To escape the stresses and strains of adulting, more people are choosing to rekindle their love for childhood toys, games and pastimes

A growing number of adult enthusiasts are rediscovering their love for Lego, helping to fuel a surge in sales that has increased the Danish toymaker’s revenues by 21%.

But Lego isn’t the only childhood pastime people are returning to. We spoke to people who have rediscovered old hobbies about what drew them back. For some, returning to an old pastime offers an escape from the pressures of adult life, while for others it is a chance to reconnect with a younger version of themselves.

Alan Milburn is preparing to implement his report to bring young people back into work. Let’s hope the government will see it through

As certainly as the moon pulls on the tides, Labour governments improve the lives of the poorest children. Just as surely, Conservative governments pull back and reverse the good done. Here we go again: despite the social devastation caused by George Osborne’s cuts last time, Kemi Badenoch announces that she wants to impose cuts to universal credit for the poorest if she gets the chance.

She doesn’t do subtle, none of Iain Duncan Smith’s cruel-to-be-kind routine, but goes straight for populist rabble-rousing, stirring up fact-free contempt for anyone on benefits, with a proposed ban on buying cigarettes and alcohol, or gambling, with benefit money. Welfare, she says, must not be “a lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered”. As with all crude rightwing populism, the harm she does spreads hatred of the weak. In this most unequal country, it encourages bullies to kick downwards, stifling more generous human instincts.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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

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

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

Boris Karloff’s daughter and composer Michael Shapiro, whose musical score for the 1931 film is finally coming to London, talk about how it became a much-loved classic

Once seen, never forgotten – the 1931 Frankenstein is 95 years old, but still one of the most instantly recognisable of classic horrors. Whether it’s the sight of lanky Boris Karloff lumbering into the frame with his squared-off head, neck bolts and oversized leaden shoes, or the sound of a thunderclap and Colin Clive exclaiming “It’s alive!” as the monster comes to life one stormy night in the laboratory – the film still raises hairs on the back of the neck.

However, this classic has arguably long been missing one element: a continuous musical soundtrack – the original movie had dialogue but no music. In 2001, the American composer Michael Shapiro wrote a full-length score, which he will be conducting alongside the film for the first time in London next month, at Cadogan Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. “It becomes one artistic expression, one artistic experience,” he says. “The film and the music, together, and the audience forgets that I am there.” Shapiro says his music emphasises what is already up on the screen. “Suddenly the film jumps out in a way it never did before.”

After years of illegal mass flytipping in Gospić, fed-up residents decided to take matters into their own hands

“Gospić is our home,” Željka Šikić shouted to a crowd of 40,000 people outside the Croatian parliament earlier this month. The slogan is the name of a campaign she helped to set up to protest against the illegal dumping of waste in Gospić, a town in the mountainous Lika region of central Croatia.

Between 2022 and 2024, waste was illegally abandoned at several sites in the town. At one of the biggest, just 50 metres from Šikić’s home, an estimated 35,000 tonnes of waste, some of it hazardous, was dumped and buried.

Plush or pared back, flatteringly lit or full-on disco camp, a TikTokkable loo is now part of the hospitality experience

Anthony Bourdain was typically forthright when it came to his expectations for the toilet facilities in a food business. “I won’t eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms,” wrote the late chef and author, in his seminal, turn-of-the-millennium memoir Kitchen Confidential. “This isn’t a hard call. They let you see the bathrooms. If the restaurant can’t be bothered to replace the puck in the urinal or keep the toilets and floors clean, then just imagine what their refrigeration and work spaces look like.” Setting aside the fact that, in later life, Bourdain softened his stance (“Some of the best food experiences I’ve ever had [have been in] places where they really don’t give a shit [about bathroom cleanliness],” were his words in a 2018 interview) his initial take tells us plenty about what the average customer historically demanded of restaurant restrooms. They needed to be clean. They needed to be functional. They needed, at a push, half-decent hand soap and the faint, reassuring waft of pine-scented floor cleaner.

Today, things could hardly be more different. Where once restaurant toilets tended to be a boring, unglamorous afterthought, in recent years, they have emerged as arguably the most unexpectedly attention-grabbing room in the building: atmospherically distinct sites of creativity and muscle-flexing design, where lavish amenities, bespoke lighting, custom soundscapes, selfie mirrors and all manner of other eye-catching flourishes abound, and are documented by social media channels, such as @LoosOfLondon (TikTok followers: 78k).

Boy became separated from a relative in Suffolk and went in the direction of a pond where he was later found dead

A three-year-old boy who was found dead in a pond after going missing from a playground had left the play area “through a gap in the fence”, an inquest heard.

Noah Woods became separated from a relative after visiting the playground in Merriam Close, Brantham, on the afternoon of 15 September, Suffolk police said.

Thomas appeared at Basingstoke magistrates court on Friday after being charged with criminal damage

The far-right activist Daniel Thomas has pleaded not guilty to criminal damage after he allegedly slashed a boat in the Channel with an emergency responder on board.

Thomas, 37, of no fixed address, appeared at Basingstoke magistrates court on Friday after being charged on Thursday night. He also denied failing to disclose the pin to his phone to police, under section 53 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

The Green leader, who is Jewish, made the remarks as part of his campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection

Our political correspondent, Alexandra Topping, has this profile on Sagal Abdi-Wali, the Camden council leader and Labour’s candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection:

Sagal Abdi-Wali does not want to be the prime minister. She doesn’t even want to lead her party. Labour’s candidate for Holborn and St Pancras laughs and shakes her head with unusual vigour when asked if she would like to follow in the footsteps of the last member of parliament for the constituency, Keir Starmer.

“No, no, no, no, that’s not at all, in any way, what I’m trying to do,” she says during a break in campaigning in the Primrose Hill cafe in Regent’s Park. “I’m literally trying to get through the next few weeks and trying to be the member of parliament for this constituency, and that’s all I care about.”

It’s a message the 42-year-old leader of Camden council returns to with ruthless discipline ahead of a byelection on 8 October. It is plastered all over her campaigning material and brought up by every door-knocking Labour activist – every mention an implicit comparison between herself and her high-profile opponent Zack Polanski.

“All I’ve done, all my life, is be a committed champion for people here,” says Abdi-Wali. “Whether it’s volunteering as a teenager or being a councillor, and all the work I did in between, that’s all I’ve ever done. All I want to be is someone who will be visible and local and committed every single day.”

Patient groups decry ‘scandalous’ delays as four integrated care boards take step due to soaring demand for diagnoses

• Two-year waiting times highlight NHS struggle with rise in ADHD and autism awareness

NHS bodies are forcing people with suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism to wait at least two years before they can be assessed as they struggle to meet surging demand for diagnoses of neurodiversity.

Four NHS integrated care boards (ICBs) covering large regions of England have adopted the approach because they cannot afford the cost of the number of assessments that people are seeking.

Israeli PM attacks critics and calls New York mayor Zohran Mamdani ‘antisemitic’ in inflammatory address

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an inflammatory address to the United Nations on Thursday, decrying what he said was a global anti-Jewish conspiracy and swatting aside criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, as he faces down international isolation and a fight for political survival in upcoming elections in Israel.

As planned protests erupted on the streets of New York City, Netanyahu took aim at critics of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the international media, regional leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leftwing commentator Hasan Piker and the New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in an address that doubled as a stump speech to ignite his rightwing base for the elections.

Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2022 but has seen her sentenced reduced several times

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of blood testing startup Theranos, will reportedly be transferred from a minimum security prison to a halfway home next August.

In 2022, Holmes, 42, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding Theranos investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and ordered to pay restitution. The company falsely promoted its technology as being capable of detecting diseases, including types of cancer, from drops of finger-pricked blood.

Superhero, who was joined by others dressed as comic book characters, retrieved stolen bag after scaling wall

A scene from the fictional comic metropolis of Gotham City played out for real in Norwich last weekend when a man dressed as Batman chased a suspected thief and recovered a woman’s stolen handbag.

Sonni Mason, 25, was attending a friend’s fancy dress party on Saturday night in a Batman costume when he witnessed a handbag being snatched after a row in a queue for a nightclub in the city.

Former footballer appeared in about 12 ad campaigns this summer, pushing holding company’s revenue to $110.5m

• Business live – latest updates

David Beckham has taken a $51m (£39m) dividend from his business empire after a series of deals with brands for the Fifa World Cup.

Beckham appeared in about a dozen ad campaigns across this summer’s tournament in the US, working with brands including Lenovo, McDonald’s, Bank of America, Verizon and the PepsiCo crisps brand Lay’s.

National Trust has transformed Sandilands in Lincolnshire into a nature reserve with wetlands and wading pools

There is no chance of a birdie or an eagle any more. But there are skylarks, short-eared owls, avocets and curlew.

Sandilands, a former golf course on the Lincolnshire coast, has been transformed by the National Trust into a 2km-long nature reserve with wetlands, wading pools, rough grassland and coastal scrub.

As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each tells the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the conflict. Rajab al-Reefi teaches children to skate to ‘bring some joy’, but finding boards and safe spaces is a daily challenge

Rajab al-Reefi remembers the day the club’s last skateboard broke. Those pastry-thin layers of maple, carefully pressed into a curve, had carried child after child up and down the homemade ramps of the skatepark. Having endured years beyond their typical lifespan, the board’s layers buckled, cracked and finally snapped.

At 30, Rajab is a leader of the Gaza skate club, a group that has spent the past decade teaching girls and boys to skate. But Israel’s siege of Gaza blocks a vast array of ordinary household goods from entering the territory, with the Israelis claiming they could be used by Hamas. One of the banned items is a skateboard.

