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Edison electrical company has created an extraordinary online photographic archive of more than a century of work in the Los Angeles area. Its 70,000 images create a fascinating portrait of place and people

Cinemagoers everywhere can picture Los Angeles' sun-blushed streets, thanks to Hollywood. Yet a huge, newly digitised photographic archive shows a different LA, as the city developed from a western hinterland into shimmering megalopolis.

Form and Landscape: Southern California, Edison and the Los Angeles Basin 1940–1990 is an online exhibition taken from the 70,000-plus images shot from the late 19th century to the late 20th century by the photographers of the region's biggest electrical company.

Edison supplied power to municipalities beyond the city limits of Los Angeles proper, which, thanks to the firm's endeavours, went from being moderately inhabited coastal lands to one of the most densely populated regions in the US. The firm commissioned photographers to shoot its power plants and overhead cables, as well as the supermarkets, petrol stations and homes lit up by its current. While this might have served little purpose beyond demonstrating how great life was with plug sockets, today they're an evocative reminder of the hopes and follies of mid-century modernism, slipping in somewhere between Raymond Chandler and Ed Ruscha.

Perhaps it's the wide variety of scenes pictured, coupled with the photographers' apparent detachment, that makes the archive so uncanny. Or perhaps it's the fickle switch the photographers seem to make between documentation of power generation and a boosterish promotion of the good life on offer through the electrical grid.

Here a leisurely housewife roasts a turkey; there acouple rest on the lip of a nocturnal swimming pool; elsewhere an electrical worker shows the hole burned in his throat during an industrial accident; in between there are neon-lit convenience stores, twilit service stations; pylons, steam turbines, mines and scenes of blissful domesticity; here a young man labours over a metal furnace; there a schoolgirl falls asleep beside her nightlight.Edison bequeathed the photos to the Huntington Library, LA in 2006, and over the past year history professors William Deverell and Greg Hise have been making sense of this vast resource. Electricity was essential for much of the growth in manufacturing and the regional economy, they say . Metropolitan southern California is a product of the second industrial revolution; electricity and petroleum were fundamental for the production of chemicals, dyes and materials for aviation and aerospace, film and related industries.

There is a popular misconception that LA has no past, Hise explains. This collection is visual evidence that the past is all around.

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The whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in NSA history is answering your questions about the NSA surveillance revelations – follow it live now

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Russian president says backing 'those who kill their enemies and eat their organs' flouts Europe's humanitarian values

A diplomatic breakthrough on the Syrian civil war at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland appeared unlikely when the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, chastised the west for considering arming Syrian rebels, saying they ate human organs. He said Russia by contrast was arming the legitimate government of Syria.

Speaking after a difficult meeting with Putin in Downing Street, David Cameron claimed both men were in agreement on the need to end the human catastrophe of the civil war. But there was little to suggest the two men made progress on how to convene a fresh Syrian peace conference in Geneva, let alone who should attend, or its agenda.

In icy exchanges at a press conference, Putin said: "You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support? Is it them who you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to humanitarian values that have been preached in Europe for hundreds of years."

Putin's remarks will find an echo on the Conservative benches, where there is strong resistance to arming the Syrian opposition. Cameron has argued that it is possible to arm the pluralist democratic elements of the opposition, and he too wants to drive al-Qaida from Syria.

The talks followed a decision by President Barack Obama's administration to arm rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad after the US said it had obtained proof that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. Some of the proof was provided by British scientists at Porton Down, and Cameron has now accused Assad of committing war crimes.

Cameron admitted the Russians and the UK held different points of view, but said the two countries would put aside their differences and focus on the "common ground" – organising peace talks between the parties in Geneva. Putin said he fully shared Cameron's view that the civil war could be ended "only by political and diplomatic means".

Cameron added: "We both see the humanitarian catastrophe. We both see the dangers of instability and extremism. We both want to see a peace process and a transition. The challenge for the G8 … is to put aside some of these differences."

The Russian leader, who arrived an hour late for the talks, said he wanted to help broker a peace deal for Syria, and he hoped the G8 summit in Northern Ireland could advance that process. Putin insisted his government was "not breaching any rules" in supplying weapons to Bashar al-Assad's "legitimate government" and called on partner G8 countries to respect the same rules.

"What I take from our conversation today is that we can overcome these differences if we recognise that we share some fundamental aims: to end the conflict, to stop Syria breaking apart, to let the Syrian people decide who governs them, and to take the fight to the extremists and defeat them," said Cameron.

In a sign of deteriorating relations among the G8, the Canadian prime minister, Steve Harper, claimed Putin was backing Assad's "thugs".

