The rage, the wine, the power mums, the PTA horror – the BBC sitcom was a spot on send-up of life at the school gates. A decade on, we remember its most awkward bits

If Uncut Gems was about the school run instead of gambling debts, it would look like Motherland. It is now 10 years since the BBC sitcom jangled the already frayed nerves of all parents watching and turned Anna Maxwell Martin into the most frazzled woman on television in the name of skewering middle-class motherhood.

Whether she was marching her children to buy school shoes the night before term started (“Don’t be closed. Pleeeeeaaaaase don’t be closed”) or having a meltdown at temporary traffic lights en route to a school drop-off that proved redundant because she’d forgotten it was half-term, Maxwell Martin’s Julia would undoubtedly have a more chilled-out time in the kitchen of The Bear than raising her kids.

Stanley Praimnath and Brian Clark were two of only four individuals known to have survived above the impact zone in the south tower

He has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”

Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.

About a quarter of British adults admit to having pilfered something from a pub or restaurant. Is it an Insta-fuelled craze, or just old-fashioned greed?

Knives, candles, a toilet roll holder complete with screws and Rawlplugs – that’s just some of the stuff Michelin-starred restaurants in France complained about clients nicking in a recent news report. I’m not sure why the screws were presented as the ultimate absurdity – if you want to use your stolen toilet roll holder, you’ll need them – it’s just common sense!

A Québécois restaurateur complained about similar thefts in July – a picnic table, a painting and even the thermostat had been pinched – and British restaurateurs confirm it happens in the UK, too. Jan Ostle of Wilsons in Bristol told the BBC’s World at One that the mother-of-pearl spoons he uses to serve herb sorbet are a particular target: “Every few months I have to buy another 28.”

Fulham need a win, Tottenham show some spirit and Jack Grealish offers Everton much-needed energy

With 25 minutes to go against Manchester United, the Everton supporters had something to roar about as Jack Grealish made his return after rejoining on loan. The attacking midfielder remains universally popular thanks to his desire to entertain, getting the hosts back on their feet by creating dangerous situations within seconds of his arrival. Everton were limited in the final third for long periods as Thierno Barry sat on the periphery. If David Moyes is to keep his side pushing for a top-half finish, he will need Grealish to be a creative focal point. Will Unwin

With the release of his new biography, the British designer talks about leaving school at 15, the real reason he won’t retire and why no one wears velvet trousers any more

Go for a browse in the Paul Smith shop in Mayfair, London, on any given Saturday and you’ll likely find an older shop assistant, straight-backed in fine tailoring, approaching to help you with a new shirt, or a suit for a special occasion, perhaps a jaunty pair of socks. There aren’t many global fashion brands, Paul Smith points out, perhaps unnecessarily, “where the owner is a Saturday boy”. But working in his shop, one of more than 130 around the world, is probably Smith’s favourite part of the job. “It’s fantastic, you meet so many interesting people,” he says, smiling broadly. Smith’s whole career, he says, has always been about doing things in a different way. He’s the untrained fashion designer who created a global British brand, who put a bright lining or some stripes into classic tailoring, and who has turned down multiple substantial offers to buy his company, in order to remain in control.

Sir Paul Smith has just turned 80 – and he has the enviable energy of someone less than half his age, swimming each day before 6am. He’s about to publish his memoir, Threads: My Life in Style. It’s been a good opportunity to do a stocktake. His has undoubtedly been a lucky life – right place, right time, right people (not least his wife, Pauline, whom he met at the age of 21 and who has been integral to his success) – but it’s also a story of hard work, integrity and modesty. We’ll get to whether those values are still relevant in a harsher, more competitive world, and whether Paul Smith can survive.

They fled a brutal civil war to reach safety in Egypt, but now many Sudanese women and girls are falling prey to sexual exploitation

Sudanese women who fled to Egypt to escape the war in their country are facing increasing levels of sexual exploitation, with the Guardian told of single mothers forced to sell their bodies to survive and feed their children.

Many of the women have not previously worked in Sudan, where conservative social norms dictate that men are usually responsible for financial support. Without established trades or professions, and with their husbands and other family members dead or missing, many female refugees are struggling to pay for food, medical care and rent.

Hundreds of men, some wearing balaclavas, attempted to prevent asylum seekers being transported for processing

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The government has condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads in Portsmouth after a boat carrying asylum seekers arrived in the city, two days after similar scenes in Dover.

Hundreds of men, some dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, tried to stop the arrivals from being transported for processing until 3am, when police removed them with threats of arrest. A witness said two police car windscreens were smashed.

Chancellor ducks questions on whether he will have to raise taxes but says he will stick firmly to fiscal rules

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John Healey has said boosting economic growth will be his defining mission as chancellor as he warned Labour had to “be honest” about the need to control public spending at next month’s budget.

In his first big speech since taking the job in July, Healey said the top priority for his 28 October budget would be to support stronger growth across the UK while sticking firmly to the government’s fiscal rules.

Hamza Chowdhury says he will challenge party leader and has received nominations from other Green councillors

Healey says Andy Burnham set out in his statement to MPs last week what he thought had gone wrong

The fundamentals of our economy [were] hollowed out through a series of past policy decisions, political power was centralised, weakening the relationships between the people, the businesses and the institutions who can make things happen beyond Whitehall. The economic enablers were privatised and outsourced, leaving accountability to a thicket of arm’s length bodies and regulators, too often without the predictability or the pace that underpins a thriving market economy. And our country was deindustrialised as the cost to make anything, to build anything here soared, and our dependence on unreliable sources grew, including in areas critical to our national security and sovereignty.

Let me be clear, I recognise that the costs of business, its energy bills, regulation, burdens, planning constraints, labour costs, have grown since Covid and I want to draw the line.

And whether it is the cost of business or the cost of living, the only way we deal with these in the long term is growth.

German chancellor says vote for far-right party ‘will have repercussions’ across the country

• Far-right AfD wins key German state election but falls just short of majority

AfD’s Chrupalla continues in this vein, saying the German public wants to see a change in direction, and specifically saying the electorate is “fed up” as the government keeps “transferring billions of our tax money to Ukraine … instead of using it for our own population.”

He says the party has “a clear mandate” to rule in Saxony-Anhalt and will hold discussions with others about what can be done.

Two women and two men arrested on suspicion of murder after death of three-month-old girl near Great Wyrley

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a three-month-old girl died in Staffordshire while camping with her family.

Officers said they were made aware of the death on Saturday at 8.45am after being called by paramedics from the West Midlands ambulance service, who were responding to a report of a child in cardiac arrest. An air ambulance was also sent but the child was pronounced dead at the scene.

Decision by carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and fallout from cyber-attack, labelled a ‘body blow for workers’

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Jaguar Land Rover has announced thousands of job cuts in a “body blow for workers” as it grapples with tough trading conditions, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.

Britain’s largest carmaker, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, confirmed the anticipated cuts on Monday, saying it wants to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 over two years, as part of an effort to save £1.7bn.

Ryan Bridge, who co-founded Raise the Colours, to appear in court on charges including racially aggravated harassment

The leader of a group responsible for raising union jack and St George’s flags across England has been charged with 14 offences, including racially aggravated harassment, threatening behaviour and assault.

Ryan Bridge, 45, of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, co-founded Raise the Colours, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement for unity and patriotism”.

Seven counts of using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Three counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of, or provoke, unlawful violence.

Two counts of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

One count of racially aggravated fear of violence.

One count of common assault.

US embassy says Downing Street’s plan to give BBC, ITV and other established media more online visibility carries risk of ‘censorship’

The Trump administration has raised “serious concerns” over Downing Street’s plan to force YouTube and other digital platforms to hand more prominence to established broadcasters, warning the move risks “facilitating censorship”.

In a pointed intervention, the US government said the proposals to boost traditional media outlets in social media algorithms could “establish a template that authoritarian regimes could invoke to justify more control over online content”.

Guide price of archive documenting concerts, rehearsals, soundchecks and conversations between £1.2m and £1.6m

An archive of more than 100 hours of Oasis recordings, including concerts, rehearsals and candid conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher, is to be auctioned for up to £1.6m despite objections from the band.

The collection was amassed by the band’s sound engineer Huw Richards, who worked with Oasis from the release of their 1994 debut album, Definitely Maybe, until 2001. It comprises 209 DAT tapes, 73 analogue cassettes and three MiniDiscs, and is being sold by Richards’s son, Owain.

Aftershocks of party’s win in Saxony-Anhalt will ripple across Germany, with two more state elections this month

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Germany is reeling from the biggest far-right victory in a state election since the Nazi period after voters in Saxony-Anhalt in the former communist east gave the anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party a thumping first-place finish of 44%, just short of an absolute majority.

Reports of Soho Farmhouse visit add to speculation Duke and Duchess of Sussex could be settling in the area

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex landed back in England earlier this summer, six years after they moved to California and quit as working royals, speculation was rife about where they would call home.

Now, members of the luxury countryside retreat Soho Farmhouse have said they spotted Meghan arriving for an early morning coffee, sparking speculation that the couple were settling down in the exclusive countryside enclave of north Oxfordshire. Correspondent for the Royalist Tom Sykes said the duchess was seen arriving at the Comfy Farm lounge before 9am, where she was introduced to senior staff members by name.

A historically unpopular president will take centre stage as the party seeks to sway voters with an unprecedented event

It seemed like a good idea at the time. In December 1978, Jimmy Carter, a US president besieged by inflation and energy crises, watched as thousands of Democrats descended on Memphis, Tennessee, for a rare midterm convention.

“It was wild,” recalls Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee. “It became a forum for Ted Kennedy to informally announce his opposition to president Carter. There was a lot of hostility to the president there. The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”

From loafers to lunch boxes to fancy stationery, these picks for kids, teens and grownups will bring that new-term energy, whatever your age

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Shiny shoes. Freshly sharpened pencils. New rucksack. Back-to-school season is here, and even for those of us no longer in full-time education, the energy of this time of year is undeniably one of fresh starts and renewed momentum.

A couple of well-chosen items, from a notebook to inspire ideas to a lunch box that might encourage you to bring in your own food, are often all it takes to feel a touch more pulled together after a languorous summer. So whether you’re looking for school kit or your own stuff, here’s our pick of the best back-to-the-grind products for kids, teens and grownups.