They were all there for António Guterres and Donald Trump but did anyone else manage to pull a crowd?

The US press corps stood up to Donald Trump this week after he banned three organisations he doesn’t like from the White House. But when it came to the leader of one of the US’s oldest adversaries – China – well, Trump literally rolled out a very long red carpet. Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Shrai Popat about why Trump seems weaker these days, but why it could be dangerous to underestimate him

Locals raised £1m for Mayday Saxonvale scheme involving homes and park but Somerset officials agreed deal with London-based real estate company

A bold bid by residents of a progressive town in the English West Country who raised almost £1m to create what could have been the UK’s largest community-led regeneration project is in tatters.

More than 1,000 residents of Frome in Somerset had clubbed together with the aim of building homes, workspaces, a riverside park and a lido on a brownfield area in their town centre.

Students are too broke or busy having fun to eat well, right? Wrong: some find cash and time for creme brulee and duck eggs

This month marks 20 years since I arrived at university in London, with an Ikea saucepan set, a six-pack of Pot Noodle and a trusty jar of pesto to my name. I was a student now, and I intended to eat like one.

But what did that mean? Where to my parents “student food” had hippyish connotations – lentils and ancient grains, communal pots of unidentifiable greige – by 2006 the stereotype had evolved to mean convenience and speed. Frozen pizza, potato waffles, mountains of pesto pasta – if we were eating at all, that is. As a 2000s girl with a 2000s diet mentality, I’ll admit that part of me hoped university would mark a turning point where I started having so much fun that I forgot to think about food. No such luck. What followed instead were probably the most formative eating years of my life; I don’t remember a single line of Beowulf, but those early tastes of independence are seared into my memory for ever.

As her latest novel about Daphne du Maurier is published, the bestselling author reflects on age and creativity – and why at 83 she has no plans to stop

My generation of writers is dying. Of Granta’s fabled list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists, 1983, six are gone, including our most princely satirist, Martin Amis. We’re all approaching birthdays where the cake is too small for the candles. Some of us are wounded: Salman Rushdie by an attacker’s knife, Julian Barnes lives with blood cancer, others with the fatal hurt of being forgotten.

But what’s the likely fate of those of us who are surviving – for now? Do readers still love us? When Barnes announced that he was signing off because of illness, was he also intuiting that the younger generations had heard enough from us old birds and geezers who were young when Sean Connery had dimples, when David Hockney first coloured his hair yellow?

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

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

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

From his farm in Portugal, the acclaimed artist speaks about war, peace, the state of the world – and his 40 metre sculpture Mushrooms, on Sydney Harbour

“It’s like a film set. Like it’s not real,” the bemused Uber driver says as we pass through a succession of silent rural villages washed with milky sunlight. He’s right: signs of human life are weirdly absent during our windy journey through the Alentejo. I’m making my way to Ai Weiwei’s secluded farm, nestled deep in the Portuguese countryside, where arguably the world’s best known living artist has quietly lived for the last six years.

When I arrive, I am ushered inside a vast cathedral of a building, a replica of Ai’s erstwhile, and controversially demolished, studio in Shanghai. The space is cavernous. It’s gridded by huge wooden columns and its dizzyingly high ceilings are webbed with beams. There is no artwork on the walls, nor are there any obvious signs of production or activity.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Nationalisation is not the ultimate answer for companies like Thames Water – but they could be run for the public benefit

• Will Hutton is a journalist and political economist. Andy Haldane is a former chief economist of the Bank of England

I suspect nearly all of my students use AI, and I worry about its corrosive effects. We must not entrust tech companies with our long-term health

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

When I was a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford in the early 2000s, I interviewed for a major consulting firm. All my friends were being recruited, and I thought why not give it a shot? Aside from the usual maths-proficiency test (how quickly can you crunch numbers in front of a client and look smart), I was asked about what the future of streaming could look like. I gave a long-winded answer about the unintended consequences of changing how humans interact with each other when a new technology is introduced, and why this may not be in the best interests of health and society.

I even remember saying something like: “Can you imagine just being stuck at home, alone, watching show after show and never having to move or see any other people? Why would anyone choose that over going out to rent a DVD at a local shop, or to a movie theatre?” You won’t be surprised to learn that I wasn’t invited for a follow-up interview.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Plus, Prince Harry spreads his love of Marmite to his kids, and Dolly Parton’s nephew turns out to be fairly unusual

It was a big week at the UN, Buckingham Palace and the White House, but for all sentient people of Britain, the top story this week was that Bake Off is back and we need to talk about Nigella. (“Isn’t that the thing you use on cold sores?” said my gen Alpha child, as yet uninitiated into the lifestyle icons of our age. “That’s Bonjela,” I said.) I went into the opener of the show’s 17th season crankily resenting the departure of Prue Leith, who I love, and who offers, apart from anything else, a corrective to all the women on TV at the moment lecturing us about how to age from behind Maga-style glow-ups. (Youth on HBO anyone? No thanks!)

I refuse to play host to a man who has overseen the slaughter or injury of more than 64,000 children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars. I refuse to be complicit in genocide

Benjamin Netanyahu belongs at The Hague; not in the streets of New York City, and certainly not before the United Nations general assembly. The international criminal court has a warrant out for his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN’s own commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and named Netanyahu as its chief architect.

As the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district, I refuse to allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city unchallenged. I refuse to play host to a man who has overseen the slaughter or injury of more than 64,000 children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars. I refuse to be complicit in genocide.

Darializa Avila Chevalier is the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district

A group of nations will gather on Friday to address the crisis. The only response to unilateral bullying is collective action

The international legal order is in shambles. But from the ruins of impunity and lawbreaking, a group of nations is working to enforce accountability.

On Monday, the UN general assembly’s high-level meetings opened to news that Washington had drawn up sanctions against the international criminal court, targeting its bank accounts, software, insurers and staff.

Elif Eralp wants lower rents and more public housing. It’s not rocket science but mainstream parties still don’t get why they are failing

Hope is a fragile thing. You can only hold on to it as long as you find reasons to believe tomorrow can be better. A woman, for instance, who has the resources and opportunity to rent her own flat will be more likely to leave her abusive husband and recover. A pupil who has their own room and desk to do their homework might find more meaning in thriving at school. And an elderly person who can afford to live in a neighbourhood where they feel safe and connected is less likely to become isolated and depressed.

It’s not by chance that the examples above all revolve around the same topic. Affordable housing is possibly the most personal and most urgent social issue of our time. In Berlin, a city where 85% of residents live in rented accommodation, rents have risen by almost 70% in the past 10 years. And that is despite a rent control law that has been in effect since 2015. How? Loopholes and illegal practices have allowed property owners to continue putting pressure on the housing market. The social anxiety caused by this crisis, far from affecting just low-earners and single-parent households, affects vast parts of the middle class, too.

Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist

Hundreds of thousands are expected to die, millions to go hungry. This is not just about weather patterns, but about injustice

Some warnings are so grave that it is almost impossible to fully comprehend them. The descriptions of a super-sized, “Godzilla-level” El Niño already heating our planet would sound hyperbolic were they not issuing from eminent scientists. They say that the weather pattern, which occurs roughly every two to seven years, may be the strongest in at least a millennium. With its peak yet to come, the temperature rise in the Pacific Ocean has already surpassed the previous high.

The consequence will be huge amounts of heat in an atmosphere already experiencing frighteningly higher temperatures due to the human-caused climate crisis. Next year is almost certain to be the hottest on record globally, breaking this year’s record. The World Food Programme has warned that 50 million people are likely to be pushed into acute hunger. Others estimate that the extra heat from El Niño alone will cause the deaths of 450,000 people by February, from Nigeria and Indonesia to the US. That extraordinary toll is in addition to those killed by the wildfires, droughts and floods it is likely to bring – and also to deaths caused by global heating.

Ministers’ commitment to cutting youth unemployment is admirable, but how new qualifications will help is unclear

The first question that should be asked about plans to launch a batch of vocational GCSEs is: how will these differ from the roughly 50 similar courses that already exist? Is this primarily a rebadging exercise, aimed at boosting the qualifications’ status and name recognition, while signalling how seriously non-academic education is taken by Andy Burnham and his education secretary, Lucy Powell? Or is there something the matter with the existing courses that they want to put right?

The independent curriculum review completed last year recommended a moratorium on new technical  awards, except where there is an “exceptionally compelling” case for change. It also proposed that the Department for Education analyse existing ones, including how well they prepare pupils for 16-19 education; no such research has appeared.

Readers respond to an editorial on creating opportunities for today’s young people to build future careers

Your youth unemployment editorial (18 September) sees the crisis clearly, but reaches for the wrong tools. Placements, apprenticeships and work coaches cannot conjure jobs that do not exist. We need macro solutions to macro problems. Youth unemployment is not a crisis of skills or geography. It is insufficient government deficit spending. There is not enough money circulating to employ everyone who wants to work and that is a policy choice, not an accident.

Macroeconomists divide the economy into three sectors: government, households and businesses, and the rest of the world. One sector’s spending is another sector’s income. Put simply, government spending is income for the non-government sectors.

Dr Gillian McIver and Don Macdonald respond to an article on the low uptake of apprenticeship schemes

I agree with the Fabian Society’s finding that many people struggle to access apprenticeships because the system is so confusing (Only 160 apprenticeship starts in eight months on Labour’s flagship scheme, 21 September).

In my work in youth employment, students often tell me that they do not want to go to university and want to pursue an apprenticeship instead. But finding suitable opportunities is extremely difficult.

