map showing a mosque nearby.

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This moving story documents the long struggle to bury the mass remains of Africans who were ‘liberated’ from the slave trade in a way that memorialises the island’s past

Directors Joseph Curran and Dominic Aubrey de Vere’s feature does something all too few documentaries dare to these days: end on a downbeat, less-than-triumphant note. It’s not until it happens that you realise how much you’ve missed that bitter taste in the mouth while dining on the sugary banquet of the many happy endings currently de rigueur in Doc Land. How bracing to encounter a movie that’s not here to just make us feel good. That’s not to say there aren’t elements of this story that are inspiring, moving and very faintly hopeful – just not the last couple of minutes when onscreen text reveals the story’s final resolution.

The bones at the centre of the story are those of 9,000 Africans who died and were buried on Saint Helena, the UK-territory island in the middle of the Atlantic that is best known for being where Napoleon was exiled and died. The absurd irony is that the grave where he was buried is now actually empty, his remains having been repatriated to France. But that doesn’t stop the island keeping his empty tomb spotlessly clean, signposted and a well-advertised tourist attraction.

Pioneering director Ayoka Chenzira gives voice to the inner lives of women at a time when they were mostly ignored, making this coming-of-age story a rare gift to treasure

Ayoka Chenzira is a pioneering black director whose films have been finding a new audience with younger generations as she enters her 70s. Her 1994 feature debut Alma’s Rainbow has now been restored and rereleased; it is a coming-of-age movie that is funny and warm, if a little scrappy. It’s set in a Brooklyn townhouse owned by prim and proper Alma (Kim Weston-Moran), who runs a beauty parlour on the ground floor. In this all-women space, Chenzira luxuriates in her female characters. The fact that historically so few films have been made about the inner lives of black women gives Alma’s Rainbow a precious quality, and the feeling that it’s a gem to treasure.

Alma lives in the house with her teenage daughter Rainbow (played with charisma and spark by Victoria Gabrielle Platt). Rainbow has been skipping school to perform with a hip-hop street dance crew. In the neighbourhood, she’s known as a tomboy, but Rainbow is starting to think about boys. Her mum, Alma, is not impressed; she’s worked to the bone to make a success of the beauty parlour, to be an independent woman and build a better life for Rainbow. It makes her strict: “Keep your pants up and your dress down,” she instructs her daughter.