‘I was trying to bring back some glamour. The backcombed hair was like architecture really. It took more than 45 minutes to style’

Just What I Always Wanted had already been in our live set, but with different verses. When we’d gone on David Essex’s Showcase earlier in 1982, in the middle eight I sang “A wink from Wilbur, a kiss from Kurt, don’t tell Hank, he might get hurt” – all names of my backing band the Wilsations. But when it came to recording, I said to Tot Taylor, who wrote most of my early singles, including Love Man and Baby It’s True, “We can’t sing that because no one will know who they are. What about, ‘A mink from Paris, a ring from Rome, a whole new wardrobe in my home?’” Tot, such a brilliant writer, took it from there.

Volunteer ‘glow-getters’ overseeing reintroduction of endangered beetles at Nosterfield nature reserve

The bioluminescent beams of “fairy folk” are shining again from a nature reserve in North Yorkshire for the first time in a century after the successful reintroduction of endangered glowworms.

Female glowworms were spotted over multiple weeks at Nosterfield nature reserve this summer following a no-frills, almost zero-budget reintroduction of the much-loved invertebrates, which have vanished from the British countryside in recent decades and are notoriously difficult to re-establish.

The ‘hugely important artefact’ that’s followed 14 children since they were seven is set to air its final instalment. The now-septuagenarians and director Asif Kapadia talk about breaking new ground for 63 years – and changing TV forever

Described as the Bayeux tapestry of television, the groundbreaking ITV documentary series Seven Up is coming to its final conclusion.

In 1964, a group of randomly chosen seven-year-olds from different backgrounds were brought together and filmed in an attempt to answer questions about the effect of fate, class and environment on people’s aspirations and outcomes.

If you’re called by an unidentified number, the advice is to remain silent until you’re sure there’s a human being on the line. Is this the end of an era?

Name: Hello.

Age: 200 years old.

He was the gorgeous furry tabby who made my day, even when he waltzed into my flat just to finish my takeaway. Now he’s a campus celeb, with a part-time job guarding the doors of the village shop

In 2022, when I moved into halls of residence at the University of Sheffield, my biggest concern was no longer having a furry friend to come home to, as I’d had a cat since I was 11 years old. Then I met Harold.

My first encounter with this gorgeous tabby was quite unusual. One day, in our 10-bed flat, a flurry of messages appeared on the group WhatsApp chat after my fellow roommates caught an intruder on the sofa, innocently munching on my leftover pizza.

We sat in the park, laughing for hours, talking about nothing. Today’s childhoods are digital – and the result is an epidemic of loneliness

I saw an old friend recently – the kind you’ve known for so long that you clear a whole day for them, as you might a family member. We laughed and laughed like we were teenagers again, and drank martinis before lunch, and it felt almost like it always did when we were young, except we could afford better than cheap cider, and he owns a house and I’m someone’s mother.

Another old friend – one I’ve known even longer, since I was six – described me and the other girls who made up our little group as “fake siblings”. That is how lifelong friendships feel. There’s an easiness and acceptance that comes with longstanding intimacy. You know each other’s secrets, you’ve been inside each other’s parents’ houses, shared beds and cigarettes, witnessed heartbreak and foolishness, tears and whiteys, before the more serious stuff piles up: weddings, births, illnesses, life crises, deaths. You talk about the serious stuff, of course (there has always been some serious stuff, but teenage friendships often provide a refuge from it), but when you need it that old friendship is a portal, transporting many of us to a time of lightness and freedom that is otherwise hard to access.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

This party is among the most extreme in Europe. To protect our democracies, liberal parties must urgently change their tactics

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) narrowly failed to secure an outright majority in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. But nobody should take comfort from that. The party still won by a landslide. Decades of far-right election gains have made them seem normal to the point where only the biggest victories are deemed newsworthy. But 44% of the vote for a party that is officially classified as “extreme right” is not normal. It is a black day for European democracy, even if it occurs in a small east German state.

While Saxony-Anhalt (and Germany itself) may have dodged the worst outcome because the AfD won’t automatically fulfil its ambition of forming the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era, there is no reason to assume it will be so lucky at the next election. Neither will other German states, such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in two weeks’ time, or other countries, such as France next year. No country is immune from the far right and, perhaps even more worryingly, no far-right party or politician is too extreme for political success (as the US has shown). We must therefore update our analyses and strategies.

Cas Mudde is the author of The Far Right Today, and is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia

Schemes to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza are not being promoted by fringe voices. But the international community continues to avert its eyes

The gap between what is being inflicted on Palestinians and the appropriate reaction on the part of the international community has always been vast. But now it yawns so wide that it swallows reality itself. As arms export licences for Israel from states such as Germany surge, talk of harsher measures and sanctions on the part of other European countries remains talk. People continue to be killed in Gaza, Palestinian families remain besieged in the West Bank, and the Israeli political right has been removing all doubt that these violations are intentional, by telling the world of its hopes and plans.

A sample from only the past few days. On Thursday, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, detailed a scheme for the illegal ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. He also posted an AI-generated video, now deleted, of Palestinian men entering a conveyor belt into detention, emerging emaciated and tearful. Also a few days ago, the defence minister, Israel Katz, stated that the country was “organised and prepared” to expel Palestinians from Gaza “by every way possible”.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

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

Clancy’s case became a referendum on mothers, healthcare, and the status of women

Most family annihilators are men. It’s a grim fact that such incidents are common enough to have a discernible pattern. The massacre is carried out by a husband and father, often one who is on the verge of bankruptcy or divorce; typically, it forms the finale of a long reign of domestic violence terror.

About half the time, the perpetrator kills himself after slaughtering his family. Gun use is common – a large number of what are termed “mass shootings” in the United States are in fact family annihilation killings, in which a man turns his weapon on his family members. Other times, the killer uses knives, or fires.

Toxic narratives around ‘benefit scrounging’, fed by successive governments, have become embedded in the national psyche

As a disabled person, you’re forced to repeatedly explain your medical history – but for this article, I think it’s important. I was born with a very rare type of cancer called a neuroblastoma. In 1965, it was pretty much a death sentence. Luckily, I took part in a clinical trial and, with only days to live, I had major surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy with a new drug. Despite being given no more than five years to live, on my last birthday I celebrated hitting 60. I doubt anyone in 1965 would have imagined how attitudes towards disabled people would improve as I grew up. It is devastating to see how those same attitudes have reversed in the past decade or two.

The cancer left me with a paralysed right leg, so I wore a leg brace, but otherwise I was a pretty normal kid. I was lucky to be starting school in 1970 when the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act came into force, which made it possible for disabled children to attend mainstream schools, if they could manage it. My parents moved across Luton to be near the only school that would accept me on a trial run and then as a pupil. When I was a child, if you could manage living like non-disabled people then you were allowed to do so. Not the fully inclusive practice I later campaigned for, but an acknowledgment that disabled people shouldn’t be written off.

Our three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures

This summer, mayors met in London during the heatwave that ironically threatened to derail London Climate Action Week.

As temperatures broke records across the UK and Europe, leading some climate talks to be suspended or cancelled, we found ourselves seeking shelter and comparing how our cities prepare for extreme heat: how we protect vulnerable residents, communicate risk, and redesign neighbourhoods for hotter summers.

Has Farage’s brain been hacked? Has he started talking in his sleep? There’s no shortage of explanations for this scandal

We’ve all been there. It’s a lovely summer’s day and you just want a bit of me time. A quiet lunch of champagne and oysters. As you do. Anything to get away from having to pretend you are interested in the people of Clacton. Hell, it’s bad enough being expected to actually visit Clacton – who in their right mind would want to do that? – let alone having to talk to the little people who live there.

So, you’re just minding your own business when who should turn up but two of your closest mates in politics – or contractors who you’ve barely heard of, as you prefer to call them – saying they have been having meetings with an American donor and his son who have already given you more than £30,000 for an opinion poll you have commissioned and now want to bung you another £500,000. And these guys would like to meet you.

With thousands dead across Europe this summer, it’s time to recognise heatwaves as the major natural disasters they are

The numbers are now trickling in: nearly 2,900 dead in the UK, at least 35,000 dead across Europe. That’s how many people are believed to have lost their lives in this year’s early-summer heatwaves – the death tolls for the August heatwaves have yet to be counted. In a sense, these people died in a series of natural disasters, similar to the hundreds who died last month after flooding in Nepal, or during the 2024 floods in Valencia, Spain. And yet we do not process these events the same way. Increasingly deadly heatwaves are the most direct and damaging effect of the climate crisis felt in Europe, but they are rarely framed as such.

There are some obvious reasons for this. Heatwaves by definition unfold over longer periods than other disasters, they are less dramatic, the majority of those who die are elderly or otherwise vulnerable, and their deaths often take weeks or months to be catalogued and reported, all of which make heatwaves seem less immediate and visible. But while heatwaves will probably never provoke the same visceral shock as earthquakes or tornadoes, it should still be possible to shift the way the public thinks about them, which could save lives and lessen their damage.

Vital accountability mechanisms have withered as English devolution has evolved. The government should take note

Andy Burnham has criticised Britain’s “unaccountable state” that is at once too powerful and too distant from everyday life. He has made English devolution the central idea of his premiership, but his plan to give England’s mayors unprecedented power and money will have to confront a number of tricky realities, not least a landscape in which scrutiny of local government is vastly diminished.

As England’s devolution map has evolved, vital accountability mechanisms have withered. The abolition of the Audit Commission in 2015 deprived Whitehall of information about local government spending. The decision, taken by the then Tory prime minister David Cameron during his “bonfire of the quangos”, coincided with a period when cash-strapped councils were selling off assets and making risky investments. A succession of bankruptcies and scandals have since exemplified the dangers of governing in darkness, including the questions raised at Teesworks, the development led by Ben Houchen, a Tory mayor, where a “culture of excessive confidentiality” has prevailed, according to a damning 2024 government report.

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

It would be better for the government to focus on rehabilitative programmes, rather than turning laundry rooms into extra cells, writes Jon Collins. Plus letters from Margaret Carey, Simon Hamilton and David Evans

Turning laundry rooms into cells, as the justice secretary has proposed, will put even more pressure on our understaffed and overcrowded prisons (Burnham warned running prison capacity near limit is ‘big risk’, 1 September). This will, in turn, make it even less likely that people in prison will be able to access the education and training that will help them to turn their lives around.

Education in prison is proven to reduce reoffending and get more people into work. But we’ve already seen provision slashed by a quarter in prisons this year. Just this week, an inspection of a prison in northern England found that there were not enough places in education and many men were frustrated at the lack of opportunity to progress in their sentence.

