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.

Conference delegates grateful ousting Starmer has paid off, but relief tempered by fiscal headwinds ahead

• UK politics live – latest updates

Even Andy Burnham’s closest allies accept that deposing Keir Starmer to install their man as leader was a huge political gamble. But if the mood at the Labour party conference in Liverpool is anything to go by, it is one that – so far – has paid off.

The contrast with last year, when Starmer retained his grip on the party and Burnham slunk away from Liverpool early, could not be more stark. Their relief at their turn of fortune is tempered only by the fiscal headwinds ahead.

The actors are working together for the first time ever, in Noël Coward’s comedy Hay Fever. Backstage, there’s no stopping their tales of skinny-dipping, fat-shaming and warring co-stars

Richard E Grant: Despite our vast combined vintage, our paths have never crossed before, have they?

Christine Baranski: Regrettably not. We could have had some good fun a few decades ago. A girl could have got into some real trouble. But here we are, and now we’re the veterans. You’re among the great character actors, popping up delightfully in so many things and always being spot-on.

Ambiance: who wants it and why do so many pubs contrive to create it? The deader the pub the better, in my view

I was out with a mate one evening when she asked where I’d like to go. My response was immediate: “A pub with no atmosphere.” I cannot think of anywhere better. You get served straight away, you get a seat and, if you’re really lucky, there’s no music. Seriously, what’s not to like?

First things first: by “pub”, I mean the old-fashioned type, with carpets that stick to the soles of your shoes – no gastropub nonsense. I’m still fuming from the time I ordered fish and chips in one of these (unbeknown to me) gastropubs. It’s a simple meal; a British staple. How can you get that wrong? Well first, the fish and peas arrived on a slate slab (an item, by all rights, I should only come across in my dad’s shed). I’m no physicist, but if a dish contains peas, then having a totally flat surface to place them on is not ideal. Worse, for some inexplicable reason the chips had been separated from the fish and placed in a metal container, which, as I discovered when I foolhardily attempted to pick it up, was hot enough to cause third-degree burns. When I quite reasonably asked if they could not just bung everything on a plate, the look of disdain would have you believe I had asked the barman if I could abduct his first-born child.

She lit up Sherlock, made a brutal exit from House of the Dragon and now she’s back in the hard-hitting Belfast-set police drama. Will she have to stuff a chopping board into her flak jacket this time round?

Sharp eyes save lives. That’s the mantra of the police officers in Blue Lights, although the words sound a good deal more urgent when said in a throaty Belfast accent. The city, dealing with past and present problems, is the turbulent setting for the hit drama. Having starred in the BBC series for the past four years, Siân Brooke has taken its lessons about vigilance to heart.

“I noticed some dodgy-looking activity not far from where we live in London,” says Brooke. “I’d driven past a few times and was suspicious. I told my husband that the last time I went past, I slowed down and did a drive-by, so they’d know their untoward behaviour had been rumbled. My husband said: ‘You can’t do that, Siân. You’re not a real cop!’” She laughs. “I think Blue Lights has got to me. What was I going to do, make a citizen’s arrest?”

I used to be terrified of socialising, certain I would embarrass myself the moment I opened my mouth. And as for dates …

As with a lot of teenagers, social confidence was not my strong suit. Throughout my time at school in the early 2010s, I hated the prospect of new social situations and would often lie awake at night overthinking the day to come.

What I now know to be social anxiety I dismissed as just nerves at that young age. Although I knew something wasn’t quite right, for most of my early teens I managed to disguise my discomfort. Sharing a friendship group with my twin sister meant I could hide behind my sibling.

The counter terror police say the investigation has led to multiple lines of new enquiry

• UK security forces aware of suspected bomb plot, hints defence secretary

• RAF Fairford suspected bomb plot: have you been affected?

Speaking at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, the defence secretary, Wes Streeting, said he could not give further details about the RAF Fairford incident because there is a live police investigation.

However, he used his speech to stress that the UK-US relationship is “the closest alliance” of any two countries in the world, adding the two nations will always “stand together” against those who wish to cause harm.

Chancellor tells Labour conference it’s ‘not progressive’ to fail to balance books amid rising welfare bill as borrowing costs climb to record high

• Business live – latest updates

• Price of diesel on UK forecourts reaches all-time high

John Healey has pledged to use next month’s budget to inject hope into Britain’s economy while sticking to the government’s fiscal rules, arguing there is “nothing progressive” about losing control of public finances.

In his first speech as chancellor to Labour conference, Healey warned that next month’s highly anticipated tax-and-spending event would need to take into account a challenging global backdrop.

Official says deaths – and dozens of injuries – were probably caused by crushing on boat carrying 105 people

A 10-year-old child and two women died ⁠attempting ​to cross the Channel on Monday, French authorities have said.

Their deaths and the injuries of dozens of others in a large dinghy were probably caused by crushing, according to a French official.

Exclusive: Instructors at tech training company Multiverse hit out at ‘remorseless’ and ‘unnerving’ monitoring system

Teachers at Euan Blair’s £1.6bn tech training company, Multiverse, have blown the whistle about “horrendous stress” and feeling constantly watched after bosses started using AI models to surveil and rate their teaching.

Staff delivering apprenticeship training in computer and AI skills to thousands of UK public and private sector workers now have transcripts of online classroom sessions analysed and scored by an AI programmed to alert human managers when they are suspected of doing things wrong.

Fallout from Iran conflict continues to drive up bill for motorists with record average cost now at 199.18p a litre

• Business live – latest updates

• Share your experience of high diesel prices in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides

The price of diesel on UK forecourts has hit an all-time high average of 199.18p a litre, as the conflict in the Middle East continues to drive the cost of fuel to record levels.

The price, which previously peaked at 199.09p in June 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, could soon top the £2 mark after Donald Trump rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day peace deal to reopen the critical oil and gas shipping route through the strait of Hormuz.

Talks expected on Monday after Sinn Féin leaders join those on streets opposing decision to allow unionist parade for first time since 1998

Tensions between unionist and nationalist leaders in Northern Ireland have escalated as a number of Orange Order members remain at Drumcree church, vowing not to leave until they can proceed with their march down a nationalist road in Portadown.

Members of the loyalist Orange Lodge made a third attempt to proceed down Garvaghy Road at 4am on Monday morning, but a line of police Land Rovers blocked their path.

• Coach alleged to have been paid for advisory work

• Mancini says City ‘not guilty’ after Premier League ruling

Roberto Mancini appeared to acknowledge he had “a double contract” when he managed Manchester City after the club were found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules.

But Mancini, who in 2011-12 coached City to their first Premier League title in a half century and is now in charge of Italy, also said that what is developing potentially into the biggest scandal in English football history was “not a problem that concerns me”.

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve says Israel is not entitled to shut mission in occupied Palestinian territory

• UK politics live – latest updates

Israel does not have a legal right to act on its plan to close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve has advised the UK Foreign Office.

Israel has said it intends to shut the consulate on 8 October in response to the sweeping ban on trade with goods from Israeli settlements announced by the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, this month.

Madonna and Swift take home four of six prizes given out during ceremony telecast, alongside K-pop star Lisa and British newcomer Sienna Spiro

• MTV VMAs 2026 red carpet: Taylor Swift, Charli xcx, Troye Sivan and more – in pictures

• MTV VMAs: full list of winners

Madonna and Taylor Swift triumphed at the 2026 MTV Video Music awards, with the former winning three trophies and the latter winning the night’s top honor, extending her run as the most-awarded artist in VMAs history.

In a ceremony that largely awarded female artists, Madonna entered the evening as the most nominated artist of the year with 13 nods and won seven, including three during the telecast: for best collaboration (with Sabrina Carpenter), best dance, and artist of the year.

River charters part of wider movement establishing ‘moral’ framework to protect nature and hold institutions to account

One Monday morning in spring last year, 12 people gathered in the morning drizzle at Joyce’s Pool, one of the sources of the Bristol River Avon, and took the first steps of the inaugural Avon pilgrimage.

