Trump has used the full might of the presidency to supercharge executions, but an avalanche of mishaps has put the system’s flaws in the spotlight

It took more than an hour to establish the two intravenous lines through which Christa Pike would be injected with a giant and normally lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital, and in that time she did everything she could to assist those who were attempting to kill her.

“Please try here,” she said over and over again to Tennessee’s execution team, pointing to specific parts of her body where she thought they might find a vein as they repeatedly stabbed her with needles. “Please try here, I think it will be OK. Please try up on my shoulder, higher.”

The cooking is sometimes bang on, sometimes a little slapdash, but then piques your interest all over again

Indian Cafe Racer on Bristol Street, Birmingham, spent its fledgling years tucked behind a curtain at the back of the Wellington pub just a few doors up from its fancy new home. There was a Royal Enfield motorcycle, chequerboard floors and a psychedelic Indian soundtrack, but this small, homespun spot from Azad Kayes quickly became culty, then oversubscribed, then in need of a bigger home. It’s a good news tale for the Brum food scene.

For those who remember it, south Birmingham’s Balti triangle once ran to 30 bustling restaurants along Ladypool Road and Stratford Road. Only two now remain. Something has gone amiss with supply and demand. Indian Cafe Racer, meanwhile, has enough fans for a new, 65-cover, grown-up restaurant, serving an ever-changing menu that, when we visited, featured shaktiman and salad (named after an Indian comic-book superhero), gol gappa (crisp shells filled with chickpeas and potato), chicken pepper fry and grilled aubergine and portobello mushrooms, known as farzi steak.

The phenomenon of pupils wrecking equipment and setting fire to classrooms predates the current crisis. Is it rooted in poverty, social media peer pressure – or just plain boredom?

Like most French primaries on Wednesdays, Marcel Pagnol school, in the eastern suburbs of Lyon, was shut on 19 June 2024. But at 6.30pm that evening, two boys turned up late for school – by two years. Former pupils there, the 13-year-olds struggled to break through the crispy lattice of the front-door window with a garden fork and a broom. Using a window-breaker, they finally created an opening large enough to force their way in without hurting themselves.

What happened next is captured in a video the pair subsequently posted on Snapchat. Once inside they prowl the classrooms, corridors and canteen, slinging around scooters and smashing up computer equipment, setting off fire extinguishers and upending furniture. They help themselves to pouches of Capri‑Sun from the fridge: “I don’t give a fuck – I’m taking the lot.” The boy not filming sets small fires as they move through the building, squirting each one with a little jet of lighter fuel. “I love what’s happening here!” says his accomplice. “I love fire.”

His behaviour is certainly inappropriate, but take a quiet moment to try to find out where the anger is coming from

My partner and I have been together for 25 years and we have two sons, aged 14 and 16. Both are football crazy and have played since they were very young. My partner’s competitive nature was one of the things I initially found attractive about him (I wanted someone with drive).

However, this side of him rears its ugly head when our kids play matches. He shouts, criticises and, worst of all, swears at teenagers. I’m so embarrassed by it and it’s also affecting the boys. Their teammates hear their dad and it’s creating tension. I’ve tried to speak to him about it but he brushes it off. Our boys and the coaches have spoken to him too, but to no avail.

Koos Bekker’s Newt estate encompasses luxury hotels, pubs and high street business, with local concerns including flooding

When South African billionaire Koos Bekker bought an old country estate in a sleepy corner of Somerset to turn it into a luxury hotel, residents thought it was a sign their area was on the up.

Walking through his peaceful manicured gardens, which feature a maze of apple trees twisted into perfect shapes using the espalier method, it’s easy to feel that all is well in this quiet, picturesque pocket of England.

I grew up in France, where all children are taught about the revolutionary roots of their nation and what the state owes its citizens. The lessons leave their mark

Young British people have plenty to be angry about. Crushing student debt, private-school privilege, a housing market they can’t enter. Yet unlike their French counterparts, they have little tradition of turning that frustration into collective action. I grew up in France as a Briton, and for years I have watched my French friends do something my British ones never seem to: take to the streets.

“To arms, citizens! Form your battalions! Let’s march, let’s march!” It shouldn’t be too surprising, given the rousing lyrics of La Marseillaise, that France’s revolutionary spirit is not a relic of the past.

Kitty Sayers is a master’s student in journalism

US president suggests Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not done enough to end war

Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel.

The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US.

US president Donald Trump says he is weighing whether the US will join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis

Why else has the US been reluctant to intervene so far in Saudi Arabia’s fight?

The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.
Saturday’s attack might change things but Donald Trump has been reluctant so far to help out Saudi Arabia for several reasons, as my colleague Patrick Wintour explains:

The US has its hands full and its munitions stocks are empty due to the war in Iran.

Ahead of the midterms, Donald Trump does not want to launch another forever war.

NEU’s Daniel Kebede says earlier start times and longer summer breaks may be needed to help pupils and teachers

Schools should consider changing start and finish times, reordering holidays and moving exams from the summer months in an effort to adapt to the UK’s increasingly severe heatwaves, according to the leader of the country’s biggest education union.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said this summer’s repeated bouts of extreme heat had a devastating impact on teachers and pupils, as classroom temperatures topped 40C and hundreds of thousands of young people were sent home.

Research challenges the notion that the growing visibility of crosses and other symbols reflects a revival of Christianity

Christian nationalism in Britain is being driven largely by people who rarely attend church and are more concerned with defending the country’s Christian heritage, according to research.

The report, by the thinktank Theos, identified five different groups within the UK in a survey that looked at their attitudes to Christianity and Britishness.

UK classifies Syria as safe to return to despite UN refugee body’s advice

A Syrian plastic surgeon is facing deportation from the UK after the Home Office revoked his refugee status, declaring it is now safe for him and his family to return to their home country.

Despite Foreign Office guidance advising against all travel to Syria because of the “volatile” security situation, the government has classified it as a safe place for refugees to return to.

More than 2,000 people were reportedly detained on Saturday, prompting criticism of Modi’s ruling government

Delhi braced for a second day of youth protests demanding the resignation of India’s election chief on Sunday, as a court ordered the release of the “cockroach” movement founder, Abhijeet Dipke, and two other senior leaders.

Dipke, ⁠the founder of the ⁠Cockroach Janta party (CJP), and ​the other leaders were detained when their plane landed in Delhi on Saturday, as the movement planned to gather thousands of people at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi.

Gibney, 77, will face justice for abusing athletes in the 1970s and 80s after decades of effort to track and extradite him

More than half a century after he started sexually abusing children, and enjoyed prestige as Ireland’s Olympic swimming coach before fleeing to the United States, George Gibney is to face justice.

The 77-year-old will be sentenced at the central criminal court in Dublin on Monday for abusing four young female athletes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Toxicology helplines report 42% increase in calls involving animals poisoned by drugs and nicotine

A record number of pets are ingesting recreational drugs and requiring veterinary care in the UK, figures shared with the Guardian reveal.

Last year, the UK’s only emergency poison centre for animals received its highest ever number of calls involving animals poisoned by cannabis, cocaine, magic mushrooms and nicotine, and it is on course to do so again this year.

Though mostly visible near the Arctic Circle, the natural phenomenon dazzled sky-gazers as far south Devon, Hampshire and Kent

The northern lights illuminated the skies across the UK on Friday and Saturday evening.

Sky-gazers as far south as Devon, Hampshire and Kent were treated to the dazzling natural phenomenon, also known as the aurora borealis.

Although there is scepticism about Tehran’s capabilities, it has become clear it wants Britain to feel it poses a risk

Britain may have been only peripherally involved in the bombing of Iran that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started, but in the past fortnight it has become clear that Tehran wants to pose a threat inside the UK in response.

In the aftermath of the confused incident near RAF Fairford, western officials are weighing up whether to warn publicly that Iran now has US military targets in Europe on its mind, such as the air force base in Gloucestershire.

Tories plan to scrap low-carbon housebuilding, Greens back new nuclear reactors, and Labour put oil-drilling decisions on hold

New homes could be built without solar panels, heat pumps and high-grade insulation, leading to higher household bills if the Conservative party wins the next general election.

Kemi Badenoch made scrapping the future homes standard (FHS) one of the central planks of her bid to become the next prime minister at the Tory party conference this week.

When the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was transferred from a category A prison to Broadmoor hospital, many observers complained that he was getting off lightly. But these places are anything but ‘cushy’, says the mother of one patient

Rampton high-security hospital in Nottinghamshire was built in 1912. Everything about the bleak, remote facility for mentally ill people is forbidding, says Jan Neate. “I get really upset going there,” she says. “Even though I really want to see Jake, visiting is an ordeal.”

Jake, 45, is Neate’s son. He has been held at Rampton for eight years. In 2017, many years after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he killed his partner, Suzanne Brown, and was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

They spent their heyday on yachts, then rolled up their sleeves in the wilderness years. Ahead of a Halloween show at the O2, pop’s great survivors explain their staying power

In 2022, Duran Duran were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like a big deal, a sweet moment of acknowledgment for the band’s five-decades-long career, the 100m records sold, the string of bulletproof hits: Save a Prayer, Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Girls on Film. They were inducted by actor Robert Downey Jr; Drew Barrymore, Naomi Campbell and Gwen Stefani were on hand to pay heartfelt tribute and, as keyboard player Nick Rhodes points out, “It’s a big national live TV broadcast in America that goes out to millions of people,” so the band booked some warm-up shows. “And it so happened that there was a date that came up in Las Vegas on 31 October,” says Rhodes. “And I looked at everyone and said: ‘Well, we can’t do a normal show. Las Vegas on Halloween – surely that’s the opportunity for a little bit of fun?’”

They worked up a set of suitably themed material, including covers of Billie Eilish’s Bury a Friend and Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer. There were, of course, costumes involved, because, as Rhodes drily notes, “When have Duran Duran ever not dressed up?”

