Six months ago, Samba made a brave, unprecedented escape from Marwell zoo. Her life on the lam continues today. We join the team hunting desperately to find her in the Hampshire countryside

Samba the capybara is still at large. Along with her older sister, Tango, the intrepid rodent made her escape from Marwell zoo in Winchester in March. Tango all but gave herself up on day two; Samba broke for the marshy wetlands of the River Itchen. Word spread and within days the fugitive was an international social media star. But despite an intense search, the dense Hampshire countryside has afforded her a haven. Six months on, Samba remains elusive.

Marwell’s staff still aren’t sure how the capybaras escaped, although they have their suspicions. Tango and Samba were born on Jimmy’s Farm and Wildlife Park in Suffolk in the summer of 2025. They arrived at Marwell zoo on Monday 16 March, to great excitement. “They were a little bit shy when they got here, as you would expect,” says Laura Read, the chief executive of Marwell Wildlife. “But they were fine.” They were immediately placed in a quarantined habitat, as is standard procedure for new arrivals. The plan was to keep them there for 30 days.

At receptions at Labour conference, Burnham played a series of regionally specific tracks – but did he hit the right notes?

Freshly minted as prime minister, Andy Burnham has been holding a series of reception events at Labour conference – soundtracked with regionally specific songs.

Swedish-American actor exhumed for bizarre, humourless 99 seconds that give us another reason to resent AI

Poor Greta Garbo.

Perhaps, in life, she thought her final indignity would be the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore TV sketch from 1970, showing Pete as the legendary recluse standing on the back of a flatbed truck as it rumbles through the crowded city streets, shouting at everyone through a megaphone: “I vant to be alone!”

Despite the risks, a number of soldiers from the country seen as Russia’s biggest backer have found their way to Ukraine

On the makeshift workbench in the cramped front room of a cottage near the frontlines of the Russia-Ukraine war, there are all the accoutrements of a drone workshop. The walls are lined with pliers and rolls of duct tape; the table is cluttered with screwdrivers and piles of wire. Propped up against the wall are two kamikaze drones. Only one item looks out of place in this Ukrainian village house: a pot of Chinese longjing tea, the leaves wilted from repeated top-ups.

Good tea is one of the many things that Tim misses about his life in China. His parents post monthly supplies to Ukraine. “I think about all of it,” the 44-year-old said, of his home country. “It brings back memories and emotions.”

The musical powerhouse has spawned huge hits, but which do its troupers love to belt out – even for the 1,700th time? From Broadway legend Idina Menzel to composer Stephen Schwartz, they reveal all

Idina Menzel originated the role of Elphaba, the witch of the west who turns out not to be so wicked (but still very green). She won a Tony on Broadway, starred in the West End run and made a cheeky cameo in the recent film version

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
James Graham’s high-wire writing brings economic theory to life and connects it with art and fulfilment in this polished, ravishingly staged story of John Maynard Keynes

Not everyone will know that the Bloomsbury group had a jobbing economist among them. One with superstar status and a firm belief in capitalism. John Maynard Keynes (Rory Kinnear) may not have cut a very bohemian picture in his three-piece suit but the foremost thinker of economic policy in 20th century Britain was also a card-carrying art lover, avant-gardist and bisexual who had affairs with Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant, hanging out with the gang at their nerve-centre in Charleston.

He is played with equal amounts of old-school reserve, and charm, by Kinnear, as state-of-the-nation writer, James Graham, audaciously brings economic theory to the West End. The high-wire act of the subject matter is leavened by Graham’s remarkable facility to balance British social history and complex political ideas with speed, sparkle and a humorous lightness of touch.

The PM says all ‘the options’ being considered and calls for an open debate about the UK’s future relationship with Europe

• Burnham: UK could ‘go all the way’ by rejoining EU

• Burnham wants to review the UK’s relationship with the EU. What are the options?

• Key takeaways from Andy Burnham’s conference speech

Andy Burnham has suggested that it would not be legitimate for a party to form a majority government with less than 30% of the vote.

In his Today interview, asked why he wanted electoral reform and a move towards proportional representation, Burnham replied:

I found it better being elected under a different system as mayor of Greater Manchester, where people had one or two, they could put that on the ballot paper.

Because you had a reason to stop on every doorstep and chat to people who might not always support your party and try and get their second preference.

No, it could happen with any political party. It’s whether that would be a legitimate government.

I think you’ve got it completely wrong really, if you don’t mind me saying, to put it like that, because I have put out … a vision for a national care service.

There are pensioners out there who watch your programme who are paying for care costs from their basic state pension. Now, is that right or fair?

Man dialled 999 before he and four others were arrested near military base in Gloucestershire, it has emerged

One of the five men arrested near RAF Fairford as part of a terror investigation that prompted fears of an Iran-backed plot called the police to report the incident, it has emerged.

The call from the man, in his 20s and from London, was one reason armed police were scrambled to arrest the men, who were with three vans close to the military base used by the US in its attacks on Iran.

Israeli media say incident, which raised fears of possible hijacking, stemmed from feud between plane’s two pilots

A commercial plane travelling from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Israel has been forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, briefly raising concerns about a possible hijacking and prompting Israel to scramble warplanes.

Israeli media, citing security officials, said the incident on Wednesday stemmed from a feud between the plane’s two pilots, and everyone onboard was safe. The plane landed in Tabuk, a civilian and military base in the kingdom.

Exclusive: Culture secretary says UK will crack down further and be ‘pioneer of tech as a force for good’

Lisa Nandy has warned technology firms that the government’s online safety crackdown is not finished, saying that banning under-16s from social media platforms is only a “staging post”.

Earlier this year the government announced that teenagers under the age of 16 would be banned from accessing “high-risk” social media apps, while safer platforms would be subjected to restrictions.

Cap poised to rise by 16% to equivalent of £1,999 for dual-fuel bill, the biggest quarterly increase since January 2023

• Business live – latest updates

Household energy bills in Great Britain are predicted to reach almost £2,000 a year for the typical household from January as the impact of the Middle East war continues through the coldest months of winter.

The government’s cap on energy prices is poised to jump by 16%, equivalent to adding £276 to the average annual dual-fuel bill to take it to £1,999, according to the leading forecaster Cornwall Insight.

Councils collectively spent record 71.9% of core spending on adult and children’s care last year, analysis shows

Sixteen English councils spent more than 80% of their core funding on adult and children’s social care last year, highlighting the growing financial pressure on other local services.

Guardian analysis of government figures found that councils responsible for social care spent a net £42.8bn on adult and children’s services in 2025-26, equivalent to a record 71.9% of their combined core spending. Adult social care took 44.5% and children’s services accounted for 27.4%. In 2017-18, care costs made up 62.4% of councils’ core spending.

Exclusive: Environment secretary Angela Eagle to make pledge as part of efforts to protect against extreme weather

Half a million trees will be planted across England in the next three years to protect against extreme weather, the environment secretary, Angela Eagle, will pledge on Wednesday morning.

Mayors, local authorities, charities and grassroots groups will be given new funding and responsibilities for restoring natural landscapes such as wetlands, river edges and meadows, which can provide natural flood management and reduce the damage done by droughts.

Bakery chain, whose sales are up 7.7%, says move is necessary to provide growth in ‘most cost-efficient manner’

• Business live – latest updates

Greggs has announced plans to close four of its factories, in a move that could result in 740 job losses over the next two and a half years.

The bakery chain said it was consulting on the closures, which would initially cost £60m when including disruption costs and redundancy payments but then could create £20m of savings each year by 2028.

Six writers are in contention for the £10,000 books prize, which celebrates fiction that ‘breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form’

Missouri Williams, China Miéville and Polly Barton are among the writers shortlisted for this year’s Goldsmiths prize.

The £10,000 award recognises fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”.

Explore the shortlist for this year’s Goldsmiths prize at guardianbookshop.com

Three years of war have destroyed almost every playground in Gaza. For Hala, an orphaned child, a swimming club on the beach offers a rare chance to escape the realities of war. The club was set up by Amjed Tantesh, who once hoped to train swimmers for Palestine’s Olympic team. Now, in a pool built from the rubble, he’s offering free lessons to children affected by war. The Guardian follows Hala and her brother Amir as they attend their first lesson, confront their fear of the sea and find a place where they can simply be children again

• Amjed Tantesh, who features in this film, has also worked as a journalist for the Guardian and other outlets. His niece, Seham Tantesh, reports for the Guardian from Gaza

Analysis has shown the costs of daily essentials soaring in recent years, thanks in part to climate shocks, wars and geopolitical tensions

François Perrodo is what is known in motorsport as a gentleman driver. In June, he raced at Le Mans, earning a podium place. At the end of August he was back behind the wheel at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. This time he won.

Gentleman drivers are wealthy individuals who fund their own participation. The FIA governing body caps costs to keep racing accessible to such enthusiasts. But for self-confessed petrolhead Perrodo, it is well within his means.

Fish and shellfish populations were falling rapidly as scallop dredgers devastated the seabed, but local activists and small-scale fishers battled hard to protect their coastline

Inside a bothy overlooking the Summer Isles, in the north-west of Scotland, the lilting tones of a traditional Gaelic duo fill a room full of musicians, storytellers, artists, local people and revellers, hung with fish-shaped lanterns and “Happy Birthday” signs.

It’s no ordinary birthday. The people in the small cabin have come together, on a windy night in Achiltibuie, a string of coastal hamlets and villages north of Ullapool, to celebrate an important milestone in the community’s history: a hard-won battle to protect their waters from the ravages of scallop dredging.

Original triple lock was designed to lift pensioners out of poverty but OBR says it contributes to unsustainability of public finances

The prime minister has announced that the pensions triple lock will be scrapped in its current form, to partly fund a national care service.

The PM said Brexit has ‘done more harm than good’ and wants an assessment before the next UK-EU summit

Andy Burnham has said Brexit has “done more harm than good” and pledged to launch a major review of the UK’s relationship with the EU, opening the door to a potential referendum over rejoining the union.

He said he would “lay out options” around the time of the next EU-UK summit, due to be held at the end of November or soon after.

Ending the pensions triple lock, creating a national care service and making changes to leaseholds were all announced by the PM in Liverpool

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham’s first speech to a Labour conference as prime minister was not only quite long, at over an hour, but unusually dense with policy. Here are some of the things he set out:

It’s often assumed straight men are not interested in romantic fiction – but many are sharing their passion in forums online

After a tiring day as a school maintenance worker, 28-year-old Paul loves nothing more than unwinding with a good romance novel – ideally one with a fantasy or horror element to it. He reads five or six a month – most recently Love Bytes, about an 8ft-tall werewolf woman who runs an extremely successful AI company and falls in love with a handsome ballroom instructor.

Paul got into romance fiction via what he calls its “more traditional” side – such as the Regency romance series Bridgerton. He is partially sighted, so he mostly reads on his Kindle, where he can adjust the font size. In the first Bridgerton novel, “Simon, the main character, has a speech impediment that he has to work through,” says Paul. “I’m more attached to that one. Typically, I don’t come across disabled protagonists that much.”