Areas will remain excluded, and nothing is gained from making local government units larger and more anonymous, write Steve Leach and Colin Copus

John Harris correctly recognises that “England’s 14 regional and metro mayors are right to see a growing opportunity for a civic political renaissance”, but justifiably points out how areas remain excluded from the new arrangements, or are at best a poor fit (Cities are the big winners in Burnham’s devolution drive. But what happens to the rest of England?, 30 August).

Allowing for a further batch of city region-based authorities over half of England’s population does not suit this model. Where are the city regions and “strategic authorities” in most of rural Devon, Surrey, Hertfordshire and much of Kent and Essex?

USAID’s closure was abrupt, but no PR campaign will bring it back, says Monica Kappiantari

Jeremiah A Carew argues that USAID fell because of poor storytelling rather than poor work (How misconceptions and woeful PR allowed Musk to shred USAID so easily, 1 September). Having spent decades in a recipient nation working at the final point of delivery, I see a different lesson. The primary problem was not the story USAID told, but the architecture behind it.

Aid money passes through a heavy supply chain: from prime contractors down through international and local NGOs, with administrative costs absorbed at every layer. Meanwhile, project success is too often measured by easy outputs, such as workshop attendance, rather than long-term systemic impact. There is also a quiet truth: aid workers, including local consultants like myself, often benefit when projects extend, creating incentives to prolong processes rather than complete them.

Karin Blak responds to an article by Nicholas Purcell, in which the relationship psychotherapist said he sometimes advises couples to end their marriages

Nicholas Purcell’s article concerns me greatly, not because he recognises that some relationships are abusive and dangerous, but because he appears to place the decision about whether a relationship should “die” in the hands of the therapist (As a therapist, here’s why I sometimes advise couples to end their marriage, 31 August).

As a psychosexual and relationship therapist, I would never presume to know whether a client should leave their relationship. Our role is not to make that decision for them but to help clients understand what is happening within their relationship, explore patterns of behaviour and coping strategies, recognise coercion or abuse where it exists, consider the options available to them, and understand the possible consequences of those choices.

Will influencers and weed smokers bring down US Open?
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Word up and welcome to the US Open 2026 – day nine!

We begin on Armstrong with Mirra Andreeva, now a grand slam champion so spieling with house money … except not spieling with house money at all because she’s a killer with the potential to win multiple. She won’t, though, find things easy against Anastasia Potapova, who binned Coco Gauff in Paris and Amanda Anisimova in the last round here. If her high-risk, high-reward style is as grooved now as then, we’re in for a treat.

It’s still very early but Mikel Arteta’s side are playing with an authority and freshness that eluded them at times last season

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Three league games played, three games won. For Arsenal this season could only have started better if Manchester City, who look like being one of their two most serious challengers, had dropped points. But it’s not just about results: Arsenal have been comfortably the better side in each of those three games, approaching each of them in very different ways.

After the controlled victory over Coventry City and the tight game against Aston Villa that was won thanks to ratcheting up the pressure in the 15 minutes after half-time, came success in a far more open game in which they conceded for the first time this season. Chelsea tested Arsenal on Sunday, went ahead, and yet Mikel Arteta’s side still always looked like they would win – even if it did take a superb late save from David Raya to keep out an Estevão shot. But the goalkeeper too is part of their strength; even if an opposing team can work a shooting opportunity, Raya has the capacity for spectacular saves that can dispirit opponents.

This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here.

The often-derided Loris Karius upstaged Manuel Neuer as Schalke held Bayern to a rare goalless draw in a tale of two goalkeepers in Gelsenkirchen

If one goalkeeper was going to dominate the discussion in this game, it actually felt as if it would be the less busy one. Schalke fans do not take kindly to being dumped and even if Manuel Neuer left the club behind 15 years ago – and even if most of the world associates him with Bayern Munich rather than his home town club – he is still given a rough ride when he returns.

Opposing sporting directors Max Eberl and Frank Baumann had words to say about that after Saturday evening’s latest visit, but it wasn’t Germany’s legendary goalkeeper who took the headlines – or not he alone, at least. It was always going to be a landmark afternoon with Schalke playing a first home game in the top flight since May 2023, but this was way beyond what anyone could have expected. The numbers said it all – with Bayern failing to score for the first time domestically since a goalless draw at Leverkusen more than 18 months ago, meaning they finished the weekend not on top of the table for the first time in almost two years – but told nothing of the story.

Promoted side’s thrilling win may be overturned after they used four substitutions windows while Georgia Stanway show the way for Gunners

Kirsty Howat’s 60-second cameo deep into injury time could ruin what was a memorable day for Crystal Palace on their return to the top flight. An impressive 1-0 victory over Everton was celebrated emphatically by Jo Potter and her players but that joy would have been replaced by concern and frustration not long after. On Sunday evening WSL Football revealed that there had been a breach of the rules – the Eagles used four different substitute windows rather than the regulated three – which had not been picked up by either the coaching staff or the match officials. An investigation has now been launched with punishment to be decided (there is a potential for the result to be overturned). The needless error has put a dampener on what should have been a positive afternoon thanks to England Under-23s forward Lexi Lloyd-Smith’s winner on her WSL debut. Sophie Downey

• Mercedes principal likens 20-year-old to F1 greats

• ‘No stopping him when a driver and car are one’

Toto Wolff has compared Kimi Antonelli to the greats of Formula One after the Mercedes driver’s remarkable victory at the Italian Grand Prix where he came back to take the flag from 19th place on the grid.

The Mercedes team principal cited the win as similar to some of the best made by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and said that Antonelli would likely remember the race as one of the greatest of his career.

One of the batting stalwarts of the team that reached Test No 1 a decade ago says the current side’s woes go far deeper than this tour of England

As a pillar of the Pakistan team that climbed from the nadir of the Lord’s spot-fixing scandal in 2010 to the top of the Test rankings six years later, all while playing overseas for security reasons, Azhar Ali knows a bit about overcoming a crisis.

But for all that Misbah-ul-Haq’s side offered hope back then – a reminder of Pakistan’s innate ability to overcome hardship and defy expectations – Azhar is currently looking on in despair at the state of their cricket and a tour of England that has pretty much imploded this past week.

• Keeper says Gunners ‘can beat anybody in this league’

• Arteta’s side have started title defence with three wins

David Raya says Arsenal are playing with greater confidence after the “relief” of winning the Premier League. The champions continued their perfect start to the defence of their crown with the 2-1 home win over Chelsea on Sunday, making it nine points out of nine.

It was a powerhouse performance coloured by a freedom of expression, which stood in contrast to the nerviness of the final months of last season when the team laboured under a weight of pressure and expectation before they beat Manchester City to the title. That was Arsenal’s first triumph since 2004 and followed three consecutive runners-up finishes.

• Kieren Perkins expresses concern over some traditional sports

• Door is open to likes of cricket and netball for Games in Australia

Former gold-medal winning swimmer and Australia’s most senior sport executive, Kieren Perkins, has called on the IOC to modernise the sporting program for Brisbane 2032, arguing that some current Olympic sports “have no modern relevance whatsoever”.

The IOC has indicated it wishes to curb a long-term trend of a rise in the number of sports at the Games. Sydney 2000 featured 28 sports, while Los Angeles 2028 is set to feature 36, including many with more than one discipline – for example road and track cycling – that require multiple venues.

It’s also close at the bottom of the table, where Yorkshire, Essex and Leicestershire are fighting to avoid relegation

By the 99.94 Cricket Blog

This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog

Fanfare at Belgrade funeral of man convicted of genocide raises questions from EU over Serbia’s membership plan

• Europe live – latest updates

Thousands of mourners have gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war, and whose hero’s return home has raised international alarm.

Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for ​his role during the Balkans genocide in the 1990s, Mladić died in prison in late August aged 84 while serving a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris return as writers and directors, with the original cast reprising their roles

Netflix has announced that production has begun on a new Inbetweeners film, with the original cast members reprising their roles.

It will be a continuation of the popular Channel 4 sitcom, which aired on E4 from 2008 to 2010, followed by two films in 2011 and 2014.

US-owned dating app allegedly allowed ad firms access to private information in breach of UK law

• Business live – latest updates

Grindr will pay £26m to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the UK who allege that the US dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies.

The settlement brings to an end a two-year legal battle, after the UK law firm Austen Hays filed a claim at the high court of England and Wales in April 2024 on behalf of Grindr users alleging violations of UK privacy laws during a period up to early 2020.

Retailer wins appeal against 2024 decision forcing it to pay shop workers the same as warehouse employees

The UK retailer Next has overturned a 2024 court ruling forcing it to pay its shop staff the same higher basic pay rates as its warehouse workers under equal pay rules.

The chain, led by the Conservative peer Simon Wolfson, said it had “won a landmark victory in its ongoing equal pay litigation”. It has succeeded in its appeal to the employment appeal tribunal “on the key issue of basic pay”, it said.

Dispute centres on stake held by Patarkatsishvili family in bottled water firm it jointly owns with Russian oligarch

A British theatre impresario and her billionaire family are embroiled in a bitter dispute with Ukrainian authorities seeking to seize a water company they jointly own with a Russian oligarch.

The row centres on a 34% stake held in the producer of Ukraine’s biggest bottled water brands by the Patarkatsishvili family, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, who recently worked on an immersive show with Toby Jones and Meera Syal.

WMO report details extreme weather events causing climatic feedback loop with serious health consequences

Big increases in wildfires and heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis are hindering improvements to air quality around the world, UN experts have said.

Regions that had recorded a fall in pollution emitted by cars and industrial sites are facing new threats to air quality because of exposure to smoke from wildfires, according to a new report, while rising temperatures caused by intense heatwaves are causing a surge in ground-level ozone.

Torrential rain causes widespread damage; while north-west South Africa hit by thunderstorms and central-southern US faces oppressive heat

Typhoon Saudel brought days of torrential rain to Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces in south-east China last week. The city of Putian, in Fujian province, recorded 416.5mm of rain in a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday, with surrounding villages recording more than 500mm in the same period. In Fujian, authorities estimate that almost 600,000 people were evacuated from high-risk, flood-prone areas. A further 128,000 people in 53 counties were also affected across Jiangxi, with emergency evacuations affecting 9,000 people.

Flooding, landslips and infrastructure damage were reported widely in the region. More than 2,500 teachers and students were trapped in a school compound in the Zhejiang city of Wenzhou on Wednesday after extreme rainfall caused flash floods in low-lying areas. At least 1,260 people reportedly had to be rescued in Putian after a river embankment collapsed on Thursday, flattening 100 homes. On Saturday, a landslip in a village of Suichuan county, in Jiangxi province, killed three people and nine others remaining missing.