A sex podcast opened up a whole new way of communicating for Helen and Ian

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I’ve discovered I like to be spanked – my orgasms have become much stronger

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

Welcome to Halloweenmas, weeks of themed fun and gifts – from costume parties to decorating trees – without the stress, rules or cost of Christmas

The tree is up, the wreath is hanging on the front door and you’ve just opened your advent calendar. All told, it’s beginning to feel a lot like … Halloween.

If it sounds like the stuff of nightmares then that’s the point: Britons are increasingly decorating their homes with ghoulish versions of Christmas traditions. Think of it as Halloweenmas.

From Alpine valleys to belle époque towns, dip your toes in the therapeutic waters and steaming mineral pools at spa hotels offering centuries-old healing treatments

In 2021, Unesco designated 11 historic spa towns across Europe as one transnational world heritage site, recognising their “exceptional testimony to the European spa phenomenon, which gained its highest expression from around 1700 until the 1930s”. This was the original wellness tourism, and these grand health resorts include Bath in England and the town of Spa in Belgium, as well as the west Bohemia spa triangle of Karlovy Vary, Františkovy Lázně and Mariánské Lázně.

Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network, and the Last One Laughing star reckons with divorce in her new standup tour

The Social Reckoning
Out now
The David Fincher-directed The Social Network has only come to seem more canny over time, with the site co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg being held responsible for all manner of social ills. In this sequel from Aaron Sorkin (this time directing and writing) based on the incidents around the 2021 leak of internal Facebook memos, Zuck is embodied not by Jesse Eisenberg but Jeremy Strong.

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

• Get this in your inbox every weekend. Sign up for Five Great Reads here

Hello and welcome to the weekend.

This selection of reads from across the Guardian has chronicles of evolution, investigations and interviews which ask us to think about how we remember our loved ones when they are gone, and – of course – stories that leave you with a little something sweet.

Stephen King’s high-school scare-’em-up is reinvented for 2026, and the pop superstar brings the love in her feelgood live extravaganza. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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Iraola: ‘Uncertainty is no good for anyone’

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12th over: South Africa 37-1 (Markram 24, Bedingham 13) Beautiful batting from Markram. Hazlewood was fractionally too straight, no more than that, and Markram put him away through midwicket with an understated flick of the wrists.

How can Aiden Markram have a Test average of 36? The guy is so good.

Peterborough’s new boss has long been a divisive figure but a stunning win at struggling former club offered a glimpse of his fearless philosophy

It felt as though the stars had aligned when Robbie Savage’s first League One match in charge of Peterborough – his first EFL managerial role – happened to be at Leicester. He made his name here and forged a divisive and enduring reputation that has kept him a permanent fixture in English football.

Savage has long been a joker figure – an image born in his playing days, when he hurtled around midfields with long blond hair bouncing, launching into challenges that at one point made him the most booked player in Premier League history. A pantomime villain, a prankster and an eccentric who was once fined £10,000 by the Football Association – and two weeks’ wages by Leicester – for using referee Graham Poll’s toilet before a match (Savage blamed an upset stomach brought on by antibiotics.)

Manchester City’s rule breaches have dominated headlines and shifted focus from both clubs’ self-inflicted wounds

Turning back the clock is impossible. Up in the Stretford End’s middle tier, the ticker had returned, a retouching job to “51 years” invoiced for the pertinent sum of £114. The Manchester City that existed before the Abu Dhabi project won their last trophy in 1976. Questionable maths is perhaps not confined to the Etihad’s accounts department, though Manchester United’s support must get their kicks where they can.

Should City’s fall from grace be fully confirmed by the appeals and sanctions process, there is nothing in the way of irrefutable evidence of United’s former supremacy being restored. How United fans would love to return to 2008, when Michael Carrick was a key cog in Sir Alex Ferguson’s team of European champions. Instead, the autumn of 2026 brings a familiar swell of doubt, another manager dragged towards the meat grinder. It will be 40 years next month since Ferguson was appointed. A draw made United’s start to their league campaign the worst since then. The Carrick bounce has come to a standstill.

There’s little prospect of the model changing in a country that welcomes wealthy international owners with open arms

Football, the world’s most popular sport, played by laws drawn up in London in 1863. The Premier League is the UK’s greatest soft power export. Premier League clubs are owned by a deputy prime minister of Abu Dhabi, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, a billionaire based in Monaco for tax reasons and a disappointing assortment of investors and private equity funds. And what, really, could be more British than that? Football truly is the national game.

What the Manchester City case has exposed is just how difficult it is to regulate some of the richest and most powerful bodies in the world. While the wait for the verdict was frustrating, it’s perhaps unavoidable given the possibility of legal objection at every turn when a leaked email from City’s in-house lawyer during Uefa’s action against the club had threatened to “spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years”. You didn’t get that with Albert Alexander Sr or Peter Swales.

Yan Diomandé earned Real Madrid a tight 1-0 victory over Villarreal to keep them six points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona, even though winger Vinícius Júnior was sent off for hair pulling.

Vinícius, on as a substitute, scored but his goal was disallowed and then he was dismissed after a VAR review showed he had pulled the hair of Villarreal’s Nathan Saliba.

• Kenyan breaks Melbourne Marathon record by two seconds

• ‘I’m happy to run with the gen Zs,’ 41-year-old says

Marathon’s greatest competitor, Eliud Kipchoge, has sent a message to the next generation declaring that he’s not done yet.

The 41-year-old Kenyan revelled in his Melbourne Marathon debut on Sunday, breaking the race record and delighting thousands of fans at the MCG finish.

• Hamilton qualifies third with Antonelli fourth

• Russell crashed out of sprint when leading on lap one

While Red Bull and Max Verstappen were very much on a roll at the Singapore Grand Prix with victory in the sprint and then pole position, Britain’s George Russell was left having to roll with the punches. His vanishingly slight title hopes took another blow after he crashed out of the sprint race on the streets of the Marina Bay circuit.

Verstappen’s pole was a mighty lap to beat the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc into second by five-hundredths of a second as the Dutchman enjoys his best form of the season. A 50th pole, his first in Singapore coming on the back of a pole and win at the last round in Malaysia and pole and victory in the sprint at Marina Bay.

• Human rights office denounces online targeting

• ‘Appalling vitriol and abuse’ of American

The United Nations’ human rights office has condemned the racist abuse of Coco Gauff and called for solidarity to help push back against racism and sexism.

The office, led by high commissioner Volker Türk, issued a social media post on Saturday saying the racist messages sent online targeting the American tennis player were “appalling and illustrate that Black female athletes are specifically targeted for vitriol and racial abuse”.

This is no scoffing matter. The accelerating proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing ‘end times’ closer by the day

Humankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began. The Bible’s Book of Revelation speaks of “end times”, a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did. Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning. Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few – the righteous or the “elect” – will be saved while sinners burn. It’s a minority view. Matthew’s gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon. Peter, another of Jesus’s disciples, agreed: “In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely. It may make it more probable.

Donald Trump’s blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse, could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter’s prophecy. This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires. In Robert Harris’s 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end. They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity. Few heed the fictional scientist’s fears. In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash – a global digital and internet meltdown.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Just as Brown and Blair did in 2005, Andy Burnham aims to champion debt relief to help developing countries

• Developing nations face triple shock, UN warns

From Washington to Paris, London to Tokyo, policymakers in every large economy have been counting the costs of bond market turmoil in recent weeks. But the brunt of the pain is being borne by heavily indebted developing countries that have little hope of influencing the whims of global investors, but pay the price regardless.

Markets have responded to the war in the Middle East, and a spendthrift White House, by dumping government bonds – driving up borrowing costs just about everywhere.

The aesthetic of crisp mornings and roaring fireplaces has created a personality driven by social media. Let’s just admit the reality: mud, drizzle and shorter days

It’s getting earlier every year, that first meme about golden leaves and pumpkin-spiced lattes. This year, I swear, I spotted one in early August, while we were still sweltering under our fourth heatwave of the summer.

Because, of course, for those that like crisp mornings, Halloween and glasses of red wine in front of roaring fires, the arrival of autumn brings with it something else: the incessant need to tell everyone just how much they love this perfectly pleasant, if perpetually damp, season.

Chloë Hamilton is freelance journalist

On Rivet, volunteers get to choose who they think are the most suitable suitors. For an interfering busybody like me, this is a match made in heaven

Sometimes it’s extremely hard to mind your own business. However, we all know that ideally we should, and most of us give it a bloody good go. So when the universe rewards us with an opportunity to do the opposite, it must be grabbed with both hands and cherished like the precious gift it is.

New dating app Rivet lets a random group of volunteers pick users’ matches, AKA gives interfering busybodies who think they know best free rein over strangers’ love lives. I mean, where do I sign up? This is the chance frustrated matchmakers like me have been waiting for, once their supply of single friends has been exhausted (in both senses).

A whirlpool of violence has engulfed everywhere from Lebanon to Yemen. Meanwhile, the west has destroyed any political authority it once had

There was a world before 7 October, 2023, and now there is a world after. For Gaza, for Israel, for the wider Middle East, and for everyone else too. Not all hinge points in history are obvious at the time. Three years on from the day it began, and precisely one year since a supposed ceasefire was agreed, this one is now impossible to ignore.

The before-and-after pictures tell part of the story. An update to Google Maps, released last week, underscores just what three years of relentless Israeli military onslaught has done to Gaza. Satellite images show how entire towns have been reduced to rubble. Mosques and hospitals, visible three years ago, have now disappeared. Meanwhile the once-empty shoreline is now crammed with tents. This is what it looks like when an attempt has been made to destroy a people.

Steve Bloomfield is the former international editor of the Observer

Moscow’s imperialist strongman believes decadent European democracies can be cowed. Our job is to prove him wrong

Vladimir Putin is escalating both his full-scale war against Ukraine and his shadow war against the rest of Europe. His main purpose in the shadow one is to break European support for Ukraine so he can subjugate that country, something he regards as existential for Russia’s future and his own. While we in the rest of Europe must prepare as best we can to defend ourselves against every kind of hybrid attack, the central thrust of our response should be to redouble our support for Ukraine. Ukraine is his main target. It’s there, and only there, not in a contest of a thousand hybrid pinpricks, that Putin’s Russia can in a meaningful sense be defeated and deterred.