Beauty mogul Sarah Creal decided there was too much emphasis on the teen market – so she designed a range of products for older women. Now others are following suit

It’s rare that I devote a whole column to one brand, but not as rare as the decision by any beauty company to back women over 40, so I think Sarah Creal is worthy of the inches.

Creal, co-creator of Victoria Beckham Beauty and product developer of countless global companies for more than 30 years, felt that women of her generation (she’s 56) and their specific beauty challenges (hooded eyelids, decreased product wear time and so on) were being overlooked by major brands in favour of teenagers. Wander into any lip-oil slicked, Korean sheet-mask filled, freckle-pen-dotted branch of Sephora and tell me she’s wrong.

National Gallery, London
Grab your straw boater – and revel in these light-as-souffle masterpieces that celebrate life’s pleasures, from picnics to dances to frolics in the bushes

‘They knew how to enjoy themselves,” David Hockney once told me, gleefully pointing out the cigarette and cigar butts littering the ground under Renoir’s dancers. There are broken clay-pipes too beneath the swirling pink skirts and blue trousers of the couple in his tall, narrow 1883 canvas Dance at Bougival as they bring their faces close, placing their arms around each other and pirouetting in the soft, airy space Renoir makes you feel as well as see. It’s an outdoor afternoon dance enclosed by fluffy, lime-coloured trees. A couple sitting at a table get friendlier with each swig of beer.

And oh, the lunches! Renoir seems to have invented the slow French lunch, relaxed and liquid, that launched a thousand bistro daydreams. In After the Luncheon, another one to delight Hockney, we see a white-clothed, open air table neatly arranged with porcelain coffee cups, carafes and glasses – and a woman sipping a liqueur while the bearded man she’s lunching with lights up, savouring the moment as his cigarette end glows fire-red against the pale blues, whites and silvers. The Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers’ Lunch) lingers on the same climactic moment, one man lounging back in tobacco reverie while the lovers or about-to-be-lovers on the other side of the table chat soulfully.

A bad breakup had made me afraid I would be mired in anger for ever. But on that family hike, in our fear and horror as we awaited the air ambulance, my old hurts took on a different hue

To steal a well-known line, 2023 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. My annus horribilis began when a long-term relationship broke up in January, only six months after we had bought our first home together. I was about to turn 38 and the future I thought was mine – marriage, children – all fell apart. What followed was blow after blow: my sister announced her engagement, I was told by a fertility doctor that I was “not a suitable candidate” for egg freezing, and I soon began having multiple panic attacks a day.

Ordinarily, my work would have been my solace; when I wrote, it was as if time was suspended. But now, my words abandoned me. They would not come, no matter how much I tried. So, in April, I decided to take the rest of the year off to recover. As I was self-employed, this was not a choice I made lightly – but my heart was broken and so too, it seemed, was my brain.

Converted from Victorian buffet bars, ticket offices and waiting rooms, these station pubs offer beautifully restored interiors, real ales and a slice of railway history

No prizes for guessing what this pub used to be… The Old Ticket Office has high ceilings, walls painted shades of locomotive green and booths resembling train carriages; there are outdoor tables on Station Square. A live train departures board theoretically prevents passengers lingering too long, and a canning machine means any draught beer is also available to take away (the hatch on platform 4 also does takeaway orders). There are five handpulls plus Young’s usual spritz menu and other drinks, plus light bites and pizzas. The pub is currently closed for roof repairs and expected to reopen by the end of October.

Relatives of Hollywood legend say her doppelganger could now be used for more glamorous roles

She shimmered in Hollywood’s silent movie era and lit up the first talkies – now Greta Garbo may be about to star in cinema’s new AI age.

More than a century after her screen debut and decades after her ashes were laid to rest in a Swedish woodland cemetery, the Hollywood superstar’s descendants are ready to consider an AI version of her taking a 21st-century film role.

The PM’s stated trajectory is a rebuke to past Tory and Labour governments. The challenge now is to make his project progressive in word and deed

As Andy Burnham delivered his conference speech to the Labour faithful yesterday, it was hard not to recall Jeremy Corbyn’s words after the party’s shattering 2019 election defeat. “I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and the climate emergency,” he wrote for this publication, “we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate.” Given Boris Johnson’s 80-seat majority, widespread mockery ensued.

But when it comes to rhetoric, who can now deny that the left has won the argument? A Labour prime minister has declared that “Britain has been on the wrong path for a long time”, listing five villains: “Deindustrialisation, deregulation, privatisation, austerity, Brexit.” His speech was infused with class politics, as he condemned a society “run for vested interests, not in the public interest, with power held in too few hands”.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist. His latest book, The Fall of the West: How They Really Lost It, is published on 1 October. Order your copy at the Guardian bookshop

He knows a thing or two about tech, but what to make of the views of a man who met Jeffrey Epstein 30 times and couldn’t see what a monster he was?

The Bill Gates rehabilitation tour is in full swing. After having his carefully cultivated image tarnished by the revelation of his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Gates lay low for a while. Now, however, the Microsoft co-founder is once again thrusting himself into the public consciousness, this time with a dire warning about AI. If left unchecked, AI could cause “a billion deaths”, Gates declared in an interview with NBC on Sunday.

Perhaps I should be terrified by this announcement from a man who, for all his sins, knows a thing or two about technology. But I’m sick of hearing about the hypothetical dangers of AI when the technology is being used to kill people today. Gates may not be directly involved in Microsoft any more, but, rather than making prophecies about the future, I’d love to hear what he thinks about the company’s role in the AI-enabled destruction of Gaza.

Work in the hospitality industry made me who I am. Without it, young people are denied not only an income and a step on the career ladder, but important life skills

Everyone remembers their first job. More often than not, it’s in the service industry. I started at 14, pouring drinks, serving food and standing with an ice-cream tray. This is where I learned how to handle mistakes, such as dropping an entire tray of prosecco glasses, or spraying hot coffee all over a bridesmaid because I plunged the cafetiere with too much gusto. I learned how to talk to angry strangers, and what it means to have a bad manager. I learned that the customer is always right, except when you’re talking to chefs, who will throw ham at your head if you tell them that. All in all, I did 10 years of restaurant, bar, pub and cafe work, from the age of 14 to 24, and I largely attribute the formation of my character to that decade of work.

But this kind of character-building experience is under threat. Job postings for temporary work in hospitality in the UK were down by 25% year-on-year between 2024 and 2025, with 22,369 fewer unique postings. Hospitality leaders have blamed rising wage and tax costs for their inability to hire new starters, and young people are bearing the brunt: nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training (Neet), despite 84% of these seeking work. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation has explicitly warned that the industry relies heavily on 16- to 24-year-olds, so the impact will be on teenagers seeking their first job. In Manchester, Nell’s Pizza advertised 10 part-time roles for people between the ages of 14 and 18, and received about 2,000 applications.

Isabel Brooks is a freelance writer

Pédro Sanchez is an admirer of Zohran Mamdani. It’s time Spanish politicians emulated the New York mayor’s relentless focus on affordable homes

Maricarmen Abascal is a determined woman who uses a wheelchair to get around. She has needed her determination over the years she has spent fighting the real estate company that forced her out of her Madrid apartment last week. She had lived in the flat for more than 70 of her 87 years.

Police forced their way into her apartment after a judge approved Abascal’s eviction. By then, protesters had gathered around the building, including the actor Carlos Bardem, Javier’s brother. Teargas was used against them. Abascal was taken to a Madrid hospital, suffering from anxiety and extreme exhaustion, while her supporters chanted: “You are not alone.”

María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

When transnational alliances have scarcely been weaker, the way the club was allegedly run offers a bleak vision of a world driven by brute power and wealth

The cache of leaked emails and documents that would eventually lead to the crisis in which Manchester City are now embroiled was published by Der Spiegel in 2018, and often it was the tone of the club’s communications that was as startling as their content. Of City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a trusted adviser to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, it was said that he would “rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years” than accept a fine.

In the same tranche of documents, City lawyer Simon Cliff asserts that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, and threatens the governing body of European football – who were pursuing City over alleged financial irregularities at the time – with “the destruction of their rules and organisation”.

The Reform leader’s reaction to the RAF Fairford affair is again revealing. If what’s needed is a steady hand and cool head, he’s not the guy

Another week, another chance for Nigel Farage to demonstrate his literally hysterical leadership inabilities. For a guy who supposedly valorises the wartime British spirit, Nigel would genuinely have had to have been interned during that conflict on account of his serial predilection for spreading panic and unverified information at any given chance. The weekend incident near RAF Fairford was simply the latest in a long line of occasions that make you suspect the poster on the wall at Reform HQ reads simply: “Lose Cool and Start Shitposting.”

Despite its popularity now, the famous “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster from the second world war was almost certainly never displayed in that conflict. Although more than 2m copies of it were printed, it was in fact held in reserve in case a really serious crisis hit. Which, when you consider even the blitz apparently didn’t clear the bar, it is almost impossible to conceive of in our era where comparatively minuscule incidents force certain party leaders into more than 24 hours of madly irresponsible and emotional online incontinence.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist. Her new book is What a Time to Be Alive! To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Although we’re living longer, the data on healthy life expectancy in the UK isn’t good. Andy Burnham must reverse this trend to protect the NHS and social care

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

The prime minister has put forward his bold proposal for a universal, NHS-style social care service. In doing so, Andy Burnham has put the spotlight back on one of the major challenges facing almost everywhere in the world: how to manage the demographic changes linked to an ageing society.

It’s an important discussion. But what if government didn’t just look at how to care for people in their later years and instead spent real political capital on policies to help people live longer independently, and in good health? The data isn’t pretty on this. While the trend over the past half-century in almost all countries has been for people to live longer, healthy life expectancy has been consistently falling.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

The need for independent regulation grows more obvious by the day. We must keep this tech in check before it’s too late

• OpenAI scraps release of new model over safety concerns in internal testing

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me more than 16,000 times – as OpenAI agents did to a UN public data hub while repeatedly trying to find its way around the UN’s cyber-blocks – and perhaps it’s time to admit the system we have for keeping AI agents under control isn’t working particularly well.

The news about AI systems cropping up in places they shouldn’t sounds alarming. Though the description of these as “hacks” is perhaps overstating things, AI has exploited issues in IT systems that humans simply haven’t got around to finding. It’s also important to note that we shouldn’t be worried that the machines have suddenly become sentient and decided to rebel against humanity. There is not enough evidence to suggest that’s what is happening. The systems are simply following instructions and trying to complete the tasks they have been given, even if they’re sometimes finding unintended ways around obstacles to do so.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

By linking Brexit, voting reform and public services, the prime minister made a powerful, personal pitch for a brighter future

Andy Burnham’s first speech as prime minister to a Labour conference was a serious attempt to argue that rebuilding the public realm will be better for the country than shrinking the state. He is right about this. Mr Burnham’s belief in the power of government is welcome, as is his instinct that by spending now on public services he will save money later. Admitting that Brexit “has done more harm than good” before setting out options for a closer relationship with the EU could be the speech’s most consequential sentence. Offering voters a bargain at the next election – give up a little of the annual triple-lock increase in pensions for free personal care for older people – is a gamble.