Investors in Emblehope Moor will get their financial returns – and then it will be given to community or charity owners

It is difficult to find the most remote place in England. There is no public transport, no roads and no sign of any human habitation. Online route finders mistakenly direct cars up a grassy track. But miles along gravel forest roads in the far north of Northumberland is the largest contiguous rewilding site under single ownership in the country.

The vast glacial bowl of 7,500-acre Emblehope Moor has been bought for £8.5m by Restore, a nature restoration company that works with landowners across Britain.

Lynchat, Spey Valley: So many stories fill the iron age Raitts Cave, from wild legend to the more quotidian truth of its history

The word “cave” is full of possibility. It speaks of darkness, secrets, treasures and escapees, all of which can be found in the stories of Raitts Cave, which lies in a field near the hamlet of Lynchat, Inverness-shire.

Its Gaelic name is An Uaimh Mhor, “the great cave”, and one legend claims it was built by giants, the females hollowing out the earth and carrying the soil in their aprons to dump in the River Spey, while the males cut its massive stone slabs from the hills above. Because, in fact, it is not a natural cave, but a subterranean passage, shaped like a horseshoe and lined with stone.

Angela Rayner to announce review into local government shake-up as decisions on four areas withdrawn and 16 paused

• UK politics live – latest updates

Plans for a large reorganisation of local government have been put on hold after the government received new legal advice that suggested they might not comply with the law.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the review was to ensure the process was robust and aligned with the new government’s aim to “rewire the state”, and followed “updated and privileged legal advice”.

Newscaster says rare but treatable condition polycythaemia vera left her feeling like she ‘had her batteries taken out’

The BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri has been diagnosed with a rare form of incurable blood cancer, she has revealed.

Doctors told the broadcaster last November she had polycythaemia vera (PV), which cannot be cured but is treatable. The condition, which affects about 8,000 people in the UK, is associated with an increased risk of the blood clots that can cause a stroke, heart attack or deep vein thrombosis.

Matt Clifford forced to stand down amid disquiet from senior MPs over his new full-time job at AI company

The chair of the UK government’s “moonshot” science and technology research unit has been forced to stand down after taking a job with the San Francisco AI firm Anthropic, after warnings from senior MPs that the move created a “clear conflict of interest”.

Matt Clifford announced last week that he was taking a full-time job working for the company behind the Claude chatbot, “leading its engagement” with governments outside the US – including the UK. But he retained his leadership at the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which funds frontier science and tech projects.

Exclusive: Documents reveal water firms have been allowed to advise on how they wish to be held to account

Labour’s new powers for customers to hold water companies to account are a “stitch-up”, campaigners have said, as utilities firms have been advising on how to implement it.

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) is creating what the government referred to as “powerful consumer panels” so the public can question the executives of their local water company and get redress for problems they face from sewage and water companies in England and Wales.

Connection across Tumen River is further sign of closer ties between the two countries since start of war in Ukraine

Russia and North Korea have opened the first road bridge across their shared border, in the latest sign of the rapidly deepening ties between the two countries since the start of the war in Ukraine.

The one-kilometre bridge spans the Tumen River between Khasan in Russia’s far east and Tumangang in North Korea, along a remote and sparsely populated stretch of the countries’ shared border just a few miles from the coast.

Three people in critical condition and two hospitalized as operations at one of busiest US airports brought to a halt

An Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami international airport in Florida on Sunday afternoon after the flight, which was arriving from Puerto Rico, overshot the runway, striking several vehicles and resulting in at least five deaths.

The plane erupted in flames as dark smoke billowed into the sky, bringing operations at one of the busiest airports in the US to a halt. The pilot and copilot were trapped in the cockpit as a result of the crash, said the Miami-Dade rescue fire chief Ray Jadallah.

Exclusive: UN special rapporteur on occupied territories says ban on goods from settlements ‘important’ but must go further if it is to amount to more than a ‘press release’

The UK’s planned ban on trade with unlawful Israeli settlements is a welcome, if overdue, first step and must be judged according to its practical impact, a UN expert has told the Guardian.

The UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has vowed to act more decisively against Israeli settlements, as well as continued restrictions of aid into Gaza, prompting the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to claim on Saturday that Downing Street was motivated by “Jew hatred”.

Average property cost £298,468 in August, down by 0.4% year on year amid higher interest rates, says Lloyds

• Business live – latest updates

UK house prices have fallen for the first time in almost three years, as prospective buyers were squeezed by higher mortgage rates, geopolitical uncertainty and stretched affordability.

Prices have dropped by 0.4% compared with a year ago, the first year-on-year decrease since November 2023, according to the lender Lloyds. That came in below expectations of a 0.2% annual rise, according to a poll of economists by Reuters.

Median £42,000 in reserve not enough to cover filming overrun or delay to series, industry body warns

Hundreds of small UK TV companies have so little cash in reserve that a filming overrun or a delay to a series could send them bust, an industry body has warned, as programme budget cuts by broadcasters threaten their future.

Analysis of the Companies House accounts filings of more than 200 of the estimated 800 independent TV production companies in the UK by the industry body Indielab has found that 40% face running out of cash within the next two years.

Toscafund, founded by City figure known as ‘the Rottweiler’, signs deal amid fears over creeping privatisation of NHS

• Business live – latest updates

Britain’s biggest private hospital operator has agreed to a £1bn takeover by a hedge fund manager known as “the Rottweiler” for his aggressive business tactics.

Spire Healthcare, which owns the Claremont hospital in Sheffield and St Anthony’s hospital in south London, has agreed to a 250p a share offer by an investor group led by Toscafund Asset Management, which values the business at £1.03bn.

Firms are more likely to use technology as ‘the intern in the office’ than as a replacement for skilled staff

Professional designers should not feel “threatened” by the rapid growth of generative AI, according to business leaders, despite fears over job losses in the sector.

With design and film production companies and manufacturers all adopting AI at an accelerating pace, industry bodies said the technology would be used to enhance the work of designers rather than replace them.

Epic plankton blooms make filming in the North Sea notoriously difficult. But a new documentary gives a rare glimpse of the kaleidoscopic life – seals, sharks, tuna, orcas and shorthorn sculpins – lurking beneath its waves

The North Sea, as even its greatest admirers will concede, often glowers an unappetising grey or brown. And we assume that its dull exterior is matched by sediment-filled waters where little life dwells. For years, the friends and family of Peter van Rodijnen wondered why the Dutch cinematographer and diving fanatic spent so much time exploring “this murky bowl of soup”. But, inspired by a childhood of watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures in rather more enticingly temperate waters, Van Rodijnen’s dedication to North Sea diving gradually revealed its hidden wonders.

Over 20 years, as camera technology improved, Van Rodijnen obtained more and more amazing footage of marine life near his home on the Netherlands coast. Nearly a decade ago, he teamed up with director Mark Verkerk. “We started with the idea,” says Van Rodijnen, “that if somebody can make a movie about the North Sea, it’s got to be us.”

The latest in our series of writers recommending their most rewatched comfort films is a reminder that Disney’s kids fantasy is more than a Mary Poppins knock-off

“Filigree, apogee, pedigree, perigee!” – the four incantatory words I blame for receiving a shonky Paul Daniels Magic Set as a child in the 80s. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, it’s the spell that Angela Lansbury’s patriotic Nazi-vanquishing witch Eglantine Price casts to transform people into fluffy rabbits; a trick I yearned to pull off.

When it became clear I wouldn’t deter the Third Reich with three plastic thimbles, a deck of playing cards and a flaccid wand, my conjuring kit was mothballed – but my irrational love of the Disney film remains to this day. For me, it originally fell into the category of the crackling VHS that your parents taped off ITV at Christmas then would repeatedly plonk you in front of to shut you up – to the point I can even recall the adverts.

Venice film festival: Lance Oppenheim’s drama about controversial US reality show To Catch a Predator is unsure what it wants to say about media or morality

Lance Oppenheim is the acclaimed documentary-maker who has made his feature debut with a strangely overwrought and heavy-footed drama-thriller, which for all its elaborate neon-lit atmosphere of noir danger isn’t at all sure what it wants to say about media or morality, or anything else.

The subject is the controversial top-rated US TV reality show To Catch a Predator which ran from 2004 to 2008; that title was evidently taken from the Hitchcock movie To Catch a Thief, which in turn was inspired by the phrase “Set a thief to catch a thief”. In search of prey, the show’s researchers baited paedophiles in online chatrooms posing as children, lured them to “sting houses” where actors played underage teens on the front porch to get the abusers inside, where they can be clearly filmed expressing criminal intentions. But before anything could happen, sonorous host Chris Hansen appeared from nowhere and confronted these cringing abusers – which made for fantastic television. After this the cops made an arrest, and they and the state prosecutor did the heavy lifting of overseeing due process and presumably debating the merits of entrapment in court, although this obvious issue is not raised in the movie.

A chance encounter brings Gordon and Ashley together again in this wonderfully messy comedy. Plus: a chaotic University Challenge. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC Two

Venice film festival: The Two Prosecutors director cuts together documentary footage shot by a TV crew in the 1970s to try and get across what daily life in the USSR was like

Here is an archive-compilation documentary from Sergei Loznitsa, a hypnotic panorama of early 1970s life across the vast reaches of the Soviet Union, or maybe we should call it the Soviet empire. Loznitsa gives it the Latin title Imperium, perhaps to recall the Romans before their decline and fall. His material is taken from fascinating footage shot between 1970 and 1973 by a visiting Italian camera crew who presumably had the necessary permissions and were well enough liked by the authorities to keep coming back.

The effect is part Potemkin village, part seance, part ethnographic study; there are no interviews or voiceover, just ambient footage. (The Italians may have intended this material as B-roll to be fitted into a more conventional film.) Imperium has sometimes the eerie quality of a ghost story with phantoms drifting placidly across the screen, gazing blankly into the camera, occasionally grimacing or grinning, but destined never to see the film of which they are a part. We don’t see the gulags, of course, or really anything like agencies of the state, apart from the soldiers at the October Revolution parades in Red Square. Many of the former Soviet state capitals featured here nowadays have tourist-attraction KGB museums based in their brutal former HQs; that kind of thing is obviously absent here.