Over the course of eight days, a revolving cast of pilgrims walked about 100 miles from the source of the river to the point at which it reaches the sea, in some cases bivvying on the riverside at night. Along the way they planted trees, sowed seeds, restored footpaths and presented councillors and decision-makers with a fledgling Avon charter, developed by the Bristol campaign group Conham Bathing.

Photographer Alexandre Bagdassarian spent eight months following the daily lives of children in a prison system criticised for the long time spent in cells

The cells of the children were difficult places for me to photograph because they are impersonal and intimate at the same time. Once inside, you quickly find yourself going in circles, with nowhere to go. Your gaze settles on the very few elements that make up the space: a window, cell bars, a rudimentary bed, a plank serving as a desk, and sometimes a book or a few drawings.

Sometimes, due to staff shortages, a young person may spend as much as 23 hours a day in their cell. This and the low levels of access to educational and sports activities have been criticised by Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

The cell windows directly overlook the prison yard, a mandatory one-hour stop each day

Renewed fighting between Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni forces has shattered four years of relative calm

In the mornings, 13-year-old Muneer Farie went to school, and in the afternoons he helped his father feed the livestock. He took his studies seriously, dreaming of becoming the first teacher in his family of farmers.

As fighting approached his village in al-Wazeyah district in Taiz, Yemen, two weeks ago, Muneer’s focus started to drift from his lessons. The classroom echoed with the distant sounds of explosions and gunfire. His home was suddenly on the frontline of renewed fighting between the Iran-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.

The actor is returning to his character in the cult Channel 4 sitcom with a new autobiography – despite barely watching the series. He talks about his ‘terrifying’ hospital stay and why strangers still shout at him about crack being ‘moreish’

Super Hans is back! What’s he been up to since we last saw him? Splitting up with Molly, the twins, the moped-rental business in Macedonia …
Well, Super Hans finds a legal loophole in the marriage certificate, which means it’s null and void and … hang on … I’m basically telling you the whole plot of the book!

Is the book just you, Matt King, writing on behalf of Super Hans? Or does your inner Super Hans just come out and write it for you?
It’s neither. He comes around my house every morning. I put the kettle on, he borrows my computer and off he goes. I don’t know what he gets up to. I usually try to get out of the way, go for a nice walk.

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.

Royal Academy of Arts, London
They’ve marginalised Matisse and given Picasso the cold shoulder – and what’s left seems more informed by pedantic geography than sensual art

The French Riviera is not a place. It is a dream of paradise, one of those Arcadias we long for – timeless, perfect worlds saturated with light. In the modern age, artists found theirs in the south of France. Yet this exhibition misses the point entirely. Instead of the modern myth of the Med, what we get here is a pedantic obsession with the geography of France’s southern coast. Artists get rewarded for which bit of it they painted. This leads to some serious distortions.

The neo-impressionists – the dot-fixated movement led by Paul Signac – and their paintings of the Côte d’Azur get a grand, spacious setting. That’s OK; though when you’ve seen one pixelated shoreline, you’ve seen them all. What’s baffling is that Henri Matisse and the Fauves have been squeezed into a smaller, less weighty adjoining display. The revolution that Matisse and his friends enacted at the seaside town of Collioure, replacing nature with the colours in their heads, was far more radical, exciting and visually brilliant than Signac and co. I couldn’t fathom it.

David Dein’s decision to hire the Frenchman ushered in an irreversible era of multiculturalism, giving birth to the Premier League we know today

As feedback goes, even a character as relentlessly optimistic as David Dein might have considered the reaction to his bold managerial appointment suboptimal. Thirty years ago, Arsenal were in a state of chaotic flux, having sacked Bruce Rioch, with the interims Stewart Houston and Pat Rice in charge. There had been talk of Johan Cruyff arriving and Dein wanted to fill the information vacuum. Summoning the team, he reassured them a new manager would soon be appointed and that he was a world-class addition.

“His name is Arsène Wenger,” Dein, the club’s vice-chair, beamed. A brief pause ensued before a player’s voice called out: “Who the fuck is he?” His exclamation echoed conventional wisdom. “Arsene Who?” famously read The London Evening Standard’s billboards prior to Wenger being confirmed as manager on 30 September 1996.

They dressed – and partied with – the innermost in-crowd. As a swirling new show celebrates their fashion creations, Birtwell recalls her happy days with Clark and her sorrow at the loss of David Hockney

In the mythical age of bohemia, the psychedelic decade between Mary Quant’s cheerful miniskirts and the first snarls of punk, Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark were London’s most fashionable couple. Birtwell created the fabrics: daydreamy, botanical doodles that captured the idealism and looseness of the times in wisps of chiffon. Clark magicked these into sensual bias-cut dresses with a freewheeling grandeur that was part Hollywood glamour, part rock’n’roll anarchy.

More than just designers, they were a whole vibe. They dressed – and partied with – the innermost of the in-crowd. Talitha Getty, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg hung out at Quorum, their Chelsea boutique. At a catwalk show in 1970, there were two Beatles, Cecil Beaton and Brigitte Bardot in the audience – and, after Clark began making stage clothes for Mick Jagger, he accompanied the Rolling Stones on tour. David Hockney’s portrait of the couple in their pomp – Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, painted two years into their marriage, when Birtwell was pregnant with their second child – sealed their place in the mythology of the period.

The largest gathering of Elvis fans in Europe is held annually every September in the seaside town in south Wales

During the assisted dying debate, most politicians agreed on one thing – palliative care reform is urgent. Patients and those of us who care for them are waiting

• Jane Turner is chief nurse at the palliative support charity Sue Ryder

The UK government is discussing the country’s biggest challenges at the Labour party conference. But amid the speeches, announcements and headlines, it should not forget one of the clearest messages to emerge from parliament just two weeks ago – our palliative care system is not working for far too many people.

Throughout the assisted dying debate, MPs who disagreed deeply on the core issue, often agreed on one thing – our palliative care system urgently needs fixing. Some spoke from personal experience where they had seen relatives forced to wait hours in pain, or those who had to go to hospital instead of staying in their own homes because the right support wasn’t available.

Jane Turner is chief nurse at the palliative support charity Sue Ryder

The betting markets favour the US president and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But the most vital work to secure peace is being done by those far from the spotlight

• Haakon Gjerløw is the acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo

The Nobel peace prize is not a contest determined by fame. Yet the betting markets consistently gravitate towards the biggest names in global politics – among them this year, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

That misses what the prize is for. The real work of building peace is often done far from the headlines: by courts that uphold international law, journalists who document atrocities, and humanitarian organisations that protect communities. With the 2026 prize due to be announced on 9 October, the Nobel committee has an opportunity to remind the world that peace is built through institutions and cooperation, not just diplomatic grandstanding.

Scientists and entrepreneurs knew the dangers of AI a quarter-century ago. But animated by curiosity and profit, they went ahead anyway

Over the past few weeks, many of us have struggled to concoct a mental image of brains in the cloud jumping their “sandbox”, sneaking on to the internet, recruiting “swarms” of other “agents” to cheat on a test, and, after discussing the ethics of the act, hacking into a wiki platform with the weird name Hugging Face.

We knew that artificial intelligence was devouring our jobs, degrading our kids’ education and deepfaking our politics; that datacenters were sucking up our water and electricity and sending us the bills. But until 8 September, when the Anthropic computer scientist Jacob Coxon posted his existential terror on Twitter/X, few of us suspected AI might be endangering our survival.

Thank goodness for this antidote to today’s frantic shows that aim to grab our kids’ attentions the same way our phones grab ours

As a mum to a two-year-old in 2026 there is no shortage of things to make me feel bad about my capabilities as a parent. His snacks aren’t always organic or made from scratch. Some of his toys are plastic and noisy, not wooden and Montessori-inspired. And – most heinous of all – he is sometimes allowed screen time.

Like any good, middle-class millennial mother, I try to approach it “consciously”. There are specific TV conditions in our house – he can watch post-nap to ward off an afternoon meltdown, we always watch together, and we have a strict time-limit of 20 minutes. But more important than how he is watching is what he is watching. OG Thomas the Tank Engine (complete with Ringo Starr’s iconic voiceover), Pingu, Sesame Street, early Wallace and Gromit. I have joined a growing number of parents who almost exclusively choose 90s TV for their children, the very same shows we watched as kids.