But Mr Burnham clearly thinks that he will be able to show that enough has improved by then for him to ask voters to let him finish what he has started. The prime minister smartly recast “take back control” as a Labour argument. His pitch was that privatisation removed economic control, emasculating local government removed political control, and Brexit reduced control over immigration. This was deftly done – threading a common idea through housing, water, energy and Europe.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

A year after mass protests demanding a change in political priorities, gen Z opted out of last week’s poll en masse

The spectacle of young migrants swimming en masse from Moroccan waters to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta exposed the frustration felt by a generation. One-third of the population of Morocco is aged between 15 and 30, and more than one third of that cohort is unemployed. A dearth of opportunity at home incentivises young men in particular to take huge risks to reach the European Union. More than 100 people died in that attempted exodus, most of them by drowning.

Worryingly, an adequate domestic response to a huge generational challenge is a long way off, if Morocco’s latest parliamentary election serves as any guide. In the wake of the Arab spring, democratising reforms were introduced to Morocco’s monarchical system. But a decade and a half after that supposedly transformative moment, last week’s poll laid bare an alarming collapse of trust in politics among the young.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Readers react to a piece by Polly Toynbee in which she argues that Andy Burnham is the person to lead Britain out of its cohesion crisis

In her article, Polly Toynbee mentions the rise of racism globally, citing Donald Trump and the usual suspects (There is a racism and cohesion crisis in Britain, and someone needs to lead us out of it. His name is Andy Burnham, 22 September). She fails to mention that the Labour party has also indulged in overt and dog-whistle racist rhetoric.

Keir Starmer spoke about Britain becoming “an island of strangers”. He later retracted it, but the message was out there. Wes Streeting, when health secretary, agreed with Katie Lam on the problem of foreign doctors (rather than the real problem of disastrous NHS restructures, poor management and underfunding). More recently, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said that a video clip where Zack Polanski says a few sentences in Urdu makes him “uncomfortable”.

The quality of life for people living next to one would be destroyed, writes Moira Brewer; plus a letter from Mark Davis

So, George Osborne thinks people who don’t want an AI datacentre on their doorstep are nimbys (OpenAI’s George Osborne says datacentre nimbys holding back Britain, 22 September). He ought to come and visit our small town in Devon, where there are plans to build one of the largest datacentres in Europe, along with a battery energy storage system, on 850 acres of farmland.

The size of this proposed development is quite out of proportion to its location – larger than the town itself – and accessed by narrow lanes. It would be a huge blot on a beautiful rural landscape that is enjoyed by holidaymakers who are vital to the local economy.

Vicki Cardwell, Phil Hind and Stephen Evans respond to an interview with Pia Sinha, the head of the Prison Reform Trust

Pia Sinha’s significant expertise inside and out of the prison system makes her a voice to trust on why our jails are struggling badly (The truth about UK prisons and organised crime: ‘They’re your good lads. Respectful. Keep their noses clean’, 22 September). I lead a charity, Spark Inside, that uses life coaching to support rehabilitation and culture change across our prisons.

We work with staff who go into the service because they want to make a difference. But the challenges of the environment can stifle that spirit. This is why since 2020 we have coached more than 150 prison staff, supporting them in problem-solving, resilience and confidence.

Responding to an article by Emine Saner, Gemma Hooson writes that there are no shortcuts to oral hygiene. Plus a letter by David Duell

Emine Saner offers a fascinating survey of the expensive toothbrush tech on offer (The rise of Big Toothbrush: how did our mouths become such a lucrative market?, 22 September). As a dental hygienist, however, I remind patients at every appointment that this simple fact remains: the best way to maintain oral hygiene is to brush for two minutes at least twice daily and to floss daily. No toothbrush offers a short-cut solution to this, no matter how expensive. A premium toothbrush risks becoming like a gym membership: reassuring to have, perhaps, but something that makes no difference unless it is used.
Gemma Hooson
London

• A toothbrush which gives “smart coverage feedback”? What is really smart is buying a multipack of eight “dumb” brushes for a couple of quid, which will last a couple of years. Every bit as good, if the article is to be believed.
David Duell
Durham

How can Manchester City be trusted under these owners after they were found to have devised £900m of ‘sham’ contracts?

How bad could it be, really? How serious can a breach of arcane financial regulations be, really? Just how damning can accountancy be? Even after Friday’s revelation that Manchester City had been found guilty of all but one of the charges brought against them by the Premier League, it was perhaps difficult to grasp the scale of what that meant. After the publication of the independent commission’s findings, there can be no doubt: the commission found that Manchester City cheated, that they did so deliberately, and that they have sought to cover that up with a campaign of calculated misinformation.

City continue to maintain their innocence and issued a statement insisting that “the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”. It referred, once again, to “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of all of its positions”, and, again, insisted that “the club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence”.

The full-back is one of the best passers England has produced: Thomas Tuchel must find a place for him

It was the question nobody was asking: could Trent Alexander-Arnold do it against 10 game but limited Czechs on a mild Tuesday night in Prague? The answer was a resounding yes.

Alexander-Arnold played well after starting for the first time under Thomas Tuchel, demonstrating his value to England by helping them work out the dreaded low block with a trademark assist for Anthony Gordon to settle the nerves in a game coloured by Czechia losing Pavel Sulc to a debatable red card midway through the first half.

Switzerland have responded exceptionally well after allegations of capers involving vaccination certificates that threatened to overshadow this international window. Make that six points out of six for Murat Yakin’s stylish team. Switzerland look comfortably capable of breezing out of Group B1 in the Nations League. They have not even played at home yet. Granit who?

Sébastien Pocognoli, conversely, has been left to ponder one step forward and umpteen back. Scotland’s second half in Slovenia at the weekend provided hope to the new manager and a supporter base who want to enter a brave new world. Age old, troublesome flaws remain.

England’s coach has given a wake-up call to her whole squad by leaving out two heroes of 2022 and 2025

Sarina Wiegman sent a clear message to two of England’s biggest names on Tuesday and – in doing so, irrespective of reputations – fired the same warning to every player: perform for your club or you will not go to the World Cup.

Wiegman was unequivocal with her reasoning for leaving Ella Toone and Chloe Kelly out of her squad for October’s playoff against Greece. Her straight-to-the-point and typically honest style made it inescapably clear, when she said: “The main reason is that I think the levels weren’t what I expect from them on the pitch.”

The former Ireland captain talks about allowing his own feelings, why every coach except Andy Farrell has been ‘a bit mad’, and pain over a ruthless exit from Munster

“It’s a natural human instinct, especially as an athlete, that you don’t want to lose,” Peter O’Mahony says on a quiet evening in Dublin as a new rugby season looms over us. “But at times it got in my way and caused despair. I honestly don’t know where that deep-down hatred came from but it used to derail me at times.”

The former captain of Munster, Ireland and the Lions is settling into his second year of retirement and the taciturn grit and uncompromising commitment which defined his career have been replaced by more complex reflections. O’Mahony is a fascinating character and I ask whether he would have carried the same competitive zeal if he had been a wizard at, for example, chess or mathematics.

Plus: European stadiums with low Google ratings, losing hat-tricks and the last time Spain had less than 50% possession

• Mail us with your all of your questions and answers

“Jamie Spencer, 17, made his first first-team appearance in a competitive match, for Huddersfield at Doncaster on 9 September in the prestigious EFL Trophy,” emails Richard Askham. “He came on as a substitute in the 66th minute and scored with his second touch of the ball, one to control it and the second to score. Has anyone scored with their very first touch, which is the only way to better young Spencer’s achievement?”

We covered a variation of this question back in 2021, with answers on players scoring with their first touch on debut for their new clubs. This week, though, goes a step further, covering players that score with the first touches of their professional careers, although there are a few answers from that 2021 piece that work here, too: Jack Aitchison for Celtic in 2016, Matt Hatch for Central Coast Mariners in 2021, England one-cap wonder Michael Ricketts for Walsall against Brighton in 1996, Maheta Molango (now the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association) for Brighton against Reading in August 2004, and Yan Dhanda for Swansea City at Sheffield United in 2018.

New red-ball coach Stephen Fleming and captain Joe Root can capitalise on side’s recent form and create a new identity

Just a few weeks ago I was so demoralised. The England team was a mess, a shambles. The management was terrible. One red-ball coach had just been sacked and the other wasn’t going to turn up for ages. The Test captain, whose skillset as a high-class batter who bowls at an elite standard was so important for the team’s balance, had abruptly retired. The squad seemed ill-disciplined and better at manufacturing scandals than victories. And now here I am, heading into the winter full of optimism.

The second half of the summer brought a series of outstanding Test and white-ball performances. There is a group of really talented cricketers, a coaching unit that has strong individuals and combinations across formats, and I feel we’re well placed to take on South Africa, who are always going to be tough and competitive, in our next Test series, and to go into next summer benefiting from a sensible, consistent approach.

• Teenager scores twice in 4-1 win to boost Ballon d’Or case

• Slovenia beat North Macedonia; Faroe Islands hold Moldova

Lamine Yamal scored two goals and set up another as Spain hammered Croatia 4-1 on Tuesday in the Nations League in their first home game since lifting the World Cup.

Lamine Yamal had opened the scoring within two minutes against England in Saturday’s Wembley win and took just 75 seconds to do so against Slaven Bilic’s side in Andalusia. The teenager’s left-footed finish took his tally of international goals to nine in 36 appearances.

The quarterback is widely adored on and off the field. Whether he deserves the public spotlight is another question

Throughout the NFL’s history, we’ve had our fair share of clown princes. Not too long ago, Rob Gronkowski was the league’s court jester. That history extends back, through Pat McAfee and Chad Ochocinco, past Jared Allen and John Randle to Jim McMahon, Steve McMichael, John Riggins, Alex Karras and Billy “White Shoes” Johnson.

There’s probably something deeply insightful to say about the need for goofballs in a sport characterized by militarized order and a seriousness that borders on self-parody, but what’s important now is how we reflect on these chosen merrymakers.

Theo Francken says bloc is in a ‘difficult position’ after recent increase in hybrid provocations from Moscow

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine faced “a difficult attack” from Russia overnight with “nearly 190 attack drones, as well as ballistic missiles.”

“The main target was energy infrastructure in the capital and the Kyiv region. Residential buildings were also damaged. Work is ongoing to restore electricity and water supplies everywhere they are currently unavailable.”

“In the morning, a drone struck a grocery supermarket in Ivankovychi. First responders are extinguishing the fire. Kyiv is also under drone attack. A warehouse building was hit, and one person was killed. There were strikes on critical infrastructure in the Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, and Rivne regions. There was also damage in the Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Cherkasy regions.

As of now, fourteen people have been injured across the country as a result of all these strikes. Tragically, five people have been killed, including a child.”

Kalpana Nepali was seven months pregnant when the flash floods hit last month, while Pooja Pariyal spent three days on a hospital roof waiting to be rescued. Now, they are living precariously in temporary shelters

For three days, Pooja Pariyal waited on the roof of Trishuli hospital with her three-month-old daughter, Ridhika. On the ground below and around the building, most of her town had been destroyed and churned into a sea of mud in the catastrophic flash floods that surged through the Himayalan border region of Nepal and Tibet in August.