Jim McManners says Phil’s columns have inspired his teaching, while Ann MacAskill says she intends to follow his marvelling method

I was with great sadness that I read that Phil Gates’s country diary piece was to be his last (Country diary: A lesson from my final diary after nearly 40 years – keep looking closely, 19 September). It has become my habit to check the column as soon as I get my hands on the paper to see if it was a “Phil Gates diary day”, then to savour it.

This is partly, perhaps, because his diaries are from my own county, but mainly because I have never failed to learn something new and interesting about some overlooked or unspectacular species in the natural world, despite this being my subject.

Andy Burnham’s own goal | Investigating failure | Hedgehog-flavoured crisps | Crisp festival | Sitting prone

Before legislating to permit alcoholic drinks to be consumed in the stands at football (Report, 23 September), Andy Burnham should attend a rugby international. He will find that his view of the match is constantly interrupted by spectators coming and going to replenish their supplies and/or empty their bladders. Be careful what you wish for, Andy.
Robert Lee
Hampton, London

• So a parliamentary committee is to investigate the UK’s performance at the Eurovision song contest (Report, 18 September). I look forward to a committee of MPs explaining why my team, Reading FC, have consistently failed to achieve promotion from League One.
John Lovelock
Bristol

️ F1 updates from 1pm BST in Baku
️ Russell vows to ‘keep fighting’ for title | Mail Philip

Welcome to Friday F1 qualifying. No, this is not Las Vegas, but the result of Sunday being Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day. So from 1pm BST the 11 teams and 22 drivers will be chasing grid positions for a race that starts at noon BST on Saturday.

Two weeks ago in Spain, Lando Norris took pole but had a near-certain victory snatched away by the timing of a virtual safety car, instigated just after he passed the pit entrance and allowing pretty much everyone else to take a free pit stop … including Kimi Antonelli, the driver least in need of a slice of luck but whose championship lead was extended to 81 points with his victory.

⚽ All the latest heading in to the weekend’s action
⚽ De la Fuente wants more from Spain | Mail Tom

One of the best players in the world right now is Raphinha and Sid Lowe sat down with him about life at Barca, read here:

The Premier League may be on an international break but there are some English domestic games happening this weekend in the Women’s Super League. There are some big matches too with two derbies.

Charlton Athletic v Manchester City, Saturday, 1.30pm

London City Lionesses v Brighton, Saturday, 5pm

Manchester United v West Ham, Sunday, 1pm

Birmingham City v Crystal Palace, Sunday, 2pm

Liverpool v Everton, Sunday, 2pm

Tottenham v Aston Villa, Sunday, 2pm

Chelsea v Arsenal, Sunday, 4.30pm

All the latest on a crucial day of Championship action
Warks blow through Leics | The Spin | Mail James

Surrey are 378-8 in Taunton with the non bat owning Dan Worrall at the crease alongside Adam Thomas. Lofty heights.

Worrall does own a guitar though, I saw some clips of him strumming away on the boundary edge yesterday with just a hint of David Brent/gap year campfire energy...

• Four leagues says Fifa governance ‘not fit for purpose’

• They criticise ‘expansionism’ and want more input

The Premier League has joined forces with La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga to call for urgent governance reform at Fifa after the World Cup sell-off debacle (FFE) as Gianni Infantino prepares to seek a fourth term as president.

Their strongly worded statement is the latest indication that Infantino’s willingness to hold an external governance review does not go far enough, after the Guardian revealed that several Fifa Council members had rejected that proposal.

A week after Canada ended their winning run, England’s World Cup winners face a New Zealand team aiming to inflict more pain at Twickenham

A wounded animal is the most dangerous. The Red Roses might not have lost to Canada last Saturday but they did not win either, for the first time since 2022. England’s 40-game unbeaten streak continues with a blemish and when things do not go to plan they usually respond with a dominant swing.

Despite adding defence specialist Shaun Edwards as a coaching consultant earlier this week, the Tests do not get easier. This Saturday they face the team who last made them taste defeat in the World Cup final four years ago, the Black Ferns.

The appointment of England white-ball teams’ specialist mentor has divided opinion but the man himself says he is loving being back in the dressing room

Kevin Pietersen insisted he is a “completely different” person these days as he sat down at Headingley – the ground where he declared “it’s tough being me in this dressing room” 14 years earlier – and spoke at length about his role as the new “specialist mentor” to England’s white-ball teams.

In the aftermath of a 16-run loss to Sri Lanka that sends this late summer one-day series into an Oval decider on Sunday, Pietersen also revealed that while not full-time – “I’ll be in and out” – his input may not be restricted to the challenge of winning the 50-over World Cup in South Africa next year. A home Ashes comes before that, the series that launched his career back in 2005, and discussions with Stephen Fleming, the incoming Test coach, and Joe Root have already taken place.

• Updates from the first of two games in Queensland

• Any thoughts? Get in touch with an email

Brazil might be looking to refresh their squad after their World Cup disappointment but there is still more than enough star power to light up any stage. Barcelona and Brazil forward Raphinha is one of the biggest stars of the lot, and will help lead the line against the Socceroos in Townsville. The No 9 spoke to Sid Lowe about embracing his new role as a leader of the team and the focal point of the attack.

What kind of leader [I am] depends on the moment. If I have to be slightly tougher, I can. But I prefer nicer moments, jokes. The last two years have been spectacular so I haven’t had to be the pesado [pain in the arse] often. I know that annoys people but someone has to do it sometimes.

Very honoured and proud to be in this position [playing Brazil]. I enjoyed it as a player thoroughly, enjoying it as a coach, and as I did at the World Cup and tonight, we have a huge challenge against one the world’s best.

We [Carlo Ancelotti] have caught up a few days ago in Brisbane. He’s just a fantastic man and obviously one of the world’s greatest managers. He’s done so much in his career and won so many titles I’m sure he doesn’t have enough room at home with all the trophies he’s won. So it’ll an honour and a pleasure to share the pitch with him.

Spain have won back-to-back major tournaments, but there is still one more to go to draw equal with feted team of 2008-2012

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Luis de la Fuente said. “As soon as the game finished on 19 July, before anyone had cooled down at all, just two or three minutes after the final, one of the players – and you’ll have to forgive me for not telling you which one, but it was one of those who has been with us for the longest time – came up to me and said: ‘Mister, now what? What’s left to win?’ And I said: ‘Bloody hell, the game against England at Wembley on 26 September.’”

It was a Friday afternoon at Las Rozas and Spain’s coach had just named his first squad since that day in New Jersey. It was a familiar one, full of history makers. Of the 26 from the World Cup, only four had been left out and there was an explanation for each: Marcos Llorente has announced his international retirement; Joan García is injured; Borja Iglesias, who always felt the likeliest to leave first, is not fully fit; and Gavi is suspended for Wembley, although he could have faced Croatia and Czechia.

The Uzbeks, including world championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov, won their first seven matches before a surprise loss to Germany

After eight of the 11 rounds in the 400-team Olympiad in Samarkand, the host team Uzbekistan share the lead in the race for the gold medals, despite a round eight loss to co-leaders Germany and scope for more upsets in the remaining three rounds.

England have lost twice, first to the No 2 seeds India, then in a shock against Uzbekistan’s second team, while England women have performed well, with 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan beaten only once on top board.

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey says persistently high oil and gas prices would make it hard to resist pressure to raise interest rates

• Capital gains tax: how it works, and the pros and cons of another rise

TalkTalk is scrambling to secure its future amid the threat of administration, closing in on deals to sell its consumer and broadband arms as it seeks to save 900 jobs.

The telecoms company said on Friday it is in the final stages of sealing deals to sell its consumer business as well as its wholesale operation, PXC.

The pope is set to deliver a landmark speech on AI development and discuss Europe’s future

Later today, Pope Leo will go to the Élysée Palace for (another) formal welcome and a meeting with authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps, before visiting Unesco and delivering a speech on AI in mid-afternoon.

He is then expected to go on a stroll through the streets of Paris, before going to the restored Notre Dame Cathedral.

Chinese president’s proposals for lessening tensions come amid period of intense competition between the two countries over AI and trade

Xi Jinping has called for extensive cooperation with Washington to avoid the “Thucydides trap” that could put the US and China on a military collision course amid rising tensions over artificial intelligence, trade and Taiwan.

At the start of his summit meeting with Donald Trump in the White House, the Chinese president laid out terms for a mutual understanding that he said could steer the two competing superpowers away from future military conflict and on to a road of mutual gain.

Xi is expected to depart Washington after touring the nation’s vault of records, where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are held

• Sign up for US Breaking News emails

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump is taking Chinese president Xi Jinping to visit the National Archives later today, showing off the sacred texts of US democracy to the leader of the world’s most powerful communist country.

Donald Trump welcomed Xi Jinping to the White House for a state dinner in honor of the Chinese leader that was not televised because the White House continued to deny full access to the event to CNN journalists on Thursday, despite a court order.

Writing on his social media platform, Trump complained that two of the three outlets he banned from the White House, CNN and MS Now, “refused to cover” his elaborate welcome of Xi to the White House. He did not mention that the two broadcasters were not in position to cover the event live because his own actions and those of his aides, who continued to block their reporters.

As Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked him at the UN, New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, doubled down on his support for Palestinians by making public video of himself hosting Palestinian families from Gaza.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic socialist congressional candidate from New York, was among dozens of activists arrested near the United Nations on Thursday at a protest against Netanyahu’s appearance organized by Jewish Voice for Peace.

The Trump administration used taxpayer funds to air a White House-produced, pro-Trump ad on Fox News this week.