In a powerful new book, Warum Russland nicht aufhören wird (Why Russia Won’t Stop), the German historian Martin Schulze Wessel shows how Putin’s policy fits into a much older Russian tradition of territorial expansionism and striving for hegemony, combined with a religiously infused imperial ideology. He reminds us that in 2016 Putin said “Russia’s frontier ends nowhere” and in 2025, “wherever the boot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours”. West Europeans, fondly imagining that we have consigned such brute territorial imperialism to the dustbin of history, tend to think there must be some other explanation (eg something we did “wrong”, like the eastward expansion of Nato). Finns, Estonians and Poles know better. Despite Russia’s weaknesses, the author concludes, it is “the most dangerous country in the world”. Some in Asia might question that large claim, but certainly Russia is the most dangerous country for Europe.

Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail

If she really was raped, why didn’t she speak up earlier? Why did she get drunk? Why was she wearing such a short skirt? Why did she walk home by herself?

God, it’s exhausting, isn’t it? Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail. People accuse the woman of asking for it. They question her motives; they scrutinize her looks; they attack her character. And without fail, she is punished for speaking up.

A byelection win is a fillip for Andy Burnham and shows Zack Polanski must confront the failures damaging his party’s credibility and appeal

By holding Holborn and St Pancras, Andy Burnham’s Labour has shown it can attract liberal and left-leaning voters. The seat has substantial numbers of young adults, students, professionals and Muslims – offering fertile ground for the Greens’ ecopopulism. However, Labour prevailed. Having won leave-voting Makerfield in June, Mr Burnham can now claim an appeal that bridges Labour’s divided electorate. It’s worth noting that turnout in London was low and Labour’s vote share fell 3.7 points. But that compares with an average 19.3-point fall in four byelections under Mr Burnham’s predecessor. The new leader clearly has bought Labour breathing space and checked the Green advance.

The Greens more than tripled their vote share in the constituency to 33%. But they were beaten. Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali took 45% in Sir Keir Starmer’s former seat, leaving Zack Polanski’s ambition of entering parliament unfulfilled. For a party that began the year promising to turn voters’ hunger for change into a serious challenge to Labour, this was a sobering moment. The passing of a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” at its conference probably cost the party support – though the result in central London alone cannot definitively say that. There is a separate question of leadership. Mr Polanski now says he would have voted against the motion. Why, then, did he not make his opposition clear when it mattered last weekend?

The new exhibition at Tate Britain is part of a wider cultural resurgence from 30 years ago. This is nostalgia for a pre-digital era

Each generation imagines itself to be cooler than the one that went before it, and weirder than the one that comes after it, to update George Orwell. Gen X is no exception. “It felt like something was happening,” Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker writes in the catalogue for The 90s: Art and Fashion, which opened at Tate Britain this week. “Something good. It felt like the weirdos were taking over.”

The exhibition, curated by the former editor of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, is part of a wider 90s cultural revival. Oasis’s Wonderwall was the UK’s unofficial World Cup anthem this summer, after last year’s sellout reunion tour. Pulp have also just completed a world tour. The 1993 novel Trainspotting has become a musical; less surprisingly, so has 90s-set romance One Day, which found a new audience with 2024’s Netflix series. Love Story, which fictionalises the doomed relationship between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, broke streaming records. Cult drama This Life is now on iPlayer. Vogue has described the era as “fashion’s most revisited decade”.

Readers respond to articles on the Green party’s motion

As ever, Jonathan Freedland is on the money in his article (The Green party’s anti-Zionism motion is yet another attempt to tell Jews how we should think, 3 October). As a non-religious Jew-ish Londoner, I am appalled at the passing of the motion to declare Zionism as a form of racism, and I am seriously considering leaving the Green party as a result.

While I condemn the Israeli government’s actions against the Palestinian people, and I am not a Zionist myself, Zionism as defined by the motion is only one political interpretation and completely ignores ancient religious and cultural definitions held by many Jews who also condemn the current Israeli government.

Readers gasp at the news that their beloved columnist is leaving the Guardian after 25 years

How could you let this happen (It’s true: this is my final column. You have exactly 24 hours to complain before my inbox self-destructs, 2 October)? You have some truly great writers, and for them I will continue to support the Guardian, but it’s Marina Hyde’s column that many of us look forward to most. She is uniquely and reliably smart, funny and spot-on. Is it money? Like Nye Bevan with consultants, fill her mouth with gold if you have to; you can clean it up afterwards. But I fear I’m too late, and all that’s left to say is: Thank you, Marina, for brightening so many of our days, and for putting our thoughts so brilliantly into words. And thank you, Guardian, for giving her the space to do so.
Richard O’Brien
Highbridge, Somerset

• The honour is all ours, Marina. It’s devastating news to know that I can no longer laugh, cry, squirm, gasp, disagree and love your columns. I have looked forward to reading your words for the last 25 years and you will be very much missed. Thank you, and go well.
Gill Empson
Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire

Readers respond to Adrian Chiles’s article on the sweet spot between quaint rural place names and nominative determinism

How could Adrian Chiles have overlooked Dorset, where quaint village-naming meets nominative determinism (From Bentley Pauncefoot to Yetts O’Muckhart, I’m obsessed with Britain’s weirdly named villages, 7 October)?

The county is home to the three Matravers brothers: dark and cruel Langton, squandering the family fortune at the gambling tables; Worth, a one-nation Tory and local vicar with a floppy fringe; and youngest brother Lytchett, who was probably something of an afterthought for his parents and who launches social projects but never quite follows them through.

His integrity is one reason I’ve stuck with him, says Nick Davey

Elvis Costello has been a role model since I was a bespectacled teen and he appeared on the music scene to provide some credibility for NHS glasses. I no longer keep the scrapbook, but did cut the clipping from the Guardian in 2022 when he nominated his Honest playlist. His integrity as an artist and a human being has been one reason I’ve stuck with him for 49 years. I was delighted, therefore, to see consistency in his picks for his second Honest playlist (4 October), with Georgie Fame as his alpha and Louis Armstrong’s Keepin’ Out of Mischief as his omega. He seems, however, to have forgotten about his teen party listening. And we’d better not ponder the reasons for his change in response to “The best song to have sex to”. Thanks for keeping my hero in the spotlight.
Nick Davey
Chesterfield, Derbyshire

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Newly established commission identifies 17 catastrophic threats to human health but says ‘realistic route to act’ on each exists

Humans could become extinct by the year 2100 due to malicious use of AI or nuclear conflict, according to a new global risk assessment.

They top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, which also includes cuts to aid spending by wealthy countries, the climate crisis and childhood malnutrition.

Twenty arrested in first march since Ed Miliband declared UK’s position was that Israel’s occupation of West Bank was unlawful

Thousands of people have gathered in central London to express their support for Palestinians after three years of “genocide” carried out against them by Israel.

The demonstrators, many wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags, gathered on the Embankment at midday on Saturday. Some carried placards reading “End the genocide” and “Free Palestine” as they marched towards parliament. A bride and groom appeared to be among those in attendance and a two-minute silence was held to reflect on the lives lost in Gaza.

Claims that August Hanning exploited intelligence for private clients comes after other troubling espionage scandals

The ex-spymaster August Hanning once criticised Germany’s own intelligence services as “vegetarians” among prowling carnivores, demanding broader powers to keep the country safe in a treacherous world.

Often described as a “godfather” of Germany’s 21st-century security architecture, Hanning is now charged with treasonous espionage and handing state secrets to a foreign power in one of the most spectacular alleged intelligence breaches of the postwar period.

David Önaç uses insurance documents for work funded by Lloyd’s of London after research uncovered its slavery links

A centuries-old insurance document detailing the trafficking of enslaved Africans began with the words: “In the name of God, Amen.”

For Dr Errol Francis, the artistic director and chief executive of the arts and heritage charity Culture&, the contradiction was striking: an invocation of God in a document that treated human beings as cargo.

Pike’s lawyers said she is back in same prison she’s lived in for last 30 years and will continue to receive medical care

Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital after surviving Tennessee’s botched 30 September attempt to execute her by lethal injection and is back in prison, her lawyers said on Saturday.

Pike, 50, returned to the Deborah K Johnson rehabilitation center, where she has been imprisoned for the last three decades, her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason, said in a statement.

Some of deaths came from falling trees as half a million people without power and rain and flooding still a concern

At least four people were reported dead on Saturday amid Isaias after it made landfall late on Friday on Florida’s panhandle as a category 2 hurricane, according to authorities.

The storm also took down trees, knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands and flooded highways – but as Saturday evening approached, the region was reopening.

Protesters spent months occupying an ancient cottonwood. Then a tense standoff with US border patrol came to a head

A 200-year-old cottonwood tree near the US-Mexico border, known as the “grandmother”, has been destroyed to make way for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, despite a months-long effort by protesters trying to save it.

In late July, land defenders began a tree-sit in the ghost town of Lochiel, Arizona, taking turns occupying a platform high in the tree’s canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.

Plans for a 200-room project on an unspoiled beach have pitted developers against the conservationists fighting for smaller-scale schemes to protect the island’s habitat

Visitors to Rocky Point in south-west Tobago are drawn to its sandy beach, fringed by coral reefs and dark rock formations and carpeted with the fruit-bearing trees found on Caribbean coastlines – almonds, sea grapes, coconuts, and the poisonous manchineel. The beach is part of Back Bay, a 500-metre swathe of land, and trekking through its undulating terrain, thickly covered in bush and shrubs, feels akin to walking through a rainforest.

But this still relatively unspoiled location is at the centre of a struggle between two opposing interests – those who see large-scale development as the most profitable path and those who believe smaller, incremental developments owned by the community would be best.