“Those three days were living hell for me, with no food, no working toilet and no one to help with the baby,” she says. “I had nothing to clean my baby’s soiled clothes. My milk supply had reduced because I was hungry and this poor little thing would cry her lungs out.

Many products aimed at women over 45 lack meaningful quantities of key nutrients, consumer watchdog Which? found

Menopause supplements costing more than £400 a year are no better than a £22-a-year multivitamin, according to analysis by the consumer watchdog Which?.

Which? found that many popular supplements that are aimed at women over 45 going through menopause or perimenopause lack meaningful quantities of key nutrients, yet cost 20 times more than standard multivitamins.

Conservative majority temporarily lifts lower-court decision as liberal justices dissent from ruling

The Trump administration can resume quickly deporting immigrants to a “third countries”, or countries other than those immigrants’ homeland, without giving them any opportunity to contest their removals, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday.

The six-justice conservative majority of the high court temporarily lifted a lower-court decision that required the administration to provide immigrants sufficient notice and the opportunity to claim fear of torture or persecution in the countries where they are being sent. The Trump administration had claimed this stipulation had prevented it from “efficiently removing aliens” from the US.

Insects provide protection, sanitation and even shelter to vertebrates, making them a priority for conservation efforts

For many vertebrates, insects are more than a food source. As “little things that run the world”, insects provide critical functions such as protection, sanitation and shelter across ecosystems, according to a new study.

The study, published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity on Wednesday, sheds light on the various ways insects support vertebrates, ranging from birds and bats to reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

The record rainfall has been blamed on a combination of climate change and El Niño, which has created a prolonged high pressure front in the Pacific

Residents of Tokyo awoke to a familiar sound on Wednesday: raindrops splashing against windows and balcony floors.

The Japanese capital has seen a record 35 consecutive days of rain that experts blame on a combination of climate change and El Niño, which has created a prolonged front of high pressure in the Pacific Ocean.

More species are squeezing in an extra generation before colder weather arrives

Summer is over, most flowers were frazzled long ago and we might expect to see few butterflies beyond September. But it is not over yet.

The reverberations from one of the best butterfly seasons in Britain this century will continue if there is more autumn sunshine.

If more cities start regulating outdoor lighting, we humans could make the environment better for all living creatures

Every night, I can turn off the lights in my room – but I can’t do anything about the outdoor lights in the walkway or parking lot that leak through the curtains. Living in Portland, where the night is still illuminated by street lights, porch lights and parking lot glare, I forgot what it actually feels like to sleep in darkness.

I was excited when I realized my travels to a residency in south-east Oregon would show me a sky I hadn’t experienced in decades. In the Oregon outback, part of the International Dark Sky Places network, I would be surrounded by 2.5m acres of unpolluted night in every direction.

Amanda Blanc says flooding threat is ‘absolutely increasing’, as she also warns ministers over ‘kite flying’ before budget

• Business live – latest updates

The boss of Britain’s biggest insurer has said that homes being built now in England could become uninsurable in the future because they are sited in flood-risk areas.

Amanda Blanc, the chief executive of Aviva, said the flooding threat was “absolutely increasing”.

Students at Edinburgh, Dundee and Nottingham face a term without any teaching as sector struggles with rising financial uncertainty

Welcome classes for students at the University of Edinburgh this year didn’t focus on the lectures, seminars and essays expected. Instead, students were told about how their education was going to fit in around the strikes planned for this year, which for many will effectively wipe out a term of teaching.

“This term I’ve got two courses and my dissertation. Currently, I’ve got no teaching for five weeks,” said Theo Warshaw, 22, in his final year studying geography at Edinburgh, where staff are striking over budget cuts and compulsory redundancies needed to bridge what the university’s leaders have said is a £400m shortfall.

Exeter museum to host DJ’s ‘collaboration’ with woodland fungi and artist’s map of her own body’s mycobiome

For one of the installations, a musician spent hours in woodland “collaborating” with fungi to create a soundscape inspired by the electricity they emit.

Another is a kinetic sculpture of an extinct fungus that honours Beatrix Potter not for her tales of mischievous rabbits but for her lesser-known skills as a mycologist – a fungi expert.

Police and medics fear mother could be ‘extremely vulnerable’, after discovery in Bangor close to Menai strait on Sunday

Police are searching for the mother of a newborn baby whose body was found on a Welsh shoreline, fearing she may be ill or vulnerable.

A member of the public found the body of the child, whose age and sex have not been disclosed, close to the Menai strait in north Wales.

Andy Burnham has delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the Labour conference. He announced policies on the pensions triple lock, social care and electoral reform. He said he was willing to talk about the things politicians usually avoid. But without a big budget can he deliver his big dreams for the country?

Cross-partisan support in Washington on issues like pesticides and food additives pose a threat to the industry’s bottom line

Some of the biggest food and agriculture corporations in the US are funding a campaign that pays social media influencers to combat elements of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again platform, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project.

The ascension of RFK Jr to secretary of health and human services has boosted his putative campaign to end chronic illness in the US, which he believes is primarily caused by processed foods and dyes, exposure to certain chemicals, and poor farming practices, along with an overuse of what he falsely claims are dangerous vaccines. The “Maha” movement blends long-running mainstream concerns about food and farm safety with conspiracy theories about everything from medicine to milk. A Maha “summit” in Washington this week will feature JD Vance and several members of Trump’s cabinet.

Deepfakes and misinformation driven by artificial intelligence have become a point of deep concern for legislators, advocates and the public

An image of College Park, Georgia mayor Bianca Motley Broom kissing a man – who was not her husband – in a bar spread far and wide on Facebook. The fact that it’s fake is spreading faster, now, but only after it had been seen by thousands of people.

“I think this is a sad commentary about where we are in our democracy, and where we are in our political discourse,” Motley Broom said. “It also seeks to reinforce really tired stereotypes about women in leadership.”

Co-founder of independent website Tapajós de Fato said decision was made to protect journalists and their families

Four years ago, during Brazil’s last presidential election, the tyres were slashed on the pickup truck used for reporting by Tapajós de Fato, an independent journalism website in the Brazilian Amazon.

Days later, a cat’s severed head was left next to the car park, alongside a note bearing the name of one of the site’s founders, Marcos Wesley Pedroso, and a warning that he would be next.

Blast during search operation near border fuels political tensions amid attempts to revive diplomatic channels

South Korea has demanded an apology from North Korea over a landmine blast that injured three soldiers, saying they were hurt by North Korean mines on the southern side of the border.

Kang Hyun-woo, the director of operations at South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, demanded an apology and “responsible measures” from Pyongyang over the blast, which occurred on 21 September during a search operation south of the border.

US president also issues executive order officially rebranding ‘artificial intelligence’ as ‘superintelligence’

Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the heads of the largest US tech and AI companies had signed on to a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence. He announced the deal, called the Joint Commitment On Frontier Responsibilities, following a White House luncheon with top tech executives.

“It’s almost like a constitution in a way, and the biggest ​people in the world signed that, and ​I signed it as president, and it really ⁠is a form of protection,” Trump said.

US cannabis and drinks firm Tilray, which took over in March, says it will improve beers, pubs and working conditions

BrewDog’s new owner has urged drinkers to give the ailing brand “a second chance” as it invests more than £50m in improving the company’s beers, pubs and working conditions.

The US cannabis and drinks company Tilray bought BrewDog for £33m in March this year, after the company collapsed into administration after five years of losses and a series of controversies relating to the treatment of workers under the founder James Watt.

Bank allows employees to delay being in workplace at least three days a week until 2027, if permission granted

Barclays has watered down its return-to-office plans after a major staff backlash, with the bank allowing some employees to wait until next year before having to be in at least three days a week.

The bank this summer announced the attendance requirement would come in for its 45,000 UK staff from 5 October, with more senior employees expected to come in for at least four days. That compares with current rules requiring staff to come in for two days.

Automatic exemptions of in-office attendance rules during school holidays and Christmas.

Capping in-office requirements at one day a week for any carers or people with disabilities.

Flexible start and finish times to allow for cheaper off-peak travel costs and to accommodate school pickup and drop-offs.

Subsidised onsite meal costs.

A single, consolidated payment made to all staff to make up for the costs of coming into the office, before March 2027.

Beauty specialist will open branded areas in 100 Marks & Spencer stores and will sell its products on chain’s website

• Business live – latest updates

Marks & Spencer has signed a deal with Sephora to open areas under the beauty brand’s name within its stores, in its latest tactic to attract younger shoppers.

The French retailer is to launch branded areas staffed by Sephora employees in 100 M&S stores and sell through the British retailer’s website in spring next year.

This Northern Ireland-set police drama has never felt like this before … Race riots, organised crime and institutional politics bring it bang up to date

Blue Lights has always been a very modern cop drama. Its tales of everyday callouts, fractious office relationships and complex long-term efforts to smash organised crime have all played out against the backdrop of post-Troubles Belfast, where lingering sectarian resentments make enforcing the law even harder than it is in the rest of austerity-era UK. But it’s never been explicitly topical: it’s never felt as if it is reading today’s national news headlines with the same appalled gaze as the rest of us. Until now.

Our fourth visit to Blackthorn station pitches us and the police into a race riot. A centre offering support and resources to refugees is hosting a fete, which is a positive contribution to the area for those open to it: station sergeant and amateur baker Stevie (Martin McCann) marvels at the texture of Syrian pastry at an event that has been allocated minimal police presence. Minutes later, the whole squad has rushed to the scene to hold a line against an angry mob who want immigrants out of Northern Ireland. Bricks fly. Lives are in danger.

There are origami cats, Ecuadorian midwives and painful images from the Ukraine war at this year’s event, all under the theme ‘Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams’

Suzannah Mirghani’s first feature contains a powerful performance by Rabha Mohamed Mahmoud as a village’s elder woman and tackles the long shadow of British imperialism and women’s rights

‘I decide my past,” says a village matriarch in this intriguingly political and poetic drama from Suzannah Mirghani, making her feature debut – and with it becoming the first Sudanese woman to direct a feature. (She was forced to cancel the original shoot in Sudan when war broke out in 2023, moving production to Egypt.) It’s a film with things to say about the long shadow of the British empire, neocolonialism, women’s rights and female genital mutilation. But it mostly says it all without undermining its sense of mystery and shivers of magic realism.

We’re in present day Sudan, where village elder Al-Sit (Rabha Mohamed Mahmoud) is an iron-willed woman not to be messed with. Everyone knows the story of how as a young girl she ran the British out of town; small children in the village gleefully tell the story of how she slaughtered every single last one of them. Can it possibly be true? The trauma of her past is at the centre of the film, and Mahmoud’s witchy performance, fierce and powerful, is utterly compelling.