Anabela Moreira is an impressively intense lead as the sister who finds herself in charge of her wayward teenage nephew

A sharp, self-abnegating performance from Anabela Moreira elevates this passionate – largely in the religious sense – Portuguese debut, which is only now arriving in the UK after festival screenings dating back to 2020. As senior nun Josefina, she wears a permanent cowl of careworn melancholy, suggesting a woman for whom, even after she is summoned to look after her bereaved 15-year-old nephew Alexandre (Martim Canavarro), holding the world at arm’s length is standard practice. Watching him slam into girl drivers on the fairground dodgems, it seems clear that desire is for other people.

Or maybe not. Josefina is called back to her childhood village after the death of her father, who – in her wantaway sister’s absence – was Alexandre’s guardian. Traumatised by finding the body and spoiled because he was the first birth in the locality for years, the teenager requires mollycoddling. So Josefina finds herself in uncomfortable proximity to this coltish overgrown boy, who looks like a male model in waiting; bathing him, letting him sleep in her bed after he has wet his, inspecting his penis infection. She suffers it, presumably for love and our Lord. But when it becomes clear that he may be shipped off to a foster home if she doesn’t stick around, her inner motivations come into sharper focus.

Larmer Tree Gardens, Wiltshire
Hitting 20, this festival has grown into a warm, genre-hopping powerhouse where fringe experimental acts are greeted as warmly as the star headliners

There is a celebratory feeling in the air at End of the Road festival this year as it turns 20. The piano stage has been turned into a giant birthday cake with candles on top, one man is dressed as a toilet to commemorate the porcelain anniversary, and Jarvis Cocker leads a spirited singalong of Happy Birthday while wishing for 20 more years.

Retaining a core identity while also expanding and evolving has been key to that longevity. While early days were centred more on alt-folk and Americana, EOTR is now a genre-hopping powerhouse, blending everything from pop fun to noisy experimentation via global grooves, and with an equal focus on the familiar and the unknown.

The US marine turned journalist went missing in Syria 14 years ago – and now, a suspenseful new pod uncovers essential evidence. Plus, the charming Julie Andrews serenades audiences with Jane Austen’s Emma

It has been 14 years since US marine turned journalist Austin Tice went missing in Syria. Much has changed in the embattled nation since then – not least the end of Bashar al-Assad’s regime – but Tice is yet to be found. In this series, Josh Baker and Sara Obeidat uncover crucial new evidence, some of which has already made headlines. Sensitive and highly suspenseful. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

Royal Albert Hall, London
Gwilym Simcock’s concerto – written for Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Ben Goldscheider and Jess Gillam (cello, horn and sax) – had problems of balance but at its best was a riot of colours and energy

BBC Young Musician has produced a whole galaxy of stars over the years, but 2016 was rather special. It was a neat idea then to commission a 10th-anniversary triple concerto for three of its finalists – cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, saxophonist Jess Gillam and horn player Ben Goldscheider – each of whom has gone on to a significant career. The composer of choice was Gwilym Simcock, an eclectic artist who straddles the worlds of jazz and classical music. The result was stretched to bursting with musical interest, though not without its problems.

At its best, the concerto was a riot of primary colours, with vibraphone, harp and orchestral piano – played here by Simcock himself – adding spice to the mix. The outer movements grooved, the first with a minimalist nod to Steve Reich, the finale channelling a Scottish reel. The serene central “Mesto” – the word means mournful or melancholy – was a keening lament for Simcock’s father who died during the work’s composition.

Bandleader Femi Koleoso brings together the England and Arsenal star, the musician and the artist to discuss adversity, creativity and Black British culture

• ‘On the other side of pain there can be renewal’: Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso on reasons to hold onto hope
• ‘Like painting with light’: photographer Temi Adegbayibi on capturing the energy of music
• My cultural awakening , featuring Ezra Collective

Femi Koleoso I wanted to bring together people who inspire me and whose work I think evokes hope and joy. Yinka, the first time I saw your work I thought: this is exactly what joy looks like – it’s bold, colourful and the perfect embodiment of that feeling. Leona’s music has brought me joy ever since hearing you when you were on The X Factor. You’re one of the most iconic Black British singers we’ve ever had. With you, Eberechi, your transfer to the Gunners meant a lot to a lot of Arsenal fans, but personally it was a really beautiful way of seeing that things do work out for the good people. Can you tell me about your journeys to where you are now?

Leona Lewis I grew up in Hackney and I was surrounded by music because my dad was a DJ. He had a million records he would play all the time. I gradually discovered people like Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and Oleta Adams mainly through my dad and I got really drawn to powerful female singers. I started singing all the time. When I was at school, I had a hard time because I was bullied – singing and writing music became a way to find my voice, my joy and my confidence. From then, I knew music was what I was going to do with my life: I didn’t know how I would get there but I knew I had to. It’s interesting that you do a lot of youth work, Femi, because I went to a lot of youth groups in north London while I was getting into music and then from 14 to 17 I enrolled in the Brit School. It helped me establish my voice and since then I’ve always been obsessed with music and it’s become my therapy: my joy, my pain, everything.

A biography of the physicist recognises his achievements, but also reveals the selfish narcissist underneath

When I wrote an unadoring review of Stephen Hawking’s final book, a collection of essays published posthumously in 2018, New Scientist suppressed some of my criticisms on the grounds that it was “too early” to voice anything other than praise for the physicist who died, aged 76, that March. It was apparently still too early in 2021, when no British publisher would touch Charles Seife’s exposé of Hawking’s bullying and self-aggrandising behaviour, Hawking Hawking.

In this new biography, veteran science writer Graham Farmelo takes a different approach. It is a comprehensive and accessible portrait of a brilliant scientist and an extraordinarily determined man who also possessed deep personal flaws to which the scientific community and the public mostly turned a blind eye. The uncomfortable but unavoidable truth is that Hawking’s overweening ambition and self-promotion, his repeated failure to acknowledge the work of others, his sexism and controlling behaviour were largely ignored because of his disability. I think it is indeed going to take us years to process that.

Carlo Gébler describes mother’s doomed battle to complete a final book as age and infirmity sapped her powers – and his own feelings about her passing

After visiting his dying mother in London, Carlo Gébler returned to his rural home in Northern Ireland one night and encountered a hedgehog sitting on the doormat. A thought bubbled up: his mother had died and returned as this woodland creature.

In fact his mother, the novelist Edna O’Brien, was still alive, and not reincarnated, but his mind insisted otherwise. “At that moment that’s what I believed. And then of course I stopped believing it because I knew it wasn’t true.”

Dana Mashoian Walrath’s The Book of Genocides is an audacious and personal new look at genocides from Germany to Palestine

The artist Dana Mashoian Walrath’s new book honours the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust. But she also expects it to get her banned from Israel.

That is because The Book of Genocides also contains a chapter that portrays Palestinians forced to live as second-class citizens and watch their homes bulldozed or bombed. “What does it mean to be starved?” the narrative asks. “To know that perpetrators have themselves experienced genocide and now commit genocide against you?”

A new term, a new PM … time for a new English curriculum? We ask writers from Ben Okri to Samantha Harvey to pick books that will inspire a lifelong love of reading

For the first time ever, we have a British prime minister who studied for an English degree. Not all of his 58 predecessors went to university, but those who did favoured subjects such as history and classics and, more recently, philosophy, politics and economics. Yet reading fiction is a fantastic preparation for life, for understanding people and the times through which we live. Novels encourage empathy, they help you to stand in other people’s shoes, to navigate complicated, sometimes conflicting emotions, they entertain and bring joy. The creative industries contribute some £145.8bn each year to the UK economy; it is our soft superpower.

In other words, books matter. Reading matters.

As one card recently sold for £12m, opportunistic thefts have surged – envelopes are being opened en route, costing small businesses thousands

Pokémon’s success over the last 30 years has seen it grow from a much-loved Game Boy classic, to a world-dominating brand with TV shows, spin-off games, toys and even a theme park. The trading card game is a huge part of that, with more than 85bn cards printed over its lifetime, and the appetite for them shows no signs of slowing down. Packs get snapped up after release so quickly it’s now almost impossible to find them in shops, and a booming resale market is driving the hobby into murky waters.

One card recently sold for an eye-watering £12m, and an increasing number of people have gotten into the collecting business on the hunt for huge profits, leading to a rise in thefts targeting card shops. More recently though, some small businesses have reported that their sales have been hit by thieves targeting envelopes within Royal Mail, leading to thousands in lost revenue.

As FromSoftware’s new multiplayer game The Duskbloods nears release, the legendary game director behind Dark Souls talks connection, pessimism and of course, feet

Since 2009’s Demon’s Souls, Japanese video game director Hidetaka Miyazaki has shown the world a different way to think about game design. His games defy convention with punishing fights, obscure rules, and unknowable, inhospitable worlds. The “Soulslike” genre – named after Demon’s Souls and its sequel Dark Souls – is now ubiquitous, influencing multimillion-sellers from God of War and Star Wars: Jedi to Hollow Knight. Miyazaki’s most recent success, 2022’s Elden Ring, which credited Game of Thrones author George RR Martin as a co-creator, sold over 30m copies and inspired Alex Garland to adapt it for the big screen at A24. It earned Miyazaki a spot on Time magazine’s “most influential” list, an accolade he shares with just one other game developer: Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

Miyazaki is now 51 and has been FromSoftware’s president since 2014, elevated from game designer to CEO after the success of the Souls series. He has a cherubic face that could pass for 35. He rarely speaks publicly, and never on camera. When he does speak, he answers questions like one of his characters – softly, sadly, his head bowed, making eye-contact only when I am speaking. Outside the studio where we speak is the sprawl of Tokyo’s Shinjuku, an ever-changing maze where tourists get lost and pop-up stores appear and vanish without a trace. Today, a J-pop band performs in the square as the cicadas scream from the trees. A gilded statue of Malania, one of Elden Ring’s toughest bosses, looms over this dimly lit conference room inside From’s headquarters, a bonfire checkpoint away from the chaos.

As Rockstar’s blockbuster prepares to dominate the headlines, it’s time for the mainstream media to stop treating video games as a novelty that needs explaining

Predictably, the Grand Theft Auto VI “extended look” which premiered on Netflix last week was a success for all involved. The 30-minute preview scorched to No 1 on the viewing chart and even brought the site down for a few minutes as millions of gamers tried to watch what was, effectively, a very long teaser trailer. According to data collated by Eurogamer, more than 9,000 Twitch streamers covered the show leading to 5,227,798 hours of viewing there alone. And this was just the beginning of what will surely be two months of escalating hype – and unprecedented media attention.

Call me cynical, but I suspect the coverage of GTA VI in the media over the next few weeks will follow a familiar pattern. Mostly, it will be five-minute slots wedged in near the end of news bulletins in which games journalists, industry analysts and other pundits will be asked why the game is such a big deal, how much it cost to make and how much revenue it will generate. Perhaps a few will try to reignite the hoary old “violence in video games” debate, there will be presenters laughingly admitting they’ve not touched a game since Pac-Man, rolling their eyes and wallowing in their ignorance, in a way they never would while discussing any other art form. Somebody will venture the subversive view that “games are no longer just for kids”; somebody else will say “games make more money than films and music put together”. And that will be that, job done for another decade … or until there’s a funny story about Pokémon.

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Bit Reactor
Split priorities between scripted and emergent story moments hamper an otherwise brilliant Star Wars-themed successor to XCOM

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term “emergent storytelling”, you’ve likely experienced some of the unscripted tales that can bubble up out of a game’s systems. Perhaps you’ve led a scheming dynasty in Crusader Kings, or watched a favourite hero succumb to madness in Darkest Dungeon. Maybe you’ve surrendered yourself to the infinite yarn-spinner that is Dwarf Fortress – or read about it from the mid-00s forums where users helped popularise the term “Let’s Play” by chronicling their games in descriptive posts. Or perhaps you’ve played Firaxis’ XCOM, the alien invasion tactics hit that several key members of Zero Company studio Bit Reactor had a hand in.

Zero Company hinges on a concept as simple as it is perfect: take the complementary class abilities, tough dice rolls, and permanent character deaths of XCOM, and house them in a sci-fi setting known for spaghetti western blaster duels, last stands and heroic sacrifices. As creative director Greg Foertsch puts it, “Star Wars is about loss.” Which losses you end up mourning in Zero Company depends on you.

Finborough theatre, London
Nichola McAuliffe returns to the roles Wesker tailored for her in 1981, in a trio of wistful and insightful soliloquies about working-class women’s inner thoughts

Some years before Alan Bennett spawned Talking Heads, his celebrated televised monologues on the inner lives of solitary women, Arnold Wesker created a trio of short soliloquies for women who speak their thoughts and vulnerabilities aloud in the same wistful manner.

His three-character series, written in 1981 and tailored especially for the actor Nichola McAuliffe, originally began with elderly, homeless Annie Wobbler, who wanders around London’s Waterloo station ruminating on her life in service, the changing world, and what she sees as the ever-rising tide of “foreigners” in it. Younger women follow, their names variations on Annie’s, and each incorporating a specific question or inquiry into their life.

Citizens theatre, Glasgow
Orwell is himself a character in this frustrating but provocative adaptation of his dystopian classic, which seeks to refresh its metaphors and make its totalitarian nightmare seem real again

What is there left to say about Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2026? By now, Orwell’s dystopian satire has been held as a mirror to everything from Trump to TikTok. But this co-production from a trio of Scotland’s leading theatres (Dundee Rep, Edinburgh’s Lyceum and Glasgow’s Citizen) is a new adaptation by Chris Hannan, and seeks to shine fresh light on one of our most overused modern-day shorthands.

It’s framed by speculative biography about Orwell’s tuberculosis treatment in a hospital near Glasgow, and it feels cheap, at first, to correlate Orwell and 1984’s Winston so simply. Both are played by Jack Tarlton with the same petulance and hacking cough. But Winston’s childlike naivety, and his monologues pleading for genuine conversation (which reverberate emptily; a literal echo chamber) eventually make for jarring contrast with Orwell’s frosty dialogues with his doctor, who fought opposite him as a fascist in the Spanish civil war.

Crucible theatre, Sheffield
The 82-year-old actor gives a performance of absolute authenticity and clarity as the erratic demagogue in a uniformly impressive production

The word “nothing” is spoken four times in four lines in the opening scene of King Lear, among 30 uses across the play. This feels the key to Titus Halder’s Sheffield Crucible staging, which really makes something of nothingness, crowned by an unusually age-appropriate performer as the “fourscore and upward” English king: 82-year-old Ian McDiarmid.

The dark pit of Richard Kent’s design might be a nuclear after-blast. Like Peter Brook’s mid 20th-century stage and film versions, in a previous era of existentialist international tension, the interpretation radiates terminal uncertainty. Characters address pleas and prayers to “the gods” in the direction identified with heaven but with a growing knowing that nothing is there.

Spaceship-shaped gallery, featuring works from Banksy, Norman Rockwell and Frida Kahlo, is devoted to ‘visual storytelling’ – and is finally ready to open

“I’m used to doing the impossible,” George Lucas said on Wednesday. But “this one almost broke my will”.

The film-maker was describing the decades of work that went into his latest project, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, as it was unveiled to the press in Los Angeles eight years after breaking ground, following attempts to build it in two other cities. Shaped like a spaceship and towering over the nearby University of Southern California – Lucas’s alma mater – the long-awaited institution finally opens on 22 September. It aims to be a testament to visual storytelling across all kinds of media – paintings, comics, murals, photography, sculpture.

He hasn’t seen the score and can’t actually play his instrument. But with the help of a virtual headset, our writer joins the revered orchestra for the rollicking finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture

I’m about to perform with the Philharmonia Orchestra and I’ve not rehearsed my part. In fact, I’ve not even seen the score. Or played my instrument before. Nervously taking my place among the virtuosos, I look around: the brass, string and woodwind sections are all warmed up and ready to be led by the energetic conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Then I glance up at the audience: the Royal Festival Hall is packed to the rafters. Gulp!

“Are you OK there?” asks Marta Génova, the Philharmonia’s head of digital product and experience, “or do I need to tighten your headset?” This, you see, is Virtual Orchestra, a VR experience designed by the Philharmonia that lets you play percussion during the rollicking finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. You’re offered the choice of triangle, cymbal and timpani (the last is “definitely the most fun”, Génova assures me) and after a quick run-through of the sounds you can get from your instrument, courtesy of Philharmonia percussionist Tom Edwards, you’re thrown into a rehearsal and then the actual performance. I’ve barely had time to say “How do I hold these sticks again?” before the strings start swelling, Rouvali waves his baton and a musical score starts hurtling across the bottom of my vision. Oh God, I think, am I about to screw this up?

Reiner broke record set by his father Carl Reiner at the ceremony formerly known as the Creative Arts Emmys, with The Pitt, Pluribus and DTF St Louis also winning big

Rob Reiner has won a posthumous Emmy for his performance in The Bear, nine months after his death – breaking the record set in the exact same category by his own father, Carl Reiner.

Reiner’s win for outstanding guest actor in a comedy was announced on Sunday night at the ceremony formerly known as the Creative Arts Emmys, a two-day awards event held a week before the main ceremony and telecast.

Oscar-winning actor says she and other outspoken critics of Israel have found it ‘impossible’ to get hired by major studios

The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon has said she is still losing work because of her outspoken support for Palestinians, despite what she ⁠described as a broader shift ⁠in public opinion against ​US support for Israel.

Speaking at the Venice film festival, where she is promoting her latest movie The Echo Chamber, Sarandon said some parts of the film industry continued to ⁠shun her over her activism.

Director’s controversial comments earlier this year warned of films that ‘enter the field of politics’

The director Wim Wenders has clarified personal views on the relationship between cinema and politics that caused controversy earlier in the year, saying at the Venice film festival that he does not believe film-makers ought to stay out of politics altogether.

During the Berlin film festival, the veteran German director, who was acting as the jury president, had said at a press conference that “we have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics.”

Vivienne Truran was a civil servant and antiques dealer, who spent most of her life in the background. At 80, she realised how outgoing she was, and started a soaringly successful new career

‘It took me till I was 80 to realise that I’m quite an outgoing and loud person,” says Vivienne Truran. Now 82, she has 829,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts daily videos about her outfit choices, including which of her trademark glasses work best with her look, all in her lilting Cardiff accent.

It all started 18 months ago. “I think I want to be an influencer,” she announced in one of her first reels. “Now, what can I influence people in?”

From sustainable catch methods to the most pleasant texture and aroma, which tinned and jarred fish had our tester hooked and which left him reeling?

• The best supermarket anchovies, tasted and rated

Eaten straight from the tin, without seasoning, lemon, olive oil or mayonnaise, canned tuna is pretty gruelling stuff, not least because it’s pungent, mealy and hard to swallow. Testing tuna in this way demonstrates the overall poor quality of the product and why certain brands and species are revered for their superior texture and flavour. That said, a tuna mayo sandwich is one of my go-to lunches, so long as the fish is sustainably sourced (so as not to leave a bad taste in the mouth) and there’s enough pepper to balance out its flavour.

Skipjack is a fast-growing species with a softer, flakier texture and fishier flavour than some others. Albacore tuna, meanwhile, is a larger, slower-growing fish, which makes it more sensitive to overfishing. Its flesh is much paler and more delicately flavoured, with large, meaty flakes.

Want every day to be a good hair day? We tested 22 hair dryers to find the best, from gentle diffusers to high-speed and travel-ready models

• The best hot brushes, tried and tested by our expert

In my years of reviewing beauty tech, it was upgrading my hair dryer that made the biggest difference to my routine. I used to dread hair-wash days: the chore of shampooing, conditioning and rinsing my hair, plus the time – and aching arms – spent getting it dry again.

My clunky, bargain-bucket hair dryer of seven years was weighty, deafeningly loud, and took a painstaking 20 minutes to dry my hair. So happier days really did arrive when I switched to a new model.

Whether you want a smart-but-stylish commuter rucksack or a hike-friendly pack, our writer lugged 16 over hundreds of miles to find the best bags for your buck

• The best travel mugs for taking hot drinks on the go

Chart your course through a fun, active or productive day, and you’ll often find cause to carry things. Backpacks are arguably the best people-powered way to do it, used by pretty much everyone from Napoleonic soldiers and Ötzi the Iceman to ultra-marathoner Courtney Dauwalter, as well as innumerable workers, students and travellers.

The best backpack to choose depends on which elements of your own world you wish to carry, and where you’re planning to take them. You can choose between smart-looking options suitable for work and travel, hiking-focused day packs and trail packs designed for outdoor itineraries, and versatile backpacks with water-resistant materials and a high storage capacity.

Missed out on a fan this summer? Chill your space with our pick of the best still in stock, including tower and misting models

• The best portable neck and handheld fans
• Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.

Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.

A seasonal special featuring both summer vibes and autumn comfort

While I dig my head in the sand at September’s arrival and the back-to-school dread, I’m trying to hold on to summer flavours for as long as possible. And this salad does just that: it’s summer and autumn, vibrant and comforting, all at the same time. It can also be served a multitude of ways: still warm, at room temperature with the feta added at the last minute, or even as leftovers (it’s great for lunchboxes, say).

Making your own filo is notoriously faffy but, luckily, there are great ready-made versions out there that make these crunchy, golden savoury treats a doddle

I love this gossamer-thin pastry for its lightness and crunch, not least because it can be used for both sweets and savouries. Once, on a trip to Athens, I learned how to make filo from scratch: it needs to be rolled very, very thin, so, unless you are skilled with a rolling pin, it’s hard and time-consuming. Luckily there are good ready-made varieties out there (if you’re using the frozen variety, make sure it’s fully defrosted). And always keep the pastry you are not working with under a damp cloth, because it dries out very quickly and will probably crack.

There are as many variations are there are cooks, but every interpretation of kukul mas bears the country’s classic bold aromatics and adrenaline-pumping flavours

“Every family in our sunny little island craves this creamy chicken,” says Sri Lankan journalist Zinara Rathnayake, “devouring each morsel with carbs of choice: string hoppers, thin rice noodle mats; hoppers, bowl-shaped pancakes; and kiribath, slender rice cooked with coconut milk. All our family recipes may slightly vary, but this glorious dish pins down the labour and love that goes into every Sri Lankan curry.”

After all, Sri Lanka is a country that’s “rich in spices”, chef Peter Kuruvita explains. “Most Sri Lankan cooking,” he writes in Lands of the Curry Leaf, “features unapologetically punch-you-in-the-face, get-the-adrenaline-pumping flavours. But [in part thanks to tropical crops such as coconut, lemongrass and pandan leaf] the heat is more an intensity of spice than actual physical ‘chilli heat’.” Boldly aromatic rather than delicately fragrant, rich and light at the same time, kukul mas, which SH Fernando Jr’s book Rice & Curry calls “a mainstay of Sri Lankan cuisine”, is surprisingly quick to make once you’ve prepared, or bought, the spice blend, yet it tastes as if it’s been simmering for hours.

Thoughtful, clever cooking that errs on the side of tasty

Amid all the bunting and hoopla of the platinum jubilee back in 2022, you may well have missed that Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded settlement, got an upgrade from town to city status. And, as we all know, no true city is complete without at least one fancy restaurant that serves the likes of duck liver mousse on lattice tuiles. Well, in Colchester, Kintsu takes that slot.

Or at least it did until May 2025, when chef Paul Wendholt abruptly shut up shop, citing financial pressures. The name Kintsu plays on the term kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing pottery with gold, silver or platinum or, more commonly, of embracing imperfection and making something pleasing out of bad luck. So it’s rather fitting that Wendholt, a two-time winner of the Essex Chef of the Year gong, managed to reopen Kintsu just four months later, and a year on is now offering eight courses, plus a few extras, for £90 a head in a Grade II-listed building, albeit one that’s down a back lane beside a multi-storey NCP car park. The setting will win no beauty contests, but when a man is so determined to cook dinner, it feels churlish to ignore him. Come for the secure parking, stay for the treacle-cured Dingley Dell pork from nearby Suffolk and the Colchester cherries with amaretto.

A woman in the queue said she was happy to drive an hour, pick up the vacuum, then bring it to Mum’s house. I was worried – but how wrong I was!

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

For a 94-year-old woman, my mother is still very busy and active. So when a vacuum cleaner she liked the look of went on sale at a national electronics chain, Mum drove herself to the nearest store to buy it.

Unfortunately, the shop in her area had sold out by the time she got there. The sales assistant told her it was still available in another Melbourne store – but that store was an hour’s drive away. As active as she is, Mum pointed out that at her age she really could not manage a drive of that length. She asked the sales assistant if they could transfer the vacuum to this store and was flatly told no.

A part-time musician and an office manager disagreed on benefits and work-life balance, but ​where did they stand on community responsibility?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Henry, 33, Manchester

Occupation Waiter and musician

Alfredo Bravo had a job he loved and was determined never to be grounded by marriage and kids. Then a voice from the control tower changed everything

Alfredo Bravo had landed aeroplanes in a lot of sticky situations – as a bush pilot in Chilean Patagonia and as a commercial pilot in rural China – but it was a singular voice floating over the radio waves from air traffic control in Santiago, Chile, that set his heart aflutter, upended his concentration and reshuffled his life.

It was the 1990s and, although he was still young, Bravo had held pretty much every low-level flying gig possible. He had dumped plumes of orange chemicals on to forest fires and flown surveillance missions to detect illegal fireplaces polluting the already smoggy Santiago airspace. He had completed hundreds of flights with photo crews operating a big Hasselblad camera as they mapped tree farms, calculating the heights of trees in a forest owned by a timber company involved in a low-level guerrilla war with the Indigenous Mapuche. As a pilot for the company, Bravo was a conspicuous outsider who slept in the fields amid the Indigenous communities, and worked alone in the hangar. But Bravo had a pair of aces up his sleeve.

You feel guilty because you’ve done ‘better’ in life, but you can’t rescue them. Listen to your resentment and learn to let go

I’m a 66-year-old widow and the middle of three siblings. They are struggling with mental health, financial issues, or both. I’m the only one who is doing well in both areas. I’m the only one who graduated high school and college; the only one who hasn’t spent time in jail; the only one who had a successful career and has a comfortable retirement. I help them when asked and appropriate, and do my best to be supportive, even when they continue to make bad decisions.

Recently, my older sister mistakenly texted me intimate pictures meant for the new man in her life. It’s one more disturbing thing in a very long line of disturbing things she’s said and done over the years and I’ve had enough. My world is so different from my siblings’ – it always has been.

I arranged for my daughter to attend three sessions during the school holidays but the venue and one of the dates were changed

I booked my daughter for three sessions during the school summer holidays at The Gymnastics Academy. The reservation was made and paid for last November because of a promotional offer.

In June, I received emails from The Gymnastics Academy, confirming a session for a venue I had not booked. I was concerned my account had been hacked.

Thefts spike during freshers’ week so make sure you choose a good lock and check your insurance

For hard-up students, a bike is a low-cost way to travel. But with cycle theft at an all-time high, experts are urging young people not to skimp on insurance and to buy a good lock.

Recent data from Aviva shows one in five (19%) of insurance claims involving student possessions relates to bicycles.

Longer battery life, faster chip, actually useful AI tools and better cameras keep quality Android ahead of competition

Google’s Pixel 11 continues to set the standard for what you should expect from the base model of a flagship phone with class-leading cameras, long software support and almost all the bells and whistles of its most expensive phones.

The regular Pixel 11 costs £879 (€999/$899/A$1,499) making it £80 or equivalent more expensive than last year’s model as the cost of RAMageddon continues to bite. It’s not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it comes with 256GB of storage and is £200 less than the Pixel 11 Pro, matching rival Samsung’s Galaxy S26.

Screen: 6.3in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (422ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G6

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 256 or 512GB

Operating system: Android 17

Camera: 48MP+ 13MP UW + 10.8MP 5x tele; 10.5MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6E, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6 and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.8 x 72.0 x 8.6mm

Weight: 197g

Scammers hope to siphon off some of the £2.6bn in student maintenance funds paid out each September

You are about to start university and can’t wait but then you receive a worrying text message. It is a few days before the first student loan payment is due to land in your account and apparently someone has tried to alter your bank details.

“Our records indicate that your bank details on your student finance account were changed on Friday 16th. If you did not do this please contact us immediately,” says the text.

Mineral deposits can accumulate, making hair drier, but removing them can cause different problems

From hair treatments to shower filters, a wave of products have been launched promising to protect hair from the “problems” caused by living in a hard-water area. But are they really necessary? “Hard water has a higher concentration of dissolved minerals, especially calcium and magnesium,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. “These are naturally occurring in water, particularly water that is not rainwater.”

When water moves through soil and rocks, such as limestone, minerals dissolve into it and remain there when it comes out of your tap. These minerals are responsible for the limescale that builds up in your kettle.

The pressure to self-optimise at the start of the new school year can lead to disappointment and burnout. Instead, here are seven ways to slow things down and reap the benefits

It is a hangover from our school days that September can feel like a time for getting back to the grind. As in January, there is a sense that we should return as better workers, partners, friends and parents. This sense is even stronger now a culture of optimisation – has taken over – evidenced by the fad for adding “maxx” to everything. Yet that can lead to disappointment and burnout, which Mental Health UK reports up to 91% of adults were at risk from over a recent 12-month period.

One antidote to this drive is to embrace a slower way of living. Rather than always rushing from one activity to the next, we could be enjoying life.

New Zealand decision follows Australian approval in 2023 of psychedelics to treat PTSD and treatment-resistant depression

Two psychiatrists in New Zealand won approval on Friday to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade MDMA to people with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The move by New Zealand’s pharmaceutical regulatory body Medsafe makes the country only the second worldwide to approve the party drug for use in treating PTSD, following Australia in 2023.

Experts say that the smell comes from a chemical compound called 2-nonenal, and it can show up much earlier than one expects

Last week, my mom complained that she’s starting to smell “like an old person”.

She had grabbed her favorite sweater and draped it over herself at the movie theater. “It smelled like my grandmother,” she said, almost whispering. “I thought someone must have borrowed the jacket. But it was just me.”

Despite Anna Wintour’s years-long redemption campaign on his behalf, the Dior designer’s controversial past got him booted as the 2027 Met Gala honoree

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced it was dedicating its 2027 costume exhibition to designer John Galliano, vintage dealer Johnny Valencia figured it would be a red carpet for the ages. Celebrities would show up in full Marie Antoinette drag, or squeeze into tightly bound corsets showcasing hourglass figures, recreating the pageantry of Galliano’s over-the-top runway shows.

“There was a lot of excitement around this theme,” said Valencia, whose customers include the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna. “There had not been this much excitement since camp” – the institution’s fete of outrageous and questionable taste in 2019.

The ‘hip boost’ aims to create hourglass silhouette, much like Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand’s padded shorts

For decades shapewear has been used to compress and cinch. But now there is a sub-genre emerging. Rather than shrinking a silhouette, it aims to add inches.

This week M&S launched a bodysuit that features exaggerated padding at the hip allowing the wearer to create an hourglass shape, or at least the illusion of one.