Changing tide levels, shifting sands and hardened shorelines put waves at risk, affecting more than just surfers

The climate crisis is coming for some of the world’s greatest surf breaks, submerging some as sea level rises and wiping out others as classic breaks get crushed against coastal developments.

Analysis of dozens of famous waves in world surfing reserves (WSR) found more than three-quarters were at high risk because of changing tide levels, hardened shorelines and shifting sands.

Rachel Jupp takes role as corporation grapples with digital transformation, a cash crisis and its public service role

With looming job cuts and an ongoing pay dispute, there has not been much to smile about for BBC journalists working in “the pit” – their pet name for the newsroom deep in the belly of New Broadcasting House.

On Monday afternoon, however, they were greeted by a grinning figure conducting a tour of the news floor. She was Rachel Jupp, the BBC’s newly appointed director of news and current affairs. Jupp engaged in a series of polite if brief conversations with her new troops.

Police say man was pronounced dead at the scene after being attacked by tiger

A man has died after being attacked by a tiger after jumping into its enclosure at a zoo in Yorkshire, police have said.

Emergency services were contacted shortly after 1.30pm on Saturday when the man entered the enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, and was set upon by the tiger.

Vincent Chan went on to abuse children after being cleared of ‘significant concerns’ following council-overseen inquiry

A paedophile nursery worker was cleared by an investigation overseen by a local authority three years before he was arrested.

In February, Vincent Chan was jailed after pleading guilty to 56 offences, including assault by penetration on three-year-old girls in his care at a Bright Horizons nursery on Finchley Road in north-west London. After his conviction, prosecutors described him as a “prolific sexual predator”.

Investigation launched after five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after CNN, MS Now and Politico were barred from White House

The US Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of the US president, Donald Trump, last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday.

A spokesperson for the department said group boycotts among business competitors might violate US law. “The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,” they said.

David McCloskey’s new book depicts a calamitous collapse of the ‘special relationship’ – could things get darker still?

The “special relationship”, the time-honored emotional bond between the US and Britain that has sustained through war and peace, is in trouble.

The ties of history, culture and language that have bridged an ocean and bound the two countries politically for generations are fraying as perhaps never before – strained relentlessly by Donald Trump, who has gleefully sacrificed traditional alliances and diplomatic niceties on the altar of his “America first” agenda.

Deceased were all members of the same family, officials say, and one of victims placed the initial emergency call

Five people were shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide at a residence in Georgia on Friday, authorities say.

The deceased were family members who lived at the home in Douglas, a city in south Georgia.

Leftwing Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores beats far-right candidate in election in remote district of Andes

A businessman called Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores has been elected the mayor of a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, according to local election data.

The 45-year-old, who shares two of his names with the notorious European dictators, won the race for mayor of Queropalca, in Peru’s central Huánuco region, and will take office on 1 January.

In the first article in a series on high end British manufacturing, we visit the Hiut Denim factory in Cardigan

Worn on the streets of London’s Soho, San Francisco or Sydney, every pair of high-end jeans made by Hiut Denim comes from the rather unlikely location of a small coastal town in west Wales.

Cardigan, with a population of just 4,200, has a proud history of denim production and was once home to Britain’s largest jeans factory, even if the town’s name recalls a different garment entirely.

George Williamson says ‘national resilience’ is key focus of ATI amid US and China’s runaway leadership in field

The UK must not become dependent on foreign AI systems that can be switched off at short notice and must develop its own versions of the technology, according to the head of the Alan Turing Institute.

The country needs a stronger domestic position in AI in response to the US and China’s runaway leadership in the field, with “national resilience” a key focus for ATI said George Williamson.

Competition is hotting up, with National Savings & Investments lifting rates to the highest in years

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has increased the returns on some of its accounts, with many now paying more than 5% for the first time in nearly three years.

Competition in the savings market has been growing, leading to some of the highest interest rates for years.

Exclusive: Former minister’s review warns that dramatic action is needed over huge drop in youth apprenticeship starts

A national apprenticeship readiness scheme should be introduced in England to close the gap for young people between leaving school and starting work, the government is to be told.

Alan Milburn, who is leading a major review into Britain’s youth jobs crisis, will call for a new “national pre-apprenticeship route” to offer young people further education, training and work experience.

The singer shamelessly blasts Lady Gaga in the car and is brought to tears by Portishead – but which song does she have to be careful listening to?

The first song I fell in love with
I remember listening to Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics when I was really young. There was something about the line at the beginning that I was completely intoxicated by.

The first download I bought
When I was about 10 or 11, I would put my headphones on and wander through the park all angsty listening to Fake Tales of San Francisco by Arctic Monkeys, my first download on my iPod Nano. I loved the storytelling, the characters and the gritty tableaux they described: it felt so real, even though it was far away from where I grew up.

The British actor on the genius of Bend It Like Beckham, the role she lost to Emma Thompson and why some actors get worse with age

What was the most Australian thing that you experienced while you were in the country filming Dustfall?

Working with a python? We don’t tend to work with snakes in the UK. I’m absolutely snake phobic but the python was very professional. Behaved better than I did.

Jimmy McGovern’s incredible series Time returns. Plus: The Party is a moreish new thriller based on Elizabeth Day’s hit novel. Here’s what to watch this evening

Sunday, 9pm, BBC One

Sam Rockwell voices the gumshoe who becomes embroiled with Scarlett Johansson’s femme fatale in this big-hearted and beautifully designed fantasy spectacular

Brad Bird, the Spielberg of animation, applies his masterly authorial touch to a terrific family film that retrieves the genre from the doldrums of dull, AI-formulaic stories and visuals. This animation is smart, witty, humane: a fantasy spectacular with old-fashioned entertainment values and some amazing cityscape design showcasing a beguiling and sweet romance.

The setting is a city of marvels in a world to come, a retro-futurist urban landscape with hints of Metropolis and Blade Runner; there are plenty of regulation moving walkways, flying cars and eerie hologram billboards, yes, but a light touch to put the fun back into what could be just cliche. Here is where an old-school noir thriller is to take place with tough private detectives and bad guys wielding state-of-the-art laser-particle firearms (this explains the title, though I’d hoped that it might also include some reference to 1980s Republican politics). There are careworn cops, cynical club owners and alluring shady ladies with touches of Lana Turner and Veronica Lake. The airborne automobiles also have the bulbous lines of a previous century, and the TV monitors show black-and-white images; plasma flatscreens have evidently been disinvented.

Jimmy McGovern’s grab-you-by-the-throat prison show is back and it could hardly be more urgent, prescient or excellent. Brace yourself though … Bake Off it is not

It takes a lot to drag me away from comfort TV in the autumn. Blame the shrinking hours of light or the apocalyptic news cycle but the closest thing I like to get to televisual trauma in October is watching comedians get into their own graves in The Celebrity Traitors. I doubt I’m alone. I don’t want to psychoanalyse the British public but I’d take a punt that collectively we are just about capable right now of looking at Josh Widdicombe trying to find a purpose next to Emma Willis on the Strictly dancefloor (and reportedly, even that’s a struggle).

Enter legendary Jimmy McGovern with a new series of the Bafta-winning prison drama Time (Sunday, 9pm, BBC One) to drag the nation out of its Bake Off-related coma. Having already covered the devastation of men’s and women’s prisons in the first two series, the good news is that McGovern and co-writer Samuel Bailey’s trilogy surely can’t get any more distressing. The new episodes will be set in *checks notes* a youth offending institution for boys. OK great. It’s about children in prison. Thank you, Jimmy! I hope you’re happy! No one else is going to be.

Rick and Morty fans will love ancient Greece animation Krapopolis. Plus, Danny Dyer takes the SNL UK hosting reins. Here’s what to watch this evening

11.40pm, BBC Three

Drawing from post-hardcore, twee and emo, the Exeter trio’s intoxicating energy feels like an invitation to form your own band

From Exeter, UK
Recommended if you like Boyracer, the Promise Ring, Rites of Spring
Up next Little Bastard EP out now

It’s tempting to view any half-decent scene as either a magical happening or a simple quirk of geography and timing. In reality, they’re more like monuments to the importance of showing up. For that to continue to happen, you need bands like Pushbike. Rattling through four songs in well under 10 minutes, each crooked hook, euphoric yelp and cheesewire guitar lead on their Little Bastard EP feels like an invitation to form a band, draw a flyer, or book a show.

(Blue Note)
This elegant contemporary reinvention of 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman pairs Marsalis’s post-bop sax with Reeves’ agile vocals, to time-stopping effect

In the early 1960s, the Impulse! label tried to steer its star saxophonist John Coltrane away from increasingly uncompromising and experimental music that it feared might be scaring its customers. Label boss Bob Thiele suggested a more palatable all-ballads album with a little-known African American supper-club singer called Johnny Hartman, whose warm, Bing Crosby-like baritone but bracing absence of schmaltz had already impressed Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Coltrane and Hartman hit it off perfectly, and the 1963 album, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, was an unexpected mini masterpiece of restraint, flawless timbral expressiveness, and mutual understanding.

Invited by Blue Note Records in Coltrane’s centenary year to curate his own tribute, post-bop sax luminary Branford Marsalis made that album the template for Dedicated to You – done as contemporary reinventions, not mere cover versions. Marsalis invited Dianne Reeves, a vastly experienced jazz singer with a Sarah Vaughan-like mix of flawless intonation and agile spontaneity, to take the vocal role. “Listening to all the great singers coming up”, Reeves has said, “I learned that they stood in the band, not in front of the band. They saw themselves as co-creators of the sound.”

(New West)
Following 2023 breakout Time Ain’t Accidental, the best songs here are when Williamson strips back country music, rebuilding it as something familiar yet different

In her essay Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion writes that she left New York City when “the golden rhythm was broken”. Texas-born alt-country singer Jess Williamson borrows the title for the aching opening track of her sixth solo album, on which she contemplates whether she has had enough of Los Angeles. But while Didion was looking back on leaving the city of her youth behind, Williamson is still in LA, wrestling with competing desires to stay or flee.