In a new documentary, film-maker Erin Lee Carr lifts the lid on the 2000s TV show that shocked America

It was in 2003, while listening to country radio, that Kelly first heard the casting call: “Have you dreamed about plastic surgery but never thought you could afford it?” She immediately turned up the volume. The pitch sounded too good to be true: free cosmetic procedures, a nutritionist, self-esteem work – one “life-changing opportunity” that “could transform everything”. Kristy, Cindy, Tawnya and Beth heard the call, too: the chance to overhaul oneself from the outside in, fulfilling the implicit but omnipresent promise that if you just lost a little weight and just tweaked your face a bit, your whole life would open up. You, too, could be an ugly duckling transfigured into a swan.

The catch? It would all be filmed for television, of course, for a short-lived show that some have called one of the most sadistic of all time: The Swan. The Fox reality program, which ran for two seasons in 2004, brought the spectacle of intensive plastic surgery – the endurance of extreme pain and humiliation in pursuit of a narrow beauty ideal – to US living rooms with shocking bluntness: bandages and bruises, surgical cannulas pounding into flesh, curt assessments of lumps and bumps and “masculine” teeth that must be corrected in pursuit of a better you. Even among similarly thin-obsessed programs from the infamously ruthless Wild West of early reality television – America’s Next Top Model and The Biggest Loser, to name a few – The Swan stands out as especially cruel, at once hopelessly bought into punitive beauty standards on-screen and shamelessly manipulative off it.

Film-maker Eleanor Mortimer accompanies a scientific expedition to the deep Pacific, where new creatures are abundant yet threatened by sea mining

For the marine biologists in this whimsical eco-documentary, the answer is about 5000 metres down. In the lab, we watch them observing, describing, and classifying the bonkers-looking creatures that survive in the freezing-cold waters of the deep sea: blobby little sea pigs and alien glow-in-the-dark sea cucumbers. It seems 90% of life in the deep sea has yet to be named, explains film-maker Eleanor Mortimer in her quirky voiceover. It is the last frontier of exploration on Earth.

Mortimer accompanies a team of scientists on an expedition to the eastern Pacific. It takes the ship’s robot four hours to descend the four kilometres to the ocean floor where it trundles along, grabber claw at the ready. A biologist explains that 80% of what they bring up to the surface is new to science. And one of the film’s pleasures is watching the wonderstruck awe on their faces as they clap eyes on never-before-seen creatures. The process of acquiring a Latin name for a new discovery can take years, so in the meantime scientists give them excellent temporary names like the Headless Chicken Monster and the Psychedelic Elvis Worm.

Pedro Almodóvar provides a vocal cameo and his style can be traced back to this influential film

This cult supernatural mystery from 1979 is a deeply strange cheese dream of a film from Spain, in which almost the entire opening 10 minutes unfolds in a jittery quiet. There are some longueurs and some pop-eyed silent-movie acting from one of its leads, yes, but also a deeply unnerving, enveloping atmosphere of dread.

At least some of its fascination stems from the marginal involvement of the young Pedro Almodóvar, who did voice-overdubbing for one female character. Director Iván Zulueta was to maintain his connection with Almodóvar from then on and much of Almodóvar’s procedure can be traced back to this influential film: the rapture for movies (what a character here calls “cinemania”), the double-stranded narrative, the queer euphoria and the importance of extended flashbacks.

As a new book on the Paisley Park polymath is released, author John McKie explains why Prince’s 1987 album is the ultimate showcase of his genius

By the early 1980s, Prince had cemented his place as a pop heavyweight with the phenomenal success of his 1999 album, as well as becoming a movie star thanks to Purple Rain. Even when his second film, the old Hollywood throwback Under the Cherry Moon, bombed worldwide in 1986, he notched another massive hit off its soundtrack with Kiss. It didn’t matter if audiences didn’t understand; Prince kept moving forward.

That restless spirit propelled Prince’s final masterpiece, 1987’s Sign o’ the Times, as he dabbled with different directions. Anything seemed on the table: maybe he would drop another album with his backing band, The Revolution, or he would explore his feminine alter-ego Camille with a self-titled album. He even, at one point, wanted to put out a triple album, a reasonable response to the vast collection of music that Prince was creating. “Sometimes when people are in a place of transition, they’re distracted,” said John McKie, whose new book Prince: A Sign o’ the Times follows the pop legend’s career through the lens of this classic. “For Prince, he focused on his music.”

‘The day Saff came into the studio with red hair, I said, “We’re gonna be massive!” It was the missing link’

We always had a vision of mixing acid house with indie rock, and we managed to rent a space and build our own studio in London’s Shoreditch area, long before it got trendy. I had a little vocal booth called Hattie Jacques, in honour of the Carry On films but also because it’s Cockney rhyming slang [for shakes]. We spent all our money rewiring it, and that’s where we wrote, recorded and produced Ready to Go – 100 mixes later!

Daring to defy the norms of political lobbying, the ex-US president is becoming a podcast mainstay – and is opening up about the books that inspired him. Plus, is the Richard Gere gerbil rumour true?

Barack Obama is now a podcast mainstay (good on him for not just defaulting to questionable lobbying). His latest Audible show – via his and Michelle’s company, Higher Ground – is a six-parter about the books that have inspired him, from James Baldwin to John le Carré. The first guest is Tom Hanks, who joins him for a frank chat on parenting and family, prompted by Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning novel Gilead. Hannah J Davies
Audible, out now

Southbank Centre, London
Paraorchestra’s immersive performance of Music for 18 Musicians was immaculate and exhilarating; London Sinfonietta and the Radiohead guitarist’s vibrant tribute to the almost 90-year-old composer followed

Two birthdays were celebrated at Southbank Centre’s Steve Reich-fest. First, the composer himself, a supremely influential artist who has shifted the classical music dial over decades with his evolving yet instantly recognisable soundworld. He turns 90 on 3 October. And then there was Music for 18 Musicians, one of his signature works, which notches up a half-century this year. An immersive performance of the latter invited the audience to mingle with an ensemble dotted around the Clore Ballroom, the collective grins on faces proof positive of the work’s enduring power to raise the spirits.

Doing the honours was Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood’s enterprising collective of disabled and non-disabled musicians, who brought Reich’s kaleidoscopic music to life with ironclad discipline. Freed from fixed seats, the itinerant audience peered at musicians on podiums as if they were objects in an exhibition, marvelling at the precision of polyrhythmic marimba players, or grooving in a central mosh pit with a flexuous quintet of dancers who persuaded children and grandparents alike to go with the flow. Line dancing, disco lights – this exhilarating performance had it all.

Near-mystical musings from a scientist who believes we are on the brink of a revolution in understanding ourselves

Under the letter “B” in the index at the back of Carlo Rovelli’s latest book you will find Francis Bacon, bats, behaviourism, Henri Bergson, and the big bang. This intriguing little miscellany reflects the sweeping ambition of what is perhaps Rovelli’s most overtly philosophical work to date.

Rovelli, who directs a quantum gravity research group in Marseille, has written several books on physics for the general reader, including the global bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. His latest is an attempt to integrate principles and theories from the discipline into a broader Weltanschauung: one of the essential unity of all things, and the profoundly relational and perspectival nature of the universe. “Electrons and minds, stones and laws, judgments and galaxies do not essentially differ in nature from one another,” he writes. “They are notions that illuminate each other.”

A journalist charts a quarter century of geopolitical hubris and economic overreach

Like many Britons born in the 1980s, the journalist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones came of age with Tony Blair’s platitudes ringing in his ears. Politics at the turn of the millennium was a story of temporary dispensations mistaken for eternal truths: the definitive triumph of free market ideology; US military supremacy; a rules-based global order. As Jones recounts in his new book, these certainties would come crashing down over the next quarter of a century amid a succession of economic failures, foreign policy disasters and political crises.

Indeed, “the west” itself – as a shorthand for the US plus the wealthier western European nations – feels almost quaint today, given the increasing unilateralism of the administration in Washington. But in the 2000s it was part of the lexicon, as if the hemisphere were a political actor in its own right. Revisiting the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are reminded not just of their horrific death tolls (totalling half a million, by conservative estimates) but also their total strategic failure; the 2021 evacuation of Kabul airport, Jones writes, was “among the starkest images of American decline yet broadcast to the world”.

The first novel in over a decade from the acclaimed Haitian-American author lacks the power of earlier works

Dèy, Edwidge Danticat’s first novel in over a decade, begins with a bang. Magnolia, the daughter of Haitian parents now shopping for a birthday present for her own daughter, hears gunfire, maybe bombs, in a Miami mall. A killer is on the loose – a young man high on hate, the author of online screeds about how “our country is under attack”, obsessed by cane toads who’ve been coming in from the Amazon basin. As she scrambles to the floor of a restaurant called Oasis, surrounded by dozens of diners playing dead, a man asks, “Is this a mass grave?”

Things have always been tough for Magnolia. Her mother chases pigeons by day, sleepwalks at night, is on and off lithium. Her father worked for many years as a bus driver in Brooklyn, saving every cent so he could buy a nice retirement home back in Haiti. She was brought up by an “aunt” whose family had been killed by goons employed by Haiti’s dictator-in-chief Papa Doc Duvalier. Later she gets to college, where “school was my refuge”.

This tale of broken hearts and broken people moves from the Troubles of 1980s Northern Ireland to an unforgiving London of squats and payphones

Louise Kennedy’s first novel, Trespasses, was one of those rare triumphs, a debut that was not only rapturously received by critics but adored by readers around the world. A story of forbidden love set during the Troubles in 1970s Belfast, it was an international bestseller, translated into more than 20 languages. It was shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s prize and scooped debut fiction of the year at the British Book awards. A four-part television adaptation with Gillian Anderson aired last autumn on Channel 4.

Inevitably Kennedy found herself lauded as an overnight success – much was made of her 30-year career as a professional chef – but in fact she had been writing short stories for a decade and to considerable acclaim; her first collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, was published in 2021. Included in that book was Belladonna, the story of Róisín, a young girl from Belfast who moves south with her mother and, ostracised by her new classmates, becomes friendly with the couple who live across the road. Like Briony Tallis in Ian McEwan’s Atonement, the prickly and precociously bright Róisín misinterprets the dynamic of her neighbours’ marriage to disastrous effect.

PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC (version played); Bandai Namco
The game generates blood-pumping moments as you twist, turn and weave through the skies, while your locked-on missiles speed away to obliterate an enemy plane

The core appeal of any Ace Combat game lies in the moment when the beautiful clouds part, the sunlight glints off your perfectly rendered state-of-the-art fighter jet, and guitar-shredding music kicks into overdrive as your locked-on missiles speed away to obliterate an enemy plane. All of that is 100% present in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. What’s new is the way it delivers its unexpectedly compelling story.

Set in the Earth-like alternative world of Strangereal, where every country is absolutely obsessed with fighter planes and giant superweapons, Ace Combat drafts you into the role of a fake ace pilot called the Wings of Theve – a propaganda invention to raise the morale of a besieged nation, similar to real-life rumours about Ukraine’s Ghosts of Kyiv. You rapidly find yourself becoming an actual legendary pilot, soaring through the skies with your buddies and raining hell upon your oppressors as everybody cheers on the radio. Speaking of ghosts, you have one in your ear – your predecessor, whom nobody else can hear, a gravelly voice waxing lyrical about flying, war and whatever else is on his mind as you flit about.