NYC’s elite figures, led by Julie Menin, made Wintour blink, and the designer who in 2011 had gone on a drunken antisemitic rant, bowed out of industry’s biggest event

Did Anna Wintour, Vogue’s long-serving fashion titan and ringmaster of the annual Met Gala, meet her match in Julie Menin, the speaker of New York’s city council?

The museum is the crown jewel of the wealthy neighborhood and some residents hold significant sway at the institution, financially and in terms of the art they plan to bequeath to it. So when it was announced late in July on a Friday afternoon that Galliano would be the focus of the Met Gala next year, it left many stunned.

Neville may have been mocked for wearing them on Monday Night Football, but he is actually bang on trend

From Kylian Mbappé’s World Cup style to Erling Haaland’s hair tie, football has had many viral fashion moments in 2026.

Perhaps the one that speaks to the fashion crowd, and a larger debate happening in menswear right now, is Gary Neville being mercilessly teased on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football for sporting wide-legged trousers.

On a self-drive break in search of Lake Saimaa’s autumn colours, we encountered blue skies, cosy lakeside cabins and saunas, great food – and lots of stubbornly green trees

I wasn’t sure what to expect from an autumn trip to Finland, my first ever to the country, but spending an afternoon sprawled on a deck chair beneath blazing blue skies certainly wasn’t part of it. After a morning walking beneath the leafy canopy at the Mustila Arboretum – the oldest, most extensive botanical garden in the country – and a lunchtime wine-tasting (more of which later), my friend Sara and I pitched up at the Sahanlahti resort, deep in the Finnish Lakeland, only to find sun-drenched scenery that felt far more Mediterranean than Nordic.

Sahanlahti was the second stop on a mid-September road trip from Helsinki to the shores of Lake Saimaa; a journey in search of ruska, the spectacular autumn colours that blaze for a few short weeks before the long Finnish winter sets in. However, on our opening drive east from the airport to the Radalla resort, set on Lake Urajärvi, most of the thousands of trees we drove past were resolutely green, with just the very tips of the leaves tinged with auburn, like a foliage balayage.

From the Renaissance treasures of Parma to offbeat creativity in Nantes, these cities offer world-class art, great food and a laid-back alternative to Europe’s hotspots

As dilemmas go, it’s an unusual one: saddle up a giant squid or board a submersible for a voyage to the bottom of the ocean. In the end, I find myself drawn to a fierce-looking merhorse and tentatively take the reins. High above, my daughter glides by on a flying fish, metallic fins flapping, while her Dad is battling stormy seas at the helm of a huge conch shell. A ride on the Carrousel des Mondes Marins (marine worlds carousel) – a three-storey steampunk merry-go-round inspired by Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – is one of the highlights of a visit to Nantes. A surreal fairground ride, a work of art and a homage to the city’s most famous son. It’s also a lot of fun.

The imposing red-brick mills of its industrial past are a stunning example of urban regeneration in the former ‘city of a thousand chimneys’

Sometimes travel delivers a real shock. I’m moving along the boulevards in the Polish city of Łódź, enjoying the excellent cafes and warm sunshine, when I spot the vans. They are parked up on the verge, with racks of clothing and heavily laden tables behind. I can’t resist a Sunday morning market and walk towards a group of men huddled around a car that is covered in blankets. And then it happens. They turn – and I see they are weighing pistols in their hands. I recognise the lean profile of a German Luger, and then the bulkier Colt 45.

There is a second of doubt. I hesitate. They replace the weapons on the display and walk away laughing. I approach. On the car roof is a row of dusty soldiers’ helmets. “We were repairing a pavement in the centre of town,” says the seller cheerfully, handing me a badge to inspect. “Imagine! For 80 years, all this stuff was just under our feet.”

A fragment of temperate rainforest lies on the edge of Dartmoor, and following years of conservation work, its owners have now opened up a sustainable campsite next to this fragile ecosystem

Mist blankets the valley as I wheel my camping gear down the small hill towards a clearing ringed by trees and shrubs. A picnic bench sits at its edge, angled towards the reason why I’m here: one of the last remaining fragments of temperate rainforest in Britain. I’m pitching my tent at Wray Valley Camping, a low-impact site on Dartmoor’s eastern edge between Lustleigh and Moretonhampstead, where I’ll spend five days on one of the site’s “nearly wild” pitches.

Also known as Atlantic woodland, temperate rainforests depend on a rare combination of high humidity, rainfall and consistently mild coastal temperatures where the sea moderates the climate. They once stretched from the western Highlands of Scotland down to Cornwall, covering 20% of the UK, and sheltering rare and delicate lichens and plants. Today more than 95% of our temperate rainforest cover is gone, but Devon’s near-constant dampness and its exposure to the Atlantic make it one of the last strongholds for this rare habitat.

We all know tiredness can lead to hunger, and vice versa. But there are so many other ways our habits in these areas are linked. Here are some easy tweaks to help us feel properly refreshed

A study published in the journal Nature Health last month found that food choices and meal timings have “immediate and measurable effects” on sleep. It was just the latest in a growing body of research into the link between diet and rest. Here is the latest science on what to eat for better sleep – and how sleep deprivation can affect your dinner the next day.

In his new book The Brain Cliff, Dr Norman Swan outlines the science of brain ageing and strategies for staving off cognitive decline

You write that instead of fearing cognitive decline, “changing the way you think about the brain cliff can literally change the way you think and remember”. How?

Dr Norman Swan: There are three things you need to know which are not widely known.

The actor, comedian and writer on idolising Victoria Wood, being fuelled by rage and injustice after a sexual assault, and ​t​he life-changing impact of Goodness Gracious Me

Born in Wolverhampton in 1961 and raised in Bloxwich, also in the West Midlands, Meera Syal is an actor, comedian, novelist and playwright who was awarded a damehood in the 2026 new year honours. Her first novel, Anita and Me, won the Betty Trask award in 1996. She rose to prominence as a writer and performer on Goodness Gracious Me and starred in The Kumars at No 42. She has two children and is married to the actor Sanjeev Bhaskar. Her memoir, Vigilauntie: A Memoir – Innit?, has just been published, and she is starring in The Children, at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 3 October.

I have no idea why I was posing with my hand on a pillar in a professional studio in Wolverhampton. My parents must have thought, “Let’s preserve the era of the only child before her brother comes along.” As it was the late 60s, I’ve got marriage-age shoes on and a slightly uncomfortable, sticky-out skirt. As for the hair, my mother clearly cut it with the kitchen scissors.

Jasmin Graham, a shark scientist and science communicator, also makes time in her day to practice her hobbies and play music bingo with friends

“Sharks are not monsters, they just need better PR,” writes Jasmin Graham. And she should know: Graham is a shark scientist and science communicator.

Here’s what a day in Graham’s life in Sarasota, Florida looks like.

More than 400 competitors battle windy conditions on Easdale, a year after tampered-with stones made headlines

“Want to touch it?” Jonny Jennings asked, clutching the World Stone Skimming Championship trophy in his arms as he waited for the ferry. The mind games from the 2025 men’s champion had started hours before this year’s competition had even begun. The 38-year-old had travelled from Kentucky to Easdale island just off the west coast of Scotland to defend his title. He was not giving it up without a fight.

On Saturday, more than 400 of the world’s best stone skimmers descended on the tiny island in the Inner Hebrides, normally home to just 60 residents. From Argentina to India, Hong Kong to Jamaica, more than 30 countries were represented, ferried over in groups of 10 from the mainland.

Police received information nearly immediately after the killing. It took Las Vegas police 27 years to make an arrest

For years, US law enforcement officials blamed their failure to solve hip-hop star Tupac Shakur’s murder on the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, and on gang members’ “snitches get stitches” culture.

But testimony in a much-delayed murder trial, which concluded this week, almost 30 years after Shakur’s death, highlighted just how much law enforcement officials knew about the shooting, and how early.

We asked you what you most wanted to put to our Guardian columnist. You responded in droves, querying her ‘beef’ with Burnham, who she thinks is this generation’s Hugh Grant, and what she really thinks about Richard Osman ...

• ‘There is light at the end of this tunnel. But the tunnel is filled with sewage’: an exclusive extract from Marina Hyde’s new book

What are your bunker plans?
James, Portugal
Masses of things to read, incredible food and an unethical doctor with an insane war chest of interesting pills. The second that bunker door closes, the doors of perception are opening.

Will Restore gain more traction by the next election and genuinely split the rightwing vote?
Natasha, London
They won’t split it in some 50‑50 way, but they could peel off a bit more from Reform’s right flank. Nigel Farage is looking vulnerable. In the Woody Allen film Deconstructing Harry, Robin Williams plays an actor who literally goes out of focus. Having once been sharp and clear, his nervous system is so shot that he becomes a physically blurred and imprecise distortion of himself. Metaphorically, something similar has happened to Farage in recent months.

We would particularly like to hear from people whose commute has been affected by others who keep Lime bikes or other ebikes in their private areas and gardens

Nearly half of Londoners aged 18-34 now use Lime bikes weekly, and the rental ebike company reported 16 million commuter journeys in 2024.

But are you a Lime bike or other ebike user who has experienced selfishness from other riders during the commuter rush? Specifically, have you recognised a problem with “Lime bike hoggers” – users who keep booked bikes in their private areas so that you can’t actually access it?

Are you dealing with subsidence or other issues caused by the hot weather?

During a dry spell, such as the successive heatwaves that affected some parts of the UK this year, houses built on clay-rich soil suffer as moisture is sucked away by trees and bushes. This causes the clay to shrink and foundations to drop, causing structural problems.

We would like to speak to homeowners who are dealing with damage to their homes which is likely to have been caused by this year’s extremely hot, dry weather.

We would like to hear from people who live in an area where there are plans for AI datacentres to be built – or who already live near one

The Scottish National Party and the Greens have backed a moratorium on new developments of AI datacentres, as part of a growing backlash against the boom.

There are currently around 450 large data centres across the UK. These warehouses contain computing infrastructure that power cloud services and, increasingly, AI.

We want to hear from young people who have chosen to start their own businesses rather than follow a traditional career path

A growing number of Gen Z are starting their own businesses, with the number of Start Up Loans taken out by young founders rising by 132% over the past five years, according to analysis by the British Business Bank. Meanwhile, Hiscox analysis of Companies House data found nearly 400,000 Gen Z directors are now running UK-registered businesses.

We’d like to hear from people aged between 18 and 29 who have started a business about what inspired you to do it and how you got started. How is your business going? What have been the biggest challenges and rewards? Do you see yourself continuing to run your own business in the future?

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