After the available money ran out after just six hours, some fear they will have to reverse efforts to boost nature

On Tuesday morning, farmer Peter Hatley logged on to his computer at 10am. England’s 2026 sustainable farming incentive (SFI) was opening for applicants and, after three bad harvests, the money would be a lifeline.

But Hatley, who runs a 240-hectare family farm in Cambridgeshire, was faced with repeated error messages. He called the government’s helpline, which he says acknowledged there were problems with the scheme, but says by the time the problem was fixed, the money had gone.

Area’s second-most intense hurricane on record being fuelled by exceptionally warm Pacific waters

Hurricane Polo is barreling towards the Baja California region of Mexico, the latest system in a Pacific hurricane season that has been notably active in recent months. On 22 September, a measurement of 892 millibars was registered for Hurricane Polo, making it the second-most intense hurricane on record in the east Pacific. It is fuelled by exceptionally warm waters across the Pacific Ocean, providing favourable conditions for the system to maintain its considerable strength.

Polo is expected to turn towards the west-north-west, before taking a more north-westerly trajectory on Saturday. It has maximum sustained winds of around 150mph, with even stronger gusts occurring within the most intense parts of the hurricane. Hurricane-force winds extend outward for approximately 40 miles from the centre, while tropical storm-force winds reach as far as 125 miles. These powerful winds, combined with torrential rainfall and dangerous seas, could have significant impacts. Although some fluctuations in intensity are possible over the coming days, Polo is expected to remain powerful as it tracks north-westwards.

At Roland Garros airport on Réunion island, the ceiling design funnels a light tropical breeze into the terminal

At the arrivals terminal at Roland Garros airport on Réunion island, visitors are greeted by floor-to-ceiling windows framing the lush green mountains of the French Indian Ocean territory.

What they may have also expected was the icy chill of air conditioning; this island just off Madagascar sits in the tropical zone to the south of the equator. But instead, the terminal is cooled by a light tropical breeze, the result of natural ventilation built into its unique design.

Prediction markets are focusing on extreme weather and the climate crisis. But it’s led to questions about what exactly people are betting on

• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

How hot will it get in your nearest city tomorrow? How quickly will the planet’s ice melt and its corals die off? How many huge, costly climate disasters will hit this year? If you’re inclined to do so, you can now place online bets on how the weather and the broader, longer-term climate crisis will play out.

In the US, big online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are considering a new area of growth beyond mere sport and crypto: the climate itself. Kalshi recently reported 500% growth in weather and climate wagers over the past year, taking the market to a $1.1bn, and is now partnering with the Weather Company, which owns the Weather Channel, to boost its credibility in this new arena.

Huge El Niño projected to cause more than 450,000 deaths by February

‘Planetary boundaries’ necessary for flourishing of life have been massively breached, scientists warn

British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it | Andy Burnham

Officers left feeling ‘hamstrung’, says Mark Rowley after offender allowed to return to flat overlooking playground

Pressure to cut the number of prisoners on remand has led to “dangerous and prolific offenders” being granted bail, the country’s most senior police officer said after a paedophile was allowed to return to his flat that overlooked a children’s playground.

Zafer Dogan was jailed on Thursday for two years and four months after he was convicted of taking thousands of pictures of women and girls before using AI technology to turn them into nude images for his sexual gratification.

Datacentre hailed by government was supposed to start operating next year but may be held back into mid-2030s

A huge datacentre project hailed by the UK government will miss its launch date next year and could be delayed into the mid-2030s.

The site in Loughton, Essex, was described as the country’s largest AI supercomputer when it was announced in 2025, but power supply problems mean it now faces a lengthy wait before coming online.

• Carroll was assaulted by a man at his home while he slept

• Attacker found guilty of sexual offences after player testified

The former England forward Andy Carroll has revealed in his autobiography he was sexually assaulted by a man in 2021. The 37-year-old included the details in his book, Owning It. As a victim of sexual assault, Carroll was automatically granted anonymity.

Carroll revealed the incident took place at his home during a second spell at Newcastle. The offender – a friend of his former partner, who was staying away at the time – was later jailed for three years, with Carroll having testified in court.

Unions say record high of nearly 25,000, including assaults on rail workers and public, shows need for more staff and policing

• Tell us: have you been assaulted on Great Britain’s railways?

The number of reported assaults on Great Britain’s railways has risen by a fifth to a record high of almost 25,000 incidents in a year.

Unions said the “horrendous” figures showed the need for more staff and policing, as the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) revealed a sharp increase in assaults on the travelling public and on railway staff last year.

Plans to modernise ‘Paris’s ugliest building’ at a standstill after clashes over plans and pricing

It has been called a carbuncle on the Paris skyline, a sombre skyscraper where visitors to its viewing platform often joke that the city looks better when you can’t see the building itself.

But the much-maligned Tour Montparnasse, a lone, dark monolith with tinted windows rising above a historic neighbourhood in the south of the city, is once again at the centre of controversy after its long-awaited renovation was halted this week because of disagreements between its many private co-owners.

The ⁠Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said the missiles were ⁠aimed at Taif and the Yanbu area on the Red Sea, the main alternative route for Saudi oil

Saudi Arabia says it intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, with the latest attacks pushing oil prices ⁠to a one-week high over fears of spiralling supply disruptions.

The ⁠Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said the missiles were ⁠aimed at Taif in western Saudi ​Arabia and the Yanbu area on the Red Sea, with the Houthis claiming their attacks were aimed at “a sensitive target” in the capital Riyadh and on Saudi Aramco facilities in Tanbu.

Country says US must lift sanctions on its oil exports and end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon

Iran said it has told Donald Trump it is willing to open the strait of Hormuz in six days, and to start talks on its nuclear program the day after, so long as the US lifts sanctions on Iran’s oil exports in return, ends the war on all fronts – including in Lebanon – and releases some of Iran’s frozen assets.

The proposal is designed to accelerate the steps first laid down in the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran in June, particularly by helping the talks on Iran’s nuclear program start much more quickly than previously agreed.

A TV spot claims the US president is trying to sway October’s presidential vote in favour of Lula’s far-right opponents

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign has accused Donald Trump of wanting to “colonise” Brazil in order to capture its natural resources by meddling in next month’s presidential election.

The accusation came in a campaign advert that was published on social media on Thursday night by Lula’s team and will air on television on Friday amid growing fears over the impact alleged US interference could have on the vote.

Warning from union comes as corporation cuts local specialist correspondent roles as part of plan to save £500m

The BBC has been warned it risks entering a “doom spiral” of endless cuts and weaker public support for its services, as insiders anticipate the imminent closure of some TV and radio services.

Morale at the corporation is said to be extremely low as a series of cuts are slowly revealed to staff. In the latest announcement, the BBC said it would be reducing the number of local specialist correspondent roles.

UK watchdog fined video app in 2023 for failing to enforce minimum age limit and remove underage users

TikTok will pay a £12.7m fine to the UK’s data watchdog after dropping an appeal against a ruling that it did not do enough to keep children below the age of 13 off the platform.

The video app was punished by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2023 for inadequate checks of who was using the platform, and failing to remove underage users.

Treasury sources concede ‘less room’ for manoeuvre as global bond selloff also hikes government’s borrowing costs

• International bodies warn of rising debt and borrowing risks

• Burnham stands by claim UK is ‘in hock’ to bond markets

Oil prices lurched upwards again on Thursday, creating a growing headache for UK policymakers ahead of John Healey’s budget next month.

While Healey has been keen to present an upbeat picture of the UK’s economic prospects, Treasury sources concede the sharp jump in oil and gas prices means they have “less room” than a month ago.

Firm unveils further cost-cutting plan including job losses, blaming poor summer sales of private homes

Vistry Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has cut its annual profit expectations after half-year losses ballooned as it grappled with a £600m pile of unsold homes.

Adam Daniel, the new chief executive of the Bovis Homes and Countryside owner, insisted “the issues can be fixed” as he set out a detailed turnaround plan that involves pulling out of private sales in south-east England and slimming operations to turn Vistry into a more focused, 12,000-homes-a-year builder.

Catherine Corless’s exposure of almost 800 infant deaths at a home led by nuns prompted Neeson to bring the story to screen

Liam Neeson still remembers his shock and shame when he read a New York Times article about the mother and baby institution in Tuam, County Galway.

It was 2017 and the article chronicled the campaign by Catherine Corless, an amateur local historian, to expose abuse and neglect by Irish nuns that led to hundreds of children being buried in a mass, unmarked grave.

One year into the role, the Royal Opera’s music director is taking on the challenge of Parsifal, and, next season, the Ring Cycle. I’m here, and I am courageous says the conductor

‘You can choose the cautious option – or you can take the full risk and just go and conduct. Maybe I would like the cautious option, but I never choose it.” Jakub Hrůša learned to trust his instincts at the Royal Opera House back in 2022 when he conducted his first ever Wagner opera – Lohengrin – there, describing the experience as “one of the absolute highlights of my life”. Now he’s a year into his role as the house’s music director and about to conduct his first Parsifal, staged by Evgeny Titov. And next season there’ll be yet more Wagner firsts when he conducts complete cycles of the Ring as staged by Barrie Kosky. For most conductors, this would be a gradual process, adding the four Ring operas to their repertoire one by one, but not for Hrůša: he’ll be conducting his first Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung all in the space of a week.

“Is it too bold? I find it wonderful!” he says. “I could have chosen to do it in my own way, in 10 years’ time, somewhere else – but I’m here, I’m the music director, the Ring should be done and wants to be done in its entirety, and I am courageous.”

Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder’s slasher spectacular, and Charli xcx’s mockumentary about her Brat summer. Plus, Sydney Sweeney’s immaculate conception

In her previous two movies, indie director Jane Schoenbrun explored the uncanny spaces we inhabit between the internet, TV and our daily lives. For her dark and delirious new drama, she delves into movies and their unsettling hold on us. Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder plays Kris, an up-and-coming queer film-maker hired to reboot Camp Miasma, a “problematic” Friday the 13th-style slasher horror franchise. For research, she visits the original’s reclusive star, Billy (Gillian Anderson), who, bizarrely, lives in the film’s abandoned summer camp location. As the women get closer, reality and Camp Miasma’s grisly fiction start to blur in a giddy, psychosexual blowout.
Friday 2 October, Mubi

The drama series continues with an ill-fated camping trip. Plus: Graham Norton’s chatshow returns with Tom Cruise. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 5

Florence Pugh shines as the icy sociopath at the heart of the Steinbeck classic, plus Catherine Zeta-Jones plays an international cocaine dealer in a truly bananas thriller

“A girl like that doesn’t just fall out of the sky.” Charles Trask has a bad feeling about Cathy Ames, the woman who has arrived, beaten almost to death, on the doorstep of the farm he shares with his brother Adam. But it’s too late – Adam is smitten and therefore doomed. Zoe Kazan is behind this adaptation of John Steinbeck’s study of family, free will and arbitrary evil. Her new twist is a closer focus on Cathy (played with icy sweetness by Florence Pugh). She’s a more ambiguous figure here: not a purely sociopathic destroyer of lives but instead a ruthless survivor at all costs. The script doesn’t always do the ideas justice but there’s still plenty to like.
Netflix, from Thursday 1 October

TV heads hope the revamped show – back after four decades – will win over parents seeking quality shows amid concerns about addictive online content

For the generations who grew up watching Humpty, Jemima and Big Ted, the mere mention of the BBC’s Play School evokes a pang of childhood nostalgia.

The show, which featured much-loved presenters such as Floella Benjamin and Johnny Ball, became synonymous with wholesome children’s television during its run of more than 20 years on air.

Every one of the Grammy-nominated Floridian’s songs reveal a different side of him. His latest album, Roadrunner, is all languid reggae basslines and come-hither lyricism

From Tampa, Florida
Recommended if you like Kwn, Tyla, Odeal
Up next Performing in Dallas, Texas, 1 November

Destin Conrad has had a busy couple of years: three albums, one Grammy nomination and a string of collaborations with fellow R&B up-and-comers such as Bellah and Nia Smith. Pick any record and you’ll hear a different side of the 26-year-old. His spring 2025 debut Love on Digital pays its dues to the genre that raised him while swerving derivative cliches with small production quirks – a vocal glitch here, a skittering Jersey beat there. Last summer’s Whimsy is a sprawling alt-jazz album that was written in two weeks, inspired by his time in a high-school jazz choir. A year later, Roadrunner arrived as a celebration of his Jamaican roots and queer identity – all languid reggae basslines, gyrating dancehall rhythms, drinks-in-the-air swagger and come-hither lyricism.

(Def Jam)
After five EPs in in seven years, the Dallas native with the big voice pours everything into this bonkers cauldron of maximalist R&B and hyperactive pop

There is so, so much happening on Jae Stephens’ debut album Audacity. Thankfully, it seems like mess is her medium. Although the 29-year-old Dallas native is often sold as a big voice – and she undoubtedly does have a big voice – her debut album has more in common with hyperactive, magnetic records such as PinkPantheress’s Fancy That or Salute’s True Magic: recent albums whose need for speed and sweetly toned maximalism fostered an irrepressible sense of personality.

Stephens is an apt case study of a career in the contemporary pop industry: she started writing, producing and performing alone in her room, and dropped a whopping five EPs in the seven years before Audacity’s release. She has written with a host of pop also-rans and, inexplicably, hosts a music interview podcast. But listening to Audacity forces me into that age-old cliche: why isn’t this artist a bigger star?

(Freedom to Spend)
Far from her conventional 60s and 70s hits, Tanega joined up with a friend for an endearingly eccentric ‘rap opera’ spanning swampy synths and sardonic showtunes

Perhaps you know Norma Tanega for her chirpy 60s folk pop, such as Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog, which charted in the US and Canada. Or perhaps you know her swooning ballads from the 70s, which have had a streaming-aided resurgence in popularity. Lesser known are her wonky, nocturnal keyboard and drum machine experiments, recorded between the late 80s and early 90s with friend and writer Aida Pavletich. Together, the pair produced a trio of tapes on a four-track in Tanega’s home studio, which are now being reissued.

The first of the three, Saturday Dancer, is billed as a “rap opera”, which gives a sense of the album’s theatrical tone, if not the genre. Over 19 scuzzy and shapeshifting vignettes, the duo narrate a noirish night out on the town, from stripteases and sticky tables to the dread that seeps in when the lights come on – with some frankly bizarre tangents. The lo-fi instrumentals are suitably delirious, with clattering, likely improvised percussion and eerie synths lurking somewhere between strange and seductive.

Bonnet/Dutrieux/Czech Philharmonic/Vasilek
(Animal Music)
Honegger’s multifaceted 1935 composition about the French saint is brought to life in spine-tingling detail by Lukáš Vasilek, the Czech Philharmonic and actors and musicians

Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher is a neglected masterpiece. Composed in 1935 to a text by Paul Claudel, it reviews the French saint’s life in flashback as she awaits execution. Eleven episodes explore her physical and mental trials, with actors playing Jeanne and her confidant Frère Dominique alongside a cast of solo singers and full chorus. Honegger’s score blends medieval modes and folk melody with Stravinskian neoclassicism and jazz, while his eclectic orchestration includes three saxophones, pianos and the eerie wail of the ondes Martenot.

This new recording gets everything right. Lukáš Vasilek directs the Czech Philharmonic in a dramatically nuanced and scrupulously engineered account. Set pieces land body blows. Jeanne’s examination before a tribunal of anthropomorphic animals sizzles with faux-Hollywood fanfares and a scabrous comedic energy. Kyle van Schoonhoven has fun as Porcus, the pig elected to preside over her trial. The game of cards, where blase English and French nobility use her as a bargaining chip, is razor-sharp. The Prague Philharmonic Choir and Children’s Choir are splendidly muscular. Hovering over it all are Jeanne’s otherworldly voices – the Virgin, Sainte Catherine and Sainte Marguerite – captured here in spine-tingling detail.

Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley; The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett; Cold Sunset by William Boyd; The Occidental Book of the Dead by T Geronimo Johnson and The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins, £22)
This, the first Miss Marple continuation novel, must have been a more difficult undertaking than a new Hercule Poirot; furnished by Christie with a cartoonist’s worth of exaggerated traits, the Belgian detective is surely easier to bring off the page than the unassuming but observant elderly spinster. Foley makes a commendable attempt, removing Miss Marple from the postwar austerity of St Mary Mead to the comparative luxury of the Swiss Alps. Although we are introduced to the unnamed body in the gondola cabin at the start, an immediate backward shift for a two-day lead-up means Miss Marple has little actual detecting to do until about halfway through the proceedings. Employing four narrators rather dilutes things, as well as necessitating a considerable amount of Murder of Roger Ackroyd-style withholding of information, but Foley’s Miss M shows her true colours when – of course – the hotel gets cut off from the outside world, and provides a solution worthy of the Queen of Crime herself.

The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett (Viper, £20)
Bestseller Hallett’s latest novel reunites us with amateur dramatic group the Fairway Players, first encountered in her debut novel, The Appeal. This time the play is The Hollow, dramatised by Agatha Christie from her novel of the same name, and, as before, lawyers Charlotte and Femi are called upon to review the mountain of emails, online messages and police reports through which the story is told, in order to figure out exactly what happened. All we know at the start is that “a brutal murder was committed” and Hallett slowly but expertly ratchets up the tension as clashes over casting, power plays, marital suspicions and distrust of newcomers create an entire gallery of potential murderers and murderees. The epistolatory method may not be for everyone, but Hallett excels at the form – these missives are variously funny, sinister, heartfelt and thoroughly human in their relatable pettiness – and the plot is well up to her usual standard.

The pop star emerges as a great unifier in this in-depth yet heartfelt portrait of an Aussie icon

‘There’s an anxiety in declaring oneself a Kylie fan,” wrote the late San Francisco poet Kevin Killian (who nonetheless once published an entire collection devoted to the singer). Despite her remarkable longevity, with record-breaking chart success across five decades, Kylie’s place in the pop firmament has often felt more precarious than that of other artists, perhaps because of her past as a soap star, and the schmaltz of some of her early material with Stock Aitken Waterman.

But she has always displayed a canny self-awareness, alongside a willingness to push the envelope. It’s evident in her knowing rendition of I Should Be So Lucky as a bad poem at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996, and her many collaborations with experimental dance producers. Then there’s her instinct for giving fans what they want: inarguable bangers, like those of her 2000s imperial phase, that also possess an offbeat, idiosyncratic quality, true of Can’t Get You Out of My Head and of her 2023 viral hit, Padam Padam.

The earl on his globally lauded eulogy for Diana, King Charles’s sausage fingers and toxic Raine, topped off with a lavish sprinkling of adverbs

Cheers were heard up and down the land. Halley’s comet made an unscheduled appearance in the ethereal night sky. In very heaven, angelic choirs rang out. A saviour had been born. A light to lighten the world. But enough about me. For this paragraph at least.

In my universally acclaimed funeral address, I aimed to speak for my sister. The real Diana. For only I truly knew her. She had the heart of a lion. And I had a glut of cliches. Yet when Diana had swept so triumphantly into the arena of royal life, I was but a callow youth awash with hormones and gripped by the self-centredness of adolescence. Nothing much has changed. Yet I know, with all my heart, that Diana would have wanted me to tell our story.

At 400-plus pages, Moriarty’s follow-up is too long and offers too little reward, with menopause, vaping teens and even a stalker failing to raise the stakes

Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies was such a runaway success – debuting at No 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and adapted for a television miniseries starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Zoë Kravitz – that she always had her work cut out for her if she was to return the fluctuating narrative back to the page. Recognising this hurdle, Moriarty opens the sequel (her first) with a note to readers that details the way the new novel both responds to its TV adaptation – by making Laura Dern’s Renata and Meryl Streep’s Mary-Louise more central characters – and returns readers to the original landscape, the fictional Pirriwee Peninsula along Sydney’s northern beaches.

Moriarty immediately situates the reader back in Australia: a magpie swoops “like a missile” at an unsuspecting cyclist against a backdrop of “bright yellow native wattle” and “lush-purple” jacarandas. Time has passed, in both the real and fictional world. It has been 12 years since the 2014 publication of Big Little Lies, and the sweet kindergarteners at the heart of the original are teenagers now, with mothers in the midst of menopause. The idyllic setting is shattered when a severed human finger is posted to the local high school, setting the scene for a sequel packed with all the intrigue, drama and suspense of the first.

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

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

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

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

• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

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

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

PlayStation 5 (version played), PC; Screen Burn
Tragedy, and an apocalyptic fog, befall a fishing community. It is up to outsider Simon to offer some kind of closure

You spend a considerable portion of Silent Hill: Townfall in a kind of foetal position, cowering behind objects that will be eerily familiar to anyone who lived in the UK during the 1990s. Cars seem to be modelled on the era’s boxy Volkswagen Golfs; logos adorning phone boxes should narrowly escape the attention of copyright lawyers at BT Group. (For millennials, the deja vu will likely intensify the horror, as if stepping back into a childhood nightmare.) Simon, the nerdy, unassuming star of the game, pokes his head around corners to catch a glimpse of the demonic entities that wish to maim him, before shrinking back down again with a downwards motion of the analogue stick. In such moments, it’s easy to imagine him wrapping his arms around his knees, clasping his eyes shut and wishing himself away from this place.

The game’s setting, St Amelia, is based on the fishing communities of the East Neuk of Fife. The terror lurking here is wonderfully specific: absent lairds, island poverty, an oil-drilling corporation. Anguished beasts lumber down quaint streets lined with sandstone houses and fluttering bunting. This venerable horror series may have shifted to Scotland, yet we remain firmly in classic Silent Hill territory – weather and all. St Amelia finds itself suffused in supernatural fog and the vast majority of its inhabitants have vanished following some kind of mass tragedy. The artful, evocative presentation is such that you can almost taste the in-game air, the briny seaside tang diluted by rainy mist.

PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC; Remedy
A surprisingly conventional game from a famously weird developer, this sequel to 2019’s Control is accomplished but safe

This is an arthouse action game from Finnish developer Remedy, masters of exactly this type of thing. It’s a sequel, however, so not only must it clear the high bar that its strikingly distinctive predecessor has set – it must also ideally arrive with a bushel of new ideas. There are clear and valuable strengths here in character progression and the lustrous presentation of its paranormal world, but Resonant doesn’t feel as enjoyably recondite or expansive in its influences as 2019’s Control did. As you wander New York brandishing supernatural abilities against glowing orange foes, the sad sense creeps in that you might be playing any number of games.

As paranormal event survivor Jesse Faden, your journey through the original Control was like a sequence of playable Twilight Zone episodes, battling prosaic household objects with supernatural properties that teased and twisted reality inside an endlessly fascinating supernatural government bureau called the Oldest House. You’d navigate architecturally impossible spaces bridging the subconscious and the bricks-and-mortar world, in order to defeat a malevolent fridge. That’s broadly true again in Resonant, albeit with diminishing returns. This time you’re playing as Jesse’s brother Dylan, waking up after years of containment in the Oldest House to find its contents have escaped into downtown Manhattan. So you head out of the interesting place, and into a setting you’ve explored before in Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Division, Max Payne, and others ad infinitum.

Korean art rewinds 2,000 years, Kentridge enters another dimension and Rodinesque ghosts make a bid for art’s most prestigious gong – all in your weekly dispatch

Turner prize
Kira Freije creates a waste land peopled by Rodinesque ghosts in the machine, Simeon Barclay meditates on masculinity, Tanoa Sasraku takes on big oil and Marguerite Humeau gets lost in wonderland in the most exciting Turner prize in years.
• MIMA, Middlesbrough, from26 September until 29 March

Theatre by the Lake, Keswick
Inspired by Helen Rebanks’ bestselling memoir, Hannah Khalil’s play foregrounds the women holding everything together

While anthropologists have made links between farming and the rise of patriarchal social structures, it’s impossible to deny the role that women have historically played in the agricultural workforce. In The Farmer’s Wife, Hannah Khalil’s new play inspired by Helen Rebanks’ bestselling memoir of the same name, men are entirely absent from the narrative. The focus, instead, is squarely on the women quietly holding everything together – who are usually anonymous and often unseen.

The story follows three generations of women living on a family farm, their unrelenting daily workload drawing attention to the cracks that exist in a system entrenched in tradition and routine. The trio of women, simply referred to as Young, Older and Oldest, are played tenaciously by Eireann Devlin, Christine Entwisle and Roberta Kerr respectively. They hold both the heaviness and joy of an existence rooted in the land, which can be unforgiving, particularly in the context of a rapidly changing world.

Spike Island, Bristol
Inspired by the shacks and sheds of the American south, Buchanan’s exceptional sculptures combine folk art and minimalism to memorialise the survival of enslaved people

When she was a kid, Beverly Buchanan visited tenant farmers and sharecroppers across the American south-east with her dad. There in the fields she saw shacks and sheds, shanties and shotgun houses. More than 100 years after the abolition of slavery, she saw in this rough improvised architecture a symbol of survival and perseverance, of a people making their own way against the odds.

Buchanan spent the rest of her life – a life marked by multiple chronic illnesses before she died in 2015 – translating that architectural heft into art. This show at Spike Island is filled with ramshackle, half-broken, semi-dilapidated little sculptures, each one based on the buildings of the south. There are houses made of scrap wood, churches made of cardboard, tiny barns hammered together and splashed with paint or covered with buttons. The one large sculpture here is great, a shed seemingly on the verge of collapse, but Buchanan’s physical condition forced her to work on a smaller scale as she was often stuck at home for long periods.

Rose theatre, Kingston upon Thames
A rag puppet Montmorency, a fake moustache and an aria for reeking cheese add to the mischief of Jerome K Jerome’s very English story

Back from Lib Dem conference, Ed Davey watched this adaptation in his Kingston constituency of Jerome K Jerome’s novella about a trio of late Victorian gents rowing the Thames accompanied by fox terrier Montmorency. Might the up-for-fun politician suddenly drop on to the stage in a Scooby-Doo suit?

He didn’t, although Christopher Haydon’s perky production features one actor making an applause-winning entrance from an improbable location. This version is also certainly more liberal and democratic than the 1889 text whose language has often dated in meaning or propriety.

Ahead of a greatest hits tour, original members Spider Stacy and James Fearnley will join us to answer your questions

When Shane MacGowan died in 2023, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether the Pogues could carry on, given what a singular frontman he was – and given the band had been dormant since 2014. But grounded by original members James Fearnley, Jem Finer and Spider Stacy, the Pogues have been playing hugely acclaimed reunion gigs in recent years with various guests sitting in for MacGowan – and as they go on a greatest hits tour around the UK this autumn, Fearnley and Stacy will be joining us to answer your questions.

The Pogues’ history stretches back to the late 70s when MacGowan, Stacy and Finer played together in London; Fearnley, meanwhile, was a member of MacGowan’s punk band the Nips. The Pogues eventually formed in 1982, investing the traditional music of their Irish heritage with the energy of the city’s punk scene.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor answers your questions on being confused with James Nesbitt, his own Sliding Doors moment and a new perspective since turning 60

How often do you get asked to recite that WH Auden poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral, and can you do it from memory right now? mattyjj and simoit
Not for a long time. I could probably do the first couple of lines: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone / Turn out the lights? And with muffled drums / Something, something … let the mourners come. There you go. Terrible!

In Steve Coogan’s Paul Calf’s Video Diary, your character praises Orson Welles’ The Trial for its “tremendous energy”, while Paul says he would “rather watch Dave Lee Travis playing Macbeth”. What’s your actual opinion of The Trial [by Franz Kafka]? AdrianH1
God, it’s a long time since I’ve read that. I read a lot of those books in my younger days, but probably, like a lot of people, even those who are graduates of English literature, I’d be hard pushed these days to tell you what it was about, other than the persecution of some minor character.

Irish rock legends’ 16th studio album, described by the Edge as ‘a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs’, to arrive in November

U2 have officially announced their first album of new material in nearly a decade, entitled Carnaval de Luz, to be released on 13 November.

Closing out the album’s 12 tracks is Torn, the final recorded performance by Dolly Parton, who duets with Bono on a song described in press materials as “a tender country song detailing broken family ties, that holds wider resonances”. Parton died aged 80 on 25 August.

The French photographer and actor’s deep love of Harlem and the Bronx was so strong it led to her being invited to gang apartments, child boxing matches and even a stranger’s wedding

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

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

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

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

• Your favourite secondhand finds

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

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

Whether it’s streamlining shoes or being strict with toiletries, we asked the experts for the home organisation hacks they swear by

• How to get rid of household clutter – without sending it to landfill

Few things conjure a sense of achievement quite like a clearout or bringing order to that cupboard of doom you’ve been ignoring for months. But how best to tackle this beast of a job?

To help you make a start, we asked professional organisers and declutterers for their tips and tricks, as well as the products they recommend to help streamline the areas everyone struggles with. From never buying round storage containers to getting the kids to help tidy up, these are the solutions they swear by.

A new smartphone needn’t cost a fortune. From Samsung, Google, Apple and more, these are the lower-cost models we rate most – and how to buy a refurbished handset

• How to make your smartphone last longer

Buying a flagship phone in 2026 makes little sense unless you’re really going to use all the features at hand. By comparison, the budget smartphone market has come on leaps and bounds in the past few years, and you can now get most of the features you’d want, including a high-quality OLED screen and a well-performing chipset, all for a reasonable price.

There’s more choice than ever for shoppers who don’t want to spend too much on their next upgrade, but many models simply aren’t worth your time. That’s where this guide comes into play. I’ve tested the latest models and pinpointed the nine best budget phones available right now – all you have to do is pick the one that best suits your needs.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The retired diver talks scrapbooking, cheap chargers, and trouser fails with the Filter

• How I Shop with Laura Jackson

Tom Daley OBE is a retired professional diver who has won five Olympic medals, including gold at Tokyo 2020. Since retiring from competitive diving, he has hosted Channel 4’s Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter, while continuing to share his passion for knitting and crafts through his Made With Love brand and YouTube channel. He is married to US screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and the pair have two children.

***

These old-school classic treats may struggle for attention among today’s more Instagram-worthy cardamon buns, but they’re simple to make and divine to devour

Belgian buns are among a dying breed of bakes, forgotten about in favour of pretty cinnamon and cardamom buns and creative laminated doughs. I’d love to see more of these old-school, classic treats in bakeries, not least because they’re really simple to make. There are no twists or extra frills, just soft, buttery dough swirled with lemon curd and juicy sultanas. The icing glaze and cherry on top are essential, though, for maximum eating pleasure.

In which a UK coffee lover, long devoted to her moka pot, tiptoes gingerly into the world of coffee-derived drink products

My family has benefited hugely from charities that support healthcare, so it is with extra zeal that I’ll be drinking coffee with a slice of cake tomorrow to mark this year’s Macmillan Coffee Morning. In anticipation, I’ve been tasting some coffee-flavoured drinks.

I should preface this by saying that, when it comes to coffee, I am a creature of habit and, almost 30 years into my relationship with the stuff, I know what I like: short-ish, strong, preferably made in a moka pot and only a tiny splash of milk. I’m less faithful to brands, though I do rate Union’s House Roast, which is bold, crowdpleasing, not too bitter and sold in most big supermarkets. Much as my partner has tried to seduce me to the trendy charms of filter coffee, this leopard can’t seem to change her spots.

The weather is in transition, so here are some dishes to bridge the gap between crisp salads and hearty stews

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

The weather in London can’t quite make up its mind. You leave the house in the morning and immediately wish you’d brought gloves, but by lunchtime you’re carrying your jacket under your arm, and by dinner you’re closing the windows again. Summer hasn’t exactly gone, but winter has started sending little reminders that it knows where we live.

We love this time of year. The air feels fresh from the occasional shower, the days are still long enough to make something of, the light is perhaps the most beautiful it will be all year, and, for cycling, it is perfect. There are days when London seems to contain two seasons at once: summer in a sunny spot at lunchtime, winter the moment the sun disappears.

The pastry chef gives autumn’s best ingredients a golden glow-up

I have come to adore what the British autumn brings: beautiful apples, pumpkins, plums and quince galore. These pies not only sing the praises of this bounty, but put them front and centre. I also use ingredients such as piloncillo (a Mexican raw cane sugar), tonka bean (which adds a beautiful fig-leaf flavour) and buckwheat flour (for a wonderfully nutty taste). These aren’t always easy to find, but they are worth the extra effort, taking these bakes to the next level.

Rhonda believes Ned ruins woks. He reckons he has famous chefs on his side. You decide whose argument is in flames

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

He whacks the heat right up, which stains our wok and makes it really hard to wash up

The person doing the cooking is in charge of the temperature – plus a wok is supposed to blacken

Financial pressures suspected to be behind figures showing failed marriages are lasting longer in England and Wales

Couples are putting off divorce because of the cost of living crisis, lawyers have said, after figures showed the average length of a marriage ending in divorce in England and Wales reached a record high last year.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) released figures on Wednesday showing that the average marriage ending in divorce in 2025 lasted for 13 years. This is the longest since records began in 1963 and up from a record low of 8.9 years in 1985.

At 51, I want many more years of a healthy, happy sex life. So I decided to compile my own guide

When I got divorced after 28 years of monogamy, I was excited to be having sex again, but had concerns. I was 48, and the last time I’d been single was in the 90s; terrified of pregnancy and hyperconscious of HIV/Aids, I hadn’t considered condomless intercourse an option back then.

Now, at 51, I’ve been wondering how important barrier protection is for me. Though I haven’t hit menopause, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that “by 45 getting pregnant naturally is unlikely”, and HIV/Aids prevention and treatment have improved significantly in the last three decades.

A Reform politician and an NHS worker had different takes on Nigel Farage, but could they agree on renewable energy or tax policies?

Chris, 42, London

Occupation Electrical supervisor of the maintenance team at an NHS hospital

From a thatched cottage with a green-topped sweeping extension to a lodge-style home in a town that is heaven for foodies

A First Saver account was set up by my mother when the children were born which we planned to use to fund them through university

My mother set up NatWest First Saver accounts for my children when they were born. The accounts are held in trust for when they turn 18 and my parents have paid into them monthly to help fund them through university.

My mother is now in the final stages of Alzheimer’s and I have registered financial power of attorney for her.

In her weekly column for the Guardian, Anna Tims solves readers consumer problems – ranging from the devastating to the ridiculous. She answered your questions on AI chat bots, consumer protection and how companies keep getting away with terrible customer service

TLouis1990 asks: What are your tips for getting the best out of customer service? Are there mistakes we all make that make issues worse?

Anna: I like your question; too often we focus on what customer service agents owe us rather than vice versa. Remain calm and polite is my top tip. That’s not always easy, especially when you feel you are being messed about, but it’s essential. Temper and rudeness is not only unfair on call centre staff, it can backfire on you. Companies may refuse to deal with abusive customers. Occasionally, when I’ve contacted a press office about a reader’s complaint, I’ve been so horrified by transcripts of their treatment of agents that I’ve dropped the case.

When you complain, include all relevant information such as booking references, your address, screenshots of relevant bills or letters to save to-ing and fro-ing. You basically want to ensure that they can identify you quickly on their system and that they have evidence of the problem. If you’re phoning, have all that information at your side. Make a note of who you spoke to and when in case you have to follow up. And be reasonable in terms of timescales and redress. Demands for £500 in compensation when you report a burned Deliveroo may stop you being taken seriously.

Anna: Thank you for your thank you! If you mean companies I’ve dealt with professionally, there was a now defunct utilities company who offered a reader a spa day to help her recover from the stress its blunderings had caused her. Bagcraft, a luggage store in Essex is a stand-out. A customer had ordered two suitcases for a New Year’s holiday. One of them arrived from the manufacturer with a fault. The store owner reordered it and, worried that it would not reach the customer in time, set off the day after Boxing Day on a 820 mile round trip to deliver the cases in person.

Readers often write in to praise Le Creuset for its no-quibble lifetime guarantee which has resurrected the most ancient of steelware. And speaking as a customer, I was amazed when the online plant supplier Primrose informed me that part of my order was unavailable, sent a generous voucher unbidden as an apology and answered my subsequent questions about suitable alternative plants with prompt, personalised responses. And no, they didn’t know I was a journalist!

People in the UK are more interested in oral health than ever - and you can now buy prebiotic toothpastes and brushes that cost up to £600. Yet we remain in the midst of a serious dental crisis

A December 1969 report from the consumer magazine Which? explored a relatively new gadget that, it predicted, many people would be giving as Christmas presents: the electric toothbrush. For those who hadn’t yet seen one, the magazine described it as “not that much different in principle from an ordinary brush – you have a stick with a brush on the end. The difference is that an electric one moves the brush head for you”. Progress indeed.

Nearly six decades on, electric toothbrushes can do a lot more than merely jiggle, offering multiple speeds and movement sensors for real-time tracking of where you’ve brushed – some even promise gum-massage or tongue-cleaning modes. Prices range from about £25 for a basic Oral B model to £599.99 for a Philips Sonicare model that gives “smart coverage feedback”. The latest super-toothbrush – a mere £419.99 – features a camera and a built-in water jet to clean between teeth, using AI to identify gaps. Created by Dyson, it’s still, essentially, a stick with a brush on the end (although there is another toothbrush on the market that’s shaped like a mouthguard, with individual brushes, that claims to clean your teeth in 20 seconds).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Test using urine and vaginal fluid samples raises hopes thousands of lower-risk women could be spared internal ultrasounds and hysteroscopies

Doctors have developed a simple test that could help rule out womb cancer in women who experience bleeding after menopause.

The approach has the potential to transform care for thousands of women each year and spare them from invasive and uncomfortable tests that can also be costly for healthcare systems.

As diet trends proliferate on social media, it can be hard to work out which are backed by science and which should be ignored. From paleo to keto, raw food to intermittent fasting, each attracts a tribe of ardent followers. Now Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological sciences at Harvard University, has written a book to try to cut through the noise. In Fed Up, he uses his background as an evolutionary anthropologist to scrutinise the evidence, turning himself into a guinea pig in the process and trying various diets. In this podcast, he tells Ian Sample which one has remained part of his routine

Medieval experts talk us through the fashion of the near-1,000-year-old embroidered work, and what it says about the people wearing it

• Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Blood, booze, arrows and boats; these are what you might typically imagine when you think of the Bayeux tapestry, which has become one of the hottest historical tickets since it went on display at the British Museum in London this month. But what about the hair?

“The Anglo-Saxons all have these little moustaches, which are brilliant. And then the Normans have these funny haircuts with the back of their heads shaved,” says Prof Laura Cleaver, an expert in medieval manuscripts at the Institute of English Studies.

From tartan to plaid, these styles come into their own during pumpkin-spice season

American fashion designer and costumier who clothed glamorous showbiz celebrities, especially Cher

Most costume designers are novelists, supplying character, back stories, social placement and history, done in cloth. Bob Mackie was also a genius cartoonist, assembling details into an image, memorable on sight, that could hold anything from a small 1960s television screen to a concert arena.

Mackie, who has died aged 87, was master of the showbiz sartorial aesthetic that evolved on stage and in films to entertain in itself as well as project performers.

Chore jackets and loose-fit trousers nod to ‘nonconformist glamour’ of Amelia Earhart and other pioneers

The Max Mara catwalk at Milan fashion week had well-cut coats, sturdy block-heeled boots, crisp white shirts and capacious suede handbags. What it quite deliberately did not have was shock value. “I hope everyone watching this show can recognise something of themselves in what they see,” said Ian Griffiths, the British designer who has been at this Italian house since 1987. “I think that’s really important. Without being critical of other brands or designers, so much of fashion alienates people and makes them feel that they aren’t good enough or thin enough or young enough to wear what’s being represented.”

Trousers were pleated and roomy, skirts long enough to be elegant but not long enough to trip you up. In shades of sand and chalk, grey and black, every piece was designed to work with everything else, and to blend into an existing wardrobe. The styling gestures – a popped collar here, a knotted belt there – stopped short of gimmick. The models could have walked off the runway and on to the Milan street – which, Griffiths said backstage, was the point. “The catwalk show is only the prelude to what to me is the real presentation, which is when I see women walking down the street in my clothes.”

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

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

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

Under the Finnish capital lies a world of swimming pools, go-karting tracks, playgrounds – and even an art gallery

The moon is an impostor. Swimming backstroke beneath its surface, I look up at craggy hollows in close relief. White rock undulates in all directions, a forest of peaks rising next to a desert of craters. Every time I trick myself into thinking I’m somewhere celestial, the sound of children splashing brings me back to earth.

This is no lunar landscape but Helsinki’s underground swimming hall, excavated from granite bedrock and officially opened in 1993. These days, Itäkeskus uimahalli is one of the Finnish capital’s most visited leisure facilities, welcoming 400,000 people a year. Local people mingle with tourists, I will discover, during a week exploring Helsinki’s subterranean metropolis.

This once industrial area has been transformed into a vibrant artistic hub with a thriving food and drink scene

Located just north of the Centrale train station, Bolognina neighbourhood is more than just a Little Bologna. It is a completely different world from the medieval maze of palaces, churches and towers that define the city’s “Centro Storico”, which is increasingly filled with crowds of tourists as Bologna joins the big league of Italian getaway destinations.

A long-distance walking route in the south of France devised by the celebrated land artist offers intrepid hikers an opportunity to immerse themselves in nature and art

At 69, I had never hiked with a backpack and I had no idea what land art was. Nonetheless, when my friend Jackie, a nature documentary film-maker, invited me to join her and her friends Wendy and Sasha on a hiking trip to Refuges d’Art in the mountainous countryside of Haute-Provence, I said a resounding “yes”. We would be sleeping alongside sculptures by the renowned land artist Andy Goldsworthy.

First, I watch Rivers and Tides, a documentary on Goldsworthy’s work, and discover he has built exquisite ice sculptures and stone cairns in my own country, Canada. His work seems to speak to an older part of the soul. Then, I start walking up hills, gradually adding weights to my backpack until I can comfortably carry 9kg (20lb).

From kale to hostas, there are many vegetable patch options that are hardy, low-maintenance and delicious

You’d have to have been living under a rock (which would have been a cool and sensible place to dwell) to not have felt the intensity of the heatwaves this summer. I’ve yet to meet a plants person who isn’t concerned by the impact of the changing climate on the living things we share the planet with – as well as our fellow humans. If one had any doubts, the sight of parched grasslands and garden plants withering to a crisp should have set those aside.

As I’ve shared in previous columns, this summer I was sparing with what I watered. I emptied the water butts and only used mains water on plants that were likely to survive and provide a harvest. Any sign of floundering and the crops were for the chop – sorry, stunted courgettes! And if you’ve been reading my column for a while, you’ll also know that I turned over one of my annual beds to golden raspberries and tayberries this year in a bid to have more plants that are less needy. So you can imagine my joy when I saw that brilliant gardener Jack Wallington has written a book that delves deep into this low-impact, resilient approach to edible gardening. Perfect timing.

Low Catton, East Yorkshire: It was King Harold’s last taste of victory. How chilling it is to visit this unassuming spot and imagine the bloody scene back in 1066

The field with freshly sprouted winter wheat sloping down to the River Derwent looks ordinary; however, today feels anything but. Just standing here, strange chills are swarming through my body and converging in my chest.

It happened here.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Last weekend the quiz master was taking in the sights, sounds and overwhelming history of Istanbul. Did that deter the writing of 15 questions on the week’s headlines, random pop culture and general knowledge? Absolutely not. However, you may detect a certain “Cats of Istanbul” flavour to today’s effort, which is in no way a transparent attempt to show off the quiz master’s holiday photos. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 266 – Cats of Istanbul special

The year’s most popular slang reveals what young people think about artificial intelligence – and it’s not positive

Name: “That’s AI!”

Age: Brand new.

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

Furnace Brook in East Sussex was home to carp, tench, bream, roach and trout – and 15 trailer-loads had to be buried. The mystery led to a neighbouring farm, and a story of waste, pollution and dirty rivers that reveals a lot about Britain today

When Alistair and Diane Gould bought Furnace Brook in 2013, they had big plans. It was an idyllic spot: a stream-fed fishing lake nestled in a secluded valley in the High Weald, East Sussex, surrounded by woodland and fields. “People loved to come fishing here because it’s so beautiful,” says Diane. “Some of them had been coming for so many years that they got to know the individual fish.”

Diane moved here from Kent in 2000, when Furnace Brook was owned by a distant relative. Her two younger sons, then 10 and 14, flourished. They would chat to the anglers about the fish they were catching and throwing back in, and sell them bacon sandwiches. Her elder son, Simon, moved from London to join them in 2006 and became a keen angler himself, and then the fishing manager, or bailiff, looking after the fish and the landscape around the lake.

As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each tells the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the conflict. Overcoming internet cuts and power outages, Mahmoud battles to provide his students an education

It is time for Mahmoud Seydam’s online lecture on museum architecture. He squats in front of the step he calls a table and opens his laptop.

“Is Mohammed the only one here?” He pulls out his phone and types into the students’ chat group that the lecture is about to start. There are two students now. Mahmoud decides to wait a little for the others to join.

As experts fear for future of UK capital’s bus network, some commuters are giving up entirely. London is not alone – with worrying implications for the poorest in society

Experts warn that slower buses risk driving passengers away: research cited by Transport for London (TfL) suggests a 10% fall in speed leads to a 6% drop in demand.

Passenger journeys in London have already fallen by more than 300m a year, or 16%, since 2013, despite the city’s population growing by almost a million people.

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

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

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

We would like to hear from people working in tech industries about their views on joining a union

For the first time, Meta has agreed to give a trade union direct access to its UK staff, according to the FT.

It will mean that Prospect trade union will be able to speak directly to the social media company’s 5,000 UK staff about the benefits of belonging to a union.

The Guardian is looking for single men of all ages to talk honestly about the experience of being unattached

The Guardian is looking for single men of all ages to talk honestly about the experience of being unattached. Whether you are 16 or 100, we want to hear the unvarnished truth about what it’s like to live as a single man today.

Are you trying to find love? Or are you happy living life as a bachelor? Do you find the experience of modern dating – with all its red flags and height requirements – to be a minefield? Or are you attracting more attention than ever before?

Perhaps you want to know her favourite Shakespeare sonnet or what is was like working on Bond

This autumn, we’re giving you the chance to ask Judi Dench anything.

Over her extraordinary career, the actor has won an Academy Award, eight Laurence Olivier Awards and 10 Baftas – as well as the hearts of legions of fans.

Whether you’ve got a question about on-stage pranks, her favourite Shakespeare sonnet, working on Bond, her love of gardening, or her thoughts on the future of theatre, Hollywood or the world, share it with us here and we’ll put it to her as she releases her new book, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?

Wake up to the top stories and what they mean – free to your inbox every weekday morning at 7am

Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

Get smart, sustainable shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox, every Sunday

The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.

A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.

Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.

Upgrade your space today, with eight emails packed with tips to brighten up your home - whatever your budget

Embrace your space: the Guardian’s House to Home newsletter is bursting with tips and tricks to help you boost your bedroom and give your living room some love.

Sign up any time, and get eight emails direct to your inbox every Sunday morning.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world