Natalie Morris is the author of Mixed/Other: Explorations of Multiraciality in Modern Britain

Given the biased nature of the interview process, the recent kerfuffle about taking iced coffee in with you may be the least of our worries

I was part of a job interview process recently, on the hiring side of the table for the first time in 15 years, and was instantly reminded how weird the whole business is. The debate about whether bringing iced coffee to interviews is bad form just highlights the silliness of selection processes: you could bring a live weasel to an interview and still get the job if the interviewer likes the look of you. It’s a biased, arbitrary business, and interviewers decide fast (a 2015 study found 25% decided within five minutes and 60% within 15), sometimes on little more than vibes. Everyone has a horror story: an acquaintance was recently told she was “perfect for the role”, despite barely saying a word as the interviewer monologued wildly for 45 minutes while vaping in her face.

Being a good interviewee isn’t the same as being a good employee, either. I’ve crashed and burned at every interview, including for jobs I know I would have done decently. Once my interviewers told me they knew I was messy “because we’ve seen your kitchen” (the perils of 00s blogging); another time, a junior employee informed me before the ordeal had even started that I’d blown it by wearing trousers.

Sometimes a child needs to say ‘I’m having a horrible time!’ without everyone around them realising. Ukulele!

The second you have a baby, people begin offering you unsolicited advice. Friends, acquaintances and – most fun of all – complete strangers you definitely didn’t ask will inform you that your child isn’t dressed warmly enough, or that you have to enjoy every moment. I once had the latter while my two-month-old was spraying me with liquids from both ends, which the wise sage had apparently not noticed.

In the sea of interfering nonsense is the odd genuinely useful life raft, though, such as one I’ve just learned for dealing with the tween period I’m now navigating. Your child needs not a coat, but a codeword.

The US has already grown used to the horror caused by abortion bans. And Republicans have sought to quash the stories

Abortion has faded from the headlines since the Dobbs decision of 2022, and Republicans like it that way. In the immediate aftermath of the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, as millions of women lost access to the dignity and self-determination that abortion provided them, clinics shut their doors, and the extent of Dobbs’s horrendously adverse public health implications started to become clear, abortion was always, it seemed, in the headlines. There were plenty of stories. There was the first known woman to die as the result of an abortion ban; and then the second; and then the third. There were the various lawsuits and ballot initiatives that for a while turned access off and on and then off again in various states; then there were the state supreme court elections, races that were newly transformed by the abortion debate and on which the health and status of a state’s women now relied. There were the clinics that shut their doors in Republican-controlled states, many of which had provided the essential, stigmatized care for decades, under hostile conditions, with persistence and innovation and determination that were staggering.

But the stories have faded from the headlines as the years have gone by. Feminism has gone dramatically out of style, with the big women’s rights NGOs wounded enough by Dobbs and attacks from the Trump administration that they have been largely unable to push their agenda in either media or policy, and algorithmic social media driving a rise in gender conservatism and politicized misogyny, particularly among young men. But maybe more importantly, abortion has ceased to be a story because the horrors of abortion bans have ceased to be news: the US has grown used to the swift and dramatic erosion of women’s health and status that has followed Dobbs, grown used to the horror stories and upward ticking body counts, grown into ease, and even a kind of compliant boredom, with women’s death and indignity.

Bill payers should not fund another rescue for financiers of the water industry. Public ownership can end the cycle of extraction and failure

This month, a cross-party parliamentary committee said Thames Water should be placed in temporary state control and that any takeover by its creditors should be halted. The MPs were right. The “special administration” regime keeps the taps running while shareholders are wiped out, creditors take a haircut and the firm’s £19bn of debt is restructured. But it must not then be handed back to private hands. After Thames Water has failed its 16 million customers, polluted rivers, paid out billions to shareholders and repeatedly demanded higher bills, a City-friendly reprieve would only reward the outrageous behaviour that the regulatory system is meant to deter. Ministers ought to seize the opportunity to nationalise Thames Water.

In July, Andy Burnham agreed. On the campaign trail in Makerfield, he told reporters that “there’s a very strong case for public ownership [for Thames Water] to sort out its problems”. Having entered parliament and become prime minister, Mr Burnham is instead looking at letting elected mayors “oversee” private water companies. There is nothing wrong with more democratic scrutiny. However, oversight without ownership and proper control seems like a sleight of hand. Voices from different wings of the party recognise this. Mr Burnham can’t kick the decision down the road for ever.

If a guilty verdict on multiple counts of financial misreporting is upheld against the club, its achievements in the modern era will be forever tainted

In surveys ranking the Premier League’s greatest moments, football supporters regularly give pride of place to Sergio Agüero’s championship-winning goal for Manchester City in 2012. Scored in injury time on the last day of the season, Agüero’s strike against Queens Park Rangers delivered the first league title for City since the 1960s. Knocking their historic rivals Manchester United into second place, it also signalled a new era in which the club replaced United as the dominant force in the English game.

“Aguerooooooo!” – the incredulous single-word response from the match commentator Martin Tyler – has entered football folklore. But an asterisk may now be needed at the end of all those Os. Reports that an independent panel has found Manchester City guilty of breaking Premier League rules between 2009 and 2023 cast a dark shadow over that day, and much else besides. During that period, the club won seven Premier League titles, six League Cups, three FA Cups and the Uefa Champions League, all while under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family. The inescapable implication of the apparent ruling is that those trophies were won unfairly.

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Readers respond to an article by John Harris in which he urges Labour to offer hope and change

John Harris writes: “Reform is apparently in deep trouble, yet also still in with a serious chance. How come?” (Don’t discount Reform because it’s had a bad year. In our angry, fragile democracy, anything can happen, 20 September). Because it is a cult, just as Maga is a cult. It is sustained by faith, not fact. It offers simple solutions to problems of such complexity that most of us are incapable of understanding them.

Reform UK would not exist without Nigel Farage. All his other “parties” only existed because of him. Its self-designation as outside “the establishment” is one of the few truths to be relied on – in the sense that it’s beyond the pale. It is an ethics-free zone. Farage is the tool of the US hard right in the UK. All that’s missing is the Christian end-times nihilism, and not many would be surprised if that clawed its way to the surface soon.

The rushed law probably increases pre-match binge drinking, writes Prof Geoff Pearson; plus a letter from a concerned reader who lives near a football ground

The prime minister is right to identify that the existing ban on alcohol consumption at football matches is viewed by fans as discriminatory (Andy Burnham signals he may lift ban on alcohol in football stands, 23 September). However, the need for reform of this legislation goes much further.

The Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc) Act 1985 was rushed through parliament, despite reservations at the time from the police and football authorities, and the absence of any evidence that it would reduce football-related disorder. Since then, no studies have indicated that the prohibition has reduced drunkenness or disorder at matches, but research has demonstrated how the ban can increase risks to public order and safety.

We should learn about emancipated people’s extraordinary capacity for mutual endeavour, writes Prof Kathryn A Monk, in response to an article in the Cotton Capital series

Your report (British corporation continued trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition, 23 August) tells one important part of Guyana’s post-slavery history. There is another that deserves to be better known.

In 1839, little more than a year after full emancipation in British Guiana, 83 formerly enslaved men and women pooled their savings to buy the 200-hectare (500-acre) Northbrook plantation. They renamed it Victoria. Other purchases by other groups followed, developing into what became known as the communal African village movement.

Readers respond to Polly Hudson’s article about disposing of her late mother’s possessions

Reading Polly Hudson’s account of clearing her mother’s house (My mum has died – and every decision I make about her belongings feels wrong, 20 September) made me think about my experience of doing the same. I sort of enjoyed the task, viewing it as the last thing that I could do for my mother, and seeing myself as a curator in reverse.

I was determined to recycle as much as possible, feeding the good things through to charity shops and going back later to see what had and hadn’t sold. When one charity shop in the Welsh border town where my mother lived didn’t want her manual typewriter, on the grounds that nobody would have use for it, I took it to a charity shop in London, which snapped it up and put it in the window.