This tumultuous love-me, love-me-not is set to Williamson’s most traditional soundscapes to date: “Deep in the woods I feel the hum of the city,” she sings on Hum of the City in her strongest Texas drawl over mournful strings and twiddling banjo. Gone are the iPhone-programmed drums that made her 2023 breakout Time Ain’t Accidental so appealingly offbeat, and while the Americana flourishes give weight to Williamson’s nostalgia for her native Dallas, at times they make the album stodgier and less imaginative than her previous record.

Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Altinoglu
(Alpha)
Conductor Alain Altinoglu brings weight and purpose while the instrumental solos are piquant and precise.

If the Leningrad was Shostakovich’s official response to the second world war, the Eighth Symphony was his answer to the question: “Will you tell us what you really think?” Written while the fighting was still under way, its immediacy remains striking today, a quality reflected in Alain Altinoglu’s purposeful interpretation with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestra.

You hear that directness at once in the way the strings dig deep, bringing remarkable colours to a 26-minute Adagio that, in the wrong hands, can sound merely bleak and black. Not that Altinoglu shuns the horrors: his phrasing and textural dynamics bring fearsome weight and a sense of wide-eyed terror to the composer’s protracted cry of despair. The orchestra covers itself in glory with instrumental solos that are piquant and precise. Resonant details are captured by an outstanding German production team that manages to outdo the Berlin Philharmonic’s excellent 2020 account under Kirill Petrenko (Shostakovich fans will need both).

Her debut made her a global star. Now she has finally written a follow-up – and this time, it’s political. She talks about impostor syndrome, screen adaptations and becoming radicalised

The artist and novelist Audrey Niffenegger began writing the long-awaited sequel to her bestselling debut, The Time Traveler’s Wife, in 2012, just after Obama’s re-election. It was a “rosy” time in American politics, “as good as it gets over here”, she says now, but her new novel required her to imagine what the world might look like in 20, 40, 60 years’ time. In the 14 years she spent exploring various dystopian futures, American politics moved on. And her imaginings began to look worryingly realistic.

An early scene in the new book involves a group of neo-Nazis at a house party. When she was writing it, few people believed the US would witness a resurgence of neo-nazism. It’s not like she is “psychic or anything”, she tells me, the clues were all there. “The first thing I remember reading in the news was Watergate, and so I’ve grown up with Reagan, and the Republicans coming on stronger and stronger, so that every Republican president we get is more of a disaster. And I thought the logical progression of that would be fascism,” she says.

The French author discovered Carson on a bus while stranded in a snowstorm and has been enthralled by her fearless imagination ever since

• Where to start with Anne Carson

• ‘Delights await!’: Margaret Atwood and other writers on Nobel winner Anne Carson

1. Anne Carson is one of the greatest writers of our time. I discovered her work on a Peter Pan bus from New York to New England. I’d bought Antigonick in a bookstore a few days earlier, almost randomly. From the very first lines, I was enthralled. While we were on the bus, a snowstorm suddenly blanketed the roads, and the other passengers and I found ourselves stuck for 10 hours in rural America, surrounded by an entirely white landscape. I took my computer out of my backpack and started to translate Antigonick into French. Spontaneously. I was so absorbed by the power of Carson’s text that I didn’t notice the hours pass.

2. One of Carson’s greatest strengths is that, unlike so many other contemporary writers, she doesn’t try to “make literature”. She writes. Sometimes clouds do the speaking, in her work, and sometimes monsters do; sometimes, in the middle of a collection of poems, she lets an imaginary Catherine Deneuve take over the narration. Sometimes she writes a letter to her own sleep and sometimes she publishes notes she’s scribbled on her hand. She writes about Homer, but also Rosalía; about Brecht, but also Marilyn Monroe.

Translated by Josh Cohen

The poet and author on F Scott Fitzgerald’s perfect novel, losing faith in Ernest Hemingway – and the recent debut that blew her away

My earliest reading memory
Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy – where an assortment of differently shaped dogs go on a walk – wormed its way into my subconscious when I was very young. The great dane (Hercules Morse, as big as a horse), the dalmatian (Bottomley Potts, covered in spots), the dachshund (Schnitzel Von Krumm with a very low tum) … I could probably still recite most of it from memory.

My favourite book growing up
I had a lot of picture books illustrated by the great Korky Paul, and remember being obsessed – even as quite a young child – with the intricate grotesquerie of it all. He’s probably best known these days for illustrating the Winnie the Witch books, but my favourite was The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis, in which a rotund, green-haired man called Rufus Skumskins O’Parsley makes a cake out of disgusting things (rotten eggs, spider legs, garden snails and so on), only for the cake to come to life and attempt to eat him. Probably more than a little bit of Skumskins found its way into the protagonist of my second novel, The Glutton.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle; As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers; The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio; Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Penguin, £9.99)
This short novel won almost every genre award following its 2016 US publication. As a Black writer, LaValle had a conflicted relationship with the works of HP Lovecraft. As a child, he loved the tales of cosmic horror, but grew to recognise the racism and other prejudices of the author. Unable to “throw the man’s stories away” because of how formative they were on his own imagination, he decided to write his own response to one of the most obviously racist, The Horror at Red Hook, recasting it through the perspective of a musician and hustler from 1920s Harlem later known as Black Tom. It’s a powerful tale of horror – both everyday and the occult – told with sheer brilliance.

As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (Hodderscape, £22)
In this cosy science fiction love story set on a distant planet, life is a constant struggle for the human colonists. As the book opens, botanist Signy is yet to meet the love of her life, Cora, a rorqual pilot. Rorquals are gigantic interplanetary creatures, trained by human pilots whose implants allow them to communicate with the beasts as they transport supplies. Chapter 1 is followed by chapter 764, set more than a decade later, when the two women are blissfully married. The non-linear narrative may reflect what we’re told is the rorqual view of time, but it also removes much suspense. The characters are adorable, and the details of growing plants in an artificial environment, or Cora’s relationship with her rorqual, are enjoyable, but readers may grow impatient with the glacial pace and reiterations of their feelings for one another. Even the “naturally solitary” rorqual is given to declaring its love for Cora. In the final pages there’s a tonal shift that ends on a cliffhanger: how Cora and Signy survive is to be revealed in a sequel.

PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox, PC; Epic Games Publishing
This fetchingly presented horror game brings style and scares, but overextends itself with repetition

A small band of soldiers enters an abandoned facility, where puckered flesh sprouts from cold steel. It’s a promising but familiar start to a sci-fi horror story, with heavy overtones of Alien and The Thing. Neither of those, though, were so … dinky.

End of Abyss’s facility is presented as a kind of a model-village recreation of The Thing’s Outpost 31 that you peer into from above. Your little bobble-headed hero takes up a tiny fraction of the screen, with most of the remainder drenched in foggy darkness, or even blanked out entirely. This is a world of Usborne-style cutaways, where anything outside the walls is total blackness.

The launch of a collector’s box hints at a new reality: the kinds of games I grew up with are becoming a luxury item, locked behind a forbidding spending barrier

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As a parent (and partner) to a habitual collector, I do feel like an unwelcome portion of my life is occupied by an endless war against stuff. Surfaces in my home ceaselessly accumulate piles of random objects: a JoyCon wrist strap, a sticker sheet, an unidentifiable plastic piece of a toy or gizmo, an Xbox 360 controller with no batteries, cases for Switch cartridges lost down the side of the sofa … Stuff encroaches everywhere, especially in a gaming household. Much as I regret the imminent disappearance of physical games, I do not regret the extra space I have in my attic as a result of switching almost entirely to downloaded games over the last decade or so.

Speaking of the imminent disappearance of physical games: Rockstar recently announced a £350 ($400) “collector’s box” of Grand Theft Auto 6 goodies … that doesn’t include the game itself. Not even a download code. The Grand Theft Auto VI: The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, to give it its full and unwieldy name, contains a hat, a bag, a pair of sunglasses, a figurine, a poster and more, including a mirror and a “swizzle spoon” that looks, unambigiously, like a cocaine spoon. The game retails at £70, so if you want something to play alongside all your stuff, you’re looking at an outlay of £420.

PC, PS5, Switch 2; Wych Elm Games, Team 17
Abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks make up a dark landscape in which you play a private eye searching for a missing singer-songwriter

In a weird deserted town miles from anywhere, a troubled detective searches for a missing musician and the girl he may or may not have murdered. It could be a Silent Hill game or a lost David Lynch movie from the 1990s – in fact, it’s neither. And also both. If that whets your appetite, stick around, there’s plenty more to come.

Developed by Scandinavian studio Wych Elm Games, Silver Pines is a dark Metroidvania-style adventure, where you play as shambling private eye, Red Walker, exploring a 2D universe of abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks. Officially, everyone has left because of an incoming storm, but very quickly you learn that something much darker is afoot. Someone has hired you to find singer-songwriter Eddie Velvet, but you don’t know why; your only contact with your client is via the payphones dotted around town, where you can also save your progress – as long as you have a dollar to pay for the call. Each location is filled with clues and puzzles – a weird newspaper story pinned to the wall, a strange statue that needs a missing piece – and through these artefacts you unlock new rooms and descend further into the mystery.

Xbox, PC (version tested); The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios
E-Day boasts the best combat in 20 years of Gears games – but everything surrounding it is disappointing

Every Gears of War game released in the last 20 years has made reverent reference to Emergence Day, when alien creatures emerged from the earth, single-minded in their savagery. In E-Day, you’re there to witness it: the police lights, flipped cars, ground tremors, civilians running, aliens pouring out of fissures in the earth and ripping faces off. You’re at ground zero in a squad of four soldiers called Gears – Marcus Fenix, the leader; Dom, who wants to retire; Lucas, a green cadet with a buzzcut; and the dishonourably discharged Mags. Only this dysfunctional quartet can turn the tide. With guns. Lots of ’em.