"I don't think we should fool ourselves," he said. "This is G7 plus one. We in the west have a very different perspective on this situation. Mr Putin and his government are supporting the thugs of the Assad regime for their own reasons that I do not think are justifiable, and Mr Putin knows my view on that."

Cameron was also under pressure from his coalition partners the Liberal Democrats to avoid dragging Britain into a military conflict. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, implied that the case for intervention was less clear cut than in Libya or Iraq.

The shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, said MPs of all parties were feeling unease. "For months Labour has called on the government to answer basic questions about their approach, such as how the prime minister would ensure that weapons supplied did not fall into the wrong hands, and how this step would help to de-escalate the conflict rather than prolong it.

"The G8 is a key window of opportunity for David Cameron to exert pressure on President Putin and it is vital that he uses the coming hours to do so."

Tory MP Julian Lewis said it would be "suicidal" for Britain to hand arms to an opposition the government admits includes extremist elements.

He told the BBC's Radio 4: "The reason it would be suicidal would be that in taking over Syria they would also inherit Syria's arsenal of weapons, including in particular the nerve gas which is the centre of so much attention.

"In the past we have gone to war because we feared that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of al-Qaida and it would be absolutely crazy to assist al-Qaida to get their hands on the very sorts of weapons we must keep away from them at all costs.

"I have little doubt the prime minister would struggle to get this achieved by parliament, because so many think it is not in Britain's national interest."

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Former vice-president tells Fox he is 'suspicious because he went to China' as senior figures discuss surveillance leaks

Senior officials from the current and previous US administrations lined up on Sunday to defend the government sweep of phone and internet records and condemn the whistleblower who revealed the secret surveillance programmes.

The White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, said President Barack Obama was of the mind that the no violations of privacy had taken place in regards to the data collections, the existence of which have been the subject of a series of Guardian reports.

Dick Cheney, vice-president under George W Bush and a key figure in the post-September 11 revamping of US national security, also defended the system. He told Fox News Sunday that it was needed to "gather intelligence on your enemies and stop the attack before it is launched". He went on to condemn the man behind the series of explosive leaks regarding. Having described Edward Snowden as a "traitor", Cheney went on to cast aspersions over the 29-year-old's decision to travel to Hong Kong, suggesting that he could be a spy for China.

"I'm suspicious because he went to China. That's not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth," Cheney said, adding: "It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this." Cheney suggested that Snowden could still be in possession of confidential data and that the Chinese would "probably be willing to provide immunity for him or sanctuary for him in exchange for what he presumably knows or doesn't know".

McDonough refused to speculate over Snowden's motives, but disputed claims that the former contract worker for the National Security Agency made to the Guardian concerning being able wiretap anyone, including the president.

"That's incorrect," the White House's most senior staffer told CBS's Face the Nation. He added that Obama did not believe that the surveillance system amounted to a government overreach. "We have to find the right balance of protecting our privacy – which is sacrosanct in the president's views – and protecting the country from the very real risk and threats that it faces."

McDonough's comments come a day after US intelligence chiefs wrote to Congress defending the legality and usefullness of the surveillance programmes that were first revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. The briefing document claimed that the monitoring of metadata had helped prevent potential terror attacks in the US and in more than 20 countries around the world. Some have complained that this claim is unproven.

Meanwhile, sceptics in Congress have complained that the surveillance programme does not come with sufficient checks to protect innocent individuals. Senator Mark Udall, a leading critic of the secret programme, said that collection of data does not have to be "all or nothing". He intends to put forward a bill that would limit the scope of what is allowed under the Patriot Act.

Udall told NBC's Meet the Press: "We owe it to the American people to have a debate in the open about the extent of this programme – you have a law that has been interpreted secretly by a secret court that then issues secret orders to generate a secret programme."

Udall added that the way the system operated at present wasn't "an American approach" to the problem of balancing privacy with threat reduction.

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Intelligence chiefs confirm programmes, but say they protect against terrorism and minimise infringements on privacy

The US intelligence community has written to Congress to confirm the existence of two sweeping surveillance programmes revealed by the Guardian, but defended their legality and usefulness in preventing terrorism.

In the fullest official account yet of how the US gathers domestic telephone data and overseas internet traffic, the document sent on Saturday claims that both programmes were authorised by Congress under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

This has been disputed by a number of senators and congressmen, including one of the authors of the Patriot Act, who say it is more sweeping than they envisaged, but the document details a number of internal checks put in place since that seek to minimise the exposure of private data obtained inadvertently from citizens who are not terrorist suspects.

Referring to the gathering of US telephone records, it says: "The metadata is segregated and queries against the database are documented and audited. Only a small number of specifically-trained officials may access the data; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews the program every 90 days; and the data must be destroyed within five years."

The National Security Agency has not responded to questions from the Guardian about whether there was any external audit of this five-year moratorium, not was any additional detail provided to Congress.

The document also reveals that 300 identifiers "associated with specific foreign terrorist organizations" were targeted within the phone metadata for further scrutiny in 2012.

However, the briefing document does not address concerns raised by a number of members of Congress as to whether further court approval is required to query the database for these specific records, simply saying officers require "reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulated facts, that an identifier is associated with specific foreign terrorist organizations".

Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told the Guardian on Thursday her "understanding" was that Fisa court approval is not required before a database query of Americans' phone records.

The briefing document says the metadata gathered within this particular programme includes telephone numbers dialled and length of calls, but does not include the content of the calls or location data.

Earlier on Saturday it was revealed that one of the Congressman present at a secret briefing given by intelligence chiefs on Tuesday claims he was told that agents did not have to obtain extra approval to listen to the content of calls.

Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that".

"I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee, in an article on CNET.

The briefing sent to Congress on Saturday says a similar system of internal checks is in place for the Prism programme, which "targets the internet communications of foreigners".

"Congress requires the government to develop and obtain judicial approval for 'minimization' procedures to ensure appropriate protection of any information about US persons that may be incidentally acquired," it says. "The Government did that, and its procedures were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

It also defends the role of US technology companies, saying the law compels them to "provide certain communication records" but implied some had put up a fight. "While required to comply, US companies have put energy, focus and commitment to consistently protect the privacy of their customers, as well as the safety and security of these same customers, around the world," it said.

Disclosure of the latest briefing to Congress from intelligence chiefs follows leaks to the Guardian and Washington Post, and a fresh investigation by the Associated Press which claims that collection of data from internet companies is only the tip of a much bigger digital surveillance programme that includes the NSA tapping directly into the global internet backbone to obtain raw traffic data.

On Saturday the US intelligence community repeated claims made by the FBI director, Robert Mueller, that its surveillance activities were essential to preventing terrorism and hinted that they might have stopped the 11 September attacks had they been in place in 2001.

The briefing document says the telephone data collection was "designed to address a seam between foreign and domestic counterterrorism efforts exposed in the 9/11 attacks".

It had helped to thwart potential terrorist plots in the US and more than 20 other countries, the document said.

It gives fresh details to back up claims that both programmes helped foil an attempted attack on the New York subway in 2009 by Colorado-based extremist Najibullah Zazi.

The document says: "NSA received Zazi's telephone number from FBI and ran it against the Section 215 Business Records data, identifying and passing additional leads back to the FBI for investigation."

The ability of these programmes to obtain crucial intelligence not available by other less intrusive means has been challenge by two members of the Senate intelligence committee, senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, but the intelligence community stood its ground on Saturday.

1. US intelligence outlines checks it says validate surveillance
2. NSA director: surveillance helped stop ‘dozens of terrorist events’ – live
3. Facebook, Microsoft reveal surveillance request figures

Intelligence chiefs confirm programmes, but say they protect against terrorism and minimise infringements on privacy

The US intelligence community has written to Congress to confirm the existence of two sweeping surveillance programmes revealed by the Guardian, but defended their legality and usefulness in preventing terrorism.

In the fullest official account yet of how the US gathers domestic telephone data and overseas internet traffic, the document sent on Saturday claims that both programmes were authorised by Congress under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

This has been disputed by a number of senators and congressmen, including one of the authors of the Patriot Act, who say it is more sweeping than they envisaged, but the document details a number of internal checks put in place since that seek to minimise the exposure of private data obtained inadvertently from citizens who are not terrorist suspects.

Referring to the gathering of US telephone records, it says: "The metadata is segregated and queries against the database are documented and audited. Only a small number of specifically-trained officials may access the data; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews the program every 90 days; and the data must be destroyed within five years."

The National Security Agency has not responded to questions from the Guardian about whether there was any external audit of this five-year moratorium, not was any additional detail provided to Congress.

The document also reveals that 300 identifiers "associated with specific foreign terrorist organizations" were targeted within the phone metadata for further scrutiny in 2012.

However, the briefing document does not address concerns raised by a number of members of Congress as to whether further court approval is required to query the database for these specific records, simply saying officers require "reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulated facts, that an identifier is associated with specific foreign terrorist organizations".

Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told the Guardian on Thursday her "understanding" was that Fisa court approval is not required before a database query of Americans' phone records.