The Gunners lacked cutting edge at Stamford Bridge while the former Barcelona star dominated against Brighton

How to solve the problem of an inability to take your chances? That is the question that will haunt the Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers over the coming days. In their 1-0 defeat by Chelsea, Arsenal applied more than enough pressure to make a difference but in registering only two of their 18 shots on target, a fundamental lack of ruthlessness remains. They dominated the opening stages at Stamford Bridge but, as has often been the case this season, they were made to pay for their wastefulness. None of their nine first-half attempts troubled the Blues goalkeeper Hannah Hampton. Chelsea, however, had five of eight on target and scored just before half-time through Alyssa Thompson. “I wanted to keep it away from the players because they can score goals and they can finish and they will get the rewards for their work,” Slegers said. With their season unravelling, however, solutions need to be found quickly. Sophie Downey

WSL roundup: Putellas scores first London City goal, Man City maintain perfect start

Traditional woods have had a good innings but rising temperatures mean the need to find alternatives is pressing

What happens if you run out of trees? It is a situation cricket must face in the perfect storm of an expanding game and more precarious growing conditions due to accelerated climate change.

Cricket and willow are the sun and moon of sport. The handcrafted bat, the beautiful, insect-rich tree. But there are now 200 million regular cricketers worldwide. The UK produces half a million willow clefts a year, Kashmir between 1.5 to 3m. With one cleft equalling one bat, the numbers no longer add up.

Thomas Tuchel’s side had 36 touches in the Spain penalty area at Wembley but were given a lesson in taking chances

England dominated Spain to an extent very few teams have in recent years. Sadly for them, not in terms of goals. Nor possession. But ownership of the ball is less important than where on the pitch it occurs. Thomas Tuchel’s side had 36 touches in the visitors’ penalty area, a ridiculously high total when put in context of Spain’s last decade.

They allowed just 9.5 touches per 90 minutes at the 2026 World Cup. The combined efforts of Belgium, France and Argentina registered 38 touches in the Spain box in the final three rounds of the tournament. Since available records began (at the start of Euro 2016), the most box touches a side has had against Spain was the 45 Germany had in the quarter-final of Euro 2024. However, that game went to extra time. France had 42 in normal time in the ridiculous Nations League semi-final they lost 5-4 last year, then come England, second best in regular time from a sample of 133 matches.

The final weeks of the season brought joy for Warwickshire, agony for Somerset, and promotion for Kent and Durham

By the 99.94 Cricket Blog

This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog

Football and politics are inseparable in the modern world, no matter how many people wish they were not. But whether the beautiful game can ease the ills of our age is another matter. After a week in which the issue of Irish support for the people of Gaza had turned this fixture into a battle of conscience, the outcome of this underwhelming match ultimately felt inconsequential.

In the end the result was indeed a walkover, just not because of a boycott. On Saturday night the question had been whether Heimir Hallgrimsson’s side would take to the field in Hungary at all. If they did, would their heads be in the game? It turned out that a week of internal angst had been enough to produce collective resolve among the Irish squad, or at least those selected to play. Strong and assertive from the off, their forwards each scored in the first half to settle the contest, with plenty of symbolic action to assure those back home of their feelings.

The New England quarterback was a revelation in the 2025 regular season. But Sunday’s loss was just the latest in a series of crushing lows

After the Patriots pulled out a win in Week 2 over the Steelers, despite another uninspiring performance from Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel avoided answering questions about his quarterback. Vrabel joked with a reporter not to “ruin my Sunday” when asked about Maye. And this was after a win.

On Sunday, Maye was largely responsible for ruining Vrabel’s afternoon in the Patriots’ 35-6 loss to Jacksonville, which felt like rock bottom (the Pats hope). Simply put, Maye was atrocious. The 2025 MVP runner-up was 14-of-25 for 199 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, three sacks, and a lost fumble.

• Arizona rider first US champion since Lance Armstrong

• Pre-race favourite Evenpoel fails to add second gold

Brandon McNulty, a UAE Emirates teammate of Tadej Pogacar, succeeded the Slovene as world champion with an unexpected solo win in the men’s UCI road race in Montreal.

In the biggest triumph of his career, the 28-year-old American took his country’s first win in the UCI’s blue riband event since Lance Armstrong’s lone victory in Oslo in 1993.

Arsenal’s title chances were dealt a significant blow after a narrow defeat at the hands of Chelsea. Alyssa Thompson’s first-half finish was the difference on a competitive afternoon at Stamford Bridge but one that ultimately left Renée Slegers with more questions than answers about how to save their season.

“Worried? No,” Slegers said. “Confidence is something that fluctuates. They know who they are and they know what they can bring. What’s important is that there’s always phases in the season and there’s different things you need to work on or focus on.

• Americans dominate final day singles contests

• US president gives speech before final day

The United States made a stunning rally to capture an 11th consecutive Presidents Cup title on Sunday, completing a 17-13 victory over the Internationals with Donald Trump in attendance.

Jacob Bridgeman secured the clinching point at Medinah by sinking a four-foot par putt at the 18th hole to defeat Australian Min Woo Lee 1-up.

EU foreign policy chief outlines discussion on new ‘emergency security protocol’ in talks with defence ministers

Back to Metz, we are still waiting for the main part of the event to begin – with Emmanuel Macron now welcoming guests outside the venue.

Former commission president Jean Claude Juncker gets a big hug on arrival.

Rail operator linking London to Birmingham, the north-west and Glasgow had highest number of cancellations across network

Avanti West Coast will be renationalised in spring, as Andy Burnham declares “enough is enough” for passengers who have put up with a rail service “that has failed them time and time again”.

The rail operator, which is one of the worst in the country for train delays and cancellations, will come under public ownership from 7 March when its contract ends.

The US says it is unable to support a major global text on pandemic prevention and preparedness put forward at UN general assembly

The United States government’s decision to block a major global declaration on pandemic preparedness “severely weakens” the effort, and signals intent to disrupt international cooperation, says Prof Lawrence Gostin, a leading expert on global health law from Georgetown University.

The United Nations general assembly had been due to adopt a political declaration on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response on 25 September after a high-level meeting on the subject.

The 81-year-old singer will wrap up a touring career that stretches back to his mid-teens in the early 1960s, with dates planned for UK and Europe

Rod Stewart has announced that his next tour will be his last.

The 81-year-old singer has been touring since the early 1960s, when he set out across Europe with a harmonica – and ended up getting deported from Spain for vagrancy – in a duo with folk singer Wizz Jones.

Hoping to win back male voters, the Trump White House is pushing the regressive idea that one hormone could be a magic elixir of masculinity

Two years after Donald Trump decisively won the vote of the American man, polls say male voters are increasingly disillusioned with an administration that has waged wars and enriched itself.

Ahead of the midterms, Trump’s strategy seems to be to find a way to get that masculine animus back, so the male populace will vote not with their heads or their hearts, but with their hogs. At least, that’s one way of understanding why, this summer, Trump’s secretaries of health and defense announced plans that could increase levels of testosterone, or simply “T”, in the civilian and military population.

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.

Keys crops such as cereals, potatoes, sugar and oils grown in areas with moderate to very high risk

The vast majority of the UK’s essential foods, including cereals, potatoes, sugar and oil, are grown in areas of England rated as having a moderate to very high risk of drought.

A very high proportion – 81% – of England’s fresh produce is concentrated in parts of the country that are already experiencing water stress, according to the analysis by the nature-focused investment fund Rebalance Earth.

Fossil fuel firms have spent years trying to regulate climate research by donating to US universities, study authors argue

Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study.

The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research.

Tom Calver has sacrificed milk yields to give his cows a more varied diet of plants and believes the result is better cheese and richer farmland

In the rolling hills of Somerset, hundreds of thousands of cows placidly munch lush green grass to produce milk for cheddar.

But six fields stand out. Rather than uniform grass, they have technicolour wildflowers sprouting across the meadows. Farmer Tom Calver said that to allow the flowers to grow he has to keep fewer cows and leave some fields ungrazed as they mature.

Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings

Shabana Mahmood will announce a new legal route for refugees that prioritises Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, unfreezing a scheme that will put the most vulnerable refugees on a faster path to permanent status.

The change marks a shift in Mahmood’s approach to asylum seekers after the abrupt closure of the Afghan resettlement scheme last year and changes that will keep refugee status under constant review for two decades.

Polling for rights group shows issue is concern for voters and many feel recent policies have had negative effect

Free speech will be a big concern for voters at the next general election, with the government’s current approach on the issue perceived by many to be bad for Britain, polling suggests.

Three in five people said a political party’s position on free speech would affect how they voted at a general election. The human rights organisation Liberty, which commissioned the polling from More in Common, claimed the results showed that Labour’s failure to protect free speech could cost it votes.

Research draws upon reporting and witness testimony, while a permanent memorial is planned for London

The “complex and unsettling” story of what Britain knew during the Holocaust is being explored amid plans to create a new permanent national memorial.

An exhibition highlighting how news of the atrocity reached Britain much earlier than is commonly understood will tour the country after being viewed privately by MPs at Portcullis House on the parliamentary estate at Westminster in September.

Home Office faces legal action after 1,473 people living in UK before Brexit told settled status was granted in error

The Home Office faces legal action over a policy to strip residency rights from EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit on the grounds that it gave them the status “in error”.

It comes as a Home Office minister revealed that the government has contacted 1,473 citizens with post-Brexit residency rights to tell them the original decision to grant them residency was made in error.

Marine Le Pen hails ‘historic victory’ as her party and allies win enough seats to form caucus just months ahead of presidential poll

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said her 2027 presidential campaign will be boosted after her anti-immigration party, the National Rally (RN), and its allies secured a record 14 seats in partial senate elections this weekend.

Le Pen called the results a “historic victory” and “major milestone” after her party cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a senate group for the first time, following an indirect vote by local officials including mayors and councillors.

Exclusive: Work, whose subject resembles street urchin in masterpiece by artist, chanced upon in private collection

A red chalk drawing of a crouching child, spotted in a private Italian collection, has been attributed by an art historian to the French modernist painter Édouard Manet.

The child, whose identity has yet to be established, resembles a street urchin in the Manet masterpiece The Old Musician, in which he sought to show the humanity of homeless and marginalised people.

After public backlash, the Trump administration changed its tactics from ‘siege’ to ‘soft feet’. Now, ICE is everywhere

Bread experts weigh in on whether the rye sourdough that bakers ‘feed every day’ is worth that much

A loaf of bread has become New York City’s latest viral hit and, somehow, status symbol.

At Rye, the first US outpost of Austrian bakery Martin Auer, a 3.3lb loaf of 100% rye sourdough sells for $60 in SoHo. Made with just water, flour, salt and time, the bread has attracted the kind of attention once reserved for rainbow bagels, cronuts and skyscraper milkshakes. Which begs the inevitable question – is it actually worth that much?

Jeweller reports flat sales and fall in underlying operating profit as retailers anticipate October budget

• Business live – latest updates

The boss of the family-owned jeweller Beaverbrooks has called on the government to give business “a bit of a break” by halting cost increases amid flat sales and falling profits.

The retailer, founded in 1919, revealed a 9% fall in underlying operating profit to £7.8m last year after an increase in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and the legal minimum wage introduced by the former chancellor Rachel Reeves.

US-owned firm says average monthly users at UK arm surged to nearly 700,000 with sales up by a third

Love them or hate them, Lime ebikes are an increasingly common sight on England’s roads with new figures showing annual profits more than doubling thanks to a surge in riders.

Lime’s average number of monthly users jumped 31% to approaching 700,000 as it added more than 4,500 ebikes and scooters to its fleet, taking the total to almost 38,000, the company’s UK arm, Lime Technologies, said in accounts filed at Companies House.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist speaks with NBC’s Kristen Welker in interview airing on Sunday

Bill Gates has called on the US’s federal legislators and law enforcers to regulate the development of artificial intelligence (AI), saying in an interview airing on Sunday that the technology left unchecked could cause “a billion deaths” and “no one thinks self-regulation is enough”.

“You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like,” the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said to Kristen Welker, the NBC Meet the Press host. “And that has to be a required thing.”

Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways

OpenAI said it has paused training of its latest artificial intelligence models as reports of AI agents going rogue mount.

The decision to halt development came just hours after the company disclosed Friday that it was reviewing several incidents from the summer in which OpenAI agents searching federal government websites acted in unexpected ways beyond what was asked of them while gathering and distributing information.

It’s light stuff with more than a touch of Emily in Paris to it, but the actor’s latest travelogue has enough passion to make it highly endearing TV

‘I’m Eva Longoria and I’m a SERIOUS Francophile!” So begins each instalment of the actor’s Gallic travelogue. France, says Longoria, “is my home away from home”, although she’s usually in the country for work, rather than to experience its abundance of “joie de vivre”. (She does, she notes, have some extracurricular experience with the French, having previously been married to the French-American basketball player Tony Parker for three years.) Now, though, she is on her own adventure, having returned to l’Hexagone for something “deeper”. Cut to a clip of our intrepid guide in a vineyard, getting acquainted with cabernet sauvignon grapes (“That’s my favourite!” she whispers animatedly), before we segue to her floating gracefully past the Eiffel Tower.

Eva Longoria: Searching for France follows the equally alarmist-sounding Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain, and sets up the exciting possibility of an extended Longoria televisual universe, where the Desperate Housewives star makes her way across the entire globe (Eva Longoria: Searching for Equatorial Guinea, anyone?). It’s all been done before on television, of course, but the passion and lightness of touch here make it an endearing proposition.

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to the films they watch when they need a lift is an appreciation of Jim Carrey’s manic 90s comedy

To be completely honest, whenever anybody asks what my favorite movies are, my list has some typical standbys: Goodfellas and It’s a Wonderful Life among them. The holiday classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is another. But there’s one feelgood fave on my list that always surprises people: Jim Carrey’s 1997 blockbuster Liar Liar.

The movie (for the lack of a better word) lies on the bedrock of a simple premise: a lawyer and doting father is physically unable to tell an untruth due to a birthday wish. In the hands of a less competent creative team and cast, Liar Liar would have been yet another forgettable piece of 90s comedy junk; destined for the bottom of a discount VHS bin, forgotten as the years trudged on. But largely thanks to an unbelievable performance courtesy of Carrey, who was working with a smart and peppy script, the film thusly ascends into rarefied air.

Through intimate letters and family interviews, this probing documentary about the Austrian film-maker reveals a complicated figure

A titan of silent cinema, Austrian director GW Pabst left behind a treasure trove of classics. Working in Weimar Germany, Pabst gave Greta Garbo her second ever lead role in The Joyless Street (1925), and propelled Louise Brooks to international stardom with Pandora’s Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). Attentive to the marginalised elements of society, these early triumphs exemplified the kind of free-spirited film-making that flourished before the rise of the Nazi regime. Faced with this colossal legacy, Angela Christlieb’s probing documentary takes a more winding path through Pabst’s personal archive. Through intimate letters, family albums, and interviews with his descendants, the film foregrounds the man behind the images, while bringing another figure into the spotlight: Gertrude Pabst, the director’s wife of more than 40 years.

Far from a hagiographic portrait, Christlieb’s film reveals Pabst to be a complicated and patriarchal figure. His grandchildren – Marion, Daniel and Ben – describe the great film-maker as a distant figure, who instilled fear rather than love in his two sons. Pabst’s films have been praised for their modern and strong-willed female characters, yet in private he forbade Gertrude from pursuing her own acting aspirations. She also reluctantly underwent numerous abortions – seven in total – so as not to derail her husband’s career.

Watch the official trailer for NAZA, an award-winning documentary produced by the Guardian that details the systems behind Israel’s mass killings in Gaza. The critically acclaimed film, produced with the team behind the Zone of Interest and directed by Oscar-winning film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, includes testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders, shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv. Abraham and Szor are the two Israeli directors of the four behind No Other Land, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2025. It will be released in cinemas in more than 50 countries in the coming weeks, and then will stream on the Guardian’s website, for free, from late November

A priest investigates his daughter’s kidnapping in Thailand in this Paul Schrader-esque inquiry into spiritual nihilism

‘He’s American, a little bit overweight, sweaty, a little bit camp, creepy.” As far as descriptions of border-hopping paedophiles go, this seems a little on the nose. So it’s not surprising when the man who was enquiring, priest Father Daniel (Steve Oram), responds: “Are you making this up?” Featuring a seedy child-abduction situation in Bangkok, Simon Rumley’s thriller comes close at times to bugged-out exploitation flick territory – but lets its fleet and fresh manner carry it towards a Paul Schrader-esque moral calvary.