Instead of answering questions raised by the ending of 2019’s Gears 5, we’re back to the start to find out why Marcus has a scar on his lip and why these soldiers started strapping chainsaws on to their assault rifles. Anything that was left to the imagination is here, for you to point at and say: “I understood that reference. This is a thing that I have seen.”

Richmond theatre, London
Jump scares, flying furniture and psychological unravelling hurtle towards a climax as a trio of guests investigate supernatural goings on at an abandoned mansion

There aren’t many productions that have the audience screaming within seconds of curtain up. But this is an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s chilling 1959 novel, which Stephen King deemed “as nearly perfect ­­­a haunted-house tale as I have ever read”. It has some seriously spooky shoes to fill.

There is certainly the heart-quickening rumble of threat throughout (even terror, for some – the person in front of me spent the whole performance clutching their neighbour, muttering “No, no, no, I do not like this at all”). This is largely thanks to slick, inventive stagecraft from director Martin Constantine. As a trio of guests arrives at the abandoned Hill House ­– invited by Dr Montague to investigate its rumoured supernatural affliction ­– a soundscape of unsettling music, creaky hinges and unidentified thuds accompanies an intensifying stream of jump scares. Bulbs blow, blankets hover, menacing scrawls appear on walls, and furniture slides about unaided – a disquieting suggestion that even the set changes are the work of ghosts.

The often-criticised pop artist is the focus of a monumental new survey including rarely seen pieces and ambitious new restagings at New York’s Whitney Museum

When the American artist Roy Lichtenstein created his monumental Greene Street Mural in 1983, he took inspiration from the Bayeux tapestry for its serial storytelling technique. But whereas the embroidery depicting the Norman conquest continues to delight after nearly 1,000 years, Lichtenstein’s site-specific mural was destroyed after six weeks, in accordance with his wishes.

More than four decades later, however, the monumental Greene Street Mural is to mesmerise art lovers once more. This week a 96ft (29-metre) recreation of the work will span the entire entryway to Roy Lichtenstein: Like New, the first major New York retrospective of the pop artist’s work in 33 years, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Royal Court theatre, London
A Black British woman traces her family’s enslaved past in Joy Nesbitt’s supernaturally charged play

Joy Nesbitt’s fantastically chilling play is both a ghost story and a reckoning with the undocumented history of enslaved people. It takes us from present-day America into the past, towards the exact moment when slavery was abolished.

A white couple has turned their South Carolina plantation into a holiday rental. People come for celebrations and weddings, we hear. It is tantamount to slave-plantation tourism, says Talulah (Jodie Campbell), a Black British woman who has traced her family line to this spot. Talulah is trying to channel her descendant Ginnie (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ) through the ritual practice of “conjuring” – making contact is a way to fill in the gaps of her family’s enslaved past.

Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester
Matthew Dunster’s disruptive reinvention of the tragedy merges two roles for its star and at times enters Game of Thrones territory

The TV series Succession was partly modelled on King Lear, the family name Roy derived from the monarchic French roi. Returning the compliment, Matthew Dunster’s production centralises dynastic dynamics among the young as they plot around a splintering figurehead.

The reading is supported by a modern setting – jeans, car keys and handguns for hessian, horses and swords – on an Anna Fleischle set of spangly strings variously dividing the stage into a nightclub, England and France, dungeons and, in the storm scene, serving as shower curtains to keep theatregoers dry.

Feted for cooking up shows that can be mouthwatering as well as thought-provoking, the artist discusses his fusion of South Korean and European culture

When I meet Jaha Koo in Oslo, where he has just been honoured with the prestigious International Ibsen award, I hand him a congratulatory packet of Haribo. The alternative would be a jar of kimchi but one of the many things you learn from Koo’s captivating theatre shows is that air travel and fermented vegetables can be a disastrous combo. When he moved to Berlin from South Korea with 10kg of his grandma’s finest kimchi, it became “bloated like a dead whale” and exploded on his balcony. His new neighbours were unimpressed.

In Koo’s current touring production, Haribo Kimchi, he examines how this unlikely fusion of two foods represents his cultural identity. He does so while preparing an onstage banquet for two lucky audience members. Despite spending many years in Europe, where Haribo gummies originated around a century ago, Koo still finds himself considered foremost as Korean by Europeans. But when he returns to his original homeland he is not always seen as Korean either.

Watching a DVD of the French film alone in my room, I saw for the first time a character who moved through the world like I do

Amélie likes the sound of cracking creme brulee with a teaspoon, plunging her hand into a sack of grain, and turning around in the cinema to watch people’s faces in the dark. I like the smell of books and I love cinema, but I hate the sound of people eating popcorn.

Amélie was not the first neurodivergent-coded woman I’d seen depicted in film. There had been Margot Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums and Suzy Bishop in Moonrise Kingdom – two Wes Anderson characters in whom I’d recognised myself. But Amélie was the first who was at the centre of the story; she’s the titular character and we see things through her eyes. It was the first time I’d seen a woman on screen move through the world as I did: overstimulated, a bit lonely and afraid of the unknown, comfortable in her own company, with firm likes and dislikes and a powerful sense of social justice.

Artist Deana Lawson uses beauty supply store surveillance images to analyze power and personhood in her exhibition at the Gagosian in New York City

In her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, writer and philosopher bell hooks explains that the relationship between Black people and the act of “looking” has been traumatic since slavery. Black people, many of whom are still subject to the constant surveillance that originated during enslavement, have historically been punished with severe consequences, such as lynching, for looking back at those who subjugate them. Despite these risks, hooks writes, they rebelled by secretly looking at white people, as well as their surroundings, rejecting the white gaze as the singular framework of reality. We can, as bell hooks writes, “interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see”.

I thought of this analysis when I visited Edge Control, artist Deana Lawson’s latest photography exhibition at the Gagosian gallery in New York City. Edge control refers to the gels and pomades that slick the hairs along the edges of a Black woman’s hairline, but in Lawson’s exhibit, the phrase takes on an additional meaning. It’s at once a styling product for Black haircare devotees as well as a tool to examine the beauty industry, consumerism and how surveillance and race intersect.

Edge Control is on view at the Gagosian in New York City until 24 October

The photographer was walking home in London when he caught the attention of a pair of canine snoops

Walking home after dropping his little girl at school, Peter Crome sensed he was being watched. A former professional ballet dancer now living in London, he had supplemented his income with photography work for 20 years. “But since having my daughter, my Nikon gear has sat idly by,” he says. “I got so used to lugging my heavy equipment around with me, it’s been quite refreshing to go somewhere just with a phone and still come back with wonderful pictures. My iPhone has also been a blessing for keeping in touch with family back home in Sydney,” Crome adds.

The cause of his disquiet that day was, to his happy surprise, these two dogs. “It was such a comical moment,” he says. “They looked like two curtain-twitchers, though not very subtle ones. I liked how they were perfectly framed with the different layers of window frames, and the brickwork and hedge provided some pleasing textures, but it was the disapproving expression on their faces that made the photo for me.”

When Sarah Maloney’s primary school crush danced back into her life, she braced for a ‘teenage whirlwind romance’. Then one night, she realised they were both all in

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In 2017 I was 16, went to an all-girls Catholic school in Melbourne and had zero tolerance for teenage boys and their nonsense. Instead I spent a lot of gossip time lamenting Jake, who broke my tiny heart in primary school and then moved hours away.

A debutante ball was coming up. It was an expensive tradition that was fundamentally at odds with my values but I couldn’t say no to a pretty dress and dancing – I was a teenage girl, after all. Some friends asked cousins or co-workers from our part-time jobs to be partners. I got knocked back by everyone. When I complained to my mother, she let me know Jake had moved back to town, and did she want me to ask his mum if he would be willing?

Our wholegrain hero sorts the wheat from the chaff in the search for a simple pleasure: a satisfying sandwich loaf

• The best supermarket sourdough

I’ve broken my strict, like-for-like approach this week in the interests of just finding a really good sliced wholemeal sandwich loaf. Alas, most of these are made to the standard Chorleywood process, with each one a cardboard replica of the other and with only nuanced differences. However, I did find two with exceptional flavour and one with a notably good, firm texture that’s ideal for spreading stuff on; to my surprise, several have an impressive lack of additives, too, and they all score well on value.

The Chorleywood process is an industrial method for making bread in just three and a half hours using high-speed mechanical processes and chemical additives. It was developed in the 1960s, and now accounts for about 80% of the bread made in the UK. If you’re looking for palm oil-free loaves with zero additives, emulsifiers or preservatives, sandwich loaves are hard to navigate, but there are some that fit the bill – just check the label.

Whether it’s a super-glowy serum or a cult gardening tool, here are our writers’ favourite buys from the past year

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The Filter is turning two! To celebrate, we asked our contributors for their favourite products from the past year, and rounded up the team’s picks too.

From handbag-sized umbrellas and stylish yet practical wellies to reading lights and luxurious duvets, these are the products that stood out.

Our reviewer sheds some light on the best dawn simulation alarms, from Lumie and Philips to Dreamegg

• The best eye masks to help you sleep better

To wake each day in darkness is a plight you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, yet that’s what many of us do routinely throughout winter. Getting up in the dark decouples our life from our circadian rhythm (our body clock), with bodily processes such as cognition and metabolism put to work before they’re fully prepped.

Thank heavens, then, for sunrise alarm clocks. These “dawn simulation” devices glow with gradually intensifying brightness as your wake-up time approaches, kickstarting your circadian rhythm before you get out of bed. For many users, this results in a happier, healthier start to the day.

Oversized coats, relaxed-fit trousers and secondhand jumpers that will last for years to come … here’s how to build an effortlessly cool autumn wardrobe on a budget

• The best men’s shirts for every occasion

It’s time to pack away your weekly rotation of T-shirts and shorts and start thinking about layers.