I’ve been holed up in an flat, affectionately dubbed the ‘brotel’, with my son for weeks – and we’ve revisited the first game we ever played together

I have spent the last three weeks living with my 22-year-old son in a two-bedroom flat he has dubbed the ”brotel”. We cook curries and watch Lanterns. We barbecue meat and analyse Tarantino movies. We get pizza and we play video games. Boy, do we play video games!

The first game I ever played in co-op with him was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, when he was five. He wasn’t the most accomplished sidekick, not so great at placing a mobile gun turret while under fire from what seems like a bazillion enemy soldiers, but we had a laugh. It started the video game bond between us before his sister introduced him to Banjo-Kazooie and Rayman, and he stopped being a preschool warmonger. Probably for the best. So how would it be tackling the same game nearly two decades later?

They offer advice, referee card games and manage players’ tantrums – we caught up with some of the volunteer profs who keep the competitive game going at this year’s world championships

Professors may be the most revered characters in the fictional world of Pokémon (apart from perhaps the Gym Leaders). In Pokémon Red and Blue, Professor Oak greets the player in a pixelated lab coat, and later provides trainers with their first battle partner; since then, each successive generation of games has introduced another professor to aid and guide trainers through their journeys. If you’ve ever played a Pokémon game, they are often the first people that you meet, apart from your in-game mom.

But you may not know that there are also real-world Pokémon professors – volunteers who help organise the game’s competitive communities around the world. Instead of lab coats, they can be seen at events wearing red Pikachu-mascot shirts labelled “staff”, paired with black trousers and shoes.

From highlighted ledges to characters telling you what to do, blockbuster games are increasingly taking the challenge out of playing – and players are pushing back

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Marvel’s Wolverine, the latest action game from Sony’s stable of expensive blockbuster-factory studios, has had an unfortunate launch. Reviews were decent, if not stellar, but a series of viral video clips from reviewers and streamers have made it the scapegoat for a patronising flavour of game design that gamers have hated for decades. This clip, from Skill Up’s review, shows the player entering a beautiful wintry landscape before being overwhelmed by visual cues telling them what they’re supposed to be doing there. Sonar pulses point you in the direction of objectives. Targets – which, it bears emphasising, are shaped like targets – get an extra reflective visual effect so you know you’re supposed to pay attention to them. A trail shows you not just where to go, but where the level’s sole hidden collectible is.

It is hand-holding to the point of parody. Indeed, it reminded me of the sniggersome Mario in Unreal Engine satirical videos that makes the social media rounds every few months (“A mushroom? I should take a look at this”). Skill Up’s clip has been followed by hundreds of others, gleefully ripping into Wolverine with ironic savagery. In one much-copied clip, a streamer simply lays down his controller during a motorbike chase sequence and watches as Wolverine speeds on regardless, bouncing off the scenery as the game plays itself.

From a pharoah’s pouting and almost kissable lips to a Mussolini with a hole in the head, a new exhibition is exploring how some ancient fragments speak more profoundly than fully intact treasures

The nose of Cleopatra VII was supposed to have been so beautiful that it changed the course of history: if it had been shorter, French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “the whole face of the earth would have changed”. A visit to the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, however, will leave you convinced that Cleo’s conk was only the second most stunning feature to ever grace the face of an Egyptian pharaoh. Among the more than 80 objects on display at an exhibition that opened last week is an astonishingly lifelike sculpture showing off the lips of Akhenaten, from the 14th century BC: a seagull shape resting on a pillow of lush flesh, at once both stern and sensuous, almost uncomfortably kissable.

It was Thomas Aquinas who first came up with the theory that we perceive things to be beautiful when they are intact and whole, but the Akhenaten sculpture is so striking precisely because it has a major blemish. Like all the objects shown in Florence, it is only a fragment: a shard of polished limestone found in the dumps south of the Great Aten Temple in the city of el-Amarna, showing only the ruler’s nose and mouth.

Pitlochry Festival theatre
In what feels now like a premonition of the climate crisis, Siobhán Redmond is compelling as the everywoman putting on a brave face in an unforgiving landscape

Samuel Beckett’s play is always staged with a radiant brightness. It is hot enough to set a parasol alight. If, on its premiere in 1961, that resonated with audience anxieties about nuclear Armageddon, in 2026, it feels like a premonition of the climate crisis. Is this how it ends?

Emma Bailey’s set is a dune of bleached-white sand, clumps of sea grass forcing their way through into a scorched environment, baked by Colin Grenfell’s lighting. When Forbes Masson crawls out of his hole as Willie, keeping his back to us, he reveals nothing more than his neck and shoulders, raw and sunburnt, his scarred head protected by a handkerchief (used).

New Diorama theatre, London
Passionate production based on testimonies from Gaza poses many questions regarding Israel’s actions but gets overwhelmed by fact-delivery and form-switches

How do news outlets cover war in a region where independent foreign journalists are blocked entry? What to make of the reports of the Israel-Gaza war by the western press in relation to the livestreamed footage on our phones?

These are some of the questions that come to mind when thinking about Israel’s actions in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, and bringing apocalyptic brutality and death tolls. This 90-minute production by British-Romanian collective BÉZNĂ theatre asks many more in its polyphony of satire, song, graphics, snatches of history, absurdism and sincerity. The four-strong cast – comprising Maryam Abu Khaled, Sara Masry, Luca Kamleh Chapman and Sofia – juggle it all in a series of mini lectures, dramatised dialogue, poetic monologues and meta theatre.

Chichester Festival theatre
A narcotic, orgiastic woodland party clashes with the traditional values of John Major’s Tory party in Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss’s exuberant production

The Shakespearean canon contains the term “love juice” twice, both in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So, though purists might be furious, that druggy usage – and Fairie King Oberon’s access to potions that “make eyes roll” – offer textual justification for Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss staging the play around a narcotic, orgiastic woodland party in the summer of 1994.

At that time, prime minister John Major was introducing legislation to ban “illegal raves”. Egeus (Henry Everett), an Athenian courtier in the source, becomes Chief Constable of West Sussex, surnamed Anderton, an allusion to Sir James, a Thatcher ally whose Bible-inspired policing saw him called God’s Copper. Duke Theseus becomes MP for Chichester, a seat held by the Conservatives for a century from 1924. With one character wearing Major rosettes on her breasts, a PM often derided as dull is becoming a theatre star: the National next year stages a James Graham bio-drama, Major.

Rome, From Mount Aventine will also visit Hong Kong and New York before it is expected to sell for record price

A JMW Turner painting of Rome that has been described as his “great love letter” to the city and has fleetingly returned there after almost 200 years is expected to set a new record when it goes up for sale in December.

One of the few works by Turner that remains in private ownership, Rome, From Mount Aventine will be on display at Palazzo Rondinini in central Rome from Tuesday to Thursday.

The Edinburgh-based writer takes £15,000 prize for Ditto, a ‘beautifully told’ story about domestic abuse in a small Australian town

• Read an extract from Ditto below

Edinburgh-based writer Cherise Saywell has won this year’s BBC national short story award for a “tender” and “taut” story about a young boy caught in the midst of domestic violence.

Saywell was announced as the winner of the £15,000 award, run in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, at a ceremony held at BBC Broadcasting House on Tuesday evening.

A full audio recording of Ditto is available on BBC Sounds.

Over five years, Hubbard photographed her mother at home as her memory declined – even persuading her to make nude body prints. What does her mum think of the wrenchingly beautiful images?

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, artist Katherine Hubbard started to sense something was not right with her mother, Antonette Berger. “It was impossible at the time to say what I was noticing, but something was off.”

Berger was living alone in Philadelphia, and as restrictions were lifted, Hubbard went to stay with her. Berger was eventually diagnosed with LATE [limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy], a condition which causes symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s, though the decline in memory and day-to-day functioning is slower. The diagnosis was “a painful, drawn-out and confusing process – then a feeling of so much grief, so much loss”, Hubbard explains on Zoom from New York.

In 1971, self-appointed mayor Hondo Crouch turned the Texan town into a rural respite for country stars. Soon it was immortalised in chart-topping songs – and became a symbol of a simpler American life

In the summer of 1973, the US country singer Jerry Jeff Walker was in the middle of nowhere, recording his soon-to-be-classic album ¡Viva Terlingua!. A crowd was packed to the rafters in an old dancehall 70 miles west of Austin, in Luckenbach, Texas. An extension lead ran from the hall to a recording truck outside. After everyone had gone home that night, Walker stood in the street and said to Hondo Crouch, Luckenbach’s self-appointed mayor: “I wonder what we just did.”

When Crouch had bought the town two years prior, its population was just three people – and according to the most recent census in 2021, it’s back at the same number. But in the 1970s, this ramshackle town thrived as Walker and his peers headed there, and Luckenbach became one of the most improbable yet important centres for country music.

Being kind to your jeans and shirts by laundering them less will keep them looking great for longer, says fashion editor Hannah Rochell

I have an emotional attachment to my most reliable clothes. There’s my favourite pair of socks that are back on my feet as soon as they’re clean. The trusty pair of trousers that not only have an elastic waist (comfy!) but make an ordinary T-shirt look part of a really well put together outfit. And then there are my best jeans. I wouldn’t say they’re lucky, per se, but good things seem to happen when I wear them. Oh, and I pretty much never wash them.

Many of us own an item of clothing that we perceive as “lucky” and, anecdotally at least, we’re often reluctant to wash it. Perhaps because we don’t want to rinse off the “luckiness”. Or maybe it’s because we’re beginning to understand that washing clothes too often can do more harm than good.

The smartest wardrobe investment might be looking after the items you already own, says fashion editor Hannah Rochell

What do you think of when you hear the word flares? The counterculture of the late 1960s? Pictures of your parents in the 1970s, perhaps. For me, it’s the Wrangler bell-bottoms I bought secondhand in 1995. They were already 20 years old, but completed my vintage look of Adidas T-shirt and shell-toe trainers in a contemporary way.

Bootcut jeans, the bell-bottom’s slightly toned-down cousin, were huge in the early noughties before skinny jeans took their place. But our love for flares couldn’t be suppressed for long; they were back on the catwalks as soon as 2015. Fast forward another 11 years to Claudia Winkleman’s celebrated wardrobe for The Traitors at the beginning of 2026, and it was full of, you guessed it, flares.

An eclectic selection that will take you on a culinary journey – make room on your shelves

Kitchening by Jeremy Lee (4th Estate, £30)

Our use of cleaning products has increased since the pandemic, but do we understand what they could be doing to our health? The journalist Rebecca Seal recently wrote for the Guardian about the potential impacts of the many chemicals we now use in our homes. She tells Madeleine Finlay how social media has also played a role in transforming our cleaning habits, why the impact of indoor air pollution is so hard to study, and what the current evidence is that cleaning products may be causing harm

Trekking poles can improve balance on uneven terrain and reduce stress on joints. Our seasoned adventurer put 10 to the test to find the best

• ‘I’d never head out without one’: 10 hiking essentials

Oh, I would walk 500 miles – with the help of a trusty pole. A walking pole – or two – makes a surprisingly handy addition to your hiking kit, helping with balance on uneven terrain, taking strain away from your legs and knees, and making going up and down hills much easier. I first tried walking poles when I went trekking in the Himalayas – now, I wouldn’t be without one on rugged terrain, but they can be just as helpful on a casual stroll.

Hiking poles are typically used as a pair, and the idea is to swing each pole in time with the opposite foot as you move forwards: right foot and left pole, then left foot and right pole, in a rhythm. You can also use poles singly to keep a hand free or to take the weight off one side of your body.

It’s often thought of as the problem, but what if the right technology could help us switch off and live more in the moment?

• The best screen-free activities

With the continued backlash against AI and growing concern about our reliance on screens, an analogue life has never looked so appealing. I haven’t gone so far as to get myself an analogue bag just yet, but I have done a relatively complex puzzle and read five physical books this year, which is already two more than in 2025.

But it also struck me recently that I have, somewhat conversely, been using digital tools to do a lot of analogue activities. What if tech could help us live more in the present and reduce our screen time, while benefiting our physical and mental health in the long run?

Your other favourites included a lovely lamp, timeless jeans and a heated airer. Hunker down, anyone?

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It may be unseasonably warm, but September’s bestsellers list tells us you’re definitely in an autumn state of mind. Some of you are embracing the unofficial new year with a backpack perfect for commuting or a bento box to avoid overpriced work lunches. Others are leaning into the darker evenings with a vibe-boosting portable lamp and a comfy mattress topper.

From a pocket umbrella and a heated airer to a gorgeous pen and cashmere scarf, September’s favourites make it clear that you’re ready to hunker down, get back to the grind and, most importantly, get cosy.

With autumnal comfort food in mind, it’s time to find the perfect pot for pies, gratins and roasting. Our chef put nine casserole dishes, from Le Creuset to John Lewis, to the test

• The best frying pans for every kind of cook

We are now firmly in slow-cooking season. Each weekend, you’ll likely find me tinkering over a pot in the kitchen, glass of wine in hand, tunes on, before retiring to the sofa to watch a film while the scent of beef shin ragu wafts through the house. A good casserole dish is essential to bring this vision into reality.

Many of my favourite meals emerge from them – from stews and lasagnes to gratins and pasta sauces. The quality of your casserole dish plays a vital role in how pleasurable the process of cooking such things is, so I’ve put some to the test.

Scots have a rich food history that’s been passed down through generations. Here are my modern takes on traditional Celtic staples

There is a depth and history to Scotland’s food that reaches far beyond deep-fried Mars bars or urban myths about haggis. Kitchens were humble and full of life – recipes passed by word of mouth, scraps of paper shared between friends, generations stitching together simple meals. I’m lucky enough that my mum taught me how a potato, a handful of oatmeal and a bit of salt and butter could make a meal and hold a story, but life changes – new ingredients arrive, we move away, time grows shorter – and, sometimes, those simple, comforting recipes drift out of reach. Today’s dishes began as a keepsake for my children – to save old recipes, to record a feeling of home – but also as an invitation to discover what happens when memory meets invention.

It’s the gadget people love to hate – but maybe it does have a place in the kitchen?

Why are garlic presses suddenly a no-no? Recipes now stipulate grating instead, but who wants lumps of garlic in their dinner?
Sally, by email
People sure do love to hate on the garlic press, not that that’s anything new: in her aptly titled essay Garlic Presses Are Utterly Useless, Elizabeth David called them “both ridiculous and pathetic”, while Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: “I don’t know what that junk is that squeezes out the ends of those things, but it ain’t garlic.” Fighting talk, indeed.

Christina Soteriou, recipe writer at Ottolenghi Inc and author of Big Veg Energy, however, takes a more balanced approach: “A garlic press is not necessarily a no-no, and there can definitely be a time and a place for it,” she says. “It’s definitely quicker [than chopping], but I’d use it only when said garlic is going into a sauce, stew or braise.” Which is to say, in a dish where those lumps that concern Sally will cook down and dissolve almost entirely.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Demand for Scotland’s most famous export has slumped, with industry facing job cuts and closures

Obscured by the Scottish countryside on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy, Cluny bond is, in effect, a small town built to store whisky. By the time the latest set of warehouses are finished on the former opencast coal mine, Diageo’s 220-hectare (544-acre) maturation campus will be able to store almost 3m casks of Scotch. The drinks multinational needs the space.

After a 15-year boom turbocharged by the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for Scotch whisky has slumped around the world. Distilleries have paused production across Scotland to avoid adding to the glut of supply, known as a “whisky loch” – the equivalent of a “wine lake”.

What’s good and what’s going off this autumn in the world of food

Manchester

It seemed like a good idea to get a puppy with my partner, but then he left me. Single life was hard at first but my disobedient dog made me laugh again

In the spring of 2024, my boyfriend and I lay in bed scrolling through photos of puppies. What about this one? Or that one? We had only been dating for six months or so, but had become besotted quickly, making long-term plans and talking about our future.

Then I found the one: a scruffy, small terrier with black and brown markings on his back that looked like the world map and eyes like Galaxy Minstrels. We named him Dennis to connect him to my mum’s terrier, Beano, because she was ill at the time and I’d failed to provide her with a grandchild. A puppy was the consolation present.

Burnout or breakup are constant dangers when one partner carries too much of the mental load of looking after the home and family. Here’s how to spread the burden more evenly

Many households have an imbalance in domestic duties, and women often struggle from carrying the weight of the organisational side of life. Here, mental load experts share the secrets to having a more equitable home – and the rewards that can be gained from it.

My son adores helicopters, so we waved as hard as possible as it flew past. Then it suddenly looped and came back around

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

My sister lives in Ukraine; I live in Australia. We had gone five long years without seeing each other when we finally reunited during a trip to Los Angeles. One day we took my three-year-old son to the beach and spent the afternoon catching up.

We had a lot of conversations about people and kindness that day. I told her how I had noticed a softer side to men since having a son. As a woman, you’re often wary of construction workers, for example – what might they say to me when I walk past? But now when I pass a building site with my son, the workers often let him play with their radio, or beep a tractor to make him laugh. It was very heartwarming and gave me a whole new perspective on the other sex.

How did a solicitor who is the leader of the English Democrats and a Norwegian national fare on Brexit, surveillance and Ukraine?

Robin, 68, Essex

Occupation Solicitor

Apple’s cheapest desktop computer is no longer a bargain but its newest, fastest chip makes it a pocket powerhouse

Apple’s latest Mac mini brings real speed and power for far more than everyday tasks in a practically pocketable form you can fit almost anywhere.

The impressive new desktop machine is the first to receive an update to Apple’s latest M6 chip while remaining smaller than a headphones box. It is the cheapest computer Apple sells with an M-series chip, but like every other memory-containing piece of electronics, it has been hit by RAMageddon, driving up the starting price to £899 (€1,049/$899/A$1,449) from the £599 or equivalent of its M4 predecessor.

Government announcement sparks a rally in FTSE-listed housebuilders, but there are still a lot of unknowns

• Labour’s modest reheat of help to buy is worth a try

The government will unveil a fresh scheme to help people on to the housing ladder next month but a debate is already raging over whether it is first-time buyers or housebuilders who will be the biggest winners.

At the weekend, Andy Burnham announced plans for Your First Home, which aims to give a helping hand to first-time buyers who do not have the luxury of being able to call on the “bank of mum and dad”.

We are living in a collapsing property because of cost-cutting and delays over our subsidence claim

LV= General Insurance is forcing a family with three young children to live in a collapsing home because of cost-cutting and delays.

We lodged a claim for subsidence damage to our extension and conservatory in 2023. Instead of authorising the repairs recommended by independent experts, LV= has spent years stalling and proposing inadequate, superficial patching methods.

Savers face a dilemma: lock down the deals now or wait, with offers tipped to ‘get even better’

• Britain’s low-paid urged to sign up to savings scheme offering cash bonus

Returns on the top fixed-rate savings accounts are at their highest level in years and still climbing, with some now paying up to 5.25%.

It leaves those with money to put away facing a choice: lock into some of the best interest rates on offer in several years or hold your nerve in the hope they get even better?

Though not yet approved by any regulatory agency, retatrutide could help improve blood sugar levels and reduce inflammation

The ‘Godzilla’ of weight-loss drugs could help improve blood sugar levels, reduce inflammation and cut a person’s body weight by a quarter, according to the largest study of its kind.

Retatrutide mimics three key gut hormones that help control appetite, blood sugar and metabolism: GLP-1, GIP and glucagon. Unlike other drugs such as Wegovy, which primarily targets the GLP-1 pathway to suppress appetite, or Mounjaro, which contains GLP-1 plus GIP to control blood sugar levels, retatrutide also engages the glucagon receptor, which helps increase energy expenditure.

There may be almost no research on pet aversion during and post-pregnancy, but it may not be particularly rare

About three weeks into her first pregnancy, Sylvia Luu began to loathe the smell of her border collie mix, Ranger.

Luu could hardly be in the same room as Ranger without becoming nauseous. His drool repulsed her, and she found the smell of his fur so disgusting she wore a nose plug all day.

Experts share what you need to know about GLP-1-related hair loss as the side-effect gets more attention from researchers

About 20 million people across the US, UK, and EU are taking GLP-1 receptor agonists like tirzepatide and semaglutide (Ozempic or Mounjaro are common brands) for weight loss and type 2 diabetes. As their use has surged, we’re learning more about their side-effects. One that’s been getting a lot of attention from researchers lately: hair loss.

In one survey of people who take these medications, 20% of respondents experienced hair shedding, although the lack of high-quality data from a randomized, controlled trial to assess this side-effect makes it difficult to know exactly how common it is.

I was a healthy 34-year-old when a mass of blood vessels ruptured in my brain. It took three neurosurgeons and a risky 16-hour operation to fix me

On a Sunday in May 2017, I was at the gym and using a chest press when there was this pop. It wasn’t a sound – it was more like a sigh in my body. There was no pain, but I went limp. I shuffled along the wall to some mats. I thought I was having a stroke, but I wasn’t slurring and my eyes and arms seemed fine. But my left leg felt numb – it was the weirdest feeling. Lying on my back with my legs bent, both knees stayed upright when I looked at them. When I looked away, the left one fell to the side.

I ended up in A&E for hours at nearby St Thomas’ hospital in London. I was 34, healthy and had started regaining feeling in my leg, so they theorised it was a bruised spine and thought it was safe to discharge me. Overworked staff and shift changes meant that when MRI images of my brain went missing, nobody tracked them down.

Designer’s latest work takes bold steps away from the fashion house’s brand, creating a show that felt like an event

“I want to land on a vibe.” This was how Dior designer Jonathan Anderson, one year into what is arguably the biggest job in fashion, summed up his assignment before his latest show. Expounding on chiffon and buttons with the intensity of a barrister delivering a closing speech in the high court, ruffling his hair as if his mind might at any moment explode with ideas, Anderson brings more brainpower to the pursuit of the vibe than the superficial phrasing suggests.