Pastor to a mixed Anglo-Thai congregation, Father Daniel has a young daughter, Olivia (Margaux Dietrich), with wife May (Nattapohn Rawddon). At a sleepover, Olivia is traumatised when her friend’s older brother shows her a “crush” video of a kitten being stomped by a scantily clad floozy. So when her own cat Missy goes awol, she is convinced the same lady is responsible, and asks her dad how God could let it happen. The family mobilise to track down Missy, but Olivia in turn disappears one day after school, kicking off Father Daniel’s own test of faith.

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

The Pussycat Doll went roller skating to the Beach Boys and is ‘completely over’ Gangnam Style. But what song makes her cry every time?

The first song I fell in love with
When I learned to drive and got my first car, I felt this real freedom. I’d put the windows down, blare out Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) by Pras, featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Mýa, and sing at the top of my lungs.

The first single I bought
Every Friday night we’d go to the roller skating rink, and I couldn’t wait for them to play Kokomo by the Beach Boys, from the Cocktail soundtrack. So I bought it on cassette from Best Buy in Warrensburg, Missouri.

(Republic)
This four-track addition to a critically maligned album works hard to remind fans what they love about Swift, with some sweet highs and galling lows

One downside of turning your release strategies into scavenger hunts and layering clues within your work is that it invites enormous amounts of scrutiny about your potential motive. When Taylor Swift announced an expanded edition of last year’s critically maligned The Life of a Showgirl this week, subtitled The Encore, many fans instantly suspected one of two things: that it was designed to remind Grammy members of Showgirl’s existence during their voting period to determine next year’s nominees, or to oust country ingenue Ella Langley from her record-breaking US No 1 run.

If that sounds cynical, it’s also worth remembering that when Swift announced Showgirl last year, she said that unlike her previous album, The Tortured Poets Department – a 16-track record immediately inflated to 31 songs on release day – the purposefully concise, 12-track Showgirl would not be expanded. (This didn’t stop her releasing 34 variants of the record, with various acoustic demos and so on, to juice sales.)

The Mercury prize winner hasn’t been able to go home since falling ill last summer. In his only interview, he opens up about the ‘poignancy’ of finally releasing the new album his stroke shelved

At the end of July 2025, Michael Kiwanuka was back home in Southampton after a series of European gigs. His 2024 album Small Changes had been critically acclaimed and was kept off the UK No 1 slot only by Kendrick Lamar’s GNX. His fifth record, Fudge, was due that autumn. All was going perfectly for the virtuoso singer-songwriter, whose eccentric, genre-busting mix of psychedelic rock, prog soul, blues and gospel had marked him as a real one-off.

Kiwanuka had been expected to appear at the All Together Now festival in County Waterford, Ireland, in the coming days, when an announcement was posted to his Instagram story: “We are so sorry to announce that due to continued illness, and on the advice of doctors, Michael will sadly be unable to perform at the rest of his scheduled festival performances throughout the rest of the summer and the shows in North America in October.”

From the Beatles and the World Cup to racism and homophobia, the latest instalment in Kynaston’s series captures a society in the throes of change

In February 1965, the civil rights activist Malcolm X visited Smethwick, in the Midlands, where the Conservative-run council was planning to buy up houses to stop the area becoming a “coloured ghetto”. He wanted to see how bad the racism was and he experienced it first-hand when refused service in a pub. White residents thought his visit a “disgusting” intrusion. Nine days later, back in the US, he was shot dead.

Britain in the mid-60s is associated with Carnaby Street, the Beatles and miniskirts, not racism. But what Black people endured, from a colour bar on property to the abuse of Leeds United winger Albert Johanneson as a “golliwog”, is no less a period marker than Harold Wilson’s pipe, Twiggy’s haircut, Mary Whitehouse’s clean-up TV campaign and Bob Dylan’s use of an electric guitar. David Kynaston doesn’t underplay the excitements of the period. But he rightly emphasises that the rotten old 50s – patriarchal, homophobic, class-divided and bigoted – wouldn’t just fade away.

Multi-flavoured Golden Wonder crisps displacing Smith’s plain; one-third of new marriages now civil marriages; pubs reluctantly installing fruit machines; Jimmy Hill’s Sky-Blue revolution at Coventry City; AA patrols no longer required to salute; picture rails, seen as dust traps, removed en masse from Victorian and Edwardian houses; Boots from 1965 at last consenting to sell condoms; arrival of open-plan offices; arrival, too, of the hot drinks vending machine; no car more iconic of modernity than the Mini Cooper …

In the Danish writer’s latest novel, an eminent scientist withdraws to the countryside

When Gunn Haven, an eminent professor of astrophysics at an urban university, moves to rural Denmark, she tells a local newspaper: “It’s to do with the sky.” From the outset of Range, Danish author Dorthe Nors’s fifth full-length novel, it is apparent this is not the whole truth. Soon after arriving, Gunn is compelled to trespass along a nearby track to look at a farmhouse with collapsed gable walls, her curiosity driven by personal interest rather than scientific inquiry. A woman pulls up in a dark blue BMW. She is dressed in “hunter’s camouflage, fleshy-faced. And ponytailed. Weapon raised: a phone, filming Gunn.” Gunn reluctantly retreats.

Gunn is distracted by this woman, Krista, who works at the local potato flour factory. Gunn should be working on a general introduction to astrophysics, “the Work”. Instead, the Professor finds herself wondering what “Gable Woman” would do if she came to “the Institute”, where Gunn researches “light from the oldest galaxies”. She would draw a dick on a blackboard, Gunn imagines, “with a small titillated smile”. Gunn is more generous to promising young scientists. She pays for a former student to travel to America. Closer to home, she begins to help Jenny, the teenage daughter of her hairdresser, with a school project on black holes. Jenny is an “uneducated creature” who smells “faintly of iron”, with a “faint red to the cheeks, from shyness or cold. Oddly sexless, and she had been here before, but with her mother.”

Her debut earned a record-breaking YA book deal – then came her fallout with Hollywood. The author talks about the pressures of success and why she is pictured on the cover of her new novel

There is a photograph of Tomi Adeyemi staring out from the cover of her new novel, The Siren. It is an arresting image: her face fills the frame, unsoftened by a smile, her piercing gaze fixed directly on the viewer. “It’s terrifying – like the Mona Lisa, staring at you everywhere,” she says, laughing.

Using an author portrait on the cover of a novel is highly unusual, and a decision that Adeyemi says is a statement of ownership. After 12 years spent inside the world of Children of Blood and Bone – the first book in the YA trilogy that made her a literary star and its film adaptation which has become a source of profound distress – Adeyemi wanted this book to belong unmistakably to her.

The Guardian’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Jacqui Housden and Miles Herbert

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Hello and welcome to the weekend.

This week, we could not look away from the series Gaza: a week in the life. In the story linked below, a Palestinian mother recounts how she is rebuilding her future in the ruins and fragments of the past she lost. Across the rest of the reads in this newsletter, there is hope, resistance and rebirth in the history that continues to define our present.

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.

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).

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.

Menier Chocolate Factory
Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s 85-minute monologue and Paul Farnsworth’s immersive set deserve better than a Broadway museum piece text on the Breakfast At Tiffany’s author

Truman Capote’s core creative life was brief, peaking between the jolly novella Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1958) and the genre-influential “nonfiction-novel” In Cold Blood (1965).

Blocked by drugs and drink, he spent two decades not writing a soi-disant masterpiece, Answered Prayers, although magazine publication of early chapters led to ostracisation by socialites who found the novel not nonfiction enough.

At the Menier Chocolate Factory until 14 November

British Museum, London
The staggering resourcefulness and fantastic originality of bygone artisans is showcased in earthenware so exquisite it will soothe your soul. But a lurch into the modern breaks the spell

Can they do it again? The runaway success of the Bayeux tapestry has put the British Museum in a league of its own, perhaps making it, at this moment, the leading museum on earth – and it’s rapidly following up with Korea, a survey of “2,000 years of creativity” in a land that, before its sufferings in the 20th century, enjoyed millennia of calm, at least to judge from its art. But it’s a blockbuster with a tragic flaw, a lovely broken vase badly stuck together.

You are lured at first into a nirvana of beauty. A giant bronze bell from a Buddhist monastery, cast in the eighth century AD and bulging with dragons, flames and flowery embossments, strikes the tone. It calls you to meditation. A gong adds to the harmony (and if you need that underlining, there are bells and gongs on the now obligatory exhibition soundtrack). I was held rapt by this Buddhist period in Korea’s history, when the contemplative religion from India interacted with the artistic influence of China to inspire ecstatic hand-copied sutras (spiritual scriptures) and slender little statuettes of bodhisattvas (Buddhist saints who have achieved enlightened holiness).

The Londoner is the set designer big names turn to for eye-popping spectacle. As a new retrospective opens, she gives the Guardian a glimpse at her studio

Four years ago, the V&A East Storehouse in east London got in touch with Es Devlin. The museum’s curators wanted to invite the British artist and designer to respond to a 100-year-old theatrical backdrop by the Russian artist and designer Natalia Goncharova. For a 1926 London production of The Firebird by the Ballets Russes, Goncharova had painted a fortified Muscovite cityscape festooned with onion domes and spires, rust-red and golden against a deep-blue sky. Devlin didn’t know much about Goncharova. But alighting on the term she had favoured for describing her kaleidoscopic approach to art-making, Devlin realised she’d found a kindred spirit. “She called herself an ‘everythingist’,” Devlin says, a smile in her eyes.

Works in progress in Devlin’s studio

It might seem like self-preservation, but the results aren’t necessarily what you’d expect

In Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, the relentlessly upbeat Sam-I-Am spends the entire book badgering a grouchy, nameless narrator into tasting the eponymous dish. He cycles through one inventive but futile pitch after another – in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, on a train, in the rain – until the narrator, caving just to get some peace, tastes the dish and discovers he loves it. When my son was growing up, “Green Eggs and Ham” was my shorthand for telling him he was avoiding something he’d love if he only tried it.

Of course, not every experience we fear or dread turns out to be a delicious surprise. Misery is an inescapable part of the human condition. We can’t avoid it, yet people try their hardest anyway. We cling to hope even when a situation is hopeless. We push painful thoughts out of mind rather than confront them. We struggle to control things that cannot be changed. And we go to sometimes self-destructive lengths to protect our pride from even the tiniest pinprick. These strategies may sometimes spare us pain in the moment. But while they are intended to promote (or at least preserve) our happiness, over time they have the perverse result of making us much more miserable.

Criminals are trying to glean login details to harvest players’ in-game currency and personal data

Your 10-year-old son has started playing Roblox, when he realises all of his in-game currency, Robux, is gone.

When you try to find out what happened, he says he was recently promised extra Robux if he followed a link on YouTube. When he signed on at the site link, he was taken to the Roblox site as usual but there was no sign of the extra currency.

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.

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.

The Grammy-winning artist on ​destroying egos in school, the dealers who looked out for her, and learning from early failure

Born Eve Jihan Jeffers in Philadelphia in 1978, rapper Eve released her debut album, Let There Be Eve … Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, in 1999; it entered the Billboard 200 at No 1. She followed its success with the platinum-selling Scorpion, which went on to win a Grammy for the single Let Me Blow Ya Mind. As an actor, she appeared in the Barbershop films and starred in her own sitcom, Eve. She married London-based entrepreneur Maximillion Cooper in 2014; together they have a son, and she is stepmother to his four children. Eve will tour the UK and Europe in 2027.

This was taken in Miami, where I was recording Scorpion. I was obsessed with red because of its astrological affiliation with Scorpio – everything had to be that colour. My hair is short because I convinced my hairstylist to put both a perm relaxer and colour in, which you’re not supposed to do. All my hair fell out, but thankfully it looked good. I felt powerful and sexy.

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.

We sift through the sweet and the sour of the creamy citrus dessert, but which ones are overloaded with additives and which are more generous with the juice?

• The best supermarket party cakes

Lemon cheesecake is traditionally made by whipping cream, cream cheese, sugar and lemon, then pouring that on to a base made from melted butter and crushed biscuits (butter, flour, oats, sugar), before putting it in the fridge to set. That’s eight ingredients max, yet the average for today’s store-bought versions is 24.

Every cake in today’s test falls firmly into the ultra-processed food category and typically contains at least five ingredients that aren’t found in domestic kitchens. Although real lemon juice or concentrate features in every one, lemon oil and acidity regulators are used to ensure that tart, lemony flavour.

Forget a head-to-toe overhaul. Whether it’s swapping loafers for lace-ups or mixing your metals, try these styling tweaks to give your look a fresh seasonal spin

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You know what I always think looks really chic? When someone is dressed timelessly, but with just one element that brings the outfit bang up to date. A look that is 90% personal style, 10% zeitgeist. That is such a good formula.

Being head-to-toe in new trends is not cool these days. It can look a little overeager, and your clothes end up wearing you rather than the other way around. But a look that plays it completely classic can feel a little safe.

Buying preloved always feels that bit cooler, says celebrity stylist Bay Garnett, but how do you find a gem in charity shops or online? She reveals her top tips

• Your favourite secondhand finds

I’ve been championing secondhand shopping for decades. For my debut shoot for British Vogue in 2003, I dressed Kate Moss entirely in pieces I’d found in New York charity shops – including a banana-print top that cost $5 and a gold sequin jacket I found in the Salvation Army for $7.

I think every shoot I have done has had secondhand in it – vintage jeans, blazers, coats, belts, boots – and they are always the pieces the people I am dressing exclaim over and want. So, often they just look and feel cooler.

Transform two tins of baked beans into this creamy curry

Masala baked beans, tadka baked beans, curried baked beans, spicy baked beans; all avatars of spice-laced baked beans are a mainstay of British Asian kitchens. We were raised on this stuff – use as a toastie filler, to smother jacket potatoes, or scoop them up with roti. Enter baked beans butter masala. With a sharp sweetness, a versatile tin of baked beans already has all the foundations required to build a brilliant butter masala, so all we’re doing is dressing them up. I like to think of it as though the beans are donning a frock made of all the good stuff: butter, cream and spices.

This recipe is an edited extract from Modern Masala, by Sanjana Modha, published by Quadrille at £25. To order a copy for £22.50, go to guardianbookshop.com.

Spoons at the ready for 83-year-old Maria’s rustic risotto with pork and saffron, and Rita’s polenta-style rice with a punchy sauce

If I were to say “Italian rice”, you might well think “risotto” and “the Po Valley”. However, these two recipes come from Sardinia and the Marche, mainly because I wanted to share a few easy, not-laden-with-rules Italian rice dishes.

With its garish ‘grellow’ colour, mythological origins, secret recipe and limited supplies, the herbal liqueur made by French monks is now the coolest thing to order at the bar

It’s just after 9pm in drizzly Belleville, Paris. Too late for cocktails, too early for bedtime, but up the steep hill that straddles the 19th and 20th arrondissements, digestif hour is in sight.

In the past few years, more and more Parisians have been reaching for a glass of Chartreuse, an intensely green/yellow herbal liqueur with a folkloric backstory involving Carthusian monks, cholera and a recipe of omertà-like secrecy.

While it’s ideal for mopping up chilli and soup, this Southern US staple can be made substantial enough for a main meal with a few simple additions

Like banana bread, a rather less ancient North American creation, cornbread isn’t a loaf in the conventional sense. Though it’s perfect for soaking up chilli, brothy bean soups and the like, it’s actually substantial enough to be the main event, rather than something you might reach for to mop the plate after it. (It’s also gluten-free, should that be a consideration.)

