These visualisations from exclusive polling modelling show how the UK parliament could change under different voting systems

New analysis produced exclusively for the Guardian reveals how different voting systems would return significantly different seat totals in the UK parliament, based on recent polling.

While the current first past the post (FPTP) system could leave Labour short of a majority with 250 seats, the modelling shows how proportional systems would be likely to reduce the number of seats given to the leading party – and give the UK a more finely balanced parliament that better represents the votes people cast.

Dad’s the word for Andy Burnham, so maybe all party leaders should be seen afresh through a Freudian lens

Is this the sketch my father would have wanted? Not something I have previously given much thought to. He died 15 years before I even started this job. But my guess is that it is. He was the loveliest of men who only ever wanted for me what I wanted for me. He was stupidly proud of even my most forgettable successes. I still see him in my dreams, cheering me on. He’d almost certainly be embarrassed, but secretly pleased, to find himself in the first paragraph.

But that’s enough about my father issues. Time now to talk about Andy Burnham’s. In his emotional and gamechanging leader’s speech on Tuesday – I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have a politician other than Nigel Farage say exactly what he thinks and believes – Andy told us he wanted to build the country his father would have wanted. It was almost a debt of honour. Burnham was very precise. This was not his vision. This wasn’t the country he wanted to build. It was the one his dad had wanted. Andy was merely a conduit, channelling Roy, who died earlier this month.

For those employed in arduous solitary work such as cab driving, a marathon phone call is the perfect place to navigate the dislocations of immigrant life

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The question of the week is: “who are Uber drivers always talking to on the phone?” It’s one that regularly surfaces on Reddit threads and social media and even, on a couple of occasions, in the office. It’s not my question (I know who they are talking to), but I think the fact that many people are so baffled by it tells us a lot about the separate worlds we occupy.

When you get a cab on a ride-hailing app, the chances that your driver will be on the phone is high. The conversation is almost always quiet, containing pauses so long that it often seems they are actually no longer on a call. But then comes a rejoinder, a laugh, an interjection, and the marathon continues.

The price cap is to soar for about 20 million households in Great Britain from January, but there are ways to save

• Energy bills in Great Britain forecast to jump by £276 a year from January

Household energy prices are set to soar in January, with a typical bill forecast to jump by £276 to the equivalent of nearly £2,000 year.

It is a worrying outlook but there are practical steps you can take to mitigate the predicted price shock.

This shaggy beast is now plastered across everything from mugs to hot water bottles. Or you can sit on her, wrap yourself in her, wipe your feet on her …

Picture this: you get home from work, wipe your feet on your doormat, which has a picture of a highland cow on it, sniff the flowers growing from your highland cow-shaped plant pot, then step inside, hang your coat on one of your highland-cow-themed hooks and put some water on to boil in your highland cow kettle. When the tea is ready, you drink it from one of your highland cow mugs, plucked from a highland cow mug tree, discarding the teabag in a highland cow-emblazoned pedal bin. Oops, you’ve spilled a drop, but not to worry – there’s a fresh roll of kitchen roll waiting for you in between the resin cow-butt and cow-head of its highland cow-shaped holder.

You then carry the tea to your living room, and place it (atop a highland cow coaster, of course) on your coffee table, which has been carved into the shape of a highland cow, before taking a seat in an accent chair made to resemble a highland cow’s head. If you get cold, you can always wrap yourself in a hooded throw, designed to make the wearer look like a highland cow, or reach for your dressing gown-wearing highland cow hot-water bottle.

Prime minister’s pure political argument marks new era for party as he sets out his plans and priorities

The hottest ticket at Labour conference – after Andy Burnham’s speech – was an afterparty in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, headlined with a set by the noughties girlband Sugababes. As Labour activists and ministers belted out the lyrics under pink spotlights, it was hard not to draw some parallels with the party’s recent history.

There have been painful lineup changes and a lot of internal division, but this week onstage in Liverpool the originals are back together and they only played the hits. The fans can’t get enough.

Senior Downing Street officials reach out to thinktanks and pollsters as they look to test backing for reversing Brexit

Senior Downing Street officials have been reaching out to thinktanks and pollsters as they look to test public support for the UK rejoining the EU.

Aides to Andy Burnham have been talking to EU experts in a range of organisations about how the public would view a promise to rejoin, as momentum builds behind including such a pledge in the next Labour manifesto.

Accused pilot being questioned in Saudi Arabia as Israeli officials investigate if incident was attempted terror attack

One of the pilots of a plane flying from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed his co-pilot and appeared to try to crash the plane, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said, as Israeli officials said they were investigating whether the incident was an attempted terror attack on Israelis.

The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, with the two pilots wounded but other passengers safe, according to a statement from Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz international airport, more commonly known as Tabuk airport.

PM also defends decision to release suspects on bail and expresses ‘complete confidence’ in security services

There are “strong indications” that Iran played a role in events in which five men were arrested near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire as part of a terror investigation, Andy Burnham has said.

Speaking to the media at the end of the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Burnham said he could not give any more details amid a police investigation, but that Iran was believed to be involved.

• Club ‘a huge partner in building modern Manchester’

• Independent Football Regulator monitoring case

Andy Burnham has said he would be “really concerned” to lose Manchester City’s owners as a result of the club being found guilty of more than 100 breaches of Premier League rules.