As always, there’s no shortage of inspiration for your autumn look. The menswear shows displayed their usual styling tricks: at Prada, the exaggerated shirt cuff became this season’s unlikely focal point. Then, there are the It boys, old and new, who are always good for a sartorial steer: comedian and actor Jack Innanen is the latest addition to the roster, though Brad Pitt’s 90s looks are just as current. And that’s all before you get to the colour palette: this year, bright colours can be thrown in among the traditional rich, earthy shades.

Social media ‘chefluencers’ and open restaurant kitchens have made chefs more visible and inspired aspirational gadget-buying

The Duchess of Sussex is no ordinary home cook, but when Meghan appeared on Instagram this week at a hob presided over by a special pot filler tap, it spoke to a shift in the everyday kitchen – the rise of “cheffy” kit.

While the pot filler is now most often found in luxury residential kitchens, it was reportedly invented in the early 20th century as a functional fixture for commercial kitchens. It joins a wealth of other restaurant equipment to have infiltrated our homes, from squeezy olive oil bottles to stainless steel mixing bowl sets.

This fantastic tart is a minor miracle invented by a legendary chef, yet it has very few ingredients and an intriguing technique for baking it

Often, the greatest dishes are made from very few ingredients and with pretty standard techniques, and this tart is one of them. It’s based on an old Frédy Girardet recipe that, despite his reputation as one of the all-time greats, calls only for a simple application of process to deliver a knockout result (which is one reason I put it in my latest book). A pastry case is spread with sugar and cream, then dotted with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. The pastry is not blind baked, but filled and baked in a very hot oven. That sounds wrong, but it is not: a fierce heat is needed to bake the pastry under its filling and to meld the cream, sugar and butter. A pinch of flour is mixed with the sugar and, as it all boils up, that smidgen of flour holds everything together as it bubbles and reduces until it takes on the appearance of condensed milk while the pastry cooks and toasts at the edges. I still use Girardet’s quantities because, unsurprisingly, they work perfectly. Merci, chef.

Henry Harris is chef/co-owner of Bouchon Racine, London EC1. His book, The Racine Effect, is published by Quadrille at £40. To order a copy for £36, go to guardianbookshop.com

A touch of homemade scotch bonnet jam turns up the heat in this classic concoction

Our daiquiri sums up what All Roads is all about: familiar flavours with a little twist. Pineapple, rum and lime are a classic combination, and the addition of scotch bonnet jam brings a subtle warmth that makes this just as good for those first crisp autumn evenings as it is on a sunny day.

Malika Green and Paschelle Brown, All Roads, London SW9

A crisp surface and creamy core are the traits of this cheesecake with no base, here topped with spiced and sliced apples and a sticky, caramel sauce

My go-to cheesecake these days is a burnt Basque. It’s so good it doesn’t even need a biscuit base, which might be the very reason some people aren’t fans. But Basque cheesecakes are rarely too sweet, because the burnt top provides just enough bitterness to balance things out and the insides stay ridiculously creamy. If I can give you one tip, though, it’s to make sure you take it out of the oven while it’s still really wobbly, to get the best set. An overbaked Basque is no fun at all.

Holly, 42, a horticulturist, meets Graeme, 47, a forest manager

What were you hoping for?
Really, just a fun night with minimal awkwardness was my fairly low expectation before the meeting.

First impressions?
A very positive, engaging lady with a beautiful smile.

What did you talk about?
Growing food, the joys of seeds, birdwatching, the failings of young people when it comes to proper raving, epigenetics and breaking generational cycles.

Ava shared the initial cost but Ruth has forked out for repairs. You decide who’s on the wrong side of this in-tents debate?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I paid for half of the tent, so I deserve equal use of it, even if we no longer live in the same country

Ava hasn’t used the tent in years, and I’ve stored it and paid for its upkeep. Surely I get first dibs?

People often forget social rules when dogs are involved, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But you’ll have to say something if you want things to change

• Read more Leading questions

A good friend of mine stays with me regularly when she comes into town. She brings her husband and two dogs that don’t get along with my dog. They’ve “used the bathroom” in our house before. I try to be nice and help clean or pretend it doesn’t bother me so that they feel comfortable. But when she asks for a weekend to come back with everyone, I kind of dread it. I enjoy seeing her and she’s a great friend. I think our friendship would be better if she stayed somewhere else, but I would feel bad if she stayed in a hotel and I don’t think she’d visit as often. She cleans up after the dogs and whatnot, but I like my home to be my safe haven. This friend doesn’t handle confrontation well, but is understanding. What can I do to handle this?

Eleanor says: It sounds as though you’re in the jam we all get into when we try to smooth things over: you can have the social ease of pretending something is fine; or the outcome from confessing it isn’t, but not both simultaneously.

LD is the submissive to Lady Alice’s dominatrix – and it has been a revelation for them both

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I have cerebral palsy and live with my parents. Lady Alice is a delicious secret

From a flat in a new urban village in London to a family-sized home in a rural village in Norfolk

Finance expert launches Small Ideas Initiative to gather ‘practical, low-cost’ ideas to put before cross-party panel

Every day, people run into what the finance expert Martin Lewis calls “the life-potholes of unintended consequences” – clunky systems and poorly conceived rules that make life harder than it should be. His latest project, the Small Ideas Initiative, will attempt to address that, with a cross-party panel of politicians and policymakers crowdsourcing ideas for everyday fixes to take to government.

The ideas could cover anything from health and schools to policing, tech and money. Lewis is encouraging people to submit ideas for “practical, low-cost, non-controversial ways to improve the UK” before 12 November.

Move expected to make pump pricing more transparent and encourage competition after diesel hits record £2 a litre

Drivers will be able to see live petrol prices on Google Maps for the first time from Thursday, in a move that will help motorists shop around for the cheapest fuel.

Millions of motorists will be able to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices by searching for a local forecourt in the Google app, in what could prove to be “a major development” in making fuel prices more fair, according to campaigners.

Sykes Holiday Cottages showed no empathy and insisted on paperwork we didn’t have so soon after my husband’s death

We booked a break with Sykes Holiday Cottages for 11 of us to celebrate my mum’s 80th birthday last February. The cost was £2,400, paid for by my 87-year-old dad, but it was my husband who made the booking.

In January, my husband was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma, and he died 10 days before the trip. My parents and some other members of the party still planned to take the holiday, and my dad informed Sykes of the death, since my husband was their point of contact.

The sleep disorder has been the butt of jokes and a comedic plot point, but the reality of living with narcolepsy is anything but funny. Things could be about to change for people with the condition though, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first ever drug to treat narcolepsy itself, rather than just its symptoms. Madeleine Finlay tells Ian Sample how the scientific breakthrough came about, and Julie Flygare, who has narcolepsy and founded the non-profit Project Sleep, explains what it is like to live with the condition and how the drug could be gamechanger

The incident is the latest to raise questions about the growing reliance on digital maps for wilderness navigation

The route up the Widowmaker Arete, a 1,700ft wall in British Columbia, is deceptively described as “mostly easy slab climbing”, interspersed with “short steep sections that can include finger cracks” and “blocky face climbing”. It requires careful planning, and the right equipment.

When 16-year-old Bryce Vincent Gowryluk found himself facing its sheer headwall last week, he had neither. He did, however, ask the AI chatbot Claude for directions.

With cancer cases rising fastest in poorer countries, Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, president-elect of the Union for International Cancer Control, says Africa needs investment in research, diagnosis and prevention

When Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu last saw Gloria in Abuja, the young breast cancer patient was so ill that she was in hospital. The cancer had spread to her bones and lungs, and she was struggling with complications from the disease.

Then, at a global conference on cancer thousands of miles away in Hong Kong last month, Bagudu saw her again. Gloria was walking with a stick because of the cancer in her hips, but she was attending sessions, speaking about her experience and advocating for other patients.

Researchers found five events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, caused serious damage to mental wellbeing across UK

Brexit, Liz Truss’s mini-budget and other “shocks” over the last 10 years have led to a serious and lasting deterioration in the UK population’s mental health, research has found.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the first and second Covid lockdowns also triggered big rises in psychological distress, as measured by the number of people with depression and anxiety.

From commanding the catwalks to acting as plus-ones for their famous parents, celebrity kids are bang on trend

Knee-length skirts and bras worn as tops were two of the main takeaways from fashion month, which wrapped up this week. But the biggest trend had nothing to do with clothing. From New York and London to Milan and Paris, the shows were the ultimate proof of a nepo baby takeover.

John Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu, 26, made her Paris catwalk debut at Miu Miu. Apple Martin, 22, the daughter of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow, walked the Chloé show.

After 10 years as creative director of the Paris-based luxury brand, the designer bows out. From a rock’n’roll aesthetic to see-through brogues, here are 10 stand-out moments

Our four-legged friends are turning heads from Louis Vuitton to Schiaparelli – but what does their presence in the most exclusive of spaces say about the industry’s changing attitudes?

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The front row at a fashion week show is a known hotspot for celebrities. During the most recent iteration that wrapped up on Tuesday, sightings included Heathcliff, AKA Jacob Elordi, high-fiving the Adolescence star Owen Cooper at Bottega Veneta; Rihanna arriving 63 minutes late to the Matières Fécales show; and Dua Lipa gossiping with Nicole Kidman and Pedro Pascal at Chanel. But peppered in among the Hollywood crowd was another type of guest going head-to-head for the photographers’ attention: dogs.

From a cavapoo at Louis Vuitton to a shih tzu at Schiaparelli, four-legged companions – rather than designer bags – sat on the laps of many showgoers. At the Balenciaga show, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicole Peltz sat next to Miranda Priestly – no, not Meryl Streep in her Devil Wears Prada character, but the brand’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli’s rescue dog. Tommy Hilfiger took his post-show bow with a fluffy samoyed – a look-a-like of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s pup who stars with Kelce in a campaign for the brand. Elsewhere, a miniature schnauzer in goggles and a chihuahua wearing a puffer jacket took over the catwalk at Chopova Lowena.