Prep 10 min
Soak 2 hr
Cook 25 min
Serves 6

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

From making life hell for a young teacher to doubting the motives of a caring foster mother, Olivia Petter, Derek Owusu, Annie Lord and other writers repent for past bad behaviour

At school, I was not a good girl. Actually, that’s putting it mildly: I was an emotional terrorist hellbent on inflicting torture and humiliation on my year 6 teacher, Ms Hill, one whoopee cushion at a time. That’s how it began, anyway, but like all crimes, mine followed a strategic pattern of escalation, carefully executed alongside my best friend and accomplice.

Financial pressures, legal changes and shifting attitudes may help explain why couples are staying married for longer

“We don’t know anyone whose marriage hit the skids after just a few years,” Celia said, reflecting on her divorce. “Everyone seemed to cling on to their relationships for as long as they possibly could.”

It took Celia two years to initiate divorce after realising her 12-year marriage wasn’t going anywhere – and the latest figures show this experience is increasingly common, with marriages that end in divorce now lasting longer than at any point since records began.

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?

Now TFL is threatening to seize goods for four penalties for a car I’ve never owned

Bailiffs turned up at my home to seize goods over four unpaid Ulez fines issued by Transport for London (TfL) that have nothing to do with me.

The saga began two months ago when I received four enforcement notices from CDER Group relating to a vehicle I have never owned.

From a getting part-time job at 14 to receiving a letter from the king at 100, some milestone ages hold advantages in Britain

Have you just unwrapped some presents? Been sitting in a soft play centre and watched a toddler blow out some candles? Double-checked what time the party starts later?

With 26 September being statistically the most common day to have a birthday in England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics, it is quite possible that you or someone close to you is marking another trip around the sun.

Increasing the rate of CGT is one of the levers available to the chancellor as he considers revenue-raising options

Capital gains tax (CGT) has been widely cited as a possible revenue-raiser as the chancellor, John Healey, prepares to deliver a tough budget next month. How does it work, and what are the pros and cons of raising it further?

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.

Madeleine Finlay sits down with her co-host and Guardian science editor, Ian Sample, to discuss three science stories from the week, including a study that offers a clue in the age-old debate about whether sex differences are present from birth or a product of socialisation. Also on the agenda is the super El Niño, which is predicted to lead to 450,000 deaths in the next six months, and an answer to why the UK’s meningitis outbreak earlier this year was so big.

It’s natural to want to soothe eye irritation, but mishandling could lead to more problems, experts warn. We asked them for advice on how to deal with it properly

It may feel like a gritty, annoying sensation, or a sharp pain. Either way, you may have the same problem: something is stuck in your eye and needs to come out.

Addressing the situation incorrectly can lead to bigger issues such as infection, scarring, an ulcer or corneal scratches, which are abrasions on the clear covering of your eye. Ignoring the dilemma can lead to similar consequences.

A growing number of men, including singers Shaggy and Harry Styles, are taking up pilates. When I realised I could no longer touch my toes, I decided to try it out

I realised something needed to change when I nearly toppled over trying to tie my shoelaces. I was on a busy high street, with people rushing past holding shopping bags, when I saw my open shoelace spooled on the ground. I bent down to deal with it and felt gravity move against me. Only a quick flail of my arms stopped me from faceplanting. When I raised myself back upright, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. This can’t be right, I thought.

Bracing my foot on a bin to finally fix my shoelace, it dawned on me. I’d become rusty. My core strength was nonexistent, as was my flexibility. Years behind a desk had taken a toll, not helped by an after-work routine of watching TV or playing video games on the sofa. But after getting home and doing some research (yes, from my sofa), I found a potential remedy: pilates.

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.

With Jennifer Lopez providing some star power, the Italian house’s Milan show came at a crucial time for the brand

Earlier this week Jennifer Lopez walked down the Vogue World catwalk in Milan wearing a black beaded A-line bustier dress from Dolce & Gabbana. On Saturday, she sat in the front row at the Italian house’s womenswear show in a three-piece velvet suit from the same brand, her look topped off with a baker-boy cap.

The reminder of Dolce & Gabbana’s inimitable celebrity connection is no coincidence. In a turbulent luxury market, the brand has found itself trying to navigate a nearly £400m debt pile.

‘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

***

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

With autumn officially here, our readers savour days of fruitful mellowness, from Cornwall to Loch Lomond

• Tell us about a great wellness experience – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

I love Loch Lomond in autumn. I’d start with a walk around Balmaha village and a stretch of the West Highland Way, pretending I’m there for the scenery rather than earning the right to eat something massive afterwards. Autumn is when it looks best: orange hills, cold air, dramatic clouds and the constant Scottish gamble of whether you’ll get sunshine, sideways rain, or both within 10 minutes. I finish, if I’m not driving, with a wee dram to properly round things off.
Pete

The problem that changed the world

Today’s puzzle played a pivotal role in the birth of classical physics.

The tower drop

slightly to the west

slightly to the east

exactly at the bottom

Below the southern edge of the Great Square of Pegasus lie the fishes, linked by two strings

This week we will track down Pisces, the fishes. Despite being one of the largest zodiacal constellations, it can be surprisingly difficult to identify because it contains no bright stars.

The chart shows the view looking east from London at 10pm on Monday. As the week progresses, the bright waning moon will rise later and later in the evening, allowing the faint stars of Pisces to be more easily seen.

Bedmond, Hertfordshire: Serge Hill Project is a haven for humans and wildlife, and there’s much to find in its collection of drought-tolerant plants

Looking across a swathe of golden oat grass to the Apple House, it seems almost inconceivable that the M25 and M1 motorways are just beyond the treeline. I’m exploring the Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health: a therapeutic resource for local schools, community groups and charities, founded three years ago by Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith.

All around me, a diverse collection of drought-tolerant plants is thriving in a six-inch layer of sharp sand in the uppermost section of the Plant Library, despite not having been watered once during our sweltering summer.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: Is it possible that 3 is the most common number in UK street addresses?

It’s clear that the world as it is – considering the climate crisis, the rise of nationalism, geopolitical tumult, the possibility of AI killing us all by the end of the decade – could do with some more ethically astute and capable leadership. If you could time warp them into the present day, which leader from history could the world do with now – and why? Bernard, Machynlleth

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

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

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.

Ukrainian forces airdrop supplies to city where bodies are left to be eaten by dogs because of deadly risk from drones

The phone message sent out of Russian-occupied Oleshky was grimly matter-of-fact: food had finally run out for the 2,000 or so civilians, including 50 children, remaining in the city and its surrounding villages.

“We’re in Oleshky [and] we can’t get out. We’re going hungry … Right now, I’ve got absolutely nothing to eat,” read the message from a woman in the besieged city who was waiting to be evacuated by the occupying forces.

If you have been affected by the events in Gloucestershire you can share your experiences or news tips direct with our journalists

Five men were arrested on suspicion of explosive and terrorism offences after armed police stopped three vans near RAF Fairford in the early hours of Sunday.

Dozens of households in the Cotswolds village of Whelford were subsequently evacuated during the operation and have still not returned to their home.

Are you taking fewer journeys by car? Or are you cutting back in other areas to pay your diesel bill?

Russia’s war-damaged refineries and the Middle East crisis have erased about a fifth of the world’s diesel supplies and are pushing up the price of diesel at forecourt pumps.

We would like to speak to people living in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides who are paying the highest average price for diesel per litre. How are you coping with the surge in cost? Are you taking fewer car journeys? Have you cut back in other areas to pay for your diesel bill?

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 did you find them? Were they helpful in getting you to the next stage in your education or in securing a job?

Teenagers are to be offered new vocational GCSEs in England, marking the biggest changes to the qualification for more than a decade.

From 2029, pupils will be able to supplement compulsory GCSE subjects such as English, maths and sciences with courses including building and construction, creative media production and child development.

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Fewer than 400 Eriskay ponies remain. One of the rarest native breeds in the world, their plight is unique because the community living on their tiny Hebridean island are fighting for them. The ponies wander the village and townsfolk care for them together

On the slopes of Beinn Sciathan, a rocky outcrop in the Outer Hebrides, white and grey ponies roam freely. Eriskay ponies, one of the rarest native breeds in the world, are critically endangered.

They have often been mixed with the Highland pony and other breeds, giving the false impression of higher population numbers. Only about 300 to 400 Eriskay ponies are thought to remain.