On the day that the Independent Football Regulator confirmed it has powers to investigate the suitability of the Abu Dhabi United Group to own an English club after the damning judgment of an independent commission regarding £900m of sham contracts, the prime minister praised City’s owners for their investment of billions of pounds into Manchester.

Rantzen announced lung cancer diagnosis in 2023 and became a vocal assisted dying campaigner

Esther Rantzen, the Bafta-winning TV presenter and founder of ChildLine, has died aged 86.

She announced a diagnosis of stage four lung cancer in 2023, and became a vocal campaigner to change the law around assisted dying. In September 2026, she announced she had to abandon plans to end her life in Swiss clinic Dignitas, due to being too physically frail.

Nationalist residents’ coalition says it will accept solution drawn up by the Northern Ireland secretary if it is also accepted by unionists

The Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, has said an end to the Drumcree parade dispute is “tantalisingly close”, as the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition signalled it would accept a document setting out a resolution drawn up by Bryant’s team if the Orange Order did so.

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, the leader of the nationalist group, said on Wednesday afternoon he had been through the document drawn up by Bryant and his team.

Corporation says story did not meet editorial standards after it attracts criticism from US and UK media

A BBC article that included a claim that a trend for bare nails was linked to “white supremacist standards of beauty” has been permanently removed from its website, after editors concluded it did not meet the corporation’s editorial standards.

The article, which first ran on the BBC’s website on 27 September, examined an apparent “viral craze” for bare rather than decorated nails. It said the trend had been flooding social media and fashion catwalks.

Award-winning, Guardian-produced film focused on Israel’s mass killing of civilians extends run after sold-out screenings

NAZA, the award-winning documentary about Israel’s systemic mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, has opened at No 1 at the Italian box office, beating rival titles including Avengers Endgame: Encore, which came in at No 2.

The 80-minute film was booked for a three-day run in Italy, but after sold-out auditoriums and positive audience reaction, its release window will be extended. On its opening day on Monday, the documentary took a total of €451,872, with a per site average of €1,153.

Environment Agency warns residents of 6m at-risk properties to prepare for wet and windy three months ahead

More than two million people in England are unaware their properties are at risk of flooding, as the UK braces for a wet and stormy start to the winter, according to the Environment Agency.

Experts say the next three months are more likely than usual to be wet and windy – due to a combination of large-scale weather patterns and the “subtle” impact of a supercharged El Niño – increasing the risk of flooding.

As soaring rents and house prices across Europe​ feed into the political discourse, campaigners believe they have a rare opportunity to force housing to the top of the agenda

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It was billed as one of the largest real-estate events in Europe, attracting as many as 15,000 people ranging from investment firms to developers. But as the District trade show and summit got under way last week in Madrid, housing campaigners from 140 organisations across the globe turned up, intent on holding their own “counter-summit” to push back against the idea of housing as a financial asset.

Many of the campaigners arrived in the Spanish capital as Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman who uses a wheelchair, was being evicted from the apartment where she had lived for seven decades. As anger over the eviction gave way to days of protests and an encampment in the heart of Madrid, the presence of campaigners from Italy to Ireland was a poignant reminder of the global dimension of the crisis.

Brazil will head to the polls on 4 October for the first vote in its presidential race. The incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is neck-and-neck with Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for plotting a military coup. There are fears and accusations that the US is interfering in the election, and these follow similar allegations in a string of elections across Latin America won by Donald Trump-backed candidates in what is being called 'the orange wave'.

The Guardian's Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, explains the tactics Trump and his administration have been using in recent months and what impact another Bolsonaro government could have on the region, and the world

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their whirring wings and bright patterns help keep them safe from birds, British study finds

Naturalists have long wondered how brightly coloured butterflies manage to evade the attention of birds that make a meal of other insects.

New research from British ecologists suggests it is not simply a matter of good luck but instead a visual illusion created by their fluttering wings.

The trains may be running late, but the Western Slopes project is already attracting birds and insects on lands around the high-speed railway

The air is scented with the sweet tang of ladies bedstraw and made musical by skylark and blackcap song. An abundance of marbled white butterflies, small skippers and common blue damselflies dart over the flowering knapweed, yarrow and wild carrot.

That the largest chalk grassland in the Chilterns is full of wildlife may not surprise you. But the fact that it is completely artificial, only four years old and has been built by the much-maligned HS2, may do.

From crystal balconettes on the catwalk to mankinis on the parkrun, showing off your undies seems to be all the rage

Name: Underwear.

Age: The first loincloths date from about 7,000 years ago.

Though proportional representation poses risks for Labour, it’s a change that feels necessary for today’s volatile politics

A number of people have admitted to tears during Andy Burnham’s Labour party conference speech, and most of them mean when he talked about his father, who died very recently. But then there were a few (not me) who welled up when he announced a commission on electoral reform. It was just the sheer shock of it: that we may finally have a prime minister who will follow through on his own long-held beliefs and remain loyal to his long-term support base, even if it makes him avoidable enemies and, medium-term, destroys Labour’s only-trodden path to victory. It felt a bit like slipping through time, and I couldn’t even tell you to when (definitely not the 1990s).

Burnham’s support for proportional representation has always been extremely unusual for a Labour politician. To this day, he ascribes that to his experience of winning an election as mayor of Greater Manchester on a supplementary votes system, where people get to choose a first- and second-preference candidate. He said that campaigning under that system “finally aligned the conversation on the door with what people want from politics, which is about problem-solving first and foremost, not about point-scoring”. He went a bit further this morning, asking Nick Robinson on the Today programme: “Can we really watch a party with less than 30% walk into Downing Street?”

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Ministers should introduce a properly targeted social tariff rather than tinker with the warm homes discount

• Energy bills forecast to jump by £276 a year from January

• What to do as prices head for £2,000 a year

After the hopeful good vibes in Liverpool, here comes a reminder of what is coming this winter: a mighty new year shock in energy bills, hitting the poorest hardest, that the government looks unprepared for.

From the quarterly price cap level of £1,723 that will apply from Thursday for an average dual-fuel household, take your pick from a range of forecasts for the first three months of 2027. The energy consultancy Cornwall Insight says £1,999. The big supplier EDF thinks £2,076. Split the difference and we’re talking about an 18% quarter-on-quarter rise in the unit rate at the worst time of the year, the months of peak consumption.

The Pitt is on a different level – it’s not so much like watching drama as being in one

I do like a TV doctor. I’m not talking about proper doctors who sit on studio sofas dispensing wisdom. I’ve nothing against them – why, I worked with Dr Hilary Jones on ITV and he was a very nice chap – but it’s to fictional doctors I want to entrust my care.

I’ve not always felt this way. Either the standard of fictional TV medics has improved or, more likely, I’m losing the plot. It’s a relatively recent thing. I never watched ER, for some reason, and I find Casualty to be quite entertaining without ever fantasising about being rushed into Holby City hospital for emergency treatment. As for being treated by the staff of Grey’s Anatomy, that would be fine, but the constant playing of pop songs at key moments would get on my nerves. Nurse Jackie? Jackie Peyton and Dr O’Hara are a compelling nurse-doctor pairing, but too unhinged for me to take the risk with them. Shame, but I’ve got to be sensible.

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

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

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

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

Slipknot sharing their stage with a man accused of wrongdoing by more than a dozen women is the antithesis of everything the genre should stand for, even if he denies it

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

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

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

Rapidly expanding AI use within the government is numbing departments to its profound threats. And try arguing with a faceless digital bureaucrat

Another day, another apocalyptic warning about the likelihood that rampantly uncontrollable artificial intelligence will solve all of our problems, including the problem of being alive.

Hot on the heels of disgruntled Anthropic researchers announcing the end of civilisation by 2030, we’ve now had the portentously named Hugging Face incident, as well as the Australian government’s grim discovery of a rogue AI’s attack on its Medicare website. Swarms of experts are now falling over each other to warn us that much, much worse is on the way.

The author works for the UK civil service

Sunday’s general election is too close to call, with the incumbent president facing the son of the man who attempted a coup against him

Sunday’s election in Brazil could hardly be a clearer-cut choice – nor a closer call. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, is neck and neck in the polls with Flávio Bolsonaro, the son and champion of the jailed far-right former president Jair. Mr Bolsonaro senior is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to “annihilate” democracy after losing the last election.

Brazil is Latin America’s largest democracy, but military dictatorship is in its recent past. Mr Bolsonaro wants to free his father and those who rioted in his support in 2023. The senator has campaigned as a less crass and temperamental version of his father, but he is no less extreme. For many on both sides, this is a vote against a man they detest more than an endorsement of their own candidate. Most voters disapprove of both men.

Empty classrooms are a sign of falling fertility and high living costs. But they should also free up more resources to spend on young people

School closures are an alarming symptom of Britain’s shrinking birthrate. Several factors have contributed to falling enrolment, but the most significant is that people are having fewer children. Declining pupil numbers could be an excuse to free up spending for an ageing population. Instead, the government should see this as an opportunity to improve the quality of provision for young people.

The fall has been most acute in inner London, where 90 schools have shut since 2021. In Southwark, where the number of children born each year has dropped by more than a third since 2010, eight primary schools have closed in the past six years. As London’s councils have observed, high living costs are pricing families out of the centre and dissuading people from having children. It is no surprise that Islington and Westminster, two of the most expensive places to live in Britain, also have among the lowest fertility rates in England and Wales.

Gian Lorenzo Spisso says his knowledge of Italian voting systems and British politics leads him to the view that first past the post is the lesser of two evils

Reading that Andy Burnham wants to push electoral reform forward and move the UK towards proportional representation (Report, 29 September), I found myself shouting at the screen.

I come from Italy, where I have seen proportional systems at work. They drive a wedge between MPs and their constituents. They reward tribalism (yes, even more than here). They leave large parts of the electorate hostage to the whims of tiny parties, and force parties into ragtag coalitions that produce unstable, ineffective governments. And for all that, people do not seem to feel any better represented.

Readers respond to the Labour leader’s conference speech and plans for changes to social care and the state pension triple lock

In the aftermath of Andy Burnham’s speech to the Labour conference, media discussions are focusing on how to define social care and estimate its cost (How will Burnham’s national care service work – and how will it be funded?, 29 September).

Most arguments assume that any new system will look like the existing one, with services outsourced to large companies, using contracts without scope for innovation, with rigidly defined targets, often delivered using poorly rewarded, precariously employed migrant workers.

Richard Nobbs draws attention to fundamental flaw in way pension assets are split on divorce and calls on Labour to act

Your article on the impact of the escalating cost of living on divorce settlements (Unhappy couples staying put due to cost of living crisis, say divorce lawyers, 23 September) provides a timely reminder of the financial inequities facing many separating couples.

As a pensions expert, I have regularly encountered a particular imbalance in the splitting of pension assets on divorce. Although the last Labour government enabled pension savings to be taken into account in divorce settlements, there remains, 25 years on, an inherent unfairness in the way many such arrangements are implemented.

Parental influence | Public investment | Capital gains tax on property profits | A degree of success? | Oxygen of publicity

Keir Starmer reminded us often that his father was a toolmaker, a skilled occupation. In his Labour party conference speech, Andy Burnham referenced his parents, Eileen and his late father Roy. He did not mention that Roy was a telecoms engineer, also a skilled job, and one that was and is fully unionised, with decent terms and conditions. Perhaps the PM sees in that not just the past but also the future of work.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London

• Andy Burnham’s belief that investment in public spending will save money in the longer term is a positive-sum calculus targeted at improving the quality of life. After all, if private capital can generate profit from privatised utilities and services, then by the same token public spending can direct funding to benefit the common good.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire

⚽ Updates from the 5.45pm BST kick-off in France
⚽ Live scores | Read Moving the Goalposts | Mail Niall

7 mins: Arsenal win another corner and play it short, before Cooney Cross’ ball into the middle bobbles through the penalty area.

5 mins: Lisa Baum lifts a useful cross towards Caldentey, who can’t get enough power on her header from an awkward angle.

• ‘They won the titles because cheating was going on’

• Micah Richards says he is ‘devastated and heartbroken’

The former Manchester United captain Roy Keane said he would throw the “medals in the bin” if he were a Manchester City player after Premier League confirmation on Tuesday that the club were guilty of all charges related to their financial rules and boosted their income by more than £900m after arranging “sham ­contracts” with commercial partners.

City, who continue to deny any wrongdoing, won eight trophies, including three Premier League titles between 2009 and 2018, the period under investigation. Keane said the achievements of City’s players had become redundant because of the “cheating” that took place during that time.

• Head coach sees Real Madrid man as an option up front

• Kane praises Alexander-Arnold’s impact and work rate

Thomas Tuchel’s hunt for alternatives to Harry Kane has led to him identifying Jude Bellingham as an option at No 9 for England. Kane continued his remarkable scoring record in the 2-0 win against Czechia in the Nations League on Tuesday, moving to 87 goals in 123 international appearances with a late strike in Prague, but he has little cover up front.

There is no prospect yet of Tuchel having to consider life without Kane. The England head coach backed the 33-year-old striker to last another decade at the highest level, tipped him to reach a century of international goals soon, and said England cannot expect to produce a replica of their greatest forward. However, there is concern over whether England have enough depth in attack.

Kevin’s ultramarathon challenge ends in time for kick-off at Old Trafford as son Jack vies for first title with Wakefield

There are few families with more stories to tell when it comes to the Super League Grand Final than the Sinfields but, even by their lofty standards, this week will take some beating.

Leeds has been the epicentre of that story for more than 20 years but this week the focus has moved 10 miles down the road to Wakefield.

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In the four matches they’ve sat through since their unconvincing Geopolitics World Cup win over Haiti, it must rankle among diehard conscripts of the Tartan Army that the only sporting moment they’ve been able to celebrate with genuine wild abandon remains a Wyatt Langford home run biffed out of the stadium for the Texas Rangers at Fenway Park. Away from the diamond, fairly meek surrenders by Scotland to Morocco and Brazil led to Steve Clarke’s resignation, which in turn prompted Sébastien Pocognoli to surf in on a wave of cautious fan suspicion. Following an extremely promising second-half display in his first game against Slovenia – one that obviously featured no goals, a couple of missed sitters and plenty of attacking verve from his side – the Belgian had plenty of reasons to be cheerful going into his first home game as Scotland head coach. After all, as a newbie to the gig he probably didn’t know any better.

• Updates from the ODI match at NWC Oval

• Start time in Potchefstroom is 1.30pm local/9.30pm AEST

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2nd over: Australia 10-0 (Marsh 5, Head 5) And the quiet times lasted one over! First Head, then Marsh, play pull shots from Williams for four.

1st over: Australia 0-0 (Marsh 0, Head 0) A maiden over to begin the match. That’s quite something from Coetzee, who has got the ball swerving around the place like a remote-controlled plane. There has been early swing in this series, before the belting of the ball begins. Marsh is happy to wait, defending stoutly.

• Campbell, Hope and Jangoo all hit tons to reach 405-7

• Previous ODI best was 389 against England in 2019

John Campbell hit 101 to lay the foundations for West Indies’ record one-day international total of 405 for seven against India in their second ODI on Wednesday.

Shai Hope (104) and Amir Jangoo (114) also struck centuries to boost the total as West Indies hope to bounce back in the three-match series, led by India 1-0, in Guwahati. It is only the sixth time in ODI history that a team has had three centurions in one innings. Invited to bat first, West Indies lost Keacy Carty for nine before Campbell and Hope put on 110 runs to set the tone for the batting domination. West Indies’ previous ODI best was 389 against England in 2019, but they ended up losing the match.

• SFV withdraws support after endorsing candidacy in June

• Swiss-born Infantino has faced calls for his resignation

The Swiss Football Association (SFV) has withdrawn its support for Gianni Infantino’s bid for another term as Fifa president, the organisation confirmed on Wednesday.

The executive committee reversed its support for Infantino, who was born in Brig, an Alpine town in Valais canton in southern Switzerland, in a meeting this week after endorsing his candidacy in June.

• Wales ‘unrecognisable’ in defeat against Denmark

• Haaland ‘exactly the same’ after Manchester City verdict

Craig Bellamy has said Wales must improve against Norway on Thursday after appearing unrecognisable in defeat against Denmark, and highlighted their next opponents’ run to the World Cup quarter-finals as proof of their talent.

Wales host Norway in Cardiff hoping to record their first win since last November and their first since promotion to Nations League A. “This team has been on a surge,” he said of Ståle Solbakken’s side. “They are progressing and they will keep going as well – they ain’t going away, especially with the youngsters they’ve got coming through. We’ve all been waiting [for them to flourish]. But it was coming and it’s come with a bang.”

Settler violence in West Bank makes everyday life ‘untenable’ for Palestinians, says ICRC after assault on family trying to return home in Jalud

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has made everyday life for Palestinians “untenable”, as a mob attack on Palestinians trying to return home prompted one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rivals to warn of a campaign of settler terror.

More than 100 militant settlers overwhelmed Israeli security forces early on Tuesday to attack a Palestinian family as they attempted to reclaim their homes which had been seized by settlers in the West Bank village of Jalud. Three Israeli security officials were injured and houses were set on fire.

Seven others found guilty of lesser charges in connection to incident in 2021 when inflatable dinghy sank killing at least 27 people with four more still missing

A Paris court has jailed six ⁠men for manslaughter over the deaths of at least 27 people in the worst mass drowning on record from a small-boat crossing in the Channel.

Seven other men were ⁠found guilty of lesser smuggling charges with varying degrees of seriousness, including facilitating illegal immigration as part of ⁠an organised gang and criminal conspiracy.

FTC move is first official US enforcement ⁠action on rogue AI agents, following surge in incidents first reported in July

The US’s main trade regulator is conducting an industry-wide investigation ⁠into Anthropic, OpenAI and other ⁠AI labs ​to uncover the potential dangers their technology poses to consumers.

The investigation by the Federal Trade Commission is the first official US enforcement ⁠action that delves into rogue AI agents, following a surge in incidents first reported in July that have stoked fears among the public that uncontrolled AI could one day ⁠harm humans.

Developing North Sea fields does not contradict net zero goals, according to Simone Rossi

New oil and gas projects are a “no-brainer” that pose “no contradiction” to the net zero agenda, according to the head of EDF Energy.

Simone Rossi has joined a string of renewables leaders in making the case for more North Sea production as the government prepares to decide on two projects there.

Women say nothing has changed since Delhi’s infamous Nirbhaya bus rape case 14 years ago

The posters, just like the women holding them, were taking no prisoners. “Girls don’t need curfews, rapists need consequences,” read one. “Lock your dicks rather than your women at home,” read another.

As hundreds of women walked from the gates of their university campus into the streets of Delhi – where sexual harassment, assault, catcalling and molestation are a constant, daily threat – they shouted together in a chorus of rage and defiance: “We want justice.”

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

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

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

Study says UK-based banks provided $8.3bn in coal financing in four years, with Barclays and HSBC leading rise

UK banks are Europe’s biggest financial backers of the global coal industry, providing billions of pounds in funding for the climate-wrecking fossil fuel in the past four years, according to a report.

The study found UK-based banks had provided $8.3bn (£6.2bn) in coal financing since Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, when global leaders pledged to “phase down” coal use. This compared with $4.9bn from German banks and $3.4bn from French banks over the same period.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Met calls move ‘milestone’ moment that paves way for ‘very best possible evidence for charging decisions’

Police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire have asked prosecutors to consider charges including manslaughter and fraud against a range of companies and individuals.

The Metropolitan police announced they had given prosecutors evidence relating to 20 companies and organisations and 54 individuals ahead of charging decisions, in what the force described as a “milestone moment”.

Exclusive: Campaign comes amid backlash against tech company’s involvement with Israeli military and Trump’s ICE crackdown

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Tens of thousands of people have formally demanded NHS England blocks the Palantir-powered national medical data platform from handling their personal information.

More than 44,000 people have filed legal objections to their health data being shared with, stored in or used by the nationwide Federated Data Platform (FDP) operated using the US company’s AI technology.

Security service says academics should stop taking grants from and working with firm backed by China’s intelligence service

• MI5 China alert will send chill through UK’s cash-strapped universities

China’s intelligence service used a front company to pay grants to British universities and steal crucial research about technology projects, MI5 said on Wednesday in a rare public espionage warning.

Britain’s domestic security service said researchers and academics should cease work with the China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI), sometimes also known as the China Academy of General Technology (CAGT). MI5 believes it poses a “significant threat”.

National inquiry will conduct local investigations and look at wider picture of sexual abuse and exploitation of children

Birmingham and Wales will be investigated as part of an independent inquiry into grooming gangs, it was announced on Wednesday.

The inquiry, chaired by the former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, will have the power to compel witnesses and obtain documents to interrogate what individuals and agencies “did or did not do to protect children from being sexually abused”.

In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

Steve Hilton’s long-shot campaign for governor is courting Golden state voters with unapologetically populist message

Steve Hilton stands almost no chance of becoming California’s next governor, but that isn’t stopping him from campaigning as though he was just one step away from pulling off the impossible.

The former Downing Street political adviser and Fox News host refuses to be daunted by the rancid political environment for Republican candidates this year, or by opinion polls that tell him he is lagging 20 percentage points or more behind his Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra.

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

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

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

Tim’s teapot at the drone workshop

Independent commission accuses country of failing Indigenous people, amid rising tensions over land rights

An independent commission set up by the Swedish state has called on the country’s government to apologise for the “harm and injustice inflicted upon the Sami people” and to start a national process for “redress and reconciliation”.

The Truth Commission for the Sami People also called for a special apology to be issued urgently to elderly Sami people who were forced as children to attend segregated so-called “nomad school” and other boarding schools where they were “subjected to violations or abuse”.

President announces measures amid anger at authorities over recent murders of women

South Africa’s president has called on men to take more responsibility for violence against women as he announced measures to tackle the problem, amid anger at authorities over a recent wave of murders.

Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that not enough had been done to protect women. He said police would be reviewing unsolved murders, attempted murders and serious sexual offences against women and children, as well as producing a funded plan to reduce the forensic backlog for such cases, both within 60 days.

Boost for John Healey before budget as GDP figure shows UK economy grew faster than first estimated in second quarter

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UK household income grew at a stronger pace than previously estimated during the first six months of the year, according to revisions of official data.

The rise in income per head to 1.1% between January and June followed an increase in the level of economic growth that illustrated the resilience of the UK economy since the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East more than seven months ago.

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

• What to do as prices head for £2,000 a year

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

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

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

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

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

Company’s product comes weeks after Meta introduced its own artificial intelligence agent Muse

Less than 24 hours after OpenAI announced it would scrap the launch of an artificial intelligence model over safety concerns, the company debuted a whole new suite of AI tools.

During its annual showcase for developers in San Francisco on Tuesday, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, enthusiastically unveiled an AI agent called “dots” that he said was “more ambitious” than ChatGPT and a “whole new way to work with AI”.

The Traitors and big film shoots help boost economy but some highlight lack of opportunities for local talent

Scotland’s striking Ardross Castle, the oldest star of The Celebrity Traitors, which kicks off on Thursday night, is just one of the stops on the Scottish tourist board’s “screen tourism” trail. From Outlander and The Odyssey filming in the Highlands and islands, to Glasgow city centre standing in for New York and Gotham City in the latest instalments of Indiana Jones and Batman respectively, film and TV is increasingly big business in Scotland.

The country’s screen sector, growing year on year, is projected to be worth £1bn to the economy by 2030. But while some have celebrated the upsides of a booming production sector, others highlight a lack of opportunities for Scottish talent and the challenges of excessive tourism in areas featured on screen.

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

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

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

Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett co-star in this unconvincing mystery about a struggling writer who is asked to ghostwrite for a bestselling author

The nation is crying out for a really enjoyable erotic mystery-thriller, a taste potentially at least as strong as the cosy-crime fetish currently dominating our every waking moment. The success of Paul Feig’s naughty-but-not-nice movie The Housemaid proves it. We are thirsting for a sexy encounter with a dishy yet maybe problematic nice-guy husband; we are pining for a damaged and dangerous beautiful wife; we are longing to identify with a vulnerable yet gutsy young person who finds herself in the middle of their creepy scenario and we are yearning to spend some time in a secluded luxury lakeside villa of gigantic modernist proportions down whose night-time corridors we can tremblingly tiptoe. So here is a drama, adapted by screenwriter Nick Antosca from the novel by Colleen Hoover, in which someone has such excitingly transgressive sex that they leave teeth marks on the headboard. During this film, audiences may be leaving teeth marks in the seatback in front of them. Or the back of someone’s head. But not in a good way.

Dakota Johnson goes back into “Fifty Shades” ingenue-cute territory as Lowen, a struggling writer mysteriously approached by a legal team working for Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway, a mega-bestselling author whose recent indisposition means that she is unable to finish her hugely lucrative novel series. Crawford’s people ask Lowen if she might be willing, in exchange for several shedloads of money, secretly to ghostwrite the rest of Crawford’s darkly saucy page-turners. Lowen agrees, largely because she is strangely drawn to Verity’s handsome, sensitive husband Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett. She has to go and stay in their gorgeous Vermont home where she is upset to find that Verity is now immobile, using a wheelchair, and cannot speak. And she is even more upset to discover a certain manuscript by Verity which hints at a terrifying situation of which the world has no clue.

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

Poor Greta Garbo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s no Leon, Claire or Ada Wong in Cregger’s adaptation. Instead, it re-creates something more fundamental – the strange, terrifying experience of actually playing the game

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I’ve been surprised by the number of Resident Evil fans complaining on social media about Zach Cregger’s cinematic adaptation of the survival horror series. “It’s not a real Resident Evil movie,” they’ve claimed. Were we watching the same film? Certainly, it doesn’t feature any of the familiar heroes – there’s no Leon, no Claire, no Ada Wong – and there’s a distinct lack of recognisable antagonists and well-known locations. Despite all of this, Cregger’s interpretation is one of the most accurate and interesting video game films ever made.

On the surface, it’s about a zombifying virus that gets accidentally released in Raccoon City by the Umbrella Corporation. These are, of course, the foundations of the Resi mythos. More interestingly, Cregger seeks to replicate and explore the structural and narrative conventions of the series. In the film, the player character, hapless courier Bryan Hodukavich, is thrust into a viral outbreak, with no weapons and no idea what’s going on. He is then submerged into an uncanny shadow world of escalating peril and body horror. The film takes us through a series of locations dragged straight from the games – an abandoned farmhouse, a road tunnel crammed with abandoned cars, a hospital and the obligatory sewer level. As he progresses, Bryan finds increasingly powerful weapons, from a handgun to an assault rifle – but he is always short on ammo. And there are typewriters in at least two scenes!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a new series, we review the best art exhibitions currently showing in commercial galleries, where entrance is free

Walking into Gabriel Orozco’s show is like waking up with a headache and trying to piece together whatever the hell you did last night. Everything in the Mexican conceptualist’s exhibition is splintered, disjointed, a history you can’t make sense of.

Utilita Arena, Birmingham
First announced in 2019 and now launching with just three of the original lineup, the Dolls whip up a whirlwind of hair-flipping and put on a decent spectacle

The road to the Pussycat Dolls’ comeback tour has been fraught. Originally announced in 2019 with all but one of the group’s original members on board, the pandemic and then a legal dispute, led to its cancellation. After a few years of silence, three members – Nicole Scherzinger, Ashley Roberts and Kimberly Wyatt – shared plans for a 53-date world tour as a trio. Poor ticket sales nixed the US leg, though, while Maga-supporting former member Jessica Sutta alleged she was left out of the reunion because she was viewed as “a liability” (the group did not comment).

Does a girlband ostensibly created as a dance troupe work as a trio? While Scherzinger’s voice pushed them into pop stardom – they scored six UK Top 3 hits in their initial 2005-09 run – their appeal was largely the fierce group choreography. On stage in Birmingham, they give it their best go. The nearly two-hour show is a whirlwind of hair-flipping, booty-shaking and synchronised strutting. Throughout When I Grow Up, Beep and I Don’t Need a Man, Scherzinger is still on lead vocals, predictably so after her recent Tony award-winning run on Broadway in Sunset Blvd. Roberts and Wyatt are given some time to shine, though: their solos amid the clacking pots-and-pans percussion of Wait a Minute feel pointed, as if to say that, yes, their mics are on.

Live theatre, Newcastle
Fictionalising the true story of John Darwin, Alison Carr’s gripping two-hander follows the unexpected consequences of its antihero’s bid to escape debts

It sounds like a good plan. With credit cards maxed out, Colin Wilson will set off in his canoe and never come back. Once he is presumed dead, his wife, Deborah, will claim the life insurance. Pension and mortgage payouts will follow. Meanwhile, Colin will go into hiding until they can make a fresh start.

Inspired by the true story of “canoe man” John Darwin, Alison Carr’s two-hander looks as though it will head into the sitcom territory of Can You Keep a Secret? Like that BBC comedy, in which Mark Heap does a bad job at hiding, All at Sea considers the hurdles of staying out of sight. Where to go if someone comes around? What if the phone rings and you accidentally answer? How to stay sane?

At Live theatre, Newcastle, until 10 October and at Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, 16–31 October

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

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

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

‘I’d read stories about gangs killing drug-pushers who targeted young people. Police would find their bodies at the bottom of five-storey buildings. I didn’t want to go looking for them alone’

The late 1960s and most of the 1970s were a difficult time for New York. I’d moved there from France in 1965 with a reporter friend and a plan to start a little agency, but soon found myself working alone. It could be a dangerous city, especially at night, but I enjoyed taking pictures of everyday life around me. In 1969, I became the first foreign correspondent for the Paris-based Gamma Agency, but always insisted on working on personal projects rather than assignments.

Reading the New York Times in 1972, I would see stories about gangs in the Bronx that were killing drug-pushers who targeted young people in the area. The police would find their bodies on the kerb at the bottom of five-storey buildings they’d been thrown off. The gangs included the Savage Nomads and the Dirty Dozen, but the one I was most interested in was the most dangerous: the Savage Skulls.

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

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

Châtaigniers en fleurs, valued at $180m, to be auctioned along with 11 other works by likes of Cézanne and Monet

For more than 50 years it was held in a private art collection with an “almost mythical status” that was likened to a miniature version of Paris’s Musée d’Orsay.

But on Wednesday a painting by Vincent van Gogh created during the last two months of his life has gone on display before it is put up for auction with a value of $180m (£136m).

A new exhibit of Lenape paintings, traditional dress and music proves their modern-day culture is vibrant and alive

During the 19th century, the US government funded more than 500 “Indian boarding schools” aimed at forcibly assimilating Native American children into western culture. Students were taken from their families, frequently by force, and forced to cut their hair. They were stripped of their original names, and taught to feel shame regarding their heritage and customs. Run like military academies, these institutions required children to wear uniforms and subjected them to severe physical punishment, such as solitary confinement and flogging. Richard Henry Pratt, who established the first of these schools, declared that their explicit purpose was to “kill the Indian, save the man”.

These assimilation practices persisted for decades, during which numerous children endured physical and sexual abuse. At least 1,000 children lost their lives, though the actual casualty count is believed to be significantly higher. The US government issued no formal apology for these atrocities until 2024, when former president Joe Biden described the boarding school system as “one of the most horrific chapters in American history”.

What you need to lift your autumn wardrobe is something flimsy, flirty and unconventional

At this time of year, my job is mostly banging on about jumpers. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and merino sweaters, as Keats would surely have written had he been on Substack. Cosiness is next to godliness.

I can worship at the altar of cashmere with the best of them. I can extol the virtues of a sweater in tones normally reserved for fine wines and newborn babies. But today I have a rather different proposition for your autumn wardrobe. The best fillip for your shoulder-season style is not a thick layer, but the opposite. What you need to lift your look right now is something flimsy, flirty, with an edging of lace. A sorbet-coloured lace-edged tank top that is virtually a camisole. A slinky black slip skirt with a lace hem. Something with a frill, that has the thrill of lingerie.

Fed up with condensation, mould and musty smells? A dehumidifier could help – plus, they’re a cheaper way to dry laundry compared with tumble dryers

• The best electric blankets and heated throws, tested by our expert

You don’t have to live in the American deep south to feel the effects of humidity. At home, just breathing makes the air more humid, let alone cooking or showering.

And when it gets too humid, it’s bad for our health as well as our homes. In fact, the two are connected: humidity lets mould and dust mites flourish – and they, in turn, can trigger asthma and allergies.

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

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

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

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

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

• The best screen-free activities

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

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

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

• Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

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

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

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

• The best frying pans for every kind of cook

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

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

This sweet-and-sour combo is possibly one of the quirkiest flavours out there – epic served with waffles and bacon, it’s one for true pickle fanatics

While researching gherkins for a Food Filter column last year, I came across Kühne’s recipe for pickled cucumber ice-cream and couldn’t resist. Niche, I know, but I’ll bet there are a lot of gherkin fanatics out there who’d be willing to give it a go. If not, the cocktail I’ve used as inspiration might well suffice. The pickleback is made with pickle juice and a spirit such as whisky, tequila or, my favourite, vodka, and that same punchy, sweet-and-sour combination comes together to make possibly the quirkiest ice-cream flavour you ever come across. Delicious in a cone and topped with a gherkin, and out of this world when served with waffles, bacon and maple syrup.

A Japanese fusion-fuelled garlic mushroom doria, an aromatic Malay chicken and squash curry, a rich Rajasthani papad ki sabji, and a Caribbean curry crab with roasted corn and dumplings

Curry runs through Malaysia’s veins; it’s in every kitchen and at every food stall, whether run by Malays, Chinese or Indians. We tend to cook curries using either a wet spice paste (rempah) straight from the morning market, or a good curry powder – every household keeps a pack of Adabi or Baba’s in the cupboard as a fallback; we have no shame in this at all. Only when you’ve got time on your hands, or you’re cooking to impress, do you build a rempah from scratch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Designer showcases wool alternatives and ocean-inspired clothes, and says ‘kindness requires real work’

Stella McCartney has been talking about animal rights at fashion week for 30 years. She is usually a lone voice, but the issue is back in the headlines this season. Outcry over the physical restraining of a Peta protester at a catwalk show by Steven Kolb, the president of New York fashion week’s governing body, has put cruelty in wool production – previously considered niche compared to the hot button topic of fur – on the news agenda.

“There is no wool on the runway this season, and I’m proud of that,” McCartney said after her show. She has been working on wool alternatives, including Brewed Protein, a fermented alternative to cashmere and wool developed in collaboration with the Japanese biotech firm Spiber, which was first used in her collections a year ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read some of the Guardian reporting that NAZA builds on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps you lost your home or possessions in a wildfire, or your mountain business has been affected by glacial retreat and snow scarcity

Has direct experience of a global climate event where you live changed how you now view the climate crisis?

Perhaps you were sceptical or even denied the climate crisis before the impact of recent global climactic events.

Whatever the reason, we want to hear from 18-29 year olds who have never had a romantic relationship

In our age of endless dating apps, TV dating shows and couple influencers, it might seem like young people falling in love are everywhere. Yet a survey earlier this year found that a third of young adults living in the UK have actually never had a romantic partner.

According to data collected by YouGov, 33% of 18-29 year olds have never been in a relationship – so why is that? Has an increase in working from home removed opportunities to meet new people? Are young people put off by the costs involved in going on dates? Or are members of gen Z simply more content to be single than their older counterparts?

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.

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