The vibe is coming in to land. This Dior show felt like an event, which is the bar Christian Dior set for his successors back in 1947, when his New Look silhouette made front pages all over the world. Overnight, trees had emerged out of the circular pond in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, and – thanks to the deep pockets of owners LVMH – a magical mist conjured to swirl around them, lending a cinematic grandeur to the slender catwalk spanning the water. (The trees will be replanted elsewhere in the gardens, after the show.)

The late designer’s niece echoes his sense of relaxation, as the house seeks to prove itself to potential buyers

A year after the death of Giorgio Armani, the Italian fashion house he founded in 1975 is facing increasing uncertainty about its future ownership.

In his will, Armani, who ruled over the business for 50 years, instructed his heirs to sell an initial 15% stake of the company within 18 months of his death. If a private sale does not materialise, an IPO is mandated to take place. Now there are reports the group is readying itself for formal talks with the French conglomerate LVMH, the beauty giant L’Oréal and the eyewear group EssilorLuxottica – three of Armani’s preferred acquirers – over the possible sale of a minority stake.

Critics say partnership between Mounjaro maker Eli Lilly and fashion giant suggests thinness is an aspiration

The fifth iteration of Vogue World, overseen by Anna Wintour, took place in Milan on Tuesday night. Gigi Hadid and Jennifer Lopez provided theatrics on the catwalk, but it was one of the event’s backers that caused the biggest stir.

Eli Lilly, an American pharmaceutical company that manufactures a wide range of medicines, including weight-loss jabs Mounjaro and the Foundayo pill, was listed in the event credits as one of its “fashion adjacent” sponsors.

A look evoking memories of All Saints and Destiny’s Child has fashion editors, Brad Pitt and the high street all blending in

Discussing their style while in All Saints, Nicole and Natalie Appleton said earlier this year that some things don’t change: “Army trousers and combat trousers will always be a staple with us.”

If, for a long time after All Saints’ noughties heyday, the sisters would have known this look was not the height of fashion, things have changed in 2026. Judging by those attending shows at London fashion week this month, camo is very much back.

A new direct train service connects the far south of Sweden to the Norwegian capital in just over six hours, with the option of stopping off in the seaside town of Varberg or lively Gothenburg en route

‘This carriage is due for modernisation. Don’t miss the opportunity to experience 90s Germany style,” reads the sign on the door to the dining carriage. The couple inside aren’t missing theirs: they’re taking endless selfies in the clinical pink-and-turquoise carriage that looks like a hospital canteen and smells like cinnamon buns and strong filter coffee.

I’m on Snälltåget’s iconic red-shelled train, on the Swedish rail company’s new route from Malmö to Oslo – a 6.5-hour journey along Sweden’s picturesque western corridor. Until now, the journey between the two cities involved long bus rides and fragmented train transfers. This direct line is easier and cheaper, with tickets starting at £11 each way. It’s already a hit, shuttling more than 25,000 passengers since launching this summer.

‘Kölsch is not a drink, it is a religion’ in Cologne, and it’s only brewed in and around the German city. But which of the many beautiful, storied beer halls serves up the best?

There’s a saying in Cologne, repeated with the mild smugness of people who know they’re right: kölsch is the only culture you can drink. It sounds like a line lifted straight from the tourist board’s brochure. Then you spend a day working your way around the city’s traditional brewhouses and realise it’s a statement of fact.

Since 1997, kölsch has held a protected geographical indication within the EU, guaranteeing that any beer bearing the name is brewed within 50km of the city and made strictly to the Kölsch-Konvention. That agreement, signed in 1986, defined the style as “a light, highly attenuated, hop-accentuated, clear, top-fermenting ‘vollbier’ [full-beer]”, restricting production exclusively to the local area. It is, in effect, the champagne of pale ales: locally adored and tied to a city that has always insisted on doing things its own way.

Get inspiration for your next short break with our pick of self-catering accommodation, from a sleek Highlands retreat to a cabin with a hot tub on a Somerset vineyard

• 15 great small hotels, inns and restaurants with rooms for an autumn stay in the UK

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From a cosy Cornish inn with open fires to a boutique hotel in Northumberland, these new and revamped boltholes tick all the right boxes

• 15 great cottages and cabins for an autumn escape in the UK

Camborne, Cornwall: There will be more storms like Goretti and more fires next summer, but we can make the landscape more resilient

A grey wagtail flits at the stream’s edge, its flaxen underbelly matching the woodland’s autumn swatch. A few months ago, this bird may have struggled to catch a midge or water snail here, after the streambed nearly ran dry. Sitting by the water now, it’s easy to forget the damage this area suffered this year. But the land remembers.

Many months on from Storm Goretti, the entrance to these woods is still a battlefield of fallen trees, Scots pines and ageing oaks torn ungainly from the ground. Just over a mile away, a gorse break is still scarred from a late-summer wildfire that blackened the coastline. I stopped by the other day; the western gorse should have been blooming, delicate coconut notes luring in late pollinators. Instead, their petrified remains jutted lifelessly out towards the sea.

As a business journalist, Nilsson began rigorously reporting on the power players of the adult industry, who prefer to remain in the shadows. Along the way, she uncovered how porn has shaped the internet – and our lives as a whole

There was a time, a few decades ago, when the men who owned the world’s biggest pornography businesses were happy to be famous. They paraded a lifestyle they hoped looked glamorous, appearing in public dressed in silk pyjamas or with a woman in swimwear on each arm. Porn moguls like Hustler’s Larry Flynt or Playboy’s Hugh Hefner were household names.

“Say what you want about these old perverts, who once set the tone of our sexual culture, but at least you knew who they were and what they were selling,” Patricia Nilsson writes in her new book, Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification of the Internet, the Economy, and Everything Else. “These days, the men calling the shots are nowhere to be seen.”

We tried humane traps, wire wool, hardcore cleaning regimes. Nothing worked. In the end, I wondered if the mice in our house were the real residents, while we were the intruders

Some of the happiest years of my 20s were spent in a house-share in east London. Four of us were crammed into a three-bedroom terrace where the dining room had been turned into a bedroom. My housemates were my closest friends. We were young women with the kind of intense-bordering-on-codependent dynamic that becomes unsustainable later in life, when you have long-term partners, pets and children. We lived together, we went out together, in the summer we took our Argos tent to festivals together. We stayed up late discussing love-life and work dilemmas, often crowding round a phone to draft text messages.

We were also not particularly clean, which meant our cluttered, chaotic house was the ideal home for mice. At first we told ourselves it was just one mouse we saw running along next to the skirting board or darting behind a sofa. But a quick scan of the internet confirmed our fears that it’s never just one – mice are social creatures, and they were likely in a nest-share similar to our house-share. A female mouse gives birth to a litter of five to eight mice and can be pregnant up to 10 times a year. We read forum posts that claimed mice were doubly incontinent (something I’ve since learned is fake news), and our horror began to grow.

Don’t water based on the month or the season – be led by what the plant is actually doing

The problem
Cutting back on watering for winter has become so ingrained that people start rationing by the calendar, giving plants just a fraction of the water they had in summer, because the season changed.

The hack
The advice to reduce is because, as light levels drop, most houseplants slow their growth, use less water and dry out more slowly, so watering as you did in summer risks waterlogging the roots and causing rot.

A teenager struggling with climate anxiety searches for hope in an unexpected place – writing letters to imprisoned activists. Max, 14, is on a quest to understand the human stories behind direct action and why so many climate protesters are in prison​. As replies begin to arrive, a dialogue bridging generations unfolds and connection transforms despair into purpose. ​When Max writes to the judge presiding over a high-profile trial​, he is surprised to hear the letter referred to in the judge's closing remarks

When NAZA premiered at Venice earlier this month, it sent shockwaves across the globe. Composed of interviews with 24 anonymous Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, NAZA is a haunting exposé of the tools that the Israeli military uses to carry out the remote killing of Palestinians in Gaza – including AI, mass surveillance, and devastating airstrikes that kill civilians and raze homes. Now, the Israeli government is treating NAZA like a national security crisis. Benjamin Netanyahu is even pushing for legislation that could strip the film's two directors of their Israeli citizenship. Host Carter Sherman speaks with the directors of NAZA, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, in one of their first interviews with an American journalist. The film, which was produced by the Guardian, will open in New York this week and soon expand to theaters worldwide. It will also stream, for free, on the Guardian website in November

Read some of the Guardian reporting that NAZA builds on:

• ‘The Gospel’: how Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza

• Revealed: Israeli military creating ChatGPT-like tool using vast collection of Palestinian surveillance data

Removal of war debris, in which lives, memories and unexploded Israeli bombs lie buried, is one of largest clearance operations in modern history

It took all day to clear a section of road in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City. At the end of it, Ahmed Alyan, a UN engineer, was exhausted, surrounded by mountains of rubble despite the day’s work.

“I feel as if we are holding a spoon and trying to empty the sea,” Alyan said, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead after a long, hot summer day.

Scientists are racing to understand how fires behave to predict and prevent them as hotter summers create tinderboxes

From the scorched heathlands of the New Forest to the smouldering valleys of south Wales and burned-out homes in Stourbridge, an extraordinary summer of wildfires has left its mark across Britain.

To most of us, these charred landscapes may look like pure devastation, but to a trained wildfire investigator they are full of clues. Heat-scorched leaves can become frozen in position, preserving evidence of the wind direction as the fire passed through. Soot or staining on rocks, the pattern of fallen grass and bracken, and even how those stems have burned, provide further information about how the fire itself moved.

We’d like to hear from people in England who used the government’s previous equity loan scheme to buy their first home about how it worked out for them

The government has announced plans for a new scheme to help first-time buyers purchase a home. The programme, called “Your first home”, is intended to help buyers in England who have a regular income but have been unable to save for a large deposit or don’t have financial support from their family.

We’d like to hear from people who used the previous help-to-buy equity loan scheme. Did it help you buy a home you otherwise couldn’t have afforded?

There were 13,464 reported assaults against passengers and members of the public on the mainline railway in 2025-26

The number of reported assaults on Great Britain’s railways has risen to a record high of almost 25,000 incidents in a year, data published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) shows.

There were 13,464 reported assaults against passengers and members of the public on the mainline railway in 2025-26, up 36% on the previous year and the highest number recorded by the ORR since it started tracking the figures in 2004.

How has loneliness affected you? Please share your experience

We live in an age where we have better tools for communication and connection than ever before, and yet we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic.

In 2025, a World Health Organization report identified that 1 in 6 people globally are lonely. The report defined loneliness as “the painful feeling that arises from a gap between desired and actual social connections.” Perhaps, most strikingly, the age bracket that had the highest levels of loneliness was 13–29-year-olds.

We would to hear about the changes in your life after taking GLP-1s

Around 100 million people globally are taking GLP-1s. The majority experience significant weight loss. Research has shown that women in particular experience greater success in dating and job-seeking as a result. We would like to explore the impacts of this: how do you go about processing this change? How hard is it to balance, or make peace with, such differing experiences of life before and after GLP-1s? Do you feel you have a “before” and “after” self?

If you have taken GLP-1s and lost weight as a result, and experienced changes in your workplace, your romantic life, or in how you feel about yourself before and after, we would love to hear from you for an article exploring the emotional adjustments involved in rapid and significant weight loss.

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