The briefing document says the metadata gathered within this particular programme includes telephone numbers dialled and length of calls, but does not include the content of the calls or location data.

Earlier on Saturday it was revealed that one of the Congressman present at a secret briefing given by intelligence chiefs on Tuesday claims he was told that agents did not have to obtain extra approval to listen to the content of calls.

Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that".

"I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee, in an article on CNET.

The briefing sent to Congress on Saturday says a similar system of internal checks is in place for the Prism programme, which "targets the internet communications of foreigners".

"Congress requires the government to develop and obtain judicial approval for 'minimization' procedures to ensure appropriate protection of any information about US persons that may be incidentally acquired," it says. "The Government did that, and its procedures were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

It also defends the role of US technology companies, saying the law compels them to "provide certain communication records" but implied some had put up a fight. "While required to comply, US companies have put energy, focus and commitment to consistently protect the privacy of their customers, as well as the safety and security of these same customers, around the world," it said.

Disclosure of the latest briefing to Congress from intelligence chiefs follows leaks to the Guardian and Washington Post, and a fresh investigation by the Associated Press which claims that collection of data from internet companies is only the tip of a much bigger digital surveillance programme that includes the NSA tapping directly into the global internet backbone to obtain raw traffic data.

On Saturday the US intelligence community repeated claims made by the FBI director, Robert Mueller, that its surveillance activities were essential to preventing terrorism and hinted that they might have stopped the 11 September attacks had they been in place in 2001.

The briefing document says the telephone data collection was "designed to address a seam between foreign and domestic counterterrorism efforts exposed in the 9/11 attacks".

It gives fresh details to back up claims that both programmes helped foil an attempted attack on the New York subway in 2009 by Colorado-based extremist Najibullah Zazi.

The document says: "NSA received Zazi's telephone number from FBI and ran it against the Section 215 Business Records data, identifying and passing additional leads back to the FBI for investigation."

The ability of these programmes to obtain crucial intelligence not available by other less intrusive means has been challenge by two members of the Senate intelligence committee, senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, but the intelligence community stood its ground on Saturday.

1. US intelligence outlines checks it says validate surveillance
2. NSA director: surveillance helped stop ‘dozens of terrorist events’ – live
3. Facebook, Microsoft reveal surveillance request figures

Statement after election of moderate as president says 'US remains ready to engage Iranian government directly'

The White House on Saturday called on Tehran to "heed the will of the Iranian people", after the moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani was elected as the country's new president.

In a statement, the Obama administration congratulated Iran's voters on having the "courage in making their voices heard" in the face of censorship and intimidation. It added that Washington remained open to engagement to reach a diplomatic solution to concerns over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The White House's comments came shortly after it was announced that Rouhani – a moderate figure who has expressed a desire to re-establish relations with the west – had won the popular vote. A western-educated cleric and former nuclear negotiator, he secured more than 50% of the vote, it was announced by Iran's interior minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar – enough to avoid a run-off election. The election of a moderate could go some way towards a thawing of relations between Iran and the west.

In the White House's initial response, it seemingly held out an olive branch in terms of a negotiated settlement over the issue of sanctions and Iran's nuclear ambitions. In April, the last round of talks between the two sides broke down, with seemingly little progress made. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, hinted that negotiations could be heading towards a deadline, noting that the talks were not an "interminable process". The election of Rouhani will raise hopes that a solution can be found.

The White House statement said: "The United States remains ready to engage the Iranian government directly in order to reach a diplomatic solution that will fully address the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear programme."

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Discovery of the words 'I'll set this plane on fire' written in pencil on a napkin prompts fighter escort of EgyptAir flight

British fighter jets escorted a plane from Cairo bound for New York to an emergency landing in the UK after a passenger discovered a letter threatening the aircraft, officials said on Saturday.

Flight 985 to John F Kennedy Airport had around 300 passengers onboard when it was diverted to Glasgow's Prestwick Airport, after a passenger found the letter in a lavatory, EgyptAir chairman Tawfiq Assi said. Police in Glasgow said the flight was diverted after a "suspicious note" was discovered, adding that there were no reports of any injuries and that officers were making arrangements for the 326 passengers to disembark. At that point all passengers will be interviewed by police, the local police force said.

The BBC said one of its producers, Nada Tawfik, had discovered the note, which was written in pencil on a napkin and read: "I'll set this plane on fire." She said that after discovering the note by the lavatory sink, she alerted cabin crew who then locked the toilet.

Britain's Ministry of Defence confirmed that fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane to the Glasgow airport. Assi said the flight would hopefully resume its journey to New York following inspections.

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