Sarah Burton’s sporty, daffodil mesh dress made me smile. But the reason I chose it for Fashion Museum Bath is because it tells the story of our times, when bodies are more political than ever

One morning in February this year, I opened my laptop to find an email with an all-caps subject line: TOP SECRET. Being a fashion editor can be exciting but state secrets are not generally my beat, so I was intrigued. Sure enough, it was a thrill: an invitation from the Fashion Museum Bath to choose their Dress of the Year for 2025.

What an honour. Dress of the Year began in 1963, the brainchild of the museum’s founder Doris Langley Moore, as a way of keeping a static collection perpetually current. Each year a fashion expert picks an outfit or outfits that capture the year just gone, and these become part of the permanent collection. There is a Mary Quant dress and a Katharine Hamnett slogan T-shirt, Ossie Clark chiffon and Ralph Lauren pinstripes. There is sublime beauty from the catwalks of Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel and John Galliano, and pieces of cultural history: McQueen’s bumsters, Jennifer Lopez’s internet-breaking green Versace Grammy dress, Dior’s “We Should All Be Feminists” slogan, Naomi Campbell’s pandemic hazmat suit, a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, and the dress worn by the Duchess of Sussex for her Oprah interview in 2021. “Dress” is interpreted loosely, in the sense of clothing rather than a frock: the lineup includes men’s suits. The Bath museum is currently mid-revamp, having closed its doors in 2022, with construction soon to start on a new museum set to open in the city’s old post office in 2030. Meanwhile the collection is stored in Wiltshire and can be seen online.

An autumn break in the French mountain town of Saint-Gervais-Les-Bains offers thermal treatments and glorious walking trails before the winter ski crowds descend

Mont Blanc is hiding behind the clouds, but the Aiguille du Midi spears the sky above a mountainside ablaze with russet, gold and tawny tones. The maples flare red; rowan trees are dusted with crimson berries.

Our little group has trundled up to Mont Lachat station (altitude: 2,115 metres) on the Tramway du Mont Blanc, the century-old cog railway that climbs improbably steep slopes from the French alpine town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains. Operational since 1909, the railway was once intended to reach the 4,809-metre summit of Mont Blanc, but war, glacial terrain and waning funds put an end to that ambition. But even from Mont Lachat, the view is a showstopper. On one side, the Bionnassay Glacier slips scenically down the slope, a buzzard soaring over the milky-green glacial lake at its base, while on the other the Chamonix valley basks in soft autumnal sunshine.

The lost practice of hitchhiking is a subculture, an art, and a way of travel that satisfies wanderlust like no other trip. Plus, it costs nothing

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I’m alone, hunched over by a dusty road junction, and feeling the bite of the morning sun. I’ve already been waiting here, on the outskirts of Esperance on the south coast of Western Australia, for more than three hours. Another wave of traffic approaches. I smile, stretch out my arm and raise my thumb.

Most drivers who pass wave or give me a thumbs up. One gives me the finger. There isn’t much traffic. Someone tosses a water bottle out their window at me.

From a historic bathhouse in Sweden to forest bathing in Croatia, readers share their favourite places to relax and recharge

• Tell us about a small European ski resort – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Tucked away off a pretty shopping street in a beautiful art nouveau building is one of Stockholm’s oldest spas, Centralbadet where a day ticket costs from £23. As winter darkness descends, candles are lit around the pool and a quiet calm envelops you. Swimming by candlelight is a treat. Next a sauna followed by an ice-cold plunge. Afterwards a nightcap is in order so it’s a brisk walk in the cold crisp air to Fotografiska restaurant. It’s a great spot to savour one of Stockholm’s best views; the old town Gamla Stan and the twinkling lights on Lake Mälaren.
Sarah Rochfort

After electronics giant Philips left, the city reinvented itself as a multicultural hub for creativity and innovation, and the home of Dutch Design Week

A baggily clad skateboarder’s wheels clatter across concrete floors, the noise bouncing off exposed pipes and iron girders. Vaulted skylights set in high ceilings illuminate the industrial space and its central kitchen, from which my main course – a silky lemon risotto, spiked with samphire, rhubarb, garlic, baby onions and basil – has just been transported.

I’m in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, in North Brabant, famous for its historic connection to Philips, the one-time electronics giant. The restaurant, Radio Royaal, is housed in what was once their engine room, in the Strijp-S neighbourhood. Today, Strijp-S buzzes with concept stores, an indoor food market, MU Hybrid Art House and the Area 51 skatepark. The broader area, Strijp, was where the company was largely headquartered: its zones are named S, T and R. In the late 90s, Philips withdrew from the city where it had started in 1891, and the letters I, J and P were never assigned.

While most of the crowd at a Stop Sexual Violence rally in New York City was women, men of all ages were in attendance too

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered at city halls and college campuses across the country on Thursday to demand an end to sexual violence. The nationwide rallies followed weeks of public outcry over the mishandling of campus sexual assault cases at Cornell University and Louisiana State University.

The protest organizers – including Women’s March, Feminist Generation and Me Too International – demanded justice for Jane Doe, who said she was drugged and gang-raped by seven students at a Cornell frat party; Kendall Francis, who said she was raped by an LSU football player; and all survivors harmed “from the frat house to the White House”. They also called for reform of Title IX, a set of protections for sexual misconduct victims and LGBTQ+ students that the Trump administration has slowly stripped away.

The broadcaster on her days as a shoplifter, catastrophising, and a first kiss with her dance partner

Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, Stacey Dooley, 39, left school at 15 and worked as a shop assistant. In 2007 she was selected to take part in the BBC reality series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. This led to the series Stacey Dooley Investigates and her career as presenter of hard‑hitting documentaries. In 2018, her face-to-face confrontation with an Islamic State soldier won her the One World Media award and she also received the MBE for services to broadcasting. She has made three new investigative films for the BBC and presents BBC series Clickbait Clinic. She met dancer Kevin Clifton when they were partnered on Strictly Come Dancing; they have a daughter and live in Merseyside.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I’m quite greedy. I achieve something or something’s feeling really brilliant and I’m, like, “Right, what are we doing next? What are we getting next?”

Running is one of the easiest exercises to take up, but it can be easy to lose your mojo and get injured. Coaches give their advice on how to hit your stride

Whether you have never been for a run or are building up to a marathon, sometimes the biggest challenge is just getting out the door. Here, running coaches share their tips on everything from mindset to avoiding injuries – but mainly how to find joy in running.

With an extremely wet and windy winter forecast, take steps to keep you and your home safe and dry

With the Met Office warning that this year’s supersized El Niño could mean a wet and stormy winter lies ahead, it’s never been more important to maintain your home.

Payouts for storm damage to UK homes surged 32% to £244m in 2025 amid the destruction caused by the heavy rain and strong winds that accompanied the likes of Storm Éowyn and Storm Floris.

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

Exclusive: Former Brazilian environment minister warns of destruction as far-right scion favourite to become president

The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.

The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.

Students say they are desperate to get back to class but conditions are so bad that the protests must continue

On a normal school day, Mohammed, 17, wakes at 6am, cares for his younger siblings to help his single mother who works as a security guard, then takes two crowded buses and a local train to get to his high school in Sevran, a low-income banlieue town in the suburbs north-east of Paris.

“There aren’t enough chairs or desks to go round, so some students have to stand up,” Mohammed said. “Classes can be so packed you can’t interact with the teacher. In this year’s heatwaves, it felt like 40 degrees in overcrowded classrooms with no shade or curtains. It was so hot my brain couldn’t function.”

Extremists are on the rise globally – but UK activists have seen them off in the past in everything from football, politics, music and more. How did they do it?

Tariq Mehmood encountered the far right early – at primary school. “When white children surround you in the playground and sing, ‘God made little black people, he made them in the night, he made them in a hurry, and forgot to paint them white’, and the school doesn’t clamp down on that, then you’re living within the far right. It’s not one organisation, it’s a mass movement.”

Ahead of the budget later this month, we’d like to hear from people in the UK about what measures they feel might help – or not help – financially

We want to find out more about any financial concerns people in the UK have ahead of the budget on 28 October 2026. What measures would you like to see in the budget and what issues would you like to see addressed?

For instance, do you have particular concerns around energy bills, petrol, childcare, fiscal drag, pensions – or something else? Let us know below.

First Edition newsletter will be hosting a reader Q&A with economist Isabella Weber, a leading voice on inflation, affordability and cost of living and now’s your chance to put your questions to her

Isabella Weber is one of the most sought-after and influential economists of her generation, and has advised policymakers and governments in the US, Germany, Europe and Latin America.

She has become a leading voice on inflation, affordability and the cost of living. Her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics, looks at the relationship between economic insecurity and the rise of the far right, arguing progressive politics must respond to the rise of authoritarianism by urgently addressing the economic pressures people experience in their daily lives. For years Weber was treated as an outlier.

Weber is an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate in research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, and is the author of the prize-winning How China Escaped Shock Therapy.

We’d love to hear your questions. Perhaps you would like to find out how the cost of living affects the current political landscape? What’s happening in the bond markets? Or the advice she’d give to progressive politicians, from incumbents like Burnham and Mamdani to the German parties taking on the AFD. From austerity to zero deficits, nothing is too simple or complex.

We would like to hear from students and staff about the impact of the strikes

Students at Edinburgh, Dundee and Nottingham face a term without any teaching due to staff strikes as the higher education sector struggles with rising financial uncertainty.

University and College Union (UCU) members in Edinburgh launched their industrial action on 28 September, while their colleagues at the University of Dundee were embarking on a five-week strike. UCU members at the University of Nottingham announced a further round of strikes starting on Monday 5 October and lasting until the end of the semester in December.

We’d like to hear from people who have been monitored or assessed by AI at work and what they thought about the experience

Firms are increasingly using AI to monitor or assess their employees, leading to concerns about workplace surveillance.

Instructors at tech training company Multiverse recently blew the whistle at their “remorseless” and “unnerving” AI monitoring system, while The Co-Op has used automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.

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Student protests across France, Russian strikes on Kyiv, wildfires in Indonesia and Comic-Con in New York – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists